Unfiltered: The Truth Behind John Cerasani’s Success

[SPEAKER_00]: Today, on misunderstood with Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that people see you surrounded by blackjack tables, women, money, power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to understand who you are behind that persona.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're pretty, and you're on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to call you an escort.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're high-strong, if you're going to tell you you're on cocaine, those are the two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: you're obviously very smart and I think that is dumb down a lot in what people see of you because they mostly only see of like the gambling stuff and people don't get it so they just are like, oh, whatever it's luck.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the insurance industry, most companies operate with about a 20% profit margin.
[SPEAKER_02]: The my profit margin was reversed.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more like gated 2%.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on boom, out of clear blue sky, my mom passes away, and I just started looking to life and totality with the consideration that it's not infinite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Life keeps going here, and not she's not a part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people that actually know me, I'll say I'm a good father.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my biggest flex, my kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: People don't really understand some of the adversity I've had to face with my kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last night, I was down, I only had a hundred grand here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was down to my last 15 grand, and I kind of like chocked up, like we're gonna lose a hundred grand at the Red Rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's in a while I do an interview with somebody and they completely flipped the script on who I thought they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly what happened when John Sarasani joined me for a conversation on our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people know John is the larger-than-life guy from Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entrepreneur, the gambler, the storyteller, with over 800,000 followers.
[SPEAKER_00]: who tune in for the lifestyle, the wins, the energy.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I learned in this conversation is that what you see online is only a fraction of who this man really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Behind the persona is someone who built his life piece by piece with grit, sacrifice, and a level of hustle that you don't often see anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: John didn't just get lucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: He worked.
[SPEAKER_00]: He built businesses from the ground up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He made smart moves.
[SPEAKER_00]: He took real risks and he showed up every single day with the kind of determination that cannot be faked.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he believed on the most important thing there is to believe in himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having a conversation with him, I finally got to understand how he did it and why.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives some of the best business advice I've heard in a long time, not the police chase stuff, but the real lessons that come from falling hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: rebuilding, winning big and learning exactly who you are along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He breaks down how he made his money, how he navigated the highs and the lows of entrepreneurship, and what it actually takes to carve your own path without losing yourself in the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what struck me most was the human being behind the brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: John talked openly and bravely about the rumors, the accusations, the viral clips, and the online storylines that people think they understand and choose to talk a lot about without really knowing the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of hiding behind the PR span or playing into the hype, he told the truth, the real truth, because sometimes being misunderstood isn't about controversy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about people never taking the time to see the person underneath it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: This conversation made me realize just how layered he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's sharp.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's self-aware.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a strategist.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's reflective.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, he's inspirational too.
[SPEAKER_00]: This episode is for anyone who's ever looked at someone online and assumed they know the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for anyone building a business, chasing a dream or trying to tune out the noise long enough to figure out who they really are.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for anyone who's been misunderstood and anyone who's ready to understand John Sarasani in a way you've never seen him before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked away from this conversation really liking him and I think you will too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please enjoy my sit down with John Sarasani.
[SPEAKER_00]: John, thank you for joining me today on Misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have wanted you to be on the show for a very long time, so it is my honor and my pleasure to have you here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm excited to be here and now that I saw your intro, I mean, if I could get in front of a boy of it or Kato and make it on the intro, that's my goal and I feel great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to try to knock it out of the park for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try to knock it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so anyways, it's a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining me from Las Vegas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that people see you surrounded by blackjack tables, women, money, power.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're your gregarious.
[SPEAKER_00]: You walk into a room.
[SPEAKER_00]: People know you're there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to understand who you are behind that persona.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you start by like your childhood where you're from the family you grew up in?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like so we get to know you a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, I grew up in Shamburg, Illinois.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody that follows me knows I talk about Shamburg a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my dad was a high school PE teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom was a park district, preschool teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she actually retired early with disability because she had multiple scrosis.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a big part of my childhood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Watching my mom go through that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say me and my brother were both really good at football, and my dad was a head football coach, so I kind of football Dominated our family, my brother got a full ride to play a quarterback with Wisconsin, I got a full ride to play toy down to that Notre Dame, and when you're good as something as a kid, especially me, when I was like a foot taller than everybody I've always been just big and then I was athletic too, so they kind of dominates everything in your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's 17 and he's nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He takes after his mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not built like me at all or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, he's on a football team.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's I'm a really good football team, but football does not dominate his life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So watching him be able to do this all other stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's almost like I live by curiously through my son.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of your multimedia club.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, shoot, you're in this, you know, political science group.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all this stuff that I never like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, bother to do, just because it was all football football football.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of fun for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, man, I went to college and then after college, I had an injury in college and did up a good in a job in what color America and insurance and ultimately ended up leaving that job to a star-man company and give what I told myself, I gave myself a 2,000 percent of the
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to get into all that, but when you before you went to college, like, what did you think you wanted to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you want to play professional football?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you want to be in the business world?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so the plan was always for me to plan the NFL, that was always kind of the plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I did have a knack very early on for making money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was always money-minded even like just a situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would think about the profitability of like any endeavor, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, the plan was the playful ball, but
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when that got taken off of the table and me getting into a sales career, something commission-based was not very far-fetched concept.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So where do you start working then?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you study in college?
[SPEAKER_02]: The study's social policy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not too many people realize this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at Notre Dame, I was an undergrad business major, but I ended up transferring to Northwestern and finishing there, and at Northwestern, they actually don't have an undergraduate business school with shocks a lot of people because they have a very, very good MBA program called Kellogg, but they don't have an
[SPEAKER_02]: So I transferred north of western for full blow reasons and ended up picking the major of social policy, which is, which is cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll find myself use a little tidbit sometimes that I learned in like, you know, social, sociological classes or, you know, things like that here at here in conversation, but I never went into that as my career if for a career standpoint that that would have been geared to like running a non-profit and it's working for maybe a government agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting because my ex husband went to Penn State played football.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thought he was going to the NFL played for like a day for the Oakland Raiders.
[SPEAKER_00]: God injured went to insurance.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, yeah, I wish is what he's still in now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like that at the time was especially what what guys athletes would pivot into this insurance industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how did you just do it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you were trying to make money and you thought this was an easy
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so usually when you hear about ex athletes getting into insurance, it's a different end of the insurance business.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know anything about your ex husband, but usually it's like, okay, they're going to use their networks to look at Northwestern Mutual Agency or, you know, or whatever and some life insurance and whatever to their best networks or popular people.
[SPEAKER_02]: They know a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I did in insurance was nothing like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually got a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: working in the employee benefits arena.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at a young age, 23 years old, I was out presenting health insurance packages to companies with a thousand employees and why they should use a lot instead of like blue cross or united health care.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was really cool because at that time, there was a lot of like small insurance companies that's been a lot of consolidation now since, but the company was called Great West Healthcare.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they definitely weren't dominant and we were competing against companies like Blue Cross.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I learned at a young age how to compete, against much bigger companies that maybe look a lot better on paper and ignorance is bliss sometimes, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: I look back at it and I'm sitting there doing the sales presentation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, believing everything coming out of my mouth, but I'm looking back at it, I was so naive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm sitting here talking about how great we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And thinking, oh, we'll cross for 20% while I have some premiums.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was still getting my fair share and I wouldn't take that back for the world because that company was one of the few at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's probably none that do this now.
