1086 Building & Monetizing a Mass Social Media Audience w/Josh Richards

“Your goal can’t just be, I want to make money and be famous.”Today's guest is Josh Richards, a social media influencer, entrepreneur, musician, writer, actor, and podcast host, who has also accumulated over 30 million followers across platforms. He’s the founder of TalentX, the largest TikTok management and production company, as well as the co-founder of the energy drink Ani Energy. Josh is also an angel investor in dozens of companies and was called a “mogul in the making” by Newsweek. In this episode Lewis and Josh discuss how Josh became one of the top social media influencers, how you can build a massive audience, and how to overcome insecurities and put yourself out there. For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1086Check out Josh’s YouTube channel: Josh RichardsKobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,086 with social media sensation Josh Richards. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:29Lewis Howes?

  Philosopher Albert Hubbard said, "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." And Michelle Obama said, "The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them." My guest today is Josh Richards. With over 30 million followers, Josh is a social media sensation, entrepreneur, musician, writer, actor, and podcast host. He's the founder of Talent X, the largest TikTok management and production company, as well as the co-founder of the energy drink, Annie Energy. Josh is also an angel investor in dozens of companies and was called a mogul in the making by Newsweek.

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited to bring him on as he's one of the younger guests we've had on, talking about his rise to success in his teens. And in this episode, we discuss how Josh became one of the top social media influencers today, how you can build mass audience no matter what industry you're in, how to know when it's time to go all in on that dream, how Josh is able to manage his content creation and multiple businesses at the same time at such a young age, and how to overcome insecurities and put yourself out there. If you're inspired by this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. And a quick reminder to click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts for the School of Greatness, as well as leave us a rating and review and let us know what you enjoyed about this episode the most. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Josh Richards.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to School Great is Podcast. We've got the young icon Josh Richards in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Hey, good to see you as well, man.

• 2:04Lewis Howes?

  Glad you're here. I've heard about your stuff for a while. I've watched your content. You're a social media sensation. What do you have, 30 million followers now?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Cross platforms, probably around 30 million.

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  30 million, and you've transitioned from being a young teen heartthrob into a entrepreneurial, successful leader now, investing in many different platforms, products, and also working with Triller and a lot of different stuff, right?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course, I definitely tried to expand the entrepreneurial portfolio, take that a lot more serious in 2021.

• 2:34Lewis Howes?

  When did you, most teenagers, I didn't know how to make money until I was like 27, right? I didn't make any money.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn the idea of actually making money and entrepreneurship? I think it was when you're 13, but how did that concept actually come to you of like, I want to make money, not just get an allowance from my parents?

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:51Lewis Howes?

  Or like do a paper route in Canada, but were your parents teaching this stuff? Were you just learning it?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  I was always a kid that wanted to, when I bought something, I wanted it to be a bigger item. Like a lot of kids were always like, get the $10, going right to the store, buying a pack of cards, like spending all their money right away, right? If they have leftover, they'll buy gum, they'll buy whatever. Like I was always a kid that wouldn't spend any money. I was like, I'm putting it in a jar. I want to save up for like a sports ticket event, or I want to save up for a PS4 or something. But it was always like, I was trying to make a lot of money for a certain project. And then as, as that kind of developed, it became more of a passion, I think of just like making money in general, then it really became saving up for something. And then my jars, I would have like Buffalo Bills game, save up to go to a Bills game, or save up to go to Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. And I would just end up never spending the money because I was like, I just want to make more and more and see that jar grow.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  And eventually like that turned into creating like passion, like hockey was turned into a Berserk hockey apparel line where I was putting slogans on shirts. And then my lacrosse, like when I was playing lacrosse, I turned that into a company. It was dying mesh and putting in team designs and logos and finding wax formulas so it was waterproof and the pocket wouldn't change its formation. So I was just always hungry to grind and make some money.

• 4:05Lewis Howes?

  Did your parents not want to buy you tickets to games? Or were they, were they teaching you this? Or how was that?

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Um, I think that there was a part of it that was like, They wanted me to learn like how to make my own money to work a little bit and they were proud of me too for always like trying to find ways to make money. But at the same time, we weren't a family that was like able to just go to games left and right. Or like if I was going to a game, my family was like, that's a big deal. We're getting nosebleeds and it's for my first day. Like that's, that's how it was with my family.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. So what's it been like now since that was what, when you were 12, 13, you were kind of developing this jar money mentality?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Now, five, six years later, you're, I think on Forbes, a couple of years ago, one of the top five biggest earners on TikTok a couple of years ago. Personalities. What is that like now, a few years later, being able to buy whatever you want essentially? Go to games, buy clothes, you know, buy cars. How's that feel?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, the craziest thing is I've kind of kept the same mentality. Like I'm still the kid that doesn't buy things. So like, like my car, like people will say like, I've said this before on podcasts, like I don't spend money. And then people will see a picture of my car and it's like a Mercedes, it's brand new Mercedes, right? And they're like, well, that's a dumb investment. I didn't pay for my car. Like my car was gifted to me, right? It's like everything I wear, like everything I have on right now, these shoes I got made by just a shoe account on Instagram. They made them for me for free, right? This hoodie I got for free from a store because they, I went into the store and they're like, just pick out some things. Like, so my outfits are usually like 20 bucks and it's from my underwear. Like that's it, right? So I've always kept that mentality, but to know that I'm able to support like my family or to be like, my sister will be like, I really want these shoes.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Like we're just randomly texting and I think she's caught on that. I start just like buying it for them, my brother as well. But they'll be like, oh, the skin in Fortnite, like I've really been looking forward to it. And then I'll be like, oh, really? And I'll just start like buying little things for my family all the time. So that's been so cool to be able to do that. Yeah.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  When did you learn really about not saving but investing? Cause you started to invest in startups, you started to, you know, learn more about financial literacy over the last few years as a teen. Not many teens study this. They don't teach us this in school.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:13Lewis Howes?

  So how did you learn? Did you have mentors that were teaching you this about investing and?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would say my biggest mentor would have been Michael Grun. Like, he put me on the path of really using my social media to turn it into business and turn it into the entrepreneurial spirit.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Not just sponsorship deals, brand deals where it's a good pay, but then you have nothing else.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. And I was always trying to like find more creative ways to make money. So I think Michael saw that and saw the drive and the passion that I had and was like, okay, we can create something cool together. So we kind of formed like this business partnership and we do pretty much everything we do together. And I started asking him like, what are ways I can utilize my money? Because at first, what we were doing is instead of doing the traditional brand deal, we were taking equity.

• 6:56Lewis Howes?

  Where you take a fee and then you do a bunch of promotion and then they get all the rest of it.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Right, right. So like when, yeah, the original brand deal, right, every creator does it. It's just paid to post. It's very easy. It's usually one-off deals. It's like 10K for a story. What we were trying to focus on is the equity behind it. So I also talked with Ashton Kutcher, another mentor of mine, and he said, I'd be a billionaire by now if I had taken equity in all my deals over cash. So now when we start doing these brand deals, we either work in a little half and half, part cash, part equity, or if I really love the company and I'm super passionate about it, I want to do just all equity. And I go in and just, I'll do the posting for essentially free at the start, but the goal is three, four, five, six, seven years down the line, company goes public. I either have stock or it gets purchased, like the company doesn't have a position.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  What's been the best investment you've made so far? Where maybe it hasn't paid off yet, but you can see the potential for it really paying off long-term?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  I think that Len Table is a huge one.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Len Table?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a 401K matchup. So that's a huge startup that I'm really, really invested in. And then as well, I think that there's one for, actually Breaker's a massive one. It connects independent artists to musicians and it's actually more of an arbitrage play for TikTokers. It allows content creators to have a steady stream of revenue, which is really hard when you're first starting off on TikTok or just social media in general. It's kind of like The the rich get richer mentality. It's like the big creators keep getting bigger and bigger, right?

