#91 with Ben Askren - The UFC Star Turned Crypto Investor

What's up, everyone? Uh this is a special episode with Ben Askren. If you don't know who Ben Ashren is, he is One of the most famous MMA fighter in the world. He was an Olympic wrestler. He was in the UFC. Uh, he's got his own podcast, his own doing a whole bunch of stuff launching a course, doing some cool stuff. He's one of the more interesting guys to talk to. He got famous because he was great in

kind of his interviews during the UFC. And so me and Sam were big uh MMA and UFC nerds and we we love this stuff. So we were we were pumped. You can probably hear it in our voice during the interview. We were pumped for this one. you know, I I got up early, I did some research, I I showered, I I was I was excited for this. We've had billionaires on here, but I was way more excited to talk to Ben Askren. And so hope you guys enjoy we talk a little bit about Dealing with fear. I mean these guys

They walk out in their underwear to fight another person who they've been talking trash to for the last two months. With millions of dollars on the line, millions of people watching and a stadium full of people just watching them sort of hand to hand combat. So it's a it's a incredibly intense pressure that very few people get to experience. So we asked Ben about How did he deal with fear? How did he get good at the active competition? What is he doing post career? Like what does an athlete do? How do they leverage their brand to build a business afterwards? And then he's also kind of active in the crypto space. So we talk a little bit about cryptocurrencies at the at the very end, but uh hope you guys enjoy this interview. Anytime we just get a cool guest on who is somebody who's they're kind of world class at whatever they do.

We're gonna jump on that opportunity. So this is no different. Enjoy this episode with Ben Askren. Guys, we have Ben Askren today. If you're a UFC fan, which Sean and I both are and Abrau is as well, then you absolutely know who he is. But if you're not a fan, I'm gonna give background here. So I uh so Ben Ben, uh you went to the you went to the Olympics.

Right. Yeah, two thousand eight. So Ben was an Olympic wrestler. Um He was famous in my home state of Missouri as a a wrestler, even when I was in high school. Everyone talked about the Askin family and them being wrestlers.

And He eventually went to uh a variety of Um different I guess you could describe them to non UFC fans, leagues in Asia. Yeah. I think Bell Tor as well. Yeah. Uh yeah, so I I fought mainly well, I so I fought my first three fights in small promotions, then I fought in Belletor for a four years, and then I fought in one championship for four years. Uh, I retired at the end of my run with one championship and then I unretired when I got traded to D F C.

Yeah, so we came to the UFC t about two years ago and it was a big deal. Ben was on uh Joe Rogan and everyone said that this was the guy that wasn't in the UFC and it he was the best guy that wasn't in the UFC and why the hell isn't he in the UFC? And so we came to the UFC and Cause a whole bunch of ruckus, which we'll get into and He He's also

kind of like a big deal in the crypto space and he's kind of like a a a big deal in like stoicism. He he's just kind of like a weird, interesting person. And and I met Ben about six or something months ago on Twitter. We just became buddies on Twitter, then we started talking and Ben is thinking about launching a course and I've just been giving him feedback and We just been shoot the shit and we just said You know, Ben, come on the podcast. So that's kind of how we how we kinda got to where we are.

Yeah. So yeah, my my life has been interesting. I've I've done a lot of uh uh things besides fighting. I have a lot going on right now, podcasting, my brother and I own five wrestling academies. We own a couple of the buildings. So I I've got my hand in a a wide variety of things. I'm really interested in You know social media content creation. that type of thing really, really interests me a lot. And obviously

You know, I got interested in business late. I took zero business classes, but obviously when I decided to start business in twenty eleven. with AWA, I got more interested. And now it's become like a fascination to me. You know, actually I tell my wife So when I was younger I would literally work out like every single day. And if I went on vacation and I didn't have my work out, I'd start getting a little nutty and she'd be like, Bro, you need to go work out like you know, with the leave, go do something. And now it's it's kind of the opposite like this obsession over business and finance because I and I feel like I'm

you know, twelve years, fifteen years late to the party because I didn't do any of it in college and So I feel like now I'm just trying to rapidly absorb as much as I can to understand more and more about business. finance how the and the ways the world really works. So if you were like black belt level, I know there's not black belt in wrestling, but if you were like black belt level at wrestling, which is essentially you were Olympic wrestler, you kind of invented your own brand of wrestling, really. Yes. You had mastery in that. Now with you know, your post UFC career I think I think you retired

Was it just a year ago? Like it's not. It was yeah, l last November. So yeah, less than a year. Less than a year. Where do you say you're at on the business side of things? Well, so we we started our business twenty eleven, my brother and I did with our high school wrestling coach. Uh, at that point in time I wasn't even I didn't even have the intention of

Working there. I was actually living in Arizona when we d when we decided to open the first one. Um, there is a good MMA gym here. Called. Rupa sport. And so I decided to move back. The summer of 2011, so I was like three or four months after the gym opened. I and you know what? It's just fun. It's fun to be there. I love coaching wrestling, I love working with the kids.

And and then on top of that, the business side. business side started being fun for me also so we opened up Gym number two in twenty thirteen and gym number three in twenty seventeen. And then we just obviously th this spring has been ripped by coronavirus, but we've Essentially opened up gym four and gym five.

uh this spring. Jim Five is coming gonna come online in like a month or two, but you know it's it's getting there. It's been slowed down by corona. So yeah, so the business side's been fun and then obviously I've I've kind of mentioned into other aspects of business also. So um I don't know. We'll say Purple belt, maybe maybe blue belt, purple belt. I think I think I'm warning. Um like a really good blue belt. It's just you gotta put in that time to get to purple. Yeah. So absolutely. When you went into the UFC.

Now this is not a knock on you, but I would say you were probably the least athletic Great. MMA fighter, would you would you agree with that? Um yeah, I mean for for elite level wrestling. Or elite level mixed martial arts.

For your traditional athletic abilities, you know, strength, speed, et cetera, et cetera. I think I would score very, very low compared to mo most of my peers. I do think I have some One some things that are kind of a little harder to see, you know, one of them that Lot of people don't talk about proprioception, like understanding where your body is in space. And wrestling specifically, I think that is huge and Whether I came out of the womb like that or whether I learned

That from being on the mat just For many, many, many hours. That's one thing but that's something and then I have this really weird like isometric strength. And again, I think that's probably been developed through wrestling, but I can see it. That's like grip strength or squeezing, holding. Yes. See a video of you. And I don't know if this was like a if it was a doctored, I don't know if it's a viral video, but there's a video of you on the internet. It's if you haven't seen this, you probably haven't, but go look it up if you're listening to this.

Ben Ashkrine to YouTube watermelons and just he's squeezing a watermelon Like not with any like big build up. You're just holding it and then you start to squeeze and then you just crush two watermelons uh simultaneously, which is kind of insane. And then most people can't do that. Uh most even most MMA wrestlers couldn't do that, correct? They can they can no. I actually saw so what there was a really good wrestler I mean, we're talking about multi I think he's a three time national champion. And he did one and I think it was like fourth of July or it was somewhere around there. And so I saw him do one. I said, F that, I'm I'm gonna go buy two. I'm gonna do two. And I did two, and you know, I thought I was I had a social media following. So You know, my my video went went quite viral. Uh but yeah, I've done it a few other times since then when people have

challenged me to back it up'cause they th you know, they thought I was Lying or being fraudulent, so they'll bring a watermelon so squeeze it and I've popped it a few more times. And just to give the listener even more perspective, Ben, you Like

I I in the in m sh the world that Sean and I in the UFC world You're a huge deal. So how can I give perspective to the um to the listeners. So you have what, uh maybe two million social followers. Uh I know it man, you're wh overrating me. I have I'm at I'm at three twenty five on Twitter and I'm like a little over six hundred on Instagram, so

I mean, Yeah. Okay, so a million, that's fair. So I but My in my Insta my Twitter following is fair fairly rabid. I I get quite a bit of interaction. Um, I have a lot of fun. I I love the Twitter medium. I don't really Love Facebook or Instagram or I don't do Snapchat at all.

