August 6, 2025 • 48 mins
In this powerful episode of The Jimmy Rex Show, Jimmy sits down with Kory Stevens, founder of Taft, to explore the deeply personal and professional journey behind one of the fastest-growing men’s fashion brands in the world. Kory opens up about the real cost of success—sharing the toll his rapid rise in business took on his mental health and family life. From living in a small apartment with his wife and newborn to making millions within just a few years, Kory shares the behind-the-scenes reality of building a viral, bootstrapped eCommerce empire.
Kory walks us through the early days of Taft, including his first viral Reddit post, how he leveraged organic social media to drive explosive growth, and what it felt like to become a self-made millionaire almost overnight. But he doesn’t shy away from the struggles—revealing the emotional breakdowns, the therapy sessions, and the identity crisis that followed when he realized he no longer knew who he was outside of the business.
This episode is a raw and honest look at entrepreneurship, mental health, marriage, and the power of vulnerability. Whether you're a startup founder, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone navigating your own path to self-worth, Kory’s story will challenge and inspire you to rethink what success really means.
Kory walks us through the early days of Taft, including his first viral Reddit post, how he leveraged organic social media to drive explosive growth, and what it felt like to become a self-made millionaire almost overnight. But he doesn’t shy away from the struggles—revealing the emotional breakdowns, the therapy sessions, and the identity crisis that followed when he realized he no longer knew who he was outside of the business.
This episode is a raw and honest look at entrepreneurship, mental health, marriage, and the power of vulnerability. Whether you're a startup founder, aspiring entrepreneur, or someone navigating your own path to self-worth, Kory’s story will challenge and inspire you to rethink what success really means.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Today on the podcast, and I sit down with Corey
Stevens and he is the founder of Taft Shoes. Him
and his wife are working on a cool company right
now called Tough Protein and protein Popsicles. Pretty amazing stuff.
But he had a big exit from that company. At
one point was a nine figure valuation on his company,
Taft Shoes. And we talk about his journey. We talk
about some personal things that happened in his life that
(00:27):
affected him, affected the cell and kind of just the
lessons he learned building this giant business. So really cool story,
amazing man, amazing entrepreneur and father and excited to share
his story with you guys. So with that, let's get
to the show. And today's show is brought to you
by Bucked Up Protein Drinks. I've been really talking a
lot about their twenty five grand protein, no sugar, no fat,
(00:51):
hundred calorie can of again their protein. This is unbelievable.
But anyways, if you get a chance, they sell them
Harmon's or anywhere Bucked Up products are sold.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
With that, let's get to the podcast. Corety, good to
see man, dude, Thank you it's a pleasure meeting man,
that's our first time meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It is. You know, it's interesting you. Once I started
researching for this podcast, I saw all the different things
that you've been you know, the different shows you've been on,
all the people you've talked to. I'm like, how have
I not met this guy?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I thought the same thing. I'm like, I bet we
have a million mutual friends. And to be honest, I
don't really know that much about you. I hear your
name a lot, I see you with a lot of
my friends, but you know, this is the first time
we're meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, it'll be fun to chop it up with you. Man,
you got an interesting background. I want to start it with.
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I don't always just like to.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Tell me your story things like that, but you yours
is really a story worth telling. I want to get
back into the company, your true company first that you
sold at started as a saw company, and kind of
just talk about that because how you got into that.
Cause I think a lot of people that listen to
my show are entrepreneurs or young guys, people in college,
and they're asking themselves that question of like, Okay, if
I have an idea or if I have a thought,
(02:02):
how do I capitalize on that? Right? Because I think
you went to Europe and got inspired by the idea,
right and maybe just kind of take.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It from there, dude. So we had my wife and I, I
wanted to do management consulting out of college, didn't have
any offers, and so we did the smart thing. We
took all of our our faftsist savings, our pel grants
and like scholarship money, went to Europe and spent a
wonderful six weeks. But while we were on that trip,
we had this idea for no show socks because everyone, dude,
it was like Spain, you know, Italy, Croatia, everyone's super stylish,
(02:29):
but no socks. And if I did that, I torched
my shoes and you know it would be disgusting. And
so we came back from that trip and we just
got to work. And I think looking back, I wasn't
I didn't grow up like I want to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to be like a lawyer or a doctor,
or like a soccer player, but that wasn't super realistic.
(02:50):
But then I kind of just like really unintentionally found
myself running a shoe company. But it wasn't like it
like the guys that you're talking about that, you know,
the ones you're referencing, they want to be on they're
actively looking for ideas. I didn't feel that way. I
wanted a stability. I wanted predictability. I wanted like four
to one K pension.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And then all of a sudden, like two years in
and we're running a you know, multimillion dollar shoe company.
A lot of it was like my life and and
I look back and I it was just miraculous, Like
I can't leave like divinity out of it. It was
like so many miracles happened to get us to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
What was the first like the first inspiration you so
you see literally see you see this need.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, but so what's the process from there?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Because I think a lot of people they have these ideas,
these at a light bulbs golf, and then nothing happened.
So what was that first step that you took?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
First step was I came back from that trip and
my school idea at BYU still worked, and so I
went to campus. I logged in and I was like
learning the Adobe Suite, an illustrator photoshop on campus, taking
classes from like these in the in the library, and
so I learned how to design socks, and I went
(04:05):
on Ali Baba. I had a sock that I liked
and I took a picture of it, and I went
and I emailed hundreds of factories saying did you make this?
Did you make this? Did you make this? Eventually we
found the one that made it, and then we were like, okay, great,
I know, let's take that base. Since I'm not like
a technical design I'm not going to send you tech
packs like a you know, some great technical company would.
It was like, start with that base, here's my crappy
(04:28):
illustrator designs. Let's go from there. And then we launched
a Kickstarter campaign, and back when that was still my
Kickstar was still hot, that was like the only path,
you know, bootstrap via Kickstarter.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Did you raise a lot of money through the Kickstarter?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
We raised forty eighty dollars, so, I mean our goal
was twenty three k. It was an arbitrary had no
rhyme or reason. It was just like, yeah, you know,
Michael Jordan, are sure like twenty three? And then we
raised about double that. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And then from there, how are you getting clients? How
are you getting the product to people.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
So Instagram like, we grew a really old school this thing, dude,
I mean, we grew a really it was like me
and my wife in our living room taking amazing pictures.
So we'd we'd go out in provo, like wearing the socks.
I mean yeah, like wearing the socks. But then we
realized like if we were just photographing the socks, we
would get really weird dms and stuff you can fill
(05:24):
in the gaps. So then we're like, Okay, just socks,
isn't it. Let's so let's hit nord from RAC in
Orum and we're like, we're seeing all these cool shoes.
We're like, let's buy them up North from rac return
policy is like super sweet. So we buy a bunch
of shoes, photograph them with the socks, and then return them.
And I'd go home to Burbank, go to the Burbank
Nordstrom Rac, bring them back to Utah, photograph them for
(05:46):
you know, two months, and then return them in Orum.
And so we started slowly we started to look more
and more like a shoe company, and people weren't asking
about the socks. They were like, hey, where can I
get that crazy pair of shoes, and it's like, well,
if they're an Orum, Utah and maybe Burbank, California, you know,
and so it really organically we slowly morphed into socks
to shoes and people were like, where can I get shoes?
(06:07):
We're can I get the shoes? And then eventually shoe
factories that thought we were a shoe company started reaching
out like, hey, we'd love to make shoes for you.
Here's our catalog. We're based in you know, Spain or
Italy or Portugal, whatever, And so all of a sudden,
these miracles just happened and we were a shoe company, like,
you know, eighteen months after the Kickstarter campaign. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And so at that point you kind of went all
in on shoes. And by the time you built the
company and sold it, you'd how many shoes had you sold?
Just give the audience an idea.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh man, over one hundred million in revenue. I don't
know a pair count, but lots lots of shoes.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So what was your decision? Because a lot of people,
you know, they build up a company, and a lot
of people, the entrepreneurs sometimes they just like the build process.
They don't like to actually run the companies, that's why
they sell, but other people they just move on. In
your case, I know you were going through a lot
of things at that time. Maybe take us back to
that time why you chose to sell and kind of
just what happened with everything.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I mean, so COVID Covid, you know, we had opened,
we had like six stores. The first store we opened
in New York City and so ho what was it called?
Just toaff just like I got it, Yeah, the shoes
or whatever. So November twenty nineteen, so we signed like
a twenty thousand dollars a month lease. We have like
Louis Uitton, Apple, Lululemon, taff you know, stop right like
(07:19):
right on Print Street, Super Sick location. And then two
months later COVID happens, and so you know, COVID was
really tough on the business, although we didn't notice it
in the moment, like a couple of years of lag effect,
and then we started to feel.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
What was the specific damage that COVID did to your business?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You know, our our shoes were pretty event based, you know,
like our shoes are you know, you wear them out
to party, but our shoes are like weddings, bachelor parties,
like that kind of church. You know, it's like kind
of flashy stuff that that's not like you don't wear
it around the house. And so while says dipped a
(08:00):
little bit, it was really just cash flow issues that
we inventory built up a little bit, and so all
of a sudden in Q one twenty twenty two, we
had just come off a great Q four twenty twenty one,
and you know, cash were cash rich, and then suddenly
we're like, I remember the president of TAFT at the time,
he came up to me, He's like, hey, we have
like three months of cash left. I'm like, what are
(08:23):
you talking about? And so there was there was this
cash issue.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
What they like. That's one of the things about a
clothing store, right, is you have to have so many
sizes and styles, and if you pick a few shoes
people don't like they just you're throwing them away.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You know. The socks it's a dollar a pair, right,
shoes were like one hundred dollars of a pair, right,
And it was it was it was a lot of
money inventory and if something flops or people tighten their
wallets whatever, like you know, we felt and so we
ended up feeling it a couple of years later in
twenty twenty two. So there was this like cash issue
that was in the background, but we felt, you know,
between debt equity, just going back to our our investors,
(09:00):
we felt like we could get over that. But then
in my son passed away in twenty twenty two, and
that accelerated everything.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Did How did he pass away?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
He was born with like if you think about lungs,
like a balloon, when you blow into a balloon, the
walls separated inflates, right, Like, his lungs didn't inflate, the
walls were kind of adhered together, and so he had
struggles breathing on his own. And unfortunately he passed away.
(09:31):
And when something like that happens, like who can possibly
care about shoes?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So we that accelerated everything and.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
As far as the sale goes, yeah, we were already thinking.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
We were already in talks, we were already into the process,
but you know, there was some pushback from investors about
price and situation. I had my doubts as well, but
then that happened. I mean there's literally photos of me
in the hospital, like phone in hand, pacing around, negotiating
with lawyers and auditors and you know, like it was
(10:08):
a horrible I mean, I have to be kind of
callous to it or I'll be emotional. You know, it's
like which emotion's fine, But it was just a really
tough time.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Do you feel like, like, in hindsight, do you wish
you would have not sold during that time or did
you end up getting still kind of what you were
hoping for? Did you end up just because it sounds
like you kind of just had a who cares attitude
is not the best way to go to a negotiating
I did have a who cares attitude, and I frankly,
I wish that my investors on our board and our team.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Would have been like Corey, like dude, wake up, like
yes your morning, don't sell your business like this. You know,
like we we got the short end of the stick.