• 8:23Lewis Howes?

  There's like twenty people that are on top, yeah.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And it's like you get a little new rotation every three years, but it's like it's kind of the same top dogs. So there's been these creators that are making like a thousand dollars a week or or four, five thousand dollars a month. And they have only five hundred thousand followers. So they're creating a steady revenue stream off this app by using independent artists' music and independent artists paying them. So.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  It's called Breakers?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Breaker, Breaker.

• 8:48Lewis Howes?

  Breaker.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's a great one. And then Aswell vs. Game is another great company for the influencer. I mean, myself personally, I've done like probably four or five games on the the app. And as a just a creator, I've made tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand dollars just off using the app a couple of times, probably taking an hour of my time. But it's it's just another great monetization tool for a creator.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Wow, man. And what about something like Triller? Did you get equity in that as well? How's that work?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I came in there as G Strategy Officer. We put in an investment and then as well like got equity. So go in and I focus on the monetization side. They were very creator forward thinking company. They were always asking us about how we felt comfortable and it kind of lined up with my journey and I guess you could say story. When I first moved to LA, co-founded TalonX, management company, signed like a hundred and ten of the top TikTokers. I wanted to do that because I'd just gone on a tour that summer, made the tour probably a million dollars gross.

• 9:55Lewis Howes?

  And a speaking tour or like a?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  It's it was a meet and greet tour, just simply.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  That's it? Just like, did you sign anything?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, signing posters or merch, like they buy merch and then, yeah, take photos, but very just meet and greet, almost like a book or podcast tour, right?

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  With no book to sell? Did you sell anything?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  We sold merch. It would be like a hoodie with my name, Richards on it or something, like very simple back then. And then.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  When was this? A couple of years ago?

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Two thousand nineteen summer. So.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  You did a million dollars in sales from the merch or the tickets or whatever?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole tour. It was like me and probably five other influencers, six, seven other main influencers on the store.

• 10:27Lewis Howes?

  So what, did you guys just like sell out malls or something and just have Mad Rush at twelve year olds?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  It was like, we would do these small, either like, bars that had like a little stage, right? Or we would do like Marriott's. We did a lot of those, like so hotels, like the conference rooms and you're selling like a thousand to two thousand tickets and it's usually, the big, like our audience then was younger, it was probably like twelve to

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  Sixteen.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Sixteen, like you get like some eighteen year olds in there, right?

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  The weirdos. The weirdos are over eighteen.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Sometimes, sometimes, yeah, sometimes it's a little strange, but, no, we, we went on that tour and I got paid seven hundred and fifty dollars, like cash, like that was it.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  You got paid seven hundred and fifty dollars?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, not like seven hundred and fifty thousand, seven hundred and fifty, like.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  To do the tour?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, whole tour.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  We sold tickets, like it did amazing, like I told you the tour grew, it was just, the social media space is so shady at the start, like, it was the most like under-protected industry I've ever seen. No creators were being taken seriously, these like fake managers that say they know people, or maybe they were like a distant relative of someone, whatever, and, and, and they would like use that to try to sign these young kids that don't know anything, so like, I was fifteen, not knowing anything in social media, thought, thinking I needed a manager to succeed and then got into a two-year contract that was like, I, I felt like I was stuck in because I didn't know anything in the industry.

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  So you did the tour and you actually didn't make any money?

• 11:50Speaker 01

  No money, the tour ripped us all off.

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Like completely.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  Even the merch sales?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, merch sales, everything.

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  So at the end of the day, they sold all the merch, they did all the tickets, but they said what? All our expenses were this?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, they tried to pull the whole like expenses, or they tried to pull like, oh, you didn't actually do as many tickets as you think, and then it's like, we would sell these tickets called like date night, and it was hundred dollar tickets, per girl, had to spend a hundred dollars just for this bonus piece, right? Where they would go on this dinner with us, and we would just have like a hour dinner, eating food at a restaurant, right? And we would be sitting at these tables, one person would have like thirty girls. So that's like right there.

• 12:29Lewis Howes?

  Three grand right there.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're already talking three grand. So it's like if we do eight to sixteen shows, and we have that at every, like that alone, we already know we're making more, right? So there's just a few shady things. Talked to, met Michael Gruen, started Talent X.

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  That was like the whole journey, kind of behind that was protecting the creators, so that's why Trailer Fit so well too.

• 12:49Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting, man.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  What do you think? You seem like a very confident guy as a nineteen year old. When I was nineteen, I had a lot of false confidence. I was very, I was very talented as an athlete, you know, I was a star there or whatever, but it was like a, I also didn't believe in myself in other ways. Is there a part of your life where you feel you lack confidence? You've got thirty million plus followers, every woman under twelve wants you, there's a crush on you, you're making money now, you're out in L.A., you're doing your thing. Is there a part of your life where you lack confidence?

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Um, I would say, I think that there's still a part of, I don't know if it's so much of a lack of confidence, or like in the business world, I know that I don't know things, right? Like, I know I'm still new to it, so I'm not gonna come in and act like the guy on an investment meeting or a founder's call that's like raised seven different companies and exited four and like, right, I'm not gonna be that guy that the that like says I know it all, but I, I think that's what's actually like a strength is knowing what I don't know, like coming into the, the meetings and like knowing I'm, I'm also having a learning hat as the same time as like the, the investor hat.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is your biggest fear right now as a nineteen year old? Thriving star?

• 14:04Speaker 01

  I would say my biggest fear is probably that I

• 14:11Speaker 01

  don't work hard, like I don't succeed, like failing would be my biggest fear. If I, if I came out here and did all this, like if I didn't work hard enough, or if I literally just slacked one day in that call, like that's my biggest fear, like I would need to succeed.

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  What does success look like?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  To me, success looks like I'm wealthy enough to be able to buy my parents a home, I'm able to support my entire family if I need to. I'm able to live like a, a life with a wife, my kids, support them, give them what they need, like put them through sports, put them through school. Really, I just wanna be comfortable, like that's, that's the biggest thing. And like, I have aspirations, of course, to be like the richest social media creator ever to do social media, right? Like, I would love to be the first social media billionaire and like I'm striving to do that, but at the end of the day, like what I want more than anything is the, the peace knowing I was just successful entrepreneur, I sold a company, I exited one and then was able to support the people I love.

• 15:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why is that desire to be the first social media billionaire? Where does that come from?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  I just like being the first. I'm competitive. I was an athlete as a kid. Like I played sports. So it's like getting, breaking records or anything like that. It's like, I need to do it. So I mean, like, I remember like going through just even like my, my middle school track and field and cross country record book. Like we had like one in the hallway or whatever. It was like behind this glass thing and I asked them to take it out so I could see all the records. And I went to the track and all I would do is just like time myself, make sure I could be every single record in the middle school for, for track and field. And I was like able to do some, but that's just how my mindset always is. It's like try to be or be the best.

