Applying Lessons of Love to Business

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That is actually a part of success You didn't go to business school, you didn't have a business you were inheritited and you didn't have someone say, Dar, here's a million dollars, goo and start a business. Where did you learn business skill There's a five step process that if you follow, I promise you You will be successful Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and most healed. Today's guest is one of my dearest friends, someone I've known for quite a few years now, and I can't believe this is his first time on the podcast. Daran is one of the most watched digital storytellers in the world, reaching billions with videos that turn simple stories into powerful life lessons Dar has achieved so much success in his career. He's been named as one of the biggest creators by Forbes. Please welcome to the show, my dear friend and insane creator, Dar Man. Dar, It is great to have you. It's such an honor, Jay. I really appreciate it. It's been a long time coming and I'm so glad that it's happening now because we've gotten what seeven eight years of building this amazing friendship together. One of the things I knew when I started my career was that I never wanted to be lonely on the journey. And I feel like there are certain people and we have a lot of mutual friends that we've all connected with that we're all in the industry. We all want to see each other win We want to support each other We want to give each other advice and guidance and give each other insights where and when we can and really grateful to you for as a friend as well is that watching your success, which we will dive into today, watching your story unfold and the incredible businesses you built will'll get into today. Dara, I want to start off with a question because I know a little bit about you. You've told me your story and I want to dive into it for the audience Tell me about a childhood memory that you have deffines who you are today. You know, what's interesting is that as I think back upon my childhood, I actually can't remember a lot of it As I look back now as an adult, I realize that's because I created this emotional detachment becausecause of all the struggles and pain that I went through as a kid. It was a tough childhood. I grew up around, you know, constant yelling and arguing and violence that I try to block a lot of it out. And it's hard because as a child, so much of your perspective in life is shaped by your parents Right As a child, you think that whatever your parents tell you is the truth. is You know, how you're supposed to see the world And then it's not until you get older that can you actually start to realize that My parents are also flawed human beings They don't always know what's right and what's wrong. You know My parents had just come from India to America and they came with six dollars in their pocket. My dad, you know, didn't even get finished like the equivalent of a high school education. So he was just trying to figure everything out in life in America in this world where they didn't even speak English And they made a lot of mistakes in the process That's the toughest thing as a child when especially when you grow up thinking that your parents are your hero to have to now all of a sudden start to see, you know, all of the mistakes that they made and took a long time for me to have to try to unlearn some of the things that I was taught. and also to try to heal from them But at the same time I am so grateful for the tough childhood that I had because now I have the opportunity as a father to show up for my daughters in a way, to be the parent that I never had as a child And that means so much to me because my goal as a parent is not to try to be perfect. There's no such thing as a perfect parent But my goal is to give them so much love and support that my daughters don't have to spend their adult life trying to overcome the traumas that they received as children But you know, I've just had a place in my life where I believe that everything that happens is for a reason. And I try to see the positive from it. It's super powerful to hear that to think about how you're parenting differently because of how you are parented And I know that when you say that, we actually share a lot and we've had dinners where we've talked about this like we share a lot of history and how we were raised and what we came up through. And of course, both of us are Indian Although you grew up in the States and I grew up in London I've always joked that I had three options growing up, which was to be a doctor, a lawyer or a failure. What did you think you were going to be or what did you expect from yourself when you were growing up as a young man When I was growing up, I just wanted to be accepted I just wanted to fit in. I just wanted to find a community So when I was eight years old, I actually had a turbine And as you can imagine, is being like the only Indian at my elementary school wearing a turban, I was often made fun of, I was bullied. It wasn't in like today's environment where there's a lot more awareness. I'm not saying that doesn't happen today, but it was a really hard time. And so I grew up just feeling like I never fit into the American community But at the same time, if you're Indian and you follow the Sikh faith O you know, any sort of religion, you know that there's different aspects or there's different levels of people that follow the faith. And so the time that I would be in an American school, I never felt like I'd quite fit in. but also the opposite happened. When I would go to our temple on Sundays because I may not be as religious or I didn't wear a certain amount of garments or because I didn't pray as many times in a day, I also felt like I wasn't good enough for that community. So for a long time in my life, I just felt like I was too Indian for the Americans and I was too American for the Indians, so I fell in some place in the middle I remember spending a lot of high school just trying to find people that I could have lunch with, everyvery day, that was my biggest anxiety is I didn't want to have lunch alone And my school was very racially segregated. so you know everyone from each culture kind of ate at their own table. And I just found myself as this outcast. And so there were a lot of days that I would eat lunch inside of the bathroom because I didn't want anyone to know that I had no one to sit with And as I got to my junior and senior years, I actually would start having lunch with my teachers because I connected with them more I for a long time chased that feeling of belonging and feeling of community that I never quite got. And again, just kind of looking back as to how I look back in my life and realized that everything happens for a reason. now today, because I was seeking to build that community and didn't have one, I was able to build one of the largest communities in the world of other people that also felt like they didn't really belong at some time in their life. Yeah, it's incredible how the stories you tell now are so wired by the messaging of what you experienced even if it may not be just the South Asian American story You're appealing to so many young people around the world. who are feeling othered, who are feeling like they don't belong, who are feeling like they're bullied, who are feeling like they don't connect, they don't know where they fit in. And it really is this incredible pain to purpose story, which sounds cliche. When you actually hear your story back, you're like Oh wow, no, that's true Like you're literally telling stories that are helping people who are going through what you were going through all those years ago When was the first time you actually felt in your whole life that you did belong I wonder if you even feel that now Very recently, I have started to feel like I belong You know, there's different aspects of belonging, right? First is sort of on the professional side of things as a creator, as an entrepreneur and being successful. and I' very grateful to have received a certain level of validation that has come from my consistency in doing things that have made me feel like, okay, I belong. As much as I could try to convince myself of that before I would never have been able to until I reached a certain level of success objectively And I think that's important for anyone that's like struggling with self confidence What I would say is the repetition and the consistency and eventually the success follows, that's when you start to build that self confidence and that continues to propel as you go further into what you do, right? Like today you have interviewed the biggest guest. So whoever, I don't even know which is the biggest celebrity that you've not interviewedbe Beyonce the Rock. I don't know if you've interview these guest yet. I'm sure they're coming. You would not be nervous about that becausecause you've already put in all these repetitions, right? and have interviewed all these other guests and