Derek From More Plates More Dates: His +$100M Business Empire, Bryan Johnson & TRT

i don't know what you're doing per month but i would not be shocked if this was doing between six dollars eight million dollars a month in revenue blink twice if i'm right yeah you're you guys are pretty you know on point with your ballpark yeah i feel like i could rule where i know i could be what i want to put at all in it like a days off on a try what's up we got derek for more place more dates here derek i made a fatal mistake before this podcast i don't know if you know this but i was doing research last night i was okay i gotta be prepped gotta be ready to go i've been following you for a while but i said let me just alright make sure i i i i buttoned up here and i go to your subreddit r slash more plates more dates to be to be clear this is not like my subreddit i didn't start right but i didn't realize this at a time okay so i'm on this subreddit thinking it's yours your subreddit i think of these are just polite civil faithful fans in fact it says there's a hundred sixty three thousand faithful that's how they call the members it is a top one percent subreddit so you're doing really well and i say hey i'm interviewing derek morris coming on our product we're gonna hang out what should we talk about and i say y give you some ideas hoping that this you know i i do this like you know let's see time of post it was like one am and i go to sleep but i wake up and i oh let me just check that real quick maybe somebody had some really thoughtful for questions here's the breakdown ninety eight percent of them wanna know how big your is that's the the number one comment by far everybody said the same exact thing i don't know if that's an inside joke or you just have some really really eager fans and then the second was i bro you needed to know this is a trolling subreddit this is not a this is not the serious subreddit bread of like people trying to have a rule conversation like you didn't you didn't know what you're getting yourself into and sure enough i did not the third comment was bring a ruler you got very i i i can imagine what kind of stuff you got head on onslaught for sure there's a decent amount of trolling and i don't know just like ship hosting that goes on there but there is some insightful stuff like i i'm a moderator on it i didn't start it but i do check in time to time and i've been pretty shocked how much it's ramped up like i don't know what i don't know what to go it is in size but it seems like this is a good one okay this is very yeah so derek what i've been watching you for years i remember watching you when you were doing like i think a cottage cheese or some type of like protein intake video and you look horrible because i i believe you an amateur maybe even more serious and amateur body builder and you're were like cutting and you looked just miserable when you're like really lean but you have all these amazing videos where originally it started out as like is this celebrity taking steroids but then it kinda of like an expanded beyond that to like you would actually do some really cool breakdowns about science the science behind different fitness stuff but then also life advice and now you have like i think four different companies gorilla mine merrick and a few others and so we're interested in like definitely some fitness stuff but also the fact that you're running like i think three or four like pretty successful businesses and what do you have now one point five million subscribers one point eight yeah i think let's see one point eight nine yeah yeah so you've built like a pretty like what it appears to be monster businesses but you've done it like with some really high integrity it feels like and you've also like your video setup is like almost jan although i feel like that's part of the s but so it's just like all about like just really high quality content that is well researched yeah it's almost it's quite unintentional the jan ness because i just don't know what i'm doing when it comes to i don't know videography and whatnot so every time i try and spruce it up it just i failed miserably so i leave it the same but i've heard a rumor i've heard a rumor that you've gotten you know you've clearly have gotten quite successful i i imagine your businesses are doing tens of millions in revenue i heard a rumor that you've moved to a really nice house and between your first apartment when you started and your second better apartment and your third nice house that you purposely make the background look exactly the same to the point of you've even like took a wall from your to first apartment into the the third place is that true is this true because we've been saying this either we've been spreading this rumor whether it's true or not i heard a little from my mouth okay i gotta i gotta know first here told you that i i i i would say i won't say what are your what are your friends they fuck me over it no i'm just kidding it's it is not a green screen i'll tell you that so a lot of people wonder if it is a green screen it's not some people sound like a real wall that did not sound like real wall it's a lot of people use it in the zoom calls now apparently which is crazy and they've like pulled the background out but yeah it's it's been the same background for a while it may may not be a asana some people you know that's the private prevalent rumor as well but i think it's a secret that's gonna live and die with the channel you also have done a good job of like somewhat hiding your identity i mean you have to go like pretty deep in order to find like your full name and and you've done a good job of like kind of staying under the radar while also being incredibly popular yeah yeah it's i don't know i i don't know how i even managed to have the foresight to think of that at the time but it just seemed like a reasonable idea given if you were ever going to become popular to avoid i don't know weirdo and stuff with that said there's also the you know question if you're gonna be able to leave as much of a legacy without your last name out there but i don't know how much i believe in that anyways so it seems like it's worked out to date yeah i i i definitely think it has go go ahead you and your business partner both have funny like kinda names of your channels your content channels so your yours is more plates more dates which is hilarious and then his his i think good looking loser dot com yeah yeah he he had like a men's self improvement funny blog from he was an og youtuber before i ever was online he started making content in two thousand and nine i think and that's actually how i found his stuff was through his youtube channel where he talked about you know how to talk to women and he had like videos of him going up to girls cold approaching and i was you know baffled at the time and i was just a teenager and university watching his stuff and was one of the first like ten or fifteen people who joined his online forum and then tracked and logged my i don't know trials and tribulation with fitness and chicks and all that kind of stuff university and then eventually we ended up actually working together which is really cool but yeah he has not posted regularly in i don't know five plus years but he is yeah good looking loser that's c right there and we're gonna talk about your your the business side because it i it's unclear but i believe you built a nine figure business so over a hundred million dollar business or collection of businesses off of your channel so we'll talk about the business stuff in a second but i wanna start with with this kind of pickup thing because i just had mark manson on the podcast guy i who wrote the subtle art of not giving a a a fuck okay and so he and he started also now he's like kind of like all about you know life advice and you know self help and thinks you know he he he's one of the most popular self help authors ever he wrote a book with will smith he's like like super legit now but he started off in the pickup world and he had his blog he was named entropy and his blog was all about picking up picking up women and i've noticed a few of these backgrounds that seem to lead to these like there's a few backgrounds like origin stories like a superhero would have that lead to interesting people so i've noticed like elite gamers so people are like hardcore gamers they tend to become they can they can become really successful in the game of business afterwards if they so choose or debate debate lenses very well to people who end end up being you know leaders you know those types of people because they're they're they think a certain way and they're able to articulate themselves and now another one i'm noticing is