#62 - Chasing Dreams: Leaving Multi-Million Dollar Career to Landscape Photographer w/ Marlon Holden

What if the life you’ve built isn’t the life you want?
Marlon traded comfort for purpose—walking away from corporate success to chase his dream as a landscape photographer. From sailing around the world as a child to commanding tens of thousands for his art today, Marlon shares raw insights on risk, discipline, masculinity, and the courage it takes to burn the ships and start again. 

Marlon's path took unexpected turns—from tournament-winning fishing boat captain to corporate sales success, where he eventually found himself miserable despite the financial rewards. Rather than settling, he walked away from comfort to pursue fine art photography, facing ridicule when he declared his intention to sell photographs for premium prices. Today, his gallery thrives with pieces commanding tens of thousands of dollars.

Whether you're contemplating your own entrepreneurial journey or simply seeking inspiration to live more authentically, Marlon's story provides both practical wisdom and a powerful reminder that with unwavering belief and consistent effort, you can create a life of freedom and purpose on your own terms.

To follow Marlon instagram: @marlonholden & @graylighthunter

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Wildlife Photographer Marlon du Toit
• 17:34 Childhood Sailing Around the World
• 45:30 True Meaning of Masculinity and Respect
• 1:05:06 From Fishing Captain to Corporate World
• 1:30:24 Building a Gallery and Fine Art Business
• 1:50:46 The Courage to Burn the Ships
• 2:19:54 Never Quit: Message to Young People

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

do I look like I'm running on 50 minutes of sleep? Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 0:12

No, you look good okay. Well, dude, I'm excited. Yeah, wake up, I'm excited. Um, we've known each other a long time but we've never actually like had a chance to sit down and and shoot the shit, except for passing at the expo or something like that. And we always talk on social and you're in town, um, you're in a very accomplished photographer, you're a businessman. You're probably an even more accomplished outdoorsman, which you probably won't give yourself credit for, but you kill some of the most consecutive big mule deer every single year and that's not an easy thing to do. And so, yeah, man, you're an interesting fella.

Speaker 2: 0:46

I don't know much about you except for what I've pieced together, and that's why I wanted you to roll through and we can sit here and I just want to shoot the shit with you for a little bit. It's kind of the whole what we do with this podcast and just sit down with people and get their stories, and that's what people are enjoying and that's where we're going to keep going with it, and so something I like to do before we start is I don't know if you're a cigar guy, I reach out. I let veterans and law enforcement businesses small business send us product that we're able to give to guests. And these are two veteran companies.

Speaker 2: 1:14

The War Machine he has the platoon cigars. He was a combat Marine, overseas deployed, got out, became a cop, got shot in the line of duty, got a wild crazy story. So he sends us cigars to be able to give to the guests. And then sea state coffee is a local guy, recon marine. He's got his cold bruise which I'm going to send you home with. I know you can, uh, probably use those, since you're running on probably an hour of sleep in the last two or three days of traveling and shooting in the mountains of flowers and everything else you're crazy doing with some roasted coffee beans. So, dude, why don't you just give me an intro? Let's just jump right into it.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Shoot the shit yeah, I mean, first off, I love everything about what you represent. Well, thank you man to man. Like I think in a lot of ways we don't know each other on a very personal level just simply because we haven't had enough interaction. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Like I loved you from the moment I saw you, kind of deal yeah just from what you represent thank you and I didn't serve, but I love this country and I would, without question, in the snap of a finger, defend it or the people that live in this country. So thank you for your service.

Speaker 2: 2:25

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Appreciate that, and so I think it's really cool that you work with veterans and small companies that kind of bring that to light. Thank you, I feel special, like there's a lot of people that I don't know. It's either taboo to some people or it's great. I think it's fucking great.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Thank you, I just want to give people a platform. You know, as this grows, obviously, if there's a small business out there, a veteran or law enforcement, leo, first responders, I just want to. Normally we have apparel. There's a really cool company in Cali that we work with, an active duty cop and it's just something to be able to get from Cali. It's just north of you and uh, but yeah, man, it's just I. I feel if more platforms did that and just just not everything needs to be about money, not everything to be monetizing and trying to just help out where you can. And so this is our little thing of being able to support if somebody hears it and wants to support a veteran company. And then the cigars cool. If you're into coffee, cool. So that's. That's kind of a little thing behind it.

Speaker 1: 3:21

You know the interesting thing um, for years I struggled with this right. I am not a super social person. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:30

As a matter of fact, I don't think people on social media deserve to know anything about my family. Like, fuck you, you deserve to know shit. And that's not because I'm arrogant, that's not because I think I'm somebody special. As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite. I don't want the limelight, I don't want the attention, but in that, as strong men, masculine men, people who actually go out into the world and have like a philosophy in life that I think other young men need to see more of, especially nowadays, I think that message needs to come out Absolutely. I tend to basically come out of my shell as much as I can on a limited type of uh, I don't know, it's just for me, it's just really hard to want to put myself out there.

Speaker 1: 4:19

So, that's why you see nothing but deer posts or dead deer right, Maybe a little bit about business, but the moment you start to see any type of success or anyone else projects into the world like you're doing, well, they don't want to hear it. No they don't want to see it. And dude, I have this tiny little account right. People think I make all this money off of it, Like I'm some pro hunter and oh, you kill all these big deer.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And for me it's like no, I'm just some dude that runs a business that likes to bow hunt. Yeah, I'm nobody, nope. And it's crazy that because we sit there and we're legit nobodies, people want to make us somebody. Yeah, they're the one making me somebody, not me. I just am trying to share an adventure, share a journey, share something that gives me purpose, like I think being an outdoorsman has nothing to do with being a bow hunter.

Speaker 1: 5:16

It has nothing to do with 90% of the stuff I do in life. It's just a passion, it's a joy, yeah. And you go into the city, or even close to this, even here, you know, and you look at some of the kids walking around that are lost. Oh, like, they're not woodsmen, they're not, they don't. The parents don't take them trout fishing or camping. No connection, there's no resonance, there's no heartfelt ideologies being passed down. There's no resonance, there's no heartfelt ideologies being passed down, and that's such a shame. So, like, I'll just go, go, go, go, go now. And that scares me, like it's, it's.

Speaker 1: 5:58

It's weird to think that you and I are technically almost like the last of a breed. Yeah Right, I'm one of those people. If I tell you I'm going to do something, there's, there's, there is no. Oh, oh, I'm tired, like, fuck you. And you're tired, you know, go route, like. And so I just, I don't, I don't need to serve to feel that way, I don't need to be told told or taught that if you say you're going to show up, you show up, yeah, and you show up on time.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Or you know, you just be a man of your word, yes, and even that's something that's like gone, dying a handshake, dying, like I've thought so many times. You know these guys that are putting themselves out there on social media kind of like, dude, you're fucking a weak pussy and I don't know what you can or can't say.

Speaker 1: 6:40

I really don't care anything, I'm just looking at you Right, and I'm just sitting here going. People need to hear this, like if you want to cancel me, like go ahead and cancel me. I really I'm tired of the way things are run nowadays. It's almost sad, like take who you are and shut them off. As a matter of fact, cut your balls off, act like you don't have any, maybe stuff them in your mouth and then thank somebody for stuffing them in your mouth and then keep carrying your silly flag, whatever it is like. This is the United States of America. If you want to live here, be willing to bleed for that, and if you want to live here, it was founded on God, so also go ahead and believe in that too, and if you don't like that, leave there's such a battle with both of those things.

Speaker 2: 7:29

I feel like right now it's, it's such like it's, you know, going back to you saying, like you know, we're the last of like kind of a dying breed and I've I talked to the kids about in the life. I'm like god like these dads.

Speaker 2: 7:41

I get so many dads that reach out like man, how do I get my kids? I see how involved your kids are in the outdoors and they're just waiting. You have daughters. Like, how are you getting your daughters packing out bears and how do you get them into it? I'm like you have to start them immediately, but instead you're, you're giving them an iPad, you're giving them a phone cause they're in the stroller. You're at dinner and it's easy parenting.

Speaker 2: 8:01

And then the second you're doing this at an infant stage. They're not going to want to go and fucking hike a mountain with a pack and and just nut drag her up and down. I mean, you know how it is. This shit sucks. Like when you're hunting, hunting like after it sucks. There's I don't, I don't, I'm not like this is the greatest I've never been like I really enjoy this. It's miserable, especially as a bigger dude. But you're there because it's a passion, something we love to do. But then when you start these kids at a young age, where you're, you got them in your pack like dude. There's pictures of her carrying her little pack and I got the little one stuffed in a kafaru pack because I'm like, let's go, like this is how this is when we're learning. And then, hey, this is moose poop, this is how, when it's dried out, it makes perfect kindling. And hey, this is the signs we're looking for. You see this, this is the way it was walking. Just a little shit that, like we, we're just processing as we're walking and looking for sign or whatever it may be when you're in the woods. But now it's like slowing down and be like hey, kid, come here, look at you, see how this pad is. It's moving this way. Okay, it's turning like shit, like that.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Now these dads, even these outdoorsman dads, they, they're giving the power and I might get some flack about this, but they give too much power of their raising children to their wives. And I feel a huge portion of it is these wives are so coddling and like, no, he's too young for this, he's too young for that, she's too young. They don't need to be talked to like this. You need to start raising adults immediately, and that's something we've always done in this house. We're not raising children, we're raising adults. And then I feel these parents get stuck. It's like having a puppy and then all of a sudden, now it's a, it's an eight year old dog but you're still talking to it as it's a puppy. It's the same thing we don't.

Speaker 2: 9:34

I see a lot of these parents talking to these older kids like they're fucking toddlers and I'm like, bro, you've lost it, you're on an iPad, you're not getting them out. Boy or girl, if you have a passion, it doesn't mean you have to force them to do everything we love, but take them along and it's going to become part of life, at least for us. That's how I've always done it. It's just life. Hey, we're going to go bear hunting, you're going to pack bait, we're going to be climbing this. Hey, we're going to go elk hunting. We hunting that. We're going to be five days at minimum, bringing extra pair of saw, and I pack, figure it out, and then it's up to them to learn. It's up to them to fail and fall and win and loss, whatever those may be. And so that's where it's like, I feel for us, as a last generation, a lot of dads are more putting okay, cool, I'm off, working all day and then are all week and then I'm gonna go hunting on the weekend.

Speaker 2: 10:20

I don't want to bring my kid because it's just it's, it's annoying. They talk, they don't shut the fuck up. They want snacks and their treats. And there's rappers and everything that comes along with having kids with you on the mountain. It's. It's easy to leave them home with an iPad now and I feel like that.

Speaker 2: 10:34

And then by the time they're like oh shit, hey, you're 10 years old, you can hunt. Now, come on, buddy, let's go hunting. And they're like I'm fucking baseball, I got ipads, I got video games, I got friends. They don't want anything to do with it. And then that's where a lot of these dads reach out and like, dude, how do I get my kids started? I'm like it's too late. If you're asking me and your kid's old enough to hunt and you're, and you're asking me how you get your kids involved in the outdoors, and he's a young teenager, adult, it's too late. You can get them there. You start a passion, but, like you're going to be now, you're rewinding all that shit that that kid's been lazy up to that point. You have to now teach him hey, this isn't that cool, video games aren't that cool. And then it's it's, it's a nightmare. I wouldn't even know where to start with that.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Yeah, it's definitely a tone that you set. I mean, I truly believe that the people, that I don't think that the people that kind of circling back to what you said about pushing it back on the moms a little bit more you know a lot of people say, well, I work hard, I work, you know, 60, 70, 80 hours a week.

Speaker 3: 11:35

So a lot of people make excuses and excuses are comfort.

Speaker 1: 11:39

And most people will surround you when you're in a mode of comfort. My entire life I've been told I can't, and this isn't like a story of bragging, or I think it's more than anything, self-reflection. Like, if you want a path out, then what's your 10 to 2?

Speaker 1: 11:59

In my opinion. I don't want to speak for myself because it's been my journey, but I don't have any grade school. I don't have any high school. I don't have any college. I have no degrees. I have a United States captain's Coast Guard license 100-ton master, really yeah. Merchant Marine license.

Speaker 2: 12:18

What did you get that for?

Speaker 1: 12:19

if you want me asking, so at the age of 7 to 14, I sailed around the world with my family on a 58 foot sailboat okay, let's stop there.

Speaker 2: 12:28

That's fascinating. What was that like? From 7 to 14? You said so. For seven years you traveled the world on a boat. Yeah, what where?

Speaker 1: 12:36

where did you? Where did you start? I was started in newport beach, california and just took off the way and my dad's like.

Speaker 1: 12:41

He's nuts like he, clearly well, he didn't. He'd never done anything like that. He's nuts, like he, clearly Well, he didn't. He'd never done anything like that. He didn't sail and he didn't know how to navigate. Now, this is before sat nav, before GPS. They had Loran. Loran was you're on this line, but that could be 500 miles this way. That is not accurate. It's just you're on this line. Okay, we didn't have any technology on the boat strike that. We had oil lamps, a generator that we could use intermittently um, because we didn't have clean gasoline regularly back in the late 80s, early 90s, down traveling the world, a lot of it had dirt and water in it, so we never ran the generator. And then we had a single sideband radio that took six C batteries and we used that to confirm what Greenwich Mean Time was, so that that way we could calibrate Greenwich Mean Time for the sextant, and the sextant was.

Speaker 2: 13:47

We navigated the world with deck tables and sextant your mom was like yeah, let's do this, or she, my mom, and dad, they split when I was like okay, okay and so, um, yeah, they remarried.

Speaker 1: 14:02

My dad remarried when I was like four and we just kind of well, he just kind of said, let's go really.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Yeah, that's a really ballsy move to do. Have you seen that kid that sailed from portland to hawaii? Obviously everybody's following that. I follow that guy.

Speaker 1: 14:23

He's cool, I want he's, he's kind of funny he is very socially awkward, but great, great just but, good.

Speaker 2: 14:32

Good on him. He's doing it right, like that's how you have to do. It is just fucking do it. I've talked about on this episode people like how do you have this? How have you done it? You just have to. There's no talking about it, you just dive, and the more, the quicker you dive in, the quicker the ball gets rolling.

Speaker 2: 14:46

But I've been watching him and I'm not as I've. I don't know anything about sailing. I've been at sea for months on end on naval ships. That's it right, I grew up on the water, but not sailboat wise. There's a lot of I have a lot of questions for him because I feel he's not as knowledgeable as to be doing that trip on his own. And the only reason I say this and one of my major red flags was he went, he like did a video, he jumped off his boat and went like swimming or whatever you know. He's tailored to it. Like that's like the number one rule for anything when you're out at sea. It's like you never get off your boat, especially by yourself. That could you imagine? Something happened where that boat went and you're halfway between here and hawaii. Like that's wild to me that he.

Speaker 1: 15:31

there's a few things, so I mean we can jump around a little bit here, but when you're solo sailing so if you noticed in every video that he posted he's towing a buoy and it's got probably 20 yards of line behind it that's in case you fall overboard you have something to grab onto. But if you're sailing at five to seven knots.

Speaker 2: 15:51

How do you climb back up?

Speaker 1: 15:54

You're going to get fatigue and I mean I get it's kind of maybe a last resort lifeline but might be the kiss of death anyhow. For sure might be the kiss of death, anyhow for sure. Um, you know he did a lot of tacking back and forth downhill. When you leave from portland, the predominant wind heads kind of basically straight from portland to hawaii, so you're going downhill the whole way.

Speaker 1: 16:15

Oh, okay and so he had to make port and starboard tack so that way he could take his wind on his rear quarter and that way, um, he could keep wind in his sails. He could have gone wing and wing, put a, you know a whisker, pull up, put a boom, bang on the main and off you're going just because that cuts days or weeks off of your time, right, it'll, yeah, way faster, way more efficient.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Like all the above and, and what he hit was the high pressure, it's not quite the ITC Z, which is the inner tropical conversion zone, which is an area and the tropic tropics that, for lack of a better word, it's just dead calm and it can stay that way for weeks, yeah months, like sailors have died in the past. Waiting for wind to come in really's easy. They run out of water, um, so he ran into the high pressure system and had no wind, so the boat wasn't really going anywhere, but I still don't recommend jumping off.

