Dan Bilzerian - The Setup: My Philosophy Towards Life, Women & Money

Full transcript: Dan Bilzerian on London Real

2:43 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dan Bilzerian, the professional poker player, businessman, entrepreneur, author and one of the world’s most influential people on social media.

3:04 After being 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. You then entered the World Series of Poker in 2009, became a full-time professional and one of the most recognizable players on the circuit, soon amassing a huge fortune with over 44 million followers on social media. You’re known as the King of Instagram thanks to your regular updates featuring your lavish lifestyle, excessive partying and bikini-clad models.

3:31 Today you’re the founder and CEO of the Ignite cannabis company, and your new book, The Setup, is a no-holds-barred memoir that lifts the lid on your remarkable rise to global stardom and reveals your unique philosophy on life that has helped you achieve money, fame and a lifestyle that most can only dream of. Dan, welcome back to London Real. Thank you, brother. That’s a good build-up. We did this from now on, right?

3:57 I know I should be part of The Setup. We’ll talk about that at some point. Uh, we did this in London three years ago when you came, I think, to introduce Ignite to the UK audience. We sat in a hotel room and, um, the episode, you know, it blew up. I mean, some of your clips are some of our most watched ever, I think.

4:14 “Don’t chase women” is like four million plus. And, you know, this book is even more interesting because, I mean, tell me if I’m wrong, Dan, but you’re probably one of the more misunderstood guys out there on the internet, and I’m wondering, first of all, do you believe that’s true? And second of all, is that why you wrote this book? Because as people dive into your story, they start to realize that you’re not what they think you were, that you had a childhood a lot like a lot of guys, that wasn’t all glamorous, and it starts to make sense a little bit more of your decision.

4:45 So I’m wondering, why did you write the book? To set the record straight? And lastly, what was the process like of writing the book? I mean, you and I have been DMing for a couple of years and I think at one point you told me it was like the hardest thing you’ve ever done, which says a lot after, you know, SEAL training. But tell me, why write this?

5:02 Why do it now? Um, man, that was a lot of questions. So first of all, misunderstood is probably the number one adjective I would use to describe me. Um, you know, I kind of lead with my worst and I don’t really, you know, usually talk about any good stuff. I feel like I, you know, give people a highlight reel in my life and that gives them a certain perception of who I am.

5:24 Um, and I’m okay with that. Uh, I kind of, you know, throughout my poker career I had a similar thing where, you know, I had to kind of like play a role in order to get into a lot of these private games. And so, um, I’m used to, you know, people misunderstanding me, you know, thinking that I’m, you know, a different guy than I am. So I don’t know. Um, I wrote the book really kind of, you know, partially to set the record straight.

5:47 That was one of the things I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I’d actually written one in 2016, or worked with a ghostwriter to do it, and I was working out with David Goggins during quarantine and I read his book and he was telling about that whole process. Um, and it just, you know, it motivated me to just get off my f***ing ass and just do it. And so I wrote the entire book myself. I did all the edits except for one by myself.

6:14 It’s 36 edits I did. Um, and the original book was 708 pages and I’m not a writer, I’m not a reader, I don’t do that s*** um, and it was honestly the hardest project I’ve ever taken on. I mean, it was just I had to cut my work out short. I mean, every hour that I spent in the gym I felt like was hours that I didn’t have, um, being 100% mentally focused, and when I wasn’t 100% mentally focused sometimes I would do work or edits that would actually bring me backwards.

6:46 Um, and you know, writer’s block’s a real thing. I mean, it’s just, it was, it was a f***ing process, man. It, and it also forces you to like look at your life and the mistakes that you’ve made, the, you know, the decision, where decisions have led you. It’s kind of like a long therapy session. And then in order to write it, I mean, I wrote enough embarrassing s*** in there.

7:06 You have to really dive into stuff like, you know, getting caught jerking off. That was the story that I thought I’d be taking to my grave, you know, nobody knew about that. I like, you know, uh, I didn’t ever obviously talk about it, but I figured, you know, f*** it, if I’m gonna write the book and I’m gonna tell all the good, you know, you gotta have the bad with the good, and you gotta, I mean, for people to really know me, they have to understand like a lot of what’s happened in my life that I think sent me on the trajectory that I went on, and you know, the childhood was the foundation for that, and you can see it’s almost like, I feel like this could be like a psychological study almost, you know, if you look at like the things that have happened and then the motivations going forward and how that impacted my life and things that I basically perceived, you know, no matter how much, you know, how many girls I had or whatever, I always had to perceive lack there just due to, um, you know, kind of like how it came up and so it was, it was probably one of the better things that I did.

8:05 I would never want to f***ing do it again. Um, I don’t think anybody ever writes their own book. They all get, go, I mean celebrities, I, they just all get their own ghostwriters. Nobody does their own book. I mean it’s, yeah, it’s just not really a thing, but I knew that if I wanted to have my voice, and I have a very specific voice, um, that I had to do it myself, you know.

8:28 And you read the book, so I mean, I’m pretty self-deprecating, I’m pretty honest, it’s really raw, and you know, the good is f***ing, I mean the good in the sense of like the hedonistic, like pleasure-seeking stuff is far beyond what, you know, any guy probably ever dreams of achieving and then the shitty stuff is probably worse than anybody ever would be willing to endure. So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s accurate. It’s like my whole life has been, man, a big roller coaster, the super high highs and the super low lows, and honestly I probably wouldn’t have it any other way, you know.

9:04 Yeah, yeah. And you know, people can tell when you’ve written it, they can ultimately tell, and so this is clearly you. But to do that it’s a lot of hard work, and uh, I, I got Tim Ferriss in here, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, and he said it’s the loneliest job in the world, writing a book, because in some ways you’re all alone like you said with your thoughts and your past and you’re struggling to try to articulate the truth, and it’s just you, right?

9:29 I mean, no one can really help you write that thing. Well, I think there’s another factor that people don’t consider, and that’s when you’re editing the book, it just never ever feels like it’s done, right? I think it was like literally going to hell. I mean, you write this thing and then you think you’re done, and then you edit it and then you think you’re done, and every time it’s just, man, you always feel like you can write something better, you can say something better, and then you start chopping things up and it’s just, um, it’s a, it’s a never-ending battle it seems like.

10:04 And so yeah, I just f***ing just did it until I felt like I really couldn’t make it any better, and I wrote the whole book in six months. I like literally locked myself in the house. I would work eight to ten hours straight, sleep for two hours, get back, because I felt like there was a limited amount of like productive hours no matter how much I slept or whatever. And so I found that doing small naps and then just writing until I couldn’t write and then napping again was better than trying to get like a, you know, six or seven hour block of sleep.

10:38 So yeah, I wrote the whole thing in about, I think it was probably about six months, and then I edited it then for like a year and a half after that. So the editing process is probably like the most brutal, I’d say. Yeah, they say writing is rewriting, and um, that’s what makes it good though, is when you edit it down. You know, you mention Goggins, um, you know, he was here a few years ago and he was telling me how he had all these people that were going to help him with the book and he fired one guy and fired the next guy and fired the next guy and then he obviously created a great piece of work, you know, that really embodies who he is.

11:12 And so now it makes sense, you know, if you’re training with him and you get to see what he produced, and you’re thinking, you know, wait, maybe I can jump in here. And, and the foreword’s done by David Goggins, which honestly, you two seem like the odd couple. You know, I don’t know if anybody remembers that old, old show on TV where there’s two guys. Okay, you both you both went through SEAL training, but otherwise you guys seem to be very different guys, but obviously you guys are friends So how did that happen, and how are you guys friends?

11:39 Hey, it’s Brian Rose, founder of the DeFi Academy. I’ve sign up. It is well worth the money. So I, I came up to him in 2007 on a Ferrari dealership, the, we were both window shopping and uh, I at the time I’d been following him. It was just YouTube s*** at the time.

12:55 Um, they didn’t really have any social media back then, and I had seen that he had ran, it was like 204 miles. He had ridden, he had run further than a Suburban could go on a tank of gas in 24 hours, and I was just kind of fascinated with that. I was, you know, I was always, you know, pushing my body and doing crazy stuff, and I, you know, done the, you know, 510 days of SEAL training and, you know, half Ironman and stuff like that, and then I’d been in the, you know, the weightlifting side, so I’d done all that and I was just, I looked at this guy and I’m just like, damn, you know, it’s f***, dude’s a beast, because he, he wasn’t doing it like a scrawny Ethiopian.

13:32 Like this dude was like 220, jacked and f***ing running ultras, which is just unheard of. Um, and so yeah, I went up to him and, you know, told him I was a fan, whatever, talk to him for a few minutes, no big deal. And then flash forward, we’re at a UFC fight, I think this was 2000 f***, 2017 or 18 maybe, and I went up to him again and I said something about like, hey, you know, I, I met you prior. I, I forgot what the f*** I said, just something. I just said hi to him, you know, big respect, whatever.

14:10 You’re hitting on David Goggins, basically you’re hitting on him. I was, yeah, I was basically fanboying, you know, just tell him, look, I’m, you know, big fan, love your work, whatever, you know. I don’t normally do that, man. He’s probably like of all the guys in the world that I could have met, like he was probably, you know, top of the list, right? So um, I, you know, so just whatever, went up to him, said something, you know, short, didn’t, you know, didn’t ask for a picture and they just, you know, just talked to him real quick and left.

14:39 Anyways, he was sitting next to Joe Rogan and I guess like some people came up to him or whatever. It was like, you know, the f*** that guy is, blah blah blah, and they gave him like a full bio on me. Um, and I think, I think he came back up to me or he DM’d me or there was some, some sort of communication there, and then we chattered a few times and then I don’t think we, yeah, I don’t think we hung out, we just talked a few times and then quarantine hit and I had this, you know, big gym in my house and I, and he was living in Vegas, and so we connected again, I think.

15:15 Um, yeah, I just can’t remember how. I mean, maybe he hit me up or I hit him up or whatever it was, but or maybe I read his book, I forget what it was, but anyways we reconnected, started working out, and he was just telling me about, you know, his book and how well it did, and um, and I read it and I, I was impressed, you know, and I felt like we had done a lot of the same things. We are very different, you know. He’s got one girlfriend that he barely sleeps with because he’s training 24 f***ing seven, and he’s, you know, self-admittedly has, you know, low sex drive, obviously, because that’s what happens when you train like a f***ing animal.

15:51 Um, and he’s not taking any testosterone and, you know, whatever, and I am taking testosterone and I do f*** all the time. Like women are a big focus, and so it’s like, yeah, we’ve got really, really opposite motivations, but what we share is like a drive, like an unparalleled drive to get what we want, and I think a lot of it’s driven through like previous insecurity that we’ve then turned into fuel to get what we want and just run through f***ing walls, you know. We, we have got, you know, some similar background in the SEAL training.

16:25 I think he and I probably went through more, more SEAL training than almost any Navy SEAL. So um, he, he did three whole weeks, I think. I did more days of training than him, but I think he, well, he definitely did more. Always, he did three, I did too. So yeah, but he says in the book that he says for both him and you it’s the insecurities that were the fuel that drove you both forward, and I’m gonna jump into this with your childhood, but he also says, you know, what makes the world unique are people who are willing to go against the grain and say the things that no one else is willing to say, and that’s both you and David.

16:55 And so, you know, again, I saw him on your jet, I think a year or two years ago, and I was like, that’s weird, but then now that you talk about it, it makes sense, you know, because you guys have a lot of commonalities. But of course no one knew about your childhood until this book, so you know, it answers a lot of questions. Um, and so I think it’s time for me as your psychologist to get you to sit back on the sofa as we go into your childhood, because it, it really is fascinatingly your childhood that seems to shape the rest of your life.

17:24 I don’t know if you agree with that, but, you know, no, it did. That set the trajectory of, you know, where I went and my motivations and, um, yeah. When you first sent me my like pre-copy with my name all over it, um, and it was on my desk for a while and all these guests would come through the studio and all these crypto billionaires and they’d see the pictures of the naked girls on the jets and they’d be like, what the hell is that? I’d be like, oh, it’s Dan’s book, it’s coming out soon, but you can’t take a look at it.

17:52 But the first thing I noticed was, of course, the front part about your dad. And I might as well tell it because it’s right here on the front page, but you know, there’s a quote from your dad saying, “If you release this book as it is, it will be an unmitigated disaster.” And then you say, of course, above that, “From my father: thank you for diligently proofreading this book. Sorry, I didn’t take any of your suggestions.” So the whole thing is prefaced by, okay, there’s a father-son relationship here, um, which is one of the most fascinating relationships known to man.

18:19 It’s in the Bible, it’s in a lot of my guests, to be honest, Dan, a lot of my mentors are like a father-son relationship and people see this dynamic of, you know, an alpha male trying to bring a son up and a son resisting some things and doing some things. And so after you’ve written this book, how would you describe your relationship with your dad? I mean, obviously he was a pretty intense guy, a driven guy, I guess an alpha guy, but also very different than you.

18:45 Yeah, extremely different. Um, so I didn’t get a ton of childhood interaction with him. Um, he was working a lot and he went to prison and then I went away to the military and so I would say probably not until the middle of my life that I really kind of connect with him. I mean, we would have interactions obviously, um, but yeah, we were just so different, like just so different. He, he didn’t drink, he didn’t party, he didn’t chase girls.

19:16 I mean, you read it, you know, I, you know, I, I saw his relationship with Ernie as being so strange because Ernie was the guy that, you know, had the, had the hot chicks and the fast cars and everything else, and my dad, he had the money but, um, he just didn’t wear flashy clothes, drove shitty cars, wore Casio. It was just, um, so I think seeing, I think a lot of times in your life you want what you don’t have, or those things seem appealing to you, um, and you know, we didn’t have any of the flashy stuff, so I guess when I made my own money and I, you know, I, you know, went to go spend it, I spent it on all the things that he didn’t spend it on. Um, and I focused on a lot of those things, you know, the girls and whatever.

20:00 And so yeah, we just had completely, completely different lives. I mean, he’s been married to my mother the whole time, never cheated. Um, and so yeah, I just, uh, got works 18 hours a day and I try and work as little as possible. So but and yet you both were both very successful really, you know, you both did some really big things. Um, yeah, I think people that take unconventional paths either do, you know, really shitty or really well.

20:31 It’s, you know, we definitely were not going to be middle of the road guys. Um, you know, you, you know, you go off and you, you know, cut a f***ing broad swath, and you go down your own path that usually ends really well, really shitty, but um, the people that are usually super successful don’t take traditional paths. They’re usually out-of-the-box thinkers and they, you know, just kind of, you know, take their own road, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t, you know.

20:58 I’m sure for every successful person there’s, you know, hundreds of thousands that have crashed and burned, but um, you know, it’s, it’s just taking that risk, you know, that’s, that’s part of it. So in order to, you know, I mean, just like in poker, in order to, you know, win big you gotta risk big. So yeah. Yeah, and I want to talk about that. It’s funny, when I think about my dad, he never drank, never did drugs, you know, pretty calm.

21:20 Of course I drank everything and tried all the drugs and did the crazy stuff, so in that way we were very different, but then now that I get older I look at myself and I’m like, wow, I’m, I’m a lot more like him than I ever realized, like. So there was a lot of subconscious programming going on where I be was him, I am like him a lot. Do you see those parallels with you and your dad? Yeah, I mean, there is definitely that subconscious program. I mean, look, when you grow up, I mean, your dad is like the superhero usually, you know, for people, and so whether or not you choose to acknowledge it or not, you, you know, take on some of those traits just because you look up to your dad, and so when you look up to somebody, you know, a lot of times you try and emulate him, whether or not, you know, it’s consciously or unconsciously.

22:04 So I would say my drive, um, and my focus and my intensity, I would say are, you know, really similar to him. I mean, obviously, um, you know, there’s a lot of differences, but I think there are some similarities as well. Um, and I would say it’s probably just the relentless pursuit of whatever it is that you’re passionate about. For, you know, me and my dad, it’s, you know, for him it was work, it was doing the corporate takeover stuff. For me it was f***ing money, um, you know, whatever, and uh, you know, I I did, I did well at what I wanted to do well at.

22:40 They weren’t probably the most lofty goals, but um, they were my goals and I achieved them, so um, for better or worse. Yeah, and both of you kind of no apologies for what you guys went after. Um, and a couple key moments in the book I think are interesting: first of all, you know, him going to jail or the threat of going to jail, and then him going to jail, and then you kind of being a little bit outcast by friends in the neighborhood, and that kind of affected you, and then obviously I think he sent you off to military school in like eighth grade, obviously not a lot of contact with him as well.

23:11 So those events seem to kind of shape who you were, and then of course losing your virginity, and we’ll get to that, but like what do you remember about those aspects of your childhood as far as the perceptions of your dad and then growing up in those teenage years? that you’re going to make? Yeah, I just remember being really unhappy as a kid. Um, I think my child, it’s funny because a lot of people like say that they wish they’d go back and be a kid. I’d f***ing kill myself before I had to do that again.

26:21 I just, I didn’t like, you know, listening to people, I didn’t want to take orders. Um, I felt like I had to take s*** from everybody. Um, as a kid you don’t really have a lot of freedoms. I love having freedom. Um, girls didn’t like me.

26:35 I mean, I like girl, I mean, everything that I wanted I didn’t have as a kid. Um, you know, I mean, I had, you know, you know, an indoor basketball court but I don’t give a f*** about basketball. You know, I had a lot of things from the outside that people be like, oh damn, like you had a badass childhood, but the things that I cared about I didn’t have any of it. So um, you know, I wanted to be sought after by women, I wanted to have, you know, flashy cool s***, I wanted the fast cars, I wanted to be popular, you know, I wanted all these things, and um, you know, I guess I ended up getting them, but not as a kid, that’s for sure.

27:11 And you were insecure and uncomfortable around girls? Yeah, I think most guys are, you know. I mean, it’s like anything in life, until you have success at something you’re gonna, you know, not have confidence, right? Like, you know, the first time you go out bow hunting you’re probably not gonna be super confident, but after you’ve, you know, shot 30 deer or, you know, whatever it is that you want to do, you know, free diving, you know, snowboarding, whatever it is, when you first start something, um, it’s pretty hard to be confident.

