Welcome to episode 67 of the Rumbling Facts Podcast, where we dive deep into uncomfortable truths and critical thinking with a wide range of topics and amazing guests! If you’re a fan of real conversations, make sure to hit that follow button and stay tuned. You can catch this podcast on Rumble—our homebase—plus Spotify and YouTube. And while you’re at it, check out my music on all platforms as DjRetsam. Now, let’s get into today’s episode!In this episode, we’re joined by none other than Mark Corona, the mastermind behind the creation of Slowjamastan, a satirical micronation that started as a wild, out-of-nowhere idea and turned into a full-fledged global community with over 30,000 citizens. Mark, a former radio and TV host, trivia host, and an expert in customer retention, shares his journey of how he built this country from scratch. What began as a couch-surfing dream evolved into one of the most quirky and unforgettable stories of ambition, humor, and serious entrepreneurship.We talk about the birth of Slowjamastan, the wild adventures that followed, and the process of turning a bizarre dream into a reality. Mark gives us the inside scoop on the crazy moments that happened while he served as the Chief Border Agent of the country and the hilarious yet insightful challenges he faced along the way. And it’s not just about the laughs—Mark has some serious wisdom to drop on goal setting, retention, and the importance of creating lasting impressions in everything you do.The conversation is packed with funny, real, and engaging moments, so buckle up for an unforgettable ride through the ups and downs of building a nation and the lessons Mark learned along the way. From the NATO Summit to working with major brands like Marriott, Mark’s perspective on success and engagement is unique, making this episode one you don’t want to miss.Your Host = Sam Gladu @DjRetsam @Retsam64 PODCAST LINKS Rumbling Facts Podcast on SPOTIFYhttps://open.spotify.com/show/28EVivBWPFZ25qSDwTUWSn?si=795e94fc93404d5bRumbling Facts Podcast on RUMBLEhttps://rumble.com/c/RumblingFactsPodcastRumbling Facts Clips on RUMBLEhttps://rumble.com/c/c-5646792Mark Corona and Slowjamastan LINKSWebsitehttps://markcorona.comWebsite #2https://porderbatrol.comWebsite #3https://www.slowjamastan.orgLinkedIn URLhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markcoronaspeaksFacebook URLhttps://www.facebook.com/thekidcoronashowYouTube URLhttps://www.youtube.com/@KidCoronaInstagramhttps://www.instagram.com/porderbatrolALL LINKS Sam DjRetsamhttp://linktr.ee/djretsamMUSIC on SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/artist/3YgKupXc2ID3mnPZOlgJ2H?si=DQDD43iIRbOMAmydUMu1hwALL my Releases in 1 PLAYLIST-https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2gNzano55YrL39Gmlgk1pH?si=3e97588c182b470ehttps://www.instagram.com/djretsam/https://www.tiktok.com/@SamGladu https://twitter.com/samgladuhttps://www.facebook.com/DjRetsamhttps://rumble.com/user/DjRetsamhttps://www.youtube.com/@UC2OrYbprFHlOkOiWScR74dA
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Well, imagine creating your own country and then creating your
own pseudo law enforcement. That's exactly what one man in
Phoenix has done. Yeah, he says that he is law
enforcement in a newly created country of slow Jana Stan and
Fox hands. Marsar back has this unique
story you could call it that hasbeen taking social media by
storm. Radio DJ who has spent much of
(00:21):
his life visiting every country in the world decided to create
his own. He bought a plot of land in the
California desert and named it Slowed.
Damn it Stan after his radio show.
It has its own borders, government currency, and
national anthem. Is starting your own nation
technically illegal? Is this a rebellion against the
United States? You know it's a rebellion
(00:42):
against horrible fashion. Said you do it, so it is also
similarly public. You slow jam, you know, could
you give? So.
Sometimes people may not becauseCalifornia is it, Nicole.
And then copy the idea from theyfound them would be like I'm
(01:05):
some popcorn. Corporate international support
money. I think.
Is Obama world traveler? Has taken matters into his own
hands, creating his own country just to our east in Imperial
County. A radio DJ has created his own
(01:25):
micronation. He calls it's an Imperial
County. He is not just law enforcement.
He is chief law enforcement of Slow jam.
Astam started her own country. It's called Slow Jam Stand.
The Republic of Slow Jam with Stand.
Meet Mark Corona. Chief.
Porter, patrol agent of his own country, complete with a canine
unit by his side. San Diego based DJ who was spent
(01:46):
his life visiting just about every country in the world.
So when he ran out of new nations, he decided to create
one of his own. Yeah, the late night slow jams
DJ for magic 92.5 give the Republic of Slow JAMA stand.
It was founded here in Southern California.
He founded it. He purchased 11 acres of land
in. Akitio Wells and I wanna start
(02:06):
my own country. Well, they did.
Mark says they do have their ownlaws in slow jam estan, and they
include no Crocs at all, no feeton the dashboard in the car.
And you must eat string cheese the correct way.
That is not by biting it, but bypeeling.
It didn't slow jams down. By the way, we also speak an
accent. So normally slow jam stand.
We do have an accent while we'rethere.
You know, this is my American accent, my real accent.
(02:28):
This is my actual accent, my friend.
This is the real accent right here.
This is how I talk. This is the Soya Mastani accent.
I have learned the American accent very well and very good.
But yes, they tell people it is the string cheese.
You have to learn how to eat thestring cheese.
But anyway, I'll keep talking inmy American accent.
Well, I don't know if it's a tough, but there was a porn
shoot that happened there, so I had to be.
(02:52):
Yeah, You know, I had to let them know that, hey, you know,
you can't be doing this, you know, out here.
But unfortunately I wasn't on the line, but I could see it on
camera. That's why I said we have
cameras. They really are real.
We can see what you're doing. So.
All so the live feed of porn that you got right there.
Absolutely. We're like what is happening out
there? And when we got on the speaker
(03:12):
it scared the crap out of them. They got dressed and took off
worrying. I'm in Riverside, CA and I'm a
trivia host. You know both.
I do both on the TV screens, butI also do it live.
So I was at this casino that we do every single week and it was
a brand new casino. I'm sorry, not a brand new
casino. It was a brand new trivia night
for that casino. So I came out to California, my
(03:34):
Border Patrol truck, but I wasn't in my uniform or
anything. I was in my trivia uniform.
So I was on my way to go do thislive event.
So right as I'm turning in the casinos, God, I don't know,
maybe you know, 2 more minutes to get there.
Right as I'm turning, I saw the officers that were parked there,
but I didn't think anything of it.
You know, none of us ever never harasses, especially city cops,
(03:57):
never give us a hard time. Usually it's a Highway Patrol,
you know that that maybe has never seen this before, but city
cops do. They don't care.
This city cop apparently cared. So I, I'm going to and all of a
sudden I see him pull out and I'm just like, I'm like, no,
he's not coming after me. And like, Nah, OK, so I keep
driving all that stuff and all of a sudden, woo, you know, I
(04:18):
see the lights and I'm like, what the hell?
I'm like, this guy's pulling me over.
I'm like, alright, well, I'm kind of a smart ass.
So I turned on all my lights going I get down.
Here's the funny part. I get pulled over in front of a
Mexican restaurant. OK, so the irony in all of that.
So I'm in front of this Mexican restaurant and they all have
cameras on all over the the the roof.
(04:40):
And then the guys inside are taking video.
Like what the hell is going on? A Border Patrol guy just got,
you know, pulled over. They're thinking that
something's going on with this Border Patrol guy.
It's so funny because you know, people that didn't get the joke.
So here's the here's what happened.
You know, going back to what you're saying about how people
wanted to move to slow jam stand.
What happened was with all the media attention that we got, and
(05:01):
since it went worldwide, um, onecountry in particular didn't, I
don't think that joke really transferred well into their
country, and that was the country of Bangladesh.
So I saw there was so many. OHP and I feel bad for them
because they don't understand that it's satire.
(05:21):
We had to put on a, an auto responder because we still to
this day, we get so many inquiries on how they can move
here. We can help them move here if we
can get them the passport we have people begging us to do.
We have, I mean, we have sob stories left and right and we're
just like, dude, they don't understand.
This is not a, a real, you know,country, country.
(06:20):
So welcome back on a Rumbling facts podcast.
You already know what we do here, uncomfortable truth and
critical thinking and have deep conversations, no filter with
guests that bring us uniques stuff on the table.
So we learn across across this journey that we are on the
podcast. And by the way, go check out my
music, DJ retail and all music platform.
(06:42):
We're at 200,000. Listen to people.
It's fucking incredible. Never thought we'd make it here.
Today we have a guest whose story is one of the wildest and
most unique that we ever had on the show.
And you heard that right. Mark Corona is a former radio
and TV host and now has a fucking country people.
And you heard that right. He was a before trivia host,
(07:05):
speaker and an entrepreneur who cofounder the micronation of
Slow Jamesan, a place with over 30,000 global citizens as some
with the weirdest laws that you guys could ever imagine.
And beyond the humor, Mark is a master at retention time and
we're in the world that people fucking go like this.
(07:26):
So he's useful to have on and hehas been helping companies keep
customers and employees engage. He's been featured at the two
1024 and NATO summit. And they don't invite anybody.
There are people, it's not like the those Ted talks there.
This is this is rare, but not a lot of people get to get to show
up there. And he even got arrested,
(07:50):
believe it or not, driving his custom Border Patrol truck.
We're diving into this insane story of how he built the
Republic. Go slow, jam a stand and the
lessons he learned. Welcome on the podcast Mark
Corona. How you?
Doing my friend. Thank you.
Thank you very well. By the way, I love your your
sweater there, man. The Reeses hoodie.
That's awesome, dude. I'm like, I gotta give myself
(08:10):
one of those. Thank you for having me on the
show. Appreciate it.
Man, it's such an honor when after you accepted it to come
on, I went to go check this shitout and I was like, Oh my God,
this is real. Like he did something like this.
So you went from sleeping on a couch to founding your own
(08:33):
country and away. Walk me through that journey.
Like what was that rock bottom like?
And two, now what you see building.
You know, I, I love that. I love the, the, the first
impression that you get when yougo into, you know, you find out
that this place is real because that's the impression most
people get, right? Like, wait a minute, this place
real? Is this a real thing?
And I tell people, yeah, it's a it's a real place.
(08:54):
But going back to, you know, when I was sleeping on my
sister's now it's way back when,this is years and years and
years ago, I just had no goals and I was trying to kind of
figure out my life. I had just left the morning show
radio station in Los Angeles about 2008, 2009, we got let go.
The economy had changed and the recession had had started.
(09:14):
So we were kind of out of a job basically.
And I had to move back to Arizona and I didn't have any
plans of doing anything. And I couldn't figure out my
life. And it seemed like everything I
touched turned to crap. Nothing seemed to really want to
work out until one day I said, you know, I gotta, I gotta come
up with a goal. I gotta make a goal for myself.
And that was what changed everything is once it came up
with a goal and I started to attract things into my life.
(09:37):
So Long story short, I ended up moving back to to Phoenix, AZ
and I end up becoming a trivia host.
And I was just a little trivia host from local bars and
restaurants and you know, just acouple, like two or three.
And, and next thing you know, I said to myself, you know, I want
to be more than just a trivia host.
I would like to be a national trivia host.
Now this isn't something that that you know, people think of
(09:58):
even existed, just something I made-up in my mind.
I said, well, this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna be a trivia host. And then I started believing
that I was going to be a trivia host and I believe there's going
to be national. I believed in it.
So anyway, I called myself America's trivia host, went
around telling people I'm America's trivia host, even
though I'm only at one bar. But here I am telling people I'm
American history host. And it seemed to the more I said
(10:21):
it, the more it became a realityin my life.
So we ended up creating this, this wild idea and we created
the world's only television style trivia game show for bars,
for restaurants and for corporate events.
And it acts just like a TV show.And now you see me on all the TV
screens. If you walk into a sports bar
that carries our game, you'll see me in all the TV screens
(10:44):
with high energy music. I'm, you know, I'm high energy
asking questions and people are answering and winning stuff at
the end of the night. And the game has become so
popular that now we're in over 100 different locations and
we're growing at a fast pace across the country, where in
Nevada, we're in Colorado, we'rein Oregon, and it's just growing
in California as well. And we're just growing from
(11:06):
there. My next goal, my best friend to
travel the world, all 193 countries, he's the one that
called me up with an idea and hesaid, dude, he goes, he was on
his last country. He's a dude.
I want to start my own country and I thought, well, that's a
stupid idea, but you know what, I like stupid.
Let's go ahead and do it. Let's start our own country and
see what happens. Next thing you know, we started
(11:27):
a country where you bought the land and then we put up a sign
and all it said was welcome to the Republic of Slow Jamastran.
All the signs said that day hundreds of people started
coming to our website. We had no idea what was going on
because the website broke down. We're like, what the hell is
going? On, it's not used to having that
much traffic. We weren't just no, not at all.
(11:49):
The website was new, there was hardly anything on it.
And then we, it kind of, you know, it kind of like dawned on
us. We're like, dude, I think people
are coming to the website as a result of the sign.
That's got to be it. And sure enough, it just
snowballed from there. Then CNN got ahold of it.
