Christian DelGrosso & Marshall Sylver's Social Media SUCCESS & Building WEALTH 📈 E67
Primary Topic
This episode focuses on leveraging social media for career success and wealth building, featuring insights from Christian DelGrosso and Marshall Sylver.
Episode Summary
Main Takeaways
- Rapid results from social media advertising versus traditional media can significantly boost brand visibility and engagement.
- Consistency and authenticity in content creation are crucial for sustained success and growth on social media platforms.
- Collaboration with other influencers can amplify reach but requires overcoming ego and focusing on collective creativity.
- Transitioning from social media to traditional media offers new challenges and opportunities, highlighting the importance of leveraging personal brands.
- Understanding audience demographics and engagement patterns is essential for tailoring content and collaborations effectively.
Episode Chapters
1: Introduction
Dan Fleyshman introduces the episode, emphasizing the themes of making money, investing, and philanthropy through the lens of social media. Christian DelGrosso: "Social media changed everything for me. It gave me the platform to express myself beyond traditional media."
2: Building a Social Media Empire
Discussion on the tactical aspects of building a successful social media presence and leveraging it for career opportunities. Marshall Sylver: "Understanding the psychology behind audience engagement is key to mastering social media influence."
3: The Business of Social Media
Insights into monetizing social media, including brand collaborations and understanding the value of content. Christian DelGrosso: "It's not just about the numbers; it's about making content that resonates and aligns with brands ethically and authentically."
4: Long-term Strategies
Exploration of long-term career planning and transitioning from digital fame to traditional business and media ventures. Marshall Sylver: "Social media is just the beginning; the real success comes from what you build on top of this foundation."
Actionable Advice
- Leverage social media's speed: Use the rapid deployment capability of social media to test ideas and products instantly.
- Stay consistent: Regular and authentic content builds a loyal audience.
- Collaborate wisely: Choose collaboration partners who align with your brand values and audience interests.
- Diversify content: Experiment with both short and long-form content to keep the audience engaged and attract different demographics.
- Monitor trends: Stay updated with social media trends to keep your content relevant and engaging.
About This Episode
Christian DelGrosso is a Canadian actor, comedian, and social media personality known for his humorous sketches and videos on platforms like Vine and YouTube. He had over 7 million followers and collaborated with other Vine stars such as Cameron Dallas and Matthew Espinosa.
Christian's YouTube channel mainly consists of reactions and vlogs and currently has over 2.6 million subscribers and 400 million video views. DelGrosso has also ventured into acting, appearing in films and television shows, showcasing his versatility beyond short-form comedy.
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Marshall Sylver is an American hypnotist, author, and motivational speaker renowned for his expertise in subconscious reprogramming and persuasion techniques. Sylver began his career in the field of hypnosis at a young age, mastering the art of influencing the subconscious mind.
Sylver is also an author, having penned several books on topics such as personal empowerment, wealth creation, and persuasive communication. Through his stage performances and insightful teachings, Sylver continues to inspire and empower individuals to achieve success in all areas of life.
People
Christian DelGrosso, Marshall Sylver
Guest Name(s):
Christian DelGrosso, Marshall Sylver
Content Warnings:
None
Transcript
Christian DelGrosso
Traditionally an actor who went rogue and went to the digital side. I've amassed over 20 million followers to date, made over 4000 pieces of content, and generated over 8 billion views in the last ten years. The fact is, when you spend money on tv ads, billboard, radio, magazine, the traditional types of marketing, it typically takes 30, 60 or 90 days for that execution to happen. If I want to pay Christian to post about that same exact product, let's say I have a water company. My water is like Fiji water.
32 minutes, right? Exactly. Literally 32 minutes. Exactly. Fiji Water could have Christian posting right this second.
Yeah.
Dan Fleyshman
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the money Mondays. I physically forced my next guest to get onto this podcast because he was here visiting me at the ranch, and he has built up an amazing social media career. So we're gonna ask him about some social media tactics, some business things, and what he's going on in his adventures of movie producing and writing and acting and all those things. But as you guys know, on the money Mondays podcast, we cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.
We're going to ask him some social media things along the way of how he's built up his career. Because a lot of people want to understand that. People have tried to build up personal brands. A lot of them fade away or don't really go for it, or don't stay consistent. So ask him some questions about that.
But as you guys know, we keep these podcasts under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes, the average commute to work is 45 minutes. So we keep these podcasts. This one will be around 32 to 36 minutes for your listening and viewing pleasure. Genius. I like to say that so that you do what we call 93% listen through rate people actually listen to our whole podcast.
That's why we stayed number one for 55 weeks, because of you guys. And hopefully Christian does not let us fail. We do not want to drop to number two. No pressure. I come on the Christian.
Christian DelGrosso
I come on the podcast straight to number two. So if you can give everybody the quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. Oh, God. Okay. My name is Christian Delgrasso.
I'm originally from Toronto, Canada. I'm traditionally an actor who went rogue and went to the digital side and started creating on social media. And I've amassed over 20 million followers to date. I've been doing it for almost for ten years now. Made over 8000, made over 4000 pieces of content, and generated over 8 billion views in the last ten years.
Yeah. You actually have more views than you think, though. Really? Oh, no. Dan's about to hit me with the ready, guys.
Yeah, here we go. Christian thinks he's had 8 billion views. He's now very close. Here's why. That's me like, from me going platform to platform being like, okay, so we got this many here.
This many here. Because what happens is people that are following him share that content, repost it, and it does not get attributed to his view count. And so out of these tens of millions of followers, let's say at some point he had 4 million, then 6 million and 8 million, and ultimately 20 million now. But along the stages, he had different levels of followers along the way. 2,000,004, 6810, etcetera.
Dan Fleyshman
When he'd make a piece of content, sometimes hundreds of them or thousand of them would share it by forwarding to their friends. Those don't count as views. That number doesn't sound like a lot. But if you're posting once a day and they're forwarding it 400 to 2000 times a day, that adds up real quick when you times that by 365. But outside of that, people that then repost it to their Instagram stories, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, the Facebook, wherever they are when they repost or reshare it oftentimes that does not get attributed to those views.
And then there's another level. Someone following, let's say Dan's following. Christian, ready for your mind to explode. Dan's explosion, it's exploding already. I now repost Christian's content and then 75 of my people that follow me repost it.
Christian doesn't get attributed any new views. You think you have 8 billion views? I think you've got anywhere from 14 to 20 billion views on your content.
That is the end of our pocket.
Christian DelGrosso
And that is how we retain all the attention. That is wild to think about. And, yeah, and those also don't generate any revenue, correct? Yeah, strictly for the platforms. They make all of that money.
Dan Fleyshman
So let's talk about the business side of social media. What do you think people are doing right or wrong, on social media to build their following?
Christian DelGrosso
This podcast is going to be an hour and 45 minutes. It's going to be 36 minutes. I promise, no matter what, I will throw you out of this argument. I think the biggest mistake people are making is not focusing on what matters to them content wise, because you just see so many people have that initial lightning in a bottle phase where they're grinding, grinding, grinding, trying to throwing things at a wall, have some videos go viral, but then they don't sustain themselves for the long, and I think those are, like, the bigger mistakes that people are making if they want to have a career on social media, you know, versus having that short, that short sprint. Was there any one video that made you get big or was just all the consistency?
Dan Fleyshman
Boom. 10,000 views, 20,000, 100,000, a million? No, it was the consistency for sure, because, I mean, the videos weren't the videos that I was jet, that the viewership I was generating early on wasn't big enough to, like, gain me this whole following. So I think it was probably, like, 100 to 200 videos that all performed extraordinarily well that kind of amassed into this momentum that gave me the ability to continue to do well. What do you think holds people back from doing collaborations?
Because back in the vine days, people were doing a lot of great collaborations, and we watched them grow, and you'd see certain influencers that were good at it, you know, Amanda Cerny, Jake Paul, a lot of characters would go do a lot of collaborations, and boom, Hannah stocking, they would go get bigger and bigger because they were doing a lot of collabs. What do you think holds people back from doing collabs with other influencers or people in your industry? I think that era was lightning in a bottle, too, in terms of, like, what we were doing, because I don't think we knew what we were doing. We were just a bunch of people having fun and, like, and coming up with ideas together and creating. I think it's ego now.
Christian DelGrosso
I think it's, like, a very egotistical thing where it's like, oh, I have more followers than that person. I don't want to collaborate with them, or, you know, they're looking at, like, what they would gain out of a specific collab versus, like, hey, let's get together and try and make something cool, you know? I think. I think it's ego for sure. Was there a certain turning point?
Dan Fleyshman
We decided, I'm gonna get into the movies and tv side, or is it like, I'm gonna focus on social media? And then a situation happened where you decided to get into other categories. The goal. The goal is always acting. I mean, the goal was always acting from the beginning.
Christian DelGrosso
So I always felt like I was not being creatively fulfilled even from the very beginning. So I think, like, as social media started to grow and opportunity started to come and more traditional opportunities started to come, I feel like I was really starting to take advantage of the fact that I had built this audience, and it was giving me opportunities to work in the film and television industry. And then that made it more realistic for me because early on it was difficult. So social media was easy because that was something I could control and create, but the traditional space was something that I had to, like, circle back to. But now it's like, after making, you know, 4000 plus videos, there's only so much more short form content I feel like I can make, although I feel like I could do it for forever, but I want to, like, express myself more long form.
Dan Fleyshman
So a lot of times the grass is green on the other side. Meaning social media influencers want to become movie stars and actors, right? Movie stars and actors really don't have good social media or they have someone running. Interesting. I'm interested to hear what you're gonna say on this, because I value your input on it.
