In this episode of The Jimmy Rex Show, Jimmy sits down with Ben Rogers—better known as Dr. Manhattva—an internet thinker known for his viral insights on health, finance, philosophy, and systems. Ben shares his unique journey from Yale and Wall Street to full-time writing and deep inner work, sparked by a health scare that changed the course of his life.
They dive into Ben’s transformation through yoga, somatic therapy, and personal exploration, as well as his sharp takes on the modern economy, identity, and living authentically in a noisy world. His ability to blend ancient wisdom with practical frameworks has earned him a massive following and the respect of major influencers.
If you're interested in personal evolution, breaking free from the system, or just want to hear from someone carving a bold path, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
They dive into Ben’s transformation through yoga, somatic therapy, and personal exploration, as well as his sharp takes on the modern economy, identity, and living authentically in a noisy world. His ability to blend ancient wisdom with practical frameworks has earned him a massive following and the respect of major influencers.
If you're interested in personal evolution, breaking free from the system, or just want to hear from someone carving a bold path, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Jimmy Rex Show.
On Today, on the podcast, we have doctor Manhatta better
known as Ben Rogers, but that is his Twitter handle,
and he is one of my favorite falls on all
of Twitter. He's kind of guy that gets retweeted by
Elon Musk gets over. Has had over one hundred million
impressions already so far this year. But what makes him
special really is just his background in business entrepreneurship. Really
(00:26):
cool story to share and super excited to bring that
to you guys today on the podcast. So without further ado,
let's get to the show with Ben Rogers. Also, today's
episode is brought to you by Bucked Up Protein. You
can get these anywhere that Bucked Up products are sold.
The one that I drank every single morning is the
one hundred calorie twenty five g protein Drink. This is
the Rainbow Candy, unbelievable drinks, super healthy way protein. Give
(00:49):
it a shot if you have not yet. They're also delicious.
So with that, let's get to the show with Ben Rogers. Ben,
good to see you man, Thanks for having me. Yeah,
my favorite type of people to talk to are just
interesting people, and I think one of the most interesting
(01:11):
things you can do in life is to be unapologetic.
And you're a guy that puts himself out there. I've
been watching your Twitter for years and years, and I
didn't realize to actually till pretty recently that you it
was you and you were in Utah from that handle,
and you know, I think there's just something very freeing
to be able to just be yourself and to be
able to put out your honest thoughts and you're not
(01:34):
beholden to anybody. You're truly arefe you can tell that's
kind of the way that you live your life.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, you know what's funny about Twitter is Twitter is
like the nucleus of the sun. It's where all of
the real action happens. Instagram all the other social media
is kind of the big light, like the world event happens.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Or you go on Instagram to find out what it is.
And my new source is definitely Twitter.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's definitely Twitter, right, So that's like the epicenter of
the universe. And even if you weren't really big on Twitter,
if you have a good following with with people that
are paying attention.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It gives you some juice. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's It's kind of weird thing because it just started
with me, Like, I don't know, people bashing my faith.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'd get on there defend it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
People get heated, you know, it's it's a it's just
a different world, and there's a lot of anonymity to it.
For a while, I was anonymous, so.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I got doxed. I'd you get doxed? They had.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I wasn't super anonymous to begin with. My name was
in my handle and I had like a cartoon drawing
of myself. But when I say I got docs, it
was like they're finding out about my businesses. They're posting
pictures of my family, going through my kids, you know,
social media to find pictures of me, posting pictures of
my house.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
They get threatening, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, And when that happens, you're kind of left with
one of two options. Either you hide and you received
and you delete everything, or you lean into it. And
I kind of leaned into it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
How long good did that kind of happen?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It was about three years ago, and uh, I think
I had like a thousand followers. I'm not huge now
I've only got like twenty one thousand.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
No, but you have a good it's not that you
have so many followers, it's that you have a loud voice.
Though you do get a lot of comments and likes
and interaction when you do comment stuff. I think according
to like the.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
My my analytics on Twitter, I think that I'm at
a hundred million impressions this year. Yeah, so and and
and it's weird. I mean you can sit there and
tweet and all of a sudden, Elon Musk is replying
back to you, right, you know, which happened to me.
I'm just driving up to the ranch and you know,
I see you know, message reply Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Some that's not right. I had. I had Gerard Adams
comment I wanted my posts on Instagram. I thought that
was kind of cool. Politicians sorry Butler, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yea, yeah,
that's that's a that's a great movie.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, Attorneys general of you know places, US senators.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Lots of local representatives.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So I think that, like you said, when you're unapologetic
and it's like, well, my name's out there, you see
my face. You know everything about me. You know, people
have gone and looked at you know, done property searches
and you know, does you really have this? And I
and I and when you lean into it, sometimes you
go a little too hard and I'm guilty of that,
and I've tried to be a little more responsible in
(04:27):
what I do, but I don't really hide anything. Yeah,
well I'm I'm the realist guy in the world because
everyone knows.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
About me so well. You really kind of figure yourself
out when you put something out on the Internet and
you start getting attack for it, right, Like, I've been
attacked a couple of times for different things, and COVID
was a big one, I'm sure for you as well.
I was very loud, very early on on COVID, and
you know, I think here's the thing though, when you
know you're right on something, you just know it. It
(04:56):
was like, no, I don't think that I'm And this
wasn't my ego speaking. This was common sense. When you
took off the blinders, it wasn't very hard to see
the common sense all led to this is bullshit. And
every person that I knew that didn't fall for bullshit,
from Tony Robbins to Joe Rogan and everyone in between.
It was like all the no bullshit people saw it
(05:17):
the same way. And so it was like, Okay, I'm
not crazy here, so you know, and you have to
give a lot of credits because there was so much
pressure at that time. I mean, they did a really
good job. I had what more could they have done?
I mean I had best friends yelling at me, best
friends like guys that I've literally introduced them to their
wife or baptized them into the Church of Jesus Christ, literally,
you know, mad at me, and I just had to
(05:39):
stand on like no. And but what the gift in
all of it. Here's I don't know if this happened
for you, but for me, the gift in it was
you really got to find your people. You got to
see like, Okay, these are the people I want to
spend my time with. These are the people I can trust,
not just trust they're not going to try to hurt me,
but trust that they're actually able to see through the bullshit.
And it's funny because the second the Ukraine War broke out,
(05:59):
it was like took me half a nanosecond to realize
what was going on because you're like, it's the same people.
And I had a buddy that was one, you know,
and right now it's it's like same thing. It's like
I hate to say it, but it's like all this
bullshit with the Israel and you're just like, it's not
hard to see it's the same. It's the only thing
that the Republicans and Democrats all agree on is that
(06:19):
we should fight for Israel. It's like, hold on a second.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It's the safest thing you could possibly do is just say,
is this good for America? And if the answer is no,
I don't want any part of it one hundred percent.
And that should be the most reasonable take that a
person could possibly have. And if your job is to
be in charge and place votes on our budget, you know,
and war powers, is this good for America? If it's
(06:45):
not the vote, no, I know that's it. Don't want
I don't want foreign flags in your bio. I don't
want black squares in near bio.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
No. I just just be you, you know, truly, truly be America. First.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I've honestly noticed that people that are really worried about
things are happening on the other side of the planet
are usually the most careless with the things that are
immediately in front of them. Yeah, it's you only have
so much space inside of your psyche, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And it was like this false sense of you know,
I do good for the world. You know, it's like
this way to feel good about yourself when you're full
of shit.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Exactly these things are on the other side of the planet.
I'm really worried about them. That makes me virtuous. You know,
while you neglect your children or.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
You, you know, you are just a shitty person to
think around.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You take advantage of people around you. Those people I've
heard time with.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So yeah, I do really well with people that are
straight up, always have because people And here's one of
the things people, even when young in my career, I
was able to connect to a lot of very successful
older men just in business and life and everything. They
always wanted to kind of be around me. Is how
I sold a lot of houses to a lot of
them early on in my real estate care and people
would asked me, what's the secret, And I said, here's
(07:52):
the secret. Those people are so used to people kissing
their asses, and nobody's better at detecting bullshit than them,
and their biggest is being taken advantage of. So I
come through the front door, I tell them exactly the
thing that's bullshit about them that they already know. They
already know and they freaking love me for it because
they're like, finally, can freaking trust this guy. That was
all I would do. I would just point out the
(08:14):
ridiculous thing they were doing, call them out, and make
a joke about it. Usually and all of a sudden
they're like, Okay, this dude sees me. You know, because
you know, you know when somebody's kissing your ass, and
you know your own bullshit if you don't need when
somebody points it out, you're not mad about it because
you already know. You're like, yeah, all right, I can
trust this guy one hundred percent. I couldn't agree with
you more so you I mean, you've built some empires
in business. I can't even begin to list them all.
(08:35):
So we won't go into all that, but I'd love
to hear a little bit about kind of just your
business philosophies or just kind of what you've done to
be able to build up where you're at. Talking about
old guys you know that are mentors. That was my dad.
I am second generation.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's one of the things people like to, you know,
make fun of me on Twitter, is you know you're
a NEPO baby. There's some truth to that about one
third of my income today is i'd say is as
a result directly of you know, inheritance things like that.
But look, you can be born on third base. Imagine
going into like the first three quarters of a game
(09:10):
were played for you, and you're playing in the finals.
You still have to play that fourth quarter. Yeah, and
almost everybody fails.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, by the third generation, they're all broke, it's all gone.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, you know, so it's really uncommon to have the
next generation do better than the first. And I'm very
grateful for the sacrifices that occurred so I could do that.
But I mean, look, there was a time in my
life where we were bankrupt. We were getting our groceries
paid for from neighbors. My dad was able to hold
(09:39):
on to some good assets. But I mean, I've been
through some difficult times. When when I first got married,
I was twenty three years old, I lived in a
house that was literally the chicken coop of the mansion below.
It was converted into a house. Wow, we were remodeling.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I actually pulled you know, carcasses of chickens out of it.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And you know, and one of my one of my
first jobs, one of my first jobs, like pulling toilets,
working at the apartments, so like multifamily storage units. That
was that was my dad, and so when I was
a teenager, I'd spend the summers working on that. But
then we decided we owned a lot of property and
(10:23):
there were some billboards on there. In three m you know,
big major, major company said we'd like to renew.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Our lease with you.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was on I fifteen, about eighty of South, and
my dad said, well, what if we just put up
our own billboards. They were furious with us put up
our first two billboards. I was about seventeen years old.
My job is to go out and sell billboards, and
I'm so old you'd literally paint.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Them, you know wow.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So so you know, later on when we had our
first vinyls, I'd get up there, I'd install them with
my cousin James, who's still my end of this day.
And then from really eighteen to twenty six, probably my
primary job was billboards. I'd i'd uh, I guess I
(11:12):
own a media company, and it's there is a lot
of power in saying, you know, especially with the digital billboards,
that with a couple of finger presses, I can reach
a million people.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
In the day. You know, yeah, what is it, three
hundred thousand cars a day go past that spot on?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that one's about two Not good for you.
I guess you don't that you do billboards, right.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, I've I bought a boarding the path during the
during the Trump first run against Hillary, I had a
billboard that had a cartoon of both of them and
it said moving to Canada, I'll sell your house about
two hundred and eighty thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I you know, you get a
couple of those, You're that's a lot of pre influence, right, yeah.
So it is kind of like a superpower. So the
billboard industry is piracy.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It is. You're a pirate. There are only so many.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Locations, and it is your job to infiltrate, take you know,
go in there and work leases with people and try
to negotiate, try to get the spacing just right. You
go into with the municipality, work with the state of Utah.
Everyone fights each other. It's terrible, it's awful. So I'm
living in this chicken coop. I'm twenty three years old.
(12:22):
My wife and she's just newly pregnant.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
You know, we've been married.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I get served by guy wearing overalls. Just you know,
that's how service works. They don't announce they're serving you.
And I'm getting sued by a competitor. I won't name
any names, but you can figure it out six point
two million dollars because when they were on a Sunday,
they're pouring footings for a billboard that they didn't have
(12:47):
a permit for and I called the.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Police municipality, got a red tagged and got it stopped. Again.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's a big game of chess, you know, and everybody's
moving pieces and I'm twenty three and my wife just
starts sobbing. I remember I was making fourteen hundred dollars
a month, you know, it were just eking out in
existence barely. And yeah, you just get you learned to
either you you you face it and you deal with it,
(13:16):
or you you just wither and die. So yeah, that
was that was kind of my first fora into you know,
the rough and tumble world of the billboards.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
But and so where did you go from there?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, I my life's always been a little weird, you know,
like when I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I didn't do great in high.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
School and it wasn't grew up in Utah, Yeah, Salt
Lake City, the West time.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I just missed a lot of class.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
And then in my junior year, I got Mono and
my buddy, my cousin, my partner to this day, had
a suburban and put a mattress in the back of it.