built that self confidence in yourself. And so I would say professionally I have felt more recently like I've belonged because of the act and the effort and that all comes from all the failures of like trying to figure it out. But I would say the other part of belonging And the more important one that I realize now as I get into my forties and my perspective has changed, especially as a father is just realizing that you actually don't have to belong You know, we're actually born to stand out and the people that really support you and love you, they're going to be there no matter what And so what I always remember is if I have nobody else in this world, I have my daughters. and as long as I have a tight relationship with them and I'm showing up to be the father that I want to be, I'll always feel like I belong Yeah. that suchs a great answer. What was the first business you ever started? Oh my God. And not even like a not even it may not even been a fishher business. I mean, what was your first hustle? because I think about it, like I used to B ets of the streetwar brands outside of England and then sell them to people in England. And so I'd order like Avx jackets and shot jackets. These were brands that I remember people in my area loved having. And I'd always find them early and then sell them. And I was doing this when I was like fifteen years old at school. Yeah. And that was like my first kind of entrepreneurial venture. I was obviously, I was delivering papers before that. What was your first job? What was your? Well, you had a lot more foresight than I did. Mine wasn't as calculated. I probably started my first business venture, quote unquote, when I was in fifth grade, ten years old, and I would just set up little stands where I would sell baseball cards So you know, I'd make like a couple bucks. I've done everything from like selling lemonade to selling, I don't know if you remember when the CD burners came out Yeah and it was really popular to be able to now have custom soundtracks on CD's. So I was the guy because a lot of people couldn't afford CD burners. So I was a guy that for ten bucks, you could say like what your favorite songs were. I'd put them on a CD and I'd even learned how to like print custom artwork and I'd put it like on the sleeve so you could have this like really cool jewel case And then as I got older, you know in college, I would say like my first real business was I was trying to find a place to live. And at that time, this is pre Craigslist, this is pre you, all the tools that exist today online. And so the only way to find places to live was like you'd have to go to the local bulletin boards. and it was really hard because bulletin boards were messy. Your flyers would get taken down, like a lot of times They just weren't maintained properly. So At a certain point, I found a two bedroom apartment and I needed a roommate I didn't know anyone that wanted that was looking for an apartment. So I decided that I was gonna put flyers all around these bulletin boards. I woke up super early. There was probably like thirty, forty bulletin boards all around campus. I posted these flyers, and then I went home, showered, came back like later in the day as a student, and I realized half my flyers were like torn down S of them were just like they fell off the bulletin board. I was like, man, this is a real struggle trying to be able to reach people. So I started this business called Davis Marketing Services where basically I would help businesses that were trying to reach students post flyers on bulletin boards and that continued to evolve I set up like a sales team that was commission only. I worked with a local sorority that would do my distribution, that would go and like post all the flyers. I hired a graphic designer that would create really cool art. And I started getting clients, like apartment buildings that would say, hey, help us fill our housing. And I started making money that way You know, I probably had like a five person team by the time I was like nineteen years old or so, which was cool. And then after that, I got into real estate and I started what now is sort of known as like a boiler room or like a call center. And I probably at the peak of it had like forty students working for me where they would just call people and ask if they were interested in refinancing their home selling their home. I became a real estate broker pretty early on. and so that was like at the peak right before the two thousand eight real estate crash. I got the front page of like our student newspaper highlighting like the business that I built. We got to three offices. and yeah, it was pretty cool. I even bought like a Lamborghini when I was twenty one years old. I bought two houses as investment properties. The hard part about that is life is going to give you certain levels of validation, even if you're ong the wrong path R? Even if I'm doing things for the wrong intentions, success could still blind you because you're receiving a certain level of validation Maybe you're receiving a certain amount of money or people that are around you, whether they're good influencers or not are saying, hey, great job. And they're all sort of benefiting from like what is happening anyway Ultimately, if you do things for the wrong reasons, it's never going to work out. And I had to learn that the hard way multiple times in my life So I spent a lot of my life in my late teens, early twenties just misdirected, trying to chase money over meaning. and that led me to a lot of bad short term decisions that ultimately I had to come later in life to realize weren't the right way of doing things And that's why I'm such a believer in second chances in self growth. That's why I started my whole studio to say that you can make mistakes, you can get everything wrong in life Hit rock bottom completely change your life and become someone entirely new. That's what I did with my life, and that's what I try to inspire others in knowing that they can also do the same. You didn't go to business school You didn't have a business you were inheriting from your family And you didn't have someone say, Dar, here's a million dollars, go and start a business Where did you learn business skills? I was always just really motivated with a lot of big dreams and I was never scared to try and fail. because what I realized is I was working retail like in my late teen years. my very first job was at GAapP, and then I worked at Macy's for a little bit. And when I was thinking about starting my own business I just realize like, hey, okay, what if it doesn't work out What if you fail? Okay But then that means you just go on and get a job just like everybody else, trial by failure, right? How did you become a great public speaker? It kind of goes back to our conversation that you had to probably mess up a lot of times on stage to be able to have the confidence that you have R? How does anyone become a great athlete? You miss a lot of shots before you actually score. The hard part about business is let's say in baseball, you hit one out of three balls and get on base, you're an all star player. But in business, right? it feels like so much pressure if you lose or your business fails or your idea doesn't work out because we're worried about everybody's judgment on us. We're worrying about failing in public. But the thing is, is even if you fail nine times in a row And you succeed that tenth time, the thing that people are gonna remember you for is that tenth time that you actually succeeded Okay, not so fun fact Autoimmune skin conditions are actually on the rise. Cases are climbing nearly twenty percent every year I know, Terrible opener for a podcast ad. But here's the thing. I'm Holly Fry, and our skin exists precisely because of stats like that. Because more people than ever are living with conditions like psoriasis and hydroginitis supperativa And most of them are doing it alone, without answers, without community, without anyone to tell them what the heck is actually going on. You know, not that many people knew about it and I felt kind of alone like, am I an outcast That's where we come in We talk doctors. We talk appointments that are well, a disappointment We talk about the flare ups and the breakthroughs. Then we dive deep into the wild, occasionally gross, always fascinating history of how humans have tried to understand our skin over the centuries. Spoer alert did not always get it right. Listen to seeason three of Oour Skin, a personersal Discovery podcast on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of EarsSay. Audible and IHart Audiobook Cub. This week on the podcast. I amm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary Massive sci fi adventure about survival and science. And what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections and it's like, okay, yo, yeo, yo is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, No, at this point it would kind of be betraying the trust, the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. There's places in