Behind the Ads: Sergio Chavez on Building Real ROI in the Vegas Digital Jungle

If running Google Ads feels like surgery, that’s because it kind of is.

“You're putting in dollars for somebody, and they're expecting to get money out. That is a big responsibility. It's almost like being a doctor.”

In this episode of Pursue Vegas, we pull back the curtain with Sergio Chavez—the guy behind ilovegoogleads.com, founder of the Vegas Voices Podcast, and a digital marketing strategist who’s been in the game since 2008 (back when no one knew what a conversion rate was).

Sergio’s not just talking pixels and pay-per-clicks. He’s talking about how to actually show up—in business, in service, and in a city where connections matter more than clout.

“Just be willing to show up and serve… This town has been very welcoming to me.”

We talk about how real success isn’t built on viral moments—it’s built in the hours no one sees. Behind every 15-second reel is 15 hours of work. Behind every campaign is the responsibility of delivering actual results. That’s the part most people skip, but not Sergio.

And Vegas? It’s his playground. “It's your simulation. It's your GTA 5.”

From real estate hustle to reputation-building online, Sergio shares what it takes to thrive in this city—without selling your soul to the algorithm. He’s one of those people actually doing the work… not just talking about it. And through his podcast, he’s amplifying the voices that are shaping Vegas behind the scenes—not just the influencers in front of the camera.

We go deep on performance marketing, personal growth, and how digital advertising isn’t just about clicks—it’s about clarity, commitment, and service.

"If you give light to others, the light's going to shine on you."

Key Takeaways:

• Running ads is high-stakes—Sergio treats it like surgery.
• Las Vegas is an entrepreneurial simulation. The opportunities? Endless.
• People see the 15-second reel, not the 15 hours of work behind it.
• Real growth happens when you integrate personal development with professional performance.
• The Vegas Voices Podcast is amplifying the stories shaping our city.

Resources:

• Sergio Chavez on Instagram
• Vegas Voices Podcast
• I Love Google Ads

Whether you're a business owner trying to scale or a creative looking for traction—this episode reminds you that clarity, commitment, and service still win in the long game.

Thanks for tuning in to The Pursue Vegas Podcast!

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Sergio Chavez): I'm Sergio Chavez with ilovegoogleads.com and you're listening to the Pursue Vegas podcast.

0:00:09 - (Dave Burlin): The idea of Pursue Vegas was to really highlight the local people that really make Vegas Vegas.

0:00:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love that aspect of how these visionaries are actually bringing people together.

0:00:20 - (Dave Burlin): When we hit record, our responsibility is to connect the people of our city so we can show the world who we really are. Perfect. One more time, the exact same way, only this time you'll just say, and this is Pursue Vegas. Okay, we're going to use that for a different clip.

0:00:36 - (Sergio Chavez): I'm Sergio Chavez with ilovegoogleads.com and this is a Pursue Vegas podcast.

0:00:43 - (Dave Burlin): This time, no podcast. And this is Pursue Vegas.

0:00:47 - (Sergio Chavez): Okay. I'm Sergio Chavez with ilovegoogleads.com and this is Pursue Vegas. Perfect. Okay, cool.

0:00:55 - (Dave Burlin): We ready?

0:00:56 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah.

0:00:57 - (Dave Burlin): I don't know if you want your glasses on just there because there is a bit of a glare.

0:01:01 - (Sergio Chavez): Gotcha.

0:01:02 - (Dave Burlin): Okay, good. Do you want him to redo? That's perfect. Yeah, let's redo it.

0:01:07 - (Sergio Chavez): That's usually.

0:01:08 - (Dave Burlin): We'll redo both of those real quick.

0:01:13 - (Sergio Chavez): So which one was it first?

0:01:14 - (Dave Burlin): Oh, yeah. This is Sergio Chavez, and you're listening to the Pursue Vegas podcast, but with your title.

0:01:20 - (Sergio Chavez): This is urgio chavez from mylovegoogle ads.com and you're listening to the Pursue Vegas podcast.

0:01:26 - (Dave Burlin): Love it. Okay, and then one more with just Pursue Vegas.

0:01:30 - (Sergio Chavez): I'm Sergio Chavez with I love Google Ads.com and this is Pursue Vegas.

0:01:37 - (Dave Burlin): Good. Boom, everybody. Rolling. Here we go. Action. All right, welcome back to the Pursue Vegas Podcast. I'm your host, Dave Berlin.

0:01:46 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I'm your co host, Honey Nguyen.

0:01:47 - (Sergio Chavez): And.

0:01:48 - (Dave Burlin): And I am definitely excited you just met Sergio, but I've known Sergio for quite some time, so grateful to have him on the show today. Sergio, what's up, buddy?

0:01:57 - (Sergio Chavez): Oh, man, I don't know. I'm surprised. I'm grateful to be here. This an amazing setup that you guys have here, and I'm very honored.

0:02:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Welcome to our crib.

0:02:06 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, welcome to our cribs.

0:02:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): We'll take the. The full credit for it.

0:02:09 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, right. We will take the full credit. We just white label the whole studio.

0:02:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): Walks in right now.

0:02:15 - (Dave Burlin): Be like, oh, like we're already signing the lease. No. Thanks for coming on. We've known each other for a while, and I'm so grateful that you're here, but I started seeing you pop up in a different way that I had not seen before. If you've clicked on a Google Ad, there's an 85% chance that you're behind it. I'm just. I'm making that up.

0:02:36 - (Sergio Chavez): We run over 40 companies, so. Dang.

0:02:39 - (Dave Burlin): Can you name any of those companies, or is it a secret?