And I was so sick and I just wasn't getting better.
And it was like six weeks in and I'm just
sleeping in the car all day going home, and then
my parents get a call from the school district saying
Ben's not even to graduate. He's not showing up to class.
(14:05):
So I started doing those little packets, you know, those
you know, dumb little you know.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh yeah, you know what, I yeah, to try to
get caught up. And we find out real quick they're
going to try to get everybody that.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Graduated, and then you recognize exactly what it is that's happening.
I can graduate high school year early, and I can
get this done in three months. Yeah, okay, And so
I graduated sixteen. Wow, I got a scholarship to the
you for graduating early. And at sixteen years old, I'm
up at the University of Utah, joined a frat. I
(14:37):
don't know what my parents were thinking.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
At sixteen, Yeah, did they initiate you?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, and that's back in the day where that you
could get hazed, like it's not like today.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Where we share your hazy story. What did they do
to hazel? Oh? Well, my kids might listen to this.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't know how much of it I can actually say.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You can help them see how good they have it.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
A lot of it eating terrible things, sleep, deprivation and
humiliation and initiations, weird thing, drinking goldfish, you know, by
a fire, and.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The stuff I used to pay my buddies to do
when I was young, because I had a pretty good job.
I had a meat business, and we'd go out and
just to entertain us, I'd pay him like a hundred
bucks to do dumb ship. Yeah, like you know that's
what I used to eat, a bumblebee and whatever it
might be. I used to do that stuff too.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So yeah, and when that happened, you know, I was
in a band. I was the lead singer in a
band and we did well, you know we we used
to play at the Zephyr Club and the Portocol.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And Harryo's up in Park City and look with Joe's
what was the name of your band.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Thirteenth We opened for the Samples Counting Crows, you know,
we played the We had a night of the Olympics.
Started a riot. Really, my kids call that dad lore.
I'd tell them I started a riot, and they're like,
really dead. Google it, look up Salt Lake Olympics, bud
World riot all of a sudden, MSNBC, CNN.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Riot starts at during the Olympics. Yeah, during the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I remember the riot guys coming through the street with her,
you know, their shields and dispersing the crowd.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
People were breaking in.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So yeah, And I guess I've always just been willing
to try things, you know, and my my businesses now
are really diverse. When I was twenty six, we bought
the old Saint Mark's.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Hospital, I would say we had a partner on that or.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So we sold our old building on Beckstreet for five
hundred thousand bucks and we bought it in two thousand
and eight October of two thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And eight, which if you look St. Mark's Hospital, Yeah, okay,
that was when the market was I was.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I mean, if you were to try to time it,
you and you had one hundred shots, you probably couldn't.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Do a better than that.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It was the low like almost to the the lowest
of the low point of the Great Recession. And I
bought it for nothing, about half of a city block
downtown Salt Lake, for nothing like almost five acres almost
a quarter million square feet of space. I bought it
(17:18):
for like seven bucks a foot. So you're you're a
real estate guy, so you can probably appreciate that. Downside
is is it was an abandoned hospital that had not
been occupied in nineteen eighty one. Okay, So in November
when we've actually closed, and we were in my cousin
James and I. We we go in there and we
(17:43):
go to the top floor and it's there are all
these wings. It's just a sprawling maze. We go into
the old part of the building and there's an area
that's been boarded off.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We've never been in it. We kick the plywood sheets through.
We look down.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's like one hundred and forty feet long, just a
whole wing, and there's snow just sitting in there. Oh mean,
and about twelve inches of snow. And look up and
you see daylight, you know, snowflakes are coming through man
our that our mortgage I remember was about eighteen thousand
a month.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
You were able to get a mortgage on it. Well,
we had our our twenty five percent down. I'm surprised
even then though, you wouldn't believe what we had to
guarantee it with got it. I mean it was it was.
It was to keep it as a hospital, ether to
tear it down or what. Here's here's our policy. Will
it make money? Okay? And if it will, that's a
(18:38):
business we'll get into. So so our our our mortgage
is like eighteen thousand a month, and you know we're
looking at the total rent rolls fourteen thousand and yeah,
I have to go.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Figure out how, you know, wrangle another half million dollars
just to start doing some marine models on it. And
how do you eat a whale? You know, the one
bite at a time, right, you just sit there, put
it on your plate and eat. And I remember Thanksgiving
and Christmas just you know, I remember seeing Holy Night
(19:13):
on Christmas Eve with our electrician and my cousin sitting
there putting all the lights because we had a tent
ready to go on that floor, you know, and we
had it ready within thirty days.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So you were leasing it out to different types of
doctors and things like that. No, no, no, it's just as
business as businesses. The uh so.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
That was our first person, my cousin James, who actually
ended up on the city council. He went they were
tearing down buildings in downtown Salt Lake and he'd go
in there and say, you need a place to be
build it out for you were in parts done.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Any hustle sell hustles.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
This day thirty days we had our first tenant in there.
It was five thousand a month. I remember getting my
first power bill. It was eighteen thousand for a power bill.
Power bill. Oh, we're running old chillers, old boilers, incandescent bulbs.
Just it was not an efficient building. And over time,
(20:03):
I think right now we have ninety two tenants in
the building. Okay, every square foot is sold.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
How many total square feet is it rented out?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It's about one hundred and seventy five thousand square feet.
We have fortune two under companies and.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It we just redid the whole thing, just one literally,
one by at a time. You finish it. You get
that rented and people going like that now right, I
mean they like the older building if it's been reed.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, it's been so long now though, it's been twenty
years since we've been our first space, and now it's like,
probably need to start doing this again.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So we have that, we have multi family housing, we
have what he here's kind of a funny story about that.
We're consuming huge amounts of power, so there's like a
terminus in the building where all the power from all
the wings and all the HVAC terminates, and you know,
really kind of a.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Creepy The buildings was creepy.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
When it was pot I mean there were still hospital
beds and like dangling lights, and.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Back when I flipped tombs, man, we saw some of
the creepiest things you can't imagine. I'm just the creepiest
things you'll ever see.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And there was there was a terminus where you see
all this copper coming in and I'm looking at them like,
how can we make money out of power?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Because we'd gotten rid of the chiller, we gotten rid
of the boiler.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We put in you know, HVAC four stair units so
we could control zones and far more efficient, got rid
of all the you know, when you're in an operating room,
you're using huge amounts of lights. So they'd go flip
on the lights. They're running like two thousand watts. So
that's all gone. And it was like, twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen,
(21:41):
how can I convert all this power that comes here?
And we have all these amps, why don't I run
some bitcoin mining? And spent one hundred thousand dollars bought
a pallet of bitcoin min or something shit, I think
bitcoin is it? Like six thousand dollars for four to
(22:03):
six thousand dollars, and I paid a guy ten percent
to set it up. I called my electrician that'd been
with us to the whole building and said work with him, and.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My dad wasn't super excited about it. He actually said,
we're going to pay.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Back every dime you pulled out of this. So tragically
we spent a lot of our bitcoin reimbursing ourselves, which
we didn't need to do.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it's we all did. I
bought twenty bitcoin one day when they were about six
thousand a pop, and within a couple of years I'd
sold all. But you know, because you doubled and triple
your money, right, you're full? Not too, I was like,
it's twenty four thousand is it really going to go
up from here? But I mean I still kept enough.
I'm still cheering for it. But I'm a huge fan
(22:48):
of bitcoin. Yeah. So yeah, mining we have a on
on our ranch.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
That's the probably the greatest deal of all time was
done by my dad.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
On that ranch. You sold the most expensive house in
the state of Utah right up in that area. Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, So I was looking you up and I was
coming on here, and that's impressive. Yeah, so you know
that area. So our ranch were partners with the Kengar
family and it goes from Camus Oakley, Pioa all the
way to Jordanill. So it's that mountain range.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The original ranch was and this is the year I
was born. Now, I've never made money on the ranch.
The ranch has always actually been an expense, but it's
really it's really a neat thing to own.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
My brother and I own fifty percent, and the Gar
family owns fifty percent, and I think they're in their
fourth fifth generation right now.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So the original ranch was thirteen and a half thousand acres,
so that's roughly the size of.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
The island of Manhattan. Wow. And my dad was thirty
eight years old, nine years old. The ranch I saw
it was twenty one thousand acres, I believe, amazing, so
roughly thirty square miles. Oh shit of land. Hold on,
maybe it was twenty one hundred I think I think
was twenty was sorry, as soon as I said that,
(24:15):
it sounded around twenty one hundred, but you're twenty one,
So it was twenty one and a half time. So
it was six and a half times the size of that. Wow,
so enormous.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
He was in the land title and abstract business, so
he parceled off forty acre parcels. That was the minimum
to build. Okay, put in roads.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Your father did that.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
My dad did this, and within one year he had
sold five thousand acres and had paid off the entire balance.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Wow. Paid one hundred and sixty two dollars and ten
cents an acre for it.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
There was no Deer Valley, there was no park City
ski resort. There was there was no Jordan Nell. I
think Parley's had like two lanes going up and two
lanes going down.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
What year was this, mar nineteen seventy eight? Wow? Okay, yeah,
because park City really off in the early eighties.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Right, Yeah, And so it was just sheep around. So
we were able to keep eight thousand of it. We
had to sell some more because of the financial reversals
that I was mentioning were you know, I ate top
ramen and like Can's chili. I still can't eat Whoppers
to this day because this tastes.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Like back when they were three for three bucks, whoppers
were it was a good you can get a good
meal for ninety percent, and I can't eat them to
this day. I actually love whoppers. It's probably my favorite
fast food restaurant. I could see that. Yeah, they're jar boiled.
It's good. It just tastes just it's one of those
things and a portion of meat to bun. And they
(25:40):
they're a little bit more generous with the vegetables, you know,
I could totally see that. Yeah, good onions. I just
don't don't have a name anymore. I've eaten too many
don't a whole lifetime. It doesn't funny how people these
funny hease. My mom couldnot eat corn flakes because that
was the only cereal she got as a kid, or sorry,
frosted flakes, And I'm like, what could I because actually
said to us that it could have been where she
could have had corn flakes every day because she frosted flakes.
(26:00):
But anyway, I can relate them.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So it was down to eight thousand. We had to
sell someone. We got down to five thousand. We've been
buying back land ever since. So we're back up to
combined I think a little over six thousand acres, which is.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Still a lot done square miles. Yeah, no, it's huge.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So but we do have quarries on there. So we've
got the quarries going. I don't know how much you
want me to talk about. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
What in the quarries? What do you what exactly do
you guys? Stone? Oh, Stone, it's uh, it's the uh
they're using a lot on the crazy. You can just
buy that right by a mountain that has, yeah, a
stone quarry. Here, here's a trick, like, here's a life hack.
You can just do things. It's so true. You can
(26:47):
just do things. It's true. You know. It's it actually
sparked something that's came up that I'm kind of very
interested in because I am so against it. But you know,
Micha Lee just mentioned they're going to start selling off
the national parks. It's like we already know who's going
to buy all that stuff, and they're going to get
a pennies on the dollar. It's not like they're going
to be getting top dollar for this stuff. And it's
pieces of land, like you're describing what your father was
(27:08):
able to buy nineteen seventy eight. And I'm glad that
everyone pushed back. I don't know what your opinion is.
I just yeah, don't think that Mike. Mike's a good friend.
And by the way, through Twitter, I get why he
wants to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
So if I had a magic wand I call Braxton
McCoy and I've told I've told Braxton this, I've had
conversations way before this.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, I'm fascinated with.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And I think the Utah lands should belong to Utah.
You know, Braxton. The thing about Braxton is they belong
to the federal Yeah, about seventy percent of Utah belongs
to federal government. And I understand like exactly where Braxton's
coming from, and I totally respect him. What he did
was masterful. What Braxton's really the the inertia that killed
(27:55):
the bill.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It He's the one that kind of killed that. Okay,
He's a super sharp.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
He's on Twitter's he's definitely worth to follow. But what
I would do this is me, I would make an
effort to take ninety five percent of this land, get
turn back over the state of Utah, and then we
can enshrine it in the constitution that you can't touch it,
so people can't come along and mess with it. And
(28:22):
then you take that five percent and you figure out
the next hundred years what we're going to do with it.
That's a logical approach.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And if you sell it off over one hundred years,
five percent of it and you can put it and
actually get good value for black Rock can't buy it,
you know, homesteads are allowed, by the way. It's so
funny the whole housing crisis, because I was in real
estate for twenty years, I've been in it. I mean,
it's it's not that hard to solve. You don't let
investors buy all the properties. Yeah, it's literally that simple.
