Ted Dhanik Shares His MOST Valuable Money Lessons 📈 E96

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays.

Speaker 1 We are here inside of an RV motorhome parked in Beverly Hills, California, nearby where our next guest lives and has built multiple companies out here.

Speaker 1 As you guys know, these podcasts run for under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes and the average commute to work is 45 minutes.

Speaker 1 So this episode will be between 34 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. Why do I say that? Because we have a 93% listen-through rate.

Speaker 1 I think our guest likes that because he loves math statistics. He is very data analytical as he's built some of the most impressive companies on the data side and the paid media side, et cetera.
So

Speaker 1 we cover three core topics here. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity.

Speaker 1 And with these topics and with these podcasts, what's really, truly important is for you listening at home to have these discussions about money with your friends, family, and followers.

Speaker 1 We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

Speaker 1 I think think it's rude not to talk about it because people need to understand taxes and credit scores and loans and leases and rent and just actually understanding why they're getting a salary, how much they should budget, etc.

Speaker 1 And we thought it was rude to talk about it our whole lives. And so we're trying to change the narrative.

Speaker 1 And that's why this podcast has stayed in the top five for over 84 weeks in a row because of you guys finally having these discussions. So without further ado, I'm going to give it up for Mr.

Speaker 1 Ted Danik. And what I'd love for you to do is give a quick two-minute bio so we can get straight to the money.

Speaker 2 Two minutes and we have like 34 minutes, 34.5 minutes left to go. You know, let's go.
There's no pressure here.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Dan. Dan's been doing this to me for a long time, many, many years.
We've worked together for like, I don't know, like 15 years now or maybe something like that. It's been a long time.

Speaker 2 Anyways, so yeah, so I started my career in the mid-90s in the Silicon Valley. Worked for a lot of companies back then.
They were called the dot-com boom.

Speaker 2 Some went boom, some went burst, and some did well and some didn't.

Speaker 2 And so ended up in some good ones and then moved to LA and ended up in some really good ones was one of the early original guys that company got lower my bills sold it to xparian did really well interesting company because it was the largest lead gen company or um creator of uh developer of leads for the mortgage business or personal finance um in the world at the time sold to experian they thought it was a really interesting business shortly after it jumped on myspace at its uh early days and stayed on till about 2008 2009 i wanted to solve a problem that MySpace faced.

Speaker 2 It had about 7 billion ads a day.

Speaker 2 They're going undermonetized. So I built a company, an ad tech company to service that, just MySpace.

Speaker 2 And then within six months, we're servicing the top 50 publishers on the web from CNN to dictionary.com, reference.com, etc.

Speaker 2 And then took that company public in 2017 in an IPO, ran it until about two years ago, sold it, merged into something else. And then I've just been out of tech for two years.

Speaker 2 So, you know, I got non-tech businesses.

Speaker 2 Not so elegant, but, you know, I don't have have the itch yet, but I will.

Speaker 2 When I get the itch to enter tech, it'll be somewhere that's not super consolidated, not saturated, somewhere there's, you know, it's kind of wide open. So that's who I am.

Speaker 1 So along the journey, when you're talking about companies like Lower My Bills, MySpace, recruiting was a big thing.

Speaker 1 How do you inspire people to want to come work with you at a company like that, especially startup companies?

Speaker 2 Yeah, so at the time, you know, it was interesting because MySpace didn't really have to attract talent the way that Lower My Bills and some of the other startup companies that I worked for did.

Speaker 2 I mean, they'd have all kinds of really interesting gimmicks like somebody's coming to massage. It was kind of like a poker game, right?

Speaker 2 They didn't look like the masseuses in the poker game, though, I'll guarantee you that. But they were, you know, they had things like that.
They had a massage room.

Speaker 2 They had like these really cool, like, you know, weird things, you know, and we cater lunches every day and we had really great benefits and all that stuff. And that was interesting there.

Speaker 2 And then I was like, lower my bills. And then on the other side were for MySpace, it's like MySpace blew up really fast.
So people just really wanted to be part of a rocket ship, you know.

