Beast Games Winner Breaks Silence on $10,000,000 Prize, MrBeast, and Getting Fired

ExpressVPN: Secure your online data TODAY at https://expressvpn.com/iced Upside: Download the FREE Upside App today at https://Upside.com and use promo code ICED to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas Indeed: Get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/ich MagicMind: They have a limited offer you can use now, getting you up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases with code ICEDCOFFEE20 at checkout. You can claim it at: https://www.magicmind.com/icedcoffee Follow and Subscribe To Jeffrey Allen On YouTube: @legacy831official DONATE TO HIS CAUSE HERE: https://tiltify.com/@legacy831/ruck4rare Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 01:09 - How Much You Pay In Taxes 02:13 - Why Not Leave California? 04:10 - How To Apply To Beast Games 08:46 - Do People Quit Their Jobs? 09:58 - Going Without Your Phone On Beast Games 13:18 - First Impressions Of Las Vegas Round 1 14:50 - Why Was There Controversy? 16:58 - What MrBeast Was Like 21:00 - Sponsor Express VPN 22:24 - Do They Have Psychologists On Set? 24:50 - Getting Paid $10,000,000 28:25 - The Winning Beast Games Strategy 34:37 - Magic Mind Sponsor 36:44 - How Much Is Luck vs Skill? 41:08 - The Most Mentally Challenging Episode 52:00 - What This Says About Human Nature 1:00:00 - Did He See Episodes Before They Aired? 1:01:20 - Indeed Sponsor 1:04:14 - What Wasn’t Shown? 1:08:05 - Flipping Coin For $10,000,000 1:13:50 - When Jeff Realized He Was Going To Win 1:16:08 - Picking The Winning Briefcase 1:23:43 - Who Do You Call After Winning? 1:28:20 - Does Anyone Treat You Differently? 1:30:30 - Paying $5,000,000 Taxes 1:34:35 - How It Feels Winning $10,000,000 1:44:07 - Creatine Transport Deficiency Syndrome 1:50:19 - How He’s Investing $10,000,000 2:01:15 - Why Jeremy Turned Down $10,000,000 Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [email protected] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:29Jack Selby?

  So let me get this straight. You won the largest cash prize in entertainment history.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  This is about to be the most important decision of all of your lives.

• 0:38Speaker 03

  I looked at my phone and all of a sudden there's $10 million wired in.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  One in 10 chance.

• 0:43Jack Selby?

  What's it like winning $10 million?

• 0:47Jack Selby?

  Beast Games. Beast Games? Beast Games. What prompted you to sign up?

• 0:51Speaker 03

  The whole purpose of me getting on the show was to have a platform for my son to talk about his rare disease.

• 0:56Jack Selby?

  Did you have a strategy going in?

• 0:57Speaker 03

  It's a very social game where you need to make friends. You need to earn trust.

• 1:03Jack Selby?

  What challenge was the most difficult?

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna stick them in a queue for five hours and they can ask for anything.

• 1:07Jack Selby?

  Could you actually get anything?

• 1:09Speaker 03

  So there was a horse ready. There were puppies. There was a fortune teller. He says, this is what the Beast team writers probably do. When I looked out the window and saw the horse, I'm like going, what world am I in?

• 1:20Jack Selby?

  One of the most memorable moments for me was the coin flip.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. Mr. Beast literally lost $5 million of his own money because of a coin flip.

• 1:30Jack Selby?

  What was your first impression of Mr. Beast?

• 1:32Speaker 03

  I never shared this before, but when...

• 1:36Jack Selby?

  Jeffrey, winner of the largest cash prize in entertainment history, $10 million from Beast Games. Thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour.

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Oh, my pleasure.

• 1:45Jack Selby?

  So everyone's dying to know, how much is your tax payment?

• 1:49Speaker 03

  Great question. I'm working on it. So I think it all depends on what I do with the money this year. I think the crazy thing about Mr. Beast... You know, he doesn't withhold taxes when he kind of gives the distribution. So I literally got $10 million wired to me. So it's up to me to do state taxes, other withholdings, federal taxes. And it just depends on kind of how I invest the money when it comes to my son's research and nonprofits. So it's a TBD, um, we'll tune in about a year.

• 2:15Graham Stephan?

  What percent do you think you're gonna end up paying? Cause you're in California.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19Graham Stephan?

  And people online have been saying that you're gonna have to give half, like a $5 million tax bill.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  If you didn't do anything with the dollars, and obviously you can correct me if I'm wrong. I would have guessed that my taxes will be over $5 million. If I didn't donate to charity, or if I didn't tithe, or if I didn't give, um, anything into a DAF or a CRT.

• 2:40Graham Stephan?

  Now, why not move out of California? Because I would be thinking, okay, I know I have $5 million come in. Let's go and move to Las Vegas. Let's get out of California.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  I thought about it, um, and I, I thought about it before. So I, I've worked in startups my whole life and, you know, you have these pipe dreams like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the next Uber or Google. And what happens if you have a distribution of 5 million or 10 million? And my wife and I have talked about it, but we just have a great support system for our son and for our family. We live directly, um, close to my wife's sister and their two kids. Lucas has a caretaker who's amazing and, you know, to take them out of their schools and move them away was just like, ah. Yes, it'd be great to save 1.3 or 1.4 million dollars, but it's like, is it worth it to disrupt our, our kids' lives?

• 3:27Graham Stephan?

  And what about your job? Do you quit your job after winning that amount of money?

• 3:31Speaker 03

  If I did have a job at the time, I would have, but, uh, you know, fortunately I got laid off last April. So I was leading a sales team for a kind of startup healthcare company. And they went through some restructuring. I lost my job, which started doing some more entrepreneurial stuff, small business stuff, um, which included kind of applying to Beast Games. So put it this way, I, I don't think I'll be going back to a W2 anytime soon.

• 3:55Graham Stephan?

  How did you find out about the show in the first place? Like what prompted you to sign up?

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Early 2024, um, I wanted to do more creative stuff. And, you know, I've done musical theater, you know, once every five years or so. And I'm like, okay, what else is out there? So I looked at some casting billboards and I saw Mr. Beast, Beast Games. I'm like, oh, but my oldest son, Jack, has introduced me to Mr. Beast. We've watched a bunch of videos. I see that he's kind of philanthropic. I'm like, I like this guy. And I go, if I can apply for this and get on, I can be like the cool dad for Jack, my nine-year-old, but also I could have a platform to talk about my son Lucas's rare disease. He's got a rare disease called creatine transport deficiency. It's super rare. And if I can get on there, I can spread awareness to the world about it.

• 4:36Jack Selby?

  So where was it posted exactly? Cause I didn't see anything of like, hey, guys, you know, apply for Beast Games.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  So I, I saw it on like a casting billboard, you know, a website. It's called a casting billboard that kind of says, you know, we're looking for an extra on this movie or we're looking for a, um, an actor for this commercial. So I saw it there, but I have friends who literally applied by seeing an ad on LinkedIn. Um, he also posted it on, on X. So it wasn't widely advertised and I think that's probably part of it. He probably wants people who are looking for it, who are trying to, um, who are really into it.

• 5:12Jack Selby?

  So on the casting websites, is that like a normal place that you go and peruse?

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Me? No, no. So it's, uh, again, I, in the beginning of 2024, I was kind of like this midlife crisis for me. And I was like, I want to do more creative stuff. So I cold emailed like this modeling agency in San Francisco. I'm like, I'm trying, I want to get into commercials or like, I want to just do something where I can express more, do, do more artistic stuff. And so after I signed up for that, I signed up for this website to just to see if I can self-source any gigs. And literally within weeks, I saw Mr. Beast Beast Games.

• 5:44Jack Selby?

  It's kind of funny. You look exactly like the type of guy I would see in a commercial. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. It's like, I could see you in a teeth whitening commercial. That was like my number one thing. It's like skincare, teeth whitening, like staying looking youthful, even though you're not old.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like, like a just for men commercial.

• 6:02Jack Selby?

  You could be a fake 55-year-old and everyone's just like, how's this guy look 35?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  Hey, any brands out there who are listening, please listen to this again and, and reach out to me.

• 6:10Jack Selby?

  So what is the vetting process like to get on Beast Games?

• 6:14Speaker 03

  The application was you have to complete a video that's like 60 seconds or less that says, you know, why do you want to be on Beast Games? And what would you do if you won a million dollars? And I wrote it on my whiteboard and I put an alarm on my phone, like the deadline date. I think it was May 31st. And guess what? May 31st came. I haven't done it yet. And I'm going, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? It's Mr. Beast. It's got to be edited well. It's got to be fun and exciting. And I just used my webcam and recorded. The background in my office was kind of messy, but my son was in there, Lucas. It was just a super simple message or a super simple video. And I'm like, I pressed send. I'm like, there's no way they're going to choose me. Like, this is so boring. And two weeks later, I got a, I got a call from a gal named Danielle. And she's like, hey, we watched your video.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  We liked it. We have some more questions, but okay. I made it past the first step. Then I had to do like a social media background check, a kind of health and wellness background check, had to do another video, and then another phone call. And I'd say, you know, fast forward a month, I finally got the call that says, you're in Beast Games.

• 7:16Graham Stephan?

  So they check your social media to make sure that you haven't posted any like reprehensible content?

• 7:21Speaker 03

  That's my guess.

• 7:22Graham Stephan?

  The, the other check, the health and wellness check is to make sure that you wouldn't like fall down and like?

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's a little bit of how is your, you know, cardiovascular health? Like if you, you know, go through some challenging things, how are you going to respond? And I think it's also probably a little bit more psychological too, is like, there's some questions in there to really see how you would respond to stressful, emotional and psychological situations.

• 7:45Graham Stephan?

  What are some of the questions they ask you?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  I don't know. I can't remember, but remember offhand, but they ask the same question many different ways, many different times.

• 7:53Graham Stephan?

  Try to get you like slip up?

• 7:54Speaker 03

  I, that, yeah. So I think that's part of it. They're trying to make sure people are being honest and not gaming the system.

• 8:00Graham Stephan?

  Did they do like a criminal background check or anything? Do you know?

• 8:03Speaker 03

  I think they did. Cause I remember like, you can request a copy of your background check. You know, fortunately, there's nothing on mine, but I would, I'd imagine that Amazon and Mr. Beast would a hundred percent do that.

• 8:16Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. I watched your video. I thought it was really, it was memorable because you were with your son. And your son goes, as you're in the middle of a sentence, to play the piano behind. And you're pulling back and be like, oh, that was great. I thought that was really sweet to include your son in that. What did your wife think at the time?

• 8:34Speaker 03

  She didn't know I was applying. So I didn't tell her I applied until I got in.

• 8:40Graham Stephan?

  Why?

• 8:40Speaker 03

  My wife is like the most amazing wife around. She's like the best planner. And I know that once I tell her I'm gonna do something, in her mind, she's gonna, she's gonna think about all the logistics that have to take place in order for it to go well. So it's, okay, how long are you gonna be gone? Okay, what do we need to do? What days are you taking the kids to school? What, who's gonna do this for practice? Okay, um, who's gonna go to the grocery store? What, like, she just will start thinking about solutions to all the challenges this brings. Um, and I just didn't want to do that to her until I for sure knew I was in. Um, but she loved the video once she saw it. Um, but yeah, it was like a month later.

• 9:13Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I was curious what people do when they go on a show like this. Do they quit their jobs? Do they, do they have jobs? They could be like, hey, guys, I'm gonna be gone.

• 9:21Speaker 03

  You know, the contestants in Beast Games were awesome, and it's just such a wide variety of people. But there was, you know, I met at least a couple dozen people who quit their jobs. And I'm sure there was dozens more. There's other people who are kind of either small business owners or, um, more kind of in the industry, you know, in the arts or, you know, actors, um, or influencers or content creators. So people had a little bit more flexibility, but I think most people have got to go, I can go take two weeks off. If I go further than that, I'm gonna have to get creative with my job.

• 9:52Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, so yeah, I was always wondering what people did in those situations or like for money to like not have income for potentially a month.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  I, I remember one, um, a friend of mine kind of took two weeks off. And she's like, if it goes past this date, I have to call my boss, and she works for an airline. And I have to get super creative on how I'm gonna stay. And she went super far. So like, I, I still don't know what her conversation went, but I know she's still employed. But it's, uh, I think a lot of people took the leap of faith and took the risk.

• 10:21Graham Stephan?

  So when you're in there in the city, just competing in Beast Games, do you have access to technology, a phone?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  No. So the moment you kind of check in, they, you, you check in your, your laptop and your phone. And they kind of, they seal it so it's only in like a bag that's assigned to you and they put it in a kind of a locked room. And I didn't have my phone from early August until the middle of September. So it was like five weeks where I went without my phone, without any internet.

• 10:50Graham Stephan?

  How do people contact you if, if there's an emergency? Is there a person that someone could reach?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, uh, the Beast team did an awesome job of kind of letting your emergency contact know what's the status in the game. So after every challenge, you know, my wife would get a text and go, hey, by the way, Jeffrey made it to the top 500. Jeffrey made it to the top 250. And then it was like, Jeffrey made it and is traveling to Panama for the island. So it's like, it's like kind of cool that she can take this and show my son, Jack, like, hey, guess what? Here's what dad's doing. So they keep them in the loop. And yeah, there's obviously emergency contacts that the Beast team can reach out to and vice versa.

• 11:25Graham Stephan?

  I, if, if I were your wife, I'd get so excited to be like, oh my gosh, top 250. Oh my gosh, top 100. And like, receive those texts.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  It was like, uh, you know, I don't know. I, I, I heard it was like a last minute thing that they were going to do to the contestants. I'm like, that is like brilliant. It's like just a great way to keep the families engaged. But yeah, it was, when I, when I first chatted with my wife and son, Jack, they're like, it was awesome. Cause it's just like, hey, any updates? How's he doing? What's going on? Yeah. It's a, it's just a brilliant way, I think, that Beast could keep people involved.

• 11:57Jack Selby?

  To me, it's shocking that it was like five weeks for Beast Games because as a viewer of Beast Games, I thought it was like maybe like a week or 10 days.

• 12:05Graham Stephan?

  That's what it felt like.

• 12:06Jack Selby?

  But five weeks is like way longer. How was it being disconnected from society, like reality for that long?

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, the, the first three days are hard. First three days, like, I'm like, like you're just like, everybody's phantom reaching for their phone. And then, you know, I'd say probably day four, day five, you kind of go, oh my gosh, this is awesome. Like, I feel like I'm in the nineties again. I'm a, I'm a child of the nineties. I think I had the best time to grow up. I was born in 80, so I got to live like sixth, seventh grade, ride my bikes. No one knew where I was. And then I get the internet in high school. Like it was perfect. So it was, it was awesome to be disconnected and it just forced people to. Chat with others and get to know others.

• 12:46Graham Stephan?

  It's funny. You mentioned when you were born because we were doing research on you and Wikipedia said 1980 or 1981.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Oh, they think.

• 12:54Graham Stephan?

  So now they could put us as the source.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 12:58Graham Stephan?

  For 1980. We got it, guys.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. You pulled it out.

• 13:01Jack Selby?

  Aside from your family and friends, what did you miss most about being aware of what's going on?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  I love to take in information and, you know, it's just nice to know kind of what's going on or, you know. I think one thing that like really stuck out to me was like, hey, what's the price of Bitcoin like?

• 13:18Speaker 03

  So it was, it was just an interesting time to, to not have constant information coming in. But I, I kind of got my fix, you know, I was able to get it like by asking questions to people and getting to know people. I got weirdly obsessed with numbers while I was there, like memorizing people's numbers because we were, we're known by our Jersey numbers. But, you know, the family and friends, the most, um, you know, I talk to my, even my mom and dad often. And it's just like not having those connections is, uh, is tough.

• 13:47Graham Stephan?

  What are your first impressions during the Las Vegas round? This was the first round where 2,000 people competed down to a thousand.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I questioned signing up at the time. I was like, what am I doing here? Like I am a fish out of water, silver haired. I don't know a single soul. I treat it like a networking event. I was going around sitting at different tables. You know, some people are like, why are you sitting here? Other people are like, oh, hey, you know, and, and I think I got over kind of being an introvert and I'm like, okay, I feel good, but I look around, I'm like, there's so many people here. Like, what are we doing in the Legion Stadium? In my mind, I thought we were going to the Mirage 100%. I don't know if you remember being in Vegas, the Mirage just closed down in mid-July. And so I was like, oh, what a perfect place for Mr. Beast to have it. You have 3,000 rooms like. So I was looking at the Mirage map and memorizing where stairwells are. Like I was.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  So geeked out on this stuff and even in my hotel, I was like memorizing serial numbers underneath the lamps. Like I thought the games had already started. Again, I've never done any of this before. So I was just totally in my head, but once I kind of met other friends in the stadium, Patrick 930 stopped me in the hallway and started asking me a question. Just like you said, he was like, he's like, who do you model for? He goes, you order from Willamia or do you know Patrician Milan? I'm like, I have no clue you're talking about. Like I have zero clue what you're talking about. And just him and I hit it off like that. And once I felt like I had friends, I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, but at least I'm doing it with people who I could be friends with. And that's, um, that's how it all started in Vegas and Vegas was a trip.