Uh, but I love like the wittiness and you know the one thing I love about Twitter is egalitarian. Any anyone can speak, anyone can get a conversation. And for WhatsApp. I think you can find out whether people are full of shit and whether they're smart pretty damn quickly. Right. Yeah, it's it's better bet better background check than anything else. Just go scroll through the timeline and you know, I'm glad you're on the pod because there's a lot of great

like let's say athletes or especially EFC fighters that me and Sam would be big fans of But I wouldn't necessarily want on the podcast. Like, okay, I'd want Dana on. I'd want probably Connor McGregor on. But y that's a short list. You're you're right there with it. It's like cool, Nate Diaz is a great fighter would not make for a great uh podcast. And so Well we had and and we had Lance Armstrong on and that he' not not a fight. How do you do? Yeah. Yeah.

He's amazing. Yeah, he's wonderful. He came out. He was very real. And I think for somebody like that, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about kind of your w one of the most infamous moments for you, but like For Lance, he obviously has you know very polarizing part personality. And I don't know if it's just'cause it's been many years, but he just sat down and just shot the shit with no filter. And uh people loved it and I loved it because

And I don't know if he just is tired of giving a fuck and he's like okay, I I don't need to like yar this anymore. It's been ten years or whatever. Um, but but you know, that was really great. But I'm glad you're here because you can tell us about kind of like two different worlds, right? So there's the like be a great athlete world, there's the business world. But there's another world which is

About a year ago today, and you know, sorry for bringing it up. Yeah, it's all good. Did my wadi interview about it this morning. Yeah, so so I'll just put out a tweet uh I'll I'll read your tweet about it, which was Imagine the most embarrassing moment of your life getting replayed incessantly on Twitter. So For those who don't know, about a year ago you had a big fight. I was actually in the arena.

Um i in Vegas and Uh you were fighting this guy, you guys had talked a bunch of shit to each other, and it was a huge build up. And then the fight starts And he sprints at you. You do what you do best, which is you go for a a wrestling take down He does this crazy flying knee, knocks you out in five seconds.

And it looked horrible. It looked awful. I was like in tears when it happened. I was like, Oh my god, Sam was like crying. I was just in shock. I was in the arena. And so Then of course y because you were a high profile guy and because you Um talked a lot of shit beforehand. you know, Twitter tried to give it back to you. So tell tell me about like And then I and then I gave it back to Twitter. I I own those trolls. And you did. So okay, so if you were gonna write you had a very unique experience, right? Like

Um, if you were gonna sort of write the book or give the playbook on dealing with You know, your worst nightmare, your public public humiliation. Um dealing with it. What are the what are the different steps or different stages that you went through? Well so funny enough, so Sam, we talked about Sam encouraging me to do a course, my co course that is coming out, and I taped it. Well last Monday. So we're we're doing a new website for me and then we are

um the editing stages of the videos Um But I I've had this passionate interest in in sports psychology for for many years. And I always thought I would write a book. And so it's gonna come in video format, which is probably I think more twenty twenty than than writing a book. Right. And I suck at writing, so it's gonna be much easier. You know, we I and I talk a lot about that failure. But you know, if we can kind of circle back to Lance and and this is I actually said this, I was really talking to Ariel about this this morning. I think it's one of the reasons that George is getting over so well.

It's authenticity is highly valued. And in twenty twenty, where everything's on social media. Man, it's pretty easy to figure out really quick if someone's being authentic or if they're being a fraud. And you know, Mart Marty, the other guy who's fighting for the title of Walter Wade, I I think I you know, I knew him before he was kind of a a big deal. Right and that person and the person that are, you know, who he is now is just it's just not not the same thing at all. And so I think with Lance Um, you know, he probably had all those years built up of having to kind of be inauthentic, and and you could tell he just like a dude that just wants to act normal. And I think like, you know, obviously you watch the doc on ESPN thirty for thirty, it's like

that authenticity is just coming out and people appreciate it and And I really thought I love the doc. I thought he did a great job of saying, listen, I effed up. I was bad to this person, I was bad to that person. And it just felt like he was just saying it like it was, and people love that. And so You know, that that's for me is just like just be authentic and a

And one of the biggest things I talk about in uh in the course coming up is that you you don't want to tell your ego to the outcome. When that is the case Um, it le it leads to a whole bunch of bad things. But that and that's my ego wasn't telling the outcome. Whether I get knocked down five seconds or whether I win and then I fight for the title next, I'm I'm the same dude. Uh as as before that five seconds.

And how many um MMA fights have you had? I had twelve so I I'm retired, I was I I had twenty one. Nineteen wins, two losses. What was the most amount of live people at one of your fights and what was the most amount of viewers?

Or and is there any numbers if people watch that? Your second to last fight. A hundred billion. Mm. Yeah, I so that that that is probably watched uh I mean a hundred billion is probably a low estimate of how many times that I think they can impressions, yeah. So I would say, you know, one championship did a great job of selling out arenas. So B Bell Tour, my my last fight in Bell Tor, they were starting to do larger arenas. It was in Mexico, I think it was six thousand seats, it was sold out. Um one championship every fight I fought in and one championship was sold out and then obviously

UFC has has great crowds as well. So my last ten eleven fights were fought in front of sold out arenas. So ten to twenty thousand maybe. And then um in the hundreds of thousands for pay per views uh uh and then if you had an illegal streamers Yeah. Uh then we're talking uh a lot more than that. And so yes, a lot more.

So m millions of views. Um when we talk about business a lot, I we always say or I always say that launching and building shit. Intellectually it's not that hard, but emotionally it's quite challenging to overcome. Like fear. And I remember um the hustle. We launched this ideation boot camp and I was texting I think you the day before. I was like Oh my God, I'm so fucking afraid. Like I'm so nervous about this. And sometimes I think like I'm like well Lewis and Clark just traveled the country.

Where they didn't even know where they were going for three years and they did it before. Like launching this course, it's not a big deal. And and then other times I'm like Ben or all these other guys like go and and fight to the death potentially in front of millions of like millions of people in your underwear. In your underwear. And I'm like, I can launch this stupid freaking thing. Like I'm sitting at my desk and I like complain about my back hurts because I get to sit down all the time. What's that feel like when you are preparing for something and what's it feel like like

Uh when I was I ran track and field in college, I remember like thirty minutes before a race when you're just sitting down after you warm up, you're like Oh, I don't want to fucking do this. God, this sucks. What am I doing? I'm quitting. This is my last time. What like What what's that like thirty minutes? in the backstage when you're just waiting. Yeah, uh so I mean I I've been I guess like

I don't say fighting, but wrestling, you know, with the Wisconsin high school state tournament is fifteen, thousand fans sold out. So I mean I was doing that as a fourteen year old. The N C tournament, which I made the finals all four years in. That's twenty thousand fans sold out every s every single year. And so you know, I don't want to say it's normal to me. But it but it kind of is at the same time. I mean I'm doing it for

all of my adult life. Yeah. You know, I I guess I I talk about this in the course too, but Fi finding what works best.

