Avoid This $20,000 Mistake: Time is NOT Free! I Ryan Serhant DSH #479

On that commute.

Every time I do that math, everyone's mind is blown.

Like, oh, but I'm saving.

It's a savings.

That's what they want you to think.

It's not a savings.

It's an expense.

Your time costs money.

If you don't think about your time that way,

then you're just an employee of the United States of America.

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And here's the episode.

All right, guys, we are here in New York.

Couldn't think of a much better guest to have than Ryan Serhan here.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I know you got a lot of exciting things going on right now, so we'll dive into some of that.

You just got back from F1 Miami, right?

Yes.

Yeah, if I look red, that's why, because it was 6,000 degrees.

Jeez.

It was so hot.

I bet.

Yeah.

Danny was there.

He's still sweating.

You know, I had to go get a whole new wardrobe like the day before because

we went to the track twice.

We went on Saturday because I'm selling Mercedes-Benz residences.

Oh, no.

And so we had access with Mercedes-Benz to go into the paddock, to go on the track, to do everything and meet everyone and meet the owner of the Mercedes-Benz AMG F1 Patronus team,

Toto Wolf.

So we did that on Saturday.

And I just remember getting there and being like, wait, wait, wait.

What is happening?

And like going and hiding behind a tree to try to save myself because the sun and the humidity was so strong.

It didn't help the humidity, but like it's like a 10-degree difference between being in the sun and then just being next to a tree.

And like it was just, it was so, so hot.

But then F1 was awesome.

It was so cool.

Yeah.

I'd never been to an F1 race before.

Really?

I'd never, dude, I've never watched F1.

That's surprising.

I've never seen drive.

Why?

Because you think I go fast?

No, because your clientele is all ballers and billionaires and they go to events like that.

Maybe, but they've never talked to me about it.

They go to NBA games.

They go to Vegas.

Like they do,

some of them are into fun, extreme sports.

They own sports teams.

Got it.

But very rarely do I have like a huge F1.

aficionado client.

And so it was my first time, but I went with one of my clients, obviously.

And then I saw a lot of other clients there.

I was like, oh, so we have a shared thing now.

Yeah.

And I was like, dude, it's just cars racing around.

And then I was like crying at the end when Andel won.

I was like so emotionally invested.

And it could have been the sweat coming out of every pore on my body, but it was so cool.

Yeah.

Well, I saw a video of you saying you wear sunscreen every day.

So I do.

Did that help?

Yeah, I didn't get burnt.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm fully, I'm whiter today than I was probably over the weekend, which is super annoying.

I don't like it, I think because I was bathed in suntan lotion when I was a little kid, it just, it just permeated my soul.

And so now it just, I'm just like, oh, I always have Suntan lotion and I wear, I wear SPF 20 on my face every single day, even in the winter.

Wow.

That's intense, man.

You ran into Quavo out there.

I saw.

That was everywhere.

Dude, Quavo?

That was so wild.

It happened so fast.

We didn't even have time to comprehend what was happening.

All I knew was we were parked next to that bridge

right before Brickle City Center to try to get our drone to drone up the river and catch our Maybach as we were coming over the bridge.

So we were parked in an apartment complex, like right off to the side of the road.

And we're sitting there, and then this escalade rolls around, comes up, and pulls up right up next to us.

All the windows go down.

These guys are looking out at us, looking at the car, and they all get out.

Like, oh my God,

what's happening?

And then we see it's Cuavo, and I look at Danny.

He's in the back seat.

I'm like, he's like,

I don't know.

I don't really listen to egos a lot.

So, so he's like, God, that's him.

And then, you know, as the

great vlogger that he is, camera immediately goes up.

We're just like, what's happening?

And he comes over.

I get out of the car.

He sits in, checks it out.

And then my immediate focus from that point on was.

Sell Cuavona apartment.

So I was like, do you have a place in Miami?

Are you there?

And then they got back in the car and left.

I love how the comments on that video are like watching ryan try to figure out what to do with his hands when we were taking that photo because i didn't know what to do with his hands with my hands i was like would you end up going with the peace sign no because he did he did a thing yeah you can cut to it you can show it he did his he did his sign and like leaned back and then i was like do i

what do i do yeah i gotta have a thing I need to have a thing.

I need to have a thing.

When I take photos, just always do a thing.

So I think I just went like,

in church.