Speaker 2 So you could be a rocket ship and people are attracted to your energy because you're crushing and people always want to be part of something that's crushing.

Speaker 2 Or you could be part of a company that's, you know, got a lot of perks and a lot of really, really interesting things. You can attract employees that way.
I always feel that, you know,

Speaker 2 the CEO and the executive team should be able to illustrate the core values of the business and the mission really well. And that can attract the right people.

Speaker 2 Initially, we have a lot, you know, we always had really pretty deep interviewing um strategies so we did like seven interviews for a lot of candidates and um you know that we'd find the right people we use craigslist a lot you know back in the days and you know there are a lot of recruiters that you'd hire we hire recruiters in-house we generally would would hire recruiters in-house and that would be the best way to attract talent but typically we'd go after competitors and people that work for competitors that have you know um a track record or people that have existing experience in the same industry because we really don't want to pave roads again and teach people the whole you know the whole framework of the business because we we wanted to run fast right and when you want to run fast you want to hire somebody that knows what you do already

Speaker 1 so with both those companies they both eventually had exits how do you know when a company it's time to pass it on to either a private equity group a venture capital firm a competitor like how do you know when it's time to make that sale Well, you know, there's two states of mind.

Speaker 2 Like one, one, one person will say, and I've talked to a lot of CEOs because I'm in these really awesome masterminds that you created. And I keynote at some of those.
So it's really exciting.

Speaker 2 So I met, you know, we were mentoring these seven-figure and eight-figure company CEOs for years. And, you know, they would ask the same question.
When is it time?

Speaker 2 A lot of times people say, you know, when you hit this apex or when you hit this wall of revenue and you need more financing or something, instead of raising finance, you could sell the company.

Speaker 2 That's one. But I like the other side.

Speaker 2 When you are in rocket ship mode and when you're growing as fast as or faster than you ever have, I think that's a good time to consider a sale because you're adding a lot of value to someone by giving them a rocket ship instead of giving them something that's potentially going to become stale over time

Speaker 1 So as you go from this, you know lower my bills to myspace Why decide to you know what I'm gonna instead of being an executive at this huge company decide to become an entrepreneur I'm gonna start up this business to help facilitate for myspace You know, it's a natural progression.

Speaker 2 I didn't anticipate doing that for, you know, it wasn't my like mission in life. It was really, I saw an opportunity and I had the experience and background.

Speaker 2 I built self-serve kiosks and monetization solutions. I was head of business development and revenue at Lower My Bills.

Speaker 2 So I did that stuff there and I did it really well and I monetized well and it drove it to, you know, over a million dollars a day in revenue.

Speaker 2 And then at MySpace, towards the end, I was tasked with something similar. We had seven billion ads a day and we needed to build a self-serve platform.

Speaker 2 It was called My Ads and I had a lot of input on that as well.

Speaker 2 So from that standpoint, I saw, I, you know, I i saw the opportunity and i said you know there's another way to monetize this better and i know how to do it so i'm going to leave and i'm going to start this business um you know we i didn't voluntarily leave we got left you know at the end of that you know because our the contracts expired in 2008 and it was time to go you know at my space you know we had a run and now rupert murdoch's you know continue destroying the business and he did and then so we you know we started you know we started doing whatever we all needed to do a lot of us retired but i you know i I said, there is a huge opportunity here.

Speaker 2 I have the experience. Let's build a business out of it.
And that's what I did. And within 60 to 90 days of starting the business, we started to crush.
So it was a good opportunity.

Speaker 2 And then from there, I learned a lot too.

Speaker 2 I always look for places where I have some intelligence, when I have some experience, and I can see an entry point. I can add some value here.

Speaker 2 My whole mantra in life is about adding as much value as I can to every customer, client, relationship, partnership, friendship, you know, whatever it is, as much value as you can add without expecting a lot in return.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't look at it like, hey, what can I do to make a bunch of money? What can I do to add a bunch of value? And where I could add value, you know, eventually I'll become valuable, right?