And then CNN really broke the news on slow jams stand.
(12:10):
And from there we just exploded and we went freaking worldwide.
So it was quite a while that adventure from sleeping on my
sister's couch in 2009 to starting my own country.
Slow jams stand based on on setting goals.
What I really appreciate, I wentto check out the site and
everything. I checked every fucking page.
And what I really like is that that you showed the journey of
(12:31):
slow jam and stand there and it's literally that date this
happened, the flag here and boom, boom, boom.
So you, you see how how it grew.And I really appreciate that,
that, that a lot of companies like even Burger King should do
that. It's really interesting for the
person to, when you go get a product, understand where are
the foundations of this fucking place?
(12:52):
And so when did the slow jams dance stop being a joke?
And you're like, oh, fuck, like this is starting to get real
because there was some people that are like, can we move
there? So what?
When did it stop being a joke? And you're like, damn, this,
this is real. Well, it's, it's, it's funny
because we, you know, us being in radio and being radio
(13:13):
personalities, we're used to theentertainment, we're used to the
theatre of the mind stuff. We're used to being funny, being
silly, things like that. And yeah, it was kind of a joke
at the beginning. It was just kind of a thing we
do. We have no idea what was gonna
happen, where the heck this thing was gonna go.
And I think the moment we realized it is when we started
having people literally buy stuff from us, when they started
buying stickers. Once we realize they're buying
(13:34):
stickers, we started adding moreproducts.
And then we came up with more ideas.
And honestly, the ideas were coming just because of people
were people were asking for, andpeople started asking for
passports and they were asking for all kinds of different
merchandise. So we started putting up
passports and we started sellingcoins and we started selling all
kinds of different things. And that's how we knew we were
like, holy crap, you're like, this is not just a silly joke
(13:56):
that we came up with or something silly that we were
doing. We are literally in business.
We are literally in business. Like people are asking and
buying all these different things.
So we had to move quickly. We had to start acting really
fast and trying to figure out what we were going to do.
And I tell people the, the journey of Slow Jam with Stan is
like the journey of an entrepreneur who's starting
(14:17):
their business for the very first time, right?
The very first beginnings. Our company, or should say
really our country works just like a business.
The same things, all the fundamental, not fundamental.
So all the, the, the, the foundations of, of starting a, a
company are also applied to us. We've sort of done the same
things to kind of get to, to where we are.
(14:38):
So once we realize that this wasmore than just, you know, a
silly thing, that's when we started really going above and
beyond so that we could serve the people that were coming to
slow jam stand. And that's how everything
started getting created. The laws came into play, the
vehicles came into play. We started doing interviews
everywhere and just last weekend, as a matter of fact, we
just did another interview with the LA Times.
(14:59):
Wow. They came down, did a quick
interview with us. But that's something that's
always happening. We have a travel show we're
going to be on this coming weekend, which is going to be
really cool. So it's just, again, it just
morphed so quick. And I look back and I go, God,
that was four years ago that we started four years ago.
It feels like we've only been doing this for like a year.
(15:19):
I mean, that's how fast things have moved.
So we've had to, we've had to, like I said, we have to, to
adapt and we've had to, to progress with all these changes.
And as well, like, stop people from coming because that was one
thing I heard that you guys had problems at the beginning
because they were like, oh, we can just go away.
Yeah, you can go at the sign andeverything, but it's still a
private property. But it's like people were so
(15:42):
entrenched in it right away, youknow, like, because in life, I
find that they make everything to separate people.
And what you did is to put everybody together, Like you're
here to help. You're here to entertain
everybody together as equals or and 100% falling apart.
That's what people want. And so that's what you created
(16:03):
with that, that slow, generous thing.
Well, it's so funny because you know, people that didn't get the
joke. So here's here's what happened.
This is, you know, going back towhat you're saying about how
people wanted to move to slow jam stand.
What happened was with all the media attention that we got, and
since it went worldwide, one country in particular didn't, I
(16:23):
don't think that joke really transferred well into their
country, and that was the country of Bangladesh, so.
I saw there was so many. Citizens, and I feel bad for
them because they don't understand that it's satire.
We had to put on an auto responder because we still to
this day, we get so many inquiries on how they can move
(16:45):
here. We can help them move here if we
can get them the passport. We have people begging us.
Do we have, I mean, we have sob stories left and right and we're
just like, dude, they don't understand.
This is not a, a real, you know,country, country.
This is, this is satire. This is fun.
This is a, a thing that we now, we now understand is a place for
inclusivity where everybody is welcome, right.
(17:07):
With all of our decisive times and the things that we have gone
through over the last few years,you know, with just the American
government, we wanted to be different.
We, we didn't want to, to separate, as you were saying, we
wanted to bring together. And it's funny because I say
there's a little saying that I have, you know, the US Border
Patrol, their job is to detain and deport.
(17:28):
My job is to import and retain. I import the citizens and will
retain the citizens. We don't kick them out, we bring
them in. But virtually, of course, now
you can visit the land there. Is land and take a photo of it
absolutely fine there. For sure, absolutely.
There's a lot of things on thereactually, not just a sign.
(17:48):
We we have a square, we have theflag, we have a phone, and we're
still gonna be putting more things in there.
There's one thing to be doing that's that's really cool.
I can't say yet because it's something we're going to unveil
later on. But yeah, it is a place that
people can come to and please, and people come there all the
time. And I, I will say this, the
cameras are real. For anybody wondering, they're
(18:09):
real. We have already seen a lot of
things because people think they're fake cameras.
They're not fake. They're real.
Me is something that always pissed me off in life,
especially in high school, because that's when you were
seeing that shit and you put a lot on that shit.
So I appreciate that. So we can't eat cheese like a a
like the one that we pull there straight up like that because
(18:31):
you're not doing it the right way.
So what do you do with these people after you see a crime
like that? Well, let's talk about the the
first law. The first law of slow jam
stands. We ban Crocs.
So you know the Swiss cheese looking chew.
Yeah, we do not allow Crocs and slow jam with stand.
They are a monstrosity, an atrocity.
We just do not allow them. As a matter of fact, if I catch
you wearing Crocs, I will forcibly remove in the beach
(18:51):
over the head with it. And if you still haven't learned
your lesson, we do have what we call a crossfade where your head
goes in and your arms go in and then we put a piece of wood that
closes up on you. It will slap you a few times
with your own dirty croc. And if you still haven't learned
your lesson on the croc situation, we do have one last
resort. It's called the, the, the, the
Slow Jam Stand reeducation program.
(19:12):
And we do have a 100% success rate.
When you come out of that reeducation program, you'll
never want to say the word croc again.
You'll never wanna think how about a cross that ever again so
people know about the croc situation.
As far as the string cheese, here's the thing.
How do you eat your string cheese?
It's a string cheese, so you pull it as a string.
You don't chop it. We're not Barbarians.
(19:32):
We live in a civilized society. You pull it gently, lovingly.
That's how you string cheese. If you don't know how to eat
string cheese, you do not belongin slow jam stand.
And if I catch you with it, I will simply take and slap you
across the face with it and tossit and make you start all over
again. We give people the string cheese
challenge and we don't know whatwe're going to do.
(19:53):
I simply carry them in my, in myvest.
Not this is my, my interview uniform, by the way.
I have a tactical vest in my vest.
Yeah, that's where I have my string cheeses up, up in the, in
the little covers there. And when people come along that
don't know about the string cheese.
Do the string cheese challenge. Go ahead and eat this and we'll
just wait and see what they do. If they peel it, they're welcome
(20:15):
to come in. If they bite it, you're out the
door, my friend. We're gonna have to put you into
the education program. And you even help him telling
him like this is a string cheeselike.
We have an accent in slow jams down, by the way, we also speak
in accents. So normally slow jam stand, we
do have an accent while we're there.
You know, this is my American accent, my real accent.
This is my actual accent, my friend.
(20:36):
This is the real accent right here.
This is how I talk. This is the Soya Mastani accent.
I have learned the American accent very well and medicated.
But yes, I tell people it is thestring cheese.
You have to learn how to eat thestring cheese.
But anyway, I'll keep talking inmy American accent so that
you're listeners can understand me better.
What's 1 of the craziest things that you had to deal with as a
chief Patrol agent? Because the Border Patrol agent,
(20:58):
well, I don't know if it's a tough, but there was a porn
shoot that happened there. So I had to be, yeah, you know,
I had to let them know that, hey, you know, you can't be
doing this, you know, out here. But unfortunately I wasn't on
the line, but I could see it on camera.
That's why I said we have cameras.
They really are real. We can see what you're doing.
So. So the live feed of porn that
(21:21):
you got right there. Solutely.
We're like what is happening outthere?
And when we got on the speaker it scared the crap out of them.
They got dressed and took off. And I saw that you literally
built your own Border Patrol vehicle, and I'll put it on the
screen right now. And at some point, you got
arrested because of it. Can you tell us what happened
(21:42):
there? And can you walk us through this
moment? Like like when you saw those
lights are like what the hell you like?
Am I doing a cry? You know, it's funny, I love the
the Border Patrol truck. It's, it was such a great
invention of ours to come up with it.
It's called Porter Patrol. We searched the P in the B in.
Most people can't tell. When you see it, it looks like
it says Border Patrol on it. It's hard to tell.
(22:03):
Yeah, many times. When it first got started, I was
always getting pulled over. All the time was getting pulled
over, right, because no one knewwhat it was.
Border Patrol pulled me over. Highway Patrol pulled me over.
You name it, I was getting pulled over.
But once it got to know who we were, there were no longer
pulling this over. Now it's more like the peace
sign. They're like, oh, those are the,
the slow jam with standing guys,you know, And I always tell
(22:24):
people I'm like, now that, that all of law enforcement knows us
and they no longer, you know, itwas in, you know, a hard time.
In fact, they they follow us. I now tell people like, you
know, if I was doing anything illegal, just do the greatest
illegal scam that we ever pulled, doing any drug
trafficking. If we're doing any human
trafficking, no one would ever stop us because they think that
(22:45):
we're doing the, this whole, youknow, satire thing.
Of course I would never do that.But I think about it.
I'm like, we would get away withso much.
Good thing I'm not those, you know, those kinds of people.
But the, the, the arrest really was more of a detainment.
So yeah, here's what happen. We're in.
I'm in Riverside, CA, and I'm a trivia host.
You know both. I do both on the TV screens, but
(23:07):
I also do it live. So I was at this casino that we
do every single week and it was a brand new casino.
I'm sorry, not a brand new casino.
It was a brand new trivia night for that casino.
So I came out to California, my Border Patrol truck, but I
wasn't in my uniform or anything.
I was in my trivia uniform. So I was on my way to go do this
live event. So right as I'm turning in the
(23:29):
casinos, God, I don't know, maybe you know, 2 more minutes
to get there. Right as I'm turning, I saw the
officers that were parked there,but I didn't think anything of
it. You know, none of us ever never
harasses, especially city cops, never give us a hard time.
Usually it's a Highway Patrol, you know that that maybe has
never seen this before, but citycops do.
They don't care. This city cop apparently cared.
(23:51):
Well, I, I'm going to and all ofa sudden I see him pull out and
I'm just like, I'm like, no, he's not coming after me.
And like, Nah, OK, so I keep driving all that stuff and all
of a sudden, woo, you know, I see the lights and I'm like,
what the hell? I'm like, this guy's pulling me
over. I'm like, alright, well, I'm
kind of a smart ass. So I turned on all my lights
(24:12):
going I get down. Here's the funny part.
I get pulled over in front of a Mexican restaurant.
OK, so the irony in all of that.So I'm in front of this Mexican
restaurant and they all have cameras on all over the the the
roof. And then the guys inside are
taking video. Like what the hell is going on?
A Border Patrol guy just got, you know, pulled over.
They're thinking that something's going on with this
(24:32):
Border Patrol guy. So the guys pulled me over.
They come over to the truck and the the officers looking at the
truck and he goes, what is this?And then I I'm in my accent.
I go, what do you mean my friendyou're talking about?
He goes, well, what is this Border Patrol truck?
Are you a Border Patrol agent? I go the Border Patrol agent for
slow. You must send my friend.
And he looked and he's looking at me.
He's looking at the truck and he's like, Sir, you're
(24:56):
impersonating the Border Patrol agent.
This is illegal. Then I got into my American
accent. Then I'm like, no, Sir, I am not
impersonating the Border Patrol.He goes, well, it says Border
Patrol on your truck. And I'm like, and no, it
doesn't. I said you need to read it
again. And he kept looking at it like
very confused. He didn't get out of the car.
So now I'm getting out of the vehicle in the car.
(25:16):
What the hell is going on? I'm like, dude, I'm not a real
Border Patrol. I said, man, I'm a Border Patrol
agent for the country slow jams.And I said that's it.
It doesn't say Border Patrol anywhere on here.
So I'm not doing anything illegal.
So they pulled me out of the truck and they put the handcuffs
on me. Oh, yeah.
Now I got real. I'm like, oh, what the Hell's
going on? They're like, you're
impersonating Border Patrol trucks.
We're going to detain you and probably take you to jail.
(25:38):
So I'm like, what the hell, dude?