And I do have regrets. My wife does not have
any regrets. She's happy because you know, when you are
so important to a business, you can't just walk away. Really,
(11:02):
the first step to getting away was selling, because then
I had to you know, I had to work for
them for another year, and you know, there was all
this stuff, but the first step was selling, and we
felt really tied to TAFT and it felt like it
was my identity, it was my whole network, it was
my whole life. And after ten years, it's like, I
want to do other things too.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's what I got there with real estate. You know,
I'd been doing it for seventeen years straight and you know,
my best year I ever had. I The next year,
I turned it over to my partner, and people were like,
what you build your whole career to get to that spat,
Why would you walk in? I was like, I just
wanted to do a new challenge. I just wanted something else.
I just was ready to try some other things. Yeah,
it's interesting, you dude.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I started the business. I was a young college graduate.
You know, I had no children, and I sold it
when I had four children, and you know, my wife
and I had been married for well over ten years,
and like I was totally different and my interests were
changing and my strengths were changing, and what I what
I You know, it was like that business wasn't going
(12:05):
to serve me forever, and selling was really the first
step to moving on to something that is more interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, and when you're grieving, I remember when I was
doing when I was flipping a lot of houses. And
this guy called me one time and he had a
house in Springville. This is twelve fifteen years ago. But
he he said, hey, I noticed you buy homes for cash.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
My wife, does it you that's doing all those signs? Man,
this was not me, but those gosh, call text me
who was doing that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I never did those signs.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
They say they work, I never actually did those.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I don't start interrupted. No, you're good. They probably don't
work that good because I haven't seen him in a
long time. But no, we were just just my reputation
from real estate. I was always putting it out on
social media. I was looking to, you know, buy distress properties.
And this guy called me up and he just says like, hey,
me and I had worked with like one of his
family members or something, so he's like, you know, my
sibling whatever said that, Uh, you would buy my house
(12:56):
for cash. My wife just passed away yesterday. I want
to be in my whole face. I was in Texas.
I want to be gone today. I just need my
house sold. I looked it up. I said how much
do you want for it? And he says, just give
me one twenty. I'm out and I mean, it was
worth two fifty in the moment, and I just I
was like, I said, sir, your house is worth probably
two fifty. He goes, I don't care. I want to
(13:17):
be gone tomorrow. Can you pay me tomorrow? And I
was like, yeah, I mean I can do that, and
I ended up actually gave him an extra ten grand
I just felt bad, but he was like because he
was grieving so much, and he goes, look, i'm selling
this today. It's done, like, just get me out of
it and anyway, But I remember thinking about that because yeah,
so as youre telling your story, just remind me of that,
because I remember thinking, like, man, this guy, I was
(13:39):
trying to talk him out of it. I'm like, dude,
let me list it for you. Give me thirty days,
I'll get you two twenty. You know what I mean.
It's like, and he just no, I want it today,
I want it gone. I want I don't ever want
to be in this house again. And it was just
this that was his way of coping with the death
of his spouse, his wife, and I just remember feeling
sad for the guy. But he was so grateful. He
wrote me the nicest letter after and everything so that's
(13:59):
a powerful story.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I think that there's some some like it was his house,
it was my shoe company, and it was just like
something about it was just get this away from me.
I'm in so much pain. How can I How can
I care about someone's broken shoelaces or how can I
spend time designing some stupid pair of shoes? You know,
(14:22):
because I was, I was designing the shoes, and it
just I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Know how old was your son when he passed away?
He was five hours old?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But it was yeah, we did you know it was
going to be a tough berth or no?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I mean we knew that it was. We knew that
there were some complications, but my wife and I we
never opened the door to what could happen. We were
I mean, there was just it's interesting. There were so
many miraculous things that happened along the way, and we
thought that the presence of the miracles meant that we
(14:55):
would get the outcome we wanted. And so the miracle
was that he was alive when he was born, really
you know, like but we just we fully believed with
all of our hearts that he was going to be okay.
And then he wasn't, you know, And I realized pretty quickly,
(15:18):
like the vibe in the room shifted, and then it
you know, and then we had the hard conversation of
like I called, it was Father's Day, June nineteenth, twenty
twenty two, and I called my friend, who's over the
nick you and I was like, hey, I know it's
Father's Day, but you have to get here, like I
(15:38):
have to. If someone's going to tell me that my
son is going to pass away, I need it to
be you. And so he came, and I mean, just
a really hard day obviously, you know, but you know,
back to the business, it's like who cares about shoes? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So what are you so? I mean at that time,
I'm just trying to kind of understand because it's just interesting, right,
you know, you have you built this company build to
over one hundred million dollars in revenue, and nobody from
your board and there was nobody else could get through.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That venture capital you know, dude, Like venture capital wants
like ten x or they want zero sure, and we
were not ten x. And I think that you know
that what it was going to take to get there,
our investors on our board, like you know, we had
already been we raised in twenty eighteen, so we're, you know,
four years into it. It posts you know, I was
ten years into the business, but four years post raise,
(16:32):
and I think they saw the writing on the wall.
It was like, this isn't going to be massive massive,
it's not going to be a huge exit for anyone.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And so maybe we just kind of they were okay,
they were what they were.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
More interested in, like their you know, their unicorns and
their dragons in their funds, and Taft was, you know,
like they didn't they they cared because they're my friends
and they love me, but financial and business wise, they
didn't care that much.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So did you take some time mom and you guys
started your new company. I know your wife she's an
entrepreneur as well.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I mean she's the co founder of Taft.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, she's the best. And so tell me kind of
from there, where do you pivot? How do you decide
to come up with tough pops?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Dude? So, I I mean I had to go work
for this new company that oh they're.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Telling you what to do.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, I'm sure some of those people will listen
to your podcast. So I got to be really careful
what I say. But I mean really difficult because I
had millions of people that appreciated me and kind of
knew that I was the magic to that company. And
I had a team that was told they'd have a job,
and I you know, there were a lot of promises
(17:45):
and then there was some there was some executive shifting.
I mean someone passed away. The most important person passed away.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Oh geez, the one that was basically.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I mean basically the acquirer of the business passed away
a few months after the deal happened. But I mean
I immediately was I think I was like the director
of product development or something, and it was like my
whole team was looking to me as like Corey, you're
the leader, Like come on, and customers were like where's Corey?
You know, And it was really difficult. But I did
(18:17):
a great job. I was a great teammate. I showed
up with a smile. I tried to get involved. I
tried to get my hands on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Stuff, you know, and it was kind of just like Corey,
you designed the shoes.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
And so as soon as I could leave, I left.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I talked to you. I don't know if you're
familiar with Gertjee and the Bucklist. So when he sold
his app to Snapchat, ask, part of it was like
he can't stayed on and they offered him this crazy
thing to stay on, and he I think he lasted
like two weeks.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, I walked away from Iron Out as well. I
was like, I don't care, Like this is really uncomfortable
and I'd rather be done.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and so I, yeah, I left. And so how
did you guys get the inspiration for tough Pop tells
a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So a couple of years ago, my wife she texted me,
she's like, we were kind of brainstorming ideas, you know,
and she texted me, she's like, what about protein popsicles?
And I was like, that's a really good idea, but
she didn't want to google it because she was scared of,
you know, the dozens of businesses are already doing it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So I was like, I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I google protein popsicles and there's nothing. There was like
a couple like mommy blogger like make these fear kids
during the summer kind of recipes, but nothing like really
commercialized went to market and like scaled, and so we
got to work. Man, we just got to work, and
it takes a lot. Like we started making trying to
make them ourselves, but like you put a fair life
in the freezer and it's like an ice cube. It's
(19:38):
not like a popsicle, it's like ice cream. And so
we we found this amazing group of food scientists that
like the dairy and the protein experts in organ and
so my wife has been working with them for you know,
two years now and has a killer product, has a
I mean a great big nationwide launch in February.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Is you guys are going into all the major stores.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I mean, that's the goal. We haven't we just haven't.
We haven't gone actively to sell. Like my I've pushed
it a little bit on my LinkedIn, which has gotten us,
you know, some really attractive emails. But so that, I mean,
that's her thing. I I do something else, and I
help her as much as I can. I do something else.
But yeah, tough pops. I mean I promised trade wear
the hat.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I like it well, I love the idea. I in fact,
as you saw, I was coming in with a little sash. Yeah,
so I was the other day, I was at Harmon's
and they have these new protein donuts, have you seen them.
Do you have to keep it? No? I think I
should grab some and you got to try it there.
I'm a pretty big fan of I'm gonna grab it
real quick. This is bad.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm hungry too, I'm actually hungry. No, I'm hungry. All right, guys.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
While he's gone, I'm going to pitch uh roofing. I
do roofing for the audience. Yeah, it's a don't drum roll.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So you've had those glazed white donuts, the little mini ones, yeah, course,
taste dude. It's one grammar sugar, ten grams of protein,
one hundred ninety calories for three of these, And so
I'm doing I'm prepping right now to do a fitness
showing like physique like yeah, yeah, uh no, I'll be
taking like stuff. But yeah, I just know there's multiple categories,
just a dude, But this is like one grammar sugar.
(21:14):
So and that's in all three of them. So check
ou out, give me your thoughts on it. It's they're
so damn good. I do like the I've been so impressed.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And that's the cinnamon or the cinnamon crunchy you want
whatever they are, Like my favors.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, dude, so give me your honest thoughts on that.
I had one. I was like, whoa, this is as
good as the normal donuts. I mean, dude, that's a
damn good donut for one grammar sugar and ten grams
of Protein's more airy yes, lighter, yes, but tastes freaking good.
It's good. I know. I'm pretty impressed with them. So anyway, Uh,
(21:47):
what I was getting at though, is there's this new
thing right now. This is like the craze is all
these protein products because people want to eat healthier, right,
and you know there's now you get protein gummies. I
just had.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It was like, there's categories that make sense to be
infused with protein, right, and there's some that are a
little bit weird right to me? Pop schools and ice
cream make a lot of sense for sure. Well they
naturally people already are having.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
You know, my nutrition is he'll mix these shakes together
with protein and they taste like ice cream. So you're
close enough if you're.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Not that creamy and a blender and you're like, you
can make some great stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So for you, I mean, you went from being this
you know, very successful, very well known entrepreneur. You took
like a kind of a normal person's job. What are
you doing now?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, you're right, So so tough Pops is amazing. It's
it's do CpG food and bad is like the long haul.
You don't really see an exit before like ten years.
True Freo is the exception.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
But you know, companies seem like they're getting acquired more
and more. Now. I just saw that David Bars I
think just sold for seven or fifty million.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Or David just raised a ton of money. Yeah, yeah,
pretty impressive. Those are kod by the way, they're pretty
dang and they're really healthy. Yeah, like if you're going
to get a bar, they're pretty clean. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
So I took a role as VP of business development
for a roofing company, which has made a lot of
my friends like raise their eyebrow. But I love it.
