He kept His Employees through COVID and almost went broke | Brandon Bowsky Digital Social Hour #99

was dating this girl, very successful, very smart, and she was like, don't buy another Rolex.

And I was like, oh, but I really want it.

Yellow gold, champagne, baguettes, blah, blah, blah.

She was like, no.

And I'm like, why?

And she goes, it's fiscally irresponsible.

I'm like, dude, I have f a million dollars a week.

What do you mean, irresponsible?

You still with her?

Uh, no, God.

She's lesbian now.

Is it you?

No, not because of me.

Okay.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, she called me one day and was like, I figured out why we didn't work out.

I was like, oh.

She's like, I'm a lesbian.

I was like,

all right.

Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, along with my co-host, Ari Gold.

What's going on?

And our guest today, Brandon Bowski, how we doing?

Big Bowski.

How we living, Bubba?

Chilling, baby.

Life's good.

Ooh, listen to that raspiness.

I saw this man out last night.

And let me tell you, this guy knows how to get down.

But, but, but for everyone that knows how to party,

they know how to work hard and play hard.

So tell us, man.

Tell us what you do.

Give people the background and tell us how you got started in the space.

So

got started.

Well, right now, I own a marketing company is probably my main thing that I'm known for.

So we do nine figures in health insurance marketing a year.

That's like the main bread and butter.

But before that, I was in the insurance business.

And I had an agency that I built from like 38 people to over 300, including offshore.

And went to my bosses.

I built this insurance product.

I was like, yo, we're going to make a couple extra mill this quarter.

I want 200 grand more this year.

And they were like, no,

absolutely.

I was like,

and you had so many millions of dollars.

They don't give shit.

They did not care.

Yeah.

They were like, you can have 100 grand.

And I was like, f you.

So that's when you decided to start your own thing.

Yeah.

So left, did my own thing, started with six people.

I mean, when the guy who lent me the money to start it came to the office for the first time, he was like, well, at least least I know you didn't run off Cayman's or something.

There you go.

And I was like, Yeah, I didn't do that.

He was like, So I'll never get my money back, am I?

And I had like my payphone where I was like, Oh, I better get to work.

Yeah.

But yeah, we grew, we grew, we grew.

I did really well.

And then the way I got into the marketing side was I went to buy a watch, and I had like an iced-out Rolex at the time.

I've always thought watches were cool.

Um, I was a smart watch guy for years because I had no money.

And then, uh, it's a journey, it definitely

won.

The watch game is a journey, dude.

It's, I feel like it's like collecting cars.

You just got to know.

And nobody really teaches you.

You just got to, you learn a lot of people.

You're going to get a couple times.

100%.

You overpay a couple times and you never want to do it again.

I'm glad he said it.

We've all been, we've all been f ⁇ ed.

It's, you know, again, lessons we learn.

Yeah.

But as long as we learn.

You figured, just put the lube on first.

Sure, sure.

Sure.

I was dating this girl, very successful, very smart.

And she was like, don't buy another Rolex.

I wanted to buy a present.

You're like, you're wearing it.

And I was like, oh, but I really want it.

Yellow gold, champagne, baguettes, blah, blah, blah.

She was like, no.

And I'm like, why?

And she goes, it's fiscally irresponsible.

I'm like, dude, I just million dollars in a week.

What do you mean, irresponsible?

And she was like, Brandon, it's irresponsible.

Are you breaking?

Are you icing him down?

Like, why was it irresponsible?

I don't know.

No, no, no.

There was no, there was no good reason.

It was a 34K at the time.

Would it went up to 50?

I would have.

I would have printed.

If it's, yeah, but it's bone stock.

The same thing as buying a bar of gold, except it appreciates 10 times faster.

type of girl with millions of dollars that flew coach everywhere just

amazing

brilliant brilliant though shout out to karen you still with her uh no got it just she's lesbian now can't be that amazing yeah

you or no not because of me okay oh my god yeah she called me one day and was like i figured out why we didn't work out i was like oh she's like i'm a lesbian i was like

i feel way better about myself

So anyway, I wanted to buy this watch and I was like, dude, she's guilt tripping me hard.

Like, I don't know.

And I'm Jewish, bro.