• 15:54Lewis Howes?

  What was your best sport? Or what is your best?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  I would say my best sport was probably actually cross country. Like running, I was just a really good long distance runner. So I was always-

• 16:03Lewis Howes?

  What was your best 5K?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Uh, what, actually I would do more like, I was doing like 1500 meters.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  So we were doing, I guess that's not like super long distance. That's more like, but cross country when we're doing like two or three kilometers and, and everything like that. But I would say-

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  What was your 1500?

• 16:20Speaker 01

  1500?

• 16:22Lewis Howes?

  Do you remember?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  It's, I, I might say a number that's gonna just make me sound like an idiot, but I think I was in eighth grade running like a four minute, if I'm not wrong, four, four, four 20.

• 16:36Lewis Howes?

  Four 20, that's, that's fast.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, like it was, I was, I was pretty quick.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  That's fast.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  I think it was four 20, because I remember racing in like third grade and we weren't even supposed to do cross country or track. And then they brought me up just with the eighth graders when I was in third grade and I was winning events. Like I won the 800 and came second in 15, or I won the 1500 and came second in 800, third grade going up against eighth graders type thing. So that was like my, my mentality, but hockey and lacrosse were the sports for sure too.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Did you stop, um, track in high school?

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, because of social media.

• 17:06Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Do you stop all sports?

• 17:09Speaker 01

  Slowly, like track, the thing was is like, track was probably like the sport I was just naturally the most skilled at, like that and swimming actually, but I just didn't enjoy them. Like I liked the team sports a little bit more like, so hockey and lacrosse were like the last to go. Like I, I held on to those sports as long as I could, just because like I'm, I care so much about them.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  So what happened? What was, what was the turning point? Social media just was picking up or you were seeing some brand deals come in? You're like, oh, I can make money. I can fill my, my jar more.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can go to a lot more Buffalo Bills games. Um, no, it was like, I started to notice how much money I was able to create off of social media and I was, I was like making more money than my parents, right? So at this point, I knew that I was either gonna have to go a hundred percent in because I was on an app that was like, Musically at the time wasn't very trending. Like it was like still.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  So you started on Musically?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I started before TikTok. Like people often think like my blow up was like this, but it's that like I put in four years of work.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  On Musically?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then it, well, two years of, three years of the work would have been on Musically. TikTok purchased by like, or ByteDance came in and purchased Musically. Grinded for another year and then that summer 2019, that tour is what absolutely just shot me up. Yeah.

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting, man. I'm curious. Uh, so what was the, what was the moment where you're like, okay, this is my last game, my last practice because I just made 10 grand on a post and now I'm gonna go in here or?

• 18:43Speaker 01

  It was summer. Um, I remember all I was doing at this summer was pretty much like playing lacrosse and going live every single night.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  On TikTok?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I would, I would go and play lacrosse, right? And then I would come home after my lacrosse games and instantly just go live on TikTok. Like that's all I was doing. I would do streams from 10 PM till 2 AM every night. So I was streaming for four hours straight.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  What would you do on these?

• 19:05Speaker 01

  I would just think of different games. Like I was like, I, that is how I got made pretty much was by my live stream audience. I built such a engaged audience because they always came on the live. I was like memorizing people's names. I got like that really like personal connection with them. And then that's kind of what gave me the audience to boost up, but that. Started escalating into like, or I guess that grew into starting making like $400 a night. And then all of a sudden-

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  From just lives?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Just live streams alone. And then all of a sudden, I had one live stream, I remember I was with my friends and we went live for 30 minutes. And I got donated two grand on this live-

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  Like one person or all the-

• 19:43Speaker 01

  It was like a few different people, but there was probably like five big donations, right?

• 19:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And you were like, you what, 17 at the time?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  At this point, I think I'm like 16. I think I'm like pretty young.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  You made two grand in 30 minutes?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  You're rich.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. In my head, I'm like, holy shit. All my friends, I'm with my friends, like we're at a, I'm at a sleepover at their house, my two boys. And they're like freaking out. They're like, how the is Josh making $2,000 in 30 minutes? So like, obviously we had to order like 100 wings after that and like muck out, but it was- That point started kind of like, I slowly had to stop playing like on two different hockey teams. And so then it gets cut down, right? And then like instead of playing on the spring lacrosse, summer lacrosse and indoor lacrosse team. It's like, oh, well now I gotta lose the summer lacrosse and I only can play in the winter. And it's like, it just like slowly started cutting out like that.

• 20:33Lewis Howes?

  Little by little.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:35Lewis Howes?

  That's fascinating, man. Are you still doing lives every night?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Um, I'm doing lives still, but not as much as I used to.

• 20:40Lewis Howes?

  Are you not able to make as much money anymore with that or as how?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  It's still crazy. Like it's definitely still pretty lucrative. Like I'll go live for 15 minutes and make a thousand dollars. So it's like pretty much the same exact thing. But I feel like I just like to put my time into different content now than live streams. Like if that's doing the podcast now, or if I'm creating YouTube videos or any other form of content.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  So it's 30 million across platforms. For the, uh, the over 25 crowd who's listening right now. I wish I have a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of small business owners who are listening and watch the content here. And their biggest challenge is building audience, building platform.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  Something I heard you talk about, uh, before on another podcast of yours is about, uh, thinking of your followers as friends and not as fans or followers. How does someone who's in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties start thinking of- Creating content to attract a friend base, a following base, a larger audience. When they have something smaller niche related and maybe they're not a nineteen year old heartthrob.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, of course. I think the thing that people miss about like niche audiences is that they think I can never grow to be twenty million followers. And it's like, yeah, you're probably right. You're going after a niche type audience, but the benefit of that is massive in the fact where you will have such strategic marketing for certain companies that those brands are going to pay you more than they pay me. And I have a larger following than you. So like, for example, let's say you're you're a cook or you really love uh food and you create a TikTok account where you're posting like yourself cooking these recipes or whatever you you love with the food products like if a company like

• 22:24Speaker 01

  I don't know, a Dijon mustard company, like they wanna go and get their product out on TikTok. They wanna do some marketing, like what's that mustard french's or something like that, right? Yeah, it's like, why would they come to me? And make me do a YouTube promo and it's like, yeah, I might get four times the views you get, possible, but you're gonna be such a more like such a strategic person to go to if you get two hundred fifty thousand people watching your videos that all love to cook and are buying cooking products and you so the thing that people miss, I think, is that like you need to have this massive following, but I know people with a million followers that make more money on brand deals than I do on brand deals.

• 23:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Course, like it's it's that like

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  They're specific, they're like in the beauty space.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly, like I'm more broad, right? Like it's like people just kind of put me as an influencer, an entertainer, or like TikToker, like there's no

• 23:15Lewis Howes?