• 15:23Graham Stephan?

  Why do you think there's so much controversy around the whole Vegas thing? Cause I've seen like, right after that happened, there was a whole bunch of just people talking about the poor conditions or that they were being mistreated.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think when anytime you're doing something for the first time, it's hard. Then you factor in it's 2,000 people in the middle of the night. Um, so I think logistics were challenging, uh, but I also think there's, you know, for me, my experience was if I'm going to go compete for $5 million, I don't expect it to be the Ritz Carlton. I don't expect it to be kind of the most lush bedding. Um, I thought, I like, I thought we were going to rough it a little bit. And so, yeah, we all got sleeping bags. We slept on the floor. Uh, we got three meals a day. Like I ate every single bit of my meals. Some people didn't like the, the meals. So I think it was a little bit of, you know, some people might've been disgruntled, but my experience was exactly what I signed up for.

• 16:17Graham Stephan?

  So at that time, what were the meals?

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Chicken, a starch, rice or quinoa, some vegetables. Um, you know, we had oatmeal, we had hard boiled eggs, you know, you had three meals a day, but it was kind of weird because. Most of the filming was at night. So we would kind of eat breakfast at night. So we'd have breakfast and then we'd have lunch while we're filming and then like dinner afterward on filming. And sometimes we'd have dinner, um, you know, like five o'clock in the morning. So it was, it was a ton of fun. I mean, it was, it was one of those things where it was only four days, but it felt like I was there for weeks. But it was one of these things where anytime there was an issue, especially in Vegas, um, they were attentive to it. I mean, they, they kind of got after it.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  And then once we got to the Beast Games on Prime, oh my gosh, like it was like the best accommodations, best food. Um, the bedding like, uh, in the city was fantastic. So I have no complaints for Vegas or Toronto, but I can definitely see where some people, um, might go, gosh, you know, I wasn't used to the conditions, but for me, it was exactly what I expected. They push you every single way, emotionally, psychologically, uh, even physically. But like, you kind of leave there smiling like that was great. I wouldn't change a thing.

• 17:29Jack Selby?

  What was your first impression of Mr. Beast?

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Very first impression, I remember in Vegas and he walked out, I'm like, oh my gosh, there he is. He's in person, like this is in person. I was kind of like fanboying out over him. Um, and, but he was pretty honest with everybody. He sent a video before Vegas, goes and go, hey, I'm so glad you guys are here. Um, there's 2,000 of you, just letting you know, I'm not going to be able to talk to most of you guys. I probably won't be able to talk to most of you guys until we get down to kind of the top 20, but I really want to spend time with you then. But he always talked to people between challenges, but you don't really get to know them. But once I got to know him, it was, it was great.

• 18:01Jack Selby?

  Was there anything that surprised you about him?

• 18:03Speaker 03

  You know, being the number one YouTuber in the world at his age and, you know, watching his content, you can just tell he is committed to his craft. He's a perfectionist. I didn't realize outside of that, how competitive he was. So like, when we got to the top 10, we, um, we were in a, you know, kind of had a night with him and his fiancee and some other people from the team. And there's some people playing Catan and he was so competitive. Like there was no chance he was going to let anybody beat him. And I'm like, oh my gosh, how is he this competitive with just contestants? So it's just like, he never turns it off. Um, but he's super compassionate, really thoughtful, like asked some really thoughtful questions to me.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  He's a, he just, he just seems like a stand-up guy.

• 18:51Jack Selby?

  What were some of the questions he asked?

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Well, once he, once he kind of found out, because the whole purpose of me getting on the show was to have a platform for my son to talk about his rare disease. And so there's a couple of times where he interviewed me and I would talk about it. So off-camera, he'd say, you know, what is, what's the condition? Oh, I'm sorry. Like, what does it mean? Like, what does the future look like? And again, he's got, he's getting pulled in a thousand different directions. You know, he could easily give me lip service, but he didn't. And I was like, man, this guy.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  This guy cares too, which I think is just, I don't want to say it's hard to find in the space, but it's like, I just didn't expect him to be that thoughtful this young.

• 19:59Jack Selby?

  And what about on set? Did he seem present or was he distracted? Because like you said, I imagine he's getting pulled in a thousand different directions at once. So it would be kind of hard for him to be present and just having a good time. It surprised me that he allocated time to like play Catan.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  I mean, on set, when we were filming, he is, you'll, you won't find anybody more committed to what they're doing. I mean, he is dialed in. Like even in the final episode, the final episode, we filmed for 10 hours. And you can just tell he was, he was tired in between shoots. And then once the camera's on, it's a different person. So like, he just is so committed to his craft that he's always kind of stepping up when, when the, when the cameras are on. And when the cameras are not on, he loved going around and talking to the contestants. He likes to get a feel for what they're thinking, what they're interested in, what strategies do they have? Like, he loves the game. So people who are strategists, he would kind of take a shine to and want to hear what they're saying or what they're thinking.

• 20:58Jack Selby?

  Yeah, I saw Colin and Samir, they were doing a behind the scenes of, I believe it was Vegas, and he went to talk to everybody in groups of 20.

• 21:08Graham Stephan?

  And what was remarkable is that you think, okay, that can't take that long. He's like, okay, well, if I talk to 20 people at a time for 10 minutes each, it's going to take me like the whole day.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:18Graham Stephan?

  Like get through everybody and he just did it.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  He talked, yeah, I think he talked to over half of the people. Uh, and then after Vegas, he and his team personally called people to hear about their experience. Cause it's not like, hey, it's, you know, you kind of mentioned the Vegas challenge. It's like, it's one thing to kind of have people kind of, you know, grimace or, you know, kind of complain and the B team doesn't do anything about it. No, they said, we want to hear what you're thinking. Um, because obviously this is season one, they were, you better believe they're going to do a season two and three and four. They want to learn and get better. So it was just, I, I thought they were very kind of thoughtful, how responsive they were.

• 21:55Graham Stephan?

  Do they ever have like psychologists on set for people that have like a breakdown for losing?

• 22:01Jack Selby?

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• 23:24Graham Stephan?

  Do they ever have like psychologists on set for people that have like a breakdown for losing?

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, there, there was a psychologist on set 24/7. And everybody who gets eliminated, it's kind of a, you, you have to go through and get processed out through a psychologist.

• 23:43Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  And, and even me, even after I won, I had to go and sit down with the psychologist. It was a great conversation.

• 23:50Jack Selby?

  What do you got? Can you share like what you guys talk about?

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Of course. I mean, so for me, it's different because I didn't get eliminated. And I remember like-

• 23:58Jack Selby?

  He's patting you on the back. You're like, good job, fist bump it.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Well, it was, I mean, it was just, it was interesting and I'm sure it was interesting for her too. It was like, how often you get to debrief with someone 30 minutes after they just won $10 million? And, you know, it was, I told my wife and my son, like, hey, I'll be right back. I gotta go in here. And I was, she's like, so how do you feel? I'm like, awesome. Like, I feel great. But then she had to go through, like, well, I'm sure there were times that were psychologically challenging or emotionally kind of pressing, like, how do you feel about that? You feel like you processed it?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Obviously I felt great, but like, there is a, they gave me access to a psychologist, like, by the way, even though you won $10 million, here's probably what's gonna happen. You're gonna go home, you're gonna be elated, you realize you're not gonna be able to talk to anybody. For some weird reason, you're probably gonna get depressed. Then you're gonna forget about it for a little bit. And then the show's gonna air and you're gonna start feeling all these feelings again. And they were spot on. And they're like, please call us. So the Beast team made available a psychologist to anybody to chat with who are struggling with this. And this psychologist is like, he, his thing is reality competition shows.

• 25:06Jack Selby?

  Wow. How long until the, like, depression set in? And why do you think that happened?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't know. You're asking the wrong guy why it happened, but I would say probably three weeks. You know, and depression was just like, it just, it's like you, you planted a seed.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  But you can't tell anybody about it. It hasn't kind of bloomed yet.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  And it's like, you wanna start making changes in your life, but like, like, it's like, but I don't, I didn't get paid yet. I didn't,

• 25:42Speaker 03

  it hasn't got announced. Yet it's just a weird feeling.

• 25:44Speaker 05

  So you didn't get paid until until when?

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the finale aired February 13th of 25 and I got paid the very next day.

• 25:53Speaker 05

  So that was just recently that you got paid?

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Just recently.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  That you just saw like a $10 million wire?

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, no big deal. Just 10 million.

• 26:02Graham Stephan?

  Does Chase ever call you and be like, hey, Jeff, we noticed your your normal account balances a few hundred dollars and now it's 10 million. What happened?

• 26:10Speaker 03

  And this was a checking account that I literally opened up for Beast Games.

• 26:15Graham Stephan?

  That's not suspicious at all.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Well, no, but it's no, but I opened up after Vegas. Because after Vegas, everybody who went to Vegas got $2,000. So I had I just said, hey, I want to open up another checking account. I put that in. And so it's like I have this one checking account that was specifically for that and I see it pop up. But yeah, to your question, nobody from my bank called me, which was like.

• 26:38Graham Stephan?

  Seems like a major oversight, maybe this is like a 10 million dollar wire.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Especially considering it's a brokerage house too. It's like, hey, let us help you put that to work. I'm sure they you know who you are if you're listening. They could put some they can put some alerts in there because it would have been a great thing to have, you know, private banker call you and go, hey, here's what happened. What just happened? How can we help you put this to use? What are you thinking about? But yeah, no call, no nothing.

• 27:05Graham Stephan?

  You would think that just any wire over 5 million should deserve a phone call. If not even just like, hey, congratulations on this.

• 27:12Speaker 05

  Nice job.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Well done. Granted, I live in Silicon Valley and this is the startup capital of the world. And distributions like this, even though I've never experienced anything close to it, happen often. So I don't know if it's just par for the course in Silicon Valley to have 10 million dollar wires, but certainly not for me.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  So how much did you actually win in Beast Games?

• 27:34Speaker 03

  So the the total sum, including the 2,000 from Vegas, the 10 million from the grand prize, plus 4242, 4,242 from the phone bribe or the million dollar bribe. So I 10 million, 6,000.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Some 242.

• 27:53Graham Stephan?

  Now, going back, winning that amount of money and speaking with a psychologist, was there ever an amount of guilt that you felt getting this money, knowing that someone else had to lose?

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, of course. And, um, you know, I also think about all the friends and people who helped me get there. And it's like, oh, like, how do I, how do I pay them back? How do I pay it forward? Why was it me and not them? You know, I don't know if they call it survivor's guilt or, um, but yeah, I, I felt that and it's, it's not fun.

• 28:25Graham Stephan?

  Could you split any money at all? Were you allowed to be like, hey, you really helped me out? Here's like 20 grand.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  It was in our contract that we weren't allowed to. And then, you know, in certain challenges, they'd kind of reiterate that. It's like, by the way, like you can't make any deals. You can't say, hey, if I, you helped me get to this, I will give you 10% if I win.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  See, that's what I was thinking when it was down to the three of you with a $10 million prize. Like you could have each walked away with, you know, 3.333 million dollars, which is nearly $5 million. It's getting up there and everyone could have left happy. But you're saying you couldn't have negotiated out some sort of split?

• 29:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was no negotiation. And I, I think, I mean, if we could have, we probably would have, you know, with, with those three people. Um, I don't think there was anybody there who's like, no, no, no, I have to get this. But yeah, it's a, there was no ability to negotiate a split. And I think there's some pretty severe clawbacks too, in the kind of the agreement we signed. If they find that someone is splitting after the fact.

• 29:24Speaker 05

  So for Beast Games, did you have a strategy going in? If someone's competing in Beast Games Season 2, what do you think of the things that they should be practicing?

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you got to figure out what kind of game you want to play. You know, do you want to stay true to your values or do you want to play to win? I think you can do both. I think I did both. But like, I would just get crystal clear on how you want to play. Two, you got to step up your social game. It's a very social game where you need to make friends, you need to earn trust. People need to be able to trust you and the more genuine, obviously, the better. And have a number in mind, like if there's a number like, cause you're gonna get opportunities to bribe. And you think about this, like so many people turned down a hundred thousand dollars in that first episode. And you see four people turn down a million dollars. So there's gonna be opportunities where you can take money to either eliminate people

• 30:16Speaker 03

  or not eliminate people. I'd figure out what that number is and how important it is to you.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  What was your number?

• 30:21Speaker 03

  My number was 1.5 million.

• 30:23Speaker 05

  How did you come to that number?

• 30:25Speaker 03

  My wife and I were talking about it. And to be honest, I think it was a number that we figured would never get presented to us. So it's kind of like this thing that we have, we have a number, but we're never gonna have to worry about it. Cause like, we just, I wanted to go all the way. And you know, when, when I signed up and I told my wife, hey, I'm, I wanna be in Beast Games, like it's gonna be an awesome platform to talk about Lucas's disease. And she looks at me, she goes, if you're gonna be gone for a handful of weeks, you better win this damn thing. And like, that totally shifted my mindset. Like, oh my gosh, like, I can talk about Lucas and win this thing. But winning, having the thought of winning when there's a thousand people is just so hard. It's just for me, it was like, okay, I just gotta survive. I'm on the platforms, I need to get the city. I'm in the city, I need to get to the, to the island. I'm in the island, I need to get to the top 10. And once you kind of got there, it's like, okay, I got a shot.

• 31:10Speaker 05

  So it was at the top 10 when you first realized, okay, like I can actually win Beast Games?

• 31:15Speaker 03

  It was probably right before the top 10 on the elimination train, when it was the top 21. And once I learned the rule set of the elimination train, I kind of go, I feel pretty safe. Like, I feel like there's an 80% chance I'm gonna get through. And so I was able to see myself in the top 10 where I kind of go, man, if I get to the top 10, I have a 1 in 10 chance of winning. And I think I've built very good social capital and good relationships. And I think I could do a great job. Like, I can win this thing.

• 31:42Speaker 05

  Do you think it's more effective to be a leader or a follower?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Great question. I, I think you need to be able to be both. I think there's times where you need to step up and lead. I did that more in kind of private settings, like, you know, on our, you know, episode six, on the fiscal challenge, you know, I was, would step up as a leader, a vocal leader for a small group. There's other times where I think blending in is better. Like on the elimination train, like to be a leader there was like the last thing I wanted to do. I saw there was no upside. I feel like I'd have to eliminate myself or like my buddy Patrick. I didn't want to do that. So I think it's kind of circumstantial.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  Like the people that all rejected one million dollars, they ended up making it pretty far in the games and they were looked pretty favorably amongst the other competitors. The only thing that was weird is that as soon as it went fifty one forty nine, as though it was advantageous for them to flip on them. Like sharks, like piranhas, they would just be like, oh yeah, and then you did this and that was a jerk move and we can't believe this. And everyone's like showing that they're better than the other person.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  It's weird. Um, i- i- in the games, there's really fresh memories. Like people remember what happened yesterday in the last challenge. Um, and there's also like this unspoken reciprocity. So think about the million dollar bribes. You know, three out of the four that made it out of the cubes, Dino, Tawana and Jeremy. Then the next thing is the helicopter rides. Tawana gets selected for the first helicopter. Dino gets selected for the second helicopter. So there's one captain left and now we have the one hundred and ten coins. Jeremy gets a hundred and three of the hundred and ten coins. Like, so like people are always wanting to give back to these people who step up. But then again, in the helicopter, you see that, uh, that reciprocity didn't last long where people were stabbing Jeremy in the back.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  In a matter of minutes because he didn't do what they, they wanted him to do.

