Resilience and Networking: Bek Lover's Journey from Finance to Podcasting Success
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If you're up against adversity, there is, it just takes, like you heard how quickly this dude's life turned around. Never give up. It could turn around for you. It is Basie voice. Never give up. Never surrender. Never surrender. We will not go silently into the night.

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm Jon Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start.

right now. Welcome back to the program, everybody. Today in the studio, man, I got a banger for you. This is a dude that cut his teeth and became, I mean, impresario? Is that a word we want to use? I mean, this is a dude that became a legend in the nightlife scene in New York City. And just literally through that avenue,

Just, I mean, knows everybody on earth. It's crazy. As I'm flipping through his face, I was flipping through his Instagram before he came on. I'm like, yep, no, that dude, that dude. Oh, there's Ted Donick. He's at a dinner at Craig's. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, no, that's, I mean, knows everybody. Knows everybody. And his ability to network and use that can only be dwarfed

in reality, by his ability to overcome some serious adversities at his life. So if you're somebody that is dealing with some issues, this dude's going to inspire you. If you're somebody that wants to understand how to grow your network and monetize that thing at the next level, this is the podcast for you today.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio. This is Beck Lover. Beck, what's up, dude? What's going on, brother? It's good to be out here in Vegas, Super Bowl weekend. Yeah, man. Nice to meet you. Beautiful office, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. Nice operation. Nice studio, man. I can tell you're serious about this. Not some rinky-dink podcast or how I started. No. In the back of a room somewhere. You look at my first episodes, you're like...

But see, people don't understand that. Like you got to take risks in life. What's it? Yeah. So you have the podcast. So we're going to get to all the backstory stuff in a second. So your podcast too. Did you start it for the same reason I did just to kind of build your network? No. No. Why'd you start your podcast? I went through a very difficult time. I lost what I call my brother. You know, some people like to troll. It's sad. It's usually people that actually know me and know my, what I call my brother is my mom's brother. It was my uncle. He was 10 years older than me.

If I was the prince of nightlife, he was the king of nightlife. And I lost him in 2013. And even though I'd been through many horrible things in my life, right? Like I'm a first generation Albanian American, right? So I was born in the US. My family, you know, fought against communism in Albania. And it was the most isolated country in

in all of, not just Europe, the world at one point. Worst in North Korea today. No one was ever allowed in or out. You would have never had Dennis Rodman playing basketball like he went to North Korea. Or my friend Wally Green who went to play ping pong on an exhibition tour. Fascinating person. No one was allowed in or out for 50 years. My grandfather and my great-grandfather, God rest his soul,

fought to the last bullet they didn't have no reinforcements no nothing you know the communists were supplied by the soviets and you know the you know the iron curtain and unfortunately my people were isolated from the world for a very long time we have a very tragic history our people and i think some of that's in embedded in our dna as albanian americans we're very pro-american um

And that's before communism took over because America actually saved Albania. I got to tell you. So my grandparents actually moved here from Hungary, from Budapest in the forties, right? My mother, first generation American, same thing. And, uh,

Americans that don't take for granted what we have in this country, right? It's disgusting. So a couple of years ago, we went to Budapest. We happened to be there. To me, Budapest is the most beautiful city in Europe. I love it. It's gorgeous, right? So we're there and we happened to be there for Hungarian Independence Day. And I'm like, oh, sweet. This is going to be great, right? We'll eat hot dogs. There'll be celebrations and all this stuff. Dude, no.

It was a million people walking down, which is essentially their Chambliss-Tillissé, right? Walking to what's Hero Square and dead silence. And then you realize these people haven't been free that long, right? So when you walk by, they call it the Museum of Horrors where the Nazis occupied it and then the communists occupied it. And like, yeah, my uncle got killed in there, right? Not like...

200, 300 years, some generational thing. It's like, dude, this happened when I was a kid and I can remember this. And I think you're right. I think people that have that frame of reference have a different understanding and love for this country. Second, third, fourth, fifth generation Americans do not realize the gift and the opportunity that they have. More importantly, they're falling into these traps of division, which have galvanized both the left and the right to

And if we take the people out of it and just focus on the leaders of both sides in our country here in America, both have harmed this nation. One side started war after war after war. The other ones continued. They didn't stop it either. They continued financing these conflicts all around the world that were not beneficial to the American people at all.

As someone that walked out of underneath the World Trade Center Plaza on the day it was attacked and saw those buildings collapse in front of his eyes and then told by George Bush Jr., we're going to take out the Taliban. Here we are 24 years later. They're back in power, armed more than ever. We've been paying them. With our guns. Paying them billions of dollars. Forget just the arms that we left. The billions of dollars. So people on the right could say, well, what was the right that started that side? And again, I lean towards the right. Yeah.

And then the left pushing ideology that's just against simple common sense, focusing on one microscope of this entire nation, which is that community that has like 50 different letters. Yeah. And putting everyone into echo chambers and then saying this side is going to destroy this side and that side is going to destroy this side and divided our nation in half. Both sides are guilty for that. And we are sitting here on the precipice of one of the most critical issues

most dangerous times, literally in American history, where I've sensed that this, literally this nation could have erupted into open conflict, like what you saw in Yugoslavia, which you've seen in other places where society collapses. Like, people don't realize how fragile society is until it's not anymore. And that's what's scary as a first-generation American.

As someone, I swear to God, was so proud to be American, man. Like when I would go to Europe, I would hold my head up high. And now I'm ashamed, bro. I'm embarrassed. Not because of my fellow brothers and sisters, but because of these leaders that have used our name, have used our goodwill, have used our sweat to do things that not only hurt the world, but have hurt us as Americans. And we need to wake up, man.

It's like every four years we have the choice between Coke or Pepsi and we're diabetic. Well, I think you got water sitting in the White House right now with what's going on with Elon Musk and Doge, I think. Listen, I like a lot of what they're doing. I like a lot of what they're doing. I'm just talking in general up until this point where we are today. I agree, but I think it's getting harder.

for some of these, like for example, this morning, and I never, dude, I almost never talk politics on the show, but this morning I saw something that was so insane to me that was crazy, which was on all the news channels this morning, you had Maxine Walters and some other Democratic representatives

representative standing outside the department of education, like demanding to get in as some kind of weird protest to the doge cuts. But my thing was like, what are you going to do if they let you in? Like what? Like this is all just a dog and pony show. And it's, it's going to be such a ridiculous dog and bunny show. Cause I don't know anybody in America. Like I literally don't know anybody that I know on both sides of the aisle that is not seeing the,

Now, obviously my friends on the left are a little quieter about some of it, but I don't know anybody that's seeing some of the cuts they're making and some of this insane stuff that's been getting spent. They can go, well, you know what? Wait a second. I think that might've been a good idea. We need to send that money out of here. Like you from being from Albania, let me ask you this, because this is a good question for you. Seeing what an impoverished country or knowing what an impoverished country can be like. The poorest country in Europe. Right.

So now that you're at one point, so this is a great question for you because now you're in a, you know, you're, you love America. It's great American citizen, but you know how the other world is. It is my opinion. And this is just my opinion. And again, my frame of reference is born, raised, live here, everything else that we should not send $1 to any other country on this planet until every single veteran in this country is taken care of. I fully agree. Number one. And number two, it's who we pay off our debt. Yeah. On top of that.

