Good job, any job, doesn't matter what it is. Work your butt off, get promoted, come in sick, come in on days that you don't have to come in, be indispensable to the person you're working for, and continue to do that until you get to the point where you get to live your dream. Be indispensable no matter what you do.
Speaker 2:Welcome to start doubt.
Speaker 3:I'm your host, Jared Easley, and joining me today is a good friend of mine, someone I've known for many, many years and I've seen through the hills, through the valleys, through the good times, through the Times that were challenging. My friend Joe Bass. Joe, welcome to starve the doubts. Hey, thanks jerry. What's up man? They're just sounded nice. And Chris for that microphone. You got there? A professional podcaster.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, we've got them for two different reasons. It's funny. We're both rocking the house. Aren't you rocking Ohio? I am, yeah. I got the PR 40, but I, you know, I'm a nerd. I, I've got my ham radio set up here and you know, Bob Heil, I don't know if you know much about. Oh really? Yeah, he's got a storied past man. Yeah, I mean, you know, with the WHO and what was it the talk box with a who was a Peter Frampton, is that correct?
Speaker 3:It sounds correct. He's definitely had some, uh, with some, some big name people back in the day. So
Speaker 1:yeah, he's an am guy though. Uh, so he kinda is in the hobby as well and that's where it started and he's, he's also an organist. I don't know if you've ever worn.
Speaker 3:It's funny you bring up organist. I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there. The other day I found myself in chanted. I think that's a good word. Listening on Youtube to A. Are you familiar with the movie interstellar? Tell me who's in it. I think so. Matthew mcconaughey. Hey, I love that movie. It's a Scifi movie. Anyway, the soundtrack who, uh, that was by Zimmerman, somebody's got a church organ and like an old classic church somewhere and played the soundtrack of that album and I mean I listen to that. I was blown away. I really liked that movie, but just hearing that music on an organ that was like I worked, I got to know a lot of work done listening to. But anyway. Awesome. Way Off Topic Joe. Let's not mess around with any of that. Let's talk about you joe. Let's start out with how in the world did we meet? Oh
Speaker 1:Gosh, how did we meet? I mean, I know we met a really long time ago. We met through church probably in middle school at the time. Yeah, I'd say so. I guess I was probably. I don't know what 14.
Speaker 3:That might be true. Probably my first memory of you, Joe, is your awareness fish tee shirt. There you go. I still love him to this day. All right, so let's talk about that for a moment. Like, like Montgomery, Alabama. I just don't think that's a city where people listen to fish, but. No, no, no. They do actually. Now they're everywhere in the world. Did you get into that kind of music growing up in, in what some would consider a, you know, a southern Redneck town?
Speaker 1:Jeez. I mean, you know, some shady characters were involved, I think it was like we talked about earlier on another podcast, you know, selling grilled cheeses and mountain dews at concerts, you know, so that you could pay for whatever it may be, some gas money home or something like that, but not just love the jam band. I love music that I can just sit back and chill and I like know just about any kind of music that doesn't suck, which unfortunately today we won't go there.
Speaker 3:You got to go under ground and find some of the stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, but some of the great bands that we listened to growing up and even before we were even born or they're just so relevant today and fish is obviously one of those. And you know, Trey Anastasia went off and did some of his own own things and those are interesting but love fish, love the dead. I love jazz music. I listened to, you know, what was funny is if you flip through my cd case when I was younger, you know, there was like Nirvana, pearl jam and, and, and the fish and the grateful dead and Jimi Hendrix and then I had like two pages that was just full of garth brooks and everybody always. Everybody always laughed at that. But man, I just, I've always loved Garth Brooks. He's super high energy. I guess that's what it is, but I've got friends in low places. So to you or you wouldn't be interviewing me.
Speaker 3:True. But I, yeah, Garth Brooks. I mean if you're from Alabama, I think that's like a staple that you got to have an appreciation on some level for Garth Brooks and George Strait and those guys and I've heard his live show, which I've never been through, but I'd like to go up or it's really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. My wife's been to a couple. She loved it. She never takes me with her. She always takes her.
