The Terrible Business Ideas of Graham Stephan | Ep. 1

what's up you guys it's Graham here so welcome to my first ever podcast ever if it that I've been I don't wanna say I'm hosting it I mean you're mostly hosting me but right co-host and co-host there's no host I don't like that it's good it's fine podcasters are wrong let's keep going let's go alrighty normally guys what I'm gonna be doing it's doing a YouTube video I would do that intro like 20 different times it's true 20th time I would get so upset I'm like okay I'm just using this it's true okay cool alright the podcast yeah welcome to the podcast so we'll do a little introductions Graham you go first what do you want me to say just you know introduce you I mean everyone already knows I am so pompous though is you I'll introduce you and you introduce me okay so Graham right here he's a 30 year old I'm not gonna call him a real estate agent because he mainly does YouTube videos now but that's what he does he makes YouTube videos on personal finance and yeah that's pretty much it that's what I do yeah almost two million subscribers right yeah and that's crazy another month exactly exactly the way yeah so I'm joke you want to introduce me yeah go ahead so you're jack so jack is the one that you see behind the scenes who's been editing the phone calls if you send an email to like the Graham Stefan show or Graham Stefan business or Graham Stefan mentorship we have so many emails do you send an email to anyone it's Jack who reads them in response back to you guys or not responds back to you this is Jack so I don't I don't see a lot of the emails so anyway Jack Jack is the guy behind the scenes and this is his idea put me up to this so and Graham and I are actually coming up on our one-year anniversary very cute right very cute yeah in like a couple of weeks that'll make one year that I've been working with him thank you thank you I started off as a lowly fan and now I am yeah you started off going through the Facebook group emails yep so um so yeah this is a beginning we're doing this and first off I think a good activity for the first ever podcast would be a hot seat for Graham because obviously most people are here for him okay so I've prepared some questions for you are you ready to hear me out all right so first off I'd like to say when you do your videos you seem to have a pretty moderate opinion right like you never really want to go astray or extreme or anything do you think that you're ever not true to yourself because you're holding back to like you know appeal to a larger audience sometimes honestly opinions are completely worthless I mean my opinion on certain subjects is completely irrelevant to looking at facts and research and data like I could think something might happen but I think I'll keep my opinion out of it because all we could really look at is the facts figures and the data and the history and then I let people come up with their own decision that that has always been my go-to so sure I have opinions I have things that I don't purposely share but usually that's for a reason I'd like people to come up with their own opinions so you do it mainly to be as accurate as possible it's not really to appeal to a larger audience or to pander no because I like that people could go through my videos and they can't say I was wrong I don't like that they can't watch my video and disagree with them because it's like they're disagreeing with fact right right I can't disagree with fact they could say a certain thing about the stock market I could well you know I cited all of this research so you can't go to me and say I'm wrong unless you're calling you know everyone at Harvard who did the studies you would you spent like years of her life doing this yeah like I'm researching the data so I put in the time I show people what I think they would want to hear or see and go from there this is true Graham does a lot of research hours it literally will be like 6 hours you know - even 10 hours of research per videos yeah easy yeah kudos to him thanks ok so second question let's see here if you weren't a finance youtuber what kind of videos would you make on YouTube that's a great question thank you thank you thank you Wow you know what I originally this is like seven years ago I use I wanted to prank videos I thought would be so funny to do prank videos and I actually came up with the idea and this is before like anyone I'll start to do this I was like a lot of these prank videos would be so much easier if you just hired actors but I thought like it would be so easy to just hire actors and go on like recur a lot of these things right right viral videos yeah I don't know and that's what everyone's doing that's what everyone think it's no longer me in that anymore but I thought that would be like a fun thing I'd want to do prank videos I thought about I think like you know music videos but like drum covers stuff like that I think would be fun who inspired you for the prank videos la vie la was one of them yeah vite Ali would be another one Josh paler Lynne a few big ones I would say those there's so many print overboard humor before everything that happened with that overboard what happened with over-over my dad some issues had some personal stuff come up and I think it leaked itself into the channel unfortunately and I think this is the content suffered because of that don't you know just tough stuff in general but yeah overboard humor was another one there's there's so many channels that I used to watch back then to just pick five TV what's another one limitless exp was it limitless yeah exp I think Vincent Valentine was another one of them one of those guys those are the these are guys who would just be in Vegas just pulling little pranks like harmless little prank yeah yeah that's fine yeah but that's yes so I would say probably pranks and then music so you said that their personal stuff got into the channel how big of a threat do you think YouTube is just to for you know a YouTube creators own mental health because I feel like I see a lot of YouTube creators doing a lot of videos like about my anxiety about my depression like do you think that YouTube can spur that kind of like mentality or it can make people you think that the job is hard because a lot of people like a very prideful that their youtuber isn't like they love their job but then I see a lot of videos like that like yeah it's definitely because your boss is an algorithm that only rewards you if you keep posting and each post has to be better than the last and the way the algorithm works is that if your video does well the next video