We succumb to guilt.

Jewish guilt.

Jewish guilt.

That's why it's literally called that.

I was like, all right, if I want to buy a watch and I make some money on the side, she can't get mad.

Yeah.

So I started figuring out the way that I was successful in the insurance business was we focused on like really high tickets.

Everybody else focused on low tickets.

Okay.

So people were going for like volume of $200 deals.

But the acquisition costs didn't change based on how much the deal size was.

You were going for quality over the years.

I was going for $500 deals where I was making three, four times the money.

Right.

And my acquisition costs weren't any different.

So I was printing and I had no partners.

So I was like, okay, well, my guys hang up on these low volume deals, or rather these low priced deals.

So I was like, all right, I'm going to sell these to my friends and then they're going to pay me.

And I'm going to take that money and I'm going to go to Vegas and I'm going to buy the watch I want.

I'm going to have a good time at this next conference, blah, blah, blah.

So I did.

It started off like two, three grand a week.

Then it was like five, then it was like 10.

Then it was like 100 grand a week in profit.

I'm like, oh, it's a real business.

And then, you know, COVID happened.

We shut down ops.

I had a medicare agency that we sold to a private equity firm pretty big one and then after that i was like all right now what right and uh i kept trying different like i tried a male and female enhancement gummy product i tried a biohacking gym i like burned a few million dollars trying like 10 different things how it goes you know it goes to show you you know how it is but a lot of people don't see that they see the highlight wheel they see the private jets they see the watches they see sean you want to talk about some of our

investment in the past two years like me dude

l's but nobody ever hears about the l's i talk about a a lot.

It's a learning curve.

Again, I feel like in every industry to become great, you really just have to go through the bullshit first and learn.

Nobody can teach you.

Nobody can teach.

It's really difficult.

I mean,

let me rephrase that.

There are some guys that are just super receptive to learning from, you know, a mentor and just, you know, figuring it out on their own.

I just feel like most entrepreneurs that I know, guys like us that are sitting here, you really just got to fend for your own.

And, you know, go do it you just got to figure out how to kill thank you baby that's it dude that's it so yeah eventually uh i woke up in like a cold sweat my ex-girlfriend's like tiny shoebox apartment in new york and when i say like tiny shoebox her bedroom was the size of our sitting area here yeah

and i i had an anxiety from that just to begin with so i woke up and it's like 3 a.m i had a flight at six i was like dude I'm not feeling this right now.

I don't know what's going on in my life.

I used to make a lot of money.

Now I'm just like living on this.

Like, dude, I wasn't crying poverty.

I was still making a million too many.

You're on cruise control.

Your weren't wall working you were bored and i was like man i got to get back to work right and so we took the company from like five million to 13 pretty quick and then we did 70 this year we're tracking let's backtrack there let's backtrack there talk talk us through that process talk us through those next 72 hours of that next month of those next six months after that after you woke up and you're like you know what this yeah non-stop work just being like all right explain that to people because when you say non-stop work i'm not talking non-stop work and then saturday and sunday you're partying sitting on the phone 18 hours a day.

There was no partying.

There was no drinking.

There was gym as much as you possibly could.

It was just feel good, look good, eat the best you can.

Spend time with people that add value to your life, not people that take away from it.

And it was just non-stop on the phone, trying to put together decent-sized deals or, you know, deal flow in general to make money in the future.

And in the marketing space, it's as easy as just being like, yo, I have a product.

Do you want it?

But you have to say that to a thousand people for them to,

somebody to be like, yeah, I want that thing.

Or, you know, you have to have a really, really good product, which we were fortunate to.

And on that 70 million, what's the profit on that?

I won't talk about that.

Okay.

I say to people all the time, like, the hardest part about my job is I have to be really, really nice, really, really friendly, really, really generous.

And I have to be such a great person that you have to like me so much that you have to be okay with me becoming really, really rich.

Because everybody I work with.

obviously all makes great money.

I love that.

But I have to make you comfortable with me making more money than you.

And a lot of people cannot stomach that.

A lot of people have like a jealousy problem.

And like at the end of the day, ego.

It's ego.

It exactly.

It perfectly is.

It's ego.

And I like to build real relationships.

