How Proximity Changes Your Life: Mastermind Secrets with Greg Kimble & Steven Spence

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays podcast where we cover three core topics.

How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.

This man has done all three at a very, very, very high level.

You've seen what he's done on social media.

There's things he's done behind the scenes that you're never going to see or hear about.

But most importantly, he inspires his mastermind members and the people that are around him to be better versions of himself.

This guy has masterminds, coaching, throwing live events all over the country, whether he takes you to watch the stars and the moon or he teaches you how to build and scale your business.

He's done all the things that have made me very, very happy to work with him, speak with him, watch him grow.

And on a side note, just 374 days ago, I first was starting to work with him and talk with him.

He created this before and after picture.

374 days later, well, 365 days is when he posted the picture, he turned into what I call the incredible Hulk.

You can check him out on the social media at Greg Kimball, and we'll walk through those things.

But first, as always, we're going to cover these three core topics.

And I want my special guest, Mr.

Greg Kimball, to give us a quick two-minute bio so we can get straight to the money.

Number one,

I'm a father of two incredible young boys that being a parent, I can honestly say my kiddos are my greatest mentors.

I am a huge advocate for mentors and mentorship.

And so that's kind of why I've spent so much time in academia in helping.

I've built colleges.

I help people learn.

I equip people.

I empower people.

I think learning and the activation of the knowledge inside of you and the application of the knowledge that you get from your mentors and the opportunities put in front of you is so important.

But we need a little help.

We need the right people.

We need the right guidance.

We need the right nudges.

And that's why I've dedicated my life to helping people actually learn so that they don't have to be scared.

We live in such a land of scarcity.

And

realistically, you just don't have to be scared.

Most of it is you just don't know what's actually going on.

You don't know how the game's actually played.

You don't know the right people.

So you invent all of these things in your head.

And I've kind of taken it upon myself to clear up the misconceptions about entrepreneurship, clear up the misconceptions about business, about money, about going there with your friends and building cool things with your friends and just helping people actually take action on their dreams, on their life, so that they can build the life that they've always wanted to.

So, on the make money side of the podcast, what are you watching people first joining your masterminds or first you know thinking about joining the mastermind?

What do you think holds people back from making money?

Honestly, they don't know how to

ask the question and then they get the answer from a mentor or

a course

or a conference, whatever it is.

And then they just sit there and they question everything.

That's called an ask hole.

Yeah, the ask holes.

Honestly, that's probably the biggest thing is people spend so much time.

They say, hey, what's two plus two?

And they get mad at you because you say four too fast.

They're like, well, you had to like, no, no, no, I've done the math problem.

I've done the event.

I've done the business I've scaled the business I've done the investment and because you've been there so many times you can answer the question very quickly

it's it's not

for and then they're just like well he I don't like the tone he used I don't like that he said four I don't like I don't like that he said it in this it's just like no it's just you asked the question I answered it and so the problem is is People think it can't be that easy.

And the problem is it is.

It really is that easy if you have the right mentors.

And I think one of the things that happens is people, and this is where I really change because, you know, you've mentored me for a while now.

And I think the biggest thing that happens to people is they are so scared to give credit where credit's due.

And for anybody like, if you follow me for any amount of time, if you watch me for any amount of time, I'm a

massive, massive, massive fan of any of my mentors.

So if you watch how I'm going to talk about Dan, I'm a huge fan of his.

You want to know why?

Because he's freaking helped me a bunch.

And I've done what he said for the most part.

Now I have gotten the text messages.

It is my duty to let you know you're messing up right now.

Because yes, like even though I'm a mentor in my own right, we all have those things where I'm like, oh, I don't feel like it.

I don't want to do it.

I don't see the value.

And then he'll correct me on that.

I still sat in the front row and had Tony Robbins yell at me.

I still want to learn.

Yeah, we just, we want to be better.

There's always levels to every part of the game.

And so, like, Tony Robbins asked me very basic questions, and it was me getting out of my own way.

Yep.

And I think that's the biggest thing is just

you, you, you find your, like, for instance, whoever your Dan is, which just to be clear,

if you're on the fence on whether or not to work with Dan, get off the fence.

Trust me, it's the best decision I've made.

But there's so many times where someone would hire someone like Dan.

And then they want to make it seem like they did it all themselves.

They don't want to be like, oh, no, I got help, or he really really helped me, or he put me in the right room, or he put me in touch with this person.

They're like, no, I'm, you know, the guru of my own life, and I'm this mystical creature, and I did all of this.

If you really, like, if you really want to take your life to the next level, you have to learn this concept of push power towards power.

So, for instance, if

Dan puts me in, like, we're literally sitting in a connection that Dan gave me.

We're about to go into one of my mastermind events through Vince, and I've gotten to know and love Vince.

He's now one of my friends.

Dan's, we just threw elevator nights together, co-hosted, like that was really cool.

All because it's my job to make Dan as powerful as I can make him because he does the very, the same thing.

When he finds people that he cares about, that follows through, that does what they say.

He's going to make them as powerful as he can.

And then news flash, when both of us become more powerful, we can go move mountains together.

We can get more stadiums filled with toys.

We can go be more philanthropic.

We can help people.

But you have to just be able to be there for one another and be massive fans of each other.

And I think that that's the thing is so many people won't get out of their own way because they're too busy telling you how incredible they are when they're not documenting the story of like, dude, damn helped me out a lot.

Man, my team helps me out a lot.

Like, I've got a group of 20 people setting up our thing in there.

I I can't do this without them.

And people forget to do that.

They just want to come in and just be like, I'm the best thing since sliced bread.

Well, Newsflash, people don't like working for people like that.

So I think just being a massive fan of your mentors, making sure they feel appreciated, because even though they're at that status,

stay on their radar because when the opportunities come up, well, he's more likely if I'm saying,

Dan's helped me.

Thank you.

I'm appreciative.

I'm sending him business.

I'm sending him opportunities.

When the opportunities come up, and it's not scoreboarding, it's just reciprocity.

It's just how we operate.

We want to see each other win.

So there's a big difference between scoreboarding and reciprocity just because it's like, now he's like my friend.

Like, I want Dan to win at a level that is uncommon and rare.

And then I want to be the person sitting in the front row clapping the loudest.

Those are the kinds of friends you want.

Can you actually tell the golf club membership story?