this book deeply emotionally affected me And I left it on the mic. That's great because it served the story. Pe will say like, oh my God I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude me too. Listen to EarsSay, the Audible and I heart audiobook club On the Irheartt Radio apppp or wherever youre getting your podcasts. When it comes to your yard, reliability matters, shop with confidence at the Home Depot and get fourth of July savings on Ryobi, the number one cordless outdoor power brand. It's time to choose your power. Both the Ryobi eighteen Volt and forty Volt self propelled mower kits are on special buy for an even lower price of four hundred twenty nine dollars each was four do hundredars sev nine c. Ryobi's battery platform delivers the power, runtime and dependability you need to tackle your yard work with ease. Shop fourth of July savings on Ryoi Outdoor powerower only at the Home Depot While suppies's last pric valid june twenty fifth through July, G only casase for online for dail What would you say to someone who says I'm scared I'm going to put out a video that's cringe. I'm scared that I'm not going to have any customers for my business. I'm scared that no one's gonna buy my product I'm scared I'm gonna fail. You know, when I think back about putting out my first video, I had those same thoughts of self doubt And keep in mind, I started putting out content in my thirties. A lot of times, you know, people that are a little bit older might think, oh, I missed my window because I see a lot of creators that are teens or in their early twenties. right? I didn't start my journey until my mid thirties. And when I was recording my very first video, I was stuck you know, feeling that level of paralysis where, hey, what are people going to think? What if people laugh at me? What if no one watches the videos? And what got me over That hurdle was remembering Even if one person watched my videos and it made a difference, a positive impact in their life, then that's a reason for me to keep going. And I put out that video for that one person And it was also a good thing I had that realization because there was probably only about one person who was watching my videos in the beginning. And it was my mother in law, like Laura's mom was so good at like liking and sharing my videos to all of her network. And for a long time, you know, I wasn't getting any views. Then I kept at it, right? I kept switching formats My whole content was about not giving up after failure because I was somebody who just found myself having failed so many times in my life that I wanted to inspire people that even if you have failed, you can keep going And so as my content wasn't taken off the way that I wanted to, as it was failing, I wanted to give up myself. But because my messaging was to not give up, I had to keep going. That inadvertently became my own motivation. And so I kept trying new formats, news types of stories. Eventually, I landed on asking friends and family members to be actors and videos Everything was shot in my small little studio apartment on iPhones. And one of the very first videos that ended up going viral was a video that honored housewives because I realized that housewives, especially at that time, there was not a lot of content that made it obvious as to how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. And so I created a storyline about mom who has this to do list and she wakes up in the morning, she has to get her kid ready. She has to get herself ready, she makes lunch, she takes her kid to school, she comes back, she cleans the entire place. She's doing all this work and then she's making her husband's favorite lunch for when he comes back. And right before he comes home, the child makes a complete mess out of the house once again. So the husband comes home and he looks around And he's clearly upset. And the wife goes like, What's wrong, honey? Do you not like it? I made your favorite dish? And he goes I like it, but What did you do all day whereere you' just sitting around doing nothing And you could tell She was completely heartbroken. by that response. And she walks off in tears. And so the husband is upset and you know, feels like his wife doesn't appreciate him because of his hard work and he's the only one doing hard work He goes and he finds the notebook of her to do list and sees all the different things that she had to do that day. And att the very end, it was makeake dinner for the person that I love And he instantly felt this guilt, realizing how much she actually did, but he didn't see it And what was so special about that video for me, it was the very first one to ever go viral. But what was so special was not just the amount of views. Yes, that video went on to get two hundred fifty million views But what was more important to me were the comets There were so many women that said This video helpelp me feel seen This video helped me feel like being a housewife or a stay at home mom is appreciated. And on the flip of it, there were so many husbands in the comments saying, wow I decided to bring my wife flowers today to let her know how much she's appreciated. I'm gonna to start to tell her how much I love her and I see the hard work that she's doing. So I started seeing the actual change that happened in the world So what I would say is if you are looking to create content If you are looking to start a business, if you're looking to do anything that is worthwhile, start with your why Start with your purpose And if your purpose is to try to help people, which I hope it is, as you and I can both relate to, no one wants to start something to make the world a worse place, right? We all want to make the world a better place because of what we have contributed to it, then just remember E if one person able to be better off because of what you have done, then it's worthwhile pursuing My very first comment on a video, do you know what it was? It was one of my quote unquote friends That said Who do you think you are Tony Robbins And that hurt so bad. Because I was like, oh my gosh, who do I think I am But then I also realized that that video is not for him. That's such a great story, man. I love The reframe Putting yourself out there, being cringy, being awkward, being uncomfortable because it may help one person. I love that reframe because One of my friends recently started making food content And she was telling me, she was like, oh gosh, anytime I put out a video, I just feel so awkward and cringe. But the thing that keeps her going is someone who messages her and says, I made your recipe for my daughter tonight and she loved it. or like I made this for my husband tonight or my wife tonight and they loved it. That is what keeps us going. And I think when you get lost in the views and the numbers and the digits you lose that love. And I think that happens even in the astronomical numbers. We've both experienced insane numbers And if you don't look at the comments with those insane numbers, you stop being fulfilled because the numbers don't last for that long. like they can eventually get You can get used to them as well, but it's that comment, it's that DM that makes all the difference People start making content like that. now talk to me about What makes the shift where like Okay, you were putting it out It was making one person happy, your mother in law And that video you just told me about was your personal story with Laura, where you were ungrateful to her, right? That's what it was. I'll get that I'll ask Laura later. to do list. All these things that don'. This was at a time where she was not a mom yet. Okay. Okay fine. Yeah. But talk to me about the difference between I'm making videos. It's making one person happy. I'm doing it for the right reason. I'm doing it for a mission But hey, I need to get better at this. Like I need to understand how to connect with more people because if I'm going to make this my livelihood and I actually have a team. I know you have a huge team. you have incredible studios now. like what it's grown to is a real machine. and I think this is something I want to make people aware of that you can do what you love But if you want it to last and you want it to sustain and you want it to grow It is going to have to become more effective, organized and machine likeed to some degree. Talk to me about how you tested and what you did as a business person, in order to go from, I want to make a difference in the world. One person is happy But actually we need to reach more people if I'm gonna make this real. There's a five step process that anyone who's looking to be a successful creator or even to own a business or be an entrepreneur, that if you follow this five step process promise you, you will be successful To make it on brand, right? I came up with an acronym as to what this five step process is. So the five step process is called heart. H H A. R T Step one is H Honor your story. You can easily follow trends But instead, tell your truth. We were talking about this earlier. d There are so