So why do you think that's happening? And do you think it's harder to go from movie tv into social media or social media into becoming an actual, like, real actor? Oh, man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, so for the first question, I think, like, people want to, I feel like people want to conquer. Rappers want to be basketball players, all want to rap. Like it. You see it happen so often.
Christian DelGrosso
I also think, I think it's, I think it's for different reasons, too. I feel like people that got into social media ultimately minus a few. I'm sure there are people that, like, enjoy creating social media content and that's their entire live, like, livelihood and career. Then there's a lot of people that creatives that I feel like, ultimately wanted to get into the traditional realm that are wanting to transition and create in the traditional realm. And I feel like the people in the traditional realm, wanting to come into the digital space, are realizing the potential that's there in terms of revenue or just even reach, to reach an audience that they couldn't reach through film, and then they could bring that audience over to their projects coming up.
So I feel like it's like different, different reasons, you know, because I don't think there's in terms of, like, monetary value. I feel like social media influencers are doing fairly well and they don't necessarily need to go to the traditional markets to make money. So it's more of like a creative thing. And I think from the traditional side, they're like, hmm, we know we're spending x amount of money on marketing and this and that. Maybe if we actually conquer social media, we can leverage that to help with projects that we're doing.
Dan Fleyshman
So you've been in the game for a long time. Do you remember your first brand deals? Like, the first time someone wasn't just giving you product. They were like, here is $500, or here's a $1,000 or here's whatever. Do you remember those.
That first brand deal, or someone actually paid you money? I think it was Badu. Wow. Do you ever bad, dude, of course. Yeah.
Christian DelGrosso
And actually, you. You were one of the first people, too, back when we were at 1600, when you were doing monster headphones and stuff. I remember we did a meetup. Remember we did the meet and greet and, like, the. I think it was one of the launches.
Dan Fleyshman
We also did an energy drink launch, too. Yeah, yeah, we did. We did. Yeah. They gave me no notice.
They gave me 100 grand to work with no notice. They said, next day, can we do one of those meet and greet pop up things that we see the influencers do? That's. That's literally what the message said. I was like, yeah, what we can do next week.
Yeah, next month when you want to do it. They're like, no, no, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. And thank God we were all at 1600. I was living across the street from you guys at the time. I was at the w at the time.
I walked across the street and I knocked on Amanda Cerny's door. I got Jake Paul. I got you. I got Curtis. Yep.
Curtis the poor. And I was like, hey, you want ten grand? Hey, you want five grand? You want two grand? You want six grand?
You want eight grand? You want ten grand? That was the best 24 hours of our life. Yeah. Literally knocking on our door, being like, you want ten grand?
Hell, yeah. Let's go do it. I had some of the influencers posting, like, 10:15 p.m., like, hey, meet and greet tomorrow at 08:00 a.m.. Yeah. And it worked.
Christian DelGrosso
Yeah, I remember. Remember how many people showed up to that? 2800. Oh, yeah, it was wild. 2800 people showed up to a parking lot near LAX and, like, a motel six type place.
I still have the photos from, like, us taking photos with everybody. Yeah. Crazy. I'll never forget that. Yeah, it was a lot.
Also, like, kind of proof that it doesn't always need to be, like, super formulated and structured. I feel like. Yeah, because that was a huge turnout, and you would have thought that we were, like, planning that for weeks in advance. It looked. It looked good.
Dan Fleyshman
Yeah, it was fun. We did the same thing with hoverboards. Yeah, yeah. That was a fun one. Yeah.
Anyways, I digress. So as you started to scale, and then they started do real deals with you, did you start to decide, okay, I'm gonna. How do I decide? I'm gonna work with a brand. Now, a brand was to give me ten grand, 50 grand, 100 grand, whatever, or they wanted me to do a year long deal or six month deal.
How do you decide who you're willing to do a deal with? I think it was. I think it started to get to, like, the point where it was who I was aligning myself with, because we had so much inbound. There was so much inbound. So it was like, who do I actually align myself with?
Christian DelGrosso
Or who would I like to work with? Like, who's a company that if I had the opportunity to work with what I work with them, that was kind of the that thought process. But, yeah, yeah. Cause it wasn't even necessarily about money. You know, like, there were deals where, like, Adidas would come through or Pepsi would come through, and sometimes the rates actually were lower than what we were asking, but I was like, no, let's do it.
We still have to do it. Yeah, yeah. It's a big brand. Yeah. Hundred percent.
Dan Fleyshman
And sometimes people do brand deals, which is interesting, because then they can utilize that to go get other brand deals. Let me explain. There was actually a phenomenon that happened six years ago where a ton of girls were buying fashion Nova to wear it and tag fashion Nova to look like it was a paid endorsement. Those girls will then contact pretty little thing, boohoo, nasty gal, et cetera, about switching, hey, I want to work with pretty little thing here. And they send screenshots of them wearing fashion Nova, tagging fashion Nova as if it was a paid post.
Christian DelGrosso
Genius, genius, genius. And so these girls were contacting the competitors, saying, hey, look at me. I worked with fashion Nova because that was a big deal for girls, and still is. I've spent zillions of dollars for fashion Nova over the years to pay girls, celebrities, etcetera, and they spend a gazillion dollars every month now to do that. And I say that because sometimes you want to work with a brand, because by aligning yourself with that brand, you can now get other deals.
Dan Fleyshman
Example, I did a Wells Fargo, the COVID of Wells Fargo website. And so later, Hertz rent a car said, hey, I want to do a deal with you. I was like, I love Hertz rent a car, but I only do one year deals. I've only done one. I'd only done one deal, and it was one.
One year deal. I was not doing it. I wasn't doing paid influencer posts, obviously, I own influencer agency. I wasn't doing paid posts because I don't want to represent brands. It would be weird with my clients.
But Wells Fargo, I like Wells Fargo. Right, right. And so Hertz rent a card came to me is the year before the shutdown. And they were like, okay, what's your rate for one post? I'm like, I'm definitely not doing one post for Hertz rent a car.
I love you guys, but you're not gonna want to pay me what I would ask you for. And I don't want to do that. And I like Hertz rent a car. I'll just post about your car because I drive it all the time. I still use Hertz rent a car.
Shout out to Hertz. And so I told him, I said, I only do one year deals. And here's the one year deal I did Wells Fargo. And they're like, oh, we'll match it and we'll add 10%. And I said, yes.
Christian DelGrosso
Why has that never happened to me? Why has that never happened to me? There was no negotiation. There was no back and forth. I literally just said, this is what I am and this is what I charge.
Dan Fleyshman
And I say that because elevator, studio, the way we've worked, we pay 3500 influencers, which is really hard to get that many influencers to sign a w nine form to actually, like, chase down all those kids like wildcats trying to chase them out. We have w nine. 3500 influencers spent over $60 million with influencers. And we've never once asked an influencer what their rate is. You know why?
Because when you ask them what their rate is, they just make up a number and there's nothing behind it and there's nothing back into it. Now, if someone had a pitch deck or they had like, here's proof that we've done X, Y, Z, God bless them. I'm not opposed to that, but it's never happened in 3500 influencers, or 5100, 200. Whatever amount of celebrities we pay separate from the influencers, never once. So what I do is I say, hey, Christian, you've got 20 million followers.
Here's x. This brand will give you $100,000 for x amount of posts to do this thing for the next three months. And then you can decide whether you want to be in or out, right? Rather than me saying, hey, Christian, you've got 20 million followers. What would your rate be?
And I don't explain. I need this many posts. I need this happen over this course of time. I need to do X, Y, and Z. If I don't do that, Christian just gets to make up a number and he doesn't know.
And he's not even necessarily doing something nefarious or trying to overcharge. He just doesn't know because there's no comparison. Because normally his deals might be for one post, three post, one month, one year, and hasn't done it in this fashion or this format. Yeah. And so I remove that back and forth.
I remove those situation by just telling influencer or celebrity, I will give you x. Here's $10,000. You will do these three posts, and you'll do it over the course of 30 days. I will ship you the products. What's your wiring info?
Or what's your paypal like? I literally just spell everything out in one message so there's no back and forth. And that's a dream. That's a dream because a lot of companies don't do that. And honestly, like, I feel like it makes more sense for influencers to take those jobs.
Christian DelGrosso
I remember I did a deal that was. It was. It was 200. Bless you. It was 200 and 285,000.
But it was over the course of a. It was over the course of a. I think was a four month period, and I had to do x amount of posts and typically would have been more posts per my rate. But it just. The deal was, like, such a good deal.
I didn't care that I wasn't getting, like, my exact rate per post, but it just was like, like you said, it was, like, spelled out, and it was the best. And I've only ever done, like, two or three deals that were like that. So that's a. So that's a good segue, which would be like, how would an influencer come up with a fair rate? So this is the thing.
Dan Fleyshman
It depends on what platforms are posting on the engagement part. People always talk about, like, oh, my engagements X. You don't know that. The algorithm changes every day. The algorithm change literally seven times.
Christian DelGrosso
I love sitting with you talking about this because it's like we're two separate worlds. Like, I'm coming from the space of the creator and you're coming from the space of, like, listen, mother bunker, this is. You don't make any sense, charging this much money. Yeah. Now, by the way, when you crush it, we can't value for that either.
Dan Fleyshman
You go get a viral video. We don't know. And that's the hard part. You go. Let's say I'm expecting you to get.
Let's say you get 500,000 views on a video, and the one time you get 6 million, we don't know how that happened, why that happened, and you can't guarantee it, and we can't expect you to guarantee it. Right? All we can do when coming up with rates, whether we're making an offer, and influencers thinking about what to offer, is the reality. If you have what I call a generalized audience, your rate is lower, meaning you're funny, you're hot, or you had a viral video that is a generalized audience. Generalized audiences are always going to be lower, because for someone who's in a niche category, selling something that's like a specific product or brand, they don't need a generalized audience.