But I have family that served in Iraq. Shout out to Brian. He's like my brother. Brian from Dallas, two tours in Fallujah, Albanian-American, born and raised. We're very proud to be a part of American society, but we're not proud of the last 20 years, man. I'm ashamed. We're worried about some of the most ridiculous things right now.

Why are we worried about half? I'm not saying that a minority should not be heard or have rights. I believe because we guarantee everyone the right to pursue happiness or whatever. That's great. And private matters, like your private parts and what you want to do with them should be a private matter.

Why are you pushing this on children? People like Gavin Newsom. I'll call him out all day. You're worried about children in California chopping off their wee-wee. Why don't you worry about Skid Row? Why don't you worry about all the homeless? Why don't you worry about the fires? Why don't you worry about having water in your hydrants? There's no excuse for that. The most taxed state

California is the most beautiful state in our nation. It's run like garbage. My heart aches for these people, but if they're going to keep electing that, I don't feel bad for them. I got to sit there and say, I really don't feel bad for you guys at all. Zero. Well, the megaphone gets louder the further out from the middle it gets. But this is a person who shut your businesses down in 2019, who sat there and looked in the cameras and said, we were outdoors. Well,

While he kept people out of business, while big box stores could stay in business, they ravaged our lives. The truth is out of the bag. Even the CIA is confirmed. Yes. So all of us crazy people that wear tinfoil hats, we're not looking so crazy, but you're looking really stupid right now. Those of you that just can't wake up, wake up. But I think the reason that he's getting elected is because the ideology of Trump

Social importance, social matters, like you discussed, is so embedded from a young age to the people that live there that that's more important than the practical sense, practicality. That's exactly what they do. They're hitting an emotional point, which is a sales tactic, right? Sure. Because emotion will override logic nine out of ten times. For certain personality types, yes. A lot. But the key is when you can find that emotional bond because when you're with a client who...

shows no emotion, the master will find. Because everyone has a button, brother. Everyone has a button. Whether you have a driver in the seat that you're trying to pitch or whatever, you got to find that. And that's always been my strategy. I always believe the sales made in the warm-up, bro. It's not in the presentation. It's not the product at all. It's never the product, in my opinion. It's never the product.

It's finding what makes this person tick and how can I attach that to this product? Well, there's a very different, well, how do you think, what do you think about this and how do you feel about this are two very different questions. And you got to know when to play those cards based on who you're talking to. And if you do it wrong, you're going to have a very, very angry customer. Yeah. You ask a super analytical client, how do you feel about this? He's going to be like, I don't care how I feel about the numbers. Tell me it sucks. You're going to have a very angry customer.

Yeah, I was in a meeting the other day and somebody asked me how I felt about something. I said, it doesn't matter how I feel. The market tells me it sucks. That's exactly what I said. The market is telling me this sucks. It's not any good. And the price you're asking is absurd. Yeah, it doesn't matter how I feel. I'm in the process of liquidating a property in a very, very high desirable area and

you know, I think my price is very fair, but it's not moving. So what am I gonna have to do? I'm gonna have to drop the price, man. - Yeah. - You know? - Dude, that's, listen, that's what we talk about every time, every time I tell anybody to go to a listing presentation for real estate, I would say the same thing. Never marry yourself as an agent to the price. Never do that, right? You've gotta explain to people that this is how the markets work.

If we put it on the market, as long as an agent does their job and exposes it worldwide with high quality marketing, the pictures look great, images look great, 360 tour, all the things you're supposed to do. If nobody shows up, you're 10% off. If people show up, but nobody writes an offer, you're 5% to 7%. What about if you get three offers, but they fall through an attorney review because either A, they didn't get financing. Should you stay at that price? Yeah, yeah. So if I got three offers at, let's say, 1.5. Stay where you are.

And it's only been publicly on the market for a week. Be patient. Yeah, stay where you are. Don't move it. Because he dropped and you look desperate. No, no, don't move it. Leave where you are. So two offers were made privately. Yeah. But they fell through. One, the attorney spooked them. I mean, it was full disclosure, but you said yes, and now you're worried about what your attorney says. It was a rent control property. It was nothing hidden from the prospective client. It was like, hey-

This is rent control, but there's some ways you can maneuver and do what you got to do. The right landlord is what to do. I did the same thing when I brought the property. Yeah. My rents were $800 for a two bedroom in North New Jersey. Yeah.

You understand? I love how there's no New York exit at all until you start talking about rent control pricing. And I got them out. Bam, there it is. I got them all out legally. I got them out. And then guess what? I renovated and increased the rent by 50%. The new owner can do the same thing. These people don't have vision or they're trying to lowball. It's an investment property. It's not a place I live in or would live in. But if you got three offers in the first week, bro.

Stay the course. I think we're underpriced, but I think because of mortgage rates and how high they went, I should be getting much more in my opinion. It's a four family brother. Yeah. With two bonus units in the back. Yeah. That are not legal, but there's ways you can do things. Listen to the market, my man. If we're getting offers, the market's telling you you're right where you need to be. And as long as you got room to work. You've been in real estate? No, it's for 20 years. I got in and out when I was young. That's how I actually started my career in sales.

I started, you know what's funny, man? In commercial leasing in Midtown Manhattan, I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrified. I was in the nightclub business. Right.

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At 27, I had bleeding ulcers. Now here in... No, no, no, no. This was in Atlanta, actually. I was... Remember Super Bowl 2000 in Atlanta where Ray Lewis got in that trouble? Yeah. That was my club. Yeah? Yeah. Cobalt Lounge. And anyway... Refresh our memory on that? What happened there? Yeah. So we had that week, Super Bowl was in Atlanta. We had the NFL Pro Player Party. We had the Playboy Party. We had the Maxim Party. We had everything. As Square Magazine said, we were the number one club on the East Coast of the United States. Poll to poll.

Miami to New York, they said Cobalt Lounge was the number one. It was banging. We were doing incredibly well. By 1999, 2,000 steps. I mean, this is before heavy bottle service and all that stuff. Yeah, that's right. When we took off because even in New York City, it changed. Yeah. It was...

massive nightclubs like Sound Factory, Limelight Tunnel. Yeah. And then they all went down when Giuliani did his crackdown and cleaned up New York. And Peter Gation was exiled to Canada. No, came to Atlanta and opened Limelight in Atlanta. I know, but he was forced out of America at one point completely. He was allowed to come back in. And then it went to the lounge era, which was instead of having 2,000 people in a club,

You had two, 300 people, but they got to pay their rent, right? So that's when bottle service. And also the drugs changed, right? People were doing ecstasy where you wouldn't mix it with alcohol. So if you go look at the videos of nightlife back then, that's why they charged you a hundred to get in and you'd pop your pill and stay up for three days dancing and drinking water and

Hopefully don't fall into a K-hole. Thank God never got involved in narcotics. That's why I lasted as long as I did in nightlife. I did used to drink and I was a pretty heavy drinker. Okay, let's talk about nightlife because let's get back to that because we've kind of been all over the border a little bit. Sorry.