I am happier doing this than I ever was attacked.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Dude. It's funny you say that because I tell people
everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, Everyone wants to have
their own business or company. And I'm like, ninety percent
of people that try to be an entrepreneur should probably
just go get a job. You get to end your
day five or six o'clock, you can start your day.
You got to take weekends off, holidays. Like I start
looking at it and it's like we've kind of sold
this American dream of everybody should be an entrepreneur and
(23:37):
every it's not true. So many people would be better
off if there were plumbers, electricians, you know, roofers, like
these different jobs that make a couple of hundred grand
a year.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Now you can crush it totally.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I had to hire an electrician recently for just a
couple hours, and like twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I'm like, what the hell's going on out here?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah? I did.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I really enjoy it. I'm good at it. I'm a
great employee. I am like I mean, And after my experience,
it's like I could I am a great employee like
I am the treat What does that look like? I mean,
I'm like, I know because of Taft, Well, when you
do anything, like when you're great at one thing, you
(24:15):
can be great at another thing. And a lot of that.
I thought, first of all, when I when I sold TAFT,
I thought my network, my friends, my influence. I thought
everything was going to go with it. And I was
happy to find that that wasn't the case, Like it
didn't really change anything. I was, you know, the same invites,
the same friends are picking up the same.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, it was just the same. And I realized, Okay,
I am not my business.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And now I'm realizing, like I thought, if if I
go get a job for a roofing company, h all
of my all of the stuff I've been working towards
is going to kind of like no longer apply and do.
Like when you are a good person, being kind and
you have a great reputation, like people want to help you.
(25:04):
And my job is just you know, leveraging my network,
meeting lots of people, like braving my social anxiety, and
like just being a great problem solver. It's the same
things that made me good at Taft make me good
at roofing now. And yeah, I need to learn some
new vocabulary, and yes I'm meeting new people every day.
But like, the reason I was good at Taft is
(25:26):
the same reason I'm good at at business development for
a roofing company. And it's been a I freaking love it, dude.
I wake up excited, I go to sleep excited, like
I love talking about it. I don't even own any
of the company and I just love it, dude, So.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
How do you help other people see that as employees
that vision of like being able to because you're building
towards something though even though it's not yours, right and
building more so, you're just taking pride in your work.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Every day, right, I mean when I'm I went from
employer to employee, and man, I wish I could hire
people like me all the time, like you know, like
I own it. I don't forget a single thing. I'm
taking notes. I'm any spare second I'm saying any of
you know, like I really, I don't even own the company,
(26:10):
and I am a great steward of the company. And
I think that for me, you know, incentivizing people financially
is really motivating. I think that's helpful. I think letting
like trusting people like my bosses trust me and to
be honest, that makes me work harder when I'm not
being micro managed. I don't have a task master, you know,
(26:31):
I don't even have to check in like I grind
because I love the people I work for. I love
the people I work with.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Clients that I'm getting to meet, Like dude, like tough
pops like the ice cream the frozen category. That whole
industry is full of wonderful, happy people. And I have
found that, man, the construction industry is full of awesome people.
I've been impressed every single Like, dude, I have a
lot of social anxiety, Like meeting new people is you know,
(27:02):
it's just uncomfortable. I get shy, eat whatever, Dude, I
bravely go meet And I had two meetings yesterday, two
meetings today. Like I'm freaking stopping in meeting people, shaking
people's hands, like I'm walking in the rooms courageously, Like
I just love it. And I'm a good employee. And
I think that when you trust your team and you
(27:26):
make sure that they're financially motivated and compelled to work, Dude,
like magic can happen. Man, Like I what I'm learning
as an employee now I wish I could go back.
I mean, dude, my employees, I can confidently say that
we did really well by them. They loved us. I
was a good boss.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It probably helps you be a better employee.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Knowing totally though too. Yeah. Now I'm like, oh my gosh,
I've learned this and that I wish I could go
back should be a better boss.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
What would you do if you could go back, what
would you do differently to be a better boss?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I give everyone equity everyone, get them engaged in Oh, dude,
everyone Like man, it's so powerful to think that you
could partake in an exit like man, that's awesome. I
paid people like above market. I would give them more though,
like man, when when an employer can lighten the burden
(28:18):
of a household or a patriarch or a matriarchy, Like
if the employer can help, Oh, that's so powerful.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I've had this theory recently, like all these The reason
why our world's kind of going to shit is because,
for some reason, all these people at the top, there's
literally twenty guys on half the world, twenty.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Twenty people the money in the world, sees.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
That they would be so much happier if they would
use that money and just pour it down the line
into all their companies, just let everybody make more money.
It's like, what are you possibly Like you kind of
wonder what kind of people these people are, because it's like,
you know, you're worth nine billion dollars and your employees
are starving. It's like you would be so much happier.
If you could just give more to all of them
(29:00):
and it wouldn't even not even doesn't change you, you'd
actually proably have more success. But nobody does it. None
of them do it, and so fascinated by it. I'm
just like, there's it's really been hitting me lately. I
saw that stat that twenty people own half the wealth
of the world.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I heard a stat that was like, if Elon gave
up ninety nine percent of his net worth and he
gave up ninety nine percent of the remaining one percent,
he would still have forty million dollars. I was like, WHOA,
there's also I don't remember his name.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I feel like he makes like twenty million dollars an hour,
and yeah, no, it's the numbers there.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
There's a I'm sure you saw. I don't remember his name.
I think his name was like Sam Price maybe, but
he was an entrepreneur. He had a company. I was like,
it was like a payment process.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I know what you're talking about, dude in Seattle. Yeah,
he ended up.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Getting in trouble for like for like sexually something that.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, but he had the idea.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think you know, he raised the minimum wage of
all of his employees to seventy K and then he
dropped his pay by like ninety percent or something. Yeah,
he's a he's a scumback. Yeah, but I think that
he could. I think it works though from a business standpoint,
I think I think employee satisfaction skyrocket. I think the
company's performance also skyrocket. And so he taught us something interesting.
He also taught us what not to do. But it's
(30:08):
an interesting point. Like, dude, Like, there's also this great
meme I saw. I wish I had it memorized because
I think about it a lot. But it was like
it was basically a picture of Batman, and it was like,
our billionaires are such a waste. We have kid we
have kids school lunches that you know, millions of dollars
in debt, we have homelessness, we have all these things,
and billionaires like we should have a Batman and we
(30:29):
have a bunch of freaking well.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know, one thing I've learned is like things are complicated.
Obviously you see that with but it's it's it just
seems like you see if you've been to like Singapore
or Tokyo or some of these cities and they've kind
of figured out how to make all the cities like
really beautiful and amazing. And it's like, why are all
the cities in America so shitty? They're terrible? Like I
was just, you know, you walk around the streets. I
(30:53):
was just in Chicago, I was just in Milwaukee, Cleveland,
Saint Louis. Did you don't want to go out at night?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
But then I was just I was just in Spain
and Madrid, Barcelona and Pamplona. We went round with the bulls.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
That's where our factories were. So I've spent a lot
of sins.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever go run? No?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Okay, oh you go with that group?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
That is my Oay. I've seen you guys have gone
a number of years ago. Yeah, I've seen it in Yeah.
So I just took forty more guys a couple of
weeks ago. And but dude, it was you know, I'm
walking around Madrid. It's eleven o'clock at night, and I
know Spain culture, they stay up a little later anyway,
but dude, at night, all the streets they just put
tables out there and everybody hangs out and they're eating,
they're having pop us top us or whatever, and They're
(31:31):
just chilling, and it was like so calm and so
safe and fun, and I'm like, this, why are we
Can we not do this in America? And the truth
is we could. That's what's I think so frustrating right
now people watching the political landscape. It's like we're still
sending money to Ukraine and bombing Palestine and Israel and
everything else, and it's like, wait, can we just build
(31:52):
our cities up here? And it's kind of the same
principle as the company. It's like, America take care of
us all if it wanted to, but instead it's just
blowing this money all these other places.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, totally, I'm with you. I think that for me,
financial stress is I don't know if you uncover this,
but mental health is like my thing is I have,
you know, not your kind of following, but I have
a little bit of following on LinkedIn that's primarily about
mental health. And financial stress for me personally is like
(32:22):
the biggest trigger, and it's everyone's like, it's really hardly
anything else.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
If you're financially stress.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You can't do super well when that's top of mind
and your nervous system shot, your immune system draw you know, plummets.
Your course, all levels are off the charts, like you
sleep socks, you don't exercise, you're not eating well, like it,
and it if we could. You know, I read this
really interesting book that talks about why we're all so depressed.
(32:52):
It goes through these nine reasons why everyone's so depressed.
I mean, I don't know what's the book, but it's uh, shoot,
that's a right, sorry. But he goes through all the
and they're very like it's like connection and sleep and
these very practical, tangible things. And then he's like, here's
the solution, universal basic income. And it comes out of nowhere.
(33:18):
And I'm not I'm not trying to get political, you know,
I don't. I don't know nearly enough about the politics
of that to get into it. But I thought it
was really interesting that he was the solector going through
all these very human things and then he thought the
solution to our our worsening numbers around mental health is
to give everyone a universal basic income.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
So I'll give the one reason I've always pushed back
on that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Well, dude, I'm not I'm not advocating for it. I'm
just saying ties to financial stress and mental health agreed.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I think that part of that though, is if you
don't earn something, there's a self esteem thing there, like
when you know that you're the asset, when you know
that you're the one that earned the money.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I think I feel that.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I think a lot of I think a lot of
having the money is knowing that you can earn it.
I think that's where a lot of that mental health
gets fixed. And so I don't know if just giving
people because I mean you look at the people that
get handouts now, they're not happy, They're usually not They're
usually some of the most depressed, downwritten people. And so
I just think you have to earn that somehow, because
when you earn it, it's just a different scent of
(34:18):
confidence that you gain.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And that's my only pushback to that. Yeah, and I
you know, it's not like it's not like a livable
you know, living one hundred percent off of something like
social Security be really difficult.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well it's interesting too, like all the things they used
to tell us you can't do and now they're doing.
I remember when I was a kid, and I remember
hearing about the national debt. I was probably ten, and
I'm like, why are they just print more money and
people looked at me like I was the idiot, you know,
and it's like, no, you can't do that, and it
turns out you can't. Like that's what they're doing now.
I mean they're ruining.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
The environment of the financial you know everything.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
But at the end of the day, no, it's you know,
the mental health thing is a big one. I did.
That's you know, I want read a company where you
get a lot of engagement because you're you're very well
spoken on it. What have you? I mean, what would
what's the message you'd like to share around this stuff?
I mean, there's so many angles to go with this,
but you know what got you so interested in really
diving into this?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So when I was like fifteen, like a switch one
off in my brain and I started thinking about suicide
like all.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The time and wanting to do it or just thinking
about it, No.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Like wanting to do out it. Yeah, yeah, like I would.