I was like, ah,

yeah, did the best I could.

That's funny, man.

You're also going viral for a recent wedding you attended in Egypt.

I did go to a wedding in Egypt.

Yeah.

I don't, you know what, man?

We do a lot of social.

I don't, I don't necessarily understand why certain things get watched a lot, why certain things don't get watched a lot.

Clearly, I've made.

I've been making content since 2013 at this point, really.

Really making content, not like just pre-Facebook, early college days.

Um, and it's always amazing to me what people pick up on and what catches on, and even the property tours we do on YouTube and like the ones people liked.

I'm like, all I showed was like a closet.

You can love the closet, and you never really know.

Uh, yeah, I went to uh Anchor Jane and Erica Hammond's wedding, and it was a magical, amazing experience.

It was so cool, it was such a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It made so many new friends.

I still miss it right now.

Yeah, That went so viral, man.

I mean, there was a lot of haters.

I don't know if you saw that, but I thought it was really cool.

I don't really, there's always haters.

Also,

I mean, look at me.

Like, I mean, there's, I sell real estate to the 1% of the 1%.

Like, I, you know,

there, there's been, I've dealt with haters my whole life, you know, but my mission has always been to build for the better good of humanity, especially for entrepreneurs.

Like I'm the entrepreneur's entrepreneur.

You know, I had an interview about that yesterday, and especially on the education side of our business, where we teach creators how to sell product, how to build a brand, you know, salespeople, et cetera.

And I don't really listen to the noise.

Like, people have been giving me for having gray hair.

People have been making fun of me and trash-talking to me.

I've been bullied since I was a little kid.

I was bullied in every school all the way through high school, man.

Dang.

Yeah, dude.

I was, I was, I was,

we moved eight times before fourth grade.

Uh, I was born in Texas, bounced around Long Island, settled outside Boston, overweight, rash acne, super shy, sucked at sports, got in with the theater kids because they wouldn't make fun of me.

And I just spent a lot of time trying to be somebody other than myself, um, which is why I think I got into theater in the first place early on.

And so, like, it doesn't really phase me for people to be.

Yeah.

You know, for me, honestly, I'm like,

solid engagement.

I got bullied too.

I had terrible acne.

I was on Accutane.

Yes.

I saw you on it four times, right?

Yes, four times.

That shit messed me up personally, but did it?

It sounds like it worked well for you.

Like joints,

just like no emotion.

Oh.

Just like a robot almost.

Really?

Yeah, but it sounds like it worked really well for you.

So maybe that's my problem.

Maybe that's why I have no emotions now.

No, you know, so you know what I ended up finding?

Accutane was fine, but the way I ended up doing it is because then it turned into full-blown rash acne and rosacea.

So I was like, I was 21

in college.

I had mass allergies.

Like I did, I did that stick allergy test, and my arm ballooned

to where all the doctors came in the room just to look at my arm and say, hey, this is what they show us in the medical books.

He's here right now.

And I was like, what do I do?

I had to take Adorax and Disipramine twice a day, every day for like eight years to stop that.

And there was no cure really for the rosacea and the acne.

The weight, I got under control.

But for that, and I found this doctor, his name was Dr.

Nays.

And he wrote this book that I found online called Beating Rosacea.

And in there, he talked about two treatments that saved his life.

Because when you have that and you go outside and your skin is so painful because it's bright bright red.

Like literally, like imagine your, imagine burning your face, which is a pure burn, but all the time.

Jeez.

You know, and acne on top of it.

And so it was low dose Accutane.

So it was 20 milligram pills when I started every other day.

Okay.

Right.

And then eventually for a long period of time, I did one pill on Monday, one pill on Thursday.

And it ends up going into your bloodstream and affecting your sebaceous glands at such a low point, you don't get one of the side effects.

And yet, for a longer period of time, especially as a male, obviously, right?

So, pregnant women should never take it,

or should not take it if they're trying to get pregnant or could be pregnant.

It saved my life, like literally saved my life.

And then, once I was off that and six months after, because your skin's so fragile, the second treatment was V-beam laser.

So, a V-beam laser shrinks blood cells.

And that, like, the two of those, and then I do,

I have a super careful skin regimen now plus the SPF every single day.

Yeah.

Like legit saved my life.

And I think for people who have never experienced anything like that before,

whether they, you know, just have normal skin, whatever, have never been overweight, like they'll never even be able to

sympathize.