Speaker 2 That's the, that's really the key. That's why I've been able to win so much.

Speaker 1 So these companies have exited and you start to build some personal wealth. How do you decide what the heck to invest into?

Speaker 2 You could do stock stock market real estate some cryptocurrency etc I remember you were doing some really cool houses and you were remodeling some houses like how do you decide what to invest into once you start building some capital so you look at your business right so if you have a you start generating revenue you start generating business for yourself or some sort of asset you know like a some some personal net worth and and you start looking at opportunities and I get this all the time like where should I put my money yeah crypto altcoins like real estate Like, what should it be?

Speaker 2 Well, you start looking at the returns. Now, like, I, I, you know, we've, we've been in crypto.
We've, you know, we've done that.

Speaker 2 I've been in crypto since 2014 or 13, and I bought a lot of stuff then and never sold any of it. So it just kind of sits there.
I never looked at it as a revenue stream.

Speaker 2 Now, the investment side, you got three things, right? Yeah. One, you got to generate revenue for yourself or generate income.
Second, you got to save. And third, you have to invest it, right?

Speaker 2 So, and that's really, it really is that the investing side should not be something that you depend on

Speaker 2 in terms of income. It has to be something that if you lose your fund, if you generate income from that, it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 Now, the rate of return, I weigh everything to looking at like Bitcoin and looking at real estate investments and

Speaker 2 other opportunities, even my own.

Speaker 2 I could go out and raise money for my business or I could take my own cash and turn it. And what kind of return do I get from

Speaker 2 my own business? What kind of returns am I getting? So for the last few years,

Speaker 2 my personal businesses have been returning me much more cash than anywhere I can put it. So I've been just investing in my own business, you know, from that standpoint.

Speaker 2 Now, you should diversify for sure. I have a real estate portfolio.

Speaker 2 It does well, but it's not typical. It's not what most people have in terms of real estate.
They're not leasing out their property. They're leasing out their properties for long term.

Speaker 2 I do the exact opposite. I run my real estate portfolio like a hotel.

Speaker 2 We rent them out every single night, short-term rentals, and I return a lot more profit and revenue that way.

Speaker 2 It's just been a better business for me from that standpoint. So, you know, it's a bit different for everyone, but I look at it very differently.

Speaker 1 So what about investing into yourself, into your health, into your mind? What about that part of it?

Speaker 2 So we have coaches for everything, you know, and it's kind of funny because people are always hiring us to coach them into something and some sort of consulting. And we have the experience.

Speaker 2 So why not, right? We've done some things and we've been successful at it.

Speaker 2 so we are qualified to be a consultant right or or you know a coach of some sort right so it's fantastic now who got me to where i am today a bunch of different coaches and mentors and people that have been really successful at what they've done i have a book it's called winning by osmosis and it literally talks about how you should be aligned with people that are bigger than you and very very specifically aligned with people that are better than you at the exact things that you want to be good at now you and i have been doing this religiously forever we literally align ourselves with i want to be really good at short-term rentals so i'm going to go find the guys who are crushing it and i'm going to try to add some value in their lives and align myselves with them now whether it is some sort of a exchange and i'm mentoring them in something they're mentoring me in something or i'm paying them for their time to coach me you know it is critical that is i would say

Speaker 2 you need to we we spend a lot of money on coaching ourselves you know a lot of mentoring and coaching, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 Our time is money, whether I'm contributing my time to add value to somebody's life so they can teach me the game, or I'm literally paying them.

Speaker 2 But I would tell you that that is the fastest way to get in any game.

Speaker 2 And win. The end-win part is the most important part.

Speaker 1 So as you're building up your business, you had the decision to decide to go public and also kind of like a roll-up and pick up some other companies along the way. Why go public?

Speaker 1 What is the benefit of going public?

Speaker 2 Sure. So this is funny that Dan asks me this because he's the youngest guy to take a company public in history.
And he told me not to do it a long time ago, but I did not listen to him.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if I should have listened to him at this point, but I will tell you one thing. I'm going to do it again because we have this unique talent.
And not a lot of people do.

