Qadeer Muhammad’s Shocking Success with Tattooing & Cars!

 🚨 Ever wondered what it feels like to drive the ultimate high-performance cars—the Nissan GTR and Corvette Z06? In this episode of The Liftoff Experience, we’re unlocking the secrets behind these adrenaline-pumping sports cars that are more than just machines—they’re transformative experiences. But that’s not all. Our guest is not just a car enthusiast; he’s an entrepreneur who built his successful tattoo business from the ground up, turning his passion into a full-time career. From GTRs to Z06s, discover how high-performance cars shaped his mindset and drove his business success. This episode isn’t just for car lovers or tattoo artists—if you’re looking to turn your passion into real success, you’re in the right place. Get ready for a rollercoaster of speed, power, and entrepreneurial insights that will inspire you to take action and live life on your own terms.
-----
GUEST: Qadeer Muhammad
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/q.inks/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Oh, I'd rather, you know, spend my money on experiences and you know a trip or a vacation. I was like, that's what cars are, I think, to like people who don't understand it. Car is an experience. If you get the right one, or if you're driving a pre, it's like it's not much of an experience. You get in, you drive. It's like there's not too much nuance to it. There's no theatrics about it. You know, it does the job and it does the job well. Yeah. These cars, you're in a sci-fi movie. A whole bunch of stuff going on that you're like, whoa, what the f like you get in that car, you stump it, your right heart's racing. It's a lily of experience.

SPEAKER_05 0:49

What's up, my guy?

SPEAKER_04 0:50

How you doing? I'm doing good, bro. Welcome to uh lift off experience, Max. Excited to have you on, bro. I got some tricks up my sleeve, don't you worry. Okay. And the CineFX and shit. But uh yeah, dude. So you're better. How we were just talking before we got on air that uh you got hit, what, almost two weeks?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, that was crazy. Um I've never when I I usually get sick maybe like once a year. Okay. And then that'll last three days, maybe four. Me too. Okay, same, right? Yeah. So this time it started off, it was like something not noticeable. It's like, oh, okay, my body's probably fighting, so then it'll go away. Three days later, I get hit with the symptoms all at once. What the hell's going on? Yeah, and I'm like, it's already been three days. How did it get worse? Oh, exactly. Yeah, so it got worse, and then I basically had to just move on my appointments, you know, for like by a week. Yeah. Or um just to be safe, because I was like, I don't know what this is. And I had um by the fifth day, I had a cough. Okay. Crazy cough. And then by the seventh day, the cough was worse. And then what? Yeah, and then it didn't die down until like the ninth day, and then it lingered all the way until like like 12 days. That was it was insane. Holy shit. Yeah, I never had anything like that before. I was like, what the hell?

SPEAKER_04 1:59

And and any lead up, like lead up-wise, like no one around you, was anyone around you sick?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Or like I had noticed a lot of my clients had a bit of a cough or a sniffle, maybe quite a few of them, but nothing insane, you know. Yeah, my girlfriend, she was fine too. She said she felt like maybe an irritated throat a day or two prior to me feeling anything. Now, did she get this too after you got it? No. Dude, my wife didn't get it either. Yeah. I think I heard somewhere that it's a sign that your immune system is really strong. So if you get into contact with whatever the virus is, right, your body fights it. Yeah, yeah. And then before it's passed on, oftentimes your body's already fighting, fought it, so it's weaker now. So by the time it gets to the other person, it's so weak that their immune system can fend it off and they don't have any symptoms.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Strong immune system.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Let's go, let's go. I love that, dude. I love that. No, it was interesting because for me, I was in Japan. I wasn't even in Arizona. Yeah. So I'm like, what the fuck? And then before we went to Japan, my wife, she was dealing with something, and she never gets sick, and it wasn't exactly this. And I'm going through the same shit, and I'm at the cough stage that you were just talking about. Oh, really? Okay. I'm like, where the fuck did this respiratory and cough situation come up out of nowhere? Yeah, exactly. Right? And so I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And then so she had something similar, she, but not the same. It was a cough, and she just couldn't kick it. And my daughter had a cough and whatever else, and then she got better, and then went to Japan. Two weeks was great, the whole nine. Um, I think for sure, for me, I was off my game from like I do like the controlled breathing with Wim Hof, and I do red light panel, and I go to the gym, and I I have like my hydration thing that I do every morning, sea, salt, water, lemon. And I was like off my game with that shit. And then I don't eat a lot of sweets, but out there, you know, it's like trying stuff out. And it's strawberry season, and they got strawberry shortcake everywhere. I like strawberry shortcake, you know what I'm saying? It's like fuck me. Way too much sugar. So I think that's one reason why it kind of fucked me up with my immune system. But it's interesting coming back from Japan, how this came up for me, where it's just like I wasn't even in the country for two weeks, but still I got the same shit you got. Um, and then my partner got it, and he's up in Oregon. Yeah, some I'm like, how the fuck did he get it in Oregon? You know what I'm saying? So, unless maybe I kind of already had carried it before or something, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Or it's global already and just nobody knows about it.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Hey, comment. We want to hear from y'all. Uh, did you get sick? If you got sick, was it similar to Q, you know, what he experienced? And um, and yeah, man, I don't know. Because I heard now my wife was talking to her sister yesterday, and she's in California. And if you don't already know, we're in Arizona, and she's dealing with a stomach thing. So she's dealing with some type of stomach thing, and she can't keep nothing down. Anything that she eats, she's like throwing up. The daughter has what we have. Uh she's seven by the way, y'all. And she got in vertigo, and then she's throwing up, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

That was weird because I had like I was getting a lot of stomach cramps randomly. So, okay, so there you go. There you go. And TMI had the runs a few times. So did I. Yeah. Okay, all right, all right. Then I was um dealing with like fatigue, but weird like brain fog too. Yeah. I was forgetting random stuff. Yeah, two phones. I forgot my other phone. I couldn't even process the payment after I worked with the client because I didn't have my other phone. I was like, oh, you can just they had to figure out he had to figure out another way to pay me because I didn't have my other phone, which I usually do. Oh shit. Forgetting like simple stuff all the time. I was like, whoa, what is this? Yes, since it's our oh, and a lot of body aches and cramps. Me too. Yep, crazy, like never, I've never experienced cramps like that before. I was like, what the it like aches in my legs, in my back, in my arms everywhere, like really, really bad. Like I had just working out. It was so weird.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

I wonder it seems like um like another version, if not a some like a maybe a spin-off of COVID, because that's what I was thinking, right? Yeah. I'm thinking spike proteins here. I'm thinking, you know, the the bait, the aches, the pains, all that type of stuff. I mean attached to the lungs, attached to the lungs. Yeah, it's definitely, I think, around fucking two of COVID, which it it seems not exactly um like just organic. It seems like something modified or something that's maybe has been kind of like I don't know, man-made.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

It was mutating really fast. Like we already had like during a lot of people don't realize during COVID, we had about three different strains of it. Oh it wasn't just COVID, it was mutated three times throughout the entire pandemic, and it continued to mutate afterwards, so and they said it would continue to, and it that's why COVID was so bad is because it mutated so fast, nobody could everybody's immune system wouldn't adjust to it. So makes sense. Okay, so it's still mutating now. Then they said that it would bound to happen where we get another wave of it eventually. Uh so probably what it could be, who knows, or it could be something entirely different. Who knows? Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Yeah, well, first off, I'm glad you're good. I'm glad that I'm I'm I'm on the men's, you know. I mean, I did the I did the prime IV like Saturday the next, like as soon as it started hitting me, I was getting an IV drip. So I got that shit. And then um I I follow Wim Hof uh quite a bit, and um, and everything is based off of um inflammation in the body, right? And so he's talking about how when you can over oxygenite the over-oxyenize the body and then you breathe in and then you breathe out the stress, breathe in the relax, breathe out the stress. So I've been really going tough on the breathing as well, and getting out in the sun and just fucking baking. I was just baking out there.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Bro, the sun's the ultimate cheat code. Cheat code, bro. I was talking to my uh girlfriend before I was leaving, and I was saying, I need to make a post about that because before uh we've been in this house we moved into for about a little over a year now. Okay. And prior to that, we were in an apartment complex. Uh and before I get super logistical, basically we were facing the windows in the apartment, we're all facing northbound. Okay. The sun never gets north of us, it's always like kind of southwards facing. Yeah, we're waist west facing, so we got a lot fucking fun. Okay, good. So you're getting that, right? So we were facing north, so and then in north, our windows were facing a courtyard, and then there's this huge shape. We're not getting any direct sunlight, really. It's really inconvenient to get sunlight. Dang. So uh my girlfriend suggested to get my vitamin D levels checked. I resisted for a while, if being honest.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

Man and us, yeah, we're talking about we're good. Yeah, I'm good. I don't have time for that.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Ah, yeah, exactly. They did it, and I was like crazy deficient. Really? Yes, like I think I don't remember the point system exactly, but I'll just make up one to be close to where it's as society. Like, your levels are supposed to be at anywhere from 35 to 40 points, right? Okay. Right. I was at like 11. Oh shit. Yeah. Damn, it was really, really bad. Wow. Um so um a girlfriend consulted with one of her friends, she's an herbalist, she has herbalist friends. Yeah, yeah. And her friend said, I've never she does consultations where she assesses people's health and health and see what you can take to help try improving things. Um, but she said that she's never seen vitamin D levels that low before. Wow. And also side note to my fellow black folk, if you we need more vitamin D than anybody else because of melanin in it, where it acts as a filter, and we need to stand spend more time in the sun in order to get the same amount of vitamin D level as somebody uh with less melanin. Interesting. So it's harder for us to absorb it.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

One of us, let's go. Yeah, so okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

She said she's never seen anything that low. So she got me on these um, it was like vitamin D in liquid form concentration. So I got on that, but also get in the sun. Yeah. One dude, because I yeah, tattooing all day inside five days a week. I'm inside and never seeing the sun. I get there, I'm working all day, the sun's down by the time I'm leaving. Yep. And then I repeat it the next day. So I'm barely ever in the sun. So I started making a thing to get in the sun. But then fast forward anyway. Yeah, yeah. We're in the house now, we have a backyard. There's plenty of light in the house, but also the backyard just makes it so convenient to go outside and get some sun.

SPEAKER_06 10:23

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

The difference in my like I have a sa a picture of me like before, a little bit before we moved out, and then eight months later, yeah, yeah, night and day. Really? Yeah, because actually uh vitamin D is a big part of like muscle production. So all of a sudden, like, even though I'm not I'm not working out crazy, I'm just starting working out maybe two, three times a week, just getting in a couple a hundred push-ups, you know, sit-ups, uh pull-ups, stuff like that. Yeah, I put on like the difference, you can see it clearly in my body, the difference. Wow, just so it's not like I was working out crazy, but just because of my bringing up my vitamin D levels, it just made it that much easier to put on muscle and retain the muscle. Dude, congratulations to y'all.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

And uh let that be a sign. I don't believe, I don't believe in coincidences, but everything happens for a reason. Go get checked and go get go get your blood work. I'm gonna do mine. Uh not just because of what you're saying. Um, I actually doing that stuff. Well, yeah, I am. Um, but like my wife's friend, so her name's Punham. Shout out Pune. Uh, you gotta get on the show. And so she is uh she's a doctor, but she deals with like um blood work to a different level. So, like, as an example, you go to your physician and you get your blood work done, right? And they'll they'll go through the whole process and they'll they'll give you your markers based off of the average, right? And that's the average of just society in general. And Pune goes deeper into like the average from like a higher, like the average, not from the average of just society, but the average from like the above average. Like so, like where are the markers at from people that are that are optimal, not people that are uh overweight, obesity type stuff.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

What's considered normal to society now?

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Exactly. And so, and so I want to get my my blood work done because I used to be on TRT and I got my blood work done, and I didn't need that shit because like we'll go back to like what you said earlier on the scale. So if you say 1100 is the highest, and like say we'll say 100 is the lowest, I was at like 580, 590 almost six. So it was in the middle of the range, and then I got on TRT, went all up to 1100, and then I'm like breaking out and shit, and like back in like my 20s, and I'm like, fuck, dude, like I don't want all this acne, and like, and then you gotta shoot yourself up the ass, and you're like, you're I'm like, this is so I did it for like six months. I got off of it. Now I actually did a TikTok about it, and to this, to this day, people still send me direct messages and shit.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

They're like, Hey, how do you feel after getting off of it? You know, I'm thinking about getting off of this thing, but video, yeah. Still going.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

I'm like, what the fuck? Um, and so you know, you don't need TRT, y'all, but I just I just had my birthday, I just turned 40. And so I'm like, I want to thanks, bro. I appreciate you, my guy. 14th, March 14th. And so that's one reason why I went to Japan. And so now I'm like, I wanna, I wanna switch some shit up, right? And I want to get to the next level of just awareness. And um, and I already measure a lot of stuff with I got the I got the ring that I measure, everything on, uh, my sleep, my vitals, stuff like that. And then I have like my fitness pal for like my macros, fat carbs, fat protein, stuff like that. Um, go to the gym like six days a week, and well, six days a week, but mainly five weights weights four, cardio six. And um, but I just like want to see where I'm at now being off TRT for a little while, um, and then just see where everything's at. And I'll have to ask her about the vitamin D for sure. See what's up because it's crazy, dude. And then the older that you get, the more you gotta be conscious of all this shit, dude. It's like you're young, you're like, I'm invincible, I'm good, fucking no big deal, you know. And as you start to age, it's like hold up.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Like it said after 40, it like declines one percent every year or something like that. Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_04 14:04

That's where like I do the red light therapy and maybe TMI, but fucking I throw the balls out and fucking I'm I'm getting the red light therapy there everywhere, bro. And I'm getting the fucking, you know, and doing the breathing's good too. Cause then I went to uh prime and I got my blood, my my fucking IV or whatever. She like took out the thing and she like the blood fucking came back out quick and she's like, Oh shit. I'm like, what? She's like, Oh, you got really good blood circulation. I was like, Oh, really? She's like, Yeah, that came out quick. I was like, Okay, cool, good to know. You know?

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:33

So, you know, because you gotta have just like fucking tire pressure, right? Oil pressure in the car, you gotta have some good blood pressure in your fucking body, right? And wanna feel fucking good and you know, gotta take care of your woman.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

That's funny. That's why um um I like cars a lot because it's reminds me of the anatomy of the body, right? So many individual systems working together to produce the machine that runs. And it's the same thing with us. We need the heart, the engine, you know, you need your lungs, the air intake, you know. Yes, uh the the transmission, your uh uh nervous system. Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

So you know it's crazy it's crazy you say that because I I got Gucci seats done, and uh maybe hey team, you could throw up a picture of on on here uh the Gucci seats so they could see them for the GTR. And so I put them in and I go for a little test drive, and I don't know what you guys believe, but I'm like, man, I feel like the car's happier. It was we it was weird. It was like the car felt different. Like, yeah, I know it's it's different materials, and I'm sitting on it, and whatever, but I just felt like the car was happier. And then my wife, we went last night and we loved, we haven't had anything normal, like no Mexican food, no pizza. You know, Japan is all very interesting foods. And then being sick, it's like three weeks without having like Mexican food. It's one of my favorite. So we went to Macao's last night, and we were just pick it up, come back, daughter's still sick, and so I take her for a ride, and then we were on a night walk last night, and she's like, Yeah, I felt like the car felt different. It felt like it was happier. I'm like, see?

SPEAKER_05 16:02

I was like, I told you. I was like, it feels it just feels different. It was like, yeah, I just got some plastic surgery done, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, it got a facelift, yeah. It got a it got a BBL for real, it did.

SPEAKER_05 16:14

It did.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

I feel like uh everything holds energy, yes, and we can sense that. Yes, it's sometimes when I'm like, and I swear I feel the same thing, even just washing my car. Yes, I swear it'll drive better after I wash it. Yeah, yeah. I swear to God.