You just don't get it.

Incredible.

And now you have massive confidence.

I'm sure back then you had a lack of confidence, right?

With the acne.

Total, total lack of confidence.

Like you don't, you don't learn to talk to people when you're so embarrassed by how you look.

Like literally, one of the things that we teach people now as part of our sellit.com programs, right?

Is is

really you say, okay, I sell real estate.

I sell advertising for my podcast, whatever it might be.

Okay.

That's what you do, but that's not who you are, right?

Who you are is your and.

So I am real estate and, so I do real estate, sell real estate.

I am not real estate.

My and is media.

I love it.

You know, I grew up in theater, short films, my little brother and I making movies, all that stuff.

Like, that's my and.

So, how do you really dig into that core identity?

Right.

You, you have to ask, you start by asking people you kind of trust, not like your mom or your dad or a brother, okay?

But someone you trust enough to give you honest feedback by defining you without using your name.

Interesting.

And it's always superficial, unfortunately, but it's helpful that way.

And so I did that with a guy named Alex.

He was like, dude, I don't know.

You're like that gray-haired, tall, skinny white guy

who thinks he's funnier than he is, who looks at the ground when he walks.

I was like, hold on.

I was like, wait, what about, what about like all the stuff in my life, my emotions, my feelings?

He's like, oh, yeah, I guess that too.

It's amazing how people know each other, right?

And it's always visual, right?

Or it's audio too.

You know, like, she, her voice is crazy.

I was like, gross, I don't stare at the ground when I walk.

And then I started walking around.

I'm like, holy I'm staring at the ground.

Why do I, I had no idea.

Like, I just didn't know.

Yeah.

Like, you know, when you're extra tall, maybe you walk with your shoulders slunched over.

Like, there's things that we do that are so insanctual.

We just don't know.

And I had to like dig into that.

I didn't want to dye my hair anymore.

So I left that one away.

But

it's like, ah, when my skin was so bad for such a long period of time, it was too embarrassing to to walk down the street and make eye contact with people because I would see their eyes look around my face,

right?

Fucks.

At cysts and everything.

And so it was just easier for me to walk like this.

And even after I fixed it and grew out of everything,

I never fixed the muscle memory of being embarrassed when I walk.

Wow.

And that I think played an even bigger role into my life as then I grew up, like these little things.

Like I ended up not being afraid of failure because I was totally used to failure.

I ended up building a business based on my fear of embarrassment.

Wow.

You know, that's deep.

And then how I go into that.

Yeah.

You want to get into it, bro?

What is this?

I don't even know what's happening.

You ask me one question.

Anyway, yes.

Yes.

Accutane.

I took Accutane.

That was the answer.

That's massive.

And now you're dealing with the wealthiest people and you have no problems talking to them.

And they never ask me about my skin.

Yeah.

You've come a long way, man.

I know.

I'm impressed.

And acne is such a big deal these days, and kids are really ashamed about it.

Dude, I have such sympathy for people with acne, body dysmorphia, you know, anything.

I spend as much time as we can with kids.

You know, kids and veterans are like probably my two,

like my two biggest,

like

give back moments.

I want to say charity, but like, I don't, like, I hate that word.

Like, it is like kids don't choose to be born.

And those who feel like they have no opportunities, like, it just kills me.

And so we do as much as we can with kids, especially like impoverished and underprivileged kids.

And then veterans, like most people,

95%

of anyone who joins the military or any armed forces is joining out of a position of no choice.

Wow, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

That's really good.

Did you join the military?

No.

You have choice.

Most people have no choice.

And it's sold to them.

as come do this for us for a little bit, then you'll have choice.

5% of enrollees do do have choice.

They're just really into it.

They want to do it.

You know, that's a good amount of people.

But a lot of people come out of poor neighborhoods.

Like we're in Soho right now.

How many stores do you think in Soho here are trying to get people to sign up to the military?

Probably none.

Zero.

Right.

We go 100 blocks north.

That's where they are.

And that's up.

And so when veterans do come back, if they're lucky enough to come back,

like I

am just dropped, right it's like being dropped back in a foreign country right except now you're dropped back in your own country and people treat you differently and a lot of them actually end up getting into to real estate most actually you know go to fort hood or they they stay by base because that's where they you know they do basic training so they go back to their base um uh and then they try to get a job around there there's job placement like there are still opportunities but a lot of them then get into real estate um and then but no one teaches them how to sell now how to make money right and so a big part of our our you know our our missions both within the brokerage and within sell it.com are also working with veterans and helping them out.