27:39 So I don’t know, I mean, I guess maybe like the guy that was super good looking and, you know, girls were always coming after him, you know, maybe he started off confident, but that wasn’t me. So yeah, maybe he didn’t end up that way. Now, losing your virginity, it’s an interesting point because you did it in a very unique way. Can you tell us how it happened, and do you think that affected you and your future relationship with women or not? A unique way, that’s one way to put it.

28:07 Yeah, losing your virginity at 13 to Mexican hookers. Not the most traditional path. Um, you know, I, uh, I don’t know, I think it’s different for guys and girls, you know. For guys they just kind of want to get it out of the way and, and learn, and this is back before, you know, we had the internet to teach us everything and you could watch Pornhub or whatever. I mean, I didn’t even, when I f***ed that girl I hadn’t even seen a vagina before.

28:33 Like I didn’t even know where it was, like it’s, like, you know, so you have to understand, it’s just very different for kids nowadays. I mean, you can literally watch people having sex, you know, at six years old, you can, you know, go on the f***ing internet and type in “sex” and it’ll come up, you know. And back, back then we just didn’t have any of that. So I don’t know, I mean, I don’t think the first time people have sex is usually that great. Um, it’s more of a learning experience, so for me I was just trying to get as much knowledge as possible as soon as possible.

29:04 So um, I don’t know, I mean, yeah. How will you, how old are you, Dan? I’m 41. 41. So yeah, I’m, I’m 51, but people don’t know, back in the day, like there was no access, you know.

29:19 And I remember we had a college student that used to live with us and we give them free room and then they’d have to drive us around and, and all this. My mom did this as a single mom to like save on money, and at one point I went to him and he literally had to draw out the female anatomy because I was like, what the hell is going on down here? Like I got no idea, there’s no internet, there’s no resources, there’s no porn, he literally had to draw it for me because I didn’t know what was going on.

29:42 So like you said back in the day there was a real lack of information. I don’t know what’s better, then or now. I don’t know what’s worse, but it’s tough, man. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a toss-up, you know. Now you have so much information and so much access and so much stimulus that I feel like it gives people anxiety, you know.

30:00 They get so much stimulus on their phone that then when they’re not on their phone it’s hard for anything to replicate that level of just boom, boom, boom, boom, which is why I think TikTok is so addictive, is because, you know, the algorithm, it knows what you want and then it shows it to you, and it shows it to you in these snippets that are just designed to capture your attention immediately. Um, and you kind of see it now when people watch movies, right? It’s like, you know, a movie, you know, the, the good dramas, you know, used to have a very slow build-up and you get to know the characters and whatever, and now it’s kind of like, you don’t hook the audience soon, they’re going to be on their phone or they’re going to be zoned out or whatever, and so it’s just different.

30:39 I think it’s giving people a lot shorter attention span, um, but at the same time you learn a lot more and you figure s*** out a lot faster and you know, you’ve got a lot more access to information, because of that you build on that information and you learn more and you figure things out faster. So I don’t know, I mean, I think there’s a benefit to having, you know, good old conversations where people just look each other in the eye and shake hands and talk and things are normal, as opposed to now where you’re texting 50 different people and you’re ghosting this chick because that’s going to be effective and you’re communicating on Snap and it’s, you know, it’s like you got 70 different messages going, 50 different people, and it’s this whole thing.

31:24 Um, and it’s just, yeah, it’s just so radically different, you know, and I don’t know, I don’t know what’s, what’s better. It’s, you know, it’s kind of like, I guess in the next 20, 30 years we’ll see the net effect of a lot of these things and then we’ll know, you know, I mean, I, I, I know that when I was a kid, um, things were a lot simpler, you know. When I was, I say a kid, when I was, you know, 18, 19 years old, it was you’re just less distracted, you’re more in the moment, and that was nice, but you were a lot more ignorant, you’re less connected to people.

32:00 Um, so it’s just a different world, man. I think, I think we’re like of the few generations that actually experience both, right? Because you know, you know, if anybody much younger than me kind of probably grew up with the internet, like the internet kind of hit when I was 20 years old, so before that it just wasn’t even a thing. I mean, there was no smartphones, there was no internet, there was just no way to, you know, get this information. I remember, you know, wanting to do steroids and just having no f***ing idea how to do it, you know.

32:33 I didn’t know where to shoot it. I, you know, ended up having some f***, you know, guy in a Mexican veterinary pharmacy smack me in the ass and jab me with a f***ing harpoon needle and, you know, and just, you had no idea, man, and now it’s like you can just watch YouTube videos on literally anything. So yeah, no, you’re right, like you and I have seen before and after, and uh, the thing is you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so no one will ever know, but there was a world before, uh, maybe it was simpler, I don’t know, but also like you said there’s a real lack of information, and again I would have never learned about a Goggins or a Bilzerian when I was a kid.

33:08 All I got was what was on TV, at the movies or what was in a library. So yeah, again in some ways I couldn’t expand my mind. So yeah, the flip side to that is now you have every f*** and their mother trying to get famous doing crazy s***, risking their lives doing all this stupid stuff for Instagram. It’s hard to really like enjoy the moment because everybody’s f***ing filming all the time. It’s like instead of enjoying an experience, everybody wants to capture the experience, and so I think, you know, that’s definitely a negative, I would say.

33:42 Yeah, you sounded like it. Also your lack of privacy, like I have no privacy, like people are filming me all the time. Like if I go out it’s like you’re like a f***ing zoo animal, you know what I mean? People are just like filming you without consent, whatever. And so I think it’s even more isolating for people that are, you know, famous.

34:01 It’s just, you know, everything they do is documented, so they make, and now it’s like, you know, a lot of these guys, they f*** up one time and it’s like, boom, they’re canceled. So it’s, uh, it’s a little bit different, you know, and I think there was more mystique with celebrity before. Um, and it was different as well, you know, like these actors, if they don’t have social media and they’re not posting, they don’t do a movie, people just forget about it.

34:27 Yeah, you know, that’s another thing, is like you stay famous a lot longer now because of social media. Um, I mean, look, I’ve been famous for like 10 f***ing years, like that, like wasn’t really a thing before. Like usually big actors would have a five year run and then, you know, they kind of like stopped doing movies, they’d want privacy or whatever, and then you wouldn’t really hear that much about them. Like you’d remember their name but like you wouldn’t think about them, but now with social media you’re just like, you, I mean, look, I took three years off, I don’t give a f*** about it, and I came back and it was just like, I’m getting more, you know, views now than ever, you know, and it’s like, so just you can’t just turn it off either, that’s another thing.

35:05 Um, but yeah, totally different, different f***ing game now. Everybody’s, you know, now because fame is accessible for people, like you got that cash in the outside chick that, you know, says one stupid thing on a, on a f***ing TV show and now she’s making two million dollars a month on OnlyFans and she’s got a whole f***ing career and now she’s all of a sudden a rapper. It’s like just off of one thing, you know. So it’s like everybody’s kind of like looking for that breakthrough moment, and I feel like there’s a newfound obsession with fame because now it’s accessible for almost anybody and people see that.

35:38 So I think there’s a lot more people that are trying to be famous for that, value fame or whatever, um, much more so, I think, than we were when we were kids. I mean, I never thought I was going to be famous. You probably never thought, you know, anybody know the f*** you were, right? Like it was just either you’re a movie star or rock star, people don’t know you. I mean, that was how it was, you know.

35:59 Now it’s, it’s very different. Yeah, well, you’ve been in this for 10 years, which is like 100 years in social media, so you’ve seen this complete, this crazy arc happen, you know, of being kind of an early kind of OG of posting kind of those premium content on what used to be these like basic social media platforms, and like you said, now you can see everybody jumping into things. I was at Yosemite National Park a few years ago, Dan, and I, I went there when I was a kid and, you know, you go up and look at the, you know, geysers and the grock face that Alex, you know, climbed, and now you go back and there are warning signs saying don’t get social media photos because people are killing themselves, and it’s like, it’s crazy.

36:39 These rocks have been there for hundreds of thousands or millions of years and now humans, because we created this digital system, are killing ourselves to try to get the coolest selfie. It’s just, it’s wacky, isn’t it? It’s just wacky. Hey, do you want to profit from crypto? Then join my DeFi Academy.

39:33 Of the future. Yeah, I mean, we just lost one of our athletes, um, about two weeks ago, um, he died BASE jumping, and you know, not that he was doing that, you know, strictly for social media or that it was anything to do with that, but it’s just I don’t know, I mean, I think, I think people are much more willing to take risk if they know that there’s some potential upside as opposed to just like doing it for the thrill. Yeah. Um, and yeah, you see all these BASE jumpers, man, and it’s like it’s really sad.

40:16 I mean, it’s, it’s a f***ing amazing sport and I’m sure it’s the f***ing ultimate adrenaline and it looks amazing and f***, I’ll probably end up trying it, but you know, it was just, it was just sad, man, because I knew he was gonna die. Like when you’re friends with the BASE jumper, they’re gonna die. Like they’re like somebody that does wingsuit BASE jumping will die if they jump enough. Like it’s just odds, right? And they know it and it’s, but they’re addicted to the adrenaline and they like it and, you know, that’s their choice, man, I respect it, but um, it’s just sad.

40:48 Like he died, the guy that filmed him died a day later, and then his other, um, BASE jumping partner died two days after that. So literally in one week three of them died. It was just like, wow. Wow, man, you know, it’s really sad and like, and it was, yeah, again, the only way they identified him was the Ignite wingsuit, man. It was just like, dude, f***.

41:09 Man, no, that really hit hard. That was a, that was a pretty shitty one, but um, I think there’s a lot of people that are, I mean, not that that was, you know, I don’t think his had anything to do with social media, but I’m just saying you know, there’s people out there doing crazy s*** and, you know, filming, and I think because they’re filming it they take it up probably another notch that they might not have otherwise. Yeah, it would be hard not to. And again, if you’re seeing what other people doing and you’re consciously or subconsciously competing with them, then you’re gonna take it up a notch and the only way you can show it is with the film, right?

41:42 So yeah. But the margin for error is so low and like you said, on a long enough timeline or a short enough timeline for BASE jumping, everybody dies. So yeah, um, I guess it’s like any extreme lifestyle, but with that it’s just slightly weird. So well, sorry to hear that. Um, and again that’s like vivid and also must be really tricky when one of your friends dies.

42:01 Then is there a seed of doubt in the other ones? You know, I know it really hits the community hard when that happens. So I mean, I hope it does, you know, I hope it does, because um, you know, if somebody’s had 500 jumps then maybe they can get out and, you know, they’ve skirted death and they’ve got that whole experience and you know, they don’t have to take it to the last jump. I mean, that would be, that would be my hope. I mean, I think it’s something that’s like, I mean, it looks f***ing amazing, I mean, I get it, I get why they do it, but I think at some point you got to set a limit of like, okay, we’re going to do 50 jumps, we’re going to do 10 jumps or whatever it is, but like yeah, you just, yeah, it’s like playing Russian roulette.

42:39 I mean, you just play enough, you’re going to get killed. I mean, it’s [expletive], that’s the way it is, you know. Yeah, but you hang out with all these adrenaline junkies, you hang out with UFC fighters, you hang out with people that probably party crazy, I mean, and yeah, there is a certain type of personality that can’t walk away from that rush, right? Yeah, and I think there’s, there’s different types of rushes, you know, like like off-roading, for instance.

43:02 I would say, I would say a dirt bike is a 10 out of 10 on the adrenaline scale. I think it’s, I mean, it’s got to be close. I mean, maybe, maybe a 9.5, whatever, it’s up there and it’s, and, and fun-wise, I mean, it’s got to be like one of the most fun sports to be really good on a dirt bike. I mean, it’s f***ing amazing, but you know, you could take a trophy truck out and have almost that exact same level of exhilaration. You’re, I mean, you know, just yesterday I was doing 100 miles an hour going through f***ing six-foot whoops, you know, sideways, f***ing drifting across the f***ing highway, you know, 80 miles an hour, and like I mean that was pretty f***ing, you know, adrenaline for me, and every girl in the car was f***ing screaming and it was fun, and but I got a roll cage, we got five-point harnesses.

43:45 You know, if, if we f***ing crash, like we’re gonna walk away from it, you know, whereas, you know, on a dirt bike there’s no f***ing cage, there’s no safety equipment, and I guess that’s, you know, you get a little bit of the rush from that, but I think as I get older I just think of like smarter ways to get the same adrenaline just in a safer fashion, or I try and like plan it out a little bit better, like before I go, you know, when I do cliff jumping I just f***ing jump and now I like go and check the f***ing bottom and make sure there’s not rocks, or, you know, we do things a little bit more, you know, um, carefully. So I don’t know, man, when you’re young you just feel like you’re f***ing invincible, you know, because you get older, you realize you’re just not.

44:28 It’s like the older, wiser Dan Bilzerian. And again, risk versus reward, which kind of goes into, you know, poker, etc. So um, but yeah, it’s a good point you make. Um, look, I want to get through some of these these important points in your life because it shaped who you are, and so the military service was interesting, and of course going to Tijuana to get the steroids to get ready for military service, or even during, was part of that as well, but for you, I mean, your dad was in the military, decorated in Vietnam, again part of you maybe wanted to prove something, knew it might make you a man.

44:58 Um, tell me a little bit about why you did that and how it set you up then to become a great poker player. I would say 90% of the reason that I wanted to become a Navy SEAL was to tell people that it was, a Navy SEAL. Yeah, and you told me and you told the SEAL guys that, right? You told them that in, in BUD/S, right? They did not like that.

45:19 My honesty has definitely not done me any f***ing favors in my life for the most part, but um, yeah, man, that was the truth. Like I just wanted to f***ing brag about it. I felt like it would, you know, get me laid, I felt like it would give me more confidence, I feel like people would respect it. It was, you know, it was just a testable test and uh, and so yeah, it was one of those weird things, man, and I feel like I did it, you know. I mean, I was f***ing got kicked out one day before graduation and did the entire f***ing thing again, so like in my mind I did it, that I just didn’t get exac, I didn’t get the only thing that I went in there to get, which was the bragging rights, s***, say that on the Navy SEAL, Michael, I missed a f***ing day, right?

45:58 So that was pretty brutal, man, that was a hard pill to swallow. But was it attitude that threw you out that last day? So I didn’t think they could kick me out just because they didn’t like me, like I thought that, you know, I could be cocky and, and pass all my s*** and do all my stuff and that they couldn’t just kick me out if I, if I passed everything and I didn’t quit. I knew they could beat my ass and do all this other stuff, but like I don’t know, and I was cocky.

46:25 Like the first time I went through I had stress fractures. I was 18 years old, I’d never run f***ing two miles in my life. I was, you know, 165 pounds soaking wet, you know. I just like, I mean, I just gotten out of high school, I had worked out for like a year and a half. I mean, I, you know, and played baseball for a few years before that, so I wasn’t so f***ing athlete.

46:43 Um, and then when I came back after doing it, you know, at 18, broken, whatever, now I’m f***ing juicing, I’m 20 years old, I’m in f***ing amazing shape, I’d already done Hell Week with f***ing stress fractures, so I was just like, f*** it, bring it on, you know what I mean? I wasn’t worried about s***. And so I just, I don’t know, man, I was a little cocky and I also felt like I had done, I’ve done this s*** before, right? So I was just trying to just graduate and just get through.

47:13 Um, and you know, I don’t know, man, I, you know, I probably could have f***ing done it better. Like I said, for me I just want to graduate, that was like my sole objective. Um, and I didn’t think they could kick me out just because they didn’t like me, and you know, I guess I was f***ing wrong, but you know, I look back and at the time it was the worst f***ing thing I thought ever happened to me, but three quarters of my class is dead right now, you know.

47:38 There’s only 17 of us have been through Hell Week, so a lot of them died in Operation Red Wings and some other s***. And so I don’t know, man, you know, it’s probably the best thing that ever happened to me, but at the time you couldn’t have convinced me that it wasn’t the worst, you know. So yeah, I think also had I have done that I would have hung my hat on that and I would have probably not been nearly as motivated to go accomplish as much as I did, and I wouldn’t have had that insecurity and that desire and that monkey on my back driving me to go, you know, to the f***ing end of the earth with my new objectives.

48:10 And also I don’t know, I wouldn’t have traded the experience of the world, even as shitty as it was. It definitely, um, I mean, you compare anything to the s*** that I went through there and it’s kind of like it fails in comparison, aside from writing a book, which is f***ing worse, worse, worse than BUD/S. Yeah, I don’t know about that. It’s funny because I’ve had a few SEALs in here, you know, like Jocko, and it’s funny, you know, Jocko said that when you get the BUD/S class in there and you ask people around the room why are they there, and uh, you know, some guys will say like, I want to be a SEAL, I want to be that, and he’s like, usually those guys that drop out, it’s the ones that usually have like a family or a promise to someone, but of course you break the mold on that one.

48:51 But also Jocko went on to say that being a SEAL isn’t just BUD/S and it’s a whole nother thing afterwards. And so again, like you said, would you have been motivated to keep going, or was it one thing also that loss probably drove you so much harder? So if anybody’s listening out there, the thing you think is the worst thing in your life, and I’ve had some of these too, you know, you don’t want to hear it at the time, and when you read it on Instagram you’re like, yeah, f*** that, this sucks, but 10 years later a lot of times those are the best things in your life, right?

49:23 Yeah, I learned a lot, you know, and I also went to college with a desire and a drive to f***ing learn and I valued the degree because I saw that degree was the only difference between, you know, officers and enlisted, and how I saw how the officers got treated. Um, so that was a big deal, and then um, I was also 22 years old, so yeah, I was actually a four-year senior, which was a big deal, um, as far as, you know, girls and people, you know, being, you know, cool and whatever. So I had a great college experience until gambling ruined it, but um, yeah.

49:56 So you roll up to University of Florida, you’re 22, you’re in a fraternity, the other kids are 18. They’re still partying and getting all the high school stuff out. You now have a perspective and say, okay, a degree means something, I’ve also just come off a failure in my mind and I want to win at something. I’m a little bit older. I was in a fraternity house at MIT, and you might snicker about MIT, but we had a strong fraternity system there, 50 dudes in the house, the house parties are crazy, we had a good setup too, which I’ll ask you about, but like you, we also had older guys in the house that would just crush it, you know, they really would crush it because they knew much more than us.