  You're not talking about one subject.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  You're not talking about sports or food or beauty or fashion.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  All around and like I'm definitely trying to get more niche and that's the other thing that I've started to focus on like people that have niche audiences should be happy that they have a niche audience, like you can sell way more. I'm trying to develop that more. I'm trying to move more to the sports world just because like the Barstool podcast, like I said, like that's my passion growing up with sports like so I just wanna keep developing that.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  Has Gary gotten you into a card investing?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  I was just about to say, yeah, he's definitely been on me. He wants me to get very involved in like the card world, sports, and so.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  Especially like the hockey side of things, probably. I feel like hockey's not getting as much love as basketball, football, Pokemon right now.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Gretzky card went for like 1.2 million. It's crazy.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  So you haven't done any content around it yet?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  No content. I bought a few cards, but I got a Shaq rookie card and a Kevin Durant one, and I believe I'm looking at a Kobe Bryant one and then a LeBron James one right now.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he got me into it about a year ago. He was telling me about it two years ago, and after a year of him telling me about it.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  You finally got into it.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  Man, this thing went like 20X. I finally jumped in a year ago and I started investing. I wouldn't say pretty heavily, but I spent a good amount investing in it. And it's probably, I don't know, four or five X, at least kind of my whole collection.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  That's sick.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  A few cards have really exploded, but it's just fun to be a part of. But I could see you getting into sports more and making that as one part of it.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and it's kind of like a nostalgia thing as well, right?

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  A nostalgia for you is like four years ago. These guys are like 30 years ago. You're like, hey, four years ago I was at the card shop, you know?

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  True. That's funny, man. I'm curious about, do you think anyone could build a mass following? Or if you're focused on a niche, it's going to be really hard to grow wide? Because you're ready to grow wide. Do you think anyone can get a million followers, or is it?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  I think that TikTok allows anyone to be able to get a million followers.

• 25:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Or, or you know, how social media platforms are moving forward with the short form content and the focusing so much on like user-generated content just going viral, right? TikTok's whole for you page, it allows the common person.

• 25:28Lewis Howes?

  Anyone.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've seen videos of someone in jail go viral on TikTok. It's like, how do they have a phone in their jail cell, post it? They get more likes than me on that video. It's like, what? Anyone can post on TikTok and go viral.

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Anybody can build a following. You just got to find. People that go at it to become famous probably aren't going to succeed. Like if you're going at TikTok and you want money, like it's, it just doesn't work. Like you need to have a passion for it, or you need to have this general want to create. Because what does happen sometimes is you see these kids that blow up in two weeks, right? And you're like, why can't I be them? Why can't I be them? And they blow off maybe just off looks or whatever, one trendy video. But they also fall quicker than anyone, like.

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  They become irrelevant quick.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  It's like that. It's like they they fall quicker than they even grew. Like you see them on your For You page for two, three weeks and you're like, oh, this person's like blowing up right now. And then all of a sudden, three weeks later, you see another video of them and you're like, wait a sec. I haven't seen a video from this guy in three weeks. Who? I forgot about him. And it's like, just like that. So it's like, it's a long process. I feel like you really do have to work on it. You need a natural passion for it. You can't just, your goal can't just be like, I want to make money or I want to be famous. You need a little bit more than that.

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I was listening to Mr. Beast last night on Clubhouse, actually. He was doing a room. And he said, I just was so excited about the obsession of YouTube. I didn't care about making money.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  I just wanted to make the coolest video possible.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:54Lewis Howes?

  That would be fun for people and just obsessed over the process. And after years, it finally started to work. And now he's able to monetize it, obviously in a big way, but he was just loved the process. And it's not like for you going live every night. You just love going live and like,

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:08Lewis Howes?

  Hey, we're playing games. We're having fun.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Exactly. And like, I was a very analytical guy. My dad's a calculus teacher at a high school. So he actually was the teacher at my high school. But I was always trying to find ways to like growth hack on TikTok. And I was all like, I had my sister hired on a 15% commission based salary. Like she was going in and going direct to the consumer. We had, there was like a live leaderboard back on Musically, back when I was doing these four hour live streams. And they actually had a. Like one to 250 of the top contributors on the app. So the people that spent the most money, bought the most gifts and donated the most. Were you on there, I'm assuming at the top? Well, that's not like who received the most. It's who, the fans that actually paid the most, right? So like who actually went into streams and you spent the most money? You were the top.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  So what I wanted, I wasn't on the top because I didn't spend money. You wanted to find the top 200. I wanted to find the top 250. Come ahead. Exactly. So what I did was I would be live and then for my four hours while I'm live, at the start of my live, I would have my sister in the room beside me. Exactly. She was logged into my account. She would go through and follow and unfollow all these people in like 10 of their videos. So then there's 11 notifications from this Josh Richards guy you've never seen before. A lot of these fans that send money, they're not famous. They have like 30, 40, 200 followers, right? So they notice when someone follows them. So even if I get 5% of the 250 people every night that come over to my live

• 28:34Speaker 01

  and they spend money, they were spending, the top 250 people, the bottom person is probably spending like 200 bucks a live stream, right? Crazy. Exactly. So I'm acquiring these customers with no followers. Probably 40,000 to 90,000 followers on that. You only had 40,000 yourself. That's it. And so that's another thing. They felt way more connected to me because I was able to talk and remember names. And I followed them, so they would join my live and have a red like border around their names because TikTok or Musically just let you know who you followed. So I knew who to pay more attention to. So I was always just like very strategic behind it. But my passion was with the numbers and the growth hacking. So it's like you just need something a little more to get, I think, famous than just, I want to be famous because it looks fun and cool. Right.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  What was the most you made in one live? Um, one time I did, I did like a 12 hour live stream day. Like probably more, it was probably 16 hours of just live stream straight. And I think that day I pro, this was when I was smaller too. Like this is when I had maybe 120K followers on the app. And I probably made 12 grand in that day. 12 grand? Yeah. And like I was 16 at that time, like 15, yeah. I was younger. So that was cool. That was awesome. I loved doing the leaderboard stuff, like so cool. Cause I was a small creator getting like number one likes on the app. It was like, because I would just stream so long. But it was, it was a grind to get to where. Sure, man. Didn't happen overnight. It was just like showing up every day. Yeah.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  What about the, why did you guys decide to launch an energy drink? What was the reason behind this in a sea of millions of energy drinks?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, so.

• 30:13Lewis Howes?

  Why create it? How did the process work? How many partners do you have?

• 30:17Speaker 01

  We ran into this situation where Sway wasn't very brandable, right?

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  Sway is a house, for those who don't know, Sway is a content house where there's what, five or six of you guys there?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like six, seven, eight. It's weird because people kind of rotate out.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Influencers and you're creating content together, you live there.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a content house. So it's a house of creators that all live together and the main goal is just create as much content as you can together and boost each other's platforms. Exactly. Everyone grows. So within that house, we weren't the most brand safe group. We were a little bit controversial.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  You were?

• 30:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:50Lewis Howes?

  You were R-rated?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So at the beginning, I would say at least. And then what happened is we weren't getting that, those brand deals. There were other houses getting all the, the brand money. So we were only making money off our AdSense, our TikTok lives and our merch. So we were like, how do we create another form of revenue or what do we do?

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  You weren't getting a lot of brand deals.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Because you weren't kid friendly.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. So we wanted to own every single thing we touched. Bryce and I, a big part of our content is YouTube and we would shotgun Red Bulls before, in our videos, just to like establish we were high energy. Kind of say like, if you want high energy like us, right? And it started this trend on TikTok where people were shotgunning Red Bulls. Terrible trend to start. So bad for your heart, so don't do it. But um, we, we started this trend. People were tagging us. It was getting millions of views and likes. A bunch of videos were going viral on TikTok about it. So Bryce and I are sitting there giving all this free promotion to Red Bull, right? Just marketing, like they haven't, they haven't paid us. They just get millions of views from us.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  We were like, we need our own energy drink. We don't want to sell out and do a brand deal. We want to like own it, ask a long-term project. So started talking with Michael. We got introduced to Evan Burns, who does long drink with Miles Teller. He was already obviously experienced in the drink space. So teamed up with him and got any, and probably it was like a seven month backend process before we had the drink ready and then did D to C.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so it's not in stores, it's just online, direct to consumer?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Distribution is coming very, very soon.