Speaker 2 Taking company public, going through the fire, walking through coals. It's like not Tony Robbins coals.
The coals are actually on fire. You're walking through that.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, you're somehow you feel accomplished, even though you get beat up every single day.

Speaker 2 You feel really accomplished because it's really hard to do But you do gain this thing called accountability Which is like unparalleled No one has the kind of accountability that we do because of star mains oxygen and socks compliance and all this other stuff and auditing and everything else So it's really interesting, but to answer your question, yes, I would do it again, but I decided to do that because there's a gentleman

Speaker 2 who taught me the game. He taught me how to acquire companies without without any capital, without any cash at all, selling a dream.
And he had the biggest biggest dry cleaning operation in history.

Speaker 2 It was called US Dry Cleaning. He did a big roll up and then eventually did dry cleaning.
I mean, then eventually did

Speaker 2 grilled cheese truck.

Speaker 1 You know, yeah.

Speaker 2 So anyway, so he needed some value from me. So he wanted me to help him market Grilled Cheese Truck.
And so he came to us as a client and I learned everything from him.

Speaker 2 And he taught me how to sell a dream.

Speaker 2 And basically what it was was, Basically, I was acquiring companies that are, you know, sorry, LA Times article about this many years ago, but I acquired, I rolled up $100 million worth of tech companies for zero cash.

Speaker 2 And I did it with selling a dream. So I went to these companies, these startups and a variety of different companies and basically said, hey, we're looking to go public.

Speaker 2 We're going to roll this whole thing up and all of us are going to share the upside in a public exit.

Speaker 2 And it worked and it did really well. So without me being able to go public, selling the dream to acquire anything

Speaker 2 that was private was kind of impossible because they don't have the ability to liquidate their shares whenever they want to right so there is a purpose for that and a world for that a lot of times people prefer to stay private There's some really huge businesses that are private that'll never go public which you know at that you know They'll be a right fit for that too But yeah, we ended up going public and I learned a lot got my ass kicked a bit, you know And then we won and then you know lots of things, you know, it was pretty crazy, but I did learn One thing that was really great was when you're public, you can raise money in 24 hours, which is you can't really do that in a private business when the markets are weird.

Speaker 2 Whether markets are weird or not, if you're trading and you have a share price and you have some volume, you can

Speaker 2 issue shares at a small discount to a broker and you can raise as much money as you want overnight, you know, which is kind of crazy. And you can have an ATM machine.

Speaker 2 It's on the at-the-market facility and you can literally issue yourself shares and liquidate them on market, which is really crazy.

Speaker 2 To go public, it's a lot of work. I know how to do it.
You can reach out to me. You can hire me.
I'll teach you how to do it.

Speaker 2 And there's lots of alternative markets too, like Australia, Canada, Frankfurt. All those markets are great.
And then you could graduate pretty quickly within three to six months to the NASDAQ.

Speaker 2 That's also very easy, too, instead of filing an S1 here to go public here. But yeah, I mean, it's great.
I mean, I think that a lot of companies that are going public would not be able to survive.

Speaker 2 They're going public because they're trying to survive. They're going public because they are almost dead.
That's what happens a lot of times. And so it is a

Speaker 1 It's a it's a way for companies to survive through a bunch of painful times So as you were scaling the tech company one of the biggest focuses was on paid media You know eyeballs click-through rates getting impressions Serving people across the top 500 websites in the world.

Speaker 1 Why should brands invest in marketing through that format of let's call it the top 500 sites Why should they be buying ads there?

Speaker 2 So that's a great question and that was part of of my pitch too because you know everyone's buying media on social media right so you have social media and you have saturation you have bad days and a lot of people have a lot of bad days and so it's kind of like my you know my CPMs are really high my click-through rates are really low and conversion rates are really messed up and I can't spend a lot These are all typical conversations with the buyers that are buying social, right?

Speaker 2 So buying Facebook and Instagram and even TikTok and, you know, other platforms. It's, they have this like, it's variability and inconsistency and things like that.