50:32 But tell me about that college experience for you, what were those years like? Well, so the first year I, I went in there at a 4.0 GPA, or actually the first semester, 4.0 GPA, I f***ed 14 chicks, which was like hot chicks, which was, I think, probably more than I had sex with my whole life prior to that. I did that in the first semester. Um, and then, you know, I was in good shape, I was, you know, good looking, I had f***ing money, I was just like, you know, 22.

51:01 I was the man. Like I just felt like the f***ing man. I was loving, I was like crushing it. And so, and plus I’ve hung out with older guys, you know, when you’re in the military, you’re going through SEAL training or whatever, you’re hanging out with like older guys, and granted, like the regular military is probably not like the coolest s***, but a lot of the guys going through BUD/S and, you know, in the SEAL teams or whatever, you know, they’re generally like, you know, pretty cool guys, whatever is, you know, in terms of, you know, what guys would perceive as cool.

51:29 Um, so you know that rubs off on you and you spent four years doing that and then you just, just go there with a different mentality, like kind of like look at these kids, like they’ve never f***ing done anything difficult, you know. What the f*** have they been doing? And they’re like, you know, puking in the f***ing corner and trying to get laid and just making f***ing fools themselves, and I don’t know, it was just, I don’t know, I just had a different mentality and so my beginning was, was great.

51:54 I had a f***ing amazing time, I was super happy, and then I started getting gambling and the gambling really kind of started f***ing up my college. Um, I call it going over the dark side because it’s funny, man, you have that money in your account and it’s accessible 24 7. It’s hard for anything else to compete with the thrill of like playing for, at the time, thousands of dollars, which in college is a lot of f***ing money, you know. A beer was a buck 50 a pitcher, right?

52:21 So it’s like that goes a long ways, and I had the GI Bill kicking in, I had, um, I had grants, I had loans, I had all this s***, you know, coming because I was a, you know, coming in as a veteran and technically a disabled veteran because I’d gotten stress fractures and hearing loss and all this s*** s*** going through training, you know. When you go through training they document everything, so my medical record was super thick from just all those medical checks and this and that, and you know, ITV injuries, s***, extensor tendonitis, stress fractures, all this s***, right? So they, they gave me a 60 disability rating and I was getting money for that too.

52:54 I had free health care, none of my income was taxable, so anyway, so I had a lot of money to just f*** around with and gamble. Um, and you know, and so I started, you know, playing on the, I started playing poker, then I started playing online poker, and online poker is what f***ed me up because, like I said, it was just always there, you know. You come home drunk at a bar, it’s 3 a.m. and it’s like, what more entertaining are you gonna get a fine to do than gamble for f***ing, you know, thousands of dollars?

53:20 And so, you know, you’re all f***ed up and you’re not playing as good and whatever, and so very quickly, and then, and then the more money you’re losing the worse you play, and so that kind of compounds and I can’t tell you how many times I’d come home drunk and just blow my whole f***ing account out and then, you know, just be depressed in the morning or whatever and then try and grind it back. And so this whole process, anyways, when I end up going broke that actually gave me the discipline, you know, when I had to sell my guns then it became real. It was like, okay, we’ve f***ing pissed away all of our f***ing money, we’re in debt, we’ve f***ing taken out loans on our car, you know, I just, I, my parents wouldn’t give me a dollar, my brother wouldn’t loan me s***, I literally had to sell three guns, and my guns were like my prized possession.

54:01 When I, I remember, I just never forget it, that was like a very distinct turning point in my life. I sold those guns, I went to that gambling boat, and from that point on I like was, I took it really seriously. I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t bluffing to like, you know, show somebody and say f*** you. I was bluffing when I thought it would work, you know, it wasn’t about ego, it was about making f***ing money. And I think once I turned that corner and got that discipline, I was still, you know, I was playing a very aggressive style back then, which wasn’t, you know, now it’s, you know, now it’s the current adopted style, but nobody’s really playing like that back then.

54:34 I was playing loose aggressive, so I’d play a lot of pots, I talked about in the book, you know, so people would perceive me as being this maniac, and then when I did have a big hand I’d always get f***ing paid, and when they didn’t have anything they’d fold, you know. So it’s like I was picking up the, enough money when they didn’t have s*** to make up for occasionally, you know, when I was bluffing, when I, you know, didn’t have it and got caught, and then I was really making the money when I would get paid off on my f***ing big hands and they’d put their whole stack in there and they couldn’t win. So I, I had actually set up, because of my table image, a lower variance style of playing, because, you know, the best way to win in poker is to get all your money in with the best hand.

55:13 It’s not to try and get away with bluffs because some guy gets a f***ing hair up his ass and decides to just call you all in, then you get f***ing busted whether or not he’s got middle pair or not, you know. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes these guys get sticky and sometimes they just want to see your hand, they just don’t believe you and whatever. And so when I did have it, that would pay big dividends, you know, I’d get these massive paydays that other pros wouldn’t get because their perception at the table was that they wouldn’t put their money in unless they had, and I had the opposite perception, so I just had to lean into that and I had to shift gears and, you know, I made a bunch of f***ing money, and when I, you know, came back from Vegas I never looked back.

55:49 And then when I went online and I played people that have these tags on me like, this guy’s a f***ing maniac, column, because you can put notes on players, right? So then I came back with this newfound discipline and this newfound bankroll and really capitalized on the fact that people knew that I was capable of f***ing bluffing and sticking my whole stack in there with nothing, which a lot of people at the time weren’t capable of doing. So it, you know, look, if you’re a rich guy and you think there’s a 10% chance some f***ing young punk is trying to f***ing bluff you off your hand and you’ve been waiting all night for this big hand, you’re never folding him.

56:23 You’re just not gonna do it. You’re gonna pay the f***ing money. Worst case scenario, you’re gonna sleep good at night, you’re not, you know what I mean? So I, I just, you know, I understood people. I, you know, and, and, and then just f***ing worked out.

56:36 So maybe this is the beginning of this concept of this setup, and I think it was that Sun Tzu in the book The Art of War, he says every battle is won before it’s ever fought, and it feels like these are the seeds that are being planted in your head consciously, subconsciously. Well, first I think it’s actually with girls, the fraternity house, because like you said in the book, you know, you’d have 150 girls over to a fraternity house of 50 guys and then your room’s right around the corner. I used to do this at the fraternity and it was like the greatest gift known to man at that point.

57:05 I mean, I gone from high school where I couldn’t get into the keg parties because I wasn’t cool to literally hundreds of girls coming over to your fraternity house after you had gone to their dorm to give them a poster the day before because I was a pledge and I had to do that, so you already had contact with the girls, they’re coming over, you’re the man in the party, you get behind the bar, the beer, and guess what, I got a room. If you had a CD player in your room and a sofa then you were the man, and it’s like, but the setup is why we got there, because you had the social proof, you had the ratios. I guess you saw that and then you did it as well in poker, now with this perception in this image.

57:39 Can you talk about the setup? Yeah, it’s funny, man, I actually think that I, that it started going through SEAL trick, I call it SEAL trade, you know, nobody knows what the f*** BUD/S is, I just call it SEAL training. I think it started then because when I went in I, I was, I didn’t do any f***ing setup and I was unprepared and I did shitty because of that. And so when I got kicked out and I was about to, and I was gonna be medically discharged from the military, I started training like a [expletive] and got in good shape, and when I went in in good shape, going through SEAL training was like a f***ing breeze compared to what it was when I was broken and unprepared and this and that.

58:17 So I think that was probably the first time in my life when I really, you know, started to understand it, but it clicked in college when I saw it with the ratio with the girls, with the logistics solved. I mean, a big part of getting laid is logistics, right? Like if you have a bedroom right by the club, like, you know, when I used to, um, when I used to uh, post, uh, Marquee or whatever, they’d pay me to go there for like an hour and a half to stock my my table with models, and then I had a bungalow attached to the club, so I literally could just, you know, bring a girl in the bungalow, f*** her, shower, come back, f*** another girl, and like, but before the night was over I’d already banged three chicks, you know what I’m saying?

58:58 It was like, but the logistics were solved versus a lot of these guys, they go to [expletive] in this club and then it’s like, okay, let’s go to Drai’s and now we’re f***ed up on molly and it’s five a.m. and it’s like, even if you can get a chick back to your house, your f***ing dick’s probably not gonna work, you’ve been doing coke all night. And it’s like, I looked at going out as like, what is my, I looked at everything in life, it’s like, what do I want to accomplish and how am I going to do it, right? Like when I went out my goal was to get f***ed, that was it.

59:27 I didn’t want to f***ing dance, I didn’t want to talk to my friends and f***ing ear plugs in and pay 10 000 to f***ing do it. I went out to get f***ed, that was the reason I went out. So you know, I figured out the best way to, you know, make that happen. It was to go to the club, you know, already bringing hot girls, preferably two or three that already want to f*** you, because they’re going to bring jealousy and it’s going to be social proof and girls going to see that, because those hot girls want to f*** you, then other hot girls want to f*** you, and it’s a little snowball effect, right?

59:54 And then you have to have logistics, all like, okay, where are you actually going to f*** them and how are you going to get there, you know? And how do you do that early on, because too many guys wait late and then the girl gets too f***ing sloppy or the guy gets too drunk or, you know, whatever, right? So it’s like get it done, you know, as soon as you possibly can and then go get it done again, or whatever. So like I don’t know, man, I look at, you know, that was, that was my talent in life.

1:00:18 It’s like I figured out what I wanted and then how to f***ing get it. That’s what I was good at. I couldn’t play a f***ing guitar, you know, I couldn’t f***ing, you know, throw a football, whatever. My talent was I could figure out what I wanted and how to get it. And so, you know, college really opened my eyes because it showed me that, you know, there’s f***ing 10 girls for every guy, that now the girls have to compete for guys’ attention, you know, and those girls are going to that party like they just left their parents’ house, they haven’t f***ing been on their own, they’ve been being told what to do their whole f***ing life, they’ve been being judged by every [expletive] [expletive] in high school, now they can go to college and, you know, one of our parties, Dayglow for instance, you show up, the girls paint the guys and the guys paint the girls, so already, like, just at the very start of this party, girls are f***ing rubbing you down with glow-in-the-dark paint and you’ve got multiple girls because there’s less guys than girls, so you got five girls that basically like choose you and go rub you down with f***ing paint and grope you.

1:01:16 I mean, I had to pull my f***ing dick out in the middle of this f***ing thing. I mean, this was f***ing crazy. This is before the party even started, they paint you, then you paint them, which is basically like them being like, yeah, f***, rub me down. So you just like f***ing paint them glow-in-the-dark paint, then the party starts. This is like, party hasn’t even started yet, right?

1:01:33 They turn the lights off, DJ gets on, they got the f***ing pledges running around with like tequila bottles, like it’s f***ing combo spring break, pouring shots down everybody’s throat, you know. Now you’re glowing in the dark but people can’t really like see too much, so chicks would be sucking your dick on the dance floor. We had like Hummer Hut set up, we’re like, if you want to take a chick to banger, like, you know, get your dick sucked, that was like around the f***ing party.

1:01:55 So that’s that, like logistics were assault, right? And then at the end of the party you have to end up in the shower, you’re not gonna f***ing drive home and you’re f***ing Civic covered in goddamn glow-in-the-dark paint, right? So everybody ends up in the shower, shower ends up turning into a f***ing orgy because you know girls see, you know, their friends getting banged out by dudes and, you know, it’s f***ing guys, it’s all threesomes or foursomes or whatever because there’s so many more girls, and the girls are just watching this and like they’re like drunk and they want to get involved and they see all their friends getting f***ed and nobody’s judging them, so they don’t feel judged.

1:02:27 It’s like accepted and because it’s accepted then, you know, they want to do it, and it’s also like they’re, they’re having to find a guy, so like them finding a guy is like the prize because the guys were the people in short, you know, supply, right? So like girls are now hitting on guys, which changes the whole f***ing dynamic immediately. That’s the number one mistake guys make, is they hit on women, right? And so by doing that you, it’s like playing a poker game with your f***ing cards face up.

1:02:55 Like the moment you hit on a girl you’re telling her, hey, I’m interested in you and I want to f*** you, you know what that does? That puts you in the category of every other [expletive] [expletive] they’ve ever met their whole f***ing life that wanted to f*** them that you know came up, oh, I think you’re so beautiful, can I buy you a drink, blah blah blah blah, right? The moment you do that, they’re looking for reasons why to disqualify you, why, why you’re not good enough for them, because they know they got you, they already have you, you’ve shown them, oh, I want you, and I want you because I want to f*** you, which is like probably the worst f***ing thing that you could tell them.

1:03:23 Oh, you’re so beautiful, can I buy you a drink? Okay, I want to f*** you tonight, can I get you drunk to do so? Like it’s terrible game, but that’s like what everybody thinks is right. It’s just not right. So anyways, take all that s*** out, now you got the girl chasing you.

1:03:39 So now it’s like, if you decide to have sex with her, she’s gotten what she wanted, as opposed to like, you know, some f***ing predatory dude chasing the [expletive] around the bar all f***ing night trying to bang her, and then she does f*** him and then she’s like got buyer’s remorse because, I probably shouldn’t have banged that guy, blah blah blah, whereas if she was chasing his ass around all f***ing night and he had three other girls trying to f*** him and she banged him, she’s like, oh well, f***, I beat those other girls. It’s a different f***ing thought process and it’s very important, and it’s something that people just don’t realize, and it’s one of the reasons why I’ve been able to get so much [expletive] [expletive] is because I understand that concept.

1:04:12 And by flipping the script and getting girls to chase you, I mean that’s, you know, the premise of the setup is, you know, just turning it around on its head, because when a woman is chasing you, you have the power. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s very important, anyways, I go on and on. No, it’s really, it’s serious game, but, but Dan, you have to engineer that situation, and most guys are too lazy to do it or too ignorant to do it. So they’ll do just the fraternity alone, they engineered it for me, I didn’t have to do s***.

1:04:41 I mean, I figured it out, I understood the psychology, I watched, I saw, I was like, okay, this [expletive] that couldn’t get laid in a million f***ing years back in San Diego is now f***ing three chicks, you know, in the bathroom and he probably f***ing didn’t say three words to him. Why did this happen? Because of setup, because of jealousy, because of ratio, because of all these f***ing things, because, you know, because she saw her friends all f***ing bang another dude, she doesn’t feel judged, and so environment, there’s just so many things that go into it, right?

1:05:10 And so when you start to understand that, then you create these things later in your life, like when I would do a pool party, you know, 300 girls, you know, a few movie producers and some of my buddies and maybe a celebrity here, there, and then, you know, we got massage, you know, we got mani-pedis, we got, you know, people walking around [expletive] champagne and shots, the girls don’t get harassed, they’re not being hit on, and I can’t tell you how many guys, like, you know, had girls aggressively trying to f*** them in the bathroom and this and that because, you know, girls get drunk and nobody’s paying attention to them. That’s very unusual for them. Normally a hot girl gets hit on all the time.

1:05:43 It’s kind of like being famous, like I’ve seen this with like celebrities that were like once famous and then now people don’t pay attention to them anymore. It’s like they f***ing hate it. They’re like, you know, when they were famous and when people were coming up to him all the time it was the most annoying f***ing thing in the world, but then the moment that s*** stops, it’s like, hey, what’s going on? Nobody, nobody cares about me anymore, like what the f***.

1:06:05 It’s the same thing with a hot chick, all these guys want to f*** her and then all of a sudden nobody’s paying attention to her. What does she got to do? She’s got a f***ing guy to feel validated right now. Now a fraternity party has that engineered in it, but there’s not a lot of other places in life except the Dan Bilzerian Halloween party, which you did invite me to, by the way, thank you, I’m sorry I didn’t come, uh, but you won’t be sorry if your f***ing game, you’d realize that you missed.

1:06:28 Yeah, I know, I, I, I hope I get invited in the future. But like you set these things up, but not many people do this setup, and so you know how to do it, you engineer it, but it doesn’t exist many of the places on the planet, maybe except for socially, with social media. Man, there’s a lot of ways to do it. I mean, it doesn’t obviously have to be on the f***ing scale, but I did it. I mean, I like, like everything else in my life, I took it to the f***ing farthest extreme of the earth, but like there’s a lot of things that you can do that don’t require probably a ton of money.

1:06:58 Like I mean, for instance, just befriending a hot girl and going out with a hot girl is going to increase your ability to get laid f***ing exponentially, 10x. Like it just, it does so many things, right? So there’s little things that you can do like that. Um, you know, you can find out, you know, you can just figure out something fun to do, like, you know, if you don’t have a boat, find a friend that has a boat and invite a bunch of hot chicks, and you know, all of a sudden, you know, you’re going to be his best friend because you’re bringing the hot girls.

1:07:25 Hot girls are commodities, so you know you can use, you know, this guy’s boat to get these girls to come to the boat and then you can, you know, because you’re bringing girls, now you don’t have to pay for gas, you know, or bring beer or whatever, because you’re bringing the chicks. I mean, chicks are a commodity, so you go out and put in that work. I mean, there’s a bunch of ways to do it. I mean, there’s a lot of numbers, you could just go to the mall and hit on 100 f***ing girls, if I mean, and when I say hit on them, I don’t go up and be like, oh, you’re so beautiful, [expletive], I want to get your phone number, like not stupid s*** like that, but just go have a conversation, go talk to a hundred girls out of this hundred, one of them’s boyfriend is gonna have just f***ed a girl last week and she’s gonna be pissed, or you know she’s gonna f***ing be, you know, on the, you know, stay, you know, on the rebound stage, or, you know, maybe she’s just f***ing lonely, or maybe she’s bored and whatever.