many people that want to be creators out there. There are so many businesses out there. It could feel overwhelming. If you have a goal right now, that's probably in the back of your mind There's already so many people. How am I going to stand out there is only one you onlyly one person that has lived the life that you have lived and is able to tell your story So start by honoring your story and I'll tell you a quick example There is this friend that I have She's from Colombia and she has a stick accent She's always wanted to be in media And so when she came to America, she was working as a news broadcaster. But She would be given a hard time by the producer because the producer would say, you're not pronouncing certain words right. That's not how it's said and would constantly make her feel insecure and criticize her because of her accent. Eventually, she got fired from that job because of her accent. So she decided instead of giving up on her dream of becoming a content creator that she wasn't gonna to let any producer control her destiny So she decides to start a YouTube channel And naturally, she just got fired from her job. She's insecure about her accent. She's trying to sound more American, right because of that But she's putting out videos and she's speaking in her authentic voice creating whatever the type of content that she was creating And ironically The reason that her content succeeded is because of her accent. There were so many people that also had an accent that looked at that and said, I can relate to this person because they sound like me So Take the thing that makes you unique and make that your superpower. Let's talk about that one for a second because I really do like that one. And I think that's why I've noticed, especially in short form content. The incredible rise in people just sitting in their car It's so intimate and personal when you're show in someone's life. And I've heard people just ramble Like sometimes someones just rambling. likeike I think there's a lot to be said for people are like, I'm not a good public speaker, I'm not well spoken. Some of my favorite videos are just wanting someone vent in the car Because it just feels so real and I feel like I'm in the car with you and I feel like I'm your friend. And then there are some people who are more polished, who are more clean about what they want to say, are more clear about what they want to say. And I think I love the part of honoring your story and who you are and where you come from because that's all you have anyway. L you can't like she couldn't change her accent This person can't change where they live or what they're doing You are going to have to put yourself out there. and I love the idea of just being really clear about not thinking you have to be more or less polished More or less professional. Some people I love because they're not professional in how they put out videos at all. Yeah. And there are some people I love because they're so professional. and then there's some people who I love because they're really fashionable. and there are some people I love because they don't care And it's like that is what's so fascinating about the point you're making is that we don't all follow one type of person You might follow someone who's just always put together and then you love following someone who's always a mess. It's not like this it's not like there's one person in the world that everyone thinks we should all follow. and that we don't want to follow other people who do it differently. It's the hardest thing in the world actually believe this and take a chance on this things that you are most insecure about actually what makes you the most relatable and makes you the easiest to connect with others Your greatest struggle is actually your greatest superpower And I'll give another example because we both have a mutual friend Jamie Kurn Lima. the founder of It Cosmetics She started her career also in media And she was always ashamed or made to feel bad about herself because of different skin issues that she had. Yeah Ros. She had Rosacea. And she could never find a product in the marketplace that actually worked for her So eventually, she decided to create her own product. She turned her biggest struggle into her biggest superpower and eventually sold her brand to L'orereal for one billion dollars. So think about those areas in your life. you feel you're actually trying to hide from. And those actually might be the things that take you to success and grow you into having the biggest audience of people that are experiencing something very similar to what you're going through. I love that. All, what's E? The second step is E, earn your audience's trust. It's easy to get somebody to watch a video one time But if you're going to build a sustainable career as a creator You have to get them to keep coming back. And how are they going to keep coming back is if they trust you. And the only way to get your audience to trust you is if you know who your audience is. What are they like? What do they feel? What drives them emotionally? What do they connect with? What are things that they're struggling? If you help your audience become seen, they'll want to come back and watch your videos over and over again. So the number one comment that I get with our stories because we tell stories that have very diverse characters. This was in a time where You know, Hollywood traditionally has been mainly white And when I started creating content I created content with people in the videos that looked just like me. I mean, I'm Indian. my wife is Hispanic. our team is very diverse. So those are the types of people that we put in our videos. and it represented all types of people. And all the storylines from the beginning came from my own life experience of failure And because other people could relate to what I had been through or experienced similar types of hardships, they said I see myself in your content and that's what was able to connect with them And so similarly, we were just talking about this actually before we started the podcast, you have so many people that want to come on your podcast. and sure Maybe you know it's going to get a lot of use because they might be a controversial person. And as we know in today's environment, if you say things that are controversial, you'll probably get a lot of useiews. but you made the decision That your platform, your brand, your mission stands for something. It's who you are. So you have made certain decisions to not platform someone that might have gotten you a lot of short term success, but because you believe in your long term success and more importantly, because you wouldn't ever want to disappoint your audience E you do, you need to think about earning your audience's trust if you want to build a sustainable career as a creator. What do people do when they feel like Everyone's watching and then now no one's watching and everyone's watching and no one's watching. Like you almost feel like you're trying to earn your audience's trust. You thought they'd be interested in this But now they're not and you're feeling disheartened by the fact that the last video got like a million views, this video got like tain thousand views, the next video, or let's not even talk about that astronomical. My first video got a thousand likes, I felt really good. My second video got a hundred likes What do you do when you feel like it's flip flopping? What are you doing wrong? What are you not understanding? I think When it comes to pivoting, right In business, in life, there's going to be a lot of times where something is working and it no longer is. So how do you know when is the right time to actually switch your strategy? Because what is the common advice? Don't give up. Keep going. guuess what? I pedal this advice too. but there is a point in time where hey, you might want to go do something else Yeah. And there's three reasons I would say that you ever want to pivot Number one is when Y inner goals no longer align with the outer outcome. And what I mean by that is your purpose is no longer aligned with what you're doing on a daily basis. And a lot of times We might feel that when you're trying to become successful, And it's not working That's when you probably need to pivot. I know just as many people that are actually very successful at something But they're successful at doing something that no longer serves their mission or fulfills their why. And that's the hardest thing in the world. to take something that is already successful and decide that I'm no longer going do this because it no longer aligns with who I am But if you don't make that decision, it's always going to end badly. So if you're ever feeling like you no longer are aligned with your purpose, that's the first reason to shift The second reason is when the market has changed or the audience has changed. We keep wanting to put out the same thing because it's worked one time or has worked for many years At certain points in time Trends change, the algorithm changes. Desires, public