• 33:37Speaker 05

  I felt so bad for him in that moment because he was one of my favorite players, same with Dino. Just turning down a million dollars like that in front of all these people takes so much control. And then to see people now look at that negatively is like, oh, but yeah, he did that, but this. I was shocked.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  I was, I was shocked too. It was, it was one of those things where I, during that episode, I was going around and trying to tell people the math. Like, hey, we have to give the coins to somebody because if we don't, our odds of getting on a helicopter decrease because this helicopter is going to go way empty. So that was my mindset. I wasn't trying to go around and say, hey, give these coins to Jeremy. I, because obviously I knew that would also put a target on my back. So like, I didn't hear all these kind of talk about you gotta bring a woman on or this, that and the other. Until we got into the helicopter and I kind of like, I'm like happy and like Jeremy looks at me and he's like. No, this is not good. Like, this did not end well. And he kind of sat there and he like kind of led a prayer.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  And it was like, one of these things where I'm like, oh, I didn't realize how badly people were coming at you. And so it was, um, the first couple of days on the island were interesting because, um, there were, there were some bad blood, especially to Jeremy, but also to me, because I was involved with it. And that's because Jeremy would not select a woman to join him on the helicopter. Yeah, and he did. He selected, uh, Daphne 976. But it was one of these things where, um, he chose two people first. He chose Gage 974 and myself. And then he asked us to choose people. And I didn't choose a woman. Why didn't you choose a woman? I don't know. I, well, I chose my best, I chose my best friend at the time, Patrick 930. And he's the guy who brought me in. He's the guy who stopped me in the hallway in Vegas. And I was like, hey, like, he chose me.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  It's my time to choose him. Yeah, and in retrospect, you know, I would have taken a lot off of Jeremy if I would have. Um, I would have chosen Matty 852, a dear friend of mine.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  But at least, you know, I made that episode exciting, I guess. And what's this little bottle?

• 35:37Graham Stephan?

  Oh, my God, these are so good. So this is called Magic Mind and they started sending us this a few months ago. Absolutely love it. And, uh, we actually reached out to see if they would sponsor our podcast because we like it that much. And they've agreed to sponsor our podcast, which is so cool. But basically it's, it's an energy focus shot, like for a little bit more mental clarity. And no joke, I have these every single podcast, just to like dial it in a little bit more. There's a little caffeine in this, so it's not like so much that you're going to be wired afterwards, but it's just enough to give you a bit of an extra boost. And I take these with us, no joke, everywhere we go, because you could take them through TSA.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  Oh, beautiful.

• 36:15Graham Stephan?

  And it was actually, uh, a bit of an accident. I just packed these in my backpack, went through TSA. And then on the other side, I was like, oh, wow. They never confiscated it. Like, this is, this is really good because it's under the, uh, the liquid limit. And now I've just been taking them everywhere. And then Jack and I now trade. I bring these, he brings protein bars. And we'll trade. I'll, I'll be like, I'll give you a Magic Mind for a protein bar because I bring extras.

• 36:37Jack Selby?

  They taste great. It's not too much to where you start feeling jittery. And it's perfect because you can also drink these later. So if we have a podcast at like 8:00 PM, you're not going to drink a coffee at 7:00 PM in preparation for the podcast because then you're going to be up until 2:00 AM. But this right here, I've had success drinking it later in the day and it's great. Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  And you can still get to sleep.

• 36:55Jack Selby?

  Yeah, it's not a lot of caffeine. It's just a little bit. Yeah.

• 36:57Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. So we have a link down below in the description. If you want to try this out, it's really good. It tastes like a bit of a matcha flavor. It's delicious. So again, the link is down below in the description. We got an exclusive offer with the Iced Coffee Hour. They were kind enough to say yes to sponsoring us just because we genuinely like their product. So the link is down below in the description for anyone who's interested.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  This is super good.

• 37:17Graham Stephan?

  I told you.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  I thought it was gonna be like more like vegetabley. Like that's how.

• 37:21Graham Stephan?

  Tastes like probiotic-y, huh?

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, such a unique flavor.

• 37:23Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but it's like, it's like the ones you go to the grocery store and it's like $8 for like a little, you know, health and wellness shot. Uh, except they're not, you know, $8.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  I can taste the passion fruit like enough to like make it sweet.

• 37:35Jack Selby?

  We might be able to get him to send you something.

• 37:36Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, we'll actually give you a few on the road. I'll like them.

• 37:39Jack Selby?

  Yeah, they'll be great for the.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  For the rock.

• 37:40Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:41Jack Selby?

  Perfect.

• 37:42Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. How much was luck versus skill on the game?

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Season one of Beast Games had a lot of luck and a lot of chance. But I think less than most people think. So are you guys kind of familiar with how we got our jersey numbers?

• 37:57Graham Stephan?

  Now, could you explain that?

• 37:58Speaker 03

  So, um, I was number 831 and it wasn't randomly assigned. It was back in Vegas in episode zero. On the third challenge, we had to go get our flags. And whatever flag you go get and are able to kind of successfully capture is your jersey number. And so there was, there was actually 1,100 flags. So the people who went and got flags one through a couple hundred were the ones saying, I gotta go out there first. I gotta get this flag. It's mine to get. Oh, I'm, I'm gonna beat you. And in the first episode in Beast Games on Prime. You had to have someone self eliminate your row. There was three rows that did not have anybody self eliminate. It was the first row, the second row, and the fourth row.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  And these were the numbers kind of one through like, let's call it one through 170. Like, these were all these type A aggressive people to go go getters. Where the rows that kind of got up to the 800s, 900s, and 1000s were the helpers, who helped people get their flags and the more kind of altruistic people who needed support. Which you'd think those are the people who would eventually self sacrifice. So I think, I think there's a little bit more nuance to the chants. But yeah, when you really think about, I think through all the things that had to happen for me to get to episode 10. Oh, my gosh, so much, so much life.

• 39:15Graham Stephan?

  What challenge was the most difficult? Like physically and then emotionally?

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, physically, hands down was the monster truck pull. I mean, we had eight people pulling a 12,000 pound monster truck. I did not expect that. You know, in B city, we had this giant billboard that would kind of give us like clues to what these challenges would be. And there was a like, it was like 19, I felt like it was 1950s kind of art, art themed. And had a big monster truck and it said, you know, our red light is your green light. And we're like, oh, my gosh. So we get out there and I see this monster truck and I'm like, oh, they're going to put on the brakes, which is a red light. That means that's when we're going to walk green light. That means, so we're practicing doing red light, green light, like how to stop. And then they kind of turn us on again and go, nope, you're going to pull this monster truck.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  And we, we pulled it for like 25 minutes. I literally, when I got done, like they almost called a medic for me. Like I was in like tunnel vision. I just, I'd never done anything that strenuous in years and it was, uh, it was wild.

• 40:18Graham Stephan?

  See, it didn't look that bad. I'm not gonna lie, as a viewer, it didn't look that bad. As you're laying in bed watching the show. Eating a chips. I can do that, that's easy. I'm just saying, when I was watching it, I was like, okay, these guys, you know, they're falling over a little bit, like they're stumbling, they look fit. And so it was surprising to me because it also didn't seem like it was going on for 25 minutes. And so, and like if you push a car in neutral, it's not that hard, but I can understand. I didn't know it was 12,000 pounds of a monster truck. So yes, that does sound very challenging, but as a viewer, you know, I'm sure some people, they know what I'm thinking. Jack's an armchair critic.

• 40:54Speaker 03

  But I didn't think it was gonna be that hard either. To your point, Jack, you know, it's like, but once they said go and we started pulling, it's like, this thing is hardly moving. And then you see the other team who's like 20 feet ahead of us and they're like, they're huge. These are all like, you have a ex-college, uh, division one college football player. You have an ex-college rugby player, like you have some just hosses over there. And I'm like, how are we gonna do this? Unfortunately, we had a lot of good teamwork. We never gave up. We had a lot of brains. It's like we like, it was physics that actually helped us win is getting over that hump with both wheels. Um, but that was like, that was so fun. That whole episode was aired, were filmed in one night. So we did that. We waited an hour. We filmed kind of the flags. We waited an hour and then we did the dead hang.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  And it was like, it was one of my favorite nights.

• 41:40Graham Stephan?

  How late did that go?

• 41:41Speaker 03

  I think we probably wrapped around, you know, 5 a.m.

• 41:43Graham Stephan?

  Wow. So the guys hanging on the thing at 5 o'clock in the morning?

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. And, uh, you know, and once you get into the games, like we film a lot at night. So you're sleeping in, um, you know, we're always getting eight hours of sleep if you want it. But, um, it is so fun to film at night because like just knowing, and I think about like, everybody's sleeping and here we are doing things that you can never imagine a grown man doing. It was like, it was so fun.

• 42:07Graham Stephan?

  So what was the most mentally challenging?

• 42:09Speaker 03

  I, I would say episode three, uh, the cubes was super challenging. And part of it is like, it was kind of early on and, you know, starting to miss my kids a lot. And, and, and we kind of got a little rug pull here. Like the night before we had this awesome steak dinner, like the best meal we've had. We had a dance party around the money, like they played music and everybody was having fun. And then the next morning, like, hey, we're just gonna have a game day. You know, we're gonna do a potato sack race. And people are like, oh my gosh, like, this is gonna be fun. And then they handcuff us to each other. They take us into a cube. They tell us that we're gonna be here in five hours and that at least one of you will get eliminated out of your group of three.

• 42:53Speaker 03

  And my group of three was me, 808 and 204. And 204 Chris, a great friend of mine, um, were like, oh my gosh, how's this gonna work? What are we gonna do?

• 43:04Speaker 03

  And so we get into the cube and like at the first, none of us wanted to play a game like, hey, let's just see how this goes and maybe somebody will get something of value that will make them want to cuff. And just, just to kind of tell the viewers is there's a red phone in there and it said, ask for anything. And we could ask for anything that would help us make a decision on who would cuff themselves. And you could ask for anything, but you couldn't take it out of the room. So yes, you could ask for a million dollars. They might bring it in, but you can't take it out. You can't take it with you. And so for me, I was kind of going, gosh, what could I ask for that would help me make a decision to handcuff myself? And I asked for a phone call with Elon Musk.

• 43:40Graham Stephan?

  Why Elon Musk?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Well, in my mind, I kind of go Elon, you know, obviously our generation's Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein is brilliant, but between Tesla, which is like, what really made Tesla go is the energy side of it. And then Neuralink brain, I go, um, my son's condition is creatine transport deficiency. Creatine is the energy that kind of supports ATP in the brain. If there's one person who can kind of spend some cycles to try to figure out how to get creatine in the brain, it's Elon. So I said, gosh, if I can get a phone call with him for a minute, if I can ask him to dinner, I'll fly anywhere in the world to take him to dinner and bend his ear for an hour. Like maybe, just maybe we can make some progress on this condition. And so like, I was like, I was just super naive. I was so hopeful. I'm like, oh yeah. Jimmy gives away Teslas

• 44:26Speaker 03

  all the time. Him and him and Elon are on like text basis, like they're friends. And then a couple of hours later, like a producer looks at me like through the window like, hey, Jeff, like you might want to ask for something different. Um, I'm like, what do you mean? He goes like, it's Elon Musk. Like you're not going to get a hold of him. So I was then I was like to just dejected and I was like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to go home. I'm not going to get a chance to like make an impact for my son. And it was just, it was, the room was tiny and it was like so sterile, white, this bright lights. It was just, I did not want to be there any longer. And there was like, I felt like there was no end inside.

• 45:03Graham Stephan?

  Wanted to self eliminate.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say that. Um, I kind of was felt like I was going to get eliminated. I just, I felt like I just had lost this hope. Um, because no one else was asking for anything of value that would force them to handcuff themselves. So I realized, oh, I'm playing a different game. I'm thinking of this differently. And my friend Chris asked for a tattoo artist. So he had a tattoo artist come in. He got a Mr. Beast tattoo on his bicep. This guy's, I mean, this is my friend Chris. He's jacked and he's like in his 50s and he has this huge bicep and now has this big Mr. Beast logo on it. Um, it's sweet.

• 45:39Graham Stephan?

  How would that help him win the game though?

• 45:41Speaker 03

  So what, what helped him is it helped him pass the time. He could, he could calculate the time, how much time we had left because we only had five hours to do this. And we had no guarantee that we would know how much time was left. We didn't have clocks. So he's like, if I can get a tattoo artist in here, I know how long this stuff takes. He'll have a phone that he has to like, take pictures of, will be able to see what time it is. So he was strategically thinking of why he had a tattoo artist come in. The other person asked for steak and lobster.

• 46:10Graham Stephan?

  Did they get it?

• 46:10Speaker 03

  They got it.

• 46:12Graham Stephan?

  Did it not, did you not want any steak and lobster? Like, why, yeah, why didn't you ask for a timer? I would ask for something in and out at least. Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  I don't know if they have in and out in Toronto. Um, but yeah, no, I, I just, I was at this point where I'm like, I, I, I wanted something that would help. And I just didn't think like a pizza or steak and lobster would. But, um, we, we just, and then we finally realized that, hey, there, there's no chance that anybody's going to eliminate themselves on their own. We need to play a game, like a game of chance, like flip a coin, pick cards, whatever it may be. But one of the, one of the, one of the, out of the group did not want to play a game and said, even if we did play a game, like, I'm not going to eliminate myself. So I go, oh my gosh, like, how are we going to do this? So I picked up the phone and I asked for a clinical psychologist to come into our room. And, um,

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• 47:56Speaker 03

  So I'm like, we're part of an alliance. Like we're friends. Like, can we get past this impasse? So the clinical psychologist sat down with us. I mean, it was so bizarre. She's sitting in a chair. All of us are sitting Indian style on the floor. And after 25 minutes, she kind of looks at us and go, hey, you know, I tried to help you guys. I don't think there's anything further I can do. I think you guys need to figure it out because we couldn't get past the impasse of not all of us choosing into play a game. So long story short, my friend Chris, 204, and I looked at each other because we're, we were super close and said, hey, one of us is going to have to go home. Let's just flip a coin. And we get the coin. I call tails. We flip it. I don't look at it.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  He looks at the ground at it and gives me a hug and says, best of luck. And then he went over to the wall. He cuffed himself and I walked out. Was that not frustrating to have someone in that room? Because I feel like, to me, I would have felt like, like we're all making sacrifices here. And yet you won all of the upside and none of the downside and therefore pushing the burden on us. At the time, 100%. That's how I felt. I mean, like, I literally walked out of the room, saw one of the production assistants, and I looked at her and said, I can have a hug? Like, I was like, so, like, I just felt sick. But watching the episode, I realized it's good gameplay.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  You know, she knew, she knew that Chris and I were super, super close. She also knew that we aren't stubborn enough to kind of go, oh, screw that. All of us, because if someone doesn't handcuff themselves, they all get eliminated. So I think she, you know, in retrospect, I think it was good gameplay, not the way I would want to play. But um.

• 49:35Speaker 05

  Did that ever come back to bite her though? Because I feel like if someone does something so bad, like the Habibi brothers.

• 49:40Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, that was awful.

• 49:41Speaker 05

  When they were in the box, like how they got that girl who was like crying and they like faked the game. So they could each win, which yes, it was awful, but it was also strategic. That stuff gets out and then they got eliminated because of what they did.

• 49:54Graham Stephan?

  How did that get out?

• 49:55Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm pretty sure so early in the games, when you get eliminated, you have like this like little tote in, in your bunks with all your kind of personal items and you have to go in there and pack it up and carry it out. And I think in that process, you know, she spoke to people in her bunk like, hey, here's what happened. And then it just gets around like the telephone game.

• 50:14Speaker 05

  But then does that come back to bite them though? If you do something like that in the boxes, did you go and you share that information? Like, hey, this person, they just withdrew and they didn't want to.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I, it didn't, I don't think it helped her, you know? But it was like, you know, people always ask me, like, cause like this was the first psychologically, like really challenging game. People like, hey, what happened in your cube? And for me, I was just like, yeah, you know, one person didn't want to play. You know, and kind of, kind of left it at that.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  She eliminated, she eventually took a bribe on kind of episode four. And so she got money from it and you know, I think it worked out well for her. And, and for me, it's like, I look back at every single thing and I have to thank it. Cause if I don't, I'm not grateful for the ultimate outcome.

• 50:55Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, now that episode for me was quite memorable because on that phone, like you said, you could ask for anything you want. What are some other requests that people were asking for? And could you actually get anything? Cause I saw someone bring in a horse.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:07Graham Stephan?

  How do they have a horse? How do they have a clinical psychologist that they could just call? Be like, you gotta get here right now.

• 51:13Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I, I think for you guys is like, if you sat here for hours and kind of like said, okay, what are the craziest things that people might do with their finances? Or people might want to buy, um, from an insurance perspective, you could have the craziest things listed. And this is what the beast team writers probably do is they sit around, okay, go, here's what we're going to do. We're going to stick them in a cube for five hours and they can ask for anything. What are the craziest things that people might ask for? That we can deliver. So there was a horse ready. There were puppies ready. There was a fortune teller, a psychic, a clinical psychologist. I mean, pizzas, people got their haircuts. People got massages. Like, it was like, like, when I looked out the window and saw the horse, and again, after I just told you,

• 51:57Speaker 03

  like, I was in a really bad spot. And I was, like, thinking to my kids, and I look out and I see a horse, and I'm like going, what world am I in?

