Dan Bilzerian - Pleasure Is Not Happiness

Full transcript: Dan Bilzerian on London Real

3:27 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dan Bilzerian, the poker player, Instagram influencer and founder of the cannabis and CBD company Ignite International. After being honorably discharged from the military following a four-year service and two Navy SEAL hell weeks, you attended the University of Florida, where you spent time learning to gamble. This led you to become a professional poker player, winning over 50 million dollars in a single year.

3:50 Your popularity then skyrocketed as you documented your lavish lifestyle of opulence, sex and partying, with over 44 million people following you on social media. Today you’re the founder of the cannabis and CBD company Ignite and focused on building the most trusted brand in the industry. Dan, welcome to London Real, man. That was quite a high laughs. Oh, here you go, the bar.

4:10 Now you can just introduce me like I don’t know if you need any help there. How, how’s London treating you? What do you, what do you make of this town? Would you ever have a house here? I don’t know, it’s, uh, it’s expensive.

4:22 It’s hard to live here. I mean, you gotta be really rich to live, get here. It’s kind of like compared to Bel-Air. Yo, yeah, way more expensive. I think, I think it’s more expensive than New York.

4:33 No, could be. Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, you spend a lot of money for a little bit here, but it’s a, you know, I like the people here, the weather not so much, but it’s, uh, I like it better in New York, but I’m not like a huge city guy. So what do you like about the people here? What do you notice?

4:54 Oh no, I just feel like they’re pretty authentic. LA people are pretty fake, so that’s kind of nice. But no, I mean, always been nice to me, always been cool. I really have nothing bad to say, you know, about one. It’s good spot.

5:14 Yeah, like Spain, not so much. It’s a little dirty, food wasn’t that great, and you know, and what about, you can get you in a three-piece suit? Why you’re here? I wear, I’m occasionally, try not to, but yeah, no, never. No, I didn’t bring any on this trip, so it’s not gonna have this traffic.

5:32 That’s it. Me getting in a three-piece suit, period, is very unlikely, you know. Well, I told a lot of people I was gonna sit down with you and it’s, it’s pretty interesting the reactions I got, you know. I think you divide people, no, and you talk when they talk about you, and what I found interesting was I told the girls, but it was the guys that actually, I found some love you and some hated you, you know, and that actually surprised me. I was just like, why, and what’s going on?

5:59 But you know, you definitely are divisive, and you know, no, very polarizing for sure. I was one of, we can talk about that and maybe just start off with getting your read on the Dan Bilzerian phenomenon and why people watch you, and just because you probably had time to think about that, and before we get into that, I’d love to get your thoughts on two quotes from one of your favorite authors, Henry David Thoreau, and I’m gonna hit you with these now and then I’d love to get your opinion. The first one is, you know this one, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, you know.

6:30 The second one is, rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth, you know. What are those quotes mean to you, because in a weird way it kind of defines who you are, I think. Yeah, it’s kind of, uh, unapologetically myself, you know. I just, I never really conformed to the norms, you know, the, the PC, you know, culture of, you know, you’re supposed to say this, you’re supposed to do this. I just always kind of, you know, did my own thing, and so I think people are starting to respond really well to that, you know, like Cardi B, for instance.

7:08 I mean, here’s a, you know, stripper that, you know, she just speaks her mind and people like that. I think there’s a lot of, you know, celebrities coming out now that are very unorthodox, you know, and before was basically, you know, you couldn’t say anything, you know, that was controversial, and I think now the controversies, you know, one of the more positives, I think. It’s weird, like some of the, you know, negative press that I got got me, you know, more popularity than, you know, some of the positive stuff.

7:40 So like why the bear, so you know, throwing the, you know, Dan Bilzerian throws porn star off the roof. Daniels are interested and, you know, LAX on federal bomb-making charges, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, and it’s funny because like those, you know, the, the bomb-making one, that was like pretty, pretty low-key. I just, I blew up a semi truck that I owned and it made it sound like I was kind of a terrorist, the airport with a bomb, you know. When you blowing it up at the airport?

8:12 No, I mean, I flew in there on my plane. Like, I’m not gonna blow up my own plane. And you know, there’s a thing, but you know, the headlines now, it’s not necessarily about, you know, what’s, what’s true or, you know, what’s accurate, it’s more about like, you know, what’s gonna get somebody to click on this article. We’ve become, you know, like a society of, you know, more click bait, so yeah, it seems like, you know, it’s about just getting web clicks and not about, you know, reporting the news anymore, and if you always been kind of unapologetic and just been you.

8:49 Yeah, I never really, I don’t know, I never really like wanted to have like a nine-to-five or do a conventional job. Just never appealed to me. No, your car to be at one of your parties, you guys get along well because you guys speak the truth. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t talk to her, tongue, um, but you know, she seemed nice to me. Yeah, I do like the fact that she’s just kind of, you know, who she is and she doesn’t really give a [expletive].

9:18 You think, um, Donald Trump kinda heard some of this stuff in as well, just being him, saying the guy became president based on that, right? I mean, kind of, yeah. It’s crazy name-calling and, you know, doing all this wild [expletive] and, you know, getting people to pay attention to him, right? And what do you make of the phenomenon that is Dan Bilzerian, you know, 44 million people watching you, and crazy thing. Yeah, what, why do you think it’s there?

9:48 Is it because most people are living those lives of quiet desperation and, yeah, I’m really a reflection of what they could be? Yeah, I think people are just, you know, they’re you know, just doing what they’re supposed to do, where people tell them to do, and you know, it’s kind of unfortunate, you know. It’s afraid to, you know, kind of step outside the box, and I’ve lived you know, outside the box my whole life, so, right, it’s just started showing it in the last five years on social yeah, I think more than, I think like seven years.

10:22 Can I put this on my shirt? Yeah, so back to the Dan Bilzerian phenomenon, forty-four million people watching you, it’s kind of a crazy thing, man. It just kind of happened out of nowhere. Too, yeah, it’s like, you know, a couple of things, like the, you know, porn star off the roof, and then you know, just starts, you know, the momentum, you know, just picks up, and I think it’s like once you get to a hundred thousand, then it’s easier to get to 500, once here to 500, you know, it’s easier to you to a million, and then you know, because the thing is like the more, so as soon as like one person likes it, then everything that they see that follows them, see that they like, you know what I mean?

11:03 So it’s like that, you know, true branch effect, right? So, and was this always a, is there a master plan behind it or not? Because some people say, oh, this social media genius. It was just to get laid. I mean, now is really like the whole, like, started this thing was just to kind of, you know, subtly brag online and get laid easier with less effort, and social media was like kind of a tool for that, and that’s something that didn’t happen much when you were a kid.

11:29 Like not a ton in high school, and then you know, the military was, you know, I mean, I was in SEAL training most of the time, so yeah, college it was good, but no. And you said before that, you know, you didn’t get much attention as a kid, which is why now you, you like to, you know, be a flashy lunatic. I said before, is that a generalization or is that a fair assessment of you? I mean, that was probably, like, yeah, that was probably a contributing factor.

12:00 I think, I think I think when I look back, a lot of the things that I did was, you know, like when I was a kid, my dad had the big house but he didn’t have the Ferraris, he didn’t have the, you know, the, the fast boats or the nice watches and all the stuff that my neighbor did. So I think, I think a lot of stuff from your childhood influences you. So when I, you know, made a ton of money, I just went out and, you know, got all that stuff. I got the, mean, of the cars and the watches and the plane and the, you know, stuff.

12:32 Do you think you’re an extroverted person, cuz you seem kind of like an introvert sometimes? I just, I’m so overexposed that to me, I just, you know, I think fame is isolating, you know, fame and money too. So I would say, yeah, I would say the more, more the spotlight, Sahni, the more you kind of don’t want it, you know. You’re like, you ever go out and you feel like what, people are looking at you? Well, like imagine going out and feeling like that, and they just always are.

13:05 No, it’s like after a while you lose your privacy and then you’re just like, f***, I don’t know, like going out, such a production. You need security, you need this, you need that, and then you know, you’re gonna have to take a bunch of pictures and talk to people and have conversations, and I don’t know, I mean, if you go out and you’re f***ing high, you don’t really want to talk to a bunch of strangers, you know. Remember, as I’m on mushrooms one time and I got f***ing cornered.

13:30 I like walked out to this peninsulas in Mykonos and I came back and there was like all these people waiting to talk to me. I was like, f***, you know, like that’s the last thing I wanted to do, but you know, I never choice, could’ve like swam around, then maybe I like contemplated that, but yeah, it’s just, it’s like your life just changes, not, you know, not the same. Like you can go out to a bar, you go to a ball game, and it’s not a production. Like if I went to like a sporting event, like I’d have a million people come up and want that, would, you know, conversation with me.

14:03 So he posted something on your Instagram a few months ago about an Alan Watts video, and as you said, this is what I think about when I’m on the mushrooms, and it was, I think it was talking about what happens when you only pursue pleasure. No, it was pretty interesting to see you post that, and you like, this is what I think about sometimes. Well, I think I said that’s like pretty much like a summary of like a lot of what I learned when I did some mushrooms.

14:26 Yeah, yeah, pleasure-seeking, it’s not the same as going after happiness, it’s more fleeting. The video, something about, probably better than I could do in this, it got deep really at the end, it was like you’re one with the divine, it’s better to risk to give than receive it. Was stuff you don’t see on Bilzerian’s Instagram account necessarily. Spider though, man, like, and it’s funny cuz my dad told me that when I was younger, he’s like, yeah, it’s better to give than receive.

14:54 I was like, well, that’s perfect, because I love to receive and you like to give. I was like, you can’t just give me a bunch of f***, that’s like a little puppy happy. But it’s funny cuz, yeah, later on you start to realize it, yet doing, doing stuff for other people, you know, makes you more stoked than just buying s*** for yourself. So yeah, I think he was dead on that deal. And you think about like connecting with the divine and all that stuff and humility and those kinds of things, um, humility, yeah, connecting on the divine.

15:23 I mean, I think Alan Watts’ view on you know, like the whole God thing was more he thinks that, you know, everybody’s kind of a part of God, that, you know, everybody’s kind of connected in that. I don’t know, it’s, it’s, I think he believes more that this is a bit of a simulation that people are playing, that they’re not God, because I don’t know, like I think I’ve focused on control a lot, and I think when you focus on control, you kind of lose the element of surprise, and I think that’s like, you know, the unexpected, I think that’s a good part of life. And so being a control freak and, you know, trying to control everything, I think is probably not the answer, which you used to be.

16:17 I mean, I still am, right, but you try a lot of these things. I recognize but I still keep f***ing doing, like I realize that, like, chasing money and girls is not what makes you happy, but I still do it, like I, you know, and I, it’s funny because when I was younger I thought like when I got to a million bucks that I’d be happy and it would be enough, and then like five million and ten million, you know, it’s like every time you hit a milestone, like you’re I was so sure that the million would be enough, and then you know, you get to the next point and so, and then you just realize that it’s not the money that’s gonna make you happy, but then I still chase it, I don’t know, you know. I’m the kid that just f***ing sticks his finger in the light socket, gets shocked, and then keeps going back to check, of ass, is what does make you happy, you know?