[SPEAKER_02]: That higher kids were in out of college, trained the heck out of us, not only on product knowledge of the industry, but also professional sales skills and they really enabled me to pivot out
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you did that, how did you know that it was time for you to move on your own?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you have that confidence to say, oh, I could do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and insurance, there's a wholesaler.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, break West was a wholesaler, but the intermediaries are what we call brokers, and they're in between Austin and the client.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, the client is like the CFO, the HR director, or the president of whatever corporation.
[SPEAKER_02]: The broker represents them, and then, Austin is the insurance wholesaler.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're really pitching the broker and trying to convince that broker to recommend us to his client.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: All ends of the industry are good in different ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I made the move to work at one of the biggest brokers in the world, Arthur J. Gallagher.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was 24 and a half, 25 right around there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was the best move I ever made, because I'm like, look at me, I got a job at Gallagher.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And anyone in the industry would know exactly what I mean by this.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a flux.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're 25.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just got a job at Arthur J. Gallagher.
[SPEAKER_02]: You arrived, bro.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a big time job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once I got there, Rachel, I'm looking around and it was kind of like the wizard of eyes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, like, okay, now that we killed the curtain back, there's another really special happening here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, like, these 40 year olds and 50 year olds, I know just as much as them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just as smart as everyone here, you know, by the way, I'm still working at 5 p.m. on a Friday, working my rear end off coming in on the weekends.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm working circles around these guys and just as smart as them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So over time, you know, what you're getting paid versus what you're bringing in in business becomes disproportionate, especially if you believe that you're doing it independently.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was a superstar.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to $800,000 of new business revenue to that organization out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was only going to pay it about 140 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: 140 grand is a lot of money, especially back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it turned into this conversation being with, are they paying me 140 or am I paying them 60?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are they doing for that 60?
[SPEAKER_02]: And once I started looking at that way, okay, what are they doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they give me this office, okay, big deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the gal vulgar name, the gal vulgar name.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting these meanings, cause I say I'm with gal vulgar.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that actually has a lot of the truth to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I get that ability.
[SPEAKER_02]: It gets you in the rooms, they're gonna come up and that's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for me, it didn't really matter because I had started this niche working with like small colleges and universities and almost these colleges and universities kind of started to feel like if they're with the Gallagher, they're a small fish in a big pond, which is true in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're a time like.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a whole value prep position here that I could do on my own.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went and asked my company for whatever reason in my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought if I made 180 grand a year, all my issues will be solved.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have the world by the rear end and being good shape.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I went in and asked for that raise and
[SPEAKER_02]: Very nice, but they basically told me not to love the door hidden in the ass.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I resigned.
[SPEAKER_02]: I resigned.
[SPEAKER_02]: And everyone thought I was not a man, but it worked out for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So did you have the knowledge to say, OK, I'm going to ask for this raise if they say, no, I'm going to be confident enough to just start on my own, or did it take you a couple of months to get off the couch and be like, OK, I really need to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I probably could have left about six months earlier than I actually did.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't because I didn't have the confidence.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more because I was listening to everybody else telling me that it's a bad idea than I've never been to compete.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I use the term don't ask, don't ask the fact I've for dieting advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, that's not something I've got some 400 pound dude eating donuts all day.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your diet plan?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's kind of a stupid idea, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what I was doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm asking W2 employees that never did this.
[SPEAKER_02]: What they thought would be in an attribute or it started in your own company.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it'll never do they not think that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who never taken a risk for anything?
[SPEAKER_02]: What they think.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I realized two things at that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: A number of retrospect, I realized two things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, they don't have any knowledge to give you because they never did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But number two, they, even if they did agree that it's a good idea and you're gonna knock the cover off the ball, they don't wanna admit that out loud.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm this 26 year old that's walking around that office, looking up to these 40 and 50 year old.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone loves me because I was like the sponge, taking information, taking information.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you ever write a Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the principles of that book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I apply.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't read that book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about 28.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's 26 of the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of those principles didn't follow you read that book.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, Oh, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I already do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I already do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a few things that I did where I'd really.
[SPEAKER_02]: put people on pedestals if I could get knowledge from them, and not in an instance here way either.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, they see me as this young, you know, fun guy that's working as regent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, John's gonna go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, now it's like, all right, he's going to go work for himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait a minute, hold on, he's probably going to make a lot more money than me if he does that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait a minute, now we like him and done.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're never going to admit that a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that process there, if I cost me about six months or eight show, when I finally pulled the trigger, I mean, we're, let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So where you completely on your own, or did you have people that were kind of working with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And also could you take your some existing clients with you,
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't take any clients that nine compute laws that are properly a little lost.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they've been challenged now a little bit, but at the time now, if I've passed with any of these clients, I would have got sued.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a few that may be a little bit questionable, but honestly, no one ever served with me because I left there in such good terms that like my will boss was kind of rooting for me a little bit to a degree.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he would have been the one to initiate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dude, Sir Sonny, you can't be still, Sir Sonny, it's still a client, so let's see them or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't like that environment, but if I were to pick in my whole book of business, there would have been a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple kind of follow me down the road, not immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's good, but initially, no, however the nine competes said you're not supposed to be able to work on any prospective clients that your old employer had.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well,
[SPEAKER_02]: for that industry, everyone's a prospective client.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you define the perspective client?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they really wanted to mess with me, they could.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did things the right way though, so we're okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I did that now.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of fun back then, Rachel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Being under the radar screen without people like viciously trying to tear you down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're gonna now, if I do say anything that is undexactly what someone wants to hear, I get basted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you end up building a very successful company, one that was bought from you and you can tell the story that you essentially bought three times over if you want to say it like that, can you tell people kind of how how you did that and one thing I want to I really want to hammer home is the fact that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're obviously very smart and I think that is dumb down a lot in what people see of you because they mostly only see of like the gambling stuff and people don't get it, so they just are like, oh, whatever it's luck or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: In cards or luck, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the thing is is that what strikes me is you have never been afraid to get dirty and to hustle and to like do all the jobs.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many kids now that are so entitled.
[SPEAKER_00]: People's general that are so entitled.
[SPEAKER_00]: that don't want to learn by experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just like, oh, I'm a buzzer that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't get to feeling that you have ever thought thought that you were a buzzer, and not that you were below it either, but like just that you needed that that knowledge to learn to take in to be a sponge so that when it came at you later in life, you were like, oh, I've got this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is such a really good quality and a skill that not many people take advantage of in learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to point that out because I do want you to give us some kind of business advice as you're telling us the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as I grew my company, you know, it's trial and error a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd fire people to do stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because what's the first thing someone has to say?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're on a company.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the big flex.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to company.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, your neighbor or, you know, your friend or whoever.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the first question asked?
[SPEAKER_02]: How many employees do you have?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm hiring employees when I don't need employees, or I could just do the stuff myself to like impress my neighbors, but all these employees I have.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I never really, you know, understood and I wasn't built on the company to sell up that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how high are this person for 50 grand?