1:08:13 Like there’s gonna be a girl, like I, I feel like almost any guy can f*** almost any girl if the situation is correct. Like if some girl just got cheated on by her f***ing boyfriend and she found out that he just f***ed her best friend and did all this f***ed up s***, and now you guys crash a f***ing pla, you know, commercial airline crashes and the both of you end up on a f***ing deserted island, you’re probably gonna f*** that [expletive], you know what I mean? That’s obviously a very extreme example, but I’m just saying, like right time, right place, like I, I mean, you know, I can’t tell you how many times, like I’ve hooked up with a girl that like I probably wouldn’t have ever hooked up with had the situation not have been exactly what it was at that time, right?

1:08:56 So by just putting yourself out there and by approaching girls and talking to women, you’re gonna, by definition, just have a lot better odds of finding somebody that, you know, wants to sleep with you. Yeah, really well said. So if guys are listening, first of all, consider that extreme. There is a situation in this world where the lowest value guy could get the highest value girl. Just accept that as fact, and most guys will probably say, yeah, maybe Dan has a point, then it’s a numbers game, and then make sure you don’t go in with the wrong frame and you play that in a long enough timeline, you should find success.

1:09:30 Is what you’re saying? Yeah, and I mean, and you’re gonna build confidence, and the way you’re going to build confidence is you’re not going to f***ing care, and by not caring that telegraphs confidence like nothing else, and if you’ve been rejected 500 times, are you really going to give a f*** if you get rejected 501? Like probably not. So just go out and f***ing get rejected up 500 f***ing times just so that you stop being given a f*** about rejection.

1:09:55 And by the way, if you go out and your goal is to get rejected, you’re not going to give a f*** if you do, and so that’s actually going to help you. So go out and try and bomb 10 times with girls, don’t even try and f*** them, try and f*** it up, try and go embarrass yourself, just f***ing whatever it takes for you to go out there and, and not care or not put that much f***ing, you know, emphasis on the net result is just better. And like I said, just have conversation with them, ask them a question, whatever the f*** ever.

1:10:22 Like the more guys talk to hot girls, the less they’re gonna be nervous about, because they’re gonna realize, like, these hot girls are just f***ing human beings like you, you know, and it’s like it doesn’t really matter that much, you’re probably not going to f*** her, so who cares. Just go talk, and the more you do that and the less there’s like, because a lot of times guys will get nervous, they’ll put so much into it to be like, oh my god, this girl’s so hot, like that could be the one, like I would marry that girl, blah blah, they f***ing hype her up in their head, and it’s like, you know, who knows this girl, maybe she’d f***ing bang ten dudes last week, she may be the f***ing town bicycle for all you know, you know what I mean? She may be a working f***ing hooker, like who knows, you know, maybe she’s got a f***ing, you know, disease, I don’t know, like there could be f***ing issues with this person, you know, but in their mind they’ve like put this person on the pedestal, and because of that, like, their approach sucks.

1:11:11 And also a lot of times these hot girls don’t think that highly of themselves because they know they have flaws or they’re comparing themselves with the top echelon of other girls or whatever, and so the moment you start putting them on the pedestal, they in their mind immediately view you as being beneath them, and if they don’t have high self-esteem then they’re automatically going to think you’re really f***ing a loser if you’re kissing their ass. I mean, it’s stripper mentality, right? That’s why strippers always end up, I mean not all but most strippers end up with guys that treat them like s*** is because the guys that have been treating them good are usually low value guys, coupled with the fact that they usually don’t have high self-esteem themselves, so when a guy does treat them well they automatically think, oh well, you know, this guy must not be that cool, and so that’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy for that girl to be miserable for sure for the rest of her life, because she’s never going to find a guy that, well, she may find guys that give a f*** about her, but she’s never going to give them the time of day.

1:12:04 The only guys they’re going to date is guys that don’t give a f*** about them, which is a recipe for disaster. So yeah, I know it’s true, it’s true. Most people would, most guys especially when they’re first starting off would never understand that the hottest girl in the room might be less secure with herself than one of the mediocre looking girls. And so as long as the hot girls compare themselves against the hot, hot, hot girls, and sometimes they’re very insecure, and, and again it’s a lot like celebrities.

1:12:29 I might have had a lot of famous people on the show including you, and the last thing they want to do is someone to come up to him and say, oh my gosh, you’re amazing, I’ve been watching you my whole life, could you just give me one second of your precious time? Like nobody likes to be treated that way, not a celebrity, not a hot girl that you know. Yeah, I mean, I, I, that, that doesn’t bother me. You know, I mean, I, I, you know, I, when, when people do that, I mean, I, I’m flattered, you know.

1:12:55 I mean, I think it’s, I think it’s cool. I, I’m always like nice people to come up and, what, you know, if they’re complimentary, I’m never like, oh, this guy’s a loser, like I don’t think like that. I wouldn’t say that, but like if you’re trying to like befriend a celebrity, going up and like kissing their ass excessively, it’s probably not gonna, you know, lead to that. Um, but you know, I don’t know, man, I think, look, we’re all humans, man. I, you know, whether, whether somebody’s famous or not, you know, a lot of times people that are famous have more f***ing issues than people that aren’t.

1:13:29 Um, a lot of times when you focus on one thing, like if all you’ve been doing, you’re like, listen, you know, there’s eight billion f***ing people in the world, if you are the best at something and you’ve beaten eight billion, I mean obviously everybody’s not competing with the same s***, but whatever, if you’re the best out of eight billion at one thing, like usually you’re f***ing pretty like tunnel vision and you’re like, you know, your, your scope of experience is, is probably pretty limited, and so a lot of these people aren’t the best socially adapted always, you know, they’re, I mean, they’re the best at whatever it is because they’ve dedicated their entire f***ing life to that thing, but by definition that usually makes them less well-rounded, you know, less experienced than other things.

1:14:10 So like when they’re talking about that one thing, yeah, they’ve got a great area expertise, but when it comes to just like life in general, they might not be very interesting people, you know, I mean, for the most part. And also fame is isolating too, so you take that, couple the isolation piece of it, and a lot of times, you know, some of these famous people are kind of socially awkward. Like they can perform, you know, it’s like a comedian for instance, like I didn’t realize this until later, but I was going to some of these comedy shows and a lot of these comedians aren’t funny, they’re just actors.

1:14:39 They’ve, they’ve done that f***ing skit a hundred times and they’ve paused at the right time and their f***ing delivery is right, whatever, but like they’re not just coming up there f***ing then they’re super witty and they’re coming up all these f***ing j, I mean some of them are, I’m sure, I’m not saying all comedians aren’t funny, like obviously some of them are, but a lot of them literally just go practice that f***ing routine until it’s perfected, and I learned this because I went to some comedy clubs in LA and they were like, you know, pretty entertaining, it’s cool, it’s fun, but like sometimes, you know, you’d see the same comedian come up and he would do the same exact f***ing skit that he had just done last week, and when you saw it last week you’re like, oh s***, that’s pretty funny, you know, like he paused, he incorporated people from the audience, he’s like, oh, like it just seemed like this was happening right there in the moment, but like that s*** had been sitting in his f***ing apartment rehearsing this for like 500 hours before this, and he had done it at 10 other comedy clubs or whatever.

1:15:32 So I don’t know, man, life is not always what it seems, you know. Yeah, and it’s true, a lot of the people that we look up to as these like gods in their fields, um, a lot of times like you said they’ve spent a lot of time specializing on that one thing, and I used to have guests on the show and I used to say sometimes the guests themselves need more love than sometimes the audience, like sometimes they’re also struggling because they’ve focused on this one thing for so much that they’ve left other aspects of their life out, or like when they’re on stage they’re cool but offstage, man, they don’t know what to do. So yeah, it just goes to show you like you never really know what’s going on, and everyone, yeah.

1:16:10 I was, I was hanging out with Jewel, uh, the, you know, the singer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s very cool. I heard on Rogan quite a story, right? Yeah, she’s super cool, and I met her at Necker Island, um, and I, I actually didn’t really know who she was because she was a little bit like, you know, out of my genre, slightly before my time or whatever, um, but I’d heard the name, you know, and then she went up on stage and she performed, I was like, oh wow, this f***ing girl can sing, like whatever, and we end up talking a little bit and she saw like people coming up to me a lot and, you know, and whatever, we kind of like bonded over that.

1:16:43 She said something that was like really interesting, she said fame is a lonely hearts club, and I was like, that just really stuck with me because it’s so true, you know, like a lot of people that are in the spotlight just end up really like isolating themselves, and there’s a lot of reasons for it. I think one of the reasons is because of all the unnatural forced interactions that happen when you go out. Like last night I was like, you know, taking some f***ing ketamine and whatever and like I, this is going to the show and, you know, it’s just like, f***, man, like and I don’t and I always, I made a pact to take all the f***ing pictures, you know, like whatever, and so, you know, people come up and you’re like, yeah, you know, whatever, you take the picture, they want to have a f***ing conversation, but it’s like, man, when you’re f***ed up a lot of times you just don’t want to talk to strangers, you know, you really don’t.

1:17:33 And also a lot of times when they come up they’re nervous and whatever, so like that anxiety kind of like almost rubs off on you because like they’re anxious and you’re just kind of like, you know, waiting for them to say, you know, I don’t know, man, it’s a whole thing, but and I hate that on mushrooms, like I hate talking to strangers on mushrooms. Oh yeah, you know, that’s, that’s the worst. But anyway, so like you go out and you have these forced unnatural interactions where people come up to you and they already have this like preconceived notion of who you are, which is usually f***ing wrong, um, and they have this like whole expectation or whatever, and I don’t know, man, it’s just like it’s kind of nice to just meet somebody and have a clean slate instead of meeting somebody and they already like think all these f***ing things, and then the nerd, it’s just, it’s not a natural interaction, you know.

1:18:24 And like you said, when they come up and they, you know, f***ing say all this crazy s***, it’s kind of like, I don’t know, man, like if somebody comes up and like talks about how f***ing amazing you are, it’s, I don’t know, it’s not like, it’s kind of like a little bit weird, you know, like to just, just like, you know, what do you say to that, right? Like it’s not like once if somebody came up to you like, oh my god, Brian, you’re the f***ing man, I love you, bro, you’re the f***ing greatest, like I watched this and this and this and this, and like I mean you’re just like sitting there, it’s like, what do you say? Like, yeah, thanks, man, you know what I mean?

1:18:56 That’s not a normal interaction, you know, and so you have to like force non-normal interactions a lot, and it’s like, f***, man, sometimes you just want to go out with your friends and have f***ing, you know, a f***ing lunch and not have people come up and talk to you, or sometimes you’re just like on a beach, you know, like I was f***ing on a beach in Kauai with f***ing naked chicks and we’re doing mushrooms and s***, you know, I got some f***ing dude coming over to me wanting to have f***ing conversations, like, bro, f***ing streaming with these girls, leaving the f*** alone, you know, but like, you know, you don’t be an a**hole to him either, you don’t like traumatize the guy because like, you know, this is like his moment, you know, like when I saw Goggins and, and s*** at the, at the dealership, you know, if I’d gone up to him and said, and he was just like f***ed off, you know, like man, that would have been out of hurt, you know, so you don’t want to do that to somebody also, you know what I mean?

1:19:45 But like there’s that fine line of like, man, like you still want to kind of like be able to f***ing live your life without constant interruption too. So yeah, yeah, it’s a curse. I see you out in public, you always take time to take pictures with everybody. I, I think that probably surprises a lot of people because you could easily blow by or have your security push them away, but like you always spend time taking those pictures, which every picture, every picture.

1:20:09 I take every picture unless I’m like in some f***ing crazy hurry or I’m late to something or like, or if it’s like a, like you can’t do it if it’s like a crowd, because if you f***ing do that in a crowd, like and you don’t have heavy security, you’re gonna get f***ing mobbed, like it’s gonna, because people will come up that don’t even know who you are because of this hysteria and then they want a picture. It’s like it just compounds and snowballs and gets f***ing crazy, you know, and I, like I actually had a f***ing million dollar watch falling off my wrist at the Canelo fight because I was like, you know, stop taking a f***ing picture in a crowd, you know, and I don’t know, man, like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a weird thing. Um, people are herd animals, you, they see other people doing it or they see other people f***ing excited and they get excited and it’s, yeah, it can, it can definitely spiral out of control where you just like, you know, kind of can’t f***ing walk through a thing, you know.

1:21:02 Yeah, your next book should be on human social dynamics, we’ll talk about that. So couple things. So do you find it, Dan, to be, is it easier for you to be friends with someone who’s famous, like a Jewel or a Goggins or a TJ Dillashaw or a Cerrone, because you guys both kind of know what’s up and you guys all kind of know what’s up and you’re like, at least we can get over that stuff? The greedy bankers forever. There’s definitely a bond because I’m not gonna like fanboy them and they’re not gonna fanboy me, which like I said, man, I, when people come up and say that it’s, it’s flattering and I [expletive] and, and like I’m not talking s*** at all about that, it’s just like, you know, when you’re f***ing hanging out having beers, like you want it to be, you know, you, you wanted to be with your peers, you know, you wanted to be with people that, you know, you have mutual respect for and whatever, and like, and, and I don’t respect them because they’re famous, I don’t really care that much about that, but I do know that they’ve been through what I’ve been through and we have an understanding of that, you know, and like if they bring their friends around, like it’s, you know, they’re not going to be like f***ing videotaping me and s***.

1:25:31 There’s like a understanding of privacy and a respect of privacy that people that are famous have because they realize like how important privacy is and how nice it is to have. Yeah, so you bond over that. Plus like there’s so many people now that want to be famous, you know, that like are hanging out because they want to be seen with you or they want to like this or that or they want to get tagged or whatever, whereas other famous people, you know, they’re not usually like trying to use you to get, you know what I mean?

1:26:05 It’s like a different thing. Just like in L.A., like, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t hang out with anybody that, you know, wasn’t rich because anybody that wasn’t rich I felt like was trying to get something from me, you know, and even if they were rich a lot of times they’re trying to get s*** from me too, but at least I felt like they could add value as well, you know. So um, I don’t know, I think, I think probably the reason why, I mean, I, I would say more of my friends are famous is just because of that understanding, because I don’t feel like they’re like, and then most of my friends are just guys that I’ve known from a long time ago, those are like, that’s my core, um, but new friends, you know, I’ll let famous people in the circle because I feel like they get it, and you know, and they’ve got s*** to lose too, and I don’t know.

1:26:50 Um, and also usually it’s just interesting, you know, they’ve, they’ve walked a different path and I know how many doors fame opens and I know the crazy s*** that happens because of that, so you know, they’ll have interesting stories and sometimes an interesting perspective. Um, so I don’t know. You mentioned, um, ketamine last night. What drugs does Dan Bilzerian do and not do? I know mushrooms are something you like, which is, it’s a good drug, it’s an introspective drug.

1:27:18 Uh, what else, and what do you don’t do as well? Yes, I don’t even think of mushrooms, I don’t even look at that as like a drug, you know, that’s like, to me that’s like naturally occurring, it’s from the earth, it’s been here since the beginning of time. It’s um, I, I think it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a tool, you know, I think it’s a tool that allows you to remove your ego and it allows you to, um, get the answers to like what you want to do, and I think it’s, um, I, I think it’s fun, it’s like it allows you to do things that you did when you were a kid and enjoy them.

1:27:53 You don’t need a ton of stimulus, you don’t need some crazy s***, you know, adventure to entertain you, like you could just be f***ing floating down a river or you could be sitting on a beach or you could just be swimming in the ocean or free diving. On mushrooms is f***ing amazing. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s the best, man. I’ve done some crazy breath holds on that s***, you know. When you post your mushroom pictures on Instagram, Dan, I gotta say you always have this crazy smile on your face and it’s a smile you never have in any other picture.

1:28:25 I mean, you don’t smile much in the other pictures, but it’s not the I’m with a hot girl smile, it’s not I’m shooting a gun smile, it’s not I just wanted poker smile, it’s like this funny childish smile you have when you’re having the mushrooms. Can you describe the mushroom smile of Danville’s hair? Yeah, man, it’s constant, it’s, you know, I’m happy, I’m in the moment, I’m enjoying it, I’m not thinking about other s***. I leave my f***ing cell phone and look at my f***ing phone, I don’t want s***, you know, like I don’t want to be about filming.

1:28:54 I’m also not really like thinking that much about [expletive]. Um, it’s one of those things where I’m just like, I’m enjoying what I’m doing, and you know, usually I’ll, I’ll start off shrooming with surfing or free diving or some activity so I can burn off a lot of that energy and then um, I’ll come down with, with some weed and, f***, just have a great happy relaxed, you know, f***ing amazing cheat meal afterwards, and some of my best days have been on mushrooms. Wow.

1:29:26 So and it’s not a crazy amount, you know, I don’t, I don’t do like crazy amounts, but you know, two, three grams is enough to just f***ing have an amazing day. Yeah, we talked last time and you were like, I keep it pretty low doses because I’m a control freak, and um, but it sounds like you’ve dug up your doses a little bit. You know, four or five grams is like heroic dose, where you probably want to be alone for that stuff, but it sounds like you’ve been expanding it a little bit.

1:29:50 Yeah, I would recommend anybody starting mushrooms to start off with like a half a gram, maybe a gram, probably a half a gram, just to, just get the feeling, just understand like, okay, this isn’t going to be some crazy thing, you know, this isn’t that big of a deal, you know, not to get freaked out, because what you don’t want to do is what I did and do s*** like, you know, I don’t even know, I did probably like four grams my first time doing mushrooms in Amsterdam in a f***ing, watching a movie, watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought that would be cool because, you know, you hear stories about the, like that’s more of an acid thing, right? But I, I don’t know, man, I got sick, I felt like s***, and then I wanted to stop, and once you want it to stop and it doesn’t stop, then you f***ing, you know, freak out because of that, and it’s this whole shitty thing.

1:30:34 Um, but when you do small amounts and you get the feeling of it you’re like, wow, this is great, like color’s more vibrant, I’m happy, this is fun, like time slowed down a little bit, I’m enjoying this, I’m connecting, and my ego is, you know, removing a little bit and whatever, and you start like understanding what it does. Then you can start upping it, and you’re gonna go in there with a more positive outlook and you’re not gonna be freaked out, you’re gonna realize like, okay, I just gotta let go and enjoy this trip and not try and control everything, and, you know, whatever. And I also, usually my settings are pretty good, like I do in warm weather, I do it, you know, a lot of times on the water, I, you know, I do with close friends, and so I think if you, you know, you put the ingredients in there right, like it’s almost impossible to have a bad trip, so you can start going a little bit heavier, um, you know, and then you build a tolerance too a little bit, but I don’t do mushrooms a ton, I do them maybe like once a month, it’s like, yeah, maybe once every two months, it’s not very frequent, and I like just trying to just have the setting perfect and everything.