Speaker 3:Joe, do you think the interest in fish and some of that I'm going to use the word hippie culture. That might not be the right word, but some of that culture, the experience that, that, uh, you know, that middle school age, do you think that kind of played into the path that you've now pursued with entrepreneurship and business and things like that?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and I have to say that I guess what I'm about to say is, is kids don't stay in school. All right. But yeah, definitely because it kind of put me on a path of rebelliousness, if you will. And you know me, you've known me for a long time. I've got a storied past and we won't get into all those details, but I had a lot of fun with that. But yeah, that culture, I think one of the things that you got to realize is like if you look at. I know everybody always wants to talk about apple, so what I'm going to talk about them anyway, but if you look at Steve Wasniak, Gaza, an engineer, right? And he's really good at engineering, so that's what he did. And then he's got another guy who his partner Steve jobs and that's who everybody knows who's really, really great at sales, but the reason he's great at selling is because he understood culture and that's something I bring into everything I do, like now doing digital marketing. I try to tell people, look, I mean in what I do, I'm not just a kid in a basement, you know, I've got culture, I'm out in the real world. I don't approach things as if I'm a robot. I even though I like analytics and things like that. So yeah, I mean, I would say it definitely had a lot to do with it. Plus it kind of put me on a path of a. maybe I did some things I shouldn't have done I guess, but I mean it ended up turning out okay. But I never graduated from college and um, and so I had to really hustle Jerod, you know, I started working in the restaurant industry and became a chef and ran my own restaurant and really learned to hustle hard work under a French chef. And he taught me the meaning of humility. I guess I could say I appealed a lot of shrimp, cut a lot of vegetables and learned to work long hours and work hard and hustle and so yeah, I mean our pads always take us in the direction that I guess we need to go as long as we keep our eye on the prize, but you know, that lifestyle comes with certain things and uh, it doesn't have to, but generally speaking it does. And there were some things that I was doing that I had to just lay off of and really focus on, on being a better person, you know, just being better at life at general, folks on things that are important. And so as soon as I started focusing jared, things just sort of started falling into place, started meeting the right people. The first couple of years of the business was hard, really hard, but I kept moving. But yeah, I went off the path. They're a long way from fish. The question about fish,
Speaker 3:that's a nice tie in because I think a reasonable percentage of the people that knew you and I are back 20 years ago, if I said, hey, where do you see Joe Bass in 20 years? Probably a number of those folks would be like, man, I hope he's gonna be okay. Or something along those lines. I don't know that a lot of friends die. Jared, you know? Yeah. I don't. I don't know. A lot of those people would have pictured you in the position that you're in now. And so you know, people are curious what that is without giving away the farm. I'm going to say, you know, you've taken a path that was, you know, maybe fueled by some of the, the early influences and in and you've had that independence, you know, desire and now you're in a position where you do own your own business where you've, you know, you've employed different people and provided for them. You, you're working in a collaborative spirit with different organizations and different companies. Helping them to be more profitable and like that's pretty amazing to see. Okay. Twenty years ago, Joe, you know, some people would have said, I don't know if he's going to be all right, but now you're in a position where you're doing a lot better with some of those people that would have said that. So how do we go from point a to point B if you will?
Speaker 1:Well, I had to give credit where credit's due and there were, you know, there were certain people in my life that were really great. Like I had a really great father figure. He was, he's my uncle. I always knew that I could go this far, but I couldn't go that far. So I would say that I'm going to go off track a little bit. Anybody that's listening, if you ever see anybody that's really going in the wrong direction, don't be afraid to step in and be. That person's a solidity, be that solid ground for that person because you can completely change their entire life. But yeah, I mean I've had people come up and say, you know, somebody was asking about you and they were worried about you and so on and so forth. And I'm like, I'm fine, you know, everything's going good, but you're right. There were a lot of people that had doubts in me, man, if there's ever anything that drives a person that wants to reach a certain places, doubt if people doubt them. I mean, not everybody's like that, but for me, oddly enough, I kind of feed off that. The more you doubt me, the harder I'm going to work in, the further I'm going to go. So I kinda took that doubt that people had in me. First of all, I didn't take most of it to heart. I didn't care a whole lot, but occasionally I did. We've had conversations about it and past and sometimes it does hurt your feelings, but for the most part, each take that and you use it as fuel. Hey man, that's well said.