SPEAKER_05 16:29

I'm right there with I'm right there with you because uh what was I doing?

SPEAKER_04 16:34

I was um about to leave for Japan and I wanted to get and cycle some gasoline because I run off ethanol, and they say that you want to cycle gasoline because it's a detergent for the vehicle, so that way, you know, the lines and everything else, and then it's a lot harsher, um, like the ethanol, because you're you know, you're in ethanol, right? And so I cycle it and um I'm at like so typically I run around 73% um air, so ratio wise as far as like um 73% would be like um for like the um ethanol content in in the fuel system. And so it's down now to like 30, 40 percent. Okay, but for some reason I'm like getting hella pops and bangs. Like I'm like downshifting in first and just like give it to like two, three thousand, let go, and it's just popping and banging. I'm like, what the as like are you are you liking that detergent? Are you giving me some are you talking to me right now? Yeah, more bubbles, let's go. Hella bubbles, bro. And I was like, this is fucking interesting. So, and if um, I don't know about your car, but the GCR has been the one car that I've had that it always is different, yeah, it always feels different.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

It's charismatic, the car. Yeah, that's so that's so funny you say that because uh I've been so because it's only been what three months since I got this C8 Z06 2023.

SPEAKER_04 17:57

Congratulations, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Thank you. Hey, let's go, let's go. So I our girls are next to each other in the garage right now. So I've been wanting that car for two years. Two years, congrats, longer, yeah. Okay, but one thing that always stood out to me is how charismatic the engine in the exhaust note is. Oh, yeah. It's so different. There's so many, much nuance, so like nothing sounds exactly the same. Like you could play around with the gear, okay, and third gear, 2500 RPM, and then depending on how much throttle I'm putting in, it's gonna have a different tune. Uh-huh. You know? And then, or I might get a different verbal. No shift is the same. Okay. Yeah. I might get like an aggressive shift, I might get one where it's just a smooth one, I might get a bump shift. It you never know what you're gonna get with the car. So it's like waking up with like, okay, what are we gonna do today? Yeah, that's I just I love it.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

I love it too, bro. It's so sick. And it's interesting too, and I can imagine because probably, and we would love to comment below if you have a high performance vehicle of any type, because I feel like the higher performance of the vehicle, and and definitely I think the higher performance and engineering of the vehicle is where I think you get the complexity of things a bit more. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Because you have more going on, and then with the higher horsepower, then I feel like it just amplifies the like the feel of everything too. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know what I'm saying? It's it's interesting. Yeah, it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

The wild horse.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

It is a wild horse, dude. It is, and I actually before we left, I um met uh shout out to um to James, and James is someone that uh wear and talks about uh the sponsor of our show, Lift Off Experiences, Lift Off Agent, and uh big shout out to the team behind the scenes for all the edit production of it of this show. And so James is interested in potentially working with us and making some calls and whatever else. And my backright tire, and I was at um the last show, so I'm part of uh, and you've been to it, Cannonball. So I went to Cannonball show, and this is out in Twin Creek, and we went to that uh that was it was good. We had some care and bullshit happen. So you post the cop they had the cop show up, show up. We're just parked, but then you took us out to fucking a residential almost area, even though it was like out there, out there, but it was like you had to go through the residence, and then like it was like pretty much in front of this lady's house, not really. So she brought out her John Deere and she's driving down the fucking thing, like when you all do car, blah blah. So eventually we had to leave, and then we we finished off at um that one spot that has like the go-karts, and then you go up in the fucking Raptors, and you could like you get the harnesses and you walk around this gymnasium thing, and has an outdoor inside place, it's a barbecue place. I forgot the name at the top of my head, super cool place, though. And um, so we took uh both the TRX and the GTR, and he drove the TRX with my daughter. I must trust this guy. And uh my wife and I were in the GTR, so he was driving back, and I was hurt with her, and we both looked at each other, why isn't he in this car? Like, he's been driving that truck the whole time. So she gets in the truck, he gets in the car, and the back left uh tire or right tire has been going low, just like every so slow, like every two, three, four, five days it goes down like a couple pounds, nothing crazy. And uh I hit it, and the fucking car like went like sideways practically, and then it like the computer system going back to the original, this engineering of the car and everything else, computer system caught it and it brought it back within like milliseconds. My wife was like, What the fuck happened? When we got back, she was like, The fucking car look was like sideways or some shit, and then all suddenly it was like straight again. I was like, Yeah, I said it's probably because the air in the back right tire, but the computer caught it, and the cars know, and traction control, and it's it's amazing, dude. It they're they definitely have a life of their own, and it's just so fun to like be in the driver's seat and then get to experience it and just like better hold on.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

That's what cars are, I think, to like people who don't understand it. Um I forgot who I was talking to this about, but they're saying, like, oh, I'd rather, you know, spend my money on experience. Experiences and you know a trip or a vacation. I was like, a car is an experience if you get the right one. Or if you're driving a pre- it's like it's not much of an experience. You get in, you drive, it's like there's not too much nuance to it. There's nothing there, there's no theatrics about it. You know, it does the job and it does the job well. Yeah. With these cars, there's you're you're in a sci-fi movie. Straight up. A whole bunch of stuff going on that you're like, whoa, what the like you get in that car, you stump it, your right heart's racing. Like it's not, it's it's it's I don't need it's a literally a experience. It's literally an experience. Nothing to compare it to, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:39

And I feel like there's something to be said about like the responsibility of it as well. And I think, you know, when we could talk a bit about this for viewers and listeners out there, it's like the like respect for it, and then and then and then the level of um there's a level of responsibility to not just respect the car, but respect others that respect the car or or maybe it's their goals. Like going to a show, letting someone sit in it, or you know, letting them turn it on, or letting them rev it, like the enthusiasm.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

You want to keep it going. You want exactly, especially a young enthusiast, to have a good experience and then also carry that over to be if they get a car similar, carry the same energy. Yes, yes, you don't want it because you're representing car enthusiasm when you have a car like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

You want don't want to be that guy saying, Oh yeah, all these GTR guys are they're all assholes. Fuck them, whatever thinks he's been better than me because he's got that fast car.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

You don't want it to be that. Yeah, I think that's a lot of the ways it's portrayed online. Yep, but in real life, a lot of these people who have these cars are really, really nice. Oh my god, they're amazing.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Like if you ever see someone in a nice car, don't be afraid to approach them. Like they are super nice. It's interesting. Um, so I we I also have a TRX, um, uh the RAM, and there's something about the people that drive those vehicles and the stigma around a lot of them don't really get up on them. They don't really like like they don't race, they don't do pulls, they just kind of drive them, which is interesting because um one dude at the gym, I did a pull under like the overpass going to EO's one morning, and um, and then like he was in an R32, I think it was buddy's R32, and then he like comes up hella hard on me, and then like we park next to each other, and he's like, Oh man, I never seen anyone really take off in one of those trucks before.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

It's fucking fast.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

I'm like, Yeah, they are really fast, you know what I'm saying? And so I feel like it's also cool too to like break the stigma of what maybe people think about a certain thing, the perception online, yeah, for sure. But the GTR, it's expected. Where's the pops? Where's the bangs? You know, do the pool, like those cards, revit everywhere, dude. It is like it is expected, but like for the for you and the Z06, like, is there what comes up for you? Does like, does anyone is is it a Revit? Is it a dual pool or people in the freeway like you know, like come take pictures? Like, what do you what do you've encountered?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Um, I've definitely gotten a lot more Revit's since since the sting rate of the Z06. I've way more Revit. Actually, okay really funny experience last night. What was it last night or the night before? Um yeah, I picked up my girlfriend from the airport in the Z06. Yeah. And it's late, and neither of us is ate anything. So we're like, okay, let's try to find something that's open late, get something to eat. We're downtown Tempe. Uh though for those who don't know, Tempe is more so a college first city, yeah. ASU's right down there. Yeah, yeah. Um, we're off Mill Avenue at 12 a.m. People are drunk walking, right? We come to the stoplight. This guy's like, Revit, revit. I revit a couple times. He's like, that's it. Like he said, he's like, gay. My drunk's louder than that.

SPEAKER_05 25:43

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

It's funny to me. He you can tell he was drunk off his ass.

SPEAKER_06 25:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

But no, but I definitely have gotten a lot more revits before um the the rear view camera, there's a camera above my engine, and so I can flip it on, and it's just a camera there, so I don't have to look at a rear view mirror. Okay. Um it spoils the hell out of you. I got too used to it. They're dope. Yeah, but so I can see better. And a lot of the times I'll see people behind me and they'll bust out the phone. You know, I can see it way more now. So that happens way more often. Yeah. I have um can you record on that or no? Not on that one, though. There's a camera. Well, maybe I'm not sure. That'd be cool if you could, but yeah, there's a uh there's a whole segment DR performance data recorder. Yeah, yeah. Uh so I can turn it on, and then there's the cameras in the front that will record all my driving. I'm not sure about the rear, though. Interesting. That would be cool.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

You could do a whole like fucking short form launch, I mean, could you long?

SPEAKER_05 26:41

Yeah, just fucking just people saying some shit.

SPEAKER_04 26:43

Yeah, that would be cool. That's the one thing I think when it comes to the GTR, out of a lot of cars out there, as far as if you're talking about like um, I guess, you know, decibels, like it is very loud, especially when you do the fucking flame map, which I do have on the GTR. It is like ear piercing, fucking loud. And so that's where I feel like, you know, out of the Ferraris and Lamborghinis and a lot of different cars, and like, and like my my wife never knew, and she never was like a car person per se. And so I got the GTR, and then now she gets it, and then and then she saw the flame map, and then she's like, that's why it's Godzilla.

SPEAKER_05 27:21

Like, she had no idea. So now she's like, okay, got it. Like, makes sense now. Anyone that doesn't have fucking straight pipe with fucking the the the flame map on a GTR, like sorry, you don't have a real fucking GTR now.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

But uh, but yeah, that's the one thing that I think that people would be presently surprised if fucking, you know, I'll be downtown doing some shit like that with you. That'd be fucking that'd be fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

You know, I'm gonna be honest, I'm kind of embarrassed about yeah. I never put that two and two together with the reference to Godzilla.

SPEAKER_06 27:49

Really? Uh just now yeah, just now.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

You just made this connection for me. But because like my understanding was that okay, it's uh it's an imported car. Okay, it's a monster to the tune, absolute monster. It was whooping other cars in its generations 2009 month monstrosity, yeah. It came from Japan, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:10

Godzilla, yeah, you know, so that a kaiju, it's a monster, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

So that's that was my perception of it. It was like, okay, yeah, the nickname Godzilla. But I never thought, oh, the massive flames issues. I never thought of it.

SPEAKER_04 28:21

Oh yeah, now because not everyone has the flame map, but that's what basically you like to do. And the thing that I will say about the flame map, because anyone who's a car guy, they know that fucking it, you know, it pulls the timing, it throws extra fuel, then you're throwing flyer out the back. It can fuck up your um your motor. It could, it could, you know, dry out, say, piston rings, and you can have scoring of the inside of the of the wall of the cylinder. Also, it could fuck up your um uh your um what is it, valve stems, not valve stems, but uh the fucking things that open and close at least let's in oxygen and and fucking fuel. What are they called? Oh the um uh come on, comment below, y'all. What the fuck is it called, man? Come on. Um but um yeah, those things, the round fucking things, and they're you have like four of them. But uh you could bring it. Thattle bodies. No, that's not it, no. I'm not thinking about the but it's the um valve stem or is it valves? Yeah, valves, valves. Just the valves themselves, yeah. Correct. So they say the valves can get bent and can cause some issues, but I'll tell you what, dude, I don't know how many people that have GTRs that have the flame map that haven't had any issues from the perspective of like I've seen more like guys blowing their shit out because they're fucking over-revving it. Like, if you have a 2016 and older and you put it into the manual mode, the car won't shift. So you have to shift. You have to. There's no protection. There's no protection, CPU won't protect it in shift. Nope, or it'll fucking blow the motor. So mine has that because it's been retuned and flame maps on there, and then I got everything with EcuTech, and my my buddy and he did it. Um, because you know, you could fucking put it into um it's automatically ready for launch mode. You just break gas, and then in the ECU you could program wherever you want your shift point to go. So like mine's like 34 or 35, and it'll fucking just dump. Um, but the problem is that if it doesn't shift, then you're gonna fucking over rev and then hit that red line, and then that's when you're gonna be throwing a piston or fucking throwing a rod through the fucking piston. I've seen that shit, but I haven't really you know, knock on fucking wood because you know, I probably do the flame map more than I need to. Um, and I've been really good, but um, I don't know. But who who gives a damn? All right shooting flames exactly, and the car seems to like it.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Yeah, you you didn't get that car for reliability. No, that's I made a video, so the Z06 shoots flame stock.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Oh yeah, you were talking about that.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

I remember. Yeah, so I made uh uh me and my homie on the freeway, um, and I'm we're just like messing around, right? Yeah, and he calls me, he's like, damn it shooting flames. And I'm like, oh yeah, I already knew because I watched a million Z06 videos. He was so shocked because he didn't know. Um, and then I posted a video, and on the internet, people were like, Oh, well, that's gonna burn your back bumper. I'm like, bro, it's like that stock. They trust me, the Chevy engineers accounted for that. Yeah, yeah. Plus, if it burns a bumper, I don't care. It's shooting flames.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

I'm on my I'm on my second bumper, bro. My shit got burnt. You know what I'm saying? They didn't they didn't account for that.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

The engineers on my side, but but yeah, if it's stock, like it's like you know, yeah, and look, I mean, there's like blue flames that they're like, you know, nothing compared to yours, but there's no flames, and but there's not enough to reach out.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

I'm sure if you did exhaust, you could probably fucking get way more.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yes, I've seen it valve tronic exhaust, yeah, yeah. Yeah, to nasty flames.

SPEAKER_04 31:49

So uh put you on game and in Arizona, uh, doesn't matter the year of your car, just have to have a garage. They do I'll do this on miles, right? Limit you, right? Um, classic car insurance, smog exempt, you don't need cats, you could do fucking full-on straight pipe even with your ZO6. Really? Swear. Yes. I could show you the the information and all that shit. Um, I go through gingerbread, I think it was like gingerbread, fucking whatever. Uh I have like there's like Haggerty, there's gingerbread, there's Haggerty, yeah. Yeah, and like they'll I think there's like a broker. I think gingerbread is like a broker, and then they'll find you whatever. But like, dude, I'm at like something like I'm gonna up it because I'm only getting about 76,500 in coverage. I need to probably be closer to like 96,000. So I'm gonna I'm gonna bump that up. But I pay 950 a year for my insurance, full coverage with uh roadside assistance. If your car breaks down at a car show, they'll fucking tell your ass. Um, you also get like a windshield a year. Um, you uh I my car's registered for five years, and it's a 2026, and I have straight pipe, no exhaust, no nothing. I mean it's it's Nismo, I guess piping. I don't know. It has Nismo in the back, but outside of that, it's like fucking, it's like headers and then dump back. So I don't know, could be your next fucking couple mods, bro. Get classic car insurance and then go straight pipe.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Waggerty, they weren't going for that. Oh, they weren't? No shit. Uh-huh. It's not considered that yet. I guess maybe too new. But also, um, I'm not straight piping that thing. No, you need to be too much? Yeah, it's too much. That it's already plenty loud enough for me, for my personal taste. I know a lot of people do it and it sounds like a screaming F1 car. Yeah. I've actually met someone really and drove with them. That shit was way too loud. Yeah, that would drive me insane. Because I daily the Z06. Okay. So that's just that's too much. The the Z06 has enough range to where it's comfortable daily. Okay. And you you don't want to be feeling like you're in a race car. It's actually pretty docile. Put it in like a tour mode. It also has a weather mode, which is even more docile. Like it muffles the hell out of the exhaust. Okay. Close the valves completely, you can barely hear the car. Interesting. Suspension, Chevy's magnetic ride suspension is amazing. Really? Yeah, super comfortable suspension. Like you're in a Mercedes in the software.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

Yeah. That's so badass.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

I don't think I would do an exhaust though.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

No. No. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I want one. Yeah. I want to. I was thinking the Z06. I probably end up. They're saying that they're not gonna, they're not limiting the the ZR1s and the ZR1 X. So I'll probably end up going to Z R1X, I think. I think I'll probably end up getting I'll probably leave, let I'll I'll probably be 12 months or so, let things die down a little bit. Yeah, but yeah, those are um those um markups and fucking crazy markups. Crazy markup. Now, I will say this is not a fucking paid promotion here, shameless plug. Uh fucking gas monkey garage garage is giving away a fucking ZR1X. Yeah, I've been giving those A. I'm like, what the fuck, dude? Like, Richard, you're crazy, bro. He's insane.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah, this is the black one, right? Uh no, it's a silver one. It's a silver one. No, the Z06 was the black one that I gave away before that. It was a black Z06.