Because I think that's a really interesting component for for people like to take that leap of faith yeah it was a big gamble to do it but walk us through that story so one thing that i realized is everything is percentage based and um what i mean by that is so many people whether you have a 300 product a five thousand dollar product a fifty thousand dollar product five hundred it doesn't really matter it's you have to base all of your numbers off like percentage of income.

And at this time in my life, my big thing was I had this $5,000 dollar product and i was selling zero percent of this product i was selling zero of this product anybody that i would kind of talk to about this product was just like why are you talking to me and what i realized is it was because i was dealing with more than a hundred percent of their available income like so you know i do this in my seminars all the time i say who who here has you know ten thousand dollars in the bank and you know a few people will raise their hand and i say okay like is it ten thousand They're like, yeah, roughly 10,000.

I say, okay, can I have it?

And they're like, no.

I go, okay, well, what if I give you $10,000 worth of stuff?

Still no.

Okay, what if I give you $50,000 worth of stuff?

Usually it's actually still no.

Well, what if I give you $100,000 worth of stuff?

It's still no because I'm dealing with 100% of their liquid money.

And what I realized is I had to go get around people where $5,000 was like the equivalent of a Snickers bar.

So I took every penny that I could and then maxed out credit cards and I went and joined a country club, Boulder Country Club.

I'm still a member today.

And because I had to get around, and so I have this protocol that I talk about.

You always want to deal with access, priority, and service.

So I want access to the right people.

I want them to prioritize my relationship.

And then we can figure out what service suits me best.

So now Boulder Country Club is on a seven-year waiting list.

It's $90,000 to join.

Now, is the French dip thousand dollars good no i'm going there because everyone around there has it's has access to this and they prioritize these relationships and honestly the access and the priority that that club has given me over you know realistically the last decade has transformed my life so much and and so much so like to how much i bet on myself just to put this into perspective I had just bought a house and it was every penny that I like every penny that I had and then all the pennies that I could borrow from my friends because I didn't understand how loans worked at the time and so basically when I went to go get a loan for this house it like my credit score was lol it wasn't even fundable and so it's just like what do you mean like w-2 and bank statements and who files taxes this sounds stupid like they're like the bank's like no if you want a loan you you need to file taxes so i scrounged up the money to buy that the the house cash um but it was every penny I had.

I couldn't,

there was no

running water in it because we had to fix the plumbing.

There's no appliances.

There were

no bathrooms, which makes Thanksgiving kind of interesting.

Yeah, so

it was a very interesting holiday season, to say the least.

But it was every penny I had.

And then I finally did this deal to get this money together.

And my wife was saying,

oh, we can finally, like, we can save

the cars

because we were hiding them in the garage so they didn't come take our cars.

We're praying that our phones stay on.

But what she really wanted was a fridge.

She's like, what if we got a fridge so that we could do this?

So she goes to buy the fridge and the car doesn't go through.

And she looks in the account.

She goes, where did all the money go?

And I said, oh,

I joined Boulder Country Club.

What?

And she goes, yeah, that's actually her.

Only like, there's a little bit more more drama.

And I just explained to her my thought process.

I said, Look, if I'm running around asking for everyone's 100% of their available income, we're never going to get there.

I have to get around the people who are doing the business, who have the knowledge.

I know I'm good at what I do, and

I have to be around those people.

This is not a negotiation.

And

I think within six weeks, I had done $184,000 of business.

We got brand new water heaters, brand new appliances.

Cars were good.

We could park them outside.

We no longer had a port-a-potty out front.

But the moral of the story is

you do whatever it takes to go get around the right people.

And people just, you are a conversation away from changing your whole life.

And that's why when I was going to these conferences, when I'm trying to start my career, there's this guy that everyone was talking about named Dan.

And he was the guy that would put the guys on the stage.

And I'm like, okay, well, I don't want to talk to the guys on the stage.

I want to talk to the guy that's putting the guys on the stage.

And so I just made it my own personal mission because, you know, I was in Dan's DMs trying to get his attention.

It wasn't working.

And so, news flash,

here's what finally did it, just so that everyone knows.

I paid $10,000 for a ticket to the Muscles house for a dinner.

So two hours, $10,000 just to get the proximity to finally say, hey, dude, what's up?

Nice to meet you.

What if we did some business?

And then, and even then it didn't happen because it still took a little bit of time.

I didn't give up.

And I think this is the problem where people think, oh, well, you know, I shook Dan's hand.

He doesn't want to work with me.

No, like...

Dan's like reading the matrix all the time.

So it's going to take a little bit more data points, number one.

And number two, you have to provide value.

Like, how can you push power towards power?

How can you help people out how can you move things forward and I think that this is really important to be able to identify what is the value add or the value proposition you can give to these people and it's also not a free lunch like Dan can buy his own lunch if you're like hey Dan like Let me take you out to lunch.

Do you want a cup of coffee?

Oh yeah, yeah, the cup of coffee is good.

For the record, I don't drink coffee.

Or alcohol.

Just like, he doesn't need to go out to a drink.

But I think those are the things.

Like you, if you want to you know get into the orbit of some of these people whether you like it or not go buy the ten thousand dollar like mastermind dinner because that shows that number one you've got the wherewithal or come you can come for free last night oh yeah or you could come to an elevator night like he's here he's like he doesn't beam in you know it's not like a screen that comes down like all the churches when you're finally excited about

the event 57 times and people like think that you have to spend, yes, I'd like them to spend 10,000 or 100,000, blah, blah, blah, but I throw it for free.

Yeah.

57 times and growing.

But you have to move.

Yeah, they have to.

That's the biggest thing.

You got to move.

And so just literally just do whatever it takes to get around the right people.

And then the other thing that gets people's attention, whether you like it or not, like, is support.

Like, like their Facebook, support them, share their stuff, comment on their stuff.

So if, like, anytime Dan posts something, I'm going to share it to my story because not only is my mentor, but I believe in what he's doing.

I'm going to comment.

I'm going to, I've got his back.

Like, there's no tomorrow.

Support is a huge thing.

And then when they're trying to do initiatives like Trina's kids, different things, with the world's largest toy drive, I don't know, maybe buy some toys.

This is not, these are not hard concepts.

And toys are not super expensive.

Like, like we did the Target thing, like you could buy $5,000 worth of stuff or you could buy $50 worth of stuff.

It's just helping kids, but show up, support, push power towards power, and be fans of the people that you want to be on their radar.