It's got a brain. Well, here's the thing, dude, you notice on the desk, if you've ever watched this, I have no list of questions. We just have a conversation. So it's just like, I met you at a bar and we're talking. They're here. They're watching. They're with us. Yeah, exactly. Cause I think that's just more, I think that's better. I better conversations do it this way than if I said, I think it's just more organic and it's, it's not forced, man. It is. It is. So tell me about your nightlife, how you got it in nightlife. So I, I,

Started going out when I was 17. And the first nightclub I ever went into that I remember was Exit. This place was... Today it's called Terminal 5. They do concerts in there. This place was massive. And this is when you had like, you know, the New York DJs were like local celebrities, man. You had people like Jonathan Peters, you know. You had... There's just so many of them. My brain's a little fried right now. I'm trying to wake up. No, you're good. What's his face? I want to give him a shout out because I know he follows me too. He's huge. Um...

You had all these amazing DJs, right? And in those days, people would walk into a nightclub. What year is this? We're talking the mid to late 90s, but I started going out in the late 90s. I caught the end of the mega club era in New York City. So the end of Tunnel, the end of Limelight. Exactly. I caught that end. So I got to see these places. Sound Factory was crazy. So you would walk in Friday, right?

And literally come out Monday. It was insane. And people would just dance. It was all about dancing. And it was very organic. It was, you know, brother, the Italians, the Albanians, the Russians, the Jew, everyone was in there, man. You know, you had, you know, alternate lifestyle people, right? You had the LGBT, if that's what they called them back then. They were in there. You had the club kids. And it was like, what I loved about it, man, it was like, it was the only environment at that time where everyone got along.

Yeah. Right? That was the progressive trance days. You'd have straight people dancing next to Gabe. Everyone just was there for the music, for the art. It was very organic, man. And it was addictive. You just felt like you were a part of this special family. And the only thing that would change throughout the week, you would pretty much see the same people. It would just be the venue. So you were just going out? Or were you promoting? What were you doing? I didn't really promote in the beginning. I was more of a socialite, man. My brother was the king, man. Nicky, God rest his soul.

So, you know, we went out and then I start college in the city. I went to Pace University. I'm a college kid, New York City. I don't have a campus, but New York City is my campus. Yeah. So I started going out. He takes me to a very famous lounge called Lot 61.

And Lot 61 was on 21st Street in the West Side. Terminal now? No, that was exit. Exit. This is now when the lounge era begins. Okay. So Amy Sacco, who's a legend, she actually had a place, I think, out here too. No, in Colorado she had a place too. But she was the queen of nightlife. And she opens up this lounge called Lot 61. And then she also opened a very famous place called Bungalow 8, which was mentioned in many songs of hip-hop if you listen to Bungalow.

the infamous Diddy, Monday night, we go to Bungalow 8. That's in one of his songs when they're singing about New York and nightlife. And I actually met Diddy at Lot 61. He had released an album called We Invented the Remix. And it was also Busta Rhymes' birthday. And this is when Busta Rhymes had his ponytail from his head all the way down to his ankles. And actually, coincidentally, the reason I ended up meeting him

was this girl I knew was working for Jacob DeJeweler before he was like really famous. Like really, really famous. Like where he was like a household name. And she was like, hey, it's Tuesday. Like I heard you have juice at Last 61 because it was impossible to get in that place.

and the manager was albanian shout out binoka shout out bin and shout out matthias is it racist like i because i'm a white dude with hungarian roots i can't get in but the albanians look out for you well i mean listen you wouldn't if you didn't have discriminated against i need dei initiatives laid out at these clubs so we get to the front of this club brother and she's like please you got to get me in i work for this guy named jacob and i got to hand out his cards and

So I get to the door. You can't see the door, bro. I'd never seen a place like that. It was completely... Every rapper on earth at that time, and this is, in my opinion, the heyday of hip-hop, when it became real mainstream, right? And I walk in there. I'm the only white boy in there with a suit. And every rapper I ever... And this is before Google. I couldn't Google how someone looked or didn't look or whatever. And I'm sitting next to Black Rob, God rest his soul.

The guy that had the song like, whoa, like remember that song? Dude, I'm laughing at this because when you're done, I live this. I live the same story. I don't have a lot of money. I'm a college student. I just got a credit card.

i maxed the credit card out i buy champagne champagne was only 80 a bottle for moette today i cannot believe some clubs in new york charge 800 for a regular not a magnum a regular bottle of moe i mean that was crystal pricing back in the day and that's what they were drinking back then you never even hear crystal anymore right it's done christmas i don't drink i haven't drank in over a decade but

It switched to tequila now, which is because in our day it was vodka, right? Everyone was pushing the vodka and hypnotic and all those crazy weird drinks. Make the story short, brother, because we have a lot to talk about. Puffy's dancing on the table. Everyone's in there. Busta, every one of them. And I see this guy, Black Rob. I don't know how he looked. I knew his song because it wasn't like I could just Google. This is before, you know, smartphones. And Puffy's dancing and he's like,

You see that mother effer? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I hate that mother effer. I'm like, what do you mean? He said, I can't make no money because of that mother. Those were his exact words, bro.

He just passed away, I think, like a year and a half ago. Irv Gaudi just died. I used to play basketball with Irv Gaudi. I think it was on Thursdays. They would go to Chelsea Piers. This is when Murder, Inc. was huge, Ashante and Ja Rule. And I used to go there with a guy named Murder Murphy who's now down in Miami. He seems to be friends with a lot of these big streamers now. He was briefly managing Tekashi. I haven't seen him in over 20-something years. He was actually shot...

In front of me. Oh, geez. That was when I was like, you know what? I think I'm done. Yeah. Hanging out with this with the hip hop crowd. Yeah. Us Albanians, we need to stay away from that type of stuff. So, so yeah, man, nightlife, nightlife. Well, I did. I want to tell my, so, so, so Cobalt on Sunday nights, we had Jermaine Dupri from so, so deaf would throw an event every Sunday night at our club.

So every single rapper came to, you need water? Yeah, go ahead, brother. Keep going. Every single rapper on the planet was through that place on Sunday nights. And so, yeah, I did the same, had the same stuff. And all of our security guys that worked there were all XD1 athletes, huge dudes. Unfortunately, that genre, it does, it does, I hate it.

It's because of the music, man. You don't see that type of violence in house music. You really don't. But here's the thing. We never had a problem of violence with the people that were in the club. We had a problem with violence with people outside the club. As soon as they got outside, yeah. No, no, no, no. People that couldn't get in. Oh, that couldn't get in. Because we had a very... At Cobalt, we had a very... It was interesting, man. We had a very strict dress code, right? Like, you couldn't come in wearing, like...

you're staying hip hop attire. Now, obviously the little John rolled up, we're letting him in. He's a celebrity, but we're not letting his entourage in unless they're dressed. So it got to be known. Right. And it was always the problem outside, but there was times where like, I would go out with all of our security guys and they would take me to this place called the gold, our, uh, the gentleman's club, downtown Atlanta.