Speaker 2: 17:18

It's not kind of not a smart thing to do that to me is like a non-sailor that raised the flag for me. There was a few other little things, but I was like man by-sailor that raised a flag for me. There was a few other little things, but I was like man by yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:28

That's a risk. It's a risk Risk, one you don't want to take. I don't think that's Heavy weather navigation, for example. When you are alone, you generally want to pop up every 15 minutes, even if you're sleeping. You take those little military naps, you know. You just go to sleep, pass out 15 minutes, wake up, take a look around, see what's going on Ships, containers, logs, you name it Like there's just all kinds of stuff that can happen. And obviously you have to sleep while you're solo. But you really want to be as like, attentive attentive as possible and making sure that your surroundings are clear. I mean going and disappearing downstairs for long periods of time or not really caring for a night is eventually can it'll catch you in touch, touch, uh, it'll get you in a tough situation.

Speaker 1: 18:18

Um so I mean, hey, more power to him. He's gonna learn along the way.

Speaker 2: 18:21

I think it's freaking awesome oh hundred, I'm not knocking anything yeah there were just things.

Speaker 2: 18:26

And then there was a day I think he posted where he was in some pretty rough seas and he got seasick and I'm like if you're getting seasick and you're doing this voyage on your own, you don't have experience. You're probably and I could be completely talking out of my ass right now, but I feel like somebody that's making that trek from Portland to Hawaii. If you're getting seasick, like that to me was another red flag. I'm like he probably does not have and I know he says like I've never done this before. He states it good on him, like I love that mentality, but like that's, that's not like, hey, I'm going to go hike the Appalachian trail, this is, this is. I'm going thousands of miles out to sea all by myself, where it's big boy world. I mean you're, you're in it. There's no like, oh shit, let's just pull over and ride this one out.

Speaker 1: 19:14

Like you're. You're in it, You're in you. Save yourself world.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Yeah, yeah. So that's why now, now that obviously we're talking on this topic, that's why I'm fascinated by this, because I commend the guy. I think he's good on him. He deserves everything that he's able to get from this because he's he did it right. Like, good on him. I don't know if it was this huge balls or a little bit of just ignorance or stupidity. What, but that was? That was. That's a trek. So back to you, dude. Okay, so you're sailing the world from the age of seven to 14. Where are some of the places? Where were the most memorable places that you got to travel to? I know it's a long time, been a long time no no, no, it's as clear as day.

Speaker 1: 19:53

Something like that I think that even when I am in my gallery, you know, and I'm all the photographs, all the artworks on the walls are like where's your favorite place? Um, like in indonesia, for example, there's like thousands of islands, yeah, archipelagos, for days. You'll never be able to explore them in 10 lifetimes, you know, and each one of those little places will have something so amazing about it completely you want to never leave or you want to go back again and again, but there's so many other ones that are amazing it's impossible to return. Okay, that's what I've learned in my business of landscape photography and and in traveling the world. So I've been around the world a lot and been to a lot of countries.

Speaker 1: 20:39

That's the one thing that's very challenging. It's kind of like, say, pick your favorite food and live and die on the sword. With it you can eat tacos the rest of your life. Now you're gonna sick of it. And it's cliche to say bora, bora or kawaii or australia or new zealand or something like that, because really, at the end of the day, they're not the most amazing places.

Speaker 1: 20:58

The most amazing places are the ones you go to where there's not a soul around and maybe nobody's ever even touched sand on that beach because when you look at it it's all untouched and you dive in the water and there's just a plethora of marine life, like we used to. You know, we used to. Literally I would go out and collect lobster, crab, spearfish, um. I'd hunt in the jungles, learn what different plants you could eat in the jungle, and I'd go grab them. You can eat in the jungle and I'd go grab them, bring them back to the boat and we'd eat them. We'd carry staples like uh 50 pound dry bags of rice, obviously, beans, some canned goods, but to get uh vegetables or fruit was kind of a scarcity lettuce, lettuce and tomatoes.

Speaker 1: 21:42

That's something I didn't. I don't think I had lettuce and tomatoes in seven years.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Okay, okay. So these are things you don't think about yeah, no refrigeration.

Speaker 1: 21:50

We used to bathe in salt water. You brush your teeth in salt water, you wash your clothes in salt water. You get one quart a week to rinse off. Um, we had 400 gallons on the boat and we would ration it and we would pour just straight up two caps of bleach and 400 gallons of water. We did that for years just to kill whatever was in the rivers or whatever was in the water faucet coming from wherever we were, and all the time the water wasn't clean Like it was always.

Speaker 2: 22:18

People take that for granted, and I've been able to travel quite a bit and go to some pretty shitty countries, and I mean just Bleach takes care of all of it. It does. And I've been able to travel quite a bit and go to some pretty shitty countries, and I mean just bleach takes care of it it might take care of you inside too a little bit, but we get the parasite cleanse at the same time. That's insane, so we're okay. So you're speaking of, like untouched beaches. Where are some of those places, dude?

Speaker 1: 22:43

some of my favorite places are in the South Pacific and the Indo-Pacific. Okay. I dig it because, like the Tumotu Archipelago, for example, a couple hundred atolls the remotest can be. What Atolls? So they're extinct volcanoes.

Speaker 2: 22:59

They were islands. That's what creates a chain of islands, correct?

Speaker 1: 23:04

islands. That's what creates a chain of islands, correct? So it was an island at one point. That was, you know, a big conical cylinder above the ocean floor, uh, poked through the surface as a volcano with a rim and, and then, after I can't tell you how many years, right they sink and then just the rim remains above the surface, okay, and these things aren't any more than three to three to four feet elevation and just coconut tree studded atolls with fringe reef and barrier reef, and the water is the clearest thing you've ever seen, but so blue it defies. It's like Narnia, real life, narnia. Everything you look at, just your senses are so heightened, it's so beautiful. But that's all over the world. You know, that's just one place. I can tell you that, leaving the Galapagos Islands and making a 29 day passage across the Pacific to make landfall in Hivao and the Marquesas three days out're like I smell. Oh, my gosh, there's a bird like this is just these things that you don't really think about. But land smells so sweet, 100 smell, you're like yes, okay, I I've.

Speaker 2: 24:17

Yes, this is. Yeah, I've been there. You know, we out at sea, everything changes. You could, you can sense it. The air changes. I feel like the thickness of the air smells. You start seeing a fricking seagull or a sparrow or something. You're like, oh shit, there's a we've been out here for and you're still a couple hundred miles out. It's two more days before we'd even see land, you know. But you could sense you'd go up and just get air because you're stuck in a birthing and so you get really accustomed to like those, that fresh sea air, and it would hit you different. You're like, oh, we're getting close, and then they'd make an announcement why don't you say that Thick?

Speaker 1: 24:53

briny air, even with the wind coming through, you can feel that. You can feel the wetness, the dampness in the air. And as soon as that briny gets intertwined with a little bit of that vegetation, the sweetness of that it's undeniable when you smell it.

Speaker 2: 25:15

It's fascinating, that's such an incredible thing that you say, because I mean, most people listening are probably like they were not going to think about it.

Speaker 2: 25:20

But I like to think back when men were exploring and they would catch those senses because I feel like how we live now in today's day, like we have potpourri, we got air fresheners, we got clean freezing or you know dryer, cleaner, whatever the hell those things are you know all that shit that is. You know you walk through the neighborhoods here and you're smelling laundry and you know all that stuff. I feel like it deadens so many, it just dampers all of our. But when you get away and remove yourself from it and you're actually like on the mountain or hunting fish, you're gone for a while and you start picking up on those things. I always like to think back, like when the guys were exploring this country or exploring the world, when they would hit those certain pockets and be like, oh shit, like that had to have been such a morale boost knowing that you're smelling land or seeing a bird for the first time.

Speaker 1: 26:06

I mean, well, think about this for a second. So put this in perspective. Take a calendar month and remove any and all electronics, any and all 12-volt light, 110, 36-volt, it doesn't matter, just all light, except for an oil lamp, a sextant and a little Casio watch attuned to greenwich meantime, and you're doing star sites with, like aldebaran, rigel, cant, serious right southern hemisphere. You're triangulating stars, rocking the stars at twilight. Now you have height of eye. We're getting off on some crazy tangent now, but yeah it's fascinating though.

Speaker 1: 26:46

So you got. You got sea level, and then you have feet on deck okay and then you have how tall you are, your eye and your height of eye, where your eye meets the horizon okay but then you have to factor in I, I have a ground swell, so the swell is a 22 second period at 14 feet.

Speaker 1: 27:12

What period of that swell are you in? Are you in the trough, are you on the top of it? And so you have to understand, if you have a 22 foot swell and you're rocking that star on the horizon and you say mark, and somebody's there to mark greenwich, mean time, and write down okay, hours, minutes, seconds, and then you read off degrees, minutes, seconds for that set of numbers, if your height of eye is off, everything's off. So you have to know. So you can go on a Harbor and a flat Bay, just like we can here. And so I'm six, two, and then, uh, I'm standing on a deck and the deck is at eight feet three inches off the water, and you can add up what that is, to know where your eye meets the horizon. It could be 5.3 miles, for example.

Speaker 2: 28:06

How do you know that, though? Like how do you know where your eye meets the horizon? Like how do you? Is it simpler than it sounds or are you just so it's just all, it's all trying to.

Speaker 1: 28:14

it's all math, geometry, Like if you're, you know, 50 feet in the air, like your height of eye, you're going to see further onto the horizon. Like your height of eye, you're going to see further onto the horizon. So if you're rocking that star on the horizon, you need to understand your height of eye.

Speaker 2: 28:28

What's your buffer zone? You said if you're off, everything's off, like do you have a foot or two to play with, or does it have to be?

Speaker 1: 28:33

The closer so here's the beautiful part, right, okay. The better you are with your numbers and the more consistent you are with understanding your numbers, the triangle gets really tight. So if you have a star over here, a star over here, you don't want stars that are like lining up real tight, you want stars that are, you know, 30, 40 degrees apart.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Are there. I don't mean to interrupt. Are there specific stars that you're looking for every night that you're going off of?

Speaker 1: 28:59

Yes, and that changes from North to South.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Yes.

Speaker 1: 29:02

Right, and those are going to be your triangles. So it's a beautiful thing when your triangle lines up to where you're somewhere inside this one mile triangle. That's okay, so the thing of beauty where all the lines just intersect.

Speaker 1: 29:15

You're like I'm 1,500 miles from land and I'm right here, really, yeah, with a sextant and deck tables, no-transcript Dude. Aurora was dancing above the Sawtooth Mountains with peak balsam root and just football field acres of this soft, buttery yellow lupine, bush lupine everywhere, with red Aurora dancing over, dancing over it. I'm like, I think about moments like that in my life. I think about the tumoto archipelago, I think about gathering food in the jungle, I think about being in the san blas islands in panama, off of the atlantic coast of panama, 100 miles south of cologne, where the panama canal is, yeah, and and going up the diablo river with them, and we spent a year there, um, praying to the spirit of the forest to fall a tree.

Speaker 1: 30:33

It was like this 150 foot tall sablewood tree and it was like at the bottom, at the base it was probably like eight feet in diameter, was huge, but they wanted to make a community village canoe and they pray to the forest because if the forest doesn't grant them permission, you know they'll kill this big tree that weighs I don't know how many tons, like suit, the wood is so wet that if you pound a nail into it'll squirt back at you. So it's really heavy, um, but they have to dry it really slow because they're in the jungle, so if they don't pray to the forest, they feel like they've had logs split in half and they just wasted this huge tree.

Speaker 1: 31:14

But they're so connected, right, yeah, and they all get around on these log canoes that they hand build and they take months oh yeah, make, because're they start a small fire around the sides, all the way up and down it and this thing slowly starts to dry. Slow they put a fire on top to burn out the center. Slow, everything is slow, nothing fast, because then it'll display Okay, so we're talking a process that lasts months to even a year and they slowly just hue them and they feel like how thick the hole is and success and getting that into the river, so like being amongst the kuna indians.

Speaker 1: 31:53

There's magic everywhere and that in this society that we're so lost as a culture, as a people, to think that it says to dumb our lives down so much to the point that we believe in liberal or, you know, conservative or right wrong, that's all wrong, it's all wrong and there's magic surrounding us in every direction. That's why, when people come up to me with something as stupid as how did you kill that deer, how do you get so many deer with a bow, I'm like, oh gosh, guys, if you open your heart, and this is the thing like, as a very masculine man, I don't go to the gym and lift heavy so I can stroke my ego, so I can lift heavy weights.

Speaker 1: 32:42

I don't care, I'm doing it so I can set my ego, so I can lift heavy weights I don't care, I'm doing it so I can set an example for my son. Absolutely, I want my son to see a strong man. I do it so I can go up the mountain and be capable and not bitch out. I also do it so that that way I can partake in this life for a longer period of time, because when you get 70, 80 years old, for a longer period of time, because when you get 70, 80 years old, what takes people out is falls, breaks and infection, and I want to maximize how much I love being here. So it doesn't have anything. The ego throw it away. I could care less.

Speaker 1: 33:16

I don't care how much I can lift, I don't care how far I can hike. None of that matters to me. What does matter to me is how incredibly beautiful this world is, how amazing these moments are. And if it doesn't matter how masculine you are, how war decorated or how many tattoos you have, or how much you lift, or how many deer you've killed, or how much money you've made, or none of it matters. Open your heart, which means try to find spiritually who you are. Open that up and everything comes your way, like God provides everything. He provides the money, he provides the food, he provides the deer, he provides the circumstances that surround you being successful. And it just requires you to say to yourself when you look in the mirror thank you so much for getting yourself this far, thank you for believing in you. God, thank you for being here for me and being within my heart. And like there's abundance Now, there's suffering in those lessons.

Speaker 1: 34:22

I believe there's a lot of things that I went through. That's just crazy suffering and people would sit there and say that's not God. Like God wants you to suffer and I sit there and think, yeah, he does. He wants me to suffer, to realize that if I do have abundance, I understand how to treat that abundance. Because if I just went through good times and everything was just like big flowery meadows, you wouldn't realize that the desert is even there.

Speaker 1: 34:50

I think that the rough stuff that we go through as men truly set the tone and precedence, for when we're abundant, we understand how to treat it and I think that if we stroke our ego too much, be taken away like that. So just kind of travel through life with a little bit of grace, travel through life with an open heart, be willing to just know that, hey, I could be wrong at any moment, but here's what my life has taught me to be consistent enough to say this is what I should do given the circumstance, yeah, and that's how I roll with it. So I don't think in terms of when people say anything about hunting. To me, hunting is kind of like the smallest thing on my radar, for sure, it's like it's just something I do, you know even even. Here's another point Like I worked a nine to five and when I got back from sailing around the world, I have no degree.

Speaker 2: 35:51

You said you didn't go to high school. Right? You didn't do any. You were just on the water your whole life.

Speaker 1: 35:55

My life was on the water. Nobody would hire me. Like nobody would hire me. So when I was 18, I got my captain's license and I started running fishing boats. Okay, because nobody would hire me. Mm, when I was 18, I got my captain's license and I started running fishing boats. Okay, because nobody would hire me. Uh and I was a really hard worker and I started winning a lot of tournaments like these big Marlin tournaments, money tournaments.

Speaker 2: 36:19

Do you relate the success to being on the water Cause? I mean, do you or no Part of it?