pickup up and i'm curious if you think there's anything to that or am i just reading into it is there are there any life skills core life skills that you really get from that yeah it's weird that was actually a i had lunch with andrew wilkinson a few weeks ago and he said the same thing about pickup he thinks that a lot of people come from that world and i don't know if it's just like feeling of ina that drove you to the pickup stuff to begin with which also translates to your like weird drive in a entrepreneur entrepreneurial aspect that kind of takes you to this level most people simply won't feel you know reasonable or something they i don't know wanna strive for but i think there's definite overlap there and i don't know if it's like a emotionally healthy thing always or a mentally healthy thing but there's definite overlap where people are i think trying to optimize all areas of their life whether it is social dynamics or what have you and that obviously translates into business like for me job interviews became infinitely easier after i learned how to walk up to attractive women because if you can walk up to an attractive you know ten out the ten and knock get nervous going into a job interview just like is butter whereas before it used to be super nervous you know you're in the waiting room you know be extremely i don't know overthinking the entire situation and it's to you anything that could be anxiety inducing is just out of sight out of mind so for me i think there is a huge overlap business presentations became so much easier became more confident in rooms meeting new people whether it was talking to dudes or talking to chicks didn't matter and yeah i think there's still huge upside not to be like a dirt bag which equates to being an entrepreneur i wouldn't suggest that but there is certain social skills and i don't know like e q you can gain from the pickup stuff that i think translates sean you didn't you you didn't study that stuff i i did did yeah because i i read all the books i i bought some of the courses i went to like an event before like i was like really into that because it was rooted in a sense of like i feel inadequate and i wanna meet women and like be like but it totally carries over to sales you know like the rule there's like a three second there's like a three second rule like as as soon as you ceo a woman that's like beautiful you up three seconds to ago go talk to or like there's i mean i used i used all of it i loved it i wouldn't call myself an artist though i don't think i made it's big artist it's like a subway sandwich artist but yeah you sure about that and half half of those guys ended up like with horrible lives as they got older like they're like fifty years old and they're still doing this shit and it's like dude that's not cool it's cool to be settled down actually it's cool to have like a relationship and so like the pickup artist community does a really good job of teaching young men man how to be confident and meet a woman but then half still of them do a really bad job of saying alright now here's how you remain loyal and how you become a good partner and things like that but they just get you to the interview or the first day but they suck after that you know what i mean it it's like horrible how to actually be a man and treat people respectfully yeah i think one of the best of takeaways from the pickup artist world is being able to review their lives from pre success being losers essentially to peak success having this incredible you know dating life with diversity and choice and then what happens to then thereafter the younger guys have the luxury and be able to watch the entire timeline and see did they end up somewhere that i would aspire to be and why y nine how do i avoid getting down that path because when i was you know coming up and learning about this stuff too it was even getting on a date was a task in itself in an achievement if you were able to even must up a dating life from scratch with women that were not introduced to you through your friend circles or whatever and being able to meet people cold was like the flood gates open in terms of opportunity and thereafter you know as long as you were sleeping with women you you thought you ended the game and you were you know good to go but you don't realize that there's a whole another element of how do you actually become happy have successful relationships no one tell you that stuff so being able to see the i don't know the before and after of like the neil strauss of the world or whatever and what happened to them i think is pretty insightful i wanna ask you about some of your businesses and how you're actually managing all this because you have a lot going on so there's gorilla mine which it looks like that's pre workout in cr you gotta tell me way you name it bro i know you hit the name right yeah what was this other one we had we had this other one called the what was that one sean it was called like deer killer or something no deer ant spray what dear other one fucked well my my thing with you derek is like i trust you like i trust you a lot and i buy what you say totally agree it it reminds me the same form of like you remember when we were younger like endo explode and that stuff yeah yeah and i remember taking that and i was like this is awesome and also like this might be illegal like it was like like it it it it felt like like adderall like i got too harsh right now is i didn't know anything about it but i'm like i don't know if this is good but when i think of your brand i think like i my values align with your values for some reason that i i don't think the name okay let's let's start with this objectively this is working right like i'm looking at the traffic it looks like it's over a million visitors a month for a e com store that's doing supplements super high margin high review purchase like but i i don't know what you're doing per month but i would not be shocked if this was doing between six and eight million dollars a month in revenue blink twice if i'm right yeah you're you guys are pretty you know on point with your ballpark but there we go what i will say is as far as the niche goes and by the way that's just like i i don't know if amazon is equal to our shopify but we're starting to get into retail to and the traffic numbers were oftentimes quite misleading so i don't know what you guys use for that but i've start i don't know if how much i read into those traffic statistics use similar web or what do you what do you we're yeah this i was looking at a similar web but but i have like if i have like layers it's like you can go like quick look at traffic then it's like there's tools i will literally just tell you here's the sales at the store but it doesn't know what your wholesale and retail might be but you're like alright i know if they're if their shopify is at this level and i know that they have some retail distribution you can get pretty pretty close right yeah so as far as the branding around it i do agree in the health niche when it comes to trusted dietary supplements for i don't know let's just say a multi vitamin or a b complex or a lipid support product those kinds of things i am totally on the same page that even i wouldn't necessarily have the highest trust factor in a company called a gorilla bond or a buck up or whatever when it comes to things that are meant to get you cognitive dialed in though and things that are meant to be hardcore workouts and vas dialect shit out of you all of this kind of stuff that is where the more edgy branding i think for example the same way you wouldn't trust a gorilla mind be complex and you would go with a thorn you probably would go with gorilla mode free out over thor pre workout probably i think most people would is fine it like i'm like a thirty something yu guy who doesn't i like i wanna look good naked and i wanna live a long time and there's like a balance of like what what you know am i putting like shit in my body or my thinking do you know what i mean but then like your other one mari health i'm on that website i invested in this company called hone i think sean maybe did too i think you my my opinion the branding of merrick is like beautiful i i think that's beautifully done well so mari health does like hormone optimization or hormone replacement therapy you do a bunch of thyroid stuff i think that branding is phenomenal and i would guess that this company will be more valuable in gorilla mine because it's i i would imagine it's subscription and it's probably what like three hundred dollars a month on average per customer yeah and the tele especially in high level preventative medicine diagnostic space you are in it's a lot more premium for sure and the