I'm only like 30 minutes from going to do my show.
So I'm like, I got 30 minutes togo do this.
And I'm like, really. I like, I, I at this point, I
got really nervous. I'm like, Oh my God, what am I
going to do? So get thrown in the back of the
car of the police car and they're checking out my truck.
They're turning the lights on. They're just trying to look for
anything that they can find, right?
Yeah. So as the other officer is
(26:00):
sitting inside the police car with me, him and I got to talk.
So I asked him. I said, hey, so how long have
you been in the on the police force?
He goes actually brand new. He goes, I'm actually training
and I'm like, son of a bitch. Yeah.
He's trying dude, training this guy, and they use me as the
example that tells me that that guy knows that I am not a real
(26:21):
Border Patrol truck. He knows I'm not impersonating,
but he wants to show the rookie how the job is done.
And I'm like, that's what this is all about.
He was trying to make it so hardfor me.
So he calls his boss, his supervisor.
OK, his supervisor shows up and his supervisor says right away
(26:41):
he saw my truck and he's like, dude, I know who these guys are
man. They have a country out there by
I think it's called slow jam a stand, he said.
He says, man, he goes, let him out of the car.
Officer had to come over and GetMe Out of the car.
He felt so stupid. He should.
He shot. And he goes, hey, man.
Well, we're sorry about that, You know, thank you so much.
And, you know, all I'm gonna askis that you just let us know
(27:02):
when you're in town. So, you know, we don't have any
of our other officers pulling you over.
And I'm like, sure, man, no problem.
But his supervisor was super cool.
That goes, hey, man, He says, look, man, I'm really sorry
about that. He says, listen, we get so many,
you know, things that happen andwe just, you know, we have to
take precautions and all that stuff.
He goes, but listen, you're not going to have a problem when you
come back over here. And that's how that whole thing
went down. Yeah.
So I was, I was pretty lucky, but I'm not going to lie, man,
(27:24):
Scared. I am Marona, the chief Border
Patrol agent for the Republic ofSoya Mastan.
Yeah, right then and there you start to wonder, like, is all
what I'm doing for this little place like worth it?
Because I'm in a cop car right now like you, requisitioning.
Everything that point, exactly how I felt at that point, I'm
like, oh crap, man, maybe, maybethis is not a good idea.
(27:46):
And then once again, we proved he was just trying to train a
rookie and that's all that was about.
And you have actually diplomaticmeetings and you have been
recognized at the NATO summit. Do world leaders take you
seriously or they think that it's all a fucking joke?
So NATO OHT man, NATO is very, very hard to get into.
(28:07):
It took us a year to really get approved to to even get into but
you. Know.
Yeah, I mean, dude, it's not something anybody can just, you
can't just go to NATO. It doesn't work that way.
You know, it's, it's a very particular thing.
But it was such a great experience and you know, I went
in this uniform because obviously I know that I I was
gonna get, you know, pass security if I went in my
(28:29):
tactical uniform whatsoever. But the crazy part is, is this
what happened? We went into NATO, dude, and
security didn't even question us.
They literally let us go throughthis is dude, this is where you
have. Presidents guys are official.
Yeah, exactly. We do have your ambassadors,
presidents, you know, world leaders, I mean, like, and
here's the, you know, these two clowns walking in, you know, as
he Sultan and a chief Border Patrol agent, right.
(28:50):
And they let us right through. So, dude, everything was really,
really good. And it went really well.
And people were interviewing us from, you know, from different
countries. Now here's what happened.
So the next day we're one of theevents and and I just
complemented the the organizer. All I said I was like, hey, man,
I just want to say great job. I'm looking at all these
speakers that are up there. It's really intriguing and I
(29:11):
just give them, you know, a compliment and I give them my
business card and her business card.
Is it cheap Border Patrol agent right of Sugama Stan.
So he looks at the card and he'slike slow Kamistan, wait a
minute. Are you the guys that do the the
whole croc like the banning of the crotch?
And I go, yeah, that's us all, man.
You guys are hilarious. You know, he's like, I love this
(29:32):
stuff. Yeah, we know exactly who you
are. So I'm saying they're going, oh,
that's great, man. So we're bantering back and
forth and goes, hey, listen, he says, you know what, I've got 5
minutes. If you want to go up on the
stage and do a quick speech on, you know, slow jam with stand,
He says the 5 minutes are yours.I said, oh, are you kidding me?
Damn right. I'm gonna go do it man.
So I don't know what I was gonnasay what was gonna talk about
because it literally came out ofnowhere.
(29:53):
So I said let's do it. My the salt thing gets his
camera. I get up there I get on the
stage and we start talking aboutslow jams stand.
I was only maybe there are two or three minutes just letting
people know what it was about. But it was at the right moment
because there was so much seriousness going around, right?
Because is that right? And they're listening to serious
speeches, they're listening to investors, they're listening to
(30:14):
world leaders, climate change, you know, important things.
And then you. And then I come on stage and I'm
talking about string cheese and I'm talking about banning Crocs
and we don't allow speeding and slow jam with unless you got
tacos in the car. But it was the right moment
because it was the laughter thatpeople needed and people were
smiling and laughing. Then when I got off the stage,
(30:35):
they started coming up to us andstarted getting pictures with
us. They asked us more bustle JAMA
stand. We got some interviews going, so
weren't that really, really good, man.
It was at the right place at theright time.
Did you see that impact and likea few days after online after it
was released? That Well, yeah.
Oh, yeah, we saw we were in, I think it was Turkey that
interviewed us, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I think that was
one of the interviews that we did, plus a bunch of others.
(30:56):
So we started seeing all the allthe interviews, yeah.
Going online. So we're like, dude, this is
really cool. Again, all that stuff was really
unexpected, but everything we dois unexpected.
We never know what's going to happen when you come across, you
know, a guy in a green suit, youknow, as a Sultan, and then me
and the tactical suit as a Border Patrol agent, and you see
(31:16):
a truck and a fire truck and a police car and you're like, what
the hell is all this? You don't know what?
You don't know what's going to be expected that day, right?
It could be that it could be really fun or really, you know,
really weird. So far, it hasn't been
dangerous. That's the good thing.
If someone that wants to become a citizen of Slow Jamestown, I
checked on the site, but can youexplain to us like the process
(31:37):
of it if somebody wants to join?So we have different ways you
can join. The first way is free.
It's basically go to the websiteslowjamstand.org.
You sign up and it's a it's a free sign up, you know, and you,
you can become a citizen to cometo the land.
You will have to buy a passport though, just like any other
country. You gotta have a passport to
come into slow JAMA stand. And then, you know, other stuff
(31:57):
that we have under the two want to buy.
Then we have other, we have other tiers where you can become
an ambassador and then there's fees for those things.
So that's where you can be an ambassador.
You can be a parliament member, you can represent your own, you
know, country, your own state. And a lot of people love that
stuff because, you know, look, when you become a part of
Parliament and you're actually one of our, you know, legit
(32:18):
members, Yeah. You know, you get to experience
a lot of cool things and nobody else gets to experience, you
know, we have a private podcast,for example, that we do for just
our paid members and other events and things that we do for
just paid members at free members never get to see or
never even even hear about it, right?
Because they don't know they're free members.
They only get, you know, the most basic stuff.
But when people sign up as paid members, there's a lot of cool
(32:40):
benefits to it. And, and most, I gotta be
honest, most of the people that have been things that are signed
up now, if you see them on the website, those are all paid
members. All of our paid members has God
probably been with us from the very beginning.
You know, they love slow jam Mastan.
They love the, the, the unity and the, and the fun and the,
and the positivity that we bringthat they want to be a part of
that, right? And that's what they signed up.
But at the end of the day, they're signing up to be a part
(33:02):
of something good, something positive, something that if they
could come out to the land and we let them know they can,
they'll come out, You know, all these little things that we do
in the background for them, Dude, it's all good stuff, man.
And that's why people sign up and that's why they pay for it,
you know, But you can't send up as a free member.
Hmm, people might look at So Jamestown and there's just a fun
experience, but it's actually aninsane marketing story at the
(33:25):
same time. What lessons have you learned
about branding this country and community building?
You know, when it comes to branding, I think it's like I
was saying earlier when we firststarted the interview, it's
like, like any business, you know, you have to do your, your
marketing, you have to be uniqueabout the way you do your
marketing. And, and I'll give you this is
what I've learned. I'll give you some examples just
(33:45):
from doing slow understand how we do things differently and,
and our marketing, which is a lot of the, the, the the laws is
what really does a lot of our marketing for us.
And we know that those are the marketing vehicles that we use.
What I've learned for business, for example, and I'm going to
say I'm going to talk about the bar business because that's
something that I do a lot in trivia.
It's kind of like when somebody starts up a bar in case sports
(34:06):
bar, right? Usually they do the same thing
that everybody else is doing andthen they wonder why their
sports bar closed down in less than five years or why they're
not having this success at the other guys having.
I always say you have to do things different.
If I was going to start a sportsbar today, for example, I would
start it up as a theme. You know, my favorite thing, my
favorite movie is Back to the Future.
(34:27):
I would do a Back to the Future bar theme.
That's how I would go. I would just sports bar.
Yeah, I would have Back to the Future sports bar and drinks
would be, you know, named after the movie and I would have logos
and all these cool things that Iwould have.
But that's what I've learned from marketing through Slow JAMA
Stand. That applies to any business.
It's like if you start marking yourself differently and you
(34:47):
become unique and you come up with unique ideas that no one
else is doing, you will become memorable.
Every everybody else will becomeforgettable.
And that's what we've also builta community of people, all these
people that come along and are part of Slow Jam withstand it's
because they believe in the things that we believe.
Fun, unity, inclusivity. And I, I saw as well that let's
(35:11):
say somebody has a particular business in slow jams and a paid
member that, that there's some, that you guys help to grow
whatever he's doing. So I feel like that's really
nice. There are a lot, a lot of like
groups like this. I will, they won't.
It's like they're just there to entertain you and that's it.
But you're really there taking steps and helping people.
(35:34):
I really, I find that fucking incredible because a lot of
people don't do that. And what do you think makes this
movement, because now you're over 30,000 citizen at least,
And what what's been the key, you think to making people like
a truly feel like they're belonging to this country that
you created? I think it's, it's a constant
(35:56):
change. The constant change is what
we're doing every day, right? We're not just doing the same
thing. It's not like when you sign up
on a membership, you get the same thing and that's all you
gonna get over and over and overagain, right?
With us, it's always a differentadventure.
It's always a different experience.
And I think that's what keeps people interested in what we're
doing because we're always doingsomething different to bring to
the community, right. So it's not the same thing all
(36:17):
the time and you're not just getting the same things all the
time. So I think it has a lot to do
with, for example, going to the travel show, going to the NATO,
going on, you know, on, you know, doing media, media
interviews, going down to LA andthen Hollywood, enrolling in a
in a limousine, you know, and, and making a big scene like
we've got Secret Service and allthese different things that we
do. That's what we we look at like a
(36:37):
TV show, right? What's the next episode?
So every. Answer the world.
Look, absolutely we're trying toalways keep it like a TV show
and, and, and think of what the next episode is going to be,
start writing the next episode so that people aren't bored and
going on, you know, kind of overthis whole thing, right?
We try to stay one step ahead asmuch as we can.
But that's the one thing I've learned is just you've got to
(36:59):
keep people not only entertained, but we do help
them. Like if they want to be Border
Patrol agents, right, Get them set up and all that stuff,
right. But we don't just get rid of
them. You know, once they've signed up
as a guy, they signed up, we gotour money, let's move on.
You know, On the contrary, we try to stay in contact with as
many of the people that we can. We try to help promote the stuff
that they're doing. If they want to promote more.
We have some very active membersthat are constantly talking
(37:22):
about slow jam mistan. Dude, a lot of these people get
their own business cards. They get, you know, they're all,
you know, Yeah, they're passing business cards.
We've sold states people can be governors of their own States
and they promote their States and that we bring all these
people together. I think that's what really makes
Slow Jam stand what it is today.It's some this is real
community, raw, like dude to theground, real community, you
(37:44):
know, bonding, you know, real creation creation, real
community creation, you know, very solid.
Well, what's 1 of the biggest unexpected challenges of running
your own country? Everything is a is an unexpected
challenge. You never know what you're going
to expect. There's always something,
something's always happening. We're like, Oh my God, what did
(38:05):
we think about doing this? One of the challenges we had,
you know, we had a, you know, people tried to steal from us,
you know, and, and they tried tobreak into the, into the border
guard, into the border shack andtried to steal some things from
us, right. And immediately, just to tell
you how much of A community we have, as soon as that broke,
first of all, the news broke it.And the, the news started, they
put it everywhere. They started putting these,
(38:27):
these, these, you know, these thieves on blast, you know,
everywhere. The community started posting
everywhere. And dude, within 24 hours, we
knew who these people were. Wow.
So that, that was probably one of the biggest like serious
challenges that we have faced inthe four years that we've been
doing this. The other challenges is just
people coming on to the, to the land and, you know, you know,
(38:48):
just being, being dumb, being silly, but nothing that's like,
you know, illegal, you know whatI mean?