Speaker 1: 36:24

like you're hunting on the water. You're hunting on land. It's all hunting. You're reading conditions. You're looking at bait. You're looking at, like a structure, how it holds. You're looking at color, like if it's slightly off color here and it's blue, or here and where are the birds flying? What direction? What does the sea smell like? You can smell the oils and the bait fish from long distances, given the wind.

Speaker 1: 36:48

So sometimes I'd go at 20 knots, tacking back and forth up and down the uh, you know, across wind, right, cross, swell, yep, in the trough, people look at me like what I'm? Like I'm trying to smell where, the, where the biomass is. People's life's crazy, yeah, and, and that's life. And then you know, looking at the directions the birds are flying, how, whether currents against uh wind or whether currents with wind, and how the, the animal life is behaving. Based off of that and where I should go.

Speaker 1: 37:19

It's all reading, everything. It's it. It's feeling that again, opening your heart, um. And so when I ran these boats, I wasn't just trying to be the boss, I wasn't just trying to be a captain. Yes, you have lives in your hands. Yes, it's your obligation and commitment to make sure that all souls are safe. Um, but I took it very serious. When we were in the tournaments I wanted to win and the hardest worker ends up generally winning and I worked really hard and I ended up building myself into these circles of guys that were several hundred millionaires, billionaires and running insane boats like seven million marlin tournaments.

Speaker 2: 38:08

There's huge money I mean million dollar rewards in these marlin tournaments. So these guys are rolling in with multi-million dollar boats, crews, full staffed crews. That are these guys. That's all they do is chase marlin and they're traveling the world. They're I mean they're going all over south america to the us, everywhere. I mean they're everywhere fishing these tournaments. So the fact that you're playing with the big boys it opened the doors up for me in ways that.

Speaker 1: 38:35

So I ran a boat for a guy that was a big money guy. I was going up against another guy's team that was always on the podium and, um, it's interesting he can't. He came up I won that particular tournament at the banquet awards. He's like, hey, fuck you. Oh, really joking he was. He was playing. He's like how are you winning? All the time I'm like I don't like failure, I like success. And to me, unless I'm working hard and leaving it all in the field, I could care less. I don't want to just be here for the sake of being here, I'm here to win. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:17

And that means I'm here to beat your captain and your team, so I'm looking at getting better all the time. You know, that means I wouldn't even let my crew tie the knots on the terminal tackle. Really, because if it broke, yeah, you wanted it to be Looking at me, yeah, and it would never break and it would never be outside IGFA. Everything was in so that way it didn't stretch out, and then it was disqualified or whatever. I didn't want that to be like. Who did this? I wanted to look at myself, and that accountability was very important to me. And so he ended up saying you know what? You should quit this. How about you come work for me? And then I entered the corporate arena.

Speaker 2: 39:55

What do you mean by the corporate arena? That's where you were taking more bigger. I ran uh teams um and sales and mortgage Really yeah so you got a job offer because of how hard you worked and you were beating another team, and the owner of that team offered you a job.

Speaker 1: 40:13

Yeah, Really yeah. We gave him a ride back to basically from the islands. We gave him a ride back to the mainland and we were in the tower and he's like, why don't you come work for me? And so I did that. I learned the corporate world for about a decade what was that like?

Speaker 2: 40:30

going from traveling the world most of your childhood to becoming a charter fisherman and now you're stepping into the corporate world. I mean, those are that's a night and day Like. What was that transition like?

Speaker 1: 40:54

The money was great, okay. The um, the freedom, lack of freedom was not Okay. However, what I gained in understanding, um, just, business all around from a standpoint of what is a company man, what is what does leadership mean? A lot of people think leadership is, I think, intuitively. Nowadays, since people are always on social media and they're they can easily look at things, they understand that leadership isn't, you know, cracking a whip and telling people what to do.

Speaker 1: 41:21

But that's a very archaic style of leadership that has been kind of wrought into people's minds for a long time and I truly began to understand what servant leadership was basically working harder than your team setting the example, being there earlier, being, you know, being there later.

Speaker 1: 41:40

When they got there, you were already there with like coffee or something like healthy to eat and like are you guys ready, let's go? Like I got everything cleared up, we're ready to go. Like, hey, I took care of that issue you had on that one. You know, you're just always on point and working hard, making sure that if they don't believe in you, eventually they would believe in you and through that consistency, they end up walking through walls for you and then you have this giant like group of people that truly support you from behind and they're pushing with you instead of just, you know, going through the motions right, like I'm sitting there with the straps, like really pulling the cart, and then eventually everybody starts grabbing the straps and pulling, and so I learned um a lot from that journey yeah lots of waterfall reports, lots of risk analyzing, lots of um hiring and firing and looking at two things and and I've always hired on two things uh, and, and let go of people on two things and they're the two A's.

Speaker 1: 42:45

It's like attitude and ability. Okay, somebody has an amazing attitude but no ability. It's like it lasts so long. It only lasts so long. And then inversely, if you have, you know, all the ability in the world, but you have a crap attitude, then cancer, cancer is big. You're going to just ruin the whole team and everybody's going to feel the effects of that. So I don't care what anybody possesses, I don't care what degree you have, what skill set you possess. I care about what attitude you have. And do you have an ability that I can coach? Can I coach you up? Can I coach you up?

Speaker 1: 43:26

And if I can't coach you up, then I'm going to coach you out with like a performance improvement plan or kind of something of that nature. Like we're going to figure out whether you're putting in the effort. And now if effort's there and engagement's there and your attitude's there, but you just don't have the ability, then we're going to get you out. And same thing with what?

Speaker 2: 43:46

what was the corporate world Like? What type of sales? If you don't want me asking, it was mortgage. Oh okay.

Speaker 1: 43:51

Yeah, it was mortgage, high volume mortgage sales Got it and um. So I just learned a lot in that until I kind of came full circle in my life going what am I doing?

Speaker 2: 44:05

How? And you said it was about a decade. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:06

So did you wake up one day and I mean, do you have a family at this point? Or I did? Okay, yeah, I did so. Back to the beginning, when we first started out, you talked about something that I thought was very important, where you know whether it's a man or a woman doesn't really matter. Um, you get so busy and you're like I'm too busy to take my kids out, I'm too busy to do this, I work so much it's, and the excuses kind of pile up. There's. There's a lot of things that we can do and a lot of people. There's no doubt people are going to watch this and they're going to shit on me, right, that's just the nature of humanity. They're just like I don't want to work that hard, I don't want to do that. That's just the the the road is too rocky, it's too difficult, but the thing is is that once you get past it, it becomes easier and then it becomes normal. Um, alcohol, get rid of it Like it's killing you inside and out, probably faster than you think.

Speaker 1: 45:05

Oh yeah, you know all the things that you and I know about, like get sun, get exercise, eat healthy, get rid of all the processed foods, get rid of alcohol. So clean those things up, make sure the pillars of health are a foundation in your life. And then, once you've kind of got that under control like, let's say, you work 10 hours a day, you know you can still go to the gym before you can still come home, you can still spend time with your kid, you still spend time with your wife midnight, instead of staying up late and binge watching a Netflix series or being at a bar with your colleagues that also hate their jobs or what they're doing. Stop the bad habits, stop the excuses and start somewhere and say my 10 PM to midnight or 10 PM to 2 AM, nobody needs you, like nobody requires you, nobody cares what you're doing. So what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 46:10

And one day isn't going to make a difference, but a week something might start to take shape. And then a month something will take shape. And then, after a year, you're going to look back and go well, something absolutely. And then, if you're really in love with it, you'll start doing things like your mission, your employee handbook, your, you name it. You just slowly chip away at this giant. That seems impossible with a day job to approach, but you quit the bad habits. You decide what your 10 to two is. Nobody needs you. You work in silence, you stay dedicated and disciplined and you build something. And that's what I did when I was in that corporate environment. I picked up a camera, started taking pictures. I'm like I'm going to open a gallery one day. When I told people that I'm going to sell a photograph in somebody's house for 50 or 100 grand, how many people do you think laughed at me?

Speaker 2: 47:09

Every one of them.

Speaker 1: 47:10

Every single one. You're crazy. Stay here at this comfy mortgage job. You're making a million. Just do that Makes sense, right? It's good money, it's consistent. You could be here forever. You're a company man just like. You've never done this well in your life. What costs, though, my life, exactly my life?

Speaker 1: 47:29

Waterfall reports 14 hours a day, sometimes like working for the team, like grinding hard. The 10 to 2 was really hard. Then I had like a little baby boy and I'm like I got to start somewhere and so I you know I had taken photos when I was young, but I kind of went away from it when I was trying to figure out what to do as a man, and then I came back to it and I I've always been in love with how beautiful this world is, like the magic that's in it. Just, wildflower blooms for whatever reason are some of my favorite, because they're so fleeting, they're never the the same and you can't just go back out there the next year and see it. I'm sensitive too. I mean, oh, their peak for like two days, yeah, and then they will and that's gone it's.

Speaker 2: 48:12

I don't mean to interrupt you, but I love the fact we're on this conversation because I feel in today's society, or you know, the image of a man we have to be so alpha, so raw, raw, fucking eating liver and biting a heart and all this shit, when in reality it's, it's none of that I feel. That is I'm anti, like alpha dude. I don't think that exists. If you have to be an alpha guy, it's you're, you're, you're too far on one side, one side right, and then you have the beta dudes, and so I compensating exactly you're, you're, these guys, and then especially the guys that have to go to these alpha classes and learn how to be alpha. If you have to learn how to have somebody scream at you to be an alpha male, like you'll never be an alpha male, which, in a sense, you don't need to like.

Speaker 2: 48:59

I look at you, dude, you're a big ass, dude, you hunt, you've made millions, you've, you've, you've done it all. But, like here, you are taking pictures of flowers and that's what brings you joy and that's what you have fun chasing. And so I love this conversation because it's especially for the younger gender, like these young teens think that there's such a Andrew Tate image. And you gotta be this. You gotta be that which I'm not knocking that guy, but it's just dude. You gotta be this. You gotta be that which I'm not knocking that guy, but it's just dude. You, you can be a good man. You can love your family, respect your wife, treat your kids with respect and fucking love. Taking a picture of a flower, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: 49:34

You want to know, kind of like the dichotomy that exists, yeah, within me yeah, I'm sure it does you too is that I know I'm a killer, I know I was meant for war, I know that if I'm called to act, get out of the way, stay clear, yeah, like there doesn't need to be anything said. We just simply know what we're capable of, nope, and choose not to be that. I choose beauty, I choose love, because I think being more sigma is really where you want to be you're happier.

Speaker 2: 50:20

I'm not talking the beta, fucking soy boy shit, right. But when, like you, look at my phone, dude, dude, I have more pictures of flowers, fruit growing in my backyard, bees, butterflies, yeah, go on my phone and tell me that shit's gay, it's just not, you know it's life and that's something that I've created and I created in our backyard and and there I'm able to enjoy.

Speaker 2: 50:42

It Wasn't always like that. I went through your phases and I think that's part of becoming a man and and and growing and evolving as a person and becoming a better person is like I don't need to be raw, raw, I don't need to fight the world, I don't need to walk around pounding my chest 24-7. It takes too much energy.

Speaker 1: 50:59

It does, bro, because there's always somebody that's going to be able to beat us. Yeah, there's always somebody bigger there's always, somebody badder there's always. It's like I don't even care. I don't care. I just know that if my life I'm lucky, I have you know a good 40 years left, and that's barring anything happening in between there, which is probably highly likely, given that I'm just crazy and a nut job to begin with.

Speaker 1: 51:25

So it's kind of like she laughs because she knows Like it's like the only thing that could get me fired up is if somebody attacks my family. And then it's like I don't even care about myself, like everyone's gonna die around me, including probably myself, while I'm involved in whatever I'm doing. But that's it, and, and so I don't care about the machismo or any of that. The bravado, it means nothing. And uh, alpha like and and in that same vein, it's crazy because that whole Andrew Tate, everything he says, dude, that lives in me.

Speaker 2: 52:01

Yeah, he's got good messages, I think he's just there's some things where I'm like, eh, I'm not, like I don't follow, I'm not a fan, but I see his stuff and I like be a man, treat a woman with respect. But I'm sure there's a lot the whole left side hates him. But I couldn't get into him deep enough. But, like, sure, there's a lot the whole left side hates him but and I couldn't get into him deep enough but like what I see of his message like work hard, build a business, like work for yourself, fuck the government.

Speaker 1: 52:21

Cool, I support all that yeah, you know, but I I think that you know that that's. That's for attention, right? If you want to go all the way to one side to garner attention, boy, we can do that right now. Right, we can truly get nuts and start saying what, candidly, is on both of our minds. It lives in my mind Stuff. I want to say to people I don't say yeah, because you, you have to be you kind of, have to figure out how to articulate a message that will convey your point in a way that people at least say maybe 70% of people are willing to digest. There's still going to be a bunch of people that are like oh, he thinks he's.

Speaker 1: 53:10

So, whatever the questions I get, it here's. Here's the kicker. You too. If I were to put on, blast everybody in my DMS that asks me how to deer hunt, even well known like blue check for can I, mr, killer the people in my DM like dude I am, it's like I'm a frickingFans girl for honey.

Speaker 2: 53:39

There you go, there's another business.

Speaker 1: 53:42

Dude, it's not even funny. Yeah, and then, and then I'm like that's why I created the app. I'm like, just go get the app, but nobody wants to. Like. There's plenty of people that do do it, but there's a lot of people that it's easy, they'll go in there and they'll check it out and they'll be like, oh, I don't need that. But yet you go on their shit and you're like bro, you don't kill fucking anything yeah you need my help more than anybody.

Speaker 1: 54:04

That, like, go look in the mirror and quit asking me all these questions. I actually don't mind the questions, yeah, but it's it's the ego part. It's like I have no ego in this. To me, there's no ego in death. There's no ego in killing anything there's really not.

Speaker 2: 54:22

You know, and I I've I've mentioned it before like you know, we're sitting here on piles of bear rugs and shit. Dude, I, I don't get joy when we kill a bear, like it's not. There's times where I have like a target bear or target animal and everything lines up. You know how it is right when you watch them for a couple of seasons and it happens like, yeah it, it's exciting and thrilling, but like, when I watch a bear die, it's like even with the kids, I'm like, but it wants. It's just that moment, right when I, it's just for me it. But that moment I'm not like you killed it, it's like it's a badass animal. It's roamed these mountains for its whole entire life. It's wintered through how many winters and seasons and way harder than we are yeah, dude.

Speaker 2: 55:06

And so when I pull that trigger and even with the kids they know like it's a special moment, it's not an eagle thing and I, you know I've guided enough people then you see these guys. And she actually got to learn a good lesson on a hunt where I took her on an arch or a rifle bull and I had a client and she killed an antelope, opening day of rifle season here for elk and my butt I call my buddy and bulls are screaming. Anyways. He's like dude, come help me find a bull and we find this really good bull. Anyways, this guy, she's, this guy hands her his camera, his camera, and he's like here, kid, just photo film, whatever. So she's following me. This dude shot this elk. I want to see his 12 or 13 times. I mean he had to reload four or five times things laying there, it's gasping, he's like laughing and joking and like she's looking at me.

Speaker 2: 55:47

There was no respect and to me it that type of shit. It it kills me, dude, because it's the animal, it's. That's a god's creature, right? The last thing I ever want to do as a true hunter, a true outdoorsman, a true killer. Like I don't consider myself a hunter, like there's hunters and there's killers. There's a difference in the two. Hunters are these guys that are. Just they're out there gripping grants, cool, kill a couple things a year, whatever. As somebody that legitimately just kills shit, like I don't want to see anything. I suffer because I respect these animals. And so she got to watch a whole other side because she's never seen me laugh. She's never seen me like, oh, we'll get it as this thing's leg hanging off. Like I go into pure blood mode. If something's's wounded I will kill myself to put that animal down as fast as possible. So for her to watch this guy and like laugh and joke and he's just taking his time and and like it was a really good learning lesson for her because I explained it to her.