There's a huge portion of that. Sure, you literally just
(28:50):
have I mean, yeah, it's obviously much deeper than that,
but that would solve a lot of your problems. The
biggest problem we have is that what that helps with
is keeping the price down, right, We just we produce
a lot of kids. We need more homes. We need
more homes, and we need affordable homes. Correct, and we
don't necessarily need the downtown Salt Lakes stacking people on
top of each I know. Well, they need to incentivize
(29:12):
building smaller a lot home. You need you need more
rose parks, you need more rose parks or more even
like the early days of Harrimen like that.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like get it to be a little
bit diverse in the housing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, you know, you just got to get houses that
people can get into when they you know, graduate college.
And no, I agree, they want to have their wife
stay home and they want to have some kids. Like
you know, find some good three hundred and fifty five
three hundred four sorry, three hundred and fifty thousand, four
hundred thousand dollars house.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I mean, that's a house that you can afford. The
payment still makes sense. The investor tasks as well to
build there can make it. Yeah, pencil, that's what needs
to happen. Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And and so I think what you do is you
take that five percent and you would just figure out
what's going to happen in the next one hundred years,
and then you would say, one hundred years from now,
you can pull out another five percent, and because it's
a shrinking five percent, it gives you like eighteen hundred
years before you reach fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, that sounds you do one hundred year blocks. I mean, look,
the world's going to blow itself up with a way, right,
so if we can at least I mean, any plan
over one hundred years is probably fruitless at this point
in my opinion. But what do you think of that?
I actually think there's no just if you just look
at the speed of technology, the amount of people that
can get their hands on the wrong technology. AI. Who
(30:33):
knows how that's going to factor. I just I can't
see the world surviving another one hundred years. I don't
think there's any way, whether you're religious or not. And
it's whether you believe it's arm again in the second coming,
or if you just believe that we're going to blow
ourselves up and start over again. I'm an optimist. I'm
an optimist. You give us two hundred years?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
No, you know, I think we're right on this edge
of like a singularity. I know, and either Jesus comes
back or humans are going to be reinvented. I agree,
that's part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Maybe that's you know, maybe that's the shift of the
thousand years of peas right exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You know, I don't know what it is, and I
don't claim to know what it is, but the world
is changing faster than anybody can keep up with, including
like Elon Musk or Peter Thiel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I mean, it's it is. It is happening so rapidly.
Just I mean, we're going to have robots in five years,
five years like they already have brothels in other countries
of robot brothels, like it's already happened. But we're going
to have robots that are useful, sure, like they they'll
look just like humans within seven or eight years. I'd
like them to stay looking like robots, but they're not
(31:34):
going to Everybody wants to see a robots. They're gonna
want to see a human. But you're gonna have jobs
getting replaced.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So like in New York when when they started transitioning
over to cars, there were buggy whip makers. They were
mad about the cars. They made a living on buggy whips.
What happened to the people that made the buggy whips.
They found other jobs, of course, but they can't do that.
But it's getting the point at this time where I
think people are just going to be working like ten
hour weeks, you know, a decade from now, and the biggest,
(32:05):
the biggest trouble you're going to have is just being
a useful person, yes, because everything else is going.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
To be when what do people do when they don't
have a cause? They create bullshit. That's when we start
fighting over whether or not boys can go to the
bathroom and target girls bathroom. Here's here's my belief.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Everybody has a built in reserve of opposition they must
have in their life, and if they don't have it,
they're going to create it, create it. And so just
as a human being, you must have this this confluence
of peace and aggression and happiness and sadness. And when
it's all on one side, because life is so good
and so awesome, you create problems. That's the biggest problem
(32:41):
that we face. It's just stupid people creating problems that
don't need to exist. It is like, I don't know,
you nailed it though, I mean that's I saw something
the other day. It was like you spend your entire
life trying to create peace, and then all of a
sudden you get there and it feels a lot like boredom.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah you know I'm facing that right now. Yeah, it's
a little bit. And I spend your time on Twitter.
All of my businesses I have running independent of me.
Right now, You're just on Twitter eight hours a day,
and I'm always like, how the hell does this guy too?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I'm like, man, what am I doing? But that that
dopamine hit, you know, all of a sudden you look
down and wow, this video has been watched one hundred
and twenty five thousand times. Oh yeah, Like and you think, man,
that's like every sports stadium in Utah combined that had
you know, cared about what or at least listened to
(33:33):
what I had to say. It's it's hard to just
say no, I'm not gonna you not do that.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So no, I went through I've gone through different stages
of my social media the last couple months, I've only
posted maybe three or four times total on my Instagram.
I used to post every day, and there was a
time when it was almost twice a day. I was
building something, and it does it gets so dick you
gets sucked into it. And then I kind of got
to this point where I just was like, hold on
a second, am I still doing this because I enjoy it?
(33:58):
Or do I feel I had this like pressure to
put stuff out, and so I said, I'm not doing
that more. So I took a month off and it
was fascinating. Dude. I took that month off, and I'll
be honest, I didn't miss it. I was off TikTok, Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram, and I would still check my dms on Instagram,
but that was it because that's where I sell a
lot of my products and stuff like that. And so
(34:22):
this last month June, I went back on but kind
of limited again and my we even we had my
content meeting this morning with Brett, who you know on
my team, and he's really frustrated with me. He keeps
getting mad at me. He goes, dude, you're not putting
anything out. I don't want to, and I'm like, I'm
not going to put stuff out just to put it out. Now.
I'm reopening my coaching program here in about a month,
and so I'm going to do a blitz for thirty
days where I'm putting out a lots of people understand
(34:43):
what it is we do, and you know, we can
sell our product, but I don't like doing it anymore.
Twitter is still fascinating to me. It's by far the
most fascinating one because it's just you feel like it's tricky.
It's almost like the news. You feel like you're doing
something productive watching the news. Yeah, you feel like it's
productive to be on Twitter. YouTube can kind of have
the same angle if you watch productive things, right, you
(35:04):
look at the truth is YouTube, The truth is it's
probably not. You're probably better off not watching the news.
You're probably better off not being on Twitter. But it
is very easy to justify because you're like, well, I
need to know what's going on in the world. I
need to know the news. I need to know what's happening,
and so you keep you keep watching it. My biggest
problems that I'd love it, you know, I mean, it's oh,
they're brilliant. It's another thing. Yeah, dude, TikTok everything. It's funny.
(35:26):
I have this. I have a few buddies that they'll
like send me random memes all the time, all day long,
and I love them. But here's what the funniest part is.
I'm like, you, guys, you're not even close to getting
me to laugh half as hard as every single video
on my Instagram or on my TikTok algorithm. They know
me so much better than my best friends. TikTok knows
me so much better than my best friends because everything
(35:49):
TikTok shows me, I'm like, how did they know I
wanted to watch that my friends send me memes. I'm like,
that's fine. Like and it's like, TikTok knows me better
than my best friends. Instagram knows what I want to
buy before I want to buy. Totally funny. I joked
around about this shirt that I've wanted to buy for years,
and I've never really joked out loud about just my head.
I've always had to be funny to have it. And
yesterday I popped up on my feet. I'm like, oh,
(36:10):
I'm buying that. It's almost so so crazy. It's not
even that they're listening to my conversations. Is that they're
reading my mind I know, and they just know how
to do it. Wild. The algorithm is undefeated. Man, It's wild.
When I really knew how addicting they make. Twitter and
TikTok especially and even Instagram was again when my buddies
starts sending me stuff and it's not nearly as funny
(36:32):
as me as almost every single thing I pulled follows
as you just keep scrolling, knows me. So for you
being on Twitter, is that a net positive? If you
felt like, oh man, I became famous because I blew
up on a guy, that was that was what was
the one that put you on the map? Mine was
thinking my house back that it was like, that's what
put me on the map. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
But like I said, you can either you know, cry
about it exactly. I actually got into a beef with
some cyclists as cyclists, so I got the first cyber.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Truck in Utah, Okay, and I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
I'm just driving to work and run into some cyclists
and and you know, started running their mouths and I
slowed down.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
And it's in the avenue. I'm just like a couple
of blocks away from this. This was when everyone was
still pro elon right, Yeah, yeah, well it was.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It probably was just when it was starting and uh,
the cyclist had some snarky comment. I turned around and
we have words, and there's two of them and I'm like,
you know whatever, you're starting to drive off.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
The guy spits at me and they.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Run off, and I go drive around the block really
fast and chase them down, and I hell out them
and threaten them, which I shouldn't have done.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Did you filming this? Is that? They filmed it? They
filmed it.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
They have all these anti Tesla people, like one of
the first cyber trucks. Yeah, and this guy threatening to
rip off people's heads and spit down their throat because
they spit at me.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
And and I'm getting all these dms. Is this to you?
Is this you? Oh man? Next thing? I know, I've
been seeing like seven hundred thousand times literally the only
guy in Utah with the cybergy Yeah, like yeah, that's me.
Yeah that that. And then I live in a very
very left leaning part of the world and they're all
sending it to like my bishop, am I state president.
(38:16):
I mean it's like just the fallout was not fun. Yeah,
so again it's like what do you do? Do you
just lean into it? Yeah? I shouldn't have done that.
It's not you know. The kicker was is like we're
just dumb kids.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And when they you know, they're I see they're filming
like that's it. You know, they're going to tell the
story that they want them to know. And one of
them has a beard, another one has a mustache, and.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
It's just like, Okay, by the way, none of us
that One of the problems with the internet is none
of us should be forever known as our worst moment
for sure, just because it happened to get caught on film.
Like I'm glad that things are, you know, recorded as
much as they are today because it just makes us
all be better people, I think. But we've all fallen short,
all of us, you know, I've all had moments where
(39:00):
we shouldn't have yelled at that person or whatever it was.
When I see these things, I just cringe a little bit.
I'm like, oh, I feel bad for the person one
the other day. What was it? It was just like, oh,
they're never gonna be able to live that one down,
you know, And I felt bad for the co What
was that? I can't remember right now, but anyway, it's
I see it.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
All the time, involved a daily thing. I'm actually pretty
forgiving of people, Like I give people a lot of grace,
Like I talk a lot of heat, but a lot
of the people that I've I've been engaged with on
the other side of an argument. We follow each other,
you know, we comment on each other's things, and so
it's well, let me ask you this, how you decide
to take it?
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Has this been your experience? Well, minus you, yours was
an interaction that was caused by something. But I'll say
this because I've had people like that, whatever they don't
like me online. I've never had a negative interaction in person,
not one because of who I am online, like because
I have this podcast, because of what I put out
on my Instagram stories and stuff like that. I've never
had a single person come up to me and be
(39:56):
rude to me in person.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I've had people I think that recognize me in public
and I might get a side eye, but I've never
had a public beef with someone over right, You're like,
it's fat.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I mean, it could happen, totally could I'm sure there's
people where it. Does you see it?
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I think you and I see things very in a
very similar manner politically, Yes we do. And you could
see how people when millions of people see.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Something, or you go after someone and you know, well,
I've had people mad at me during COVID. But it
was because it was happening there in the moment, not
because of things I'd said online. Right, Like, I've had
people that yelled at me for not wearing a mask.
I had people wanting to fight me because I, you know, again,
wouldn't put my mask on, wouldn't put a mask on
or whatever. But that's the kind of things that it
had nothing to do with what I was putting out.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
People still mad at me about stuff like that. I
really want to well, I really went after the left
leaning politicians. I'm blocked by people like Senator blowing and
me blowing up there. I make Yeah, I made fun
of people in the masks. My kids were in Salt
Lake City School District and I had to move them
up to Davis County because.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Saw City wouldn't open up. Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And I told my kids that you don't have to
wear your masks. My son at East, his life was
very hard.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
He was the only kid in the whole school that
wouldn't wear a mask. Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And I said, look, if they call and they're trying
to get you in trouble, they're going to hear about
it from me.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Tell them to arrest you. So go ahead, arrest me.
I was willing to. I was like, I'm willing to
fall on this sort he.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I told him, I said, look if And it got
all the way to the principal and he was trying
to go into a game and she was borrying him.
You can't go in there without a mask on. And
I gave the ultimatum that I told him to make
either you arrest me or he'd let me in. Those
are the two options. And she but grudgingly shoved him
(41:50):
into the room and the girls wouldn't talk to him,
and you know, everyone accused him of being a grandma killer.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
He feels pretty good to be right, doesn't it. It
only comes out and says, man, you know something. Actually,
I actually was impressed by how many people admitted they
were wrong. Some I have been impressed with that. My
best friends, I speak of the ones that were mad
at me, They all apologized. They all admitted I was right.
And by the way, guess what now when I speak
up about things, they listen. Yeah, they're like, Jimmy clearly
(42:18):
is paying attention to something that I'm not. His brain
works in a way that Mike doesn't. I think a
lot of times you can just see things totally.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Another quote my dad would say he had on his
desk said, genius is the ability to see what others cannot.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
So it's concise and it's short, but I think it's true.