1:31:33 To me it’s like a special experience, you know, because I don’t do it a ton, and I think the next day I’m kind of like a little bit low serotonin, so I try and make it worth it. Yeah, it is almost mushroom anyway, sorry, went off on the mushroom. Can you, but I want, I want to stay on the mushrooms one second because first of all, Dan Bilzerian just said you like it because it reduces the ego. So the internet just broke, because the perception of you is you’re all about the ego, but here you are having a compound that reduces your ego and you like that.

1:32:03 So well, I think a lot of times you like what you don’t have, you know, you value things that you don’t have or whatever, and also a control freak, it forces me to like let go of control. Um, so I don’t know, and I, I think ego is probably not a good thing. Um, and so the more you can remove it, I think the more, the better, I guess, the better decisions you would make, right? Like I think ego drives, you know, the ego and vanity probably drive some bad decisions, you know, or decisions that maybe won’t end up in net happiness, they’ll, they’ll increase pleasure.

1:32:43 So I think ego focuses on pleasure and I think I’m trying to focus more on happiness, and they’re very different things, they feel similar but they’re different, you know, and I talked about that in the book. So you got a chapter, a whole section, “Pleasure Is Not Happiness.” I think I asked you about that when we were here last time, and three years ago, uh, well, while we’re on that, can you explain that, how pleasure is not happiness? Well, pleasure functions like a drug, you know, it’s like you do, you need more to get that same high, and then eventually you need to just do it to not feel like s***.

1:33:15 Um, and it’s an intense hit, you know, it’s quick dopamine, you f*** a hot chick or you, you buy an expensive bar or whatever, you’re gonna get that pleasure spike and that’s gonna happen, but if you do it enough, eventually you’re gonna start to get numb to it and then you’re gonna have to do it to not feel like s***, because you’re so used to those pleasure spikes that now your baseline is a bit higher because you’re associating pleasure with like your normal, you know, baseline, and then when you have no, you don’t have a pleasure, you have absence of pleasure, whatever, then you’re kind of like almost a little bit unhappy, I feel like, anyways. Um, let me go take a quick piss, that’s all right. Yeah, all right, do it, man.

1:33:57 I’m gonna, I’m gonna talk while you’re out, while you’re missing. Yeah, all right, it’s good. So there you go, Dan Bilzerian talking a little bit more about mushrooms, and I asked him about this three years ago, um, and uh, I didn’t get these answers, I got some starting bits of those answers, but when Dan comes back I’m gonna ask him a little bit about two things he said. One is that the mushrooms allow him to not be in control, and the other one is it makes him not think about [expletive], as he said, and which seem to be the two things driving Dan: one is control, which is the setup, and the other is the girls.

1:34:31 So I just want to ask him about that, uh, when he’s back, because I think that’s pretty interesting, as you know, uh, on London Real we’ve been talking about psychedelics since the beginning, um, and some of our first episodes were ayahuasca experiences where I did a before and after ayahuasca experience. We talked a lot about psilocybin mushrooms, we’ve had the biggest experts on the planet here to talk about all of these psychedelic experiences, from Graham Hancock to Dennis McKenna, who I went down to Costa Rica with five years ago to have an ayahuasca ceremony with Dennis McKenna, the brother of Terence McKenna, who are like some of the OGs when it comes to the whole psychedelic space. Um, yeah, I’m just talking about psychedelics and so um, one of the two things you said, Dan, is that when you take the mushrooms you like the fact that you’re not in control and you don’t think about [expletive], which are probably two of the things you seem to enjoy the most with the setup and the girls.

1:35:23 By the way, how many girls are in your house right now? I think five. All right, so it’s good, that’s not too crazy. Um, what do you think about that, is that the mushrooms are kind of nice to take you away from those things temporarily, or have you gotten too deep, or you’re writing a book about your whole self, so have you thought about that? Yeah, I mean, I think like, um, you know, uh, when you’re in a tornado sometimes the f***ing calm is more interesting, you know.

1:35:52 It’s like, say like, you almost want what you don’t have. It’s like you need some yin and yang in your life, like if you just have an abundance of one thing then it’s kind of like, like Snickers bars. You eat Snickers bars, Snickers bars are great, but if you eat them for every f***ing meal, eventually you’re gonna want something else, and if all you eat is candy then, you know, a salad will probably sound good eventually. You know what I’m saying? Like even if you know.

1:36:15 So I think you, you need balance, and I’m not like a very balanced person for the most part. I usually just like f***ing go all the way, um, in one direction, and then I’ll kind of like go on another one, and so I don’t know, you spend your whole life like in control of everything, I think it’s nice to just force yourself not to, and I think if you spend, you know, a lot of your life focused on [expletive], it’s good to just not care about it for a little while. And I think, you know, I don’t really have sex on mushrooms that much, so um, it, I mean I have in the beginning and then at the end, but like when I’m shrooming I, I couldn’t even have sex, they tried to one time, I mean I guess I could but it was not great, the face is melted anyways, the face is turning into something.

1:37:01 Yeah, okay. Yeah, but it’s like, it’s like a two hour or three hour window where it’s like, I know I’m not gonna have sex, which is like, you know, rare, I don’t have that. It’s like, okay, like I can just completely forget about that, um, and focus on having fun with my friends or focus on freediving. It’s just like removes something that’s constantly taking up space in my f***ing brain, which is nice, you know. Yeah, Are you a sex addict?

1:37:28 Yeah, I’m, I’ve, I beat it, you know, but then I backslide, backsliding lately, but it’s something you’re like, okay, I’ve got a problem or there’s something in my brain that keeps me doing this, or that’s just you? Well, I mean, I think it’s a combination of things with me. I think of, definitely like a sex addict that I beat it. I’m capable of monogamy, I’ve done it. Um, I can abstain, you know, and I did the same thing with weed.

1:37:56 Um, currently back, I’m actually back on a lot of my vices right now, backslid pretty hard. They kind of all go together, you know, it’s like when you’re hanging out with a bunch of chicks, you know, you don’t want to be sober, and you’re f***ing a bunch of times, then it’s like kind of nice to be high because it’s like, I don’t know, man. And then if you’re going out partying, like you don’t want to be around drunk people sober, and it just kind of all goes together, man.

1:38:21 It’s like sometimes I’ll have like sobriety and I’ll just be hanging out with one chick and I’ll be hanging out with buddies and that’s what I’m really f***ing happy, is when I’m, you know, doing s*** like we’re mountain biking or we’re f***ing going to the lake or we’re snowmobiling or we’re surfing, whatever the f*** it is, but you’re doing like fun cool guy s***, and then at night you got your girl, you know, you want to have sex, you get, you know, you can have sex, whatever, but it’s not like a focal point when I, when you got a shitload of girls running around the f***ing house naked all the time, you know, whatever, and it’s like, you know, you’re f***ing this one and then it’s like you’re then the, you know, so the girl dynamics of like you’re trying to bang each one every day so they’re happy, and it’s like this whole crazy thing that just like almost consumes you.

1:39:03 Um, and it’s fun, like you know, it’s definitely fun. I mean, like hooking up with new chicks is fun, it’s, you know, it’s fun to hook up with a different chick. I can actually have, you know, just like a few chicks here and if I hook up with each of them separate, like, like if it’s one and then the other and then the other, you don’t really, you can go that cycle for a while and you don’t get tired of it. It’s when you have sex with the same chick over and over and over again unless you’re like really into her that it becomes monotonous.

1:39:30 Um, and so I don’t know, man. Um, but five is enough to keep it not monotonous? Yeah, yeah, I mean, and then also when you go out with girls it’s easier to pick up more girls. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times would go out, you know, with like, I don’t know, five girls, six girls, would end up coming back to the house like 20 girls or something. Um, and so I don’t know, I, I’ve found it’s either just better to be kind of like with a main chick, um, or a girlfriend or whatever.

1:40:03 Um, and you know, you can do your s***, you know, here, there, I feel I’m much happier when I do that than when I’m just like fully single. But if you’re going to be single you got to be like fully single, you can’t kind of be dating a future, like the more you’re dating the less you care and the less you care the better they treat you and the more abundance you get and the more interesting it is. And like when you don’t give a f*** then it doesn’t stress you out, you know, when you’re dating a ton of chicks, if one drops off or one’s like gets tired of it, like you don’t give a f***, and because you don’t care then she comes back and it’s this whole thing, like so many things in life, man, snowball, you know.

1:40:37 Um, and being single is one of them, like when you’re really single and you’re dating a bunch of girls you have a ton of options, you don’t put up with any s***, you don’t care, and because of that they treat you better and it’s a whole f***ing thing. But when you’re dating less girls then they become attached sooner, um, and it’s, it’s counterproductive and it’s weird, like you treat them better, you spend more time with them and then now all of a sudden they’re not cool with you hooking up with any other girls, but they’re not really like good enough to be like a monogamous girl, you know, they’re cool enough to be in the rotation, but like, you know, for me to be monogamous or even like have a main chick, like I don’t mentally click with her, we have to enjoy doing the same s***, she has to be cool, she can’t be too [expletive], like there’s all these f***ing things, right?

1:41:22 Because you know if I’m giving up all this it’s got to be, you know, got to be everything I want, you know. But you did that for two years. What’s that, the monogamy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a girlfriend and, you know, when I was writing that book I just spent a few months on a yacht and I was traveling Europe and yeah, I was hanging with the ch, with, with, with one girl and we were doing couples vacations and, um, I had a great time, it was, it was nice, it was a nice break, and yeah, it was just like a total break from all my vices, so that’s good, but sooner or later it does deteriorate and you change as a guy and then the relationship matures for a lack of a better word to where, well, she was young, man, she was really young, like she was 19 f***ing years old, so it was like one of those things where, I mean, there was like the novelty of it, you know, like the chicken was like, you know, obsessed with you, she thought everything, like, and you got to show her all these things for the first time.

1:42:16 If she’d never been on a private jet, she’d never been on a f***ing yacht, it was like, you know, that there’s that, you know, aspect of it and the innocence, you know, and she was like, you know, so stoked on everything, like I don’t know, there was that, and like I said, I was focusing so much on my time on the book and hanging with my friends and doing all this other s***, but like when I was done and then it was like I was spending more time just with her, then it was like the mental disparity and the lack of experience, it was just too much and I just told her, like, look, I need to f*** other girls, like I can’t do monogamy, like you’re just too young and I was just honest with her and, you know, we broke up. Yeah. Um, so isn’t that interesting how we kind of as men want to be the woman’s window to the world, and then that for us is a real fascinating thing, maybe take the sex and all the stuff aside, like for us that’s a, it’s an important thing, isn’t it, that can make a big part of that relationship?

1:43:11 Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the, like the, you know, things that, you know, people like about having kids is showing them the world, like you get to re-live your whole life with your kids, you get to show them, you know, um, the, you know, off-roading, you get to throw a baseball with them, you get, you know, they get to f***ing ride a bike, there’s like, there’s definitely something in human nature that enjoys showing somebody something for the first time. When I go out off-roading and I take girls in the truck and they’ve never been off-roading before and their f***ing mind is blown, like it makes it more entertaining because they’re enjoying it, you know. So when you get to show somebody something for the first, maybe get some chick on the f***ing jets, oh yeah, I’ve been on f***ing, you know, 20 jets and blah blah blah, it’s like, okay, cool, you know, great, you know, and then you’re like, you know, super, but I don’t know, I think like I said, there’s, there’s something cool about innocence, there’s something cool about, you know, being able to show people something for the first time.

1:44:05 Um, whether it’s a guy, girl, whatever, like I don’t know, just, I get the same enjoyment out of, you know, showing my little cousin something, you know, or taking him out, whatever. Um, I don’t know, and, and, and then there’s also the appreciation piece, dude. It’s nice, like, you know, to feel appreciated and that things aren’t expected. I think, um, a lot of women that have, you know, kind of like been around a bit, you know, they expect things or, you know, the red carpet’s been rolled out for them so much if they expect it, they don’t say thank you as much.

1:44:36 Um, and that never feels as good, right? Like, you know, if you do something nice for somebody and they expect it, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as when they’re super stoked about it, obviously. So yeah, um, it’s interesting though that those things matter to you, know, guys, guys like us, you know, I guess in a weird way, you know, that’s quite sensitive, right, to notice those things. I mean, I think it’s everybody, man. Like I think, you know, anytime you give somebody a gift, you know, if they’re just like, oh yeah, whatever, you know, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as when they start f***ing crying and they’re excited.

1:45:10 I think that’s just humans, like I think humans are very connected, um, and so I think when you do something and it, and it brings joy to somebody else, I mean like the reason that I do most of my charity is probably selfish reasons, honestly, like it makes me happy to make them happy, right? I’m, I’m doing it honestly probably, if I’m being, you know, totally f***ing 100%, like more for myself because I know that when I, I mean, I look, I like to do, you know, I like to make them happy, but it, I don’t know, like if, if they didn’t give a f*** about what I was doing, like if it didn’t make them happy then I, you know, would get way less pleasure out of it. So I don’t know, I think we’re innately somewhat selfish creatures, but at the same time I feel like we’re all so connected and I think, um, we get joy out of helping people.

1:46:00 I think that’s, I mean, unless you’re a f***ing sociopath, like most people get happy when they make other people happy. So if you have a younger girl and she hasn’t experienced a lot of stuff and you get to make her happy all the time, then you get some of that happiness through osmosis a little bit, right? Because like if you’re making this girl happy all the time, then you know it should have that net effect of making you happy too. I don’t know, I mean, yeah, this is my theory on it.

1:46:27 This is good, man. A lot of people will be surprised that you enjoy making people happy, man. So uh, it’s, it’s this is a good, it’s a good sign to see. Look, you mentioned if anybody doesn’t, they’ve got a big f***ing problem. Like if, if you as a human being don’t like making people happy or you don’t get any joy out of making somebody else happy, like you’ve got a f***ing wiring issue or something, you know.

1:46:49 Yeah, it’s true, we’re all very social animals. I think sometimes as young men we get into this Rambo mindset, I’m sure you were as a young man, I know I was, where it’s me against the world, f*** everybody, I don’t need anybody, I love a lot, but at the end of the day we are social creatures, like we gained. Yeah, yeah, see how that worked out? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly how to work out for Rambo.

1:47:10 Um, you mentioned you had five girls in the house now and sometimes you have more. You mentioned the dynamic of the harem, and the harem is one of your chapters in the book, but like you said it’s a little tricky, and I was wondering if you’d give us a little bit of insight, not that anybody watching this is ever going to have the high quality problem of the harem, but you mentioned you got to kind of f*** each girl, you got to worry about the dynamic, maybe you choose not to have the bottom girl or the main girl, but like what are some of the things you got to do to keep everybody happy? So yeah, I mean, this is the whole f***ing science behind this and there wasn’t like really a f***ing manual for me to read, so I had to kind of figure this out on my own, basically.

1:47:45 You need to have like, it depends, like if you’re on, let’s, let’s take a trip, for instance, you’re on a trip, you need to have two to three girls that you’ve already f***ed that are stoked on you, that are hot, that needs to be your base, right? Because when you, when I go on trips, and then you, and then you need a bunch of new hot girls, right? So what I do is I go and I focus on the girls that I know and I hook up with the girls that I know and I don’t really pay attention to hot girls that much, I don’t hit on them ever, I don’t like try and f*** them, none of it, and they see these other hot girls that are super into me and then the girls are end up talking and whatever and then the girls end up wanting to f*** me, or, you know, some I don’t hook up with, it, you know, there’s, you know, definitely trips, I mean I don’t f*** every girl on every trip, that’s f***ing sure, but like you definitely get, you know, definitely end up hooking up with the new ones, I mean, but you do it because they want to f*** you, and if you go out on a trip, like if even if you have eight or nine girls, if you’re like trying to f***, you know, a bunch of girls and then one girl rejects you and then another girl rejects you, now all of a sudden it’s like, oh like, you know, he tried to f*** me and I rejected him, and then like with a lot of these girls that’s like a feather in their cap.

1:48:56 I can’t tell you how many girls, when I was hanging out with Bieber, like that knew him too, that would be like, oh yeah, he tried to f*** me and I said no, and it’s like, it shut up, you know, like but I was like, to them that was so cool, you know, and a lot of them just make it up too, like they, they’re like, I remember one time like I texted a girl like WYD and she’s like, oh damn, Dan tried to f*** me, and the girl’s like, oh really, what did, what did he do? And she’s like, oh he texted me last night, like she’s like, oh what do you text? And she’s like, oh he asked me what I was doing, and then she’s like, what up and what happened?

1:49:33 And she’s like, oh like I just told him that I was taking a shower and then I was going to bed. And that was like, that was hers, like, oh, Dan tried to f*** me and I said no. Crazy, but like that’s literally what they’ll take, is like, and they’ll run with that and then they’ll tell everybody. But so anyways, so by doing it the way I do it, which is I focus on the girls that I have been dating or whatever, then when the new ones want to hook up, I mean, listen, you stick a chick on a f***ing deserted island for long enough and she’s f***ing drinking, she’s gonna want to have sex, you know, and it’s like if you’re the only guy there to have sex, like, and other girls want to have sex with you and you’re validated and, you know, the fame doesn’t hurt, all the other rest of this [expletive] [expletive], like they’re gonna want to f*** you, it’s just like it’s human nature, you know.