17:08 Adventure, doing, doing different things, building things, helping people out. Yeah, I would say, I mean, sex does, too. Yeah, connecting with people, hanging out, friends, surf and being out in the sun, working out, more simple s***. Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff like doesn’t require money. But in that video he said if you know the few, then it’s the same as the past, so the video is all about introducing unknowns into your life.

17:49 Yeah, yeah, I’m just kind of like, you know, taking it as it comes, except me. Yeah, if you knew your whole life, like it was all mapped out for you, would it be interesting, you know? Yeah, but I’m not, so I mean, that’s kind of like, I feel like a lot of people, they map out their life and they, you know, do these things and they go to their job and every day it’s the same f*** thing, and they know it’s gonna be the same thing and there’s not like a whole lot of intrigue in that s***.

18:13 I don’t know what I’ll be doing next year, like if you were to ask me if I was doing this five years ago, how to, you know, said no, you don’t need, so it’s like I definitely have that unknown element in my life, and I think that’s probably, you know, part of the reason why it’s intriguing to people, because they never know where it’s gonna go. What was the best day in your life? Yeah, I would say, um, I did mushrooms on a beach with my girlfriend, my buddy and his girl, all, another buddy and his girlfriend and another buddy and his girlfriend, and it didn’t cost me anything, and I remember smoking and joining the way back and just thinking like a hippie in a van coulda had the same day as me on this beach and I wouldn’t cost him anything, and it was just, it was pretty eye-opening, and I didn’t do much, like we just a f***ing swam in the ocean, I all my friends did some breath-holding stuff, went for a swim, laid out on the beach, it was just like it was a great day, but it didn’t, didn’t require much, you know, surfing, stuff like that.

19:30 The life’s simple, like the great things in life can be simple, honestly, man. Yeah, some workouts and outdoor stuff, hanging out with my buddies, like s***, that doesn’t, you don’t need a lot of money to like have some really good time. So when I was in the military, I didn’t really have much money and I had a f***ing great time. I think money does, it gives you access, it gives you the ability to not put up with s*** from people. Nice.

19:56 I don’t like putting up with s*** from people, I don’t like taking orders, that only people tell me what to do. So we could say the positives of money is the freedom, is the power, flexibility and stuff like that, but it definitely comes with a lot of headaches too. So same thing, yeah, fame, more headaches than positives, but as far as like the stuff that I, you know, focused on, like the girls and money, fame is pretty powerful. So, but I mean, it just depends on what your objectives are, but I would say it’s probably in that negative, like if I had a kid I wouldn’t choose to make him famous, I’d let him make that choice, because it’s not something that you can kind of go back on, you know, like once you f*** him, take that gene out of the bottle, like it’s, you know, kind of hard to stuff him back in.

21:01 So I don’t know, maybe my bad, I gotta sleep in that s*** and implant, I feel like a lot of people want to be sleeping in that, it’s, um, you know, I’m not gonna, not gonna b***** about it, but it’s definitely, definitely got some negatives that I feel like people don’t consider, like the lack of privacy. I mean, absolute lack of privacy, so and everything you do is, you know, potentially gonna be magnified, you know, gonna be judged by the world, gonna be, you know, scrutinized, whatever, or so, you know, let’s say there’s a decent amount of pressure as well. And I would say that, and I would say that, like, I think happiness comes more from having good friendships and doing things with your friends.

21:56 I would say that’s where I get the bulk of my happiness, and as much as like I talked s*** about the nine-to-five guys, I mean, that’s just like me personally, I like, I don’t think that that life would make me happy, but that’s not to say that, like, somebody can’t be happier than me doing that stuff, because they’ve got good friends and they’re having fun, like you know, maybe they’re f***ing having a game night, like I had a game night at my buddy’s house or just like s*** played Monopoly and then we played a twenty dollar poker game, let me played Risk, and I had like a f***ing great time, you know. He knows it’s like five of my buddies hanging out talking s***, you know, and so and it was, you know, it was, you know, buddy of mine that I was in the military with and a couple of his friends, the gentleman from System of a Down and this other dude, and you know, we had a great time.

22:53 And then I wanted to tour with us with that guy, the same guy that drummer or whatever, I’m f***ing three weeks in Europe, went to sold-out shows and whatever, and I was just like, f*** sucked. Like I thought I was gonna get all this s***, I thought it’d be great. We didn’t get laid for like three weeks, man, and it was just like the biggest letdown, and I’m like, f***, man, I’m like with a rock star, we’re like doing all this s***, and I was just like so f***ing lame, you know, and like that game night was way more fun, right?

23:22 Like so a lot of times like you just, it’s not like, it’s kind of counterintuitive, you know, you wouldn’t expect stuff. A lot of people think like, oh, if I got a bunch of money or I got this or whatever, then I’d be happy, and the money doesn’t buy happiness. Oh, f*** no, money, it’s just a lot of headaches and problems. I mean, there’s like good stuff to it too, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of positives, but you can buy pleasure. Yeah, I mean, I, I kind of, I talked about this a few times in interviews before, is like the, the thing about money, the reason that it makes you unhappy is because it basically raises the bar.

23:57 So like right now I’m used to the best food in the world, I’m, Mesa, the best watches in the world, only the hottest women could even like turn me on, like I’m trapped in this like f***ing box, right, and all these things like, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, I’m doing like I’m doing stuff that like would make other people’s like dreams come true, and for me it’s just like baseline, it’s not like anything that like I’m like super stoked about, you know, like I mean I, you know, a f***ing ton of hot chicks will win, and you know, night or two nights or whatever, and like it’ll be fun, whatever, but like I won’t really like be like crazy happy about it, or you know, I bought that new Ferrari when it came out and I was like, I stoked on it for like 20 f***ing minutes maybe, and I drove it like 120 miles, I’m like the 10 months I had it, and then f***ing sold it and I was just like, damn, I didn’t, like I expected to get like at least like a few months of happiness out of that one, it’s like nothing, and like as you get more and more used to that s***, it’s just like it’s just baseline to you, so then everything else is a letdown.

25:12 Like if I were to drive, like I don’t know, whatever, like whatever be, and like not as good as a Ferrari, you know, like that, that like 20 years ago I would think would be bad, maybe like a Mustang Cobra, like 20 years ago I think that would be like f***ing badass car, and now I’d be like a big letdown. Like if that was like my rental car, be like, ah, what a piece of s***, you know, but like it’s the same car that would have stoked me out like not that long ago. So what it does, it basically just like puts you to spot where like only the dopest s*** satisfies you and everything else will wet down.

25:41 So it’s kind of hard, like if you think about it and that, you know, perspective, like you have to have the best chefs, you have to have the best whatever, all this stuff to just like, you know, for you to feel like, you know, you’re in like your environment, your comfort zone, right? But then like once you get to that point, then like you’ve nowhere else to go up and you can only go down. So I think that’s why, and then once you get used to that level, then if you like can’t afford to like live on that level, man, you’ve got a long f***ing way to drop.

26:10 So I think that’s like the negative correlation between money and happiness, is your ability to adapt to whatever your current situation is. So like within, I don’t know how many day or month period it is, but you will adapt to almost any situation. So if you adapt to a really great situation, then you’ve got a lot of f***ing way to fall, but if you adapt to a really s***ty situation, like let’s say you’re in Auschwitz or in a POW camp or whatever, like, and you get out, like you gonna be f***ing stoked about like you know, taking a s*** in a regular bathroom instead of a f***, you know, like your bedroom, and like you’re gonna be stoked that you get to eat like a f***ing meal that you would normally think would be s***ty, right?

26:54 Like all these like little things, like when I got on a boot camp, stoked about all this stuff, so you know, just perspective, it. So then how do you stay happy? New challenges, like companies. Yeah, it’s got a key, just got a, you know, try and climb new mountains, you know, just try and, you know, accomplish new things. That’s that’s the way that I’ve found.

27:15 You know, you like mushrooms, and mushrooms kind of dissolve the ego. Is that something you don’t play with, and do you have an ego? I’ve honestly probably been on mushrooms like twelve times my whole life, so it’s not like a huge part of my life, but I’ve just definitely had positive experiences with them, just because I think in and very moderate dose, it’s not like huge, huge amounts, but like small amounts. Yeah, they take your ego out, they kind of, you know, slow down time a little bit, they make you think about things from a slightly different perspective, and it like quiets out a lot of the noise and a lot of the distractions, if you will, and it allows you to kind of just like figure out because it, because like deep down you know, like what you should be doing or what makes you happy or what, you know, is the right path or whatever, but you get distracted by the shiny s***, you know, the, the pleasure, the whatever.

28:16 So and it’s, but it’s also good just do their friends and have fun and laugh and f*** around and whatever, you can get a lot from them. I mean, just go off on a hike on your own, take one or two and kind of work through your s***. So yeah, a big advocate of those, and I’m actually super stoked that they legalized them in Colorado and Northern California now. I think Ignite might one day be involved in psilocybin. Yeah, I’d love to, I’d love to be involved in that, it’s just, you know, like I said, such limited markets.

28:50 Yeah, I had a big ayahuasca ceremony last year in Costa Rica, three big ones, and taught me so much, but also some very difficult evenings. You think you’ll play with it? Kind of scared me a little bit, honestly. I haven’t tried it. I did DMT a few times and it’s different.

29:07 Yeah, I’ve, I’ve heard some like horror stories from that stuff, you know, like some people that kind of like had a bad trip and never came back from it or like weren’t the same, so that kind of scared me. I’ve been contemplating trying acid in a very small, small dose to start, but I’m still on the fence of that. I like the idea that mushrooms come from Earth or natural. It’s a whole f***ing thing I’m asking. Yeah, it is, she finds, I’ve done peyote, I did peyote one time.

29:40 Okay, I’ll ask you, is just a big commitment, man, that’s like, yeah, I mean, that’s full sin, that’s like 12 hours, but no, I’d say it’s more like three, I think. Really? Yeah, for me it’s three hours until I can actually open my eyes and maybe walk. Huh. And I’m not gonna die, and I do go through some probably some of the more difficult moments of my life, physical, three hours where you can open your eyes.

30:03 Well, before I can maybe know that I’m, I exist. Wow. In the meantime I’m in my head and stuff, it’s probably like doing five grams of mushrooms or six, but ayahuasca is different, but I get lessons from, lanois, Scott, like I got lessons from mushrooms and then I get some, but man, I got like machine elves in my head with mushrooms. I, you know what, I got these little machine elves in there, like they come into my head with mushrooms and sometimes they just confuse me and I don’t always get really strong lessons.