0:02:41 - (Sergio Chavez): Well, no, no. I can tell you, like, a few of the brands that we run. Bionic, Smile. We run ads also for In Harmony Interactive. They're both big Vegas companies.

0:02:54 - (Dave Burlin): Nice.

0:02:55 - (Sergio Chavez): And we run a lot.

0:02:56 - (Dave Burlin): Shout out to the. Craig. Craig. Craig Goldberg. He was on the show. Welcome. Yeah, we're crossing over now.

0:03:03 - (Sergio Chavez): Nice. Nice. So, yeah, we make sure that that narrative gets across to you. So once you hit our ecosystem with. With I am In Harmony, they are. They have a lot of content, so we get you to see all their content, and that's. It's them. The sales are amazing right now for a $5,000 product. It's. Yeah, it's. You're getting one. You're getting $10 back for every dollar in advertising. So that's pretty cool.

0:03:28 - (Dave Burlin): Wow. Now, how long have you been doing that? Because I feel like it's been for a while.

0:03:32 - (Sergio Chavez): Oh, my God. Ads. So the story back. I've been in digital marketing since 2008. In the recession back then, I lost everything. And then a friend of mine just told me, there's this thing called WordPress and web design. So I started learning web design. I actually went to UNLV for a small little degree. I would tell, like, dave, I'll build your website if you pay for my class. So I took myself through school, just like that.

0:04:05 - (Sergio Chavez): And I was building websites and one after the other, you know, and learned about YouTube channels before they were a thing. And then I also then started doing SEO because of people that. That had. The websites are like, I want to show up. And whenever somebody looks for insurance, right? So one of my big claim to fame was that I brought up auto insurance. That is a very competitive company. Auto insurance Las Vegas.

0:04:34 - (Sergio Chavez): A website at the. It was Stray Insurance. They don't exist anymore. But it was an amazing feat, right? They were making over a million dollars a year from that website, and I didn't even know I was getting paid like peanuts for it. And then. And I learned the power of the Internet, right? Because I overheard a conversation about how much sales I was generating. I'm like, it's leverage. Just as you were saying earlier, like, you like leverage. So I like leverage. I like moving little things that create big effects.

0:05:01 - (Sergio Chavez): And that's what I. Ads do. So in 2016, I just set my line down, and I decided to start just a Part of ads. Because I saw that's where everybody was getting rich and people had the smallest leverage for the highest results. And then. Yeah, so I think I met you back in 2020, back in the pandemic.

0:05:25 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, I just moved into WeWork.

0:05:28 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes.

0:05:28 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. And, yeah, we'd started running into each other. Crazy. Crossing over all the same circles and. Yeah, correct.

0:05:34 - (Sergio Chavez): And then when I decided that, everything took off for me, and that's all we do. We are now a team of eight people. Nobody's here. Everybody's remote, and we have a lot of fun doing it. It's very stressful because it's the highest responsibility. Right. You're putting in dollars for somebody, and they're expecting to get money out. Right. So that is a big responsibility. It's almost like being a doctor. I get a call at midnight and I have to take on it because it's people's money on the line.

0:06:04 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, I love that now. So what. How long have you been in Vegas? And then what. What brought you here?

0:06:12 - (Sergio Chavez): 22 years.

0:06:13 - (Dave Burlin): Wow. Nice.

0:06:14 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, it's been a while.

0:06:16 - (Dave Burlin): So you were born and raised here?

0:06:19 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah. I mean, I can say I love the city. There was always a calling for me. There was always a calling for me. I came. I've been coming here since I was 16 to take, like, courses on trading and stuff like that. I lived in Mexico, and I just one day, like, everything was in shambles ever since I was 16, 17. Right now I'm 48. So what's that, 30 years ago? Is that 30 years, 20 years ago. Whatever. So I came, I lost a whole bunch of money from my family that we were. I was investing in the stock market back then when it was the new thing, the online thing. And I thought I was such a genius. Like, 19 years old and turned, like, double.

0:07:08 - (Sergio Chavez): Like, doubled 150,000. Like, I took it up to, like, 500,000 and then lost it. All right. And then my mom died around 2000, and, you know, it was just my dad and my brother and me, and we're all depressed in the house. And I was always having the entrepreneurial spirit, and I started reading books on real estate and passive income and all that stuff. And I said, well, this is not happening in Mexico because I go to a bank and, like, I want a mortgage for a house. And, like, they're like. We buy things, cash back there.

0:07:41 - (Sergio Chavez): Back then, there were no mortgages. Now there are in Mexico, but there was like. So I said, I gotta move to the States. And I just took off, drove in Northern Mexico. We get visas very easily because we come and buy a lot of stuff in the border. So I just crossed and I just came to Vegas. I found a couple of mentors that were doing real estate to learn from them. And that's how I ended up here. Right. I just drove in and the first thing I came out and it was just a P.O. box.

0:08:15 - (Sergio Chavez): Like their address was P.O. box. And I'm like, I call them, Hey, I just dropped by because, you know, you said you were taking students and I had $1,000 cash ready to like be their student. They're like, no, that's P.O. box. I still remember coming up in, what was it? Sahara and Rainbow, somewhere around that area. And then, like, I just arrived. I just drove in with my.

0:08:38 - (Dave Burlin): One of Lisa Sung Sutton's mailbox stores. I'm just kidding.

0:08:42 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah. So then I just.

0:08:44 - (Dave Burlin): I know.

0:08:46 - (Sergio Chavez): So I come up to their door and there it is. And that's how my Vegas adventure started.

0:08:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): Damn. That's a wild ass story, right? What?

0:08:55 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:08:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): He's like, I'm gonna take a thousand dollars, drive from Mexico, go to B.L. wall. He's like, why aren't you a reality show?