[SPEAKER_02]: This person for 60 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: for what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I could do the job better about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And why am I even having them there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, once we grew to a critical mass, yes, I did have to hire some people that were, you know, well, into the six figures as employees, but it was trial and error on the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what's really cool about it all for me,
[SPEAKER_02]: is that in the insurance industry for what I did, most companies operate with about 20% profit margin, okay, 17 to like 22% okay and the reason it's that is because because you're not going to show you're just in an intermediary like a consultant to broker.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, why is it only 17 or 22 percent?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, because one of these companies scale, they hire sales people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those sales people are going to want a large commission.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you've got to give them maybe 40 percent of whatever commission that whatever revenue that they're bringing in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, Gallagher SNI I said 800 grand they're all paying me 140.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they were paying me 40 percent of that 800 grand, when I was 26 years old, I probably wouldn't have left there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, Galagher, for having a crappy pay schedule because that's, you know, seriously.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never would have loved, there's no way I would have loved that job, if I was making it 300 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: No way, no way in the world, but it price still be working there right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, probably not, but I wouldn't have loved.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I learned that not only when you hire a sales person you got to build resources around them if they're in a good too, so now not only in my hiring a person paying them 40% commission, I also got to be able to flex and say okay we got a senior account manager we got this technology all like you know stuff in their arsenal that we could offer to compete with companies like Gallagher that that good sales are wants to work for me instead of my much larger competitors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you start looking at it and it's like, what a freaking, you know, trying not to swear as much, but I say a JIT show that that that that leads to okay, no string and trial and error a few times and why am I doing this after this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to sell, I'm going to knock on doors, and I've developed a niche working with small colleges and universities, and instead of hiring sales people, I was a marketer and hired a marketing department.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're not only having these colleges and universities clients, we're now going to their trade shows.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to their business meetings, the regional ones, the national ones, the local ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: where I'm even over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they keep seeing my name, John Sir, Johnny, John Sir, Johnny, John Sir, Johnny, and now in the times right, where they want to make a change, I'm on their list of phone calls.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always presented myself differently than our much larger competitors that have been hey, we've been around for a hundred years.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got 40,000 employees.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got, you know, the 150 offices in the National League.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, guys, that's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: How many colleges and universities do they have as clients?
[SPEAKER_02]: So do they specialize in just colleges and universities?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like me, that's my differentiating value prep session.
[SPEAKER_02]: That actually matters to you as the client.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't know what their office in fricking Tokyo is going to do for your account here.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why do they have that in their presentation of the they have an office in Tokyo in this account?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are they talking about 40,000 employees that they have when 39,997 of them are going to have anything to do with your fricking account?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I had to change that paradigm to the buyer and once I did that, Rachel, Holy cow, it took me a while to polish it, but once it was polished, lights out.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a hundred private colleges and universities as clients in 18 different states, then it was going.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was going and then boom, private equity entered the insurance space, and look at the godfather of them made me offer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I couldn't refuse.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was 37 years old,
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[SPEAKER_00]: OK, so your 37 years old, what made you finally sell it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it the money?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that at this point was this one you had lost your mom?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so the model for someone to company before private equity entered the space.
[SPEAKER_02]: was to buy a business for one and a half to two times their gross revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's say, let's say you're bringing in 10 million dollars.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, these are fake numbers.
[SPEAKER_02]: But let's say your company brings in 10 million dollars a revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to buy your company for 15 to 20 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, that's a good deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have a 20% profit margin and you're the owner making literally making only 2 million on that 10 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you've got a total of 20 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a guy like me though, I had a huge profit margin because I never hired these salespeople like I talked about earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my profit margin was reversed.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more like 82% profit margin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where the industry again is the opposite of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me to sell the company at two times rush revenue doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for at 10 million and I'm making eight million a year,
[SPEAKER_02]: And we could sell the company for 20 million, I'm in my 30s, why the heck would I do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to make that in the next two and a half years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why would I end up growing by the way?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that don't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that was the mouth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then private equity changed everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: private equity changed everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: They came in and said, we're not going to buy a company like that with an on the gross revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to buy it based on a higher multiple of EBDA, which in this circumstances is the same as profit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to buy a company for 10 times EBDA.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get that phone call.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, these guys are out of their fricking minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no way they're going to buy the company for 10 times EBDA.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I told them, I go, guys, you think you know, my profit margins are you know, they go, it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're buying it for 10 times profit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, no, you're not, because in my head, I'm still thinking of that model of the two times gross revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, it was a game changer.
[SPEAKER_02]: For every else in the industry, it wasn't really, because everybody else in the industry was like the same difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're at a 20% profit margin and you can solve for two times gross, the math is the same, where that's the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually there's 10 times E, but up for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for that, it was kind of the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for a guy like Nate with huge profit margins,
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a game changer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in conversations in 2014 with this company that hit me up.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going back and forth and we're like, all right, and we're really going to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're really going to do this on boom out of clear blue sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom passes away.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that kind of, you know, just retain everything at that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't know if I was going to sell it or not, because I look at said, I really did have a cash count.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed working at the doing, the what I was doing with people who were doing it with.
[SPEAKER_02]: But after my mom passed, I just started looking at things like a little bit differently.
[SPEAKER_02]: A wife I'm like dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm some guy from Shombard that was literally making a harder 40 around a year, nine and a half years later back in to please pay me 180.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're offering me money now that I'm really never going to have to work again with rest of my life if I take this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just started looking at life and totality with the consideration that it's not infinite.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're only here for a separate
[SPEAKER_02]: If I can't anybody that's lost a loved one, maybe sees it a little bit differently because I never really saw that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never thought about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, my mom dad, it's like, wait, wait.
[SPEAKER_02]: Life keeps going here and now she's not a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's much time there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and, and I've been through that myself and I, I think you start to realize like what's important because for a long time it's the power it's the drive it's the money and a lot of things fall to the way side because you're becoming successful even if it's in the name of taking care of them right I mean, were you married at this time your kids were alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I, yeah, but I, I was not married.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had just gotten divorced.
[SPEAKER_02]: That could also kind of help to, I mean, when I sold the company, my kids were older, but when I started the company, yeah, two different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, my kids, I wasn't married at the time, I told them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, I'm assuming a took away time that you could been spending with your kids because you were working some totally, yeah, that was the mindset I was looking at my two kids and then my mom's going on, it's like, what am I doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm working my rear end off and then when the number is came in, where I just did the math on this whole thing, even though I loved the company, I was like, holy cow, let's change things.
[SPEAKER_02]: My daughter was, uh,
[SPEAKER_02]: what was she probably at that time?
[SPEAKER_02]: She must have been a daughter like 12 of my son was like eight at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was a game changer for me and in terms of that for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you end up selling this company making an incredible amount of money, but you stay on as an employee and take some stock.
[SPEAKER_02]: The absolute worst by the way, stay in the five five years five year employment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have thought you wouldn't like this is cool because now I still have a job.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: you are not like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was cool and it is cool for the first like minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you have to report to someone else.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was involved in what's called the private equity roll up where I'm not they're not just buying my company and operating my company.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were buying my company and other companies like mine and rolling it into one bigger organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at first that was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But over time, you start to realize how much people like animosity is a
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, envy and jealousy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, I'm 37 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who else is selling their company?