30:30 How much do you take, 4 or 5 grams? Oh yeah, maybe take last, bro. Yeah, maybe, I usually stay inside and I’m on the beach and I sure as hell I’m not talking, I will never stay inside, I hate, so I always in nature, I like nature too, on a lower dose to you, but yeah, I think Laura does the move, I think think I think the lower dose, so go for a hike by yourself. Yeah, yeah, sure, I like it, just a couple mushrooms, not even a lot. No, UFC fighter, you, Micro does mushrooms before every one of his fights.

30:57 Yeah, I know Mikey doesn’t, can be powerful. Yeah, but uh, I think you’d find ayahuasca pretty powerful, so no, that’s my, it’s my fear is that if I did too powerful, I smoked DMT one time, small amount on the top of some weed, and I had a pretty positive experience for a short period of time, and then I did two different times with the DMT when I did big hits and like did the whole like hold it in and you know, do three hits or whatever, and I was like f***, a different planet, I didn’t get anything out of it, I was just like, you know, so f***ed up that I like, I don’t like being in a state where I’m not like present, conscious and thinking, like and I’m that, I felt like it just like took me f*** way out there. Yeah, it does.

31:47 That I never get lessons from DMT, I just go into like a video game. Yeah, that’s exactly what it felt like, is like you didn’t Kong, and I was just like, okay, it’s nice to know it’s there, but I didn’t bring anything back. Yeah, I was just oral, oral DMT, I get lessons at the end, like okay, this is what you gotta do, one, two, three, four, five. You act on those? I do, but it’s never as fast as I want it to, and then when I look back, so I look back three months later and I’m like, you haven’t even done this, and then like twelve months later I’m like, actually you have started to do this stuff.

32:18 But I’m a big fan of doing it like once a year heavier, once every two years heavy, and then taking action and meditating. I don’t believe you should be going every weekend or two weekends for ayahuasca, I think then you’re just living in that state a lot, but um, if you do take a big dose, like Terence McKenna used to say, take a large dose infrequently with psychedelics, get the lesson and then hang up the phone. Interesting. I always like the smaller, I’m pretty drug sensitive though.

32:45 So the thing about not being in control is that it holds you to get that pain and that emotion and you can’t go anywhere, said like you can’t go anywhere, and for two hours, which can feel like two years, you got to face it, and then you process it in a way where you couldn’t process it if you could maybe walk away from it, and that’s why I think it’s helpful. I feel like you gotta be ready for that. Definitely you do. I think the way to get ready for it is by doing smaller, mouths could be, I’m, yeah, because then, then you know you’re expecting and you also are more comfortable with it, and when you’re more comfortable with something like that, I feel like you’re less likely to kind of freak out, and the more you go and do it with a positive mindset, with less fear, I think the more likelihood you’re gonna have having a positive experience.

33:33 I think fear is like one of the worst things, and I think the more you do it, the more you kind of work up to it, the less likely you’re gonna go in there fearful, but I don’t know too much about the ayahuasca, so maybe that’s something that, you know, you get more if you just fully dive in. For me being on, two, completely out of control, like not being like mentally present for three hours, of you a lot, I don’t know if I’m like a real big control freak. Yes.

34:00 One of the reasons I like to mushroom stew is because I’m forced to just kind of like let go and just go the course, you know, do the journey and not like have to f***, you know, have control over the whole thing. So it’s like one of the few times when I’m like out of control, because otherwise in my life I’m like so in control of everything, I’ve got f***, you know, all these people that I can make things happen and, you know, just, yeah, no, no, almost victims. I just feel like I’m like playing a video game with a cheat code almost, seven others in my life, you know, like over the f***, I don’t want, like it just like happens, you know, again, it’s like knowing your future.

34:37 Yeah. Lots would say, what are you doing? Yeah, no, for sure, that was why I was just like a little bit like, damn, guys got a f***ing point. I’m always nervous before going down, I wants the ceremony, but you know, you got a shaman with you. I was in a good place in Costa Rica and it was like a solid, you know, environment and I’d done it before.

34:55 So Peru is where most people go. Yeah, it’s just, it can be pretty rough there, I mean proper jungle and, you know, it’s just harder to get to. Costa Rica’s a little more second world, so yeah. We think you’re gonna be doing in 30 years? 30 years, f***, you’re lucky to be alive in 30 years.

35:11 No, no, it’s a long time. You’ll still be on Instagram and still eat posted thing, walk. No man, if I want to Instagram and two years from now, I’ll be f***ing not pleased with it. What does that mean? I mean, dude, I’m just so over social media.

35:26 I think it’s like the worst thing to happen to a society, honestly. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s really good, not just you but to society. Yeah, more lives, right? It’s not the truth, is that why? No, it’s that’s not, I mean there is a piece of that, like people are presenting kind of like the best version of themselves.

35:46 I always prided myself on like the authenticity of my social media, but I think the real issue with social media is that addiction to likes, that addiction to people, you know, I guess commenting, engaging, giving you praise, admiration, whatever, attention, that whole thing. Like I mean, if you see the f*** people are doing to f***ing get likes and comments on Instagram, and like, and it’s tough because now it’s like you could do one thing and they could like go viral and you could be making like hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Like this girl goes on f***ing TV and says like, cash me outside, and actually a complete f***ing jackass, and then turns that into like a multi-million dollar f***ing business where she’s like selling out shows as a 16 or 15 year old rapper, you know what I mean?

36:48 It’s just like it’s a f***ing crazy world that we live in, and because of those like, you know, few examples now, like, you know, people think that that could happen to them, and like because there’s like some kids playing video games making ten million dollars a year now, like when I was a kid, like parents are like, stop f***ing wasting your time playing video games, and nobody clapped back with like, oh, I can be making ten million dollars playing video games, because look at this guy, like that what’s in the thing, you know. I said now it’s like, you know, that could, you know, be a rebuttal. And I think, I don’t know man, I just, I think our generation, well not our generation, but the future generations are like really overstimulated.

37:27 I think they spend way too much time on their phones. I mean, I’m guilty of it too, but it just takes out like a lot of interpersonal connection, it removes their ability to interact as well, it’s, it’s just overall not good. Like I feel like people don’t live in the moment as much, people are so worried about capturing it on Instagram and getting that photo or getting that video that they don’t like enjoy what they’re doing as much, and so I think there’s there’s just a lot of negatives to it.

38:02 There’s also the, you know, online bullying, there’s the people commenting, there’s the bandwagon s***, there’s, you know, everybody’s got a f***, you know, cause of it, you know, everybody hates this person, everybody loves this person, you know, this is like, I don’t know, so much judgment, you know, everybody’s got an opinion in the comment section, you got all these f***ing armchair quarterbacks, you know, thrown in their two cents, and, and I know a lot of girls that it’s definitely negatively affected where you know their self-esteem is, you know, brought down, guys talking s*** to them, whatever. It’s uh, I don’t know, I mean it, but there’s positives too. It’s just taken away a lot of the power of the media, which is a good thing because I f***ing hate the media, and it’s good that it’s being restored more to the people.

38:54 So that, you know, when people run these f***ing articles that are clickbait or that or whatever, inaccurate, now people have the ability to kind of like come back, like you know, NBC didn’t want to post or didn’t want to allow one of Ignite’s writers to post, you know, the sticker with the Ignite CBD or whatever, and I just like looked up their viewership and their whole network got like seven or eight million views, and I looked at mine and it was like 58 to like 36 million views per post, so I was like, you know, my f*** was like, you know, six to ten times what their whole f***ing network was. I was like, nice to just be like, you know, suck my d***, NBC, like I’m reaching way more people than you, so go f*** yourself, anyways, and like if they ran a s***ty article about me, I could reach out to more people and you know, set the record straight, so that’s kind of nice.

39:51 It’s nice to have that power, like people, you know, like this one f***, he didn’t want to fund my security deposit, so I put him on blast and, you know, shut his phone lines down, shut his internet down, like people were like going crazy, f***ing up his whole Yelp review this and that, money was in my account the next day. You know, there’s been a few times like this, you know, company didn’t want to honor a warranty on one of their things and so I did like a quick Snapchat about it, shut his f***ing phone lines down and shut his emails down, f***ed up his whole Yelp thing, basically, I mean could have put the guy out of business. I had it up for like 30 minutes and then I deleted, owner calls me, he’s like, oh my god, I’m so sorry, we didn’t know it was you, and I’m just like, listen, it doesn’t matter who the f*** it is, like it shouldn’t matter that it’s me, it shouldn’t matter that like you should honor the warranty for your f***ing product, you know, and so I think like there’s an, there’s kind of a nice part about that, like there was another time my girl ordered a pizza and they basically, you know, she called back like 40 minutes later to go like, what’s the status of the order, and the guys like, oh, you never placed an order, and I was like in the car, wasn’t speaker front, like I heard, or like do it, and he’s, and she’s like, oh well, like can I talk to a manager, and he’s like, I am the manager.

41:09 He’s like, you know, you didn’t put in an order, sorry, and hung up on her, and then like she called back and basically told her go f*** yourself, and it’s a high, like, you know, do a little Snapchat, shut their f***ing phone lines down, shut they f***, I had every f*** from India and f***ing China ordering pizzas and f***ing missing that f***, their whole business up. The owner of the thing went f***ing crazy, he calls me, ended up firing the f***ing prick, and you know, I mean, I actually, like we got something there, you know what I mean, like, and that felt good. Like it’s, it’s good, like sometimes you gotta like f*** these people up a little bit, like get them accountable, and I think, you know, the more people do that, you know, the more these businesses are gonna start, you know, paying a little more attention and their customer service and how they treat people, and, and if they don’t treat people well, it’s gonna bite them in the ass, and so you know, there’s some, there’s some positives to it.

42:02 And now you’re launching a global brand on the back of it. Yeah, you can do things in Canada that some of the companies can’t do there, or people can do with endorsements, and yeah, there’s no celebrity endorsement, so there’s, you know, no real branding on the product, there’s a lot of restrictions on how you can advertise, and you know, my personal brand and what I’ve done over the years obviously, like you know, can’t be, you know, regulated in the future, right? So like everything that I’ve done, and like me not selling out, me being honest with my followers, me not promoting s*** that I don’t believe in, like all that stuff, you know, when I do endorse a product, you know, people take that into account, and and it’s, it’s valuable.

42:42 So exciting, we’ve never seen a company built, it’s something like this. Well, that’s not necessarily true, you’ve got, you know, Bang Energy, fastest-growing energy drink company in the world right now, growing faster than Red Bull, Monster, all these f***ing guys, strictly social media marketing. You’ve got Fashion Nova doing two, three million dollars in sales, strictly social media marketing. You got Revolve that just went public for, you know, multi-billion dollar valuation, strictly social media marketing, so you know, this is not a totally foreign concept, it is a new one.

43:16 Out of these dinosaurs don’t get social media yet, and you know, they’re running big companies and they’re gonna get roasted for it, like they’re just gonna lose, they’re gonna figure it out or you know, they’re gonna go like VHS did, you know, when f***ing Betamax came out. So it’s definitely the way the future, I mean your CPM and the value of your endorsement is so much stronger when it comes from somebody that you’re following that you trust, as opposed to some commercial that comes on that people know, the commercial, they mute, they walk away, if they’re TiVo-ing, they fast-forward, whatever. So the value that you get on a social media post and those eyeballs are much, much more valuable than you’d get traditionally advertising, and the amount of money they pay for it is, you know, it’s pennies on the dollar.