interests, whatever it is changes. And so we have to be able to face the hard truths of reality. And those will often get you to try new things. There's this great book called Who Move My Cheese? Yeah, Yeah. And it's basically about mice trying to go to the same place that they've always found cheese And then as an experiment, that cheese gets moved to a new location There's a certain group of mice that keep going back to that same place that that cheese was not found. and they keep going again and again and they never give up. And then there's another group that after a couple times where they realize the cheese wasn' int there, they actually go a different path and start looking at different areas The ones that were able to move on the quickest were actually the mice that survived the longest. So if the cheese in your industry has been moved, you have to be able to to see that. Yeah. The third thing I would say is if you are not pivoting Is it because You are worried. and not facing the truth about reality. becausecause it is scary It is so scary when something has worked for so long and the idea to now all of a sudden have to do something new that you've never done before. the longer you stay stuck in that place, the longer it's going take for you to find that new way of success. So just ask yourself, are you not Pivoting because you think the data is wrong Is it because you're in denial? And if you're in denial, then you have to face that hard truth that it's time to make a change. And I will say Al greatness on the other side of that mountain. I know it sounds scary. Anyone listening to this right now You are at a place in your life right now. That if you look back five years ago, you're probably at a better place, and that's because you embrace certain hard changes that might have felt scary at first, but you made those decisions to get to where you are today. So don't doubt your ability to overcome whatever new environments and changes that are going to be there for whatever this new chapter in your life is going to bring By the way, thank you for being so systematic. This is why I love D Because DA has a system and a methodology for everything. and those three points help so much. And one of the ways I practically applied that in my company from day one was what I called the sevenenty thirty rule, which was that seventy percent of our content would always be what we know works and thirty percent would always be trial and error And so we were okay if thirty percent of our posts absolutely tanked and didn't work because the one that did work would become the next phase of the seventy percent. And we've seen that time and time and time again. You will see us triing new formats and trialing new types of content all the time, but that's thirty percent of our output because that thirty percent will become the future seventy percent The mistake we make is you do one hundred percent of what works. and when it ends, you don't know what's going to work. and now you have to go a one hundred percent in trial And then you'll have ninety percent failure and that gets really, really scary. And so these points that you just shared are huge and that's been one of the ways that we've implemented it. I even saw it in the early days, like I saw a lot of my Here' in this space when I started, which was actually just ten years ago, twenty sixteen, Jan, this year I saw a lot of my peers become one platform people And I saw a lot of people become like a YouTuber. At that time. I was a Facebooker through and through. like that's where I made content I saw people like I saw peers of mine or even actually even people before me, hindsight, the OGs Literally paid off their parents' mortgage because of how much money they made on YouTube. And then the next year couldn't pay their own rent. They were living with their parents li He I that house I bought you. I gott to move into that. And I was so heartbroken. I was watching that and I was like, God, that's scary. And I noticed that you couldn't be bound to a platform. So even though one platform was killing it for me We were always building multiple platforms and multiple businesses off the back of that because you couldn't rely. And so everything you're saying are practical things that even in my life, even though I didn't have that methodology you just laid out, those were the practical ways we were doing it. Let's go to A. The third step is A, architect a system. What you're describing right now is a framework for success The goal shouldn't be to create a piece of content The goal should be to create a company content machine. It doesn't matter, even if you want to be a one person practitioner or if you want to have a five thousand person team and become the next Disney, the goal should always be to think about content as creating a company. And what I mean by that is you have certain systems in place. You have certain methodologies, you have ways of testing new contents Al super serving the content that is working. And so for us, you know, we have processes when it comes to how do we green light content? How does something flow from script all the way to screen? and all the different processes that are involved in between We have a great team that's always leveling up and learning new skills that we've empowered in order to make sure that the content has continuity. because I know so many people that have gone viral once and that should never be the goal because if you have the company infrastructure underneath and all of these systems and processes that make sure that you can keep putting out new content every single week or new products Whatever your goal is, that's what's gonna ultimately lead you to long term success Okay, not so fun fact Autoimmune skin conditions are actually on the rise. Cases are climbing nearly twenty percent every year No, Terrible opener for a podcast ad. But here's the thing. I'm Holly Fry, and our skin exists precisely because of stats like that Because more people than ever are living with conditions like psoriasis and hydrodinitis superativa. and most of them are doing it alone, without answers, without community, without anyone to tell them what the heck is actually going on. You know, notot that many people knew about it and I felt kind of alone like, am I an outcast? That's where we come in We talk doctors. We talk appointments that are well, a disappointment We talk about the flare ups and the breakthroughs. Then we dive deep into the wild, occasionally gross, always fascinating history of how humans have tried to understand our skin over the centuries. Spoiler alert, we did not always get it right. Listen to seeason three of Our Skin, a personersal Discovery podcast on the iHart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, It's Cal Pen, host of EarsSay, the Audible and IHart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast. I'm sitting down with divergent author Veronica Roth to talk about her sprawling new novel, Seek The Traitor's Sun. It's a sci fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted My first book was Divergent. and when that came out, like, Because it was so popular, I think it attracted like mostly positivity, but the negativity I sucked in like a sponge And I think It was like critiques of things I liked when I was like You know, I was twenty three and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy or maybe unrealistic loves in it. And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things. And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little thingsike. make you feel pleasure when you read. but I also was like saying no to these parts to myself that I then was like, sccrew it. Yeah So that's this book. Listen to Earsay, the audible and IHart Audiobook cllub on the IiHart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts When it comes to your yard, reliability matters, shop with confidence at the Home Depot and get fourth of July savings on Ryobi, the number one cordless outdoor power brand. It's time to choose your power. Both the Ryobi eighteen Volt and forty Volt self propelled mower kits are on special buy for an even lower price of four hundred twenty nine dollars each was four do hundred seventy nine cents. Ryobi's battery platform delivers the power, runtime, and dependability you need to tackle yard work with ease. Shop fourth of July savings on Ryoi Outdoor powerower only at the Home Depot While suppl's last pricing vallid, june twenty fifth through July, Goos only seas for online for dail But there's one more thing you reminded me of that I loved. We did this years ago, we used to do something that I learned called the board test And so what we would do is we'd watch a video or we'd watch a podcast as a group, as a team, and people would start putting up their hands as soon as they got bored. And it was almost like when you watch America's Got Tent and someone presses the buzzer And the person has to keep performing until everyone putots their buzzer out. And it was amazing because we got to see every moment