I love it.

When you got into real estate, was it your goal to deal with the top 1% at first, or did that sort of evolve into becoming that?

No, man.

When I got my real estate license, my goal was to pay rent.

I had to make $2,000 a month.

Like, that was my goal.

I was hand modeling for ATT.

So I was hand modeling.

I was holding cell phones.

Yeah.

If you Google Ryan Serhant hand model, it is a, it is, I know, you just, you just looked at my hands.

Yeah.

I saw you.

No, I'm wondering what makes your hand like special.

Because they're fing beautiful.

Dude, these hands were, my hands were on like every bus, taxi, sides of buildings.

They picked my hands to hold ATT cell phones when they first started going international.

Wow.

And the slogan back then, this was 2008, 9, and 10, was ATT wireless, now in over 500 countries, like, uh, or 500 cities or territories,

like, like, you know, Shenzhen, and and then, you know, or Beijing, Shanghai,

you know, Johannesburg.

And then they would paint my hands to look like, you know, pandas or the Great Wall of China or the Eiffel Tower.

And I just have, I played piano when I was a little kid and I don't have a lot of veins.

Got it.

And so my hands, I was able to grip like a phone without showing stress

in my hands.

And then I could move the metatarsals.

Anyway, we can go into it, but it was a whole thing.

And I would have like a hand masseuse who would like massage my hands and I would sleep with luberderm gloves.

Wow.

You took that serious, man.

It was $150 an hour.

I lived in New York City, man.

Like a 10-hour day, I could make $1,000 plus, you know, and then I'd have to pay a commission to my hand job agent.

And that way, I was like, oh, I can stay in New York.

But.

Hand modeling is inconsistent.

So it's like, it's not all the time.

Right.

It's not like I was, you know, just doing hand jobs all day.

So it was a thing.

So real estate was the most important.

Yes.

I was like, where do you go?

Where do you go from it being the hand model in the world?

I was also on a soap opera.

They killed me off.

So that sucked.

I got my real estate license in New York.

I lived in Koreatown.

And I was like, as long as I can make $2,000 a day.

And so I did rentals, Koreatown, the Bronx, Harlem, places where I could just meet people on the street, be people on Craigslist and Starbucks.

I would work with.

I would find pregnant women.

Those were like a good first choice for me

because pregnant women need to move most of the time because they're growing their family side.

So they need two bedrooms and three bedrooms.

That was a good one for me.

Foreigners with more than two shopping bags at Saxfield Avenue, you could afford a new apartment.

You know, I would profile everyone.

I didn't give a

pay rent.

Wow.

So you're out there.

Or I had to move.

Or I had to move home.

And that would have been embarrassing.

Yeah.

So you were out on the streets just hustling.

Yeah, for three years.

I didn't take a day off.

Three years.

Wow.

And then what was that breakthrough after three years?

Was it a big client, big house?

I sold an apartment in 2008, 9, 10.

Yeah.

So I got cast on Million Dollar Listing New York at the end of December of 2010.

So that was like big break one.

And I really just done small little deals and I'd gotten into sales a little bit at that time, but it wasn't really, and Million Dollar Listing then filmed in 2011.

And that whole first season.

you know, was super stressful.

And I was the bottom of the totem pole.

They filmed that whole first season with four of us, four agents in the city, and told us the three best are going to make the show.

Good luck.

And you got six months.

And so I was stressed the whole time because I was going up against like the son of the chairman of the biggest firm in the city.

That's unfair.

This other guy whose dad was like the minister of finance or something from some country.

And I'm like, that's not fair.

And then a girl with a little dog.

I'm like,

I'm totally, I'm like the white guy, not even from here.

And I do rentals.

This is, I'm 100% going get fired um i just have to be weird i will be unique to watch and are you not entertained uh and so that's the direction that i i led him but i i did a deal uh

i was like small deal small deal small deal then this guy from another country i've told this story so many times but like this guy from another country i call him mr x because if i said his real name he would kill me um reached out to me and wanted to buy an apartment for 8.3 million dollars and that deal took me a year to put together because he wasn't real and he was a total con artist.

And I thought he was going to sell my body into oil drums and stuff.