SPEAKER_04 35:15

I thought that was crazy enough. And then he's like, then they're doing freaking ZO the ZR1X. I'm like, what the fuck? Oh, ZR1 X. X. What? That's what I said. Yeah. Number 11 on the VIN. Oh my god. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

That's insane.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

It might be worth it to fucking enter, dude. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

They might, you might have, they might have just got me. You feel me?

SPEAKER_04 35:38

Like at that point, it's just like, I like to I just get like car care shit. I'm like, I'll get some fucking soap and fucking rags. I gotta get that shit anyways. You know what I'm saying? I went a fucking Corvette. I'm down. Like, you know, like that'd be that'd be fucking badass. That'd be worth it. And plus for me, um, so it was New Year's Eve, and um my grandmother's been dealing with COPD and a bunch of shit for a long time. This is um, so my mom is with Joseph, and Joseph is my stepfather, and this is his mother. And so my grandparents have been gone for a long, long time. But uh grandma Judy, as we would call her, she basically took me under her wing and she was like basically my grandma. And um, growing my company, uh, I would go over and I would used to do a lot of just random shit. And so one of them was chauffeuring. So I'd chauffeur airport. This is back in California, back in the Bay Area, and so San Francisco Airport, I'd go every so often, and she was in San Mateo. So I'd go and see her, and um and then I rented uh a GTR for my birthday. This was like seven, eight years ago before I before now I own one, and then I um and I knew she loved Corvette. So then the last time I went, which was 2022, I rented because I was there for an event for lift-off agent, and I rented a 2022 Red C8 Corvette. And I picked her up and she was fucking over the moon and so excited. I drove her all around in it, and she was just like, wow, and you know, I said, you know, one day grandma, you know, get you one of these and blah blah because she had to get rid of her Corvettes because she ended up having a family and two seats and didn't make sense and what have you. Um, but yeah, so she uh was gone, she was known by like Redbird, you know, and so she ended up passing away New Year's Eve. And so we went out there um last month in February and went to her celebration of life and everything else. And then I was talking to my uh my uncle, so she has two sons, Joseph and uh Sean. And he came out here last month in February at the end. So the beginning of February was out there in San Mateo for celebration of life, and then he came uh that month. So we took him out to Zinburger, you guys like a good burger, downtown Gilbert. Familiar hella bomb, bro. I took him there, and he said that a Corvette would be a car that he would he would like actually like like and enjoy because you know, growing up and his mom and everything else. So I'm like, alright, I'm gonna have to I wanna surprise him and get him a fucking Corvette. You know, he'd be cool with like a Z06 or some shit, and then I want to get the Zero the Z like the other eight. Like either you get Zero One X or get the just a Z R1, we'll see. But I think you gotta go with the X, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I mean or just Z R1, it's already the ZR1 is beyond unusable power. That's true. It's true. Even what we're driving now is beyond unusable on the streets, like yeah, for sure. That's the funny thing I'll tell people is that.

SPEAKER_04 38:29

Well, did you hear about the ZR1 X that they just unlocked the fucking ECU and tuned one? Yeah, 1400. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Fuck 1400 from the factory, bro. And I think also it's putting out more than that, I feel like.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Because that that engine, that engine that they made is probably capable of like 1400 horsepower on its own.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

And it's your engine.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

It's your engine, but like they change it. Yeah, they they internally change out the um, they actually shorten the um piston rods. Yeah. Uh so there's a shorter throw on those, but they're bulkier too. Oh god. Piston heads that are reshaped to handle the the the massive amount of pressure being thrown in there because the I forgot how many pounds of booster running in that thing. It's an insane number. Yeah, I can only imagine. I can only imagine. Yeah, so it's like a giant vacuum. They they it is similar, but they said it's a completely different engine, characteristic wise. Wow. Yeah. That's fucking so crazy. They went crazy with that thing. It's nuts.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

They had to be they're like, you know what? Fuck you, everyone else, okay?

SPEAKER_04 39:42

All right, Germans, all right, fucking Italians. Like, we're just gonna fucking show you what's up. And to be honest, like, I think what I've learned over the years, and I and and take it for what you guys want out there for the car lovers in the segment of cars that we're talking about today, is like there's a Lambos, there's a Ferraris, there's all these different cars. But if you think about bang for the buck, like what you have, or even like the ZR1 X, uh, or is this ZR1, um, the GTR, there's certain cars that are bang for the buck. Like, you don't need to spend a half a million dollars. And like, honestly, I don't really even care about like the Konaseggs and like the fucking crazy, crazy multi-multi-millionaire cars. Like, I don't even think I would want those. Bang for buck, unbeatable, unbeatable cars, like a GTR. Yeah, insane. I mean, you hear about the fucking Kona Seg and all that, and like the issues that they're having with the Jesco and all that, Steve Hamilton, Steve Hamilton, and all that shit.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

I'm like, I don't want to deal with that shit. That used to be my um, it used to be. I was still I'll still take one. I'll still take one, even though I might only be able to drive it two days. But it uh the yeah, the the Jesco absolute, the top speed one. Yep, I wanted that. Those freaking like jet wings, I don't know. I just spoke to my soul.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

So it is bad the fuck asked.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

That's probably the only hyper car I won't want. Okay, I mean, or I would take a LaFerrari. Of course, who wouldn't take a LaFerrari? Anyone from the Holy Trinity who wouldn't take that? A Porsche 918 Spider. Yep. Or a um a McLaren P1. Yeah. Beautiful car. Yeah. I had I got lucky enough to see one in person. Really? Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Wow. That's what's funny.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Timeless, really timeless design with that thing.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

I just saw a video pop up for Tavarish. Another fucking P1. I I don't know if that guy's ever gonna finish his car. I have no idea. I just saw a YouTube video. He's still working on that P1. He's still fucking working on that P1. It's been like three years. Well, the most recent video that just like I saw pop up on Instagram, or no, not even Instagram. Um, I'll have to pop that shit back up in a second. But uh, where was it? He literally just came through and it said something, and it's like I don't know, it's like, can you finish a project already, bro? What did the fucking what did it say? I swear it just like popped up before you got here, and uh it was something like rebuilding the P1 in 24 hours or something like that, or McLaren said you would have to come to us or some bullshit, but like, yeah, I was like, what? So I'll have to see where he's at with that. But I was just like, interesting, but of course, now I don't even see them in my in my history here. But um, but yeah, those are badass cars, those are sick. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Comment below what what would be your dream, dream hypercar, you know. I I mean for me, I think hypercar-wise, like I I really like that um conan seg. Um it's fucking the white one that he has a conan seg, it's a white one. The doors go up super sick. I forgot exactly which one it's called.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

I think they all have their doors, damn near all of them. Yeah, because they have doors. They call them dihedral, yeah. Dihedral doors. Yeah. Um, not butterfly. They go out and then they just rotate upwards. Yeah. Okay, okay. And uh so it might be the Aguera, the Rugera. Um it's probably the Rugera. Um it is because what you're talking about, Steve? Steve has that one too? CCX. Oh, the CCX. The CCX.

SPEAKER_04 43:12

Okay, yeah. That one was fucking super sick, dude. Yeah, that one's nice. It's just it's just clean. Like, doesn't have because they have the CC AX, and then they have the CCX, and then they have like, you know, the Jesco, which is super sick as well. And uh the Raghera RS Phoenix. Interesting. Yeah, they got they got a bunch. Um but yeah, he's uh where is it? This fucking picture is hella, and I can pop shit up here too, but yeah, you can barely even see it that picture. But yeah, so hypercar, probably something like that. But I just feel like there's just so many, like I think what's your thoughts about when you think about cars and you have one that you bought that's already I mean, dude, from the factory, it's so badass as it is, right? And then I have the GTR, and you see a lot of the GTR guys. They do a lot of modifications, or then you see people like you know, like the Civics, the Integras, a lot of like the $20,000 to $30,000 range cars. Like, you know, you go to these shows and they do like all types of shit, like paintwork and rims, and tires, and exhaust and motor and chroming and all this type of stuff. Like same thing with like, you know, you see the donks, the low riders and stuff like that, or muscle cars. Um, but personality-wise, like what's your thoughts about like putting your own personal out personality and personal touch to like a Z06? You know what I'm saying, and making it your own. Like, do you think it it's as good as it is, or do you think that there's something to be said about also maybe modifying, changing, adding so it's like also like more to your characteristics and personality?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

That's a good question. I like that. Uh, I've seen a lot of YouTube videos where guys do mods, they'll make their Z06 lighter. Okay. Um, or they'll like maybe like they'll do, or they'll do like they'll make it lighter, they'll do like I've seen the common mods are like uh eventuri cold air intake, so replace the cold air intake, they'll replace the dual throttle bodies, yep. Bring it up to like a 36 or 38 millimeter throttle body. Yep, yep. Uh, and then they'll do a catlass or cat back exhaust one of the two. Okay, and then those three together, I've seen people say like makes the Z06 wake up a lot. Really? But I don't need that. Okay, okay. It's already unusable to me personally. I don't need more of that. Uh these guys are probably used to the extreme of the extreme. Yeah. Like some of these guys, there's one dude on horsepower obsessed on YouTube. He talks about Corvettes and Z06s all the time. But he has a C7 ZR1. Okay. And those things are absolute animals and horrifying to drive. They are. Um, so you know, they're used to that kind of stuff. For me, this is the most power I've ever even come close to driving. I mean, my friend, he has a red-eye hellcat, he let me drive that once. That was terrible. Oh, no, hell no. Yeah, that's that's insane.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

They're insane, but also I feel like I feel like they just put a fucking super quick car, a quick motor, into like a literally like a box. You know what I'm saying? Like the car's not really aerodynamic or anything. It's it's a muscle car, you know, which I respect. I had a 72 Chevelle. I love muscle cars, but I saw one of those be raced to the 01X, and the 01X fucking beat it.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Like I saw Oh, wait, the D uh that was a demon, though, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 46:26

Oh, that was a demon, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Well, the demon, I mean, you're only gonna be able to use that on the drag strip anyway. I think so.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

Yeah, yeah. It's a whole whole level. But it's it's crazy, like how now that the 01x is at a point now where it's like it can it could, I mean, do everything. Track, straight line, you know, car show. It's it's it's an all-around car that gets hits every single fucking box. It takes every box, yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah, it's insane.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

So that's the modification portion, but what about look-wise?

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Look-wise, yeah, probably small things. Okay, really small things. Like I was telling you earlier, the smoke out the taillights, because yeah, it's the red mist metallic tint coat, so it matches that red of the taillights that's been bugging me. Uh, the front pillars on the windshield are red too, but my top is black. I remember yeah. Like you can see through it. Yeah. Um, so I want to make the pillars black to match that so I can get that just that whole front portion black. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I might do a slight smoke out on the headlights too. Okay, that'd be dope. Yeah, just to get that balance going. Yeah, yeah. And then I don't I can't see myself doing anything else for that car.

SPEAKER_04 47:39

Yeah, that car is sick. It is sick. It is, it is super sick. So let's change the sub uh the segment to like back when you were like younger. Like, like what was the catalyst even to get you into cars? Like, what was like dad, mom, friends? Like, when did you see your first car? You're like, oh shit, like what is that? Like, when did when did this whole love for cars come about?

SPEAKER_01 48:00

I'd say the first experience that really stood out to me was I don't remember how old I was, but my mom, so I was born in California. Okay. My mom grew up in Cali.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

So sometimes we would take trips back over there. Uh Linwood, so it's basically Compton Okay. Okay. It's like right next to Compton, it's basically Compton. Okay. Right. So um, she we would take trips back over there because my grandfather lived in Long Beach. So we would drive back to Long Beach here and there to go visit him. Uh one time she rented a convertible Mustang.

SPEAKER_06 48:31

Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

And that's that, not the Mustang itself, but a convertible. I was like, We were driving back from our trip from California, driving back to Arizona, and we were like flying down the road. I don't I don't know what how fast we were going, but it wasn't that fast. Maybe just seemed faster then. But the the breeze plus being able to see all the stars, because we're in the middle of nowhere on the road. So the top off of that breeze and being able to see the stars are like convertibles or where it's at. I think that's that just that just set it in stone for me for that. I was like, whoa, that so that was like the first thing that brought what made me like cars are nice. Yeah, and then from there, uh, the next thing I'd say probably had the biggest impact was growing up playing video games. Okay. We our first console was the Nintendo GameCube. Okay, yep, yep. And then we had Need for Speed. So we the first Need for Speed was Need for Speed Underground. I remember all that. So we played Underground and my Toyota, the Toyota uh Silica always stood out to me. I loved that car. Yep. And then the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Oh, yeah, of course. That car's still beautiful to me. I love that car. Um, those two cars were always my, I was like, well, I really like these cars a lot. Uh that's so that's what kind of brought it. And then we continued. We played Need for Speed Most Wanted, which is good Need for Speed game ever, the best, best out of all of them. And then Need for Speed the Run. So kind of just sat in stone. I was like, I like cars at that point. And then I think the the next milestone was for when I bought my first car. Because I didn't, I liked cars, but I didn't know shit about cars.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

So I started doing research. I went down the rabbit hole, uh, downloaded the app Cars.com, which I still use to this day. Yeah. Let's go. Because I just like looking at cars, shopping for them now. And I just learned about every car, every make, and then every model that that that that uh car company made. So about learning about Toyota. Okay, what kind of cars do Toyota have? What kind of? And then just now I could look at any car on the road and identify it immediately, just by the headlights or taillights. I'm like Acura TSX, yeah, 2013 to 15, maybe. Yep, yeah. And my friends are always like, how the hell do you know like I I can't explain it? So I drank the Kool-Aid.

SPEAKER_06 50:45

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Yeah, I when that kind of set it in stone for me. My first car that I purchased was a Hyundai Tiburon.