[SPEAKER_02]: 60 year olds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those 60 year olds guess what?
[SPEAKER_02]: They have five partners.
[SPEAKER_02]: Guess what else?
[SPEAKER_02]: They have 20% profit margins and not 80% profit margins.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so they're coming in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at us, we got 70 employees.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're part of this company now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna reply all on the emails.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all in the damn company meetings.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna ask the most questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna be the, you know, look at us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at us, look up busy we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're probably still working there, bro.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, that's cool dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like over time,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, dude, what are we doing here?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you got to work side by side with these people and they're like trying to flex on you constantly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not everybody knows, not everybody freaking knows.
[SPEAKER_02]: The economics of everybody's deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all you could really see amongst your co-workers is how big they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: How many employees they had that they brought into the organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't really see like the actual math behind it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, for me, people figured it out over time
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, maybe a holiday party of my condor or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just beautiful kind of in the Trump tower in Chicago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like little things like that, they'd kind of see it on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, where did you just go out vacation, too?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm sitting there with the same job title as them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, wait, what the hell's going on?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you come from money?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, wait, oh, you're down as a gym teacher with hot like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like over time, like it turns into like, after this guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you stay on.
[SPEAKER_00]: You had some stock in there, uh, long story short.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then is up tripling, I think, and you keep making money is the bottom line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually I'm assuming you get out completely correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, uh, so I took 35% of my deal in stock.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my timing was crazy because when private equity firms sell a lot of times we'll private equity will do either go public one day or you sell it to another private equity firm a bigger one.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when it sells to a bigger one, it's called an event.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in that event is a liquidation option, usually.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're all the shareholders could take some money off the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, this private equity firm, so this private equity firm, two months after I got, I closed April 30th selling my company, like July like 8th or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: We get an email saying, hey, shareholder conference call.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're on the STEM conference call.
[SPEAKER_02]: And other people there had been waiting seven years for this
[SPEAKER_02]: We're now going to be backed by a different private equity firm and the stock just tripled as a result of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 35% now times three, that's 115% so that in minority stock is not worth more money than my full deal combined.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, we're allowed to take half the money off of the table if we wanted to get 30 days to make it make a choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: My lawyer, my accountant, I was like, dude, burden the hands worth more than two in the bush.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to work here for five more years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I got to stay motivated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I wasn't planning on having this money anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, by the way, I'm going to have to pay short-term capital gains on it because we just converted my company into buying stock and their company less than less than 12 months.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went ahead to pay a much higher tax bracket than the rest of my deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, screw it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just leave it all in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never done things I'm nuts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at five year mark, I'm out of here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that five year mark, they're going to buy me out of that stock.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at year four and a half,
[SPEAKER_02]: This private equity from that brought us now sells with a different private equity firm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm literally on my way out the door to leave there by the way, knocking along with very money at the company at that point, we're all kind of, and largely because I was having a lot more money than everybody else are a lot of people list.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that company, triples.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, that stock triples again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that 115% now tripled again.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'll admit, or the 105% turn to the 115, 105, turns to the 115%, turns to the 115%.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now, look at all this frickin' money I got.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not too many people this is the part of the story I usually leave out just because it gets in the weeds a little bit, but what was also interesting was that new stock certificate when we sold when we sold the new stock certificate governs how the shares are going to be paid out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And before it was the day you leave, they buy you out a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this new stock certificate was like, no, no, no, what we're going to do is the day you leave, we're only going to pay 40 percent.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next 30 percent is 12 months for now.
[SPEAKER_02]: At fair market value, 12 months after that is another 30 percent at fair market value.
[SPEAKER_02]: That stock kept going up during those two years.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now I had sold the company seven years earlier, and I might not worth it still going up on this damn thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And actually it was even longer than that, because when I left, it was under some kind of craziness, and we ended up working out lawyers that had been involved.
[SPEAKER_02]: And anyways, they ended up having to pay me for an extra year and a half.
[SPEAKER_02]: So technically,
[SPEAKER_02]: So the fourth after your mark, I got paid for another year and a half, and then that was actually considered my last day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the two years after that was a 43 or 30 so I was literally getting paid in 2023.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So after all this happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I have two questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your relationship with money at this point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you had so much you probably didn't know what to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you like to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can tell you like to do it involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not just going to sit around and do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what did you think your next move was going to be?
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started Dablin and I started Dablin in a venture capital doing angel investing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that time, there was a million deals going on everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Interest rates were super low.
[SPEAKER_02]: So people were just invested money because you could borrow it for almost nothing to invest it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Started throwing my name in the hat in a couple things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way,
[SPEAKER_02]: anybody out there that if you don't have friends and you want to find make new friends or a lot of them change your LinkedIn bio to say angel investor or early stage venture capitalist you are going to make so many new friends so fast let me tell you and I ended up it was interesting somebody hits me on the LinkedIn
[SPEAKER_02]: because they're just trying to be relevant really to be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They knew I quit football.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Aaron Rogers just started this company.
[SPEAKER_02]: You should get involved.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know anything about this space.
[SPEAKER_02]: Aaron Rogers, yeah, he's involved, but like, he's not really running the company, and now I see how these store-up companies will use celebrity use to put them on the capitalization table as owners to get people to invest really.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just exactly what happened with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I ended up getting in this coming really good friends with the founder he's part of the L.A. See you might know him actually he's part of the Los Angeles scene and you used to be an actor and blah blah blah before I know And I'm just some dad from freaking Shamburg like watching Lakers games with like Zach Afrona I'm like who am I right and it was pretty cool now Rachel and Chicago and Shamburg like you know the big dog is like Who's someone good in your not working want to be oh hey
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy owns that steakhouse.
[SPEAKER_02]: So hey, that's that guy that owns a couple of my clubs or this guy owns three car dealerships.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you go hang out in that lab, bro?
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy owns kettle one.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they're family started kettle one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it like literally is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as I'm going out to LA more and more often, I start ended up in these circles, make good friends with a guy that was a childhood actor, his girlfriend at the time, another married actually bones one of the big sports teams there in LA, did all of some man, I go from this dude, you know, didn't know what he wanted to do, this life to be in these rooms
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm being widely accepted by these people, Rachel, and I think it's, I like to think it's, I don't even know what I like to think, but my opinion is that so many people in LA are full of shit, that here's the Skyan Chicago that's actually not full of shit,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he said he was going to throw 150 grand in this stupid ass freaking start up idea and he actually followed up and did it and that people started talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, that's a cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now they see in the room with this person, and they see in the room with this person, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and it turns into all these different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I had a guy, Jaleel White actually told me this.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, dude, it's not the culmination of like one thing you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's it's in totality and at some point it becomes like,
[SPEAKER_02]: exponential.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so that's what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then at the same time, I decided to write a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I started like doing a podcast, run to promote the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, I started to realize I have something kind of going on here with social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell then you hadn't done much with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That really like, you know, like, what year is this you're talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: 2022, 2022, 2022, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Recently, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as of today, you have like over 800,000 followers on Instagram or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the book you're talking about called the 2000% race?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's this one here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And how about how about this for a name drop?
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason I even named it this is, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I didn't notice that's really cool about like actors and celebrities and just athletes and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: They think it's cool to meet business people as much as we think it's cool to meet that.