in which it was like, God, this podcast got boring at thirty seconds. What are we going to do at thirty seconds to help people feel connected? or this video got boring at three minutes, seventeen seconds. What are we going add there to keep attention? And it was these systems that allowed us to create engaging content. And I think people don't realize How much engineering and how much thought and how much intentionality goes into serving a great piece of content. When you look at the best TV shows you love, when you look at the best movies that you're fixated on, it's because someone has obsessed over every single line in that script and every single visual and angle that you see, you're not just watching it because it happened to capture your attention And I think we almost have this false belief that like, oh, when you make art, it just works. And I'm like, I'm not sure about that. It's as much an art as it is a science. Half of our revenue from content comes from just repurposing the same videos into other platforms or into different types of content. Here's what I mean. in traditional media, If you create a hit franchise, right Let's say Friends or Seinfeld, how many times are you able to sell that show To so many different places. You're watching it on Netflix, you're watching it on Hulu, you're watching it on Disney, all these different places. So the people that created that content, they can keep monetizing it over and over. But on social media, it doesn't work that way for creators. You put out one piece of content, whatever it's gonna to generate in the first thirty days is typically about ninety five percent of the money that you're ever gonna make But it doesn't have to be that way And so what I started doing was I started figuring out ways to give that content new life I started doing this several years ago. Now it's a little bit more known of a system. But let's say I create a YouTube video And that video is twenty one minutes I am being served. audience that is watching that video who wants to consume twenty one minute videos. These are people that are probably eating dinner and have about twenty minutes to watch, watching in their living room. but there's a whole not group out there of people that want two hour videos. And that's what the algorithm is serving them And then so what I did was I took my existing videos and I would combine, if they're about twenty minutes each, I wouldbine combine six of them. And I would come up with the theme. Let's say there's a whole theme around kindness. You know, the kindness you put out into the world always comes back to you. That is what I consider packaging. I'll put six videos together that have that sort of a lesson. And then I will put that on a standalone channel as a separate video and now YouTube is gonna go and serve a whole different audience that content. So now out of those six videos, I'm getting another life out of that content. You do this with the content. A lot of people do this with content. That's a known thing The other thing that we do is cutting down the content. A lot of people know clipping, of course now, you take that same piece of content, you find one minute versions, you put it on TikTok, you put it on Instagram reels, you put it on YouTube shorts. Yeah, great. that might not be generating much revenue, but it's helping you gain a certain level of exposure that ideally is going to lead to long form views to your main YouTube channel, your podcast, whatever it is. But we also do something called reversioning, which is taking a twenty minute piece of content and we'll cut it down into, let's say, a seven minute video. We'll look at the retention graphs of the video. We'll take the most interesting parts and before we post it We have a whole system of testing that piece of content. We'll take a twenty minute piece of content, create twenty different versions of it in a seven minute video, run Facebook ads. And by the way, when I say this, I know it sounds expensive. I'm talking about we'll spend like five dollars testing each video. seeee what the best performing one was And then post that one on our Facebook. So it just goes back to having a system in place of testing, of optimizing. These are the things that are gonna to ultimately help lead you to long term success. That's the difference between what big creators are doing and smaller creators that they may not understand. It's not that big creators have more time in their day They're not necessarily working harder than you are. I know lots of small creators are probably working just as harder, if not harder as I am. They just have a method of doing things. And so if you can learn what those methods are, that's going to give you the advantage for success I'll give you one last analogy. If Someone asked you Go out as many trees as you possibly can And they're going to give you thirty days to accomplish that job and hand you a pick axe. What are you going to do? Most people will grab that axe and start chopping And sure, in the beginning, they're making progress. Let's say that they can cut one tree a day. I don't know how this all works, how many trees you can cut a day. I'm not encouraging anyone to cut trees Let me that. Let me also get that out there. All right. We love trees. But that one person can, let's just say cut one tree a day for simplicity. The other person goes and thinks, hey I'm not going to start cutting trees. I'm going to create a system for cutting trees. I'm going create a tree cutting company. I'm going go out and recruit people now or build a whole tree manufacturing facility. and I'm going to spend twenty nine days doing this So on the surface, it looks like that one person that's cutting trees, they're way ahead. They've cut twenty nine trees in twenty nine days while the other person hasn't cut a single one. But on the thirtieth day, when that person shows up Army of tream cutters and all their sophisticated tools and supplies and a whole factory. they're gonna cut three hundred trees on the day that someone was gonna to cut one. Focus on building the company, not the content. Yeah well said. So step four is our reach people emotionally. And the whole idea is that we're so obsessed about having the perfect edit or the perfect lighting or the perfect angle. All those things at the end of the day, yeah, they help a little bit, but that's not going to be the reason why people watch No one is listening to this podcast right now or watching it on a video, think, Ohh my gosh, the podcast isn't great, but the lighting, the lighting is amazing or the sound effects or whatever else. So it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, donon't try to worry about being so polished. Real Success is in trying to keep emotional resonance with your audience. We call it Tention, but really what is retention of any video? It's your ability to connect emotionally with an audience. The only reason that people are still listening right now is they're feeling something That is the ultimate retention graph. So don't get overly concerned all these metrics and the data and all those things. Yeahah, they matter in architecting the system. also have to reach people emotionally. And with my content, I think that's why it has worked. I have so many families, for instance, that watch our videos. So many moms come to me and they say, Dar, I have a hard time trying to get my teenager to listen to anything I say. But for some reason, when they watch your videos, they suddenly get the lesson And because now I've been able to embrace watching your videos with them as part of our nightly routine, that's actually improved the relationship that I have with my child. That is an emotional connection, right that exists and has been the secret for our success Because people feel something, they'll want to share it with others. They'll want to comment. My favorite comment is, this video made me cry This video improve my relationship with my spouse. This video helped me realize that even if I failed, I can get back up and try again. And I'm sure your comments and your DMs are flooded with those sorts of things. So I would say that step four, try to reach the heart. I couldn't agree more. I remember years ago. this is before I mean, this is this is an old old article. There was research done on I think it was like seven thousand pieces of viral content and I believe it was in New York Times and they found that There were only five reasons Content went viral And it was because you made people feel one of these five things addventure So when you see someone like skydiving or you see someone like water skiing or whatever it is. someone's doing something that makes you feel a sense of adventure or they're traveling and like you feel this thrill and this burst of like, wow, they're on a journey The second was humor So our good friend Adam W, who knows how to do this best Well people laugh in the same way as your comments are This made me cry. People who said, this made me crack up. I sent this to my friend. We're rolling on the