I'm not just like saying this where I'm like, oh, I try to make people feel good.

Like, no, my job is really just to become such good friends with people I make money with that they're okay with me getting rich.

Right.

Because a lot of people don't want the other person making money.

There's always multiple parties in a deal.

And some people don't want everyone to win.

I'm a guy where everybody has to win.

Listen, and I feel like that really goes back to what we were talking about earlier.

And it's just about surrounding yourself with people, like you just said, surrounding yourself with people that provide value and make your quality of life easier, not take away from it.

And when you start surrounding yourselves with teams or groups that not only are looking out for each other or have their best interests, it's like, you know, when Sean calls me and he'll ask me for a favor, like, hey, can you set up something for me?

I'm not even thinking in the back of my head, like of an ulterior motive of like, oh, I'm going to get him this.

And now I'm getting that.

Back of my head, it's like, oh, my homie needs this.

Here, I got the plug for it.

Here you go.

Yep.

And he'll keep asking and keep asking, and I'll keep giving and giving because I know that.

No, no, no, but I'm saying, no, no, no.

But I'm saying one day you're going to need something.

Exactly.

It's like, you know, you can ask, you know, 10 times over the year.

And then that one time that I need something, I already know automatically.

It's like, I got you.

Bro, what?

It's not even a question.

I don't even have to think about it.

So it's like, when you put yourselves in situations like that, you surround yourself with people, you can, I don't want to sound soft and sound like, you know, allow your guard to let down, but you, you allow more ease of access for people around you to be uplifted by what you're doing because it's less, it's less like, you know, when you're in school and you're, you know, like looking over, like, who's cheating?

It's like, here, guys, you see this?

This is what we got going on.

This, this is the formula.

Who's in?

You in?

You in?

All right, cool.

Let's follow it.

Oh, you, you got something to add to it?

Do you think this is going to make it better?

All right, guys.

He said it's going to make it better.

Come here.

Come look at this.

Here's what we're going to do.

You start game planning things out and delegating.

That was one of the best things that I found out in my business was that i was trying to take over too much control of every aspect and i was trying to have my hand in every single

in every person's pot thinking that like maybe i knew something better or could do it better or and you might have been able to dude i might i might have but the quality of life was so poor and the stress that i was adding on top of my employees it was like you know having your teacher look over your shoulder while you were providing

100 100 and once i learned how to like give more power back to my employees and allow them the ability to grow and learn on their own and like make mistakes like yeah you up it's okay you didn't blow the account you didn't you know what i'm saying as long as it was something that could be moderately you know attended to and fixed i don't have a problem with it i want you to make mistakes and learn and and and be able to build but you know you have to you have to really attract positive people and surround yourself with people like that because they're hard to find few and far between yeah team is everything yeah um I had an opportunity last year to sell quite a lot of my company for way more money than I'd ever need.

And one of the biggest problems with it for me was my team was going to get dismantled.

And I've got a lot of tech stuff that I'm working on, a lot of AI stuff that I'm working on.

And it was like, if I lose my team, I'm

right.

Because I have like the dream team.

You build relationships with everybody.

Everybody in my business knows it.

They're family.

It's not employees.

It's family.

Right.

Right.

It's like, it's like family, military,

blood,

sweat.

We all carry each other.

You know, like one of my newer guys on the team was explaining like the work life, and he was like, it's like being in a family where if you don't do something, your brother's going to have to.

So you know you get it done.

Right.

And that, that was like the greatest compliment I've ever received.

But, you know, that was kind of the turning point for me was I was like, whoa, if I sell right now and that'd be sick.

But if I sell and I lose my team, what the f am I going to do?

Who's going to, who's going to help me with this next thing and these next projects?

Like, is it worth it?

And I realized, like, no, actually, like, you give me an extra, you know, $75, $100 million.

It isn't going to really change anything.

Right.

I mean, it's obviously life-changing.

It'll change, but at the same time, you have to see the value that you have around you already.

What am I going to do differently?

It's like the grass is greener.

You know what I mean?

It really isn't anything I would, I already can do everything I want.

Right.

So at that point, it's like, what am I going to do differently?

That's going to make it worth it to lose my team and lose the potential future momentum of these new projects.