0:09:01 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, now he's working on it.

0:09:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Most people don't really see that behind the scenes stuff on how people get started in such a humbling journey. So thank you for joining us in this scene. And it's funny because if you hear you run Google Ads, but then your real journey began because you had a curiosity in real estate. Like you can't put two and two together because of where you're at now and how you actually first got started and what drawn you to the city. It's two completely different things.

0:09:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): So tell us a little bit about how real estate and coming to Vegas has transpired over 22 years of you being here, and now you're running Google Ads for. For many of the businesses in this town.

0:09:37 - (Sergio Chavez): Okay, so. So I got here and then, you know that I ran a room out and I. What I was doing at the time, I remember I was there was this. You could do online casinos and they would give you bonuses and I would create like all these identities and they would give you 100 for 100. Right. And then I would like, you had to gamble it like four times. So I figured out a way to lose very little and get the bonuses. So that's how I was making a living.

0:10:12 - (Sergio Chavez): And my mentors were telling me send out letters to like. I didn't even know what a mortgage was. I didn't Even know all the intricacies that a real estate thing takes. And they were just telling me send out letters to distressed people, right? And. And I did like, like religiously every day. Every day, Every day. And I would like try to get deals and I had to sit down with these people and, and convince them to basically lend them your lend you.

0:10:45 - (Sergio Chavez): You take over the loan and then you pay for whatever they did.

0:10:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): The sub 2 before sub 2 became a thing.

0:10:52 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:10:53 - (Tawni Nguyen): Before Pace Morbi took it over.

0:10:55 - (Sergio Chavez): It was pre foreclosure at the time. That's what they call it. So anyways, we. I couldn't figure it out for. For crap. And they, and they could like come in and close a deal for me and stuff like that. I'm like, there's something different about you guys. So I went. So they gave me some self development materials in a certain school that I won't mention. But I went on a whole self development rant because I knew I wasn't there as a person.

0:11:22 - (Sergio Chavez): So I took off like five years to study certain self development modalities. And yeah, I mean, no money, no nothing. I think life takes you wherever you need, where you need to go. Like, I came here to become a millionaire, but I realized that I had to first learn all these other things. So I went on that and that's like five to six years of that. Then I came back and I was ready and I could do these deals. And that's when the freaking 2008 like rock came by, right? So I lost it all.

0:11:59 - (Sergio Chavez): And, and I'm like, this personal development shit doesn't work, whatever. And then I came down and started like waiting tables and just like, this is what an immigrant should do. So I said that's what I should do. And but, but always that spark, right, Came out like, you got to do something. And then the web design thing came, came about and I was at the same time as I was doing, I wasn't even waiting tables. I was picking up plates, not washing, not. You know, there's extremes, I guess. You're a waiter, you're a washer, and then there's in the middle, the guys that pick tables. So I was doing that at a Mexican restaurant here.

0:12:40 - (Sergio Chavez): But I was so bright and so on it that like I would correct the waiters, right? Like, no, he didn't order this, he ordered that, whatever. And so yeah, I was limiting myself to that. And then, you know, poker came around and I learned how to play poker and I was making a little extra shillings on it. And then after that, I. I started doing the web design stuff. I started going to school and that. That just took off, right? And as an immigrant at the time, there's a lot of people don't know the struggles, right?

0:13:15 - (Sergio Chavez): So, for example, you can come. But there's limitations because of your immigration status, which I won't go into very much. That's all handled for me. Right. But it's. It's a big challenge for. For immigrants. I didn't care. I figured things out. There's ways to figure things out. Like, so. So it was very. I didn't. It's like I didn't have a choice, right? Like, I put myself in a place where no choice. I had to make this web design thing work because I was either picking up plates or like, I mean, I couldn't at the time.

0:13:48 - (Sergio Chavez): I was in all the classes and all the networks for web design in Vegas and the Adobe groups. There's a whole bunch of groups and stuff. And we couldn't. Like, I would get called from Venetian, right, Because. Because you start knowing people are called from. From Caesars and, like, would you like to join our web design team? And I couldn't write and I couldn't say why, right? So because I couldn't take, like, gainful employment at the time. I had to figure it out one way or another, right? So I figured out. I just went into web design and things just started rolling, you know.

0:14:24 - (Dave Burlin): That's awesome. No, I mean, it's a phenomenal story because a lot of people come here and they don't cut it. They don't make it. They don't stick around as long. They. They take off. Some people come back, which we've seen. We've had a few people on the show that do that. You've been dug in on the ad part and very specific to that. But where I saw you and where you started popping up again is now you've launched a podcast and you're catching some of the people here in the community as well.

0:14:54 - (Dave Burlin): Tell me about the Vegas Voices podcast.

0:14:57 - (Sergio Chavez): So, like, I love doing what I do. I love figuring out puzzles, right? And I started noticing that the ads game is basically a puzzle. You're. You're figuring out human behavior and through a computer and through an interface, and you figure out what the best route is to get a message across through that. That's in very simple terms. But it's. It's draining, man. It's draining. You know, it's stressful. It's draining. You have people's money on the line, you're figuring out these puzzles at the same time. And you just have to be on all day, right? And, and I, I love people, right? I'm. I'm an extrovert. I might seem very, very soft voiced and. But I love being out there with people. And it feeds me. It just feeds me. Having conversation feeds me. This energizes me, right?

0:15:56 - (Sergio Chavez): And, and I know, like I tell all my clients, you know, you have to make content. You have to make content, right? So then just things started are rolling to like, what type of content can I make that is easy, that I can do that that feeds me, that gets me into conversation. And I decided and I saw like people making podcasts and all that. And then I decided that, that I wanted to make a podcast. But it took me a while to figure it out because I would see like, you know, it would be like the Dave Berlin podcast, right? But who the fuck cares who Dave Berlin is?