Speaker 2: 56:49

I go that guy right there. One doesn't live here, he's not in the Western States, he doesn't respect these animals is the biggest thing. And two, he's a paying client. He doesn't. He's not out here on his own, he's not grinding it out and he's not doing everything he. Can we walk him in there? It is shooting sticks, do your thing. All you got to do is make one good shot and can't even do that. But it's just, he's never worked there.

Speaker 2: 57:11

You could tell people that never have put in hard work and have studied animals, have lived with these animals, are on the mountain with these animals for a whole season to maybe draw your bow back on one. You know they, those are the type of people that have never experienced those, because the people that do, you're gonna be like fuck, I know what that animal goes through, I know what, how it lives like. Now it's my job to put it down and so, yeah, it's like it's one of those things you know. You see, these guys and some people think it's funny or cool and they kill something and have no remorse for an animal.

Speaker 2: 57:40

And I'm not saying I'm going to sit here and burn sage and I'm not at that stage of my life, but it's a respect thing and you could. It happens, it's part of sport. I mean she, we've all wounded something, you know, but it's our job and to do our due diligence and put that animal down as fast as possible. That's the difference of somebody that's loves the animal, loves the outdoors, versus like, oh, we'll get to it, let it lay, for it's like, fuck man, things it's, you know you know how it is, dude, I do.

Speaker 2: 58:16

Yeah, it's different. It's a different world. When you start looking at things differently and respect in what has been provided to us to be able to bring home to our families, that's where you start looking at things like that, it changes everything.

Speaker 1: 58:28

It really does, kind of dovetailing off of that a little bit. There's a lot of stuff that people know, people don't really care to, so I'm going to say a couple of things here. You're, you're triggering me. First off in the beginning, when I said I fucking, when I first saw you, I knew I loved you. It was one of those times that we were first started interacting. I saw you care this, carry this crippled guy around the mountain. I'm like that's a badass dude right there, like that's not just him being egotistical, he's actually really trying to give this guy an experience, because he has love in his heart and wants him to genuinely experience something.

Speaker 1: 59:09

I'm like I don't care what anybody says, I can get behind somebody like that, and so that was one of the moments that was profound, that I'm like. I think he's like legit, has the right intentions, he's not only good for whatever he's doing, but he's a good man Going further into it. The guy you're just talking about, he's somebody who just wasn't raised right from the beginning Probably didn't have a strong figure in his life.

Speaker 2: 59:38

Got into it later on.

Speaker 1: 59:40

He was one of these and doesn't take death serious Yep, it's a joke and that makes him feel better about it or just the kind of the absorption or understanding of what that is and that process is isn't taken as serious. Now, for all those listening, I've wounded animals, I'm not a saint and I've lost animals.

Speaker 1: 1:00:02

If you bow hunt, it's gonna happen, I don't care what anybody says, and you have to live with it but, you also have to be willing to push the envelope really hard and make tough decisions and tough situations count, because if you sit there and you play life safe, you're going to get slapped in the face. You're going to get slapped around all the time, it doesn't matter whether it's in business, it doesn't matter whether it's at work, it doesn't matter if it's in a relationship with your partner or with your kids or the mountain. That's what I love about nature is you know Mother Nature's rules. If you don't play by her rules, she's going to kill you she wins or she's going to humble you and you're right, she wins every time. And you're right, she wins every time. So when I'm out on the mountain, I play by nature's rules. She's going to possibly come in in the next few winters and wipe out way more animals than we'll ever dream of taking as hunters, just because it's cold, yeah, and it's going to freeze over and they won't be able to get into their forage and you're going to see them all line up on migration corridors, roadways and train tracks and just get Annihilated Annihilated, not to mention starvation and everything else. So I take all of this oh, you wounded an animal and didn't recover it stuff Kind of like I.

Speaker 1: 1:01:33

I take it to heart For sure. I don't want it to happen when it does, but I'm also very conscious of life. I'm also very conscious of things like mother nature. There's no way for us to sit there, and if your intention is to go out into the field and take game for your freezer and your family, you need to go out there knowing that your intention is to make sure that you harvest the animals that you're after. But that doesn't always work out that way and you gotta be able to live with yourself with it, or else just quit. Don't do it, because it's going to happen, period. And I go out there, um, and every year I get my animal because I really engage in making sure that I do the job and do it right Now.

Speaker 1: 1:02:20

If I have a bad hit, I'll do everything I can to recover it.

Speaker 1: 1:02:24

I'll spend days trying to find it, and if I can't find it and I usually give it three days I'll usually run three days hard and uh, really, what happens is you lose, lose, sign right, you lose track, you lose blood, you don't see any birds and after a while you're like, okay, I'm either gonna tap out, call this tag done and go home, or you're gonna go finish what you came to do, finish what you start right.

Speaker 1: 1:02:53

So I think that's something that a lot of people have to kind of get themselves acclimated to, and they need to understand that journey before they even start on it. And there's so many people out there that crucify the living daylights out of people and foster these um holier than thou attitudes and mentalities based oh, I would never do that and you're a piece of shit because you did this and you should have never done that. It's like, guys, we can either be our own worst enemies or we can rally around each other and support one another, work hard, pass on good tribal knowledge and be stewards for the future, and that's the thing that hunters are really bad at is advocating for one another.

Speaker 2: 1:03:36

Oh, we are our own worst enemies.

Speaker 1: 1:03:38

So, yeah, those are the things I want to talk about.

Speaker 2: 1:03:44

We are our own worst enemies, man, like you know. And it's as the hunting community and this is where I've really stepped back the last couple of years, especially this year we're just so busy with life and new adventures and stuff. We haven't really gotten deep in back into it yet. But you know, it's one of those like we just kind of I got to sacrifice a couple of seasons to get life on track. I'm sure you've been there, you're there now so, but it's just, you know it's, it's one of those things man like as as an outdoorsman, and that's why I always get like not fired up. And when people want to crucify us over hunting, hunting and killing an animal and all this other stuff, it's just it all comes down to just ignorance. And you know, and especially for the anti side, you know we're dealing with those. And then you have a guy that's showing dogs chewing on a bear after they shoot it and it hits every tree branch on the way out of a tree and it's just like come on, guys, like we got to do better, like that's, that's all they're seeing. You know that's all the antis are seeing, or that type of stuff. And then when something happens in the community. It's like, bro, you better watch out, because everybody it's such a jealous sport and such a me, me, me, hidden competitive thing because everybody wants to be the next insta famous hunter that we just I mean people are doing whatever it takes to burn each other, turn each other in, turn each other into fishy game. I mean, do the stories and stuff are just wild of what goes on. That's why I always just stick to.

Speaker 2: 1:05:04

I got a couple of friends, that's it family, and I've got more joy of hunting with my kids than anybody else. I love guiding like because I guide a little bit differently, especially if it were able to, if it's not such a high pressure hunt you know around some 200 inch muley. But there's so many clients of mine that I'm like hey, do you want to learn? Like, hey, this is how I would recommend and I'd walk them through like those. So the whole entire time. Cause a lot of my clients are whitetail guys that are coming out West. So it's like, hey, cool, like this is what we're looking for and I I clinic while you're guiding like, where you're hunting with me. Obviously I'm not going to ever let that get in the way of the mission. But whenever I could stop and show people from especially out east like western knowledge and these older guys that it's their first time out here and or some young guy it's saved up all year and this is his dream hunt it's like cool dude, let's learn as much as we can out here, because you don't want to have be able to do this and depend on somebody every time. So that's what I like I really got enjoyed out of the hunting side was teaching young kids, dads and their sons and clients like, hey, this is, this is this is how I do it, this is what I recommend. I'm not a professional, I'm no pro, I'm just a dude. Somehow kill shit every year, get lucky, this is how we works. And so no-transcript years, fuck great, you know. But everything has a shelf life. And so I told the wife this last company I was with I'm like, hey, as soon as this runs its course, I'm out, like I'm, I'm done with it, I want to just start having fun with the girls.

Speaker 2: 1:06:51

And while I was working with that company, man got caught up. I caught on one of the biggest antelope of my life and, dude, I was just like I like became like fixated on it and it was about to fuck cross some fence lines, like if they killed this thing, you know. And I got my whole family with me. I'm chasing this thing, like I'm, I'm like mission, kill this. But then I like had to check myself. I'm like what am I doing? It's all just to try to create content for this company that doesn't give a shit about me. They're not gonna care. Like why am I? Why am I willing, willing to draw cross lines just to put this animal on the ground, just for a photo? I'm like this isn't what it's about and like I literally like it hit me. I'm like fuck this, like I'm cool. Then it just I let it fade out. And that's where I was like done, I'm hunting with the kids, we're just gonna have fun. Well, we have more fun shooting does than anything.

Speaker 1: 1:07:39

Man, go out and have a blast I'm totally, I'm totally with you on that. As a matter of fact, as I kind of alluded to earlier, I I don't want to be anybody, I don't care, I have so much more fun when you're not. Yeah, I started shooting self-videos and did production kind of like earlier on in the DVD era Yep, bass Pro Shops, cabela's like kind of distributing them and I don't know I got tired of it within like three years. I'm like forget this Work and I'm like I'm over it. I just want to go out and hunt and if somebody wants to send me some stuff because I do this, then cool, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 1:08:20

No promo codes, no, none of this is trash. Like I don't want anybody thinking that I'm some paid mouth. I will never just be some paid mouth. I either believe in it. If you like it, get them. If you don't, it doesn't matter. That's how I've always been. And the kind of the interesting like dichotomy with all this that I think exists is that people really think that, like there is actually a large number of people think that I cheat oh yeah, I think that that, oh, it's not possible with a bow.

Speaker 1: 1:08:54

You know, you must shoot them with a rifle and then put your bow next to it and then, like, poke an arrow in it and then stage it. Oh, you have a guide, you have a bunch of people You're around looking for stuff for you, and then you know, you just go in and shoot it. That was a guided hunt, and you know, oh, you use thermal. Let's just put it out there right now I will not use thermal. Yeah. Anywhere where it's illegal. Yep, if it's legal, I will use it.

Speaker 2: 1:09:25

Hunter is the greatest tool.

Speaker 1: 1:09:27

Well, here's the funny thing about it as a bow hunter, it's a fun tool, yeah, but if I'm being 100% honest, it's not not a game changer. It really is not a game changer like people get all up in arms thinking that thermal is going to change the game for them. I'm telling you right now it doesn't change the game for you. I'll tell you this right now dudes have been running them for years.

Speaker 2: 1:09:51

Yeah, I mean, it's not changing anything. You're not seeing a decline in these areas, like I know. I know so many guys and I'm not gonna time anybody most of these fucking outfits are running them and it's like, okay, cool, your success. You might be able to find it, but like you still gotta shoot the fucking animal, you still gotta stock you still everything still has, all the stars still have to align on it.

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

I have no idea why people get so fired up about thermal. I'm like this is nuts especially.

Speaker 2: 1:10:14

I mean especially if you're hunting in the south. It's hot by 6 in the morning. You can't thermal anything anyway. Everything's glowing. Yeah, I know some guys are pushing boundaries with them, but thermals have been in the game for years. People just are now thinking like, oh my God, it's going to change it. It's like, well, everybody's running them, Everybody's running them To me.

Speaker 1: 1:10:34

I consider it extra weight. I I don't even to me.

Speaker 1: 1:10:51

I consider it extra weight. I won't even care, I'm just like, forget this thing. Like if you just sit there and focus on hunting hard and working hard and the biggest thing is practicing like a little bit of self-management and reservation, not getting too trigger happy older it's not. I can't say the the hunt isn't fun, the hunt's fun. But if I kill a spindly young deer, if I'm not, I don't care if it's for food or not, like I just I get no excitement out of zero I'm like, oh, what did I just do?

Speaker 1: 1:11:07

I'm like and I'm not poo-pooing anybody that does that's what you want to do and that's what jacks you up, and you got a few days like more power to you, but for me it's just, it doesn't do anything at all, like yes, I want to eat it, yes, I want to put it on my wall and remember the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:11:25

But I kind of want that challenge for sure and you know, because my adventure and journey is maybe further down the line a little bit, I like looking at something that's heavy and old and gnarly and survived a lot of years and is super smart and you know, getting in tight on that and lacing it with an arrow is much more rewarding than something that just stands there and it looks at you like because he's new, he's just like hey, buddy, I've never seen something like you before, you know, or? Yeah, I just like that wary old matching wits mountain warrior that.

Speaker 2: 1:12:05

It's got a story behind it and I tell people too. All the you know, I see, I see guys and I'm like I'm like, dude, I'll get pictures sent to me. You think this is a shooter? Or I'm like well, have you ever shot a deer like that big before? No, shooter. And I'm like, well, have you ever shot a deer like that big before? No, then show it the fucking deer if it's gonna make you happy, shoot it.

Speaker 2: 1:12:18

Yeah, if it makes you happy and you get buck fever and you got your adrenaline rushing, your adrenaline's pumping and you got the rush and you could feel it. Dude, if that, if you're happy when you let that arrow or bullet fly, bro, have fun with it. First couple that's what I tell people all the time. Dude, first couple seasons, just go learn, shoot a doe, shoot a spike. And then you see these guys crucify oh, shoot a spike. That's why we have no mature deer. Maybe, maybe not, depends on the unit. States need to do better managing their shit anyways. But it's like, yeah, now if you're some, some youtuber hunter and you're shooting young animals every year for content, that's what I have a problem with. If you, if you, you know you can tell I've been around the game long enough, you have, I could watch a video of somebody and that you're faking how excited you are for shooting this two-year-old antelope, that's like right, like that's not bringing you joy, you're gonna throw it in your truck. You just did it for views. But if that's your first time out there and you got your kids with you and you're just driving, you want to have fun. Bro, burn him at, burn it, shoot anything you want it's. If it's your season, you got a tag for it, enjoy it. That's the whole point of the outdoors is to enjoy it. But yeah, I'm with you. Like me, I I go hunting with buddies. I get invited places. But these are like, yeah, dude, let's go mule you. I'm like what's the average size? And I'm not saying I'm better, I just got ruined by guiding so much giant, heavy animals. That's where my, that's my level now. Like I, I mean me shooting 160 inch, 150 inch mule deer. I'm not gonna be like fuck yeah, when I walk up and I'm saying that that I've killed a ton of big animals. I haven't, but I've been around it, I've guided, I've been. That's my standard now. Like that's what I want. That's where when I'm with a client, I can't even look at the deer because I'm shaking just as much as the client is on this giant. That's what gets me going. But then when I you know, I get invited somewhere, like oh, we could go shoot like 140 and 150 inch mules on this ranch. I'm like, dude, I'm not one, I don't, I just don't need it and I'm not. And I just saw people like fuck must be nice, I'm not knocking it, I just. I've been around so many big deer and had my hands on so many mature animals. That's what gets me go.

Speaker 2: 1:14:14

It could be a spike. If it's a fucking eight-year-old mule deer got a big roman nose, big gray face on saggy chest and he's a forcasaurus. I'm burning that fucker to the ground because that's gonna get me going, because it's a maturity thing for me. It's an age. It's not even a size. It's an age thing when you got split ears hanging, they're all scarred up because they've rutted for the last six, seven years out in this mountain. It's like okay, and he's just some grumpy old deer. That's that's what gets me going. It's not even really a size thing. It's a maturity age thing for me. That's what I look for. But it could be a small ass little spike and I'll, if it looks ancient, fucking shooting it, I'm, I'm, I am lucky a little bit.