For you And for me, I'm I'm an overthinker and I learned that at a really early age and I had a coach that was you know, kinda gave me some insight into that'cause he he was a similar way. And that that's the biggest thing that helped me is is I I find my zone. I I take my mind off of uh, you know, whatever task is

Is ahead because you know that That 30 minutes to an hour that nothing's gonna happen. You're not gonna make anything better or worse. You're not gonna figure out some magical thing in that in that period of time. So for me, it's just about Staying relaxed and enjoying the moment and getting getting ready to compete, uh as hard as I can compete. So H practically, how do you do that? Like what did you did you listen to music? Did you l watch a TV show? Did you just sleep? What what what did you try to do in the back before the fights? I always have I always have people I enjoy with me in my corners. I mean a little I I I tell kids this'cause I'm like listen dude I I put my money where my mouth is. I'm not just telling you this and and trying to say some fluff bullshit like

I thought What, nine times in Asia? Eight times? I don't know, a bunch of times in Asia. I would fly someone there that was just my buddy to just bullshit with me in the locker room because I value my mental preparation so much. So it's like I'm not just telling you like this is what you should do. Like I spent my money, I put my money where my mouth is to fly someone to Asia who's just my buddy who wasn't necessarily there as a coach, but that would just You know?

Get me in the right frame of mind to compete. Your hype, man. Y'all flavor flav. Um Did you uh Did what was there an element?

of fear. I mean like you're retired, you don't have to be that tough anymore. You don't have to be tough anymore. What what was it like a like I don't wanna fucking be here. I don't want to do because like I I I listen to other fighters and and fail and Donald and the other guy they're like I'm gonna like they throw up ahead of time that they're so fearful. I don't know. I've never had those feelings. I you know when I listen to people Talk like that. I actually think like

I can't really relate to you right now. Like I I'm telling you guys I'm not I'm I'm not retired from trying to be a tough guy. I genuinely enjoyed it. I I really did. I mean like You know, people say what do you miss? It's like there's a lot of shit I don't miss. Like I don't miss training.

Um But if I could like relive that preparation and walk into the cage, like or you know, or walking to the N CA finals, Matt big moments like that, like Dude, that's feelings that you de You only get a few times in life, you know, like if I could wake up And every morning when I went down to my podcast in the morning, there was fucking twenty thousand people cheering. I'd like

Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get it. You know, it would be it would be exciting. So for me, I always felt that way about it. Like I always felt really positively, I always enjoyed that. I never had those negative feelings and I You know what, I I guess I could probably have a deep conversation, you know, sports psychology wise ones because I I don't know I I don't know necessarily what they were fearing. What you know, w was it fear of being injured? Was it fear of failure? Like what what was the fear of that was causing those?

I think that we all have failure. Yeah, the same thing is it it's more failure and then secondary in your Sport is Getting hurt. I mean I'm I mean

I think it's a fear of I remember when I this is a smaller scale, when I used to race in uh uh in university for track and field, I was like I have just set my hopes and dreams on this outcome. And if I don't break this time, I am gonna be so disappointed in myself. Yeah. Uh same thing with business. It's like

Uh I wanna I wanna be great, I wanna be rich, I wanna prove to everyone I have what it takes. And it's like if this doesn't work, I'm fucked. And did you have like rituals that you did beforehand? So you had your buddy come and shoot the shit. I think rituals are bad. I think they're I think they're very counterproductive.

Um Because they they don't really provide a purpose. The what the what the one purpose they would somehow provide is to get yourself mentally Prepare to do whatever it is that you need to do. Um But then what if it doesn't happen, right? What if the you saw it needs you to compete? What if something you know, what if there's some way that you can't whatever your ritual is, what if there's some way that you can't execute that does that mean you can't actually compete? And the answer is no, that's dumb. Obviously you can go compete, but some people

build those rituals up or those good luck charms up so much that it actually Hurt them when they're going to when yeah. And so it's like You know, generally speaking, I know I know where I wanna be mentally. Like so it's like I wanna have, you know, someone that I'm just gonna shoot the shit with. Um

But having like a very specific ritual or a pair of socks or right, you know, something like that, or a specific song. Or something. I just think I think those things are. It becomes a weakness. Yeah. It becomes a weakness. Yeah, the vulnerability for sure. So Connor has this phrase, he says superstition is a code word for fear. I had never heard anybody knocking superstitions. You're the second person I've ever heard sort of knocking those for that same reason. Um He also did something that I don't know if you've ever done. Sounds like you didn't really put too much uh practice into this, but I know before the fight with Floyd

They did several like simulation days. Um where they would simulate fight day like at the same time we're gonna arrive at the arena. Your hands wrapped, sit in the back, do nothing. come out there's a ref you you don't know. And there's an opponent on the other side that you don't like.

Um and they try to simulate the feelings of that. I found that very interesting because You know, if I'm gonna give a big pitch to an uh investor, I'm gonna go try to raise fifteen million dollars. These are things you don't get a lot of reps at. So you kinda have to fake those reps as best as you can and under pressure,'cause if you just do the pitch in your head looking at your slide deck while you're sitting in your boxers in your bedroom, it's not the same thing like as that. So Did you ever try to mimic competition in that way.

No, I I I did I didn't, but that does have value. And so we'll go with that as a I do th so I think competing is a skill. Competing in and of itself, right? So wrestling is a skill. Fighting is a skill, but competing is a skill, right? So separate skill. Okay, a separate skill in and of itself. What do you want to call competing or performing? Kinda, you know, s same genre. Uh it's a skill and so it's like You know, finding out that I compete best when relaxed. Like that's the important thing to find out about myself.

Now one of the things, you know, wrestlers are the most successful people in mixed martial arts, without a shadow of a doubt. And you know, part of that I think is obviously the technical part where we can control where the fight happens. But the other thing is that Most wrestlers by the time they get out of college. From their childhood up, they'll probably have a thousand plus matches. And like I said I've I was wrestling in front of fifteen thousand people at the cole center in Madison when I was in high school. I was competing as twenty thousand people. All right, in front of twenty thousand people at the NC tournament every single year, like

I got those big moments. I got a lot of them. Right. And so before I ever fought, before I ever stepped in the cage. I had I had thousands of competitions. And I had We'll say hundreds of very big matches.

Where boxing a box someone with a boxing base is not gonna have anywhere near that volume. Or MMA practice. Yeah. MMA, no. Jujitsu, no. Taekwondo, you know, all that's a no, you're just not going to you're not gonna get that volume. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you're t totally right. It's like You need to figure out how you compete or how you perform well, you know, you know, like a speech Yeah, you need to put yourself It has made those high pressure moments. I mean one thing I would I would Do all I still I still do sometimes.

But I I would think I'm actually relatively good at it now. Um, when I want to start becoming a better speaker, when I started podcasting. And I tell people to do this all the time. Do Instagram lives. Do Facebook Lives. Why? Because listen, you you have do you have to figure out you're gonna F up and you just gotta keep on rolling. You can't say

No, cut it. Cut it. No, you just gotta keep going, right? So you have to de you have to figure out how to deal with Yeah, and then also there's all these idiots on the on the thing saying like distracting you suck, you know, heckling you. So you have to deal, you have to process all of that while you're going live. And I think it's a really, really uh good tactic for people to learn how to speak. Um Just kind of on the spot and and roll of things.