44:06 So it’s the future, there’s no doubt about it. And also, you know, in markets like cannabis and whatever where it’s regulated, nicotine, you’re able to do a lot more than people can do traditionally. I mean, look, I’m anticipated in states and countries where it’s fully illegal, can’t go f***ing put billboards, and you know, these states that are fully illegal, they can’t put billboards in these countries, so I mean I can build a brand in places they just can’t, right?

44:34 Let’s talk about the women, because a lot of people know you because of the women. I mean, it all started with what, throwing the points off the roof? Oh no, the, you know, the trying to impress them with the Instagram stuff and whatever, started posting like the guns, but then he said the girls got more, and then later the cannabis got more, which we’ll get to. Yeah, so I mean initially it was, it was kind of lifestyle stuff and then I would put the girls stuff in there too, and it’s funny because the jealousy was actually like more of a driving force than anything else.

45:09 If girls see other hot girls that are interested in you, it’s, you know, I think the most powerful, like, driving factor, like more so than the money and the fame and all the others. Well, maybe not more than fame, fame kind of as a trump card, but you said fame like a hundred excess things, it’s like it’s a crazy thing, like, yeah, it’s a crazy thing, like situations that would never happen otherwise. Yeah. Is it now, out of, is it now have a life of its own?

45:38 I mean, can you control it now? Yeah, there’s no stopping it now, you know, the train has left the station, so like I didn’t post for like a month or two and figured like it would kind of go away and it just not going. Okay, and the women that are around, well first of all, you’ve probably heard connections with Hugh Hefner. Are you the modern-day Hugh Hefner, and like that image, one guy with like a twin, like you do, or Hef does, I mean that does everyone’s head in, right?

46:03 And in the Puritan America with, you know, family values, you know, why is that such a hard thing for people to get their head around him? Okay, what are you telling them? I don’t know, I mean it’s, I think like recently society has said certain things are okay and certain things are super bad that had been going on for like thousands of years, like back in the day, I mean it was normal for a person to have more than one wife. You know, not that long ago, if you, you know, if you won a battle you would rape and pillage and you would steal stuff from the village, you’d have sex with all the women, and that was fine, and now I mean that would be, you know, crazy war crimes, and I just think in the last hundred years things have just changed a lot.

46:49 But I think it’s, I think it’s more normal than people lead on. I mean, if you look at, you know, in the animal kingdom, I mean there’s one stud animal that has sex with, you know, most of the, you know, females, and I think in our society it’s actually, you know, that is actually what happens, it’s just not necessarily broadcasted as much, it’s not kind of put out there, but I think 5% of the guys have sex with like pretty much all the girls, so I think it’s been happening and I think it happens like that, I just think, you know, before social media I don’t think it was as public, you know, and I don’t think, and I also think it’s kind of, it’s a little bit counterproductive to post about it, because I think a lot of these guys, you know, would do it a little bit more on the slick, and I’ve always just been like, f*** it, like I just, I always tell the girls the truth, so I never lied about anything, which surprisingly made it easier actually, because then I don’t know, like if you at it, like if you ask me, or let’s say if I asked my girl, like a girl that I was dating, like, hey, how many guys you have sex with last week, and she told me, I had sex with six guys last week, I know she’s telling me the truth, right?

48:13 Just like no girl would like lie in that direction, you know, or if I said how many guys we had sex with your whole life, and she told me, you know, 537, like I would know she’s telling me the truth. So I think when these girls ask me questions and I tell them answers that they, you know, normally wouldn’t want to hear, it builds trust. So it’s like a strange thing, but it’s, you know, a little counterintuitive. And why do they stay? I, why do they stay?

48:42 I think different reasons, you know, some of them want to be famous, some of them are having fun, some of them genuinely like me, some of them just enjoy the lifestyle, some of them are there for the adventure, some of them are there because they’re not supposed to be there. A lot of them come because they’ve broken up with a boyfriend and want to piss him off, that’s like the number one, I think, but yes, a lot of different reasons. I would say, how does one get to your house as a guy or girl?

49:13 Like as a girl it’s kind of tough, like I don’t really, you know, they gotta know somebody, or you know, sometimes the DMs work. We’ve got, you know, we’ve got a lot of photographers that work for us, so maybe through that, but it’s easier now, like I think back in the day if a girl wanted to get in touch with a celebrity, that’s kind of difficult, like she had to know somebody or Mandurah to set that up, but now they can just go straight to the source in his DMs. And it’s true for me too, like I actually watched this, the show Iron Cowboy the other day, this guy did 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 days and 50 states.

50:00 I mean, if you just see that, and yeah, everyone’s like, this crazy thing, and I watched this documentary and I was like, holy s***, like that’s, that’s insane, like this guy, you know, did 50 f***ing Ironman triathlons in 50 days in 50 states, and like the previous record was 30 in a year, which was set by him, so do 50 consecutive ones was just like absurd, and I end up DMing the guy, and I was like, ah, like, you know, super impressed, like yeah, actually like motivated me, start doing more cardio again, and then the guy hit me back and, you know, we started talking, it was just like, you know, it’s just kind of like crazy to have that access, you know, like you could watch a movie and, you know, hit somebody up, or you know, like I mean, you know, tons of families, people, like I could just immediately connect with them, and so that is one of the, you know, interesting things about social media, is that it gives girls access, so they can, you know, they want to hook up with these celebrities, they can now.

50:56 So a lot of the girls will just, you know, DM me and it’ll, you know, happen pretty seamlessly. Are you always looking for more girls or is it like a cap, or do you have too many? It’s money and girls, like a black hole, there’s just never, I feel like there’s never enough, like there’s net, you, like you just never feel like you have enough money, you never feel like you’ve f***ed up enough girls, I don’t know, it’s a weird thing. And that’s still the case today?

51:22 Yeah, yeah, I mean I’m a little overloaded right now, but I feel like you’re still like, I don’t know, I mean every time, every girl is different, so it’s always a different experience, you know. Would you say you’re addicted to sex? Yeah. And you’ve known that for a while? I think I’ve like come to terms with that recently, maybe in the last like three years.

51:45 Okay, and you found a way, like a functional addict. I was a functional alcoholic from, anyway, well it’s, it’s a weird addiction because it’s one that, like, I feel like a lot of guys would have but they just can’t, you know. It’s like, you know, I think most, yeah, it’s weird, I almost all guys, if like don’t have as much sex as they would want, like in that, that goes for like even the 5%, I think. Yeah, I think that’s why they watch you, right? Well, I’m saying like even the 5% of guys that are having sex with all the girls, like even the super famous guys, like they’re still like, in fact like a lot of those guys chase as much as the guy at the bar that has sex once a year.

52:28 So, and interesting, what are your thoughts on marriage? I, you know, I don’t see a ton of upside in it for, you know, a guy in my position, but I guess if lived in the Midwest and you wanted to have a family and you want to have kids, it would make sense, otherwise it’s a gamble on 50% of your assets. It’s a big bet, man, the announce, you, you know, you’re betting that you’re gonna love her forever, and I mean you’re also involved in the government, like if you want to get a divorce, you have to ask the government for permission, so it’s, I don’t know, I think like, I think just that dynamic alone makes both people feel like kind of trapped in the situation a little bit, so I think when you put somebody in a situation where they can’t escape or they have no out, it makes them kind of want to get out.

53:22 I don’t know, I have to just think the whole kind of idea is a little bit flawed. So there’s a lot of these like invisible contracts that we have, like marriage or boyfriends and being faithful, and I hope the marriage one is too invisible, right, and that’s like kind of like you got to go to court. I mean, that’s what I’m saying, it’s a whole process, like if you just thought, like if you catch her f***ing the plumber, it’s not like you can just walk, like no, you have to go to court, you have to talk to government, you have to give her a certain amount, like give the agree on, it’s just a whole process, right, like just split up the house.

53:56 I mean it’s, it’s just so different than dating, it’s just so many more serious implications. You said even before that some people are just in relationships and they stay in them because they just, you know, don’t have better options and they’re just trying to research. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think, but you kind of blow through all of those, I think those laziness, I think that’s probably one of the, if I were to say the main reason people stay in relationships, I think it’s laziness, because I think there’s a decent amount of them that are unhappy or that would be happy with somebody else, but they’re kind of, you know, they’re afraid of the unknown or they’re comfortable or whatever, they just don’t want to go out and, you know, find somebody better or find somebody more compatible, and so they just get, you know, stuck in the routine.

54:48 I think that’s what happens to a lot of people in their lives, they just get stuck in a routine and then they wake up one day and they’re 40 and they’ve been doing the same f***ing thing every day and they look at my Instagram and say, oh s***, you know, here’s the guy that’s doing something different all the time, he’s, you know, he’s living outside the box, experiencing something new, he’s having sex with different girls, he’s travelling different places, you know, who knows what he’s going to do next, and so I think that’s part of the appeal, is that you know it’s unorthodox, it’s unknown, you know, unpredictable. As the line in the movie Fight Club, or Tyler Durden says, the other guy says, I’m free in all the ways that you are not, you know, just because he decides to make a decision not to be attached to all of these constraints.

55:33 Joe, and I feel like that’s kind of what you represent for a lot of people, they just look at you and say, oh, Dan just chose, I’m not gonna be limited by these ideas on marriage and monogamy and political correctness, and I’m just gonna do my thing. It makes sense. Yeah, I think, I think when you let go of like all the constraints of society, I think you’re able to start kind of, you know, finding out, you know, your own path, I’m like what you like, and, and I think, I don’t know, I just think everybody lives in this box, like they just live within these constraints of what they’re supposed to do, they’re supposed to go to college, they’re supposed to do this, they’re supposed to do that, they’re, you know, and they just end up doing that same f***, and I never wanted to do that same f***, so I just didn’t, you know.

56:22 I, I got thrown in jail my senior year, I went in the military, I dropped out of college my senior year, I mean I just, you know, never really did what I was supposed to do, and I guess part of it’s luck, I mean I turned a gambling problem into, you know, a profitable business, and now, you know, turning something that would have put you in jail into, you know, a profitable business. You know, I’m just unconventional through and through. Is that a bit what Ignite is all about, to really put kind of it all on red, to use like an example, but also a big unknown, but it also feels like kind of a mature thing to do, feels like a grown-up thing to put this all behind and create this, you know, multi-billion dollar company.

57:07 Yeah, I think I think for me, like what Ignite is about and the brand is about just kind of not conforming, you know, do what makes you happy. I think a big piece of it is kind of like destigmatizing the cannabis industry, and, you know, a lot of people look at cannabis is like, oh, you’re, you know, you smoke weed, you’re a stoner, and, you know, I’m out here, you know, six percent body fat, I’m working out, we’re gonna marathons, I’m doing stuff like that, I’m active and running a company, and I think, you know, I think that’s important, you know, because you know, I’m not telling everybody to go out and smoke weed, it’s just for me I think it’s the healthiest alternative if you’re gonna get f***ed up, like if you’re gonna drink, you’re gonna do XC, you’re gonna do cocaine or whatever, like weed is just a better option, like just all the way around health-wise, like the whole thing.