[SPEAKER_02]: At least the one thing I need to do because the reason they're in that room is because they're business minded at least I'm sure that the ones that don't give too shit, right, but, but it was actually Zach Afram that said that to me he's like, he's like so away.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have for 180 grand off a 140 that would have been like a 25 or 30% increase.
[SPEAKER_02]: You go, yeah, I didn't take it though and you go, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what percent race did you give yourself when you actually ended up on your own?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I never thought about it that most terms before.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I go like 2000, he's like, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then my other buddy Ryan Rahman who introduced us, he looks at me goes 2000%.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it kind of just caught.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I started like, I started a name dropping that then in podcast, I was on and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is the book about how you've got there on the mindset of being.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So initially, I wrote this book called Page Training in 2011.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both are available on the Amazon.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this book is about entrepreneurship.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's about, hey, F-Corpard America.
[SPEAKER_02]: your ear upon work for yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to try to convince you.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't compete self-remelior.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you able to go and compete?
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's exactly how I did it and it's filled with really, really good tips.
[SPEAKER_02]: This book was so close to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, just a new version of this right now in 2022 it's going to be my victory last like hey here's I got more to offer you now, but I started this because I was yeah, yeah, you know, and as I was writing it I realized this is so much different than everything in that book and it just kind of morphed into 2000% raised instead now that said when young people read both of this a lot of times young people like this one better, okay, because they could feel at the energy in my voice you like feel the you feel the grit.
[SPEAKER_00]: That I was in the thick of it that at that point with like a chip on my shoulder, where this is like, hey, I made it, you know what I mean, but both were really good chips amazing we'll put the in the show notes later the both books and links to the books so that people that are listening can get can get those so at some point how the health did you get into gambling, is this because you had so much money and you decided you could go wasted in Vegas like some of the first time you gamble.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I've always been good at math.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've always been really good at blackjack and crabs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was, so I sell my company, then COVID hits, the world kind of stops during the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I sell my company that new, the employment contract, then we go under the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sitting here trying to promote my podcast, there are not podcasts going on podcasts, promote their book and everything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm talking about entrepreneurship and the freedom of being an entrepreneur.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Rachel, I haven't even mentioned gambling once, and I was that like 200,000, that call these people my OGs.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first couple hundred thousand people, like we're following it, only because entrepreneurship is a vice, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it kind of morphed a little bit into like some lifestyle stuff, but like it was one post that like two in the morning, I'm at the Venetian,
[SPEAKER_02]: Because she wanted to go play out at the regular tables, not in high limit, and I sit at the damn table with her, because she wanted to play $25 chips, and you can't do that in high limit.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you sit at the table with her watch, thankfully, it is $25 chips, Rachel, a blackjack, and there's a continuous shuffle on the screen.
[SPEAKER_02]: meaning that it just keeps going.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no beginning or end of the shoot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I see her only getting paid six to five on Blackjack.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I see her, um, she's trying to call even money.
[SPEAKER_02]: When she had Blackjack and the dealer had an ace and they wouldn't let her take even money because the casino is already screwing you on six to five versus the three to two payouts.
[SPEAKER_02]: So taking even money is actually a bad deal for the,
[SPEAKER_02]: for the casino in that ship, but it's just greed by the casino.
[SPEAKER_02]: And once I see that happen, that they won't let her take even when they hike it up, I grab my frickin' phone and walk in through the casino.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I called that area of the casino in Shenpap, or it's like general population.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, guys, they're screwing you guys out here.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no way you could frickin' win.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't lay you to do this, they don't let you do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just go off and I'd a few drinks in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't look at it, not about to wake up the next morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the cameras were everything like he's right, I think it's like going off and stuff and then I realized holy cow, I got something here because I just spoke reality here a lot of people were like, maybe Vegas stuff that don't screw you over no literally guys they're taking advantage of you if you're not a high limit player that like
[SPEAKER_02]: If you bet $100 a hand, you get these rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you bet less than that, you get these rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: And these rules are a lot worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's how it came off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not rehearse or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most of my stuff's not.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then at that point, it started leaning into the gambling stuff more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there were certain milestones that kind of happened that, like, kind of like what you'll say, like, it's the culmination of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, the comedian, Burk Krisher, didn't hit a really solid thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He invited me to play the celebrity Blackjack tournament.
[SPEAKER_02]: I took literally 220,000 followers at that point, and I literally thought I was going as an audience member.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really know what he invited me to, and, yeah, no, it's actually hang out and play them.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like maybe 15 people there, and it's like, Anthony Perez, they can maybe feel like, you know, per crusher or times the Guru on Jason Kelsey, but like, that's what I'm with here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our school freaking kicks a picture of it, post it, supposed to that stuff goes viral.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, people are...
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, seeing me as a gambling guy now instead of just such everything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there some skill to this or like tell me?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There really is.
[SPEAKER_02]: People don't like to think that but there is.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's ways to play blackjack where you could really reduce the edge that the house has on you to to less than one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like 0.26.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 1%.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you do that,
[SPEAKER_02]: And you play purposeful perfect based strategy, perfect optimal strategy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some mathematicians and actuators put this thing together back in the 1950s, but a lot of people don't bother because they just want to go with their gut.
[SPEAKER_00]: But are you saying, like, don't hit on, you know, if they're showing the five or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it would be bad for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's all based on expected value outcomes for the long haul.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you play it perfectly, here's when you should split, here's when you should double down.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's based on what your two cards are and what the deal is showing as his or her all the card.
[SPEAKER_00]: What about the outcome of people after you that are hitting or, you know, taking away cards that the, that the dealer should be, you know, but on and on around.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a misnomer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of people think people are screwing up the deck and, and they are, if it screws you up because like, hey, if this guy hits on a 14 of the dealer, we're showing a six and he gets a 10 and that 10 would have busted the dealer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That just screwed us up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you hate that guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get pissed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but the reality is him taking that hit could have helped you as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's really no way to know, you know, and so people screw it up the cards for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it sucks, but mathematically in the long run, it's not going to matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just going to notice that when somebody does that, you're going to get pissed about.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you don't like a lot of people don't like the play with people that don't play what we call by the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's no counting cards.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no good feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just a mathematical thing in your following by the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: So counting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of people know what I just said.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm playing but it's exaggerated.
[SPEAKER_02]: The differentiator from me is is the money management piece.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I look at is say, hey guys, listen, what do you have control over?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have control over how much you're going to back and how long you're going to play for.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Rachel's mean you were like, you know, going to the hallway right out and flip heads or tails.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's 50, 50, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But if I said, one of us gets to pick how much money you're going to bat and how many times we're going to play or just go to end in or to get stop or you can just decide when we stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you want to be that person, or would you want me to be that person?
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd want to be that person that has the ability to that option, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, on a calculator, that doesn't show is it would still say it's 50, 50 game.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a calculator.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, on a calculator that doesn't show any.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but we all know that's an advantage.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you could be disciplined enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: the stop when you're up, but also bring it off money with you to survive the ups and downs, because in Blackjack it's just like flipping a coin.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might bet on heads and he might get 10 tails in a row.