SPEAKER_06 50:53

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

The uh Tiburon Spanish for shark, for those who don't know.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

They're uh the two-door sports car, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Yeah, it was the V6 version too. No, it should have a nice little purr to it. That's the same. That was my first experience with like carrying a car and liking how it sounded in real life. Like, I like how this sounds, yeah. It broke down on me uh long after, you know. I didn't I had it for like a year and then eventually had to sell it during my journey and tattooing just to make ends meet. Okay. But that those three experiences, or four I should say, were the ones that kind of encompass my love for cars.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

That's what's uh, dude. Shout out, that's super cool. Hey, you love cars? Comment below. Want to hear you, especially if you're watching this on YouTube, because uh you can't watch if you're not not watching, just listening. And um, yeah, I mean, and that's the thing too. It's it's like either it's either you do or you don't in the car stuff, too. Like some people love it, some people don't love it. And my wife doesn't really love it. She like grew up with it, and like like her ex-boyfriends used to race, and they had cool like muscle car Corvettes, and or it was like um Mustangs, actually. Yeah, and um and light cars as well. And and she's she respects them, but she doesn't really understand, see them. Not like I see cars and she's like, What? And now my daughter sees it and she'll see cars and she's just like, Well, dad, what happened to that car? I'm like, Well, they got in a car accident, and maybe they're still driving it, it's okay, like you know, or like she'd be like, Oh, did you see that really cool car, or whatever? And so daughter's starting to pick it up, which is really cool. Um, but on my side, I come from uh my uh dad's mechanic, and uh I used to race quarter midget racing cars. Oh really. So yeah, so it was my um my uncle, so my aunt got married to a mechanic, and so Uncle Jerry, his son, my brother, who's four years younger than me, and then um, and then myself, we all three were gonna race this quarter-midget racing car. And then, of course, I liked it the most, and I was the biggest, and I grew out of it the quickest, unfortunately. And then my dad used to be in the pits for my cousin, uh, Ted. And so he used to race like um back in Pittsburgh, California, they would have the oval dirt tracks, and so he'd be racing the Crown Vicks and like those type of older cars, you know what I'm saying? Box Chevy like Crown Vicks, that type of stuff, and then like they would race around the circle and they have like the number on the side, and it was like your beginning stages of like NASCAR and shit. And then my dad, he used to work on cars in the garage, and so he would be putting in like he would deal with a bunch of drug dealers, and he's like, Oh, I want to put this NASCAR motor in this fucking in this uh this this 442 Pontiac, and then I had a 72 Chevelle Malibu that I actually uh built with my dad in high school. Wow, yeah. So I had a Saturn, and then my aunt my aunt gave it to me, SL2 Saturn four-door, just fucking delivering pizza car, and I used to deliver pizzas, and then I then I ended up getting my dream car's 1972 Chevelle Melbourne, but I remember going from a four-cylinder to a V8, and I'm like, what it was a huge big jump, and then like remember the seat didn't always latch properly, and then uh and the car was super loud, and I was just like fucking grinning ear to ear, like, oh my god, and I needed body work and it wasn't perfect, and whatever else. But um, yeah, I worked all through fucking high school and that shit until we put a fucking badass motor in it, and it was like 550 horsepower, and it redlined at like 8,500 RPM, it was full roller rockers the whole nine, and some dude owed my dad money, so he'd get in this motor and then give it to me, and then and then sure enough, I'm going to I used to go to school for ASC and smog to work on cars, and I was uh the girl at the time because I used to work at I was a lot attendant at Chevy, so I got to drive all the cars and shit. And um, and then my dad always takes me for rides and fucking you know box Chevy's and Novas and just all types of shit. I'll turn you into an addict of the city. All the different cars driving them around. Yeah, big time, bro. Yeah, big time. And then I would uh and I would uh you know they had this is like this is like back when like the 90s, not nineties, it was like 2005, 2006, 2007, Chevy Suburbans were big. Like everyone drove a suburban during that time. And uh they had the chains and and change, so I would like put the little fucking you know paper, and I put the plastic and I would get in, drive it to the back, and then I'd be like, all right, well, they got a bunch of change here, just one quarter. And I would like take the quarters, and then there's the fucking vending machine, and I'd give myself a little snack of shit. Like, hey, I don't I don't suggest that you do that. I'm just I'm coming clean here. Um, but yeah, seeing all those cars was a big thing for me. And then um, and then uh and then yeah, I basically ended up uh yeah, I got into a lot of shit. Actually, I fucking had an ex-girlfriend, she had SRT4 Dodge Neon. You remember those cars?

SPEAKER_01 55:40

Yes, yes, those were dope, those were low.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

And uh yes, they're front-wheel drive, yes, they're not all wheel drive, yes, it's a Dodge Neon, but it still had like 275 horsepower, weighed nothing, four-door, had fucking it sounded super cool. Uh, I was actually gonna buy one like a couple months ago. Really? I was actually thinking about buying just just a little fuck around car. Yeah, that would be a really cool fuck around car. You know, something to fuck around with and just to have it, and just they'll be like, oh, you gotta you got SRT4. I'd be like, Yeah, I also have a TRX, I also have a GTR, you know, it's just like this is just like my fun little fuck around.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

But it's funny, is though, it's like I feel like now in a in an age where it's just like all about oh, I have the most expensive, most exclusive car ever. I feel like more and more people are growing to appreciate the older stuff, the older shit, yes. And it's like it I would probably be more excited to see that on the road. Yes, like, oh wow, you know how rare that is? Like, yeah, because when are you ever seen it on the road? Never, never, so isn't it's more so now about like the older cars that were appreciated somewhat then are seen as like a diamond damn name.

SPEAKER_04 56:47

Oh my god. Yeah, I'm almost thinking about fucking uh the um I used to have a box, uh what was it 95-96 was the year for the Chevy Tahoes. Remember those box Chevy Tahoes? Those are badass. You put a couple 12s in the back and it's fucking just one big silo, yeah, fucking slumping. I put a couple 22s, some set of 22s on that shit, and then it used to be turned to look nice and it has a two-tone, it has like the silver in the bottom with the black on top. You black all the windows out. Yeah, man, so much room in the back for girls. That was the hood escalate. It was the hood escalate, bro. I used to rock that shit. I rocked that after I had to sell the Chevelle because I ended up blowing the motor because the SRT4, I got a ticket and let my fucking ex take the SRT. Uh I took the SRT four because I was going to school for ASC and small to work on cars, and then she took that shit back to Pittsburgh, and the the fucking shifter was off. It was only three speed and 72 Chevelle, and uh it's a Turbo 400, and it was fucked up on the shifter. And so she she took it, and then she's like, Your car is fucking overheating and it's smoking, and because she was had it at fucking 4,500 RPMs at 6570 on the freeway, and totally didn't know what she was doing, and it was my dumbass fault. And then I'm buying heads trying to fix it, and then it didn't run right, and then I sold it, and then next thing you know, I sold it to some dudes that pulled up in a fucking Bentley, and it was two dudes came up in a Bentley, had all cash, and then later on down the line, the dude told me that he's like, Oh, my brother was looking for you, and uh that motor and a blown and that that Chevelle. I'm like, Oh shit. But you know, Karma has it. I ended up fucking having one of those box fucking Chevies and uh 96 suburban or Tahoe, and I had 22s on and I was being dumbass trying to fucking do some donuts and shit, and then I blew out the fucking transmission and the rear end. That shit cost me like four grand after I got fucking a settlement from some bullshit from getting shot in the face with a CO2 powered BB gun through an old best friend. Yeah, long story.

SPEAKER_06 58:44

Yeah, that sounds like uh Yeah, something you'll get into later. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:50

Yeah, fucking crazy shit. But but yeah, so um, so then when you get into the car world, and now you're liking the cars, and then you you said something earlier about car broke down and then you're selling it because tattoos. And I know you go by Q Inc. Yeah, so like what what was the catalyst getting into doing more with uh with tattoos, and like how did that even like was the first love for tattooing come from?

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Uh I'll say so it all it's I started in 2018. I started tattooing. Uh it was I had gotten home from work, someone who knew me, because uh everyone who knew me knew I would draw all the time. Uh okay, okay. So everyone knew I could draw. So an acquaintance of mine was getting a tattoo, and I guess the owner had mentioned that he was looking for artists, so he must have brought me up. And so that acquaintance called me on the spot, gave the phone to the owner. Owner's like, this dude, hey, yeah, we're trying to train people, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Come on down. And I'm like, sure, whatever. I'm not taking it serious because I got a full-time and a part-time stressed out, just trying to pay bills, living with my brother in this apartment. Oh shit. Uh, barely getting by. So I'm like, I don't have time for that shit. Yeah, yeah. But uh just follow up my gut after I hung up, something told me, go down there. Really? Yeah. So I drove, I drove down there, and then that's kind of how it all started. But then it wasn't until a year in where I was like, and I still didn't even like love it then, but my mom always taught me like if you're gonna do something, like take it serious, don't have to miss anything. So either stop or you go all in and and and do it. So I was like, what am I doing? And I th and I think at the same time, it was like earlier that week I had an experience where uh because the shop wasn't like crazy busy, and there was it was a huge shop with like 18 artists in there. Yeah, so it wasn't a lot of walk-in traffic. If there was, it would be off seniority, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So most of the guys, I'm not barely getting walk-ins ever. And I'm going, I don't know how to market, I don't know shit about like content and social media like that. Uh so you know, I'm tattooing basically people I know if I can get them in. Yeah, yeah. So so I got this walk-in. Lady went Roman numerals on her bicep.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:01

Um, pretty decent sizing, like almost her whole bicep. So I get the tattoo done. I think we charge her like 260. After percentage cut, I was left with like 120, 130. But it only took like an hour and a half. And at the time I was working at Jimmy John's.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:20

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

I had to work like a week to get a check that size. Really? Yeah. Because minimum wage back then was like $10 or $11. Oh shit. So I was like, bro, I just made my paycheck in an hour and a half. That's fire. What the hell am I doing? Yeah. So now it was like the wake-up call for me, too. So I was like, if I took this serious, how much more could I make? Yep. So that was like the transition period where I was like, okay, I'm gonna start taking it serious. So I started taking it a little bit more serious, more time, effort to improving. And then I had left both my I my part-time and my full time, and just grabbed a full time that would make maybe pay close to the amount of what I was making between both jobs. So I ended up getting a full time that was paying me, I think like 18, 17, 18 bucks an hour. Yeah. Call center, most stressful job ever. Oh shit. Yeah, I didn't last long there. After training, I was on the floor for like one month and I quit. Had an anxiety attack in the parking lot after like it was customer service for uh you ever heard of Asurian?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:26

It sounds super familiar.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Yeah, so they're the insurance you get through with your phones. If you ever got insurance for your phone, the ones was with Sprint. That was Assurian, was the insurance company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Assurian actually Sprint subcontracted Asurian to get additional customer service reps to um to supply the demand, basically. Yeah. So through Asurian, I was working for Sprint doing customer service. Uh so but a lot of the calls were like onboarding with people, it's like old people who've never touched an iPhone before in their life, and they're trying to like start the phone and get all their data on it and everything. So it's like long calls with like they want you to keep the calls down shorter, but the calls like realistically is like two hours helping grandma set up her phone. Right? So and uh so it was one call, like think it was like two and a half hours. I missed my lunch, and like the whole the whole call was just to get her iPhone on and transfer the data over to other iPhone. It took two and a half hours. It was a nightmare. Oh my god. So I got out, I got off the call, went to break, went outside, was having a panic attack. I was like, I can't do this. It was bothering me at my core. I was like, why am I here?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

Not in alignment.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:38

Yeah, I was out of alignment, yeah. And I knew it, I could feel it. Yeah, so I walked back in, I clocked out and I left. Wow. And I said, I'm gonna tattoo full time.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

Let's freaking go. That's lift off right there. That's the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Damn. So it actually was doing well for like because this was I didn't know about seasons with tattooing. So see if you're not uh like a seasoned tattoo artist, then there's slow seasons. You know, during the holidays people are out visiting family, spending money on other stuff, have less expendable income for a tattoo. I didn't think about that. So I had quit in the summer. So I think around May or June.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

So June, July, August were great. Okay. September, October, awful. Yeah. I was paying bills and had money left over. I was like, damn, I'm doing good. And then the those two months after that, flatline. And then I was learning ads because how I was funneling in client traffic was spinning ads, running ads on Instagram. Okay. But yeah, if you and you already know, if there's no sense in run funneling client potential clients down to a landing page that looks like shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

So I didn't know anything about that, about a funnel and a landing page and like your business on social media. If you're running an ads on Instagram, your your profile is your landing page. Yeah. My land playing my landing page was garbage.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:07

So but also anyone who knows runs with Instagram knows Instagram has a million bugs here and there whenever they do updates. So coupled with the slower season, and then right in um August, Instagram did an update and fucked up ads. Oh they operated like completely different. Because before you could run an ad and you can start seeing traffic about like the first day. Wow. Yeah. Pretty fast. Now, oh, I don't know how it is is now because I haven't read ads in forever. I'm all organic right now. Okay. Um after like after that, it became where it would take several days for it, would basically do a testing period where instead of sending it out to a mass of people, it'll save you money. So it'd go for like four to five days, okay, send it out to small groups of people, see who's responding the best, and then funnel it to them. And so by the time it ramps up, it's going. To the right people who are gonna convert the most, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so I mean that makes sense now. But looking back, I was like, Well, Instagram screwed me over, fucked me over. Because I was basically, yeah, I'm fucked. I was behind on rent already. Um that's when I had sold my car to cover rent in um September. By October, I'm already still behind and trying to figure out ads what the fuck's going on. Oh my god. Um and a million things happened in between that. So that's like that. This this section of my life is a whole story in its own. But I'm just I'm shortening it. Um the ads, I never figure out ads. Okay, I eventually end up getting evicted. Oh shit. Yeah, after selling the car. So I lost my car in my apartment in two in two months, and then uh end up crashing with my brother uh on his couch, and I said, Oh, okay, I can bounce back in like two months. Took me a year. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:53

Took me a year to bounce back. Jeez Louise. And like during that time, like what did you learn? What'd you what what what was like the difference between, you know, you lost pretty much everything, you're you know, on the couch to like bouncing back. What what was the contrast there?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

So okay, pretense. So you said lift off, right? The lift off moment, right? I feel like I haven't had mine yet. Really? Yes, because you know how when you look at like the average, most businesses fail within the first five years, right? Yep. So what does that tell you? That like everything takes time to lay a foundation, yep, to show that it's strong. So most businesses when they're evaluating you for a loan, like they're looking at like how long you've been in business? Okay, three years. You're a a toddler to them. There's businesses that have been around for decades, a hundred years, yeah selling straws. Anything, right? You know, if you want to do it, it's about the know-how, right? And and and a million other things, but anyway, not to go on a tangent with that. So I feel like I'm I'll from that point up until now, I've just been laying my foundation.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Yeah. Wow. I know a lot of people look at where I'm at, like I'm living a great life now, and I've been blessed for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

Zero sex and shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

Yeah, and uh, you know, little stuff and then something going on, right? But that to me, that was just me working to become the person that could build the foundation to acquire the skills to really actually lift off. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm just getting started. Oh, I love that. I love that. But to to dial it back, yeah, yeah. Um, I yeah, so that what I learned from that point where I lost everything, and then the process to getting back on my feet, uh I feel like it just reinforced what I already knew. Uh basically when of course I was sad and crying ugly, booger just when I got it when I got evicted, but I feel like you know, immediately after I was like, it's just a small setback to move forward. And that, you know, ultimately the only thing that separates you who will succeed versus someone who won't is quitting. Yeah, right. I just knew if I didn't quit, I would succeed. Yep. And that ultimately it's gonna everything will work out in my favor. Yeah. It's the saying I still have to this day because Amen. Uh it always does, right? Mm-hmm. We're here today, and that's a sign that everything's ended up working out in our favor, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:22

It had to work out every it had to work out exactly how it did for us sitting right here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

It's exactly where we're at.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Talking, you know, talking and sharing with all y'all.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

So that's what that taught me is that like, because when when I ended up with my brother, you know, uh uh I was tattooing from the apartment. Okay. The apartment I was in was all the way in the opposite of town where I was before. I was in like North North Phoenix, like uh 19th Avenue and Northern. Uh I moved all the way up there because a friend of mine had a studio up there and I went there to tattoo with him. Okay. I didn't end up working out for him, even have having to shut it down like a month after I moved to Latin Bar North. So I started tattooing out the apartment, lost the apartment. So now I have no order to tattoo, and I don't have any of my equipment because the stuff I could I couldn't save everything, so I had to throw away most of it. But the stuff I could salvage I put in storage.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