So on the investing side, let's talk about investing into yourself.

Why?

So your mastermind is $33,000 and then you have different variations.

You have like nine different masterminds underneath that as well.

Walk us through why someone should take the leap to invest into themselves.

Because it's the only thing that's going to supercharge everything in your entire life.

Because if you go, you know, buy, let's say you buy a new car, your experience and your quality of life is going to get better from point A to B.

But if you invest in yourself, it's going to make every single interaction with other people, businesses, how you communicate with the world, communicate with your spouse, communicate with friends, communicate with money, save money, spend money, invest money, it's going to supercharge your entire life.

And if you can get the right information, which is

getting the right people around you who can train you, who can teach you, who can love on you, can say, no, stop doing this.

Go this direction.

I've done this.

I've made this mistake.

Don't make this mistake.

Go this direction.

Don't get hit in the head.

Don't get hit in the head.

Here's the snake.

Here's the hole that's covered with the stuff.

Using the mentorship and letting their wisdom and experience accelerate your life is

compressing decades into days.

And that's really what mentorship's about.

And if you can have the opportunity to compress decades into days, which, you know, I've always been the young kid on the block.

And now that I've turned 40, I'm turning into the middle-aged kid on the block which is a little weird to to to

yeah it doesn't feel like it um but

it's so interesting because i'll get you know people oh well you know you're this that and the other i'm like man i'm really glad i'm in my position and not your position because i have life experience I've got the decade.

I've got the this.

And I can help you.

But right now, especially this generation who only wants to chat GPT stuff, who only wants to Google stuff, at the end of the day, you still need to do the work.

At the end of the day, you still have to show up.

You still have to have communication skills.

You still have to invest in yourself.

You can't just invest in the top tier of chat GPT because

that should supercharge who you already are.

But if you are thinking, okay, I'm just going to invest in, I don't know, whatever chat GPT is, 30 bucks a month or whatever.

Well, everybody has

$30 a month.

That playing field is level.

Who are you?

How are you moving forward?

How are you going to the next level?

Are you taking your body to the next level, your mindset, your wherewithal?

What are you specifically doing going to the next level?

And a lot of people from comparative reality don't want to get into these rooms and talk about stuff because they think people are going to judge them.

They think people are not going to like what they're doing.

They think that, oh, I'm thinking too big.

I'm thinking too small.

I'm too young.

I'm too old.

When they're not thinking about you at all, they're thinking about themselves.

And I'm telling you, get in these rooms, elevator night, the final percent, all of these things that are available to you, get in the rooms, and you're going to realize everyone legitimately just wants to see you win and they'll help you win.

It's all about community.

So, we talked a bit about investing, making money.

Let's talk about the third topic, which is charity.

We did a tipping dinner together a couple years ago, and then you started doing them on your own all over the country.

Walk us through the concept of the tipping dinner and why it's important to you.

Dude,

it's one of my, it's probably my favorite thing that we do because

I watched Dan do one of these things where the idea is everyone brings $100

and you hand the money to the server at the end of it.

And I'm going to tell you a great story that happened actually because we just did one at our Wyoming retreat where this is a town of 200 people.

And

last year, we gave away, I think, $6,000 or something like that.

to these two servers that just and you want to talk about shock it was unclear.

Like,

this is definitely the biggest tip they've ever gotten.

So, I go to the 4th of July in Centennial, Wyoming every single year.

We did the same thing.

We gave two servers, a bunch of money.

It was great.

More importantly, watching the butterfly effect and the aftermath of what happened based on giving away the money, I ran into those same servers that were there the year prior and they're dating.

And so i'm talking to the guy and he just gives me a big old hug and i didn't full disclosure i didn't know who it was at first he's like man you you changed my life and i'm just like cool like like and then it's you

and he goes man like that that tip like really changed and i was like ah yes that was great and then like the his girlfriend she she had tears in her eyes And she's like, is there any way I can give you a hug?

I said, of course.

And I said, you were the other server, right?

And she said, yeah.

I said, so what's going on?

She said, we actually moved to Casper, Wyoming.

I said, that's awesome.

Like, what are you guys doing up there?

And she said this to me.

She said, we moved up there so that I could go to esthetician school.

And that tip paid for half of my entire school.

So it accelerated her learning.

It accelerated the opportunity.

And then they were able to move and accelerate their entire dreams just because a bunch of people from a mastermind wanted to bless someone.

And so we've actually, we do it at every single event we do in my

really hyper private event, we actually do a tipping dinner all four days of my mastermind.

Wow.

And we gave away just, which I'm mad because you know my number is 33.

We gave away just shy of 30,000.

Yeah, 30,000.

I want to get to 33 bad.

Of course.

But we gave away like $28,000 over the course of four days.

Wow, that's huge.

And

I'm telling you, the final percent is going to get so big where people are literally going to, they're going to be like trying to figure out where we're going to be.

And they're like, I just want to go be a server for one day.

I want to figure out where they're going because they know the blessing's coming because that's how we operate.

And I love, and you know, we did a

we rented out Sharon Lecter's ranch and we only went up there with, I think, you know, 16 people, I think.

And I asked, I said, you know, at the end of it, what's the biggest tip that they've ever gotten?

And she goes, man, the biggest tip that they've ever gotten is 4 500 i was just like oh man this is gonna be easy so i went there but it actually wasn't that easy because now i'm only dealing with 16 people and it was a fifteen thousand dollar ticket because it was very very exclusive and so i went around and uh finally figured out enough to where by the end of it we gave them eleven thousand dollars wow because And I mean, they took care of us.

But it just goes back to double down on the people that double down on you.

Show up and be that memory that people cherish.

Be that story that when everyone's sitting around a table, man, I was a part of this tipping dinner one time.

What if we did that right now?

And just so you know, you don't have to, like, you literally, if you've got five friends here, four friends, three friends, two friends, if it's just you, you don't need permit.

You can literally just write a hundred bucks.

You can literally just write $133.

If someone just seems like they need it and it's just say it's just me and Dan,

we would definitely do it.

But like, it's just Dan and like, we don't need a, like, we don't even need to put it on social media.

We don't need, we'll just be eating food

and then be like, I've had them chase me down before because I'll leave a big tip, sometimes a really big tip, if I hear their story and I'll disappear on purpose.