Speaker 2 But hey back that's just one world, right? That's one world. How about this whole other world, right, that exists? The apps, right?

Speaker 2 There's so many, there are millions and millions of apps that are great places to buy media, like ads and you know, and a variety of different types of placements.

Speaker 2 Also, websites, crushing still, web still crushing. You could buy, you know, you have a diet, you know, you have like supplement products and diet products and whatever you have, skincare.

Speaker 2 You could buy literally on the exact type of sites that you're marketing, you know, the kind of products you have.

Speaker 2 Websites like webmd and like so many other places right there's so many sites and I would say that that really diversifies your revenue stream because you're not relying on the walled garden which is Facebook and the other places right now relying on them you could distribute your your spend across you know 50 different places if five of them go down who cares you know it's not going to really affect your revenue as much so it's for whenever you have a distributed revenue model meaning your revenue is coming from a lot more than you know 10 15 different places meaning the ideal ideal situation is never have a client or a revenue stream or a marketing source that's generating more than 10% of your revenue, right?

Speaker 2 And if you do, then you're going to wake up fucked one day and you'll be like, fuck, I lost half my revenue. It's like, dude, this is common business sense.

Speaker 2 All these guys that end up like, you know, building businesses and stuff and skipping college and skipping business school and all this other stuff, you get really lucky and it's really great.

Speaker 2 But fundamentally, business school will teach you that you never, you never live in a moment where your revenue stream is distributed, you know, anywhere more than 10%.

Speaker 2 You're fucked.

Speaker 1 So for these large companies like household name brands, why is it important for them to still be marketing when you're McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Netflix?

Speaker 1 Like, why should they still be spending money on ads?

Speaker 2 Relevance, right? So we like stuff that's relevant to the culture. I think there's a lot of products that are consumed every day and it's not like a one-time purchase, right?

Speaker 2 You're going to drink Coca-Cola every day. You're going to drink, you know, like whatever it is.
Ollipop is on fire right now, right?

Speaker 2 Not only is Ollipop great, not bad for you, like Coca-Cola and all the other things, but they know how to market. They're marketing in all the right places, right?

Speaker 2 They're reaching the demographics that care about that stuff, you know? So how do you market, how do you like differentiate an olipop from a Coca-Cola?

Speaker 2 What if Ollipop started marketing in all the places that Coca-Cola was?

Speaker 2 Those people would not care really so much because people that are drinking Coca-Cola, I guarantee they don't give a fuck about their health. You know, they don't really care as much.

Speaker 2 Drinking Coca-Cola, sorry, I didn't mean that. But anyways, but what I mean is, Ollipop has a very specific demographic.
It's people that care about health, wellness, fitness, right?

Speaker 2 And maybe even spirituality. Those are the places that they're going to market and it makes a lot of sense, you know, from that standpoint.

Speaker 2 So they have to continue to market because you got to stay relevant. You got to spend the money.

Speaker 2 And if you could figure out how to track your revenue based on your marketing spend, then you can scale those marketing streams and you continuously have marketing pay for itself.

Speaker 2 But tracking is really key.

Speaker 2 So we're not talking about about direct response marketing or ads or any of that stuff that click through to a landing page, you can buy, but you can do demographic, you know, reasonably on a reasonable level.

Speaker 2 You can put up billboards and TV and like whatever else you're doing in a specific region and understand, hey, we're spending X number of dollars in this region.

Speaker 2 This region is generating X number of dollars in revenue. If you basically understand that from that standpoint, then you can even mark, you can market anything.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 1 why do you think that corporations, these brands, should have a charity component to them?

Speaker 2 I think it's a huge thing. You know, from the standpoint of

Speaker 2 a moral perspective, I think that giving back is really key. And I think that people, the way people perceive it is really important.