0:16:32 - (Sergio Chavez): Nobody, right? And I would see the podcast after podcast fail. So I decided to. One day, after going through a long sauna session, I. It came to me. So you got to create a frame. And I think a podcast has a better chance of succeeding if it has a frame. Like you guys here pursue Vegas, right? So I chat it and came up with ideas and then, you know, you know, Vegas Voices podcast, vvp, it's super easy.

0:17:01 - (Sergio Chavez): It rolls off the tongue. And, and you know, we, we came up with the idea and then I said, I'm just going to go to people in their environment, people that are building the city. Like, I think the tagline is interviewing the city's greatest big ideas, Local agents, right? So we, that's what I'm doing, right? And I'm just doing it for the pursuit of content and building a personal brand. I don't have really an agenda, a monetary agenda for it. You know, I'm actually funding the thing myself.

0:17:39 - (Sergio Chavez): And right now the goal is to just interview a hundred good people from the city. And I don't care they're coming. We're like at 15 right now.

0:17:48 - (Dave Burlin): Nice.

0:17:48 - (Sergio Chavez): And I think it's very similar to what you guys are doing. Yeah, but our difference is it's more NPR ish, It's more street. Like, if you see every episode, it's a different location. You see people walking back. So that's, that's the flavor of it. And I'm just, I'm learning a lot, man. There's a lot to this conversation. Cameras, everything. And you only do it by. You only get it by doing it. Right?

0:18:15 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:18:15 - (Sergio Chavez): There's things that I'm seeing on episode 15 that I couldn't see on episode one.

0:18:19 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:18:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): How long did it take you from idea to execution? Because you said in the beginning of the show, you're like, my goal is to do 100 and you're at 15 already. So you're 15 in.

0:18:31 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes.

0:18:32 - (Tawni Nguyen): But you said right before that you had an idea, so I assume you probably wrote it down.

0:18:37 - (Sergio Chavez): You know, it took a year to think about it, right? Maybe. But once I decided, it's like, I mean, producer is here, Ivan, and I just. I just wrote a big check and. And decided. And then the next week, we were already rolling and doing stuff. I got a few cameras, a few DJI's, just that you can put anywhere. And then Ivan got a third camera and we got decent lighting that we can take anywhere and we just go to them.

0:19:11 - (Sergio Chavez): It's been a very cool experience.

0:19:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love it. I resonate with this so much. Not just the immigrant thing, because I was an immigrant until I was in my 20s, too. Grew up also in the back of restaurants, cleaning dishes and all of that stuff, making things work. And then when I started my original show, I was mobile, but nobody understands the whole grind and the process it takes to produce just one episode. So, yeah, like, if you see my show, I was like, in like eight different environments in like 15 episodes.

0:19:37 - (Tawni Nguyen): So I'd be here, I'd be here. I'd be at a cigar room. I'd be like. So that really stress test, the process that had to be in place on the AV side of the camera, my one camera guy, which is also my editor, which is also my workflow, you know, before I understood how much time it took from just one hour of content to like five hours to actually work on producing the episode, to launching it to distribution. That's why I'm curious on how. Because we're doing all pretty much the same thing, except we have help from the studio. Because if we had to set this up every day, my setup time was almost as long as the recording time because I would have to drive the thing somewhere, carry it in, have the ring lights. I didn't have fancy equipment. I had three cameras, which, you know, I got stuff off of Amazon, you know, So I went through that whole entire thing, had my roadsting fail, had audio fail on me, had, like sound bounce because I didn't know what sound sound sounded like.

0:20:30 - (Tawni Nguyen): So three episodes, it was so echoing. It's just a test, testing the process. I didn't know what mics to get, where to put it. Things would rub. So you know what I mean? You have to pay for people to edit it out. So it's a.

0:20:42 - (Sergio Chavez): When was crazy, when was these. Was it. What time was it?

0:20:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because 2023.

0:20:49 - (Sergio Chavez): 2023. Okay. Yeah. I mean there's. Technology is going super fast. There's so many things. Like the DJI are a blessing. I, I love them. They're just super little and you just set them up and boom.

0:21:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): I got the rodecasters before that came out and I'm like, damn it.

0:21:03 - (Sergio Chavez): Right? And then even if you have decent sound now, we just have. Right now we're, we're, we'll work on, on getting some of these mics, but some setups don't favor it. So we use the little appel that is just, that just connects and then that connects wirelessly. And dude, like a year ago there wasn't the Adobe podcast tool. Now we, you can make it if you have half decent sound or decent sound. It. You just pass it through AI and it looks. It sounds fantastic.

0:21:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah.

0:21:32 - (Sergio Chavez): There's so many things, there's so many things now that, that you can do. And like I said, I don't know. I just decided it's like, it's, it's like my, my inspiration. Just like I, I follow my intuition, you know, and I just go all in on is a process. It takes years. I guess for me in my lifetime in this iteration of person that I am, it took a few years to figure out that you just go with your intuition. And that's like, it was shouting at me like, do a hundred episodes. This is what you're gonna call it. This is what you do and just.

0:22:10 - (Dave Burlin): Nice.

0:22:11 - (Sergio Chavez): I don't know where it's gonna take me, but I envision like being like at Dana like dropping in, in the UFC or with, with a mayor. Right. Or with any, any local celebrities. And it's open. It's not just business. I think business owners are fantastic because they're building the city, but there's other people building the city, right?

0:22:32 - (Dave Burlin): So absolutely.