• 52:04Speaker 05

  But you couldn't ask for a vape or Elon Musk?

• 52:06Speaker 03

  You can ask for it. You can ask for anything, but you might not get it.

• 52:09Graham Stephan?

  Was there, yeah, was there anything that they said no to? Or was there, besides, like, the phone call with Elon Musk? Did you hear any stories of, like, oh, I asked for this. I didn't get that?

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Well, I, I feel like, I mean, if you look at the episode, it's like Nolan, Mac, Tariq Chandler answering the phone.

• 52:26Speaker 03

  I think there was, like, a little delay on some, like, so some people asked for stuff, but just they asked too late, so they didn't get it delivered. But a lot of people, like, asked for, kind of, pizza or sushi, uh, because most people decided, hey, we're gonna play a game, and we're gonna play at the end. In the meantime, let's have some fun. But then there was cubes like ours, where it was more of, hey, like, we gotta figure out how we're gonna get out of this thing.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  It'd be interesting to see what all they had on standby, like, what was in that big room, you know?

• 52:54Speaker 03

  That's why I'd love-

• 52:55Speaker 05

  Like a clown?

• 52:55Graham Stephan?

  I was about to say, I was about to say it.

• 52:58Speaker 05

  See, look, if we just sat down for a couple hours, we could come up with that stuff.

• 53:01Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but I would never guess a horse. Never.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  Me neither.

• 53:04Speaker 05

  They probably had every animal.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  Oh, and they had multiple dogs, like, many people asked for puppies. One, one, um, Landry asked for, uh, she, she said, hey, I'm gonna eliminate, but I just wanna have a princess party. And, like, they brought all the princess and prince gear. Like, how did you have that? So it's a, I would love to see the BTS on that room.

• 53:25Graham Stephan?

  My guess is they had to have someone at, like, a Walmart and a Target nearby, and they call in, yo, we, we need five Monopoly sets.

• 53:31Speaker 05

  I think it's gotta be that. There's no way they have it all already ready to go in a room.

• 53:35Graham Stephan?

  And then just return it massively?

• 53:37Speaker 03

  I mean-

• 53:37Graham Stephan?

  Or like an Amazon warehouse?

• 53:38Speaker 03

  I'm gonna have to ask Jimmy and see.

• 53:41Speaker 05

  Because there's sizes too. Like, you know, do you have, like, a princess outfit in every size? Like, would you have it in gram size as well?

• 53:47Graham Stephan?

  Or jack size, the plot?

• 53:48Speaker 03

  But it was so quick. Like, that's the thing that is like, like, I think a lot of it was there because they got this stuff so quickly.

• 53:58Jack Selby?

  So seeing so many people behave in so many different ways. You have Landry, who's willing to self eliminate as long as she has her princess party. You have other people that are unwilling to play the game and by any means necessary, continue advancing. Other people take bribes, other people don't take bribes. What did you learn about human nature participating in Beast Games?

• 54:15Speaker 03

  I'd say overall, very optimistic about the future of humanity. I mean, I think I did not expect to connect with that many people and I did not expect like four people to turn down a million dollars because 60 people chose them to represent them. I did not expect people to kind of play hard, but play with integrity. And I just didn't expect to forge these friendships. It's one thing to like, you're in the games. You've forged these friendships and it's like, oh my gosh, this is great. This, this works for now. But after the games, I'm still friends with these people. We still keep in contact. So it's kind of like, you know, you think back to some of your jobs, you gotta go, oh yeah, I was really good friends with this person while I worked with them.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  And then you guys go to separate jobs and now you hardly talk.

• 55:01Jack Selby?

  It's interesting because I feel like through talking with you and as well as watching you on Beast Games. One thing that I feel like helped you out a lot is that your actions are very divorced from your emotions. In fact, as a viewer, it was even hard to tell your emotions at times. Like sometimes, you know, there was a little sympathy, sometimes a little bit of this, sometimes a little bit of that. But it was never too far deviated from just like a cool and collected state of being. Do you think that that is like, that was one of the main contributors to your success?

• 55:27Speaker 03

  I noticed that too. Do you play poker? I do not. Don't play poker. You had a good poker face. Yeah, I mean, I think, um, you know, don't ride the highs too high or the lows too low. You kind of like, you know, Rudyard Kipling's if like, and also I think being a father of a rare disease special needs kid, definitely.

• 55:47Speaker 03

  Teaches me how to listen better because I really need to figure out what he's telling me and what he's feeling and also try to feel with him. So like, you know, being a dad of Lucas, you kind of go, gosh, do I try to fix him or do I try to connect with him? And the more I connect with people, I think it really benefited me in the games.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  Was there ever a moment where you lost your cool or you fought with other competitors?

• 56:09Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, it didn't get too heated, but in episode eight, when we, there was a million dollars, we each had an opportunity to kind of go to the pyramid and take as much money as we could. My friend, JC566, took 650,000 and it was just from my experience of him, he was a friend, I just, I didn't expect it from him. And so, you know, I kind of, you know, called him out or at least shared my experience with him, you know, that night and the next day. And, you know, it was two grown men having a heated conversation. Again, like I, I believe that maximum growth comes between the pinnacle between support and challenge. And this was kind of a poke in the chest to a friend. And it was a good dialogue, but it wasn't like, you know, no fists were

• 56:51Speaker 03

  going to be thrown. At the time, I was heated. Once you watch it, you realize, again, it's a game. He had an opportunity to not eliminate anybody and to take the money. And again, whether he pays down his entire mortgage or he pays down some of it, or he gets rid of all of his debt and now he can put money into kind of a, a 529 plan for his kids, like, good on him. Good on him. And then afterward, he kind of threw the alliance under the bus. And I think that's what kind of was like, man, come on, what are you doing? You just got your money and now you're taking out on us. Like, what's this about?

• 57:26Speaker 05

  It was interesting to see a little bit of a switch, though, in his behavior. Like you said, before and after he got his rewards.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it'd be, but I have to look back at it. It's a game. And I think in season two, you'll see a lot more play like that.

• 57:40Graham Stephan?

  But see, it's interesting. You say here, it's a game. But then also, I see Jeremy not taking, and Dino, the million dollars, to which your point, it is a game, taking a million dollars at that point, turning it down in episode two. I saw Ben Shapiro's reaction to it. Got very heated. Did you see his video?

• 57:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:58Graham Stephan?

  He got very upset that no one took the million dollars because he says at that point, it's a positive expected value. When you look at your chance of winning across all these people and you're offered one fifth of the prize pool, it would be dumb not to take that money.

• 58:13Jack Selby?

  It was the expected value was like a million dollars for anyone rejecting a million dollars in that moment. But then if you did the math in terms of the amount of contestants left over and the prize pool at the end, if you evenly distribute that, it was like $5,000.

• 58:27Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 58:27Jack Selby?

  So it's $5,000 per chance or a million dollars in your pocket. And everyone rejected that, which is insane.

• 58:34Graham Stephan?

  Yes, it's, I look at that as like, hey, it's a game. You're on a game show and you have a chance.

• 58:40Jack Selby?

  But then again, Graham would have like taken the first bribe opportunity like he's, he's standing on the.

• 58:45Graham Stephan?

  I think it would be over the thing 10 grand.

• 58:46Jack Selby?

  No, it would have been, it would have been, you know, the first round, eliminate everybody in your row and take like 10 bucks. He's like, well, it's a couple coffees, you know?

• 58:52Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, I, I think it all depends on your intention in going to the games. Like I think like there's one reason to do anything and it's as a sign to the universe of who you are. You know, and like, so like, it's like, if you went into the games with those people you love, if you told your wife, hey, here's what I'm gonna do. Here's my number and guess what? If it means I'm gonna have to sacrifice people to do it, I'm gonna do it. If you haven't had those conversations and you wanna show the world or you wanna do, you wanna show the world through your actions who you are, whether people are looking or people aren't. I think that's what we experienced with Dino, Tawana, Harrison and Jeremy is this is who they are. Like if they got chosen to represent them, they gotta go, I'm not gonna let you down. Granted, that cost them a million dollars, but I truly don't think any of those people regret it.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  I've talked to them all, which is just wild to think about. I think of more of a testimony of who they are as a person versus kind of what they wanted to do in that situation.

• 59:45Jack Selby?

  Do you think a lot of players weaponize sympathy in the game? For example, they kind of acted as though they were feeling sympathetic towards other people's plights. But in actuality, they, their mind was set on the $10 million or the $5 million goal.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  I, I didn't think so at the time. Like I just, I like, I, maybe I'm naive or maybe I'm too trusting, but I didn't think people had ulterior motives with sympathy, but like after the show, it's, it was so fun. Like have friends call me like, hey, asking me different questions about every episode. And I have a, a neighbor who's a psychologist who I'm good friends with and she would ask me these questions and she goes, You know, crying definitely is a tactic for narcissist or so and so to induce sympathy. Like, especially in situations where you're trying to get something. Maybe that's not yours, or you want to get something from someone else. It's like, it made me kind of like, look back at the episode and kind of go, wow, wait, did this person deliberately do this?

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  In order to get sympathy to keep moving on? I'm not sure.

• 1:00:46Jack Selby?

  See, that's the thing. It's like, when a lot of people got eliminated, a lot of people would cry that they got eliminated. But at the same point, that's the objective of the game is to continue on. And so I was wondering, it's like, okay, if I was in a game with other people, and it's like, sure, we had a little bit of an alliance and everything like that. When you get out, like, I'm like, oh, no, no, no. So everyone feels sad for me. And they're like, okay, well, this guy's been through a lot. Let's, you know, keep him around, we'll talk to him, get to know him. But in actuality, I'm just making it farther in the game.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, you know, and even in my alliance, you know, in the top 10, we had four people in our alliance. It was me, Patrick930, Gage974, and JC566. And the ultimate aim is we all want to win, but it would be awesome for all four of us to get there and then battle it out. So it's like, we understand that people are going to get eliminated and it's going to suck. And like, for example, Patrick930, my closest friend of the games, he gets eliminated and we're like, I'm like, bittersweet. Like, I'm sorry to see you go, but like, okay, I'm in the top six. I gotta keep moving on.

• 1:01:44Jack Selby?

  And how was the experience different as a competitor versus as a viewer? Were there certain things that maybe you didn't notice when you were competing? And then you got, you know, some secret drama or something, maybe, or people were in cahoots that you didn't know about until you actually watched the video?

• 1:01:59Graham Stephan?

  I'm curious too, did you see any of the episodes before they aired?

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  So, episode one and two, we got to see in a premiere. So we got to see a day before they aired. But all the other episodes, we saw it just when you did. You know, when it drops at kind of midnight on Thursday was when I would watch it.

• 1:02:18Graham Stephan?

  Are you watching it right when it drops?

• 1:02:20Speaker 03

  I would try sometimes, yeah. So sometimes, like, my wife and I- I would like either try to stay awake or like I'd wake up in the night like, hey, do you want to watch it? But yeah, there was times I'd watch it at midnight. Sometimes I'd watch it in the morning. Sometimes I'd watch it during the day.

• 1:02:32Graham Stephan?

  What was the most surprising thing watching it?

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Just to see other people's perspectives. You know, for me, it's I experienced the game through my lens and through kind of my values. But to see other people's experiences was awesome. And I, I, I think the biggest takeaway again was seeing it as a game and kind of going, I respected, or I understood the Hibibi brothers moves much differently. Watching it than I did, kind of living it. I understood Akira's moves much different than I did, living it. But it was, yeah, it was, it was fun to see people who I got to know really well. Like, once you get to the island, those top 50 people, we got to know super well. And to see their journey and how they played the game was like so fun as a viewer.

• 1:03:15Graham Stephan?

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• 1:06:08Graham Stephan?

  Thank you so much again, Upside, for sponsoring this episode. And now let's get back to the podcast. Was there anything that wasn't shown that you think should have been shown?

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  I think there was a lot of character development, a lot of the game being played between the challenges. So. At the meals while people are hanging out like I think a lot of this game is social. So it doesn't show how people are building their friendships, their alliances. And it would be really, it would have been really neat to see some of the alliances, how they were formed. Cause there was more that were, than were shown.

• 1:06:45Jack Selby?

  I thought it was really interesting when they had introduced your secret alliance. I thought that was something that they could have leaned in a little bit more because that introduced a whole different dynamic as a viewer to, to pay attention to, to be mindful of. And it just gave a lot better perspective. It was a lot more enjoyable. I liked it a lot.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Oh yeah. No, and I, I think, and I think when I think forward to season two, and again, I'm no writer, but I think, I think you'll see those, those alliances, those characters get developed earlier because yeah, it is, it was so juicy. Like that was like, that was my favorite episode, one of my favorite episodes to watch is you have the family reunion, which is like, literally one of the top five moments of my life. And then you have this money grab and this like, the first kind of tension of the game. And I think seeing more of that will allow people to understand characters much better.

• 1:07:32Jack Selby?

  What I find interesting is I feel like you have to, like if you were an employer, you could look at beast games and take the final 20 competitors and put them on some sort of a curve of personalities, skills, intelligence. And they would be outliers in terms of a positive way. I feel like you have to be in terms of social skills, intelligence, everything. And I'm curious, because of the amount of self elimination games that they had, if that could somehow throw a rock in that distribution. If instead they had more competitions, like I loved the intelligence one, the chance one was interesting as well as the, the physical skills one.

• 1:08:12Jack Selby?

  If more of the stuff were like that, more of the competitions were like that, by the end, if you have an even more refined group of people that, you know, one could argue would be good to an employer or just overall like an exceptional being.

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  Jack, you're spot on. Like, like, um, one of the guys who got eliminated in episode one, John 312. Brilliant guy, great social game, really strong leadership. Got eliminated because nobody in his row self eliminated. He would have been kind of formidable at the end. Some other great competitors who were like very loyal, always helping each other. Friend Justin 66 didn't get got eliminated in the first episode too. So yeah, it's I envision a world and this is some of the feedback I've seen online too. It's like, I want to see more skill based.

• 1:08:56Jack Selby?

  And social development as well. Like that's why I liked the alliances, like a little bit of drama. Who can you be in cahoots with? Who could you be in secret cahoots with? The thing I think was Patrick or the the person that took the fifth or the sixth slot in the tower. Like that for me was one of the most exciting things, how he was able to outsmart everyone else and get voted in. And it surprised everybody. I'm like, that was such a low percentage chance for him to continue to for him to advance. But he was able to pull it off.

• 1:09:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, Patrick was the one, he's puppet master Patrick, who took $0. So he took a big risk and going, I think there's going to be upside to zero. He took a big risk and it didn't work out for him. Gage 974 is the one who did this kind of miraculous move on the towers where he's like, I'm going to tell this person that I'm going to vote for them. I'm going to ask for their vote and vice versa. Then he then he had this beautiful throwaway vote for Mikey 453 because he knew no one would vote for him. And when I was sitting there, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is like brilliant.

• 1:09:50Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:50Speaker 03

  And and Gage, like it was neat to see someone like Gage step up. Yes, he had brilliant moves in the ninth and 10th episode. So it's neat to see these these characters kind of seize the moment they're in and crush it.

• 1:10:04Jack Selby?

  One of the most memorable moments for me was the coin flip when you know the prize is going to be $5 million. And then he brings out another $5 million if you flip the coin and guessed correctly.

• 1:10:16Speaker 03

  I hope you know like that's those are real US dollars. This isn't fake money like like so he wheeled in another literally $10 million in cash sitting there. And kind of when he opened the coin, you know, there was zero chance I was going to do it. Like I'm like, it's just not worth it to get this far and lose over coin flip.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  I was never the best kind of in Vegas, you know, betting, playing blackjack or roulette. And I'm like, I'm not going to come out of retirement and flip a coin. But I look over at Gage and Gage became a good friend of mine. He's got these kind of beautiful blue eyes and like you see them sparkling. You see this grin that I've never seen. I'm like, Gage wants to do this. Like Gage really wants to do this. And Gage is so talented and kind of stepping into his own. I'm like, if he wants to do this, I want to make sure he does it. So I go over there and kind of chat with him and I feel it. He wants to do it. And after kind of a little back and forth with him, Tawana, you know, he reaches out, puts his hand on it. And what Jimmy said is the first person to touch this has to flip it. So there's no take backs. And you could just see it in his eyes. He was feeling it.