Speaker 2 But I think the biggest part of this whole thing, and I'm sure Daniel will agree with me, is that understanding, like the tracking of the marketing dollars,

Speaker 2 we need to understand where these charities are deploying the dollars or how they're spending them and how much of every dollar is going towards the good versus the management you know what i'm saying so all that stuff is really key and i think a lot of us are scared of of um philan philanthropy because we just don't know where the money is going and it's very hard to understand that wait there's a dollar here and at the end of it we hear stories like we end up with like 10 cents you know like towards the cause and the rest of it is just all like managing and marketing and stuff like so if we could get a better understanding of that i think it'll make a big difference and i think the brands spending money or contributing money to these causes and they educate us saying that hey but it's like 80 of the every dollar is going to go towards the good you know then it's like oh great awesome that makes a lot more sense

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 1 You've been on the health kick, you've been very focused on it over the years, and now you're getting more and more deeply integrated. So let's say it takes another hundred years before you pass away.

Speaker 1 You're 140, 150, 160, 180 years old one day with your bionic arms and you're surviving on.

Speaker 1 but along the path you take seven more companies public and you accumulate billions of dollars how do you determine how to split up that empire that you build cash-wise

Speaker 2 you know it's an interesting uh question and because i'm not the you know the living beyond you know the the years thing because i see that eventually happening anyways i mean they're doing with cats right looking a cat can live to like 35 soon with this injection you know it's really it's it's kidney related it's all only a matter of time before they figure out we'll be in like 125s and you know before our lifetime's over whatever it is i'm not sure if that's a good thing or not you know but um but i think that you know from the standpoint of like dividing up your you know your empire or your legacy at the end of it i i really i i don't really have a lot to say about that because i think that um you know Once you identify, it's kind of like going back to the last question.

Speaker 2 Once you identify where the best places are for, you know, like the best, the, you know the most efficient

Speaker 2 you know efficient places to put the money you know as far as like the most good will be contributed 80 85 of every dollar is you know is actually activated you know that kind of thing then you can figure that out but i think that from a legacy standpoint it depends on everyone's you know family structure and who's left and and all that stuff but i you know from my standpoint i've done a lot of really interesting things you know about

Speaker 2 you know asset i don't know if you want to call call it

Speaker 2 you know visibility or you know protection and stuff like that but a lot of it has to do with it but and you can you can be charitable causes yourself you know and and from that standpoint and structures and I own nothing myself and everything's in Cook Islands and and another

Speaker 2 Nevis Corp and stuff like that you know so you know there's there's there's ways to to make it a lot more

Speaker 2 simpler and dealing with the taxes a lot more easier too if you keep the assets out of the country if they're in another another country that is you know that is kind of shielded so

Speaker 1 so last question we're going into a very tumultuous time for people's brains the media is bombarding people with both sides of the political situation wars overseas there's a lot of picking and choosing sides and people are in this crazy mental state a lot of times I've watched you at peace and calm in the chaos while there's a lot of noise and the world going around you.

Speaker 1 What could you say to people to stay calm in the chaos that's approaching to us at the end of 2024?

Speaker 2 This is an easy one for me. Yes, I'm very peaceful.
I'm probably one of the calmest people you'll meet. And I think a lot of it has to do with

Speaker 2 control, right? How much control do we personally have over a lot of stuff that's going on? Like, I'll even give you another example, which is really close to home. It's like, hey, I'm not...

Speaker 2 I'm not a liberal, okay? And I'm not really, I'm not a Trump fanatic either. I'm like somewhere in the middle, right? Somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 2 It's a thing that we can't control in California, california unfortunately it's it's really weird i mean i am i saying don't go out and vote i'm not saying that i'm just saying that just be prepared for the outcome because california is a liberal state you know it's a blue state so it's kind of crazy things like what's going on in palestine what's going on in israel what's all that stuff what's going on in in ukraine still by the way what's happening in russia and ukraine and all these other places hey by the way i was at every demonstration here in la you saw me with the flags of the ukraine when the ukraine war started i was in ukraine one week before the war started And then the war happened and it's very close to home for me because I have a pretty big team in Ukraine.

Speaker 2 I bought a company in 2015 in Ukraine. And so these people are, you know, they're, you know, they're great.
They're like family to me, you know, so I'm, I have a very close tie to Ukraine.