floor laughing, like making people feel humor a comedy video laugh so hard. I cried. Yeah, ye then you get both. Yeah. Th then you get both or cried so hard I laughed I guess Yeah o c too. But like, yeah, I was watching a clip of Trevor Noir the other day from his new special and it was so funny that again is one of them. So humor. So adventure, humor. The third was negativity So the news makes you feel a certain way. That's why we don't skip a news story. It's why we share it It's why we talk about it is because it makes us feel something, in that case, negativity Fourth was inspiration which is yours and what I try and focus on as well is that our content makes people feel inspired or that's at least our intention. And the fifth was surprise. And I think you do this really as well as well because your stories have so many like turning points and twists and things like that. And so a sense of surprise. So the point is I always say this to creators, if your content doesn't make you feel Adventure humour. neegativity, hopefully not inspiration or surprise. Yeah. It won't be shared and therefore it won't be seen. And I feel a lot of people are like, what is this going to teach someone or what is this going to like What are people going to remember? And it's like, no, no, no, what do people feel when they watch your content? When they hear you speak, when they hear your voice, when they look into your eyes, what do they feel And so I love that reaching your audience is the fourth aspect. Yeah, reaching their hearts, reaching family. Yeah. And number five, is turn views into impact You can get a lot of views and still be unsuccessful you can get hardly any views and still be very successful because at the end of the day, I think all here on this earth to make some sort of a positive impact, right Nobody wants to spend their life doing something that they're not proud of or didn't feel like someone was better off because of their existence. So more important than just trying to chase numbers Chase meaning Chase adding value and giving back. and that's what the whole brand has been built around is letting people know that evenven on your worst day Bider days are ahead that you can fail Everything can go wrong you still will get a second chance Everyone deserves a second chance. If they never ask for your side of the story, then the side that they heard is already everything that they already feel about you So don't waste your time explaining yourself to people who are dedicated to misunderstanding you. God five step system is absolutely brilliant The three reasons to pivot were fantastic I really feel like if anyone follows that, they actually have the exact blueprint you need to build a successful business, whether it's a YouTube channel, whether it's a product, a podcast or whatever it may be And I know how dedicated you've been to your mission. like it's so clear to me because I know all the ups and downs that come with everything you go through and the fact that you've held on to that and how important that was to you So much of that is based on your own story. And I want to kind of go back there for a second I'm sure I almost brings tears to your eyes to think about how kid messages you or sees you or runs up to you at like Disney, which I've seen videos of this happening. When you're out at Disney with your kids and other people's kids run up to you and they want pictures with you and they recognize you and they are moved by your videos I mean, I'm sure that makes you just go Card, I never thought when I was going through all that stuff that This would be happening I'm so grateful for where I am in my journey because When I turned thirty years old, I reached the lowest point in my life And I truly felt that my life was over I was broke. I was depressed I just got out of a bad breakup had anxiety, I had depression, I had family issues. I was days away from getting evicted from my apartment. Honestly I'm sure like those listening have probably felt this type of feeling before It just felt like everythingverything I have ever dreamed of was falling apart and my life was not going amount to anything And I stayed in that low place. for a long time The one thing that really helped me was reading stories of inspirational people It turned out that every person that we look up to that is successful, they've encountered a lot of failures leading up to that success So I read stories about how Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Lara was fired from her job as a radio host orr how JK Rowling had so many publishers turn her down before Harry Potter came out, or how Walt Disney went bankrupt multiple times before even coming up with Mickey Mouse And reading those stories made me realize that failure is not the opposite of success. actually a part of success ose people didn't become successful because they didn't fail. they became successful because they kept pushing through those failures until they finally got to success. So that motivated me to keep going And what I decided to do was that's when I started thinking How many other people are out there that are struggling like I am? What is the one thing that makes me unique? What is my superpower? I just failed a lot more than everybody else. I made a lot more mistakes than most people out there. So instead of hiding from that, I'm going to embrace that. I'm going to talk about that openly, because that's not something that you hear quite often people say I messed up. I'm wrong I failed I'm sure a lot of women hearing this probably wish that their husbands would say this more often or vice versa, you know. So I started saying that, right? That here's what all the things that I did wrong in my life. And in the beginning, I would just talk to camera thinkingking that you know, my videos would go viral because I was givven this profound advice. And I remember posting my very first video on my birthday because I thought, o, I'm going to get extra love, you know, I'm gonna to get prioritizing the algorithm because everyone's going be coming to my page. So I post this video And I refresh and I refresh and I refresh and that video gotot no views. It didn't even break one hundred views at that time. And I kept thinking like if I could just get a comma in that number, right And for a long time algorithm was broken. that something was wrong because this video was so good. No one was watching my videos early on, but you know what? because this was mission driven And because I was trying to help people get through hard times, I kept going. I kept putting out video after video And ultimately, I started switching my formats That's when I started storytelling. My views went from one hundred to maybe five hundred. So then when I started storytelling, you know, the ceiling that I got up to was about a thousand views. and I couldn't seem to break past that And so as much as I tried I kept putting out video after video, nothing seemed to break that ceiling. And I got a little discouraged And so one day I told my wife, I said, you know, Thinking about giving up Maybe I want to still inspire people. I want to, but maybe like creating videos is not my way of doing that. Maybe it's writing a book or maybe it's talking on stage. And God bless Laura. She's like No, you can't give up. likeike I see how passionate you are about this. You have to keep going So I keep putting out videos. I keep, you know, every single week, no matter what kept being consistent, kept showing up, kept putting out video after video. and still none of them were breaking Thousand views. So one day I tell Laura All right, you know what? I have tried my best. It's just not working out for me. I'm just not meant to create videos. So this next video that I create is going be my last one She didn't want to accept that, but you know she supported me in my decision. So I used to write my scripts on napkins at that time. and everything was a story that taught some sort of a positive lesson And at that time, my brother in law was visiting me and my wife's friend was over. This was in our small studio apartment So I'm writing this story on a napkin and I decideed to talk about infidelity and about how infidelity can start with seemingly small innocent acts such as Wiking an exX's Facebook post So I came up with this idea about this husband who's liking this ex' Facebook post while his wife is cooking him dinner in the kitchen. As I'm staring at this napkin, I look up And I see my brother in law scrolling Facebook on his phone with my wife's friend cooking something in the kitchen with her back to him And I suddenly got this inspiration. I don't call it serendipity, callall it fake, call it God, whatever it is Because at that time, keep in mind, I wasn't doing any visual storytelling. I wasn't creating scripted content So I walk over to my brother in law and my wife's friend, and I said, Hey Will you guys be in this video They're like, what do we have to do And I was like, nothing. just literally stand there and do what you're doing I made to hindsight I