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  And he, uh, back in the cubes, he flipped to stay in the game, tails. And so he holds it up and goes, I'm feeling tails again. And one of my favorite edits of the whole entire show is the coin flip, you know? And you see the kind of the, the sand going through it. And then they, they pan back and they show Emma's face and Tawana's face. And they're like in total game mode, like focused. And then I'm sitting here with my eyes half open with a little smirk because I'm just feeling so good for Gage. And he flips it and you hear the coin rattling and my eyes are still closed. And I hear Jimmy kind of like sounding devastated like, ah. And I'm going, oh no, we didn't get it. And then it hits me, this is Jimmy's money.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  He is pissed because he just lost $5 million. I look at it and I'm like, I got goosebumps thinking about it. It was tails. Like we literally in a split second went from five million to 10 million. And my buddy flipped a coin for this. I was like, I mean, it was like the most surreal moment, like one of my favorite moments of the entire games.

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  So Jimmy was actually upset that he had to fork over 5 million bucks.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, like a hundred percent, but also like he gets over it quickly because he realizes this is going to be awesome content.

• 1:12:33Speaker 05

  But he can't use it in the title.

• 1:12:35Graham Stephan?

  I got so upset when he said that because I'm like, that's true. Imagine putting that in the title, winning $10 million.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  Oh yeah.

• 1:12:42Graham Stephan?

  Like how more intense the game would have been with that from the beginning.

• 1:12:46Speaker 05

  They'll do that for Beast Games season two.

• 1:12:48Graham Stephan?

  No, I think that was a one and done. I mean, maybe, but.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Well, it's one of these things where John Uche was interviewing Jimmy on the BTS and it's like, you know, how do you top this? And Jimmy's like, oh, we'll do it for sure. Like, so like, this is the thing about Jimmy is he's always gonna up it one way or the other. I mean, it might not be the dollar amount, it might be something unique, but I, uh, I have no doubt that season two will be better than season one.

• 1:13:14Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I was surprised that this is his money. This isn't like he's getting, you know, a sponsor to come in and say, hey, T-Mobile's putting up an extra five million. But this is out of his own pocket. And so to put five million dollars on a coin flip, to me is just like, that's insane.

• 1:13:32Speaker 05

  There was no T-Mobile, you know, logo on the coin.

• 1:13:35Graham Stephan?

  There needed to be like something on that coin is like a sponsor to help. But no, this is like his own money that he's putting up.

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  It's how committed to his craft he is. Like, I want to create the biggest spectacle ever with the simplest thing, a coin flip. I mean, people have been flipping coins for thousands of years. And he, and he makes it amazing.

• 1:13:56Graham Stephan?

  Did he think that someone was actually gonna flip the coin?

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  I've heard that he did not.

• 1:14:00Speaker 05

  I assumed that no one would.

• 1:14:02Graham Stephan?

  That's what I thought, too.

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  I was like, there's no way.

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  But this is, but this is what's beautiful is like, you look back to the million dollar bribe. He and Mac were beside themselves. They, they could not believe that no one took the million dollar bribe. And nobody did. And the flip side, they thought that no one flipped the coin, and we did. So it's like, I, I love the fact that when we can surprise someone like Jimmy, man, you know, we're making great content.

• 1:14:23Graham Stephan?

  So I'm curious, how did 10 million dollars change the game?

• 1:14:27Speaker 03

  For me, um, I just, in my mind, I kind of go, you know, I've thought about this, like, okay, I need to put money aside for my family and I need to have money to kind of invest into research for my son's condition. And five million dollars, don't get me wrong, certainly helps. 10 million dollars is totally different. Cause it's like, okay, I can put money aside to make sure that my son Lucas is taken care of, I can make sure that Jack doesn't have to take care of Lucas and our parents as we get aged. Like, there's just a lot of things we can do, but we can really make a dent in research. Like, we can really invest in some research that can really, hopefully, speed up this kind of quest for a cure, request for a treatment by years.

• 1:15:03Graham Stephan?

  And what about in terms of gameplay? Did people all of a sudden take it like way more seriously?

• 1:15:08Speaker 03

  I, I know I did. Um, you know, going into the top six, I kind of felt like I was going into, you know, a, a big football game. Like, I was, I was nervous going into it. Like, we take the bus over from the city and I remember like sitting out in front of our van and like, the production teams are now like looking at us, like, they're starting to treat us differently. And I had my thermals on, I go to the bathroom, I take my thermals off, I come out. Like, oh, it's cold, let me put my thermals back on. I have this nervous energy. But once I got in there, I'm like, okay, this is it. Like, I can play the game fair, and I can also play the game hard. And so that was my mindset, is like, be calm, kind of be focused, but play to win.

• 1:15:49Graham Stephan?

  When did you realize that you were going to win? Or when did you have that feeling that's like, hey, I got this?

• 1:15:57Speaker 03

  I felt really good after I made the first shot in the first challenge. And we had the red balls. I knew that if I made the first shot, people would think twice about shooting at me. Because they're gonna go, oh, gosh, he's good. You know, if I shoot at him, he can shoot at me and get me out. So after that, I felt like, okay, I made the shot, I'm gonna get to the top four. And I look around at the top four, TSE, Gage, myself, and Tawana. I felt pretty darn good, too.

• 1:16:23Speaker 03

  I didn't feel I was going to win until, like, once we got into the top two. And we had a little break, they had to strike the set and build it. And I'm off, kind of in this warehouse, you know, in the middle by pallets, it's dark. I'm kind of trying to eat a snack, it's 5 o'clock in the morning. And I go, I think I got this. You know, and it was just more of like, it wasn't kind of arrogance, it was more of like, hey, I think I'm in a great spot to win this.

• 1:16:50Graham Stephan?

  Even the top three, you had the opportunity to pick a million dollars guaranteed. And you didn't take it. Was there a part of you that thought, man, maybe I should just take the guarantee million dollars right now? And self-eliminate?

• 1:17:05Speaker 03

  Based on the game, no. The game was kind of, everybody in the top 50 voted kind of who they thought was most deserving to win, or least deserving to win. And I felt like I made great relationships and great end roads.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  But I'll be honest, I didn't think it was Tawana's number in that. I thought it was Gage's.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  You know, Jimmy probably hates Gage because Gage is single-handedly, it's his fault. Jimmy's lost $6 million.

• 1:17:33Speaker 03

  I mean, it's crazy.

• 1:17:34Speaker 05

  $5 million from the coin flip, $1 million from taking the bribe.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  It's, I mean, or he loves him.

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  It's the most expensive, you know, employee or person that Jimmy's ever had.

• 1:17:44Speaker 03

  It's unbelievable. Yeah. And I love when like Jimmy was interviewing Gage, like, hey, what are you going to do with $10 million? He goes, I'm probably going to get a conversion van and play music. He's like, well, what are you going to do with the other $9,900,000?

• 1:17:55Speaker 05

  $90,000 bucks.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's hysterical.

• 1:17:56Speaker 05

  Just a Lambo.

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  I know. That was, that was good. I mean, that threw some people off in the last week. They, people definitely took the hook and thought he won.

• 1:18:04Speaker 05

  Interesting. So what I'm most curious about, the final episode, you're supposed to pick the winning briefcase and you picked it on the first try.

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:13Speaker 05

  And Jimmy said, wow, we've done tests like this in the past. It takes like 18 times on average to, to pick that briefcase. You did it your first try. How did you do that?

• 1:18:22Speaker 03

  I was remarkably calm and I don't know how. I mean, it was six o'clock in the morning. I had like five cups of coffee all throughout the night. But the number six kept appearing to me in the days ahead. So you think back to the million dollar kind of money grab. You know, Patrick got number five and he gave me key number six, which put me into bunk number six. And then the next day I get into top six and we're spending a lot of time by ourselves. So I'm, I'm in my room. You know, I have kind of a prayer book and I'm saying a prayer that has six words in it.

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  What was the prayer?

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  The prayer is called the Shema. And just the number six, it was actually the, um, that day before the night was the sixth day of the sixth Hebrew month. So the number six just kept popping up to me. And so when I got up to the top of the pillars and we looked down at the kind of the lazy Susan with the briefcases and they're numbered.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  It just came to me and said, it's six. Six is it. And so I just kind of felt remarkably calm going down there. And then Jimmy's teeing up the game and they kind of come out and kind of give us the rules.

• 1:19:31Speaker 03

  Jimmy spends it twice, or actually three times. One of the times he spends it, he puts his hand down on it. It's on the number six. Another time he spends it, it lets it go and right in front of me is the number six. And I'm like,

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  like, I mean, do I?

• 1:19:46Speaker 05

  So you went.

• 1:19:47Graham Stephan?

  In thinking six.

• 1:19:47Speaker 03

  I went in thinking six and when the game started, you know, if I saw a briefcase on number six, that was my starting point. And the only way I'd get off it is if she shared something that would dissuade me from picking that. So I was calm and I wanted to kind of pressure test, you know, is there anything that she could tell me to make me choose otherwise? And ultimately there wasn't.

• 1:20:08Graham Stephan?

  How did she pick six?

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  I want to know that. I wish I would have asked her. Um, I wish she would get on a podcast and maybe.

• 1:20:16Graham Stephan?

  Is she, is she not speaking about it?

• 1:20:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, no one's, no one's asked her, but I, I would love to know, like, I know in my mind, I thought there's no chance she's going to choose one. She loves that number and um, three, she has three daughters, five, she has five people in her family. Like I just think these would be unique numbers to choose. Um, like part of me thought, like, one of the reasons why six could be it for her. Cause it wasn't special to her, you know, um, but it was special to me. So I'm like, you know, I, it was just one of these weird, weird moments where my certainty levels were nearly a hundred, if not a hundred.

• 1:20:51Graham Stephan?

  See, I would think to myself, if you have a number one through 10, what would most people pick? And I think a lot of people would just pick one, seven, eight.

• 1:21:02Jack Selby?

  I was thinking two is a perfect, like no one thinks.

• 1:21:04Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I know. I would never think two or four.

• 1:21:06Jack Selby?

  Yeah, four is good.

• 1:21:08Graham Stephan?

  And I would just place it in that, just knowing statistically, people are more likely to pick certain numbers.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  If, if I were in her shoes, if I had to hide it, I think I would do it in a way where I would lose track of where I put it.

• 1:21:21Jack Selby?

  Cause you don't want to signal?

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Cause I mean, uh, or, I mean, she could have turned around. She could have not answered any questions, but like for me, it's kind of like, can I mix up the briefcases enough where I don't know where it's at?

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  Cause uh, you know, you can either make it a total chance game, but like the way we played, it was a chance and bluffing game. She knew where it was.

• 1:21:40Graham Stephan?

  Did the briefcases have numbers only on one side or both sides?

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  So the briefcase, the, the numbers were just on the lazy Susan. So you could have taken all the briefcases and stacked them up 10 high, right in the middle. And I would have to choose like point to one that I wanted. So you, you could, you could have put the briefcases anywhere. She could have stacked multiple ones on number six, which would have really thrown me off. Um, but yeah, it was, um, the, the rules weren't fully explained during the show, but you could have put the briefcases anywhere as long as they were on that kind of lazy Susan.

• 1:22:09Jack Selby?

  How long did it take for her to create that assortment?

• 1:22:12Speaker 03

  I want to say it was like three minutes or so.

• 1:22:14Graham Stephan?

  Long.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, um, and I was just, I was eyes closed, calm, you know, not really trying to listen to anything. Cause like, I'm like, I don't wanna like, what am I really gonna hear? Some people like online are like, oh, you saw the fingerprints. I didn't see anything kinda out of the ordinary. But yeah, it was, it was three minutes and I took it off and I gotta go, gosh, if it's, if there's something on six, that's where I'm starting.

• 1:22:36Graham Stephan?

  What was your first impression winning $10 million and you opened it?

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  It was like shock. I mean, um, I, I, I was like, I was staring at her when I opened it. And I saw, because we, we did a test run before. Cause they, they wanted us to know what it looked like or felt like when we opened it. So each of us opened it before, before the episode or before the, the challenge started. So we knew that a light opens up. So for me, I was going, if I see a light, I know I won. And so I opened it up, the light shines and I like, I paused for a second, like, is this real? And then you hear Jimmy, oh, like, and then you hear the cannons go off. I'm like, oh my gosh, like, I just won $10 million? And so I just took off and I, um, subconsciously did this like Elvis move, I'm a big Elvis fan. And then I jump and run up to the pyramid.

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  And I'm sure the kinda stunt and safety is going, oh my gosh, please do not hurt yourself. Like I could have ran over the other side.

• 1:23:30Graham Stephan?

  Good content.

• 1:23:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then I fell and I kinda just slid down kinda like the Joker. And it was just, it was just this surreal moment. I just wanted to hug people and thank them and, uh, I just picked up Carl and Chandler and it was just, it was so fun.

• 1:23:43Graham Stephan?

  What was her reaction?

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  Uh, I saw it on the show. And, um, I did get a chance to talk to her. So it's, it's kinda like this out of body experience where you kinda like, you know, you get in the zone and you kinda blackout a little bit. It's like, when I got home, I, I remember kind of talking to my wife, kinda going, I can't believe I didn't say, and go, you know, thank Tawana or shake her hand.

• 1:24:10Speaker 03

  She used to go, I think you might have, you know? I'm like, no, I don't think I did. Cause I forgot I did, you know? But I'm so glad I got to go over and talk to her because I just respect her so much. She was like, she literally was who I wanted to compete against at the end. And she was kind of gracious in defeat. And she said she was happy for me, but I could only imagine how hard it must be, especially for a competitor like her, not to even be able to play. Like she really didn't even get a chance at bat. She was only in the field.

• 1:24:36Graham Stephan?

  That's where I feel like the psychologist would really come in to help. Because if I, if I put myself in that position, that would be really tough. I mean, I bet over time you could work through it, but just thinking I was like that close and having regret of, I should have picked five, I should have picked 10. I could have done all these other things that in that moment I can't change anymore.

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  And at the, at the moment, like I told a joke earlier in that episode. I don't know if it was before it started or during that I was like, oh yeah. When I was, it used to be a professional poker player. So she, the joke fell flat. And apparently she thought I was telling the truth. So she thought I was a professional poker player. So in her mind, after that, she's going, this guy read me. I gave him some type of tell. And so like even more so, I think, gosh, going home and thinking, I shouldn't have answered that. I should have turned around. I should have said something different. But there was nothing, nothing in her that I kind of go, gosh, I was going to choose five, but she said this on six, so I was going to choose six because of it. But yeah, I could only imagine what it must have been like to have that on the first try.

• 1:25:42Graham Stephan?

  After winning, who was the first person that you called? Because you hear a lot of lottery winners that go broke and blow through all the money. How did you make sure you weren't going to do that? Who did you call?

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  So the, the first person, you know, I called the beast team and said, hey, can I get some NDA signed for some people? And they're like, of course. So got a few NDA signed and, you know, talked to, An estate planner, because we just wanted to talk about the special needs trust and making sure that that was set up correctly. Talk to some tax people and then also talk to just kind of some investment advisors. Because this is something that like, we need to make the money work for us, not only for our family, but also for other families like ours who have kids with CTD.

• 1:26:27Graham Stephan?

  What was it like not being able to tell anybody? Like, who could you tell? Like, your wife, obviously.

• 1:26:33Speaker 03

  Super blessed that my wife and my oldest son were there. So they got to experience it and feel it. But I signed an NDA, so I couldn't tell anybody that didn't sign an NDA. So I never told my mom. I never told my dad. I have four sisters. And my oldest sister Stacy is like, was, became the biggest Beast Games fan ever and like, asked me a thousand questions. I know you won. I know you won. Did you win? Would you win if you told me you won? Would you tell me? Like, she'd ask all this stuff. And then, like, I would just lead them on kind of rabbit trails to them thinking I did not win. And, but once we got closer to the end, like, they thought I was gonna get eliminated every episode, but I made sure that they all watched it together at the end, because, like, their reaction videos, oh my gosh. Absolutely priceless.

• 1:27:17Graham Stephan?

  And how was that first talking to them, once they realized you had won?

• 1:27:20Speaker 03

  Oh, they were so proud and so happy. You know, and again, they know, they know how much Jen and I, and we live far away. They live in Ohio, we live in California. And they know how much that Jen and I care about Lucas and trying to find a cure and, so they were just so happy that we actually had resources to kind of put our money where our mouth was. And they were just, I can't believe you didn't tell me. You know, like, just all these little things that, so much banter back and forth. And even today, we're two weeks out, they still love asking questions. Wait, wait, when I talk to you about this, did you mean this? How did you not tell me? So it's a, just a ton of fun.

• 1:27:57Graham Stephan?

  It's interesting that none of-

• 1:27:58Jack Selby?

  The other contestants knew that you had won as well because I was messaging other contestants to try to get some information for this podcast. And they were like, yeah, I mean, I was talking to Jeffrey all the way up until the finale. I had no idea that he had won.