after that is going to do well too but if your next video afterwards suffers then the video following that is going to suffer alongside with it so it's like if the faster you run the faster the treadmill goes so the fasten you know the the more distance you're covering but you right right you can't just keep doing what you're doing you have to continually push and do better and better and better that takes a toll on people even for me it's just constantly figuring out that I think would perform better than the last one it's like right good only make so many tops too about personal finance before a lot of them become repetitive and if there's no like if there's no news or anything happening how do you how do you bring people back into the channel it's it's tough so yes so I think that's why I just it becomes very time-consuming and I think keeping that up you did I definitely think it's something that you can't sustain for like 20 30 years at the current level right unless if you have like a team behind you that are doing all the backend stuff you got a guy doing although there you go there you go so that that's why I think it's just it's so much work and so much involved that there's a high turnover rate I think of people who do it for a few years and then just burnout yeah that's fair that's fair we've seen a lot of youtubers go mainstream recently yeah so that's interesting you say that let's see if you could collab with anybody you know I'm talking like anybody you want you know it could be the biggest youtubers that you could be like mr. beast you know not even in the finance like yeah my first go-to is Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey so would be in finance it's interesting yeah that was my first if I could collab with anybody would be Dave if you could get anybody on the gram Stefon show so I'm talking you know you could get the president you could get anybody you want so Oh probably quick besides Dave Ramsey I would love to have mr. beast and Danny Duncan okay yeah and the other two guys who I would love to have them on the channel anybody any way Elon Musk okay I don't know yeah I'm not gonna argue with that that's fair that's fair okay on Elon Musk what do you think about his naming of his child was it what was it know what yeah no no it's like x AE a 12 yeah yeah but like I think I read somewhere that that's pronounced Kyle because if you in in pronounced in Greek those letters work out to be Kyle to is like the LD are you serious well I thought there was something named Kyle so it's a meme apparently oh wait meme accounts have convinced people that Elon Musk and Grimes's baby name is pronounced Kyle yeah I didn't think that he would do that so I haven't seen it actually like written out new baby boy X I don't know the AE I don't know I don't know Greek I don't know no 8 yeah it's not like a fighter jet or something like that wait wait joy he identified the second character is ash saying it was pronounced ex ash shaked it's so ridiculous it's yeah so there's no confusion he's just letting the press take off so you what do you think about the name you like the name would I be so rich to be able to name her kids something like that right never gonna have a normal life right like that so you got it there's got to be able to provide there's got to be a net worth threshold threshold for you to go and name a kid like that like was named Apple like there's like an apple something I grew I went to high school with someone named Apple I think it's a common name I don't know it was when its Paltrow and they named their daughter Apple well so you got it you gotta have better Apple than like orange or watermelon or something like has to be blue ivy that's the kid's name that's a name I don't even the more the more money you have the what I like the more wild the names oh that's smart that's my a hundred million bucks you just you know my mom is a is a kindergarten teacher and she had a student in her class named seven claw-like then it literally spelled out se ven that's cool yeah and like stranger things yeah exactly exactly seven yeah all right so let's move on to the next question here all right Graham so we know your guilty pleasure is all you can eat sushi what is your real guilty guilty pleasure like not with you know eating sushi or anything like that it doesn't even have to be with money but what would you say you like spoil yourself with you in there do you have a guilty pleasure the drumset was something that I spent money on the trunk the drumset was something I got for myself it doesn't have to be anything you spend money on any glutton work for anything I mean that's really what it is that's true this guy works non-stop it yeah all right all right that's I don't need much on a leaky sushi for me is like a reward at the Macdonald Macdonald dollar menu is something that's that's another rule board drum set was a splurge the the reef aquarium is gonna be another splurge but like like even on my birthday like you know this like all I wanted to do my just wanted to work I just wanted like a normal work day because like that's I that's what I'd like waking up to like I'm excited to wake up in the morning so I can get to work so Graham and I will occasionally go to McDonald's and when we do Graham gets the same thing he gets to make doubles okay Graham what do I get the chicken I get to make chicken and I get a McDouble yeah and it's called him again I might bleep that out okay but what you do is you pull apart the McDouble and you have you know the meat and the cheese and the bun on one side meat cheese not bun on the other side and you get the McChicken and you put it inside and close it mmm what do you think of that hey you know what Monday well going Monday we'll go do that all right cool you'll you'll try one yeah they're delicious I'm telling you like it's it's definitely worth it all right cool yeah now let's talk about moving in okay so what do you think cuz right now I actually live with Graham in the guest houses part right now what do you think about me moving in do you think it went smoother or more difficult than it you know then you would have initially got worried initially I'll be honest because I I like hat like it's hard for me to concentrate sometimes because I was worried that like what if I need to work in the back yard what if he can't keep themselves busy enough is it gonna interfere with me planning and like all this right so I definitely went in thinking like I just I I need my time not to be distracted so I can plan and it went smoothly I mean very just like very effortlessly I know I'm missing out