It was my first experience in a black strip club. Never been to one since. That's the only one I went to. But dude, we walk in and I was the only white dude there. And it was just like, it was wild being

being out with us. They were like unicorn. No, no, no, no. They knew me. They called me Cobalt. That's what they would call it. Like the DJ would give me a shout out. What's up Cobalt in the house? And I was like, cause Sunday night, everybody wanted to get in. And it was just like, it was, so yeah, I lived that life too. And I look back on it fondly, but I don't miss it. I saw a lot of people go by the wayside and nightlife, right? So they let the excesses, you know, I lost friends who did heavy drugs, who drank, a lot of people died drunk driving. So for me,

What really brought me in and what I loved about the nightlife as I started to get juice, right? You know, the power to get into these places. And I'm underage, brother. I wasn't even of legal age when I was a socialite. But I looked older and I wore suits always. I wore suits since literally high school. And they made fun of me in high school. I wore a three-piece suit. Why do you always dress up so well? I said, because I might meet the president and I don't want to look like you. You don't know who you're going to meet today.

And I was always dressed. I literally best dressed in the yearbook and voted most likely to have his own talk show. Well, I guess it came true. There you go. Dude, you know what's funny, man? I was looking back just randomly. I don't even know why. Somebody posted like my eighth grade, ninth grade yearbook or eighth grade yearbook online from my hometown. And I'm flipping through it.

And I got voted most accident prone and not most likely to succeed. And I'm looking back on that. I'm like, yeah, maybe need a recount on that one. Eighth grade Lake City Junior High School in Florida. Yeah, might need a recount. There it is. But let me ask you this. So,

you were getting so connected and it's so easy to get connected now with the gram, right? Everybody does it. This was out back then. My God. Right. Like people don't really, like I wish people that are 25 right now understood what it was like to be connected in that way before the world of Instagram. How did you build your network? Was it all just text messages, phone numbers? It was all talking, man. It was all business cards. You know, back then you couldn't even text really either. It was just trying to get someone's cell phone number and talking. So,

You know, there's a couple of couple parts to this. I think it's important. I want to teach your audience something they need to do. If you're young, you don't realize it because in their minds, they think like, well, what can I offer? I have nothing to offer these people. How do I go talk to this big shot? You know, I don't know how to network because networking is everything. You know that it can change everything. And the problem is when you're young, you might be meeting some of these people and you don't know what to offer them. You don't know how to entice them. You don't know how to even start a conversation with these people.

And remember, these people at that level are being bombarded every five seconds. Yeah. So the first thing is to not ask them for something. Right? What can you offer them? And very quickly. Right? Or leveraging other connections you have because maybe you don't have something that's of interest to them, but you can figure out someone you know has something of interest to them. So...

The first thing is this. You should be talking to everybody. When you're under the age of 25, you are building your network. This device, your phone, has a place where you can write notes. I met Billy Bob at a bar at the Rich Carlton Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bill has two kids named John and Gene or whatever. He's in computer chips. You're not even in that industry. But 10 years from now, you might be.

And now someone goes, hey, man, I really need computer chips. 10 years from now, I need computer chips, man. I don't know. Let me see you type in the word computer chip on your contacts. It'll pop up everyone in that industry. Now you can call me and say, hey, man, do you make these type of chips? Now this is 10 years later. If you can store the data and have information

intention with what you're doing because every second counts. And we don't learn this until we hit our 40s and we're like, oh my God, what did I do? My greatest regret in life is how much time I wasted and not having intention. But if you can't figure out what you want to do, at least you can start building your network. It doesn't mean you have to use it now. That's always going to be there if you know how to build it,

and cater to it. So you type in those notes, now you're taking 10% off of a deal of someone you met 10 years ago. That is your wealth. Your network can change your life in seconds. One move, one connection. So what I would always do is

Try to do some homework on who I'm trying to meet or target. And this is a lot easier to do today. You can Google someone in five seconds. You can literally read a whole synopsis of their life in seconds and then approach them and say, hey, man, you know how many times I've done that? Someone high profile. I never watched any of their crap.

I Google, hey, man, I'm a big fan of boom, boom, boom. And by the way, I know you come to New York. And if you ever need anything in New York, I got this venue. They do this. He's like, actually, yeah, we throw parties once in a while. Brother, even if you don't, you just want to send someone from your entourage. You know, it just depends who you're talking to and what might be of interest to show him, wow, this guy's cool. He's not bothering me. He's not asking me for a picture. He's offering me something.

You know, and then you deliver. I think you just, you just, the number one thing you just said was that you can offer as somebody that's 22, 23 years old, that if you're like, what can I offer?

You know, I think what you had, you mentioned earlier was you had a lot of juice at the clubs in New York. So you could walk up to anybody. I used to go out with Tracy Morgan. Yeah. And say, where do you want to go? I can get us in anywhere in two seconds. And it's that ease of access that gets there. That costs you no money. It costs you no effort. You just have to be cool. The club's happy that they're there. Yeah. The bottles are put on the table.

I delivered. They have a good time. That's like if we're talking about nightlife, but it doesn't have to be just nightlife. I know, but what I'm saying is people think they have to have something tangible that they create that brings value. Or if you want to be in nightlife, make a lot of friends that are girls and take them out and you'll be paid to hang out with them, which I think is a joke. I don't consider that promoting. And unfortunately, that's how a lot of New York operates and Vegas and Miami. To me, that's not promoting. You're not a promoter. When I used to throw an event,

2,000, 3,000 people would show up. I had no sub-promoters. That's promoting. There's videos online. You can go look at them all day. That to me is a promoter. Someone that brings money, my friend. Okay? Paying, clubs paying to create image tables. I'm not saying that you did this and yours. I'm saying I know for a fact that this is how the system works.

They pay, you know how you know you're a promoter table? Atmosphere models or whatever. It's Frank Sinatra syndrome, man. Create the whole environment because you're creating an environment to lure in the whales because you know you're going to make it up on the whales. So if I give out $300 worth of bottles to get 100, 200 people to drink there, now I'm going to try to

I'm putting bait. I'm chumming the water to try to bing in the whale so I can bang them out for five bottles, 10 bottles. We had one state. We didn't do atmosphere models back then. We did have one. Image tables. No, what we did was the girls that all the girls that dance at the gold club, which was Gilardi's club in Atlanta that went down to that huge thing. But if you worked at the gold club, it was well known that if you came to our bar, you drank for free. Like we were, we would, we would set you up whenever you want. If you can, if you can,

And I'm not using the word to control them, but if you can bring the women to your venue, that's all you need. You don't even...

Men will go to the same place every single night if they know they have a chance to meet a beautiful woman. That's what they're out for. They're out to drink and meet a woman and hopefully have a good ending to their night. My very first place that I had any ownership in was when I was 20 years old. I was still a student at Florida State. And these guys had a bar and they didn't know what they were doing and they were going under. And they just as a Hail Mary, they said, hey, come in and take it over. We'll give you a third of it. Because it was like they were going out either way. Just fill it. Yeah, just fill it.

So the first thing I did was they had all these girls that were working there, all these girls that were the bartenders and everything else. I got rid of all of them. And I hired all my fraternity brothers that were super face men and super good looking dudes. And because those guys brought in all the girls and then the girls brought in everybody else. Yeah.