How have you translated the so Like I said, I messaged you uh before we were launching something, I was like, Oh fuck, if um this is scary. How And and this is my world. Right, building businesses. How has this

those reps of wrestling and fighting translated into your ability to deal with the stuff. for launching businesses. So you have five You have five uh gyms. You you're a real estate guy, now you're launching digital stuff. Um, how has that fear or that that ability to to handle that?

translated into business. Yeah, I mean I so again I think No, this is gonna be like one of my psychology slash sport psychology thoughts. I think being so I just I I said you know wrestling is a skill. I think competition slash performance, I think that's that's a skill in itself. The other thing that I think is the skills is being successful.

Like literally understanding how to be good at something. I think that is a skill. And um You know, like I always joke with my uh kids about like Well, you think I just teach you a single leg and you and you're good at one time? You know?

Like you got you have to do it many, many, many times. And so You know, there's all these tactics that go into being successful at something. And so like when you start wrestling like I know I'm having to put a lot of time in. Period. There's the I'm not gonna go be good at

real estate or content creation without putting time in I will have to in fact put time in, right? I will have to overcome adversity. I will have to be creative at time points in time, right? There's all these things are gonna fall in place to me being successful. I think You can use a blueprint, essentially a blueprint, and kind of cross it over. Now are there certain tactics people you might take in different businesses? Sure, but I I think it's Um Roughly the same from one field to another, being successful is a skill.

Uh, Sean, have you read the book Mastery by Robert Green? No. I read it. No, but I read uh I love Forty Eight Laws of Power. That was uh I believe I read that on your recommendation. It was it was outstanding. This guy, his name's Robert Green. Uh he's almost a historian slash philosopher, more so than aut more so than author, and he's got this wonderful book that changed my life.

It's called Mastery. He wrote Forty Alls of Power, which is like a modern version of Art of War. And he has this book called Mastery. And it changed my life and it was just about that same thing of like you have to get reps in and you have to master a skill set because if you master a skill set You're not mastering that skill set.

You're mastering being great. Yeah. Yeah. There's a great little story. It's a little bit long, but bear with me. It's good. So um, so average person, here's what the average person does. Average person gets excited about racquetball. And that this is stolen from from uh Tony Robinson thing, but it's good. I I remember it

Five years later because it was that good. So average person decides they're gonna play racquetball, go to the gym, check out the the equipment, they start playing. This is a blast. They're smashing the ball against the wall. Having a great time. They go home. They're like, Oh my God, I love racketball. They start telling their friends how they they play racketball. They go online, they order all the gear, because you know, if you're gonna do something, you better order all all the best gear right away. And they go back the next day and they start doing it, but they start playing against somebody who actually knows how to play racketball.

And all of a sudden they're not smashing the ball against the wall anymore. This person's placing the ball in spots that they can't hit sometimes, and this person starts getting frustrated. And so a week goes by, two weeks go go by, and they're just getting uh they're not they're not beating this person. And so they're like, you know what, wreck ball is a stupid fucking sport. Uh like what? Box, you know, why do I have to wear these goggles? This racket is small. It's like a children's racket. I'm gonna go play a real man sport. I'm gonna go play tennis. I'm gonna get out of this box. So they go to tennis.

Uh same pattern happens. First week is awesome. They're having a blast. They order all the gear. It looked like Roger Federer They start playing with somebody who knows how to play tennis and all of a sudden, you know, they're sweating, they're sliding, they're hitting into the net. They can't get over it. And then they're like, you know what, this is a stupid sport.

Um why am I out here, you know. uh you know in the sun uh baking around this thing And the stupid net is in my way. I need a free range sport. And they go to play golf. And the first day they play golf.

They just say fuck. They just really golf doesn't even give you that that initial sense of And he talks about he's like there's three people in this world. There's a a dabbler. And a dabbler is gonna do exactly that. They're just gonna go into each thing and they're gonna get twenty percent of the way in and then they're gonna give up when they hit adversity. And then there's the um achiever grinder, and this is where a lot of people land, which is They're used to being successful. And so they just gr try to grit their teeth and grind through everything and they to try to get through the pain at all times.

And they sort of become kind of masochistic about the pain and they're and they're stressed the whole time. So he actually calls it a stressor achiever. And so they're stressed the whole time. They don't enjoy it. Um And and that's where most people even successful people will land, but they they have no fulfillment, but they do have success. And then the last group, which are the masters.

Uh the masters enjoy it. They know this is gonna take a long time, which is what you said, Ben. But they know that there's this initial hype curve and then the plateaus will come. They always come. Yeah. And when the plateau comes, they are not surprised, they're not offended, they meet the plateau like an old friend, and they're like, Ah, it's you. I exp I expected to see you soon. Here you are. Okay, now I know how to deal with plateaus. And one of the big things is like

Dealing with plateau. So like for our podcast. We've grown this thing into millions of downloads in one year. What Now it's plateaued actually. And we have to figure out we can't be uh surprised or upset. We got to figure out how to deal with those plateaus. So has that applied to you in your life about dealing with those plateaus?

I I think that I think the success is always like step a step function, right? It's not like everyone w everyone wants it to be like this. They do one thing here and they get one thing here, one thing here and you know what? It's a a regular slope line, but it's more like You do a whole bunch of work and you get nothing and then all of a sudden when it boom you're up here. You do a whole bunch of work, do nothing, boom, then you're all suddenly up here. But um

You know, kind of what what you're I've never heard someone um term it the way you termed it. But it actually really made me think a lot a lot about my uh man still the sales pitch, my my failure course. And I said when you meet failure, there's there's really three things that you can do, and I talk deeply about all of them. Um number one is dig in, right? So you dig in and you work hard. And then like you said, that is the option that most people choose because it's real relatively

Um Easy. You know, it's it's not very hard. Number two, you can pivot and you can quit and do something else, which is What you talked about.

In the first part. A dabor, right? And and and so well some but sometimes it is good to pivot, right? Um yeah, talk about I've I actually bring up the Netflix blockbuster story in my thing and like Netflix pivoted to

uh digital streaming at the perfect time. Not too late, not too early, just at the right time. And then the third thing you you could do is innovate. Um And you know, innovate and pivot can kind of be confused, like there's some gray area there, but for me, innovation. It doesn't mean creating something new, which you know, I did in wrestling, right? So innovation could mean

Creating something new. But it could also just mean Doing something new for you. Right. And so like I yeah, I bring up a couple of stories in in the in the course, and that's like okay.

One of the time I had to create some new new shit, right? And I and I did, right. Um, but another time it was just like there was just this one really basic skill that I wasn't doing. And I was just missing it. And so for me, innovating was bringing that basic skill. And figure out how to do it really, really well. innovating who I was as a wrestler.

And so yeah, I think that's kinda like The three tactics you can take when you see failure. And you know, obviously if you're gonna be good at something, there's gonna be kind of a combination. Of all three. Sometimes you do one, sometimes you do the other, sometimes you do the third one. Um You know, obviously piv pivoting can't happen too frequently or you you never get anywhere.

So to get to the business stuff. You uh You told me your goal was to be like Tony Robbins, but for this uh niche. Like your sports. Yeah. And Tony Robbins say that was. I don't remember how I said he might be. Don't think it verbatim. Verbatim, sure. Yeah, it does. Tony Robbins is a freaking savage.