• 1:28:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, so um, one of my best friends from the game, Patrick 930, like I literally talk to him probably every day. And he is the ultimate sleuther. One, to give him credit, he never asked me where I finished. He goes, I don't want to know. I want to watch it. But I, I led him on some kind of rabbit trails to think somebody else might have won. Uh, but other people, like other people, the top six, you know, kind of, or not top six, but other people thought I had won. But it was like, it was all hearsay. No one was a hundred percent certain. As long as people aren't a hundred percent certain, it was awesome. But it was so neat seeing, cause I watched the finale in LA with my family in the top 10. And Patrick was right in front of me. And this is so great. I get goosebumps thinking about it.

• 1:28:54Speaker 03

  And when he saw it at the end, he looked at me and just was like, you SOB. And um, he loved it. He loved the fact that I did not rob that from him. Cause that's one thing in the games, we get down there. Yes, we have an NDA. We can't tell people. But we get down to the top six and I remember Clitz, uh, who's one of the show producers who's awesome and is like, hey, think about all, all the things you've experienced so far. How fun has it been? How great has it been? How life changing it's been? I'm like, oh my God, yes, yes, yes. And he's like, believe it or not, people who watch this at home will feel the same feelings. Kind of will have the same thoughts. If you tell them when you got eliminated, how you got eliminated, if you won, you're going to rob that from them. Please don't do that.

• 1:29:37Speaker 03

  That combined with the NDA was enough for me to kind of go, yes.

• 1:29:40Jack Selby?

  They're like, and our lawyers, by the way, would love to speak with you about this.

• 1:29:43Speaker 03

  Exactly. But it, but it is like, like for me, like I, I'm a big fan of allowing people to have their own experience. And just because I want to tell somebody, like I wanted to tell my mom so bad. Like, uh, because she would have been so proud. It would have been fun for her to watch, but like to see how she responded after was so worth it.

• 1:30:01Jack Selby?

  Did anyone ask you for money after you won?

• 1:30:04Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, fortunately, nobody who I know personally. So it's a lot of just people DMing me or on comments on YouTube or Instagram. But yeah, anybody who knows me personally understands kind of my cause, my mission. And so they're, um, they probably know better than to ask for anything.

• 1:30:21Graham Stephan?

  Is anyone treating you differently?

• 1:30:23Speaker 03

  No. Um, you know, and I, I was actually in Costco here in Vegas a couple of days ago. And like four or five people stopped me or just said hi to me like, hey, congrats. Great game. I'm happy for you. But no one is like doing anything kind of out of the ordinary.

• 1:30:38Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. Are you getting recognized just like left and right?

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  I feel like you'd be a celebrity. I think people, there's a lot of double takes. Um, who are they? Like they kind of pointed me like, uh, it was neat. I had a pilot at the airport kind of come up and he goes, Jeff? I'm like, yeah. He goes, oh, I love the show. So, I mean, I've, I've definitely been stopped and it's interesting because I've, this has never happened before. Um, but everybody's been friendly, you know? I think it helps that, you know, the, the way I played the game and the way the games, what the games kind of represent, that everybody who's watching this is pretty excited for me.

• 1:31:07Graham Stephan?

  You should just say you're Ryan Serhant.

• 1:31:08Speaker 03

  I, I think I'm going to start doing that a hundred percent. Yeah. Do you want me to list your home? Terrific.

• 1:31:13Graham Stephan?

  It was, it was so funny. As soon as we watched the first episode and you came on screen, immediately I'm like, yo, it's Ryan Serhant.

• 1:31:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've gotten that so many times. It's crazy.

• 1:31:22Graham Stephan?

  When did you start to go gray?

• 1:31:24Speaker 03

  Probably my twenties. Um, but my dad, ever since I've known him, um, has had salt and pepper. His dad had the kind of bright white hair. So I started going gray in my twenties. I tried to kind of camouflage a little bit. I wasn't ready to, to fully grow up. And then once I got married, I said, let's let it go. And, um, every year it just gets silver and whiter.

• 1:31:45Graham Stephan?

  I think it's a good look.

• 1:31:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's, it, it helps that like this has like been in the last five years. Like people would dye their hair this color. So yeah, it's, I think I'm riding the wave at the right time.

• 1:31:56Graham Stephan?

  So when are you going to meet Ryan Serhant? I feel like this has to happen. There's got to be a collab.

• 1:32:00Speaker 03

  I gotta figure out how to make it happen, you know? And, um, you know, fortunately someone on his, on his team is a big fan of Beast Games. So I've been messaging him. So hopefully I can get out to New York and.

• 1:32:11Graham Stephan?

  You know what? I'm going to shoot him a text. I'm going to send, I'm going to send him a photo right now.

• 1:32:17Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 1:32:17Graham Stephan?

  Let's see.

• 1:32:20Speaker 00

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• 1:33:19Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 1:33:20Speaker 03

  The collab has got to be coming soon.

• 1:33:22Graham Stephan?

  So in terms of the money, I'm curious, what's it like paying or potentially paying $5 million in taxes?

• 1:33:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, it sucks. It's not fun. Well, especially like in today's day and age where you kind of see where some of our tax dollars are being spent. It's like, oh, man, I could put it to better use. But it's the nature of the beast, you know? And I think for me, it's kind of going, how can I minimize my tax burden? You know, whether it's through kind of charitable deductions or setting up a donor advice fund to be able to continue to fund research in the years ahead. But I'm sure there's better ways for me to figure it out.

• 1:33:55Graham Stephan?

  So it's so funny. I was thinking about this because there was a post that went super viral on X. And the title was winner of Beast Games is going to pay $5 million in taxes to the state of California and the IRS. And my response, I was like right on it. I responded back and I'm like, well, actually, if your wife becomes a real estate professional, you're able to deduct real estate paper losses against your active income. So hypothetically, because it's early enough in the year, she could be a real estate professional, spend $700,000. 150 hours on that this year. You go and use some of that money as a down payment on a commercial property.

• 1:34:35Graham Stephan?

  You then do what's called a cost segregation analysis to be able to take paper losses against that property to your income. So let's just say, as an example, you put $2 million down on a $10 million building. You're able to depreciate $8 million of that building. Now, all of a sudden, you've just saved $2, $2.5 million in taxes that you could then have working for you and not pay, you know.

• 1:35:01Speaker 03

  It's funny because I've been on real estate Twitter, real estate X for like five years. And so like cost segregation analysis has gotten super hot. And I felt like I've never had a reason to do it. And my wife has like always been interested in real estate. So like you might, you might have planted a seed. I'll, I'll have to let you know.

• 1:35:18Graham Stephan?

  This would be so easy for you to do now, especially because you're getting a lot of eyeballs on you. And just say, hey, is anyone looking to buy or sell a house? My wife would, would love to help you out. She just got her license. She's giving it 100%. She's working with another agent who's been doing this for 20 years. We'd love to help you.

• 1:35:34Speaker 03

  By the way, she'd be awesome at it. Like I, like my wife, like anything I see, I'm like, oh gosh, Jen, you'd be an awesome figure skater. You'd be a great chef. Like she, anything she touches, she's gold at.

• 1:35:43Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:44Speaker 03

  So like, Jen, I think we need to get your license soon.

• 1:35:48Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. The, the other option, see, I don't know if you could do this, uh, because California might want to call this like California sourced income. I really don't know. They can be strict about this, but potentially looking into setting up a corporation in another state with no state income tax. Delaware, I think is pretty, pretty popular. Nevada is pretty popular too. Setting up a corporation so that the money goes to the corporation, the corporation pays, I think it's a flat like 20% income tax on that. But then the corporation could then disperse the money as needed. And that way you're not taking the money personally. It belongs to the corporation, but perhaps that could be used to fund research or certain things. So now you're only paying 20%, $2 million in tax, which is a lot versus five.

• 1:36:32Speaker 03

  Graham, you're hired. No, I mean, no, no, no.

• 1:36:36Graham Stephan?

  My fee is, by the way, only a million dollars.

• 1:36:38Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yes.

• 1:36:39Graham Stephan?

  So great.

• 1:36:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, but just 25% of all the savings. No, these are awesome ideas. And one thing that's just happened recently is once this got out and I've been introduced to some more people through some great connections. So connections I trust. I've had some awesome conversations with tax attorneys that like totally opened my eyes to, you know, obviously legal structures to be able to kind of preserve and grow your wealth. And it's like, these are things I would never have had access to, like these tools of the uber wealthy. Man, it is crazy how much I didn't know.

• 1:37:12Graham Stephan?

  Did you get any bad advice, like someone, someone's telling you like, you know, I got this new like roller skating rink. It's going to be the next big thing or this new meme coin.

• 1:37:21Speaker 03

  No one's pushing, no, no, no one's been pushing too hard at things, but like I definitely have felt some people planting seeds like, oh yeah, yeah. Like, um, you know, I might have this opportunity coming up, you know, let me know if you're interested. It hasn't come to fruition, but I imagine I'll be getting a lot of phone calls.

• 1:37:37Jack Selby?

  People say money doesn't buy happiness, but how did it feel to win $10 million?

• 1:37:43Speaker 03

  Winning $10 million was awesome. Um, did it bring me happiness? I'd say at the time, it kind of brought me like stress. But ultimately after it kind of fizzled out, like I think peace of mind is the ultimate gift of the $10 million. Everything my wife and I ever dreamed about has kind of a, we have line of sight to it because of, because of winning Beast Games season one.

• 1:38:06Graham Stephan?

  Now, besides buying the Lamborghini, was there anything that you spent money on? I'm joking, by the way.

• 1:38:11Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm so funny because like so many people have said that to me and I picture myself in Lamborghini and I just feel so out of place.

• 1:38:17Graham Stephan?

  Put the top down.

• 1:38:18Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:38:19Jack Selby?

  See, I always think you won $10 million, but what about 20? If you just put it on black, because I think black is a lock today. That's what I think.

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  I mean, just on a coin.

• 1:38:29Graham Stephan?

  And flipped tails.

• 1:38:30Jack Selby?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  I would love to do that. I mean, I mean, how fun would that be? But we'd have to get Jimmy here because it's good content. We need to, we need to get this thing filmed. The first thing we spent it on, and we spent this actually before we got the money. Was we just went on a nice, really nice family vacation to Maui. My kids have never been on a beach vacation, even though we live in California. And we brought the in-laws, so my sister-in-law, her husband and their kids. And we just had an awesome trip. But other than that, you know, you'll still see me cruising around town in my Honda Odyssey minivan. Maybe I'll upgrade it to a Tesla Model Y someday. Elon at dinner, maybe you can give me a nice deal on that, too.

• 1:39:10Graham Stephan?

  Are you getting any other opportunities because of the show, like appearances? Like people pay you to show up at the club?

• 1:39:17Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 1:39:18Graham Stephan?

  What?

• 1:39:19Jack Selby?

  That's the one thing you choose out of all of the other opportunities?

• 1:39:22Graham Stephan?

  I'm just saying.

• 1:39:23Jack Selby?

  Who people reaching out? Like who, who's reached out to you? Who slid in your DMs?

• 1:39:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, um, what was really interesting was like a couple of days, like it might've been a day after, like Logan Paul slides in my DMs. And he's like, yo, bro, like, dude, that was awesome. I love you. I love how you played. I'm so proud of you. I'm happy for your family. I'm like, and, and Logan, I'm actually, we're both from Ohio. And we actually went to the same college. I'm just way older than he is. But it's just like, Logan Paul just DM me? Like, how cool is this? Yeah. And I've had some opportunities. I mean, to be here on your podcast is like crazy. Like, like, I mean, I've seen.

• 1:39:58Jack Selby?

  Thank you. Yeah.

• 1:39:58Speaker 05

  It's a blessing you're showing up here.

• 1:40:00Speaker 03

  I know. And I got to be on Good Morning America. My wife's like, what are you gonna do next? Dancing with the Stars? I'm like, maybe, like, I got rhythm. But it just, yeah, it's, the doors have opened and I get to tell Lucas's story and I get to share my story. And it's been awesome. I mean, I, I, I hope more doors open up and I'll definitely let you know and.

• 1:40:19Graham Stephan?

  Do you miss competing in beast games? Like, was there a part of you afterwards where you're like really sad it's over?

• 1:40:25Speaker 03

  Oh, like that is, that's one of the things, one of the reasons why people don't take bribes. Is playing the games is so fun. Like you, the fear of missing out and not playing anymore is real. And so the challenges are fun. Thinking about the challenges are fun. Strategizing on what you think it's going to be and how you're going to respond. So when it's over, it's kind of like, now what? So, um. I wish I had something to fill that kind of competitive strategic void.

• 1:40:54Jack Selby?

  So you received the $10 million wire only recently. Could you show us that screenshot?

• 1:41:00Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:41:00Jack Selby?

  So that's what it looks like.

• 1:41:02Speaker 03

  Isn't that crazy?

• 1:41:03Jack Selby?

  That is nuts. There's a lot of zeros there.

• 1:41:05Graham Stephan?

  Wow. How many people have seen that? Like, do you just show it to people?

• 1:41:09Jack Selby?

  Yeah, everywhere he walks.

• 1:41:11Speaker 03

  No, I mean, obviously, I don't want to do that. You know, it puts a target on my back, but I posted it. So Jimmy posted it on Twitter, like, you know, just wired $10 million to the winner. And I like post my receiving side of it and say like, no take backs. And it's just surreal, like to see, again, to win $500,000 is amazing. A million dollars, $2 million, $5 million, are you kidding me? $10 million is ridiculous. I mean, it really is absolutely ridiculous because I signed up on a little webcam video with my son.

• 1:41:44Graham Stephan?

  You should have messed with Mr. Beast and just said, I never received it.

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  I should.

• 1:41:48Graham Stephan?

  I don't know what happened to it. It never hit my account. Where did it go? Send it again.

• 1:41:54Speaker 03

  I'll do that after I win season two.

• 1:41:55Jack Selby?

  Perfect. Do you think you're going to be able to compete in season two?

• 1:41:59Speaker 03

  I think if I did, I would be a target. Like, really, like, you think about how people want to take Mia out after she won the island? Oh, I would be target number one.

• 1:42:08Jack Selby?

  Walk us through the first day after receiving $10 million. What did you do?

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  So I received it Friday, the Friday after.

• 1:42:17Speaker 03

  The next day, I actually, I was in LA and I drove back to San Francisco area by myself. And I just called family and hung out. I mean, it was, it was, nothing changed. It was really odd, you know, it was like, okay, like this one in my bank account. I get this ultimate kind of sense of peace of mind, but I'm like.

• 1:42:42Speaker 03

  What, what do I do now? Like, like, what, what am, what am I supposed to do with this? Like, and then like, and then my mind kind of goes, oh, gosh, I need to figure out how to make it work. Like, I've had five months to prepare for this, but now it's go time.

• 1:42:52Jack Selby?

  Was there like a test payment? Did you get like a dollar sent to you first? And then Jimmy's like, okay, yeah, you got the dollar. Okay, cool. Let me send the 10.

• 1:42:58Speaker 03

  No, it was, it was just 10 million dollars.

• 1:43:01Jack Selby?

  Sent the 10 million.

• 1:43:02Speaker 03

  10 million dollars. I mean, it's, it was just, I didn't expect, I remember the beast team kind of said, hey, by the way, the wire is going to get sent out today. Like, it might take a couple of days. And within an hour or two, like I, like, I think my wife said, like, hey, check and see if it's there. And I opened up my account. I'm like, oh my gosh, this 10 million dollars is sitting like a 10 million dollar input into my checking account. I'm like, this is ridiculous.

• 1:43:24Jack Selby?

  If I'm sending like a hundred and 50 dollars to a contractor, like I'm sending a dollar to make sure that they received it for a hundred percent. And so you're saying he like, it's a part of my friend, like raw dogged a 10 million dollar payment to you, just sent it.

• 1:43:37Speaker 03

  Totally raw dogged.

• 1:43:38Jack Selby?

  Insane.

• 1:43:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, and like, and there was no like, hey, did you get it? Because me, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way. Like, hey, if I wire someone money or send ACH, like, hey, did you get it? Like, are you sure you got it? But there was nothing. I was like, just sent.

• 1:43:51Jack Selby?

  That's horrifying.

• 1:43:52Graham Stephan?

  That's crazy. I would at least follow up, like, you got this, right?

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, I mean, it was hysterical. I mean, obviously, um, we verified my, you know, bank routing number and account numbers like three or four times. I had to sign a paper and all that stuff. So like, I feel like they kind of go, oh, it's on you. We put the numbers in.

• 1:44:09Jack Selby?

  It's on you.