It was like a reverse. Yeah, it was a reverse. But see, guys will go to a knitting school. They don't care. They'll go to a knitting class if there's beautiful women there. They don't care. I agree. It doesn't matter. And a lot of these venues during that time weren't that nice. It was because all the beautiful women were going there. Yeah.

And then the celebrities want to go there. And then the rich people want to go there because they have the money to spend to get in there and they don't care. They want to be in the environment. And then Page Six writes about it. And that's all it really took. But as the real estate prices have increased in New York City, it's become extremely difficult to operate a successful nightclub in New York City. I don't know how you can. Yeah, I don't know how you can. Okay, it's ridiculous, actually. And this generation, the bottle world, I think it's finally over. Is it going over? It's all because of the festivals. The other generation will go pound two cases of White Claws in,

Papa hit a molly and then go to a festival at the Brooklyn Mirage. But I think even more, I think this next generation coming up, I think you're going to see alcohol decline crazy. I mean, my son is 17, right? He's 17. Alcohol is, listen. It's going out, I think. It destroys lives, brother. Let's be real. A lot of lives. By the time I was 17, dude, it was every Friday, Saturday night, we were out getting after it, right? When I was 17, 18 years old.

And now my son's like, nah, not for me. Not my thing. Smart kid. Yeah.

He's not losing nothing. But I don't think he's unique. That doesn't mean you still can't go out and have fun. And it doesn't mean you still can't go to these venues. I'm always sober. And I actually have more fun now. I'm like, man, these people, you sit there and watch the show, if you know what I mean. But I think also there's other things coming out, like the whole mushroom thing that's coming out. I drink Cava. Cava, Kratom tea is nice. If you get not this powder crap, you get the actual leaf and you make a tea. It has a very calming effect. Blue Lotus tea is awesome. Yeah.

And these things actually make you feel nice, but you don't lose cognition. You don't lose control of yourself. A lot of people can't handle alcohol and make fools of themselves or they...

They hurt people. They hurt themselves, man. Alcoholism, like, listen, you've seen it. You're a nightlife. I don't have to tell you. Fights, women, they're sloppy. They're man. They, you know, they wouldn't have done it if they were sober. They were entertaining another man. Then a fight breaks out, you know? Stuff like that happens. I just, I just think, think about like cigarettes, right? Like by the time my kids have kids, my, my grandkids are going to look at people that smoke cigarettes. Like they're out of their minds. I'm out of my mind right now, bro. Trust me. I start, I relapsed into cigarette smoking after 12 years. Ah,

It's got to get off. I'm going through a very stressful time. I lost 70 pounds. Good for you. I'm done.

God willing, I'm getting very close. It's a hard habit. It is. Dude, nightlife, I'm with you. I used to do the same thing. And I love cigars. I should just go back to cigars. Yeah. I was the same. Dude, when I was in nightlife, I was the same thing. Smoke them, smoke them, smoke them. Love cigars, man. So how did you go 12 years? Were you like the, like people used to smoke heavily. Well, I don't drink alcohol, right? It's very hard to quit smoking cigarettes if you drink. Because they go together. Yeah, they do. But didn't you become like the worst non-smoker? Like I know I'm the guy in the casino that's like, ah.

at the people next to me. Albanians, man, we're born in smoke. Oh, that's true. You used to ride around in the car with the windows up on a hot, not a cold day. I've seen them smoking while they're pregnant over there, man. Not all of them, but in the villages, you know, they don't light a cigarette pregnant. Just going. Just going. That's the reason we got these big heads, you know? I love it. All right, so...

Obviously, use that relationship to build that clout and grew that network. So, yeah, I grew the nightlife. I got to ask you an important question, though. Go ahead. What makes you likable? Because we all see that guy. Everybody sees that dude in the club, that guy in the bar that everybody's gravitating to. Most people can't stand me at first. No, no, but what makes you? My question is, what gives you that swag? What's the thing? Humor, brother. If you had to teach it. Humor. All right.

All right? There's no quicker way, I think, in business, in relationships. If you can make some... Well, there's two ways, right? I don't recommend this to amateurs. Make them laugh. They're going to listen to this and get smacked. Make them laugh or make them cry. Either way, they will buy. It's learning how to use emotion and to pull it out of people also. I'm not saying to manipulate, but to just be real, man. If you can make someone laugh or feel your raw emotion... I'm just very...

I'm just very straightforward. Like, I'm just, this is who I am. I've been through some hard things in my life. I'm not a piece of crap. I am a man of my word. And I have references. I said, after a while, when you're building your network, and what's amazing, I was like, they could see who's connected to who, right? Like, I can go on someone, hey, and now, and it starts to snowball.

Why does this person follow? And it just starts snowballing, man. And then they're like, hey, you need a reference? Go talk to this person. You need a reference? Go ask them. Social proofing. Yeah, go ask them what kind of man I am. Do I keep my word or not? And I think it's so hard to find people like that, man. They actually keep their word, bro. It's so... Okay, to me, those people, you don't trade them for nothing.

That's why I don't understand all the people that lost me in their life.

Not even because they didn't keep their word, but backstabbing for no reason. And that's when you start to understand that there's no logic to jealousy and envy. It's a very evil emotion. That there's no logic to it. People can be jealous of you, man, and you don't even know it. You know the thing that I kind of came to realize? Dangerous emotion. The thing that I came to realize that will make you immune from all of that shit is this. Anytime somebody does something insane or acts in a way that is nuts to me, I just remind myself...

I'm not the main character in their little movie, right? I'm not even the best supporting actor. I'm like one of those NPCs or whatever in a video game. I'm irrelevant. They see things the way they do. Why am I going to let what their little movie dictate how I feel about something? I'm in my own little movie over here. No, I'm talking about people you know, people you've helped, people that are part of your life when they ram a knife in your back. Dude, I look at it the same way. I could get it. I look at it the same way. I could get it if there was five or 10. Listen, I could understand-

And I'm not saying it's right, but at least there's some logic to, hey, if I screw over Beck, I'm making $10 million on this. Let's just say, right? Yeah. Okay, the greed got to them. Maybe they've never seen that kind of money. It changes their life. Okay, cool.

But to the people that all you did was help and you never hurt them. But that's your perception. And you never betrayed them. Right. Dude, I'm with you. What I'm saying is, and then they burned the bridge. Ever since things have popped off, my phone, people have been trying to get in touch with me, haven't spoken to me in years. Why all of a sudden? Now you want to know me? Why? Because when you scroll left and right, you're seeing me everywhere. Hey, bud, I miss you. No, you don't miss me. You weren't there when my brother died. You didn't call to see if I was even alive. Yeah. Okay, there's people I went when their brothers died. I spent, I almost lost my job. One of my...

long distance cousins lost his brother tragically. I almost got fired because I saw how bad he was hurting. And I was never even close with him like that. I was like, you know what? He needs someone. So I call out of work. I was working for Chase Bank at the time. This is 20 some years ago. Four days in a row, I called out. I said, listen, you're about to lose your job. I said, well, fire me. I don't care. It's a tragedy. I don't care. I was willing to lose my job to give emotional support to someone that's blood distant, but still blood. Yeah.