Speaker 1: 1:14:51

uh, I'm guilty of something here. Yeah, I was hunting the desert this past year and unit consolidation was shutting units down because the desert was dry, super dry, and because it was dry. Even estrus does that. It just doesn't send, doesn't carry, but they were coming into estrus later, yeah, so there was really no rut activity. Um, and, like, I personally know certain areas that held mega giants, like the kind of buck that, like, I've never killed a big deer yet. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:15:30

And they were there and I was like waiting. I'm like no-transcript, but me personally I got frustrated right because I knew what was there and this whole like kind of generation of young deer just got wiped out. Not wiped out, there's a lot more deer there, but none of the mature deer got harvested. Let me put it that way. Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:16:23

All of the, just the bad boys. They were just chewing cud in their bed all day waiting for the does to come into estrus and all these little bucks got killed and and I invested 31 days of my life straight Like I ground through the consolidation of units and moved units and was you know?

Speaker 2: 1:16:43

You're constantly learning new units every few days. When they're shutting them down, you just kind of shift in them, or do you know the area pretty well?

Speaker 1: 1:16:49

I know a lot of the area. Okay, like it's crazy, how much of these areas, but you don't necessarily know what's there.

Speaker 2: 1:16:56

For sure.

Speaker 1: 1:16:57

Cause that cause, that part changes and you can't cover it. Tough these areas but you don't necessarily know what's there For sure, Because that part changes and you can't cover it all. You can try to. But if you pay attention to where the water is in the desert and where the water fell, you understand that there was good post-rut recovery and then it was followed up with at least some rain to keep them there. And if the monsoons were decent, you really know that a good post-rut recovery with good monsoons is going to yield an incredible rut.

Speaker 2: 1:17:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:17:22

It's just in the desert, that's like. And then if you have that for three consecutive years, it's like dream, dream season, kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:17:28

Okay, that was last year, okay, and so I got, you know, bumped off of these areas and I was like super livid because there was nothing really getting taken out. I think maybe one buck in the 180s was taken out of one of the units, you know, and there was some genuine, straight, legit monsters in there that never even got seen. That kind of fires me up. But again, like it's not know, it's not my concern what somebody else decides to take, and I made a post about it. Dude, I took so much heat for that. I mean, they started meme pages about me and like we're just talking shit. Like, dude, I have like the meme army after me.

Speaker 1: 1:18:13

It's hilarious, yeah, it's actually funny and I don't even care, I just I could care less. I'm like, yeah, it's actually funny and I don't even care, I just I could care less. I'm like cool, any publicity is good, publicity I can, just it doesn't matter to me. But uh, what are they so mad about? Oh, I think I'm too good, not I, I can, I don't hunt water, you know, I, I, I must be too special. Or he doesn't kill, he doesn't want to to kill. He's judging people for killing smaller deer. I'm like not judging you. If you want to kill small deer, kill small deer. I just know what's there and I would love to like hold that's the difference between a killer and a hunter.

Speaker 2: 1:18:47

I feel like, well, there's a lot of differences, but that's the difference. Is somebody that's just an absolute murderer, like they don't. We don't need to lace through, send an arrow through a freaking three year old deer that you know in a couple years might be a giant, you know and so.

Speaker 1: 1:19:01

But it's each their own, like I mean that's well, I mean to the guy that to the guy that that hunts every year and he gets maybe four or five days during a season to put together to go do something like I can't knock that guy, no, I can't, I can't sit there and go, oh, you're totally wrong for what you're doing. And it's like gosh, at least he's out there and at least he's working hard, at least he's given it what time he has yeah not everybody like I've burned bridges around my entire life to be able to spend 300 days a year in the field.

Speaker 1: 1:19:43

It sounds insane, right, but my job is literally to go out and take photos 90 of the time. I'm scouting or looking, checking new areas out, looking at things, like I'm always looking at things. You've created this life but it was intentional. Like I left jobs because they said, hey, you can't leave. I'm like, fuck you, watch me, you know. And then when people are like, no, you can't do that, nobody's gonna buy that. Yeah, fuck you, watch me.

Speaker 2: 1:20:07

Like it's just my whole life is kind of like a whole game of fuck you, watch me that mindset than people that I've talked to and with that mentality fascinate me because they have so much going on and they've accomplished so much in their life compared to a normal nine to five person. Live that life as a family. We are 100. Fuck it. Our kids are out of school. I'm quitting this job, I'm walking from this company. Hey, we're gonna struggle for a bit until we get our shit back on track, but those are the sacrifices that we've made to be able to travel, to be able to just go anywhere we want with our kids, show them what this, this world and this country has to offer. But then you meet somebody that's like in a nine to five and they just oh, oh, I don't have the, it must be nice. And blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like dude, I was in a corporate world, I had to go through these trends. I left it all. Like you know, like that's when I start talking to guys like you or women like you know that have that mindset of like fuck you, I'm going to do it. If you don't like it, you can't fucking bitch about it. If you're not going to make a difference that's one of my big things If you're miserable and you're going to work every day miserable. Shut the fuck up, dude.

Speaker 2: 1:21:28

I got to the point and I've talked about a little bit on this show when I got to the point in the military where I knew I was done, I started to hate it. I didn't like putting on my uniform anymore. The military, where I knew I was done, I started to hate it. I didn't like putting on my uniform anymore. Hated the circus. What is it? What's to say? Yeah, love the clowns, hated the circus, or whatever that phrase is. Um, but that was like.

Speaker 2: 1:21:47

The point I was getting to is like I'm, I'm getting to that where I'm like, oh, like god, get me out of here, I gotta get. I'm trying to leave work as fast as possible. Once that sunk in, I'm like dude, I'm only eight years in. Like this, this is how I feel. It's not gonna get better. Military just doesn't get better. Jobs like sitting at a desk every day of your life doesn't get better. Praying and hoping for that next promotion for an extra 20 grand a year, but you're still miserable. Is it worth it?

Speaker 2: 1:22:14

And so I feel people to have that mindset it's a very small percentage of people, cause I talked to a lot of people and not everybody is just like I said fuck it, I'm doing it and it takes a special person, but I feel the second you just. This is our only option. This is our only option. We're going to make it happen, no matter what that's when you start, and there's a, there's a phase where it's very uncomfortable. What that's when you start, and there's a there's a phase where it's very uncomfortable. You're stressed, you don't know what's next, but you keep chipping, and keep chipping, and keep chipping and before you know it, dude, you got a gallery in what? Laguna beach or huntington, where are you? At laguna, and it's like dude, you're selling paintings or your photos for tens of thousands of dollars and here all these people told you weren't going to do it. But you have that mindset of you know what? Fuck it, I'm going to do this and this is going to be something.

Speaker 1: 1:23:00

Here we are, you know, and it's just it, but it's not quitting, it's just going and going, and going and going and eventually the ball starts rolling yeah, like it is an all-in, burn the ships mentality, and you hear that among a select few people on podcasts as a pretty consistent message, but it's consistent enough that it's the truth. Yep, the other side of it is that, um, nobody's going to believe in any anything that you're doing as much as you do. Yep, and the power of, uh, self-belief and manifestation into physical reality. That is the magic of life. Whatever you want can happen. Whatever you decide to put into motion will happen. Yeah, and so for me, like, I have these small little businesses that all kind of trickle revenue from different angles and none of them have to do with hunting.

Speaker 1: 1:23:58

Well, actually one app, but it to me it's kind of like a joke, it's not. It's. It's not. Like the app was designed as a place for me to just direct people so I don't have to sit there and answer all these dumb questions. What's that? And they're not dumb questions. Let me back up. I don't want to make it seem like they're dumb questions. They're not dumb questions, I think for me that I get so many, the volume of questions is so many. You type the same answers over and over again, you kind of get kind of like it gets a little rough because bandwidth right.

Speaker 1: 1:24:31

You're a business owner, you're a father, you're like going and doing a lot of stuff yourself. Bandwidth to get back to people without being rude is is very minimal, so instead I'm like just go to the app, right and to piggyback off that.

Speaker 2: 1:24:46

You know, like when I would just big and doing all the hunting videos and the guiding stuff and all that I would post, like like my day, I'd vlog throughout, like on my stories, I'd have a couple hundred messages a day and I and then, before you know it, dude, I'm, I'm three, four hours into responding to people and I've always been that person where if I reach out to somebody and they read it and never got back, I'd be like fuck that, dude. You know, like you know, I had a, I had a legitimate question. You know, whatever it may be, fuck that that guy, he didn't get back to me. But there comes a point where you have to okay, how much bandwidth do I have to respond to all these people? Then it's like where are you? What you did, what's, what do I do when I get here? Hey, what states this? What should I put in for draws here? And it's like bro, like fuck, I don't know, like you know, but it's, you're in, you don't want to be an asshole and be like yo, I'm going to blow this guy off.

Speaker 2: 1:25:37

So you created an app for it, which is genius, but I could see why. Cause it, dude. It it's a lot to respond to people all day. It's. It's almost a full-time job. At some point People are like, oh yeah, fucking struggle. But when you're a father and you're growing businesses and you're a husband and trying to grow this and that and this dude has to respond to 50, 60, 70 people a day like that, just it adds up and so so, on the art side of it, like I have a quarter million people on that side that are asking me about locations, about how I did this, the focus stacking is that a focal length?

Speaker 1: 1:26:10

what location is that? What time did they bloom? Where it's like coming from multiple different directions and then and, and then you go into the gallery and it's nonstop, raj, like how did you do this? What made you decide to start? Which is great. That's cool, yeah, that's cool, and I love being able to encourage and tell people hey, don't be afraid. I think the biggest message out of all of this it's like one day, like I'm gonna die, you're gonna die so, so, if we're not going to be here forever and this is all finite, like we don't take the money with us, we don't take family, friends, friends, things, nothing. What are you so fucking scared of? Yeah, what are you afraid of Failing? So what? So, fuck, like you're afraid of losing what?

Speaker 2: 1:27:09

I'm in the middle of a failing company. Right now it's done and wife and I are like it wasn't our. I mean, we brought it. We were brought in to be the marketing company on the side of things and just run completely different than how it should have been. But, like right now, they're like hey, this, yeah, we're like. Yeah, dude, wild chaos. I failed wild chaos in the beginning. I can't fail it twice, but.

Speaker 1: 1:27:30

But. But here's the thing is that it's not going to fail here. Here's the other thing, guys. Like really, the older we get and the more certain or self-assured we become of things we understand the power of manifestation and desire. You've learned from every failure and there was never a time that you quit like that sounds so cliche, it sounds so lame, but you don't quit Like it's going to get hard, and a lot of times you just quit because it's too fucking hard for you at the time.

Speaker 1: 1:28:11

But at that time, that time you keep pushing and and you understand your demographic, understand your price point, understand your product, understand your competition and analyze those enough to be smart enough to enter a segment and know that you have, like, whatever your niche is, fill that can be filled and, categorically speaking, if you have space in that niche that nobody else is in, then you don't quit.

Speaker 1: 1:28:49

Then you just keep writing until the awareness is built enough for you to build a business off of it, because you will quit without awareness. And if you quit without awareness, you could have had an amazing product, a game changing product, but you quit because the awareness was not there yet and it's not because you had a bad idea, it's because you quit before you were able to be smart and sophisticated about your marketing and and so like even the gallery. It's like that could fail at any time. If I decide to quit, it's a tough business. You're literally you know I'll have somebody come in one month and spend a half a million dollars and it's like awesome, great, and then I'll go through the next month and maybe we'll only do 80. A lot of people are like, oh my God, that's like plenty, like I'd be happy with that. Well, try having a space down there.

Speaker 1: 1:29:45

It's going to say what you rent, see how much the overhead is, and then you'll sit there and go God, yeah, I'd be stressed out too. So you start understanding how to attract more of those people that spend.

Speaker 2: 1:29:58

Because you're paying attention to your demographic.

Speaker 1: 1:30:00

Right and you start catering to. Yes, and it's as simple as this If you start selling puzzles and books and coasters and mouse pads, that person is going to come in there and be like, yeah, I don't want to spend my money, I don't want to spend my money here, they want to spend their money on. The most inexpensive thing in the room is 10 grand. Either step up or step out. Yup, and that's that particular niche, that particular company. Now I have another friend. He owns like more Jiffy Lube's and Taco Bell's than you ever imagined Probably makes over 20 mil a month.

Speaker 1: 1:30:40

And he's like Marlon. You can be highly successful in life and understand that you can weather any storm If you can feed a family for 20 bucks and know that, whether they have an electric vehicle or a fossil fuel vehicle, you're going to need to change tires, help with gear, oil changes all that because they still have transmissions and I make millions off of microtransactions. And so that shifted my thinking, even now, to where I'm about to launch another company and I'm not going to talk about it yet, but you'll see it soon enough and, dude, I have every intention of I'm speaking into existence right now. I will build it into being north of 100 million Damn dude. And that for me. I don't care about the money. You know what I care about. I care about doing things with my family. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:31:43

And like, if we just want to turd out on a beach somewhere for like three weeks and not think about anything, like learn how to make coconut milk in the two motus and make poisson cru is a french raw fish dish right and sit there and look at the waves and yeah, that's what money affords you, you will never see me giving two craps about huge houses and fancy cars and all and all this stuff and I will never be like dripped out and anything I care less, like it doesn't matter to me but that matters to like be with my, the people I love and like. That's not just family, that's like hey bro, like let's go do this on this trip.

Speaker 2: 1:32:24

I want to bring it's exciting, yeah, man.

Speaker 1: 1:32:26

And then being able to have the ability to see like something great in somebody else and be able to impact their lives by doing something about it, by helping shape their growth, that is able to employ other people, that helps their families To me that's the dream. Like, the dream is not to be loaded. So you could be loaded, so you could stroke your ego. So you're like oh, look at me, like I have people that come into my gallery all the time. They're like yeah, bro, look at my new whatever. And they pull up with these crazy multi-million dollar cars and I'm like cool. And then I'm like and then I send them a picture back look at this flower. I did this the other day, dude, I could probably bring up the dm. He's like he sends me this freaking.

Speaker 1: 1:33:13

He's like his ride, like this sunday meetup with the boys you know, all these freaking things lined up like I don't even know what they are like dope ass cars or go fast, yeah right and I'm like, oh, that's freaking super cool, bro, this is like the equivalent for me. And I sent him like like I was in this place and the flowers were like going off, yeah, like crickets, dude.

Speaker 2: 1:33:35

He was like it's just different mindsets, you know, and for some people, the cars, the supercars, the mansions, I feel they think that gives them satisfaction and that gratitude, like they're not gratitude but feeds that I don't know man, like I don't know how to explain it. But you know, you you're obviously deal with high valued people. I've dealt with a lot of high value people. I have friends that are worth just short of billions of dollars and they're, they're miserable and they hate their life and they're, they're, they're the worst people to just watch, you know, and, and I've had conversations with them, like dude, like I've sat one of my buddies down, he's worth Oprah money. I was like, bro, are you happy? And the dude just lost it on a conversation Cause he's not. He's got 900 million in the bank and he's fucking miserable, chasing everything Drugs, alcohol, women, everything. So it's like and so like hearing you talk and you know it's like dude, yeah, grow that business. That's for us. Man, it's kind of the backtrack a little bit to where you mentioned burning the ships. I've always heard people talk it, you know, you always hear it on episodes and these motivational speakers like gotta burn the ships, gotta burn the ships. Yeah, last year the wife and and I, we sat down, we, we, we made that decision. Like we are burning the ships right now and we're in the process of burning the ships and it is so scary and you don't know what's next. But I wouldn't change what we have right now for anything.

Speaker 2: 1:35:14

And when you talk manifesting, I don't I don't know if manifesting for me is the right word, because I I'm more coming from a religious side. I think it's. It's I'm more praying and talking type of person than manifesting. But on top of that, I'm talking so much positive about this podcast. Like we, we talk every night about the podcast as a family man, you see this person start following. Do you see the comments that we're getting? Like you see the interaction? Do you see, like it's always like God kid, and I want to, I want her to be able to see how much life we're speaking in this Cause.