Now, if I have a movie, a video game, something that is for a mass audience, well, I don't care if you are for everyone, meaning the product is for everyone. If you are for everyone, yes. Then you're for the streets. Meaning if you're a McDonald's, you are Netflix, you are a movie coming out, and everyone could buy that thing. Then a generalized audience is fine, right?
If I am draftkings, which I have ran campaigns for draftKings many times, $500,000 every budget. It's fantastic. And every single time, this first seven day period. So my favorite budgets, in those scenarios, I would pay DJ Khaled, Amanda, Cerny, King Batch, etcetera, type of characters to do really fun, creative content. They were all in bathtubs, making bubbles and videos.
It was fun. Like the building. Yeah, yeah, I remember, I remember a. Fun campaign that was a generalized audience that would never convert. As well as paying someone with 100,000 followers, not ten or 20 million, like Amanda and badge with 100,000 followers, that was an athlete.
Because it's for draftkings. Or 400,000 followers, that is a sports reporter on the news. Those people with 100,000, 400,000 are going to crush Amanda and batch. Absolutely. Not even close, by the way.
Christian DelGrosso
And you know what's crazy, Dan? Is that, like, I've had to let that part of me go over the years, because I've been like, I'm getting 10 million or 20 million views a video. My value should be x. Yeah, right? And then, and then my fiance came into play.
So she came out of school, she went to school for interior design. And I'm like, okay, instead of you going to work at, you know, applying to firms and do all that, let's try and build you up on YouTube so where you can be an interior design on YouTube and do renovations and home decor and whatnot, and, like, you'll have full control. And now she's, like, one of the biggest things. She is, like, the biggest interior designer on YouTube, bro. Crush.
Crushing it. The amount of money that that lady makes, for sure. And because she is so, so niche, it's like there's no. There's no arguing it. The people that are watching her.
Dan Fleyshman
One imports or Ikea, or I have a furniture brand, or I have a table brand. Yeah. Having her do a post is going to destroy. Oh, yes. Jake Khaled.
Christian DelGrosso
Absolutely. Not even close, by the way. I'm close. Yeah. Because her entire audience are consumers of the.
Of the products that she's talking about. Whereas, like, for me, it would be like, you don't know who's gonna be interested in a couch. Now, if I. Again, if I am a mass store like Ikea, I don't mind Christian showing to a general audience because. Okay, 10 million.
Dan Fleyshman
10 million people knowing about Ikea is okay. Because I have Ikea stores around the country, around the world. Interesting. I'm gonna get way more conversion from your girl because people follow her for furniture. Right, right.
So even if she doesn't do the same amount of views as you, she will convert far and away better as far as sales goes. Right. So you get me generalized audience, which. Helps build my brand awareness. Right.
Now, flip the script. If I'm McDonald's, I'm gonna pay christian way more than your girl because she's focused on interior decorating. You have a much bigger audience. So then it's just numbers to me. If I'm McDonald's or I'm Netflix or I'm Disney, I don't care.
I just want the most amount of eyeballs possible, because I'm for everyone. Everyone can buy my stuff. If I'm in a niche category like furniture, I'm in a niche category, like draftkings. I want specific people. I know who the audience is for.
Specific people for that type of brand. And so when you're thinking about that, let's say you are a brand owner out there, and then you have a clothing brand. If your clothing brand is for everyone, it's affordable, it's $20, $30 shirts. Then you can get any influencer to post about it. It doesn't matter if you are streetwear.
Well, you cannot have XYZ influencer. That is not in the streetwear market. It will not make sense. It will not convert. And the generalized audience you get from that will not convert.
If you have a healthy beverage, you have a healthy beverage, and you have a generalized audience, show your content. Not everyone drinks healthy beverages, but if you go have fitness influencers and cooking influencers and mom influencers post your healthy beverage, you will convert really well. Right. And as an agency, I would pay a mom influencer or a cookie influencer way more than I would pay you. Right.
Even though you're gonna get me 10 million views. Absolutely. Because I know it's gonna convert here. Compared to the generalized audience. Absolutely.
Christian DelGrosso
Okay, so here's the Dan sauce question then, because I need Dan sauce on this. What? So do you think that the industry, because I feel like there's, that there's, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, I think there's value in both. It just depends on the scenario. But like, do you think because of how many niche influencers are being created in today's world, do you think, like, the, the looking for this direct conversion versus looking for like, brand awareness and like.
And that is changing, do you think it's gonna dominate? So it depends on what you're selling, right? If I'm for everyone, I don't care where the eyeballs come from. I don't how care how I get it. None of that matters.
Dan Fleyshman
I just want everyone to know, I'm McDonald's, I'm Coca Cola. Because I'm a mass audience, I sell everywhere in the world. If I need someone to be buying something in Los Angeles or New York, I want a New York or Los Angeles influencer. If I need someone that can only afford XYZ, right? If I'm selling luxury cars, well, I need luxury accounts to post me, because the luxury account either has aspiration people or people that can afford it.
But if I'm a luxury car company and I go post on a comedy account or a food account, it doesn't make any sense. That's not the audience for the thing. So it depends on what the brand, product or services of who they should be posting with. When I'm my products for everyone, I want to post as many people as I can. I just want all of them.
And it doesn't matter if they're in a niche category. And that would be predicated probably on budget too, right? If they have the money to spend to go wide. Most brands, most products, most services, even when they're huge, don't spend enough, right? Social media marketing.
Social media influencer marketing is tiny compared to what they should be spending, what the brand should be spending in the space, right? Here's why. And I'm not biased because I run a social media agency. It's because I like numbers and math and fact. The fact is, when you spend money on tv ads, billboard, radio, magazine, the traditional types of marketing, it typically takes 30, 60 or 90 days for that execution to happen.
Right. Let's say I want to run a tv ad. I have to create the creative, pay the commercial. Let's say I have all those things ready. Even if I want to book time for CB's or Fox or CNN, whatever.
That will typically take 30, 60 or 90 days from now. If I want to pay Christian to post about that same exact product, let's say I have a water company. My water is like Fiji water. 32 minutes, right? Exactly.
Literally 32 minutes. Exactly. Fiji water could have Christian posting right this second. Yeah. So for the same hundred thousand I could spend here waiting 30, 60 or 90 days.
In 32 minutes, I could give Christian 100 grand to post about Fiji water tonight. And more importantly, not just the post. The reporting I will have tomorrow, I'm gonna know that Christian got 11,446,000 views. I'm gonna have screenshots of it. I'm gonna have analytics of it.
I can show it to Fiji water and say, hey, you wanna do it again? You paid 100 grand, you got 11 million views. They'd be like, hell, yeah, do it again. Yep. Meanwhile, the other hundred grand we're waiting for, CB's television is 36 or 90 days from now.
And by the way, when that tv commercial runs and their reporting says, oh, yeah, we had 2 million viewers on this tv show. That's not how many people watched the commercial. When's the last time you watched a commercial? Yeah, I know. I get up.
Christian DelGrosso
I get up and go get a snack. You get up and go get a snack. Go to the restroom. Yeah. Look at your phone.
Yeah. Or change the channel and come back. What you don't do is watch the commercial. Notice that wasn't one of the options. You don't freaking watch the commercial.
And I know I'm probably not the. I'm probably not the direct audience they're trying to reach. But even when commercials happen, I feel like there's. There's been very few times where I've act where commercials actually converted for me. You're compelled to.
Yeah. Like rarely. Rarely. I want to buy friskies cat food now because I saw the friskies cat. Food and we're starting that brand today.
Friskies cat food. You will see that in stores and on shelves in the next two weeks. But I was gonna say I feel like influencers are. I feel like, and, and I'm sure you, I'm sure you can agree with this also or you have had dealt with it at some point. I feel like influencers have like, and it's not all them because there are influencers that do care about the product, do care about the content, put the time and energy to make a good piece of content for the brand.
Cuz I'm like that. I'm very much like I'll, I'll give more value than what I'm actually being paid to create a piece of content for a brand. And some influencers are like, just write me the check and they, you, you know, film some baloney and it either doesn't convert well or doesn't perform well. And at the end of the day, they still get the check when the brand leaves unhappy. So I feel like there's that, you know, although everything we're saying makes sense, I feel like the brands are probably having dealt with a wide array of influencers.
They're probably like, maybe some have a decent taste in their mouth. Maybe some of them are like, I would never, I would never do that again. Or we have to be more strategic about who we're going after. And I feel like it creates like a. There's plenty of brands that have been burned by influencers, yes, but it's their own fault a lot of the time, really.
Dan Fleyshman
They're overpaying. They don't know what they're asking for. They don't know why they're asking for what they're asking for. They don't give direction to the influencer or vice versa. And so there's a lot of communication that happen.
And when they just want to spend 100 grand, to spend 100 grand, they know it's like a check mark that they got to do with their overarching budget. They're like, oh, I got a million dollars to spend. Let's do some with radio, let's do some with billboard, let's do some with those social media influencer kids. But they don't know what they're actually doing or how they're doing it, why they're doing it. Or they have an agency hiring agency to go do it that then deals with agents.
So the actual 100 grand ends up being like 40 to 60 after people take ten to 20% each. And they're not deploying that much capital because there's so many people in the mix now then that happens and they're expecting that the sales are going to happen that night. Christian's going to post about Fiji water and there's going to be a bump in sales worldwide for Fiji. That's not how it works. You are building the brand.
11 million people saw it because you got 11 million views on the video. Those people now have to be at the grocery store, at the 711, at the Costco or the Arawan or whatever the thing is. And then they buy, they're on Amazon and then they have that. Remember when you made a funny video with Fiji and you and your girl were traveling and you're like, oh, I have Fiji for the plane. You made the funny video.