margins are superior but it's also contingent on the level of service and that's where we differentiate ourselves there's a lot of telemedicine pop up clinics now and hormone replacement therapy you know spots to go to and we try to steer away from that mon we are kinda like i don't know it's it it's a broad spectrum preventative a medicine whereby you can trust that you're not gonna just get thrown on a cookie cutter script of testosterone and astra result and get kicked out of the door like we pride ourselves on the services and the doctor oversight and the quality of care and the providers especially are highly educated and are vetted by me and my team specifically so it's not it's i would say more than three hundred bucks a month for sure in general but that is definitely the way of the future in terms of what i am most passionate about and yeah you're definitely right that it's i would say at least objectively you're right now perhaps more valuable than the gorilla mind are you who who are how big is your your team now and who do you have helping you run each of these companies because that's a it's it's fairly complex imagine yeah maybe break it down like your core team that's like not assigned to any one of these companies and then like what does a core team look like first and then how do they sub companies look yeah so fortunately from an operational and back end standpoint i live in canada by the way the companies were based in the us so for me being on is essentially impossible so i have my business partner chris be looking loser is in idaho where the mind h hq was stationed and he the one who built out the team in person for warehouse fulfillment we will both be ones who vet out the high level c suite guys but a lot of the more i don't know like hands on tasks are going to be fulfilled for teams there that i have minimal oversight or interaction with i'm more of the marketing and c suite level stuff and to resell a bit now but that is in terms of the team and number of people i think there's like fifty to a hundred in each company but i don't i don't actually know to be honest but as far as oversight from gorilla that's typically that's essentially how it works as we have chris and boise me in canada i oversee all things marketing content product formulation manufacturing supply chain he oversees everything hands on fulfillment warehouse distribution legal accounting and there's sub teams within that that we oversee essentially and we have you know financial controller we have like a guy overseas retail etcetera etcetera but that is kinda how the org chart would delineate out and then on the mari health side my business partner he's not he doesn't have an online presence but he's somebody who i met through the industry myself years ago and he's exceptionally well versed than how to operate a team and build out the infrastructure and get the licensing and everything necessary to be above board and stay on top of all the compliance stuff is in the telemedicine space that's you know quite a bit goes into making sure you're doing it the right way because there are a lot of clinics that get spun up and essentially or just illegally prescribing steroids essentially that is literally why they exist more or less and a lot of compounding pharmacies despite being legitimate compounding pharmacies are not above board either and they will prescribe underground lab level drugs that are not even pharmaceutical grade it's wild stuff so he oversees essentially everything when it comes to the team the like i will help vet out the providers and high level talent and c suite guys and whatnot and i'm also heavily involved in marketing similar to gorilla but he is without the the my partners that none of this would be possible and then is an intelligent shop like round is is that the third one which is that the third major one are those two significantly yeah oh i would say those two are definitely bigger than intelligent but intelligent has probably the best profit margin i would say but that company is me and chris as well it's crazy is that like you're going you're like doing more challenging problems so like i i have no idea how challenging a supplement company is but let's just say that that's like a two or three out of ten and then mari health would be like a six or seven out of ten or even higher because you're like actually sorry starting to do it like regulation and then i know that you i think you said it here and you said on videos you're thinking about doing like a compound pharmacy which it like for the which sounds like the hardest and like i i i don't know too much about it but does that basically mean like you're actually getting the commodities from whoever you're getting and you have to make sure they're safe and that you're handling them safely and i guess compounding means you're combining and shipping them out to the mari health of the world is that right yeah so for example when you get prescribed your testosterone for example from a clinic like a am health or maybe own i'm not sure how they operate but in general they will fill a prescription through a pharmacy like an empower or a fill in the blank compounding pharmacy that is also having their own markup on medication is the ones receiving the active drugs and creating a finished product for you to prescribe and just logically anytime you can try and get more of the supply chain to control the margin that's gonna be beneficial i would imagine at at which point it becomes a logical and worthwhile use of your time though is to be determined because similar to the manufacturing side on dietary supplements although there's different levels of quality control and oversight you know you still have to be gm certified and you know have a certain level of oversight in your facility and is the bandwidth allocated to doing that taking away from your what your bread and butter is on the private labeling or marketing side of things depends on the person i guess because some companies killer just being manufacturers are not even having a company that they sell sell through so empowers the guys that a lot of people go to i i believe right how how big do you think that business is hundred million plus probably what what could that be worth what would like what would a multiple in that business be i don't even know what those would self more because is that considered just a manufacturing business well it's stuff because they definitely have some level of trust factor that other pharmacies don't have for even for me if i was to get a compounded testosterone from empower versus from some rink dink compounding pharmacy i would one hundred percent trust in power more than fill the blank even though they have supposedly you know same levels of quality control rigor licensing etcetera there is pretty significant variability sometimes in the compounding world plus minus on certain drugs even as shocking as that sounds what you see on the label even in the pharmaceutical world is not always what you're getting in compounding that just seems like such an intimidating business to go down down the path yeah fortunately for me and the it's something that it's it's actually wild because der mind is probably the thing that has the highest level of difficulty for me because i'm intimately involved in product formulation whereas on the tele side fortunately there is no need for me to i don't sit there making medication formulations you have a preset you know testosterone concentration or fill in the blank drug i don't control all that or need any creativity or insight into what goes into that because it's a very tightly regulated thing whereas in the supplement world people will just look at our label and rip us off often so i am often the guy who has to be creative come up with innovative ideas and i don't want something to come out with my name on it that i don't have significant you know personal time investment into that formula that goes out so you know for me the gorilla mind formulation and product roll side of things is this the most time consuming so i would take gorilla is like six or seven out of ten and merrick is you know like a two out of ten for me oh interesting yeah we had doug tomorrow on and you know who doug tomorrow is he's a car youtuber yeah yeah he's awesome he's cool he you know built this thing up to like four or five million subscribers and he launched this thing cars and bids which he sold a portion of the business and carson and bids could be a multi hundred million dollar business i think i think it's awesome and but like going to to compare you to him that'd be like him starting to make like car parts yeah and i'm like dude doug why don't you just like make the best car make marketplace