Speaker 2: 1:35:51

I've I've tried to build companies where, from the start, it was just you're getting hit and grinding and grinding and grinding and you're just getting knocked down and knocked down and then eventually your attitude starts to change, your, your mindset starts to change and then, before you know, at a year or two later, it's piddling out because I wasn't speaking so positive of it. But with this, and like our bread company, the new adventures that we have going on, it's like dude, is like God grows, you guys are crushing. It Did this, it's, it's, it's it's growing, it's growing, it's growing, it's growing. And so, speaking that constantly, every day, you know, like every time it, and that's helped so much because we have no idea. Like dude, I have a now, as of today, a 17 year old producer of this podcast. We're not photographers, we're not a production company. We had no idea what we were doing and when we took it in house, dude, it was at that point where we're like we were eight weeks behind. We all of our gear was delayed cameras, we had lenses, no cameras, dumped to almost 20 grand into a setup and we can't even use it and we can't even figure it out.

Speaker 2: 1:36:52

And I wanted to be like fuck it, like maybe this is the sign, but nope, hey, it's okay. Like you know, then, I have buddies like I've never missed an episode, I've never missed a week. I've never I've produced an episode for the last six years. I'm sitting there like fuck, like I'm trying to compare myself, but at the end of the day. I'm like, who gives a fuck? Good on him, good on my boys that have never missed an episode. I have that's. It has just doubt. Those were the cards that were dealt to me, but instead of me dwelling on that which I wanted to like, fuck, we're eight weeks without an episode.

Speaker 2: 1:37:19

Like, what do we do? Oh, start, and then then that cancer, the cancer starts, and I've seen in the past, but this, I'm like, gives a fuck. Like you know what. We're gonna pick right back up. I want to come in and we're gonna get the ball rolling and tell her hey, kid, you don't know. Fuck, all about editing, podcasting, audio visual light. We don't know any of this. But here you go, figure it out. And we've had our roller coasters, we've had our ups and downs with it. We, it's. It's tough to be a father and a business partner with your child as well. That's something that's growing. But then, all of a sudden, it's like cool, we got back on track, numbers started getting back up again, and it's like fuck, now we of a sudden, it's like cool, we got back on track, numbers started getting back up again. And then it's like fuck, now we're cruising and it's like but there was that point where it was like fuck, dude, everything's against us, equipment wasn't working, we're ordering the wrong shit, like everything.

Speaker 2: 1:38:07

You go through those phases and I feel, with people and young entrepreneurs or people that want to start businesses, I tell everybody and I keep telling her, I tell her, two years, we're not even looking at numbers, we're not, I don't care about any of this till our two year mark. That's when I want to be like, okay, where are we at? Because, realistically, for any business, unless you just hit that grand slam out of the park and you provide a service, that was a missing piece of something and it blows up good on you. But I feel, watching all of my buddies, all of these businessmen over the years, like very few are crushing. First year or two. It usually takes about three to four before you even are lined out, know where you're going. So I tell her hey, when we hit our two year mark, which would be in February, that's where I want to sit down, I want to break everything down and let's, that's where we start dialing, that's where we really start fine tuning, that's where I want to be. So and but you know, we're, things are going now, they're going incredible that ball is.

Speaker 2: 1:39:05

You know, I explained it like business and success is like that snowball on the top of a mountain. That's like you can't see it moving, but it's moving. That's like the first two to three years of being a business owner, of starting your own business, and then all of a sudden one day goes bloop and it falls and it fucking takes off. Then that, but for a lot of people when that they can't see that snowball turning at the top of the mountain, like fuck, it's not working. Yeah, but it's moving. You know then. But once it starts going and you start feeling the growth and you start seeing results, and and now it's like, oh, dude, we just sold. We just sold double what we did last month, you're like holy shit, okay, okay, cool, that's, that's a win. Like okay, so now next month, that's our goal. Now we sold double of last month. I'm cool if we hit that again. And and then shit, we went four over what our goal was. And then so it's setting those little wins and starting to realize, dude, it might, you might, make one sale today, but next month there might be five sales and the month after that might be 10 sales.

Speaker 2: 1:40:07

But you just cannot quit. And then I hear these motivational speakers talk about it Like can't quit, can't quit. It's like, oh, it's so easy to say that right, like when you're in a certain mindset oh yeah, I just can't quit. It must be nice, that's really what it takes. It just you can't accept. No. And it's like you know what? I'm going to get crucified, we're going to fall flat on our face. There's going to be memes made about us, the community is going to come after us. People are going to trash us. I're noise. We're going to keep doing this, because then you start building your own new community. You start building own new followers and supporters. And then that's when it gets fun. And I personally feel business shouldn't even be fun for the first two to three years. It's stressful. You're hemorrhaging money, you're figuring everything out, you're losing money, you're wasting money. And then, when things start to get dialed and you not you're never an autopilot, at least for anything that I've ever run ever, ever, always scary.

Speaker 2: 1:41:01

10 years in it's scary I mean, dude, we have a chariot's 11 years old. We're like fuck, like, we gotta raise money for this year, we gotta plan a bank, we gotta do all this stuff. And I mean, we're 11 years into it. It's like day one, you know, and that's the path we've chosen to keep it small like that. But yeah, my business is a fascinating, fun, scary, stressful world, but it's worth every single minute of it.

Speaker 1: 1:41:28

So welcome to being an entrepreneur Number one, number two, number three. You get what you put into it 100%. So if you were all in, you get what you put into it. The other thing is that you're either adding value or you're not. So if you're adding value to people's lives and they're truly getting something, you're going to become irreplaceable, because people won't want to live without that value. Going to become irreplaceable because people won't want to live without that value. When you truly step into any arena and you have the ability to change lives in one way or another or you're fulfilling a niche, you're irreplaceable. You become irreplaceable Like I would be willing to wager and I'm not sure whether it's 12 months or 24 months, but based off of our growth and what we do, I would love to become a sponsor. I'd be dope, right, I really would. I mean that and I'll share some stuff with you. That's actually really cool. It's going to be related to the outdoors. Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:42:34

And I'm planning on doing something that nobody's ever done before with it. Okay, because nobody's been able to do it good enough, but I have this background that I think will kind of shake the matrix, so to speak, with it.

Speaker 1: 1:42:49

And I'd love to be a part of that with you, and I love your journey, because the thing that I love most about business is people. Yes, people without hesitation are one of the most special things that we could take part of in life, like the relationships we've built and the people that we meet along the way. They inspire us, they encourage us to move forward, even if we don't feel like it, and entrepreneurship is probably well, is it not? Probably it is the scariest thing that you can endeavor until you get used to those fluctuations. And at the other side of those fluctuations, there's this sense of freedom that you can't achieve any way else, like a salary. I am probably one of you know, amongst a lot of other entrepreneurs, one of the most unemployable human beings there is in planet earth but you could not pay me enough to sit here and do your shitty fucking job.

Speaker 2: 1:43:57

I'm the same dude Like I'm the same. Dude like I'm the same it's not worth it.

Speaker 2: 1:44:00

It's not worth your health, it's not worth your, your mental mindset. I don't care if somebody is paying me. People are gonna be like fuck, this guy's an idiot. If I was making half a mill, a mill a year and I was walking to an office with a suit on every day, miserable, yeah, nope, I've, dude, I walked. I was a owner, I built a. I built a company from zero to $9 million company in a year and a half, crush. I had 155 employees. I was on top of the world, man Like, and we were growing like, just, we're three years into this, I'm we're printing money.

Speaker 2: 1:44:30

I've never I'd walk into a gun store and be like that one now and now and now and now and now and now and box them up every week now and now and now and now and now and box them up every week. Are we getting paid? I walked from it all. I fucking hated it, hated it. I was miserable and it wasn't, I was. I got out of the military, started a company, did that, grew it, dude, I got to the point I had a partner, it just I was like this, isn't I don't see myself here forever like this? Not worth it to me and dude it's, it's, it's you have to. It's a fascinating dude. It's a fascinating world. It's, it's, it's you have to. It's a fascinating dude. It's a fascinating world it's.

Speaker 1: 1:45:01

It's that's when you realize it's. It's about the money, but it's not right. It's the sense of maybe like this self-fulfilling prophecy in your life to not only lead your family and your children and everything that you're doing in life toward gearing it towards something that fuels you. There's a lot of time in this world and in this life we think in terms of like purpose. Yeah, what emotionally keeps you fulfilled and happy in a world where you really have to create, manufacture your own happiness, your own sense of peace and granted, like your faith take you like way further than you know.

Speaker 1: 1:45:43

I can't buy myself as a man just standing on my own. Like that faith is a true pillar of what gives me true sustenance. Like I love that. Think about giving my life that I will never get back again to something that has any monotony or is mundane in any capacity that dilutes that vigor and passion and beauty that I see in life, to where something to me that is as silly as hunting or simple as hunting, where I just go to kind of have fun and enjoy myself, turns into something that people want to know more about. But then again talk shit on like I don't care about any of it, none of it. Like I really don't Whether I kill a giant buck or I don't, or whether I'm consistent or I'm not, like it's not about that for me. I'm just going out doing what I do. There's other things in life that in the global large picture and on the corporate level I mean you've heard this you look at it from a 30,000 foot, overlook You're. You're looking kind of down on the city, you're not in the weeds.

Speaker 1: 1:47:23

You're either working on your business or you're working in your business, and you can only work in your business so long before you better start working on it, Because if you want to get free from being an operator or a manager, you have to work on it, not in it. And for me, I look at the same thing the principles of running my family life, running a hunt, running a business, Like my whole philosophy is how do I get better at working on my life? And that vision has to do more than anything else with how I feel about my faith and my relationships with people. And where do I see myself? Like 46 years old. Right now I'm docking myself big time, Like that's a full docks. Yeah 46.

Speaker 1: 1:48:12

Okay, um, I don't feel it, and I sure as hell work out enough to like, try and give myself more longevity, but that's not guaranteed. So there is more urgency to create whatever it is that I would like to accomplish, to give back not only to the world, but to show my son what he should be. Um, and that's just my version of it. Whether it's right, wrong or indifferent, that's just my version of it. Whether it's right, wrong or indifferent, it's just who I choose to be do you feel?

Speaker 2: 1:48:42

do you feel it's a a maturity thing? Like hitting me? I know it is, but like you know, because if we had this conversation with some young 20 year old, he's gonna want to be building a business day, trading crypto. You know, entrepreneur, they're doing everything. Okay, I guess my question is when did you hit that, this, this phase I would say you and I are both in in life. I'm 40, 46. When did you hit your phase? When you were just okay corporate world's not me.

Speaker 2: 1:49:13

I want to live my life for me and my purpose. When did that hit you? When did that sink in?

Speaker 1: 1:49:25

I think because I lived such a different life growing up like I don't have lifelong friends because I never got to know, anybody going to school. So for me that whole kind of section was knocked out. That's so fascinating. So in terms of life, I was taught early on to not really be attached to anything Like even my possessions. Yeah, you're living on a boat.

Speaker 1: 1:49:45

When I was living on a boat. So to get a little bit deeper, I mean, we were shot at, chased by pirates Like I got stabbed here in like a foreign country with an ice pick. Like we got robbed and you just survived. Hurricanes at sea, like we were in a force 10 storm sustained, 90 knots, with 25 to 30 foot seas in the gulf of tawana, peck, uh, with rogue sets up to 40 feet, and the wind would be so loud that all you could see is white. And if I was standing, like we're about six feet apart, I could yell at you with all my might from this distance. You wouldn't hear anything but see my lips move.

Speaker 1: 1:50:29

And like the waves are, you know, so long swells that they crumble down themselves. For so long swells that they crumble down themselves. For it looked like they would continue to crumble for maybe a quarter of a mile to a half a mile as they would travel as the foam, the ball wouldn't just kind of crest down itself and the wind would be screaming through the rigging and you're just kind of like trying not to pitch, pull, trying not to broach, so you're just surfing down and before you get too far down into the trough, you kind of quarter up. You can't quarter up too hard or quick, because then you'll you'll broach right. You can't go straight down, because then you'll pitch pull. So it's like this constant alert, like five years.

Speaker 2: 1:51:14

Does that take off your life in a storm like that I mean?

Speaker 1: 1:51:18

life like life at an early age taught me that everything is gift and so don't take it all for granted, and so just kind of like, go for the things that you love.

Speaker 1: 1:51:31

Like dovetailing back to your question, I knew when I entered that that it had an expiration date, but I also knew that I needed to figure out how to monetize my life because we live in that type of world for sure, and if I wanted to take part in that type of world I didn't want to live in the jungle somewhere in some hut and disassociate myself with humanity that I needed to figure out how to assimilate into society, like when I was. So my dad on the boat that we sailed around the world and this is like craziness. He acquired the boat through an attorney and the attorney had this 58 foot catch it's a force 50 catch and he let it deteriorate. It was his baby, his dream, he loved it, uh, but his family didn't really want much to do with it. It was like his boat.

Speaker 1: 1:52:25

So, he bought it. They sailed uh to Tahiti and then back, and then the boat sat on a mooring for something like 15 years and just rotted. Okay, the whole thing was decrepit, like the wood was falling apart, fiberglass was delaminating, and he owed all this money to the bank. But the bank, uh the insurance company, wouldn't no longer insure the boat because it was in such bad condition. So the bank was going to call the note due. Okay.

Speaker 1: 1:52:52

So my dad had this wild dream, for he knew any of this. We were in Florida and he was like, wanting to move out to the West coast and he wanted to try and buy a boat and he wanted to sail around the world. He gets, he's, he's nomadic, crazy man. I can't explain his mental path because he's one of his own man, he's just. There's no way to explain him.

Speaker 1: 1:53:16

Um, so he found this guy in some I think it was like latitude 33 or something like this. It was a sailing magazine, a physical kind of penny saver, if you will Like. It's just something for nautical people to look at, look at. And in the in the ads classified section, in the back, there was like a looking live aboard wanted, uh, no, um, rent or money just in exchange for like some work, like help fix the boat. My dad's like, oh, this sounds cool. Like, so he called the guy up, we go jetting across the country, moved to Newport beach. And like he called the guy up, we go jetting across the country, move to newport beach. And like he moves us onto this 50 foot hudson force 50 catch in newport harbor living on a mooring. So we go from living in a house to living on a boat like that.

Speaker 1: 1:54:09

And the boat was like a total piece of crap, like what are we doing? You know, know, and um, I'm going to say I'm five at the time, something like that and he just starts fixing stuff up. And apparently he was, he was in default with the entity. I don't know who owns the moorings, right, but whoever owns the moorings, the boat had to get off the mooring and he had a certain amount of time and had to leave the mooring. He wasn't sure what he was going to do.

Speaker 1: 1:54:44

And at that time we were, I don't know about six months in with this guy living on the boat and he's like, hey, they're wanting me to get this boat off the mooring. The bank's calling this note due because the insurance company will no longer insure it. It's your dream to sail around the world, what? You fix this thing up and then satisfies the bank, so that way the insurance company will step back in and insure it and then I'll be in good standing and I'll go ahead and give owners title ownership over to you and you guys can go sail around the world.

Speaker 2: 1:55:18

And that's how this journey started.

Speaker 1: 1:55:19

That's how this started. No business, Like my dad's a nut right, Like me, I see red flags all over the place Like I'm like, how about we exit stage left now? You know I'd never do it, yeah, let's just do it. He's like, oh wow, this you know sounds, know, sounds like this is a great. It's a dream come true, right. And so he pours, at that time, his life savings into making this thing immaculate.

Speaker 1: 1:55:43

I think we work on it for like a year, yeah, and when I mean bristol, the thing was beautiful. Nine coats of varnish, like everything. Brass was cherry brass. New teak decks, like everything I mean it was a 50 footer, you said yeah, so that's a decent size boat, good size, full keel, okay, ocean world travel. Type of a sailboat.

Speaker 2: 1:56:05

Your dad had zero experience at this point Zero.

Speaker 1: 1:56:10

So we sail around the world right, and we end up in American Samoa. Okay, we end up in American. Samoa. Okay, and this guy come to find out had put out grand theft on this boat against my dad. He stole the boat.