58:04 So I think it’s, I think it’s good, you know, show people that it’s possible to be functional and do that, and, you know, in the CBD piece of it, I mean I think that’s important, you know, the nicotine side as well. You know, I really hate cigarettes, I mean it’s just one of my biggest, you know, irritations, when somebody smoke and, you know, cigarette and I gotta breathe in that s***, so you know, if we get people to stop smoking cigarettes and these are nicotine pads and then, you know, go from the nicotine to the CBD and, you know, now you’re taking something that, you know, would normally be unhealthy and you’re, you know, switching it, you know, to, you know, the same, you know, hand-to-mouth that, you know, they’re addicted to, but now it’s something that’s, you know, giving them health benefits.

58:49 So that, you know, is one of the things that we’re focusing on more so than, you know, the, you know, the flower piece of this is the vape side, because I think that’s kind of the future. So yeah, I, I’ve always hated cigarettes, I feel like it’s such a stupid f***ing thing to do, like it doesn’t do a single thing for you, it’s got all these negative health benefits, had friends died from lung cancer, I mean it’s a terrible way to watch somebody go, and you smell like a bum’s nutsack, you taste like s*** if you kiss a girl, the clothes stink, you got kids now, you’re subjecting them to the second-hand smoke, I mean it’s just terrible across the board, and so you know, it’s just, you know, for, for me, you know, our NIC pens are, you know, it’s just a good way to, you know, still get that, you know, they’re addicted to the nicotine, they’re not addicted to the f***ing tar that’s going along, as the carcinogens or any of that s***, they’re addicted to the nicotine and, you know, kind of that, you know, hand and mouth thing, so it gives them that without all those negative effects, and so I think that’s, you know, something that I feel pretty good about.

59:56 And then allowing them to use the same exact device and just put a CBD pod in there, you know, that’s obviously the, you know, the goal, and this could be a massive industry, right? It’s supposed to be 22 billion in the next three or four years. Yeah, it’ll be really big, and then, you know, getting that device in people’s hands, so then when the THC comes around, they just want to stick in a THC pod, they want to relax, and they don’t have that negative stigma that comes with, you know, normal THC, you.

1:00:22 So I mean, if you have a 5-10 thread, people know you’re smoking, you know, THC, if you have a Juul, they know you’re smoking nicotine, so this is really like the only device that, you know, does all three, and so I think that’s, you know, I think that’s important, I think that’s, you know, one of the coolest things that we’re doing right now, more so than the flower stuff and whatever, because you’re just so limited with, you know, the THC side right now, so we’re focusing a little bit more on the, the CBD in the neck for the time being anyways. What you like, we’re still doing the THC, of like you think? Yeah, just, you know, then limited the states, and, you know, for me I wanted this to be a global brand and a global company.

1:01:03 So what’s it like being, you know, part of a such a massive company that’s gonna be listed and, you know, on the board and, I mean, that’s that’s different than anything you’ve ever done, really. Ya, no, for sure. If I see you in New York City probably meeting with the bankers and, no, no fat cat answers, what’s that whole thing like? Um, I mean it’s just, uh, it’s not what I expected I’d be doing, but it’s fun, you know. For me, poker was, it was a zero-sum game, for me to win somebody else got to lose, and that bother you?

1:01:35 Yeah, I mean it’s like, you know, every time I’m winning some guy’s f***ing miserable, you know, and it’s, you’re not providing any value, you’re not building anything, you’re just basically just hustling somebody out of their money. I mean granted they want to play poker, they want to gamble, they’re getting the rush, they want a beach, it’s competitive sport, I’ve been playing competitive sports my whole f***ing life, so no problem beating somebody’s ass, you know, and that, but at the end of the day, like I’d much prefer to build something, provide a service that you want, that you need, that you benefit from, that I also can make money off of, as opposed to you know, just, you know, battling heads up somebody. So I just, and also the stress of poker, f***, man, it was like, thought that your hair used to fall out, right?

1:02:22 Well, it’s playing big money, man, like big, big, mom, never forget it. You know, one time I was sitting with 18 million bucks and the guy’s like, said all-in, and I got to make a decision for 18 million dollars, you know, it’s a lot of money to me, and like your net worth. Yeah, like, yeah, man, at the time was a lot, ma’am, you know. This is like what, four or five years after you were broken and sold your guns to get back into it, right? Well, I think it was a little bit longer than that that that happened, so I started playing in 2003, I went broke, I’m like, I want to say like, oh and oh four maybe, really, oh five, and then this was this was like nine years later, this was like in 2014, so this was like, you know, this is a, in a while, like once I went broke, I was like pretty f***ing sure I didn’t want to do that again, because you’d never really felt broke before as a kid?

1:03:19 Uh, I don’t know about that, I mean I, you know, I went the military, I was making eight hundred bucks a month, like in the beginning I was pretty f***ing broke, and so but once you lose everything at poker, you respect so that you respect the money. I respected the money enough not to play like a f***ing f***, you know, not to like try and win every hand, not to let my ego get involved, not to bluff too much, but like still having the balls, so you know, put it on the table if you needed to, which a lot of guys lack that, and so because I was fearless, I was able to, because I was fearless and I did those things, people knew that I was capable of that, which a lot of people weren’t, like a lot of people just weren’t capable of firing in hundreds of thousand dollars or, you know, later on millions of dollars or whatever, was with just nothing, like you know, people could do that with like, you know, maybe a flush draw or something, but like if I sensed weakness, like I was not afraid to just put it in, you know, put the guy to a real decision, and sometimes they called, you know, sometimes you’re wrong, sometimes you, you know, sometimes you’re right, they’re weak and they still f***ing call because they’re stubborn, you know, don’t bluff billionaires, that’s something I learned like early on, like as a general rule, like you definitely can, but like try not to, and so I basically kind of, you know, established that dynamic of like, you know, I’ll f***ing put you to the test, and because of that I was able to then kind of like switch gears and play a little bit, well now a little

1:04:51 Bit more like a lot more conservatively and get paid off in spots where nobody else would get paid off, but I would, because people, especially super rich guys, would be like, you know what, I’d rather pay this money than let this little f*** bluff my ass, you know, like as a 60 something-year-old billionaire and I’m a f***ing 30 year old kid, and he’s like, I’m just not gonna let this f***ing little kid blow me off a hand, and so it was an ego thing and you would tap into that, and part of it is like reading people, understanding situations, and I was good at figuring out what somebody’s net worth was, what their attachment was to it, what their response was to being put in uncomfortable situations, what the response was to losing, how they acted when they were winning, because some guys in there winning, they don’t want to take any more risk, they’re happy with their small win, you know, some guys when they’re losing they, you know, they chase but they don’t bluff, they just want to get lucky, so they’ll call, then fold, then call, call, call, they don’t hit their lucky card, they fold.

1:05:56 Some guys try to really make every hand into a winner when they’re losing, they try and push it, so those guys you kind of like wait for a hand, you know what I mean, it’s a, it’s like figuring out people and then figure out how they react to situations and then playing accordingly, so it was a, you know, psychological warfare game. And again, you’re all about the setup, so you don’t need to go to the World Series of Poker, you just get the billionaires in the room who probably wouldn’t mind giving Dan Bilzerian some money. Well, this was kind of before I was then like, I mean this is before I was like, you know, but that was like a whole part of this too, is, is by establishing, you know, the fame and, and, and, and, you know, subtly and not subtly bragging about the money, you know, people recognized like, hey, this guy’s got some f***ing bread, like, and also it made rich guys who want to play with me more, because when you’re a rich guy you don’t want to play with somebody that’s poor, because, you know, poor relatively, you know, not as wealthy as you, whatever, because your upside is limited, right?

1:06:53 Like if your net worth is five million dollars and we’re playing a game with the buy-ins a million bucks, like the most I can beat you for is five million bucks, like I wouldn’t want to play with you as much as I want to play with a guy that’s got, you know, five hundred million, right, because I could beat that guy for 50 million, 100, I’m never gonna beat you for more than five, right, and I’m probably not gonna beat you for every dollar that you have, and even if I did, it’s really got him a f***ing f***, take it all, you, you know, need. So it’s like one of those things were like, you know, and also that guy’s gonna play like a lot more conservatively and it’s gonna be hard to get that last dollar out of that dude, as opposed to some other guy, you know, rich guy, he’d go until they lose a crazy amount of money, he’s getting, you know, that capability.

1:07:30 So by being perceived as this rich, you know, maniac, it got me action, it got me into games that I, you know, might not otherwise have gotten into, so you know, there was definitely a lot of setup that went, went with that, but I always knew that that was the goal, was to play with bad players and had a lot of money. Okay, and this was in the early days before everyone got super good and it went all electronic. Yeah, I mean the online coaching definitely f***ed stuff up, and then you know, they came out with the simulators, which basically kind of like almost solved the game, to where you could play a simulator, and you know, there’s been a lot of advances in poker for sure, but you’re done now, no more poker?

1:08:11 I rarely play. Okay, yeah, and do you use these skills when it comes to Ignite, do you read a room like that? Yeah, I mean it’s something that you don’t really think about, it’s just something that you just figure out, like I mean I can size people up, I can talk to somebody, I can look at somebody, I can, you know, figure out, you know how much money they have, what they’re, you know, I guess what their threshold is to, you know, risk and pain and tolerance, you know, there’s just all these things, and once you figure that stuff out, then you can kind of predict what they’re gonna do.

1:08:49 You know, they make illogical decisions about money all the time, right? Yeah, I mean once, once emotion gets involved, then, you know, logic kind of goes out the window, which is why I think men probably in general make more predictable decisions than women, is because I feel like a logic a little bit more and women are a little bit more emotional, so when you’re dealing with somebody that’s operating off of emotion, who knows what they’re gonna f***ing do, you know, it’s less predictable than logic, so I feel like, you know, men are probably a little bit easier to read than women, but um, I’ve spent enough time where now women I’m getting pretty good at figuring out. Like you mostly spend time with women now?