And then turned out he was super real and he bought it 8.3 million.

Commissions are 3%.

I was like,

okay.

If I can go through that deal and I can hand model and do rental and I've got this TV show, you know what?

I can figure this out.

I'm going to figure out a repeatable process.

And And that's the secret to any business, right?

Is how do you take one-off experiences and revenue to create a repeatable business?

Right.

And

then that's where all our systems and processes came from.

Nice.

So what place did you end up getting?

Did I get him?

Did you get first place, fourth place in that show?

Oh, no.

I mean,

I mean, I'm always first place.

I'm the best.

The,

no, the cast was three people.

Yeah.

They cast four of us to film the whole first season, and they just said one of you is going to get cut.

Oh, okay.

So if this million dollar listing would follow three agents as we would just do deals, you can watch.

I think it's on Netflix now and reruns and Peacock and Bravo and all that stuff.

And

that show lasted 10 years.

It's a long time for a show.

It came out in 2012.

It ended in 2022.

Two MA nominations.

I did three spin-off shows with it.

Wrote three books with it.

Like, it was a lot.

It's a big deal, man.

And now you got

another show coming up, right?

Can't get enough, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, we, I started my own company.

Like, you're in the building right now that the show, you know, we filmed in.

Um, so we filmed all last year.

It was a process.

Comes out soon on Netflix.

It's a real estate show, but it's different.

It's like a, I don't even know how to describe it.

It I said on Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live that it redefines the genre, and that is like the only way that I can describe it.

It is not a classic reality show.

It'll check that box for people that just want to sit down and watch Million Dollaristing.

Like it checks that box hard, which is good.

But then it's also an occupational docuseries.

It is, you know, a C, you sit there and you binge it.

And

it's emotional and super stressful.

And there's a lot of crying.

Wow.

We get deep on it.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Could you tell?

Yeah.

I'm a deep person.

You're an emotional guy, man.

Who knew?

I'm actually surprised.

I know.

That Accutane didn't kill my my emotions.

Yeah.

Well done, man.

Because I lost my emotions for a few years.

Clearly.

Took me some time to find it.

So I looked up.

You look great.

I'll look better.

I'll show you photos of me before.

I had terrible acne scars and everything.

Couldn't even talk to a girl.

I didn't look in the mirror for 10 years.

Do you talk girls now?

I have a girl now.

Yeah.

Wow.

Good job.

Yeah, right.

I looked up this stat this morning.

So 38% of homes in the U.S.

are owned by baby boomers.

Yep.

With the median home price now being $412,000.

Do you think millennials and Gen Z will be able to become homeowners

i think millennials and gen z are able to afford way more home than baby boomers ever were

the opportunity to make income now there are so many more opportunities there's so many more jobs there's so much more money now

the difference is in the want

so the baby boomer generation was created around an american dream right an american dream of having that job till retirement your pension fund 2.2 kids having a home loan, the dream of home ownership, which I think is, which I think is great.

Is it for everybody?

No.

But I think it's a surefire way over the long term to create, ideally, generational wealth, right?

It's through real estate ownership and using the banks to help you.

It's a great, it's a great trade.

But you had one job to do it.

Today,

like, dude, I have seven jobs.

My dad didn't have seven jobs.

You know, my mom didn't have seven jobs.

They each had one.

They got up every day and they went to work.

Gen Z, Gen Alpha, millennials.

I don't wake up and go to work.

I wake up and work.

It's a difference in the language, right?

It's a difference in the grammar now, which means that I can wake up and work

this way and then this way and then this way and then this way.

But if you have to wake up and go to work, which a lot of people still do, it limits your opportunity.

I can side hustle through my phone.

Right.

If you use social media the right way, you can make 50 grand, 100 grand a year,

right?

Partnerships, collaborations, licensing, figure out how to build your personal brand.

That's why I wrote, I don't even know where that book is, but brand it like Sirian, it's here somewhere.

To enable people to really create and unlock the potential for income based on what you already have, which is you.

Like the power of you is so strong.

Most people spend so much of their time trying to be them that they

don't focus at all on trying to be you.

And that's what the business is, right?

The business of you.

No doubt.

It's easier to make money now, I think.

Like I was working on the plane here, which is pretty crazy.

But I think the average home price is so high now, though, compared to baby boomers when they were our age.

Correct.