So Tony Robbins, I think I bet you that cumulatively his business or uh in sum, I bet you his businesses probably do two or three hundred million dollars a year in sales. Do you think so, Sean? He says at the events that he does his businesses do over five hundred million in sales. I I don't personally believe that. I maybe that's like some enterprise value. Yeah, exactly. But like

Yeah, clearly his j his core thing, which is like The workshops. And then his either books or audio tapes back in the day. Um Those have clearly grossed over a hundred million dollars, no no doubt.

And he's the most he's the Michael Jordan of that field of self improvement. So Ben, what uh what what First of all. Oh yeah, can I c can I clarify my statement? Same shot. Uh Samura, what I think I

What I think I said, um, I mean, you so we were talking about, you know, uh getting into this and Uh, you know, me doing this course, which is, you know. I don't want to say you push me and but you pushed me in a good way. Like I need I needed to kick in the ass to go do it and I No, I've been I I first I almost I well I did. I wrote a book with um a PhD in sports psych in two thousand seven. It just wasn't very good. So right, this is kind of a long time coming. I always thought I was gonna get into this.

And I I have all these thoughts on, you know. success and sports psych and kind of how they tie together. And I and I always want to do something in this field. And I just hadn't gotten there yet. And I think I have a lot of ideas that can help people. Yes, you gave me the kick in the butt and I think I think you said something like You know. W wh where would you take this or what are you gonna do? And it's like well, I'm not sure, but

But you know, like if I wanna do something, I wanna be the best at it. If I'm gonna do it. I I'm gonna try to be the best, just like everything I else I've done I've done in my life. You know, I tried to be the best wrestler, I got pretty far. I try to be the best MA fighter I got pretty far. You know, I'm trying to have the best rest of the academy system in in America. We're we're probably not all that far off being number one. Yeah, you know, right now. So it's like when I attack something, I I attack it all the way in and I want to be the best. And um

No, for the I don't know what you call it the life. coaching, performance, coaching like Tony Robbins, he is freaking outstanding. So I that is kind of like what I think I was thinking, Sam. Yes. It was I it was an oversimplified thing though. And so I I wanna ask you like what interests you written now in the space, but before that even that, I wanna set the stage, which is As a

An MMA guy. Like, d is that a good living? No, for me it was for no for most people, no. I mean, right, I I got lucky. I won nineteen fights, I don't want to say I got lucky. Um I was good and I you know, sure, some breaks came my way and I I was nineteen, I didn't lose for ten years, right? And so I and people enjoy my personality, so I got to end up making quite a bit of money and Th there's a handful of people who make quite a bit of money, but then you see someone like Mike Perry who is He he's not a nobody. He's a pretty damn good fighter. He's a fairly big name.

And this man's got zero dollars to his name and owes the government a whole bunch of money. Right. Like a guy like you, so let's say you're in the top one percent. Well, you are in the top one percent. I don't know how many maybe dozens or a dozen people at your level.

Can Guys in in UFC Like you, can you net pre tax a million dollars a year, uh seven figures a year. Yeah. Yeah, there there are there are some that can do that. And there's not a not a the number's not big. I will you know if I'm guessing it's twenty

Maybe I that's that is a guess off the top of my head. And obviously you can only you know can only compete for so long and it does take you a while to build up and usually You know what it's kind of like a step function like you said like Once you get to a certain level, they're not probably not gonna drop you back down even like Uh, you know, it was gross, but Chuck Lidell and Tito Ortiz when they fought this year, I think they made four hundred thousand dollars or something, even though

They're both. old and terrible now and that was It was a shame to watch them still fighting. But you know, um One one of the things uh again I'm gonna go back to my course and talk about failure, it's like Listen, you're only gonna fight for so long.

And one of the things that rage on these fighters, they had this like burn the boat mentality. It's like listen, you dumbasses. If you get to thirty five. And you want to retire? And you have nothing to do. Literally, you have no other skills. You have nothing built up. Dude, you're gonna end back in the cage. You're gonna run out of money. You're gonna get used to a certain standard of living. You're also gonna have almost zero income, and you're gonna end up back in the cage.

So that pivot move when you would decide to retire fighting, you have to pivot into something. You can't pivot into nothing, right? You have to at some point decide, hey, I'm done with this, I'm gonna do something else. You know, the guy I I bring up that's on the on the bath is BJ Penn, I loved BJ Penn. He's one of my best fighters.

Sam, he went one and nine, uh, one and eight in his last nine, and Dana literally said, Bro, I'm not giving you another fight. Right. Well, let's use you, for example. I mean, were you able to earn enough from fighting that you're like Uh I'm set for life. No, heck no, God no.

Okay, it was I'd be set for like two years or a year, maybe. No shit. Only two years, you think. If I earn no other money whatsoever when I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of years. I mean, but I was saying I I don't live ostentatiously, but I don't I don't live like a peasant either, you know. I've Um, I live in a nice house, but I you know, I don't say buy like designer clothes right I would say

I have uh I live at a fairly high standard. I mean if I if I want to buy like an R V and live out of R V then Sure. Yeah, maybe I probably would have been set for life that way. Uh, negotiating with the UFC seems Damn near impossible because the fighters have pretty much no leverage. So to give people a sense, because most people are like, I thought athletes are rich. It's like, yeah, if you're in the NBA or the NFL even. I'm sure you'll hold on, guys.

Like sixty percent of those guys go bankrupt. Well they go bankrupt afterwards. We're talking about it. Right. He did it all. He made it. I guess the th the thing is like you know the like the top level the top level fighters like you know the John Jones and the Connors and whatnot, they'll they'll make in the millions. And then the the sort of the middle class is way lower than the middle class of any other league. And the reason why is like structural, right? So First U of C fighters are independent contractors. They're not They're not employees or guaranteed they have no guaranteed deal. They only get paid if they fight.

And you can get hurt. The UFC can offer you shitty fights that you want to turn down and they'll say, Hey, no problem. Great. I offered you my fight. I did my traction obligation. You don't want to turn up five. You can't leave and go to another uh like league in most cases because they've signed you these like seven seven fight deals. You got to finish your deal. in order to to leave. So you have basically no leverage against the UFC unless You're such a big name that you draw pay per views, which I think

you built yourself into right. You did the sweeping. I never I never got pay per view points. Ever but you but you had some leverage of DMC because you were at least famous. People wanted to watch you fight. Yeah. And so even if you didn't get the points. Whatever deal you did negotiate was better than like the a even the average nineteen and no fighter, whatever that means. Like the even the average great fighter won't make the type of money you made because you built a personal brand. Yes, that's true. And was that intentional or that just what happened? Yeah, I mean, I always figured, hey, if I'm gonna if I'm gonna do this, I might as well make some money doing it. But you know, Mike Peary would be

And so so obviously the reason that bottom of the barrel is like To be a pro MMA fighter, both of you guys could do it. Here's the deal. All you gotta do is is be willing to get paid to get your ass kicked. Right. And so we're talking the bottom of the barrel, the baseline salary in UFC is ten and ten. If you get in the getting the UFC. You can get ten thousand show up. You get ten thousand to win. Now that

that is not including anything, right? You pay your own insurance, you pay your coaches, you pay your marriage, you pay everything else out of that, right? And so you did it and so and then you get a two and two bump. That's a standard base UFC contract. So If you want all three of your fights your first year in the UC to go ten and ten. Twelve and twelve. fourteen and fourteen. So y you would make cumulatively

uh seventy two thousand dollars. The four paying insurance. uh housing Um you know, food. Coaching, costs. Yeah, all all of that.

In taxes, which some of these guys. Some of them forget about the Xes. So you would yeah, you you would do all of Uh you do all those things, you know? And so Like that's not a good living.