People remember it and now they're making a purchasing decision. They're not watching your video and be like, I gotta buy Fiji right now. And if they did, and if they did, Fiji's not gonna know. I'm happy. I'm very happy that you're saying that cuz that's like heavy on me all the time where I think about like, okay, that's the conversions of the, of the actual piece of content for the brand.
Christian DelGrosso
But then I think about if it is reaching x amount of millions of people and I'm like that personally too. Like if I see something that I'm interested in and maybe I'm not looking to purchase it at that time, I will go back and purchase it. And how do you, how would you like measure those metrics? It's impossible. Yeah.
Dan Fleyshman
So brands out there, I have a very strict rule and there's a reason I've turned down some of the biggest companies on the planet because they want to have ROI return on investment based social media posts. What they don't understand is Christian's audience in this example has to be built up to believe that he cares about this product. So let's say he's posting about a supplement company. He's like, hey, I just started taking this supplement. I really like it.
They just shipped it to me. I just bought X, Y and Z. Let me try it out in that first post. People are going to think about it, watch what he's doing. Second post, he's in the gym three days later.
He's like, hey guys, I've been taking for three days now. It's been feeling good. I feel like I've gained two pounds of muscle mass. I'll keep you guys posted. Third post, one week later, say, guys, I'm actually up four pounds now.
I feel better. I went from doing 50 pushups to 72 pushups. Here's my stats. His audience is going to convert like they're going to buy into invested. Yeah, because they feel part of his story, feel part of the brand.
Most brands supplement come and say, hey, Christian, post this. Here's 50 grand. Post this one thing tonight. And Christian posted like sponsored by supplement company. Nobody believes you.
Nobody cares. They don't understand it. They don't know what you're talking about. It's come out of nowhere. There's no context to what you're posting about.
No matter how big you are, no matter how much people love you. That one off post is hard for people to make a purchasing decision. So at elevator studio, we have a three post minimum. We won't even do one post campaigns because nobody's going to believe you tell them. Nobody's going to believe you.
You have to. Whether it's water, supplements, movies, video games, whatever, that first post is never going to convert the way post number two and three will ever. Even if you're playing Halo or world of warcraft or whatever. And it's like a household name thing. That first post you do if you haven't been posting about video games beforehand, that just came out of the blue and so they might look at like it.
Cool, whatever. But then they see you post a second time and then you're like, you and your buddies are battling a third time. Yep. Okay, well, now it's different. Yep.
Right now, people are part of the story. I did post postmates draftkings and Lyft in this fashion. The Lyft campaign. The postmates campaign. I did a three post deal.
Kylie Kim rappers everybody in between. And here's why I did it this way. The first post says and shows them downloading the postmates app or downloading the Lyft app. You create story. So they're like, hey, I just got $50 free credits from postmates.
I'm going to try it out. You can put in the code, Kylie. Two days later. Whoa. I used postmates.
It was so cool. I had a party here. We ran out of stuff and then 40 minutes later, they showed up and brought us all this stuff. This is why Dan is Dan. And then three posts.
It's an actual video of the postmates driver with the postmates outfit opening the door and they're bringing in a pizza bag of groceries and something else. So they can see the different dynamics of what postmates can deliver. And then they say, oh, by the way, postmates allowed me to give you guys $50 each. Put in the code Kylie. Game over.
Compared to most brands. Hi, I'm Kylie. Powered by postmates. Okay, so. So why.
Christian DelGrosso
So why aren't more brands doing that? Like, when you think about all the brands, Fortune 500 companies, all these people, they have all this money, they have teams, they have whoever they wanna hire. Why are they not, like, why is there still this disconnect? Cause social media, to most brands, is an afterthought. They are so used to and comfortable with television ads.
Dan Fleyshman
They are so used to buying billboards. They have a checklist of things that they go hire these household name agencies. They're like, oh, I'm going to hire XYZ agency. I'm going to give them $1 million. They're going to deploy that capital, and in 30, 60, 90 days, they'll send me a report and then I'll do it again.
And it's safe for them to keep their jobs. Giving Christian 100,000 and that girl 100,000 and that guy 100,000 is not safe to them because they don't know what to tell you to do or ask you to do. Okay, so in the world where there's. And like I said earlier, it's not everybody, but in the world where there's creatives that are actually capable of creating that type of content, for example, a story or something more impactful to reach people in a more committed way in terms of the product. How can an influencer, someone that's creating a personal brand on social media, maybe pitch themselves or put themselves in a position to be able to do that?
Christian DelGrosso
For. For a brand, the best way is. To show that to them. Meaning having one example is the easiest thing. If you can make a video that's 20, 30 seconds or whatever it is, 60 seconds, and showcase to the brand, hey, I'm gonna do this postmates campaign, and here's what I'm thinking.
Dan Fleyshman
I'm going to download the app, then I'm going to have someone come to my house, and I'm going to be at, like, a college party, and I'm going to use postmates in every single scenario, explaining it to a brand, or making even one example. Like, here's the 30 seconds of me making the download. Why is that worth it? Well, you're going to show it to postmates in that example to hopefully get that budget and say, hey, I want 50 grand, 100 grand, ten grand, two grand, whatever the rate is based on the person. But if it doesn't work out with them or they don't respond, they ghost you, or you can't get a hold of them.
Whatever. You now have that example to showcase to Doordash. Mmm. Go hit up Instacart. Go hit up all the competitors.
Christian DelGrosso
Right. And show them. I was gonna do this for post. Yeah. But I'd love to do it for you guys.
Right. So make spec content, essentially. Yes, spec content. So that's just interesting because then some people would argue and be like, well, it's not worth it for me to go and, like, spend all that time or money or whatever to create that. And then nothing comes out of it.
Dan Fleyshman
Is 47 seconds of your life, right. Worth getting $10,000 or $20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 or two grand? That's the question. Well, I'm creating more spike content because. It'S on your phone and we don't need a big production.
You don't need the fancy cameras of fancy production. Let me be really clear and blunt about this, by the way. Yep. A high end video with fireworks and unicorn will never get the same engagement as pulling at your cell phone and making a video. Here's why.
It is human behavior. When we see the fancy unicorns and fireworks coming out of that production, it feels like a commercial to us. What do we do about commercials? Skip. We skip them.
We block them. We don't want to be sold to. We know we're being sold to and we're willing to do that when it's content that we would like or it's from someone that we trust most of the time, with fancy videos and fancy cameras, fancy editing and fireworks and unicorns, it feels like a commercial. We block it. However, same influencer, same brand, same product, pulls out their cell phone and says, guys, I've really been using postmates.
I love them. I just had them delivered to me at the college party. I was at my girls house, and we had postmates. It was so late at night, we didn't want to, we didn't feel like going to the restaurant. So boom, boom, bam, bam, bam.
Yeah, that video is going to crush, not even close, the fireworks and unicorn video. And so I would say that is, I don't want influencers to feel like, oh, I need fancy cameras. Oh, I need fancy production. Oh, I need four videographers. You need a cell phone and ideas.
And keeping in mind, stop making content for yourself and your ego. Start making it for your followers. And if you do that and you make freaking content for your followers, they will engage with you and they will feel it, and they will know the difference. Here's an example, you are in the gym and you're working out. Wow, look how buff I am.
That video or that photo is never going to get the same engagement as I'm in the gym. Yo, I lost 22 pounds by eating this, drinking this, wearing this, and doing this. Why? Because you're helping people. You're showing them.
Here's how I lost 22 pounds to look like this. I wasn't always like this. I was 202. Now I'm 180. But I had first form supplements.
I had icon meals. I ate at everbowl. And you start listing the things that you're eating or drinking, that is going to crush it, because now you're helping people. You're the exact same influencer in the exact same. No shirt on, same thing, same scene, but you're doing it for the people instead of for yourself and for.
Christian DelGrosso
So, Dan, I can't lose the weight again because I just lost it. I went from 200 and this is the. This was my. This was the biggest issue with me when I was losing weight was I was realizing along this journey there were so many products I was using to actually help with the weight loss. And then I was realizing, oh, this could have been a great opportunity to collaborate with these brands because I was actually using them organically.
Even the apps I was using for counting my calories and all that, I went from 209 to 163, and I was like, at the end of the journey, I had so much content and had so many people following along the journey because I was posting it publicly. But I was like, wow, I didn't even think about incorporating brands. I didn't even know how to even. How would I even start with trying to incorporate those brands or reach out to those brands to be a part of that story? So those brands, if you tell them, hey, I'm 209, I'm on a mission.
I'm gonna do it all over again. Yeah, let's go to in and out. We'll get you pumped up again. Double double cheeseburger. You'll be fine.
Dan Fleyshman
Get you back to 200. Round two. Yeah, I used to be 414 pounds. I can't remember. Dude, that still blows my mind.
The point is, when you want to do a journey mission for if there's an influencer listening out there and you want to go down a mission of losing weight or gaining weight or getting ready for fitness competition, whatever, being really clear about your storyline. So what a media kit or a one pager about what you want to happen or what you're going to be doing. So some people do this for, hey, I'm going to be going on a 26 miles marathon. Will you sponsor me along the way to the journey? Because I'm going to practice running.
Hey, I'm going to go hike this, you know, kilimanjaro. Okay, cool. That's going to happen in four months from now. Here's all the practice I'm going to do along the way. You make a one page media kit saying, I'm going to hike kilimanjaro or I'm going to run a 26 miles marathon or I'm going to lose 33 pounds, whatever.
Like if I'm going to go do that thing, brands will eat it up. Just absolutely eat it up. And you're reaching out, like, in what way? Just to their teams. So one page overview.