0:22:33 - (Sergio Chavez): We're gonna go and see whomever, whomever comes across our camera where we're gonna do it. And, and they get a lot of, one of the, of the things about the evolution of things is they. People don't realize the kind of work that it takes for their little dopamine hit that they get from a 15 second reel, right? Yeah, because that's what it's diluting down to. Our Instagram is, is blowing up and it's just, it's, it's a lot of those little reels, those little payoff moments.

0:23:02 - (Sergio Chavez): People, I mean, some. And see how people go like the whole long form or are just real. So I think that's where content is right now. Right.

0:23:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): And the whole ad game is changing too, from meta to when we talk about like back end SEO, everything's changing in the marketing perspective. Like organic is less organic now because everything is driven so fast. And you said something that was also amazing is like, yeah, you're on episode 15 and you lean into your intuition. So thank you for following your intuition to sit down at a table with us because it feels like we're aligned in the mission that we're going, we're going towards the same way. It doesn't mean we have to take the exact same path.

0:23:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like you're going to hit your bumps. We hit our bumps, definitely. Even in studio, off studio, there's a lot that goes into producing a show and just bringing on people, you know, with, with genuine voices that kind of, like you said, without an agenda to want or seek anything out of it, except just to do it from an altruistic point. But at the end of the day, it's just, you know, this is the, the path that we decided to go on and. Yeah, no, so, so thank you for that.

0:24:08 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, I feel like it, I feel it's, it's a great opportunity to build relationships. Right. Because I did a podcast. Tawny had one before too. Mine. The one I did was back during Pandemic. It was called the Dave Means Business Podcast.

0:24:21 - (Sergio Chavez): I remember that one.

0:24:22 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, it was, it was great. I was able to interview some of my favorite authors, speakers from all over the country, but it's because everybody was virtual. Even still to this day, I had no agenda as far as, like, I was. There was no offer at the end. I wasn't doing the ads about. Do you know about these incredible sheets? Like, I didn't do any of that. Was it the A1 greens or whatever? I didn't do any of the ad stuff or affiliates. I just had the interview.

0:24:50 - (Dave Burlin): The call to action was connect with the person I interviewed, learn about them. What's interesting is out of the 24, 25 episodes that I did, like, I still do business with like four of those people. And like, one of them is bringing a big project here. Five years later, they're bringing a project, an event here to Vegas. And then for this, like, when we started the Pursue Vegas podcast season one, we had great conversations with People.

0:25:15 - (Dave Burlin): We sent some of them this way over to the studio, but there's been. We've shot 20 episodes as of today's recording here in this studio. Not one of those has aired yet because, you know, as of this. This recording, but we've already made connections and built, like, alliances between so many of the guests that we've had. Because once you really sit down and get to have the conversation with people, you learn a little bit more about them. And it's either something in their story or something that. That sparks them to talk about their business in a different way, or one little aha. And it's like, oh, my gosh, you gotta meet so and so who was just on the show.

0:25:52 - (Dave Burlin): And then we start connecting those dots to. To the. What people need.

0:25:56 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah. There's so many effects that this type of thing can have even if you're at low views. I think, first of all, there's a couple of principles that I like to mention. One is outflow equals inflow. And the other one is if you give light to others, the light's going to shine on you. Right. So whenever, you know, we're outflowing out. Thoughtful. You guys are outflowing. You never know that the principle doesn't say where it's going to come from.

0:26:28 - (Dave Burlin): Right, Exactly.

0:26:30 - (Sergio Chavez): Or if it's. Or the how or the form.

0:26:33 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:26:33 - (Sergio Chavez): It can be monetary. It cannot be monetary. It can be a person, a connection, anything. Right. And then giving light to others just gives just light to you. You cannot avoid it. So I think those two principles are in play here. Very much so.

0:26:47 - (Dave Burlin): Oh, yeah, 100%. Like I've always said when I talk about network networking versus prospecting. You've heard me talk about that before. It's like networking isn't about getting the next. The next paycheck or invoice. Networking is about unlocking infinite opportunities with every person you meet. And that could come in any form. And it could come a year from now, three years. I met Trevin, who runs the studio five years ago, and because I wasn't a dick and I didn't try to sell him on coaching at the time.

0:27:16 - (Sergio Chavez): Okay.

0:27:16 - (Dave Burlin): Like, that always stuck. And then here we are five years later, you know, we're working on, you know, ways to, you know, open up more studios that he sees in the future, stuff like that. And it's just funny because if I would have tried to sell him five years ago, it probably wouldn't like.

0:27:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Well, Mike says it best, too. Like, I still paraphrase, our favorite friend, author is Networking is just a way to open a new relationship. That's it. Yeah, just open it up, you see what happens. Right. It's just, I think people seem to make it very transactional and it's a numbers game. It definitely is. There's velocity in sales. There's obviously like, with ads, it's volume. Where there's volume, there's volatile. Like volatility is bound to happen. So that, that's all like natural for us, but with relationship is very sensitive and it's very intimate.

0:28:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): So the easier for us, like when you say shine light on people, we lean into darkness as well.

0:28:12 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:28:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): So that we allow people to express, to speak their truth. Because there's a lot of topics on this show that I don't think people have ever spoken about some of their stories before. And it's about being intimate enough to make people feel comfortable enough to just allow that to, you know, to open that up for other people. And that's what we're here for. That's just the space for it. It's not like we're here to interrogate you, like, tell me your deepest fears.