There's definitely a relative difference.

The debt-to-income ratio sucks, right?

The monthly payments today are brutal, but it's unfair for us to look back and be like, Yeah, but mom, your monthly payment was 90 bucks.

Do you have any idea what that's going to look like 50 years from now?

People are to look back and be like, What?

You paid $3,000 a month?

Were you stupid?

It's going to feel like three bucks.

Yeah.

Right?

It's inflation since the dawn of time.

You know, we look, I mean,

I don't have to go into it, but like, you know, so

don't hate the player, hate the game.

I feel that, you know, keep it at that.

You have a new mini-series with Chase Banks, City versus City.

Yes.

That looked really interesting.

Have you done any matchups so far?

We've done a bunch.

We filmed them all.

That was a crazy day.

We were in there, out of there.

We went back and forth on which city wins, which city doesn't win.

I really tried to be as

honest as I possibly could be, use kind of like viewer feedback and really rate the cities based on what you get for your money.

Yeah.

Right.

And that's what we worked on.

Just because Chase, dude, the amount of people who bank at Chase is insane.

It's like most of America, you know, and then, and then most of America, when they want to go get a home loan, are like, oh, well, where should I go?

It's like, you already banked there.

Just go to the place you bank.

It's so easy.

And

they're the best.

And they have amazing guarantees.

And if they don't show up to close on time, they literally give give you cash as like, and I'm sorry.

Who does that?

And so we were just comparing properties in cities, like what 400 grand gets you over here.

What does a one-bedroom get you here?

And then looking at lifestyle and neighborhood changes.

I'd be interested to see where Vegas ranks on that list.

We did Vegas.

I don't remember.

We shot it a little while ago.

You'll have to watch it.

I'll check it out.

Well, it's expensive here, man.

I know $4,000 won't get you much here.

You can get things for $4,000.

Doesn't mean you're going to like them.

That's, you talk about Gen Z millennials, okay?

The, it's all about the want.

Like, I, we have agents that work here, right,

who spend $4,000 a month in rent, but they complain that the commute is too long.

Like, the commute?

Where do you live?

Like, well, I live in Jersey.

Like, okay.

Like, yeah, but I can't make that appointment because I have to get home.

Like, well, you pay $4,000 a month.

Why do you live there?

Oh, because that's where I could get the most for my money.

I have a doorman building.

I have a two-bedroom apartment, in-unit washer-dryer.

My dog has its own dog run.

I'm like,

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So, the real issue is

today: what are you willing to sacrifice compared to 50 years ago?

And no one wants to sacrifice lifestyle because of the fear of being embarrassed.

So you'd rather, and I do this math with people all the time.

Like, so just let's just think for a second.

You can spend the same amount of money.

I can find you a pretty apartment for $4,000 a month.

It's not going to be awful.

It's not going to be what you have in New Jersey.

But your commute's going to be 10 minutes versus an hour.

So what's 50 minutes, twice a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year?

Actually, let's say you go on vacation, two weeks, 50 weeks a year.

Let's do that math.

How much money do you want to make this year?

They give me a number.

Let's break it down.

What's your hourly weight that way?

I want to make $100,000.

I want to make $500,000 that.

Okay, what is that?

Let's break it all down.

Now let's calculate how much you're spending on that commute.

And every time I do that math, everyone's mind is blown.

They're like, oh, but I'm saving.

It's a savings.

I'm like, that's what they want you to think.

It's not a savings.

It's an expense.

Your time costs money.

And if you don't think about your time that way,

then you're just an employee of the United States of America.

That's a great way of looking at it.

People do not think about that when they get jobs.

Yeah, I have a thousand-minute rule here.

Every single minute you have is a dollar.

It's how you got to think about it.

Doesn't mean you have to be a psychopath.

Doesn't mean you have to freaking sit here and be like, oh, what's another dollar just went by?

No.

It means you have 1,440 minutes in a day.

A thousand of those minutes you have to do your life.

Right.

Some people have less.

Some people have a lot more.

But on average, it's about a thousand minutes.

How do you democratize your time

to leverage it every day?

If you think about it as you're the CEO of your own bank of time,

it does two things.

One, it helps you be more productive and get more done, have four jobs and not be stressed about it, work on the airplane, everything you're talking about.

Two, it also enables you to think about waste of time and abuse of time and people that are like time vampires.