on rents by not renting out that guest house but overall I would say very smoothly and it went I would say better than expected good good I'm glad um let's see here also about me moving in one thing that you told me which I was I was very careful about this you wanted to make sure that you know a friendship and business that we're not really two things that like did I say that yeah you did and believe me like one of the things I want to make sure I do is never like you know encroach on like anything that you know what's going on in your life but I thought it was interesting you said that and obviously makes sense and it was something I I expected you to say something like that yeah so what do you think of it now since I've been here for a while do you think that it's difficult that you know we do have a friendly relationship right you know what I mean working with someone who's your friend do you think that you ever hold back on me do you think that you're not tough enough on me uh no I don't think so the thing is I I could probably always ask for more so I would say there's a few times where I'm like I very much like I like to drop everything and just get it done as fast as possible so there are times where I would love for just like let's drop everything work until like two o'clock in the morning wake up at six let's keep going right so it's hard for me sometimes to pen like not everyone is like that so you know I would say that's my only things that sometimes I'm like we got them all anyway let's edit it as soon as possible get it out like all the photos why all the phone calls done in like five hours we could do something else so right right that's usually how I operate so I would say overall though I think I'm pretty straightforward when it comes to that yeah I would agree on I would agree with that you know okay so now what we're gonna do is you're gonna need three strengths three weaknesses or however many you want what do you think are my weaknesses and strengths and I'll tell you yours okay this is dangerous I mean you're my boss right like yeah uh let's start with strengths I would say very motivated okay very persistent and takes criticism well mmm say three strengths three weaknesses the reason we tell you this before you say it say the weakness the reason why I take criticism well is because I'm confident okay so if you tell me my weaknesses be sure that it's I would say the the the weaknesses not being able to focus a hundred percent you know that yeah I think sometimes are there are things that need a little bit more urgency that or maybe just not done immediate but then again that's that I wouldn't say that's a big thing no that's fair I was about to say not getting to things immediately but that's the same thing I don't know there's plenty of stuff you could pick from you know lack of original thinking not contributing enough yeah very punctual face okay okay it's coming from you yeah half of this guy's comments are just that's funny I don't know I don't care enough yeah fair enough would you like to hear you know what a lot more time to plan this out I actually okay so I actually did not think of anything for you so this is all impromptu or whatever I recalled so I think that one of your weaknesses starting it off with weakness is I think that you work too hard and you evolve your life around money because I remember hearing them one middle-ground episode which I totally agree is like and also someone in one of my classes actually UCSB they said that whatever you warship you become a slave to so you you know you worship money and you worship you know your entrepreneurial endeavors but now you're kind of a slave to it and since you you hold it at such high regard you'll never really be truly satisfied with money and progress and productivity it's at this point it's it's less about money I think it's just the byproduct of I like working and I like seeing the numbers go up and I like yeah but now you become a slave to it you you chase it and I think that you'll never be you know truly truly satisfied oh I would agree with that okay that's good yeah so I think that that was probably you know it's a weakness of yours I think a strength I think that I mean you're extremely honest you you're a pleasure to do business with like yeah I know for a fact I'll never get shortchanged and I think we both have really really good mutual trust another weakness of yours is you're too trusting I think that you probably let people take advantage of your walk on you I don't think so I think so because you remember we went to you know in that one tree and you were too scared to ask for a check you're not confrontational and as a businessman you have to be confrontational okay we went on a trip and you don't need to go why oh oh no he's right he's right no we don't need to go into details but very interesting so that's one thing I don't think you're confrontational okay all right that's fair yeah which is fair one of my most unattractive traits is my parents sometimes they'll order for me when we go for dinner we can leave that part out that yeah so that was a string that was awareness okay I mean overall I think that you obviously I think you're a powerhouse like I think that you do you do well in whatever you apply yourself to and I think that's good I think that's probably just because of your work ethic in mentality fair enough okay um another weakness I want to say I can't I can't - perfect you see Graham makes me leave my shoes at his door and at first I kind up my shoes to wear when I walk in yours you choose the door yeah which at first I thought was a weakness but now it actually makes a lot of sense yeah yeah because recently I've been kind of putting my shoes at the doors my guess is yeah so um another thing when did you enjoy YouTube the most because I I think it's probably not now because now it's a career and it used to be a hobby I don't know I part of me feels like now you think you enjoy it now yeah but now it's your career and people say when your hobby becomes your career then you enjoy less no um I would say my favorites I would say in the very beginning for the first 20,000 subscribers I would say and now yeah I would say the middle part was a lot of us like the grind but now it seems like well it's very much in a wave of the algorithm like when the algorithm is in your favor you love it when the algorithm is going down and your videos are not getting views you hate it so now I'm loving it right now because the algorithm has been the best right so obviously I'm having more fun with it now because I'm like you're putting in work and then