But every day is a different challenge.
If I could pick out one, I wouldn't be able to pick out
one. Is like every day there's
something different, you know? For sure, yeah.
When you're when you're running your old country, there's gonna
go down. All the time, all the time.
It's gonna happen for sure. Something's gonna happen.
(39:10):
You talk a lot. You talk a lot about the power
of positive video messages for customer retention.
What's one example where a simple video made a massive
difference? Man, dude, I'm glad you brought
that up. Good, good, good question there
because actually, so I call him PBM.
(39:30):
So positive video messages with man, any business can really
apply this to, to to their own. If you have an e-mail list, if
you have, you know, social mediaor anything like that.
One of the things that I found, and I actually found this by
accident, one of the things I found, the benefits I found was
that one day, um, I sent out a video to one of our members and
(39:51):
it was just a simple, I don't know, maybe 15 seconds in my, in
my slow jam standing accent. And all I did was, OK, my friend
is the cheap Border Patrol agent.
So yeah, Mastan, I hope you're having a fantastic day.
I just wanted to say hello and thank you for being a member of
my friend. I hope that we can we can
connect soon. That was it.
That's all I said, dude, I get an e-mail back within minutes.
(40:12):
This person was having a really hard day that day.
They were crying. They were all, you know,
whatever was going on in their lives.
They said that the video I sent them completely changed their
day. And it made a real impact.
And I started getting all these different emails.
So I started sending out more. And I realized I'm like, you
know, this is actually a good thing because this is what we we
promote positivity. And I know we have a lot of
(40:33):
members and, you know, it's, it's hard to do it for, you
know, that many people. Yeah.
But eventually I'll get there. Yeah.
And so I try to do anywhere from, you know, maybe 10 to 15
in in a month, right? Because it, you know, it also
takes time, you know, on top of everything else that we're doing
for sure. And I'll send out these short
video messages that just say something like, Hey, Samuel,
just want to say what's up, man.I hope you're doing well, my
(40:54):
friend. You know, thanks for being a
part of Sajama stand. Hey, man, if you ever want to
connect with me, let me know. And dude, that's it.
And people send me emails back all the time.
Chief. Thank you so much, man.
You made my day. Hey, you put a smile on my face.
You know, like, dude, I knew that those videos were impactful
and I started realizing that's agreat way to communicate,
especially with people in other countries.
What a great way to, you know, to communicate with them by
(41:16):
sending them a message. Not only that you're saying
their name. It's not some generic.
Message. It's not.
I literally said, yeah, I said your name on the video, you
know, I said thank you for, for whatever it is, you know, thank
you in some cases. And if I have something to give
away and I and I and I just wantto pick something, you know,
randomly I might just say, hey, Samuel, just want to say hello,
my friend. By the way, I'm giving away a
(41:36):
free coin and I'm going to give it to you, you know, and, and
I'll do things like that as well, just randomly, randomly.
I don't pick anybody in particular, just just randomly,
you know, if the moment hits me,I'll do it.
But but the PBM is a positive video messages.
Any business can apply this for their customer base.
You want to retain your customers instead of sending
loyalty programs and generic emails and generic.
(41:58):
Any new subscriptions? Exactly renew your subscription.
It's time. How about sending me a a
personal video that's, you know,from the CEO or or somebody up
in management that says say, Samuel, I want to thank you so
much for being a member of our, you know, hey man, thank you for
coming into. My phone never got one message
from Netflix since the beginning.
Like hey by the way, thank you for your billions.
(42:20):
Nothing. You imagine if the CEO of
Netflix suddenly said, obviouslyhe's got a lot of people, you
know, that would be almost impossible.
But you could do a mass message,right?
By the way, I appreciate y'all. And he could he could he?
Listen, I would love to call youeach by name through something
right Positive video message is really work for for small to
medium businesses. You know, like that's where
(42:40):
where these bit smaller medium businesses can really sustain
their customers if they were to just take the time to do a quick
15 second video. Dude, all you do is grab your
phone man hit record. Hey, Samuel, what's up man?
Just want to say hello dude. Thank you so much for being, you
know, a part of my business or for buying in the last 30 days.
Boom, send it out. What's so hard about that?
People don't realize the impact of a, just a, a message like
(43:04):
that. For example, there are my mom,
when I went to high school, I was realizing that was quite
different than most guys. I'm OCD.
But I didn't understand that then.
And we didn't know what it was. And my mom was writing like
sometimes 2-3 times a week, a message in my lunch box that I,
I didn't know. And when I would arrive at
(43:25):
school, it said, hey, by the way, Sam, I love you.
And even if you're different, I know you're gonna achieve and
stuff like that, like on a constant on a constant.
And that there, I'm telling you that high there lasted the few
days there of of just one positive message to another
person. Showing respect to that other
person passing beside you can make a huge difference.
(43:47):
And you don't know what type of day that person is having and
that could change everything. So that is fucking.
Nice. It really could I tell people
like you should practice this inyour in your business.
If you have a a small to medium business, it can make all the
difference in the world. Why do you keep sending generic
emails out right? Why do you keep saying sending
loyalty program? You know, you know, crap what?
I keep sending Flyers out in themail.
(44:08):
How about one small message and start doing it every week or
every month? I mean, it's not that hard,
dude. It will be impactful.
Like you said, your mom putting a message in your little lunch
box and stuff and you're openingit up and you're seeing that,
yeah, it's going to make your day.
And it's stuff that like if you have forgotten, you would have
mentioned it years later. You still think about that?
Yeah, and just talking about it like every touch me at how much
(44:30):
like everything, the impact of that because man, I I was so
confused like like why don't I get along with most people?
Why like why am I thinking different than most, like man
and that those little message are men.
Thank God, thank God I had it. It's incredible.
But a lot of people nowadays areso into social media and just
(44:52):
trying to invent to like they'realways happy and, and everything
online when being vulnerable andand being positive with others
instead of judging them can really change somebody's day.
But we don't really see, we never see the impact on the US
like appear like back in the dayin their 50s, you would call
somebody a bad name. You would see the impact right
(45:13):
away. But now it's such a free for all
because we don't see to come back right away.
So man, a lot of people are are getting because bullying just
got worse now. So what you're doing about
positive message and even helping companies because a lot
of companies could use that to build.
Yeah. You worked with brands like
Marriott and Mattel. What's one thing these big
(45:38):
companies get right about customer retention that smaller
business can fucking learn from?You know, I'm not sure on the on
the customer retention part withthe bigger companies because I
actually focus more. And maybe I need to rephrase
that on, on, on the side, But I've, I focus more on their
employee engagement for the bigger companies, more on
(45:58):
employee engagement because especially in the bar and
restaurant business, corporate bars and restaurants, hotels and
places like that, they have a huge problem with, with employee
retention. Big problem.
Yeah, that those two in that industry, they're the
hospitality industry has a huge retention problem with their
employees. And so when I come in and do
trivia, trivia is used as a retention and engagement tool
(46:19):
that brings people together fromall kinds of different
departments and normally would not talk to each other or maybe
see each other in passing. And maybe they just know their
names because of their name tag,but they don't know anything
else about that person. Or maybe it's a Del Taco that
works at another Del Taco in a different, you know, city and
they've never met. All of a sudden trivia brings
them together and they're havinga good time, high fiving, having
(46:41):
drinks and food together and getting to know each other and
bonding, right? And now creating new
friendships. That's what I do.
As far as engagement for these companies, it's more on the
employee side of things where the smaller companies would be
more on the customer retention side of things like the bar and
restaurant, local bar and restaurant business that would
be more on the customer retention side.
The bigger corporations, that's more on the employee engagement
(47:03):
side. Goal settings.
That has been a huge part of your journey.
What's 1 moment where a clear goal completely changed your
life? The moment that I was living at
my sister's house, sleeping under couch and I had to sit
down at the chair and I was in the kitchen table one day.
And that was the moment that I said, what's the problem?
Why am I, where I am right now? Why am I broke?
(47:24):
Why am I living like this? Like I, I, I never saw myself in
this situation. And I remember just sitting
right there at the table one dayand I'm just thinking and
thinking like, you know, what amI going to do change my life?
Because I was, I was really downand out, man.
It was just a really rough, bad,dark time in in life.
And I remember just sitting there at the table and all of a
sudden it hits me and I'm like, I know what the problem is.
(47:45):
When I left LA, I was still depressed because my whole radio
career was down the toilet and Inever established a new goal.
I never set a goal. I ended up wasting four years
out of my, you know, out of my life because I forgot to set a
goal in all my live previous. And I started looking back all
(48:07):
the times previous ISIS set goals for everything.
I used to have a goal for this and a goal for that and a goal
for this. And those things would always
happen because I had something to aim for.
All of a sudden, four years wasted and I'm like, I didn't
have to waste four years. I could have just set a goal.
Once again. Once they set the goal, that was
the transformative moment in my life.
(48:27):
Right there. It was.
That's where everything changed.And all of a sudden I started to
come up with ideas. I ended up back on the radio for
a second when radio was still kind of at the tail end of
people caring about it. And then from there I moved on
to the trivia and then so on andso forth.
But it all started with with with having a goal in mind and
one goal only, not 50, literallyone.
(48:48):
What is it you really really want and attracted into your
life? Don't chase it Attractive in
your life. It's like when you got that,
that that top hit. When I got.
What you wanted a top hit as a DJ?
Yeah, it's gonna be exactly likemy my whole.
Nowhere. Yeah, as a kid, I, I wanted to
be on a song and a hit song and,and dude, out of nowhere, yeah,
(49:09):
I had no connections, no nothing.
But I believed in that goal. It was a goal in my head that I
believed in it. And every day I thought about it
like one day I'm going to be on a song, one day I'm going to be
on a song, and one day I was on a song and the song was a hit.
All because you had goals, dude.That's why I believe so strongly
in setting a goal for your life.And whatever that is, the way it
(49:30):
works is simple. Once you have a goal in your
mind, attract it, start thinkingabout it every single day.
Think about it, think about it because what happens, your
behavior starts to change and things you start doing are
automatically changing. You don't even realize it.
And that's how your opportunities start to come into
into a reality. It's not that you're just going
to sit there and think about a goal and suddenly I'm going to
(49:51):
say, hey, here it is, right? Exactly.
It's more about the more you believe it, you'll talk about
it, and the more you talk about it, that message will get to the
right person and then the right question, we'll get to the next
person. All of a sudden you're being
called for that opportunity. So I talked about being on the
song all the time. I used to say one day I'm gonna
be on a song. I wanna be on the hit song.
And all of a sudden, because I would say it all the time and I
(50:12):
believed in it. I said it to one person, I said
it to another person, and then it just got out and all of a
sudden the opportunity was there.
And it's all because you believed in it.
Even if it's great, but like yousaid there, your habits are
gonna start coming into play without you being like, oh, I
need habits to get to my million.
(50:32):
I don't know, constraint on the million constantly there.
And you're going to see that your path right there is not
made for it. And automatically you're gonna
start drifting away to your goal.
But you need a fucking goal, people, or else you're you're
just aiming for nothing but intothe pitch darkness.
That's why they say aim for the stars and you'll fall on the
(50:53):
moon. It's exactly for that you need a
fucking goal, no matter how highit is.
Well, I think just going back towhat I told you earlier, you
know, becoming a national triviahost, like that wasn't a thing
that existed. That wasn't a real thing.
It's not a real thing, but I believe it was.
And I started calling myself America's trivia host and I
would tell everybody it was on my business cards.
(51:13):
It's on my my TV screen outside,It's everywhere.
I put it on my website at the time I put it on my website, it
was on everything. I kept saying I'm America's
trivia host. And dude, I became America's
area host because I said it, I believed in it and I was telling
people and suddenly the opportunity started appearing
like you said. I love what you said.
You started drifting towards your goal and you don't even
(51:34):
know it because your habits are drifting you towards your goal.
The more you think about it, believe in it and say it and
talk about it, the, the, the, the more drift that's going to
get you to that goal. Dude, it's a good way to put it.
And if someone is listening, stuck in their life, broke,
sleeping on the couch as well, what's the first step that they
should take? Besides fitting a goal obviously
(51:55):
to start something big like you did.
The first thing you want to do is come up with an idea, right?
Most people can't get past the idea.
Come up with an idea and then get past the idea.
Don't try to perfect your idea. Don't try to make it great.
Don't try to make it. You know all.
I'll get it out there once it's done.
This dude that exactly or else'sprocrastination.
We would have never gotten slow jams stand going if we just kept
(52:18):
waiting to see. Well, hang on.
We need to do this and we need to have this.
We have to have the laws and we have to have the shoes and we
gotta have the are you kidding me?
We just we just started. We had the idea.
Let's just go see what happens. If it fails, it fails.
Jesus, take the wheel. But it could also explode and
put you in the worldwide map like it did for.
Us absolutely like it all because we started.
(52:40):
We. Just kind of OCD.
I waited 20 years to start releasing music there, believe
it or not. So I've been writing for 21
years. I just released last January of
last year for the first time, soit's been a year or two months.
See, I would have been releasingthe moment I recorded my first
one about like release release, release release.