I had a corner in my bedroom. I was like
a window window and I could look out on the
street and I remember as a kid, I would like
I was timing cars when when to jump basically out
my window. That was kind of the first like not obsession,
but really imagine imagining. And you know, now, I've dealt
(35:47):
with severe depression for you know, the majority of my
life over twenty years now, and I have a lot
of influences in this space. But I don't necessarily have
a lot of answers. I just talk openly. I share
(36:08):
very human and transparent, transparently, humanly and transparently, and so
I don't I don't really have answers. I mean, I
have lots of recommendations and stuff, but like, even for myself,
I haven't like cracked the code totally.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What have you discovered? And I mean I think that
even the talking about it though, is such a big piece, right,
how have you seen that help with the people that
you've met with? Dude?
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean I get probably literally probably like ten messages
a day on LinkedIn that are like thank you for sharing,
thank you for sharing, thank you for sharing. Like people
struggle to put words to how they're feeling, and I don't,
and so I feel it my responsibility to share because
you know, I have a way with words, not like
(36:51):
not like I'm boasting. I'm just saying like I can
put words to my feelings and I'm not scared or
embarrassed to share very personal things.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I think, well, and I think part of what helps
is hearing somebody like you. I think is why you
people are gravitating to you, because you give them the
courage to be able to do the same.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, you're kind of giving them a voice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And I think also a lot of times, and I
don't want to discourage anyone from sharing, but a lot
of times the people that you that are open about
that stuff aren't necessarily the ones you want to hear
about it from.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, a lot of times it still comes from the ego, Right,
they're just wanting to and God bless them, they're just
wanting to be loved.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Like you can have empathy for that, but all you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Want to do is you're just like, please stop. You
know the lady at the testimony.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you're right. And I think there's something particularly powerful
when you can couple that level of transparency with like
some professional success and you know, eloquence and.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well in the beauty of your position too, as it
comes with credibility. It's like, this guy was depressed because
a lot of people I think what a lot of
depressed people think is what once I get blank, I
will no longer be depressed. And it's unfortunately, all it's
gonna do is magnify whatever you're feeling. And you know
this because you've been there. But to the person that
(38:12):
doesn't have money, they can think to themselves like a
lot of their hope lies and well, if I just
get money, I won't be a press or it's the
person's in a bad marriage things if I can just
get out of this marriage, or if I just get
my wife to freaking like me again, or you know,
the single person like if I can just find a
partner totally, when in reality, if you're depressed, none of
that stuff's gonna heal it, you know. And so I
think you just having the position you do, it just
(38:34):
comes with a lot more authority or people want to
listen to that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah, I think so. My kind of like my pillows
are like sleep. Like people think they sleep enough, they
definitely don't sleep enough. Like everyone says they care about sleep,
like I preach that I care about sleep. I went
to sleep at like twelve thirty last night. I woke
up with five fifteen. That's not enough enough. It's not enough.
And I'm the one that's you know, on LinkedIn talking
about sleep sleep diet, like we are not We're skipping meals,
(39:02):
we're eating crap, we're eating irregularly, you know, like really
it requires a level of discipline and devotion and commitment
to it that like ninety percent of people do not
do They might say they eat well, they don't eat well.
It's not just like not going to taco bell. It's
like it's taking eggs for breakfast. You know, it's like
it's it's hard, it requires a lot. It's going to
(39:22):
dinner and not getting the chicken block. Yeah, exactly, I
think about And when I said is as sleep, Oh, exercise,
I mean did your training you know you're getting ready
for competition like exercise.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I don't I exercise every day. I don't necessarily like
notice the benefits. But I trust the science. I trust
the data, and I'm not going to risk coming off
that treadmill.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
That's a part that makes it hard for people, whether
it's a diet or whether it's working out, is you
don't see any results right away. People like to see
immediate results. Totally. We're the generation of the one below
is of just they want everything right now, and unfortunately
all these things you're talking about, you don't notice a
change or the benefits for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
So yeah, yeah, I think human connection. I think that
that could be why I love roofing so much. Like
you know, I used to sell stuff on a website,
and now I'm like selling stuff to people in person,
and I love that interaction. I love making new friends.
Even though I have social anxiety, I love meeting new people. Dude,
it's a secret to my entire program. It's all about
just human connection.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
So when people ask me what do you do, I say, actually,
I'd love to ask you what you don't tell. So
the answer to it is because I really what I
do is I run a men's group. But what I
say this is really and it took me about three
years of doing my program before I figured out the
right way to explain it. I say, I help you
connect to other humans. I put you environments where you're
going to connect on a deeper level, and you do
that by helping you first connect to yourself. And so
(40:48):
when you're connected to yourself, then all of a sudden,
you take your masks off and you connect so fast
to others. But like this morning, I we do a
workout every Wednesday at my house. Anybody can come in
the group. And we had nine dudes there and we're
in the pool doing like these workouts with this Navy
seal guy, you know, and it's just like and every
single guy there was laughing, smiling, hanging out. We left
(41:10):
there today and every single guy, I guarantee you is
going to be happier today because they showed up for
that worked out, got in the sun, and human connection, right,
And so if you can start your day with a
few of those things every day, I mean, it's a
cheat code, it is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And dude, that's cool. So your your men's like running
a men's group, what does that mean? Like?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
So, yes, we have a program that basically you sign
up and it's a two year program and every week
we do a zoom call together. Every month we have
live events in person, and then once every three months
we get together for three days and we go pretty deep.
We do many masterminds, We have breath work, We have
a lot of fun. We do a lot of crazy
stuff like that, you know, jump off cliffs, I have
(41:50):
military guys, came water borders, just all sorts of fun stuff.
And then we had these adventure trips, like we just
got back from Pennsylvania doing one, and our next one's
in New Zealand next year. And then we do a
lot of stuff with the families. So like this weekend,
I have a party at my house, a barbecue swim
party and for the families, we'll have two hundred people there.
I'm hosting my own rodeo this weekend. Yeah, it's so
(42:14):
two of the guys in my group are big time
cowboys and so they're helping me throw it. We did
it two years ago, So I got fifteen guys are
going to form my group. We're going to ride a bull.
We got total participation. We have about two hundred people.
Like aho lot of the little kids will get the
mutton bust and cash cow and all.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
These fun things. And so it's just bringing people together.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And the more I've thought about this, it's like with AI,
you know, taking over a lot of these other kinds
of things. More and more people are going to be
dying for this in person connection. I think it just
makes you know, when I launched my program, I knew
there was a need. COVID kind of like opened me
up to like, oh, people don't know how to connect.
They don't know how to find other people they want
to do life with. And so I knew there was
(42:53):
a need and do The first day I launched my program,
we had I had fifty spots available, and I had
one hundred and forty seven people apply for those spots
in eight hours. I thought it was going to take
me a month to sell it. I didn't have my
first call for a month because I didn't. I didn't
think it was going to sell that correctly, can't do it. It
was just it just showed me the need. And you know,
the group I'm launching in August, it'll be my seventh
group of fifty guys.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
And so you have like cohorts.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, so I put him in. I keep him in
groups of fifty for the whole program, so they can
really go deep with each other and build those lifelong connections.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Wow, man, that's yeah, because for me, I don't I mean,
I don't need someone to facilitate that because I'm lucky.
You know, I kind of built my life in such
a way that I have that inherently. But yeah, if
that's not the case, well here you need a lot
of help because that does not come after.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Even really social. People love it. Like a lot of
the people in my group have more friends than anybody.
But what happens is if you don't have somebody, they
get to just show up. Like these guys that came
around with the bulls, they all say the same, they're dude,
I just get to be there. Everything's planned, like the events.
They just show up and they don't have like a
lot of we have a lot of executives, see, you know, entrepreneurs,
because they love they get to just come and be
(44:03):
They don't have to be in charge of anything.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I got one guy in my group, he's you know,
worth nine figures, right, and the guy that just joined
a couple, you know, a little while ago, and then
he told me, he said, dude, this is the one
time I don't have to be in charge. He's like,
I just love to come be here. I don't have
to be anybody. And so it's like people are like,
well do you pay for friends? And the truth is
it's like a country club kind of. They're facilitating something
for you. Like it's like being part of a tour
(44:26):
or a group you have to have you know, somebody's
doing it, and so you're paying for the environment, and
then you get to connect with the people that are
in such enviroments. I go into a concert or a
baseball game, you pay to be in the environment. From there,
the experience is going to be what you make it
to be. And so somebody has to create that container.
And so that's what we kind of specialize in. So cool, dude. Yeah,
(44:46):
it's fun, man, but it is. It's a human connection, Dude.
There's nothing that you know, and they got I've had
six hundred guys in my program now total, and we
haven't had a single we haven't lost a single guy yet,
you know, and we've had a few. Dude. In fact, yesterday,
I'll get a little motion if I talk of this.
But two of the guys in my sixth group, they
sent me a text and said, Hey, we haven't heard
from so and so. We've been trying to reach out.
We're pretty worried about him. We heard he got some
(45:07):
bad news. He's like going through a divorce for like
a year now. And they said, we're driving up. We'll
keep you posted, and you know, and I'm calling the
guy and texting him. But these two dudes, they drove
all around this dude's hometown, trying to find him. Eventually,
about nine thirty at night, I got a text like, hey,
we found him. He'll be all right, And then the
dude texts me and it was just like this was yesterday.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
This was you know these dudes.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And somebody asked me the kid coming to clean my
yard yesterday. He was like, how do you handle so
many people that you're coaching? I don't understand, and it's like, no,
these guys take care.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Of each yeah, right right, that's the bruins of the cohort.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
When I'm there, I getting away like yeah, it's like
dad showing up, you know what I mean. They literally
just get to take care to him. My whole job
is to help them connect and then help facilitating you know,
the experiences. But other than that, I mean, dude, there's
a million guys in my group that have as much
or more knowledge, experience, you know, creativity, whatever you want
to call it, then I do and and they able
to do it. Like these two guys driving around yesterday
(46:05):
just was like everything to me. And they literally they
probably drove around for three three and a half hours, wow,
Like just to make sure this dude was okay.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It's special, man. Yeah, the group, the group structure is powerful. Man.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
When we're broken as humans in groups, so we have
to heal in groups. You know, it's really hard to
heal on your own. You ever thought you healed something
in a relationship, there's a pretty good chance or like
you know, with your family or something. The second you
get back in the environments, you're like, yeah, I'm not
as skilled as I thought I was because you just
hadn't been triggered for a year or so, you know exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
But well, dude, what's for you?
Speaker 2 (46:36):
You know, I think a lot of people they're just
you know, you're just a very fascinating person for people.
If they do want to follow you, they want to
learn more about you, where's the best place for us
to send them?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I mean LinkedIn Instagram? Uh, I lived in promo come over?
And then yeah, roofing tough pops?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Where do we buy tough bops? On to buy some?
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Nowhere yet? But we have a we bought it, you
know Schwan's. Yeah for sure, yes, so we bought an
old Sewan's truck.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Did I used to sell meat door to dort Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Really dude? Yeah? So you know, you know those trucks. Yes,
we bought a truck. We're wrapping it so locally we'll do.