It's not it's not necessarily an IQ thing. No, it's
just the ability to see things.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And I think it's just I just have a contrary
in mind. I've always been like, what isn't true about this?
What if that's not true? Like? Should is this? Do
I believe this person? Like ever since I was a kid,
I remember my teacher saying things and me calling him out,
like thinking that's not accurate. You know, it's a second
grader and everybody does that, right, you know what I mean? Though,
It's like and the point where I'm wondering, like if
(43:00):
the news is this fake? How fake is history? Oh? Dude?
You know? So I you start becoming a little bit
of a wacko. Well, and you have to be careful
because here's one thing I think they do is they
try to make you sound crazy, because if you start
looking deep enough, I can make an argument that we
shouldn't have been in World War Two pretty easily, pretty easily.
But the point is if you go too far, then
(43:21):
everyone just shuts you out or they kind of like
they're able to put you in the wacko. If I
get by myself, say like most of the things, like
my DoD daily, I get stuff from people. They're sending
me stuff and I'm like, bro, we're talking about first
grade and I'm getting my doctor ate right now. You
know what I mean. It's like, I'm so passed looking
at that thing, but congrats, welcome to the game. I'm
glad you can't see this. But I just always say like, yep, yeah,
(43:45):
it's you know, it's one of those things about life
that is kind of I give a lot of empathy
to them people that didn't see it, because the messaging
was so ruthless against it that in less. I think
it is just like your mind just to sees things
or another. Either you have more of a oh, I'm
going to go with what I'm supposed to do here
quote unquote right, or you go, wait, what's actually right here?
(44:08):
You know? And it's like the person that gives their
kid what they ask for because the kid wants it
because they love their child, versus no, I'm not going
to give my kid that because I love him and
he doesn't need that right now. What he needs is
this that maybe hurts right now, right And it's just
different views it all. I think everybody And that was
the part where I got to with COVID. It was like,
(44:29):
I think everybody had the same intention of just helping others. Well,
here's where I here's the people I got mad at.
You got to see the cocksuckers and I'm going to
use that word that had never had power in their
life and this was the first time, and they freaking
milked every sense of it they could. And screw all
those people. To this day, the Delta flight attendants can
(44:51):
kiss my ass like I literally drop crumbs on the
floor on purpose every time I go Delta flight because
they were the biggest bitches. I mean, no, I'm serious,
I was. They were awful. They were so brutally awful.
I hate them and this is me sharing this for
the first time publicly, but they can kiss my ass.
I literally I'd make a mess every flight now guaranteed
(45:11):
on purpose.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
We hit and it was at its peak and Ronda
Santists went and started opening up things in Florida.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I went and bought a house in Florida. I bought
ten houses in Florida during COVID, but I for my
own personal life, Yeah, enjoyment, Yeah, I still have to
this day. And we went down and we went to
the parks.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
We had them all to ourselves because everyone was too
afraid to go because Ronda Santa they were still up
and made them open.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
You remember that. Yeah, yeah with Disney O, Yeah, you're
opening the whole tax and they're like, no, we can't
do it safely.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
It's like you're going to open up. So so it
went and opened up, and we had to wear stupid
little masks and we'd pull it down that Disney people
would yell at you. But we had the whole park
to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I think my my my two oldest sons rode Space
Mountain eleven times in a row as a walk on.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Just it's amazing, not the whole park to ourselves. So yeah,
I'm it's a lot of it isn't just being contrariant.
It's just do you believe in objective reality? Like when
you see something, how much convincing and propaganda does it
take for you to say, I don't believe my eyes
and ninety nine percent of the population trusts other authority
(46:17):
over the own inputs that are coming into their own mind.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, and it's probably good that we don't have a
bunch of us. Yeah, you've got to have you need
enough of it. But it's maybe one out of hundred
people that really you know.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
So, how do you help somebody? I guess see it
easier because I mean what you're I think a lot
of it you try to do on Twitter is try
to wake people up. You try to help people see it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Just try to live an objective reality and all evidence
eventually points to objective.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Reality, right, and do so with confidence. Just you have
to truly know yourself. You have to. You have to
really know yourself because when they come.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Out, it's okay to have doubt, but it's also imperative
that you say, no, this is true and this is not.
And I'm open to other data that will help me
change my mind. But based on the data that I have,
this is subjective. Well I'll give you one just from
day on Twitter. This is a typical Twitter interaction. This
is kind of how you have to see it. So
(47:15):
this whole thing with Bue's quarterback Jake hpt's laugh. Right,
poor guy gets accused of rape.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, and by the way, I've had a dozen buddies
get falsely accused of rape. A dozen people. I know
it's a serious thing. Well, and usually girls are bitter
at the guy. He ended up ghosting whatever. That's a
big time And yes, it does happen, and I'm not dominded. Sure,
but we can talk about this part of it too, right.
I mean I interviewed a guy on my podcast He
to Day. He was a couple of months ago. He
was Clayton Eckert. He was the bachelor about three seasons ago,
(47:43):
and he got falsely accused of some things. In anyway,
the point is that he ended up winning the lawsuit
and everything against herm But the point is is, so
he gets this accusation, and as soon as it happened,
the only thing I said was, well, he's done at
BYU because his best out. I guarantee he had sex
with the girl because she got a rape kit. So
the second I heard she went and got a rape kit,
(48:03):
I went, well, there's DNA, so he has to admit
to having sex with her. So he's gone. So there's
a day one. I was like seven games minimum. Yes, yeah,
so I'm okay, well on her code, he's going to
be gone. But I said, we have to wait for
more evidence to see if he actually raped it. Right.
I was open to the idea he might have. It
was like, let's see, I don't really Carr either way.
I don't think he's that great of a quarterback. So
I didn't really care if he stayed to BU. I
(48:24):
cared that like the right happitization, yes, and so, but
I sat on it because I'm like, I don't want
to say anything because nobody knows yet. We got to
wait till the court transcript and the text and all
that stuff come out. Every time the texts come out,
you can tell what happened. Trevor Bauer. The girl was
trying to get money. She literally said, how do I
rob this guy? And she said literally wrote out the
playbook of what she was doing. What happened today one
(48:45):
hundred percent, So it comes out, the text come out.
She was flirting with him. Months later. You don't flirt
with a guy you thought raped you. So it's like, okay,
she obviously wasn't raped. So today, you know, somebody said, like,
what are you saying that they make of this. I said, well,
it's pretty obvious based on the text that she wasn't raped,
and some guys comes back me on Twitter and bo
you fan. He's like, oh, easy to speak up now.
(49:05):
I'm like, dude, I couldn't speak up. I didn't have
the facts. But once you have the facts and you
know what happens, then you can make your point. I
didn't change my mind, but I made my mind. It's
the information changed.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
This up and so many times that automatically I have
my my presumed biases built in, and I think if
you have again, if you have any life experience, you're
willing to change your position based on new data. But
I'm like, oh, it's she wants to get paid. I'm
a skeptic. I'm I openly admit that. I also let
(49:40):
it totally open to the possibility it could have been right.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Well, the fact that they didn't have a criminal case,
and that's pretty tailing. Two years later on, like there
was enough things where you're like, oh, this doesn't smell right.
The smell test didn't work. But you also don't want
to diminish a girl having her being believed. If it
is to be believed and so I didn't say it anything.
I just kind of was like, I wanted to see
what happens. I talk about a lot of it this second.
(50:04):
Coming through this second, I read the text messages and
I was like, oh, I know exactly what the hell happened.
I go, this is bullshit. Now I'll speak up. Yeah,
like well if you if you look at my feed,
I didn't say anything, Yeah, well, because you didn't know
there was an information that we didn't have yet and
the consequences being wrong or so bad, especially on that one. Yeah,
don't you.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Don't play around with sexual abuse allegations. No, I mean
that's that's stuff that's.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Like, well, it's like one of the things, you know.
I only speak on things that I'm well versed on
because I want to be able to talk. Like I
saw a beautiful exchange of other day when I don't
know if you saw when Bernie was on Joe Rogan.
I was listening to that too, and amazing because Bernie
starts with this bullshit about global warming and Joe puts
the charts up and just demolishes Jamie to bring them
the charts like there's a lot of money in it.
(50:48):
It looks like, yeah, yeah, and then I don't know
about that, and then then he had he got him
another one bad. At the end, he was talking about
how Trump paid six hundred million dollars for something, and
he's like, well, didn't.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Kamala one point five million in the first spent two
hundred five million dollars or something like that on campaigning
for him?
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yes, He's like yeah, but I mean, how much did
you know he got? Straight up? Because Kamala spent it's
one point five billion? How many people did that come from?
This is why it's a problem. It was beautiful. It
was just you need to have don't speak out on
things unless you do have the data. But when you
have the data, like you said, just be sure. If
you're like, look like I know myself, I know that
(51:30):
I'm right on this, and I'm just going to own this.
And when you do that, it's funny because most people
are so unsure of themselves and they're just trying to
pick the recent fight that they heard. They don't even
have any information. They just the most recent thing that
they want to get mad about.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
But the thing you can do is you can be
that strong person. You know, if you're a reliable source
of information and you historically have been able to like
count the cards. People start listening to it, and it
imbues you with confidence and it abused them with confidence
in you. And that's you know, people want to be
an influencer. Being an influencer is not it. It's like
(52:07):
I'm not selling a product. I'm not trying to you know,
push any agendas. It's just here's my position in the universe.
Here are my opinions on things, and you can agree
and disagree on them.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Great. Well, you do a great job, man. I love
following you. I've again, I've seen your stuff for years
and years, and it's just you just know the people
on Twitter. You know which people get it, and you
know which ones aren't bought. I mean there's a lot
of Republican influencers on Twitter that are completely bought. You
can tell that. It's horrible. It's like that that's been
really disappointed. That's the thing that's going to destroy social media. Yeah,
(52:42):
we're entering into an era.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
So I saw this this photo and apparently it's a
real photo of a guy proposing to his girlfriend in
front of a tornado.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Okay, beautiful photo. First thing that pops into my head.
Is this is AI?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
It's like, no, this, here's the story. Here the people,
this is what actually happened. Are My kids are going
to be the last generation's ever going to remember when
you knew something was real and something wasn't I know,
So that this is brave new world stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Now, the thing I'm the most scared about is the
deep fakes. They're already. You already can call somebody with
the voice of their son or daughter and start asking
them for money.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
People are gonna be harvesting this to get my voice
and my mannerisms and my my facial expressions.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
And yeah, we'll get to a point pretty soon. We're
gonna have to have code words, and it's gonna have
to be stuff you don't share. I don't know. It's
gonna be fascinating, and it's close. It's it's way close
to it's already happening. People are getting scammed left and
right right now by AI already, and it can happen
to any of us. So I mean, it can happen
to you and me too. That's getting that. I got
(53:45):
scammed when the Internet first came out. I got scammed
everyone everyone met the Nigerian friends. Yeah, I mean mine
was if you're old on, dude, mine sucked. I was
trying to help my brother in his house and he
was so stressed. He was newly wet and I just
really wanted to help him. And this guy I was
gonna sit. He sent the He sent a money order
check or whatever it was, and I looked legit, I
(54:06):
cash it. The money goes in the account, and so
he was like, but he over he put too much
money in. Have you ever heard of that one? Send
him some money back. It was the first time i'd
heard of it. I mean, I said stupid. Oh yeah,
I didn't know checks. I got a crash course that day.
What I said, family is going to be eight hundred bucks. Well,
it wasn't even that. It was like, hey, I need
(54:26):
to get this money for this, And I don't know
what the hell I was thinking. I was just so
desperate to help my brother that I overlooked obvious things
in front of me. But well, dude, if people want
to follow you on Twitter, where do we send him
your great fall manhatta m A n h A T
t v A. What does that mean? By the way. Okay,
so when I got doxed.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
I was, and I lost my account pre elon and
I uh, I was the Bodhis Offa. Bodhis Offa and
Buddhism is a person who could move on to Nirvana,
but they choose to stay behind.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
They're enlightened to enlighten mankind. I love that.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
It was just a troll, perfect, total troll, perf. So
I was the body Zappa. When I got banned and
I came up with the burner, it was I just
googled who's the most powerful uh superhero and it was
doctor Manhattan. So I just put the va from Bodhi
zapA on the back end of it and just Manhattan,
doctor Manhatta. I'm not a doctor, I'm a college dropout,
(55:23):
but it says doctor Manhatta as a result of that,
so it's just Manhatta.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I love it. Ben Well, thank you again for coming
on and look forward to many more times. Thanks for
having me. I love to be back. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you again for listening to the Jimmy
Rex Show. And if you liked what you heard, please
like and subscribe. It really helps me to get better guests,
to be able to get the type of people on
this podcast. It's going to make it the most interesting. Also,
wanted to everybody about my podcast studio, The Rookery Studios,
(55:50):
now available in Salt Lake City and or in Utah.