you're seeing this great outcome and it makes you feel like wow I did something great you know people really like it it's a good message and in the beginning it was really just because it was it was new and every subscriber was WOW another person subscribed the first thousand was a big milestone for me the first 10,000 was a huge milestone for me and then I remember hitting 20 ambulate wow that's like that was that was not right right right and that was the point - or like hitting you know a few thousand views in a day it was insane so that for me was pretty big good to know I'm glad that you're enjoying it now this is good so I was listening to another podcast and someone asked a really interesting question the question was since you've become successful does anyone ever come to you with terrible business ideas like people that you've you know you've known in the past and now they're reaching out to you and they're like need alone okay so to two things in terms of terrible business ideas yes believe it or not I don't want to call anybody out it was don't have to say who they are you could say the idea I don't know the person came up to me and I don't want to give away his business idea but he had he had this idea and [Music] wanted me to go down to the parking lot in his truck because he wanted to show me his product and I mean if it could perform as it was it was basically like like a it was a type of adhesive basically we'll call it it it was a type of adhesive and if it could perform the way he says it could perform it would be great but I just he made these claims it sounds so just like so out there like it was stronger than steel and like and it made me and it just just the vibes kind of got me off it's just like it sits in his it's in his truck right right all right and just like he wants he needs money like he wanted like 200 and how long ago is this a few months ago really yeah yeah I didn't know anything about that no I mean it was just you know a 10 minute thing and then you know but sometimes because he's a fan of the channel so I didn't want to say like no so I heard him out but then it kept going and going and going I don't want to you know okay right right right no but that was it fair enough fair enough yeah um final question that I've prepared is businesses when you were younger when you were younger there any businesses that you started up or you you tried to start up now looking in you know hindsight they actually were not multiple but I never actually pursued a lot of them - where to start um one I wanted to make so the first one I bought man I should have done this one in high school I bought the domain odd jobs com whoa believe it or not and it was a high school business project and odd jobs was basically a Craigslist for people to post up odd jobs that they want to get done and people could make an account and do those odd jobs like if someone wants their garage cleaned out he posed on odd jobs com someone could go and clean out your garage for a specified price and it could be anybody and then that person the worker would have their profile on there and people can review them right right so it basically it turned into later what was what it was turned into TaskRabbit and then they sold that for a lot of money so I mean how they pursued that sure but your so only good ideas ever from you so yeah so that was one of them and I let the domain expire and so yeah and then someone else bought it I should have kept it that was an odd jobs com yeah it was great another one was I bought the domain art sleeve I don't know why just art sleeve calm and now it's bought I don't know I I don't think I ever renewed it but I bought art sleeve calm what kind of business so you turn it so what that was supposed to be that now turned into Etsy oh nice this was this would have been in 2008 is when I did this I'm sure I stole you can still have no outline for art sleeve Oh that'll be cool but yeah art sleeve was one of them there were a whole bunch I came up with all these let's see if I type an art sleeve this would be a blast in the past let's see if art sleeve alright so just find it all right you found art sleeve so like I came up with all of this on Microsoft Word so I came up with this whole outline literally I'm like so art sleeve and then you could search for like painting sculptures by artist name and then it would basically be so this is before like I guess this is like basically like a MySpace thing cuz this is this was over 10 years ago that this was done so yeah sir like you would have the user a profile picture people can rate them views their featured artwork they can have like blogs galleries reviews guestbook for people to sign that so this was a good idea if you pursued this this could've taken on so anyway so yeah so that was one of them arts leaves calm the other one that I never pursued that I really wanted to do I wanted to come up with a free cell phone plan where instead of you know when you call a phone it's like it rings it yeah imagine if you get a free cell phone so you wouldn't have to pay any sort of like monthly data or like anything like that so you don't have to pay like 30 40 bucks a month but instead anytime you make an outgoing call you'll hear an ad for like 10 15 seconds and then the call goes through whoa that's so I figured you know like or or when people call you let's just say instead of hearing the you know it's ringing or you know how people have a ring back tone or a play some classical music or something imagine if a person calls you and they just hear an ad until you pick up the phone that's pretty smart people and you know if you're receiving calls maybe you could even if you receive a lot of calls you could probably monetize it and you know you could like wait like for like three or four rings wait a while and then finally like answer to get them long a play time on the ads so you either get a free cell phone that all you have to do to make a call is listen to an ad fine or you can get paid like imagine if people call you and you could just give me now now you would have to figure out some way of just not like manipulating that and hiring call centers all right right right I think realistically it's just a free cell phone plan where you can make as many calls as you want within the United States but it's just you listen to an ad before the call goes through not a bad idea so I yeah I came up I know I got a business plan in there but basically I was one of those kids where it's like okay so there's 300 million people in United States if we can kids 1% of those people and we make an average of you know 