1:09:36 It’s, yeah, I mean it’s, it’s weird, man, I was actually thinking about that the other day, I spend like an inordinate amount of time with women, and I, I was like thinking about that the other day, I so I actually had some of my guy friends over and like, I don’t realize it cuz my life has just been like this for so long, but when I have these other guy friends over, they just almost like don’t know what to do with themselves, and they’re around all these girls, because like to me these girls are, you know, it’s normal, like they’re just, this is the, the level of girls that I’m hanging around with all the time, but for these guys, like any one of these girls is like their dream girl, so they get into these situations, they just like don’t know how to act, and so it’s like, you know, and then like if they’re like hitting on a girl and the girl’s not interested in them, and then they’re my friend, it’s like creates us like we’re dynamic, and then, and then they try and DM the girl and the girl tells me, and you know it’s like, and I don’t really care that much, but at the same time like it’s a little bit disrespectful, but then at the same time it’s also like, I’m dating all these girls, so you can’t really like say they’re all awful, it’s so weird dynamic, but at the end of the day like the guys just don’t really like know how to act around these girls, and so they’ll end up like either creeping them out, or the guys will just get like kind of nervous or whatever, or just distract them from like us hanging out, you know, they’ll just be like

1:11:00 So distracted by like, you know, topless girls or, you know, these hot girls or whatever they’re wearing, you know, and it just, you lose that like guy time, you know, and since these girls are around so much, yeah, I’ve kind of like, unfortunately, had a lot less guy time than I used to have, which is probably one of my regrets, I would say. If you can teach guys like one thing or two things about women, what would it be? What would you tell them? Don’t chase.

1:11:36 Don’t chase, and don’t be afraid of rejection, you know, don’t be afraid of rejection. My, I guess like my strategy in college would be, every time I would see a hot girl I’ll just go up and talk to her. I didn’t care, in a f***ing grocery store, if it was in a library, like if I saw a girl that I found attractive, I would just go talk to her, and I wouldn’t go up and say, oh, I think you’re beautiful, and all that cheesy s***, I would just go talk to her about whatever, like didn’t matter, just have a conversation with her, see where it went, you know, sometimes didn’t go anywhere, sometimes they wouldn’t want to give you the time of day, sometimes he’s have a casual conversation lead nowhere, but at the end of the day, because I did that, it would just make me more comfortable talking to girls, and it was just kind of a numbers game, so I had, you know, pretty great success, and you know, I always used the example of my one buddy, it was like real conservative, he would only talk to a girl that he knew, like, really liked him, and you know, so maybe he would like talk to two girls and he would sleep with both of those girls, and I would talk to a hundred girls and maybe I’d sleep with four of them, but at the end of the day like he’s batting a thousand, but I’m still f***ing twice as many girls, so it’s like one of those things where I just, you know, I’ll just put in the time and I would just interact with tons of girls, and now I realized that a better strategy, if you can do it, a lot of guys don’t really have their life set up

1:13:09 To do it, is set up your life to where the girls have to come to you, and so you don’t have to pursue them, and when you don’t have to pursue them, like I said earlier, you know, just the dynamic is different when they’re chasing you as opposed to you chasing them, and everyone has more fun. Yeah, I mean it’s, you know, it’s better for the girl, because then when she finally sleeps with you, she feels like she accomplished something, and you know, and she’s like kind of worked for it, if she’s a little bit invested, and if you hook up with her, it’s because, you know, you chose him, they’ve got with her, and not because you were chasing something, you know, so I think it’s better for both people, actually. Do you think we’ll see more like Dan Bilzerian type scenarios in the future, where, you know, there’s a guy and lots of women?

1:13:51 Mm, yeah, I mean I think there’s a lot of people that are like trying to like copy what I’m doing, I don’t know how effective they’re gonna be at it, but you know, there’s what, eight billion people in the world, I’m sure somebody’s gonna be able to pull it off at some point. It’s not easy, I mean I’m in a very lucky situation, and I say lucky not because like I didn’t work hard to get where I’m at, but because there’s just definitely a degree of luck in super successful people. I mean you have to be at the right time, right time, at the right place, and then figure out a way to capitalize on that.

1:14:29 A lot of people were given an opportunity and they squander it, but you know, a poker for instance, like I got in into poker at the right time, the right time, the right place, and I put in the f***ing hours, I mean it, you know, that 10,000 hours theory, I logged my 10,000 hours, I’ve paid my dues playing 18 hours a day, f***ing six, seven days a week, pissing on the laptop, won’t play in ten f***ing tables at a time, and you know, doing all that, and, and it paid off, you know, you know, there was a grind and it sucked, but then I made a bunch of money and, you know, and I used that money to, you know, hire a bunch of staff, and now I’ve got, who know, I think I was like 90 something people working for me, so you know, I don’t have to spend any time going grocery shopping, and I’ll make my bed, and wash my clothes, I don’t, you know, do any of that stuff, so all the time that I spend is on business or hanging out with girls or hanging with friends or traveling or doing things that I want to do, so I really don’t spend any time doing things that I don’t want to do, and so I would say that I’ve lived like ten lifetimes at least, like a normal person, just because I haven’t, like if you look at a normal person, I spend, you know, 40 hours a week working plus the commute and this and that, and so of their usable time, if you subtract out the eight hours a day that they sleep and take a shower and take a s*** and brush their teeth, like all this stuff that like they have to do, right, like how much of their day is actually usable, and then of that day, like how

1:16:03 Much of that are they spending going to work doing something that isn’t anything they really want to do, like no, they’re sorting mail, there in TPS reports, so they’re f***ing flipping burgers or whatever it is, but it’s like something that’s not contributing to their life at all, and everything that I’m doing is something that, like, I want to do, it’s interesting to me and that’s contributing in my life, and you know, and, and then I’m learning something from it or whatever, even, even with girls, I mean every time you interact you learn something, you figure out more psychology, understand why they do, because like it makes sense that girls just want to do what they’re not supposed to do, like I feel like they kind of like get off on that, so if you understand that premise and then like the whole competitive piece of it, like the stuff they do, it makes sense if you like understand all that stuff.

1:16:54 Still surprising sometimes, but how do you keep them all happy? You must have, that’s hard. Actually that, that is actually probably like the most difficult piece of this, because yeah, I mean it’s, yeah, I mean you gotta like sleep with all these girls, if you don’t then like they get, you know, like upset, so there’s like a definitely a big sexual obligation, I would say, but you have to like, if it’s, I don’t know, it’s like, I mean okay, we go off on this tangent for a while, but you know, the girls, I guess I think it’s like two to three months and then they usually just like all get too attached, they can’t deal with the situation, but up until that point, you know, you have to kind of like, you can’t spend too much time with a girl because then that will accelerate the situation, then she’ll get to the point where, you know, she’s just too invested and she can’t deal with the other girls, so you have to spend like a somewhat limited amount of time with them, but enough time that they’re like happy, right, and then you have to keep the rotation so that if, you know, some of them leave, it doesn’t matter, and because you’re okay with letting them leave and they can date other guys and they can do whatever they want, it makes them not necessarily want to do that as much as if you told them not to and you tried to control them.

1:18:20 So it’s a whole crazy dynamic, I don’t know, it’s pretty much like uncharted territory. I was just talking to this girl about this last night. You should write a book about this. Yeah, yeah. Are there rules?

1:18:33 The rule is honesty, that’s my one rule. It’s like you have to be honest with me and I’ll be honest. You can lie to your boyfriend, you can lie to whoever the f*** you want, your friends, care, but you have to be honest with me and I’ll be honest with you, that’s pretty much my one rule. So if she asked me a question, I’m just gonna tell her the answer, and you know, so I tell her, you know, you know what, scary answers, don’t ask scary questions, but I’m gonna tell you the truth.

1:18:59 So, and I think because of that, it’s, it’s weird, I mean I think they’re so unused to that that when they asked you a question, you know, like, oh, like how many girls have you hooked up with this week, and you tell them the truth, like at first it’s just like, what the f***, and then a part of them is kind of like a little bit relieved because they’re like, f***, look, this guy’s like gonna be honest with me, like I can ask him any question, it’s gonna tell me the truth, and I think that’s like really rare, like I don’t think there’s many people that are being honest, like in, in LA now they have this whole sugar daddy thing where like the guy’s got five girlfriends and the girl’s got like multiple boyfriends, she’s got like four dudes paying the same bills, so it’s like if she gets the more expensive apartment, it just means that she just made three times more income because four guys are paying for that same apartment, he needs us like a whole crazy thing, and they’re all lying to each other, and it’s this whole nutty situation.

1:19:57 But yeah, I think the rarest thing is, is the honesty, and I would, I think the reason the girls are okay with it, because a lot of people ask that, like why the girls are okay with it, is because of the honesty, because and I would choose it too, I would choose honesty over the, you know, possible illusion or the, you know, the, the hope of monogamy, you know what I mean, because they asked me a question, they know I’m going to tell them the truth, so I think there’s more value in that than in the pretense of like, you know, I think this guy’s monogamous but I don’t know, I’m gonna try and catch him cheating, and I always have in the back of my mind like, you know, is he doing that, and then two years down the line they find out that the guy’s been cheating on the whole time and then they, they end up like an emotional wreck and, you know, they’ve been deceived and they have all this animosity.

1:20:51 I never really have like any bad breakups or any like, you know, negative fallouts of the girls, like yeah, sometimes like they’ll implode and I get upset, like I never lied to them and they never like got swindled or like sold a bill of goods, so there’s never usually like any animosity at all. So right, and I think that’s kind of a cool thing. Yeah, unlike a lot of those weird contracts and arrangements and things that happen in LA, I guess, and all fall over the world, right, where, yeah, I mean for this, well I mean, I mean the contracts, I mean, I, I mean I get that, for me I never really like everyone to pay for sex, not because of the money but just because I felt like the girl didn’t want to f*** me because she was into me, then I kind of killed it for me.

1:21:34 It’ll be a lot easier just to pay him to sleep with me, for sure. He also said that’s one of the most honest transactions between a man. It is, I mean the girl gets exactly what she wants, he gets what she, you know, I mean the both parties get what they want, I mean it’s like it’s, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, I, I don’t choose to do it because it’s a turn-off to me, but you know, by all means, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all.

1:21:56 You know, I don’t really want to like hook up with hookers or whatever, but like you know, what they do, I don’t, you know, I try not to judge them, and the guys, I get it, you know, they don’t waste the time, and actually in a price saving time, the girl gets, you know, what she wants and they don’t have to go through this ridiculous courting process of like getting to know the best version of like, you know, I mean like the guy’s pretending to be who he thinks that the girl wants him to be so he can sleep with her, you know, and then the f***ing girl is pretending to be like the innocent girl, right, to get that, you know, so it’s like this whole like ridiculous thing, and then the longer they date before they have sex, the more like built up s*** there is, right, so the more than like the guy has to like kind of stay in character for a while and the girl’s like, you know, has to stay in character, and they both have kind of like these skeletons in the closet because they haven’t been told, like, honest about who they are, so it’s almost like a, you know, a ticking time bomb before it implodes, before one catches the other one in their f***ing or like how long they can keep up the facade.

1:22:59 So yeah, I just, I bypassed the whole like dating thing, so I think it’s counterproductive, so feels like we’re all kind of dancing around and these like half-truths and, you know, politically correct, that’s what dating is. So it is, and that’s what everyone does, and then that’s all, and you don’t, and no, and there’s something beautiful and refreshing about it. Yeah, that’s why people watch you. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that’s part of them. Yeah, you recently got your Armenian citizenship, right?