• 32:28Lewis Howes?

  That's great. How long has it been out now?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  It's been out, we released, I believe, in August.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  So like five months, four, five months?

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:39Lewis Howes?

  And how's that been working? Are you guys seeing the sales you'd love to see? Is it taking time to ramp up? What's been that process?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  So like, right when we released it, huge spike, obviously, because Bryce and I are very good at doing the marketing, social media guys, like we know how to create viral videos. We know how to make sure that there's millions and millions of views on this site, right? Like anti-energy. And then what we had to learn was how to continuously, naturally, implement anti-energy into our videos. So you kind of saw this big spike and then it obviously went down a little bit and then it kind of just had this maintaining upwards graph. So it's been, it's actually been super successful within the last like four months of Bryce and I just grinding on it.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest challenge you see a product or a company like that continuing to sustain? You know, when I see stuff like Bang Energy, whatever, Red Bull or any brand, it's like they have now thousands of influencers constantly posting them, they've got ad spend. How do you guys compete with stuff like that with all the other energy drinks? You know, The Rock's got an energy drink coming out. It's like, how do you compete and stay competitive?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  So I think one thing that Bryce and I did that was very strategic is the branding of the drink. It's not branded so much as this hard energy drink that's going to give you 300mg of caffeine and you're gonna be jittering and shaken out of your chair, right? Like, it's more of a lifestyle drink. And that's how it's, it looks like. It is a lifestyle drink. When you drink it, you feel like... It's only 75 milligrams of caffeine, right? You don't get that insane Bang Energy boost where like you feel like you're about to have a heart attack. So that's the thing about our drink is the marketing. When you look at the can, it's a little bit more on the feminine side, but Bryce and I and our videos are very bro-y.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And that's because we know we want to sell to both demographics. Our fans are more on the female demographics, so we have the can look a certain way. But at the same time, when Bryce and I are doing the marketing, we give it that more bro-y feel. So it can be like the next White Claw, but instead of in alcohol, it's in the energy drink space, right? White Claws at the start were only accepted by women. Guys made fun of it or guys were like, oh, that's, that's a girl's drink, that's a girl. And now every guy at every frat is drinking White Claws at the frat parties. Like it's just that kind of like strategic marketing that I think will keep us above.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. How do you stay excited about something like that? When you have a million opportunities come your way, podcasts, projects, YouTube, all these things you're working on. You've got all these ideas, investments. How do you sustain passion and focus for each brand like Annie Energy?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. I think a big thing is Michael and I actually talk about just what are my passions a lot? Like we definitely are trying to stay focused on not doing too much because there's, there's just a point where you overstretch, right? Like you, you overwork yourself, but, or you're into, you're in too many pots at the same time, right? So it's gotta be something that I care heavily about. Annie Energy, for example, was my first ever, I would say founding company that

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  It's a product you launched.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was like a product I launched. I took a lot more of initiative in it. With the TalonX side, there was, I was more of a recruiter. I was like a special advisor to someone. So this co-founding and like doing more, it was just awesome. It was a great feeling and it's like, I, I know I'll always be connected to that. But when we do different products like Dog for Dog, for example, that's a company with Snoop Dogg where a bag of dog food gets donated to a shelter every time one's purchased, right? And I know I'm going to be passionate about that because I'm a dog guy like my family had one at home. I would always have loved dogs. I got one as soon as I came to LA. My house is full of six dogs because everyone decided to get one after me. It was awesome. It was so awesome, but. So there's like seven dogs running around my house all the time.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  But yeah, I mean, like, that's something that I'm very passionate about. And then continuing that trend like on Hyde with Ellen, like I purchased part of her company and. And that's a faux fur. So trying to stop the the sharing of animals. A lot of people think like. Oh, they're just sharing the sheep. It doesn't kill them. It doesn't hurt them. What they don't know is. The amount of infections that could cause by sharing and the deaths like. They end up dying from the infections. Actually, a lot of the times after in the conditions they're kept in while they're doing the sharing. It's. It's kind of pretty scary. Like you don't feel great when after watching those like the clothes you have on so. Or the blankets you're buying or the fur you're buying. So yeah, it's it's definitely like finding those passions and and executing on them.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. Michael's been pretty strategic with you. It sounds like.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  Good guy.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  I met him many years ago. He's been been helpful with a lot of things. So.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  It's cool, man. I'm curious about. The mental health side of social media because I see a lot of young creators who are. Gain a lot of audience. They get pretty well known and then I see their numbers drop at some point or maybe followers like they start getting. It's not growing as fast. The follower count. It's like even dips for a while.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  I see this a lot where they were getting 20 million views a video. Now it's 1 million views where it's still a lot of views and a lot of followers and a lot of attention. But how are you personally managing that as numbers fluctuate? And it seems like at certain points, it's like this rapid growth and kind of a peak and it's harder to grow. I'm not sure if you've reached that yet, but how are you handling this and also with friends who are in this space? What are you seeing? The biggest challenge they're faced with and how do you think you're going to be able to handle it moving forward?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that the thing that happens to creators is they start to see. A dip in their followers. So they start to see it slows down and then they get really scared, right? So they start either trying to do things that are like. Too crazy or just like are gonna get them in trouble because they're just trying to get views, right? They're trying to maintain their views and like that's not a great way to go. Or they just give up. They're like, oh, I'm irrelevant now. Like I can't do anything. So they get really negative and you'll start to see them post less and you start to see them like think they're too big for or like they'll be like they'll start using the shadow banned excuses like I'm shadow banned. The algorithm doesn't like me. TikTok doesn't like it's like, bro, they don't know who you are.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  They don't not like you. Like TikTok isn't like block like maybe on occasion, there's like people like Donald Trump that gets kicked off social media. Right. But like you random social media creator like and you just stopped posting. So your likes went down. They're not blocking you, right? It's just people get so just like they're not encouraged to keep going and it makes sense. But you just got pushed through like, I mean, look at like these big names in social media like Logan Paul and Jake Paul. There's a reason they're still big names in social media because they just never gave up. Like there were so many times when everyone thought they were done or they were irrelevant or they were off like social media. They should have been camp, right? They didn't give up.

• 39:36Lewis Howes?

  Reinventing.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, they just reinventing themselves or they're they're finding new ways to stay in in the press there. And like, obviously it's working. So like you can maintain relevancy as long as you just don't get scared when you see a drop a little bit. You just can't get can't get afraid of it.

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  What have you done when you've seen dips or video views or?

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I mean, I think what I try to do is just continue to give people something to be excited about. Like I'm always thinking of like the next big thing, right? So if that's when we did sway, it's like, all right, sway starts. And then all of a sudden Bryce and Josh are both starting YouTube, which is like the first ticket talkers to go to YouTube. And then it's now they they're the first TikTokers to drop a product. It's like now we're doing any energy. And then it's now we're we're angel investing in sway and now I'm at Barstool and now like, you know what I mean? It's just big thing, big announcement. So we're always trying to do these like crazy partnerships or these create these what the moments. So that people stay interested.