So after I released that first one there, I was like, oh wow, I
(53:02):
want to release another. And it's not because it went
well, not at all. It's because it's out and let's
move on. Let's go to the other one.
And that is a drug that, OK, we're gonna do better on the
next one and next one. Cause it I was waiting for it to
be perfect people. That's why I waited so long.
And as our point, like good friends of mine were like, bro,
it's never going to be perfect. Release it and move on.
(53:25):
And that was so hard for me. Like man, for me, it releases
something's not perfect. So I did it.
And after that it was just a drug.
I just wanted to release anotherand another, so it's just
starting that it's very. Hard, it's like starting a
business. It's the same thing you're
releasing song is the equivalentof starting the business.
If you don't put it out there, you're never going to know how
it's going to be. Whatever you consider perfect is
(53:47):
not perfect to somebody else. Whatever you consider not
perfect, as perfect as somebody else.
You know what I mean? You let you, you just got to let
those things go and just put them out there.
When you put it out there, dude,let the market tell you.
They tell you it sucks good because now you're go back and
go. So why does it suck?
What do I need to do to perfect it or what do?
At that point, you can start working in the perfections and
eventually you're gonna hit homeruns.
(54:09):
So Mark Corona, thank you for coming on.
Where can everybody find you andfind your socials and the
website? So for me personally,
markcorona.com, obviously you can go to slowjamstand.org or
porterpatrol.com. Not Border Patrol Porter, but
troll.com. Those are the three places you
(54:30):
can find me, my friend. So thanks again for coming on
and have a great weekend everybody.
Well, imagine creating your own country and then creating your
own pseudo law enforcement. That's exactly what one man in
Phoenix has done. Yeah, he says that he is law
enforcement in a newly created country of slow Jana Stan and
Fox hands. Marsar back has this unique
story you could call it that hasbeen taking social media by
storm. Radio DJ who has spent much of
(00:21):
his life visiting every country in the world decided to create
his own. He bought a plot of land in the
California desert and named it Slowed.
Damn it Stan after his radio show.
It has its own borders, government currency, and
national anthem. Is starting your own nation
technically illegal? Is this a rebellion against the
United States? You know it's a rebellion
(00:42):
against horrible fashion. Said you do it, so it is also
similarly public. You slow jam, you know, could
you give? So.
Sometimes people may not becauseCalifornia is it, Nicole.
And then copy the idea from theyfound them would be like I'm
(01:05):
some popcorn. Corporate international support
money. I think.
Is Obama world traveler? Has taken matters into his own
hands, creating his own country just to our east in Imperial
County. A radio DJ has created his own
(01:25):
micronation. He calls it's an Imperial
County. He is not just law enforcement.
He is chief law enforcement of Slow jam.
Astam started her own country. It's called Slow Jam Stand.
The Republic of Slow Jam with Stand.
Meet Mark Corona. Chief.
Porter, patrol agent of his own country, complete with a canine
unit by his side. San Diego based DJ who was spent
(01:46):
his life visiting just about every country in the world.
So when he ran out of new nations, he decided to create
one of his own. Yeah, the late night slow jams
DJ for magic 92.5 give the Republic of Slow JAMA stand.
It was founded here in Southern California.
He founded it. He purchased 11 acres of land
in. Akitio Wells and I wanna start
(02:06):
my own country. Well, they did.
Mark says they do have their ownlaws in slow jam estan, and they
include no Crocs at all, no feeton the dashboard in the car.
And you must eat string cheese the correct way.
That is not by biting it, but bypeeling.
It didn't slow jams down. By the way, we also speak an
accent. So normally slow jam stand.
We do have an accent while we'rethere.
You know, this is my American accent, my real accent.
(02:28):
This is my actual accent, my friend.
This is the real accent right here.
This is how I talk. This is the Soya Mastani accent.
I have learned the American accent very well and very good.
But yes, they tell people it is the string cheese.
You have to learn how to eat thestring cheese.
But anyway, I'll keep talking inmy American accent.
Well, I don't know if it's a tough, but there was a porn
shoot that happened there, so I had to be.
(02:52):
Yeah, You know, I had to let them know that, hey, you know,
you can't be doing this, you know, out here.
But unfortunately I wasn't on the line, but I could see it on
camera. That's why I said we have
cameras. They really are real.
We can see what you're doing. So.
All so the live feed of porn that you got right there.
Absolutely. We're like what is happening out
there? And when we got on the speaker
(03:12):
it scared the crap out of them. They got dressed and took off
worrying. I'm in Riverside, CA and I'm a
trivia host. You know both.
I do both on the TV screens, butI also do it live.
So I was at this casino that we do every single week and it was
a brand new casino. I'm sorry, not a brand new
casino. It was a brand new trivia night
for that casino. So I came out to California, my
(03:34):
Border Patrol truck, but I wasn't in my uniform or
anything. I was in my trivia uniform.
So I was on my way to go do thislive event.
So right as I'm turning in the casinos, God, I don't know,
maybe you know, 2 more minutes to get there.
Right as I'm turning, I saw the officers that were parked there,
but I didn't think anything of it.
You know, none of us ever never harasses, especially city cops,
(03:57):
never give us a hard time. Usually it's a Highway Patrol,
you know that that maybe has never seen this before, but city
cops do. They don't care.
This city cop apparently cared. So I, I'm going to and all of a
sudden I see him pull out and I'm just like, I'm like, no,
he's not coming after me. And like, Nah, OK, so I keep
driving all that stuff and all of a sudden, woo, you know, I
(04:18):
see the lights and I'm like, what the hell?
I'm like, this guy's pulling me over.
I'm like, alright, well, I'm kind of a smart ass.
So I turned on all my lights going I get down.
Here's the funny part. I get pulled over in front of a
Mexican restaurant. OK, so the irony in all of that.
So I'm in front of this Mexican restaurant and they all have
cameras on all over the the the roof.
(04:40):
And then the guys inside are taking video.
Like what the hell is going on? A Border Patrol guy just got,
you know, pulled over. They're thinking that
something's going on with this Border Patrol guy.
It's so funny because you know, people that didn't get the joke.
So here's the here's what happened.
You know, going back to what you're saying about how people
wanted to move to slow jam stand.
What happened was with all the media attention that we got, and
(05:01):
since it went worldwide, um, onecountry in particular didn't, I
don't think that joke really transferred well into their
country, and that was the country of Bangladesh.
So I saw there was so many. OHP and I feel bad for them
because they don't understand that it's satire.
(05:21):
We had to put on a, an auto responder because we still to
this day, we get so many inquiries on how they can move
here. We can help them move here if we
can get them the passport we have people begging us to do.
We have, I mean, we have sob stories left and right and we're
just like, dude, they don't understand.
This is not a, a real, you know,country, country.
(06:20):
So welcome back on a Rumbling facts podcast.
You already know what we do here, uncomfortable truth and
critical thinking and have deep conversations, no filter with
guests that bring us uniques stuff on the table.
So we learn across across this journey that we are on the
podcast. And by the way, go check out my
music, DJ retail and all music platform.
(06:42):
We're at 200,000. Listen to people.
It's fucking incredible. Never thought we'd make it here.
Today we have a guest whose story is one of the wildest and
most unique that we ever had on the show.
And you heard that right. Mark Corona is a former radio
and TV host and now has a fucking country people.
And you heard that right. He was a before trivia host,
(07:05):
speaker and an entrepreneur who cofounder the micronation of
Slow Jamesan, a place with over 30,000 global citizens as some
with the weirdest laws that you guys could ever imagine.
And beyond the humor, Mark is a master at retention time and
we're in the world that people fucking go like this.
(07:26):
So he's useful to have on and hehas been helping companies keep
customers and employees engage. He's been featured at the two
1024 and NATO summit. And they don't invite anybody.
There are people, it's not like the those Ted talks there.
This is this is rare, but not a lot of people get to get to show
up there. And he even got arrested,
(07:50):
believe it or not, driving his custom Border Patrol truck.
We're diving into this insane story of how he built the
Republic. Go slow, jam a stand and the
lessons he learned. Welcome on the podcast Mark
Corona. How you?
Doing my friend. Thank you.
Thank you very well. By the way, I love your your
sweater there, man. The Reeses hoodie.
That's awesome, dude. I'm like, I gotta give myself
(08:10):
one of those. Thank you for having me on the
show. Appreciate it.
Man, it's such an honor when after you accepted it to come
on, I went to go check this shitout and I was like, Oh my God,
this is real. Like he did something like this.
So you went from sleeping on a couch to founding your own
(08:33):
country and away. Walk me through that journey.
Like what was that rock bottom like?
And two, now what you see building.
You know, I, I love that. I love the, the, the first
impression that you get when yougo into, you know, you find out
that this place is real because that's the impression most
people get, right? Like, wait a minute, this place
real? Is this a real thing?
And I tell people, yeah, it's a it's a real place.
(08:54):
But going back to, you know, when I was sleeping on my
sister's now it's way back when,this is years and years and
years ago, I just had no goals and I was trying to kind of
figure out my life. I had just left the morning show
radio station in Los Angeles about 2008, 2009, we got let go.
The economy had changed and the recession had had started.
(09:14):
So we were kind of out of a job basically.
And I had to move back to Arizona and I didn't have any
plans of doing anything. And I couldn't figure out my
life. And it seemed like everything I
touched turned to crap. Nothing seemed to really want to
work out until one day I said, you know, I gotta, I gotta come
up with a goal. I gotta make a goal for myself.
And that was what changed everything is once it came up
with a goal and I started to attract things into my life.
(09:37):
So Long story short, I ended up moving back to to Phoenix, AZ
and I end up becoming a trivia host.
And I was just a little trivia host from local bars and
restaurants and you know, just acouple, like two or three.
And, and next thing you know, I said to myself, you know, I want
to be more than just a trivia host.
I would like to be a national trivia host.
Now this isn't something that that you know, people think of
(09:58):
even existed, just something I made-up in my mind.
I said, well, this is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna be a trivia host. And then I started believing
that I was going to be a trivia host and I believe there's going
to be national. I believed in it.
So anyway, I called myself America's trivia host, went
around telling people I'm America's trivia host, even
though I'm only at one bar. But here I am telling people I'm
American history host. And it seemed to the more I said
(10:21):
it, the more it became a realityin my life.
So we ended up creating this, this wild idea and we created
the world's only television style trivia game show for bars,
for restaurants and for corporate events.
And it acts just like a TV show.And now you see me on all the TV
screens. If you walk into a sports bar
that carries our game, you'll see me in all the TV screens
(10:44):
with high energy music. I'm, you know, I'm high energy
asking questions and people are answering and winning stuff at
the end of the night. And the game has become so
popular that now we're in over 100 different locations and
we're growing at a fast pace across the country, where in
Nevada, we're in Colorado, we'rein Oregon, and it's just growing
in California as well. And we're just growing from
(11:06):
there. My next goal, my best friend to
travel the world, all 193 countries, he's the one that
called me up with an idea and hesaid, dude, he goes, he was on
his last country. He's a dude.
I want to start my own country and I thought, well, that's a
stupid idea, but you know what, I like stupid.
Let's go ahead and do it. Let's start our own country and
see what happens. Next thing you know, we started
(11:27):
a country where you bought the land and then we put up a sign
and all it said was welcome to the Republic of Slow Jamastran.
All the signs said that day hundreds of people started
coming to our website. We had no idea what was going on
because the website broke down. We're like, what the hell is
going? On, it's not used to having that
much traffic. We weren't just no, not at all.
(11:49):
The website was new, there was hardly anything on it.
And then we, it kind of, you know, it kind of like dawned on
us. We're like, dude, I think people
are coming to the website as a result of the sign.
That's got to be it. And sure enough, it just
snowballed from there. Then CNN got ahold of it.
And then CNN really broke the news on slow jams stand.
(12:10):
And from there we just exploded and we went freaking worldwide.
So it was quite a while that adventure from sleeping on my
sister's couch in 2009 to starting my own country.
Slow jams stand based on on setting goals.
What I really appreciate, I wentto check out the site and
everything. I checked every fucking page.
And what I really like is that that you showed the journey of
(12:31):
slow jam and stand there and it's literally that date this
happened, the flag here and boom, boom, boom.
So you, you see how how it grew.And I really appreciate that,
that, that a lot of companies like even Burger King should do
that. It's really interesting for the
person to, when you go get a product, understand where are
the foundations of this fucking place?
(12:52):
And so when did the slow jams dance stop being a joke?
And you're like, oh, fuck, like this is starting to get real
because there was some people that are like, can we move
there? So what?
When did it stop being a joke? And you're like, damn, this,
this is real. Well, it's, it's, it's funny
because we, you know, us being in radio and being radio
(13:13):
personalities, we're used to theentertainment, we're used to the
theatre of the mind stuff. We're used to being funny, being
silly, things like that. And yeah, it was kind of a joke
at the beginning. It was just kind of a thing we
do. We have no idea what was gonna
happen, where the heck this thing was gonna go.
And I think the moment we realized it is when we started
having people literally buy stuff from us, when they started
buying stickers. Once we realize they're buying
(13:34):
stickers, we started adding moreproducts.
And then we came up with more ideas.