Think about that. I mean well just taxes alone in some states only fifty percent of that seventy two thousand. And then you talk about You know, all the other stuff. I mean, we're talking that guy is probably clearing twenty twenty five thousand dollars. And and listen. That's a guy who had some success. That's a guy who won his first three fights in the F C. And the reason that number, that ten and ten will will never go up by that much is like There's

A thousand Other dudes, maybe more. Who are just freaking waiting and praying. That the UFC calls their phone. And offers them that ten and ten.

So the ten ten could never go up because it's a supply and demand and the supply is Is so enormous. That that it's it that base number, unless there's some type of league it's never gonna go up. So uh you have Five gyms.

What would be good revenue for one wrestling gym? So let's see. We um Can one gym do a million? Well no, no no no. We can do

I think I think a quar a quarter million, I think, is gonna be where we we well where we would have hit this year without Corona and that would be kind of our our first two and that that's that's the top line revenue. Yeah. That's the top line. Yeah. So I mean the heart obviously Yes, for one gym. The the hard part about wrestling, the wrestling gym and and just kind of youth athletic spaces. Well they're in school all day. So really we're we're very limited by what we could do. It's You know it's five thirty to nine o'clock at night.

And and that that's it, you know, so we operate the uh at nights and you know may maybe uh uh Sunday obviously we do some classes, but yeah it's it's gonna be hard to go. I you know, I think maybe a maximum is we could get around three hundred thousand say in sales. per year, I think would kinda be like at the very high end of of what we do per gym. And so for us it's gonna be more of like

you know, we need to open up a handful of gyms and and buy the buildings and kind of own the whole space. And that's gonna be You know, I mean listen, I I don't need a hundred million dollars, Sam. Um You know, he's at a Well I'm not judging you, brother. I'm just I just I love picking shit apart. Yeah, I I don't live ostentatiously. No, if I w if I wanted to make a lot of money, if I want to be really rich

I would probably move to New York City and try to do some type of finance. W uh Crazy to me. But let me let you could make more literally just public speaking fees. You could literally just Silicon Valley. Well well, you could just say I'm gonna go to Silicon Valley or I'm gonna go talk to Pepsi and Nabisco and JP Morgan. I'm gonna give inspirational talks. I'm Ben Askren, I'm a Olympian, I'm a UFC fighter, I'll teach you about

dealing with fear and I'll teach you that ego is the enemy and you could be getting paid Ten, twenty K a pop. You think so? I don't know. I literally know people doing that. Yeah. Well give me some gigs, bro. I get 5K to talk. I could get you to come talk at our company right now and get you 10K for that. You know I'm in. What am I what am I coming? Yeah.

No, literally this is I I have s several friends who have this as their playbook. And you know, they're they're clearing a lot of money. And then then on top of that, they say by the way I have this course because hey, this was great. This is a great session, but obviously I've been asking. I can't be here all the time. Yeah. But if you guys want to do This leadership training that's all about Blah blah blah.

then you know, you buy the package that's the you know, you get Ben in your in your desktop. You know Every week for the next year if you pay an additional twenty K or whatever. Yeah, you might have to wear a shirt though, which No way. I I'm I'm I'm always me. I'm not you know, I'm we're Flip flops and I'm gonna wear a tank top if it's warm enough.

Um You know, uh, and I and I kinda told you this Sam is like Um And it may maybe it's short sighted on my side, but you know, I never really thought about going to the public speaking because I always thought like I would need to have some business success first.

You hit world class level at something, that's enough to be to go on the circuit, basically. So like a guy to look at is Chris Voss. I don't have you ever heard of him? I feel like I've Maybe I've seen him on Twitter. You can check him out on YouTube or whatever. So this guy's story, he's a n he teaches negotiation. So he's like he worked for the FBI. I think I've watched this guy. Yeah. Government job. You don't make a lot, you know, as a government official or whatever. So he worked at the FBI, but he's he became world class at Hostage negotiation. Yeah. Life or death situations. Was that the guy that you get in the book, Sean? Did you have a book? I feel like I've read his book.

Never supposed to be businesses. I've read it. I mean, that's like uh many business nerds, myself included, put that in the top book of the year in 2019. And then he goes and he consults for companies and he teaches at Harvard Business School and other places. Uh and he just walks around, he basically says. Hey, I was a world class negotiator. I negotiated life or death situations. So I can teach you how to negotiate as a real estate agent. He'll go teacher. He'll go. consult for real estate agencies and make, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars just doing that.

And he doesn't have to have any physical infrastructure or anything. Yeah. Basically no cost to that. Now you do have to go on the road a lot, which is kind of a pain in the ass. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt. Who who knows about the kind of covid after Covid, what that's gonna look like. People are doing it via Zoom for now. Yeah, Zoom. Um yeah, I know you know what? I I looked this book. I I I talked to someone about it and I think I've watched some videos of this guy, but I've never read the book. So I'm gonna I'm gonna put it on my list now. I actually had a goal of reading twenty five books this year. I'm already at twenty two. So I'm I'm gonna get way past twenty five.

That's the best one you read this year. Oh okay, let me bring up my list so I don't I I would say Fort Eight Laws of Powers i is is relatively happen there, but I'm I'm gonna It it was that was a very long read, so I I would do I think three chapters or something like that.

Or three three laws per day. Let's see. You know what's a good one? What you do is who you are, but Ben Horowitz. I mean, that's he's probably a famous guy in your guys' community. Yep. He would That was a pretty outstanding book. I read uh let's see, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. I think that that was a really interesting book and th they have a handful of books together that are that are all Relatively good.

The greatest trade ever. That was a lot of fun. That was about the guy who bet against the housing bubble and at the email like Uh memory eleven billion dollars on a trade or something totally Totally insane. Um, forty laws of power. And uh yeah, those are probably the best ones. Thanks.

Yeah. Okay, so you you're you're gonna do this course. Um You're dabbling with the ideas that Sean and I are discussing. What else, uh where else is there opportunity in the world? By the way, guys, have you heard of this thing, Ben and Sean, have you heard of this thing called um R Range of motion workout of the day.

Yeah and so it's an app. that I bought I pay a hundred dollars for and it and I just say I've got tight tight hips or tight back and it helps me with my range of motion. They're bringing in something like Uh eleven million in subscription sales. No. I have not heard of that, but let's do a brainstorm on it. If I'm based on it, I know I I have a good one. I have a good one. Okay. So ready to answer your question.

So and this is this is actually why I originally called you I well, I don't know, you connect with me and then this is why I connect with you. Is that I I think There's gonna be like this independent media.

thing just that comes out like in the next 10 years where everyone's kind of just their own media person. And so my buddy who founded Full Sports, he founded this company called Rockfin. That's why how I connect with Sam And essentially There's this payment algorithm on the blockchain where you get paid in tokens. And so obviously you can cash those tokens in the day you get them. For a US dollar. Right on exchange, or you can keep them.

And and the duality of that gives you the option of earning a dollar. Right? Or you can keep'em and you can grow with the value of the company. So like You know, and so he has a bunch of patents on this process, but think about Uber, right? The first Uber drivers were paid in tokens.

Not in dollars, right? That day they can they can cash out their tokens. They want for dollars, but if they say hey is Uber thing, I think this Uber thing is gonna be something. I'm gonna I'm gonna save. Twenty percent of all my tokens. Because in any digital network The first people in the network provides way more value than the millionth person in the network.