I've had them actually chase me down, like, oh, you did this wrong, or, oh, wait, there's a comma here.

You know, like, you're like,

I want to point out he just said a comma.

He's like, those are the friends that you want.

But that's the thing.

I want to give people such big blessings that they legitimately think it's weird and then sooner or later they're going to switch that weird to normal and then they're going to go become the blessing so if you want to host a hundred dollar tipping club you can adjust the number however you like we do a hundred dollars and sometimes we'll get the ballers together to a thousand dollars completely unnecessary hundred bucks each get eight of your friends together by the way you can get strangers together you can get people on facebook or like a local groups or a reddit thread and just say hey everybody meet here at this restaurant don't pick a big fancy chain don't go to like a Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Claim Jumper.

Not that those are all fancy, but you know, you get the point.

Like, go to a restaurant, especially if you can find like a home-the wall, mom-and-pop place, like you know, the old school Italian restaurant or the Mexican restaurant that's been there for decades.

Go in there, don't tell them what's going on because you don't want to affect the service.

And let's say you've got eight friends, you pitch a hundred bucks each, and at the end of the meal, you surprise them with the $800.

Now, when you get to like 1500, 2K, 3K, 4K type numbers, you should ask them to do 50% for the staff, 50% for the waiter or waitress.

When you're under a thousand, just let the waitress keep it and they'll tip out if they want to, if they can.

But we start to get to like 2K, 3K, 4K, just to be fair, you want to make sure that...

Yeah, you have to back it up.

But in this process, you will be shocked what happens.

And by the way, you will create long-lasting memories with those eight people.

The next time you'll have 15, then you'll have 26.

People are going to want to show up for these because it's impactful, it's fun.

Whether you create social media content or you do it privately, that part is up to you.

But the reason that we showcase on social media is it spreads.

We first started this with Jimmy Rex five years ago during the shutdown because a lot of restaurants were shut down.

We started posting on social media over 4,000 dinners we've been tagged in.

That means there's probably been 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 because a lot of people don't know that we started it.

They don't know Jimmy Rex, maybe they don't know me, whatever.

But now the tipping dinner has gotten so big, I've seen on the cover of Apple News of other people doing tipping dinners.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

I don't need a pat in the back.

I want the thing to happen.

And that's the butterfly effect to happen.

A lot of people will think, oh, well, you're just doing that for notoriety.

No, we're doing that to let you know what's possible.

It has nothing.

Honestly, I don't care if you know that I do it or not.

My biggest thing is if Dan didn't live out loud and he didn't do that on purpose and on social media, I would have never done that.

And

she wouldn't be in an SSS in school.

Yeah, and thousands of people would have not gotten affected.

And in my mastermind events, it is far and away when we do our after action reports, it is far and away people's favorite part of the events, watching the tip get given.

Because it's unfortunately so uncommon, but I'm telling you guys, be the story of generosity that gets told in an entire town or an entire restaurant or an entire community.

Be the story of generosity.

Be the person that shows up.

Make the uncommon decision so that you can lead by example.

We've got enough warnings out there it's time we got to have more people stand up and be examples and that's why i love doing business with dan because he's an example of how to move how to be a friend how to have a business partner so yeah we want to change the world and we're crazy enough to know that we can we don't think we can we're changing the world we are actively changing the world and we're not going to stop so there's one question that i ask on every single episode and i've never gotten the same answer before

greg kimbo you build up your masterminds you build up your companies you do all these investments and you build up a multi-hundred million dollar net worth.

Unfortunately, at some point, it's time to pass away.

Those two sons, how much of your net worth, what percentage goes to them when you pass away?

33%.

See, didn't get the same answer.

Yeah,

I want them to have 33% split equally between them.

I want 33% held in trust for my family in case, you know, know a cousin or an aunt or an uncle, just someone needs like what.

Unfortunately, I've kind of become the bank of Gramerica for certain members of my family.

So, I want the bank of Gramerica to keep going, but it would be something where

you could take a loan from it, but it has to get paid back.

And then I want 33% given away to probably train his kids.

Because I think 33% needs to get given away just off the top to let people know, like, there needs to be a big impact when Greg dies to a a a a charity to where it's like holy crap like that was a windfall and it wasn't expected it wasn't something but it shows enough generosity to where people are like holy crap and so you know i i think

something in reserve for the overarching family um something to for my my boys to steward And then I want 33% to just go to something that I really freaking care about that can make, like, right when Greg passes away, there's a huge impact that gets made to where people are like, damn, like that, that's cool.

Where can people find you on social media?

Where can they find your masterminds?

Anything that's going on in your world?

So our website is thefinalpercent.com.

You can learn all about, you know, we have international masterminds, local masterminds, we have big masterminds,

niche masterminds.

So I'd love to start that conversation.

But thefinalpercent.com.

And then anywhere where there's social media it's just at Greg Kimball G-R-E-G-K-I-M-B-L-E so give me a follow on Instagram say that you listen to money one days and I'd love to start the conversation with you all guys the whole point of these podcasts is to have important discussions about money for you your friends your family and your followers and all these topics are again aren't going to be just for you You might listen to someone in real estate, someone owns a chain of nightclubs, someone's a famous rapper, or we have Gary Vee or Gary Brecca, so many different characters that come on this podcast.

The information you learn might not be for you.

It might be for someone from your past, present, or future.

So learn these topics, research the things that you're interested in.

Check us out next Monday on themoneymondays.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Money Mondays.

We are here inside of Humboldt's studio.

for this special edition.

We just knocked out elevator nights.

There's a mastermind going on.

So typically I do these podcasts inside of an RV motorhome, but went in Rome, everyone's here.

I want to get some of the boys together to knock out back-to-back-to-back-to-back podcasts.

And for our finale today, we have a very special guest.

This gentleman has gotten tens of millions of views.

I actually think it's gotten hundreds of millions of views because people repost, reshare.

He's had one in particular one that got like billions of views.

I mean, the numbers are insane, the kind of content he's created.

over and over and over and over and over.

A lot of times people have the aspiration to go viral once.

Well, he's done it.

I can't even count how many times.

But more importantly in social media, what I always say is it's not about going viral once, it's the consistency.

I would actually rather get 10 or 20,000 views a day, 365 days in a row, than just get a million here, two million here, three million here, one time or two times.

This gentleman gets a million here, two million here, day after day after day after day after day.

But he's also created a company along the way.