Speaker 3:And as part of this journey, you've may have some people, some people would call it lucky. Maybe it's not lucky, but know there's a lot. You've met Lindsay. And so let's take. Let's just take a moment and talk about Lindsey. I really want to give high praise to your wife. I have a huge amount of respect for and I think it's totally fair to say married way out of your league. No, no doubt about it. Yeah. I overshot big time. I love that story. Maybe that gives hope to someone who pay television and telling a story about one of the, one of your buddies that, that uh, I was at your wedding. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, I think, I think a buddy of mine, he pulled me aside and he saw joe and then he saw Joe's, I think I was fiance at the time or girlfriend. I don't know exactly what point you are at, but he saw that and he's like, how in the world this guy ended up with her and um, man from someone on the outside of that. No, Joe, that's a totally fair question, right? Yeah. From the outside. But if you know me, I'm shooting for the shooting for gold. Yeah. You know, it's funny,
Speaker 1:when I met her it was the craziest thing I was, I was in this pretty wild lifestyle at the time, but I had calmed down a little bit now and I had certain hobbies that were kind of keeping me levelheaded and I was having fun. I was living at the beach and surfing and all that kind of stuff and I'll walk in and she's at a beach house down there with my cousin and I see her and I'm just like, wow. That. And I told the guy, I told my buddy that I was with at the time, I said, I'm going to be dating her in a month. He's like, no, you're not. And I'm like, yeah, no,
Speaker 3:for real, I'm going to be bad. I probably would have told you know you're done. There
Speaker 1:was no. See to me, that's the thing. Listen, that's the thing about life, man. When you want something, don't let anybody interfere with that. You tell yourself in your mind, this is what's going to happen and that's what's going to happen. As long as you work hard, you know. Thank God. I've got a good personality and, and I'm thinking, well, you know, I, I am thrilled for you because Lindsey, of course, you know, that was a catch back then, but, but still now these days being married and having a child and, and the support that she's been able to give, it has been just an awesome story in your life of how you found somebody that really loves you and supports you. And Yeah, I've actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to go into that just for a second. Please do. Yeah. Yeah. It's um, it's pretty amazing. You know, we got married and we were living at the beach or living a block from the beach and I just started the business recently and in the oil spill happened and there was no oil on the beach at all, but the news was reporting that there was just an oil everywhere. And so marketing dollars just, it was like a light switch just turned off and said, okay, we gotta do something. So we ended up moving back to the city here in Montgomery and we were both originally born here. So we're familiar with the, you know, the area and man what I mean it was just a great move as far as now I have to say I look forward to living in Florida again. But as far as moving to Montgomery, that was the blessing. That was the luck thing that you talk about it like a really bad situation. Turned out to be great. But. So we moved here. She's graduated from Auburn and she gets a job at an insurance company here, Alfa insurance here in Montgomery and she's working there and I had two jobs when I lived in Florida. I basically worked from five or six in the morning until midnight. We move here and, and the reason I worked that long is because I was working on my business plus I was working for another business to make a living and so we moved here and she was so supportive and I remember saying, look, if you want me to just go out and get a job, I can do that. That's not a problem. And she said, no. She said, focus on what you're doing and grow the business. And that was her, that's, that's my wife in a nutshell. Just the loyalty this, there. Um, if it hadn't been for her, I don't know what would have happened, but she made it happen and we went through a lot of struggles financially, I'll just be honest, I mean, and then all of a sudden things just clicked. I started meeting people. I was working for a guy named Jason Watson, you know, Jason and he's got some magazines here in Montgomery and I started doing cold calling for him, which I sucked at, but I learned a lot and I got to meet some people and that's when networking started. And I walked in on one particular place and met a guy named Larry Stevens and, and people in Montgomery might know who he is. He's a, he was a, a, a pretty big force to be reckoned with, if you will, as far as radio broadcasting goes. And just a great guy. And he had an advertising agency here. I was working for Jason at the time and I'm trying to sell, you know, advertising to him for his clients. But at the end we talked for about an hour and a half and really jived and said, man, I really want to work for this guy. And so I gave him my card. I said, look, if if the company you work for ever drops the ball because I want to be the one to pick it