0:28:40 - (Dave Burlin): Well, you alluded to that too, pre flight, pre show checklist. Right. We were talking about just a couple things. You mentioned biohacking as one of the things that you're really into. And in a way you kind of alluded to it when you start talking about the light and stuff like that and just like how we show up in the world. Go off on that, man. Because I, I know you're probably reading some. Are you reading anything cool right now? Are you, Are you following any other podcasts or anything that get you jacked to go out and tackle 100 episodes?

0:29:10 - (Sergio Chavez): Man, I don't know. I'm just one of the things that I've. That I've. That's been very, very lately. Top of mind is just being present in the moment and just existing into. Right. There's so many avenues that I can go in here right now. Like I'm rereading Reality Transurfing. It's one of my favorite cornerstone books, that one.

0:29:37 - (Dave Burlin): What was it called?

0:29:38 - (Sergio Chavez): Reality Transurfing.

0:29:40 - (Dave Burlin): Okay.

0:29:40 - (Sergio Chavez): And it talks about the concept. There's. There's one major concept which is importance. Right. Importance. Like makes you hang into things and then when you hang into things, they, they. They squeeze your energy out of you. And that's completely true. It's not woo woo. It's not anything.

0:29:55 - (Dave Burlin): I'm all about the woo woo.

0:29:56 - (Sergio Chavez): Right.

0:29:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Attachment type of thing.

0:29:59 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, Any attachment, anything so, but in this particular book, the. The name, the. The semantics of it is called importance. Right. So when you. One of the things that I try to do that I'm like, into, that I've been like, super habitual is dropping importance. So whenever I meditate, I sit down, have 10 minutes, I go into my past and see whatever I'm giving importance to or anything in my past that catches my attention.

0:30:28 - (Sergio Chavez): Drop the importance. Drop the importance. I don't know how to better explain it, but just drop the cords, right? And then it just gives you the energy to be present and just drop into the present to whatever you're doing, you only have today, you only have now. Like, literally, you can have big goals, but it only comes down to the. To this, to this minute. So, I mean, in biohacking, Woo Wooland, whatever you want to call it, that's what I'm into right now. A lot on books I'm reading the Sedona Method.

0:30:58 - (Sergio Chavez): It's a very old school method of. It's another way of dropping importance is you letting go. Right. The principle is to let go of whatever bothers you of your past. Let go. Just let go. Right. I recommend reading it. It's a very, very simple thing. It's a very, very simple process. But, you know, like, some things just. You can learn in a minute and take a lifetime to master. Right. Takes five minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

0:31:25 - (Sergio Chavez): What else am I into, man? I'm not into a lot of stuff. I don't know, Dave, if you want to go into specifics, like a morning routine or whatever, you just ask me.

0:31:32 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:31:32 - (Sergio Chavez): Because I do a lot of things. I was realizing it the other day with my producer. We're talking, we're like, make some reels. Like, dude, I do a lot of.

0:31:40 - (Dave Burlin): Stuff well, so morning routines can be good, but it sounds like you pull some in the middle of the day. Like, do you do it? Like, is there something that triggers that where you're like, oh, I should, you know, why is this coming up? And then do you kind of just stop and reset? Or is it something where you're. If you're about to switch gears into a project or an episode or something like that?

0:32:01 - (Sergio Chavez): So what I do is that I meditate. So I have 10 minute meditations, 20 minute meditations that I can just go do that, what we just talked about. And if I really need a boost, boost physically, I go in and. And do breath work. So I follow Damon Damato's work. He's a local here in Vegas.

0:32:23 - (Dave Burlin): I DJed his wedding.

0:32:25 - (Sergio Chavez): He should be here.

0:32:27 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, no, that's a great point. Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that.

0:32:29 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, we just had him as a guest too, so. Nice. An amazing man. So I learned he has very good compact breath work, word routines. And breath just changes you like this in 10 minutes. You can, you can be a whole.

0:32:45 - (Dave Burlin): Another person can hallucinate a little bit.

0:32:47 - (Tawni Nguyen): And then just with the whole like healing community. I think a lot of people, there's a misconception that you have to do all the modality at once, but they forget that the most important thing, which is the breath, already exists within you. So for you, the thing that stood out the most right now that I feel I resonate with is the letting go of the importance. And a lot of people I've spoken to in the last one month to six months, this is their season of letting go. And I think identity shift and quantum leaping, if you call it, if you call that in woo woo land, it's just letting go of a previous identity. And a lot of people, I think, still hold on to existing identities of the past and things that they feel is significant but is really not significant because it exists in a previous timeline and it no longer is somebody you need to carry with you. If you're gonna call it, stop playing small and you want to go for somebody bigger, you have to be able to make that leap and let that go.

0:33:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): So, you know, in therapy we call it baggage or something. I don't, I, I hate using that word, but it's kind of like to allow, you know, my. One of my favorite thing from Gary Trupik, he says, like, you must let death do its work in you. So people take that in such a wrong term. But whether that be ego, whether that be identity, sometimes you just gotta thing go for you to fully form and transpire to a new shape or else you're just going to be like this person that's like, oh, I want to go over here. But I'm, I'm fighting my past and I'm fighting all of these things, these negativities, L.

0:34:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): Limiting beliefs. That doesn't really add to anything. So, you know, the season of you letting go of importance or things of the past is kind of like what I call subtracting, just very simple. It's like that's just needs to be where I need to be.

0:34:26 - (Sergio Chavez): Correct. Everything is semantics. You know, truth is truth. Things exist in the universe. And at the end, in a programmable way, we're in a simulation I've heard it. I think it proves itself all the time. Simulation has rules. And, you know, you can call it importance, you can call it the past, you can call it Thelma, whatever you want. But everybody has their way of figuring these things out. These things out, Right. And we're all in a journey and it's just, you know, you do whatever you want with your simulation. It's. It's your GTA 5.