ever could just like crush that because like if i think of like you derek launching and and i don't know much about the space when i think about you launching like a pharmacy i'm like man that seems like you're leveraging yourself pretty high like what if that fucks everything up like as a opposed chicken ass at these other two things i'm not dead set on it so i imagine during i don't know discovery if buying a company or just the process of flushing out all the details i will probably uncover that you know leaning into our bread and butter is probably more worthwhile so despite it being on my radar similarly to the manufacturing side of supplements or energy drinks it's probably not worse our time or money right now so you know to be determined in the future but there's one reason why i imagine you should do it which is it's pretty dope like you don't like that there's still like we're still like that component of like this seems it very challenging but like this would be sick if you could actually pull it off you know what i mean like there is that factor of like it is it's you know don't entrepreneurship are and that that's a cool challenge yeah no it's and just be able to control everything i think there's you're not putting yourself in a position where you can get squeezed to whereas companies like roman they have their own pharmacies and there's a reason why you know they're not gonna just private label to hell and market the shit out of it they're going to control the drugs so you know to me it seems like at scale there is some inevitable obstacle of trying to control that aspect of the business and not being subject to whatever the you know drug makers decide for you but to be determined on that do you like what's your business goal so like you shifted your focus you're like okay i went through this body builder dating like number one priority they're you're like alright making money entrepreneurship became the main focus for like the last period of time last season what's your business goal because we've met a bunch of people that are like some of them take this like oh shu out of don't them i'm just trying to you know help people like type of attitude which i rarely believe to be honest and then there's a lot of other people like rob dirt that came on and he's like dude i was like yeah i was like a skateboard kid then ended up doing this i ended up on tv still wasn't making any money and i finally realized like oh like in the last like in this last like five year period i figured out like okay i need to go from rookie white belt to black belt and i made it my focus i made it my goal and i said i wanted make a billion dollars that i decided alright to do that what do i need do i to own my own production company instead of just being a talent i'm now on the town and the production company and then i brought people and i started investing i own real estate i he and he like was very articulate about it and our audience loved it because they're like dude i had no idea he actually kinda had that part of his brain head had like intentionally set a goal and made a plan and i started figuring it out what's how would i describe it for you what's your you know because you started off just doing this kind fun in the business came up you know about but what's your goals and how did that come about oh yeah should probably revisit my goals because i don't really have a firm concrete objective i do know from a value standpoint i think a gorilla mine and mari health billion dollar companies in the future at some point and i do very much intended for them to get there and i strongly believe they will and i mean that that sounds like a good goal i mean if i was to put somebody on paper as a financial match trick of sorts those would be you know two concrete ones i could say in my near near ish future i foresee as doable and i wanna make sure happen but trick this i don't i don't necessarily wanna sell them either it's just kind of a vanity metric or something that you're chasing almost like a million subscribers on youtube once you get there you know it's the same old the next day nothing changes other than your objective success and how you feel about yourself to some extent maybe and how people perceive you but and maybe have more flexibility in what you can do but you know that's kinda how i see it too is glimpse the business his businesses get to a certain point it's just gonna be more of the same probably i don't know i i can't imagine there's like especially from the mari health side of things it's a company that i'm so passionate about preventative medicine if something is working that is literally me being able to at scale educate and import value about that it's hard to see me devi from it to be able to do what that again it doesn't really i don't know maybe i'll change my mindset as i get a bit older and i have kids or something but right now not really that that's kind of all i could say as far as a concrete goals and a piece of paper financially and also my path in terms of what i'm passionate about have you raised financing or funding for any of these businesses no never dude that's crazy because like alright you have one point eight one point eight million subscribers one point nine close to two million that's a lot but that's not a lot a lot you know what i'm saying i mean that that's like if someone grinds for ten years like you could get there what's crazy is that i mean that's just a huge number to have two multi billion dollar o two let's just even say hundred million plus brands up the back of one point nine million subscribers that's a significant amount well yeah you have to keep in mind to our influencer marketing is pretty dialed especially on the gorilla side and we have a lot of people who believe in what i'm doing and my passion and path forward to and trust me so they will also trust that i'm going to put them in the best spot to accrue the most value from whatever company they're partnering with and have mutually beneficial relationships as they develop their business careers too so especially on gorilla there is no way we'd be anywhere near where we are well i don't know what we'd actually be at but a lot of our influencers behind us are huge needle movers huge like i would say our combined following is like i don't know in the tens of millions if not a hundred million plus is it contingent on you getting more popular do you think or do think that they've grown beyond that yeah i think they're big enough they can be the wrong thing and i think fortunately for me it has allowed me the flexibility to reel back on the content frequency a bit because i used to be very heavily output oriented which i should be still but the trust factor is very high and the success of the company stands has it it has its own to don't know resume of credibility through what it's done like being i don't know one of the top selling pre workouts on amazon for example against companies i literally bought when i was seventeen years old and edging some of them out now like that's wild to me i and those kind of things help us get into retail and help us do things from a global expansion standpoint that aren't contingent on me sure it helps that i'm a face of the brand what i've done and you know that when you work with us i'm gonna be the one formulating your products too for example like when influencers work with us if you're gonna have a collaborative pre workout that drops knowing that i'm indirectly endorsing it and making it for you too and is a huge plus whereas most owners are not even faces of the brand and no one even know who they are so that kind of stuff i think gives us the latitude and flexibility to grow moving forward outside of having this influencer treadmill where we're having a acquire new people to get exposure to then sell more i think there is absolutely a diminishing returns point and for us at this point it's very global expansion oriented and retail going heavy into retail and some of the some of the products like the energy drinks and whatnot but to be determined it's so it's all a bit of an experiment to be honest i went i went and read your blog and prep for this and i've read a bunch of bunch of posts and you said something you said when i was eighteen what were my priorities you said well i wanted to make more money i wanted to date hoard of gorgeous women i wanna have a killer ph and i wanted to do well in school to set me up for my future and you said you i had these four goals and those all sounded like totally worth pursuing and they all sounded like things i should be working i'm in school so i should probably work on school i'm i'm kind of you know eighteen to twenty one years old i probably try to take women