Speaker 2: 1:56:32

And Interpol was out looking for us, but he didn't never sign the title over to your dad.

Speaker 1: 1:56:37

He did, but there were two people on his the same note, meaning that he also was a title owner and didn't. What do you call it? I'm spacing it right now. He never took himself off title. Yeah, so here's him and my dad writing title on this thing. And he never recorded title, he just gave him on letterhead like trust me, I'm the attorney on this letter, you're the owner of this vessel, so this is a way for him to get rid of it by claiming it right so the boat is in great condition.

Speaker 1: 1:57:28

Oh, these people stole it. Long story made short. My dad gets arrested in American Samoa. The boat gets seized. I get kicked off the boat. They leave me there. My dad gets extradited back to the United States.

Speaker 2: 1:57:49

How old are you at this point?

Speaker 1: 1:57:51

I was right there at the cusp of 14. Okay, this is where the journey ended. Okay, and I was stuck in American Samoa for like a year and a half, by yourself, by myself, at 14?, at 14. And well, 13, like mid 13. Okay, Into 14 with nobody nothing. What did you do? No, contact.

Speaker 1: 1:58:16

I walked around and asked people if I worked for them, if they would give me a place to stay and something to eat, and so I found these people from Canada that were living there, that just so happened to be living in an spot for whatever reason, I don't know, but it gave me a place to stay and I worked for uh just different families clearing elephant grass to um prepare uh cucumber garden. They grew cucumbers, so I would take a machete and I'd cut elephant grass all day, and that's how I like earned my keep for like a over a year and like I was just like forgotten. Nowadays that would be like oh my god, you know a kid was stranded, like back then it was like dude, I was like just left to the wolves, right do you still think you guys would be?

Speaker 2: 1:59:13

you would have kept sailing if that never happened, probably. So it took seven years for that guy, for your dad, to get. When I say caught like by this, so they never. So you guys lost the boat.

Speaker 1: 1:59:25

So we lost the boat then. Then he got out of prison.

Speaker 2: 1:59:31

Your dad yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:59:32

How long did he go to prison for? He was there for over a year. I was stranded.

Speaker 2: 1:59:36

So your mom did? He have a new wife?

Speaker 1: 1:59:40

like. Nobody came to like. So the wife and the sister, my stepmother and stepsister at that time, they just left they straight. I I have not spoken to them ever since that. They out of my life, gone now. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Now they tried. Now the sister tried to reach back out to me like 10 years ago and I'm like I want no part of that.

Speaker 2: 2:00:07

So you have a stepmom on a sailboat. You've been sailing for seven years with this woman on a boat, so you two were bonded because you're living in pretty tight quarters and your dad gets caught for grand theft on this boat that you spent the last seven years on and your stepmom and stepdaughter dip and leave you in Samoa, america.

Speaker 1: 2:00:28

Yeah, well, I can smell it.

Speaker 2: 2:00:29

Whatever?

Speaker 1: 2:00:30

dude, the story is deeper than this, like we don't even have time for it, like we can get on another time and I can tell you about the whole story of like all the stuff that happened.

Speaker 2: 2:00:38

We're going to have to, I have to. I have so many questions, bro, what Fuck.

Speaker 1: 2:00:43

Yeah, they. So the boat got seized in Tahiti. Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:00:48

And we went through seven months in the Tahitian courts. And in the Tahitian court my dad was proved as the owner of the vessel and was given back custody of the vessel, and the gendarme cleared us. My stepmother and stepsister left then saying that they're going to go ahead and start filing everything back in the States to get us going saying, hey, this is crap, like we need to be the owners. Well, turns out he bribed them. We have the instrument of the check. It's in the documents showing the bribe and they never testified for us or anything. They disappeared, they vanished.

Speaker 2: 2:01:35

How much of it, how big was?

Speaker 1: 2:01:35

the check that he wrote him. It was like pennies, bro. It was like 10 grand Nothing.

Speaker 2: 2:01:40

To turn on her husband.

Speaker 1: 2:01:41

Yeah, to just walk. It was like what, dude, it is the story of like the stuff that's happened in my life is crazy. Like when I came back into the States, my dad was totally gone. He was suicidal. He lost his family, lost his home, everything. Like he was not a father. Like I went into state care in the system, I was like in gangs like my life when I ended up going to jail, like my life is nuts right. Like I had a path for even me that I could have either turn into a total derelict loser yeah or oh. I need need to change my life and all along I knew that like I had something more to do in this life. But the crazy part is that, um, my dad ended up having this three year trial. He ended up winning a little over $3 million, paid the attorney, he was vindicated and his name was cleared but everything was gone, gone at that point.

Speaker 2: 2:02:45

What's the word?

Speaker 1: 2:02:48

The whole fund, everything that he you know. That life yeah, man that sucks, but that's how I ended up coming to live in Laguna. He ended up, you know, moving to that area and met an artist by the name of Ruth Mayer. They ended up getting married. They were married for almost 30 years.

Speaker 2: 2:03:07

Not quite. Is your dad still around?

Speaker 1: 2:03:09

He is, he lives in Thailand.

Speaker 2: 2:03:11

He lives in Thailand. Yeah, okay, I was going to say, if he's close, I want to sit down with this man.

Speaker 1: 2:03:21

He's a. I want to. I want to sit down with this man. He's a mad man. He his hair's down to here Like he has his dog and they just like hang out on the beach. And, mind you, he left last year. He's like I don't like it here anymore. This place sucks. I'm going to Thailand. Good for him Out.

Speaker 1: 2:03:31

He's still like that to this day. Good, but um, um, like vindication doesn't really, didn't really matter to him at that time. He was like I lost everything and so, yeah, my childhood was weird, damn it. I didn't have friends, I didn't have like like I had to essentially recreate every single part of me to like from, from an identity perspective, to who I want to be as a man and fishing, and being a captain, and being a world sailor, a traveler and a bow hunter To me. I really gravitate towards what those things represent from a very core fabric dynamic, because bow hunting is hard and I like hard things. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:04:21

But I also like the self-provision part. I like the self-arrest part. Right, you have to be in control of your destiny. You have to save yourself. You have to be smart, make good choices, be of sound mind, sound of body, competent, um, and I love to work hard, so the fishing part and the hunting part kind of really fit together, hence the outdoorsman. And I had a camera when I was like seven or eight years old. It was a little underwater kodak, 35 millimeter, total piece of shit, but like I loved that.

Speaker 2: 2:04:59

I bet you have some dope ass pictures from that though.

Speaker 1: 2:05:03

Like I have a few here and there. But, like during all the transition, I lost most of it, but I did, and that's what captivated my heart in photography and that's why I picked up the camera again and I started taking photos, with the dream of I'm going to sell these things for crazy money.

Speaker 2: 2:05:22

Why? How does it? How? What separates you to be able to sell a picture for 80 grand, 50 grand, a hundred grand? Is it location? Is it the style? Like what separates you? Cause I mean, everybody's a photographer now and fucking with chat, gpt, I can create anything. How are you staying alive and how are you making such a successful business out of it? Like what separates it from for you?

Speaker 1: 2:05:54

That's such an interesting question. I think that anybody going into business should be able to say what makes you different, and in all honesty, you are. What makes you different, I am. What makes me different. People are going to sit there and be like I'm no different than anybody else, right, like there's nothing that makes me special. We bleed the same, we struggle the same with you know, whether it's age or hair loss or weight or whatever, like there's nothing but. But what's in between my ears is significantly different, not better. Significantly different in what my mindset and my goals are and what I decided to be. In my opinion, people significantly and severely underestimate and undervalue themselves. That doesn't mean that I have this huge ego and that I think I'm worth more than anyone else. I simply believe that if I put something out into the world, that's what it's going to be, yeah, and if you don't, the world that's what it's going to be. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:06:59

And if you don't like it, that's okay, it's not for you, but I appeal to a certain audience and I will not deviate from that. That is my audience and the people that do believe in me see that. And because they believe that, they support me, because they know I don't deviate from that and that's what they want. There's one thing that wealthy people command. They don't want what everyone else has, and if you sell what, what everyone else has, you become very undesirable very quick, which, unfortunately for the people that don't believe in themselves, eliminate all of them. So there might be a lot of them, but they positioned themselves early on.

Speaker 2: 2:07:51

So how have you positioned yourself? I mean, is it, is it? I'm'm just, I'm fascinated by this. I'm trying to figure out the right how to ask this properly. Is you say you know, if you're not trying to stand out, you, or if you're selling everything? Rich people want stuff that, no, not the average person has right like no secret? Why are your photos categorized as that? Or is it because you're going into different locations, that you're 90 of these photographers aren't? Are you the only one on the mountain while the aurora borealis is happening and the these flowers are blooming? Are you the only one out there? That's what's separating you, like what makes your photo so special, besides you being behind the camera, is it just the the look, the feel? Are you going places that most people aren, or is it just? You've built a really good network?

Speaker 1: 2:08:41

first off, I think that any great meal has to have an incredible recipe for sure, and you've had to believe in that recipe in order to try and create that great meal. Now, if you're going to just add a bunch of shit ingredients and expect that you're going to get a great meal out of it, then you've really lost the opportunity and you don't understand what you're setting out to do to begin with. But if you're very focused, you understand from the outset what your value is. And and when I say that, like, there's a lot of people that are so hungry that they give everything for free, for free, they give it away. In essence, they're willing to sell themselves so short for sure that they'll give people what costs you your life, your time and your money to create and you get nothing in return, hoping that somebody will eventually see your value. That's a hobby, not a business. And the reality is it's a hobby, not a business. But nobody's going to see you. They're just going to use you. So until you decide to create value and build that worth in yourself, it's never going to happen.

Speaker 1: 2:10:26

So for me, it's yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:10:30

I started by taking out every single personal loan and credit card I could and put my house on the line and spent half a million dollars building out a gallery and then securing a lease when nobody would lease me a freaking one bedroom apartment, let alone high rent building in a high rent district in a downtown tourist town.

Speaker 1: 2:10:56

But it's because of me, right? It's because I believe, it's because when I go in there there's a certainty of confidence and a level of faith that is is I'm unwilling to, to course, change. There's no other way. And when you believe that much in yourself and again I'm going to reiterate, I don't think I'm special, I just know that that's what I want and I believe that God gives us our most sincere, deepest heart's desires. So if we go into something with true intention not like, oh, I want to be with that person or I wanted to know like if it is soul centered and your true heart is trying to go in with good intention, to create something of value for people and you, you really want to go out and do something that changes the game, does great things for people, fulfills a niche, allows you to live a good life, like you, chase that with everything you have, for sure you don't give up. So a lot of people will get into photography, for example.

Speaker 1: 2:12:06

They'll be incredibly talented, but then they'll go into editorial, or they'll start shooting weddings, or they'll start okay uh, selling their stuff to like, selling their stuff to like magazines for content or get their name out there or whatever. But see, what people don't understand is that really diminishes their worth? For sure, because people will never see them as an entity that believed in something so much that they were willing to suffer to a significant degree to start that right from the gate. So you'll see a bunch of people's websites where they're willing to sell a 24 by 36 or a 40 by 60 print for 500 bucks on metal. Well, if you look, dye sublimation on metal is non-archival, it's going to fade. So you're basically chasing good money after a bad product.

Speaker 1: 2:13:05

Even if the artwork is really beautiful, it's going to fade, it's non-archival, it's trash. So you'll be able to recycle it in a decade for the amount the aluminum's worth that you printed it on. But the artwork really is by somebody who, as an artist, is just simply trying to get their foot in the door and sell a product, not really caring about the end result of the collector who really believes in your work and paid good money for it. So you have to have value proposition, you have to have scarcity, you have to have a really strong ideology of who you are and what your story is, because the story sells everything. If you have no story, then you don't have anything. Okay.

Speaker 1: 2:13:47

And really conscientiously go in to do your research on what your niche is, along with being willing to risk it all to secure a place where you can go all in.

Speaker 2: 2:13:57

Do you feel opening a gallery really set the tempo for your clients in your business, for where you're at? Like that Did it give you. Do you feel that it gave you that authenticity, like when, when somebody that is looking for art walks into a gallery, that they take that more serious, they're willing to pay more money rather than finding someone online or searching it for themselves? Like, does that, do you feel that gave you an upper hand, or was that just another rollercoaster hurdle that was part of this journey?

Speaker 1: 2:14:28

It's the same. I think as a sitting right here in this wild chaos.

Speaker 2: 2:14:33

Okay, yes, okay, this is that's why I asked this is requisite you must in order to play the game you must.

Speaker 1: 2:14:42

So the really cool part about it is that that's kind of like the business that set the tone Right and then from that now I'm able to like pivot and other things. Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:14:54

And seed, fund other things and do things that you know like that. I other things that I want to do that maybe can like set me free, because the gallery doesn't set me free. It gives me a good life, right For sure. There's other things that I want to do that will totally change the game and set me free, and you know I'm kind of like working on those right. But you have to have. You have to. You have to create a platform for yourself and you have to be willing to risk a lot to pay for that platform.

Speaker 1: 2:15:24

The other side of it is that it doesn't matter what we do in life. If you're an attorney, you have to be really good at selling the fact that you're good at the surfaces services that you offer. You're a plastic surgeon you have to show that your work is way better and your track record of not having infections or botched work is significantly superior to somebody else's. If you are a heart surgeon, you want to sit there and say, hey, I've never had one of these go wrong and guess what? I'm going to make sure that you get through this and that we're going to do an amazing job for you. So it doesn't matter what profession you get into, like you have to be so confident and so good at sales that it like literally permeates through everything that you are and, and and. Don't get it mistaken to think for a second that sales means selling, because true sales, authentically, from its most authentic form, is authentically solving a problem for somebody. You're not selling them anything. You're like oh yeah, I got that, let's take care of that for you. That's a pretty good story, don't worry, you fix it. Yeah, you just fix problems. Nope, entrepreneurs are high level problem solvers and that's it. That's all we do is we know how to put out fires. We know there's problems everywhere. Like you know that problems are going to come at you left and right. I really don't care about the problem, yeah, I just I'm like okay, cool, let's just take care of it. I know things are going to go wrong. Okay cool, just take care of it.

Speaker 1: 2:16:57

To me, I'm constantly in a zone of fixing things and putting out fires, taking care of problems, and that's what we do. We just fix things and take care of stuff and problem solve. There's nothing more that the world needs than somebody who can solve problems, and the more problems you can solve and the better of a job. You can do it with efficiency and making people happy, dude, then you become irreplaceable. So it's not all about the artwork I could almost have anything I want on those walls. It's you, it's me, it's who we are and what we want in life and what we offer to others, not only in that story, but how we go about solving those problems. That makes the difference. Everything else is just lip service. It truly is. There's no ego, it's just we want to do things different and we do. But if you go into it, right, selling yourself as a 50 cent player not the rapper, but like as a, a nickel and dime, you know yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:18:09

Step over dollars to pick up pennies mentality. You're always going to be that Like if you started to sell posters right For 20 bucks of a nice piece of art and you did that for five or six years and then you decided to release fine art for several thousand It'd be tough, I feel like people are just going to laugh at you.

Speaker 1: 2:18:34

They're going to be like well, I can get this off If I can Google you and see all your crap on Google for like, super cheap, like, and now you want something that's kind of similar, but now it's limited edition and you want more? Yep, no. So if you Google me, you'll, you won't see anything like that. It was just that, or nothing. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:18:54

And because it's that or nothing like that, scarcity really kind of helps you. So you have to really be willing to hold a line, got it, and I think that a lot of people just don't value their work enough to put out a quality product that you believe in and that you're solving a problem for a certain niche, certain clientele, that you know it makes sense and it works. That's exactly what you do and and what every entrepreneur that has any successful business. That's what they continue to do at a high level. I think it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 2:19:36

That's fascinating, like I, to be able to hear you know what you've done, what you've been able to build and we're just getting started right.