You know, I'd love to come to your house, park
it out front for an event or whatever. And then
we have a launch at Harmon's later this year, which
is they're going to carry it. Yeah, and then a
big nationwide launch.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
In February amazing, which will be that'll be everyone you
can't wait to see. We'll revisit a couple of years
when you guys are at another one hundred million dollar
companies crossed right man, Well, thank you again.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Jimmy, thanks, 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
now available in Salt Lake City and or in Utah.
(47:50):
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
own podcast, we take all of the guests work out
of it for you. We make it so simple. All
you do is you come in, you sit down 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 DM Rookery Studios, or
go to our website, The Rookery Studios dot com
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Jimmy Rex Show.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Today on the podcast, and I sit down with Corey
Stevens and he is the founder of Taft Shoes. Him
and his wife are working on a cool company right
now called Tough Protein and protein Popsicles. Pretty amazing stuff.
But he had a big exit from that company. At
one point was a nine figure valuation on his company,
Taft Shoes. And we talk about his journey. We talk
about some personal things that happened in his life that
(00:27):
affected him, affected the cell and kind of just the
lessons he learned building this giant business. So really cool story,
amazing man, amazing entrepreneur and father and excited to share
his story with you guys. So with that, let's get
to the show. And today's show is brought to you
by Bucked Up Protein Drinks. I've been really talking a
lot about their twenty five grand protein, no sugar, no fat,
(00:51):
hundred calorie can of again their protein. This is unbelievable.
But anyways, if you get a chance, they sell them
Harmon's or anywhere Bucked Up products are sold.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
With that, let's get to the podcast. Corety, good to
see man, dude, Thank you it's a pleasure meeting man,
that's our first time meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It is. You know, it's interesting you. Once I started
researching for this podcast, I saw all the different things
that you've been you know, the different shows you've been on,
all the people you've talked to. I'm like, how have
I not met this guy?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I thought the same thing. I'm like, I bet we
have a million mutual friends. And to be honest, I
don't really know that much about you. I hear your
name a lot, I see you with a lot of
my friends, but you know, this is the first time
we're meeting.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, it'll be fun to chop it up with you. Man,
you got an interesting background. I want to start it with.
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I don't always just like to.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Tell me your story things like that, but you yours
is really a story worth telling. I want to get
back into the company, your true company first that you
sold at started as a saw company, and kind of
just talk about that because how you got into that.
Cause I think a lot of people that listen to
my show are entrepreneurs or young guys, people in college,
and they're asking themselves that question of like, Okay, if
I have an idea or if I have a thought,
(02:02):
how do I capitalize on that? Right? Because I think
you went to Europe and got inspired by the idea,
right and maybe just kind of take.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
It from there, dude. So we had my wife and I, I
wanted to do management consulting out of college, didn't have
any offers, and so we did the smart thing. We
took all of our our faftsist savings, our pel grants
and like scholarship money, went to Europe and spent a
wonderful six weeks. But while we were on that trip,
we had this idea for no show socks because everyone, dude,
it was like Spain, you know, Italy, Croatia, everyone's super stylish,
(02:29):
but no socks. And if I did that, I torched
my shoes and you know it would be disgusting. And
so we came back from that trip and we just
got to work. And I think looking back, I wasn't
I didn't grow up like I want to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to be like a lawyer or a doctor,
or like a soccer player, but that wasn't super realistic.
(02:50):
But then I kind of just like really unintentionally found
myself running a shoe company. But it wasn't like it
like the guys that you're talking about that, you know,
the ones you're referencing, they want to be on they're
actively looking for ideas. I didn't feel that way. I
wanted a stability. I wanted predictability. I wanted like four
to one K pension.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
And then all of a sudden, like two years in
and we're running a you know, multimillion dollar shoe company.
A lot of it was like my life and and
I look back and I it was just miraculous, Like
I can't leave like divinity out of it. It was
like so many miracles happened to get us to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
What was the first like the first inspiration you so
you see literally see you see this need.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, but so what's the process from there?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Because I think a lot of people they have these ideas,
these at a light bulbs golf, and then nothing happened.
So what was that first step that you took?
Speaker 1 (03:44):
First step was I came back from that trip and
my school idea at BYU still worked, and so I
went to campus. I logged in and I was like
learning the Adobe Suite, an illustrator photoshop on campus, taking
classes from like these in the in the library, and
so I learned how to design socks, and I went
(04:05):
on Ali Baba. I had a sock that I liked
and I took a picture of it, and I went
and I emailed hundreds of factories saying did you make this?
Did you make this? Did you make this? Eventually we
found the one that made it, and then we were like, okay, great,
I know, let's take that base. Since I'm not like
a technical design I'm not going to send you tech
packs like a you know, some great technical company would.
It was like, start with that base, here's my crappy
(04:28):
illustrator designs. Let's go from there. And then we launched
a Kickstarter campaign, and back when that was still my
Kickstar was still hot, that was like the only path,
you know, bootstrap via Kickstarter.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Did you raise a lot of money through the Kickstarter?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
We raised forty eighty dollars, so, I mean our goal
was twenty three k. It was an arbitrary had no
rhyme or reason. It was just like, yeah, you know,
Michael Jordan, are sure like twenty three? And then we
raised about double that. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And then from there, how are you getting clients? How
are you getting the product to people.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
So Instagram like, we grew a really old school this thing, dude,
I mean, we grew a really it was like me
and my wife in our living room taking amazing pictures.
So we'd we'd go out in provo, like wearing the socks.
I mean yeah, like wearing the socks. But then we
realized like if we were just photographing the socks, we
would get really weird dms and stuff you can fill
(05:24):
in the gaps. So then we're like, Okay, just socks,
isn't it. Let's so let's hit nord from RAC in
Orum and we're like, we're seeing all these cool shoes.
We're like, let's buy them up North from rac return
policy is like super sweet. So we buy a bunch
of shoes, photograph them with the socks, and then return them.
And I'd go home to Burbank, go to the Burbank
Nordstrom Rac, bring them back to Utah, photograph them for
(05:46):
you know, two months, and then return them in Orum.
And so we started slowly we started to look more
and more like a shoe company, and people weren't asking
about the socks. They were like, hey, where can I
get that crazy pair of shoes, and it's like, well,
if they're an Orum, Utah and maybe Burbank, California, you know,
and so it really organically we slowly morphed into socks
to shoes and people were like, where can I get shoes?
(06:07):
We're can I get the shoes? And then eventually shoe
factories that thought we were a shoe company started reaching
out like, hey, we'd love to make shoes for you.
Here's our catalog. We're based in you know, Spain or
Italy or Portugal, whatever, And so all of a sudden,
these miracles just happened and we were a shoe company, like,
you know, eighteen months after the Kickstarter campaign. Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And so at that point you kind of went all
in on shoes. And by the time you built the
company and sold it, you'd how many shoes had you sold?
Just give the audience an idea.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Oh man, over one hundred million in revenue. I don't
know a pair count, but lots lots of shoes.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So what was your decision? Because a lot of people,
you know, they build up a company, and a lot
of people, the entrepreneurs sometimes they just like the build process.
They don't like to actually run the companies, that's why
they sell, but other people they just move on. In
your case, I know you were going through a lot
of things at that time. Maybe take us back to
that time why you chose to sell and kind of
just what happened with everything.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
I mean, so COVID Covid, you know, we had opened,
we had like six stores. The first store we opened
in New York City and so ho what was it called?
Just toaff just like I got it, Yeah, the shoes
or whatever. So November twenty nineteen, so we signed like
a twenty thousand dollars a month lease. We have like
Louis Uitton, Apple, Lululemon, taff you know, stop right like
(07:19):
right on Print Street, Super Sick location. And then two
months later COVID happens, and so you know, COVID was
really tough on the business, although we didn't notice it
in the moment, like a couple of years of lag effect,
and then we started to feel.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
What was the specific damage that COVID did to your business?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You know, our our shoes were pretty event based, you know,
like our shoes are you know, you wear them out
to party, but our shoes are like weddings, bachelor parties,
like that kind of church. You know, it's like kind
of flashy stuff that that's not like you don't wear
it around the house. And so while says dipped a
(08:00):
little bit, it was really just cash flow issues that
we inventory built up a little bit, and so all
of a sudden in Q one twenty twenty two, we
had just come off a great Q four twenty twenty one,
and you know, cash were cash rich, and then suddenly
we're like, I remember the president of TAFT at the time,
he came up to me, He's like, hey, we have
like three months of cash left. I'm like, what are
(08:23):
you talking about? And so there was there was this
cash issue.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
What they like. That's one of the things about a
clothing store, right, is you have to have so many
sizes and styles, and if you pick a few shoes
people don't like they just you're throwing them away.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You know. The socks it's a dollar a pair, right,
shoes were like one hundred dollars of a pair, right,
And it was it was it was a lot of
money inventory and if something flops or people tighten their
wallets whatever, like you know, we felt and so we
ended up feeling it a couple of years later in
twenty twenty two. So there was this like cash issue
that was in the background, but we felt, you know,
between debt equity, just going back to our our investors,
(09:00):
we felt like we could get over that. But then
in my son passed away in twenty twenty two, and
that accelerated everything.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Did How did he pass away?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
He was born with like if you think about lungs,
like a balloon, when you blow into a balloon, the
walls separated inflates, right, Like, his lungs didn't inflate, the
walls were kind of adhered together, and so he had
struggles breathing on his own. And unfortunately he passed away.
(09:31):
And when something like that happens, like who can possibly
care about shoes?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So we that accelerated everything and.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
As far as the sale goes, yeah, we were already thinking.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
We were already in talks, we were already into the process,
but you know, there was some pushback from investors about
price and situation. I had my doubts as well, but
then that happened. I mean there's literally photos of me
in the hospital, like phone in hand, pacing around, negotiating
with lawyers and auditors and you know, like it was
(10:08):
a horrible I mean, I have to be kind of
callous to it or I'll be emotional. You know, it's
like which emotion's fine, But it was just a really
tough time.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Do you feel like, like, in hindsight, do you wish
you would have not sold during that time or did
you end up getting still kind of what you were
hoping for? Did you end up just because it sounds
like you kind of just had a who cares attitude
is not the best way to go to a negotiating
I did have a who cares attitude, and I frankly,
I wish that my investors on our board and our team.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Would have been like Corey, like dude, wake up, like
yes your morning, don't sell your business like this. You know,
like we we got the short end of the stick.
And I do have regrets. My wife does not have
any regrets. She's happy because you know, when you are
so important to a business, you can't just walk away. Really,
(11:02):
the first step to getting away was selling, because then
I had to you know, I had to work for
them for another year, and you know, there was all
this stuff, but the first step was selling, and we
felt really tied to TAFT and it felt like it
was my identity, it was my whole network, it was
my whole life. And after ten years, it's like, I
want to do other things too.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's what I got there with real estate. You know,
I'd been doing it for seventeen years straight and you know,
my best year I ever had. I The next year,
I turned it over to my partner, and people were like,
what you build your whole career to get to that spat,
Why would you walk in? I was like, I just
wanted to do a new challenge. I just wanted something else.