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
own podcast, we take all of the guests, work out
of it for you and make it so simple. All
you do is you come in, you sit down, you talk,
and leave. We record it, edit it, even post it
for you. If interested in doing your own podcast, visit
our Instagram and send us a dmt Rookery Studios, or
(56:13):
go to our website, therookriyestudios dot com
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Jimmy Rex Show.
On Today, on the podcast, we have doctor Manhatta better
known as Ben Rogers, but that is his Twitter handle,
and he is one of my favorite falls on all
of Twitter. He's kind of guy that gets retweeted by
Elon Musk gets over. Has had over one hundred million
impressions already so far this year. But what makes him
special really is just his background in business entrepreneurship. Really
(00:26):
cool story to share and super excited to bring that
to you guys today on the podcast. So without further ado,
let's get to the show with Ben Rogers. Also, today's
episode is brought to you by Bucked Up Protein. You
can get these anywhere that Bucked Up products are sold.
The one that I drank every single morning is the
one hundred calorie twenty five g protein Drink. This is
the Rainbow Candy, unbelievable drinks, super healthy way protein. Give
(00:49):
it a shot if you have not yet. They're also delicious.
So with that, let's get to the show with Ben Rogers. Ben,
good to see you man, Thanks for having me. Yeah,
my favorite type of people to talk to are just
interesting people, and I think one of the most interesting
(01:11):
things you can do in life is to be unapologetic.
And you're a guy that puts himself out there. I've
been watching your Twitter for years and years, and I
didn't realize to actually till pretty recently that you it
was you and you were in Utah from that handle,
and you know, I think there's just something very freeing
to be able to just be yourself and to be
able to put out your honest thoughts and you're not
(01:34):
beholden to anybody. You're truly arefe you can tell that's
kind of the way that you live your life.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, you know what's funny about Twitter is Twitter is
like the nucleus of the sun. It's where all of
the real action happens. Instagram all the other social media
is kind of the big light, like the world event happens.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Or you go on Instagram to find out what it is.
And my new source is definitely Twitter.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's definitely Twitter, right, So that's like the epicenter of
the universe. And even if you weren't really big on Twitter,
if you have a good following with with people that
are paying attention.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It gives you some juice. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's It's kind of weird thing because it just started
with me, Like, I don't know, people bashing my faith.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I'd get on there defend it.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
People get heated, you know, it's it's a it's just
a different world, and there's a lot of anonymity to it.
For a while, I was anonymous, so.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I got doxed. I'd you get doxed? They had.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I wasn't super anonymous to begin with. My name was
in my handle and I had like a cartoon drawing
of myself. But when I say I got docs, it
was like they're finding out about my businesses. They're posting
pictures of my family, going through my kids, you know,
social media to find pictures of me, posting pictures of
my house.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
They get threatening, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, And when that happens, you're kind of left with
one of two options. Either you hide and you received
and you delete everything, or you lean into it. And
I kind of leaned into it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
How long good did that kind of happen?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It was about three years ago, and uh, I think
I had like a thousand followers. I'm not huge now
I've only got like twenty one thousand.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
No, but you have a good it's not that you
have so many followers, it's that you have a loud voice.
Though you do get a lot of comments and likes
and interaction when you do comment stuff. I think according
to like the.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
My my analytics on Twitter, I think that I'm at
a hundred million impressions this year. Yeah, so and and
and it's weird. I mean you can sit there and
tweet and all of a sudden, Elon Musk is replying
back to you, right, you know, which happened to me.
I'm just driving up to the ranch and you know,
I see you know, message reply Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Some that's not right. I had. I had Gerard Adams
comment I wanted my posts on Instagram. I thought that
was kind of cool. Politicians sorry Butler, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yea, yeah,
that's that's a that's a great movie.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, Attorneys general of you know places, US senators.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Lots of local representatives.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So I think that, like you said, when you're unapologetic
and it's like, well, my name's out there, you see
my face. You know everything about me. You know, people
have gone and looked at you know, done property searches
and you know, does you really have this? And I
and I and when you lean into it, sometimes you
go a little too hard and I'm guilty of that,
and I've tried to be a little more responsible in
(04:27):
what I do, but I don't really hide anything. Yeah,
well I'm I'm the realist guy in the world because
everyone knows.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
About me so well. You really kind of figure yourself
out when you put something out on the Internet and
you start getting attack for it, right, Like, I've been
attacked a couple of times for different things, and COVID
was a big one, I'm sure for you as well.
I was very loud, very early on on COVID, and
you know, I think here's the thing though, when you
know you're right on something, you just know it. It
(04:56):
was like, no, I don't think that I'm And this
wasn't my ego speaking. This was common sense. When you
took off the blinders, it wasn't very hard to see
the common sense all led to this is bullshit. And
every person that I knew that didn't fall for bullshit,
from Tony Robbins to Joe Rogan and everyone in between.
It was like all the no bullshit people saw it
(05:17):
the same way. And so it was like, Okay, I'm
not crazy here, so you know, and you have to
give a lot of credits because there was so much
pressure at that time. I mean, they did a really
good job. I had what more could they have done?
I mean I had best friends yelling at me, best
friends like guys that I've literally introduced them to their
wife or baptized them into the Church of Jesus Christ, literally,
you know, mad at me, and I just had to
(05:39):
stand on like no. And but what the gift in
all of it. Here's I don't know if this happened
for you, but for me, the gift in it was
you really got to find your people. You got to
see like, Okay, these are the people I want to
spend my time with. These are the people I can trust,
not just trust they're not going to try to hurt me,
but trust that they're actually able to see through the bullshit.
And it's funny because the second the Ukraine War broke out,
(05:59):
it was like took me half a nanosecond to realize
what was going on because you're like, it's the same people.
And I had a buddy that was one, you know,
and right now it's it's like same thing. It's like
I hate to say it, but it's like all this
bullshit with the Israel and you're just like, it's not
hard to see it's the same. It's the only thing
that the Republicans and Democrats all agree on is that
(06:19):
we should fight for Israel. It's like, hold on a second.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
It's the safest thing you could possibly do is just say,
is this good for America? And if the answer is no,
I don't want any part of it one hundred percent.
And that should be the most reasonable take that a
person could possibly have. And if your job is to
be in charge and place votes on our budget, you know,
and war powers, is this good for America? If it's
(06:45):
not the vote, no, I know that's it. Don't want
I don't want foreign flags in your bio. I don't
want black squares in near bio.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
No. I just just be you, you know, truly, truly be America. First.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I've honestly noticed that people that are really worried about
things are happening on the other side of the planet
are usually the most careless with the things that are
immediately in front of them. Yeah, it's you only have
so much space inside of your psyche, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And it was like this false sense of you know,
I do good for the world. You know, it's like
this way to feel good about yourself when you're full
of shit.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Exactly these things are on the other side of the planet.
I'm really worried about them. That makes me virtuous. You know,
while you neglect your children or.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
You, you know, you are just a shitty person to
think around.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You take advantage of people around you. Those people I've
heard time with.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So yeah, I do really well with people that are
straight up, always have because people And here's one of
the things people, even when young in my career, I
was able to connect to a lot of very successful
older men just in business and life and everything. They
always wanted to kind of be around me. Is how
I sold a lot of houses to a lot of
them early on in my real estate care and people
would asked me, what's the secret, And I said, here's
(07:52):
the secret. Those people are so used to people kissing
their asses, and nobody's better at detecting bullshit than them,
and their biggest is being taken advantage of. So I
come through the front door, I tell them exactly the
thing that's bullshit about them that they already know. They
already know and they freaking love me for it because
they're like, finally, can freaking trust this guy. That was
all I would do. I would just point out the
(08:14):
ridiculous thing they were doing, call them out, and make
a joke about it. Usually and all of a sudden
they're like, Okay, this dude sees me. You know, because
you know, you know when somebody's kissing your ass, and
you know your own bullshit if you don't need when
somebody points it out, you're not mad about it because
you already know. You're like, yeah, all right, I can
trust this guy one hundred percent. I couldn't agree with
you more so you I mean, you've built some empires
in business. I can't even begin to list them all.
(08:35):
So we won't go into all that, but I'd love
to hear a little bit about kind of just your
business philosophies or just kind of what you've done to
be able to build up where you're at. Talking about
old guys you know that are mentors. That was my dad.
I am second generation.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's one of the things people like to, you know,
make fun of me on Twitter, is you know you're
a NEPO baby. There's some truth to that about one
third of my income today is i'd say is as
a result directly of you know, inheritance things like that.
But look, you can be born on third base. Imagine
going into like the first three quarters of a game
(09:10):
were played for you, and you're playing in the finals.
You still have to play that fourth quarter. Yeah, and
almost everybody fails.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Well, by the third generation, they're all broke, it's all gone.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, you know, so it's really uncommon to have the
next generation do better than the first. And I'm very
grateful for the sacrifices that occurred so I could do that.
But I mean, look, there was a time in my
life where we were bankrupt. We were getting our groceries
paid for from neighbors. My dad was able to hold
(09:39):
on to some good assets. But I mean, I've been
through some difficult times. When when I first got married,
I was twenty three years old, I lived in a
house that was literally the chicken coop of the mansion below.
It was converted into a house. Wow, we were remodeling.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I actually pulled you know, carcasses of chickens out of it.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And you know, and one of my one of my
first jobs, one of my first jobs, like pulling toilets,
working at the apartments, so like multifamily storage units. That
was that was my dad, and so when I was
a teenager, I'd spend the summers working on that. But
then we decided we owned a lot of property and
(10:23):
there were some billboards on there. In three m you know,
big major, major company said we'd like to renew.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Our lease with you.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It was on I fifteen, about eighty of South, and
my dad said, well, what if we just put up
our own billboards. They were furious with us put up
our first two billboards. I was about seventeen years old.
My job is to go out and sell billboards, and
I'm so old you'd literally paint.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Them, you know wow.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
So so you know, later on when we had our
first vinyls, I'd get up there, I'd install them with
my cousin James, who's still my end of this day.
And then from really eighteen to twenty six, probably my
primary job was billboards. I'd i'd uh, I guess I
(11:12):
own a media company, and it's there is a lot
of power in saying, you know, especially with the digital billboards,
that with a couple of finger presses, I can reach
a million people.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
In the day. You know, yeah, what is it, three
hundred thousand cars a day go past that spot on?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that one's about two Not good for you.
I guess you don't that you do billboards, right.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, I've I bought a boarding the path during the
during the Trump first run against Hillary, I had a
billboard that had a cartoon of both of them and
it said moving to Canada, I'll sell your house about
two hundred and eighty thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I you know, you get a
couple of those, You're that's a lot of pre influence, right, yeah.
So it is kind of like a superpower. So the
billboard industry is piracy.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It is. You're a pirate. There are only so many.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Locations, and it is your job to infiltrate, take you know,
go in there and work leases with people and try
to negotiate, try to get the spacing just right. You
go into with the municipality, work with the state of Utah.
Everyone fights each other. It's terrible, it's awful. So I'm
living in this chicken coop. I'm twenty three years old.
(12:22):
My wife and she's just newly pregnant.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
You know, we've been married.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I get served by guy wearing overalls. Just you know,
that's how service works. They don't announce they're serving you.
And I'm getting sued by a competitor. I won't name
any names, but you can figure it out six point
two million dollars because when they were on a Sunday,
they're pouring footings for a billboard that they didn't have
(12:47):
a permit for and I called the.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Police municipality, got a red tagged and got it stopped. Again.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's a big game of chess, you know, and everybody's
moving pieces and I'm twenty three and my wife just
starts sobbing. I remember I was making fourteen hundred dollars
a month, you know, it were just eking out in
existence barely. And yeah, you just get you learned to
either you you you face it and you deal with it,
(13:16):
or you you just wither and die. So yeah, that
was that was kind of my first fora into you know,
the rough and tumble world of the billboards.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
But and so where did you go from there?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Well, I my life's always been a little weird, you know,
like when I was in high school.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I didn't do great in high.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
School and it wasn't grew up in Utah, Yeah, Salt
Lake City, the West time.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I just missed a lot of class.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
And then in my junior year, I got Mono and
my buddy, my cousin, my partner to this day, had
a suburban and put a mattress in the back of it.
And I was so sick and I just wasn't getting better.
And it was like six weeks in and I'm just
sleeping in the car all day going home, and then
my parents get a call from the school district saying
Ben's not even to graduate. He's not showing up to class.
(14:05):
So I started doing those little packets, you know, those
you know, dumb little you know.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Oh yeah, you know what, I yeah, to try to
get caught up. And we find out real quick they're
going to try to get everybody that.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Graduated, and then you recognize exactly what it is that's happening.