Yeah, yeah. But including my tattoo equipment. Because I'm like, I don't know when I'm gonna tattoo, I don't have any of my stuff. Yeah. So dang. This is uh where you disconnect your Yeah, you're good. Okay, yeah. So the after basically right after I packed all what I have, I just the clothes on my back show up in my brother's apartment. You know, they're like, hey, I need a place to crash. Luckily, you let me play with it. Older, younger brother. Younger brother, yeah. And so where was I leaving off with that? Yeah, so basically I I left all my stuff in the storage. Yeah, yeah. Stay with my brother. I have nowhere to tattoo, and I don't even have my equipment because I'm like, okay, well, I guess since I'm back at square one, let me just get a job, get back on my feet with that, and then start tattooing on the side. I'm gonna just I have time, so I'm gonna use that to my advantage. Uh a few interviews later, and I went circled back to that anxiety attack I had at my uh job at the call center, and I was like, okay, I had that gut feeling again, just like when that person when something told me to go to the first shot where I started, the gut feeling was saying, you're gonna have to do either. You're gonna have to go job or you're gonna have to go all in and keep tattooing. Because you already got the I already had the momentum going. Yeah. I was getting better. Um, I knew a little bit about marketing, you know, and then I was like, I'm stopping the snowball. If I stop, if I let this stop me, I'm not gonna care. I'm gonna have to start all the way up. You gotta keep it going.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

As soon as that happens, the same friend that had the um the place in the north side of Arizona said, Hey, I'm at a new shop now. They have a spot open. Okay. You want to come down and meet the guys and do it. And so I was like, Okay, well, looks like I'm doing that. So, but the shop was like six miles from my brother's apartment. I was flat broke. Like, I had nothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:02

You want six-mile run, real quick?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:04

Yeah, walk so walking there every day. I was walking there. So I ended up working there. I would walk every day, six miles and back every day. Talk about some dedication, bro. Let's go. That was the funny thing. It was actually therapeutic, because like nowadays with our phones by our side, so many people are distracted. I tell people, how much time, how many of your thoughts are your own thoughts? Is it something you saw on the television that you're thinking about, or something somebody else said? How many, how much stuff was came from your own internal, uh, your own internal dialogue? Right? So that six-mile walk was about like an hour, almost two hours. Like a yeah, like a yeah, it took about almost two, it was like about a two-hour walk every day. There and back. So it was a lot of time to think. Yeah. Growing up drawing all the time, I'm used to that. Yeah, I'm used to that. Drawing, I would be in my room all day uh with the same brother. We would share a room, but he he liked to be outside. So I'm just alone in the room drawing all day, six hours, eight hours at a time. Wow. I'm used to sitting down and just being with myself. So that was like therapeutic for me, that walk. Um so I every day it was kind of just more like a affirmation. I knew I was getting to where I needed to be. It felt right. I felt in alignment. That's amazing. Compared to the making money in the call center, making really good money an hour, yeah, versus being broke off my ass and walking six miles a day in the heat or the cold to get to a shop. I felt in alignment, it felt right. And you're getting your sunlight. Yeah, yeah. I was getting the vitamin D then, bro. I was great. So that's how that was. Um, it wasn't the whole year. I didn't walk, I started getting more momentum about like five months in. Okay. Enough money to where I would take lifts. Okay. Uh, and then so now like luxury shit out of a little bit. You're like, damn, okay, cool. I can talk to people on the way to the shop now. Yeah, more time and stuff like that. So then uh I eventually ended up going to a different shop. These there's a whole other story for all that. But okay, I'm in another shop 24th Street Baseline. So now it's even further. I can't walk that. That's that's gonna be like a five, four, four, four-hour walk, really. Yeah, it's about four hours because I walked home from there one time. Wow. I was too broke to get a ride back, so I walked. Uh, and it seemed like fun to me. Because I had all I had was time then.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:24

So I was like, fuck it, I'll walk.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:25

Yeah, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:26

Yeah, just to see how long it would take. But, anyways, I'm I don't that's not realistic to do every day. So I would take I had the money to take lifts there. Okay. Um now this was right before COVID. Okay. I ended up getting fired from that shop like a week before COVID went down. Dang. Yeah. But it ended up being, it was funny because that shop ended up closing down anyway, because everybody had to close down. Yeah. So it worked out for me because uh COVID, everybody was bored. I made the most money tattooing in my early part of my career through COVID. I started marketing myself as a mobile tattoo artist. Uh yeah, so I kind of went to my advantage. Because at first, when everything was going down, like you're looking at this stuff on the news, I'm like, damn, this looks like chaos outside. I think I'm gonna just sit down and just wait for this to blow over. Good thing I didn't do that. Something told me not to, because COVID ended up being what three years? Yeah, whatever got off my brother's couch. Nah, yeah. So then to like take action, don't let nothing stop. There's never a perfect time to do anything. Never. So through COVID, I'm like, okay, I'm a mobile tattoo artist now. I'm on Yelp running ads. Yeah, I'm on Instagram running ads. Yeah, uh, I'm making great money. That's a suck. Solid money. Yeah, you know, at least like 300, 300 to 600 bucks a week. That's a suck. Yeah, that's a suck. That was that was great for me with like staying with my brother, throwing him a couple extra bucks. He had a son, so my nephew, I'm watching my nephew a couple of nights a week. That's perfect. Yeah, it's perfect. I was in a I was in a good spot. I was getting momentum. Um, but then I got to a point to where I was like, I'm tired of this, you know. Yeah, because I wasn't when at early on when I was doing house calls, I wasn't prepared equipment-wise. Okay. A lot of I didn't have like a fold-out table for people to lay on. I didn't have armrests. You're like on the couch and shit. Well, actually, I did have an armrest. Yeah. So, but yeah, I'm on the couch and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:20

Um I've tattooed people on the kitchen. This is on the couch. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:24

Yeah. I didn't have a ring light to bring with me or anything. So independent on the lighting people have in their house. So that would be one of the questions I asked. Like, do you have appropriate like or a decent lighting in your house and like six by six worth of space where that I can tattoo out of? They say yes, I'm there. Okay. Um, later on I ended up getting the equipment to prop be set up. I learned I was like, okay, I need the fold-out bed, I need a ring light, um, and then like all the other stuff I needed to reinvest in all that. Reinvest in the biggest. And you're doing loot, like still doing like lift, yeah, and all that. At this point, though, I start to do, I was like, lift started getting expensive. Okay. Because I'm leaving people's houses late times. Oh shit. So they're charging way higher. It's like 70 bucks to get home. Oh shit. It starts cutting into the income too much. And then if I need to go get supplies, if I'm low on that, I have to pay for lift, go pay to for the stuff, and then pay for lift back. It started getting ridiculous. The call. So I was like, I need to look at a more cost-effective way to be able to get around because being stuck is what like my biggest setback, right? Did you charge like a fee too for house calls, like additional or no? No, I didn't think it makes sense because I already didn't have that much leverage market-wise. Cause uh like I was still I was decent, but I was like compared to what they can get for if I bring the race up too high for the these fees, they might as well just go to somebody else. So I needed to stay competitive, keep the fee, the like the how much it costs lower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like, uh, so I ended up deciding to do rentals. So I started renting cars from Enterprise. I would what I would do is start booking appointments closer together within a few days. Like, say I got four appointments in a six-day span. Okay, I'm gonna just rent a car for six days, and that way, okay, it's gonna cost me 230 bucks. Okay. I'm making between all these appointments, I'm making like 350 to 400 each.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

So one of the appointments is covering the car, the car expense, and then everything else is profit. That's how I looked at it. Got it. So what that's all that's what taught me about learning through business. You just build systems that work for you in the moment, and you have to be flexible, yeah, be able to adjust to things quickly, really fast. Yeah. Uh, and you have to be aware of what's holding you back too. You have to constantly look and analyze at everything. It's really similar to personal growth. Yeah, I think that's why sitting down in rooms all the time, like I'm always always working on myself. So that's what made me able to analyze from a business perspective. Yeah, what can I do to stay afloat, to do well, to bring money in, to help solve my own problems. I already thought like that as a person, so it was natural to me to do so with business looking back hindsight.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:02

That's what's so man. Congratulations on that whole side of things. Cause at the end of the day, I think anyone in view and listening, it's like you, you know, it's one thing to hire a coach and have a mentor and be able to afford that. Um, you know, that's that's being proactive to a certain point, but then it's allowing someone else to put things in perspective because you're not as proactive as like, say, Q you were, you know, and seeing the writing on the wall, making those quick changes and pivots to be able to keep moving forward, and uh you failed forward to get where you needed to go, to do what you needed to do. And so, how long did you go doing all the house calls before you're like, all right, like I want to be able to have people come to me and have a shop and and and and go in that direction?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:46

So I actually wasn't there yet. Once I was doing the rentals, things were a lot easier. I was just happy to drive because back to my love for cars, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I'm renting a different car every week. Okay. All of simple stuff. It was like uh Ultimas and uh um Camries. Yeah, yeah. I actually love the new like the 2018 to 2025 Camries are nice. Really? They're super comfortable to drive, great on gas. They're I would still get one just to have as a sidecar. I was like, hey, you want this? I'll take it. Yeah, yeah. Um, so it just driving. I was just happy to be able to not walk everywhere. Yeah. So I was just happy to be, I felt good in myself. I was like, hey, I'm doing my own thing, and I'm I can drive around between two people. So I didn't mind. And then I was getting better at marketing. I got better with my tattoos, so I upped my rates now. Yeah. And now and COVID's like on its back end, so people are still outside. So I I grew up, okay, and it allowed me to up my rates, so I'm having higher quality clientele as well. Nice. So the and now I have all my equipment, so the light situation isn't a problem. Yeah, people, I'm going to people's houses, the houses are getting bigger because like you know, the price is up, so that's usually go along with their income. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, you know, early on, I'm in the hood and I'm in these tiny box apartments with the yellow lights and the popcorn.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

Now I'm in uh the house like yours, a huge house, and they just like, oh yeah, let's just take this room, their room out of 15 rooms in their house. They're like, tattooing this one. So um, so it was actually really fun. I wasn't but what happened was I felt stuck. Okay. I was making, I think, max like 3400 a month. I think that was my best month. But on average, after everything spinning profit, I was looking at like 2800 a month profit. Okay, okay. Um, and then some months it will break even because it wasn't as busy, you know, and I'm still learning stuff, and then reinvesting because I will buy new machines because the machines I had with stuff, and then I was like, Oh, I was convinced I needed a camera. So I just I was in the habit of reinvesting, so a lot of the money was going out too from the profit, right? Yeah, uh, but I was like, I feel like I'm stuck, I wasn't growing as rapidly as I was in the beginning stages, things were slowing down, and I could feel the difference. So I was like, hmm, there's no progression here. I feel like I there's something else I need. Uh so one day I'm hanging out at my cousin's house. Yeah, and then I'm something tells me, look, there's only at the time, there's only one supply shop in all of Arizona. Interesting. Yeah, West Phoenix Tattoo Supply. Okay, right. Okay. Uh they're all the way in West Phoenix. Yeah. Right. I'm basically downtown Phoenix, right? Or I don't need any supply at all. I'm fully I just stocked up. Gut feeling again. Um go go to the supply place. I'm like, okay, I got the rental. I'm sitting outside. Fucking sure, I'll go to the supply place. So follow my instinct. Follow your instincts, guys. That's crazy. Your intuition, follow your intuition. Well, so my intuition said go over there. And then um, I I don't remember if I was listening to some, I think I was listening to a podcast. Oh shit. And in it, he was words he said that stood out to me. He was like, When you're like stuck, you need to get around someone who's ahead of you to help bring you forward. And that's exactly what I needed to hear, right? Interesting. So I get there, and there's an artist I follow who's my like my brother now. His name's Dakar. Okay. Uh, and I'm following him on Instagram, and he's got like 50 something thousand followers on Instagram, right? Wow. And I'm like, so to me he's a tattoo celebrity. Like right now, at that point, I had like 2,000 followers, maybe I think maybe even 1800. Yeah. And most of them I got from like following a bunch of people and hoping they follow me back, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so like I see his car, so it was a hellcat. Oh shit. So it's a slim, the narrow body hellcat. So destroyer gray one who's a nasty red stripe. Nasty. I was like, oh shit, that's the car. Yeah. Um and the car, I could hear the engine idling, so I was like, oh, he must have just gone in, he's about to leave. But I was like, oh, that's cool. I'm not gonna run up on him and be groupy. That was my mindset thing, right? So I would go inside and I was like, Oh, I'll just order some gloves because I don't really need anything. He walks in right behind me. I'm like, oh shit, what the car's by me. Um so he when he he'll tell the story and he's like, and wait, because you met him, right? Did you meet you have you met Descartes? He's in the I don't know which show we were both because the show I met you at, he wasn't there. No, that was an early morning show. Did you go to that recent AZ track star show that was no okay then you probably okay you probably haven't met him yet then? No, okay, so he walks in behind me, and um I'm like, oh crap. And he says something to me first. Really? Yeah, so I buy the gloves. He's like, You tattoo? And I'm like, Yeah, he he he's like, Oh, I thought he was a piercer because I just got gloves in his head, and there's barely any black tattoo artists in Arizona, right? There's like maybe 20 black tattoo artists in Arizona. Oh shit. There's probably more now, but then there is little to none, right? Yeah, so he's really curious about it, and that's just who he is. He talks to everyone, you know. That's just he's uh he's very uh sociable. Okay, right. So he we he starts chopping up with me. We both step outside, we're chopping up outside for like an hour. He's asking me all these questions and stuff. He's like, Oh, okay, how long you been tattooing? I show him my work, and he's like, Oh, that's good. Whole time he's just vetting me because he's like, because my work was really good, especially because at the time I was only like three years in, maybe four. I think yeah, like like no, I was three years in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was three years in, and so it didn't match. He was like, hmm, this stuff looks too good. It almost a lot of people thought I was Chicano because the way I tattooed was like Chicano style. Uh so he was like, hmm. He's like, You want to come work with me? He actually, well, he said actually, he no, we I uh he followed me on Instagram, drove away, he called me immediately because we exchanged numbers. He called me, he's like, Hey, you want to come work with me in our studio? I'm like, Yeah, sure. So um he's he's in a uh salon suite out in Chandler. Okay. Uh I've never at this time I've never been this far over east in Arizona. I've never, I think I've been to Chandler once, younger. My mom took us to the mall one time. Yeah, I don't even know what Chandler is. Yeah, I'm like Chandler, what the hell? Let alone Gilbert anywhere else, so never been that far east. Interesting. So um he's in a uh salon suite over in Chandler. Okay. So uh and I'm still staying with my brother. He's and that's he's in Phoenix, so that's like a 20-something drive, 27-minute drive. So uh I can't live. I lift there sometimes, it's really expensive. Oh my god. But yeah, so I'm working there with him for like a year, maybe a year and a half. That's what's up. Yeah, and so that's that was the transition from going to people's houses or people going to meet was just that chance there going on, running into him and that happening.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:40

Hey, you know what I'm saying? Liftop moment, you never know. Like, when you follow your intuition, what can happen, where you can go, where you can be ending up. So then then he saw that like that was your work, obviously, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

Like you started like he saw me working in person. That's that's the whole reason why he invited me to work with him. He's like, let me be sure. So he worked, make sure he'd be tattooing the same names as me and he'd be looking over, checking myself. I didn't know this. He told me this later. I didn't know this before. Yeah, so he was just like he's he was suspicious of friends. Because there's a lot of scammer pages where people just steal other tattoo artists work and then take deposits and ghost them actually. Oh shit. Because like it's it's a common thing for tattoo artists to take a deposit first prior to the appointment to show you're serious. Of course. So it's easy to make up a page, seem like a legitimate artist, take deposits. You get 10 people to send you 200, you made 2,000 today. Yeah, and you're done. So it's really good money for scammers. So he wasn't sure. So he had to make sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:36