Do not do more than one page. One page overview. That has your picture, your stats, your profiles. Like literally shows, hey, I have 100,000 followers. I have 7% engagement.
I get 7000 views per video. And here's my five platforms that I use. And it's okay to have small ones too. Don't just be like, only show the big one. If you only have small LinkedIn or small Twitter, put that too.
I'm going to go hike this thing or I'm going to go run this marathon. And here's my plan. It's going to take me 90 days to do it. I'm going to do twelve workouts for this, I'm going to do 24 for this. I'm going to eat this food, blah, blah.
I would like you to be my water sponsor. My water sponsor for the next 90 days is going to be five grand. This is going to cost ten grand. This is going to be two grand. 50 grand.
100 grand. The math is based on you and who you are. And you can actually spike it up a little bit for a project or a mission or a program or a challenge by showing that the brand that receives it via DM's, via emails, via agency, however you want to get a hold of them, I would suggest send it all of the above. Every way you can get a hold of Fiji water or whatever the brand is, icon meals. Just send it to them in every fashion from DM, email, small social media platform, big platform.
Wherever you can on their website, submit. It's okay if it goes to five different people or it's okay if the same person gets it five times. Who cares? You are there to try to help them with their brand and you are doing a fitness challenge or a program that's going to help you and by default, you're going to help your audience be along with that journey. So do not be shy about messaging your one page PDF of like, here's my plan.
I'm going to lose this weight, or I'm going to hike this thing, or I'm going to run this marathon. And just be really clear. How much do you want? Do not. Again, this is very important.
For that 90 days, you want $10,000. Say that. Don't say, I'm going to go do this for 90 days, and then not explain how much you want or why you want it. Because if you do that, the 22 year old influencer manager there is like, oh, look, there's a cool program challenge. I'm going to give them two grand she doesn't know, or I'm going to give them 20 grand.
She has no. Like, she's just clicking buttons because she saw an email come in from you about a one page PDF. Right. Be clear with extreme clarity. I'm going to do this for 90 days.
And during that process, I need $10,000 for this category. I would love to work with you guys. And by doing that, they can say yes or no. They can ghost you, they can reply, whatever. But by making it clear, you will save a bunch of the back and forth, because the back and forth can lead to errors, can lead to people not responding, can lead to people getting fired jobs.
You don't know what's going on in that background. So to remove all that 90 days, I want ten grand. I'm going to do x, y, z. This is what I like from you. You got to send me your clothes or your food or whatever it is that I want for the sponsorship and the money.
I literally put my wiring info there. I just make it as clear as possible. So there's no back and forth. We did it. All right.
We're actually around ten. Yeah. Final question. Uh oh. This is important.
Christian DelGrosso
How important? For the board. I feel like I'm on trial right now. I need your serious face ready. Show me your share space.
Dan Fleyshman
There it is. Okay. Christian. Yeah. First of all, I have to preface it.
Do you plan to have children anytime in the future? Yes. Okay. Yeah. What is this question?
Most of the time, I ask this question, and I've never gotten the same answer, but I've actually never asked someone who doesn't have children. Okay. So, yeah, when Christian becomes a gazillionaire. Right. You're gonna make all these movies, all these tv shows, and you're gonna have one of the most record breaking movies of all time.
$600 million a box office. You're hearing it first here, and then. 100 years from now, when you pass away, and you're 137 years old, 110 years from now. Okay. How much of your wealth, after all the zillions of dollars you've built up, what percentage do you leave to your imaginary children?
They won't be imaginary at that point. Imaginary now. All of it. None of it. Some of it, yeah.
Christian DelGrosso
Do you want the easy answer? Do you want the real answer? I want raw. How much money? $1 billion.
$1 billion. Does it. He becomes a billionaire movie film producer. How many kids? Three.
Three kids. How many kids you want? Yeah.
Dan Fleyshman
Sure. Many kids. Okay, so. Okay, let's just say hypothetical. Pick how many kids?
Yes. Three. So I'm gonna have three kids. $1 billion in cash. Yeah, I'm gone.
Christian DelGrosso
Yeah, I didn't make it to Elon Musk's revolution. 129. Yes. And I'm gone. So, yeah, I guess I don't think they need all the money.
So I would probably find a way to either donate or move some money to a cause that I was, like, three kids. I don't think they need that much money, because I want them to also be able to, like, live a life worth journeying and exploring and doing all that. And once you have all that money, it kind of defeats the purpose, because you can. You don't have that end goal. So maybe I'd leave them enough to be able to keep them comfortable in the early phases of their life to where they would still have to think about working.
So I would say. Let's just say we'd. I'd leave three kids with, like.
Dan Fleyshman
God, this is question. Like, I don't want to say too much, but let's just say I leave each of them with, like, $10 million and put that in an account for them, and they can access that out of whatever, you know, this is the logistics we have to go down the rabbit. I have to speak to my attorney. Can they get all 10,000,001 shot, or is it. Yeah, I would say drip release to them?
Christian DelGrosso
Yeah, I think drip release would be the best way to do it. Cause. Yeah, 10 million in one shot of just, like, a. Yeah, just a red bull. Just a Red Bull, dude.
Yeah, no, I don't think they need all that money. I would probably have that either invested into, like, something. A cause that I would want to be behind or an industry that I would want to be behind, or something that would be helping just the betterment of whatever it is that I would want to get behind at that point, and I'm still growing, so I don't know what that could be. It could be popcorn, for all I know. We don't know what.
Where this is gonna end up. Yeah. $900 million invested into popcorn on my death, but, yeah, no, I think that. I think that does that. Is that a good.
Like. Is that, like, a. Makes sense. Wow. I know some people are, like, all of it.
Dan Fleyshman
We've had very different answers. None of it happened multiple times. Like, none of it. Zero. All of it has happened multiple times.
Both are right. Right. Cause it's right. It's up to them. Whatever they want to do.
Some people want to do it for legacy. Some people trust their kids are gonna be a good steward of capital. Some people think their kids have no chance if they give them all that money, because they're gonna be jerks. So, like, they're all. Every one of them is right, by the way.
Christian DelGrosso
Right. No. One of them are wrong, because it's up to them. It's up to them and their children and what they want to do and what they think will happen for their kids, their grandkids, etcetera. And I just like to hear the different versions.
Dan Fleyshman
I like the way that people think about it. Right. And I've. And with that, it makes me adjust each time, because I hear, like, oh, I like that part. Oh, I like that part.
And that's why I asked that question, not to every single person, but to most people on the show, because I think the people that are out there listening can pick and choose different things that they like. They hear the different numbers, the different concepts, the different percentages, the different things that people and their rationale is typically about the life of that child. If you hand a child 10 million, 100 million, or all 1 billion in this scenario, that's a different human. Oh, yeah, absolutely. The butterfly effect is very different for every one of those scenarios.
Christian DelGrosso
That's why I like the journey aspect of it, because if I didn't go through that, because I wouldn't grow up wealthy at all, you know? So the journey is what brought me here, to be able to sit with you and have this conversation. And I feel like there's so many things that came out of me having to work and figure it out and be creative and innovative and whatnot, that have made my life worth living. And if you would have handed me $10 million back when vine came out, I probably would have been broken a month later. A lot of fun.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That month would have been crazy. Yeah. All right, guys, you're listening to the money Mondays.
Dan Fleyshman
Make sure to visit us@themoneymondays.com. Have these discussions with your friends, family and followers. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's insane not to talk about money because it impacts our daily lives with loans, financing, accounting, taxes, ir's. If I borrow money from my friend, how do I pay it back?
Should I get a contract? What do I do? And nobody talks about salaries or any of these things because we thought it was rude. And we're going to change that motto. And I need you guys to have these important discussions with your friends, family, and followers.
Make sure to follow Christian across social media. You probably already are. But if you're not, do it. Enjoy the content and we'll see you guys next Monday.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the easiest mastermind phone call Zoom call podcast I've ever done in my life. Because with a friend of mine that I've known longer than anyone in the history of speaking business and just pretty much life in general, when I was 18 years old, I got a random. It wasn't a text message because texting wasn't really a thing back then. Around 1999, it was a phone call. And this message said, hey, do you want to get on my private jet at 10:00 a.m.
Mind you, it's 820 in the morning. So in 1 hour and 40 minutes, do you want to get in my private jet? I'll never forget this. And I look at my girlfriend. I was like, hey, I'm going to get on a private jet at 10:00 a.m.
I didn't ask. I just said, I'm about to go. I'm going to go with this guy named Marshall Silver. And she was like, wait, didn't you just meet him yesterday? I said, yeah, I met him underneath a casino.
He was like playing 10,000 a hand on six different hands at the same time. It was insane. I'm gonna go with him. I wanna see what's going on. He didn't even give me any context.
I'm gonna go with Marshall Silver. So I get on the plane, I go to Las Vegas, and during that 1 hour flight, I think I've learned more things about life in 1 hour than I did, like, the last couple decades since then. Cause the things he taught me, which I'm gonna get into, I'll tell you some of the fun ones that are stuck in my hand. Like when I here I'll give you r1 quick. Before we even get to.
This is the longest intro in history of podcasts we've ever done. Whenever you say the word honestly, he stopped me, and it's still in my head. Like he said, when you say the word honestly, you're inferring that other things in the past were not honest. And it's literally now to this day. Happens all the time.
People say the word honestly, and I want to slap their hand the way he did in that moment. Or just listen to him. Just listen to him. All right. He has an illustrious career.
I think he had over twelve years on the Las Vegas Strip for his casino show. He's been on David Letterman. I can't even count how many times. I don't have enough fingers for how many times he's been on television, especially household name shows. Over the years, he's considered one of the most famous hypnotists in the history of the planet.