or work out make money all of these things seemed like good ideas at the same time and then you realized i should go all in on one of these goals right now at the expense of the others why did you have that philosophy of go all in on one life goal versus try to have kind of this balance or pursue all four yeah stuff because it's not like i would claim it to be the correct way to live your life but i think a lot of people live especially in the entrepreneurial world in stages it's almost like seasons of your life and there were certain seasons where you can complete certain things are prerequisites for the other and i would say that when it comes to getting women for example when you were young you do not need exorbitant amounts of funds you actually don't even need to have the ability to support somebody in a long term relationship if you're young you can have a piece of crap car and live with your parents and still crush it with literally like objectively ten out to ten girls in your age bracket and being able to kind of get that season of your life out of the way and develop those social skills at least at the time when i was broke through i felt like was worth getting out of my way so to speak before i went down the road of entrepreneurship which i knew would consume the majority of my free time and dating especially large amounts of women when you're trying to kind of i don't know get your anxiety out of your system entirely and become even used to this dynamic of being out with attractive women it's not something that i feel you can juggle both simultaneously dating as a full time job honestly like if you're single if you can definitely agree with what i'm saying that it can be as consuming as a full time job in itself so for me you know trying to and i also was way more hardcore cor of a body building at the time so i would actually dedicate blocks of time to cutting and bulk phases and the cutting phases would be getting striking distance of stage ready condition which is something that is super mentally sap and demanding of your body and more extreme amounts of cardio caloric restriction etcetera and it's not trying to do everything at the same time i feel like you'll just fail or do everything kind of half ass essentially you will not get anything done with exceptional quality so that was at least my thought process and logic at the time and i would still probably agree with it even though that blog is i don't even remember last time i wrote an article on that blog it is super outdated but it is something i would still resonate with probably i think people should be say things into seasons personally yeah i mean we talk about seasons a lot and i think like what's that quote sean about the line and the cow like cows graves lines rest and then pounce and like oftentimes it's a little bit easier in business to be like the line instead of just like you know instead of like a constant forty hours a week maybe like sprints is is a little bit easier and i was watching some of your videos i i remember there was one recently where i think you got back from europe you're in europe and it sounded like you're with a girlfriend or a wife or something like that so i assume you're in some type of long relationship has building these companies been a lot easier once you're you have more stability as a buzz dating yeah dude it's night in there try if i were single right now i would get half as much work done probably yeah yeah dude haven't and like i i remember when i was building my first company there was probably twice a week i would lay on the floor and i'm like this isn't gonna work i feel miserable like i'm just gonna quit and like having a spouse or she my fiance or a girlfriend at the time to be like no you got this like that is just like it was like the greatest thing ever it that's what i knew i'm like dude having a a a wife is so much better than she's like also move out of the way i'm trying to get you're just laying on the no yeah i would i i yeah i totally agree with that sentiment for sure you've got these you know you have the content machine running you got the digital machine running have you figured out what you wanna do with your bunny so do you have you learned kind of like you know how to either spend it in ways that are interesting or invest it how much time and effort have you put into that like i like what do you do with your money i've learned what not to do with it which is good what have you done what have you done and so don't go with wealth management portfolio guys who will even if it's with a big bank because they get their management fees even if they suck so and oftentimes they will make it sound like they're doing great things when objectively they're underperforming a basic you know index fund so i would be very weary of that as a wealthy entrepreneur because a lot of those guys are the primary targets of those you know wealth management guys and they will shockingly stay with them for years despite underperforming just objectively and then you know they just get a get rinsed the entire time while the management fees make the other guys rich so i've learned not to do that the hard way the thing that's tough is on the canadian side there is so much more complicated tax planning that goes into it i've spent more time than i wanna admit on figuring out how to not lose money than actually like making money with my money so if stuff yeah like i'm still figuring even figuring out how to put myself in the position most optimally to make my money work for me but oftentimes even knowing what side of the country i should be keeping it on it's it's been a ever learning process and there are certain corporate structure things that i've been very hesitant to pour money into you know insurance fund that down the line is gonna build money interest free and i can then re i've been very careful to not dive into any of those before i fully understand them even though they could make me a lot of money because i know once you're into some of those things you can't unravel them so you know as a canadian it it's a lot more complicated unfortunately than just dollar cost average into the index so if you're if if you're portfolio you know let's just say you're you know we'll do the pie chart thing without so just percentages and not including your private businesses where do you where do you keep your money is it mostly equities or are you investing in other private companies what are you doing with it i do some angela angel investing but it's very minor like for example media kits you guys are familiar with kieran that's how we met like his company for example i invested in i don't know some some stuff like that but not very often but primarily it was you know wealth management was overseeing a lot of it and then i realized how not ideal that was and liquidate it at all recently at a loss but yeah it's just sitting at bank accounts right now doing nothing as a really yeah yeah so i'm like all caps right now i have a decent amount of crypto but i always forget i have that until somebody asked me like what is your portfolio comprised of so i guess technically some crypto and then i guess it's the value of the businesses and whenever cashed sits in those accounts but yeah it's mostly just just chilling and doing nothing useful i i remember you you i think you bought a labor lamborghini or something like that and like made a video about like the or hitting treadmill and you're like this is kinda of bullshit is there any what what have you spent money on that you think is thought would make you happy it was bullshit versus where you actually like where do you like to spend money on you're like this actually makes me happy that's tough man because i don't other than that i haven't really spent egregious amounts of money on anything that i would deem to be irresponsible that was outside of a business capacity like i will invent you know always go first class because of the convenience and just leg room just like basic stuff which is and other than that i don't really buy anything luxury other than groceries which you know getting high quality food i think is justified every single time yeah i haven't really spent money on anything i could think off the top of my head that was stupid what what was the story for the business so what what order did they come in and what triggered the thought of like i need to i need to start this because i think you kind of you're in in internet marketing affiliate game when did you transition to like i wanna own my own businesses yeah especially prior to influencer integrations when i first started affiliate marketing it was still very seo driven blog heavy there was not as much off flat rate you know paper integration