Speaker 2 But, you know, there's demonstrations and I went to all of them and, you know, we're like all about it and pushing it all on social media. And nothing changed, right?

Speaker 2 I'm not like saying that don't do anything and don't voice your opinions.

Speaker 2 And I'm not saying that I'm just saying that voicing your opinions and creating conflict and tension between friends and local, you know, neighborhoods and like communities is not the way to go because we do not have any fucking control over any of this at all.

Speaker 2 Us demonstrating here all over LA for Ukraine for like months.

Speaker 2 Not once did Putin say, damn, there's Teds over there in Beverly Hills. You know what?

Speaker 2 I gotta stop. This is embarrassing.

Speaker 2 Ted is judging me over there, you know, and his friends, those guys, they're, they're, you know, I got to stop. I got to stop, you know? He didn't do that once.
He didn't even know who I am.

Speaker 2 You know, like I was doing all that shit. He didn't give a fuck.
So he didn't, it didn't affect the war in Ukraine at all. Okay.

Speaker 2 What's going on? We're Palestine and Israel. I'm going to talk about something really, really controversial here.
There's a there's a cafe here called Moros Cafe.

Speaker 2 Behind Fred Siegel used to be Fred Siegel on Melrose. Great place.
Love the food.

Speaker 2 I still go there Nobody goes there anymore because there was a lot of Israeli demonstrators, a lot of stuff going on over there because they got really upset that the owner was demonstrating in front of a place of worship, in front of a Jewish temple on a Sunday.

Speaker 2 Okay?

Speaker 2 Jews practice or they, you know, they worship on a Saturday. Not on a Sunday.
What was happening there on a Sunday was an auction for land in the settlements in the Gaza, right?

Speaker 2 Which is an illegal auction, by the way. And she was protesting that illegal auction.
And they got videos of her,

Speaker 2 you know, protesting in front of a synagogue, right?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 those videos went viral. They went all over the internet.
And they came over there, death threats for her. And they're protesting there and like all this crazy, crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, they're threatening to kill her. They're threatening to kill her employees.
They, you know, they boycotted the restaurant. They did all this crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 And, you know, people were not going to the restaurant anymore. I mean, I still fucking go there.
Food's great. You know, I will continue continue to go there because it's great.

Speaker 2 I'm not involved in any of that shit. And also, at the same time, what happened? The war end? Because people stopped going to this restaurant? Did the war end? Did anything happen?

Speaker 2 Did the Israeli prime minister say, hey, you know what?

Speaker 2 Good looking out. That's great, you know? Or did the Palestinians come and say something? No one said anything because no one fucking, you know, like we can't affect what's going on over there.

Speaker 2 We just don't have any impact. It's their war.

Speaker 2 We are entitled to have feelings about it. We have friends that are affected by it personally because their families are affected by it.
I have friends in Israel, in Tel Aviv.

Speaker 2 I have friends that have family and, you know, and it's, it sucks, you know, it really does. But at the same time, I'm not going to create animosity with somebody who has another belief.

Speaker 2 I just don't think it's right because

Speaker 2 we can't affect it.

Speaker 2 Why create tension when we can't have impact? Zero impact. That's a situation that has zero impact.

Speaker 2 So my position on that is don't fucking talk about it and, you know, know, and get people upset unless it's actually going to make some sort of an effect or impact, you know, that's

Speaker 2 positive, right? So it's, it's not, it's not worth it.

Speaker 1 Where can people find you on social?

Speaker 2 At Ted Skilla on Instagram. Two L's.

Speaker 1 All right, guys, the whole point of the Money Mondays is for you to have these intense discussions with your friends, family, and followers.

Speaker 1 We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money, and here we want you to have those discussions with the people around you because it's important. They need to know about salaries.

Speaker 1 They need to know about taxes. They need to know about credit.
They have to have these discussions. And it's our job here at the Money Mondays and for you at home listening to have those discussions.

Speaker 1 So if you can, check us out on themoneymondays.com. Like, comment, subscribe, all those things.
And we will see you guys next Monday.