1:50:16 It’s, so I just, you know, that, that’s, that’s how the group dynamics usually work on a trip. You can’t have too many girls that you’ve hooked up with, like like, you know, I say three is good because, or you could do one and a ton of new ones and then just really just kind of focus on the one, but the problem is then you give that one a lot of power because then the girls like are worried about offending her if they f*** you, and you know, and then she tells all the girls like, oh like, you know, we’re dating, like, you know, I really like him, like don’t hook up with him, and then the girls like try and like form bonds with the other girls to c***-block you. So anyway, so like there’s, I could go on and on and on about this s*** but the s***, you know, the point is three girls is good because then if you’re hooking up with one girl, then you know if you take two and you’re f***ing one, then the other one’s just like sitting on your ass, like, you know, like whatever, but if it’s three then you can, you know, hook up, one, the other two are hanging out, whatever, like people don’t notice, and if you have a bunch of girl, you know, girls will come, you know, sneak into your f***ing room and you’ll bang them, nobody even knows, like, and so I’m getting a ton of [expletive] and a lot of these girls don’t even like realize it.

1:51:19 So um, I don’t know, and then by the end of the trip it’s like most of the chicks have banged me and so then they’ve all got that in common and, and they’re cool with it, as opposed to these girls like trying to like one-up each other, I’m like, oh yeah, he wanted to hook up with me and I said no, then it’s like, now then this other girl will feel stupid if she f***s me because this girl rejects you, know what I’m saying? Like yeah, there’s a, it’s a very important like mindset, mentality, and then you don’t also want to have like the [expletive], you know, whatever you do, the worst possible thing that you could probably do is have a super hot girl and try and f*** her and have her say no because then she’ll tell everybody and then she’ll set the precedent and she’s the f***ing hot girl and people want to be like her and blah blah, there’s like a lot of like do’s and don’ts, a lot of ways you could really shoot yourself in the foot.

1:52:07 Um, but the way to do it correctly is like I said, have like a few girls you hooked up with, a bunch of new ones, focus on the ones that you know until the new ones wanna f*** you and then, you know, and then your rotation’s gonna f***ing increase and whatever. Um, and then as far as like the house, I mean it’s better to live in a city where girls can just come in, hook up and take off and like, hey, I have an hour, you know, I have two hours, whatever, set like short time parameters. Um, Vegas makes it more challenging because then you like have to fly girls in and then you’re stuck with them for a period of time.

1:52:42 I usually try and do the shortest period of time possible and then you can always extend, but you know the worst thing is being like trapped with somebody, you know. So I don’t know. Um, it’s f***ing this, this trip dynamic. Have you ever read a book called Pimp by Iceberg Slim? He’s got some similar dynamics, he’s got the bottom girl who’s the one that’s down 100% and then you got the other girls in the stable and there’s a crazy dynamic, but yeah, if there’s any feeling of discontent in there, it’s got to be squashed right away or you’ll have a full-on revolt on your hands.

1:53:15 100%. Yeah, they’ll f***ing be like, yeah, f*** him, blah blah blah, bond together over that s***. No, you got like the best way to do it is to have a main, that’s what I like to do, is have a main girl and she’s of the understanding, like, listen, I’m gonna f*** other girls, you know. It’s funny, like that guy Andrew Tate, he’s been blowing up. He’s been doing it.

1:53:33 Yeah, what do you think of, uh, Andrew Cobra Tate’s? It’s funny, man, I actually talked to him, I’ve actually been talking to him, um, a decent amount. He’s an interesting guy. Um, he, uh, I respect him being unfiltered. We’ve got different opinions on some things, we agree on others.

1:53:49 Um, we’ve got a little bit of a different approach. I remember watching like one video um where he was like talking about like, you know, I f***ed this chick and then I told him that I had to like, you know, go do some f***ing work, and just think it’s 11 o’clock at night, like I flew in to f***ing see you or whatever, he’s like, yeah, but I gotta go make some money, and so he went over this other girl’s house or this other girl’s hotel and f***ed her, and then he and went and then he was like driving to another girl’s, uh, place to f*** her, and he like took an Instagram story of him like driving in the car, and then he f***ed the third girl and passed out at her place, and then he like, and then he woke up to piss at like 8 a.m. and then posted the Instagram story of the video that he took as an Instagram story showing that he was like still out on the streets like doing stuff, and then he went back to bed, woke up and went back to the other girl’s, um, hotel at like 11 a.m. or whatever and she’s like, where the f*** have you been, you know, and he like threw like 20 grand on the thing, like count that, you know, like up and out making money, whatever.

1:54:51 And it was just kind of funny, you know. Um, and I, I remember I commented, I was like, yeah, I do the same s***, I just don’t lie about it. So it’s, it’s, I don’t know, there’s like different ways to do it, you know, like there’s, I, I like take big pride on like being honest, um, but it makes it more difficult sometimes, um, you know, because a lot of times these girls like want to be lied to, and then also it f***s you up too when they’re lying to you and you’re telling the truth to them.

1:55:19 But what it does do is it establishes like a level of trust that you can’t get otherwise, because if a girl asks you like, oh like, have you hooked up with any other girls this week? And you’re like, yeah, hooked up with three girls, you know, but I use condoms, whatever, or, you know, or I f***ed four girls and I, you know, I use condom of three, whatever, she’s gonna know you’re not lying because nobody would lie and say that, you know, like. So by telling her an uncomfortable truth you actually build trust, and then by you setting that bar of like what’s acceptable, then you set a certain frame of like, okay, this is acceptable to do, and if she accepts that, which you know they usually do, like sometimes they’ll f***ing rebel and be like, you know, f*** that, blah blah blah blah, and they’ll go back to their boyfriend, their boyfriend won’t f*** them that good, or you know, they’ll go out and date some f***ing schlep or whatever, they’ll f***ing, you know, hang out with some Persian dentist and f***ing be miserable or whatever, and then they come back and they’re like, you know what, like I’ll take the good with the bad, you know, and I like, I have fun, I trust you, like yeah, I know you’re doing f***ed up s***, but these guys are also doing f***ed up s***, they’re just lying about it, you know.

1:56:25 So like sometimes they’ll come to that realization and then you can just do anything you want, like once you’ve set the f***ing acceptable standard of like, I’m gonna do, you know, this, like I f***ed four girls last week, and once that’s accepted, I’m like, you could do anything, like what, well, you know, like what, you know, like, oh yeah, I only f***ed two girls last week, it’s like, oh good, baby, it’s a good point, right? It’s all, it’s all perspective, you know, and so you set that perspective of acceptability, and a lot of these guys, you know, lie and they sell the dream and they tell girls this and that and like, you know, you’re the only one, and they like, they set these unrealistic like expectations and it’s like unsustainable, they’re gonna get caught.

1:57:09 Like it’s like a girl that, that tells me she’s only f***ed, you know, one other guy, it’s like, okay, who’s the guy? Or she’s f***ing three guys, okay, who are the guys? She tells me the three names, if I meet any other guy in the world that she, that, that says that they f***ed her, I automatically know that she’s a liar. If she’s like, oh, I f***ed, you know, 14 guys, I’m not gonna ask the names, I’m not gonna remember the names, right? Then it’s like if I meet some of these guys then I’m not gonna know that she’s a liar.

1:57:35 But when they set these like crazy standards of like, I’m not sleeping with anybody, or I haven’t, I’ve only f***ed three people, it’s like easy to catch them lying. Like I actually hooked my ex up to a f***ing lie detector test, had an FBI f***ing lie detector guy bringing his f***ing test and set it up in my f***ing movie theater, actually like went through a full online test. Did she fail? Fail, fail, fail. Yeah, I’m pretty good at like reading people, and it’s funny, like I wasn’t even in a monogamous relationship with her and I told her like I had f***ed five girls that week, it’s not like, you know, and we’ve been broken up, it’s just, you know, she just like hooked up with a dude and lied about it, I’m just like, I wouldn’t give him a f***, she hooked up with the dude, like just be honest, you know.

1:58:20 So for me it like honestly is much more important than, um, you know, than purity or the perception of purity. Yeah, because I realize we’re f***ing human beings and I f*** girls that have low body counts, and usually like the first, actually one of the first questions I’ll ask a girl is how many guys have you f***ed? It’s going to tell me a lot, it’s going to tell me if she’s full of s*** or she’s boring. That’s, that’s those are the two verdicts. If the number’s low, right?

1:58:48 If the number’s high she’s honest and she’s adventurous, right? So like I don’t know, I mean if she’s, if it’s a low number and it’s true I’m like, okay, I respect that, you know, like I mean it’s, but a lot of times those girls that have only f***ed three guys, they’re naturally gonna be much more risk-averse, they’re probably gonna be less adventurous. I mean it’s just, you know, human nature, right? So that number tells me a lot. So what’s the ideal body count for Dan Bilzerian, or for a girl there right now in the mansion?

1:59:22 Is it what, what is it? Oh man, it depends, like I mean, you know, it depends on if it’s for a girlfriend, for a main, for a side chick, whatever. Like if it’s just for a girl that I’m f***ing, I’d rather have a high body count that she’s honest about and then I go get her tested, you know, and usually plug her with a condom, but like, you know, we’ve got that level of honesty and she’s probably gonna be fun and adventurous and whatever. So um, but if it’s a girl that I’m gonna be like seriously dating, I’d probably prefer it not to be crazy.

1:59:52 Uh, give me some numbers here. Is a high body count like 40 and a low one is ten? No, it depends on age and circumstance, there’s so many factors that go into it, you know, like and how, and how she went about it, you know, if a girl has been in a lot of long-term relationships then obviously a high body count is less acceptable, um, than if she’s been single. Um, and so I don’t know, I think there’s just, yeah, it just depends and situationally too, you know, she’s like, oh, I had like a big f***ing face in high school or college or whatever and she knocked out like a big number and then she, you know, kind of like slowed down, that’s probably different than, I don’t know, I mean it’s just like I said, man, it’s situational.

2:00:32 If she’s, you know, f***ing a bunch of, you know, people that, you know, that’s obviously less acceptable for like, well, it’s unacceptable for dating, but like, you know what I’m saying, there’s just kind of how it went about, like. But this is like standard opening question for you, it’s just like what’s the body count? You kind of want to get to know what, what the deal is, and that number tells you a lot, and the way they tell it to you is a lot. Hey, it’s Brian Rose, founder of the DeFi Academy.

2:00:56 I’ve told you my four-week crypto boot camp is amazing sign up. It is well worth the money. I just want to see, I, I just, I mean, they’re always almost lying about it, right? So, so it’s a lie detector test. Really it’s your life detected.

2:02:03 So I asked them because I know they’re gonna lie to me for the most part, and so I look at them when they’re lying to me and I can, then I can predict future lies, like how do they act when they’re lying? It’s like poker, it’s like, it’s like if I know you’re bluffing, I’m gonna study you, you know, and like, uh, and sometimes I’ll actually pay off your bet, you know, if I like just to see if you are bluffing, like, you know, or whatever, like just, you know, or if I know that you haven’t, a lot of times I’ll just pay off that bet to ensure that you do have it, and then it’s like, okay, I know how you act when you’ve got it, now let’s see how you act when you don’t have, you know. So it’s like I ask that question almost knowing full well they’re gonna lie to me, just to kind of study them and see how uncomfortable they get and how they answer it, and and then also then it allows me to like, you know, catch them lying later too, you know, like.

2:02:51 Yeah, because a lot of times they’ll give me crazy f***ing numbers like, oh, I’ve only f***ed three or four guys, and it’s like, okay, you know, we’re going to figure this out pretty quick, like I don’t know, man. So honestly, interesting, honesty is a very rare commodity and you value it very high, because with someone who’s honest with you, you know a lot and you can take things a long way. Sounds like that’s something that’s important to you. I, I can’t, I can’t date anyone seriously or be friends with anyone that’s not honest.

2:03:20 Yeah, yeah, which in LA or in the circles you run there must be a lot of dishonest people or people that exaggerate or people that want to be other people. I don’t know, yeah, always a [expletive], that’s why I don’t live there anymore. That until the liberalism, you’re in Vegas now. Yeah, yeah. Um, so a couple more questions.

2:03:40 Oh, you keep mentioning condoms and STDs. When I was in your hotel room in, um, in London when we did your last interview there was condoms everywhere and one of my camera guys was offended. He was like a feminist and that’s okay, but I was like, why are you offended? He has condoms there and he’s like, well, I don’t know what he’s trying to say, and I’m like, I don’t know if he’s trying to say anything, he just has condoms. But what is your policy with condoms, STDs, and then are there rules as far as like this is a no orgy night, don’t be coming into my bed, or like how does it all work?

2:04:08 First of all, that guy’s a [expletive]. That’s what I thought. Number two, um, I, you know, I, I was, you know, I don’t know, I’m just like, I’ve been pretty good about it. Like you just, you have to always wear them or else it f***s you up. Like you can’t like, or you could only not wear them with like your main girl, but like you can’t be like picking and choosing or like, oh, I think this girl’s a little bit more [expletive], I’ll use one with her.

2:04:37 Like you just got to use them all the time or else it’s going to f*** you up. You’re going to be like, oh, you know, this doesn’t feel as good, or I want to take this off, it’ll just like it’ll take you out of the moment and like, and then, and then also like you’d be like, oh s***, I can’t, you know, this just doesn’t feel as good, and then, and then you have a hard time keeping your dick hard, like this is all these shitty things that come with like half, so you just use them all the time and you don’t, you don’t even notice, right? Like discipline.

2:05:03 Yeah, exactly, it’s like, you know, wearing a f***ing seat belt in the car, you know, it’s like if you wear it every f***ing time you don’t even notice, you just f***ing put the thing on and forget about it, you know. If you never wear a seat belt and then all of a sudden you’ve got to f***ing put this thing on, it’s like, ah, this is uncomfortable, you know, whatever. Okay, so I don’t know, I, I, I, if you’re, if you’re putting up f***ing crazy, no, it also just helps me not care too.

2:05:25 Like if I’m wearing a condom I don’t care if girls are f***ing other dudes, I don’t give a f***, right? But if I’m f***ing without a condom then I do care, like you know I mean, that’s like, okay, okay, you know, now we get you f***ing tested, it’s like, you know, I don’t, it’s just, I just don’t want to think about it, I don’t care, it’s like, whatever, like f*** whoever you want, I don’t give a f***, like I’m like I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant, I don’t worry about STDs, and honestly it’s like, and just like, just anything, like I don’t know, it’s just, it’s just less headache, you know. Yeah, the pregnant thing’s a good point, like you don’t have to worry about it ever, or an accusation or a hint or a paranoia, because you’re like, no, that, that, well, I’m shooting testosterone so the chances of me getting a girl pregnant is pretty f***ing non-existent, but um, does that drop all sperm counts down and pretty low?

2:06:09 Yeah, I mean you can get it back, you shoot hd and do like a post cycle protocol or whatever, um, but yeah, when you’re shooting tests, yeah, you’re pretty much sterile. So okay, gotcha. Well, that’s love, that can be good. I want, I’ll get into that, and I want to get through the rest of the book, but just on the girl thing, oh, do you have like rules, like when you go on a trip, like obviously the book’s got crazy stories of the crazy orgies, a lot of the sex stuff, but Dan Bilzerian today in 2022, when you go out on a trip, is it like, look, or in your jet, is it like, look, I don’t need all the girls to take their clothes off and jump on me at the same time, are there protocols or is it just kind of like they know your vibe and you just go with what feels right?

2:06:49 Um, well, I have a bed on the plane, so usually I’ll just like lay in bed, eat a weed brownie, watch some movies or whatever, you know, the girls that I’m kind of like, you know, that I want in the bed I’ll let them in there and um, you know, sometimes we hook up, sometimes we don’t. Um, but I don’t know, it’s like nothing, it’s, it’s never really like for film, it’s never really like, oh like, get in the bed, let’s get a photo, like or any of that s***. I just like, I just live my life and like we probably capture five percent of my s*** if that, you know, five percent of good stuff and miss most of it, but like what we get is organic and the internet sees through it, you know, you see all these f***ing douche bags on there like trying to be like me and they set up a photo or they have like all these f***ing girls come and everybody’s like posed and s***, it’s just like not natural, the guy’s probably not f***ing them or they’re hookers or it’s just not the same, you know, like I don’t know.

2:07:45 Um, I just, I just try and just do my thing and we capture it and, you know, it is what it is. If we can capture it a lot, like I said, a lot of times you don’t, you know, like the last trip we did, um, but for like, f***, man, almost like three years I barely posted anything. Yeah, you know. Yeah, well you said last time you were here in London you’re like, I’m coming off social, and everybody’s jaw dropped, they’re like, how can Dan come off social? You also said you’re going to be president one day, which maybe you will be, but you kind of did, I pretty much did drop off social.

2:08:15 No, yeah, you did, three years almost. Yeah, yeah, you did, which was very surprising, and now when you’re on you do literally do like a four second story or something, one that always is like, where’s the rest? At least give me four more seconds. It’s always just like, oh, but like you said it’s, then people know it’s real, it’s not stable. I just, I don’t, yeah, a lot of people do s*** that my stories are so short or they’re choppy or whatever.

2:08:38 I just, to me it’s kind of like, I don’t know, I’m just showing people a quick snippet. I just, I, I just don’t want it to be about like filming. I just hate, I don’t know, I just, I’m so, I just hate social media so much. I do it because it’s helped my company and like our f***ing nicotine vape sales are just absolutely murdering it right now. We’re going into, you know, all these different countries, we’re in f***ing Africa, we’re in South America, we’re in the f***ing UAE, we’re in f***ing Armenia, we’re going to Russia, we’re going to be on the entire f***ing EU by the end of the year.

2:09:08 Um, you know, we’re just going, we just got a big, uh, order into f***ing Indonesia, so we’re like, it’s literally like worldwide sales. In fact, like the U.S. sales are just peanuts compared to what we’re doing worldwide. Yeah, so we’ve been focusing much more on our worldwide mix sales because the US regulatory environment’s so shitty and it’s, I don’t know, it makes the brand worth a lot more too, because if you’re in all these different f***ing countries now you’ve got a worldwide brand, now you’re valuable, the f***ing, you know, big tobacco, now, you know, you’ve penetrated markets, you’ve shown that, you know, the brand has, you know, um, reach, and I think, you know, it’s a big deal.