I can graduate high school year early, and I can
get this done in three months. Yeah, okay, And so
I graduated sixteen. Wow, I got a scholarship to the
you for graduating early. And at sixteen years old, I'm
up at the University of Utah, joined a frat. I
(14:37):
don't know what my parents were thinking.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
At sixteen, Yeah, did they initiate you?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, and that's back in the day where that you
could get hazed, like it's not like today.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Where we share your hazy story. What did they do
to hazel? Oh? Well, my kids might listen to this.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't know how much of it I can actually say.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You can help them see how good they have it.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
A lot of it eating terrible things, sleep, deprivation and
humiliation and initiations, weird thing, drinking goldfish, you know, by
a fire, and.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
The stuff I used to pay my buddies to do
when I was young, because I had a pretty good job.
I had a meat business, and we'd go out and
just to entertain us, I'd pay him like a hundred
bucks to do dumb ship. Yeah, like you know that's
what I used to eat, a bumblebee and whatever it
might be. I used to do that stuff too.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So yeah, and when that happened, you know, I was
in a band. I was the lead singer in a
band and we did well, you know we we used
to play at the Zephyr Club and the Portocol.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And Harryo's up in Park City and look with Joe's
what was the name of your band.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Thirteenth We opened for the Samples Counting Crows, you know,
we played the We had a night of the Olympics.
Started a riot. Really, my kids call that dad lore.
I'd tell them I started a riot, and they're like,
really dead. Google it, look up Salt Lake Olympics, bud
World riot all of a sudden, MSNBC, CNN.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Riot starts at during the Olympics. Yeah, during the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I remember the riot guys coming through the street with her,
you know, their shields and dispersing the crowd.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
People were breaking in.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So yeah, And I guess I've always just been willing
to try things, you know, and my my businesses now
are really diverse. When I was twenty six, we bought
the old Saint Mark's.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Hospital, I would say we had a partner on that or.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So we sold our old building on Beckstreet for five
hundred thousand bucks and we bought it in two thousand
and eight October of two thousand.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And eight, which if you look St. Mark's Hospital, Yeah, okay,
that was when the market was I was.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I mean, if you were to try to time it,
you and you had one hundred shots, you probably couldn't.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Do a better than that.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It was the low like almost to the the lowest
of the low point of the Great Recession. And I
bought it for nothing, about half of a city block
downtown Salt Lake, for nothing like almost five acres almost
a quarter million square feet of space. I bought it
(17:18):
for like seven bucks a foot. So you're you're a
real estate guy, so you can probably appreciate that. Downside
is is it was an abandoned hospital that had not
been occupied in nineteen eighty one. Okay, So in November
when we've actually closed, and we were in my cousin
James and I. We we go in there and we
(17:43):
go to the top floor and it's there are all
these wings. It's just a sprawling maze. We go into
the old part of the building and there's an area
that's been boarded off.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We've never been in it. We kick the plywood sheets through.
We look down.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
It's like one hundred and forty feet long, just a
whole wing, and there's snow just sitting in there. Oh mean,
and about twelve inches of snow. And look up and
you see daylight, you know, snowflakes are coming through man
our that our mortgage I remember was about eighteen thousand
a month.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
You were able to get a mortgage on it. Well,
we had our our twenty five percent down. I'm surprised
even then though, you wouldn't believe what we had to
guarantee it with got it. I mean it was it was.
It was to keep it as a hospital, ether to
tear it down or what. Here's here's our policy. Will
it make money? Okay? And if it will, that's a
(18:38):
business we'll get into. So so our our our mortgage
is like eighteen thousand a month, and you know we're
looking at the total rent rolls fourteen thousand and yeah,
I have to go.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Figure out how, you know, wrangle another half million dollars
just to start doing some marine models on it. And
how do you eat a whale? You know, the one
bite at a time, right, you just sit there, put
it on your plate and eat. And I remember Thanksgiving
and Christmas just you know, I remember seeing Holy Night
(19:13):
on Christmas Eve with our electrician and my cousin sitting
there putting all the lights because we had a tent
ready to go on that floor, you know, and we
had it ready within thirty days.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So you were leasing it out to different types of
doctors and things like that. No, no, no, it's just as
business as businesses. The uh so.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
That was our first person, my cousin James, who actually
ended up on the city council. He went they were
tearing down buildings in downtown Salt Lake and he'd go
in there and say, you need a place to be
build it out for you were in parts done.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Any hustle sell hustles.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
This day thirty days we had our first tenant in there.
It was five thousand a month. I remember getting my
first power bill. It was eighteen thousand for a power bill.
Power bill. Oh, we're running old chillers, old boilers, incandescent bulbs.
Just it was not an efficient building. And over time,
(20:03):
I think right now we have ninety two tenants in
the building. Okay, every square foot is sold.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
How many total square feet is it rented out?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It's about one hundred and seventy five thousand square feet.
We have fortune two under companies and.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It we just redid the whole thing, just one literally,
one by at a time. You finish it. You get
that rented and people going like that now right, I
mean they like the older building if it's been reed.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, it's been so long now though, it's been twenty
years since we've been our first space, and now it's like,
probably need to start doing this again.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So we have that, we have multi family housing, we
have what he here's kind of a funny story about that.
We're consuming huge amounts of power, so there's like a
terminus in the building where all the power from all
the wings and all the HVAC terminates, and you know,
really kind of a.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Creepy The buildings was creepy.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
When it was pot I mean there were still hospital
beds and like dangling lights, and.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Back when I flipped tombs, man, we saw some of
the creepiest things you can't imagine. I'm just the creepiest
things you'll ever see.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And there was there was a terminus where you see
all this copper coming in and I'm looking at them like,
how can we make money out of power?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Because we'd gotten rid of the chiller, we gotten rid
of the boiler.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We put in you know, HVAC four stair units so
we could control zones and far more efficient, got rid
of all the you know, when you're in an operating room,
you're using huge amounts of lights. So they'd go flip
on the lights. They're running like two thousand watts. So
that's all gone. And it was like, twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen,
(21:41):
how can I convert all this power that comes here?
And we have all these amps, why don't I run
some bitcoin mining? And spent one hundred thousand dollars bought
a pallet of bitcoin min or something shit, I think
bitcoin is it? Like six thousand dollars for four to
(22:03):
six thousand dollars, and I paid a guy ten percent
to set it up. I called my electrician that'd been
with us to the whole building and said work with him, and.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My dad wasn't super excited about it. He actually said,
we're going to pay.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Back every dime you pulled out of this. So tragically
we spent a lot of our bitcoin reimbursing ourselves, which
we didn't need to do.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it's we all did. I
bought twenty bitcoin one day when they were about six
thousand a pop, and within a couple of years I'd
sold all. But you know, because you doubled and triple
your money, right, you're full? Not too, I was like,
it's twenty four thousand is it really going to go
up from here? But I mean I still kept enough.
I'm still cheering for it. But I'm a huge fan
(22:48):
of bitcoin. Yeah. So yeah, mining we have a on
on our ranch.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
That's the probably the greatest deal of all time was
done by my dad.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
On that ranch. You sold the most expensive house in
the state of Utah right up in that area. Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, So I was looking you up and I was
coming on here, and that's impressive. Yeah, so you know
that area. So our ranch were partners with the Kengar
family and it goes from Camus Oakley, Pioa all the
way to Jordanill. So it's that mountain range.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
The original ranch was and this is the year I
was born. Now, I've never made money on the ranch.
The ranch has always actually been an expense, but it's
really it's really a neat thing to own.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
My brother and I own fifty percent, and the Gar
family owns fifty percent, and I think they're in their
fourth fifth generation right now.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So the original ranch was thirteen and a half thousand acres,
so that's roughly the size of.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
The island of Manhattan. Wow. And my dad was thirty
eight years old, nine years old. The ranch I saw
it was twenty one thousand acres, I believe, amazing, so
roughly thirty square miles. Oh shit of land. Hold on,
maybe it was twenty one hundred I think I think
was twenty was sorry, as soon as I said that,
(24:15):
it sounded around twenty one hundred, but you're twenty one,
So it was twenty one and a half time. So
it was six and a half times the size of that. Wow,
so enormous.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
He was in the land title and abstract business, so
he parceled off forty acre parcels. That was the minimum
to build. Okay, put in roads.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Your father did that.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
My dad did this, and within one year he had
sold five thousand acres and had paid off the entire balance.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Wow. Paid one hundred and sixty two dollars and ten
cents an acre for it.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
There was no Deer Valley, there was no park City
ski resort. There was there was no Jordan Nell. I
think Parley's had like two lanes going up and two
lanes going down.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
What year was this, mar nineteen seventy eight? Wow? Okay, yeah,
because park City really off in the early eighties.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Right, Yeah, And so it was just sheep around. So
we were able to keep eight thousand of it. We
had to sell some more because of the financial reversals
that I was mentioning were you know, I ate top
ramen and like Can's chili. I still can't eat Whoppers
to this day because this tastes.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Like back when they were three for three bucks, whoppers
were it was a good you can get a good
meal for ninety percent, and I can't eat them to
this day. I actually love whoppers. It's probably my favorite
fast food restaurant. I could see that. Yeah, they're jar boiled.
It's good. It just tastes just it's one of those
things and a portion of meat to bun. And they
(25:40):
they're a little bit more generous with the vegetables, you know,
I could totally see that. Yeah, good onions. I just
don't don't have a name anymore. I've eaten too many
don't a whole lifetime. It doesn't funny how people these
funny hease. My mom couldnot eat corn flakes because that
was the only cereal she got as a kid, or sorry,
frosted flakes, And I'm like, what could I because actually
said to us that it could have been where she
could have had corn flakes every day because she frosted flakes.
(26:00):
But anyway, I can relate them.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
So it was down to eight thousand. We had to
sell someone. We got down to five thousand. We've been
buying back land ever since. So we're back up to
combined I think a little over six thousand acres, which is.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Still a lot done square miles. Yeah, no, it's huge.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
So but we do have quarries on there. So we've
got the quarries going. I don't know how much you
want me to talk about. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
What in the quarries? What do you what exactly do
you guys? Stone? Oh, Stone, it's uh, it's the uh
they're using a lot on the crazy. You can just
buy that right by a mountain that has, yeah, a
stone quarry. Here, here's a trick, like, here's a life hack.
You can just do things. It's so true. You can
(26:47):
just do things. It's true. You know. It's it actually
sparked something that's came up that I'm kind of very
interested in because I am so against it. But you know,
Micha Lee just mentioned they're going to start selling off
the national parks. It's like we already know who's going
to buy all that stuff, and they're going to get
a pennies on the dollar. It's not like they're going
to be getting top dollar for this stuff. And it's
pieces of land, like you're describing what your father was
(27:08):
able to buy nineteen seventy eight. And I'm glad that
everyone pushed back. I don't know what your opinion is.
I just yeah, don't think that Mike. Mike's a good friend.
And by the way, through Twitter, I get why he
wants to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
So if I had a magic wand I call Braxton
McCoy and I've told I've told Braxton this, I've had
conversations way before this.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah, I'm fascinated with.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And I think the Utah lands should belong to Utah.
You know, Braxton. The thing about Braxton is they belong
to the federal Yeah, about seventy percent of Utah belongs
to federal government. And I understand like exactly where Braxton's
coming from, and I totally respect him. What he did
was masterful. What Braxton's really the the inertia that killed
(27:55):
the bill.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
It He's the one that kind of killed that. Okay,
He's a super sharp.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
He's on Twitter's he's definitely worth to follow. But what
I would do this is me, I would make an
effort to take ninety five percent of this land, get
turn back over the state of Utah, and then we
can enshrine it in the constitution that you can't touch it,
so people can't come along and mess with it. And
(28:22):
then you take that five percent and you figure out
the next hundred years what we're going to do with it.
That's a logical approach.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
And if you sell it off over one hundred years,
five percent of it and you can put it and
actually get good value for black Rock can't buy it,
you know, homesteads are allowed, by the way. It's so
funny the whole housing crisis, because I was in real
estate for twenty years, I've been in it. I mean,
it's it's not that hard to solve. You don't let
investors buy all the properties. Yeah, it's literally that simple.
There's a huge portion of that. Sure, you literally just
(28:50):
have I mean, yeah, it's obviously much deeper than that,
but that would solve a lot of your problems. The
biggest problem we have is that what that helps with
is keeping the price down, right, We just we produce
a lot of kids. We need more homes. We need
more homes, and we need affordable homes. Correct, and we
don't necessarily need the downtown Salt Lakes stacking people on
top of each I know. Well, they need to incentivize
(29:12):
building smaller a lot home. You need you need more
rose parks, you need more rose parks or more even
like the early days of Harrimen like that.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like get it to be a little
bit diverse in the housing.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, you know, you just got to get houses that
people can get into when they you know, graduate college.