1:23:26 I did. And you, you shot some cool weapons over that, stuff like that, but what was it like, you know, growing up, you know, in Tampa with your parents, first generation, what was that like? Oh no, they weren’t first, my mom’s only a quarter Armenian, my dad’s half, his dad, I think his, that was from Armenia, but I’m not positive, so um, yeah, my grandfather I think came over. What was your dad like when you were a kid? Uh, he wasn’t there too much, he was working a lot, so it’s just standard like workaholic.

1:24:07 That my mom was, she’s a sweet lady, but she was, you know, really like kind of submissive, did what my dad said, so there wasn’t, she’s more like surface level interactions, she was great, super, super sweet lady, just nicest could be. Did you take some values away from your father, in retrospect, if you look back? Um, I definitely took some traits, you know, like hating to lose, being competitive. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it was funny because he was the one that kept telling me to like stop playing poker, like okay, like it’s time to be like cash in your chips, like you know, don’t do it.

1:24:51 He would always compare it to blackjack, cuz he used to play blackjack. I’m like, no, I don’t think that you understand, this is not gambling, this is like a skill game, it’s a big difference. Like blackjack, you play blackjack long enough, unless you’re like card counting, you know, you’re just gonna lose like in the long run, and if you are card counting, they’re gonna catch you, you know. So and even if they, even if like, even if you do it on the slick and you start winning, but just like they usually just like ban people, like even if they don’t think you’re card counting, they just don’t care, like they just ban like guys that win a bunch of money, and then if you lose like 2 million bucks successfully card-counting, what you can use their swings and then you come back and you win a million card counting, so you’re still down a million.

1:25:32 I’ve seen them kick people out of the casinos, so it’s just not, you know, it’s not really a profitable thing, you know. The movies kind of glamorized it a little bit, but your edge, and that even if you’re doing correct card counting, can’t even be compared to your edge in poker, it’s not even like close. If you ever get that, like me playing poker against a bad player, I mean it along, I like I almost can’t lose, assuming that I’m not playing beyond my means, which I, which I did before, piss, drinking all this damn water.

1:26:03 So you’re talking about your dad and him understanding your poker. You know, people, a lot of people ask you about the trust fund, and I’m wondering, was that always something in the back of your mind to changed your behavior, knowing that you had that? What was that something you always kicking, tell us, 35? 35. Yeah, what the f*** man, that’s like, you know, a few years a, you know, everybody like talked about it like it was this big deal, but like, do you buy, 35 is a long time and it’s not like I’m just gonna like ride it out to 35, it’s like, you know, most of your good life is done, so and I, you know, I made my money long before that, someone I got it, I ended up giving away anyway.

1:26:42 So the trust fund was really, I would say the biggest benefit I got from my dad having a trust set up for me was access to poker games because of that, and because of, you know, people being like, oh, a trust fund kid, I was able to get into poker games that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise gotten into, and I got action, you know, that I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten, so it was, I would say that was the biggest benefit that I got from him. And they made assumptions about you in the game? Oh yeah, of course, yeah, a trust fund kid, blah blah blah.

1:27:14 I mean, and that’s a big piece of it, like having a good backstory and like a reason, you know, for them to want to give you action is important. So what about the two Navy SEAL hell weeks, did that change the way they looked at you as a poker player? I don’t think, I don’t think a lot of them knew about that. There’s something that I was like a little bit, you know, ashamed of, kind of like a monkey that I had on my back for a while, was not graduating SEAL training.

1:27:45 It was, there’s a point when I just like said, you know, that I, I, I, I’d like, I was torn, because I did 510 days of SEAL training and I was like two days before graduation when I got like rolled back to the beginning, did the whole thing again, then was like three weeks before when they kept me out, so in my mind I had finished SEAL training, like those two days is like me f***ing like flying back to Coronado and getting my f***ing, you know, graduation thing, right, so like in my mind I had done it, so like I pretty much like, I don’t know, and I didn’t, and after doing 510 days of what is supposed to be six months of training and finishing two winter hell weeks and all that s***, you know, I really didn’t want to like explain myself, you know, and like tell somebody, like, oh, I didn’t make it, and I’m assumed I quit, and then otherwise like I have to tell the whole f***ing story, and I was like, how many times you want to tell that f***ing story, right, so you know, there was a time when I just like told people that I finished SEAL training because of my mind I did, and then most of the time I just didn’t talk about it, like I didn’t even like mention it because it was like not really something that I like wanted to discuss, and then I pretty much just forgot about it and just didn’t even really like consider it once I started gambling and I made all my money gambling, like I didn’t give a f*** about it anymore, but it definitely bothered me for a while because it was like, I mean I dedicated like

1:29:18 A good like four or five years of my life to it and I really got railroaded, so to me it was definitely like a sore spot, but at the end of the day it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because three quarters of my class that graduated died. Three quarters? Yeah, I was like, there’s, I mean we started off with two hundred and some and there was like 17 of us have made it through hell week, and of the 17 that made it through hell week, I was the only guy that didn’t graduate, because like nobody that makes it through hell week like doesn’t graduate, I mean it’s like a small percentage, and then like of people that make it through to hell week, like they all graduated, pretty much, it was like one of those things where it was like really crazy that I didn’t, and so it was, it was weird because like I said, yeah, three quarters of the class died, and then I also felt like had I have accomplished that, it would have been enough, because I know a lot of people that they became a Navy SEAL and I was like their thing, you know, it’s like they, you know, oh, the Navy SEAL, that was like they’d accomplished what they, you know, set out to accomplish and that was like what they could hang their hat on, and I might have been in that same book, so I really just like went in there initially just to like prove that I could do it, I didn’t really even like give a f*** about doing the job, and then I did like so much training was like in that life, so much that I actually like really started to like, like the working out, I always loved guns and whatever, and so I actually started to like really

1:30:46 Get super into it, and that was like my thing, but you know, whatever, you know, things happen for a reason, and it was, like I said, it was probably a big motivating factor because of that, you know, because of that I really like felt like I still had a lot to prove, and had I have graduated, and I don’t think I would have had maybe that same drive, and obviously my life would’ve taken a different direction, I would have stayed in the military for a period of time, I wouldn’t have gone to college, I wouldn’t have hit that poker at the right, you know, so it was the best thing. It’s, it’s really funny how that works, like some things in your life that you’re f***ing dead positive with the worst thing that ever happen to you turn out to be the best thing, and some of the best things that happen to you turn out to be actually like big negatives, so it’s uh, that was actually a good life lesson that I got, a painful one, but it was good.

1:31:41 Did you take some things from that Navy SEAL from the, the BUD/S training that you can like bring with you today, knowing that you can get through that mental test? Definitely help me for that bike bet that I did, yeah, but it’s been a while, man, I don’t really think about Jimmy. I would say the biggest thing that I get from it is just like f***ing hate cold water, I got hypothermia so many times, it like just like a thought of cold water is associated to me, but it instilled like a lot of discipline with training, I mean I, I trained at like such a high level, such a performance level for so long, and I had reached such a crazy degree of cardio ability, and that stuck with me for a while.

1:32:30 I mean I still train religiously and I’m super disciplined about that, I’m super disciplined about my diet, so is it was a huge, huge net positive, the military was probably one of the best things that I did. Ya, no. We’re talking about your dad earlier, have you thought about having kids, had a father, you would be? Oh, I’d be a great dad for sure, because I could teach my kids so much, like I’m just, I have so much life experience, like my dad didn’t really teach me a jack s***, like taught me how to play sports, but like you didn’t teach me anything about girls, didn’t teach me anything really about like business, about like, you know, later he did teach me some stuff about business, but you know, as a kid I was just like flying blind, and I think, you know, I think if you’re ready to have a kid and you really dedicate a lot of time to like teaching him stuff, and not like the s*** you learned in school but like real life applicable stuff, like you can definitely give him a pretty big head start, and you know, I think, I think it’d be fun, it would be a different chapter for sure, I’m not ready to, you know, go down that road right now, but my brother’s got two kids, you know, super stoked about it.

1:33:43 So you’re here in the UK now with CBD, you’re gonna do a public listing in Canada as well, is that the plan? Yeah, we’re, we’re on the CSE, I just have an analysis yet, so it’s exciting. Yeah, and this is gonna be a big company? Yeah, I mean we would have to really f*** up for not to be, okay, billions and billions is what we’re thinking. Yeah, that’s, that’s what is anticipated, I mean I, I don’t know what I can and can’t say cuz we’re currently publicly traded, so I don’t know if I can make predictions or say stuff like that, but I’m optimistic.

1:34:22 Okay, gotcha. What’s something that’s non-negotiable for you every day, like something you do as a routine? That working out. Okay, sometimes smoking before, but depends on the workout. Yeah, I mean it’s smoking before, it’s kind of like, you know, it’s something I do here and there, it’s not something that I have to do, it’s, you know, I definitely train without it, but you know, it’s like sex, I mean I, I smoke weed almost every time before I have sex.

1:34:51 I really don’t like having sex so we’re nearly as much as smoking, so that would be something that I would say is more integral than the training, trainees, just, you know, it can be more fun, but like not for cardio though, I smoking weed and do cardio, that’s kind of a bad idea, f***, f***, seem like it’s taking forever, or leg day, not so good. Yeah, leg day is kind of tough, you know, and what if I were to ask like five of your friends, what’s, what’s Dan’s superpower, like how are you able to do all this stuff, what would they say is that one thing about Cialis? I don’t know, man, I guess, I guess I just do whatever it takes, like if I want something or have a goal, like I will just do whatever it takes to accomplish the goal, like no matter what, so you know, if it’s gambling, I mean I just put in, you know, crazy, crazy hours and just did whatever it took, a study that read books, I’d f***ing talk to people, I mean I just, I don’t know, there’s not too many things that are really like laser focus on, but you know, I put SEAL training in that category, I mean I felt like it did Nam looks like whatever the f*** it to everything, you know, if they kick you out, the kick, yeah, there’s not too much you can do about that, but I didn’t, if I can quit and I passed all my f***, and I was, you know, I was a good performer and whatever, so yeah, there’s some things in life that are out of your control, but for the most part everything that I’ve put my mind to I’ve accomplished, and so I just, I’m just relentless, man, I’m like, I just, you know, just if I have an objective and something

1:36:36 That I want to accomplish, I just go until it’s done, and that’s what I’m gonna do with this company, just because it’s my sole focus right now, really, I’ve got a few of the things that I’m working on, but this is, this is kind of my baby, you know, this is what I, I believe is gonna be the first real cannabis brand, and I don’t think there’s any other brand that’s kind of nipping on our heels or that has the global presence or recognition that we do, so we’ve been a little bit slow on our operations just because I don’t want to put out, it, the only way I see this failing is by putting out products that are subpar, and so I just won’t do it, like it’s just more important for me to just wait and do it right than it just kind of rushed a market with some of this half-ass, so we’ve been a little bit slower than anticipated, but we haven’t put out anything that’s not, you know, super high-end.