15 cents a day you know you know all of this yeah yeah based on that and that was my that was my pinch was just was just that like if we could miss him a people make this amount right right I started looking into it and it was just it was I felt so over my head and just like I had this idea it's hard but I was like where do I start how do I get advertisers I think it was like 18 years old I was like what do I do never pursued it there were two other ones one was called the truth intel.com and that was a website I wanted to make a Yelp for people I'd like to see if they're like a good or bad person okay I think I've seen like a black mirror or something on this but something like that yeah but this is made this one again this was like almost ten years ago truth in telecom where and this one we actually have if you'd go to truth in Telecom I just don't know if I want to promote truth in Telecom because we're not pursuing it so in in hindsight you think it's a bad idea a terrible idea to just like see how good of a person people oh yes if you had an account what do you think your rating would be - any influence from you know subscribers or anything like that just the people you meet on the street what do you think your your rating would be out of fun day for four and a half out of 1000 at a fine oh okay so you think you're like okay so maybe 80% yeah I think it's funny it's funny everyone's done things in the past they haven't been proud of so anyway so I thought it was like if the Yelp for businesses there should be a Yelp for people and it should be a bad person yes okay but here's the issue is that we started getting into it and a few things one is that people will very rarely go and write a positive review usually the people online if they actually take the time to review something it's gonna be negative like you have to have such extreme feelings to actually take the time to review somebody so my thinking right off the bat is that predominantly it's gonna be overwhelmed with negativity it's good right the next thing was that there's no fact-checking there's nothing - for me to go on and like I don't like this person so I'm gonna write a really bad review there's no filter to that and once you begin moderating comments on the internet you're assumed to then be publishing or endorsing information so this is something I wasn't aware of but you could be a website and remain completely neutral and be completely avoid void of lawsuits if you don't moderate comments if just whatever submitted is submitted you don't option but as soon as you start moderating any comments or restricting what could be published or removing stuff then you're endorsing everything else and then you can be liable interesting so I didn't know that so you know if something gets published on the site and it's obviously fraudulent and it's obviously not true and it's so ridiculous we can't go in and remove it and you know just you wouldn't want it to be damaging to the person or you wouldn't want right right right if I wrote a really terrible thing about you and that you lose a job now or something happens I couldn't you know I couldn't you know feel good about myself knowing that my website led to something like that you know we did do a mock-up site that that we promoted around our friend group and it actually got like it for some reason it caught on in like this other country so so so here's what happened so what we ended up doing is we we went through like 50 to 100 friends and we start promoting it on Facebook and we got a decent amount of traction for people making like little profiles and kind of like having fun so you had to make a profile so you couldn't I like just like see someone on the street like that guy's face looks you know so nice to begun I would have to make a profile on you and then so even if I didn't even say it's okay for me to be there like no the way we had in sections anyone could go on and make a profile about anybody so I could make a profile about you upload your picture put your name I can just say whatever agents footing you want and so we did this and what ended up happening was that we had our friend and he had a very unique last name that not many people have that last name so we made it like a funny little post about him just funny stuff but it was kind of wild so like we're friends so you know how friends is kind of like joke around with each other so anyway we wrote some stupid stuff about him just jokingly knowing that we're all friends you know ha yeah yeah didn't realize that that showed up within like a few weeks as the number one result on Google when you typed in his last name and his dad has a construction company with that same last name so guess what his review came up first before his dad's construction company so the dad was furious over that because when people googled the construction you know I was almost about seeing our friends profile would come up first with our little joking things yeah very upset about that so we took that down but yeah but for some reason we would log in and see like people have been creating profiles like some other country and we're like how did they get because we never promoted it there right no anyway so it was that was one of those ideas that got shut down that's funny you say that that reminds me of something that happened within my friend group in high school I had two friends and one of them asked the other friend can I can I sell you on Craigslist as a joke yeah so you know the other friend was like yeah sure I don't care like whatever you do and he didn't think he would actually like make the listing and my friend made the listing and actually sold like like tried to sell this other guy on Craigslist and pulled up a picture of him when he was like 7 so this is where it turns bad yeah he he posted this on Craigslist a picture of you know the other guy when he was like 7 years old and he said oh this is like young little like whatever he only needs like a pint of water a day and stuff like that and like basically yeah so he he was saying like he don't need to treat him well whatever like that it was like a it was a bad situation right but like back in the day like we thought that was funny right because you know obviously I can't mature and stuff like that and and yeah the listing got taken down everyone forgot about in three months later we're at a track event and like the sergeant of like some crazy like chieftain of police or something like that comes over and he's like are you so and so and he was like yeah and then he's like you got to come with me and apparently they had launched an investigation