And no, I agree, they want to have their wife
stay home and they want to have some kids. Like
you know, find some good three hundred and fifty five
three hundred four sorry, three hundred and fifty thousand, four
hundred thousand dollars house.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I mean, that's a house that you can afford. The
payment still makes sense. The investor tasks as well to
build there can make it. Yeah, pencil, that's what needs
to happen. Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
And and so I think what you do is you
take that five percent and you would just figure out
what's going to happen in the next one hundred years,
and then you would say, one hundred years from now,
you can pull out another five percent, and because it's
a shrinking five percent, it gives you like eighteen hundred
years before you reach fifty percent.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, that sounds you do one hundred year blocks. I mean, look,
the world's going to blow itself up with a way, right,
so if we can at least I mean, any plan
over one hundred years is probably fruitless at this point
in my opinion. But what do you think of that?
I actually think there's no just if you just look
at the speed of technology, the amount of people that
can get their hands on the wrong technology. AI. Who
(30:33):
knows how that's going to factor. I just I can't
see the world surviving another one hundred years. I don't
think there's any way, whether you're religious or not. And
it's whether you believe it's arm again in the second coming,
or if you just believe that we're going to blow
ourselves up and start over again. I'm an optimist. I'm
an optimist. You give us two hundred years?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
No, you know, I think we're right on this edge
of like a singularity. I know, and either Jesus comes
back or humans are going to be reinvented. I agree,
that's part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Maybe that's you know, maybe that's the shift of the
thousand years of peas right exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You know, I don't know what it is, and I
don't claim to know what it is, but the world
is changing faster than anybody can keep up with, including
like Elon Musk or Peter Thiel.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
I mean, it's it is. It is happening so rapidly.
Just I mean, we're going to have robots in five years,
five years like they already have brothels in other countries
of robot brothels, like it's already happened. But we're going
to have robots that are useful, sure, like they they'll
look just like humans within seven or eight years. I'd
like them to stay looking like robots, but they're not
(31:34):
going to Everybody wants to see a robots. They're gonna
want to see a human. But you're gonna have jobs
getting replaced.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So like in New York when when they started transitioning
over to cars, there were buggy whip makers. They were
mad about the cars. They made a living on buggy whips.
What happened to the people that made the buggy whips.
They found other jobs, of course, but they can't do that.
But it's getting the point at this time where I
think people are just going to be working like ten
hour weeks, you know, a decade from now, and the biggest,
(32:05):
the biggest trouble you're going to have is just being
a useful person, yes, because everything else is going.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
To be when what do people do when they don't
have a cause? They create bullshit. That's when we start
fighting over whether or not boys can go to the
bathroom and target girls bathroom. Here's here's my belief.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Everybody has a built in reserve of opposition they must
have in their life, and if they don't have it,
they're going to create it, create it. And so just
as a human being, you must have this this confluence
of peace and aggression and happiness and sadness. And when
it's all on one side, because life is so good
and so awesome, you create problems. That's the biggest problem
(32:41):
that we face. It's just stupid people creating problems that
don't need to exist. It is like, I don't know,
you nailed it though, I mean that's I saw something
the other day. It was like you spend your entire
life trying to create peace, and then all of a
sudden you get there and it feels a lot like boredom.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah you know I'm facing that right now. Yeah, it's
a little bit. And I spend your time on Twitter.
All of my businesses I have running independent of me.
Right now, You're just on Twitter eight hours a day,
and I'm always like, how the hell does this guy too?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
I'm like, man, what am I doing? But that that
dopamine hit, you know, all of a sudden you look
down and wow, this video has been watched one hundred
and twenty five thousand times. Oh yeah, Like and you think, man,
that's like every sports stadium in Utah combined that had
you know, cared about what or at least listened to
(33:33):
what I had to say. It's it's hard to just
say no, I'm not gonna you not do that.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
So no, I went through I've gone through different stages
of my social media the last couple months, I've only
posted maybe three or four times total on my Instagram.
I used to post every day, and there was a
time when it was almost twice a day. I was
building something, and it does it gets so dick you
gets sucked into it. And then I kind of got
to this point where I just was like, hold on
a second, am I still doing this because I enjoy it?
(33:58):
Or do I feel I had this like pressure to
put stuff out, and so I said, I'm not doing
that more. So I took a month off and it
was fascinating. Dude. I took that month off, and I'll
be honest, I didn't miss it. I was off TikTok, Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram, and I would still check my dms on Instagram,
but that was it because that's where I sell a
lot of my products and stuff like that. And so
(34:22):
this last month June, I went back on but kind
of limited again and my we even we had my
content meeting this morning with Brett, who you know on
my team, and he's really frustrated with me. He keeps
getting mad at me. He goes, dude, you're not putting
anything out. I don't want to, and I'm like, I'm
not going to put stuff out just to put it out. Now.
I'm reopening my coaching program here in about a month,
and so I'm going to do a blitz for thirty
days where I'm putting out a lots of people understand
(34:43):
what it is we do, and you know, we can
sell our product, but I don't like doing it anymore.
Twitter is still fascinating to me. It's by far the
most fascinating one because it's just you feel like it's tricky.
It's almost like the news. You feel like you're doing
something productive watching the news. Yeah, you feel like it's
productive to be on Twitter. YouTube can kind of have
the same angle if you watch productive things, right, you
(35:04):
look at the truth is YouTube, The truth is it's
probably not. You're probably better off not watching the news.
You're probably better off not being on Twitter. But it
is very easy to justify because you're like, well, I
need to know what's going on in the world. I
need to know the news. I need to know what's happening,
and so you keep you keep watching it. My biggest
problems that I'd love it, you know, I mean, it's oh,
they're brilliant. It's another thing. Yeah, dude, TikTok everything. It's funny.
(35:26):
I have this. I have a few buddies that they'll
like send me random memes all the time, all day long,
and I love them. But here's what the funniest part is.
I'm like, you, guys, you're not even close to getting
me to laugh half as hard as every single video
on my Instagram or on my TikTok algorithm. They know
me so much better than my best friends. TikTok knows
me so much better than my best friends because everything
(35:49):
TikTok shows me, I'm like, how did they know I
wanted to watch that my friends send me memes. I'm like,
that's fine. Like and it's like, TikTok knows me better
than my best friends. Instagram knows what I want to
buy before I want to buy. Totally funny. I joked
around about this shirt that I've wanted to buy for years,
and I've never really joked out loud about just my head.
I've always had to be funny to have it. And
yesterday I popped up on my feet. I'm like, oh,
(36:10):
I'm buying that. It's almost so so crazy. It's not
even that they're listening to my conversations. Is that they're
reading my mind I know, and they just know how
to do it. Wild. The algorithm is undefeated. Man, It's wild.
When I really knew how addicting they make. Twitter and
TikTok especially and even Instagram was again when my buddies
starts sending me stuff and it's not nearly as funny
(36:32):
as me as almost every single thing I pulled follows
as you just keep scrolling, knows me. So for you
being on Twitter, is that a net positive? If you
felt like, oh man, I became famous because I blew
up on a guy, that was that was what was
the one that put you on the map? Mine was
thinking my house back that it was like, that's what
put me on the map. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
But like I said, you can either you know, cry
about it exactly. I actually got into a beef with
some cyclists as cyclists, so I got the first cyber.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Truck in Utah, Okay, and I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
I'm just driving to work and run into some cyclists
and and you know, started running their mouths and I
slowed down.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
And it's in the avenue. I'm just like a couple
of blocks away from this. This was when everyone was
still pro elon right, Yeah, yeah, well it was.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It probably was just when it was starting and uh,
the cyclist had some snarky comment. I turned around and
we have words, and there's two of them and I'm like,
you know whatever, you're starting to drive off.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
The guy spits at me and they.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Run off, and I go drive around the block really
fast and chase them down, and I hell out them
and threaten them, which I shouldn't have done.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Did you filming this? Is that? They filmed it? They
filmed it.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
They have all these anti Tesla people, like one of
the first cyber trucks. Yeah, and this guy threatening to
rip off people's heads and spit down their throat because
they spit at me.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
And and I'm getting all these dms. Is this to you?
Is this you? Oh man? Next thing? I know, I've
been seeing like seven hundred thousand times literally the only
guy in Utah with the cybergy Yeah, like yeah, that's me.
Yeah that that. And then I live in a very
very left leaning part of the world and they're all
sending it to like my bishop, am I state president.
(38:16):
I mean it's like just the fallout was not fun. Yeah,
so again it's like what do you do? Do you
just lean into it? Yeah? I shouldn't have done that.
It's not you know. The kicker was is like we're
just dumb kids.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And when they you know, they're I see they're filming
like that's it. You know, they're going to tell the
story that they want them to know. And one of
them has a beard, another one has a mustache, and.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
It's just like, Okay, by the way, none of us
that One of the problems with the internet is none
of us should be forever known as our worst moment
for sure, just because it happened to get caught on film.
Like I'm glad that things are, you know, recorded as
much as they are today because it just makes us
all be better people, I think. But we've all fallen short,
all of us, you know, I've all had moments where
(39:00):
we shouldn't have yelled at that person or whatever it was.
When I see these things, I just cringe a little bit.
I'm like, oh, I feel bad for the person one
the other day. What was it? It was just like, oh,
they're never gonna be able to live that one down,
you know, And I felt bad for the co What
was that? I can't remember right now, but anyway, it's
I see it.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
All the time, involved a daily thing. I'm actually pretty
forgiving of people, Like I give people a lot of grace,
Like I talk a lot of heat, but a lot
of the people that I've I've been engaged with on
the other side of an argument. We follow each other,
you know, we comment on each other's things, and so
it's well, let me ask you this, how you decide
to take it?
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Has this been your experience? Well, minus you, yours was
an interaction that was caused by something. But I'll say
this because I've had people like that, whatever they don't
like me online. I've never had a negative interaction in person,
not one because of who I am online, like because
I have this podcast, because of what I put out
on my Instagram stories and stuff like that. I've never
had a single person come up to me and be
(39:56):
rude to me in person.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I've had people I think that recognize me in public
and I might get a side eye, but I've never
had a public beef with someone over right, You're like,
it's fat.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I mean, it could happen, totally could I'm sure there's
people where it. Does you see it?
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I think you and I see things very in a
very similar manner politically, Yes we do. And you could
see how people when millions of people see.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Something, or you go after someone and you know, well,
I've had people mad at me during COVID. But it
was because it was happening there in the moment, not
because of things I'd said online. Right, Like, I've had
people that yelled at me for not wearing a mask.
I had people wanting to fight me because I, you know, again,
wouldn't put my mask on, wouldn't put a mask on
or whatever. But that's the kind of things that it
had nothing to do with what I was putting out.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
People still mad at me about stuff like that. I
really want to well, I really went after the left
leaning politicians. I'm blocked by people like Senator blowing and
me blowing up there. I make Yeah, I made fun
of people in the masks. My kids were in Salt
Lake City School District and I had to move them
up to Davis County because.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Saw City wouldn't open up. Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And I told my kids that you don't have to
wear your masks. My son at East, his life was
very hard.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
He was the only kid in the whole school that
wouldn't wear a mask. Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
And I said, look, if they call and they're trying
to get you in trouble, they're going to hear about
it from me.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Tell them to arrest you. So go ahead, arrest me.
I was willing to. I was like, I'm willing to
fall on this sort he.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
I told him, I said, look if And it got
all the way to the principal and he was trying
to go into a game and she was borrying him.
You can't go in there without a mask on. And
I gave the ultimatum that I told him to make
either you arrest me or he'd let me in. Those
are the two options. And she but grudgingly shoved him
(41:50):
into the room and the girls wouldn't talk to him,
and you know, everyone accused him of being a grandma killer.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
He feels pretty good to be right, doesn't it. It
only comes out and says, man, you know something. Actually,
I actually was impressed by how many people admitted they
were wrong. Some I have been impressed with that. My
best friends, I speak of the ones that were mad
at me, They all apologized. They all admitted I was right.
And by the way, guess what now when I speak
up about things, they listen. Yeah, they're like, Jimmy clearly
(42:18):
is paying attention to something that I'm not. His brain
works in a way that Mike doesn't. I think a
lot of times you can just see things totally.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Another quote my dad would say he had on his
desk said, genius is the ability to see what others cannot.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
So it's concise and it's short, but I think it's true.
It's not it's not necessarily an IQ thing. No, it's
just the ability to see things.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
And I think it's just I just have a contrary
in mind. I've always been like, what isn't true about this?
What if that's not true? Like? Should is this? Do
I believe this person? Like ever since I was a kid,
I remember my teacher saying things and me calling him out,
like thinking that's not accurate. You know, it's a second
grader and everybody does that, right, you know what I mean? Though,
It's like and the point where I'm wondering, like if
(43:00):
the news is this fake? How fake is history? Oh? Dude?