Same thing happens to me. He never even called me, man. He never even called to see how I'm doing or if I'm okay. And you know who you are if you watch this. But now they all want to come and hang out, bro. Everything has a blessing, even the most tragic events in our life. Once the dust settles,

Because your heart's swollen, man, and you go through these dark times in your life, right? And they will come. I don't care who you are. It's only a matter of time before you lose something that you can't replace. Well, here's the thing. You've got to let that shit go. You can keep score. You can keep score. Sometimes it's hard, right, when you're traumatized. I get it. You lose someone in a car accident, unexpected, brother. You weren't expecting the blow, right? It's a lot more dangerous than a fight.

When you're not looking and you get sucker punched, you can get killed like that. So when you know something bad might happen, it's different. But when it comes unexpected, sometimes these things happen to us. I believe the game board of life is rigged by the creator. You couldn't control to who you were born or when you were born. So to say, well, I have control of everything. No, you were inserted into this simulation that God created to test us on his terms.

If I lived in Iraq or Syria, could I control the wars that broke out? I could have been the most positive person in the world. That's why I don't believe in the law of attraction. Okay, I believe in positive thinking. I believe in trying to find some hope always. I love that train of thought. But to sit here and say that we always attract everything, some of that can be true, but not to the point where it's a universal law. You know, you got to be careful and use the word law.

If I was in Syria, I could have been the most positive person in the world. Yeah, you're still going to have a landmine. And the war starts and I lose everything. Or I'm in LA, my house, everything burned to the ground, my family died. I didn't start that fire. I didn't attract that fire. So what I'm saying is I believe the game board is rigged. How we respond...

to these events that we have no control over is our salvation, is our free will. But don't you also believe everything happens for a reason? And I do believe in divine wisdom, which means sometimes you don't know until looking backwards. Yeah. I mean, you talk about changing your life, and we're gentlemen of a certain age where now something happened to one of us, there's not going to be a candlelight vigil down at the schoolyard. If someone's out there hurting, man, I just want them to know, like, listen, when you get hit,

And I didn't think things would ever get better. When I lost Nikki, I didn't think I could ever live again, man. I really didn't. It took me years, brother, years. Everywhere was a memory. Everywhere was a place. Every song, everything. It got so bad, I tried to move to Texas. I thought I could run away from the pain. I said, well, if I get out of New York, because he was the king of this city, I was just his sidekick. Maybe it won't be as bad. I almost moved to Summerlin.

10 years ago, 12 years ago. Because he only died 13 years ago. And then I did go to San Antonio for three months. And I realized I have to face my demons. I can't. I'm not going to get better. It doesn't matter where I am. And it held me back, man. Now that I'm through all that, I'm looking backwards and I'm going...

My greatest regret besides losing him is the amount of time I lost not living and making my family's life better and my life better and people's lives better. And that's why I started my podcast. Yeah. And the name of my podcast started as the comeback team.com. I do want to revamp it right now. It's the Beck lover podcast. Cause I do daily about news and a lot changed.

But I'm relaunching that brand because I love it. And every show, I interviewed amazing people. Shout out to Tyler Sherman. He sent me some great guests. I've shared some great guests with him. Tyler's the best. And, you know, he called me one day. We got Rachel Ray on the show. And now I'm friends with Rachel Ray, man. I mean, if you would have told this to the Beck that thought life could never get better, sitting in a room crying myself to sleep every night, bro, for years. For years, brother.

People talk about bad days. I had years of darkness. But the first thing I did when I lost my brother was never drink again. Because I knew from the nightlife, if I drank with a broken heart, I'm a dead man. So if you got trauma in your life and you keep numbing yourself, you need to face your demons. The reason you're drinking that bottle of alcohol, the reason you're taking that drug is because you don't have the courage to turn around and face those demons. You need help. Maybe I should have gone into therapy. I'm very spiritual. I pray, brother.

I prayed five times a day. I'm a Muslim, you know, by choice. And I got through that darkness because I do believe that God has designed us to overcome these things. You know, we don't need anything. He designed us to be able to handle these things. And a lot of us, because we don't have that spiritual knowledge, that's why even the 12 steps in AA, right? They talk about a higher power. It's actually a part of it, right? So...

That spiritual guidance is really what got me through the darkest times in my life. I don't think I'd be here if I didn't be with God. I think when you lose people in life, for example, like I just actually got this about three weeks ago. In the last couple of years, I've had seven guys, seven that I would consider my best friend at some point in my life or tight circle, right? Either my best friend, seven of them are now gone.

And it's crazy. Yeah. So I got this memento Mori was I'm, I'm super into stoicism. Love that. And every time I don't want to do something or I do want to do something, I grab this. And I think to myself, Holy shit. Any one of these dudes would give anything to do this thing that I don't want to go to.

And it gets me off my ass and I go do it. Or if there's something that's maybe out there that maybe I want to do that other people are going to look at and go, man, that's a little like, what are you doing? That's a little screwy. I'm like, you know what, dude, these guys would give anything to do. So I'm gonna do it anyway, regardless of my things. I don't give a shit. When I started the podcast,

Okay, I never went to school. I wish I would have. You never know what you want to do when you're in college, right? I majored in finance and did the whole banking thing. I never liked it. And my whole life, everyone's telling me, what are you doing, man? You belong in front of a camera. People love you. You uplift people just on the street, strangers. Like, I always have done this my whole life is try to inspire people, literally, to not give up. And it was crazy for me. I guess I had to go through the point where I felt like giving up, man. Because once you go through that, man, that darkness, right?

You're a different person on the other side, man. It's crazy. So taking that pain and channeling it into the comeback team, there was no money coming in. If you look at the first few episodes, horrible. Okay. And here we are five years later, billions of views. And I'm not saying it to be arrogant because even the people closest to me made fun of me. You're old man. Now, what do you do? You have a midlife crisis. You and your stupid podcast, right? You look like an idiot. Right. Right.

And here I am now, brother, just on the last day, over 10 million views, bro. It's crazy. And I'm talking across all platforms. I'm getting stopped. There's jewels. You can ask. I'm getting stopped everywhere I go. It's crazy. Like it's insane, bro. Like on planes already three times on the Valley Parker freak. I can't go anywhere. I can't walk out of a mosque anymore without being. And it's, it's just crazy. And no one believed and no one, no one even talked about people closest to me. No one believed in me, man. My girl did.

You know, my son, he was going back and forth. He's like, no, dad, no. He's like, dad, you're actually going to make it. I'm like, I can't believe you. I believe in you now. So it's like, I never did it for that. When I started the comeback team, every show would end with, and no matter what you've been through, no matter how bad it is, no matter how hopeless you may feel in this moment, as long as you still have air in your lungs.

You can always make a comeback. See, dude, you walk in here, you walk in here, and you talk about jealousy for my hair, but, dude, that bass in your voice just gets right into your damn soul. Do you know what kept me going, brother? You're touching people, man, with that thing. You know what kept me going? That was like a magical pipe. Shout out to Al, my producer, Al Pepich.