I just was ready to try some other things. Yeah,
it's interesting, you dude.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I started the business. I was a young college graduate.
You know, I had no children, and I sold it
when I had four children, and you know, my wife
and I had been married for well over ten years,
and like I was totally different and my interests were
changing and my strengths were changing, and what I what
I You know, it was like that business wasn't going
(12:05):
to serve me forever, and selling was really the first
step to moving on to something that is more interesting.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, and when you're grieving, I remember when I was
doing when I was flipping a lot of houses. And
this guy called me one time and he had a
house in Springville. This is twelve fifteen years ago. But
he he said, hey, I noticed you buy homes for cash.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
My wife, does it you that's doing all those signs? Man,
this was not me, but those gosh, call text me
who was doing that?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I never did those signs.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
They say they work, I never actually did those.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I don't start interrupted. No, you're good. They probably don't
work that good because I haven't seen him in a
long time. But no, we were just just my reputation
from real estate. I was always putting it out on
social media. I was looking to, you know, buy distress properties.
And this guy called me up and he just says like, hey,
me and I had worked with like one of his
family members or something, so he's like, you know, my
sibling whatever said that, Uh, you would buy my house
(12:56):
for cash. My wife just passed away yesterday. I want
to be in my whole face. I was in Texas.
I want to be gone today. I just need my
house sold. I looked it up. I said how much
do you want for it? And he says, just give
me one twenty. I'm out and I mean, it was
worth two fifty in the moment, and I just I
was like, I said, sir, your house is worth probably
two fifty. He goes, I don't care. I want to
(13:17):
be gone tomorrow. Can you pay me tomorrow? And I
was like, yeah, I mean I can do that, and
I ended up actually gave him an extra ten grand
I just felt bad, but he was like because he
was grieving so much, and he goes, look, i'm selling
this today. It's done, like, just get me out of
it and anyway, But I remember thinking about that because yeah,
so as youre telling your story, just remind me of that,
because I remember thinking, like, man, this guy, I was
(13:39):
trying to talk him out of it. I'm like, dude,
let me list it for you. Give me thirty days,
I'll get you two twenty. You know what I mean.
It's like, and he just no, I want it today,
I want it gone. I want I don't ever want
to be in this house again. And it was just
this that was his way of coping with the death
of his spouse, his wife, and I just remember feeling
sad for the guy. But he was so grateful. He
wrote me the nicest letter after and everything so that's
(13:59):
a powerful story.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I think that there's some some like it was his house,
it was my shoe company, and it was just like
something about it was just get this away from me.
I'm in so much pain. How can I How can
I care about someone's broken shoelaces or how can I
spend time designing some stupid pair of shoes? You know,
(14:22):
because I was, I was designing the shoes, and it
just I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Know how old was your son when he passed away?
He was five hours old?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
But it was yeah, we did you know it was
going to be a tough berth or no?
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I mean we knew that it was. We knew that
there were some complications, but my wife and I we
never opened the door to what could happen. We were
I mean, there was just it's interesting. There were so
many miraculous things that happened along the way, and we
thought that the presence of the miracles meant that we
(14:55):
would get the outcome we wanted. And so the miracle
was that he was alive when he was born, really
you know, like but we just we fully believed with
all of our hearts that he was going to be okay.
And then he wasn't, you know, And I realized pretty quickly,
(15:18):
like the vibe in the room shifted, and then it
you know, and then we had the hard conversation of
like I called, it was Father's Day, June nineteenth, twenty
twenty two, and I called my friend, who's over the
nick you and I was like, hey, I know it's
Father's Day, but you have to get here, like I
(15:38):
have to. If someone's going to tell me that my
son is going to pass away, I need it to
be you. And so he came, and I mean, just
a really hard day obviously, you know, but you know,
back to the business, it's like who cares about shoes? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
So what are you so? I mean at that time,
I'm just trying to kind of understand because it's just interesting, right,
you know, you have you built this company build to
over one hundred million dollars in revenue, and nobody from
your board and there was nobody else could get through.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That venture capital you know, dude, Like venture capital wants
like ten x or they want zero sure, and we
were not ten x. And I think that you know
that what it was going to take to get there,
our investors on our board, like you know, we had
already been we raised in twenty eighteen, so we're, you know,
four years into it. It posts you know, I was
ten years into the business, but four years post raise,
(16:32):
and I think they saw the writing on the wall.
It was like, this isn't going to be massive massive,
it's not going to be a huge exit for anyone.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And so maybe we just kind of they were okay,
they were what they were.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
More interested in, like their you know, their unicorns and
their dragons in their funds, and Taft was, you know,
like they didn't they they cared because they're my friends
and they love me, but financial and business wise, they
didn't care that much.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So did you take some time mom and you guys
started your new company. I know your wife she's an
entrepreneur as well.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I mean she's the co founder of Taft.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, she's the best. And so tell me kind of
from there, where do you pivot? How do you decide
to come up with tough pops?
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Dude? So, I I mean I had to go work
for this new company that oh they're.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Telling you what to do.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, I'm sure some of those people will listen
to your podcast. So I got to be really careful
what I say. But I mean really difficult because I
had millions of people that appreciated me and kind of
knew that I was the magic to that company. And
I had a team that was told they'd have a job,
and I you know, there were a lot of promises
(17:45):
and then there was some there was some executive shifting.
I mean someone passed away. The most important person passed away.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Oh geez, the one that was basically.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I mean basically the acquirer of the business passed away
a few months after the deal happened. But I mean
I immediately was I think I was like the director
of product development or something, and it was like my
whole team was looking to me as like Corey, you're
the leader, Like come on, and customers were like where's Corey?
You know, And it was really difficult. But I did
(18:17):
a great job. I was a great teammate. I showed
up with a smile. I tried to get involved. I
tried to get my hands on.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Stuff, you know, and it was kind of just like Corey,
you designed the shoes.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
And so as soon as I could leave, I left.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I talked to you. I don't know if you're
familiar with Gertjee and the Bucklist. So when he sold
his app to Snapchat, ask, part of it was like
he can't stayed on and they offered him this crazy
thing to stay on, and he I think he lasted
like two weeks.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, I walked away from Iron Out as well. I
was like, I don't care, Like this is really uncomfortable
and I'd rather be done.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, and so I, yeah, I left. And so how
did you guys get the inspiration for tough Pop tells
a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So a couple of years ago, my wife she texted me,
she's like, we were kind of brainstorming ideas, you know,
and she texted me, she's like, what about protein popsicles?
And I was like, that's a really good idea, but
she didn't want to google it because she was scared of,
you know, the dozens of businesses are already doing it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So I was like, I'll do it.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I google protein popsicles and there's nothing. There was like
a couple like mommy blogger like make these fear kids
during the summer kind of recipes, but nothing like really
commercialized went to market and like scaled, and so we
got to work. Man, we just got to work, and
it takes a lot. Like we started making trying to
make them ourselves, but like you put a fair life
in the freezer and it's like an ice cube. It's
(19:38):
not like a popsicle, it's like ice cream. And so
we we found this amazing group of food scientists that
like the dairy and the protein experts in organ and
so my wife has been working with them for you know,
two years now and has a killer product, has a
I mean a great big nationwide launch in February.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Is you guys are going into all the major stores.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I mean, that's the goal. We haven't we just haven't.
We haven't gone actively to sell. Like my I've pushed
it a little bit on my LinkedIn, which has gotten us,
you know, some really attractive emails. But so that, I mean,
that's her thing. I I do something else, and I
help her as much as I can. I do something else.
But yeah, tough pops. I mean I promised trade wear
the hat.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I like it well, I love the idea. I in fact,
as you saw, I was coming in with a little sash. Yeah,
so I was the other day, I was at Harmon's
and they have these new protein donuts, have you seen them.
Do you have to keep it? No? I think I
should grab some and you got to try it there.
I'm a pretty big fan of I'm gonna grab it
real quick. This is bad.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I'm hungry too, I'm actually hungry. No, I'm hungry. All right, guys.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
While he's gone, I'm going to pitch uh roofing. I
do roofing for the audience. Yeah, it's a don't drum roll.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Check it out.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So you've had those glazed white donuts, the little mini ones, yeah, course,
taste dude. It's one grammar sugar, ten grams of protein,
one hundred ninety calories for three of these, And so
I'm doing I'm prepping right now to do a fitness
showing like physique like yeah, yeah, uh no, I'll be
taking like stuff. But yeah, I just know there's multiple categories,
just a dude, But this is like one grammar sugar.
(21:14):
So and that's in all three of them. So check
ou out, give me your thoughts on it. It's they're
so damn good. I do like the I've been so impressed.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And that's the cinnamon or the cinnamon crunchy you want
whatever they are, Like my favors.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, dude, so give me your honest thoughts on that.
I had one. I was like, whoa, this is as
good as the normal donuts. I mean, dude, that's a
damn good donut for one grammar sugar and ten grams
of Protein's more airy yes, lighter, yes, but tastes freaking good.
It's good. I know. I'm pretty impressed with them. So anyway, Uh,
(21:47):
what I was getting at though, is there's this new
thing right now. This is like the craze is all
these protein products because people want to eat healthier, right,
and you know there's now you get protein gummies. I
just had.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It was like, there's categories that make sense to be
infused with protein, right, and there's some that are a
little bit weird right to me? Pop schools and ice
cream make a lot of sense for sure. Well they
naturally people already are having.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
You know, my nutrition is he'll mix these shakes together
with protein and they taste like ice cream. So you're
close enough if you're.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Not that creamy and a blender and you're like, you
can make some great stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
So for you, I mean, you went from being this
you know, very successful, very well known entrepreneur. You took
like a kind of a normal person's job. What are
you doing now?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, you're right, So so tough Pops is amazing. It's
it's do CpG food and bad is like the long haul.
You don't really see an exit before like ten years.
True Freo is the exception.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
But you know, companies seem like they're getting acquired more
and more. Now. I just saw that David Bars I
think just sold for seven or fifty million.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Or David just raised a ton of money. Yeah, yeah,
pretty impressive. Those are kod by the way, they're pretty
dang and they're really healthy. Yeah, like if you're going
to get a bar, they're pretty clean. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
So I took a role as VP of business development
for a roofing company, which has made a lot of
my friends like raise their eyebrow. But I love it.
I am happier doing this than I ever was attacked.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Dude. It's funny you say that because I tell people
everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, Everyone wants to have
their own business or company. And I'm like, ninety percent
of people that try to be an entrepreneur should probably
just go get a job. You get to end your
day five or six o'clock, you can start your day.
You got to take weekends off, holidays. Like I start
looking at it and it's like we've kind of sold
this American dream of everybody should be an entrepreneur and
(23:37):
every it's not true. So many people would be better
off if there were plumbers, electricians, you know, roofers, like
these different jobs that make a couple of hundred grand
a year.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Now you can crush it totally.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I had to hire an electrician recently for just a
couple hours, and like twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I'm like, what the hell's going on out here?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah? I did.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I really enjoy it. I'm good at it. I'm a
great employee. I am like I mean, And after my experience,
it's like I could I am a great employee like
I am the treat What does that look like? I mean,
I'm like, I know because of Taft, Well, when you
do anything, like when you're great at one thing, you
(24:15):
can be great at another thing. And a lot of that.