1:37:32 We won, our first vape pen won the Cannabis Cup, you know, we just won Cannabis Cup for the best flower for a new Gelato strain, so you know, we’re, we’re, you know, we’re doing, doing, doing it right, and we were really are. So what, um, what scares you? Failure and roaches, aliens. Failure, aliens and roaches, aliens, out there probably in that order. Believe in aliens?

1:38:13 Uh, I do, how did I say, I’m afraid, I guess like with the horror movies that I saw, that’s probably the scarier ones, like alien abductions, I don’t know. Yeah, no, I don’t really like worry about it. Yeah, I think there’s aliens out there, I guess, I don’t know, I guess I’m not like really like scared, and they get some. I like the movies, I watched that movie Fire in the Sky, universe. I was, I guess, like supposed to be a true story where this guy gets like abducted and then they f***ing find him and he like tells this crazy story and like his buddies like cooperated that like they saw get sucked up in this f***ing thing, I don’t know, I kind of freaked me out a little bit, I guess.

1:38:54 Anything, look, like I feel like I couldn’t kill or I wouldn’t know how to kill or whatever, it would have like total control over me, you don’t even like that sort of f*** that. And failure, failure is the number one. Yeah, that it is, that an internal thing ever since you were a kid, like are you competing with yourself? I don’t know, this, the, I don’t know, I don’t necessarily know the origin of it, but I guess like I, don’t know, I just, I just hate to lose so much.

1:39:28 It was probably part of my dad, you know, but yeah, yeah, I mean I like, if you were to ask me like what would like keep me up at night, I guess like fear of failure would probably, like, or just like things not, like I’m a perfectionist, I’m a control freak, you don’t mean it’s like that whole thing, it’s like a failure would be like, you know, the opposite of control, the opposite of, you know, whatever. Yeah, so maybe that’s a, what would we be surprised to learn about Dan Bilzerian? Something you do and it would just maybe wouldn’t mix effects that.

1:40:08 Aliens, I’ll be President. I would probably surprise you, you don’t want to know, you do know, I’m gonna be friends, you will be, I think so. Any year in mind? Um, I gotta, I gotta make this, you know, multi-billion dollar business, me, you know, decent, do some focus on helping other people out, you know, more philanthropy stuff, and then I think we got a good chance, you know, basically run the, I, I should have billions of dollars at that point and then basically just give the money back, I’d keep like five hundred million or something and then basically cap, like, my, the amount that I could spend, it like a hundred, we’re like busy, I was uncorruptible, right, that would be the premise of my running, and why be president?

1:41:07 Um, just because it would be like the last kind of box that I’d want to check. I think I could do it, and I feel like I would be, I think I might did it like for pure reasons, like I just really would like wanted to do the right thing, which I feel like is not usually the reason why people go into politics, but to actually like, you know, do something correct. I don’t know that I would enjoy it, but I think they’re gonna be like one of the few people that could handle the responsibility and the power and not like f*** it up with it.

1:41:44 So I think I made enough money to where I finally like pounded that down to where it was like irrelevant to me, and I’ve done the girl thing to the point where it was irrelevant. I don’t know, it seemed like the last, last bucket list item. It’s a twelve years now, maybe twelve, I think I do it less. Okay, I think I do another four years or so of this, and then, you know, four to, four to eight years, something, you’re gonna do it. Okay, that’s exciting.

1:42:19 You mentioned philanthropy, you, you, you do quite a big thing with charity, but you keep it on the down-low, don’t you? Yeah, I mean that’s just, you know, you publish that s*** and then it kind of takes away from it, you know. Yeah, so like there’s so many people doing charity, talk about it or whatever, it’s it’s much more internally satisfying when you do stuff anonymously or you do it like directly with the person, or you like actually see, you know, the impact of it.

1:42:51 Yeah, what keeps you awake at night? I mean fear of failure, and then also just the amount of distractions you have on your cell phone, like that little f***ing device that’s got so many different like options, you know, you could find girls to bang, you talk to your buddies, you could surf f***ing social media, you can watch YouTube videos, you know, you can just get like sucked into like all these different directions, watching Alan Watts videos, whatever, you know, like no time before this did people have so much access to so much information and so many distractions, it’s so much stimulus at their fingertips, like no other time in life has that happened, and I think there’s gonna be like some seriously negative implications to that, like there’s some positives, like we are definitely like pretty connected because of that, like I could, you know, see what some dude in China is doing or, you know, whatever, follow like my buddies that are in, you know, Afghanistan or, you know, you could just, you’re just, you can see what people are doing and everybody’s kind of like more connected in that sense, but they’re less like mentally connected to, like, people don’t pick up the phone anymore, it’s like a different type of connection, so, and I think that’s like probably one of the reasons why I think people have a hard time sleeping, you know, there’s this seems like way more incidences of like sleep issues and anxiety issues, which is why like CBD is pretty interesting, you know, I think that’s,

1:44:41 You know, I think that’s why it’s gotten so much popularity. Yeah, I started playing with it about two months ago and there’s definitely something there, it’s subtle. Yeah, but it’s definitely changed my sleep. And yeah, it helps, I mean I just, I like it because there’s no downside, there’s very few things in life where there’s like no downside. Yeah, do you think we’re gonna make it as a planet and as a civilization, you were worried about if we’re gonna end it all?

1:45:09 I mean I don’t think we have to worry about in our lifetime, but I think, I think the level that we’re progressing at and our ability to end the planet, you know, with just one nuclear war or whatever, and, you know, we’re due to the climate, the environment, and, um, yeah, it’s just things are accelerating so much so fast now, like if you look at like what we’ve accomplished in the last like 10 or 20 years versus what we accomplished like in the hundred years prior to that or the thousand years prior to that, I mean it’s like in 20 years we accomplished more than like we accomplished in like a thousand years previously, like maybe like thousands about you, like so much in such a short period of time, like who knows then, like the processing abilities of computers and supercomputers and, you know, an AI and all this other stuff, like I mean f*** man, and stem cells and medicine and like our ability to make ourselves live longer and manipulate, you know, cells, it’s, it’s gonna be interesting, I think.

1:46:23 You could definitely see somebody living to be, you know, 200 years, 150 years old for sure. I think Gil hunter, if it Eve unequivocally, you’ll see your lifetime, but I think we’ll be knocking on the door of, you know, a couple hundred, and that’s gonna be interesting, because live a couple hundred years, especially in this generation with the amount of knowledge and access and stuff that you have available, man, you know, maybe some pretty wise people out there, be pretty, pretty enlightened, pretty interesting. So yeah, I always ask everyone a few questions at the end.

1:46:59 I’m gonna ask you, if you could pick up the phone and call up the 20 year old Dan Bilzerian, give that young man some advice, what would you tell him? I love it. Tell him anything, you know, it’s kind of tough, like you throw one monkey wrench in there and it could spike and send the whole thing off kilter. Part of me feels like I’m like right where I’m supposed to be, you know, so I don’t know if I’d want to accelerate that. I guess if I was like a dad and I would give me some advice, it would be that, not that I would listen, cuz you never listen to anything people tell you anyways, but I guess would probably be that the thing is in your life that you’re gonna regret are the things that you don’t try, not the things that you try and fail at, but just things that you don’t try, those will be that, that’ll be what haunts you when you get, all the stuff that you wanted to do but that you didn’t do.

1:48:05 So I felt that a ton of s***, not f***ed up a ton of stuff, but none of that really bothers me too much, it’s just, you know, stuff that I wanted to do that I didn’t do. So and even though you don’t want to fail and you hate failure, you’re still willing to keep risking? Oh yeah, you try to remember that I hate failure, but I’m not like, I don’t know, I mean I don’t like to fail. Put off, I mean f***, everybody fails, you fail all the time, you know, it’s just like it’s part of, part of life.

1:48:37 I mean just like, you know, I don’t like losing, but I doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop playing chess, you know what I’m saying? Like I, yeah, because a lot of times you learn more when you f*** up or when you fail than when you succeed. I mean most times you succeed, you don’t learn s*** other than, you know, you bolster your confidence a little bit. Yeah, most of, I mean I would bet the best lessons that you’ve gotten would be from failures. Yeah, on that same point, was the best advice you ever received could’ve come from a BUD/S instructor or a poker player?

1:49:13 Mmm, anybody, another tough one, I don’t know, I never like, I would ask for a lot of advice, so I’ve gotten tons of advice over the years, but I never really like, oh, no, I can’t think of any, any piece of advice that really kind of like stuck with you. I’m sure there has been, just nothing’s really come at the top of my head. Okay, and last part of that, so that 20 year old is out there watching us or listening to us, advice to them, because they’re growing up in this matrix of a world where you know, they’re kind of being told this is what you’re supposed to do, and then they see someone like you and you’re like, I’m doing what I want to do.

1:50:08 What would you advise somebody younger? Just think outside the box and be willing to take risk, like I’ve never found anybody that was super successful that was not willing to take risk, and like, you know, as hypocritical as this is, like don’t be afraid to fail, you know, and when you stop being afraid to fail is when you’re gonna start succeeding, because you really have to like risk to win. I mean if there’s one thing the gambling taught me, is they owe get it kind of, you know, if you want to, if you want to, you know, do something great, you got to take some risks.

1:50:49 I mean there’s not a super-rich guy out there that hasn’t like taken some serious risk, because you just, you’re just never gonna become super rich unless, you know, obviously there’s like the random flukes to get lucky, right, a lottery ticket buddy, them, they took a risk to buy a f***ing lottery ticket, right, like there’s some, you know, an a risk and like almost every success. Yeah, so well this latest one seems very exciting, so I’m just wishing you all the best here in the UK for this market. You know, it’s funny, I’ve been using CBD oil but I can’t think of a company, it’s actually big and CBD, so perfect for you guys to come in here and, you know, set up shop.

1:51:28 Yes, CBD, THC, the whole thing, and even Nick, like, you know, Juuls out there, but I don’t feel like they’re like a brand, I think they’re like a hardware, you know, and so I think we’re the only natural competitor to them that I can think of, because you can’t really advertise in that space and we’ve already created, you know, kind of a cool brand in that space that the college kids really like, and, you know, that, you know, thirty, you know, up to 35 year old males like, you know, are super strong demographic, so 21 to 35 year olds, I think if they were presented our device and a Juul, they would probably choose ours. So now we just need to get that, you know, worldwide distribution, and I think we’ll, you know, we don’t have to win, we just have to get a piece.

1:52:13 I mean Juul’s worth what, 40 f***ing billion dollars or whatever, 38 with the last I saw, and since then I’m sure it’s appreciated, so I mean, you know, and they have no natural competitor, like none, so that’s why I’m kind of excited, and they’re not in the THC market, they’re not in the CBD market, so for us to have one device that does all three, you know, it’s very exciting. Yeah, and the lifestyle brand attached to it. Yeah, is exciting. So well, excellent, wishing you all the best with Ignite and looking forward to your candidacy as well.

1:52:45 Cool, man, but um, thanks for the deep questions and deeper answers. I actually attend. Yeah, or is that cool? Thanks, man.