Do you know what kept him going? What's that? Kept us going? What's that? After a couple of months, somehow, I'm talking about 100 views, bro. Like, no views. Okay? Also, I mean, I did have some cosmic inspiration because I got to start my podcast with Arthur Nascariello. Shout out Arthur Nascariello. Played Carlo on The Sopranos.

famous actor. - Yeah, I know who he is. - Tons of shows, he was on Billions, he was on Copland, right? And Arthur, I went from begging Arthur to just come on my show, so he co-hosted like 20 of my first episodes. So it just gave me such a boost of morale. - Yeah, that's awesome. - I had no following, no nothing. I was like, I've already made it, man. And what really made me go was when I get my first email, first message. There was a woman who was about to lose her eyesight.

And she had like six more months to see. And she's like, I heard your episode. I had an amazing woman on my show named Silk. Silk is a survivor of domestic violence. She was beaten to the point where she's blind. So I was interviewing her about her life and how she's reinvented life and all that. She's an amazing human being, bro. You got to get her on your show. And Silk, I'm coming for you. I promise you when I get this next bag, I'm coming for you, Silk. Because that's my dream, man. People go, what's your dream? Drive Ferrari. No, I want to walk into a refugee camp.

somewhere in the world and say, you guys lost everything. And not for the cameras, brother, because that's not authentic. Sometimes you need the cameras to inspire others, though. You know what I mean? It's a fine line. To do the same. You want to make sure your intention is for God and not for your own arrogance. So you know what kept me going, brother? What's that? She's like, I found out I'm going to be blind, and I didn't want to live like that. So I got everything ready, and I was going to take my own life. I heard your show. I heard your episode. I decided not to take my life because of you.

And that just, I have two people listening. I said, if I save one, yeah, if two people are listening to it and one of them says that you're doing it again, I was like, I'm not going, I'm not giving up. And then now it's thousands of people, bro. And then it like evolved where instead of being the host, I go on a few shows, man. And then it just, it just went crazy, bro. Like billions and billions, like literally billions of views. And I was at a very low point also at that time. Like I was being tried in my personal life. You know, everything was kind of going rough. Yeah.

And it's like so easy to give up at this point. It's so easy. Like, I don't got time for this podcast anymore. My whole world's on fire. But then there's that voice inside like, I'm not quitting, man. Like, I've already lost too much. Or as Eric Thomas would say, you're already going through pain. E.T., man. Get a reward for it, right? Shout out to Eric Thomas, man. I'll be on the stage with you soon, brother, because I have a story to tell the world.

Brother, all of a sudden I'm at one of my lowest points. The phone starts like this. I'm like, what the hell's going on? Bro, you're everywhere, bro. I was like, what do you mean? Tyrese Gibson just posted you. Bella Hadid. Like everybody, bro. Kevin Dainey, this one, that. I'm like, what the? Five years of darkness and in two seconds it changed. That's how quickly it can. Just like that.

And now they all want me on their show. And this one's following me. That one. And Tim Dillon's just fine. God. It's just crazy, man. And I went now like more of being a host. So like now it's like, no, we just want you on the show, man. But I miss the work, man. I miss having these inspirational stories. Like what you're kind of doing, right? To inspire other people, man. Because nothing helps you more than hearing people that have it worse than you. Okay? Eric Patrick Thomas, man. Please one day.

I'm going to get him to Vegas, God willing, man. He can't move from the neck down, okay? He lives in Flint, Michigan. He doesn't even have clean drinking water. He doesn't even have water to take a bath, bro. And I gave him my word I'm going to get him out of that place, bro. I'm going to get him out of there, bro. I met him through the work I do, but I have never met a more positive human being. I am ashamed of myself when I'm ungrateful. When I think about what this man goes through every day of his life, and I have all these blessings, bro.

So that's what I'm saying. Like, you get inspired not only from the guests, but people, man, they need hope, man. And this guy, man, this guy's amazing, bro. He's in front of his house for no reason. A straight bullet hits him. He doesn't even have problems with anybody. He was no gangbanger, none of that stuff.

Can't move from his neck down. And I got problems, bro. You got problems? We don't have those problems. But I'm saying these stories inspire. He's the most positive human being you will ever meet in your life. And we got to help this guy, man. So that's why I want to relaunch. I still have my daily show. I want to relaunch that work now. Now that things are moving, I love doing it. Do you know Charlie in LA? You know Charlie?

Charlie has the dream factory. You should meet him, dude. You have, you have very, he, he's, he's got a very LA energy to him and you got a very New York energy to you. Funny thing is I was born in Texas, but that's another story. But you, you guys have a lot of like Charlie, I was placing, he does think all the dream factory, just a little emotional man. Cause I make a promise. Sometimes I'm late. Yeah. And as an Albanian, we keep our word no matter what, but for a real Albanian, bro, it's embedded in our, in our culture, brother. It's called Bessa.

It means when an Albanian gives you their word, they will lose their life before they break it. And I was brought up with that ideology. And so when I give someone my word, the reason I'm emotional and talk about Eric is like, man, it's already been two years since I made this promise. Like I, I want to help this guy, man. And I'm going to, because I, I love him. He's an amazing human being. Damon Johns helped him out a few times and, you know, from Shark Tank, shout out to Damon. I don't know him personally.

um but so you start this journey right i'm here today because of a decision i decided to make five years ago with no experience no one believed i knew i had a gift but i didn't know how to harness it yet you know to do it publicly i have a little adhd i'm a little hyper at times right which is good because i never heard my client selling me no because you need five no's before you get a yes and

You know, just going through all of that, man. Look, I got to meet you, right? So that one decision where I could have listened to everyone else around me, the critics out and in, sometimes you're your own worst enemy. Instead, I said, no, man, no matter what, I'm going to do it. And I had just lost a lot of money in a construction company. And I took the little money I had left and threw it all into equipment. And I was like, we're going to do this. We're going to make it happen.

Here we are. Well, as I always say, if you don't take up big losses, you're not entrepreneuring hard enough. You're not. It's just, you know, some people get lucky their first shot around. But so, yeah, man, I mean, so do you want to talk some sales stuff? Yeah, let's talk sales. So I started in the industry that you're in, 18 years old, cut my teeth in sales in commercial leasing in midtown Manhattan.

One of the most competitive markets in the world. And I'm working for a boutique firm on 8th Avenue, which is not a desirable location on your business card. And I'm in what's considered the Garmin district, which used to be the epicenter of New York manufacturing. So we sold our country out and everything went overseas. It's at Bangladesh and India and all over the world. And I'm working for Al.

who's my mom's first cousin, and he's older than me, and I'm only 18 years old, what behind the ears, don't know much about life or sales or anything. I have courage, but I don't have much more than that. And he's like, here's your job. I'm like, what's my job? He's like, you see all these buildings? He's like, yeah, you're going to walk into that building today. You're going to go to the top floor. You're going to knock on the door. You're going to walk in and say, hi, my name is Beck. I'm from Castle Rock Realty. We work with a lot of tenants, not only in the building, but in the area.