• 40:36Lewis Howes?

  That's that's good, man.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  What um, where do you see yourself in by 25?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  I think that I'll take a bigger step into for the entertainment side. I think you'll see a lot more of.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  I would say like Barstool type content or getting more involved in the sports world. Like I, I just started a radio show with Craig Carton, um, where I'm going on every Friday and we just talked 15, 20 minutes about sports. Right. And so I think you'll see that on the entertainment side and then on, on the business side, definitely stepping more and more into angel. I love angel investing and then as well, probably being a GP at a fund. And then I would say hopefully either scaling Annie into something huge or have exited. Cause that will be six years down the road. So that'll be like seven years of doing any. So hopefully, yeah.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. What's, uh, what got you into Barstool and the partnership with Dave and everything there?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  It was actually.

• 41:40Lewis Howes?

  I didn't know who he was until about a year ago.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  And I've been loving everything about the way he's been.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:46Lewis Howes?

  Well, first off, he's just, I love the pizza, the pizza reviews. I'm just like, okay, this is entertaining, but then to see what he's doing a small business. This is, I'm just like, dude, mad props to him for stepping up in that way and really serving people.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. Yeah. I, I was blessed enough to where actually with one of the investments we made, Pear Pop, they came in with us and helped out the Barstool fund. And we were able to do just off Twitter and Pear Pop, we were able to do $200,000 in 48 hours. For, for the, the, the fund at Barstool, which was amazing, but the Dave thing all came from actually drama that happened in social media. It was like the biggest social media Tik Tok drama that has ever occurred.

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  What was it?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  It was beef with the Hype House and Sway House and essentially my girlfriend and a guy over there. Um, so, so anyway.

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  Who's at Hype House?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Who, who's there?

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  Who are the big people at Hype House?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Um, well, at the time, like Charlie and Dixie were involved with Hype House. Like they, they pretty much like gave Hype House the name, I would say, like, and Addison was there for a little bit.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  Um, this was a house in LA.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And then like there's Avani, Chase, Thomas, Alex, Warren. There's a bunch of them, but it's same as Sway. Like there's a big group.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  So there was some, there was some beef between houses. Yeah, there was some beef going on and they decided to just break the internet. Like you couldn't go on TikTok without a video being made about it. My, like, we would go live on Instagram and if any of us involved in the, like, beef went live on Instagram, it would get a hundred thousand viewers on Instagram. Crazy, man. Like, trending on Twitter, number one, for like two days. It was everywhere you went, like YouTube videos are trending about it. It just, you couldn't stop TMZ, it's like Hollywood Fix, paparazzi, everyone. Wow. So Dave tweets out and is like, why the fuck am I seeing wiggle dickers all over my feed?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  So me and Michael are at a dinner and someone that's at the dinner with us was like, yo, Dave just tweeted about you guys and, and the situation going on. And Michael's like, holy fuck, we need to get, we need to get like in contact with Dave. So he starts going through his rolodex and like. Who knows Dave? Yeah, who knows Dave, who knows Dave? And eventually after like thirty minutes, we find someone that knows Dave, we get in contact with him. And we talked about doing an Instagram live. So me and Dave go live together, I go live and then guest him and we start talking about the beef. And there's like, whatever, fifty thousand people on the livestream watching. And it's just kind of like us going back and forth, we're like shooting shit, we're roasting people, whatever. It's all in fun and games.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  And then Snapchat hits us up and is like, yo, we saw the livestream with Dave and Josh, we wanna create a show with them. Would. On Snapchat? Yeah, would they be interested? So we get a thirty minute scheduled, like, time slot with Dave to go and pitch this idea to him. We're one minute in, we're like, they wanna do a show with us on Snapchat, what do you think? No, he's like, no, I'm not doing anything with Snapchat. Like, one minute into the call, we got twenty-nine minutes left and he's already shut down the idea. I don't like it. He's like, no, I don't like it, we're not doing it. And so we're all standing there on the call with like twenty-nine minutes left, trying to figure out what to do. Like, what are we, like, what are we gonna say the rest of the call? Like, do we keep going? Do we just say like, peace, alright? Like, so Michael starts like spitballing and then just kind of throws out the guy's idea. He's like, let's do a podcast, like, why don't you and Josh do a podcast?

• 45:06Speaker 01

  And Dave's like, yeah, I'm not opposed to that. So we just started talking more and more and like. Probably was three or four months of negotiations, then we got the podcast. And it's been like super successful ever since.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. How does that partnership work? Do you have equity in Barstool?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  No, no. Yeah, yeah, it's more of a split thing on the actual podcast itself, yeah, but it's.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  And you're promoting on your side, he's promoting on his side, and you're just doing a split somehow?

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's like great because the demographics, right? For Dave, he's reaching into a whole new demo that he hasn't reached into, that younger audience. Like as Barstool fans get older and older. And then for me, it gives me that older audience that I'm looking for and more of the male demographic that I'm lacking on.

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  Cause you got 90% 12 year old girls.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, but the podcast, it's like, I think we have more guys subscribe to the podcast than girls. It's like a 54% guys and then 40 something percent girls. And then like slowly but surely you start to see also like my other socials like go up. Like my YouTube now is like, I think, like around 30% male audience. And then it's like, you see my Instagram go up and my TikTok, so like, that's the, yeah.

• 46:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've been pretty consistent 50/50 male to female audience for a long time. And I think, cause I'm interviewing a lot of men and women and it's just split audiences, I guess.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  That's wicked though. Like when you have that split, it's awesome.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  Well, my girlfriend is more like 80% guys that follow her, you know, it's like 13 million guys.

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  But, uh, and she's trying to build that female audience as well. She's building other accounts for just like all female content.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Right, okay, cool.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  I think you guys are both doing a smart thing there. That's cool that you're doing that. Was that once a week or how's that work?

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, the podcast we do once a week.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  It's called BFF, right?

• 46:48Speaker 01

  BFFs, yeah.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  I've seen a couple of episodes, it's good, yeah. You got good clips on there as well. How do you think you're gonna handle emotionally all this success? The money, the opportunities, the fame, the everyone wanting a piece of you now and in the future? How do you, how are you personally dealing with emotional wellness, emotional health?

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  And not allowing it to consume you?

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, I think I was already consumed. I think that like the first six months when we came out to sway was like when I fell into the traps of LA. And like the success and the money and everything like, like I said, I was never like a spender, but. I love, like, I love creating moments and memories and like being around people and being like center of attention or just like having a blast all the time, right? So when we first came to LA and there was no COVID, right? And it's like, we are these rising stars. The party scene was crazy, right? So it's like every single night, like I was seventeen when I first came out here. So for a seventeen year old high school kid, they're like,

• 47:52Speaker 01

  I'm in heaven right now. Like I get to do whatever I want, party and make money. Like this is sweet. So I did that for like six months. And then kind of just like realized after a few big mistakes, like, alright, I'm, I got lightning in the bottle and I'm throwing it away. Like the opportunity I have is way too important to waste. And it's like, I was just like slowly but surely like also kind of justifying decisions I used to never justify like.

• 48:20Lewis Howes?

  Really? Like what?