And honestly, the ideas were coming just because of people
were people were asking for, andpeople started asking for
passports and they were asking for all kinds of different
merchandise. So we started putting up
passports and we started sellingcoins and we started selling all
kinds of different things. And that's how we knew we were
like, holy crap, you're like, this is not just a silly joke
(13:56):
that we came up with or something silly that we were
doing. We are literally in business.
We are literally in business. Like people are asking and
buying all these different things.
So we had to move quickly. We had to start acting really
fast and trying to figure out what we were going to do.
And I tell people the, the journey of Slow Jam with Stan is
like the journey of an entrepreneur who's starting
(14:17):
their business for the very first time, right?
The very first beginnings. Our company, or should say
really our country works just like a business.
The same things, all the fundamental, not fundamental.
So all the, the, the, the foundations of, of starting a, a
company are also applied to us. We've sort of done the same
things to kind of get to, to where we are.
(14:38):
So once we realize that this wasmore than just, you know, a
silly thing, that's when we started really going above and
beyond so that we could serve the people that were coming to
slow jam stand. And that's how everything
started getting created. The laws came into play, the
vehicles came into play. We started doing interviews
everywhere and just last weekend, as a matter of fact, we
just did another interview with the LA Times.
(14:59):
Wow. They came down, did a quick
interview with us. But that's something that's
always happening. We have a travel show we're
going to be on this coming weekend, which is going to be
really cool. So it's just, again, it just
morphed so quick. And I look back and I go, God,
that was four years ago that we started four years ago.
It feels like we've only been doing this for like a year.
(15:19):
I mean, that's how fast things have moved.
So we've had to, we've had to, like I said, we have to, to
adapt and we've had to, to progress with all these changes.
And as well, like, stop people from coming because that was one
thing I heard that you guys had problems at the beginning
because they were like, oh, we can just go away.
Yeah, you can go at the sign andeverything, but it's still a
private property. But it's like people were so
(15:42):
entrenched in it right away, youknow, like, because in life, I
find that they make everything to separate people.
And what you did is to put everybody together, Like you're
here to help. You're here to entertain
everybody together as equals or and 100% falling apart.
That's what people want. And so that's what you created
(16:03):
with that, that slow, generous thing.
Well, it's so funny because you know, people that didn't get the
joke. So here's here's what happened.
This is, you know, going back towhat you're saying about how
people wanted to move to slow jam stand.
What happened was with all the media attention that we got, and
since it went worldwide, one country in particular didn't, I
(16:23):
don't think that joke really transferred well into their
country, and that was the country of Bangladesh, so.
I saw there was so many. Citizens, and I feel bad for
them because they don't understand that it's satire.
We had to put on an auto responder because we still to
this day, we get so many inquiries on how they can move
(16:45):
here. We can help them move here if we
can get them the passport. We have people begging us.
Do we have, I mean, we have sob stories left and right and we're
just like, dude, they don't understand.
This is not a, a real, you know,country, country.
This is, this is satire. This is fun.
This is a, a thing that we now, we now understand is a place for
inclusivity where everybody is welcome, right.
(17:07):
With all of our decisive times and the things that we have gone
through over the last few years,you know, with just the American
government, we wanted to be different.
We, we didn't want to, to separate, as you were saying, we
wanted to bring together. And it's funny because I say
there's a little saying that I have, you know, the US Border
Patrol, their job is to detain and deport.
(17:28):
My job is to import and retain. I import the citizens and will
retain the citizens. We don't kick them out, we bring
them in. But virtually, of course, now
you can visit the land there. Is land and take a photo of it
absolutely fine there. For sure, absolutely.
There's a lot of things on thereactually, not just a sign.
(17:48):
We we have a square, we have theflag, we have a phone, and we're
still gonna be putting more things in there.
There's one thing to be doing that's that's really cool.
I can't say yet because it's something we're going to unveil
later on. But yeah, it is a place that
people can come to and please, and people come there all the
time. And I, I will say this, the
cameras are real. For anybody wondering, they're
(18:09):
real. We have already seen a lot of
things because people think they're fake cameras.
They're not fake. They're real.
Me is something that always pissed me off in life,
especially in high school, because that's when you were
seeing that shit and you put a lot on that shit.
So I appreciate that. So we can't eat cheese like a a
like the one that we pull there straight up like that because
(18:31):
you're not doing it the right way.
So what do you do with these people after you see a crime
like that? Well, let's talk about the the
first law. The first law of slow jam
stands. We ban Crocs.
So you know the Swiss cheese looking chew.
Yeah, we do not allow Crocs and slow jam with stand.
They are a monstrosity, an atrocity.
We just do not allow them. As a matter of fact, if I catch
you wearing Crocs, I will forcibly remove in the beach
(18:51):
over the head with it. And if you still haven't learned
your lesson, we do have what we call a crossfade where your head
goes in and your arms go in and then we put a piece of wood that
closes up on you. It will slap you a few times
with your own dirty croc. And if you still haven't learned
your lesson on the croc situation, we do have one last
resort. It's called the, the, the, the
Slow Jam Stand reeducation program.
(19:12):
And we do have a 100% success rate.
When you come out of that reeducation program, you'll
never want to say the word croc again.
You'll never wanna think how about a cross that ever again so
people know about the croc situation.
As far as the string cheese, here's the thing.
How do you eat your string cheese?
It's a string cheese, so you pull it as a string.
You don't chop it. We're not Barbarians.
(19:32):
We live in a civilized society. You pull it gently, lovingly.
That's how you string cheese. If you don't know how to eat
string cheese, you do not belongin slow jam stand.
And if I catch you with it, I will simply take and slap you
across the face with it and tossit and make you start all over
again. We give people the string cheese
challenge and we don't know whatwe're going to do.
(19:53):
I simply carry them in my, in myvest.
Not this is my, my interview uniform, by the way.
I have a tactical vest in my vest.
Yeah, that's where I have my string cheeses up, up in the, in
the little covers there. And when people come along that
don't know about the string cheese.
Do the string cheese challenge. Go ahead and eat this and we'll
just wait and see what they do. If they peel it, they're welcome
(20:15):
to come in. If they bite it, you're out the
door, my friend. We're gonna have to put you into
the education program. And you even help him telling
him like this is a string cheeselike.
We have an accent in slow jams down, by the way, we also speak
in accents. So normally slow jam stand, we
do have an accent while we're there.
You know, this is my American accent, my real accent.
This is my actual accent, my friend.
(20:36):
This is the real accent right here.
This is how I talk. This is the Soya Mastani accent.
I have learned the American accent very well and medicated.
But yes, I tell people it is thestring cheese.
You have to learn how to eat thestring cheese.
But anyway, I'll keep talking inmy American accent so that
you're listeners can understand me better.
What's 1 of the craziest things that you had to deal with as a
chief Patrol agent? Because the Border Patrol agent,
(20:58):
well, I don't know if it's a tough, but there was a porn
shoot that happened there. So I had to be, yeah, you know,
I had to let them know that, hey, you know, you can't be
doing this, you know, out here. But unfortunately I wasn't on
the line, but I could see it on camera.
That's why I said we have cameras.
They really are real. We can see what you're doing.
So. So the live feed of porn that
(21:21):
you got right there. Solutely.
We're like what is happening outthere?
And when we got on the speaker it scared the crap out of them.
They got dressed and took off. And I saw that you literally
built your own Border Patrol vehicle, and I'll put it on the
screen right now. And at some point, you got
arrested because of it. Can you tell us what happened
(21:42):
there? And can you walk us through this
moment? Like like when you saw those
lights are like what the hell you like?
Am I doing a cry? You know, it's funny, I love the
the Border Patrol truck. It's, it was such a great
invention of ours to come up with it.
It's called Porter Patrol. We searched the P in the B in.
Most people can't tell. When you see it, it looks like
it says Border Patrol on it. It's hard to tell.
(22:03):
Yeah, many times. When it first got started, I was
always getting pulled over. All the time was getting pulled
over, right, because no one knewwhat it was.
Border Patrol pulled me over. Highway Patrol pulled me over.
You name it, I was getting pulled over.
But once it got to know who we were, there were no longer
pulling this over. Now it's more like the peace
sign. They're like, oh, those are the,
the slow jam with standing guys,you know, And I always tell
(22:24):
people I'm like, now that, that all of law enforcement knows us
and they no longer, you know, itwas in, you know, a hard time.
In fact, they they follow us. I now tell people like, you
know, if I was doing anything illegal, just do the greatest
illegal scam that we ever pulled, doing any drug
trafficking. If we're doing any human
trafficking, no one would ever stop us because they think that
(22:45):
we're doing the, this whole, youknow, satire thing.
Of course I would never do that.But I think about it.
I'm like, we would get away withso much.
Good thing I'm not those, you know, those kinds of people.
But the, the, the arrest really was more of a detainment.
So yeah, here's what happen. We're in.
I'm in Riverside, CA, and I'm a trivia host.
You know both. I do both on the TV screens, but
(23:07):
I also do it live. So I was at this casino that we
do every single week and it was a brand new casino.
I'm sorry, not a brand new casino.
It was a brand new trivia night for that casino.
So I came out to California, my Border Patrol truck, but I
wasn't in my uniform or anything.
I was in my trivia uniform. So I was on my way to go do this
live event. So right as I'm turning in the
(23:29):
casinos, God, I don't know, maybe you know, 2 more minutes
to get there. Right as I'm turning, I saw the
officers that were parked there,but I didn't think anything of
it. You know, none of us ever never
harasses, especially city cops, never give us a hard time.
Usually it's a Highway Patrol, you know that that maybe has
never seen this before, but citycops do.
They don't care. This city cop apparently cared.
(23:51):
Well, I, I'm going to and all ofa sudden I see him pull out and
I'm just like, I'm like, no, he's not coming after me.
And like, Nah, OK, so I keep driving all that stuff and all
of a sudden, woo, you know, I see the lights and I'm like,
what the hell? I'm like, this guy's pulling me
over. I'm like, alright, well, I'm
kind of a smart ass. So I turned on all my lights
(24:12):
going I get down. Here's the funny part.
I get pulled over in front of a Mexican restaurant.
OK, so the irony in all of that.So I'm in front of this Mexican
restaurant and they all have cameras on all over the the the
roof. And then the guys inside are
taking video. Like what the hell is going on?
A Border Patrol guy just got, you know, pulled over.
They're thinking that something's going on with this
(24:32):
Border Patrol guy. So the guys pulled me over.
They come over to the truck and the the officers looking at the
truck and he goes, what is this?And then I I'm in my accent.
I go, what do you mean my friendyou're talking about?
He goes, well, what is this Border Patrol truck?
Are you a Border Patrol agent? I go the Border Patrol agent for
slow. You must send my friend.
And he looked and he's looking at me.
He's looking at the truck and he's like, Sir, you're
(24:56):
impersonating the Border Patrol agent.
This is illegal. Then I got into my American
accent. Then I'm like, no, Sir, I am not
impersonating the Border Patrol.He goes, well, it says Border
Patrol on your truck. And I'm like, and no, it
doesn't. I said you need to read it
again. And he kept looking at it like
very confused. He didn't get out of the car.
So now I'm getting out of the vehicle in the car.
(25:16):
What the hell is going on? I'm like, dude, I'm not a real
Border Patrol. I said, man, I'm a Border Patrol
agent for the country slow jams.And I said that's it.
It doesn't say Border Patrol anywhere on here.
So I'm not doing anything illegal.
So they pulled me out of the truck and they put the handcuffs
on me. Oh, yeah.
Now I got real. I'm like, oh, what the Hell's
going on? They're like, you're
impersonating Border Patrol trucks.
We're going to detain you and probably take you to jail.
(25:38):
So I'm like, what the hell, dude?
I'm only like 30 minutes from going to do my show.
So I'm like, I got 30 minutes togo do this.
And I'm like, really. I like, I, I at this point, I
got really nervous. I'm like, Oh my God, what am I
going to do? So get thrown in the back of the
car of the police car and they're checking out my truck.
They're turning the lights on. They're just trying to look for
anything that they can find, right?
Yeah. So as the other officer is
(26:00):
sitting inside the police car with me, him and I got to talk.
So I asked him. I said, hey, so how long have
you been in the on the police force?
He goes actually brand new. He goes, I'm actually training
and I'm like, son of a bitch. Yeah.
He's trying dude, training this guy, and they use me as the
example that tells me that that guy knows that I am not a real
(26:21):
Border Patrol truck. He knows I'm not impersonating,
but he wants to show the rookie how the job is done.
And I'm like, that's what this is all about.
He was trying to make it so hardfor me.
So he calls his boss, his supervisor.
OK, his supervisor shows up and his supervisor says right away
(26:41):
he saw my truck and he's like, dude, I know who these guys are
man. They have a country out there by
I think it's called slow jam a stand, he said.
He says, man, he goes, let him out of the car.
Officer had to come over and GetMe Out of the car.
He felt so stupid. He should.
He shot. And he goes, hey, man.
Well, we're sorry about that, You know, thank you so much.
And, you know, all I'm gonna askis that you just let us know
(27:02):
when you're in town. So, you know, we don't have any
of our other officers pulling you over.