type stuff happening or at least i was not that aware of it if it was happening at scale what were you selling oh an array of things whatever i use personally amazon links to it etcetera so i was getting you know five percent commissions on shampoo that i would use for hair loss prevention or and was that like beer money or that was like like like wow i'm making stupid money doing this somehow like how how successful were you able to be doing that well i guess success is definitely subjective so at the time i felt extremely but you know in proportional terms perhaps not now but back then that was the stuff that funds your ability to actually start your own businesses so i would say in that sentiment definitely successful and i think the bang that helped me the most and what i typically recommend people to do as when they're wondering what do i even get into as a product or service or what have you it's organically integrating things is that you already use and truly believe in because if you just plug nonsense and you start to be a ad horror essentially where you just take whatever comes your way when it comes to integrations even products don't believe in or cara about and just become a robot mindless reading scripts for you know dollars you kinda get your credibility goes out the window and people don't listen to your product recommendations anymore and for me it was always how do i monetize stuff that i use anyways and it would help you for free you should use this because i use it so oftentimes that was taking pid little affiliate commissions or none on products that i actually used and wanted people to also try to get results with and that would include well but not limited to you know supplements hair loss prevention products sometimes random diet hack related things i don't know it it varied significantly but across the board it is basically what has an affiliate program that is a product i already use and i can get a commission for telling people something i would tell them anyways and that is how i kinda built up my initial funds to then start some of the businesses that replace the affiliate recommendations that i would've have been making anyway so it's it was kinda stemmed from just what are the things i'm most passionate about personally and promote them and because i would anyways and then replace them eventually with things that i feel are higher quality and reflect exactly what i would wanna see as a consumer in that niche so that was kinda how i went down the rabbit hole of because dietary supplements i've always been a formula i've always dug very heavily into the chemistry and pharmacology side of things and it was just an eventual that i was gonna get into it at some point and once it became viable financially that was kind of my segue into that and then air loss prevention products i've been recommending certain things for years and that was my segue into intelligent elephant which is another company and then telemedicine was i was making content for gears about preventative medicine and had to interpret diagnostics and blood work and hormone optimization and pet or aids etcetera and it was that was such a no brainer for me to get into too so across the board that's kinda what i look for as the highest lever opportunities at least how i kinda ended up starting those businesses to begin with and funding them we we had our buddy s on and what he did was he had a a high traffic blog that was helping people out with wordpress he's like yeah i recommend using this email pop up and like he would just basically see oh okay you know the highest the things that people click on the most because they're looking for a solution our x maybe that's a business i should go into so what he would do is he would just go buy that business or buy the number two player improve it and then make it his recommendation and he just went systematically it's almost like you've did that for the body you were like cool i got this high traffic like give this ability to get a bunch of high traffic i can start with affiliates and see what people click what you know even if they have a crappy affiliate program at least i know that's a category that i know i can drive a lot of lot of customers to maybe i should be the supplier instead of the affiliate yeah he's crazy how much stuff has evolved just in the past i don't know not even ten like six or seven years too in terms of where people get the recommendations from like seo is so irrelevant now to where i shop and where most of our customers shop too back in the day it was if your top ranked on google maybe for some services it's absolutely still relevant but for certain products and e commerce space and whatnot it's like no one gives a shit at all whereas back in the day if you it was all about how do i get top ranked out of google for buy fill in the blank or top three fill in the blank and that was a lot of my affiliate stuff came through my blog articles back then and lesser youtube but now it's so heavily social media the new york times had this article come out a few weeks ago and it was like my guru is better than your guru or something like that and it was about how i mean this has always been the case but it's just there's more now and they're bigger about how audiences will attract we'll we'll go towards a certain like health and wellness person so like there's you there's he but then there's also mark sis is instead of saying mark the the the the older guy who started a primal kitchen and then there's like five or six or ten or twenty other ones and they actually but the the article was saying and this is true that they say different things like the not everyone agrees so there's like you know eat a lot of plants then there's like car d and then you you know you did your whole thing on a the liver king like they don't the the the they oftentimes will say like different stuff but you just get behind someone and you just do whatever they say like if you if if you talk to andrew lieberman like the most but common question he gets and i'm sure you get this too which is just tell me exactly what you do and i'm gonna do the exact same thing so you know what i mean but and and that's in one hand that's on one hand that's maybe dangerous because it doesn't always apply to each person on the other hand it makes a great ass business because it's just like whatever derek says i do and i buy and i think that you had like videos where you're like my supplement company like i'm not going to just make a ton of product because i have to make the quality good but you guys are buying but so much of it that we need like two weeks off in order to restock you you know what mean it so it's like it for you as a business owner yeah i think a trust factor is everything nowadays especially because there is so it especially in the health niche it is so hard to know who to trust because oftentimes the charlotte will get platform too because they say outrageous things but you'll see them on big podcasts even sometimes just because they'll say something that seems so contradictory to what is accepted as you know scientific factor or whatever just to get a good hook not even necessarily because they the authority or foremost expert in a certain area and it's super confusing for the lay who was just trying to you know learn something and then they hear seventeen different versions of recommendations for something that should be basic and yeah trying to even what i do too and i think a lot of people should do when they're self educating is find a you know handful of people that through all evidence provided or have highest trust factor and knowledge simultaneously because the two coupled are what are going to lead you to what i feel to be actual recommendations that are practical and valuable rather than just you know fall it's wild how many you know bad educators that are out there for sure and how did you become an expert like you know hub like professor at wherever like this is like a stanford lab or something you know you when i first saw your thing you're like oh i i i think i was clicking like some of the videos that were like what is conor mcgregor taking or john jones or whatever and you're talking about the pulsing effects of pico grabs of whatever that john jones got popped for and i was like how hell with this guy now it doesn't even seem like usa saw even understands like what hell going on like where is the literature of this how would this random youtuber know about any of this stuff largely through years of self education but also through educating myself through experts and being i feel i'm very good at extra out and determining what is valuable information and then simulating it into my own consolidated framework