A lot of times social media influencers are just making that $1,000 for a post, $10,000 for a post, $5,000 for a post, $30,000 for a post, et cetera, Or they're doing brand deals for a few months and they're just making it cash, cash, cash, and never really turning into a brand or physical product.

Unlike sometimes you've seen the Logan Pauls, the Mr.

Beast that create Prime, Feastibles, etc.

This gentleman has created a mobile app, which we're going to dive all the way into to find out the inner workings, the concept, why did he do it, why did he create it, instead of just keeping making cash, cash, cash like other influencers, why is he creating a brand?

So without further ado, as you are listening to this podcast, keep in mind,

sometimes I bring on rappers, athletes, celebrities, business moguls, people with huge amounts of real estate, own nightclubs and restaurants.

The bits and pieces that you learn from people may not be just for you.

It might be for people from your past, present, or future.

It might be for your family, for your friends, a random stranger at a dinner, that you might be able to bring up topics that you learn from these podcasts.

So as you hear the different guests, think about it for yourself, but also think about it, how you can add value to other people in your life.

And it may not be right now.

It might be three months from now or three years from now.

So, Spence, give us the quick two-minute bio so we get straight to the money.

Absolutely.

First of all, that was an incredible intro.

So, thank you.

I appreciate you.

And he said it great.

He said it great.

Anyway, so, you know, I grew up in Los Angeles as a creator, as a content creator, with some of the best creators in the world.

And, you know, My background really traditionally started with music.

It always came authentic for me.

It came supernaturally.

I got signed to Interscope Records out of high school for music

against all odds, a major record label with Eminem, Lady Gaga, it was the same exact label as that.

It was a dream come true at the time, performed in maybe 40 or so countries all over the world.

And it wasn't really until I decided to put all of myself out there, not just the music, but kind of like, you know, just my personality that I started to gain some traction online as a solo creator.

And,

you know,

with, you know, some success in music, that pivotal point was when when I made something called the Breakfast Challenge, which was

a massive viral trend to my music, my original music, and it garnered over 30 billion streams across social media.

It was crazy.

I had a talk with TikTok, and they're like, these are the numbers we're looking at.

And for the time, it was pretty insane.

It's the kind of success that an independent artist really only dreams of and hopes for.

So when that happened, something in my brain clicked that really struck struck a chord

to pivot and use that same mentality and create something that could really help other people.

And I've been the person that I think I've watched every single episode of Shark Tank

since it started, you know, 16 years ago or whatever it was.

And I've always been thinking, okay, I could do this, or this should be done differently, or what can I do?

And that was the moment where I was like, this is it.

You know, I wanted to

use music to move the world in a different way.

And, you know, talking about,

I don't want to jumble up too much here, but in life,

you can do so many things, but you can't do everything at the same time.

So really, you have to decide, what are you going to do, you know, with your time?

Because it's limited.

So for me, I wanted to do something that was authentic for me, came really naturally, but also

just really helped helped the world.

I wanted to make a positive impact.

So, something that really resonated with me is: okay, well, one, music.

It's something I'm really passionate about.

And then, two, helping other people is something that I'm passionate about.

And that works with fitness.

I feel like if I can help people feel better about themselves, the positive ripple effect is so real.

They're going to help other people.

They're going to treat people a little bit better.

So, the intersecting point there was music and fitness.

How can I help people with music and fitness?

And And I put those together.

So Sweat Sonic essentially, we took songs and we took workouts and turned them into songs that become your personal trainer, right?

So now you never have to count your reps or wonder what set you're on in the gym or if you like to work out at home, it's fine as well.

And you're getting music that's intentionally extra motivating, scientifically optimized for efficiency to get you in and out of the gym a lot quicker.

And, you know, just

music in itself

can increase your performance in the gym as well.

The right song at the right time could do all the right things for your workout.

So instead of just leaving that to chance and hoping your Spotify playlist is like, okay,

right here when you need it, we crafted those experience and designed the whole entire app for Sweat Sonic to help people stay consistent with their fitness and motivate them to actually get stuff done.

Because the most important thing with fitness is actually showing up.

So that's our goal with that and then you know the other really sweet thing about sweatsonic is all the athletes on the platform are also influencers and collectively we have a following of 200 million people so we built this package with the idea of helping people with their fitness in a different way you know Obviously, there's a lot of competition in the fitness space, you know, but that's one because it's a massive market.

Everyone wants to be a little better shape.

But despite there being so many solutions for people and getting healthy and, you know, fitness app and doing this or that class or whatever, there's a lot of solutions.

But the problem of one, obesity, health issues, diabetes, stress, it's still skyrocketing.

So our approach, as opposed to just, you know, throwing technology

at the problem is let's use creativity.

to try to solve the problem for people in a different way and help them like that.

So that's what's what Sonic is.

So on the make money side of the podcast, let's talk about I'm an influencer.

When you're first getting going, you get that first, let's call it 100,000 followers and you're starting to make a name for yourself.

How do you decide what to charge to a brand when you're first getting going?

Rule number one is you get the number from them.

Just always get the number from them.

Because one, you never want to undershoot yourself, right?

So if you, if you just shoot, I want to do this for, I'll do this for $10,

you know, then, you know, who knows what they would have said first.

So I would say you always want to get your offer first.

And then if not, you know, you can negotiate from there regardless.

But I think that it's really good to find representation.

It's, it's even for the optics, having someone represent you, it looks a little bit better because then they could play good cop, bad cop without you looking like the bad cop always.

So number one, get the number from them first.

And then number two, maybe if you're at the level where you can have some people working with you, and if not, just be your own assistant and make that up and send an email on your own behalf, behalf pretending like you're an assistant.

So brand comes to you and says we want an exclusive with you for let's call it the water category.

How different of a deal is that compared to you know paying you for one or few one or two posts?

Yeah absolutely.

Well like I said you know well actually I didn't say it but there's no real set

rule base when it comes to that.

You're kind of like you know being early in the creator world we were making it up as we were going along or as we were going along because it was was such a

and we still are especially you I mean back in the day with fit tea I think you were the first person to bring that to market

we've done a hundred and ten thousand paid bows let's go let's go we're sitting with the goat here ladies and gentlemen

we're still figuring out the prices along the way still figuring out the prices along the way it's gonna be fair for both sides

be fair for the brand we're gonna be fair for the influencer and everyone in between a hundred percent we're not trying to overcharge but also The influencer needs to make money.