Right.

So, just had to like fall back off that.

And that was a huge thing to stomach.

And that was around the time where I was like, in the exact same shoes.

I'm going to delegate more.

I'm going to let other people do their jobs.

I'm going to stop trying to be on every call.

Right.

I'm going to get on when it's important.

And make yourself less accessible.

It was the best thing I ever did.

Best thing I ever did.

Now people can't wait for me to get.

Oh my God.

Ari's on the call.

Okay.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Here we go.

It's like we got our CEO on the call.

We got our CEO.

Like, hey, everybody, how are we doing?

Dude, I take my clothes.

I got like my traps.

I love it.

I swear to God, the best thing I could do.

Yeah, but like the best thing that I could have done was make myself more inaccessible.

And I didn't realize that I was really just making it.

I wasn't gatekeeping per se, but it was just like, you know,

you got to watch, like you said, and everybody has that watch.

Nobody really wants to watch at the end of the day.

You know, there are those one of ones or one of tens or one of 20s that's on everybody's grail list.

It's it's kind of like people dude there's people in this world like elon musk you're not seeing him in every room but when you see him pop up in a room you're like

here we go let's see what this is about you know it peaks curiosity next time you're in one of those groups just let me know i got you oh i got you i got you there's not many humans that i have like idle level respect for yeah that's the goal right there um I do want to dive into the topic of AI and kind of what you're focusing on now, because like you, you know, you just kind of tapped on, you obviously have things in your mind that are coming up next and that you're genuinely curious about or that you want to invest in.

Talk us through what you see for AI and what the next steps in your business are going to be like.

So for us, we sell phone calls.

That's the majority of what we do, right?

So we get somebody to call about a product or service.

They speak to somebody and they purchase it.

With that call comes a ton of data.

We have conversational data.

We have all types of analytics and intelligence on geos, ages, genders, I mean, you name it.

Tons of data points.

And we look at all that stuff and we say, okay, how can we create a better model for qualifying prospects?

Because right now you have tons of call centers that exist offshore, onshore, and their whole job is to qualify a person and then transfer them to an agent that's then going to qualify them again.

It's completely broken.

And if you've ever been like called about something cold called and then gotten transferred, you've been asked the same question twice.

Like none of that data is ever posted.

It's not a seamless or fluid experience.

It's really uncomfortable.

Yeah.

There's no integration system that kind of

nobody really does a good job.

Right.

And so what we built.

Except for you.

Well, soon.

What we built was a conversational AI product that works on text, chat, email, and voice.

It's just gathering data.

Yeah, so I'll ask you questions, but it's backed by one, the data that we already have and two, large language models behind it.

Sure.

So the GPTs of the world.

Of course.

But we can ask questions like, what's your annual income?

And if you go, I don't know.

I can say, okay.

It has a good response.

It will say, well, how much do you make a week?

And if you go, well, I make $100 or a thousand dollars bi-weekly.

It'll say, okay, so you make 26,000 a year.

Is that right?

It does the math.

Wow.

You know, it'll ask you where your zip code is.

It'll confirm the city.

Like,

it's, it's just taking everything to the next level and making sure it's done right.

So when it gets to an agent, that data has already been posted to their CRM or their dialer, whatever they're using, and they're able to just go do their job.

Wow.

And what's better about it is

if you look at humans, you know, you look at offshore humans.

A lot of people pay like six to eight bucks for an offshore human.

Obviously, those that know, you you can get them for like four bucks, three bucks, whatever, but they're going to be quality as garbage.

Right.

So, you know, if you assume that an onshore guy, somebody here in an office is going to be 15 bucks minimum an hour, you know, with payroll taxes, we're out the door for almost four grand a month.

I'm charging $1,000 a month for this product for a 40-hour week guaranteed uptime, one-to-one calling, texting, chat, et cetera.

And you just add another agent if you need another agent.

Wow.

So the goal is to replace those like low, low-skill and entry-level jobs.

And then we're taking a percentage of our profit and we're actually putting it into a fund.

And we're going to scholarship for people that have had low-wage or like low-skill jobs for multiple years so that they can be entered into a raffle or a lottery for all intents and purposes so that they can go pursue whatever the next thing is, whether it's being like, you know, an esthetician, a mechanic, you know, some type of thing.