up. He said, all right, I'll keep your car. And I left and went home and we had had a discussion. I said, you know, if you ever watched mad men or anything like that, and he said, no, but I want to. And so I went home and I kinda took a cue from you from some of the stuff I'd seen you do, like sending the big yellow balls to people with hand written off when you were first starting your podcast. And I said I'm going to Amazon and I'm just going to buy this guy the whole entire set. So I did, came in the mail a couple of days later. Amazon prime of course addicted. So I go over and I drop it off with a handwritten note and about a year later I get a phone call and it's him and dude, he was just unreal. He basically handed me every single client that he had and I took over all their digital marketing and it was pretty much overnight and then the business just started basically doubling every single year, just doubled and we, you know, we were doing web development, APP development, digital marketing's really where it's at because that's a great residual monthly income and I love that. But. And then he introduced me to other people and other people that have other agencies. So at this point I'm either working directly or a non directly with four different agencies at the current time and I handle their clients
Speaker 2:the
Speaker 3:okay. And you're. And you're being a little bit humble here. I mean you, yes you are working with these clients but your business is in a much better place than it was several years ago. It's growing. I mean, you have the opportunity to grow it further if you want to or you can kind of pump the brakes and just kind of hang out for a bit, but, but what a wonderful position to be in. So I want to talk about a little bit about that. Like you've got some more flexibility with their schedule now. Now that you have a daughter and you've got other interests that are developing and stuff. So let's just go there for a little bit. What, what, what's it like maybe what's a typical day like for Joe Bass?
Speaker 1:Oh, I really don't want to tell you how little our work. No, I'm just. No, I mean, no, no, I chaired. It does come a point where, what's the name of that book? The four hour work week is that you've worked really hard to get to the. Oh man, if you're not working as hard now, good for you. That's exactly right. And that's the point. I mean at first you're working 18 hour days every single day, seven days a week. So when you tell someone not, I don't, I don't work an entire day without that backstory, they may think you're a slacker, but really what you've done is figured out how to, you know, basically dude, you're, you're feeding other families is what's going on and, and they're doing the work that you really don't feel like doing. And so that's what I do. But that book made an impact on me. What does, is it the four hour workweek? Yeah. That's Tim Ferriss. Yep. Yeah. I read that book and it kind of changed my perspective on it. I think you recommended that, but um, it really changed my perspective on how to do things and you of course talk to me a lot about delegation and, and once I started delegating a, began making and more and more money doing less work and it's just the weirdest stinking thing ever. But good for you. But yeah, you work your butt off at first. There's no doubt. I mean there's no doubt that there's a big time hustle involved. So now there's other areas that are work because once you get to that point, jared, not everything that you do that's work has to bring in money. I mean, you really at that point have the freedom to go after some of your hobbies, the things that you really enjoy doing and that's work just as much as anything else. You're working towards some, uh, some common goal or whatever it may be, but, um, you're able to do that because there's a revenue stream, you know, and uh, so that's, that's Kinda where I'm at right now. But there's going to be a point where I go, okay, time to grow the business again and we're going to have to really rock it and figure some things out. Let's talk about your daughter. Being a dad I know is something that's very special to you. It's important to you. What, what, what parts of being a dad do you think are really things that relate to maybe success in business or success in life or, or what are some things you want to share that, that you love about? Fatherhood has a good question and how to relate it. First off, you can attest that you very much learn about scheduling. You know, you're up at this time every single day, day in and day out when they're depending on you to live, to survive in the beginning, but really the moment that they're born, your whole perspective on life really changes. It's like, okay, something this amazing has happened and, and uh, I'm going to really work my butt off to make sure that they have a good life. And that's something that, it's one of those lights switch moments. It's just boom, you see that little person come out and I can't even describe the love that she filled the moment you shit. You know what it's like in the moment you see it. It's like you're just in love with this person and you want to just do so well for them. You want them to be proud of you, but the scheduling is definitely something that you have