2:09:46 Look, they could ban f***ing vape in the US tomorrow and if you’re, you know, you’re a f***ing US vape company you’re worthless, right? So to me it was diversification, and, and honestly 80% of my fallings outside the U.S. anyway, so like our best markets have been outside the U.S., like we’re f***ing killing it in like random places. Like we just put in a seven and a half million dollar a month order to f***ing South Africa of all places. Like the Congo put in a two million dollar order, like you don’t even, random.

2:10:11 Like Paraguay, 10 million bucks, like f***ing, you know, just random. That’s a beautiful thing, that’s, that’s something you never see in a company like that because of who you are and you’re social. Tell me about Ignite, because um, I saw you going, I think over to UAE with all the girls and I was like, wow, how does that go over there? And obviously it’s going over well. When you were here three years ago it sounds like you’re much more involved with the company now than you were, is that true?

2:10:36 And is it about, like you said, international nicotine sales as opposed to say domestic cannabis sales these days? Oh, we’re out of cannabis. Okay, yeah, f***, f*** weed, man, that, that was a [expletive], I mean it’s just like such a joke. I mean, like every post that I did was like dropping a f***ing atomic bomb on an anthill, because like we could sell them a small area and then we’re reaching this huge area. Nicotine vape we can sell everywhere, so that’s all over the f***ing place.

2:11:01 Okay, you know, tequila, we can sell everywhere, like we just put in f***ing big orders, tequila, you know, South Africa of all places, you know. So yeah, that’s what we’re focusing on right now is, and that’s what I should have been focusing on early on. I just want to do the weed because I’ve always smoked weed. Yeah, um, but yeah, the nicotine vape is, that’s the future. I mean, it’s getting people off cigarettes, much healthier alternative, like people don’t, like anybody around you doesn’t have to now smell that s*** dog s***, it doesn’t f*** their lungs up.

2:11:31 If you’re smoking in the car now your kids get f***ing, you know, cancer, they get s*** in their lungs, it’s not even their f***ing choice. You’re smoking in the house, your kids got to breathe that s***. Vape is just unequivocally the answer, it doesn’t f*** with people around you. I am a big advocate of like people can do whatever the f*** they want that doesn’t affect other people around, and to me smoking cigarettes affects other people around you and I can’t f***ing stand it.

2:11:53 Yeah. And so I’m pretty happy to like offer an alternative to that. Um, so we’ve been, you know, like I said, man, focusing on that. When I was writing the book I was focusing a lot more on like the fundamentals of Ignite, before I was focused like almost solely on the marketing, and now I’ve kind of been diving back more into the marketing, um, because it’s just got such an impact, man, like you know my videos, you know, like nobody gets views like, like The Rock doesn’t, Kylie Jenner doesn’t, like I think I, I think I probably get more views than any other Instagram account in the world.

2:12:25 Um, you called The Rock out the other day, didn’t you? Call The Rock out on his video account or something, and you were like, what the hell, dude? I mean, look here, just, I mean that’s, those are the, can you see the numbers? Oh yeah, I, I just show you poster there. We go, can you see those?

2:12:41 I mean, bro, that’s f***ing 40 million, f***ing 30 million, right? 49 million, like go look. Good, just go look at The Rock’s, go look at mine, right? And The Rock has like 5x the subscribers but he’s got less views, something like 100, he’s got a 100x because most of them are fake, right? But you know whatever, all these guys are buying f***ing fake followers.

2:13:05 I mean, it’s like you look at all these accounts, I mean like, you know, I don’t know, man, I could name a bunch of them, but I don’t want to f***ing embarrass these people, but like just go look at their following and then go look at the view count. They might buy likes, you know, but like go look at their views, that’s how many people are watching their s***, right? And so obviously mine are f***ing inflated because I probably have twice as many people f***ing watching me that are, that aren’t following me because they have my notifications on, you know, because I’m getting more views than I follow, so that mine is a bit of an anomaly, but still, Rock supposedly got 350 million followers, the guy gets three million f***ing views, I got 30 million, I’m getting f***ing 50 million.

2:13:43 Like come on, you know what I mean? Like something’s not f***ing right there. So you got more organic traffic than anybody on social, basically. I think anybody in the world, I, I don’t know anybody that gets more views than me, you know, I mean obviously like, you know, people bought followers and whatever and people have legitimate followers or whatever, but as far as people watching an account, I don’t think there’s one. I mean, I don’t know, maybe there is, I haven’t found one.

2:14:05 I mean, The Rock, Kylie Jenner, I mean I look at all these people, I mean look at the biggest, I don’t know what the top five biggest accounts are on the internet, at the top ten, but it’s not even, I don’t think they’re close. And how do you do, how do you do that? Um, or sorry, The Rock doesn’t have a hundred xball or is this 10x, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 10x. So how do you do it, just by keeping it real?

2:14:29 I’ve just been doing this a while, man, like yeah, the internet sees through s***, like if you’re not doing authentic things like it’s pretty easy to see. I think like, I mean, I don’t know, I, I think people find it interesting that I’m unfiltered. I don’t apologize, I don’t give a f***, you know, you don’t see me posting f***ing black squares but everybody else is f***ing posting black squares, you don’t see me f***ing, you know, like posting all this s*** that they f***ing post, like I just do my thing, man.

2:14:55 Like I don’t follow the f***ing crowd, I never wanted to do it when I was a kid, I don’t do it now, like I do my own thing and I think people find it interesting. Like I think there’s a lot of people probably living a similar lifestyle to me, probably a lot of rich guys that do it, you know, maybe, maybe not exactly like that, but you know, they’re doing it, they’re, you know, they f***ing have a company or they can’t, you know, they’re, they’re lying to the girls or whatever the case is, but like there’s not a lot of guys that just like really are owning their [expletive] [expletive] and doing it, because it’s not easy, like it’s not easy unless you’re f***ing hookers, which I’ve never really been into, you know, but it would make my life a lot easier.

2:15:29 I mean, I have flock hookers, I just, you know, one out of f***ing, you know, 500, a thousand maybe a hooker, but like, you know, I mean or maybe more, but I’m saying I’m not paying them, like I’m not like, hey, come over here, I’ll give you a thousand bucks, whatever. Like maybe, you know, a lot of girls in L.A. have sugar daddies and s*** like that, so I get, I guess it’s kind of like a fine line between what’s a hooker and what isn’t, but I’m not paying, let’s put it that way. So um, and not for any reason other than just like I feel like sex isn’t good if I feel like it’s transactional, and I’ve said this a million times, I don’t care why they want to f*** me as long as it’s not just because of a fixed amount of money.

2:16:06 It would make my life a lot easier if I did, and I, hats off to anybody that does, they have a lot more time in their life and they’ve wasted less time, so you know they could do the same thing I do, just, you know, less headache. Um, but I, like I said, I can’t get off, I feel like the chick is just banging me, I don’t think the sex is as good if it’s transactional either, you know. Yeah, it’s a good perspective. And what about the, the guys that are trying to be like you?

2:16:29 I mean, do you see versions of that coming up, and do you see it? It was interesting that you saw Tate and you’re like, okay, I kind of like his vibe, and was talking to him, not that he’s trying to be like you, but what do you see when you see Instagram? Well, Tate’s a very different guy. I don’t think he’s trying to be like me, actually, he’s kind of got his own thing. Um, you know, there’s been guys that have like literally tried to do exactly what I’m doing, whatever.

2:16:56 He hasn’t really been very girl-centric, his is more, he’s getting, and he’s doing a totally different strategy, he’s getting other people to post about him, um, and he’s selling like online life coaching and stuff. Um, so and he’s doing a lot of interviews, you know, they’re taking controversial clips, he’s, you know, he’s doing like some pretty aggressive takes and stuff to get clicks and, and whatever. Um, so he’s actually taking a very opposite approach of what I did.

2:17:24 I didn’t do a ton of interviews, I obviously never did any life coaching, I didn’t have anybody else posting my s***. Um, and his views are a little bit different, he’s like, you know, he, he wants girls that haven’t hooked up with anybody. Um, and he also, you know, he, he lies to him by telling the truth. I mean, I, you know, not knocking the [expletive], we’re just very different, we’ve got similar viewpoints on, on certain things though, and I respect his unfiltered, um, takes, you know, like I, I don’t care if I agree with you or not, I respect somebody that takes a f***ing like controversial, um, opinion and runs with it and doesn’t apologize.

2:18:06 You know, that’s rare these days, like everybody’s apologizing, everybody’s f***ing like putting disclaimers before they say things, everybody’s worried about being canceled. Like I’m not canceled, like I don’t give a f***, like I don’t care. I don’t give a f*** if people stop following me, I don’t give a f*** if I don’t. I don’t endorse s***, I’ve been offered tons of f***ing money to endorse things, I don’t promote anything, so I’m not, you know, it’s not like f***ing Nike’s gonna cancel me, like I wouldn’t wear their f***ing shoes if they paid me, so, you know, f*** those guys and, you know, f*** all those like super f***ing woke organizations.

2:18:41 I wouldn’t want to be a part of them if they f***ing paid me f***ing 20 million dollars. So to me I’m not cancelable. I’m, you know, I don’t like feminists. I mean, I don’t agree with them, I mean, and so, and they probably don’t like me and I don’t give a f***. Uh, I think like men should have traditional male roles and females shouldn’t be shamed for having, you know, traditional female roles.

2:19:03 I don’t think, you know, biological men should compete in women’s sports, like I mean, I think s*** pretty logically. I don’t give a f*** if you want to chop your dick off, I don’t care if you’re gay, I don’t give a f***, every one of my assistants has always been gay, like I hang out with gay people all the time, I don’t give a f***, like, but I don’t think that they should be able to compete in f***ing women’s sports, like I don’t think you should ruin women’s sports. I mean, like a 15 year old male beat like every female record, like so it’s a clear advantage, like we’ve got, not only is it bone structure, lung capacity, like hormonal, I mean it’s just unequivocally men have a physical advantage, so they should be separated because of that.

2:19:42 They want to have a trans division, I don’t give a f***, okay, fine, do a transmission, you know, they’ve got tons of other divisions. So I don’t know, I just look at like this, like, oh, I’m so worried about offending everybody, like I want a virtue signal, I want to show everybody how f***ing good I am. It’s like most of these [expletive] [expletive] that are out there virtuous, virtue signaling, don’t give a f*** about anybody but themselves, they’re like super selfish [expletive] and they’re, and they’re preach all this tolerance and they’re the most intolerant [expletive] on the planet, like the liberals nowadays, the super liberals are the most intolerant people I’ve ever f***ing seen, and they’re also really f***ing stupid and they can’t think for themselves, they just follow whatever their f***ing narrative is, it’s like they’re a bunch of f***ing robots regurgitating whatever the latest f***ing script is.

2:20:30 I mean, I just look at them and I laugh, like they’re just f***ing clowns, and I think the world is starting to figure it out, but they had such a stronghold on like the media and Hollywood and all this s***, they were able to pump this like nonsensical f***ing narrative to the point where like people were afraid to be canceled. I was never afraid to be canceled, I told them to go f*** themselves from day one and I’ll tell them to f*** themselves now, and you won’t catch me apologizing for jack s***, so you know, I mean that’s my f***ing thing. We need more, that we need more of that.

2:20:58 Um, it’s hard to watch sometimes from over here, Dan, because, uh, in America you guys have taken it to the next level and sometimes I feel like I’m watching a science fiction movie. Um, the good news is worse is Australia and Canada. Oh wow, it’s like f***ing Nazi Germany over there. And uh, it seems like it’s coming back a little bit, but you know, for a while every tech company, everything out there was promoting that one narrative and like literally you could get dropped if you went against that.

2:21:22 Um, it seems like it’s coming back a little bit. I watch way too many f***ing people bend the knee, like Joe Rogan apologize, like what a f***ing joke, like you didn’t think their own, yeah, you didn’t think he should have apologized or did the wrong thing there? F*** no, what a [expletive] [expletive], unbelievable. He, uh, it wouldn’t have mattered either way, right? He said he got more followers on the back of that controversy.

2:21:50 I’ve gotten more followers on negative s*** than anything else, okay, and it’s funny because right when he was getting [expletive] all his [expletive] and they were f***ing going after him, I was getting f***ing bad press in the f***ing, you know, media, oh Dan’s going broke, he’s fleeing the country, Ignite’s going bankrupt, all this other s***, it’s like we’ve done over 100 million in f***ing vape sales, like I’ve never had more f***ing money, like these people are so f***ing stupid. And Joe Rogan like took off the video of he and I on his f***ing channel because like I was getting bad, really messy. Yeah, yeah, so funny, man.

2:22:28 So you think like all the people, like he basically got [expletive] for [expletive], like you know, using horsty wormer and all this other [expletive] [expletive], literally in the midst of getting just roasted online for nothing but nonsense, this idiot’s gonna just go and like watch some YouTube videos and say like, oh, you know, s***, you know, they must be true about Dan. Like I used to think that he was a more of a critical thinker than that, I was actually pretty unimpressed. Why do you think he did it, because of the UFC or because of his comedy career or he felt guilty?

2:22:59 Or I mean, lack of intelligence and a lack of backbone. I think that’s probably what it is, because if he was smart he would have, you know, like he was like texting me like, hey, brother, blah blah blah, like all this [expletive] [expletive], you know, and then like I got some bad press and then all of a sudden like, you know, he’s like wants to distance himself. The Rock did the same thing to Logan Paul, Logan Paul got [expletive] about the suicide forest.

2:23:19 Yeah, he deleted all his f***ing videos, didn’t want to [expletive], you know, after being like all buddy buddy with them and all this s***, like deleted it. Like there’s [expletive] [expletive], man, they’re like they’re puppets, you know, they don’t have, I mean, you listen, when you get 100 million dollars you shouldn’t be a f***ing puppet to anybody. You should know everybody will f*** themselves. I know that’s the f***ing point of having money is to have your own f***ing independence, and these guys have money and they’re so f***ing greedy that they’re willing to give up their f***ing, you know, independence to get more f***ing money that they don’t need, and so to me that’s the ultimate sellout.

2:23:53 It’s one thing when you’re coming up and you don’t have money and like, you know, you’re f***ing fighting to make ends meet or whatever, when you’re worth 100 million dollars you shouldn’t be taking s*** from anybody, you should have your own f***ing viewpoints, you say what the f*** you want to say, you shouldn’t be worried about s***. I mean, that’s my opinion, that’s always what I’ve done. So your episodes on Rogan got taken off? He, he took him off, he took him off YouTube and it was like the third, it was the third most watched episode he ever had too, and it’s gone.

2:24:21 Yep. Yeah, really. One thing that bothered me, and look, I was on Rogan back in 2012 and for us coming up as a podcast it was a big deal for him to recognize us, but the thing that really bothered me about the Spotify deal was he pulled so much of his content off YouTube, which means it’s on Spotify, which means it’s no longer searchable, which means it’s almost like it never happened, and there was so much stuff on there that now goes, and then of course Spotify goes and deletes a bunch of other episodes and then now all of a sudden a part of history, I mean, I remember your episode on Rogan is no longer there, that really bothered me.

2:24:55 Well, I mean, I get that, for a hundred million bucks I’d take f***ing episodes, I’m not gonna knock it for that. Listen, I, you know, I’ll give credit where credit’s due. I mean, f***, you know, he’s not, 100 million dollar deal, cool. I mean, if I had to take off all my s*** off f***ing Instagram for 100 million bucks, f*** it, it’s off. You know, it’s still bothering me because it’s almost like part of history is missing though.

2:25:17 Somehow I get it, I mean, I get it, but yeah, listen, 100 bucks, 100 million bucks, you know, and he wasn’t a rich guy before that, so I mean he had some money, but like yeah, I guess in a level of like you don’t have to f***ing worry about money, right? I mean that, that is, that’s, that’s like a, that’s a benchmark for sure, right? You know, like after 100 million your life doesn’t improve that much with more money. I mean there’s a jump, you know, bigger plane, f***ing better houses, you know, yacht, whatever, but like your lifestyle doesn’t really improve that much.

2:25:50 100 million is kind of like, to me it’s the minimum to have like f*** you money. I think 100 million is f*** you money, in excess of that is, is good, but like that to me is kind of the minimum, because you can have a plane, you can have a house, you got staff, you don’t have to worry about s***. I mean, you can’t live like a f***ing total [expletive], you can definitely spend 100 million, like it’s not like, right, you’re doing all right, you know. Okay, got it.

2:26:16 But he should have not cowered and taken content down or apologized, that’s what you’re saying? Well, no, no, content, listen, they pay him 100 million bucks to own his content, that’s fine. I think that’s totally fine. Him apologizing, that’s some bitch-ass s***, like f*** that. Apologize because you want to apologize, not because you’re being shamed into it or because they’re telling you to f***ing do it.

2:26:37 Like [expletive] on your [expletive], like I’ll apologize if I’m wrong, but you know, I don’t think he thought he was wrong. He apologized because they pressured him into apologizing. If he thought it was wrong he would apologize a long time ago, not as soon as they gave him pressure. He knows what he did, like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don’t know who, who out there still doesn’t apologize.

2:26:58 Is it like Trump? You are, are there other people that just refuse to? There’s a, there’s a small, I guess Tate, I mean, yeah, we’re a small club. I got, you know, Dan Pena, who’s been on my show, he’s the f***ing guy with the castle in Scotland, he just doesn’t give a f***, and you know, when I see Tate or you get so popular and all the outrage, the fact that they’re so popular shows me that this commodity, Dan, of the truth is so valued by whoever’s watching them, which is probably a bunch of guys, probably a bunch of girls too, who are like, wow, something so precious just called the truth is just coming out, or a perspective that someone’s willing to share.

2:27:38 For me it’s just a sign that there’s something wrong with the world, that all of a sudden there’s so much cut through. I’m looking for partners, collaborators, colleagues who want to join forces with me around the globe and create real value, What’s the choice that you’re going to make? People are scared, man, and the truth is probably one of the like most valuable commodities in the world, and it’s hard, and like this new generation is coming up and they’re lying about all sorts of s*** and lying is normalized and, you know, it’s one of those things where I don’t know, people value things that are rare, that’s why they value gold.