And I'm like, sure, man, no problem.
But his supervisor was super cool.
That goes, hey, man, He says, look, man, I'm really sorry
about that. He says, listen, we get so many,
you know, things that happen andwe just, you know, we have to
take precautions and all that stuff.
He goes, but listen, you're not going to have a problem when you
come back over here. And that's how that whole thing
went down. Yeah.
So I was, I was pretty lucky, but I'm not going to lie, man,
(27:24):
Scared. I am Marona, the chief Border
Patrol agent for the Republic ofSoya Mastan.
Yeah, right then and there you start to wonder, like, is all
what I'm doing for this little place like worth it?
Because I'm in a cop car right now like you, requisitioning.
Everything that point, exactly how I felt at that point, I'm
like, oh crap, man, maybe, maybethis is not a good idea.
(27:46):
And then once again, we proved he was just trying to train a
rookie and that's all that was about.
And you have actually diplomaticmeetings and you have been
recognized at the NATO summit. Do world leaders take you
seriously or they think that it's all a fucking joke?
So NATO OHT man, NATO is very, very hard to get into.
(28:07):
It took us a year to really get approved to to even get into but
you. Know.
Yeah, I mean, dude, it's not something anybody can just, you
can't just go to NATO. It doesn't work that way.
You know, it's, it's a very particular thing.
But it was such a great experience and you know, I went
in this uniform because obviously I know that I I was
gonna get, you know, pass security if I went in my
(28:29):
tactical uniform whatsoever. But the crazy part is, is this
what happened? We went into NATO, dude, and
security didn't even question us.
They literally let us go throughthis is dude, this is where you
have. Presidents guys are official.
Yeah, exactly. We do have your ambassadors,
presidents, you know, world leaders, I mean, like, and
here's the, you know, these two clowns walking in, you know, as
he Sultan and a chief Border Patrol agent, right.
(28:50):
And they let us right through. So, dude, everything was really,
really good. And it went really well.
And people were interviewing us from, you know, from different
countries. Now here's what happened.
So the next day we're one of theevents and and I just
complemented the the organizer. All I said I was like, hey, man,
I just want to say great job. I'm looking at all these
speakers that are up there. It's really intriguing and I
(29:11):
just give them, you know, a compliment and I give them my
business card and her business card.
Is it cheap Border Patrol agent right of Sugama Stan.
So he looks at the card and he'slike slow Kamistan, wait a
minute. Are you the guys that do the the
whole croc like the banning of the crotch?
And I go, yeah, that's us all, man.
You guys are hilarious. You know, he's like, I love this
(29:32):
stuff. Yeah, we know exactly who you
are. So I'm saying they're going, oh,
that's great, man. So we're bantering back and
forth and goes, hey, listen, he says, you know what, I've got 5
minutes. If you want to go up on the
stage and do a quick speech on, you know, slow jam with stand,
He says the 5 minutes are yours.I said, oh, are you kidding me?
Damn right. I'm gonna go do it man.
So I don't know what I was gonnasay what was gonna talk about
because it literally came out ofnowhere.
(29:53):
So I said let's do it. My the salt thing gets his
camera. I get up there I get on the
stage and we start talking aboutslow jams stand.
I was only maybe there are two or three minutes just letting
people know what it was about. But it was at the right moment
because there was so much seriousness going around, right?
Because is that right? And they're listening to serious
speeches, they're listening to investors, they're listening to
(30:14):
world leaders, climate change, you know, important things.
And then you. And then I come on stage and I'm
talking about string cheese and I'm talking about banning Crocs
and we don't allow speeding and slow jam with unless you got
tacos in the car. But it was the right moment
because it was the laughter thatpeople needed and people were
smiling and laughing. Then when I got off the stage,
(30:35):
they started coming up to us andstarted getting pictures with
us. They asked us more bustle JAMA
stand. We got some interviews going, so
weren't that really, really good, man.
It was at the right place at theright time.
Did you see that impact and likea few days after online after it
was released? That Well, yeah.
Oh, yeah, we saw we were in, I think it was Turkey that
interviewed us, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I think that was
one of the interviews that we did, plus a bunch of others.
(30:56):
So we started seeing all the allthe interviews, yeah.
Going online. So we're like, dude, this is
really cool. Again, all that stuff was really
unexpected, but everything we dois unexpected.
We never know what's going to happen when you come across, you
know, a guy in a green suit, youknow, as a Sultan, and then me
and the tactical suit as a Border Patrol agent, and you see
(31:16):
a truck and a fire truck and a police car and you're like, what
the hell is all this? You don't know what?
You don't know what's going to be expected that day, right?
It could be that it could be really fun or really, you know,
really weird. So far, it hasn't been
dangerous. That's the good thing.
If someone that wants to become a citizen of Slow Jamestown, I
checked on the site, but can youexplain to us like the process
(31:37):
of it if somebody wants to join?So we have different ways you
can join. The first way is free.
It's basically go to the websiteslowjamstand.org.
You sign up and it's a it's a free sign up, you know, and you,
you can become a citizen to cometo the land.
You will have to buy a passport though, just like any other
country. You gotta have a passport to
come into slow JAMA stand. And then, you know, other stuff
(31:57):
that we have under the two want to buy.
Then we have other, we have other tiers where you can become
an ambassador and then there's fees for those things.
So that's where you can be an ambassador.
You can be a parliament member, you can represent your own, you
know, country, your own state. And a lot of people love that
stuff because, you know, look, when you become a part of
Parliament and you're actually one of our, you know, legit
(32:18):
members, Yeah. You know, you get to experience
a lot of cool things and nobody else gets to experience, you
know, we have a private podcast,for example, that we do for just
our paid members and other events and things that we do for
just paid members at free members never get to see or
never even even hear about it, right?
Because they don't know they're free members.
They only get, you know, the most basic stuff.
But when people sign up as paid members, there's a lot of cool
(32:40):
benefits to it. And, and most, I gotta be
honest, most of the people that have been things that are signed
up now, if you see them on the website, those are all paid
members. All of our paid members has God
probably been with us from the very beginning.
You know, they love slow jam Mastan.
They love the, the, the unity and the, and the fun and the,
and the positivity that we bringthat they want to be a part of
that, right? And that's what they signed up.
But at the end of the day, they're signing up to be a part
(33:02):
of something good, something positive, something that if they
could come out to the land and we let them know they can,
they'll come out, You know, all these little things that we do
in the background for them, Dude, it's all good stuff, man.
And that's why people sign up and that's why they pay for it,
you know, But you can't send up as a free member.
Hmm, people might look at So Jamestown and there's just a fun
experience, but it's actually aninsane marketing story at the
(33:25):
same time. What lessons have you learned
about branding this country and community building?
You know, when it comes to branding, I think it's like I
was saying earlier when we firststarted the interview, it's
like, like any business, you know, you have to do your, your
marketing, you have to be uniqueabout the way you do your
marketing. And, and I'll give you this is
what I've learned. I'll give you some examples just
(33:45):
from doing slow understand how we do things differently and,
and our marketing, which is a lot of the, the, the the laws is
what really does a lot of our marketing for us.
And we know that those are the marketing vehicles that we use.
What I've learned for business, for example, and I'm going to
say I'm going to talk about the bar business because that's
something that I do a lot in trivia.
It's kind of like when somebody starts up a bar in case sports
(34:06):
bar, right? Usually they do the same thing
that everybody else is doing andthen they wonder why their
sports bar closed down in less than five years or why they're
not having this success at the other guys having.
I always say you have to do things different.
If I was going to start a sportsbar today, for example, I would
start it up as a theme. You know, my favorite thing, my
favorite movie is Back to the Future.
(34:27):
I would do a Back to the Future bar theme.
That's how I would go. I would just sports bar.
Yeah, I would have Back to the Future sports bar and drinks
would be, you know, named after the movie and I would have logos
and all these cool things that Iwould have.
But that's what I've learned from marketing through Slow JAMA
Stand. That applies to any business.
It's like if you start marking yourself differently and you
(34:47):
become unique and you come up with unique ideas that no one
else is doing, you will become memorable.
Every everybody else will becomeforgettable.
And that's what we've also builta community of people, all these
people that come along and are part of Slow Jam withstand it's
because they believe in the things that we believe.
Fun, unity, inclusivity. And I, I saw as well that let's
(35:11):
say somebody has a particular business in slow jams and a paid
member that, that there's some, that you guys help to grow
whatever he's doing. So I feel like that's really
nice. There are a lot, a lot of like
groups like this. I will, they won't.
It's like they're just there to entertain you and that's it.
But you're really there taking steps and helping people.
(35:34):
I really, I find that fucking incredible because a lot of
people don't do that. And what do you think makes this
movement, because now you're over 30,000 citizen at least,
And what what's been the key, you think to making people like
a truly feel like they're belonging to this country that
you created? I think it's, it's a constant
(35:56):
change. The constant change is what
we're doing every day, right? We're not just doing the same
thing. It's not like when you sign up
on a membership, you get the same thing and that's all you
gonna get over and over and overagain, right?
With us, it's always a differentadventure.
It's always a different experience.
And I think that's what keeps people interested in what we're
doing because we're always doingsomething different to bring to
the community, right. So it's not the same thing all
(36:17):
the time and you're not just getting the same things all the
time. So I think it has a lot to do
with, for example, going to the travel show, going to the NATO,
going on, you know, on, you know, doing media, media
interviews, going down to LA andthen Hollywood, enrolling in a
in a limousine, you know, and, and making a big scene like
we've got Secret Service and allthese different things that we
do. That's what we we look at like a
(36:37):
TV show, right? What's the next episode?
So every. Answer the world.
Look, absolutely we're trying toalways keep it like a TV show
and, and, and think of what the next episode is going to be,
start writing the next episode so that people aren't bored and
going on, you know, kind of overthis whole thing, right?
We try to stay one step ahead asmuch as we can.
But that's the one thing I've learned is just you've got to
(36:59):
keep people not only entertained, but we do help
them. Like if they want to be Border
Patrol agents, right, Get them set up and all that stuff,
right. But we don't just get rid of
them. You know, once they've signed up
as a guy, they signed up, we gotour money, let's move on.
You know, On the contrary, we try to stay in contact with as
many of the people that we can. We try to help promote the stuff
that they're doing. If they want to promote more.
We have some very active membersthat are constantly talking
(37:22):
about slow jam mistan. Dude, a lot of these people get
their own business cards. They get, you know, they're all,
you know, Yeah, they're passing business cards.
We've sold states people can be governors of their own States
and they promote their States and that we bring all these
people together. I think that's what really makes
Slow Jam stand what it is today.It's some this is real
community, raw, like dude to theground, real community, you
(37:44):
know, bonding, you know, real creation creation, real
community creation, you know, very solid.
Well, what's 1 of the biggest unexpected challenges of running
your own country? Everything is a is an unexpected
challenge. You never know what you're going
to expect. There's always something,
something's always happening. We're like, Oh my God, what did
(38:05):
we think about doing this? One of the challenges we had,
you know, we had a, you know, people tried to steal from us,
you know, and, and they tried tobreak into the, into the border
guard, into the border shack andtried to steal some things from
us, right. And immediately, just to tell
you how much of A community we have, as soon as that broke,
first of all, the news broke it.And the, the news started, they
put it everywhere. They started putting these,
(38:27):
these, these, you know, these thieves on blast, you know,
everywhere. The community started posting
everywhere. And dude, within 24 hours, we
knew who these people were. Wow.
So that, that was probably one of the biggest like serious
challenges that we have faced inthe four years that we've been
doing this. The other challenges is just
people coming on to the, to the land and, you know, you know,
(38:48):
just being, being dumb, being silly, but nothing that's like,
you know, illegal, you know whatI mean?
But every day is a different challenge.
If I could pick out one, I wouldn't be able to pick out
one. Is like every day there's
something different, you know? For sure, yeah.
When you're when you're running your old country, there's gonna
go down. All the time, all the time.
It's gonna happen for sure. Something's gonna happen.
(39:10):
You talk a lot. You talk a lot about the power
of positive video messages for customer retention.
What's one example where a simple video made a massive
difference? Man, dude, I'm glad you brought
that up. Good, good, good question there
because actually, so I call him PBM.
(39:30):
So positive video messages with man, any business can really
apply this to, to to their own. If you have an e-mail list, if
you have, you know, social mediaor anything like that.
One of the things that I found, and I actually found this by
accident, one of the things I found, the benefits I found was
that one day, um, I sent out a video to one of our members and
(39:51):
it was just a simple, I don't know, maybe 15 seconds in my, in
my slow jam standing accent. And all I did was, OK, my friend
is the cheap Border Patrol agent.
So yeah, Mastan, I hope you're having a fantastic day.
I just wanted to say hello and thank you for being a member of
my friend. I hope that we can we can
connect soon. That was it.
That's all I said, dude, I get an e-mail back within minutes.
(40:12):
This person was having a really hard day that day.
They were crying. They were all, you know,
whatever was going on in their lives.
They said that the video I sent them completely changed their
day. And it made a real impact.
And I started getting all these different emails.