So those fur and you could do this at YouTube, you could do this at whole bunch of things, right? Airbnb, whatever, you name it. Pretty much any has a digital network. And so those first drivers in Uber that maybe stored their tokens. Now when Uber is worth many billions of billions of dollars.

the value of their network is now boom way up, right? So now these these original drivers who They were a very big part, they were a very integral part of the value of the network. Now they have these tokens that are worth you know five million dollars instead of having that five hundred dollars that they were originally would have originally gotten. So I think my buddy Martin is really, really onto something. And that was kind of you know I try to connect him with Sam because I thought there might be some interest from Sam and you know, Sam's just kinda doing other things that didn't really fit at that point in time.

But I think that's gonna be a huge business opportunity. And so I think I think people so I can kinda separately I think There will be a lot of independent media people because so many people are are so beholden to the sponsors of the shows. I think regular legacy media is going down and independent

non traditional media will be going up in the next let me uh let me get background on this Ben because you're you're you're an insider and so many people are So Uh this guy, what was his name Martin? Martin Floriani, yes. Martin, he was a cool dude. He started this thing called Flow Sports. Yeah. If it's going to be huge or if it's just going to be mildly big. And Flow Sports owns

Something that I was a subscriber to called Flow Track. They own Flow Wrestling. I think they own Flow Gymnastics. There's like twenty four, I think. So like rel non mainstream sports that have passionate fan bases like track and wrestling. And you pay thirty dollars a month. Pretty expensive. And it's uh it's actually what they do they now they only have a yearly package, it's one fifty a year, that's the only package you can buy. Okay, so one fifty a year and they send these guys out to like high school state championships events, which again, sports nerds like me who and Ben who like these niche sports is totally pay for it.

It's pretty great. I I don't know how big that business got. I if I had a guess, I would say thirty million in recurring revenue. Oh I I I I have no idea. No, I think it I I would guess more, actually. I I had seen some I had seen numbers that were bigger. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I would guess it's bigger, but that and that is just totally a guess. I don't know. So they're building up like their the like their own st TV station. Yeah, I think it's definitely bigger. I think it's definitely bigger, Sam.

Oh okay. Well it could be it could be. I know that they raised a lot of uh V C and then eventually private equity. So much of So I don't know, but my issue is I don't know if it can be big. based on how much money they raise. I think they raised a hundred million dollars. Um think so. Like a a a very large amount. So you you gotta have a billion dollar company for that to be interesting to people who give you a hundred billion dollars. Um, I think it maybe could be, but the verdict's still out. And so

But it's a rock fan R O K F I N. It was started by the co founder of Flow Sports. But here's my issue with that, then, is Rock Finn. They only have thirty five hundred subscribers and it hasn't fucking grown. Uh uh the cool thing about Rockfin is rockfin.com Slash dashboard. You could see all their numbers. They had like pretty good growth when they first started.

In order to make this whole damn thing work, they gotta It's gotta grow. Yeah. I guess I guess it looks like growth stopped. Uh in March when Crona happened. Yeah, and and then obviously the other thing there was they had a really s a large wrestling base because that was, you know, kind of Martin's first connections, but they have picked up a few Good people lately. But you know what?

You know, I told you I how the optionality of keeping the token or cashing up for a dollar, like I think that's Very important. I think You know. Think about the first thousand creators of YouTube, what their tokens would be worth if they got paid in tokens versus dollars. Yeah, but a lot.

You would be insane you would be insanely rich. The value of YouTube is so valuable that Google won't even put out the numbers on it. They've gotten a few really good contributors lately, but most people Can't yet see the issue. with not getting paid in the tokens, right? It's such a new concept that most people really struggle with that and they see that as a negative, not a positive. So yeah, I mean obviously Rockfin has some hurdles to overcome, but I think

I think when people wrap their head around when you like really get it, you're like, oh my God. Like when you talk about like Uber or YouTube, you're like, Oh Wait, yeah, that makes so much more sense. Even if say every every Every dollar you got paid, you save ten cents of it in the token value. If you were in one of those early companies.

uh or you were early in one of those companies, you would be insanely rich. And so people don't yet understand the value of the token versus the dollar. Yeah, but I I get it. And I think that that's uh actually quite interesting. But they need to get more freaking users. I agree. If I was the dumbed down rock fin. Would you say that it's like only fans, but for non like only fans, but for athletes? I don't know only fans exactly. You basically pay money to get the sh you you pay money to you pay ten dollars a month or however many dollars a month. But don't you don't you just pay for that one person? Yeah direct to that person. Yeah.

Okay, so like Rockfin is uh it's a bundle, right? So when you pay the ten dollars, you you get everybody everybody that's on the network, which is, you know, so then the network effect is huge too, right? It's It's Yeah. If Sam and Sean and I have Uh, if I have ten people and you have ten people and and Sean has ten people and we bundle our subscription, it will get forty people, right? And how's the payout?

What do you mean? Go ahead. Do they only pay you in tokens like for if you want to be What are you saying you can cash out? You can cash out your token if you want or you can hold. Yes, it literally takes Ten minutes, five minutes. So this idea is either gonna be like the greatest thing ever or total flop. And I and I I appreciate that. What do you think?

So the so I got super interested in this about three years ago, not Rockfin specifically, but the same model because Uh the biggest companies in the world are all based on this network effect principle, right? No and it's extremely hard to compete with a a network when they have network network effects established, like a YouTube or Twitter or anywhere else. Yeah. And so for us on the outside that are the sort of insurgent, you know, startup entrepreneurs that are trying to break in. You were always thinking about how can I bootstrap the network effect, how can I create a system of incentives. So that people want to join this new platform and not be on that old platform. And so You know, one way to do that was this idea of well, what if we gave the earliest people tokens and if you come a little later, you get a little less tokens. So it incentivizes the early adoption of

Of our platform. And um the tokens are used to do things like buy ads in each other's streams or whatever it is, and depending on what what platform you're trying to build. So I got super excited. I was like, holy shit, this could be the new bootstrapping mechanism. And if you can think of a good bootstrapping mechanism, That's like worth its weight in gold. It's like when PayPal realized Hey, when we do this thing where you get, you know, you get five dollars and you g if you give five dollars to your friend to invite them to PayPal.

Like growth exploded. They were like that one mechanism. was was sort sort of what built the network out. And so um so similarly here, the idea would be Um Can this can these tokens be used to build new networks? So then a coup bunch of people tried it. There was one that was like a Reddit.

Um a Reddit style thing. It's actually pretty famous. I I can't remember the name off the top of my head right now. Um, but there's there's basically a Reddit one where every Uh as you post you earn tokens. If your post gets uploaded, you earn more tokens and it's sort of like Hey what if Reddit Let you earn for putting out good content.

Yeah. And the early people get it. It did okay. It didn't do great. Yeah. Um and it's one of the things One of the things Martin always talks about with that is like There the stocks are so stock you know, like if you give stock, people say, Why don't you give stock or something like that? It's that's that's really

It's not forward looking. I'm sorry, it is only forward looking and like the The blockchain, like I don't really think this token thing could have been done. Ten years ago because blockchain didn't exist. And

It actually lets, you know, you have some type of protocol. which calculates the value of each person on your network and then a w reward them appropriately. Yeah, and so like Ethereum is the biggest example of this, right? Ethereum basically gave you tokens for for putting compute power on the network and uh whatever I'll nerd out about that. But but the the best example of this actually happened in New York. Somebody tried to take on Uber I'm I'm forgetting their name off the head.