[SPEAKER_02]: When most people don't bring it off money to survive for that variance and now they're out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you bring enough money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't try to triple it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try to win 30 or 40% of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then once you do make a little
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, and I call them to service any rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a sample that I have available actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you get it at this moment, but it goes over that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And once people read this, it changes your entire paradigm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of people don't want to hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't want to hear it because they're about $200 a hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to Vegas with two grand, and they're wondering why they lose the whole two grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Literally every time they do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's because you didn't bring enough frickin' money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, or would you suggest to someone like that that they should bet smaller or that, you know, what the other, well, answer that first.
[SPEAKER_02]: You should have a hundred times whatever your bed in increments is.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether that, whether that means you're going to bring more money or reduce your bed, your bank rule should be 100 acts of whatever you're about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you, if you break it, if you're about to 100 bucks the hand, you should bring 10 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to tell you right now, people that are about to 100, 100 bucks a hand, don't don't bring 10 grand, they bring
[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is there a strategy as to if you're down by a certain point that you just say to yourself, all right, I'm done for the night and I'll come back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I look at it as a war, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I go to Vegas, I'm there Thursday to Monday and it's a poor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're going to lose some battles along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this session, hey, dude, we just lost get up to yourself off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't go until to make this worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you brought enough money where you have time to recover, okay, a lot of people, it's hard to do because they live in Vegas or they go to their local casino.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to tell you guys right now, you have literally no chance to win in that local casinos and the reason is
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's a finite time you're actually there.
[SPEAKER_02]: The rivers, Christina and Chicago has my frickin' number.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reason they have my frickin' number is that only there for three hours.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you're down in a session, you're now trying to make that money back and if it doesn't go your way, it doesn't frickin' go your way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas if I'm in Vegas for three days, hey, I got to tell tomorrow to bring this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's why it's hard to win at local casino.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I always said you should do a three or four day trip.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, understand that you're going to lose some battles along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you leave, they just can get back on that flight, follow these rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, if you're up to dollar more than you came with, you'll win the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I wanted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you ever place lots?
[UNKNOWN]: No, no.
[UNKNOWN]: Um.
[SPEAKER_00]: we don't have to go further than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what's the most money you've ever won playing Blackjack in one day?
[SPEAKER_02]: 260 grand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what's the most you've lost?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm right about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, about that, well.
[SPEAKER_02]: 24 hours ago, or last night, I was down, I only had a hundred grand year, and I was down in my last 15 grand, and I kind of like chalked it up like, dude, we're going to lose a hundred grand at the Red Rock, I'm going to the Red Rock right now, and then I'm making it all back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now there's been plenty of times where I've, here's the way it works for my Rachel, the way I play.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to win 40 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to win 70 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to win 80 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to win 120.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to break even.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to win 30.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's going to be a bunch of wins.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then once every about six months,
[SPEAKER_02]: the cards is what terrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you lost your entire credit line.
[SPEAKER_02]: My credit line's 250.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I blow through that credit line, I kind of just haven't in my habit.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is gonna happen once every six months that's tried to avoid it.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point it didn't happen for like four years and it was like the crazy run I was on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were really losing four years, but now it's more ever since September of September 24.
[SPEAKER_02]: I lost 250 grand at the win.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you were with thought like, my dog died or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the first time it lost in literally like four years.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's locked and then it happened again in March.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Caesar's and March is 25.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I started to realize, okay, you know what to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: The way I'm gambling is much as a plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to happen every six months.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you touched yourself off and that's way to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You spent a lot of time at different casinos in Vegas, especially.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what are your thoughts on casino comps these days when I used to work there.
[SPEAKER_00]: These were the guys that you know had had a lot of money to spend, had a big credit line where we're out there losing, winning, whatever it was, but they were getting pumped for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were getting, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: The most gorgeous rooms at the top hotels, they were getting drinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were coming to our nightclub, I ran Tao at the time, which was the first nightclub in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were taking in the comps that were, you know, they were getting tables for 10 to $30,000 comp for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you explain comps now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so you're really not getting a count at that level unless you're a super high roller not only super high roller but a super high roller that's that's losing as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, they they I've learned of the hard way really the last probably year and a half that they they they don't like winners and Vegas and and you know what the well you don't really think about it because most people don't win you go to a casino and you win like 10 times in a row.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to, everything's going to start to change for you, big time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you, you just said, Tau, the nation's been very good about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Red Rock where I'm at, it's been very good at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've lost, I've been in the nation probably 20 times, that lost once.
[SPEAKER_02]: I met Red Rock right now, I've been here 12 times, lost zero times.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Neither of these two places took anything away from me from a kind of standpoint.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's certain other places that have basically told me not to come any more because they still want to hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of them's some in a hard rock done in Florida, which sucks because they have a brand now or the some of those bought out the name and rights for hard rock.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a hard rock in Chicago, right by my house, that I was going to have a really good relationship with these people there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't go there anymore either there.
[SPEAKER_02]: like admit that they don't want winners there, that's not something that they wanna publicly have out there, though they might like pretend it's about something different than it actually is.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't really have to give you a reason when they tell you not to call it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm dealing with some stuff right now with Howard Rock, actually, that I'm appealing, hopefully that changed, changed their mind on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give Howard Rock a credit.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these casinos are spanion, I'll tell you, you get a letter, don't come, we're gonna rush you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hardrock actually has an appeal process and I wrote a written appeal to them so I'm hoping they change because I really like going to some of hardrock down in my hand is nice you've been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: No I haven't but I want to well I have been there with like to the where you can go see a concert or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: But
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to understand, well, first of all, I want to say one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a client, sir, Phil of Green, when I worked in Vegas, one of many who always played at the win.
[SPEAKER_00]: I brought him over to the Bilagio, and he lost a bunch of money there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wake up one morning to a knock at my door.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a guy in a Rolls Royce, the head of the Casino, essentially.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he brought me the most gorgeous Rolex you've ever seen as a niche to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: for bringing Philip Green who had lost like $1.7 million than I before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I thought was crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's rewarded for bringing a client who lost money.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, it makes me so freaking madly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, that's how it works.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it sucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: It like literally sucks, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were to, if you were to one, this is the mischip and mischip and mischip and mischip.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, everyone, thanks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's not about actual wage and losses.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about what they call theoretical losses.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your average bat how long you played for?
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone's going to tell you a comps and how you're thought of and how the host or comps it everyone's going to tell you it's about theoreticals.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meaning, meaning that if I played Blackjack at five grand a hand for four hours, theoretically, over those four hour period, I should lose acts.
[SPEAKER_02]: The math would suggest that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then there's actual losses, OK?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to tell you right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: if that guy won $1.7 million, even though his theoretical is the same, because the math will suggest about you ain't getting that Rolex.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting that freaking Rolex.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that guy getting count 30 grand for bottle service at Tau, ain't getting count if he's winning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now the exception is one of the new person that comes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And hey, this guy won $2 million, but you know what, we're going to take care of him.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to make sure we get that $2 million back over the next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they don't get it back though, and they realize this person's a tight player, and they're never going to get it back, those cops go away, so freaking fast, like so freaking fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not even as a victim of a player.