You know, people, someone might piss you off for 15 minutes.

Yeah.

And you might be like, oh, that conversation ruined my day.

But all it was was 15 minutes.

You have $985 other dollars.

You're not going to throw those away, are you?

No.

Like, if someone stole 15 bucks from you, would you throw away $985?

Because you're like, well, find men?

F it.

No, you wouldn't.

Yeah.

And it's for pure mental health, it is a much healthier way for some people, not everybody, to think about, to think about time.

It's important.

It's everything.

Really interesting office.

So you have whiteboards all over this hallway.

What was that about?

When we started the business in 2020, so I got into real estate in 2008 because I ran out of money in New York City.

The hand jobs didn't pay the bills.

So I had to get a job.

And I didn't want a full-time job.

I didn't want a survival job because I'd known, I knew too many people that were 60 and still waiting tables.

Like, I can't do that.

And so I got my real estate license, got into real estate.

That was 2008.

I was a real estate broker and all the other stuff till 2020.

And then in 2019, I decided to start my own business.

And I was like, in 2020, we're going to do it.

Beginning of a new decade, new chapter.

It's going to be amazing.

And

then it hit.

I was like, damn it.

We took a day.

We were like, maybe we don't do this.

I'm like, screw it.

We're going to do it anyway.

And so we quarantined in an office that was abandoned in New York City because the city abandoned itself.

And we got construction paper and we put them all over that office.

And we're like, how do I start a business?

I need finance.

I need policy.

Right.

We need branding, marketing.

And we just, that's what's in that hallway there.

Just all the different

construction paper from quarantine 2020 that we were just checking off as we did those things and took ownership amongst like my small team wow so that's been there for three years those whiteboards yeah when we well we moved into this building then in 2021 so almost yeah almost almost three years wow um but we we wrote them it's construction paper not whiteboards the construction paper that we framed because it's just art at that point that's cool yeah so do you think new york's recovered since i know a lot of people left

There's more people in New York now than there were pre- So I don't know where all these people who left went to actually I do know I moved to Malta, Florida, but

it's just a cycle man.

It's like

it was a it was a wild kind of experience to be through it people in New York were like oh I'm leaving and they went to the suburbs They went to Florida.

They went to Texas Then you had people in California who were like oh I'm leaving.

You know what?

We've never we've never gotten to live in New York.

We're going to New York, right?

It seems quiet which it was.

So all these people left New York, went to Florida.

All these people from California came over to New York.

And then we started getting this really interesting demographic of people moving to New York who were people moving to New York to work from home,

who had awesome jobs in Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Oklahoma, right?

the Southeast.

And they were like, yeah, I'm allowed to work from home now.

But my business is based in Tulsa and I've never had the opportunity to ever live in New York.

It's like, why don't I just move to New York?

This would be awesome.

And I'll just work from this apartment or my roof or like Central Park that I've only ever seen in movies.

Like, okay.

People moved here to work from home

because we forget when we're here

how amazing the city is.

You know, I've been everywhere.

I mean, New York City is still, no matter where I go, the most intellectually curious city ever.

Wow.

And it's awesome.

You can complain about all the stuff and the crime and the trash and everything.

Dude, I've been everywhere else.

I was just in Egypt.

I watched a woman kill a dog.

Holy crap.

I've never seen that in New York.

Like,

that was

like, and

you really start to understand how much we take a lot of pieces of America for granted.

Yeah, I will say the energy in New York City is unmatched.

It's insane.

It just feels so infectious when you're out here.

Yeah.

And dude, there's adaptive reuse in the city because it's an island.

So, for example, the building we're in right now,

what real estate broker has their own building in Soho?

Zero.

But for us, especially during,

this building was built for Tommy Hilfiger.

Except people changed how they shop.

So it doesn't make sense anymore.

But for us in our business, it's like, okay, so we do media production, we do education, we do technology, we do real estate.

I need like a one-stop shop, and I couldn't find an office big enough.

I didn't want to be in a boring office.

I wanted a clubhouse.

It's like, let's create a content house for professionals.

And

we found this building.

It was like, this is actually kind of perfect.

So this is adaptive reuse of.

big box retail, if you will.

And so there's a lot of opportunities like this, you know, that have come from it.

And all these offices are completely full.

It doesn't mean people are showing up every single day, but they're paying rent.

Right.

Like the occupancy is there.