Speaker 1: 2:19:49

Sure, this is dude again. It's not about money, it's about the journey, and we're just getting started, see I feel.

Speaker 2: 2:19:56

For me it's about the journey, and we're just getting started, see, I feel for me it's about the freedom. The freedom, yeah, that's my biggest chase is the freedom to be able to. You guys want to go to Yellowstone tomorrow? Fuck it, pack your shit, let's just go.

Speaker 2: 2:20:10

Yeah dude, that that, to me, is worth.

Speaker 2: 2:20:14

I mean, obviously you have to have money to do it and we're not rich by any means, but we have the ability to be able to do it and to me, that's that's what leaving a built company in a couple.

Speaker 2: 2:20:29

You know everything that we've walked away from and it started in new we talked about earlier. But that to me is like when I when I hope people that are listening if you're sitting in that cubicle and you're fucking miserable or you're in the military or you're a law enforcement and you hate putting on that uniform every day, start thinking about changing your stars and realigning your life, because it's up to you to be able to do it, and that why I love that we sat down, because I've known stuff about you, I've put pieces together of who you are and all this over the years, and now I'm super fascinated and I have to have you back on to be able to tell I want to hear all about living on a sailboat and getting stabbed and pirates and everything else um a sailboat getting stabbed, pirates and everything else, but I, I uh we could talk about eating monkeys and sea turtles and ah, bro, yes, yes, I gotta mogli life, I gotta get you back out here.

Speaker 2: 2:21:28

but it's. It's incredible to be able to hear it from somebody as well, because you know, for years and I kind of said earlier, you always hear the guys talk about it. You see these dudes and everybody's got to flex and all the toys and the houses and all that stuff. But it's awesome to be able to. I feel it's more real, or I don't even want to say real, I feel I relate to it more when I hear somebody that's talking that's made it. I'm using quotes on that right, because making it is everybody's different Right.

Speaker 1: 2:22:00

I'm not.

Speaker 2: 2:22:01

Yeah, I get it. That's why I'm making it right to somebody that's watching or listening, but the knowing that, like you yourself, what you've done, the sacrifices you've made, okay, I'm going to walk from a million dollar a year mortgage company or whatever you know at that point, because it's that wasn't you. And I feel so many people in today's world just get caught up in the mundane rat race. Go to work at eight in the morning, you're home at eight, nine o'clock at night, you're not seeing your kids, you're. You got Saturday to do something. Sunday, you're getting ready to head back to work again on Monday, and that's your life.

Speaker 2: 2:22:39

And so many people live miserable like that and I feel that they live in fear because they're never able to take that next step for freedom. Not, hey, we just get to do whatever we want. But like, start building your own business, start chasing your own dreams and just start putting a little bit into it and seeing what it takes, and then then you're diving in. I mean, I feel if you put a little bit in for too long, it just that's all it'll ever be. Start playing with the ideas, start start getting logos, bills, start getting domains bought and socials picked up and start putting it together. But when you make that leap it's gotta be the jump. And that's where you hear these people and I've always listened like burn the bridge or burn the boats, like okay, whatever. Dude, when you get to that mindset, where you're like, hey honey, I'm walking from everything.

Speaker 2: 2:23:27

We got insurance, medical kids are covered. I got a fat salary. I fucking hate my life. Yeah, that's where that's burning the ships. When you're like cool, we're gonna, I'm turning, I'm gonna flip the switch, we're jumping into this and it's cool to be able to hear and watch you over these years. Do that? Drop an app.

Speaker 2: 2:23:47

You got your photos that are that are crushing life. I mean you're, you're traveling right now and you're in the mountains taking some of those beautiful photos of flower. I told the wife I'm like fuck, showed her last time like we, like like this guy don't even live here. Where the fuck is this picture at? You know, and so you know, it's just things like that. And it's really cool to be able to get your perspective on things, because I feel a lot of guys come in and they're oh, I make millions, I crush life and blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's like what does it take to get there? How did you get there? What was the mindset? To even think about starting is because I I feel most people live such a horrible, miserable life because they're scared at a fear of just making that leap and that's all it takes, man, and you might fail at it. I've, dude, I've failed at companies and I I feel nobody ever wants to talk about it.

Speaker 2: 2:24:38

My wife and I, I we're going to do a podcast because, like I said earlier, we're involved in a company right now and it's on the decline. It sucks because it has so much potential but we're not the ones steering it. You know, and we're just we're. We're helping a lot, but it just came to a point where, like cool, like this is, we're facing reality right now, but she's like what, what do you think? Like what's going on? And I'm like you know what? I don't give a fuck. This is reality, this is real world. I don't want people to look at my page and be like damn, this dude's nothing but successful, got everything. Fuck, no, bro, like I'm going to put it to work, I'm not going to trash anything, but I'm going to talk to reality of like this is a company that failed and it sucks.

Speaker 2: 2:25:16

Like it had potential, like I said earlier, wild chaos, technically kind of failed as a company to beginning. It was an apparel brand at first. We rebranded and launched everything years later as a podcast, but it's like dude, it happens, but don't let that one stumble which I let happen to me when I I failed a company years back, really took the weight out of my sales, and I don't even know why. I look back and I'm like I was so worried about other people, worried about the image, the ego. Oh, I can't let people know that it failed. Now I look at it and I'm like dude who gives a fuck, like I don't care what anybody says, because I'm trying, I'm doing it. Fail, success or fail, I'm doing it and you're not. The majority of the people are going to sit there and look at who this dude failed to get.

Speaker 1: 2:26:03

Yeah, I might fail 10 times, so be it. I think, by and large, people are just waiting to celebrate your failure. 100%, yeah, so I 100%. I think that, first off, you need to be willing to accept less.

Speaker 1: 2:26:19

Yep less to chase after something that you love, like, for example. Um, like I've, I've no doubt had million dollar years in mortgage, but I was so miserable at the end that I think the last year in mortgage, I probably made less than 200, 200,000. Oh really, year in mortgage I probably made less than 200, 200,000. Oh really, yeah, I was like I just had nothing in me.

Speaker 1: 2:26:47

Yeah, as a matter of fact that final year where I just severed it and burnt the ship, so to speak. I want to say that I worked less than four months. Want to say that I worked less than four months. That's funny. Now, yeah, I'm like, I'm done, I'm miserable. I hate this. Now I learned so much like that decade of my life. I learned so much that allows me to do what I'm doing now. So, like there, there was a very important growth period stepping stones, everything yeah, uh, without question, I needed that.

Speaker 1: 2:27:25

Yeah, but then it.

Speaker 2: 2:27:26

It reached its life expectancy and shelf life was gone a lot of people don't realize when they're there they've learned, they've grown, they've taken in a ton of knowledge. But then they, they get in that groove and it's like, okay, cool, I've used all of this knowledge. I've networked, I've gone to courses and classes, I've educated myself.

Speaker 1: 2:27:49

Take that and go like, go, here's the humble part about it, the humble part about it, is that, like I'm never out of the woods, hell no, just because, like I've done some great things in business, doesn't mean I'm out of the woods I mean, so many dudes have lost yeah, lost everything.

Speaker 2: 2:28:06

They've done it all again but that's just it.

Speaker 1: 2:28:08

It's like it's like who cares? Like we're just living right now. We're just living and good enough to know that we can do it, but not so great that the ego gets out of control, that we think we're just so amazing. That's why, for me, when people look up to me for something like deer hunting, I'm like I'm not diminishing it, but it's like deer hunting. It's kind of like yeah, whatever, it's a deer, it's a deer, it's's just a deer. It was just like the last one and just like and I haven't killed any big ones. So to me I haven't right and I see the stakes as much greater. Like. I like the conversation that we're having because it's much more global yeah it's not in the realm of so how far is?

Speaker 2: 2:28:59

your average shot like I don't give a fuck about that. I want to know who you are, you know. I want to know what it's done, what like what, what experiences have you had and what what's life been like? You know because everybody looks at everyone and wants to build this picture. I think you said it in the beginning of the episode. Like you know, people build who they, their image think you said it in the beginning of the episode. Like you know, people build who they, their image of you, which is wild. About social I've, I've, I've dug into this cause I've had people come and I've met people that are like man, you're nothing like you see him on social. I'm like, I'm exactly who I am on social. You just built a different image of me and who you thought I was by, because that's all you've known.

Speaker 2: 2:29:36

Weird, but it's it's, it's interesting, but yeah, man, it's. I'm glad we've had this dude. I really appreciate this conversation and it's kind of opened up so many questions that I probably could talk to you for another fucking four hours. But uh, dude, I want to thank you for coming down, taking the time and just sharing who you are and what you've been, and I guess we can. I'm going to empty end it like this is if you had one message for young kids young kids graduation season right now. Kids are going off to college or starting careers and jobs and stuff from high school. What's a message that you would leave for them? Travel the world. You lived on a sailboat for half your childhood, or the majority of it've been in corporate america. You're an entrepreneur. You've traveled, hunt fish. What's a message for them that you would leave to the younger generation, or these young kids that are just ready to start life?

Speaker 1: 2:30:29

so, first off, as men, uh, I respect you tremendously. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. It's an honor and a privilege to be able to have an opportunity to tell your story. Whether people like it or not, it's a whole different story, and how they see you is something you can't change and you can't help them. But whether you come from a loving household as a youth, or whether you come from a damaged one, at some point in time there was somebody in your life that said dream big, you can do whatever you want, like shoot for the stars. Anything is possible. When you're little, it's like you're capable of anything.

Speaker 1: 2:31:11

And a lot of people, I think when their kids get told told like you can do whatever you want and as you get older, that narrative changes, that narrative becomes well, you got to start getting serious about life. What are you going to do until you're reduced to taking a job and you're no longer told to dream, you're no longer told that you can do whatever you want or you can become whatever you want? My message would be that you need to understand that that narrative is something that is the confines of the box that you allow your mind to live in. And if you believe that you have in your heart the desire to go after the dreams and be unbounded by your belief system, to live in that ethos constantly and never let anybody tell you otherwise, that's freedom. The more people that get into your brain that tell you that you have to live in that box, that is the corruption that pollutes this world and the society. Get out of the box and be willing to be different, be willing to change your world and other people's worlds, and never lose the fact that, if you have faith in yourself and believe in that dream that it's possible, that you can make it possible.

Speaker 1: 2:32:47

That's not lip service. That's me going through a lot of shit in life and seeing that that's the only way that I'm going to change my life and living it by doing something about it. So go out into the world and do things that are going to be beneficial of your fellow human, your fellow brother and sister. Don't be a shit bag. Don't be an asshole. Don't pollute this world with more crap. It's already polluted enough like. Provide a service and a benefit. Solve a problem for people, fix something that's broken, help somebody that needs it. Work hard, don't give up on your dreams and never fucking quit. Yeah, that's it not an option.

Speaker 2: 2:33:34

It's not man not an option, and when you can accept that dude, good luck, because you're gonna have an incredible life one way or another, you will yeah, because might not be the first year, two, five years, but you have the never quit option.

Speaker 2: 2:33:48

I feel like it's so played out, but like honestly it's, it's, it's reality if you just stick to it and give yourself, hey, a goal. I'm not stopping this shit for four years straight. We're going to put everything we have into it for four or five years and then watching that four or five years, what you've accomplished, you know don't even give it a timeline. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:34:09

Like make it a commitment to yourself. Look in the mirror every single day Sounds lame. Like there's no way that you can believe something is going to be real in your life unless you tell yourself it's going to be real. The self-talk that goes on in both of our minds behind closed doors when nobody's looking, is fucking crazy. I thought I was the only one. Okay, good, yeah, like before.

Speaker 1: 2:34:44

So before I sold something that I did that provided benefit to somebody for a crazy amount, far north of just six figures, let's say for one I had to believe it was going to happen and I had to position it to happen. I couldn't just hope, because like hope, dude, like hope you might as well put your head between your legs and kiss your ass. Goodbye, hope is trash. You're going gonna sit there and fucking hope yourself into a grave. Yep, nobody's coming to save you.

Speaker 1: 2:35:23

So you have to believe it. You have to say I love you. I told I said this in the beginning. Like, look in the mirror, I love you, not in a conceited way, just thank you for getting me this far body. Like we can do this. You're worth it, you know, and it's not. Nothing has nothing to do with like thinking I'm special or great. It's just, you have to believe if you're going to achieve what you want. Otherwise it's just a fucking joke. It's never going to happen if you sit there and you're willing to do somebody's mundane job, like, for example, somebody sat here and assembled that yeah right.

Speaker 1: 2:36:01

They believe that they're worth whatever they got paid to run this down an assembly line and that's what they do. And if you believe that, that's it that one day you're not curious and saying, oh, somebody had to like put that through a CAD system and like that's a component of material and I've seen a lot of these come back to the company failed and this particular piece breaks and I wonder what they make that out of and then maybe one day you take that home and you're like you're not curious about how the world works, so, oh, I can do that better. Well, this should just be replaced with this, and I understand who the target market is really. Well, and like all it takes, you don't just start to like create your own 10 to two, based off of just simply being curious. That's all it is Like.

Speaker 1: 2:36:49

Don't reinvent the wheel, just fricking. Make a better mousetrap. Yeah, demand more yourself. You know, it's definitely, definitely not because I think I'm special, it's just I'm willing to fucking work harder and fail, and know that and know that, like the failure is just part of it. Yep, and then you know you have some huge wins. And then people are like, oh, you're so lucky.

Speaker 2: 2:37:16

It's like that to me you know it's like my biggest pet peeve must be nice. Yeah, it is because you have no idea what it took to get here that's what I get all the time when I'm out hunting or whatever I get it.

Speaker 1: 2:37:28

You take pictures, fucking, that's your job, like yeah. But you know I don't eat dinner with people very often. I don't eat breakfast with people very often. I'm always out in the fucking field. You know, I I spend my life dedicated to my craft and you know I go out and hunt for a month straight and that's okay. But that's what I decided for myself and that's what I created. That's a bed that I made. That's a bed that I sleep in, so it makes you happy. It makes me happy.

Speaker 2: 2:37:52

Chase it, chase it thank you, man, thank you for this, this chat, and uh I fucking love it.

Speaker 1: 2:38:01

I mean right now, in the last 72 hours I'm running on four hours of sleep here you are and I'm trying to keep it together I love it.

Speaker 2: 2:38:13

I love it. That's the nature of the beast. So, man, when you're, when you're, when you do your own thing, that's, that's, just's just it. And it's crazy because you can't bitch about it Like who the fuck's going to care. So you just, you got to get the job done and it just put a smile on your face and enjoy it.

Speaker 2: 2:38:28

Knock out a podcast in the middle of it all and you're going to head back to the mountains now and finish the job and fly out tomorrow. But I, I seriously thank you, for I thought you were gonna have more time when I asked that you're going to be running on an hour of sleep, but, um, no, I'm super grateful to have this conversation and I want to have you back on and I want to talk sailing around the world and those crazy adventures of, of, you know, during and then after of that childhood experience of yours. So, marlon, again thank you, I appreciate your time and congratulations on all the success and your future success. Man, I'm I'm rooting for you and uh, I'm I'm excited to, to see this next chapter that you're starting with, these new bit, this new business, and, uh, I'm excited, man, and hopefully we'll see it as a sponsor on here. One day It'd be a logo back there somewhere. But yeah, man, thank you, I appreciate the time likewise, brother.

Speaker 2: 2:39:20

Thank you seriously yeah, you got some fucking mitts on you, jesus, hold your hand. No, no ditty right now, but how big is your hand? Put your hand, god bless. You got what the fuck? You should have been been like an NFL player or something. Those are fucking mitts. You got banana hands, dude, jesus, holy fuck, oh God.

Speaker 1: 2:39:44

I'm going to get you to trace that.

Speaker 2: 2:39:46

That's going to be your signature, to trace that on the wall. You're going to be like what is that? I don't know.