I thought, first of all, when I when I sold TAFT,
I thought my network, my friends, my influence. I thought
everything was going to go with it. And I was
happy to find that that wasn't the case, Like it
didn't really change anything. I was, you know, the same invites,
the same friends are picking up the same.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
You know, it was just the same. And I realized, Okay,
I am not my business.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And now I'm realizing, like I thought, if if I
go get a job for a roofing company, h all
of my all of the stuff I've been working towards
is going to kind of like no longer apply and do.
Like when you are a good person, being kind and
you have a great reputation, like people want to help you.
(25:04):
And my job is just you know, leveraging my network,
meeting lots of people, like braving my social anxiety, and
like just being a great problem solver. It's the same
things that made me good at Taft make me good
at roofing now. And yeah, I need to learn some
new vocabulary, and yes I'm meeting new people every day.
But like, the reason I was good at Taft is
(25:26):
the same reason I'm good at at business development for
a roofing company. And it's been a I freaking love it, dude.
I wake up excited, I go to sleep excited, like
I love talking about it. I don't even own any
of the company and I just love it, dude, So.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
How do you help other people see that as employees
that vision of like being able to because you're building
towards something though even though it's not yours, right and
building more so, you're just taking pride in your work.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Every day, right, I mean when I'm I went from
employer to employee, and man, I wish I could hire
people like me all the time, like you know, like
I own it. I don't forget a single thing. I'm
taking notes. I'm any spare second I'm saying any of
you know, like I really, I don't even own the company,
(26:10):
and I am a great steward of the company. And
I think that for me, you know, incentivizing people financially
is really motivating. I think that's helpful. I think letting
like trusting people like my bosses trust me and to
be honest, that makes me work harder when I'm not
being micro managed. I don't have a task master, you know,
(26:31):
I don't even have to check in like I grind
because I love the people I work for. I love
the people I work with.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I love the.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Clients that I'm getting to meet, Like dude, like tough
pops like the ice cream the frozen category. That whole
industry is full of wonderful, happy people. And I have
found that, man, the construction industry is full of awesome people.
I've been impressed every single Like, dude, I have a
lot of social anxiety, Like meeting new people is you know,
(27:02):
it's just uncomfortable. I get shy, eat whatever, Dude, I
bravely go meet And I had two meetings yesterday, two
meetings today. Like I'm freaking stopping in meeting people, shaking
people's hands, like I'm walking in the rooms courageously, Like
I just love it. And I'm a good employee. And
I think that when you trust your team and you
(27:26):
make sure that they're financially motivated and compelled to work, Dude,
like magic can happen. Man, Like I what I'm learning
as an employee now I wish I could go back.
I mean, dude, my employees, I can confidently say that
we did really well by them. They loved us. I
was a good boss.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It probably helps you be a better employee.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Knowing totally though too. Yeah. Now I'm like, oh my gosh,
I've learned this and that I wish I could go
back should be a better boss.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
What would you do if you could go back, what
would you do differently to be a better boss?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I give everyone equity everyone, get them engaged in Oh, dude,
everyone Like man, it's so powerful to think that you
could partake in an exit like man, that's awesome. I
paid people like above market. I would give them more though,
like man, when when an employer can lighten the burden
(28:18):
of a household or a patriarch or a matriarchy, Like
if the employer can help, Oh, that's so powerful.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
I've had this theory recently, like all these The reason
why our world's kind of going to shit is because,
for some reason, all these people at the top, there's
literally twenty guys on half the world, twenty.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Twenty people the money in the world, sees.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
That they would be so much happier if they would
use that money and just pour it down the line
into all their companies, just let everybody make more money.
It's like, what are you possibly Like you kind of
wonder what kind of people these people are, because it's like,
you know, you're worth nine billion dollars and your employees
are starving. It's like you would be so much happier.
If you could just give more to all of them
(29:00):
and it wouldn't even not even doesn't change you, you'd
actually proably have more success. But nobody does it. None
of them do it, and so fascinated by it. I'm
just like, there's it's really been hitting me lately. I
saw that stat that twenty people own half the wealth
of the world.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
I heard a stat that was like, if Elon gave
up ninety nine percent of his net worth and he
gave up ninety nine percent of the remaining one percent,
he would still have forty million dollars. I was like, WHOA,
there's also I don't remember his name.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I feel like he makes like twenty million dollars an hour,
and yeah, no, it's the numbers there.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
There's a I'm sure you saw. I don't remember his name.
I think his name was like Sam Price maybe, but
he was an entrepreneur. He had a company. I was like,
it was like a payment process.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I know what you're talking about, dude in Seattle. Yeah,
he ended up.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Getting in trouble for like for like sexually something that.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yeah, but he had the idea.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think you know, he raised the minimum wage of
all of his employees to seventy K and then he
dropped his pay by like ninety percent or something. Yeah,
he's a he's a scumback. Yeah, but I think that
he could. I think it works though from a business standpoint,
I think I think employee satisfaction skyrocket. I think the
company's performance also skyrocket. And so he taught us something interesting.
He also taught us what not to do. But it's
(30:08):
an interesting point. Like, dude, Like, there's also this great
meme I saw. I wish I had it memorized because
I think about it a lot. But it was like
it was basically a picture of Batman, and it was like,
our billionaires are such a waste. We have kid we
have kids school lunches that you know, millions of dollars
in debt, we have homelessness, we have all these things,
and billionaires like we should have a Batman and we
(30:29):
have a bunch of freaking well.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know, one thing I've learned is like things are complicated.
Obviously you see that with but it's it's it just
seems like you see if you've been to like Singapore
or Tokyo or some of these cities and they've kind
of figured out how to make all the cities like
really beautiful and amazing. And it's like, why are all
the cities in America so shitty? They're terrible? Like I
was just, you know, you walk around the streets. I
(30:53):
was just in Chicago, I was just in Milwaukee, Cleveland,
Saint Louis. Did you don't want to go out at night?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
But then I was just I was just in Spain
and Madrid, Barcelona and Pamplona. We went round with the bulls.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
That's where our factories were. So I've spent a lot
of sins.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever go run? No?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Okay, oh you go with that group?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
That is my Oay. I've seen you guys have gone
a number of years ago. Yeah, I've seen it in Yeah.
So I just took forty more guys a couple of
weeks ago. And but dude, it was you know, I'm
walking around Madrid. It's eleven o'clock at night, and I
know Spain culture, they stay up a little later anyway,
but dude, at night, all the streets they just put
tables out there and everybody hangs out and they're eating,
they're having pop us top us or whatever, and They're
(31:31):
just chilling, and it was like so calm and so
safe and fun, and I'm like, this, why are we
Can we not do this in America? And the truth
is we could. That's what's I think so frustrating right
now people watching the political landscape. It's like we're still
sending money to Ukraine and bombing Palestine and Israel and
everything else, and it's like, wait, can we just build
(31:52):
our cities up here? And it's kind of the same
principle as the company. It's like, America take care of
us all if it wanted to, but instead it's just
blowing this money all these other places.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, totally, I'm with you. I think that for me,
financial stress is I don't know if you uncover this,
but mental health is like my thing is I have,
you know, not your kind of following, but I have
a little bit of following on LinkedIn that's primarily about
mental health. And financial stress for me personally is like
(32:22):
the biggest trigger, and it's everyone's like, it's really hardly
anything else.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
If you're financially stress.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
You can't do super well when that's top of mind
and your nervous system shot, your immune system draw you know, plummets.
Your course, all levels are off the charts, like you
sleep socks, you don't exercise, you're not eating well, like it,
and it if we could. You know, I read this
really interesting book that talks about why we're all so depressed.
(32:52):
It goes through these nine reasons why everyone's so depressed.
I mean, I don't know what's the book, but it's uh, shoot,
that's a right, sorry. But he goes through all the
and they're very like it's like connection and sleep and
these very practical, tangible things. And then he's like, here's
the solution, universal basic income. And it comes out of nowhere.
(33:18):
And I'm not I'm not trying to get political, you know,
I don't. I don't know nearly enough about the politics
of that to get into it. But I thought it
was really interesting that he was the solector going through
all these very human things and then he thought the
solution to our our worsening numbers around mental health is
to give everyone a universal basic income.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
So I'll give the one reason I've always pushed back
on that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Well, dude, I'm not I'm not advocating for it. I'm
just saying ties to financial stress and mental health agreed.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I think that part of that though, is if you
don't earn something, there's a self esteem thing there, like
when you know that you're the asset, when you know
that you're the one that earned the money.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I think I feel that.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I think a lot of I think a lot of
having the money is knowing that you can earn it.
I think that's where a lot of that mental health
gets fixed. And so I don't know if just giving
people because I mean you look at the people that
get handouts now, they're not happy, They're usually not They're
usually some of the most depressed, downwritten people. And so
I just think you have to earn that somehow, because
when you earn it, it's just a different scent of
(34:18):
confidence that you gain.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And that's my only pushback to that. Yeah, and I
you know, it's not like it's not like a livable
you know, living one hundred percent off of something like
social Security be really difficult.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well it's interesting too, like all the things they used
to tell us you can't do and now they're doing.
I remember when I was a kid, and I remember
hearing about the national debt. I was probably ten, and
I'm like, why are they just print more money and
people looked at me like I was the idiot, you know,
and it's like, no, you can't do that, and it
turns out you can't. Like that's what they're doing now.
I mean they're ruining.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
The environment of the financial you know everything.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
But at the end of the day, no, it's you know,
the mental health thing is a big one. I did.
That's you know, I want read a company where you
get a lot of engagement because you're you're very well
spoken on it. What have you? I mean, what would
what's the message you'd like to share around this stuff?
I mean, there's so many angles to go with this,
but you know what got you so interested in really
diving into this?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So when I was like fifteen, like a switch one
off in my brain and I started thinking about suicide
like all.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The time and wanting to do it or just thinking
about it, No.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Like wanting to do out it. Yeah, yeah, like I would.
I had a corner in my bedroom. I was like
a window window and I could look out on the
street and I remember as a kid, I would like
I was timing cars when when to jump basically out
my window. That was kind of the first like not obsession,
but really imagine imagining. And you know, now, I've dealt
(35:47):
with severe depression for you know, the majority of my
life over twenty years now, and I have a lot
of influences in this space. But I don't necessarily have
a lot of answers. I just talk openly. I share
(36:08):
very human and transparent, transparently, humanly and transparently, and so
I don't I don't really have answers. I mean, I
have lots of recommendations and stuff, but like, even for myself,
I haven't like cracked the code totally.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
What have you discovered? And I mean I think that
even the talking about it though, is such a big piece, right,
how have you seen that help with the people that
you've met with? Dude?