We need the brand to get the right price point so that they can spend more money because

if they spend 10 grand and they get back one,

then it's not gonna make sense.

They're not gonna come back.

You want it to be a positive symbiotic relationship, right?

So it keeps rolling 100%.

So, you know, definitely there are other things you've got leverage when there's a bigger ask.

It's pretty linear, I would say.

It's proportional.

So, you know, if it is exclusive and it is for two years as opposed to three months or 30 days, there's different asks that you got there that give you some negotiating power for sure.

So you start to make some money, you go from 100,000 followers to 500,000, 500,000 to a million.

Let's go.

Right?

Bam, bam, bam.

You're grinding, grind, grind.

How do you decide what brands you're now going to put your name on?

Because now there's a lot of people listening to you.

If you say, go drink that water or take the first form supplement or download this app, people are going to do it.

Yeah.

So how do you decide now which brands you're okay associating with?

Yeah.

Yeah, it also really matters.

I learned that lesson pretty hard and you know, kind of early on.

I think I did a deal with McDonald's once and i got called out oh yeah i got called out pretty bad i was like talking about a mcchicken yeah but at the same time at that point like it's like listening job you know i had to do it so i turned down mcdonald's and burger king as a client

they're great brands great brands but i don't feel comfortable with the food because it's not actually food right it's not good it's definitely not good i remember burger king was paying they were like oh we want to pay scott disick and it was like 40 grand yeah and i was like i mean i'm getting him for less than that yeah you guys just talk directly I just didn't feel comfortable doing it.

Yeah, you're doing it.

And then they end up spending like millions and millions of dollars with a bunch of different influencers.

And guess what?

I'm okay.

You're okay with that.

I'm okay with that.

It's like,

there's certain brands that I've turned down in the cigarette space.

I would never do it.

There's certain brands I just turned down and I just don't want to do it.

And there's other brands that you might think are on the edge that I'm okay with.

Like I was doing vodka brands.

I'm okay with vodka.

Right, right.

There's certain brands that I'm okay with and there's certain brands that I'm not.

And it's just a personal assertion for me of what I'm okay with.

And by the way, alcohol is technically worse for you than McDonald's but is it but is it yeah I don't know I don't know yeah I think I'd feel better if my you know my kid was 21 years old I'd rather them have some vodka than freaking

make cheese whatever every day yeah it's really important to to kind of be honest with yourself and obviously your integrity and and that's something that I learned along the way even with the kind of content I put out it's like you know in the early days when there were really no rules it's like put out whatever you think is funny in the moment you know and and I think for creators, you get held to a different standard with the kind of content you're putting out as opposed to someone like Jennifer Aniston in a movie Horrible Bosses.

It's like, wait a minute.

If this was online,

because people don't necessarily separate acting online as a creator with acting, you know, in real life.

They just think that's who you are.

Because she's not Jennifer Aniston in that movie.

Exactly.

She's got a different name.

Exactly.

But essentially, me and my friends, when we're creating content online, it's the same thing.

We're creating characters with the intention of, you know at the end of the day making the world a happier paced place laughing you know spreading that joy and then sometimes it's could be considered inappropriate for sure for sure but this is not necessarily the it's acting yeah right with the intention i think intention really matters i mean we watch king batch you watch adam w watch some of your boys like they make really funny content but sometimes it's like whoa whoa what the heck it's so funny exactly some people can get offended but it's it's designed to be you know comedic relief 100

so as you're growing your content, as you're growing your brand, talk about collaborations.

Let's just use those guys as the example.

You're making workout content together, but you're also making funny content with Amanda Cerny and Lele Pons.

You're one of the OGs of this game.

Talk us through the collaborations from

what I don't think a lot of people realize is 1600 Vine is where it all started.

All started, right?

Wild.

Like Vine started at 1600 Vine and people don't really get it.

Yeah, yeah.

Whether it was actually named after that or not, I still think it was.

But that's like, so I was living at the W back then.

I would walk over to Vine, and there was times I was walking around and like handing out 10 grand in cash, handing out cashier's checks, wiring in folks.

It was the Wild, Wild West.

It was the Wild, Wild West, for sure.

It was a circus.

I'll tell you guys a funny story.

So there was a brand that had an energy drink, and they wanted to do a pop-up.

Well, I told them about the idea of a pop-up because I did one for Jake Paul.

Like a meetup where everyone goes to one place.

And so this brand was like, oh, I want to do a pop-up.

We have a hundred grand budget.

It was like 8 p.m.

when the contract was signed.

And they didn't wire yet because it's 8 p.m.

So I'm not going to get the wire until the next day.

But they wanted the pop-up to happen at 8 in the morning the next day.

So I ran over to 600 Vine.

And I think you were part of it too.

But I went and got Amanda Cerni, Jake, and a bunch of the influencers.

And I was like, literally like knocking on doors.

Let's go.

Who's going to jump in on this?

We got to pop up.

We're going to pop up.

And so.

I remember like some of these influencers were posting like 10.24 p.m.

I'm like, oh my God.

For an 8 a.m.

meetup meetup at like a parking lot by LAX.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh shoot.

Come meet us here.

We're giving out the U-Wheels hoverboards as a prizes.

Oh the U-Wheels.

What a throwback.

This sounds like 2015, 2016.

Exactly what it was.

And listen, 2,600 kids showed up.

Wow.

Insane.

With no notice, like 10 hours notice to a parking lot in the middle of the freaking random space.

What a time.

And

That brand was like static.

Of course.

Like what the hell just happened?

Police are showing up.

Like, what is going on here?

We're at a freaking like a motel parking lot with 2,600 kids.

But it shows you the power.

And I did the same meetup for Manny Pacquiao for his movie release many years ago for his documentary.

It was Hollywood Highland Mall.

Next door, Manchinese Theater was his movie that night.

So in the daytime, I just had a bunch of influencers.

Anna Cherie, Ariani Celeste.

That's right.

All the girls that were part of either fighting or UFC or hosting in the sports world.

I was like, hey, post everyone for them to come meet you tomorrow.

But it's actually from Manny Pacquiao.

And so we, same thing, we had like 2,000 plus people show up.

Many Pacquiao's like, everyone's here.

Same for me.

I want to see Anna.

Where's Anna?

She was there.

That's great.