to do in the beginning. You have to learn to manage money very well. You've got, I mean, let's just be real. You've got diapers. You got whatever else, I mean babies are not cheap so you've got money management and you also have to learn to check out and I can be bad about this. I'll be the first to admit. In fact she stays home generally on Fridays because she's not in. She's not in kindergarten yet, man. She chills with me on Friday so she's in there right now on her little ipad and we have to kind of check that and watch that and make sure that all three of us aren't sitting there all the time on device and that's something that's important sometimes she just wants us to watch her dance or seeing or whatever and you've got to give them that attention and show them that love. So, but now she's, she's freaking awesome. I love her. One of your hobbies right now as well once they hobby, but something you're interested in is, is crypto. So I want to talk a little bit about crypto. How in the world did you go down that rabbit hole? Well, I mean years ago, like, you know, I used it to purchase wordpress themes when I was building websites because you could buy the themes for discounted price for you used bitcoin and so I was familiar with it in that area and you know, we've talked about this before, there's really absolutely no telling how much money I actually spend on those themes, whether it be$20,000 or more, who knows at its peak when it was at its peak. But um, yeah, it's something that I see as a lot of people are dismissing it right now because, you know, there definitely has been a bit of a pop in the bubble, but anybody with a, with a mind knew that at some point that had to kind of happen to stabilize it. Like how do you use it for money if it's going up and down four or$5,000 in a day. Right. So at some point it had to stabilize. I still think it has a huge, huge future. Uh, I think the younger, you know, if you talk to people that have kids that are like 17, 18, 19, or they're, you know, they're in college and they don't invest money in the stock market, they have zero interest in the stock market, but they'll put their money into crypto, they'd get excited about crypto or they'll spend crypto own websites that accept cryptocurrency. And Man, I saw a, a, a vehicle down in 38 when I was there a couple of weeks ago that we accept bitcoin. And what was the other one, I think it was bitcoin in a theory on the back of it, of the vehicle. And I said to myself, this, you're gonna see this everywhere. And a lot of people are doubting right now, but I'm not one of them. I believe in it wholeheartedly. So, you know, I'm mine a coin called Xtl slight at the current time. I love that the developers, they work their tails off. They're very interactive with people and they've come up with the technologies that, that other people. Now, one thing about crypto, every new crypto, every new alt coin kind of builds off of a different coin, like you say minero or something like that.[inaudible] going to build a privacy coin. We're going to build it off the principle of Minero, but we're going to do this. We're going to make your freaking refrigerator mind like when you're a refrigerator's a smart refrigerator, it needs to be mining coins or your TV needs to mine coins or if you have a business and you've got 20 cell phones, you know out with your employees when they're not using them in your, your phones or mining. So it evens the playing field a lot. Also with, think about this for a second. The fact that let's say a third world country for example, where there's no access to loans and there's no access to banking. All of a sudden if you've got an internet connection, you are now the bank. You don't need a bank because you are the bank. If you have crypto, all you need is that Hash. Right? And that's where I think things are going to go. Loans are going to continue to happen through Crypto, things that are built off a theory. For example, I see a future where home loans happen through contract based systems and I see it going big. You have talked hours and hours about this and you know, you're making me a believer more and more. I'll say that. Hey Joe, we're going to start to wind this down a little bit. I got just a couple more questions. One is we talked about family. We've talked about, uh, the, the business journey and some of the things like crypto to get you excited. What, what, what else gets you excited to get out of bed and just make some things happen a fortnight for
Speaker 3:not the answer I was expecting, but I, I love that freaking addicted. And I thought you were gonna. Say something crime related. So No. Cut. Yeah, I'm all about the crime right now too. Yeah, the, I don't want to talk about that publicly though. Fair enough. But yeah, there's a lot of crime in my
Speaker 1:mcgriff
Speaker 3:you're a public servant but not a. not an a policeman. No. Well, no, I'm not a policeman, uh, but uh,
Speaker 1:I had to say real quick. It's pretty ridiculous. This is a, this is what a Dork I am. Let's just, let's just throw it out there and be honest. I patrol one neighborhood at night sometimes at 1:30 in the morning and I actually have neighborhood patrol magnets that I put on my car and uh, I, I'm just really glad my wife has not left me.