probably should have told my brother in law that I'm portraying him as a cheer. But I just was like no one's gonna watch this anyway So I had one team member at that time I ask him to record on an iPhone, right? And instead of me telling the story just talking a camera, I narrate a story while my brother in law and my wife's friend are just doing what they're doing And I'm saying, hey, you know, cheating can start a relatively innocent act, such as liking I'm narrating this whole story. I shoot the video I go to bed that night, don't think anything of it. I schedule that video to go live at six o'clock in the morning. The next morning. Laura is waking me up. She's shaking me. She's like, Dar, Dar, wake up. I'm like, well, what's going on? She's like, that video that you posted going viral. and I'm like Yeah right. I'm still half asleep. I'm like rubbing my eyes, like trying to see it. And sure enough, The last video that I ever planned on posting. was the one that went viral And I say this story because I want people to know that you could always be One opportunity One phone call, one door, one piece of content away from massive success, from achieving all of your dreams that you've ever wanted And you'll never know unless you keep going. because imagine I had given up One video before. None of this would have ever happened. So going back to your story about how it feels now When people come to me And they say, Dar, I watch your content The reason that it feels so special to me is because I know that I started putting out content for people to be able to overcome their toughest times in life, to be able to know that if you failed, failure is an event, it is not a person that you can pick yourself back up and keep going. So it's more so The way that people describe how my videos have affected them or how my videos have brought them closer to their mom or their spouse or their children, or help them believe in themselves or feel seen in a way that they've never felt before That's the greatest gift of all. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, it's It's so interesting to me how You always won win away Never underestimate God's ability to change your life in an instant. You're much closer than you ever think could happen Tomorrow But you would not know unless you keep going. If you put yourself back there And someone told you this was going to be the journey you were on, I guess you wouldn't even believe it. It didn't even seem possible you know, I was just so broken I had failed so much in my life honestly felt like my life was over that I was never going to amount to anything, that none of my dreams were ever going to work out. I had worries that on my tombstone People were going to say, hereere iss Darm Man the biggest failure that has ever existed. Like literally, that is what went through my mind And so if you could tell me back then that I would be where I am today, like I would just say you're crazy. L there's absolutely no way. And I think that's what gives me so grate so much gratitude for this journey. And that's why every step, every win I I amm so appreciative of that because I remember what it's like to be on the other side of this and feeling like completely hopeless Okay, not so fun fact Autoimmune skin conditions are actually on the rise. Cases are climbing nearly twenty percent every year I know, Terrible opener for a podcast ad. But here's the thing. I'm Holly Fry, and our skin exists precisely because of stats like that. because more people than ever are living with conditions like psoriasis and hydrodinitis superativa And most of them are doing it alone, without answers, without community, without anyone to tell them what the heck is actually going on. You know, not that many people knew about it and I felt kind of alone like, am I an outcast That's where we come in We talk doctors. We talk appointments that are well, a disappointment We talk about the flare ups and the breakthroughs. Then we dive deep into the wild, occasionally gross, always fascinating history of how humans have tried to understand our skin over the centuries. Soer alert did not always get it right. Listen to seeason three of Oour Skin, a personersal Discovery podcast on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone. It's Kal Pen, host of EarsSay, the Audible and IHheart Audiobook Club. This week on the podcast. I'm sitting down with divergent author Veronica Roth to talk about her sprawling new novel, Seek the Traitor's Sun. It's a sci fi fantasy epic about two protagonists on opposite sides of a war and a prophecy neither of them wanted. My first book was Divergent. and when that came out like, Because it was so popular, I think it attracted like mostly positivity, but the negativity I sucked in like a sponge And I think It was like critiques of things I liked when I was like You know, I was twenty three and I wrote this book and it had all my like dorky little cheesy or maybe unrealistic loves in it. And I started to feel a lot of shame about those things. And so for the rest of my career, I steered away from those little things like make you feel pleasure when you read. but it also was like saying no to these parts of myself that I then was like, sccrew it. Yeah. So that's this book. Listen to Earsaay, the audible and IHart audiob book cllub on the IiHart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. When it comes to your yard, reliability matters. shhop with confidence at the Home Depot and get fourth of July savings on Ryobi, the number one cordless outdoor power brand. It's time to choose your power. Both the Ryobi eighteen Volt and forty Volt sel propelled mower kits are on special buy for an even lower price of four hundred twenty nine doars each was four dollars seenty nineents. Ryobi's battery platform delivers the power, runtime, and dependability you need to tackle your yard work with ease. Shop fourth of July savings on Ryoi Odoor powerower only at the Home Depot While suppliess last pricing valid june twenty fifth through July eighth Goos onlyly casase for online for dail Talk to over the importance of Having a good partner when you're an aspiring entrepreneur. For me having the right partner is biggest decision that you will ever make in your life And when you're choosing the right partner Don't choose someone that you can have fun with You should choose someone that you can struggle with Because anyone's going to be there during your good times. When you're high on life, when money is flowing, when it seems like everything you touch turns a gold, guess what? There's going be a whole army of people around that want to be your friend But when you're at your lowest moment When you're there sitting in the emergency room at three o'clock in the morning How many people are going to show up to hold your hand very few people And when you find that person That is the person that is meant to be in your life And Laura has been that person for me I'm so thankful that she came into my life because she came from a different set of values and upbringing than I did, and she helped straighten my life in a way that I never would have been able to. I grew up where Operating in a gray area was okay Right? Like if As long as you made money, it was okay The means didn't have to justify the ends kind of a thing. Belura came in And she was so black and white about everything, her morals, about, you know the way that one should live. and that really helped to get me on a better path in my life. She believed in me when I had nothing in the beginning I couldn't even afford the ticket for the parking garage when she came to visit me That's how broke I was But she still saw something in me that I couldn't even see in myself And she kept believing me and she kept making me feel like All these big dreams I had, all these ideas, that they weren't silly They weren't over, that I could still achieve them if I just focused and worked hard enough You know, I remember early on there was this influencer brand trip that we got invited to. And the brand that was paying for it only buy economy tickets, they wouldn't buy business class. I was just grateful to get a plane ticket, but what I didn't realize Is that every other influencer paid to upgrade their ticket And at this time, Laura was the influencer. I wasn't creating content. So these were all her friends All of her friends were sitting in first class Laur and I came on of the plane And You probably know this feeling. anyone listening to this probably knows a feeling We walked by first class and all of her friends are watching And we went all the way to economy and like the friends in the seats, they were kind of like looking at us, somewhat judging. I felt so embarrassed. And I said, Babe, like I'm so sorry that I couldn't afford to upgrade us to first class And she's like, As long as you're next to me, that's all that matters. I don't care if we're sitting in economy, I don't care if we're riding the bus And like at that point where I felt I was nothing and I was just humiliated and was, you know