You know? So I you start becoming a little bit
of a wacko. Well, and you have to be careful
because here's one thing I think they do is they
try to make you sound crazy, because if you start
looking deep enough, I can make an argument that we
shouldn't have been in World War Two pretty easily, pretty easily.
But the point is if you go too far, then
(43:21):
everyone just shuts you out or they kind of like
they're able to put you in the wacko. If I
get by myself, say like most of the things, like
my DoD daily, I get stuff from people. They're sending
me stuff and I'm like, bro, we're talking about first
grade and I'm getting my doctor ate right now. You
know what I mean. It's like, I'm so passed looking
at that thing, but congrats, welcome to the game. I'm
glad you can't see this. But I just always say like, yep, yeah,
(43:45):
it's you know, it's one of those things about life
that is kind of I give a lot of empathy
to them people that didn't see it, because the messaging
was so ruthless against it that in less. I think
it is just like your mind just to sees things
or another. Either you have more of a oh, I'm
going to go with what I'm supposed to do here
quote unquote right, or you go, wait, what's actually right here?
(44:08):
You know? And it's like the person that gives their
kid what they ask for because the kid wants it
because they love their child, versus no, I'm not going
to give my kid that because I love him and
he doesn't need that right now. What he needs is
this that maybe hurts right now, right And it's just
different views it all. I think everybody And that was
the part where I got to with COVID. It was like,
(44:29):
I think everybody had the same intention of just helping others. Well,
here's where I here's the people I got mad at.
You got to see the cocksuckers and I'm going to
use that word that had never had power in their
life and this was the first time, and they freaking
milked every sense of it they could. And screw all
those people. To this day, the Delta flight attendants can
(44:51):
kiss my ass like I literally drop crumbs on the
floor on purpose every time I go Delta flight because
they were the biggest bitches. I mean, no, I'm serious,
I was. They were awful. They were so brutally awful.
I hate them and this is me sharing this for
the first time publicly, but they can kiss my ass.
I literally I'd make a mess every flight now guaranteed
(45:11):
on purpose.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
We hit and it was at its peak and Ronda
Santists went and started opening up things in Florida.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
I went and bought a house in Florida. I bought
ten houses in Florida during COVID, but I for my
own personal life, Yeah, enjoyment, Yeah, I still have to
this day. And we went down and we went to
the parks.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
We had them all to ourselves because everyone was too
afraid to go because Ronda Santa they were still up
and made them open.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
You remember that. Yeah, yeah with Disney O, Yeah, you're
opening the whole tax and they're like, no, we can't
do it safely.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
It's like you're going to open up. So so it
went and opened up, and we had to wear stupid
little masks and we'd pull it down that Disney people
would yell at you. But we had the whole park
to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I think my my my two oldest sons rode Space
Mountain eleven times in a row as a walk on.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Just it's amazing, not the whole park to ourselves. So yeah,
I'm it's a lot of it isn't just being contrariant.
It's just do you believe in objective reality? Like when
you see something, how much convincing and propaganda does it
take for you to say, I don't believe my eyes
and ninety nine percent of the population trusts other authority
(46:17):
over the own inputs that are coming into their own mind.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, and it's probably good that we don't have a
bunch of us. Yeah, you've got to have you need
enough of it. But it's maybe one out of hundred
people that really you know.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
So, how do you help somebody? I guess see it
easier because I mean what you're I think a lot
of it you try to do on Twitter is try
to wake people up. You try to help people see it.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Just try to live an objective reality and all evidence
eventually points to objective.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Reality, right, and do so with confidence. Just you have
to truly know yourself. You have to. You have to
really know yourself because when they come.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Out, it's okay to have doubt, but it's also imperative
that you say, no, this is true and this is not.
And I'm open to other data that will help me
change my mind. But based on the data that I have,
this is subjective. Well I'll give you one just from
day on Twitter. This is a typical Twitter interaction. This
is kind of how you have to see it. So
(47:15):
this whole thing with Bue's quarterback Jake hpt's laugh. Right,
poor guy gets accused of rape.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, and by the way, I've had a dozen buddies
get falsely accused of rape. A dozen people. I know
it's a serious thing. Well, and usually girls are bitter
at the guy. He ended up ghosting whatever. That's a
big time And yes, it does happen, and I'm not dominded. Sure,
but we can talk about this part of it too, right.
I mean I interviewed a guy on my podcast He
to Day. He was a couple of months ago. He
was Clayton Eckert. He was the bachelor about three seasons ago,
(47:43):
and he got falsely accused of some things. In anyway,
the point is that he ended up winning the lawsuit
and everything against herm But the point is is, so
he gets this accusation, and as soon as it happened,
the only thing I said was, well, he's done at
BYU because his best out. I guarantee he had sex
with the girl because she got a rape kit. So
the second I heard she went and got a rape kit,
(48:03):
I went, well, there's DNA, so he has to admit
to having sex with her. So he's gone. So there's
a day one. I was like seven games minimum. Yes, yeah,
so I'm okay, well on her code, he's going to
be gone. But I said, we have to wait for
more evidence to see if he actually raped it. Right.
I was open to the idea he might have. It
was like, let's see, I don't really Carr either way.
I don't think he's that great of a quarterback. So
I didn't really care if he stayed to BU. I
(48:24):
cared that like the right happitization, yes, and so, but
I sat on it because I'm like, I don't want
to say anything because nobody knows yet. We got to
wait till the court transcript and the text and all
that stuff come out. Every time the texts come out,
you can tell what happened. Trevor Bauer. The girl was
trying to get money. She literally said, how do I
rob this guy? And she said literally wrote out the
playbook of what she was doing. What happened today one
(48:45):
hundred percent, So it comes out, the text come out.
She was flirting with him. Months later. You don't flirt
with a guy you thought raped you. So it's like, okay,
she obviously wasn't raped. So today, you know, somebody said, like,
what are you saying that they make of this. I said, well,
it's pretty obvious based on the text that she wasn't raped,
and some guys comes back me on Twitter and bo
you fan. He's like, oh, easy to speak up now.
(49:05):
I'm like, dude, I couldn't speak up. I didn't have
the facts. But once you have the facts and you
know what happens, then you can make your point. I
didn't change my mind, but I made my mind. It's
the information changed.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
This up and so many times that automatically I have
my my presumed biases built in, and I think if
you have again, if you have any life experience, you're
willing to change your position based on new data. But
I'm like, oh, it's she wants to get paid. I'm
a skeptic. I'm I openly admit that. I also let
(49:40):
it totally open to the possibility it could have been right.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Well, the fact that they didn't have a criminal case,
and that's pretty tailing. Two years later on, like there
was enough things where you're like, oh, this doesn't smell right.
The smell test didn't work. But you also don't want
to diminish a girl having her being believed. If it
is to be believed and so I didn't say it anything.
I just kind of was like, I wanted to see
what happens. I talk about a lot of it this second.
(50:04):
Coming through this second, I read the text messages and
I was like, oh, I know exactly what the hell happened.
I go, this is bullshit. Now I'll speak up. Yeah,
like well if you if you look at my feed,
I didn't say anything, Yeah, well, because you didn't know
there was an information that we didn't have yet and
the consequences being wrong or so bad, especially on that one. Yeah,
don't you.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Don't play around with sexual abuse allegations. No, I mean
that's that's stuff that's.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Like, well, it's like one of the things, you know.
I only speak on things that I'm well versed on
because I want to be able to talk. Like I
saw a beautiful exchange of other day when I don't
know if you saw when Bernie was on Joe Rogan.
I was listening to that too, and amazing because Bernie
starts with this bullshit about global warming and Joe puts
the charts up and just demolishes Jamie to bring them
the charts like there's a lot of money in it.
(50:48):
It looks like, yeah, yeah, and then I don't know
about that, and then then he had he got him
another one bad. At the end, he was talking about
how Trump paid six hundred million dollars for something, and
he's like, well, didn't.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Kamala one point five million in the first spent two
hundred five million dollars or something like that on campaigning
for him?
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Yes, He's like yeah, but I mean, how much did
you know he got? Straight up? Because Kamala spent it's
one point five billion? How many people did that come from?
This is why it's a problem. It was beautiful. It
was just you need to have don't speak out on
things unless you do have the data. But when you
have the data, like you said, just be sure. If
you're like, look like I know myself, I know that
(51:30):
I'm right on this, and I'm just going to own this.
And when you do that, it's funny because most people
are so unsure of themselves and they're just trying to
pick the recent fight that they heard. They don't even
have any information. They just the most recent thing that
they want to get mad about.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
But the thing you can do is you can be
that strong person. You know, if you're a reliable source
of information and you historically have been able to like
count the cards. People start listening to it, and it
imbues you with confidence and it abused them with confidence
in you. And that's you know, people want to be
an influencer. Being an influencer is not it. It's like
(52:07):
I'm not selling a product. I'm not trying to you know,
push any agendas. It's just here's my position in the universe.
Here are my opinions on things, and you can agree
and disagree on them.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Great. Well, you do a great job, man. I love
following you. I've again, I've seen your stuff for years
and years, and it's just you just know the people
on Twitter. You know which people get it, and you
know which ones aren't bought. I mean there's a lot
of Republican influencers on Twitter that are completely bought. You
can tell that. It's horrible. It's like that that's been
really disappointed. That's the thing that's going to destroy social media. Yeah,
(52:42):
we're entering into an era.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
So I saw this this photo and apparently it's a
real photo of a guy proposing to his girlfriend in
front of a tornado.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Okay, beautiful photo. First thing that pops into my head.
Is this is AI?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
It's like, no, this, here's the story. Here the people,
this is what actually happened. Are My kids are going
to be the last generation's ever going to remember when
you knew something was real and something wasn't I know,
So that this is brave new world stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Now, the thing I'm the most scared about is the
deep fakes. They're already. You already can call somebody with
the voice of their son or daughter and start asking
them for money.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
People are gonna be harvesting this to get my voice
and my mannerisms and my my facial expressions.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
And yeah, we'll get to a point pretty soon. We're
gonna have to have code words, and it's gonna have
to be stuff you don't share. I don't know. It's
gonna be fascinating, and it's close. It's it's way close
to it's already happening. People are getting scammed left and
right right now by AI already, and it can happen
to any of us. So I mean, it can happen
to you and me too. That's getting that. I got
(53:45):
scammed when the Internet first came out. I got scammed
everyone everyone met the Nigerian friends. Yeah, I mean mine
was if you're old on, dude, mine sucked. I was
trying to help my brother in his house and he
was so stressed. He was newly wet and I just
really wanted to help him. And this guy I was
gonna sit. He sent the He sent a money order
check or whatever it was, and I looked legit, I
(54:06):
cash it. The money goes in the account, and so
he was like, but he over he put too much
money in. Have you ever heard of that one? Send
him some money back. It was the first time i'd
heard of it. I mean, I said stupid. Oh yeah,
I didn't know checks. I got a crash course that day.
What I said, family is going to be eight hundred bucks. Well,
it wasn't even that. It was like, hey, I need
(54:26):
to get this money for this, And I don't know
what the hell I was thinking. I was just so
desperate to help my brother that I overlooked obvious things
in front of me. But well, dude, if people want
to follow you on Twitter, where do we send him
your great fall manhatta m A n h A T
t v A. What does that mean? By the way. Okay,
so when I got doxed.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
I was, and I lost my account pre elon and
I uh, I was the Bodhis Offa. Bodhis Offa and
Buddhism is a person who could move on to Nirvana,
but they choose to stay behind.
Speaker 1 (54:57):
They're enlightened to enlighten mankind. I love that.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
It was just a troll, perfect, total troll, perf. So
I was the body Zappa. When I got banned and
I came up with the burner, it was I just
googled who's the most powerful uh superhero and it was
doctor Manhattan. So I just put the va from Bodhi
zapA on the back end of it and just Manhattan,
doctor Manhatta. I'm not a doctor, I'm a college dropout,
(55:23):
but it says doctor Manhatta as a result of that,
so it's just Manhatta.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
I love it. Ben Well, thank you again for coming
on and look forward to many more times. Thanks for
having me. I love to be back. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you again for listening to the Jimmy
Rex Show. And if you liked what you heard, please
like and subscribe. It really helps me to get better guests,
to be able to get the type of people on
this podcast. It's going to make it the most interesting. Also,
wanted to everybody about my podcast studio, The Rookery Studios,
(55:50):
now available in Salt Lake City and or in Utah.
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
own podcast, we take all of the guests, work out
of it for you and make it so simple. All
you do is you come in, you sit down, you talk,
and leave. We record it, edit it, even post it
for you. If interested in doing your own podcast, visit
our Instagram and send us a dmt Rookery Studios, or
(56:13):
go to our website, therookriyestudios dot com
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