• 1:44:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but, but here's the crazy thing about the beast team is like, just because, just as I couldn't tell my parents about this, inside Mr. Beast, not everybody knew that it was actually 10 million and not five. Most people didn't know who the winner was. So it's like, it's kind of like, when they had to tell accounting, hey, by the way, we need to wire the winner, the money. And it's 10 million. Like, like they had to like, say, by the way, you can't tell anybody. Cause like, they want, they, they are so committed to their content that they, even in the last challenge, they kind of struck the set. It was like bare bones staff and crew because they wanted to reduce any, any kind of, um, opportunity for leaks.

• 1:44:50Jack Selby?

  So you're saying Jimmy didn't even check with accounting to see if he could spend five more?

• 1:44:54Graham Stephan?

  Million dollars?

• 1:44:55Speaker 03

  Oh, no. I mean, he knew he could, but accounting did not know that the winner was 10 million.

• 1:45:00Graham Stephan?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:45:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it's like, I mean, it's like, this is one of the things that I love so much about them. And I'm a big fan of kind of discernment and sharing, you know, being knowing who to share what with. And I just love how they kept the secret. I love how no one knew how the game ended until it aired.

• 1:45:18Graham Stephan?

  And you're saying that there wasn't anything that maybe you've wanted for a couple of years, but it's like, ah, you know, these headphones are like $400. I have like a pair of $20 cheapos that I can continue using. It's fine. There wasn't anything like that, that you like splurged the first day you got the 10 million bucks?

• 1:45:33Speaker 03

  Um, I think I bought a pair of shoes, like running shoes, like, like dad.

• 1:45:38Graham Stephan?

  Were they pricey? Gucci's?

• 1:45:40Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:45:41Graham Stephan?

  They're Louis Vuitton.

• 1:45:42Speaker 03

  Yes, totally. Um, I mean, there's always been like a watch I've wanted, but like, I mean, I literally have not had a watch since I was 19. It was a fossil watch.

• 1:45:53Speaker 03

  And I got, and I can tell the time on my phone. So like, there's nothing kind of crazy out of the ordinary that I want. Um, yeah, kind of for me, still my focus is my family and trying to fund research. So it's like, I'm sure I will splurge and get something. And I think I have to. I think like anytime you have, like whether you have an exit from, you know, a company or you have an awesome year, a big bonus, like I think it's worth celebrating. Cause if not, like, why the heck are you doing it? It's just numbers and zeros on a screen.

• 1:46:20Graham Stephan?

  Do you still keep in touch with Jimmy?

• 1:46:21Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, I mean,

• 1:46:24Speaker 03

  it's not like him and I were like buddies on the show. Like we knew each other. We would talk to each other. But since like him and I have DM'd a handful of times and like literally I'll message him and he'll respond. Like, it's like, I'm like, how does he have the time to do it? But he, um, you know, since he's gotten engaged to Thea, who's I got to meet on the show and she is just brilliant and smart and beautiful. Like I just am super excited to see what those two do together. Like, like so young, like power couple. Like I'm like, man, I can't wait to be your biggest fan.

• 1:46:51Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. Going for your reason why, uh, throughout the entire show, you're talking about your son. What is his condition? How does, how does that, how does that even come to be? Like, how are you diagnosed with it?

• 1:47:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:04Graham Stephan?

  What causes it?

• 1:47:05Speaker 03

  So my son, Lucas, has a rare disease called creatine transporter deficiency or CTD. Do you guys take creatine? Yeah, um, you know, creatine is great for kind of bodybuilders, performance athletes, but it's also just great for normal brain health. So his body makes it naturally. It gets into the blood and travels through the blood to the final destination, which is like your, your muscles and your brain. But there's a transporter that takes it there and his transporter is defective. So his brain doesn't get the creatine, the energy it needs to function, develop and thrive. And it presented when he was super young, like about eight months old, he started, we noticed he starts missing milestones. He's not able to kind of sit up. He's not able to crawl. Um, he's not very verbal, like doesn't cry a ton. You know, we hooked him up to every machine, did every test,

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  saw every specialist for like 18 to 24 months. And, um, there was no answer until finally we called in one favor and like, hey, Elliot, maybe you should try to get an MRS in addition to an MRI. And that showed that the creatine was stopping at the blood brain barrier. And he got diagnosed with CTD. And, you know, Jen and I are kind of like, and I was the optimist, like, maybe he's development delayed and Jen's like more pragmatic, like, we need to take the steps to make sure it's not any unique condition. And once we get the diagnosis, we realize, okay, great. He, we know what he has, but then we soon realize there's no therapy. Like there's no treatment, there's zero cure for what he has. And so now we're kind of in this no man's land where we know what we have, but there's nothing we can do

• 1:48:29Speaker 03

  about it. So I joined this nonprofit called the Association for Creatine Deficiencies, become a board member and realize, hey, I need to get out there and spread awareness. So I started doing funky things to try to raise awareness. I walked 68 miles for the gene, SLC 688. I wrote a Christmas song to try to raise money. Uh, my son, Jack and I did this kind of rendition on Home Alone 2 to try to raise money. And we're just trying to do all we can to kind of raise more awareness and raise money to try to ultimately find a treatment. But, um, Lucas is a sweet boy. He's a happy boy.

• 1:49:02Graham Stephan?

  How difficult is it to raise money?

• 1:49:04Speaker 03

  It's hard. You know, it's, it's more difficult than you think. Cause you know, the, these people who are super philanthropic, who have big pockets, um, they also want to change the world. And for creatine transporter deficiency, there's less than 400 kids diagnosed. So there's certainly bigger ends that you can impact. So, and then also academia, you know, it's tough to get them interested in something so small. Big Pharma, obviously, it's, you know, and I don't blame them. You know, they're in a for-profit business. They want to make money. It's hard for them to invest in the stuff that is really hard to recoup your investment. So, a lot of the fundraising depends on parent advocates. And there's a lot of people who are kind of repeat donors who are awesome.

• 1:49:47Speaker 03

  But to fund and cure a rare disease costs upwards like $50 million.

• 1:49:51Graham Stephan?

  What do you think is the best solution to finding a cure for something like that?

• 1:49:56Speaker 03

  Cure and treatment are kind of synonymous. I mean, technically, a cure is like something that like, hey, it's never gonna happen again.

• 1:50:01Graham Stephan?

  Sure.

• 1:50:02Speaker 03

  But kids will be born with this. And the ultimate goal is to have a kid diagnosed at birth and receive a treatment within a week that will ultimately allow them to have a normal life. And that's the kind of the sum and bonum. That's where we want to get. That's like the highest good. But to get there, like, there's different kind of ways you can get there. It could be gene editing, gene therapy. It could be drug repurposing, like, finding drugs that are already proven safe and effective by the FDA, repurposing them and realizing they can get created in the brain, or like Stanford's working on small molecule. Like, how can we make something so small that it can get through the blood-brain barrier to help either induce creatine creation in the brain or bring creatine to the brain? So, like, we have researchers at Stanford in Italy and British Columbia and Toronto

• 1:50:44Speaker 03

  who are doing awesome stuff. And I think eventually we'll crack the code, but boosting this with an injection of money is, you know, fingers crossed, gonna help it get there quicker.

• 1:50:55Graham Stephan?

  How can viewers help if they want to?

• 1:50:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. They can go to, you know, actually, right now, me and my friend Jeremy from the show are rucking across California. So, we're carrying the weight of Lucas between us, and we're rucking 365 miles across California to raise awareness and raise funds for the 365 days a year that Lucas suffers with this condition. So, you can go to ruckforrare.com right now and see ways to contribute. But you can also go to my website, legacy831.com. There's a ton of information on CTD and other ways you can get involved. But spreading the word and even contributing, just even a little bit, really helps us go a long way.

• 1:51:31Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I've been watching your videos. I really enjoy it.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  Good.

• 1:51:34Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. So, I'll link to your channel down below in the description.

• 1:51:37Speaker 03

  All of that stuff will be linked down.

• 1:51:38Graham Stephan?

  Highly recommend you guys go and subscribe and support because the videos are really interesting. And like, sharing some of the behind the scenes from your perspective is really cool.

• 1:51:46Speaker 03

  Awesome. No, I'm glad you enjoy them.

• 1:51:47Graham Stephan?

  How did his condition change your life?

• 1:51:52Speaker 03

  In a ton of ways, it changed my life. You know, it immediately kind of forces you to change your priorities and change your perspective. So Lucas brought faith back into my life. And he also allowed me to kind of see the beauties in the bumps. Like this is a challenge that is lifelong. Like Lucas, as of today, will live with mom and dad forever. And eventually there will be a time where mom and dad are gone. And where does Lucas live? Like, will people take care of him? Will he be treated well? And so for me, it just forced me to look at things differently and see the things that are important. Like Lucas has given me so many blessings in life.

• 1:52:34Speaker 03

  Like my outlook, how I treat others, how I value my family is so different because of what he gave to me. So, um, you know, like one of the reasons why I'm out rocking across California and one of the reasons why I set up for Beast Games is going, if I can ever repay all the blessings he's given me, man, I will be a happy man. I'll be a happy dad. So until, uh, you know, I don't think that's ever going to end because he keeps giving me blessings. And so does his older brother, Jack. So, um, he's changed my life. He's changed my perspective and allowed me to have a ton more empathy for families like ours. It's, um, it's a different journey and it can be hard, but it doesn't have to suck. You know, if you, if you really search hard, I think you'll find the blessings in these, in these bumps.

• 1:53:18Jack Selby?

  So winning 10 million bucks, you can stretch that pretty far. How are you planning on investing it?

• 1:53:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I think that's the ultimate goal is how do I make it work for my family? And how do I make it work so I can continue to invest into research? Kind of first things first, like just as you, like Jimmy wired me 10 million, I wired a great chunk of that over to a financial institution to kind of get it to work. And right now it's kind of sitting in kind of some treasury ETFs. As I figure out kind of where I'm going to put it, but it's like, this opens up a whole new world for me because I'm now a qualified purchaser. It's like structured products.

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  Different, um, different private investments I would never have had access to. So there's different things I want to do to make sure my family's taken care of over the long term. We got to look at kind of PPLI, we have to look at long-term care insurance, like making sure we do things so my, our kids don't have to care for us. But also like, how do I make sure that we're funding the research we need to? How do we stretch those dollars? So making donations this year, setting up a donor advised fund to continue to invest over the years and hopefully into great investments. So those dollars grow.

• 1:54:26Speaker 03

  It's a great problem to have, but it's a little overwhelming. So I have a great team of people who I know and trust, who are helping me.

• 1:54:35Speaker 03

  And the ultimate goal is to stretch these dollars to continue to make an impact in my family and other families like ours.

• 1:54:41Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, it seems like all the fancy stuff, like if people try to pitch you like, oh, I got this great fund and this and that, like.

• 1:54:46Jack Selby?

  It's just distractions.

• 1:54:47Graham Stephan?

  It usually is. It's usually the really simple approach of like, hey, 70% US equities, 20% international, 10% treasuries slash cash. Tends to be the safest and then like long-term does really well.

• 1:55:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and my wife is more conservative. You know, I'm more, when it comes to investing, you know, I'll specialize like, you know, when I look at my, my IRAs, it's like my Roth and my traditional, I own three stocks in it. And that's it. You probably would.

• 1:55:14Graham Stephan?

  What stocks?

• 1:55:15Speaker 03

  Tesla. I own MicroStrategy and I own Coinbase. Very risky.

• 1:55:20Graham Stephan?

  How long have you owned those?

• 1:55:22Speaker 03

  A while. So I've had a good.

• 1:55:24Graham Stephan?

  Those are, those are insane stocks to own recently.

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I've had a good run on those. And for me, um, especially being in my IRA, it's like, I can be a little more risky, at least how I do it. And then, so this other stuff, I'll be a little bit more conservative and take my wife's approach and kind of your approach. And just make sure these dollars stretch.

• 1:55:42Graham Stephan?

  Wow. Don't tell Jack whatever you're investing in, because as soon as he buys it, it's going to go down.

• 1:55:47Speaker 03

  No way.

• 1:55:48Graham Stephan?

  Every single time.

• 1:55:49Jack Selby?

  It's bad recently too, because.

• 1:55:52Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:55:53Jack Selby?

  Cause I, do you remember how I was like, I have way too big of a cash position right now. Like I need to buy stocks. So I created a whole new, I use M1 Finance, at least right now, I won't forever. Uh, I created this new account within my M1 account and it was called my VUG account. It's my growth stock. It's like an index fund, basically. Put a bunch in there. I was averaging into that. I've been doing that now for like, probably about a year. And then I realized my cash position's too big, so I started really putting money into it.

• 1:56:21Speaker 03

  Remember you telling me about this.

• 1:56:22Jack Selby?

  Dumping money into it.

• 1:56:23Speaker 03

  At the end of the year when the market was at its peak.

• 1:56:25Jack Selby?

  At the end of the year and I really, and I'm overall down so much in that account. And it's an index fund because I just bought at the wrong time. It's, and I've been, I've had it for over a year. I just like, and I, I did small investments while like, you know, it was obviously just skyrocketing. And then right at the peak is when I just like unloaded into it and I'm down so much.

• 1:56:46Speaker 03

  Isn't it crazy how it works out? I mean, like.

• 1:56:48Jack Selby?

  But it's consistent.

• 1:56:48Jack Selby?

  It's not working out. But this is not working out.

• 1:56:51Speaker 03

  This is a one time thing.

• 1:56:51Jack Selby?

  It's crazy how it all works out.

• 1:56:52Speaker 03

  Well, hey, but, but.

• 1:56:53Jack Selby?

  It's doing the exact opposite.

• 1:56:54Speaker 03

  But you gotta hold it.

• 1:56:56Jack Selby?

  Oh, well, yeah. I mean, that's, I don't let it keep me up at night and every day that the market's down, I'm like, well, you know, like, you know, my averaging in. Cause I don't even have enough money now to like, continue bulk investing like I was. So.

• 1:57:07Speaker 03

  That's the worst.

• 1:57:08Graham Stephan?

  But this has been going on for years. I mean, this has been like since 2020 or 2021, everything he buys.

• 1:57:14Jack Selby?

  And, and you know what's crazy?

• 1:57:15Speaker 03

  Are you your generation's Jim Cramer?

• 1:57:18Jack Selby?

  I think I am because also I built up this Robinhood account and I've talked about it on this podcast before. And I built it from like, I think it was like 22 grand all the way to 75. The best investment that I made was Dogecoin and I turned a hundred dollars into just shy of $17,000. And then I parlayed that into basically everything was call options on Robinhood and Palantir. And then that was when they started plummeting. And so I got margin called and I was forced to sell my call options on these. So I couldn't hold on to them anymore. And that's like leveraged positions. And guess what's happened to Robinhood and Palantir recently?

• 1:58:00Speaker 03

  Crushing it.

• 1:58:01Jack Selby?

  They're crushing it. But guess what happened to me? I had to give away my shares because I got margin called on that account. So it's.

• 1:58:07Speaker 03

  Short-term calls?

• 1:58:08Jack Selby?

  Uh, it was long. So I was like, I was like, as I maxed it out in terms of the time. So I think it was like a year and a half.

• 1:58:14Speaker 03

  Margin.

• 1:58:15Jack Selby?

  And so I. I don't know what it is, but especially with the recent purchases of the index funds, it's crazy. As soon as I start loading it in, because I've had it for over a year, but I'm still down.

• 1:58:26Speaker 03

  So you're a big Tesla fan. Are you going, are you getting long options on Tesla?

• 1:58:30Jack Selby?

  Yeah, but the thing is, it's like the heavier I go into something, usually the worse it performs. And I haven't gone incredibly heavy into Tesla. So it's one of my smaller positions.

• 1:58:39Graham Stephan?

  It's still, okay. I was pissed on Robinhood because I was investing in Robinhood and Jack saw me buy Robinhood stock. And he's like, oh, I'm gonna buy some of that too. Immediately the next day.

• 1:58:50Jack Selby?

  I'm not, I would have hundreds of thousands of dollars right now in my Robinhood account because of Robinhood stock in Palantir. Because they've just been going like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

• 1:58:58Graham Stephan?

  But here's how bad it is. There was a day where Robinhood just kept going down. It was down like 80%. And I go to Jack, I'm like, I'll pay you to sell your stock. And he's really stubborn. He's like, no. Like, come on, there's got to be a price. I could pay you. Guess what? We come up with a price. He sells his Robinhood stock. The next day it's up 10%.

• 1:59:18Speaker 03

  So, so when I, when you read those financial questionnaires to kind of figure out your risk profiles, like, if you lost more than X percent, do you buy more? Do you hold? Do you sell? You're the one who sells?