There's a lot, there's a lot out there. We were looking at uh one at Mancoon, and there's a lot of scammers for like Man Coon like kittens. Really? I had no idea. Yeah, and they'll they'll take five hundred dollars or whatever deposit and there's like two thousand dollar, three thousand dollar caps. Mm. And it's just like you gotta be careful out there for just make sure, you know, cross the T's, dot the I's and like you have a location, so it and you know, typically when I do tattoos, I'd go in Talk to the person, maybe a little bit of sketch and stuff, put the deposit down, and and then all right, I'll see you in you know in a couple weeks or whatever else or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:07

Yeah, that's they're they're Ixobold now. They'll give us our location. So they'll make the fake page and then put the address of our shop in the page. Then they're looking at the shop, everything lines up. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. And they'll pull up, be like, yeah, I'm gonna have a tattoo at two o'clock with Q. You're still getting that now? No, it hasn't happened to me in a while. Okay, but damn, that'd be. It happens to Dakar more. Really? Yeah, than me. Uh I think because like my I yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it just depends on the style of tattooing. Okay. You know, if you're doing more urban work, then you end up with more scammeras. Really? Interesting. Interesting. And then they put set the rates ridiculously low. That's the first sign. When it's so cheap. Oh, the deposits a hundred bucks. A full forearm cover up is gonna be $350. So $100 down and then uh $250 at the day. This is gonna take eight hours. He's not charging $350 for that. It's ridiculously low price. So the people get scammed, it's like, brother, it's telltale signs that, but you know, still. And then they want us to do something about it. Like, I can't, like, you we can't stop them. Instagram won't take their pages down nine times out of ten. Yep. You gotta do your own due diligence and make sure you're not getting scammed. Check the page, check the likes. Is there engagement on these? Did they buy these followers? Yep. Uh, check the background. Why is the background different every couple of photos? Check the work. Why is he doing color realism and then like black work? Like, there's not a lot of artists that do certain styles of work super well and do them all. That's super rare. They're usually niche and they just do that style. So when you're seeing a bunch of different styles of tattoos, they all look kind of different. The backgrounds are different. That's a telltale sign, and then there's no face behind it. Some are getting better where they're using someone's face and attaching it to their page, saying, Oh, this, but that guy, the real page has like a hundred to the thousand followers, but their fake page has like 15k, so it's believable for someone who's not checking things.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:04

Yeah, yeah, like you can imagine a lot, especially too if you're younger and you want a tattoo and it's your first one, and you're all excited, and you're like, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, a hundred bucks, and then it's just like that's a lot of money for someone who's younger and like is super excited and they're hoping they're gonna get it. And so, yeah, do your due diligence for sure before you get yourself freaking too deep in anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:23

Or ask to call them or FaceTime them. That's what happened. I'll have clients who are sending me a large money, a large amount of money to put down on the tattoo. They're booking like two, maybe three days in a row. Yeah, so they just want some confirmation. There's like, hey, oh, I was like, okay, yeah, let can you FaceTime me tomorrow at 1 p.m. So they see my face. Yeah, and it matches all the page and everything, so they know it's me. I'm not scamming you, and so that works like magic. I love it. Like, uh, if he doesn't agree, or I'll offer, hey, if you want to drop the deposit off in person, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, once they usually hear someone say that, then they trust the person a lot more. They're like, oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. So ask them that. Like, if you're looking for a tattoo, uh if you're skeptical of the page, ask to drop the deposit off in person, or ask if you can video chat them just to verify things before you send money. I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:10

Yeah, that makes a whole lot more sense for sure. So now, so you work together, and then from that point to where you're at now, because I seen that you can now have collaborated with other artists, and like now you have your own shop, and like congratulations on that. So, which is huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:28

Uh, is he with you? Yeah, so actually that second shot wasn't my idea at all. Really? Yeah. So that's actually a funny story, too. So uh we were in from the studio salon suite.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:41

He was like, Do you think we should get a shop? The for initial idea was for like content and maybe helping other artists. Uh I was like, Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Um, but I wasn't in a position financially to be able to invest in that because all my money, I was making good money, really good money. I was like averaging like $8,500 a month.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:02

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:02

But a lot of it was going, I didn't even have a car yet then. Because a lot of it was going out. Yeah, I was doing stuff, I was doing there's a whole thing, a lot of things wrong with my business, and that's a whole other story that Descartes ended up helping me out with to fix it. Because and money going to family and stuff, that was a big part of it. Um so yeah, so I was like in a I was bottlenecked at the moment. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't have business terms, I was low on capital. So he ended up fronting the whole cost to all that. Really? Yeah, he he got so it's his shop, that one. Wow, his shop, the first place. Yeah, yeah. The second one, this was about four years into being at the first shop. Okay. He's with his friend, his friend has a food truck, Duke Chicago chicken, best chicken in Arizona, if you want chicken.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:47

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:47

All right, and um, so he he has a food truck, but he's been telling his friend Duke to get a a location. Yeah, yeah. Because the people love him, he has a big following on social media. Okay, he gets sold out every time he's out. Wow. Yeah, he could kill it with a location. So they went in Mesa to look for locations. Okay, and he's with Duke and my other friend GQ, who actually uh is in on the venture together with us. All they all went, and then I had just gotten the Z06.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:22

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:22

So I just spent, I just spent 10k to put down to get the Z06. Yeah. And then a whole bunch of other stuff in between, all that, right? Yeah, yeah. Um so I'm I just come in the shop, so another artist tells me, hey, you know, they're out there looking for a new location. I'm like, huh? New location? Since when were we doing this? He calls me, shows me a spot. He's like, Yeah, I'm doing it. I was like, it's nice. The location's great, the price looks right, I'm gonna do it. I'm like, damn. I'm like, you son of a So right after getting the car, I'm forking up money to invest in the shop. Cause I'm like, because he's asking me, You wanna, you ready this time? I'm like, oh my god. Fuck it. All right, fine. So I'm putting up money. Um, of course, we finance some stuff too, just to make it more realistic, so we're not putting ourselves in a real pickle, you know. Yeah, uh, but still, even then it was just like a strain, those first couple months from upon finding the place to getting everything set up and ready to go for opening, which was Friday, the last Friday of the 13th. Yeah, yeah. That was only like two months. Wow. It's insane turnaround. That was terrible. Yeah, that was but you gotta move quick because you don't have an option. No, you gotta you guys when growth happens. It's painful. Yeah, it's really painful. Wow. But yeah, so yeah, it's been up and running for about what 15, 16 days. And it's been going great so far.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:48

Yeah, yeah, it's congratulations. That's freaking and is so is the chicken there too?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:53

No, no, he ended up didn't get he didn't get a spot. Okay, I think he's looking at somewhere else now, actually. I'm not too updated by that.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:01

Little chicken getting your tattoo done, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_05 1:35:03

At the same time, you're just chilling, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:05

Yeah, for sure. Well, oh, back to following instinct, right? Yeah. So well, the decisions that led to here, right? Um, so you know Craig, Craig Graham, right? Yeah. So I'm in the car club. We met because of Craig.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

So how I met Craig. Wow, an outspoken motherfucker. Yeah, oh my god, he's so funny. Nobody likes him. He's hilarious. So how I met Craig, I decided one day my car my C8 was dirty as hell at the stingray before. Okay. Black. Okay. Satin black. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:39

Wrapped painted.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:40

Oh damn. You got it painted? No, the previous owner painted it. I didn't know this. Oh yeah. That was that that's a little story on its own. Okay, I didn't know. I never I never heard of that factory. Yeah, that was crazy. So damn. But it gets Arizona, dusty as hell. Yep. So it gets dirty really fast. It had been like 10 days since I cleaned it. The car was filthy on the outside. So I was like, okay, I had some time. Let me go clean this car. I go clean the car. Something told me to just go clean the car. I clean the car. I was gonna. Was this before or after I cleaned the car? I think this was before. It's either before or after. It doesn't matter. Okay, so I'm driving, I'm taking a route I don't usually take. I'm just driving around. I see an orange, what I thought was a Z R1 fly by. I'm like, what do he want you to think? Yeah, what's that? A Z R1? What the f so I go, I I try to, once the light turns green, I try to flag, flag him down. I'm like, what? I'm taking videos and stuff. What the heck? And I'm like, oh wait, that's an E-ray. That's still dope, though. He's got the huge wing, you know, he did the crazy centerful exhaust. He's loud as hell. Yep. It's uh lot faster than a regular E-ray. Yep. But still, so he pulls up into the um parks in. He waves at me and everything, gives me a little rev for the video, waves at me, pull. I see him pull over into this uh circle K.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:56

Yeah, yeah. I'm like, fuck that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:57

I'm gonna I turn right and then pull into the circle K2 part right next to him, take a video, wait for him to come back. I'm like chopping it up with him. He's like, Oh, what's up, man? How you doing? I'm like, Yeah, I was like, this is dope. He's like, Yeah, he's like starts it up for me and taking more videos and stuff. He's like, Yeah, oh you should your car is nice too. You know, Craig, he's like, Oh yeah, I like your color and everything. You should we I'm in a uh cannonball, cannonball car club crew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh I was like, damn, that's a lot of syllables.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:19

Cannonball carbs. Yeah, it's a lot of syllables.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:22

But so I didn't really remember it. He just told it to me. So I was like, oh, that's cool. You know, I'm just in the high of the moment. I'm like, oh wow, that's so cool. Hell yeah. Right? So after that, I've been had been shopping for Z06s for a while. Uh so and to dial it back even more, when I loved, when I got evicted, same time I had gotten my first credit card and I got a loan prior to getting evicted to try to come up with cash to pay rent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it wasn't enough. The loan I got approved for wasn't enough. And my card came too late. I thought I was gonna try to use the loan and the card. The card wasn't coming until like past when I would be kicked out. Uh-huh. So I had to adjust the the delivery address to my brother's place after I moved in. Okay. And I maxed that card out just trying to eat because it only had a $300 uh limit. Oh my god. So I was living off that car card. I was eating bread and butter for like two weeks. Holy shit. So and then I went, wasn't making any money, so the car went to collections. Yeah. Same thing with that loan. I couldn't pay that loan in time. And then I also had gotten like a personal loan that I had defaulted on. So my credit was all fucked. Yeah. All fucked. So I had been doing credit repair all the way from then all the way up until now. Okay. So I but I hadn't been keeping up on my score. My score was way higher than I thought it was. I hadn't been checking yet. Yeah. So I was like, damn. Let's go. Let's see. So in the I thought I was planning to get a Z06 when I ran into Craig.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:51

I was planning to get a Z06 within like three, three months, maybe four months. You know, I was like, I set a time frame. I was like, I gotta just stop putting it off. I've been dying for this car. I'm gonna make it happen at this time frame. After I ran into Craig, something told me, oh, let me check my credit. My credit is way higher than I thought.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:05

And I was like, oh okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:07

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:07

And then so I go and look at this purple Z06 that was like up the street. Something told me to go there. I was following Insta again. I was like, I got that feeling again. Go up there. Check us out. Yeah. That almost got the deal closed. And the ad dealership was on BS. So that ended up didn't it didn't work out. Okay. But I so I was like pissed off, and in the moment, I was like, oh they ran my credit a hundred times. Like, damn it. I was like this close too. It was just about to pull the trigger. They agreed to the down payment and everything. Because since my credit was better, I could come with a little less down. Yeah. That's why I was gonna wait longer. But now my credit's better. I was like, oh, okay, cool. I'll get a better interest rate and I can put less down. Let's go. Uh but the dealership was on BS, so I'm like not ready to give up. I go online. How I said earlier, I use Cars.com. Yeah. The app, though. Okay. I didn't look on the wet online because there's places that just don't use those apps and they don't list their vehicles on there. Yeah, yeah. So my the Stingray I had at the time, I had gotten from uh what was their name before? So it was a dealership up in North Scottsdale. Okay. And uh they were were uh individual dealership, like a private dealer. Yeah, yeah. But then they were doing so well that they bought out McLaren, a McLaren dealership. Now they're McLaren Scottsdale.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:31

Oh, damn.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

So McLaren Scottsdale had a Z06 listed, 109. And I was like, damn, that's a banging deal. I was like, something told me, let's go look at that tomorrow. So and but I already had a relationship with him because it's the same people. Yeah, so I just called the guy up, hey, I saw you guys still got that Z06. He's like, Yeah, we ran scrunched the numbers. He's like, Yeah, come tomorrow. They're like, then come get it. They were like so confident. I was like, because I know these guys don't BS around. Last time with the Stingray was the same deal. Once they got me approved, bam, it's in there out, no BS. Money down, like 15 minutes. Wow. Yes, they don't fuck around at all. Wow, the owner move cars. Yeah, they they move those cars, yeah. Uh so I go over there, I check it out. I had my credit score locked. So I couldn't get the car. If I would have if it was unlocked, they would have had me in and out of there 30 minutes with the car. Damn. So it was locked.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:22

So you do that shit in like uh credit karma or something like that. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:24

Yeah, you can do it in credit karma, but I didn't do it. I do it through Lexis Nexus, is the company that reports your credit to the other companies. Okay. They're the ones who report everything. So you go to them if you want to freeze your credit for protection purposes, right? Uh and then what's the name of the other company? It's Lexis Nexus, and then I forgot the name of the other company. But the Lexis Nexus lets you freeze it and then it's like usually like a two-hour delay, but you can do it same day. Okay. Okay. Other place makes you wait like a whole the next day. The fuck? Yeah, they need like an 18-hour window or some shit like that. So I couldn't do it that day. So I had to update it. Um, they end up doing that, and then they get me approved within a couple of minutes.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:08

And then I got the Z06.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:10

Wow. Right? Now, this is you you did down plus, you also gave the old sing weight as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically I was upside down.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:21

Did you add equity or no? No, no, I was upside down in that. Ah, I was upside down. I was upside down like 10k kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So kind of rolled that over, and then my down payment basically covered the negative equity. So I'm evening out. Um, so basically, yeah, once I got the Z06, I pull up on Descartes to show him the Z06, right? Let's go. You go for a drive. We're going on a drive. Guess who we run into?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:45

Fucking Craig.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:45

We run into Craig again. What? This is all within like four days. Because four days ago, that's when I ran into Craig. Four days ago, right? Yeah, yeah. So we run into Craig, uh, flip a U-turn, go catch up with him. I'm like, hey, what's up? He's like, oh wait, dude, that's you. Yeah. So we pull over by Dunkin' Donuts. We're chopping it up for like an hour. He tells me about the club again. I ended up on that drive that we that we did at the um in Apache Junction. Yep. And then I they invite me to the AZ Track Stars. Yep. And then that's how I met you.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:14