0:35:00 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. I love it. Well, I love. I love when all the intersections happen, right? And there's these little. Just nods from the universe that are like, yep, this is exactly where you're supposed to be. Or it's like there's somebody. Like somebody starts a conversation about the same book, right? Or that, that. That I'm reading and it's like, oh, it's like, follow the clues, right? Just follow the clues. And the connections really start to happen from there. And then that's what I love about Las Vegas is there's such a remarkable network of all of these incredible humans that have come from other places and they all end up kind of. This is a great watering hole for a lot of people have come here to heal in some way, shape or form. And they found community in that. Like, who would have ever thought?

0:35:43 - (Dave Burlin): I came here six years ago and I stopped drinking, like, over a year ago. And it's been. I never would have thought in a place like Vegas, especially where I probably drank. The most I've ever drank before was here in Las Vegas. But now there's a whole. Not only am I on the path to not drink, but there's a whole network of people that are also sober or sober curious. That's how I met Tawny.

0:36:06 - (Sergio Chavez): Sober curious. I've just heard that. Is that a new thing?

0:36:10 - (Dave Burlin): Are you sober curious?

0:36:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): And people are like, are you California sober, Oregon sober? And I'm like, I didn't know what that meant. I had to look it up.

0:36:16 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:36:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I'm like, no, I'm sober sober. They're like, oh, like, not even, like, Denver, Colorado sober.

0:36:21 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. What is that? Do you just smoke meth?

0:36:23 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. Like, I guess some parts of the country you either smoke some pop, some do mushrooms.

0:36:29 - (Dave Burlin): That makes sense. Yeah.

0:36:29 - (Tawni Nguyen): Or the people that gets all high on their, like, trips, you know, so they take all their alternative medicines.

0:36:36 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:36:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): They call themselves sober, but every weekend they check out of reality. And I'm like, okay, I don't know if that's sober, but it's may be sobering to your reality.

0:36:44 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:36:44 - (Sergio Chavez): Right, right.

0:36:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Still, modality to escape the presence and just, you know, but to each his own, you know, you gotta live and let live in this town. And it's, it's funny how now I have to define what sober is. And that was the first time because I'm like, oh, I'm told you're sober. They're like, what kind of sober? I'm like, is there a different kind of sober I don't know about? Like, what do you mean?

0:37:05 - (Sergio Chavez): Well, it takes time and conscience, right, to, to be aware of. Of what presence is. And maybe a little bit of age sometimes to know that, for example, for me, alcohol is always a net negative. I just don't find that appealing. I'll have a drink once in a while, but still, it just reconfirms it's a net negative the next day. Because all that I want to do is be able to perform in life, be here, be present, and do whatever I'm doing and doing to the utmost of my body.

0:37:33 - (Sergio Chavez): Right. And then I always notice that alcohol is a net negative. I know that the next 24 hours, it's just going to be. I'm going to not be some. I'm. I'm not going to be fooling myself. And that's just, that's just what it is. It's. It's just, it's. It's a common sense type of thing that it just, it doesn't. It's not that there's a need or I want to be sober or not. It's just, you realize to a point that that happens. Go ahead.

0:38:00 - (Dave Burlin): No, I was going to say that's just one challenge I think, that people face when they're here. As we kind of wrap and close. You've been here for a while now.

0:38:08 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes.

0:38:09 - (Dave Burlin): What do you see as the biggest challenge in the community of Las Vegas? More so like the. The entrepreneurial ecosystem. Right. Because you've worked with lots of different entrepreneurs. You've been involved in groups, organizations. You. I see you at lots of events. We all show up, we all serve in our own way right now as we have all of these new industries starting to climb collide here with Hollywood 2.0 coming and things like that.

0:38:38 - (Dave Burlin): What do you see as the biggest challenge for Vegas?

0:38:42 - (Sergio Chavez): Man, that'd be. That's interesting. I'd love to have Mark. Mark, Mark on the. Are you gonna have him?

0:38:49 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah. But we're already in the world, right? Mark Wahlberg, right. You can't call him Marky Mark because he will punch you in the face for this episode.

0:39:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): God damn it.

0:39:00 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, we're gonna take that off. Go ahead and take that one off, Greg. I'm just kidding.

0:39:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Just leave it on. Let's stir the pot. I guess maybe it's good if WUHI sends us a cease and deceased.

0:39:10 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, right.

0:39:11 - (Sergio Chavez): Connection and help, man. Like, I think that would be, that, that would be the best thing. More people that are off the treadmill so they can contribute. Because I understand the hustle. I've been through it and it's. People have to go through the hustle to be able to free themselves to, to be able to contribute a little bit. Right. Go up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. My, my God, it's just such a. What are the challenges, man, for all these entrepreneurs on the city as it is?

0:39:51 - (Sergio Chavez): I don't know, man. It's just.

0:39:53 - (Dave Burlin): Well, I'll flip that, flip that on. Ted, if you could wave a magic wand, what's one thing that you would really like to see here in the community in the next five years?

0:40:03 - (Sergio Chavez): Jeez, man, I love Vegas the way it is with.

0:40:08 - (Dave Burlin): It's a water park. You don't want to. You don't want a water park.

0:40:12 - (Sergio Chavez): Water park. I don't know. Isn't Disney coming? Are we gonna have studios? What else? Did I see a big Mormon temple somewhere?

0:40:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): Universal Studios coming?

0:40:21 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, that'll be all great. I, I mean, I had a dream a while ago when I came here and I was overseeing the city and I remember like seeing big sky skyscrapers, like 20 on a 20 million people.

0:40:36 - (Dave Burlin): City, or start building up, right.