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean I get probably literally probably like ten messages
a day on LinkedIn that are like thank you for sharing,
thank you for sharing, thank you for sharing. Like people
struggle to put words to how they're feeling, and I don't,
and so I feel it my responsibility to share because
you know, I have a way with words, not like
(36:51):
not like I'm boasting. I'm just saying like I can
put words to my feelings and I'm not scared or
embarrassed to share very personal things.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I think, well, and I think part of what helps
is hearing somebody like you. I think is why you
people are gravitating to you, because you give them the
courage to be able to do the same.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, you're kind of giving them a voice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And I think also a lot of times, and I
don't want to discourage anyone from sharing, but a lot
of times the people that you that are open about
that stuff aren't necessarily the ones you want to hear
about it from.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, a lot of times it still comes from the ego, Right,
they're just wanting to and God bless them, they're just
wanting to be loved.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Like you can have empathy for that, but all you.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Want to do is you're just like, please stop. You
know the lady at the testimony.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you're right. And I think there's something particularly powerful
when you can couple that level of transparency with like
some professional success and you know, eloquence and.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well in the beauty of your position too, as it
comes with credibility. It's like, this guy was depressed because
a lot of people I think what a lot of
depressed people think is what once I get blank, I
will no longer be depressed. And it's unfortunately, all it's
gonna do is magnify whatever you're feeling. And you know
this because you've been there. But to the person that
(38:12):
doesn't have money, they can think to themselves like a
lot of their hope lies and well, if I just
get money, I won't be a press or it's the
person's in a bad marriage things if I can just
get out of this marriage, or if I just get
my wife to freaking like me again, or you know,
the single person like if I can just find a
partner totally, when in reality, if you're depressed, none of
that stuff's gonna heal it, you know. And so I
think you just having the position you do, it just
(38:34):
comes with a lot more authority or people want to
listen to that.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah, I think so. My kind of like my pillows
are like sleep. Like people think they sleep enough, they
definitely don't sleep enough. Like everyone says they care about sleep,
like I preach that I care about sleep. I went
to sleep at like twelve thirty last night. I woke
up with five fifteen. That's not enough enough. It's not enough.
And I'm the one that's you know, on LinkedIn talking
about sleep sleep diet, like we are not We're skipping meals,
(39:02):
we're eating crap, we're eating irregularly, you know, like really
it requires a level of discipline and devotion and commitment
to it that like ninety percent of people do not
do They might say they eat well, they don't eat well.
It's not just like not going to taco bell. It's
like it's taking eggs for breakfast. You know, it's like
it's it's hard, it requires a lot. It's going to
(39:22):
dinner and not getting the chicken block. Yeah, exactly, I
think about And when I said is as sleep, Oh, exercise,
I mean did your training you know you're getting ready
for competition like exercise.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I don't I exercise every day. I don't necessarily like
notice the benefits. But I trust the science. I trust
the data, and I'm not going to risk coming off
that treadmill.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
That's a part that makes it hard for people, whether
it's a diet or whether it's working out, is you
don't see any results right away. People like to see
immediate results. Totally. We're the generation of the one below
is of just they want everything right now, and unfortunately
all these things you're talking about, you don't notice a
change or the benefits for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
So yeah, yeah, I think human connection. I think that
that could be why I love roofing so much. Like
you know, I used to sell stuff on a website,
and now I'm like selling stuff to people in person,
and I love that interaction. I love making new friends.
Even though I have social anxiety, I love meeting new people. Dude,
it's a secret to my entire program. It's all about
just human connection.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
So when people ask me what do you do, I say, actually,
I'd love to ask you what you don't tell. So
the answer to it is because I really what I
do is I run a men's group. But what I
say this is really and it took me about three
years of doing my program before I figured out the
right way to explain it. I say, I help you
connect to other humans. I put you environments where you're
going to connect on a deeper level, and you do
that by helping you first connect to yourself. And so
(40:48):
when you're connected to yourself, then all of a sudden,
you take your masks off and you connect so fast
to others. But like this morning, I we do a
workout every Wednesday at my house. Anybody can come in
the group. And we had nine dudes there and we're
in the pool doing like these workouts with this Navy
seal guy, you know, and it's just like and every
single guy there was laughing, smiling, hanging out. We left
(41:10):
there today and every single guy, I guarantee you is
going to be happier today because they showed up for
that worked out, got in the sun, and human connection, right,
And so if you can start your day with a
few of those things every day, I mean, it's a
cheat code, it is.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
And dude, that's cool. So your your men's like running
a men's group, what does that mean? Like?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
So, yes, we have a program that basically you sign
up and it's a two year program and every week
we do a zoom call together. Every month we have
live events in person, and then once every three months
we get together for three days and we go pretty deep.
We do many masterminds, We have breath work, We have
a lot of fun. We do a lot of crazy
stuff like that, you know, jump off cliffs, I have
(41:50):
military guys, came water borders, just all sorts of fun stuff.
And then we had these adventure trips, like we just
got back from Pennsylvania doing one, and our next one's
in New Zealand next year. And then we do a
lot of stuff with the families. So like this weekend,
I have a party at my house, a barbecue swim
party and for the families, we'll have two hundred people there.
I'm hosting my own rodeo this weekend. Yeah, it's so
(42:14):
two of the guys in my group are big time
cowboys and so they're helping me throw it. We did
it two years ago, So I got fifteen guys are
going to form my group. We're going to ride a bull.
We got total participation. We have about two hundred people.
Like aho lot of the little kids will get the
mutton bust and cash cow and all.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
These fun things. And so it's just bringing people together.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
And the more I've thought about this, it's like with AI,
you know, taking over a lot of these other kinds
of things. More and more people are going to be
dying for this in person connection. I think it just
makes you know, when I launched my program, I knew
there was a need. COVID kind of like opened me
up to like, oh, people don't know how to connect.
They don't know how to find other people they want
to do life with. And so I knew there was
(42:53):
a need and do The first day I launched my program,
we had I had fifty spots available, and I had
one hundred and forty seven people apply for those spots
in eight hours. I thought it was going to take
me a month to sell it. I didn't have my
first call for a month because I didn't. I didn't
think it was going to sell that correctly, can't do it. It
was just it just showed me the need. And you know,
the group I'm launching in August, it'll be my seventh
group of fifty guys.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
And so you have like cohorts.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Yeah, so I put him in. I keep him in
groups of fifty for the whole program, so they can
really go deep with each other and build those lifelong connections.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Wow, man, that's yeah, because for me, I don't I mean,
I don't need someone to facilitate that because I'm lucky.
You know, I kind of built my life in such
a way that I have that inherently. But yeah, if
that's not the case, well here you need a lot
of help because that does not come after.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Even really social. People love it. Like a lot of
the people in my group have more friends than anybody.
But what happens is if you don't have somebody, they
get to just show up. Like these guys that came
around with the bulls, they all say the same, they're dude,
I just get to be there. Everything's planned, like the events.
They just show up and they don't have like a
lot of we have a lot of executives, see, you know, entrepreneurs,
because they love they get to just come and be
(44:03):
They don't have to be in charge of anything.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
I got one guy in my group, he's you know,
worth nine figures, right, and the guy that just joined
a couple, you know, a little while ago, and then
he told me, he said, dude, this is the one
time I don't have to be in charge. He's like,
I just love to come be here. I don't have
to be anybody. And so it's like people are like,
well do you pay for friends? And the truth is
it's like a country club kind of. They're facilitating something
for you. Like it's like being part of a tour
(44:26):
or a group you have to have you know, somebody's
doing it, and so you're paying for the environment, and
then you get to connect with the people that are
in such enviroments. I go into a concert or a
baseball game, you pay to be in the environment. From there,
the experience is going to be what you make it
to be. And so somebody has to create that container.
And so that's what we kind of specialize in. So cool, dude. Yeah,
(44:46):
it's fun, man, but it is. It's a human connection, Dude.
There's nothing that you know, and they got I've had
six hundred guys in my program now total, and we
haven't had a single we haven't lost a single guy yet,
you know, and we've had a few. Dude. In fact, yesterday,
I'll get a little motion if I talk of this.
But two of the guys in my sixth group, they
sent me a text and said, Hey, we haven't heard
from so and so. We've been trying to reach out.
We're pretty worried about him. We heard he got some
(45:07):
bad news. He's like going through a divorce for like
a year now. And they said, we're driving up. We'll
keep you posted, and you know, and I'm calling the
guy and texting him. But these two dudes, they drove
all around this dude's hometown, trying to find him. Eventually,
about nine thirty at night, I got a text like, hey,
we found him. He'll be all right, And then the
dude texts me and it was just like this was yesterday.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
This was you know these dudes.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And somebody asked me the kid coming to clean my
yard yesterday. He was like, how do you handle so
many people that you're coaching? I don't understand, and it's like, no,
these guys take care.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Of each yeah, right right, that's the bruins of the cohort.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
When I'm there, I getting away like yeah, it's like
dad showing up, you know what I mean. They literally
just get to take care to him. My whole job
is to help them connect and then help facilitating you know,
the experiences. But other than that, I mean, dude, there's
a million guys in my group that have as much
or more knowledge, experience, you know, creativity, whatever you want
to call it, then I do and and they able
to do it. Like these two guys driving around yesterday
(46:05):
just was like everything to me. And they literally they
probably drove around for three three and a half hours, wow,
Like just to make sure this dude was okay.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It's special, man. Yeah, the group, the group structure is powerful. Man.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
When we're broken as humans in groups, so we have
to heal in groups. You know, it's really hard to
heal on your own. You ever thought you healed something
in a relationship, there's a pretty good chance or like
you know, with your family or something. The second you
get back in the environments, you're like, yeah, I'm not
as skilled as I thought I was because you just
hadn't been triggered for a year or so, you know exactly.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
But well, dude, what's for you?
Speaker 2 (46:36):
You know, I think a lot of people they're just
you know, you're just a very fascinating person for people.
If they do want to follow you, they want to
learn more about you, where's the best place for us
to send them?
Speaker 1 (46:45):
I mean LinkedIn Instagram? Uh, I lived in promo come over?
And then yeah, roofing tough pops?
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Where do we buy tough bops? On to buy some?
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Nowhere yet? But we have a we bought it, you
know Schwan's. Yeah for sure, yes, so we bought an
old Sewan's truck.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Did I used to sell meat door to dort Oh?
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Really dude? Yeah? So you know, you know those trucks. Yes,
we bought a truck. We're wrapping it so locally we'll do.
You know, I'd love to come to your house, park
it out front for an event or whatever. And then
we have a launch at Harmon's later this year, which
is they're going to carry it. Yeah, and then a
big nationwide launch.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
In February amazing, which will be that'll be everyone you
can't wait to see. We'll revisit a couple of years
when you guys are at another one hundred million dollar
companies crossed right man, Well, thank you again.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Jimmy, thanks, 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
now available in Salt Lake City and or in Utah.
(47:50):
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
own podcast, we take all of the guests work out
of it for you. We make it so simple. All
you do is you come in, you sit down 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 DM Rookery Studios, or
go to our website, The Rookery Studios dot com
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