What let's freaking go. Yeah, I remember because when we met, um the AZ Track Stars is uh, you know, it's interesting because in Arizona, like I've been navigating these different types of um, you know, uh car clubs like Cannonball or AZ AZ Track Stars. And, you know, like there's some stigma about AZ track stars because of the fact that like there's a lot of like you know, it gets out of hand sometimes. Younger demographics. It's a little ratchet, like, you know, and it's all love at the end of the day for them. And then um, and then and then you have like the cannonball guys, which they're great. I feel like there's they're having a little bit of an identity crisis, to be honest with you. Like they don't really quite know what they're doing, but they do. I mean, I get it once a month, they do car cruises. I that's great. Um, organization of it could be a little bit better, and communication could be a little bit better, and I feel like um they can have imagery bit better, and then like giving everyone a flyer or something, or digital flyers, you know where like here's all the places that you're going. Um, now I'm not here to say that like I could I could do it better to the point where I want to, but uh, but I've done a couple shows myself. Um, and I'm not even a part of any type of uh, you know, I'm a part of I guess you could say I'm a part of their crew. I don't have my own shit, but I do an event twice a year here with GTRs, and now it's starting to like grow to other cars as well. Um to kick off summer and then to kick off um when it gets when it gets cooled down, kick off winter. Okay. So fall and winter. Um, but yeah, it's interesting because you hear in the cannibal crew, and then like I was like had a guy who was on Real Super Technologies and a podcast that I have, and um he caught wind, he's an agent that I went to the AZ track star, and then um, and then like it was like I guess like I I fit the stigma, I guess, at or something. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Like stigma of AZ track star? Yeah, like like I'm like fucking, and then I said some shit like what's up, fam? And then it was like trying to say, like, you know, it's like, you know, I'm ghetto or some shit. I'm like, what the fuck, bro? Like, all right, dude. Like, I I like to be cool with everybody, you know what I'm saying? But like I will say that one of the reasons why that car has been modified as much as it has been, one, because there needed to be some shit fixed on it, it wasn't the best car. Uh, but two, because AZ Trackstar, if you go to their like big event, they have like the racetrack and shit. They do have a trophy ceremony for custom vehicles. Oh, wow. And a lot of the cars are more of like your chargers or uh your selicas and like those type of cars, which it's not a high dollar amount of the car, but then they get crazy with like the lights and the lowering and the rims and like all the stereo system and all the shit. It becomes tasteful. It becomes yeah, exactly. And so, so my goal it one of the goals is track and show for the car. So I would love to go back soon and then be like, all right, boom, here you go. Here's a fucking GTR Gucci GTR, Gucci fucking Louis Vuitton GTR. You know what I'm saying? Like, let's go. Um, but uh, but that's crazy, dude. Congratulations, man. And it's crazy, like the conception of you know wanting the goal to to where you're at now. Um, I think that the C062 will hold their value better, I think you know for sure. Uh how many miles was on it when you bought it? Like 9,500.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:37

Compared to the other car, what'd you have on how many miles on that car? The steamray. When I got it, it was at 18,000. Okay. Then when I sold it, it was at like 35,000, 36,000.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:48

Still not that many miles. How many what year was that one? The stingray? 2021. Okay. For some reason, man, like the values like those tank.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:55

Because I bought when the market was still semi-hot. The car had gotten a stingray too. Okay. But he bought when the market was like crazy up. Uh so he had uh a three LT convertible 2020. Okay. The and it was like 120k. Damn. Yeah, but by the time he went to sell it, he had lost like crazy value. Even though he got an amazing luckily, he got an amazing interest rate. So he wasn't like crazy upside down or anything. He damn near broke even, or maybe even like he'll had a little bit of equity in it. Okay, okay. Uh, so that worked out for him, fortunately. But I mean he just lost so much value. If it would have held, he would have been up so much equity. Yeah. So I bought I got mine for $75,000. But it was a one LT baseball um coupe, so not convertible, and none of the bells and whistles, $18,000 miles on it, $75,000. You could get damn near a brand new one at that price. At that price now, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was the semi-hot market. If I had gotten one like now, it probably would have been in 63, 64. Yeah. And then in I had it for two and a half years, so I would have been positive equity if I got, you know, and it's all about buying at the right time. So that's why.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:06

Right time, right car. And you know, they some say it's like hard to time it, but like the GTI GTR I had um, they already had like the the rims on it. Um, I just re-powder coated those to clean them up because his girlfriend was curved him up or some shit. Had the NISMO exhaust, it had the Cob Tune, Cob intake. Um, so I already had some modifications, and then I retuned it and then did did all the things that done to it now and probably 35,000 in before we got recording um as far as into the car. But I only casually I know, I know, right? I look casually. It's crazy, dude. It must have been three years, and it's like, well, I mean, the first time I fucking the second time I launched it, I blew out the front drive shaft. And because the car has an ETS unit that's in the back uh transmission that sends signal to all four wheels so the all-wheel drive system works. And when I did the fucking, I was actually so my wife and I, so we have like the three Airbnbs here, plus we did fix and flip. We flipped eight mobile homes just over here in Mesa. Yeah, because we had she had her retirement, we invested it into fix and flip because we wanted a cash flow to invest back into her company. That shit didn't go that well. Market fucking tank, long story. Um, and so long story short, I was actually needed to get some dock sign or something from our our drywall guy. So I'm like doing a fucking, I'm literally gonna be doing a uh launch second time with my drywaller, one of my contractors, and I fucking blew out the tran, I blew out the fucking thing on the transmission because they're 20 grand. The transmission is the GTR, it was just a drive shaft. And then Brad up in Salt Lake City, Utah, PPC Motorsports, he hit me up on Facebook and said, Hey, dude, it's not fucking the drive shaft. I thought it was. And I had the car getting a new drive shaft as I was in the Philippines with my team, and then I flew back, went to the gym. Shit was hella hard to turn, and I got it back home and I hit him up and he's like, I'll send a truck out. To tow the car out to here to sell out city. So he towed it to him. He dropped the transmission, did the transmission flush, uh, did the ETS unit. It was like a cylindric, and then he had to take it out, get it rebuilt, put it back in, put everything back up in, and then he retuned it with the EcuTech tune and put the flame map. That's how I got it. Because no one in Arizona will flame map tune a GTR. None of the guys here. No one will do it. No. Why? No tuners. Because not good for the motor and um they don't want to be reliant, they don't want to be liable. And I don't know if like the police can get back to them on that type shit and like try to cause any issue for the shop. I have no idea. But uh, but long story short, I basically um got it. I I flew out there and then he showed me the flame map. Oh damn, what the fuck? What is this? He's like, yeah, just like put it in this mode and hit this and blah blah and then a little flame map. I was like, all right, cool. I ended up driving it back from Salt Lake City uh here through Grand Canyon, all that shit, right? Flew out, got there at three o'clock, and I was back home at one o'clock in the morning. I was hitting like 160 miles an hour, 165 miles an hour of like in the backback roads in the middle of nowhere, dude. Like just trying out the new ETS unit and fucking drive shaft and shit, like just fucking floating, dude. It was crazy. Um, but uh, but yeah, so then you know, 35,000 goes quick because that was 7,500 right there, needing to fucking fix ETS unit and that type of stuff. And then after that, you know, it's another um 5,000, I think it was for um it was like three to five, it's probably 3,000 for you got the um I uh doing the kit for the uh tune on it. So you could do the um because I had to put the ethanol kit on it. So you know, how to do that and then repowder coating the rims, redoing the interior, you know, shit. Just with those first three things you were at 15 racks. Yeah, super quick. But I'm only in the car right now. Oh owes what I only owe like 49 grand. Oh damn. And the car can be sold, I can sell it right now for like 96, almost 100, probably 100 grand. It has 40. I bought it for 37,000 miles on it, it has 47,000 miles for 2020 uh 16.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:06

So, so yeah, so for me, it's like buying the cars right to have equity in it. Like the TRX, I didn't think they're gonna remake them.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:13

Right. And they just and they just fucking said they're coming back out for 2026.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:16

And they're saying technically yours isn't an SRT. The new TRX is our actual SRT, whatever the fuck they're.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:22

Yeah, like whatever, what the fuck, dude?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:23

Like, it's just the whole value though. Yeah. For sure. There's a certainity the trucks, too. Yeah. And then also it's a fucking Hellcat issue. It's a Hellcat Mike. Even though they're making more, there's still not a shit ton of them. Like, how often do you see a Hellcat? I still geek when I see a Hellcat. The car has a Hellcat wide body red eye. Yeah. How many times I've seen a red eye on the road? Wide body, maybe twice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:47

That's why I wanted the truck for the motor. Why I wanted that truck. Yeah, and you don't see them that much. And so that's where I feel like that truck only has 30,000 miles on it. Oh wow. Yeah, I bought it with 22,000. And it was uh it's 2021, and it was a two-owner truck. The first owner was a collector, he never drove it. He put 2,000 miles a whole year. The second owner put 10,000 miles a year. That's where all the miles came up. Okay. And then I've had a truck for a little over a year, and I've put like what 10,000 miles on it. So a little over a year, year and a half almost now. So so we'll see. I think it'll still hold its value. That truck, I'm in at like 60. It's around 60s, and it's and it's I think it's worth around 80. Something like that. 70, 76, almost 80.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:32

But the you've got your like our experiences are unique though, because like even if you were upside down, the ROI with that vehicle, you're marketing with it, you know, you're getting way more return than way more return. Equity ever could. So the point of these cars, too. I got a story for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:50

So yesterday I'm meeting with his agent, and um, um, so basically with liftoff agent, there's like a start ramp and scale, right? And so lift off's our sponsor for this show here. And um start rampant scale, you're talking startup costs of so the startup program is $2,500, but we it's about four grand because we cover, we have like a map for coverage area, and I'll show you all this shit after our show. Okay. So we do like a map and a guide, and it's basically helping agents to like be like the mayor of Gilbert. So you want to fucking know all things about Gilbert, fantastic. Arizona, fantastic. Like, we'll build the map, we'll build the guide, we'll build the website, all the SEO, they build, they do the YouTube shit, all that type of stuff. And so, long story short, I'm talking to a guy yesterday, and he's already signed up with us. Okay, I closed two clients in Japan, and this is one of them. And so, um, yeah, one of them I was joking. I did a video, it's on Instagram, I was like, in my fucking underwear, and on a fucking washing machine, uh film the fucking Loom video, Loom.com video, breaking down our fucking process, and he fucking signed up. This is this other guy. But the guy I'm talking about with this story, um, tying it into the TRX, is that um we're going through everything. I see on his Instagram he likes fucking he likes cars and he has a raptor. I'm like, oh, you have a raptor? He's like, Yeah, I love raptors. I'm like, oh, I got a TRX. And I also have a GTR, I just finished Sagucchi and Cheery. He's like, oh, really? So I show him my Instagram page, I'm showing the TRX and I'm showing the lift-off age on the side and shit. He's already signed up for 4,500. He's now signing up for another 1500 because he wants a website with two maps and two guides because he he serves two different areas of uh Oregon. And then on top of that, he wants us to edit up to six videos a month, plus we're doing his social, plus we're doing his fucking blogs from video content. And that's $3,200 a month. So this is a what is it, $45,000, $6,000 startup account and another $3,300 a month. And this is gonna be a client we're gonna lock in for like years to come, right? This is on retainer reoccurring contract, and I'm showing the TRX so you can see it and then kind of get an idea and all the things. And so it just, yeah, it's it's priceless, dude. Like that trust too.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:03

It's like this guy's the real deal. He obviously has a hundred thousand dollars. That's just his business truck, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:12

You know, and then fucking got two other cars and shit. So, but there is something to be said about like, and you've probably seen it, like, once you got the Z06, did you did you almost feel some type of different way? And do people like almost like respect you some type of different way? Like, have you even been charging more for tattoos? You know what I'm saying? Like, has anything changed?

SPEAKER_01 1:56:30

That's so funny. Yeah, because when I I feel if I wasn't in business, I wouldn't post anything online. Okay, but I like you know, it's the part of the reason to get the car is to market with it. So like I I enjoyed the car for four days, and I was like, okay, I need to post about this. Yeah, so I made a post, did a whole little photo shoot with the car. Yeah, yeah. Literally, my caption was price just went up.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:52

That's just uh so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:54

I mean, I use it as a social indicator to be like, like, um, it's like, okay, this guy's he's serious about what he does. Not only the work, but his lifestyle matches that too. Yeah. And also, like uh, it kind of is like a uh deterrent to like low quality leads. Okay, because then they're like looking at that, and if you see the car, you're like, this obviously isn't gonna be cheap. Yeah, you know, yep. So it's like it's a duality to it. But I feel like I've had the car and I haven't had it long enough to really feel the the true impact. Okay. I feel like it it takes longer because realistically, too, we think everybody in the world knows, but only a small portion have seen our the posts anyway. Yep, they have to be posting it consistently for someone to realize, oh, I didn't even know he got the new car. Or that some people thought I just painted my previous car. You know, a lot of people weren't carving because they don't know the difference between Stingrain and Z06, they don't know how big of a deal that is, you know, versus essentially double the car. So, but so a lot of people don't know that. So a lot of things people don't know about it. So it's just about posting it consistently until it's like common knowledge, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the you know, the impact snowball effect, you know, gradually start to make more of a uh impact on. But I feel like the you know, it's harder too on the internet. Because again, if you're not a car person, the 06 isn't that big of a deal unless you know Corvettes, right? Yeah, that's true. Compared to if you're seeing Lambos, you know, this guy that's that's the the baseline online, yeah. On my hurricane, you know, although those are the legit guys, right? So you're kind of a little guy online, but in real life, oh, it's uh the impact's amazing. Yeah, like when people see the car in real life and stuff, that's a whole different experience. But like way different.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:39

Yeah, but um you see the back end, the fucking way that the bolstering, everything is just way more fucking like in your face.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:45

There's this aura to it, the car. Yeah, yeah. And the and then and you fe you can look at that car and and uh someone who doesn't even know cars understands that's expensive or that's a special vehicle just by looking at it, right? In real life, yeah. Photos don't do it just as at all. Yeah, and then when you're comparing to like the stuff that you see online, you're seeing million dollar hypercars and stuff, you know, you're you're people are exposed to the one percent, so it seems like there's more of them versus like the the reality in real life, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:13

Yeah, it's too easy nowadays with social media to directly search for or follow a specific persona, person, influencer that has these things, which makes makes it a little bit more insensitive for you because you're like, oh, okay, I've seen it's whatever, no big deal. But in really that reality, though, it's like how many people you are out there seeing this stuff in person. Well, Arizona probably more than than most places because our car shows are fucking badass, and you can go to a car show and see just about anything in Scotland. It's it's pretty fucking only at a show, only at a show on the road, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:47

Not as much. Never. There's a lot of stuff you would never see on the road. Like I was lucky enough. I seen a Jesco in person at the airport. No shit. Yeah, there's a um there's an Arizona Cardinals player who has one.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:59

Oh damn.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:00

And I was picking up my girlfriend in the airport. Jesco goes right by me. I'm losing my mind. I'm going ape shit.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:06

My girlfriend's going, it's a fucking Jesco, pick up the room for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:11

So that's like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Like, unless you're at a car show, you're not gonna see that shit on the road in person. Odds of that. But my friends make GQ and Descartes make fun of me all the time. I'm like a supercar magnet. Yeah, I have crazy luck with supercars.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:24

I have had crazy luck too, bro. That's interesting. But there's something to be said about like, like, and we didn't even get too much into the whole like um like a like attracts like or the power of um, you know, just like affirmations or the power of being able to attract certain things. Cause like went to Japan and it was boom, there's a fucking Lamborghini Aventador. As soon as I got there, here it is, and there's a G-Wagon. There it is. And then I found a R34. There it is. You know, seen a R34. R34 blue one. Just fucking I posted some car spotting. Sky blue color too. Sky blue, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:59

Whoa.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:59

Yeah, it was fucking dope, dude. And it had the under blue and then like the fucking light, under light kit. Yeah, undercut kit, and then even had blue on the cloor clear markers and shit on the side and the front. So I was like, damn, what the hell? So, like, I've been really lucky too, like that. I'd have been doing backflips if you've seen that. It was it was fucking it was pretty badass. But also, I'm used, I have like I have a buddy, I have like because of the GTR, you know, friends and people that I have out here now, I got a few buddies that actually, you know, have them. And uh, and personally, like I have a guy that has a uh 34 that's blue, I have another one that he has uh black, he has a full uh I don't know if you you haven't met Sun, I don't think yet. And Sun has a R34, he has a Supra, he has uh Hurricon, he has the SVJ, he has R35. Yeah, this guy, he's fucking on a whole different level, dude. He's one of my investors as well to the to the thing that he did up to the Zen Den upstairs. He invested into that. He helped with the with the fix and flips up as well. Nice. So uh so I have some people in my world and it's just like almost a little, but this is the thing. Even though I've seen all the things, I still to this day, which is crazy to say, I've never driven like a Lambo. I mean, I've driven one Ferrari FF and then the GTR, I've only driven two. One I rented the one that I own, and then I mean, I haven't really driven that many like actual supercars, you know. The C8 drive that that was cool. Um, so it's interesting, right? You see the thing, but not always good to drive them. Yeah, you know, get some seat time.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:25

Right. That's the that's like the next step, right? Because like seeing it is one thing, like that's already insane. Like you're saying, the attract, yeah, right? Uh I think there's an attract factor, but some people are just like lucky. Yes. Cause I think luck is a thing. I think some people are luckier than others. Yeah. And some of us just happen to be like really, really lucky. I feel like I'm an extremely lucky person. Yeah. Like the other night, freaking me and Descartes were um I l I live right next to Descartes now. Now I'm like five minutes away from him.