0:40:39 - (Sergio Chavez): Something. I know something is going to be there. I've had that vision. I don't know how that's going to happen, but I think this place will keep growing and expanding. There's much so some sort of special energy that brings people here. And I notice it like in the weather. Our weather is becoming less cold in the winters and a little less hot in the summers. I don't know. I notice it. And it's. Global warming is like favoring Vegas. I don't know why. That's my perception. Right. As I've lived here 22 years, I've seen the weather changes.

0:41:15 - (Sergio Chavez): It's becoming a bit greener.

0:41:17 - (Dave Burlin): So.

0:41:17 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah, becoming a bit greener. And the acceptance of. I mean, we have the dark side. Yeah, there's the strip and there's all that crazy stuff. But, you know, that brings in a lot of other energy that's getting transmuted and becoming other industries and things that contribute to humanity. So I don't know. I love Las Vegas. I've always felt the calling for this town, and I think I'm gonna. This is my base.

0:41:43 - (Sergio Chavez): I'm gonna start traveling a bit more and stuff, but I like Las Vegas. It is.

0:41:47 - (Dave Burlin): If you had one piece of advice for people that were looking at coming out this way for whatever reason, what piece of advice would you give people? Just to. To show up.

0:41:58 - (Sergio Chavez): Just be willing to show up and serve. I think nobody here cares where you're from, how much money you have. That. That. That has been my. My experience and perception. Wherever I've been, I've put myself and I've shown competence. Nobody has cared if I'm an immigrant, if I'm Mexican, if I'm short, if I look somehow or another, or if I have an accent. As long as I've shown competency and given my end of the bargain to others.

0:42:27 - (Sergio Chavez): This town has been very welcoming to me. And I don't know if that happens in other places in the States, but it seems to be a melting pot. And I mean, we're a melting pot right here. Like, we're all different and we. You know, there's. I don't know, there's. There's no exclusion. I think there's a. It's a very. We're a very inclusive. If you're willing to put in. To keep your word and put in which it's. It's even a low bar these days. There's a lot of people that are very flaky. But if you're willing to be. Get out of the flake and just put your money where your mouth is and provide what.

0:43:05 - (Sergio Chavez): Give what you're promising. I think this. This town has a lot to. To offer to anybody.

0:43:10 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah. It's been said many times, do what you say you're going to do, and everything else just. Just comes together.

0:43:16 - (Sergio Chavez): Right, right. But in certain places, there's certain elitism, if. If, you know, certain segregation or stuff. Here is. You're welcome anywhere.

0:43:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): I think completely off the rails.

0:43:27 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes.

0:43:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): But the next time we do a podcast together, are we going to be in a cold plunge?

0:43:32 - (Sergio Chavez): Why not?

0:43:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Dude, that'd be fucking awesome.

0:43:34 - (Dave Burlin): We can. We can. We have the technology.

0:43:38 - (Sergio Chavez): I think Tim Ferriss was doing one in a barrel sound, and they would go to the Copeland and Barrel sound on. They would.

0:43:44 - (Dave Burlin): We should do one at Damon's. Did you shoot at his place?

0:43:47 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes, we did.

0:43:48 - (Dave Burlin): Oh, cool. Yeah, that's a cool little space. Yeah.

0:43:51 - (Sergio Chavez): Yeah. There's Sonam, there's Coplange, so.

0:43:53 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, man. Dude, it's Been great having you. So thank you for sharing everything. Where can people find you? It's in the show notes as well. But where can people get connected, get plugged in, and where do they start?

0:44:07 - (Sergio Chavez): Cool. So my main Insta, which is right now my main communication at Sergio Chavez lv. And then the Vegas Voices podcast. It's also the Instagram is the entry gate to it. We have it on YouTube, but it's the Vegas Vegas Voices podcast. What else? I love Google Ads.com is my company. Anything that has to do with digital marketing. We're becoming more of a CMO type of chief marketing officer type of way, because I have, like this way of seeing marketing as a matrix. So I come in and I can see everything. And not only ads, I can orchestrate other pieces. Right. And then what else? That would be it. Yeah.

0:44:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): It's been great having you.

0:44:51 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah.

0:44:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): So calm and collected, Very grounded presence.

0:44:55 - (Dave Burlin): Did you meditate before you walked in?

0:44:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Davis on the roof right now, but no, I managed to keep him at this table.

0:45:02 - (Dave Burlin): Right. Yeah.

0:45:03 - (Sergio Chavez): I actually had a very long sauna session last night and. And I'm super chill, so, yeah, I love it. And I just got up directly to come here, so I love it. No, almost. Yeah. Cool. Thank you.

0:45:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm excited to be in. I'm still thinking about the cold plunge sauna thing. Yeah, it's like, how are we gonna structure that anyways?

0:45:21 - (Dave Burlin): We'll figure it out.

0:45:22 - (Sergio Chavez): Yes.

0:45:22 - (Tawni Nguyen): Well, guys, that's it for us today. Thanks for tuning in. Please reach it out. Slide into all of our DMs, Dave I's or Sergio's. We look forward to hearing from you. Maybe the next time we'll be on the street in a sauna or cold plunge somewhere. So reach out. Let us know how we can connect you with anybody in our community or his. Tap into his network. Come on his show. Find him on the street. Let's get tacos.

0:45:46 - (Dave Burlin): Yeah, let's get tacos. The idea of Pursue Vegas was to really highlight the local people that really make Vegas Vegas.

0:45:58 - (Tawni Nguyen): I love that aspect of how these visionaries are actually bringing people together.

0:46:03 - (Dave Burlin): When we hit record, our responsibility is to connect the people of our city so we can show the world who we really are.