2:30:48 Gold was f***ing everywhere and nobody give a f*** about it, you know what I’m saying? Like, like rare things people value, and so in this day and age having the balls to say what the f*** you think and say what you mean and be honest is rare, and so, you know, that’s why people value it, and that’s why when people see that’s why I think that’s why Tate blew up so f***ing fast, because here’s a guy that’s just saying it [expletive], you know, how whether it’s how it is or not, it’s how he sees it, you know, and whatever, I don’t agree with everything he says, I don’t agree with everything Trump says, I don’t agree with anything. There’s not probably a person in the world where I agree with everything they say, I don’t give a f***, like you’re in tough with your own opinion, have your own opinion.

2:31:27 That’s fine, that, that’s, that’s what makes conversation interesting. I don’t want a [expletive] that agrees with every single f***ing thing I ever say, how interesting is that conversation gonna f***ing be? I want somebody who’s gonna disagree with me and then we’re gonna argue and in arguing I’m actually gonna learn more, you know. So sometimes I’ll [expletive], like I’ll take a stance that I actually don’t even believe in just to see how strong the guy’s argument is on the other side or how strong I can argue that point, you know what I mean?

2:31:51 Like you learn things like that, you learn things by talking things through, and if, like I said, if you just agree with everything somebody f***ing says, well, okay, that’s gonna be pretty f***ing boring pretty quick. Are you gonna run for president someday? Oh man, probably the worst f***ing thing I ever do. Um, probably the most miserable four years of my life, but I think, I think I’ll probably do it. I think it’s probably like the most, as long as you do it in the right way, I think it’s probably the most sacrifice that you could give for the benefit of mankind.

2:32:29 I think it’s the biggest impact and it’ll probably be some of the biggest cost, because I mean, man, like you see it with f***ing, you know, Biden, I mean granted he’s a completely f***ing dip s***, but honestly like I’m not even mad at him, like the guy’s got dementia, like it’s [expletive], like it’s like elderly abuse at this point, it really is, like he has no f***ing business in office. I mean, he can’t even read a f***ing teleprompter, like he’s clearly not running the show, it’s a f***ing joke. Um, everybody talks s*** about him, everybody hates him, same thing with Trump.

2:32:59 I mean, now like with social media, like everybody just talks s***, like the amount of s*** talk, it’s just like it’s come to a [expletive], like astronomical level, and the president is just gonna get heat no matter what, you’re gonna be like so f***ing hated. I think I’m one of the few people that’s probably like conditioned to deal with that, you know what I mean, because I’ve gotten so much like bad press, [expletive] breaths, like 95% of the press that I’ve had against me has been completely f***ing untrue, you know, so I’m used to it, like, and it takes a while, like you have to really numb up, and I think like through the poker that helped me f***ing be a little bit more, you know, numb to things. Um, but it takes, us, why does poker help, why did, why did poker help you get numb?

2:33:43 Because you have to mute your emotions, you know, when you’re winning big you can’t be f***ing like internally celebrating s***, you know, when you’re losing you can’t get upset, you can’t let, you can’t let things affect you, so you have to just like mute it. Right, right. And you think being president would be one of the most self-sacrificial things that you could do, which most people don’t look at it that way, they think people running for office is like an expression of ego and looking for power and glory.

2:34:08 Well, most people do it for money, you know what I mean? They do it because they want to f***ing make money and they do it because it’s power and it leads to money and this and that, but like my goal would be to be a billionaire to give away, like, you know, half my net worth or whatever, going there with like 500 million and make a cap, like, to where I could never be worth more than 500 million, any dollar that goes over that I’m just gonna give to charity, become uncorruptable and then go in there just for the love of the game, you know, not to like try and get power to make more money or whatever it is. So I think people get addicted to that and they do it for the wrong reasons.

2:34:39 Are you patriotic, would you do it for the country? Yeah, I don’t know. Okay, because it’s just the right thing to do for humanity. For humanity. Yeah, and a challenge.

2:34:49 Well, definitely a f***ing challenge. Yeah, you know, I, I spent seven months running to be the next mayor of London and um, it was a brutal process, and like I went around and drove 5 000 miles on a bus to every single borough and we spent a ton of money and I would meet f***ing old ladies on the street and they would tell me this and tell me that and I’m telling you there was nothing egotistical about doing that, it was like one of the most ego destroying experiences of my life, it was like, it, it’s not what people think it is, you know, and if I would have got the job the service of that would have been probably even more difficult. I mean, in Britain too, I mean, bashing politicians is even more of a sport than in America probably with the press here.

2:35:29 Yeah, I remember, I remember you running for, for mayor or whatever, that was that was like a whole f***ing thing. It was a whole thing, man, we went hard. Um, I was an independent candidate so I was already stacked against me a little bit, but I was coming off the, the, you know, we, we had a whole censorship fight with YouTube because I continued to broadcast during COVID, I put big messages out, they tried to block our channel, I kept streaming and I was out there like literally in the streets, we, we didn’t miss a day of work here through all of COVID, we just kept broadcasting all these ideas from scientists, from theorists, conspiracy, I just wanted people to have the right to say stuff.

2:36:04 So we almost got taken off YouTube, all the social bandits, Dropbox to us, off PayPal, shut us down, but we just kept going and towards the end of that I was like, the whole city was shut down, everyone’s losing their businesses, losing their minds, and I was like, these, I got to run for mayor if I really want to make a difference. So I did it and then of course they all come after me, the media comes after me, it’s just, it’s just a brutal experience to do a job that pays terribly. And I don’t know, I just learned you gotta, you gotta be doing it for other reasons, and for me it was, it was great but a very ego destroying experience, you know.

2:36:40 Um, yeah, no, I mean, I think like politics has to be done for the love of the game. I mean, it’s almost like, I almost feel like, yeah, it’s tough. I mean, because they don’t pay that much, so it’s like there’s just such a, such an incentive to use the job to make money, you know. Yeah, that, that’s like the sad thing. And then you just take abuse, I mean, it’s just kind of a crazy situation these days where you have to be something sado masochistic about yourself to do it, like Boris Johnson just left his prime minister.

2:37:11 I mean, some about you, I must enjoy somehow of just getting slated all the time, I’m not quite sure what it is, but uh, but you have to just be for the right reasons, I think, you know. Yeah, and that’s rare. Yeah, if you’re doing it for the love of the game, you’re doing it because you want to like make a positive difference, whatever, then I think it’s easier to deal with a lot of that s***, you know. And so the next 10 years for you, maybe political office at some point, obviously Ignite is really ramping up, and contrary to the rumors that you’re not going bankrupt and all that other crazy stuff, which yeah, I know, I can barely read that stuff actually.

2:37:49 But you guys are expanding globally? No, it’s not, it’s not anymore. I mean, I think these retards realized, I mean, this is like three years, three years ago I was [expletive], bro, I mean it’s like, you know, like I don’t think these idiots understand, like I put 25 million dollars in my own money and Ignite, like just f***ing operating a jet every year is two million dollars. Like I just don’t think people, like, you know, I don’t know, it’s just strange, like that the company lost 50 million bucks, like, okay, so f*** what, you know, big deal, like you’ve done over 100 million in f***ing vape sales alone, like you know I’m saying, like, like companies when they start off f***ing lose money, like Uber lost like f***ing what, five billion and a quarter or some s***, you know, like that’s how it works, like usually when you’re starting off a company and you’re doing marketing and you’re f***ing trying to create a worldwide brand, like you gotta spend some money and obviously you don’t come out of the gates of f***ing blockbuster sales, you gotta like get shelf space, it’s the whole process, right?

2:38:43 So you know, just people are just so ignorant, you know, but at the end of the day I think it really comes down to like YouTube clickbait and these people, they’ll just put anything on their f***ing, you know, on their, on their title to get people to watch the videos, you know, so it’s one of those things where if you know they, if they can just put anything they want and operate with impunity and nobody ever does anything about it and there’s no real like recourse, then, you know, it’s just like the media, they’ll just put up false s*** and worst case scenario they have to current retraction, but there’s no financial penalty, like there’s no consequences. So we’ve gotten into a world where it’s just say whatever you have to say to get people to watch, and that’s kind of a dangerous, scary place, especially when like, you know, you’re coming up, like, you know, when you and I grew up, like we believe the news, you know what I mean?

2:39:30 If something was in the newspaper we thought it was true, you know, there was like accountability, like journalists had integrity, but now like the, you know, the internet and all that, it’s like it’s just gotten so clickbaity, and, you know, also with, with the media just becoming so political and so polarized, um, and the liberals just really dominating the press and Hollywood and just these narratives that are coming out, it’s like, man, it’s a, it’s a strange time, you know. Yeah, it’s like, I mean, they just, they want you to apologize for being white, like, like Coca-Cola had training on how to be less white. Can you imagine a more racist thing?

2:40:09 Like, like here’s how you determine if something’s racist, is if you flipped it around, would there be outrage? So let’s, let’s imagine, let’s imagine, you know, Nike or Coca-Cola has training on how to be less black, should you imagine, like can you f***ing imagine, or how to be less Mexican, like can you f***ing come out, like people’s heads would explode, right? Like, oh, it’s fine, you know, how to be less white, that’s totally okay. It’s like it’s f***ing nonsense, like it’s madness and it’s gonna get worse before it gets better probably, I don’t know, man, the pendulum is kind of swinging a little bit back, I think, but yeah, it’s strange, it’s just, there’s just such a lack of accountability these days and this victim mentality, which is, if you watch any of these like self-help gurus, they preach, you know, vehemently against being victim mentality.

2:40:56 Yeah, but now they’re perpetuating it and they’re encouraging it because now it’s like the more victim categories you’re a member of, like, the more credibility you have, it’s a crazy thing that they’ve developed now. Yeah, when you and I are growing up we would like, we celebrate the hero and the winner, and these days it’s like you celebrate the victim, and you build in this whole society of people that can just take an easy way out and be like, oh, I’m the victim, and then they’ll get the attention. It’s, it’s a strange dynamic, a dangerous dynamic, and then, but like you said, the pendulum swinging, we have other people that are being celebrated for coming out against that, and so it feels like there’s a bit of a pushback, you know, even on some tech channels and some media channels.

2:41:34 So uh, I don’t know where it’s gonna go, but it’s all wrapped up as well, it’s like a lot of weird things going on with you know, the family unit and male, female, and like race, and then a canceled culture, it’s like it’s just, it’s just a weird dynamic. Yeah, it’s like a disease, like affected and stuck in the world, that’s so crazy. And so for you it’s Ignite taking it to the next level, politics later. You’re on a hedonistic tip right now for the next little while, so you’re enjoying yourself.

2:42:06 And what else? I got a strip plan, I’m going to, uh, Colombia, Brazil, South Africa, and then, um, I think somewhere in Europe and then I’m ending in Germany and Iceland on the way home, so that’s going to be, I think, early next month, but until then probably just, you know, chilling, doing some work, training. Okay, any ayahuasca ceremonies in there? No, man, I’m a little scared of that, dude. I’ve heard of people kind of like not coming out the other side the same, you know, in a bad way, and uh, a lot of [expletive] yourself and doing something for 12 hours, I don’t know, man, that’s, uh, it’s a bit aggressive.

2:42:47 I feel like I get a lot from mushrooms, from K, um, I’ve done a little DMT, um, done peyote, um. 12 hours, a lot, it’s not 12 hours, but it’s not, but first of all, if you’re scared of it right now, for me it’s three hours before I drink it to where, I mean, three hours before I drink it at, three hours later I, I can, I can recognize reality now, maybe there might be another hour or two where I’m still laying in the maloca and I gotta go back to my hut, but it’s not 12 hours, it’s just, yeah, and no one’s ever died from it. Okay, there’s always somebody who then got, you know, killed later by the weird shaman who was the, you know, whatever predator, but no, no, not that, I’m not like people committing suicide or like really f***ing up their lives or s*** like that where they like come out and they’re just not the same person.

2:43:43 I mean, look, they, you know, there’s people that sometimes are on SSRIs and they shouldn’t be, but like look, I think it’s in your future in the next couple years is all I gotta say, and uh, for me I played around with the mushrooms for a while, I did the heroic dose, four, five grams, but then when I went back to the ayahuasca after taking five years off, man, I just sat in that ceremony and I thought, this is the mother, this is the mother of all psychedelics, and this is where I get my lessons. I haven’t been back in four years, I did three ceremonies, one of them was the single most profound experience in my whole life. I go to a place in Costa Rica, so I’m not in the middle of the crazy jungle that takes everything over in Peru, but um, it’s something worth, uh, doing.

2:44:22 What I would say is it will probably take a little while to, um, to, you know, put those things into practice, so give yourself a few weeks. Yeah, I mean, I don’t say no, I don’t say never to anything anymore, so it’s possible, I mean, yeah, I think, I think probably going heavier. You don’t, so you don’t think going heavier in the mushrooms is similar? You know, it’s similar, but it’s just not the same. That’s what I would say, it’s similar, but there’s something about that ayahuasca that just taps into something just bigger when I’m at the end of that ceremony I’m literally given like lessons, like six or eight distinct lessons, and they are reviewed and they’re like, I’m gonna do this and this and this and this.

2:45:06 I don’t get that with the mushrooms. I get a lot of realizations, I get joy, I get sadness, I get lots, but I don’t get this message, and I do with, with, with her. So, you know, just some thoughts. Interesting. Yeah, I’ll leave that with you.

2:45:23 I made a whole movie about it, I’ll send you a link. I’ve heard good things. Yeah, it’s, look, there’s a right place in time, it’ll, it’ll call you when you’re ready for it. So um, look, we’re gonna have to sit down in person and uh, continue this conversation at some point. If people want to buy The Setup, and again, we went through probably about half of it, we didn’t get through the poker career and the trust fund and all this other good stuff that you set the record straight on, and I love how you went into the details as well, that’s a beautiful thing about a book, and I’m sure Goggins talked to you about that because he documented everything, right?

2:45:54 So then it’s all out there. Um, how can people get a copy? Um, it’s on ignite.com. Okay, and if they want Ignite stuff to go there as well and it’ll be in their country very soon if not now. Yeah, yeah, hopefully so.

2:46:10 I, I didn’t go the traditional publisher route with the book, so that’s self-published, and I did not agree to their slave ass contract, if they get 85% of the money that just, they probably would have canceled you as well, right? So yeah, exactly. Lastly, just to wrap up, what do you think the message is of this book? What do you think your message is at the end of the day? I think the most important message is the difference between pleasure and happiness, and that hedonistic things go down the road of pleasure, which is a bit of a dead end road.

2:46:47 Um, you know, you can keep upping the bar to a certain point, but I got to a point where I couldn’t up the bar. Okay, more was not better, I actually got to the point where it was, you know, counterproductive. So there is an end to the pleasure road, most people don’t ever get near it, but I actually got the end of the road. Um, and yeah, it was less fulfilling than most would expect. I mean, I’m not saying the rockstar journey isn’t fun and people wouldn’t enjoy it for a period of time, but to have that as a goal, I don’t think it’s gonna give people any kind of like long-term happiness.

2:47:23 In fact, I would guarantee that it doesn’t. Um, and it kind of numbs you a little bit, you know, like if you have too much pleasure, um, it’s kind of like, you know, doing a shitload of drugs, it’s kind of hard to get like that happy doing regular stuff, so you almost have to like reset yourself. Um, but yeah, I think I’m one of the few people that can kind of like tell people that from a position of experience, you know, a lot of people, you know, like, listen, but my parents told me a bunch of things when I was younger that were probably true but I didn’t f***ing listen, you know, it’s my parents, but you know, this is something that I have an area of expertise in and I don’t know, I just felt like it wasn’t the answer, so I’m still f***ing around, I’m still f***ing pleasure seeking, still doing it, but it’s not gonna last for that much longer, you know, I’m pretty much at the end of the road.

2:48:15 You backslide a little bit, two steps forward, one step back, you know. Um, but yeah, I think it’s, it’s something that it’ll burn you out, you know, if you focus on hedonism, it’s not going to make you happy, that’s what the message of the book would probably be. I mean, it’s going to be some f***ing good times, be some adventure and some fun, and there’s a f***ing lot of it in there, but at the end of the day, um, I don’t think that that’s what people should focus on.

2:48:47 Is there a future version of you that’s like, you know, a monk in a monastery or a completely different version of Dan? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, that would surprise a lot of people. I’ve just done it, man, like I’ve done it f***ing all, like I’m one of the few people that, I, I remember being 33 years old and feeling like I’ve done every f***ing thing that I wanted to do, pretty much, you know, and so here we are, you know, almost 10 years later.

2:49:15 I mean, still got stuff that I want to do, there’s a few mountains I want to climb, but I don’t know, I mean, I can definitely see myself taking a hard right and having kids and focusing on that and, you know, kind of leaving it behind. Um, but it’s been a fun f***ing ride, man, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna lie. I say that. Yeah, that parental journey will take you on a right-hand curve, but it sounds like something that’s in your cards for the future at some point.

2:49:40 So yeah, yeah. Um, Dan, uh, really appreciate the time. I think this is the best interview I’ve ever done, to be honest. I think we’ve got a real candid view of you and all your thoughts, so really appreciate the time, and um, yeah, let’s do this in person again soon. Really enjoyed the book.

2:49:58 I think people will be really surprised with how candid you are and who you are, because most people get the one-dimensional, two-dimensional version of you, and the book kind of explains a lot about you, and there’s a lot of details here, including stuff like, you know, you helping out in Hurricane Katrina and you being there at the Vegas shooting and all these little things that never get mentioned that show a lot about your character. So thanks for writing it, and um, yeah, thanks for also not, not acquiescing to the powers that try to get us to do things that we know aren’t right, that’s really important. So thanks for that.

2:50:38 We can do it, and again, I saw a lot of people in 2020, a lot of famous people that quietly ducked out, and um, yeah, and so, and I saw a lot of people continuing to stand up and I do really appreciate that, and we, we need those people and it’ll shape our, our future. So yeah, thanks for doing that and keep speaking out, and um, yeah, man, it’s been, it’s been really good to get to know you, and to be continued. Yeah, it’s been a pleasure, man, thank you, brother.

2:51:05 All right, brother, appreciate you, thanks so much. Get The Setup, ignite.co, check him out, Dan Bilzerian. We’ll see you next time in person.