[SPEAKER_02]: You talk about winning, Bilagio, those kinds of guys that are getting the villages and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I get built at the win, but like the really nice ones and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are guys with million two million dollar credit lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a 250 grand credit line and I do that on purpose just in case the wheels fall off that hey, lost 250.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, but you know, we're not going to hang ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if I was two million, even though nothing really would change in my life, I would not be very happy to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, really be, I would be really being met.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, so for me,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like hard rock for instance, I won their so consistently over time that that like it really doesn't even put it down to their bottom line.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hard rock Miami will have someone to come in and drop 3 million on a given weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're going to be mad at a guy like John Ceresani.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's up, you know, probably 800 grand over four years or whatever I'm up on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not the 100 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the fact that I've been there like 20 times and barely at the most once.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're never going to get the money from this for a guy like, you know, and that's how they look at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Versus, you know, some guy wins 3 million.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't know a problem with that guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He comes a few more times and wins 3 million again.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to see that guy band like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But can the casinos just ban you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of that, or they have to give you a reason that makes sense, not just, oh, you're up and you're taking money.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't give you any African reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're out of their freaking minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rachel, like listen, it will say, I don't want to say too much, because I won't hire, because there's been a trickle effect from hard rock banding me with some other casinos, because then they will wait at a hard rock band, and why they ban them, so I'm kind of
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, let's talk about that because there are rumors that you've been banned from a bunch of casinos.
[SPEAKER_00]: So explain that, explain if it's for a specific reason or because you're winning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, it's because I'm winning, but the issue is, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, nobody wants to go and put it out there that there are not many people come because they win.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody would want that out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the rumor started that I got banned from Hard Rock, which was just true, which hopefully they're going to overturn it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then a third party started a rumor that it had to do with me promoting a illegal sports gambling website and social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, I have an international audience, and you know, you said how many followers I got, I got probably 200,000 overseas in different countries, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if I put a platform on my social media that's not regulated in the United States,
[SPEAKER_02]: and I say check legality where you're at.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I'm doing anything wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially if they're not even paying me and I have a relationship with a marketing agency that we work something out to post some stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if I want to get rid of Johnson or Sonia and I see that, okay, let's make it about that then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's get rid of him for this reason and it just doesn't
[SPEAKER_02]: Other influencers that are promoting these exact same platforms and websites are in these casinos that are not banned so to pretend like I'm banned for that reason is like okay has nothing to do with being winning all the time What if I was down a million dollars would you have decided this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course they would and you got like big big influencers that are way bigger than me
[SPEAKER_02]: that are out there doing deals with these exact same websites.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm not going to say names because I don't want to like, if you tell them to talk in smack about a name, but it's not hard to find.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, hard rock band me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're gonna overturn it hopefully.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoy going there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, a couple casinos have just reacted to hard rock band me and been like, well, wait a minute, don't come right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of it has to do with
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of it has to do with the nature of Las Vegas, right now with an event of gaming commission.
[SPEAKER_02]: The event of gaming commission was did not look good about a year ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because of resource world and mgm was letting no.
[SPEAKER_02]: what they call undesirable or unsavory characters in their casinos, if you're a known drug dealer, if you're a known criminal, like this guy, he's not involved in this, but this guy named Joey Murbley, you know, in Philadelphia, has a, there's a mouthwash back in the day in Philadelphia, you know, as a podcast, it's really funny guy to watch, it's a good follow.
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy can't set foot many casinos, even do anything to the casino, but he can't, because there's a no, no, I'm freaking not feeling guy, that's why he can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when known people were gambling and the gaming board was happening right under their nose, they came and find the hack out of resource.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll find the hack out of MGM.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they said, hey, listen, that's going to be a drop in the bucket.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if anyone does this stuff again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now you got all these compliance departments and casinos scared shitless right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really scared of their own shadow.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want anything to come up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh wait.
[SPEAKER_02]: The legal gambling, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they hear that.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, oh, oh, don't come in right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't come in right now, don't come in right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, like, for the win, for instance, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're there compliance people wouldn't have looked into something.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what do you guys even saying?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they said, you know, man, let's do a KYC on you, a background of KYC stands for Know Your Client.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they did a full diligence on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Three years of tax return is not just like the frickin' highlights or the abstracts, they looked at the whole document.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I want a lot of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: My tax returns are 600 pages each.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were looking at bank statements that everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Normally, I'd be like, oh, after yourself, why, why?
[SPEAKER_02]: I might have jumped through these tubes to go gamble at your fricking casino where you guys have an eye to over me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go to another casino that they make me do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to go through the process with a win.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just think, hey, anybody says frap to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, whole win complains.
[SPEAKER_02]: They looked into me fully.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to talk about rumors and hearsay, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, I don't get a shit if I come to your casino or not anyways.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just FYI.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's other casinos that could think for themselves and I was in a bullshit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's letting you play?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you've the win.
[SPEAKER_02]: You ever heard the freaking win?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no compliance.
[SPEAKER_02]: The apartment pretty much with the gold standard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it pretty much freaking is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they have no problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: So listen, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: People could talk shit all they freaking want.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know who talks shit, Rachel?
[SPEAKER_02]: The people that already don't like you anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now they got something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, they already didn't like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody, anybody with a brain that here's John Sarasane got his money illegally?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good like there's no treated.
[SPEAKER_02]: No one actually believes that, you know, like, you know, so well you bring up a good point though.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that people are looking at the casinos more now too because of this mainstream story with Otani and Matt Boyer and all the things going on there and what are your thoughts on that situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard from what he says is that the feds are now looking more into casinos and what's going on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, for sure, the Otani and Matt Boyer thing is is what did it that's what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what the resource role.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm yeah, it was all part of this whole this whole thing and the resource room was doing some behind play.
[SPEAKER_02]: Network is wife was this casino host so he's here's wife's getting paid on losses and then they have like allegedly I don't really know anything about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've read but like casino host sin and like the legal bookies like we're sharing information of players going back and forth.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean this is pretty bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spat stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know man.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the message has been made clear with all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we're recently that had nothing to do with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The FBI cracked down on Sean C. Villops and the illegal poker game and the fixing game.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now that's on the horizon, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So somebody goes and starts a fricking rumor about somebody and oh, by the way, and I John Saraside has some big mouth mouth on Instagram and, you know, after this guy, you know what, boom, let's run with this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of what's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I got to tell you Rachel,
[SPEAKER_02]: Who gives shit, who f-n cares?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I started defining myself a little bit with this stuff when I first started hearing that from people and like, dude, who gives a fucking, who gives a shit dude?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you want to tell you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, go look at these 10 influencers pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've promoted the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm actually responsible about this shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I talk about, hey, this isn't legal everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I get perks and benefits associated with this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where you got other assholes out there, using fake money,
[SPEAKER_02]: promoting frickin' 17 year olds to go to a legal website.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I don't do any of that shit, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it's just funny how something snowballs one direction and people could just start going like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: But really, it's a function.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the general public doesn't give a shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've tried to make a couple posts talking about this Rachel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the general public, I don't think they care.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or if they hear something like, okay, big afternoon, who cares?
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is the compliance department's right now, give a shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's, it's all a function of everything that went down in the last year that has obviously nothing to do with me, but it's more like, hey, we're going to air outside of conservative right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: On October 30th, at goat gambling gains posted a viral real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I'm about to say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Steve will do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scammed after inviting John Sarasani on stream to gamble.