So I started sending out more. And I realized I'm like, you
know, this is actually a good thing because this is what we we
promote positivity. And I know we have a lot of
(40:33):
members and, you know, it's, it's hard to do it for, you
know, that many people. Yeah.
But eventually I'll get there. Yeah.
And so I try to do anywhere from, you know, maybe 10 to 15
in in a month, right? Because it, you know, it also
takes time, you know, on top of everything else that we're doing
for sure. And I'll send out these short
video messages that just say something like, Hey, Samuel,
just want to say what's up, man.I hope you're doing well, my
(40:54):
friend. You know, thanks for being a
part of Sajama stand. Hey, man, if you ever want to
connect with me, let me know. And dude, that's it.
And people send me emails back all the time.
Chief. Thank you so much, man.
You made my day. Hey, you put a smile on my face.
You know, like, dude, I knew that those videos were impactful
and I started realizing that's agreat way to communicate,
especially with people in other countries.
What a great way to, you know, to communicate with them by
(41:16):
sending them a message. Not only that you're saying
their name. It's not some generic.
Message. It's not.
I literally said, yeah, I said your name on the video, you
know, I said thank you for, for whatever it is, you know, thank
you in some cases. And if I have something to give
away and I and I and I just wantto pick something, you know,
randomly I might just say, hey, Samuel, just want to say hello,
my friend. By the way, I'm giving away a
(41:36):
free coin and I'm going to give it to you, you know, and, and
I'll do things like that as well, just randomly, randomly.
I don't pick anybody in particular, just just randomly,
you know, if the moment hits me,I'll do it.
But but the PBM is a positive video messages.
Any business can apply this for their customer base.
You want to retain your customers instead of sending
loyalty programs and generic emails and generic.
(41:58):
Any new subscriptions? Exactly renew your subscription.
It's time. How about sending me a a
personal video that's, you know,from the CEO or or somebody up
in management that says say, Samuel, I want to thank you so
much for being a member of our, you know, hey man, thank you for
coming into. My phone never got one message
from Netflix since the beginning.
Like hey by the way, thank you for your billions.
(42:20):
Nothing. You imagine if the CEO of
Netflix suddenly said, obviouslyhe's got a lot of people, you
know, that would be almost impossible.
But you could do a mass message,right?
By the way, I appreciate y'all. And he could he could he?
Listen, I would love to call youeach by name through something
right Positive video message is really work for for small to
medium businesses. You know, like that's where
(42:40):
where these bit smaller medium businesses can really sustain
their customers if they were to just take the time to do a quick
15 second video. Dude, all you do is grab your
phone man hit record. Hey, Samuel, what's up man?
Just want to say hello dude. Thank you so much for being, you
know, a part of my business or for buying in the last 30 days.
Boom, send it out. What's so hard about that?
People don't realize the impact of a, just a, a message like
(43:04):
that. For example, there are my mom,
when I went to high school, I was realizing that was quite
different than most guys. I'm OCD.
But I didn't understand that then.
And we didn't know what it was. And my mom was writing like
sometimes 2-3 times a week, a message in my lunch box that I,
I didn't know. And when I would arrive at
(43:25):
school, it said, hey, by the way, Sam, I love you.
And even if you're different, I know you're gonna achieve and
stuff like that, like on a constant on a constant.
And that there, I'm telling you that high there lasted the few
days there of of just one positive message to another
person. Showing respect to that other
person passing beside you can make a huge difference.
(43:47):
And you don't know what type of day that person is having and
that could change everything. So that is fucking.
Nice. It really could I tell people
like you should practice this inyour in your business.
If you have a a small to medium business, it can make all the
difference in the world. Why do you keep sending generic
emails out right? Why do you keep saying sending
loyalty program? You know, you know, crap what?
I keep sending Flyers out in themail.
(44:08):
How about one small message and start doing it every week or
every month? I mean, it's not that hard,
dude. It will be impactful.
Like you said, your mom putting a message in your little lunch
box and stuff and you're openingit up and you're seeing that,
yeah, it's going to make your day.
And it's stuff that like if you have forgotten, you would have
mentioned it years later. You still think about that?
Yeah, and just talking about it like every touch me at how much
(44:30):
like everything, the impact of that because man, I I was so
confused like like why don't I get along with most people?
Why like why am I thinking different than most, like man
and that those little message are men.
Thank God, thank God I had it. It's incredible.
But a lot of people nowadays areso into social media and just
(44:52):
trying to invent to like they'realways happy and, and everything
online when being vulnerable andand being positive with others
instead of judging them can really change somebody's day.
But we don't really see, we never see the impact on the US
like appear like back in the dayin their 50s, you would call
somebody a bad name. You would see the impact right
(45:13):
away. But now it's such a free for all
because we don't see to come back right away.
So man, a lot of people are are getting because bullying just
got worse now. So what you're doing about
positive message and even helping companies because a lot
of companies could use that to build.
Yeah. You worked with brands like
Marriott and Mattel. What's one thing these big
(45:38):
companies get right about customer retention that smaller
business can fucking learn from?You know, I'm not sure on the on
the customer retention part withthe bigger companies because I
actually focus more. And maybe I need to rephrase
that on, on, on the side, But I've, I focus more on their
employee engagement for the bigger companies, more on
(45:58):
employee engagement because especially in the bar and
restaurant business, corporate bars and restaurants, hotels and
places like that, they have a huge problem with, with employee
retention. Big problem.
Yeah, that those two in that industry, they're the
hospitality industry has a huge retention problem with their
employees. And so when I come in and do
trivia, trivia is used as a retention and engagement tool
(46:19):
that brings people together fromall kinds of different
departments and normally would not talk to each other or maybe
see each other in passing. And maybe they just know their
names because of their name tag,but they don't know anything
else about that person. Or maybe it's a Del Taco that
works at another Del Taco in a different, you know, city and
they've never met. All of a sudden trivia brings
them together and they're havinga good time, high fiving, having
(46:41):
drinks and food together and getting to know each other and
bonding, right? And now creating new
friendships. That's what I do.
As far as engagement for these companies, it's more on the
employee side of things where the smaller companies would be
more on the customer retention side of things like the bar and
restaurant, local bar and restaurant business that would
be more on the customer retention side.
The bigger corporations, that's more on the employee engagement
(47:03):
side. Goal settings.
That has been a huge part of your journey.
What's 1 moment where a clear goal completely changed your
life? The moment that I was living at
my sister's house, sleeping under couch and I had to sit
down at the chair and I was in the kitchen table one day.
And that was the moment that I said, what's the problem?
Why am I, where I am right now? Why am I broke?
(47:24):
Why am I living like this? Like I, I, I never saw myself in
this situation. And I remember just sitting
right there at the table one dayand I'm just thinking and
thinking like, you know, what amI going to do change my life?
Because I was, I was really downand out, man.
It was just a really rough, bad,dark time in in life.
And I remember just sitting there at the table and all of a
sudden it hits me and I'm like, I know what the problem is.
(47:45):
When I left LA, I was still depressed because my whole radio
career was down the toilet and Inever established a new goal.
I never set a goal. I ended up wasting four years
out of my, you know, out of my life because I forgot to set a
goal in all my live previous. And I started looking back all
(48:07):
the times previous ISIS set goals for everything.
I used to have a goal for this and a goal for that and a goal
for this. And those things would always
happen because I had something to aim for.
All of a sudden, four years wasted and I'm like, I didn't
have to waste four years. I could have just set a goal.
Once again. Once they set the goal, that was
the transformative moment in my life.
(48:27):
Right there. It was.
That's where everything changed.And all of a sudden I started to
come up with ideas. I ended up back on the radio for
a second when radio was still kind of at the tail end of
people caring about it. And then from there I moved on
to the trivia and then so on andso forth.
But it all started with with with having a goal in mind and
one goal only, not 50, literallyone.
(48:48):
What is it you really really want and attracted into your
life? Don't chase it Attractive in
your life. It's like when you got that,
that that top hit. When I got.
What you wanted a top hit as a DJ?
Yeah, it's gonna be exactly likemy my whole.
Nowhere. Yeah, as a kid, I, I wanted to
be on a song and a hit song and,and dude, out of nowhere, yeah,
(49:09):
I had no connections, no nothing.
But I believed in that goal. It was a goal in my head that I
believed in it. And every day I thought about it
like one day I'm going to be on a song, one day I'm going to be
on a song, and one day I was on a song and the song was a hit.
All because you had goals, dude.That's why I believe so strongly
in setting a goal for your life.And whatever that is, the way it
(49:30):
works is simple. Once you have a goal in your
mind, attract it, start thinkingabout it every single day.
Think about it, think about it because what happens, your
behavior starts to change and things you start doing are
automatically changing. You don't even realize it.
And that's how your opportunities start to come into
into a reality. It's not that you're just going
to sit there and think about a goal and suddenly I'm going to
(49:51):
say, hey, here it is, right? Exactly.
It's more about the more you believe it, you'll talk about
it, and the more you talk about it, that message will get to the
right person and then the right question, we'll get to the next
person. All of a sudden you're being
called for that opportunity. So I talked about being on the
song all the time. I used to say one day I'm gonna
be on a song. I wanna be on the hit song.
And all of a sudden, because I would say it all the time and I
(50:12):
believed in it. I said it to one person, I said
it to another person, and then it just got out and all of a
sudden the opportunity was there.
And it's all because you believed in it.
Even if it's great, but like yousaid there, your habits are
gonna start coming into play without you being like, oh, I
need habits to get to my million.
(50:32):
I don't know, constraint on the million constantly there.
And you're going to see that your path right there is not
made for it. And automatically you're gonna
start drifting away to your goal.
But you need a fucking goal, people, or else you're you're
just aiming for nothing but intothe pitch darkness.
That's why they say aim for the stars and you'll fall on the
(50:53):
moon. It's exactly for that you need a
fucking goal, no matter how highit is.
Well, I think just going back towhat I told you earlier, you
know, becoming a national triviahost, like that wasn't a thing
that existed. That wasn't a real thing.
It's not a real thing, but I believe it was.
And I started calling myself America's trivia host and I
would tell everybody it was on my business cards.
(51:13):
It's on my my TV screen outside,It's everywhere.
I put it on my website at the time I put it on my website, it
was on everything. I kept saying I'm America's
trivia host. And dude, I became America's
area host because I said it, I believed in it and I was telling
people and suddenly the opportunity started appearing
like you said. I love what you said.
You started drifting towards your goal and you don't even
(51:34):
know it because your habits are drifting you towards your goal.
The more you think about it, believe in it and say it and
talk about it, the, the, the, the more drift that's going to
get you to that goal. Dude, it's a good way to put it.
And if someone is listening, stuck in their life, broke,
sleeping on the couch as well, what's the first step that they
should take? Besides fitting a goal obviously
(51:55):
to start something big like you did.
The first thing you want to do is come up with an idea, right?
Most people can't get past the idea.
Come up with an idea and then get past the idea.
Don't try to perfect your idea. Don't try to make it great.
Don't try to make it. You know all.
I'll get it out there once it's done.
This dude that exactly or else'sprocrastination.
We would have never gotten slow jams stand going if we just kept
(52:18):
waiting to see. Well, hang on.
We need to do this and we need to have this.
We have to have the laws and we have to have the shoes and we
gotta have the are you kidding me?
We just we just started. We had the idea.
Let's just go see what happens. If it fails, it fails.
Jesus, take the wheel. But it could also explode and
put you in the worldwide map like it did for.
Us absolutely like it all because we started.
(52:40):
We. Just kind of OCD.
I waited 20 years to start releasing music there, believe
it or not. So I've been writing for 21
years. I just released last January of
last year for the first time, soit's been a year or two months.
See, I would have been releasingthe moment I recorded my first
one about like release release, release release.
So after I released that first one there, I was like, oh wow, I
(53:02):
want to release another. And it's not because it went
well, not at all. It's because it's out and let's
move on. Let's go to the other one.
And that is a drug that, OK, we're gonna do better on the
next one and next one. Cause it I was waiting for it to
be perfect people. That's why I waited so long.
And as our point, like good friends of mine were like, bro,
it's never going to be perfect. Release it and move on.
(53:25):
And that was so hard for me. Like man, for me, it releases
something's not perfect. So I did it.
And after that it was just a drug.
I just wanted to release anotherand another, so it's just
starting that it's very. Hard, it's like starting a
business. It's the same thing you're
releasing song is the equivalentof starting the business.
If you don't put it out there, you're never going to know how
it's going to be. Whatever you consider perfect is
(53:47):
not perfect to somebody else. Whatever you consider not
perfect, as perfect as somebody else.
You know what I mean? You let you, you just got to let
those things go and just put them out there.
When you put it out there, dude,let the market tell you.
They tell you it sucks good because now you're go back and
go. So why does it suck?
What do I need to do to perfect it or what do?
At that point, you can start working in the perfections and
eventually you're gonna hit homeruns.
(54:09):
So Mark Corona, thank you for coming on.
Where can everybody find you andfind your socials and the
website? So for me personally,
markcorona.com, obviously you can go to slowjamstand.org or
porterpatrol.com. Not Border Patrol Porter, but
troll.com. Those are the three places you
(54:30):
can find me, my friend. So thanks again for coming on
and have a great weekend everybody.
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