Educational fund, essentially.

Yeah, exactly.

The goal is to.

The goal is to better yourself, to become.

Yeah, to give people the opportunity to become more.

Right.

Okay.

Rather than having like a low-paying, terrible existence, to actually go get it.

what gave you what gave you what gave you that idea to start that initiative i'm curious um honestly i just thought there was going to be a lot of backlash okay and i i thought about the people that had worked for me over the years and you know during covet i don't talk about this to a lot of people i bled through like two million dollars in four months keeping people employed in a market where nobody was spending money you know grant cardone fired his entire staff and i was asked to go hit dude i bled tuesday and i was like

i bled through all my all i lost a lot of my net worth over that and when i finally did have to make cuts and we did have to shut down ops, you know what I learned?

Nobody really gave a f ⁇ .

Nope.

They still thought I was a prick.

And I'm sitting here like, you don't know what I did for you.

Yep.

Yep.

Like you have no respect for that because people don't care.

It's what have you done for me lately?

And that was a great learning lesson for me.

It wasn't what you do for me, what you did for me yesterday.

It's what are you doing for me today?

Exactly.

And so I started thinking about all the jobs that I've had to like get rid of that I could have automated.

And I was like, man, you know, these people always had like dreams and ambitions and aspirations.

They just had like a a crappy job and no like means because saving money when you have a low skill, low wage job, not very easy.

So to save for that next thing versus saving for like your kid's Christmas gift, which one are you going to, unfortunately, you're going to prioritize the kid probably.

You know, and I mean, maybe not unfortunately, you're a good parent.

So that's one

component.

The other is customer service.

So you can provide us with brochures, customer service experiences via either phone calls or emails.

And then we can clone a customer service agent that can kind of do a lot of the lower level customer service work.

Obviously,

somebody's pissed, screaming, cursing.

Let me show you.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Somebody that can calm you the f ⁇ down, lady.

Yeah, right.

Exactly.

But exact same pricing.

And that's, you know, again, like a 75% reduction in cost.

And, you know, AIDS.

So over time, it adds up, right?

It's going to be really good.

Right, right.

Oh, I mean, immediately.

Some of these businesses have like a thousand representatives.

I mean, we're talking like saving them millions of dollars a month.

Easily.

Wow.

And

yeah, I mean, that's that's currently my goal.

That's my main focus.

We also built a compliance product.

So that one can help businesses ensure that their representatives, salespeople, whoever, marketers are adhering to whatever guidelines they have.

So we analyze the calls, we see if there's any red flags or orange flags, yellow flags.

Sean and I got plenty of people to introduce you to.

And

I hope you got a great feedback program.

Yeah, no, that call comply product is great.

That's coming out in just actually a couple of weeks.

The other product is about a month out.

Call comply, we screen calls, we transcribe them, and then we look for flags or like potential concerns or risks.

So, you know, if you're an e-commerce business, you're worried about chargebacks and customer service interactions not being done right, we'll flag for that.

If you're worried about your salespeople committing fraud, we'll flag for that.

If you're worried about people being lied to, we'll flag for that.

You basically just give them guidelines.

They tell us what they want.

Yeah.

And you say, what are the things you're around about?

Exactly.

And then we do the work for them, white glove.

And that product's really cheap.

It's like three cents a minute.

It's like nothing.

Fascinating.

How did you find the team to build out these AI products?

Dude, you know, you just acquire people over time.

I'm a big fan of bench warmers, actually.

People think it's a crazy idea, but I'll hire people that I have no use for because I don't hire based on need.

I hire based on aptitude.

So when people come across my desk and they're like really skilled, really intelligent, or really talented at something, I might not have a use for them today.

I'll try to plug them in and see if they can add value to the existing organization.

But my goal is actually to get value of them later because I see talent and I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm going to use you for yet, but tell me how much money you want.

Right.

And I've had guys that I've paid like 500 grand that have contributed nothing to my business.

Wow.

But I know that they will contribute in the future.

And then they do.

And, you know, sometimes I'm wrong, right?

Your picker is going to be off once in a while.