• 48:21Speaker 01

  I think just like slacking off, like not doing as much work. If it was like deciding to drink and party or do whatever we're doing at these parties. Um, instead of like prioritizing the meetings I have the next day, right? It's like, it didn't matter what day it was. It could be a Tuesday at like seven and someone would come down and be like, we're drinking. And it would just happen, right? So on that side of things, like, I'm very glad we kind of did that at the very beginning and then kind of just got out of our system and moved on.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Because now it's like we're work focused and people in COVID are always like, oh, it sucks so much. Like, we don't get to party. I miss partying. And it's like, yeah, I miss partying a little bit, but I kind of got partied out. So it's like, at least now I've been able to use COVID to just focus on my work and, and becoming kind of morally back to where I should be.

• 49:10Lewis Howes?

  It's like the good Canadian kid.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that good Canadian kid that I was like raised and how I was raised. So, yeah.

• 49:17Lewis Howes?

  Who are three creators that you look up to or you're inspired by?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Like social media creators?

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, maybe they're in your space, or maybe they're in marketing, or fashion, or music, or whatever. Maybe they're in a different space, but who are just three creators that you think, man, they're doing a great job. I admire what they're creating.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:33Lewis Howes?

  Maybe they got 100 million followers, maybe they got 100,000 followers.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Who's doing a good job?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  I would say Mr. Beast is one of them. He's absolutely crushing it. His whole team, like, I talk to people on his team. I haven't got to talk to, I'm talking with Jimmy, actually, soon, I believe, we're scheduling a call, but like, the amount of respect I have for them and how hard he works, like, I know how hard content is to film. And this guy's a machine, like, the videos he's doing, his schedule, and like, how well orchestrated his team is, it's just phenomenal, so, props to him. And then, I would say there's like, definitely a part of me that looks up to Dave, like, I think that what he's been able to do with Barstool and growing it into a social media conglomerate, like, this, this, and, like,

• 50:22Speaker 01

  it's just, it's a machine, right? It can boost anything, it can absolutely push views, sell product, so I really respect what he's done on that front. And then...

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  I gotta interview him someday, I think he'd be great on here.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then, another influencer that I would say I have respect for, um, I would say that

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Logan and Jake, like, the Paul brothers, like, they're definitely, like, I always feel like I kind of have to give respect to those guys, because they were they were like pioneers in a sense in this, this industry, and I think that just how they looked at it, and, and the things that they pioneered changed the game. Like, they've done so many, like, bringing the boxing in.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, right?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  It's just, they've opened doors.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  The music videos, everything else.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  The diss track, like, they've opened doors for other content creators to, to make a lot of money, and they, that would have never thought that way, right?

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  Were you watching them when you were 12, 13?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was watching Jake a lot when I was younger, like, probably 14. I was watching him, and then Logan, like, pretty soon after, probably like a couple of months, but, uh, I, I was always like... I was always just stud- like, I almost use that as studying, like, it was, I wouldn't just watch the videos to like slack off.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Be entertained, yeah.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  I did that as well, but I was like writing notes. I was like, okay, this is what they did, like, look at their thumbnail, look at- Cause I always like, since I was young, just wanted to be an entertainer, like, I wanted to do social media.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  Have they inspired you to get into like boxing or doing certain things like that?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  I tried to do a boxing match like four months ago, but the kid said no.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, I mean, it's fine. I'm, I like-

• 52:00Speaker 01

  It would have been fun and it would, it like, it was kind of like, I don't know, I, I understand why like it wa- it wasn't done. And I think that like, uh, fighting's, fighting's intense, like, you gotta really put a lot of work.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  It's intense, man.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  You can't just like say you're a fighter, like-

• 52:14Lewis Howes?

  No, you gotta train for hours.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  And if you don't and you go and box, you just look, you get embarrassed. Like, you look like a fool when you go out there and you can't throw a punch, or you start like, just like going left and like, you can't even like control your body movements, so your cardio is shit. Nate Robinson, for example, like, he, he kinda looked like a fool. Like, he went out there against Jake and like, no disrespect to him on the athlete side, cause guy's like one of the best athletes of all time, probably. But Jake trained and put his absolute like, full effort into it, and then that's why.

• 52:45Lewis Howes?

  And he got that result.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy, man. What, um,

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  what advice would you have for the, the fans of yours, the followers, the thirty million friends of yours that are going through a lot of insecurities, who are in their teens right now, who are just faced with changing in their body,

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  breakups in relationships, people ghosting them, you know, just all the confusion of social media and real world relationship dynamics. And comparison mode, like, you grew up in this generation more than me. I got into social media when I was twenty-five, you got into it early.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:21Lewis Howes?

  What advice do you have to kids?

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Biggest, biggest advice, and it's something like, uh, took me a while to figure out, but definitely learned it in LA, like, keep your circle small. Like, find an inner circle that you like, you can, you can be friends with everyone, and I think you should show respect to everyone and be nice to everyone, even if they don't treat you great all the time, but you gotta find your circle and like stick to it. Like, in high school, I probably had- For the first like two years, I probably had like two kids that I could have called my best friends. And then the last two years, I gained like another three more. And it was like, so I had like, that was it though. Like everyone else, I couldn't really trust. Like kids would make fun of me all the time at school, like for the social media things. I got bullied for it, whatever. So it's like, same with when I came out to LA, there were so many kids that I trusted, like,

• 54:06Speaker 01

  and people I called my best friends and they would go and do these like crazy things behind my back, like talk absolute shit. Yeah, LA is, I mean, LA is the worst for that.

• 54:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  So I would say like, that's the biggest thing is just like keeping, keeping it small.

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  Keep it small.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Well, um, I want to acknowledge you, Josh, for the risk-taking you take. Because you came from a small town in Canada, you started taking action out there, you moved out here, you made some mistakes. You're still learning to make mistakes, but you're, you're constantly evolving and constantly innovating in your space right now. And I think it's really inspiring to see what you can create as a 16-year-old, 19-year-old, and where you're going in the future. So I acknowledge you for, for trying to learn and really optimize these things. And taking these risks and investing and learning financial literacy and just expanding your, your empire. I think it's really cool to see that someone your age can do this. And I know you're going to learn a lot and you're going to fail and you're going to make a lot of success as well, but the fact that you're here now and you're, you're committed to growth, I think is really inspiring to see.

• 55:05Lewis Howes?

  So I acknowledge you for, for all you're doing, man.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  I'm excited for your growth. I want to watch and see what you're up to over the next few years. So if I can help, let me know with anything.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 55:14Lewis Howes?

  And also, um, I want to ask you a question I ask everyone at the end called Three Truths. Now, I think you're the second youngest person I've had on here. I think I had Jake on when he was 19 as well. Maybe he was, maybe he was 18 or 19. So you're the youngest person I've had on or the second youngest. So this is a question that may not resonate with you right now.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  It's called, it's called the Three Truths.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  And I'd like you to imagine for a moment it's your last day on earth. And you're as old as you want to be. You're a hundred, you're two hundred, whatever. Maybe science allows you to be two hundred years old by then, right? But it's the last day. And you've actually accomplished everything. All your dreams, all the businesses, you're the first billionaire, social media influencer. You're whatever you want to do. You've done it all. You've got the family, kids, everything. I know it's a long way away to think.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  But just imagine for a second, it's your last day. But for whatever reason, everything you've created, you have to take with you. So no one has access to your content right now, which is YouTube, TikTok, podcast, products. Everything has to go with you. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true from all your experiences in life. And I know you've only got nineteen years on this planet right now, but. And this is all they would have. They got a piece of paper and a pen. You get to write down your three biggest lessons you've learned as a human being. And this is all you could share with the world. What would you say are those three truths for you?