that's one of my strong strong suits so that's taken years i've been researching like a man x since i was i don't know like ten ten plus years at this point so for me i don't necessarily claim to be an expert oftentimes people will you know label me as such but you know i'm just a guy who's a nerd and learns a lot of shit and it's been it's been good to date but yeah a lot of this stuff is available though too it's just hard you translate into layman's terms like somebody who's in the lab to determining if an assay is going to be implement for the usa sat in the future it's to catch people doing fill in the blank the usa data i don't know spokes people don't necessarily understand the chemistry and the science they're not gonna go out and go into elaborate detail about why you could still get away with micro dosing for example like that kind of nor it beneficial for them to assert necessarily publicly that it's possible to do such so a lot of this stuff is just swept under the rug and no one talks about it because they either don't understand it or it's not very i don't know readily circulated so but it's all publicly available it's just a matter being able to dissect it so you know that's kinda of been it what what do you think of the the sort of the tech tech of testosterone movement that's going on so you got bezos retire gets jacked you got z becoming a m mma fighter you have who else is who else is doing there's couple of brian johnson how on sema side so he's at least trying to get ripped not necessarily sauce to the gills but he's trying to get you know lean lose weight yeah what do you think of what do you who's doing it right who's doing it wrong what do you what what do you see in the tech tech bodies i think it's good that guys are prioritizing muscle mass and quality of life and whatnot over just you know existing so i think it's an overall good thing to have i don't know be pursuing kinda the masculine type and i don't know path but i don't necessarily know who's doing it wrong or right because they're not very outspoken about the protocols and what about brian johnson because he's meticulous about like you know publishing what he's doing what what's your take on it on what he's doing that guy it's tough because i do see the value in what he's doing anything but i think a lot of it is totally contradictory like for example the guy will calorie deprive the hell in himself to the point of having hormone suppression but then a supplement with this testosterone it's like dude make up your mind a which which one is gonna be conducive the longevity first snot because you're kinda just correcting what you screwed yourself up for to begin with like why why is your body's trying to fight back against you just to you know manually administer something to correct your deficiency self induced from literal nutrient deprivation like the there's clearly some sort of a i don't know contradictory actions in his protocol in my opinion but overall i think it's interesting for sure seeing what he thinks is impactful versus not but as you start to roll out some of the the products and services related to his stuff you start to wonder you know how much of it is just you know noble intentions versus you know the entrepreneurial you know aspect of it which is fine but it's like do not if it goes down that road where he goes heavy into selling i really hope he is very candid about his desire to monetize and not make it seem like this noble you know thing entirely because it's certainly not you know your private label olive oil like other people could've got it you could just recommended it a good company you didn't have to go do it yourself necessarily you know you use some other companies up until a certain point why not just talk about them and give them the business there's there's some sort of monetary incentive there it was just fine i think a lot of the stuff he does is way overkill and i think it's kinda hard to track anything with any relative certainty when there's a billion different variables and i also think he puts way too much credence into certain trackers like the the age clocks those are complete bullshit essentially and i don't think it's a great utility to be tracking those meticulously as if that's reflective of exactly what's going on and what why are the age hq bullshit that i would need to dig into more but a lot of it is based on your current what is going on in your body in this current snapshot of time and then trying to reflect okay your velocity of aging equals this because you had a transient like better blood sugar or fill in the black biomarker like you could just as easily screw up your blood work and make it look like you're way older than you are in a matter of days so it's like obviously your chronological biological didn't shift that much in a matter of days but just based on your current health status in your blood in your body right now you can make it look like your plus minus twenty years so actually take that and make it assert that oh this is it equals i'm this young now it's like no you're maybe your current snapshot in time reflects something that looks like that but it is not indicative that that is your overall health status so i would i would have to do i probably should do a video on it at some point but it's most credible people that i trust think it's bullshit personally i test all of them so i've done insight i think insight tracker or insight tracker and then true diagnostics and the like i've done all of them they're they're they're it's messed up because i know in my head that this is theory and that it's a it's like i know it's a gimmick but it's so fun you know what i mean they came out the same sam when you try it across multiple services yeah the those two came out the same which is basically like my blood work is great and i think they give you actually a number so they're like you're thirty four biologically you're twenty three chronological or what is it chronological you're thirty four biologically you're you're twenty three so it said that i was great and then they have this other score where they look at is it the nerve on hang on you're twenty three biologically yeah like according to this shit and so which is which is like a false sense i know derek just said is bullshit but i'm not gonna lie kinda admire for that but i see i just wanna add read my books but that's my thing is i see that i'm like oh sick i'm doing everything great but i'm like i'm pretty sore though like i don't know like you know like i don't know if i'm doing everything perfectly and they what what's it called what where they look at is it the the methane or meth extrapolation they look at that and they're like oh you're kicking ass your rate of aging is super low so i'm like sick like i'm i'm not gonna change anything but but that's not exactly the reality because i don't always feel great you know what i'm saying i also go went on to kick i've tested everything so i've tested the semi semi tie i've tested t i don't do any of that now and then i've used nash which is like in my opinion the worst thing ever i fucking hate that it maybe feel miserable i've tried cl now i don't do anything but i've gone through i've tried it all because i i like experimenting with all these stuff and then i like doing the blood work it's like an addict thing it's like someone who's obsessed with different gadgets you know what i'm saying why'd did you come off of a crc because i would so i got like strong so i like i wanted to do it because i was really low for years like one thirty and i was like alright let's get this right and figure out what's going on and so i did it and i got low body fat i got strong i was hitting like record squat and bench numbers and then i like alright well let's try without it let's just see what happens if i don't take it and i still felt great and so i was like well you know if i don't have to take it and my testosterone level actually went down but i still felt wonderful and i was still lifting wonderfully and my body felt great so i was like let's just try not doing it for a while how long ago you come off last summer a year a year ago i what's your test now dude it it dropped it was eight hundred and then it went to four hundred four twenty you said it was like one thirty or something before you started to your area yeah and i was twenty six percent body fat and i felt miserable i was also running my company and i was stressed and i didn't get and and for a year i tried eating healthy and lifting and i just didn't get it right and then i sold my company so i got financial security i was pretty pretty ripped i was pretty strong my i got married and my relationship was awesome and i just felt happy and i