[SPEAKER_00]: It hit 2.5 million views.
[SPEAKER_00]: What really happened?
[SPEAKER_02]: Go gambling, those guys are hilarious.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're looking at them comment section, I comment it on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the guy that runs that page put a fish with the book, same and I just got dated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that's funny that you brought that up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me and him were playing together at the Red Rock three years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, they flipped farm to flip.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was drunk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And anyways, me and Steve had a deal set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was posted on his live stream on kick or rumble or whatever it was using.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had a deal set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was that I was going to fork the 40 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we were going to split the profits.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we played together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the plan wasn't to lose the 40 freaking grand, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: So then, we didn't even talk about it just immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: He takes 40 grand off.
[SPEAKER_02]: We keep playing with each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: We turn that 40 grand into like 50.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Steve wants to give me my 40 grand back, which most people don't realize that based on the clip that it was, that's what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: And...
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I was trying to like kind of check with him and make sure he's okay with that because we didn't talk about what should happen in this scenario because the deal was I brought 40 and we're going to split the profits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going to lose 40 after this rebel, but it was us playing together the whole time we lost my 40 we took his 40 and made 50 it was us playing and he was giving me the 40 ran back and I was trying to talk to him like in code like how do you want to handle this if you sure you're okay with this right because I didn't know if he wanted his audience to know
[SPEAKER_02]: But I put the 40 grand in initially, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know if like he wanted them to not know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know what he wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know what he shares with them or doesn't share with them or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll kind of talk to him in the code on how do you want to handle this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, people take that freaking clip.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I somehow thinking like that, and then they put a headline, Steve puts in a number of 40 grand and Sarah Sae takes it from over, whatever the hell over the position.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It made it look like I scammed the guy out of 40 grand.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's never thought that like, he's never done anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you know who he is, it's kind of like,
[SPEAKER_02]: He kind of has like a little bit of awkward demeanor a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as we're doing this, I'm like, this big guy is like, oh, we're a quarter of them on a shoulder.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it looks like I'm like, you know, pushing them like giving me his money or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is pages fill with a bunch of dudes, man, that I mean, I never really understood the gravity of Moran's on the internet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell I saw some of these guys like in these comments.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you guys even suggested, but I stole four did ran for it, like, what do you guys think happened?
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I'll get DMs.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's Steve is 40 grand back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you guys talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the craziest stuff Rachel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's literally freaking crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bad part about it though is
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen, I'm last 30 days on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm at 56 million views.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, my page is like going lights out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what happens is, you know, they see that clip over there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They maybe saw one of my viral reels and didn't have an opinion about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then they see that and they think they're protecting Steve because they've been following for 10 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bro, Steve's not saying that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Steve doesn't think that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That wasn't on his page.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did he post that or some meme page post that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, bro.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's literally what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I, you know, I make a real explain in this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, my followers are like, who the fuck Steve will do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you talking about, John?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the Steve will do it followers that actually follow both of us and like, you scammed up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought you got me stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that brings me to this part where I want to know, you now have so many followers, and they'll either, they love you or they hate you, you know, based on what you post.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, as I know, difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, for me, I mostly try and post about my show and the clips because I don't like giving too much of my life away because it opens my comments up for people to be like, Oh, fuck you or oh, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, whatever they say.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're human.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it hurts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yeah, I don't like doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can be polarizing you, you're, you show that you're successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're obviously handsome.
[SPEAKER_00]: You, you are gregarious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said before, and then you show women all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all different.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's got to poke people in the eye a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you care?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just look, I got to actually cut your plan here a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, yeah, put on the other questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just real briefly on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole women thing was a function.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was actually asking my page was blowing up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was dating a girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not together anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's pretty attractive girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I started to notice that when she's in my videos, they do pretty well, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, and then we broke up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as like just the function, it kind of keep keep that general feel all in vain, like just girls and friends with or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that always goes nuts because people call mass courts and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two things are certain.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're pretty in your on Instagram, people are going to call you an escort.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're high strong, people are going to tell you you're on cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But those are the two things that
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it is one of the most, you know, night.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not like you're treating these women badly or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be a misconstrued.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's definitely misconstrued.
[SPEAKER_02]: And no one really ever even alleges that to something has been taken out of context for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I bet I go.
[SPEAKER_02]: What girl has ever shoved that about no one's ever so bad about me?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just people will say they think that, but there's never been a girl that actually says that about me, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That doesn't happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay, to wrap this up, what's next for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, are you, I know that the gambling thing now that I hear all this is just like a side-to-have soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's giving you a whole platform now to talk about, but are you going to pivot back into the business world, are you going to do something different?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to just stay within, you know, this whole black jack, you know, platform.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to probably just keep doing what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I put myself at a position where, um, this influencing stuff's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've brought my daughter into it now, where she's beginning to popular.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's, that's, that's probably my biggest thing right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: My daughter, you know, she's doing three years of college.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's never really been like a college.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess, so we start talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, stitch up.
[SPEAKER_02]: they're gonna get a job after college, what are you gonna do here like she's like they will sit with us and um people tend to like her as I put her in the right post so not she's got her own little thing going on and she's getting like deals set up with different but one thing about the online influencing space is there's a lot of money to be thrown around right now on the gambling roll and there's not very money um you know attractive young people right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's not many females period, especially like a younger attractive girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my daughter's like posting stuff with her and her friends at the club plan like I'm lying gamble and I'm posting and I'm going to pay for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's kind of a cool thing for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and beautiful girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, last question, what do you want people to understand about you beyond the bets?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what's the through line that connects it all for you?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I talked about those 200,000 people that were following my page that I consider the OGs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't, they already know this and not that's understood with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people I misunderstood with are the people who just come across me and they think they know me that that really don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the people that actually know me, we'll say I'm a good father.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my biggest lack.
[SPEAKER_02]: My kids, people don't really understand some of the stuff I've some of the adversity I've had to face with my kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, raising both of them is this is the primary.
[SPEAKER_02]: My number one thing and that really has been a function of so many other things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this game was the one I talked about, okay, now my daughter could get into it and just set her up, set her up for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, why didn't I sell my company?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, because I'm looking at my two kids and looking at my past the way, okay, you know, if they're not in the picture or when I'm product and sell the company, I don't got any, I don't what do I need spare time for?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I think that's probably the biggest biggest thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Always in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I like you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been an honor to have you here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to see what you do in the future and let people know one more time where they can buy your book, how they can follow you, your books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so if you go to 2000 percent raised dot com 2 0 0 0 the number the word percent and then the word raised dot com all my kind of treat that page like a link tree almost it's all all my stuff down there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So both of my books are on Amazon Instagram's kind of where I live the most of my stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm Instagram, John sir, Sonny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: John, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just see you next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I come to Vegas.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks Rachel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to run.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to have a safe way.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to Ms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five-star rating and review.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can support the show by joining our Patreon at patreon.com slash Ms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understood with Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have ideas for the show or want to reach out email us at info, Ms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Understood podcast at gmail.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's spelled m-i-s-s-understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.