The vacancy rate might feel like it's high, but it's not.

Can't even imagine the rent for this.

A lot.

I bet.

Oh, man.

You're in prime real estate right here.

It is true.

Well done, man.

Any investments you're excited about right now?

I just invested into, I was early into a,

I guess you call it an energy drink called Update.

That is awesome because, oh, look at it.

Yeah, Danny's drinking it.

There we go.

It is,

there's no taurine, there's no caffeine.

And they split the caffeine molecule

and it's paraxanthine.

And there's no crash.

You have no, there's like literally no, you feel nothing other than just you're a little bit more alert.

Wow.

And it's like

interesting.

It's crazy.

I need to try that.

Try it.

This downstairs is free.

I own it.

That's why I don't drink energy drinks because the crash is just massive.

Even coffee.

Exactly.

That's why, yeah, that's probably why you stopped all the hardcore drugs, too.

And the um, uh,

I'm a big investor into major league pickleball.

Okay, um, I'm an owner with Drew Brees in the Mad Drops team based in LA, and we're number one right now.

So, damn, what's up?

Um, I'm invested into Blink, uh, uh, Blank Street Coffee, which I think is just awesome.

They're super cool guys, and I think it's good coffee, even though I don't drink coffee.

And um, love the honesty, yeah, yeah,

what's up, and uh, and a bunch of other things, and then our own businesses, man.

Like, this place is an investment every day.

Absolutely.

Who wins in Pickleball 101, me or you?

You.

Ooh.

Okay.

You got good reach.

How tall are you?

6'1?

I'm 6'6.

6'6.

Yeah.

You win.

But you don't know my skill level.

I don't care, man.

Pickleball is a small box.

Yeah.

Right.

The greater the wingspan mixed with a little agility,

you can be pretty great.

You also mentioned earlier you weren't athletic.

So you got to factor that in, right?

Okay.

Way to rub it in.

but you're good at business, which is more important for now.

We'll see what happens.

All the kids that were athletic in school that were popular are looking at you now.

Are they?

Yeah, maybe they work for me somewhere somehow.

They might.

It's weird.

I bump into people that I went to school with every now and then, and I'm like, who

are you?

Are you going to speak at the high school reunion, 25-year reunion?

Well, I've never been asked to come to my high school to speak.

I've given other commencement addresses.

I give speeches all the time, but neither of my school, my college, I'm not nearly cool enough yet.

They get like major people.

Which college did you go to?

Hamilton in upstate New York.

Hamilton.

Haven't heard of that?

It's a liberal arts school, like Colgate, and those.

But my high school, like this little high school in North Shore of Boston, I don't know.

They never asked me to ever ask me to come back.

What is your core message when you're speaking in front of people?

What are you trying to get across mainly?

Cry on the inside like a winner and just suck it up.

Just cry on the inside like a winner.

No, that's not it.

What do I say to people?

It depends on really who I'm talking to, right?

I think time heals all wounds.

I think everything is relative.

I think your stress today

is going to embarrass you tomorrow.

Right.

I think that if you take care of the work, the work is going to take care of you.

Everything else goes away

with time.

I love that.

And it's about building foundation.

like it's just about building foundation um and understanding that you you can't take tasks with you but you can take adventures and as long as what you do every day feels like enough of an adventure then you'll sell it to yourself right as a good use of your time like even on my worst days at this company and they those days exist You know, like we have people, I have 150 employees now.

We have over 600 agents.

There's four different companies here like it's it's a lot and there's days where i'm just like shut the door turn the lights off

um

and that's an adventure even of itself and it'll help inform the foundation for the ceo that i'm going to be a year from today and i see that now like the things i go through now are brutal but compared to what i went through three years ago you know because they're brutal today i look back i'm like man remember when i was stressed three years ago about that thing god damn it like that was i wish i knew then what I know now.

Yeah.

No, that's facts.

So I look back at the stress I used to have and I laugh.

I had gray hairs at 21 because I was stressed from something that I look back at that's normal now.

Always, man.

Yeah.

Well, we'll probably end it there because I don't think we'll be able to top that advice.

Anything else you want to promote or close off with?

No, I think, yeah, new show comes out on Netflix into June.

Make sure you watch it.

When is this going to drop?

First week of June.

Okay.

So new show called Owning Manhattan comes out on Netflix on June 28th.

So make sure you watch it.

Perfect.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you.