Not everybody's getting a number one draft pick to the Super Bowl.

I get it.

And sometimes that guy who's like fifth round ends up being a stud and you don't know it.

Shout out Tom Brady, 12th round, baby.

So, I mean, I just accrue people over time.

And, you know, most of my team are people that were service providers of mine or work for me in some way as like a vendor where I was like, yeah, this guy really goes above and beyond, cares.

Caring is number one.

Right.

We had to talk about this the other day, like my core leadership team.

It's caring that is number one.

Because if you care, especially in like a sales or a biz dev environment, if you care, you're going to produce much more than everyone else.

Right.

Do you look at any college?

Because I saw you dropped out of high school.

No, so we don't, uh, we don't care.

I don't care if you dropped out.

I don't care if you went to school.

I don't care if you have an MP.

You

Give a

buddy, my buddy Brad Lee, who lives out here.

Yeah, he one time.

I love Brad.

Brad's great, dude.

One of the first times we were hanging out, I was at his office.

I was kind of consulting him on him getting into insurance, actually.

It was going back like a while ago with his real financial project.

And I was, he's like, you know, is this the real deal?

I was like, I mean,

do you think I have money?

So he was like, okay.

And he said,

he was asking me, he goes, you go to school.

I said, no, I dropped out.

He goes,

I got got three MBAs, a doctorate.

And I'm like, really?

And he goes, working for me.

And I was like, son of

that was smooth.

Oh, that's smooth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He said that a couple of times.

Funny s, but it's true.

You know what's funny is that over the years that I've been an entrepreneur and thank God for this because I, you know, obviously I feel like everybody in this room, you know, all of our parents probably instilled that, you know, whole thing, you need to go to school.

You got to become, I'm Jewish, so you got to become a doctor or a lawyer to really be

and that's just how it is and realistically what we you know what i ended up figuring out along the way was school was not for me it never was and it never will be

and ironically all the things that i went to school for

the only subjects that really fascinated me were like the side classes where it's like sociology psychology human studies like dude that's why i dropped out you know and then so i i i'm probably like a semester away from from getting my i think it was like my master's or my bachelor's or whatever the f, I don't know.

Uh, and I just went, you know what?

I've got so many other opportunities that I can go touch.

Like if I take this diploma and I go try to work for somebody, now I'm going to be working for somebody for at least three to five years, maybe seven to actually work my way up a chain.

Past that seven, then you branch off, you create your own business, then you have another three to five of figuring out your own path.

That's at least, you know, 10 to 15 years kind of down the hole.

What the f?

Why not start now and just see where

lands?

Worst case scenario, you know, go work at McDonald's and, you know, I can, I can still pay the bills, but you know, thank God things worked out.

There's obviously lessons that you learn along the way, but I feel like it all comes back to what we said.

You, you have to fall on face and you have to look at yourself and be like, damn, I look like an idiot.

I need to step up.

Or you got to have a self-realization where it's like, bro, is this life you want for yourself?

Is this what you want?

Or do you, do you, do you, do you want?

Do you deserve better?

Do you believe you deserve better?

or do you just think that you want it?

There's a fine line.

And when I talk to real guys that have dropped out, it's always that one thing.

Like you said, they woke up one day.

I don't want to be on street selling anymore.

I don't want to be addicted to f ⁇ ing to, I don't want to be addicted doing this and going at partying.

And I don't want to be that f ⁇ ing guy that everybody's like, he's always faded.

All of those guys that had that realization that went,

I need to change.

It's always a full 180.

And I'm going to shout out one of my guys, Kells.

Shout out Kell Ines.

Him and his wife have a really crazy story where, you know, he was addicted to drugs.

He got a DUI, all this, you know,

now every morning I wake up.

His shit is the first story I watch because he's on this 4 a.m.

mission.

4 or 5 a.m.

Every fing morning without missing a beat.

5.15 in the shower doing the cold punch, doing his 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups at lifetime by 6 a.m.

Every god morning.

And every morning I wake up and I feel like

I look at his page.

I'm like,

all right, I'm getting up.

I'm up.

I'm up.