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Are they just like lessons or things I've done that I leave behind?

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Um, lessons you would leave behind.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Lessons?

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  The three things you know to be true that you would want to share to the world.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  All right, number one.

• 56:42Lewis Howes?

  To the world, yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  With power comes responsibility.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  I got a tattoo on my arm for a reason. Quote my dad always said to me, also watch Spider-Man, obviously, but it's just. I've no, I've realized so many times where I've had such an influence or such a power and utilized it maybe in the wrong way or just made mistakes where it's been utilized wrong. So just when you have that power, and it can be as small as like power over one friend or like a sibling, right? Like make sure you realize the responsibilities with come that come with that.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  The next truth.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  I think that.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Kind of, kind of going back a little bit to what I said with the, with the tight circle thing actually, but I think that, me personally, there's just been so many times in my life where I've been backstabbed or I've been like, I've put my heart out and trusted someone multiple times, or like they've even done things or shown me where I should have cut the ties off or been like, alright, we can't work in business anymore, whatever. There's been so many times where situations like that have happened and I just try to make it work. I'm always like, oh no, I'll give you another chance, another chance. It's like, the circle that is small, like in that you can trust, like is so important because when everything's crumbling, like you need to be able to go to someone and just like,

• 58:12Speaker 01

  tell them like, look, I, I only can go to you with this, like this is, you're all I got here. So, I think that's super important and then-

• 58:18Lewis Howes?

  What would that lesson be, like keep a good-

• 58:20Speaker 01

  Keep a tight circle, yeah. And then, the, the last one is, I, I, I'm trying to think the best way to say this, but I think that there's a false notion where people say like, save your money. I think the biggest lesson is spend your money, but spend it wisely. And that's like utilizing your, your, like there's so many times where you could put like $10 away into an account that's giving you like 6% back, right? Or, or whatever it is, acorns, etcetera, like you just don't go buy the Starbucks coffee. Instead you go somewhere else where the coffee's gonna be $1, right? Like, and then every day you're saving $3 and putting it in, little things like that.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Like, learn to spend your money, but spend it wisely. Those would be my three lessons.

• 59:09Lewis Howes?

  That's good stuff, man. Uh, I've got one final question for you. Before I ask it, what is a question you wish more people would ask you?

• 59:18Speaker 01

  What is a question I wish more people would ask?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  I think, actually what we got to, something we got to talk about today, which I usually don't, is the analytical, or I guess like, how focused I am on the numbers of things. Like when I've talked about my story of like, growth hacking my social media. I think a lot of people think I just came out of social media like this. And like, I've been on interviews or podcasts where they're like, "Josh, so you blew up overnight, like how does that feel?" And I'm like, "Well, you obviously didn't even do research on me." Like, "You don't know my story then, like that's not even what happened, right?" So like, people almost like have put words in my mouth before. They think that like, I just blew off, blew up off like, a pretty face. And I mean like, sure, it probably didn't help that, like whatever, like girls think I'm cute.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  But it's like, there was three and a half, four years of me like, doing tedious work like following and unfollowing accounts and commenting on videos. And like, I was so strategic about my blow up and studying the For You page, knowing what worked, like trying out different video styles. Like, it was, it was a grind for me. It wasn't this easy. I got views for being good looking.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you studied, you worked hard.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also was like a weird looking kid. I, like puberty helped me out. I was a weird looking guy.

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  Like 14 was weird.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Oh my god. It's like I had an awkward phase from I think like 14 until three months ago. Like I just a little bit got out of it, yeah.

• 1:00:44Lewis Howes?

  Until now. You're still the weird face.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, still Loki M, yeah.

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  And what's the thing you're most proud of? That maybe people don't see or they don't know about? It's something smaller maybe, or maybe not as well known about your bio and about your, your content?

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Um, I think that one thing I'm really proud of is probably...

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  I would say, I would say like this, I think people don't realize the work that the boys, but also like myself, put behind Sway. Like, I think people think Sway was more of this like, management came in and picked us all out, but the actual work, like, all the boys put in, in the, in the brotherhood that was made, like, I just want people to, I think people don't realize like, how true that was. People think like, it's like a boy band, right? People think, oh, you went, we went out and we selected like, five, six random people, like, we were best friends going into that. And it's like, that accomplishment of all of us, truly just caring about each other, and then being able to create an entire, like, movement with Sway, and be able to change kind of even how like, people view

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  social media creators, because before, you couldn't do the things we did as a social media creator, you got canceled for it. Like, there, there were stigmas for TikTokers, there were, right? Like, we broke those. So, I think like, that's one thing that I'm just so proud of, because we, I was able to do with my friends. Like, and that was always a dream of mine, is being successful with people I care about.

• 1:02:12Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. Yeah, it's good stuff. Well, we can follow you. Where's the main place you're posting content now? Where should we support? Where should we follow?

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Uh, I would say my Instagram or YouTube. They're both just Josh Richards. It's like my name.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Are you not TikTok as much anymore?

• 1:02:27Speaker 01

  Uh, definitely am, but I think that just like, I'm trying to expand my portfolio and content, so...

• 1:02:34Lewis Howes?

  Trying to push them to other platforms.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think everyone like, knows about my, like, people like, know I do TikTok. I want them to know I do like YouTube, and I want them to know, right? So, and, and the content, I tend to post on like, my Instagram. I'm able to be more like, sports involved, or I'm able to be more, like, there's trends on TikToks, there's like, there's audio, so like, I'll try to put my spin on it or whatever, but it's like, you're a little bit restricted on TikTok, unless you want to spend a ton of time on it. And it's like, I want to use that time for YouTube and TikTok, or Instagram.

• 1:03:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Good, man. Okay, well, final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Definition of greatness? Um...

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  I would say someone that's putting in 110%, like it, I would call myself the greatest or I've achieved greatness if I know I've left everything out on that field. And like, I always go back to kind of like that sports analogy thing, but it was just like, that's what I was trying, my dad was my coach my whole life, right? Like, or at least a majority of it. And like, the other coaches I had, it was always the same thing. We were always getting run like back and forth, back and forth. Like, my team's always huge on that. And it's just like, you are leaving everything you got out on this field. Like, my dad would be mad at me if I could go and walk to the car without kind of like struggling after a game. Like, he was like, why do you have energy? I should drag you off. Yeah, yeah, like, right? Like, I should have to drag you off the ice after every hockey

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  game because you should be giving 110%. Like, you should be leaving it all out there, right? So, that's what I define as greatness, is leaving everything you have on the field. My man. Josh, thanks for being here, man. Thank you for having me, man. Thank you, thank you. Good times.

• 1:04:14Lewis Howes?

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, make sure to share it with a friend, text a few friends, post it on social media, copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this, or just use the link lewishouse.com/1086 and share it out online. If you enjoyed it, make sure to click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts right now, as well as leave us a rating and review, as that really helps us spread the message of greatness to more people in that ecosystem. So if you enjoyed this and you got value, then make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend. And if you want inspirational messages sent to your phone every single week from me, then text the word PODCAST right now to 614-350-3960 to get on my secret

• 1:04:56Lewis Howes?

  texting list. And I want to leave you with a quote from The Rock, who said, "Success isn't always about greatness, it's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come." I hope you enjoyed this. And if no one's told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.