and they had been investigating for about three months to find out who is trying to sell this person on Craigslist yeah they found it out and and yeah lo and behold like no one got in any trouble but the officer was really really pissed because obviously a waste of like you know resources stuff from the police department and yeah there was a little bit of animosity between those friends after that obviously they've settled things now but like crazy huh Wow two other ideas I came up came up with by the way that I just remembered one was an Airbnb for parking spaces like you know in Los Angeles smart parking is so hard to come by and I remember going around Venice and especially as a real estate agent like you want to show a property and like Venice or like say you know Santa Monica you see they're all permit parking can't find anywhere to park but imagine an app that you can pull up on your phone and basically pay per minute to park in someone's parking spot these are good ideas I don't know why you know you never really dude San Francisco they failed no because they couldn't find enough homeowners that would agree to do something like that now I kind of get it I I'm sure I have it all my email to okay it's if you have like a two to three million dollar house you know you're not caring if you yeah hey you know I bucks five bucks an hour for parking I thought that it would make sense for someone's driveway during like 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. if they're at work anyway why not make twenty thirty bucks right away so that was something I thought of so so this we we tried making a truth Intel by the way mobile app where you could swipe your friends so it's integrated on Facebook so you could go on the app tell them what all of your friends from Facebook and then swipe I love that image that just says is Carla honest yeah but it but it's a rating system so basically it'll ask you questions about the person you could say yes or no and you could go through your Facebook friends and then like it's Carla honest oh my god so we put down here she is so annoying stop posting pictures of your food watch what you say to her she can't keep a secret for beautiful friends I don't understand like did you think this was like funny when you're a kid because I think it's funny now like I added look but you could see like it's Karla honest you can see 12 people said no six people when you were coming up with that idea specifically did you think that it was actually like gonna be a successful business or anything did you think that what you were doing with your friends was funny though oh we had a blast I mean this was this was us getting together like twice a week hanging out coming up with ideas thinking we're gonna be you know billionaires that that's what we thought hmm do you have any questions for me that you'd like to address you could put me in the hot seat and feel free to ask me anything no filter I'm good without planning I don't know I know what comes to the top of your head when is this gonna be posted I mean that that's like the number see that's the thing you just you don't stop thinking about work all the time do you think they'll ever change from that well you know I seem to go in these these phases where for like a few years they'll be really hyper into it then a few years off and if you use really into it a few years office so it's on the scale of years it's not like weeks or months because it seems like you know for real estate I was really really really like interested in that for the first like five six years went through a period for a few years where I was just like ah got back into it and YouTube came up but still like at such a young age making like that much money did you really feel like air like it's hard for me to ya know when you start doing the same thing for a while it started feeling every deal was about the same this showings are the same houses were the same yeah I still I still was excited about it but it went through a phase of just you know I was just I was tired of being at someone's beck and call all the time and I was tired of just like a p.m. would come around and like oh I know I got it like pick up my phone and go to a showing right now I don't know where I didn't like that I couldn't I couldn't plan around it you know like a lot of that was so spur of the moment if becoming a real estate agent was never really a thing do you think that you would have ever started making YouTube videos yeah yeah because I'd wanted to make youtube videos for quite some time so you think that you still regardless of whether or not you were a real estate agent you would have made youtube videos maybe I don't know feels they gave me something to talk about on YouTube right I don't know what I would have done besides that it originally was just to be I was gonna be a drama you know well first was in bed banker but I didn't want to go to the school for that I didn't have the grades so that that was out drummer I just I didn't want to be the starving musician living in a van on the fair because there's some great drummers out there I don't know IIIi would have probably come up with some app some website you know I was really really interested in that what's fascinating to me is you always say that you were really bad at school like you had like well like a 2.6 GPA or yeah something like really low by honors in did you not try in school were you not motivated because so stupid you thought school itself was stupid but it's so stupid so you think if you really tried you could've done better I don't know I just because I mean you're pretty like eloquent in the way that you speak in like I think that year your overall like I think you're pretty like intelligent so I couldn't understand chemistry I couldn't really understand math um English I just didn't see the point there's a lot of stuff I just didn't see the point so you didn't try and where your parents never like urging you like come on what is this report card restream you know C's or whatever not really I think beyond you know at a certain point they're just like it is what it is they can't really yeah it's so much stupid like I didn't want to learn poetry in English like I just sit there and just be angry because it's like this is stupid I don't want to I don't want to do this the sitting chemistry it's just like I don't want to learn chemistry yet it's like what am I gonna do with this same with math we're very practical yeah it's like I only thought about is how is this gonna help me make money that's that's it so even at a young age you always still had to make