And seminar speaker, coach, mastermind. Sometimes I rent out his freaking 17,000 square foot palace in Las Vegas. Just an all around friend of mine that I can't explain enough. I don't want to do the longest intro in history, but we're already there. So please give a warm, round applause to Mister Marshall Silver.
Marshall Sylver
Yay. Hey, brother. Good to see you, as always. So, here on the money Mondays, we typically keep this under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes.
Dan Fleyshman
So this podcast will be around 34 to 38 minutes for you guys today. Just want to say that at the very beginning, as you know, I'm not running any commercials here. We're spending 70,000 a month to keep this guys free for you guys because I want you to learn about money. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's insane not to talk about it because it's reality and sex.
Marshall Sylver
Yes, money and sex. Wait, let's just change the name. Yes. Sexy Tuesdays. That would be the number one podcast for sure.
Well, here we go. Let's launch it today. All right, guys, so we're going to dive right into it. We cover three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.
Dan Fleyshman
This person teaches people how to do this, not just talks about it, not just thinks about it, not just theorize about it. He literally has people pay him 10,000, 50,000, $100,000, sometimes a million dollars for coaching, for him to get into their minds and fix them and build up their careers. So, with that being said, give us the quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. Yeah. Born on a farm in Michigan, no running water, no electricity, no phone.
Marshall Sylver
Ten siblings. Mom raised us basically on her own. No father figures in the mix of all that. And when you grow up in those kind of dire straits, you learn very quickly. If it's going to get done, you got to do it.
The first house we lived in got condemned. The local community realized we were going to die in a cold Michigan winter. So they renovated a chicken coop, much like your ranch here. There were lots of. Lots of places for animals to be, but there was no animals there.
And so they renovated the chicken coop, and we lived there for four years. And no adverse side effects. Four years? Yeah, four years. And then my mother was a welfare worker.
That's what she did for a living. And a local judge died. She contacted the family and said, we don't have much money, but we'll take good care of your house. May we live in your home. Wow.
And they let us live there. And so we lived there for four years, and then we ran out of money again. Even though we weren't paying rent, we ran out of money again, couldn't pay for the heating oil in a cold Michigan winter. So mom packed up our station wagon, and she returned to her roots, which was southern California, San Diego. And so when I was 14 years old, moved to San Diego and was looking for myself.
I'd always been an entertainer. I've been on stage since I was seven. And then in the course of my life, at 16 years old, I got hypnotized. It changed my whole life, and it made me realize we are who we think we are. And I realized I was no longer a pauper.
I was a multimillionaire whose money had not yet been deposited in my bank account yet. It made me view the world differently. It made me look for different things. And so in that process of looking for where the money was, I was fortunate enough that I found a mentor early on. Hired me to work for him at 14 years old.
And he's the guy. His name's Chuck Martinez, and he's the guy that reinvented Halloween. So when you go into the Halloween shops or spirit or any one of those stores in the big box, he's the one that came up with the idea of putting the Halloween store in a space that was only there for 30 days. Previously, people would lease out a costume store twelve months out of the year to do business. Two weeks out of the year.
So I watched him when I was, from the time I was 17 years old till I was 23 years old, go from basically broken to having $60 million net worth. And my brain said, well, if he can do it, my mentor can do it, so can I. And so that was the search for me, is, what's my vehicle? What's my passion? From the time I was 21 till I was 23, I went through eight jobs and eight apartments in two years looking for myself.
And then I was reminded. I stumbled upon a guy that I had known socially a little bit, and he had become a hypnotist. And I said, you know what? I'm reminded that when I was in my teens, I got hypnotized. I should research this.
And the moment that I researched that, I found the number one guy in the world, kind of like what you do. I said, I'm going to go hack their process. And I hacked their process, became a hypnotist. And as they say, the rest is history. Within two weeks of becoming a hypnotist, I was on late night with David Letterman.
Dan Fleyshman
Oh, my God. Within three weeks of becoming a hypnotist, I had booked a show that didn't exist four nights a week at local nightclubs in San Diego. And, you know, since then, I've been blessed. I'm a grateful man. I've done over $600 million in personal income, as you know.
Marshall Sylver
My main residence is in Las Vegas, 17,000 square foot palace. My second home is on the beach in San Diego. Because it's the beach and it's San Diego. Seriously. And, you know, I'm a grateful man.
I get a chance to not only teach people how to rewire their brains, I love making money. I think money cures most things. That's why I love your podcast so much. And I think that money doesn't have to be a difficult thing. But I think the biggest battle most people have is they're in their heads and they think that making money is difficult.
They don't realize. Yeah, they don't realize that it's not difficult. It's very different, though. And I think that's the distinction that people don't get that everything that they were taught by their broke or semi broke parents or middle class or even upper middle class parents will never make them rich. And that's the distinction.
Dan Fleyshman
So right around the time that I met you, you just came off a big win. You sold, like, $150 million from an infomercial. Could you walk us through that whole concept yeah, you know, this is before. There was social media. This is before, you know, people created viral videos.
Marshall Sylver
So infomercials were the viral video. And so I had an idea in my head. I shopped it around to everybody, all the producers of infomercials at the time, and I couldn't get anybody to carry the show. They all said, oh, no. Nobody will believe in hypnosis.
Not gonna look real on television. Two people that I talked to wanted the concept, but they were only gonna pay me a point. They were gonna pay me a dollar for every hundred dollars worth of goods. One point, one point, one dollar. And I said, no, it's my show.
It's my idea. It's my product. It's all mine. I'm not gonna take, you know, one and give you 99. That doesn't make any sense.
And so I did what entrepreneurs often have to do. I just did it myself, and I had an idea for a show. I took it to a local producer, and I said, how much to produce the show? And he said, $50,000. And I said, okay, but do not ask me to profit share with you.
He said, oh, no, we won't profit share. We've lost our butt too many times doing that. I said, great, because I also knew that once he saw what I did, he would want a piece of it. So we start shooting the show. I only had ten grand, and it was hidden in a safety deposit box because I owed $250,000 to other people had judgments against me already, and I'm just attempting to dig my way out of the hole.
So I had ten grand in a safety deposit box, and I said, I'm going to give you ten grand now. I'll give you ten here, 1010 and so forth. And after he saw me on stage and watched me make everybody run to the back of the room and throw down their credit cards, and I closed 95% of the room. He came back to the back and he said, I know. I said, I wouldn't ask you for a profit share, but I have a proposition for you.
How about you don't pay me any more cash up front? How about you give us $2 per unit for the first hundred thousand units and, you know, we'll fund it that way? And I said, sure, why not? Because I didn't have the money. So it's basically a Tom Sawyer close.
And he got into it. And to their credit, they did a really good job on the infomercial, and I wanted it to be right. It was my Hail Mary pass. I knew it had to work. And partway through it, it was taking a lot longer and probably costing them more than they expected.
And he came back and he said, look, you know, would you give me another $2 for another 50,000 units? So that would be a total of $300,000 paid to him on the first 150,000 units. And in the first year, we did 1.2 million units in sales. We did $120 million on a $10,000 initial outlay on what essentially was a 28 and a half minute video. So, you know, when people are talking about, oh, I've got a billion views, I love that.
That's all well and good, but we had a. We had over a million people vote with their wallets. And that's the important part. And I think that a lot of people don't understand that. There's a point where you have to ask for the money.
There's a point where you got to say, okay, this is what it costs to interact with me. And, you know, I kick myself now. I mean, I feel like an idiot now, because if I knew then what I know now, right, I'd be worth ten or $15 billion for sure, guaranteed. I just didn't know I was fat and happy. And I think that happens for a lot of people that don't have much money, that make a fair amount of money fairly quickly.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And so much to my chagrin, I thought the faucet was going to stay open the whole time, but I didn't realize, number one, the faucet shuts eventually, no matter what your product is. And also, I forgot to put a stopper in the bathtub. So I find myself broke after making, you know, $22 million in one year, I find myself broke.
A lot of bad investments, a lot of stupid moves on my part. And so I do it again, and I make tens of millions of dollars again. And then I marry the wrong person. Unfortunately, I was married for eleven months. The divorce took four and a half years.
I don't know if you knew this about me. And so I find myself broke again after four and a half years. The one that stole casino chips? No, that was a different one. But thank you for throwing all my dirty laundry out there.
No, that was the girlfriend I was dating while I was going through my divorce. By the way, the good news is I had a general manager. Well, my girlfriend is robbing me blind, and the soon to be ex wife is taking me to the cleaners. I had a general manager who was my best friend, unbeknownst to me, while she was running my companies, had embezzled over a million bucks from me. So it's like, ah, at the same time, yeah.
And so it's okay because, you know, even when I was suffering through that embezzlement of over a million bucks, I said, better now with millions than later with billions. And, you know, one of the biggest lessons for me anyway, and something that I tell my kids all the time, getting angry at, the game, has zero point. People go through divorces, people launch companies, make billions even, and lose it all. Stuff happens, you know, people have completely happy lives and then wake up one day with a bad diagnosis, health wise. So stuff happens.
So I always tell my kids and my wife and the people that I teach, don't be attached to anything, don't be attached to being rich, don't be attached to being poor, don't be attached to being healthy, don't be attached. I mean, always seek to be healthy, seek to be wealthy, seek to have great relationships. Except you can't be attached to it because the moment you tell God your plans for your life is the day God laughs. So don't do that. It's not a smart thing.
Dan Fleyshman
On the make money side of this podcast, what would you say holds people back from trying to make money? I think most people don't realize that money's math. And I think that the challenge for people, most people are not as empathetic as they need to be. They're not able to get into the consumer eyes, the head of the person they seek to sell to, and say, what do they need? Not what do I want?