And,

but same thing, 100K budget, bada bing, bada boom.

Wow, 2015, that's so early on.

That was before, I think it was even called the creator economy.

For sure.

What's it called?

It was just like, yeah, it was nothing.

What do you mean?

No one knew anything.

So what gave you the foresight to kind of like get into that world?

Because you started like you already knew what you you were doing, but what did you teach yourself or what?

So I started the agency in 2011.

Oh, wow.

And just doing tweets.

I was paying Chloe Kardashian for tweets.

I was paying Tiger for tweets, right?

Like Scott Disick for tweets.

But there'd be random numbers too, like five grand, 25 grand, 10 grand.

We just made it up.

Yeah.

Brand was happy.

They were happy, but they'd get like 2 million views on a tweet because it was no one else.

There was no influencers.

And so I started investing in some of the companies that were the brands coming to me.

Okay, cool.

And I realized that, wait, I just threw in 25 grand or 100 grand, 50 grand investment into this company.

I should make them more famous to help protect my investment or increase my investment.

That's how I blow them up.

And then I went to the brands and I was like, hey, I'm going to get you some of these influencers.

Give me some of the money to pay them.

I then paid them.

They got way more sales, but a bing, bada boom.

And so I was like, wait a minute.

What if I do that for brands I'm not a part of?

And so I went to other brands and said, give me money.

The influencers, who weren't called influencers back then, these celebrities, were telling all these other people so Amber Rose shows up to my office and I made her you can still see the picture

you can still see the picture on my Instagram I made her a flower bouquet of 20,000 in cash let's go I made the I made the cash in the flowers like my what's your favorite type of rose that damn flashman bouquet

and we did a fashion nova for her we did fit tea for her

and uh and then guess what she tells her friend black china Black China tells her baby daddy Tyga taiga then tells this like it's just like the squad starts telling people yeah starts telling people and all of a sudden i'm the plug and so that's what happened everyone just came to me for because i was running budgets for these brands in this wild wild west so then i went to u wheels and just basically bought the majority of the company

because i was like well if i make them famous and like you know and then we did six million dollars in sales in two months fire just handing out boards hoverboards That was that was when they were hot.

Oh my God.

That video Jake Paul made was crazy.

Like we got tens of millions of views.

Insane.

Those things were hot.

And then they banned them on airplanes and it was like that all night.

Yeah, we had like freaking Lil Wayne, Chloe Kardashman, everyone posting these things for hoverboard.

People I would have paid 25 grand, 50 grand for posts were doing it for hoverboard.

I just bought one of those hoverboards.

Literally.

It's hilarious.

But yeah, that's how it started.

I was basically going to these companies that were, you know, wanting to spend money with influencers.

The influencers were coming to me because they heard.

Again, there wasn't that many influencers back then.

Right.

And then as they would post, their followers would hit them up like, hey, who paid you?

Or how'd that brand happen?

And then I started posting with Kylie and Kim a lot.

And that led to a lot because that's when they were first becoming Kylie and Kim.

And then I felt like I had to do everything.

I was driving to everyone's houses.

I wrote every caption.

Hilarious.

I would copy and paste it.

I'm like, hey, Kim, post this.

It's like this.

That's great.

So anyways, fast forward

a decade later.

And influencer marketing is now a whole different world because now there's algorithms.

Algorithm wasn't a thing back then.

It wasn't a thing.

There was an algorithm of course, but it was in real time.

If we were at a baseball game, we would see that we were both at the baseball game.

Right, right.

Because it was in real time.

Now, I might see your post at the baseball game two days later.

That's true.

And it'll show up like you're at the baseball game.

No, he's at the baseball game two days ago.

Yeah.

And also, I feel like I never really see any of my friends that I'm following their stuff anymore.

I'm just every day, I'm just discovering new things based on what the algorithm thinks that I want.

The problem with the algorithm is that they got too smart for their own good.

They don't realize that you're not going to like and comment on these four hot girls pages or this or Dan Bilzerian's page or this page or that page because why would you like or comment on it?

They're not going to see it and you may not want it to show up in your feed.

But you do want to see Bilzerian's fun posts or you do want to see all these hot girls, but you do like your nephew's post, who's 14 years old.

Exactly.

It's not actually the algorithm that you want.

True.

You don't want to see a bunch of other 14-year-old guys because you're just doing it for your nephew.

True.

Obviously.

And so the algorithm is interesting because it thinks that it knows based on your likes and comments, which is not true.

It's not true.

Because that is a skewed demographic, that is a skewed algorithm based on what we are liking and commenting on, either because publicly we want people to see that or privately we don't want them to see that.

Right.

It's not going to get changed.

It's not going to get changed.

Because you think about it, Instagram is making a billion every three weeks.

At least.

So

why would they change it?

If they ain't broke, don't fix it.

And they definitely ain't broke.

Do you think there's space for another competitor to come in?

So

what people don't realize is actually over 260 social media platforms.

Insane.

But you only hear five of them.

Exactly.

You can only name six of them.

And so there are platforms that come and go, and there are platforms that had that chance.

But you cannot beat meta.

Yeah.

Any platform that has any actual fighting chance, Zuckerberg will buy them or crush them.

Exactly.

And if you think about it, over the last 15 years, name them.

YouTube was already there.

Yeah.

Threads is owned by Zuckerberg.

Yeah.

Instagram is owned by Zuckerberg.

So Facebook is owned by Zuckerberg.

So three of the six are owned by one guy.

One, you know, a public company, but you know what I mean?

You know what I mean?

One guy.

Right.

Umbrella.

Twitter was always around

way before, and it's not really like, it's different.

It's different, right?

It's more like a news feed.

It's not the same kind of thing.

I don't think Twitter's going anywhere either, yeah.

They'll never go anywhere, yeah.

And that is like a real-time news feed.

And a lot of times people go there, but they don't even think of it in the same way as a social media platform.

And there's not that much photo and video there compared to the other platforms.

And so if you really break it down, there's only one platform that made it, which is TikTok.

Yeah.

And the reason is it was a pre-existing platform.

Musically.

Right?

Musically was already crushing.

Musically, Zuckerberg couldn't fight with musically because it was such a niche thing.

It's little girls dancing and singing.

Yeah, what are you going to do?

And they probably had something with the music licensing down that, you know, at the time, Instagram didn't have.