SPEAKER_06 2:02:54

Oh no shit.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:55

Yeah, in that house, right? So um we're we're we were working on the new shop. It's late as hell, we're heading home. Nothing's open. We're like, oh, let's do Chipotle. Yeah. So we're both picking up our Chipotle's. Freaking Porsche GT3RS sitting in the parking lot. Let's go. That's great. White with the red rims, all the carbon and everything.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:18

What? You just getting some Chipotle?

SPEAKER_01 2:03:19

Just getting some Chipotle. No shit. Right around the corner from the house. Just sitting in the line.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:24

Or no? Huh?

SPEAKER_01 2:03:25

No, because he was in the lot just sitting there. He must have been. The only thing I could think of was like this um uh bouldering place that was open right there. That's open to play. He must have been in there bouldering just some. No shit. Yeah, like 12 p.m. I'm gonna go drive my GC3RS to go boulder. Like, what the fuck? What the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 2:03:43

That is crazy, dude. Yeah, I had uh it was uh I was went to like Bangkok, uh Thai food off of Gilbert Road, heading towards downtown Gilbert. And I just like pull up in the TRX, and then fucking Lambo is just fucking sitting there. I'm like, what the fuck? Where's the Lambo at? Go inside, no one's that was in there, because then it was like a good 20-30 minutes, and then next thing you know, someone like pulls up, turns it on, does a couple revs for whoever and whatever he was doing, and then like he fucking he bounced out and shit. So yeah, I'm right there with you with like this luck thing. And one thing that I want to do is um car collective garage where you could like, you know, and it's already out there, it's something new, but I want to do a spin-off with the entrepreneur side of things where it's just like car collective for car storage and then entrepreneur hangout, and then like a podcast studio, and a place where you could take headshots, and then like a little boardroom, and so you could do like your meetings and shit. Yeah, and then even have something that could be like a good spot because we're about to go into the summer here very soon, yeah. And then car stuff kind of stops, you know what I'm saying? There's not a lot for car stuff, so it's like it'd be cool to have car shows indoors so then you can park your car in, you could have the fucking car storage three stacks high behind glass, and then fucking your cars could be enough space for like people to bring their cars in, you know, it's it's air conditioned and shit, and like it's like a museum. Like a museum, and then you could like get connected with the people that are like that own these cars, yeah. So then you can like ask them questions, pick their brain, and and there could be so much more available for that. Great networking opportunities, yeah. Great networking opportunities, you know what I'm saying? Good idea. So, and even a spot for the women out there, you know, of like kid care. So that way the women who are entrepreneurs, like their kids can be watched, and then maybe they meet their fucking love of their life, you know what I'm saying? Another entrepreneur and someone that loves cars as like as well as uh, you know, the girl, the guy. It's like I don't know. So that's something that I'm thinking about. Um, because like my boy's son who told you about, he had he has a three-car garage, but he has so many cars now that he now is like fuck. So he bought um, he didn't buy, I think he just rented it. They have those um, you can get their garage slash car hangout. So it's like uh has like a living room and a kitchen, and then like it's like a warehouse, a small one, and then you can have your cars in it. So that's cool. Where's that at it? That's a really cool concept. Um, I'll have to look it up, but there's a couple different compounds that have this where like you potentially could even do like like cars and like maybe storage, and then it can have like kitchen area for like tattooing, and you could have like your own that would be cool, just cool spot to like there's a place I know of the vault Scottsdale.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:14

Yep, that's another spot. You could do something like that, yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. Okay, so it's something like that, but it's your own space. But it's your own space. Oh, that's really cool.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:22

They rent them out, and um some of them have it where it's off of a track, so you can actually store your cars, and then there's a little place to sleep, and then you have a kitchen and you have a bathroom, and then you can stay there for the weekend, and then your cars are stored, and it's air conditioning place, and then you can then take your car out to the track, and then you could run your car on the track, and then you can come back and keep it stored. Yeah, it's crazy shit, dude. It's crazy. Yeah, there's levels to this game, though. Yeah, for sure. There's fucking levels, and like that's that's my goal. My goal is to have a whole car collection. So these two are just the beginning um to the car collection. And I think even like after my my wife's done with her Honda Santa Fe, and like now this little oil change situation, like I'll probably get her something a little bit more appropriate, like for the collection, and something that we can I drive all of them anyways, she's really care to drive. Um, but hers is a hybrid, which is like 50 bucks to fill up. It might be 60 now because of the gas prices, but it'll go 550 miles on one tank. Damn, you know what I'm saying? So it's like hybrid gas, seven seats. We had a lot of family that come and stay with us, so we can pick them up from the air. It's no brainer to keep that. It's a fucking no-brainer. But can you believe it's already been fucking two hours and 10 minutes?

SPEAKER_01 2:07:32

Really? I can believe it. It went fast though, but I can't wait to go. It won't buy hella fast. It went by hella fast.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:39

We just scratched the service, y'all. We didn't even get into anything like you know, deeper esoteric or deeper conversation. So you want Q1, you you gotta give us some feedback down below. Go give this man a follow on Instagram. If you're looking for a tattoo, he's your guy. Um, and you also do a lot of shit too with like with YouTube and and you know, monetizing and making side money with that. Like a little bit, a little tiny bit. He says a little tiny bit, but he's he's had a couple, a couple good videos as hit though.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:09

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like views wise, yeah. I mean getting a lot with that. Like, um uh, but like money wise, no, not that much. It takes a lot of time. But yeah, I mean it takes a lot of time because I have two pages, got the tattoo one, and I have a car one. Uh and like the car one, I really enjoy that, like automotive journalism of sorts. It's really fun. Yeah. I enjoy that a lot. Like, if I wasn't tattooing, then I'd probably be chasing that building a page to make a full-time income off that. I feel like I could do that if I went all in on that.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:39

Yeah, you could even combine. You could you could like look for people that have cool cars that want to tattoo, and then you could like tattoo them and then review their car, and then it could be, you know, like a like a like a fucking win-win. Cars and tasks. Cars and tasks, dude. That'd be sick. I mean, come on, who doesn't, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, and I think, you know, by the time uh this goes live and maybe we get you on the next one, and we want to know if you guys want to see them back on again, is um gonna be, I don't know, I'm gonna have to get something. I already told you that wanted to wanted to get something, so we'll have to uh talk about getting tapped, bro. I think that'd be that'd be sick to add to the collection. And I figure out I know that um I got the Filipino flag on this leg, and then I wanted to do the American flag on this one to do like one set forward in America and one set forward in the Philippines, because I'm gonna hire a hundred people in the Philippines. Wow. And then another like 30 here in the States is goal. Um yeah, 15,000 agents across the country, and then 166 million a year, 13 million a month, and I'm gonna sell lift off for 300 million. That's the goal in the next eight years. So you can go.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:47

You say eight years. Yeah. So I guess the last note I want to touch on is like I think right now at social media everyone's sold the concept of like instant success.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:58

I'm already 11 years in.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:59

See, yeah, you're already left. So 19 years to build a business to have an exit of 300 million, 300 million, right? That's normal. Yeah. As far as business timing. I mean, that's still fast as far as businesses, but that would be considered like a moderate time frame for a business to be running to have an exit like that, right? Yep. I think a lot of people are sold a false dream on social media that just wake up uh tomorrow and six months, yeah. I'm gonna be making I'm gonna be driving Lambos and making all this money when really like not only the infrastructure, but also the person you're required to be to operate at that level takes time. Yes. So even if someone gave you the cheat code, you don't have the discipline or the mindset or the connections to sustain that in the first place. Yep. So I think there's just we need to really slow down and really realize just like I was saying, I feel like eight years into tattooing, I'm just getting my foundation going.

SPEAKER_06 2:10:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:54

And that's where there's our timing, and there's God's timing. Amen to that, bro.

SPEAKER_04 2:10:59

100%. So take that to heart because it's so true. And uh it's like the tortoise and the hare. I'm just a tortoise, I'm not the hare, and I've learned so much. And like we talked about cars, there's like different levels of responsibilities with cars, there's different levels of responsibility when you when you uh you have a lot of families to feed and mouths to feed and responsibilities, and uh, you know, people look up to to me and the company and my partner and uh you know serve our customers and then they they serve their families, and it's uh it's uh it's a blessing 100%. But it's it's it's interesting. Uh I can imagine the next three years for you, bro, from eight to eleven. Um, because I I just I just got from that. Uh it's it's yeah, it's gonna be a roller coaster, bro. It's snowball.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:48

I feel like it'll be it growth isn't linear. No. Uh that's something I took from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. Yeah. I haven't even finished it. I'm like 10. Don't don't be fooled, guys. I'm like 25. Pages in. I haven't finished the book at all. But it was so insightful that I had to just close the book and absorb what I read. And those those he goes crazy, those first couple of chapters, but he's talking about how real growth actually looks. Like people think it's like a steady like incline, but it's not at all. No. There's short, like explosive bursts of growth followed by like a long plateau. Yeah. You know? And so going off um intuition again, I feel like I'm at I've been at that plateau and I'm about to hit another point where I just like go up. Another left-off point.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:36

Well, it's interesting and uh left-off moment. It's interesting when you think about it too, because like God leaves clues, right? So you'll be around people, circumstances, situations that will then give you those clues. And like some of the clues for me is like I met an agent before I got left for Chip Japan. She's on track for like I don't even know. She's like $300 million in fucking business clothes with like real estate transaction business close in New York City. And in New York. Just in New York, and she and she has a mega team and she's hiring us just to do, I say just to do 60 million in production out of the 300 million dollars on the YouTube side. Because we do the passive prospecting, YouTube, website, guides, maps, that type of stuff to play. So to like have those type of conversations, it's like what? And I just helped one of our clients hit 38 million last year as a solo agent with a website and a YouTube channel. And we do all his SEO and his website and track his leads and all that stuff, intake forms, all that type of stuff. And uh he did 38. So and she wants to do 60, right? So it's like what the fuck? So it's it's and the conversations that we're having, and like I even told you before we got on air, it's like I'm having the biggest month of the career of the company, and I'm only working a week and a half out of the whole entire month. With the applause on for that, you know what I'm saying? I appreciate you, my guy. So it's crazy, right? It's crazy. Like we're already, I'm already at almost 80,000 for the month. And so we should finish at about a hundred. And um, you know, and and there's different levels of the game, right? There's people that are finishing off at already a million in a month, right? And like my goal has been to get to that to those type of levels. But you know, it's um it's better to do, I feel like, slower because then it'll stick longer.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:28

Yeah. Uh the I watched YouTube videos where they're talking about growth of companies and then their downfalls. And I'm noticing something too, is that like sometimes a company that grows super fast, actually not even sometimes, a lot of the times, their biggest weakness is how fast they grew. Because they weren't able to grow with it and develop the infrastructure to sustain that growth. Yeah. So they end up growing so fast and then they're just scrambling trying to keep this thing together, and they can't sustain it and it falls apart. That's why like things take time to grow. Like, there's a reason why certain trees take a hundred years to reach a certain height. Because it takes if it if if it would have done it faster, it wouldn't have been able to sustain that, it wouldn't been able to consume that amount of energy to grow that fast in the first place, and then there would have been flaws within it. Like things are designed in reality to grow at a certain pace for a specific reason. There's a reason someone's not gonna grow from uh uh five uh three foot to six foot in a month, you know? Your bones would break. Yep, you'd be way more brittle falling all over the place and shit. Yeah, so it's like we we have this false perception of how fast things need to go, but things take time because things take energy. And so there's a process that needs to be had when things are being built, destruction typically comes first. Yeah, things have to break apart before they're restructured. Yep. So, but that requires a certain amount of pacing.

SPEAKER_04 2:15:52

Yeah, and that's exactly what we're going through because we we're bringing in so many clients, but then the development team can only develop so quick, you know, and then we can't get that, we can't get the development done in the 30 days. Now it's taking six or eight weeks, and then the customers are like, hey, what's going on? And then and then and then you want to like grow so fast. Well, then it's just like, what about your your existing customers? And you don't want to have crazy, crazy fast turn. You want them to be happy and then you want them to come back and you want to keep adding value to them. So then you gotta build that department to then serve and check in with your current clients, outside of just being in it, bringing in new ones, you know what I'm saying? So it's uh it's a blessing for sure. And uh, and I'm glad I'm glad that I have the amazing team. So thank you guys for for editing and going through the whole production of this. So I could do this because this is uh a passion for me outside of as this company grows, and then eventually when it does have the exit, then I want to go deeper in this, and then the whole Mr. Lyft operand uh to coach, serve, support, help our youth to be able to like give them perspectives and then have fucking cool people like you to come on and they can follow your journey now and like be a part of your growth, and then it's we all get to fucking win together, dude. Yeah, that'd be cool. You know, that'd be really cool. So that's the plan. But I appreciate you coming on today, bro. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This has been freaking absolutely amazing, and now we gotta go. I gotta go. What time is it? Pick up my wife's car. Yeah, I got time. It's only four o'clock. Dealer show doesn't close until like five or six, so we should be fine. Okay, but uh, cool, man. Well, we'll uh catch you on the flip side, y'all. Like, subscribe, hit the notification bell if you enjoyed this. Give us your feedback, follow this man, and uh let us know if you want to have him back on and we can get into content, we can get into law of the universe, attraction, so many deeper conversations and tattoo.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:39

Q dot inks on Instagram, Q tattooing on TikTok, uh, Q Inks on Facebook.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:54

Thank you for watching today's episode of the Liftoff experience, as it is our intention to be able to help you have more liftoff in your life, personally, professionally, and spiritually. That's why we bring on amazing individuals and amazing episodes to be able to help you do as such. New episodes come out every single Saturday. Make sure to subscribe, hit the notification bell, comment below with one thing that you took away from the episode. And if you have a compelling story that you wish to share and you want to come to Phoenix, Arizona, Gilbert, Arizona, specifically to our recording studio, we'd love to have you on an episode. And a big thank you to Liftoff Agent who does the thumbnail, writes the copy, does all the content for our show behind the scenes. And all I do is find guests, point and shoot, and have a good time. So thanks so much, Liftoff Agent team. Thank you so much for staying to the end of the episode. And just do us a favor and like, subscribe, give us your feedback so we can get this out to more individuals. And of course, you can share this with someone else that you think that should see it. Because at the end of the day, we all have to help each other and serve each other to have more liftoff. And now our YouTube channel, you can go ahead and see all of our other videos. If you're listening to this, just go to the liftoff experience on YouTube. And if you're watching this, then you can see on the screen that we have lots of episodes that you can take a look at and you can watch today to be able to go deeper with different subject matters to help you have more liftoff in your life. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. God bless. We'll see you all on the next one.