You know, we can help you possibly find some space if you need to move. Basically, my objective was to try to find out when the release expires so we could build a database. Sure. And then try to follow up. I was terrified. I'm going to walk into a building. I don't know anyone. I'm going to just go and try to meet the owner. I'm like, how am I going to do this? This is terrifying. He's like, kid, in those windows, you're not seeing GLAP. There's money in there, man. Go get the money. It's in there. Mm-hmm.

I go in, man, I got thrown out in five seconds the first time. I had no idea how to talk fast and have a personality and open up the conversation. I had no experience. That's what I want people to understand. I didn't wake up and become a world-class speaker who has viral videos overnight. I didn't know what I was doing. I was scared. So the problem you have, if you are where you are in your life, is not because you don't know something. None of us knew. You didn't know what you know about real estate.

30 years ago what you do today? Can you compare yourself to that guy? So when are you going to have what you're lacking, my friend, if you're watching? You're lacking courage. You have to have some courage in your life. You got to sit there and say,

I think it's more scary to not try than try. I'd rather be the guy that tried everything and failed a million times than be a corporate serf the rest of my life, barely getting by, not living life on my terms. And I learned that lesson the hard way, getting to the top of the corporate world, making the money that people dream of making and being completely miserable to the point where I was going with ambulances once a week thinking I'm having heart attacks. It was panic attacks.

Because I was miserable in the environment I was in. Because you weren't aligned with your true values. Because I was not living my purpose. Yeah. So I think the secret to all of this, to young people, is if you could figure out truly, the hardest thing in life is not to make it. Because you can make it financially and still not be happy, right? The key, in my opinion, is to figure out what you really want to do. So what does happiness mean for you? To be able to produce a living...

Doing something that you really love and are good at. And I think people don't take the cues that God gives them. I ignored my cues for a very long time, brother. Every single human being on earth has a gift that God gave them. Your gift might be that you make the best apple pie in the world. But you're thinking, I got to go onto Wall Street and learn all this stuff. And you idiot. Everyone keeps telling you, man, Jimmy, I really love your apple pie, Jimmy.

Jimmy, can you make us one for the holidays? And everyone's begging you to make. Hello, McFly. That's God telling you that's your gift. Listen to him. Everyone always told me, man, you have such a way of speaking. You inspire me. I knew this for years. I ignored my gift, man. It's like, what's the joke? The guy gets stranded on a desert island and-

He says, oh, God's going to save me. And then a tire comes by and he could have grabbed onto it. And he says, no, no, no, I'm not grabbing the tire because I'm waiting for God. And then a small dinghy comes by. I'm not doing that. I'm waiting for God. And then a ship comes by. No, I'm not doing that. And the guy ends up starving to death on the island and dies. He goes to heaven. I answered your prayer, but that's the way you thought. Yeah. Why didn't you save me? I sent you a boat, a tire, and a dinghy. You didn't grab any of them. You didn't even try. You didn't grab any of them. So I think a lot of young people, they're scared. They're worried about too much what people think.

They live in a world now where everything's under a microscope. They're living in a world where I call it the Easter Bunny generation, the Easter Bunny generation. So they feel a lot of FOMO and they feel insignificant because they're looking at everyone, you know, cropping their life perfectly. So they feel like I'm behind my, you know, I'm not doing what my peers are doing. I'm a loser, you know, and subconsciously, right? These thoughts creep into their mind.

And they don't realize that even those people, there's been times, brother, I've posted I'm in Aruba and everything's gorgeous and I'm in the room crying, brother. Like, you're not seeing everything that's going on in our lives. You need to remember this young generation. This is why they're the Easter Bunny generation. They are so beautiful because during Easter, right, you guys have the chocolates that are like hollow.

You know, you grab the... You know, they sell them during that time. The eggs, they're hollow. That's why I call them the Easter Bunny generation. They're absolutely beautiful on the outside. But they're hollow on the inside. But they're empty on the inside. And because they're watching their other friends and everyone doing that, they always feel empty themselves. Because...

We weren't made to see everything that's going on all the time. You need to focus on what you're doing day by day, man. Don't worry about the noise. Your time will come, man. But you got to make a choice. You got to have some courage in your life and you got to be willing to take a little bit of pain. Otherwise, nothing's going to change in your life. So how do you reconcile with this? Because this is something that I fight with internally, personally a lot too, which is

The thing that is so good to us, which is social media and all of these clicks and all these views and all this stuff, is also something that in the back of my mind, not necessarily my content's hurting anybody, but I think the fact that you're just sitting there scrolling mindlessly for hours. And I'm guilty of it at times. I'm not going to lie. I'm guilty of it. So how do you reconcile with that?

That's why I have a good woman next to me. She yells at me, you idiot, you moron, what are you doing? Are you going to wake up? Grab your phone, go ahead, scroll. No, but do you feel... I have a safety mechanism because listen, it's addictive. No, no, no. But do you feel that you're contributing to the same thing you're saying is causing that problem? Yes and no. How do you reconcile it? Yes and no. Because at least I'm not posting myself. You know, at least I'm posting content that inspires, maybe teaches a lesson, gives a good message.

Where a lot of the other stuff is like ridiculous stuff, bro, that, you know, can be very negative fights, all these things. There's a lot of garbage on there. That's very harmful for you. And, you know, people looking at women and this and that, I don't like the, the, the, the, the exploitation in my opinion of,

You know, stuff like Kanye West just did. Like, come on, bro. Dude, that was so ridiculous. Ridiculous is not the word. It's like a mockery, man. And it's just disgusting. Like, you're that bad. You're one of the most famous people in the world. You needed that much clout, bro? Like, really? Like, this is your wife. You love her. Like, you're letting everyone see what only your eyes should be seeing, man? Yeah. Sure.

She loves it too. Don't worry. She's a cloud chaser too. I reconcile it by thinking, you know, everybody's so worried. Like, look what people that eat, people that are, you know, heavy, morally, you know, really obese eat terribly. So they're so concerned there too. If you eat a bunch of junk food, you're going to be terrible. So what you consume with your brain is more important to me than what you consume with your mouth.

And so many people are just Kardashians, just junk food right into their brain. They're just shoving it right in their brain. And they don't realize it. They don't realize it. They really do not realize what they're doing.

what they're allowing into everything. So at least I feel like I'm not making junk food. No, man, you're making healthy food for the mind, man. That's how I reconcile. You know, that helps the world. Cool. Well, dude, Beck, if they want to find more of you, how do they do it? You can follow all the handles at B-E-K. That's B like boy, E like Edward, K like Kimberly. Beck, there's no C. Beck Lover, NYC on IG, TikTok, X, or becklover.com. Or you could watch the Beck Lover podcast anywhere podcasts are. Yeah.

I love it, brother. Well, dude, if you ever need anything here, you let me know. I got you. You're going to come back, man. We'll come knock on another one. It was a lot. We didn't talk about. I do. An hour goes quick, man. It goes quick. I know, man. I got to get to the next one too. Yeah.

Let's rock, brother. It was really nice to meet you, man. You too. You too, man. Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. And remember, man, if you're up against adversity, there is, it just takes, like you heard how quickly this dude's life turned around. Never give up. It could turn around for you. In his bassy voice, never give up. Never surrender. Never surrender. We will not go silently into the night. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.

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