So then you have Vine going away at the same exact time Musicly is taking off and a multi-gazillion dollar company from Asia that doesn't care about Zuckerberg comes in and acquires it.

Right.

And they make it called Tiki Talk.

And all of a sudden, Tiki Talk is...

I remember when TikTok first came out, they paid me to promote it.

Right.

At a TikTok deal.

They were like, here's thousands of dollars.

Post across and this is your TikTok brand deal.

There's no way TikTok would pay me to promote TikTok now, right?

No.

But that's what they did.

They really invested in that.

They had a real budget.

Yeah, they crushed it.

Their initial budget just in LA.

I met with them.

It was $25 million.

Just to

spread the word.

And they didn't really care about...

When you sprinkle in $25 million, it's a good level.

I don't know what they ultimately spent all over the place, but I remember the $25 million budget because I saw the emails.

Those meetings were interesting.

interesting yeah and I got to spend some of the money to pay influencers to just post about TikTok just post TikTok but here's the other thing

it had a magical storm right the perfect storm is a zillion dollar company buys them it already has a user base

but most importantly their algorithm was to promote you

a lot of influencers or a lot of people or a lot of 20 year olds would randomly just get 2 million views.

Insane.

I remember a video where this girl, I filmed it on my phone.

She put out her hand, put it down, put out her hand again, and it touched the wall.

That video got 1.8 million views.

I remember back in the day when this was happening.

I just like, I went up to a typewriter and then just captioned it, you know, texting back in the 1700s or whatever.

I was just typing, and then it just had like 5 million views.

It was terrible, but I knew it was going to go viral before I did because this is what it was back in the day.

I remember I had a meeting with a couple of my friends, you know, some of the OGs, like Wampa, who's got, I don't know, 50, 60 million followers now, and a couple of of the other friends, and they're like, they got together, like, okay, boys,

realistically,

it's the wild, wild west of TikTok right now.

We've got about six months to grow on TikTok before it's flooded with everyone, because everyone's really going viral.

So go hard for the next at least six months, and you're going to see it.

And then I think within that time, I maybe gained 2 million followers on TikTok because it was just every day I grind, post this, post this, do this, do this music thing.

And then,

and that was that was that so

I mean I can talk about social media for days and days

It's fascinating to watch influencers now

Just expect you know, they've got 80,000 followers and they just are charging these crazy rates right they don't realize

How their algorithm works, how many views they're actually getting how many clicks they're actually getting Who's listening who's watching who their demographics are They're just picking a number because they read about it in a news article like oh if you have 80,000 followers You should charge this many thousands of dollars right

none of that's realistic for a brand

and too often Influencers are not realizing that you need to nurture your following to make them feel comfortable and trust in you to buy from you.

Yeah, it's true.

There's they might love you because you make really good makeup content But then all of a sudden you post about a supplement company like I don't know what

exactly.

So true.

Unless you tell them, hey, you're going on a fitness journey or health journey, like, hey, I've been losing 12 pounds and I took the supplement, then they'll believe in you.

Right.

But if you're just like 118 pounds, pretty girl, and you're like, hey, I take the supplement, but do you?

Yeah, really.

I don't think you do.

Because you got that Ozepic face.

I don't know if that's the same supplement you're talking about.

So like the authenticity and the nurturing, the things that people are missing on the influencer game, because so many people want to be an influencer.

It's not just about the vanity metrics.

It's not the vanity metrics.

Your social media following is not the same as compared to your conversion rate.

And also don't get so beat up when you compare yourself to other people with 10 million followers, 15, 20, 60 million followers, whatever it is.

They've been doing it for 11 years.

They've been doing it for 11 years.

You can't compare your chapter one or two to someone else's chapter 45, right?

Everyone's on their own race, their own path, their own journey.

But also, don't get so beat up about a number because it's mattering less and less, like you're saying with the algorithm.

Just

I get asked for microfonsers more than anything.

Yeah, exactly, because they're probably a little bit more niche and also more believable as well.

Because most people know if you've got millions and millions of followers, you're probably getting paid money.

You really promote a lot, as you should.

But, you know, I would just say if you want to be an influencer, just start.

Do it.

And don't think so much about the money.

Think about the consistency, like you said.

So let's talk about the charity side.

You know, you've been a big supporter with us, with the Trina's Kids Foundation for the toy drives, Thanksgiving food drives, back-to-school drives.

You've been one of the few to show up over and over and over and over.

Why is charity important to you and why should other influencers consider being involved in charity?

Yeah, I think, you know, I try and show up or share the kind of things that you guys are doing.

It's actually one of my missions to spend more time on charity.

I think that, you know, something that impacted my life still to this day is I donated just some time

at an elderly home.

And I'm just going around talking to old people that can barely walk and just about their heyday and their time.

And I could see their eyes light up.

You're not even giving money to people.

You're just giving them time.

And so, if you don't have money to give, you're not in a surplus right now, but you feel like you want to give back something, just give your time to some of these people.

I really recommend it.

That's something that really changed my life.

And I'm looking to do more on the charity space.

I think it's important to give back

because,

one,

in a selfish way, maybe also it makes you feel good.

You know, it's nice to give.

It's nice to make other people feel good, and especially when people are maybe less fortunate than you.

that's one of my goals actually to donate more all around to charity.

So where can people find you on social media?

Where can they check out Sweatsonic?

Walk us through all those things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, all my social media is at Spence and all the company as social media is at Sweatsonic.

Pretty simple.

And if you want to check out sweatsonic.com, I really implore you to give it a shot, especially if you've been struggling with motivating yourself when it comes to your fitness journey.

Our goal with Sweatsonic is to really help people stay consistent.

That's what the whole entire platform is designed around.

We crafted the experience to help people stay consistent with their fitness journey and motivate each other more than ever.

So that's what it does for me.

It saves me every single day in the gym.

So as you guys know, the Money Mondays is created for you to have these discussions with your friends, family, and followers about money.

We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

I think that's nonsense.

We have to have discussion about it.

We've got to talk about loans, finances, taxes, debt, situations, credit cards, salary.

These are all real-life things that are part of your daily life and are very important to how you move, how you maneuver.

And it really compounds over time if you're making bad decisions about debt, credit cards, loans, etc., by not asking questions, by not listening, not learning, not researching on Google, Chat GPT, etc.

So, have discussion with your friends, family, and followers.

Check us out on themoneymondays.com, and we'll see you guys next Monday.