• 1:59:28Jack Selby?

  No, no. Like, like I do the right thing now, at least. After that whole, you know, Palantir and Robinhood fiasco, I now do the right thing. I'm dollar cost averaging into index funds. It's everything, it's all I've ever done now since that incident. But still, it doesn't matter.

• 1:59:43Graham Stephan?

  There was another one that was really funny. A buddy was talking about what he was invested in. Jack's like, I'm gonna go into that too. He buys into it. And this person is always like-

• 1:59:54Jack Selby?

  My buddy didn't know that I bought into it.

• 1:59:56Graham Stephan?

  But, but he's always right on the money, like very smart. And he's got into like certain things before they've taken off. Like his track record is fantastic. So Jack knows this. It's like, well, if his track record's like basically 100%, I'm gonna, I'm pretty safe buying into this. How was that doing?

• 2:00:11Jack Selby?

  Uh, I had to sell because I bought calls on it. So I, you know, just leveraged positions. And basically lost everything, but it wasn't.

• 2:00:19Speaker 03

  I mean, I love how so conservative you are to dollar cost average into index funds, but you're doing leverage calls.

• 2:00:25Jack Selby?

  Well, the thing is, like, I did that with, like, an account with $2,000 in it, but I do have, like, my daily auto invest, which is more, like, not more than, but it's a substantial amount that I'm investing every day into.

• 2:00:38Speaker 03

  I love that you DCA every day. That's great.

• 2:00:40Jack Selby?

  Yeah, a lot of people do it every week. I prefer to do it every day. Graham's a weirdo and he likes to manually do it every day, but I recommend it to a lot of my.

• 2:00:48Graham Stephan?

  We also, we have a few friends who we know when they buy into something, it's the peak. And so with Bitcoin, we have one friend in particular, it's like, no, I'm not going near that. And we know, okay, when that person buys in, we sell.

• 2:01:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:02Graham Stephan?

  We have to, because that's the peak.

• 2:01:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:01:05Jack Selby?

  Like, I was always a little bit skeptical. Graham is very, what do you call that word? That thing, that word?

• 2:01:11Graham Stephan?

  Optimistic.

• 2:01:12Jack Selby?

  No, it's not optimistic. It's, uh, when you don't want to walk under a ladder.

• 2:01:16Graham Stephan?

  Superstitious.

• 2:01:17Jack Selby?

  Yeah, Graham's very superstitious. So he starts connecting the dots with a lot of things, and I am exactly the opposite. And he brought this to me, this whole Jack trading, you know, Jack inverse trading thing. And I'm like, ah, like, I don't believe it. I don't believe. Recently, it's, it's, it's really hard to ignore with the index fund thing.

• 2:01:30Speaker 03

  Well, it's so funny. I forget who, uh, who you had on the show, but he talks about like knowledge parity.

• 2:01:35Jack Selby?

  Oh, uh, Chris Camilla.

• 2:01:37Speaker 03

  Which I loved. It was like, it's like, to be able to spot these trends, but yeah, once you, it's like your friend, like, once he starts talking about it, okay, it's time to get out. Like, if he's getting in, we get out.

• 2:01:46Graham Stephan?

  So we got a good group of friends, diverse enough where I know if this person buys this, sell. If this person sells that, buy.

• 2:01:54Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 2:01:55Graham Stephan?

  Just between them, I think we got the markets covered.

• 2:01:57Speaker 03

  That's so good.

• 2:01:58Graham Stephan?

  But Jack is like the ultimate bellwether.

• 2:02:00Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:01Graham Stephan?

  Of like, buy or sell, like the greed fear indexes.

• 2:02:04Speaker 03

  I think it's the Jack of the past. I think 2025 and beyond is gonna be.

• 2:02:08Jack Selby?

  I think I just need to make more Dogecoin investments.

• 2:02:10Graham Stephan?

  No, honestly.

• 2:02:11Jack Selby?

  Super, super.

• 2:02:12Graham Stephan?

  You could make a lot of money. Just, uh, people pay you just to know how much you're investing in the market and what you're buying, so they could do the opposite to that.

• 2:02:21Jack Selby?

  Yeah, but if they're paying me for it, then like, like, the universe would want to minimize the amount of gain that I possibly have. So if they're paying me for it, then like, the first couple of trades I would do would be successful, but to a very small degree, to where everyone's like refunding their money to me. And then I would start, yeah. That's what I think, but no. No, index funds, they've been, overall, I'm positive, but way less than probably.

• 2:02:45Speaker 03

  Well, and especially at your age, your timeline is so, you got a, you got a long timeline.

• 2:02:50Jack Selby?

  Yeah. So, good to know that you have some plans to mitigate your tax implications. And that's gonna be pretty brutal when you end up paying that.

• 2:02:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, and um, we'll have to report back whether, you know, we have this amazing new realtor in Northern California, who's got, we got a great commercial property. So, I'd see if that.

• 2:03:07Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, keep posting videos. I think that would be really important. And do more appearances. I think the more awareness you raise, especially now because you have, I think, a few months right now, where you could really maximize everything before people are like, oh, I've seen the show already. I don't need to watch it again.

• 2:03:22Speaker 03

  Old news, season two is coming out.

• 2:03:24Graham Stephan?

  Exactly. I think you got three months where you could really make the most of it. And so I would.

• 2:03:28Jack Selby?

  Do you have any regrets from the show?

• 2:03:32Speaker 03

  No. You know, obviously, you look at the ultimate outcome. You know, I won, season one of Beast Games. I won $10 million. Like, for me to have regrets, I think is like, super selfish.

• 2:03:44Speaker 03

  So, no, you know, regrets per se, but there are times where I wish I could have maybe helped a friend more. Like, uh, like one is on the telephone voting game. Like, could I have done something different to have helped Patrick get to the final six?

• 2:04:02Speaker 03

  Granted, he could have beat me in the top six. He thinks he could have, but he wouldn't have. But like, those are the types of things, like, could I have done something different to help a friend get further?

• 2:04:10Graham Stephan?

  Well, speaking of a friend, I would love to have Jeremy on here, who turned down $1 million.

• 2:04:14Jack Selby?

  All right. Jeremy, how did it feel to reject $1 million for the sake of your team? And then it seems like shortly afterwards, everyone forgot about that. And it seems like there was an uprising against you.

• 2:04:27Speaker 05

  Man, I feel like that's, uh, more of the editing. You know, you look back at episode four, and there was definitely a lot of drama, for sure, but, I was able to receive the, the majority of the coins and still make it to the city and to be able to bring really good people through, so. It's interesting how loud a few people can make a room.

• 2:04:48Jack Selby?

  Why did you turn down a million dollars, though? Ben Shapiro got very upset at you for turning down.

• 2:04:54Speaker 05

  I gotta watch that. I haven't seen it yet.

• 2:04:55Jack Selby?

  You should, yeah. He gets very frustrated.

• 2:04:58Speaker 05

  All right, Ben, I'll take it.

• 2:04:59Jack Selby?

  Not that frustrated, but he was not thrilled. Yeah.

• 2:05:02Speaker 05

  Well, and I get it if you're if you're looking at it from just the financial point of view. If you're looking at it from a game as well, again, it is a game where they're to win money. But it's also this experience and it's this massive social experiment of that that line of who you are in the real world and who you are in this this game. Well, this game is still the real world. How are you perceived? What does your word mean? And in this situation, you know, we've been voted in as a leader with 60 amazing people that every battle you go into is this $5 million battle. And we lost and got resurrected and it was incredible.

• 2:05:45Speaker 05

  And then they put their trust in me, so I wasn't gonna break that. And I look down, I've got really good friends there. We've got Jordan, we've got Jeff is down there, we've got Daphne, we've got Dalen, there's Tim. Just so many incredible people that have these dreams and these visions and these things that they would like to receive from this. And these people have all turned down bribes to be here. Episode one, they could have hit a buzzard and could have taken anything from $10,000 all the way to $100,000. You know, again, looking down, Jeff is a dear friend of mine. I care for his family and want to help his his son and their condition to see if we can spread this awareness. And everyone's like, well, then if you really cared, you should have hit the button and just given him some money. But it's like, oh, no, there's so much more to the journey than that.

• 2:06:31Speaker 05

  And to turn down $100,000 and then to have it be ripped away from you, literally almost the next day, that's brutal.

• 2:06:39Jack Selby?

  Was it easy, an easy decision?

• 2:06:41Speaker 05

  To not take the million?

• 2:06:42Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:06:44Jack Selby?

  So you knew from the start?

• 2:06:45Speaker 05

  Yep. And again, I've got four kids at home and I want to set an example for them of, you know, if we're gonna get ahead in life, it's not because we're lying to people. It's not because we're being deceitful. You know, if there was an opportunity to take that million dollars and eliminate myself, oh, man, I would have taken it and I would have been home in a minute. But again, I want my kids to have that that level of integrity and understanding that the decisions that we make have massive impact.

• 2:07:13Graham Stephan?

  Hypothetically, let's just say it didn't stop at a million, it kept going. Is there a point where you would have hit it? It gets a five million bucks, $10 million, $15 million?

• 2:07:23Speaker 05

  I don't know, we're gonna have to find out. You know, playback, um, talk to Jimmy, talk to your dad Elon. And let's just, let's just see, um, you know, because right now I'd like to say that, you know, I still wouldn't hit it.

• 2:07:36Jack Selby?

  For the record, he, he mentioned my dad Elon because we had previously discussed that, like, there's a rumor going around, apparently, that my dad's Elon Musk, or that, like, my wealth and my dad's alleged wealth is directly tied to Elon Musk's.

• 2:07:49Graham Stephan?

  And some, like, mineral mine, it had a lot of likes.

• 2:07:52Jack Selby?

  Yeah, so someone commented.

• 2:07:54Speaker 05

  That's, that's what we've heard all through Death Valley on this ruck.

• 2:07:57Jack Selby?

  Yeah, that's what I.

• 2:07:58Speaker 05

  Hearing the rumors of this.

• 2:08:00Jack Selby?

  The, the idea is apparently somehow that I'm like, I have a trust fund. And these people are commenting, and they get hundreds of likes on these comments of people like, saying I have all of this wealth. And then other people are commenting back, they're like, really, I've been watching the show for years, I had no idea that Jack's, Jack's dad was Elon Musk, or Jack's dad's wealth is directly tied to, and Jack has this trust fund, he's like, oh yeah, you didn't know about that? Well, there's clear evidence. And I'm like, just reading through this commentary to this one guy, and they're getting so many likes, so it's, show me some evidence, I would love to know where my trust fund is. Don't know where it is, but I think it's because, I figured it out. Because there was the PayPal mafia, which is like all of these super, super intelligent investors, they're all incredibly wealthy, Elon Musk was one of them, one of.

• 2:08:44Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 2:08:45Jack Selby?

  Yeah, one of the mafia members' names is Jack Selby. Not me, you know, unfortunately, it's not me, but we share the same name, so that's pretty cool.

• 2:08:54Graham Stephan?

  I remember, okay, so at least it, it can be rooted in some grain of like.

• 2:08:58Jack Selby?

  Find one picture of me next to him, please, like, see if we're even following each other on Instagram, at least before you say, oh yeah, like, this guy's, there's, there's no evidence.

• 2:09:07Graham Stephan?

  People don't do research, when they read a comment like that, they just take it at face value, like, oh wow, yeah, that must be true, because this guy said it, it had 200 likes, so 200 other people agreed with.

• 2:09:17Jack Selby?

  Yeah, and if Jack Selby, if anyone knows that Jack Selby, tell them to reach out, I'd love to have a conversation with him, I think having him on the podcast would actually, like, we could have the best title of all time. Jack Selby is now worth $100 million, not clickbait.

• 2:09:32Graham Stephan?

  It'd be amazing.

• 2:09:33Speaker 05

  See, there you go.

• 2:09:34Graham Stephan?

  So.

• 2:09:34Speaker 05

  Prove to the world once and.

• 2:09:36Graham Stephan?

  But what about rumors for you that you're a cult leader?

• 2:09:39Speaker 05

  Oh, man, that was so funny because I'm definitely not a cult leader. I'm just sitting there praying because literally every situation is a five million, five million dollar choice. And the pressure and the stress from the coins, you know, I'm dropping to my knees praying because I don't want to hear from anybody else. It's like, Lord, just help lead and guide me through this. I need your opinion. I need to calm down. I need to think through this and instead of taking what everyone else is throwing my way. I know who I am. I'm very confident who I am and the amazing life that I've been blessed with and

• 2:10:17Speaker 05

  I'm not gonna let other people's opinion change that. Find it funny.

• 2:10:20Graham Stephan?

  The main criticism is that you weren't going to give away a ticket to join the island to a girl. Is that like, how did that rumor get started?

• 2:10:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was one of the rumors and it wasn't a rumor. That was something that I said. I had a lady come up and say, well, if you win, please take me. And I said, well, to be honest with you, I probably won't. I'm gonna respect my wife and I don't want her to watch this show and see me, you know, filling a helicopter full of women and flying off to a tropical vacation.

• 2:10:48Graham Stephan?

  That's what Jack would do.

• 2:10:49Speaker 05

  Like, that would be a Jack move.

• 2:10:52Graham Stephan?

  Would your, would your wife question that, though? If it's like 50 50, like, you know, two women, two.

• 2:10:57Speaker 03

  Know you well enough to.

• 2:10:58Graham Stephan?

  Two men.

• 2:10:59Speaker 05

  She does, but what did we just talk about? We just talked about the internet and how one comment of some person that has no understanding or research can change the things. You became wealthy and your dad is Elon Musk. It got 200 comments. Just takes one comment on the internet to say, oh, Jeremy has this behind the scenes relation and it's just foolishness.

• 2:11:20Graham Stephan?

  And how would, how would that impact your life? If someone were to say, yeah, he picked her because they were having romance.

• 2:11:27Speaker 05

  I feel like I'd be so disrespectful to my home and my personal life and my wife. So I'd much rather be called a cult leader than an adulterer.

• 2:11:37Graham Stephan?

  Now, because you're friends with Jeff and you technically gave up a million dollars so he could win 10, how does it work if you guys are out at a restaurant? Like, who, who pays the bill?

• 2:11:46Speaker 05

  You know, if I had. Enough money to pay the bill, maybe, maybe I'd, I'd take it, but most days, as much as I eat when we go out, he has to take care of me.

• 2:11:56Jack Selby?

  Do you, do you pick expensive, you pick expensive spots?

• 2:12:00Speaker 05

  Oh, not expensive. I just like a lot. Like the first time I think we went out to eat even before the winning of the game. I ordered 20 chicken wings. He's like, no, we all got food already. He's like, no, those are, those are for me. He's like, oh, oh.

• 2:12:14Jack Selby?

  There's nothing like it. That is a great feeling.

• 2:12:16Graham Stephan?

  I just realized we have Ryan Sarant and Brandon Turner.

• 2:12:19Jack Selby?

  Oh my gosh, that is hilarious. That is hilarious.

• 2:12:27Jack Selby?

  The real estate gurus are here.

• 2:12:30Graham Stephan?

  So Brandon Turner, what's the best way to invest in multifamily real estate?

• 2:12:33Speaker 05

  Now, listen, a lot of people are still into the real estate game, but we're actually going more into agricultural, but mostly into chickens. The price of eggs is going to be what's going to deter the market. So everything that I've put into real estate is done. Chicken farming, everything we've got.

• 2:12:52Graham Stephan?

  How much does that cost?

• 2:12:53Speaker 05

  I think we're taking out a $35 million loan, uh, 18% interest.

• 2:13:00Jack Selby?

  Growth rate of the chicken, chicken eggs are pretty good, huh?

• 2:13:04Jack Selby?

  Can I, can I throw you some money?

• 2:13:07Jack Selby?

  Are you raising?

• 2:13:09Graham Stephan?

  Jack buy in?

• 2:13:12Jack Selby?

  Sounds like a good deal. Thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. Seriously, it means a lot that you took the time out of your day. I'm sure you're a very busy man. Congratulations. And I can confidently say, I feel like the right person won Beast Games. Watching you on the show and also meeting you in person, you're like the nicest.

• 2:13:28Speaker 05

  Really, you are.

• 2:13:29Jack Selby?

  It's so enjoyable to spend time with you. Thanks for coming on the show.

• 2:13:32Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, we're also going to be making a donation and anyone else who wants to follow along, do that as well. The link is down below in the description.

• 2:13:39Speaker 05

  Oh, amazing. Thanks so much. Hope to see you guys soon.

• 2:13:42Jack Selby?

  Shout out Jeremy, Brandon Turner. Shout out. Shout out Ryan Sarant. Thank you guys for watching. Until next time.