And that like that kind of motivation, that kind of sustainability that you can create just by encouraging people or surrounding yourselves with people that provide and add value, that's what make.

unbreakable human beings.

I really believe that.

And I feel like being an entrepreneur, you just have to be, you know, pressed and pressed and pressed and pressed and pressed until finally you're a nice,

beautiful, quality diamond.

Then you're unbreakable.

But, you know, over time, it's not an overnight thing.

And people see success overnight when it's really a 5, 10, 15, 20-year journey of just being relentless, man.

Yeah, I always say we're a sum of all of the experiences and interactions we've had with other people.

For sure.

And a lot of people, they see the outcome, they see the sum, but they don't see what addition went in.

The scars, my brother, the scars.

But at 15, bro, I was, it's funny you said that because I had skipped some grades and I was in an AP psych class and I loved psych.

Psych and sociology.

That was my love.

Yeah, love.

It was the only thing I was great at.

I mean, we're nerds, dude.

What are you going to do?

You know what's crazy?

That I was the only person in

my college's history that got an A in micro and macro economics through some teacher that was literally rated like a fing neo-Nazi of like supremacy when it comes to like, you know, being correct.

But what I found out is that he was wrong all the time.

The guy was on tenure and he literally just liked to with people's head.

And I was the only one that would stand up and be like, you're wrong.

That's I'm a small business owner.

You're wrong.

That's not right.

And he'd be like, okay, challenge me.

And then I'd, I'd write out the exact solution of why he was wrong in that micro or macro business scenario.

And every day he'd be like, God,

but he couldn't kick me.

I wouldn't do anything wrong.

It was just challenging the status quo and challenging the norms that society puts in front of you.

And guys like us don't like, we choose not to accept that half the time.

And that's what, you know, people like us, when we're put in these positions, I don't want to call us pioneers, but we're really just kind of trailblazing, you know, a new path for guys behind us that can come up and say, you know what?

He didn't go to school.

He was addicted to he didn't have a life.

Now the guy's 35 and living like a god.

Cool.

So I went into class one day and I was always arguing with this professor because he was kind of like your guy.

He was tenured.

He's not long.

And I was like, dude, what you're saying is incorrect.

The book literally says this.

I know that to be true.

Like,

this, this isn't right.

The whole class would be like yelling at me.

I thought I was eggs thrown at me.

Yeah.

Like, shut up, shut up.

I'm like, no.

It's wrong.

Like, it's wrong.

It's wrong.

You, it's wrong.

And so the guy was like, you know, since you know everything, why don't you just quit school?

You don't need to be here.

And I was like, okay.

Light bulb went off.

I was like,

see ya.

What age was this?

15.

15.

Yeah, so I like went and told my grandfather I was going to do online school.

Okay.

Because my professor was an idiot.

He was like, okay, cool.

I'm down.

He supported this.

Yeah, I never did online school, though.

I got home.

I'm still logged into one class.

I was like, f this.

Yeah, I'm not doing it.

And then

I went top 10 in the world in World of Warcraft and played a lot of other games.

Had a lot of fun.

That was a fun one.

You know what's crazy is that?

And I am envious to this generation coming up because not only do they have it so much easier than us.

Relax.

Sorry, relax.

But just the fact that people or kids can literally become millionaires and create actual channels of die-hard followers just off playing Minecraft or playing

Fortnite, playing unboxing a toy.

Unboxing.

Dude, look at Aiden Ross.

We just talked about him the other day.

$100 million $100 million.

And what is he doing?

Fucking gambling every day and hanging out with cool ass celebrities.

If guys like him can make it and prosper through all the

that they've been through, anybody can do it.

It's just all about mentality and mindset.

Absolutely.

firm believer i lived in a car for about six months back in 2016 that

sucked dude insane

wait you said 2016 yeah i lived in a honda civic that was pretty recent uh yeah 2016 i was i was there was a part-time where i was in vegas living in my jeep yeah you guys i lived in self-even rocks i was dating this really awesome chick she uh she had a room rental that was like smaller than the new york apartments about this big had like a twin bed and we had like a walmart plastic container thing that you could pull out like you're supposed to store your like groceries I don't know how it goes, but there were socks and underwear in there.

And it was really hard to find my underwear versus her underwear.