Yeah, Juno or something like that. Yeah. There's an Indian guy started it. They did it not with not with tokens, but they just did it the same way where they said, Hey, come on here, you're the uh earliest drivers, you're gonna get either shares in the company or um you're gonna get some sort of disproportionate reward for being the first drivers on the network. Then the second drivers get a little bit less, third gets a little bit less, and then by the time it's big You don't really earn any more share or tokens. And they actually got pretty big. I wanna see what they exited for. Another company that did this when they launched was Jet.com. So when they launched really Yeah, the people who shared most the got equity in the company and the guy who shared most uh ended up making a couple of million bucks in stock when they were acquired by uh Walmart.

Hm. Yeah, so it kinda worked out. So Juno got acquired for two hundred million dollars. Um at one point in time. That's a great that was that's the biggest success story of people trying to do this exact thing. Although this is like an old principle like um I met the guys from Ben and Jerry's once and Ben and Jerry's when they needed to raise money early on, they did a a local IPO or some shit like that. It's called a direct offering or something where they offered only to other people in Vermont, like local people. Really basically they basically raised money from the local um citizens and then they became owners of that shop.

And then they they were incentivized to go buy ice cream from that shop because they own they were part customers were owners of the of the shop. And so this is the same idea where what if the users were owners of the platform? That's kind of the core idea. Yeah. The early users get more. Sam Adams did it as well and they put little stock certificates in their Beer Six packs.

They end up raising twenty million dollars in the nineties doing it this way. Hm. Wow. Ben, have you heard of these athletes that are trying to tokenize their like contracts at their lifetime earnings? I I think it's fascinating. Yeah. Would you have considered that or done that? Uh I I would have to think more through it. I I know I haven't took a deep dive into it, but uh I know I think it was what's it, Spencer DeWinde. I think he's the one that's trying to do it. Yeah, I I mean I think I think it's almost like buying an insurance policy on yourself, right? Right. Um you you're giving away

Some of the potential upside. Um, but then you you're also um, you know, capturing some rewards right away. So yeah, I I th I think it's fascinating. Um, I'd have to think more about it if I want if I did want to give away the upside. Or if I did not want to. And then the other interesting thing is like

Their athletic career is going to end. So at some point that token value is gonna go like this, right? Or or or can you You know, is it set up so you can capture their Host. uh career stuff, right? Say they get into commentating or something to that effect. Can you capture that also? So yeah, I think there's actually

Um I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting stuff with blockchain that a that kind of allows you to do things that that Um that you weren't able to do ten years ago about, you know, when you're talking about calculating the value of networks. Who do you look at

Who who do you look up to as a post post athlete career that's like that guy crushed it or that girl crushed it. You know, that's what that's the best case scenario for a post athlete career. Nobody. Uh I I don't I can't want to think I mean, like I don't know. I mean obviously it's people I like, but Fucking Magic Johnson. Yeah, he crushed it. Yeah, I mean I think I think I would like to

You know, I don't really I say I do the podcasting. I don't know. I've thought about doing the commentating, but I don't know, I think it's just kind of lim limiting myself and spending time where I I'm not gonna really gained a huge amount of value. I mean, I I think I'm gonna do the business thing. I really enjoy that. And you know, I'm gonna do my podcasting. I enjoy that. And

Probably just continue. You know, honestly like politics fascinates me, finance fascinates me. I don't yet feel educated enough to really speak too deeply on those topics. Um But you know that's something like I would really en enjoy to uh Talking about also.

Any other businesses, Ben, that fascinate you or problems that you're seeing out there that uh we wouldn't know about like even in the wrestling world or uh You can also put out a call to action. There's a bunch of entrepreneurs, engineers who listen to this and you're like, dude, you know what problem I need solved? Yeah. And then they'll do it. I actually pitched this on my I have my crypto funky podcast. We talk about crypto, we talked I was talking to This guy Jason.

And uh he's kinda uh huge entrepreneur also. And one of the things I said was would be really fascinating. was with with these police shootings, you know, peop people are kind of dumbing down because they're they're they're Making the difficulty of the police way less than it really is. And the thing with the police have talked to them about hand to hand combat and that type of thing before. Yeah, it's like

You can't let someone get to you because they get your gun. If they get your gun, they can shoot you, right? So it's like you can't exchange a punch for a punch. You can't really grapple with them. Because they could get your gun. And so I always thought if There was some way to make a biometric either holster or biometric gun. Where you know it you the cop could not worry about that because the gun is literally not going to fire.

Unless it's them. Right. Obviously you have to make it fast and you have to make it reliable because if it's not reliable, it's not fast, it it's gonna get thrown out the window right away. So if you make fast reliable and some type of biometric data where it knows it's them, and you know that's not my field. I'm not an engineer, I don't know how to do that stuff. But that would be interesting because I I think that would solve a lot of issues because it would alleviate a lot of the worries from cops because listen the last thing cops have a tough people People are really shitting on Copley. They have a tough job and the last thing you want to do is go to work as a cop and get shot. Like

You wanna you wanna come home to your family every single day when you go to work, you wanna come back to your family. And it it's a tough job. People are making it like they're just a bunch of assholes. And listen, I'm sure I'm sure there's some really terrible cops, but there's probably a lot of really great ones too. And it's tough job. So I I think if that invention was made. Uh it would number one make a lot of money and number two it would uh make their jobs a lot easier. I don't know anything about that space other than uh Touch ID for the trigger. I like that. Yeah. There's uh What's the uh you see did you know that you guys know that Taser is a business? Like Taser i it's like the word Kleenex. It's like its own thing.

Mm it's a brand. Yeah, no, no. It's a brand. Uh Massive thing I mean billions and billions of dollars um Ben, can we do a quick speed round that's uh MMA MMA related? All right, so rapid fire answers, then we then we can hop off. All right, so Uh, who is your favorite UFC fighter to watch?

Oh gosh. Uh It's just gonna be just'cause of our friendship, but I would say Uh Tyron, which has been frustrating lately, or Daniel Cormier? All right. What

Uh, what percentage of the UFC fighters do you believe are on PEDs? Mm. Now I don't think it's that high. I would say two twenty to twenty five, but uh pr pre USA, I would have said sixty to sixty to seventy. Who wins a fight with you and Kabib at one seventy? You and your prime and Kabib and if I prime. Uh well I th I think I went in my prime, but I'm I'm far past that.

All right. I love it. Sam, you got any? besides D C and Tyron Woodley favorite UFC guy. Well, um. Me and me and uh Sean or Nate Diaz fans.

I I you know, who doesn't enjoy the Diaz brothers? Um so I coach Macy, so obviously I'm cheering for her every time. And then I you know, another guy I was really close with'cause he was kinda helped me with a lot of my training was Gerald Muir Shart and he's been These six and three or six and four at middleweight, so Um But obviously th again, those are personal relationships and could you and George Moss Moss Vidal be friends, you think, in a couple of years.

I don't think so. I mean, like if we say if we were in the same gym from when we were younger, we probably you know, I I got along with everyone, right? So we probably would have been friends. But yeah, we're not gonna have our paths crossed. Oh love it. Well thank you, Ben. This is the best.

What's the uh URL gonna be of your course? It's it's not gonna be live when this goes live, but No, it will not. Bananter.com. Correct, Benascan.com and that that site is getting updated. Uh right now redirects to AW Wisconsin.com, but we will Um it will it will be updated probably within a week or so. So follow Ben on Twitter.

And uh you'll definitely see those launches. Yes, cool, man. Thanks for coming. That was a lot of fun. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Yeah.

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