money mentality no so you always wanted to like you had the goal set in mind of becoming really wealthy yeah it's interesting even if what if you were to do something you were never passionate about like a job that you you really didn't want to do it I tried working it but you made a lot of money here we go Gold Line international never said that before gold liner that was a job that I worked at barely out of high school that was that was what I thought was gonna get me into like the investment world was Gold Line international I started doing data entry with them and I hated it could not stand it but I was how much were you making a minimum wage like it was either between eight and twelve so it wasn't even that it's like it wasn't great no but the the goal was with that is that they were going to start me off doing entry and a mailroom and then move me up from that into the it was into the shipping so it was like data entry mailroom the bottom of the barrel then he got into shipping which was like right above that then you got into gosh there was something else above shipping that was just slightly better and then after that maybe it was a customer service or there's a lot of steps essentially buddy but but the end goal would be to be what's called an account representative and what you would do is an account representative is you'd have a list of numbers of people who have inquired by gold in the past or precious metals or numismatic coins and you would sit there all day making calls to clients trying to sell them at the top that's the top that doesn't sound like the top that sounds like grunt work no no because you're paid on Commission so some of those dudes were making like 200 grand a year but obviously didn't after that you have like right right okay so I wanted to be the account representative or the account exec you tell the marketer yeah which at the time I saw that I thought that was the most like glamorous glitzy because like everyone in the back and I worked in the back office everyone in the back office would be like a third beckon call right right and have some dude like they would wave the sheet in the air when they did a deal and like someone would have to go and run that over to processing in the back in a process the order and there would be like someone going around and like if they needed coffee or something give him coffee and they're like the kings yeah and like everyone and it seemed like there was this big divide between the front office and the back off at the back office people were like these these you know literally yeah and there are many people you can see them like drive the Mercedes oh I wanted to be that you know so whole like system a whole like why is it was very corporate I hated it though but yeah that was that I hated so that that to me was so impactful that I could never do a job that I hated because I would never want to return to that again it was so awful the first day I liked it and then after that I had load that I hated life so a question I remember hearing one time that I thought was really interesting would you sit in a blank white room for eight hours a day but be making $200,000 obviously before you started making money in real estate in YouTube when you were at that point in your life would you have accepted a job like that sit in a blank white room for eight hours a day doing nothing but still walking home with a big paycheck probably you would and do they need any Tina for us yeah yeah fair enough I feel like a lot of people would probably try it out and then after a while they like to screw this this is Terrence there would you do it for one hundred thousand one hundred thousand okay it's fair that's bad I mean even now like I'm sure there's a dollar amount where you would you could pay me to be in a wife room for a day I'm sure there's an amount I think we all have an amount that we would do that for it do you think sleep is a waste of time no no Steve is the one thing for me I just need it if I'd if I don't get to bed by a certain time then I'm just I'm a wreck the next day think about sleep though because it's it's eight hours of time per day depending on how much they sleep that's just like nothing I think of a way you could monetize sleep is there any way that you can make money off of sleep off obviously you can live stream yourself sleeping there's gonna be people watching that would if I set up a webcam on me in bed sleeping there would be people to watch it oh yeah Oh guaranteed so I was watching a live stream on Twitch and there's this guy that went like sleeping and stuff and there was a donation box and if you donated a certain amount people came in like physical people that were taking care of him when he was sleeping and they would do stuff to him so I was like fifty dollars shoot a paintball at him like a hundred dollars tase him like two hundred dollars like no there was like ten dollars like text to talk so like they you know people would type stuff and it blast it and wake him up but like know there was like tasers and stuff and I wouldn't be opposed you know if I can make enough you and me asleep sleep and let people watch you let's say it's like two thousand dollars at night I mean yeah no I mean yeah don't even like I'm sleeping anyway if a what if you do omit something embarrassing that you like fart or something when you're like sleeping it the audios gonna be turned off I don't know so you turn the audio maybe I don't know I'm gonna make sense yeah I guess there's you can you can say if you paid me ten million a year I would sit you know you know white room for eight hours a day for no YouTube so you'd have to take a year hiatus on my tips that would be worth it wait wait no 10 million a year no no it wouldn't be worth it I would say it was it would have to be like 20 20 maybe 30 million dollars and you do I know YouTube where would I go Grimm what would I do I'll pay it is just you know just watch out because something in your break you know 30 million bucks you could come back and like have a crazy like what's up guys I made 30 million in one year and watch it I guess my biggest concern that would be just mentally going crazy and then because I because that that might just be enough to screw you up and then you're never the same afterwards it's like going insane from sitting it is not like what insane asylums are yeah you're not getting paid for that it might okay fine you could count how much you're making from I don't know I just don't know the effects of isolation for eight hours a day every lose it every single day the hard part would be if you don't do it for an entire