I was like, oh, sh, dude.

Oh, there's a bunch of people.

Babe, is this your thong or is this my thong?

Seriously, dude.

It was a problem.

Babe, is this your cheetah print or my cheetah print?

She was a tiny little like hundred-pound like Hispanic.

She like a tight hunt.

It was

tell me what Victoria's real secret is, huh?

But Victor.

It made it pretty easy because I took out the two thongs.

I'd be like, like, oh, this one's clearly bigger.

That's fine.

Yeah.

No,

I don't really care if somebody went to school.

I don't judge people.

I judge people not really by what they know, by what I think their aptitude is to learn or to be good at something, but then more importantly, by how they treat other people.

I love your idea.

People always treat me really well.

Right.

Like, there's very f ⁇ ing people on the planet that go out of their way to disrespect me because I'm a good f ⁇ ing dude.

I'm pretty decent at what I do and like I have a lot of good relationships.

You're not giving them a reason to.

Yeah, I'm just a good dude.

But But when I see people disrespect, like, bro, I was in, I was in restaurant business for nine years.

When people disrespect servers, I go, oh, off, bro.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I'll light up my best friend and we're not best friends anymore.

Type

because the way you treat other people that don't have a value add, that's that's one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world is when you're around somebody and they're like, I wouldn't even say complaining about food, but like

perfect scenario.

The other night we were all out and somebody we were with was just like, God, this is just so bad.

The food's terrible.

The service is terrible.

Like, what the is going on?

I told him, look around the room.

Do you see a bunch of empty tables?

No.

Every table is slammed.

Do you see any of these servers out here sitting down or on their phone?

No.

You see them all sweating their asses off.

And then the server comes back and he's like, bro, this isn't what I ordered, man.

This is, I don't want this.

And I go, you know what?

I'll take it.

Don't worry about it.

Thank you, brother.

I appreciate it.

Server runs off.

I looked at him.

I said, bro, does he look like the chef to you?

What?

Did he look like he cooked that meal in front of you?

No.

Okay, then why are you complaining to him about the meal that was cooked when that's exactly what you asked for?

It's exactly the way it came.

It's exactly how it needs to be made.

If you have a real problem, one, take it up with the chef.

But secondly, learn your place.

You got something to say.

Say something to the manager, pull him aside respectfully, say, hey, look, it's not what I ordered.

I want something different.

Or then take it around that route.

But by belittling somebody on a public stage, you'll never get anywhere.

And you know what that guy's going to do?

He's going to go into the back.

He's like, dude, table 56.

Bring him his food.

Or he's going to go and he's going to tell everybody in the back, bro, table 56 is just a bunch of heads.

And now you and you are collectively added into that group of heads.

And you didn't say a f ⁇ ing word.

Congratulations.

You played yourself.

Surround yourself with one head.

That's it.

Bro,

it's like mold.

You put one moldy apple next to a group of good apples, you're going to have a bunch of joggers.

Talk about berries and how you get berries, you think they look great, you get home, there's one of them that's moldy, and the next day they're all moldy.

Toast.

That sucks.

Happened to me.

I hate that.

Happened to me the other way.

No, no.

The worst is when you eat a strawberry because you look at one side.

It's like, kosher.

Why is it hairy?

Hey, you like spit it out.

You're like, it's blue.

All right.

I'm going to die.

I'm pretty sure that's why I'm hadn't got COVID though.

You know, just eating moles.

We got to wrap this up, man.

It's been a pleasure.

Any folks or thoughts where people can find you?

At Kolbowski on Instagram.

I'm pretty accessible.

I answer pretty much everybody.

I run an online group called Moda Collective.

It's just a group of entrepreneurs.

Spell it out.

Tell them where to find it.

M-O-D-A Collective on Facebook.

9,000 entrepreneurs.

There's some certain billionaires in there.

There's guys that are just figuring it out, but...

It's really awesome.

I mean, it's a great network, great resource.

Pretty much anything you want to know is one message away.

Nice.

And

powerful.

Yeah, I mean, billion and two.

All right, there we go.

Sean, tell them where to find you.

Sean, Mike Kelly.

I'm Ari Gold E.T.H.

Thanks for having us.