ate well i all natural foods and i just felt dialed in and then i just went off of it in my testosterone dropped but i didn't feel horrible interesting well yeah if you don't need it yeah know probably better to wait if you don't wanna beat how old do you thirty are you are you on it right now yeah but it's for me more so because when i was younger i did a lot of hardcore body billing stuff and shut down my system and now with what i know now i could probably restore natural function similar to what you did but it would be a lot more aggressive of a recovery phase and more ar and putting myself through that right now isn't necessarily top of mind so it's kinda just been a stay on it right now and optimize everything around it but yeah that's kinda how i ended up on it there's there's a few of the things that i really like though what's it called is it bp one fifty seven like some of these bp like some of these peptides at like for example if i strain my achilles and as i get older i'm like not my my injuries aren't healing which is like the most depressing thing about age is that you just like heal slower or like and you get hurt easier oh you're twenty three what do you mean well that's why those tests are that's why i'm saying though those tests are bullshit they like say that you're young like i don't know ma'am my shoulder they're freaking hurts since he's been hurting for a month and like i've been really interested in some of those recovery drugs or peptides or whatever you wanna to call them what what do you think about those i think they can be useful for sure as long as their context specific and not overused because a lot of them are pro for example bbc vpc is increases something called veg jeff expression and it's pro an meaning it will literally create it it can induce blood flow that essentially was not present so you could also have a pro carcinogenic type pro effect with cancer cell development if you have existing cancer cells that could be you know exacerbated so i think some athletes use it preventative a bit too much but in the context where you actually have an injury there's a little blood flow to it you can actually have a use case for it i think it's super high utility very valuable product from my like very amateur point of view i think that like the semi tide and metformin and some of these other what's it called a gl b limit or what you know am i using the the phrasing correctly gl p one agonist yeah i like these things at like limit blood spikes and or blood sugar spikes those seem really fascinating like they even seem fascinating to the point of like i think they can help your or help alcoholic not become or you know get off alcohol like it like there's some like weird things about these drugs that they can do other things and what they are intended to do and that's super fascinating to be at the moment but i know that you were i think you were on semi i don't know if you are anymore yeah i've tested most of the gl one agonist for appetite suppression and yeah they definitely are of the available appetite suppress in the pharmaceutical world are probably the best overall like mechanism and how they work because previous to that was people just be using the hell out of adderall and me and crazy stimulants to shut down their appetite but it also screws up their heart the brain i wouldn't say that sema side or some of these drugs are risk free though and they certainly have question marks around their long term use especially in children who are developing but yeah i think i i think they have like a children's dose now don't yeah yeah i think so we do there's like a oz junior yeah which is fucked up right it's just yeah i would want the answer to be just eat less but yeah the thing though is it are those children ever going to become optimal without it and then is the roi worth it and you could easily assert that those fat kids that would have been fat kids regardless are better off by taking it for sure yeah so i and i wouldn't say well generally that's the answer for anybody who's overweight of course because there are certain certainly ways to educate and help people get on the right path that don't involve drugs and i've seen plenty of people do great that were formerly very fat and then end up down a different life path and are leaning around and have amazing lifestyles and get into a habit and cement it into their everyday life but now know some kids are i don't know just might need it for all in you did you did this good thing i i mentioned your europe video and the interesting thing to me was actually that you said that you weren't training that hard and you i think you like indulge in bread and food like you you you you lived like a tourist you know you ate a lot but you're like i didn't i felt great because a i was walking a ton and i don't remember if you said this or if i read this from somewhere else what another person's experience but you're like the groceries in food just seem higher quality whether that's like involves like regulation around the fda and like certain chemicals are or aren't allowed are you buying most of your you said you spend a lot on groceries and you get high quality stuff are you buying most of your foods from popular grocery stores or do you go to do dubai online from niche providers or are you going what what are you doing for that i go to a butcher for bison liver and things of that nature mostly my meats but a lot of the other stuff is local grocery in canada there's not a lot of flexibility unfortunately on quality of or just availability of some of the foods that you might otherwise buy at higher end places in the state so as much as i'd love to have if i could the highest level of everything it's sourcing is a huge issue in canada as as absurd as it sounds like sourcing for like basic foods so yeah it's when i can i get you know the best available but like for example bison i think is the lean most nutrient and dense red meat essentially that you could get and i will buy a ton of that even though it's you know three times more expensive than extra ground beef with the grocery store so that's one example we talked about this company i don't remember sean if he you said lieberman helped get it going or was a was a affiliate or whatever yeah man that thing was cool like i i i ordered a bunch of stuff like the but i i have no idea if i'm get sold in the marketing or not but like this story behind it like they got me bought it like they got me so bought into it no i was at a peter rat place a couple weeks ago and i had the venison sticks or whatever that they sell and pretty damn good and yeah i trust him and his recommendation so i would imagine it's all up and up and everything's probably pretty top here yeah man i that story like totally got me bought i thought it was a cool business like and and i've been watching some your videos and it's made nervous about just like my food and like the quality of food and like whole foods for the longest time was like the gold standard and now i'm like no man that that still might even be shit like i it's it's to the point where i wanna start raising my own animals you know what mean or oh yeah it's tough because it's a lot of people will swear off supplements and say buy whole foods but then other people will say the whole foods or the soil is d depleted of nutrients so then you should supplement but then the you know there's trying to know what you're doing can be quite ar and sketchy even when you're trying to optimize even when you have the financial means it's trying to even figure out what to spend your money on can be overwhelming at times for sure well we appreciate you coming on man i've been a big fan of years for years i know sean has two you're i think what's gonna happen is like in the next four or five years there's gonna be year might have an exit or there's gonna be some type of article that review that reveals how big your empire is and i think that i i think a lot of people are gonna be surprised that some of the outcomes that you have you know the fact that you i i believe that you can build multiple billion plus or nine figure companies off the back of this audience and i think it's it gonna be really cool when that story finally finally comes out oh we'll see what where it goes i appreciate you guys having me on and being so patient as i get back into content here because i know you guys have been try to karen has been trying to get me on for a while so i'm glad we were able to make it happen yeah shout out to him thanks karen we appreciate that yeah right on alright that's it that's the pod yeah i feel like i could rule word i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a day's off on a travel never looking back