Marshall Sylver
And so I tell people, get out of your head. Get into your customers lives. Look at the world from their point of view and say, what do they need? You know, I train a lot of speakers. I help a lot of people in their live events make money.
I'm a very different kind of guy. Contrary to what anybody might think, I don't really care about fame. It's a part of the business. It's a function, for sure. It's a part of the business.
But I don't care. I care about making money. It's my business. And so I approach things differently. I make sure that content is always king.
And I just, again, think that most people don't make the kind of money they could make because they're filled with ego and they think, I need to make money my way, not the way money is actually made. You're a classic example of somebody who always pours right back into their businesses. And I know you have a lot of very wealthy friends and a lot of people that you hang out with that burn through boatloads of money. And I'm sure you see it. I mean, obviously, without dropping any names, Mayweather or people like that, that, again, they're living a big lifestyle, and I pray that they get it.
But there's too many people like that. Like a Tyson who had a, you know, a hundred years remarkable career and at the end of the day, have nothing. And so the, you know, my. My battle is to just be happy. My whole thing is figure out a way to be happy.
There was a point. I had already met my wife, Erica, and she's the best decision I ever made in my entire life, as you know. Cause you've known me through the time of having the crazy girlfriends that are ripping me off and cheating on me and the crazy ex wives. Erica is the best decision I ever made. And when I met her, I was rolling in the dough.
I had millions of dollars in the bank. And I went through a dip in 2013, like a lot of people did around that time. And I told my wife, I said, we're gonna have to sell one of our houses. We're gonna have to sell the beach house, or we're gonna have to sell the house in Vegas. We're gonna have to downsize everything.
We might even have to sell both houses. And she said, you know, we can sell everything, move into a studio apartment because we had two sons at the time. And she said, doesn't matter. All I wanna do is be with you. And when she said that, I realized that was God reminding me this woman loved me and not the life.
And every day she's just grateful. And I think that that's the other side of the coin, is Napoleon Hill devoted an entire chapter and think and grow rich to being what I would call evenly yoked having a good partner. And it's not just your business partners. It's also especially your life partners, you know, your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whomever you're with. They've got to not be work.
And so before I met my wife, I prayed to God, you know, because I'm rich. I am rich. I admit that. I'm funny, I'm charismatic, ridiculously good looking. I'm ridiculously good looking, massively humble.
That's one of my favorite qualities about myself. And so it was never hard for me to meet women, except when I realized that I had bad strategies for relationship. I said, God, give me someone kind. I don't want to do drama anymore. That's the only criteria I have.
No drama. And it's amazing that we get what we're looking for and we tend to receive what we ask for as long as our self esteem is high enough that we know that we deserve it. On the investing side, why should people invest into themselves by either hiring a coach, going to mastermind, going to live event, etcetera. You don't have anything else. At the end of the day, when all the chips are down, real estate goes up and down.
You can launch the most successful brand in the world, and somebody else comes along with a slightly different idea and puts you out of business. You take a look at MySpace or any number of brands. Snapchat. Yeah, exactly. And so what happens for people is, I think, that they don't realize that at the end of the day, all you have left is you.
And your resilience is what's going to determine whether or not your success. Take a look at somebody like an Elon Musk, who, again, the guy clearly doesn't care about money, doesn't own his own house, doesn't spends most of his time at his work, works 80 hours a week, and it's all because he wants to use himself up. And I think that that's the biggest challenge for people, is they want to make money for a reason. They don't want to live their life and have what they do naturally produce the revenue that they seek. And I think that's the biggest thing.
I don't like working out anymore. I'm level 62, and I went through open heart surgery two years ago, and I'm not a fan of working out. I'm not a fan of going to the gym. I love my wife and I love racquetball. So when I go play racquetball five days a week with my wife, I don't have to force myself to play racquetball.
I don't have to get myself out of bed. All I've got to do, I wake up and I go, let's go play racquetball. It's so much fun. And I think that that's the biggest challenge for people is how do you arrange your life. So how you live your life naturally produces the result you're seeking.
You know, if somebody is constantly trying to deny themselves the food that they like, that's a battle. But if they retrain their brain or use someone like me, a hypnotist, and let me hypnotize you to make the foods that are healthy for you taste better. Or let me hypnotize you to have you fall in love with sales. Let me hypnotize you to have your brain think like a genius, because geniuses don't say, can I? Geniuses say, how do I, you know, Edison and Elon Musk or even Tesla, they didn't say, can we invent this thing?
They said, no. The end result is a given. Let's work backwards. Let's invent a bulb that burns for a minute. Let's invent a bulb now that.
That burns for five minutes, an hour, a day, a week, a month. Hell, you know, the leds inside of your studio here are supposed to last 25 years, although they haven't been around 25 years, so I'm not sure they would really know that. But that's the point, is that some is better than none. You've got to figure out a way, and I know you teach a lot of this on your podcast. You've got to figure out a way to get moving because the momentum is what's going to carry you toward the end result.
Dan Fleyshman
Yeah. So someone invests in themselves, right? They go to an event, they buy a course, they get a coach, and then they don't go do the thing that they learned. What would you say is holding them back from taking the information that they know they wanted and they actually paid for it, and then they go do the thing. That's where I come in.
Marshall Sylver
And that that is where, you know, I tell people when I'm on a stage, I'm here to protect the investment you've made in the other programs, because ultimately, no real estate training, no speaker training, no business development training, none of it works. Only you work. And so when you decide what's going to work, that's when it's going to work. And the application is challenging because the person that went to the seminar can't apply what they learn. It's the person that had to be transformed that will apply what they learned, because that person will do different things.
If the person would have done different things, they would have done them before they got to the event. So, the largest portion of mentoring or training or the stuff that we do is figuring out a way to inspire people to say, this is what I want. I was asking before we started recording, what number podcast? And you're upwards of 70, 80 now because you've been doing this for a while. The first ones were hard, and you barely.
I know you had a huge audience from the beginning, but for most people, that launch something like this, you're not gonna have an audience for your first four, five, six shows, let alone four, five, six months. But you gotta stick with it. You gotta be willing to go through the suck. You've gotta be willing to do poorly. I own a URL called put out crap, and I also own the URL, put out crap 2.0 because that's what you've got to do.
You gotta let loose of the need for other people's approval. You got to let go of a desire to look good in front of other people and just say, no, I'm going to look horrible until I don't look horrible anymore. You know, my children, I'm strict. We just toured your ranch here and one of my kids was having a hard time. I'm strict and attitudes everything.
And I'll pull them aside, as I did on the tour today, and say, that's not acceptable. Figure out a way to shake it off. Whatever's going on in your head right now, figure out a way to lose it. If you need me to help you, glad to help you. If you need a hug, glad to give you that hug.
If you need encouragement, whatever you need. Except it's not an option to be in that negative mindset. You gotta let it go. And I think that, you know, of all the things my wife and I talk about, what gifts I wanna give the kids, I want them to be confident. I want them to be secure in themselves.
Because I think that, you know, if all I was able to do for somebody is make them ten times more confident than they are right now, they're gonna be wealthy. If all I could do is teach people the number one business skill I believe people need to possess is an ability to sell things. That when you know how that subconscious process of influence works and you know how to sell things, the world's your oyster. There's a famous line by Mark Cuban that says, sales cures all. What I think about it, and I'm going to ask you is, I think sales cures all.
Dan Fleyshman
The concept is it makes your staff excited. It makes your business have more money, obviously. It makes your vendors excited because you're spending more with them. Your marketing department is excited because it looks like it's working. And it's, you know, your investors are happy.
If you have investors, every single person, from customers, employees, everyone in the office, outside the office, people that you don't even know that are talking about you when they see you go from 1 million to 4 million, 4 million to 1010 million to 20 million. That flow of money causes more action. So, for you, when you hear the line sales cures all, what do you think about, and what should people be thinking about? I kind of believe that. I don't believe sales cures all, but I do believe money cures all, or at least most things.
Marshall Sylver
Money cures most things. I'll give it that caveat, because there's certain health things and other challenges of the world that throwing more money at it won't necessarily take care of it. I do think, though, that part of what people don't realize is that if there isn't sales, there isn't a company. If nothing is sold, there isn't a business. And so I think that the first step psychologically, people have to do is they've got to fall in love with this process of persuasion.
You know, when you watch me on stage, as you watch me on stage, I'm hardcore. I don't let up. But I tell the audience before I start, I'm here to sell you something. Raise your hand if you are okay with it. I'm gonna bluntly tell you, I'm gonna sell you something.
Dan Fleyshman
Yeah. Who here believes I'm gonna try to sell you something, and then all the hands go up, and I say, I will not let you down. Except I'm not even gonna try to sell you something. I'm gonna sell you something. And then the caveat is, it's good for me, it's good for you, it's good for the entire economy.
Marshall Sylver
Everybody wins. And I think that that's the piece that most people don't know, because it's hypnosis. Oh, you're just trying to sell me something, and my response is, well, duh. I'm a salesperson. You're at a seminar.
It's what we do. Are you new? And it's that unapologeticness about it. You know, kind of the same thing again about being a parent. I don't apologize to my kids for reprimanding them.
I don't apologize to them for redirecting them. I do ask them afterwards. Do you know why I did that? Yes, daddy, because you love us. I know you know that I love you, but what was the behavior I'm seeking.
Don't run in the house. What's the reason I don't want you running in the house? Cause you already said you're not coming to the hospital with us. I'm not? No.
I'll get you an uber. I'm not going with you if you're dumb. Enough to run after I told you 100 times, then you're on your own, dude. Wait till you have kids. You'll enjoy that, too.