year you get nothing so like if you get to day 300 oh yeah that's what it would have to be yeah it's either you get all of it or nothing that's crazy no yeah that would be a really interesting concept I would probably do it I bet honestly I bet most people would do it I think a lot of people don't like their job and would rather sit in a white room for eight hours a day with just completely deprived of all of their senses eight hours a day just time pass things time passing that would feel like but but then again could you sleep no yet so you have to be fresh off of like eight hours of sleep you have to be like as at your most hyper self with nothing I don't you might mentally go go crazy oh you probably would because I I think humans are not designed to be that I think honestly what I think would happen is that you would you would get very depressed you and I think you would have a crisis that's what that's what I think a little crisis in there yeah and I think every day would get worse I think you would battle severe depression doing it and I think coming out of that you'd probably have pee est PTSD so like you couldn't get into like a white room for an entire year you're talking about let's say you know if you live to 81 80th of your life was spent in complete isolation for eight hours day you're gonna wake up after that when that is over and just be paranoid like going back to that we're like you're gonna be paranoia I'm out of it it's gonna seem like a bad that's so hard for me to actually picture because I feel like the entire time I was in that you know I would be in that white room I would you be thinking about like oh my god I'm like making this much money you know maybe the beginning but like every time I walk into a room and it's like oh why I just be thinking about dollar bills like if you look at the hedonic treadmill after about two months or so making that amount of money is gonna seem completely normal and they're just gonna hate it first two months you could probably do it but you'll get used to it that's interesting to get used to things very quickly so you see you'd say you're 100% used to your current income do you ever do you ever like sit back and just think like wow this is insane yeah it's hard not to lose perspective it's really hard because because now I view things in terms of like how many days is this gonna cost me to pay for like how many hours is this gonna cost to pay and that's not a healthy way to think of things because because now when you make so much money it's just you know you could buy this car two days two days worth of work and then you know it doesn't really show the context of just how much money it actually is so what I'm thinking is Graham wants to get an aquarium okay and this aquariums gonna cost like how much Graham 25 grand 25 grand you heard it here and this aquarium Graham has been thinking about getting for how long now probably 10 years so those 10 years that grams worth in 10 years I have not had an aquarium since that 7 so if you sign that value to your time and think about all the stress or whatever thinking like oh my god this is gonna put me in like financial ruin you know what I mean like all of that if you assign a value to that do you think that it's equal that $25,000 probably but I also and look at 25 grand and I sigh I it's hard for me to to conceptualize that because I see 25 grand is that that's a lot of sushi right that's a lot like when I was 18 that would be a lot of work I would never have spent that so I don't know it just I see that as a lot of money on things like I am so nitpicky of just like I won't buy the more expensive coffee creamer so I could save like you know a dollar right or not even buy generic Ram brand cream sheets so I could save you know dollar fifty so I'm looking at all these dollars in dollar 50s and I think 25 grand you know that's twenty five thousand times would be doing that so I'm like it's part of me thinks what's the point to me going and trying to save a dollar here and there when it just blow it on an aquarium I think that you're for gravity frugality really like stresses you out I don't know it puts it in perspective and it's just it's a lot of money to spend I don't know you know I think it'll be it'll it would be a good decision but it's like do I spend that much money or do I just get a smaller aquarium and don't need to reinforce the floors it was like is it is it gonna be just as good I don't know it's also a big commitment on something where it's like I hope I enjoyed as much as I did when I was 16 I think I will but I think if you wanted it for this long it's a pretty safe bet that you'll really like it Lee so which should we just wrap it up yeah yeah so you want you want to do the answer you want me to do the other job I mean I feel like I'll start it and you can sign it off so thank you guys so much for watching we actually haven't even mentioned the name of this podcast I think they were gonna name it the millionaire and this student I think it just really wraps up a really interesting dynamic you know of course gran being very successful and then me you know being not yeah just a complete failure so you know if you didn't notice I'm a student I go to University of California Santa Barbara and yeah that that's pretty much I study economics cool store brah thank you so yeah any suggestions for a title I mean we may as well be open to suggest I think we should probably name this to begin like the Graham Stefon podcast in the very beginning and then we could shift from there yeah he's cast a voter poll or something yeah we'll do that so guys if you have any names for this love if you actually got to this point you listen to the whole thing let me know I'd be I'd be really excited to hear if people watch the whole thing so yeah because this is gonna be posted on YouTube I don't know where you're gonna be listening to this if you're on YouTube or if there's a like button to be smashed make sure to smash whatever like button this is posted on this is the first smash like smash smash like button on the podcast also make sure to add I don't know if you want to Instagram plug sure JLS seob why don't add a status both on Instagram and lastly if you guys want out subscribe obvious right right I get your two free stocks down below in the description for people enjoying the mentorship group we meet twice a week every Thursday and Sunday you do a zoom call with me and so that's fun so yeah link to that is down below in description to you and I just do that so thank you guys so much for watching thank you guys so much for watching and until next time