Speaker 3:Well said. Alright. So we got two questions. First one is where can people connect with you online? Well, jared, do you know, I'm not really that end to that to be quite honest. I hate this. I don't know how to answer that. Well, people, I mean I guess learn more about what you're up to. Yeah. Hatfield, etailer.com.
Speaker 1:I mean the way that I do things now, working through agencies though, it's almost under the radar at this point, which that makes you. That's the way I like it and I work for the agencies, but yeah, Hatfill Taylor, I hit F I e l d t a y l o r.com. Hadfield. Taylor. And so that's kind of the main company. I still do some work through there, but you know, I'm not the probably the typical person you talked to you that's got a huge online presence you need. I've just never pushed that. All that hard be quite. Well I guess it did in the beginning, didn't I? I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think there was a season when you tried that, then you decided to pivot and we haven't talked about it, but we've kind of hinted at it that pivot was necessary for you to be in the path you're on now. Which
Speaker 1:yeah, it was the right call. So do like super pumped about people that are like Vaynerchuk for example. Like that dude just. I mean he just woke my brain up, you know, when I started watching Vaynerchuk talked, still do to this day. And people that do have big online presence is a. I do follow them some, but generally speaking, I, I, uh, yeah, I'm not that guy that's on twitter all the time responding people and talking to people. And that's not really the life I live. The reason I enjoy your story and have a respect for all the things you've accomplished is you haven't followed the path that so many people try to follow with personal branding and things like that. You've, you've kinda carved your own way, figured out something that worked for you and, and I, I think that's really an important message for people to get out of this interview is not everybody needs to be on facebook 24 slash seven promoting celebrity. Exactly that. That's not. You don't necessarily have to do that. There's other things, but. So last question, I love final thoughts. So what's your final thought? My final thought. Jeez, you put me on the spot there and my final thought, I don't know jared. I think that I have no clue. I'm not gonna. Let you off that easy. So, so give a piece of wisdom for someone who's listening to a podcast and that's wanting to dream big and work your tail off. Work your butt off. All right. All right, here we go. I got it. All right, so take a job and I can't remember the dude's name online that says this, but take a job. Any job, doesn't matter what it is, work your butt off, get promoted, come in sick, come in on days that you don't have to come in, be indispensable to the person you're working for, and continue to do that until you get to the point where you get to live your dream. Be indispensable no matter what you do, but if you're not working, go get a job. Do anything that you can. Doesn't matter. Dude, that hustle mindset that we all talk about, the hustle mindset, it starts somewhere and it doesn't matter what you're doing and really doesn't. It doesn't matter if you're picking trash up off the side of the road, be the best trash picker. Upper right. So I guess that would be my, my thing is get out there and get going. Work hard. Well said, Joe, I appreciate the time and uh, certainly wish you the best with everything's coming up. Yeah man. Thank you brother. I appreciate it. Enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:The.