Dan Fleyshman
August 17. Yes. You'll get it. Okay, so what about, congratulations, by the way, on that? Thank you.
Marshall Sylver
I know you've been wanting this for a long time. Sometimes people say, oh, you won't know how it feels till you're kids. And I have 37 nephews and nieces. Cause I have so many siblings, and I always said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love kids. I've got nephews and nieces.
It's not the same. When they're your flesh and, you know, they're your seed. It's not the same. It's remarkable. The best time of my life.
I don't. I don't care about anything anymore than making sure my wife and my children are provided for. That's all I care about anymore. So, investing in relationships. Yep.
Dan Fleyshman
Oftentimes, people get stuck, whether it's they're scared to talk to their boss, they're scared to talk to their husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. They're scared to talk to their family member, parent, kid, et cetera. They're scared to communicate. How can people get over that communication barrier? I think that it's a training cycle.
Marshall Sylver
I think we get used to doing things in a certain way, and because we're used to doing that, it's not the communication that's difficult. It's the break of the pattern. You have a relationship, and things come up, and you don't talk about the offense. You just kind of let it go and brush it off, and you hope maybe that's a one time thing. And then it happens again.
You go, God, maybe it's just a two time thing. Well, it's not. It's how that person interacts. And so, for me, I nip stuff in the bud. I just hired a new teammate and brought him on, and we've been buying him lunch every day while he's been hanging out with us.
And the other day, he said, man, thanks so much for buying me lunch. And I turned to him, and I said, don't get used to it. That doesn't mean I'm not going to buy lunch whenever. I just don't want you to take it for granted. And I think that that's the challenge, is that you've got to nip stuff in the bud.
You've got to communicate it quickly, because if not, then it's harder and harder and harder to communicate. And I think that it's that retraining cycle. You know, one of the things that works for me and my relationship with my wife is relationships are built on agreements. And the better the relationship, the stronger the agreements. So we have a lot of agreements.
One of the agreements, of course, is we don't touch each other in anger. We don't grab each other's arm. She's not allowed to whack me when she's upset with me at all. Nothing. My wife and I will drop good f bombs in the middle of passion, you know?
Dan Fleyshman
F me. F me. F. I'm okay with that. Except we don't ever use profanity when we're in a disagreement, and that's the agreement.
Marshall Sylver
We don't. We don't use profanity. So every once in a while, one of us might lose our mind for a moment and use profanity, and the other one says, do we have an agreement? Yes. Forgive me.
I'm just so frustrated right now. Okay, well, what's the agreement? The agreement is we don't use that. So forgive me. This is my point, and I think that that's the challenge, is establishing new.
New relationships. You know, you and I have been friends. You're one of my oldest friends, too. And the thing about it is, in my friendships, I require respect. I give respect, and I require respect.
And when I see there's not respect, I'll ask the person, do you realize this is going on, and is this intentional, or is this something you just didn't notice, or are you overloaded? Because we never know what somebody else might be going through. I don't know what stress. You got this ranch. You got $150,000 a month in food bill.
And that's before you eat, by the way. Yeah, no doubt. I understand. And so, again, you never know what somebody else is going through, and you might think it's you personally that they're being this way with, and it's not. I texted you the other day, and you're usually very prompt in getting back to me, and I texted you three times and didn't hear back, and it's not like you.
So my next text was, are you okay? Are you okay? Yeah, I just want to make sure you're okay. And you said, marshall, I got 87 texts on that post that I made. I got, you know, 45 people waiting here.
I'm over here in. In this. I'm traveling. My schedule is this and that. Okay, thanks.
That's it. And I think that that's the easiest thing to do, to just inform somebody. You know, we're running late. This is gonna. This is happening.
I'm dealing with this stuff. Thank you. So I think the way you communicate is you don't need approval. My father and I didn't have a good relationship. I'd call him on the phone, the first words out of his mouth, you little sob.
Why are you calling me? Last words out of his mouth, you little Mfer. Don't ever call me again. And he didn't use acronyms. And for the longest time, it was hard, because I thought, why doesn't my father love me?
And then one day, I heard somebody say something. They said, hurt people. Hurt people. And when I heard that, I went, oh, this has nothing to do with me. This is his heartbreak over the fact that my mother divorced him because he was a dick.
And when I got that, I went, it all makes sense to me. And so I made up my mind that no matter how mean and nasty my father was, I would be kind, call him on the phone. He'd say that, and I'd say, God, you know, dad, I love you. And I don't know why you're so angry at me, but I wish it was different. And I would call him twice a year, because that's all that I could handle on father's day and on his birthday.
And it was never different. One day, my infomercial had hit, and the show was showing everywhere. And I got a phone call, and my secretary said, your dad's online, too. My dad hadn't called me in a lifetime. And I said, that's not funny.
She said, well, he has that weird last name that you used to have. I picked the phone. I said, who the hell is this? And he said, son, it's your dad. Dad, how are you?
He said, I'm fine, but I wanted to tell you, I've seen your show, your tv show. You're amazing. Thanks, dad. He said, you know, I haven't been a really good dad. I said, no, it's okay.
You don't have to apologize. You're doing the best you can. And he said, I'm really sorry. He said, I'd like to come visit you, but I don't have any money. You know, could you get me a plane ticket?
I want to visit you. And I said, sure. I sent him the plane ticket. And two weeks later, before he was able to use the ticket, he died. And, you know, whether he had called me or not, I knew that at the end of that time, I would know that I'd done the right thing.
And that's all I care about, did I do the right thing? And I think that, you know, it's not just being conscious. You are. And I tell everybody. Anybody asks me about.
You tell me about Dan Fleischman, and I'm sure most of your friends say the same thing. He is the kindest human being you will ever meet. He knows everybody. And he is just a good soul. A really, really, really good soul.
And there's not, I can barely think of another person that I would say the exact same thing about. And so that reputation is your currency. That willingness to listen is your currency. And it's the reason you've had such massive success. I know you got a lot going on right now.
You got a baby on the way, you're running the ranch here. You're off speaking. You got 45 events every year, and those events are multiple days. So some of those events are five days or six days or ten days straight. So your whole year is packed, yet you took the time to invite me to the ranch to do this broadcast.
And again, that's just you. And I think that, you know, people believe they have a good relationship with someone else when they like themselves, when they're in the other person's presence. So when I like myself, when I'm near you, I think we have a good relationship. So my final question, by the way, we're gonna bring Marshall on multiple times a year. But my final question, because we like to keep this.
Lucky me. Yes. Look to your right. You see those kids out there? Yep.
Dan Fleyshman
So each person that comes on I ask this question, I've never gotten the same answer. I'm not gonna get the same answer right now, that's for sure. Sure. Marshall Silver, you already have done $600 million in income and sales, et cetera. And you're obviously going to do billions of dollars before you're done here.
Whether you're 100, 100, 2150, God willing, with modern technology, you live to 150. When you are a multi billionaire and you pass on, how much money do you leave to those kids? That's a fascinating question. So, Sterling Marshall Silver, Maximus Marshall Silver, prosperity. Erica Silver.
Marshall Sylver
Silver. You know, there's a lot of stories of people infamously saying, I'm not leaving any money to my kids, I'm gonna make them work. And I have a different take on it. My take is I'm going to educate my children in the ways of money to the degree that they will be good steward for the leg up that I gave them. So I don't know what anybody else thinks, and I don't really care.
Certainly I will give to the causes that I believe in, which, by the way, are kids and entrepreneurship in kids. We have an organization called the Young Entrepreneur Society, where we teach kids how to be in business. And so I'll give a portion of money to that, for sure, except my children and my wife will get the majority of the money because I want to make them good stewards. Now, will I put some kind of requirements? Yes.
Specific requirements. Don't do drugs. Don't drink alcohol. You know, my own father gave me my first shot of vodka at five years old. At five.
Dan Fleyshman
At five. And unfortunately, I'm not proud of this. I was a good drinker in my lifetime. I drank really well. I mean, I drank a lot.
Marshall Sylver
And last July, I stopped drinking alcohol altogether. I just said, I'm done. And I did, because I've got kids now, and I can barely. I can hardly tell them, do as Daddy says, not as daddy does. And I said, I want to inspire them to want to be healthier.
I love tequila. That was my favorite liquor. I loved fine wines. Really enjoyed my fine wines. Except at the end of the day, being that I do what I do for a living, I had to accept the fact there's no benefit to alcohol.
There's none. You know, again, do not think I'm judging you. I don't care what you do. There was none for me, and I couldn't figure out any way to justify that in my life anymore. And especially with the kids.
My kids are going to get as much as I possibly can give them, but they're going to be given it in a way that they know it's not their money. Like, it's not my money. They're a steward, and their job is to multiply it as much as they can and figure out how to do good works in the world, but also set their kids up, because I think it's a ridiculous thing, you know, when parents make a boatload of money and say, well, my kids are going to have to work as hard as I work. And my thought is, well, isn't the point that they don't? Isn't the point that they won't have to yet?
They'll want to. Wouldn't that be the way to do it? All right, guys, I want to try to get Marshall Silver back next week, if that's possible. But make sure to check him out on social media. Go to Marshalsilver, spelled S Y l V E r.
Dan Fleyshman
Check him out. You also want to watch past things that he's done. It's fascinating. He's got books, multiple books. I can't even go through them all right now.
And what's important here is you guys, when you're hearing the things that we talked about today and that we're going to talk about in future episodes, is really think about it for your life. And if it doesn't apply to you, think about the person next to you, the people that you work with, your friends, family, followers, roommates, etcetera, that it could impact them. So when you hear things like this and you're hearing from someone that has these decades of experience, take it for yourself. But then think about who could I help impact in my world? We will see you guys next Monday on the money.
Mondays.