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Joey: Redding is a beautiful place. We have national parks in three different directions, two world-class Lakes, this is a sportsman paradise, but it's also full of wonderful people, we have business leaders, community leaders, faith-based leaders, all of them working towards a singular goal, and that's to make this a great place to live, I wanted to showcase these people, give their perception of the place that they call home. This is All Redding. Here with Bryant Ellis.
Bryant: Yes Sir.
Joey: Thanks for. You get that microphone close. You know how that works? Get directional and close and everything. Thanks for coming in.
Bryant: Thanks for having me.
Joey: I was. You just published a book?
Bryant: Yeah.
Joey: Hello, my name is failure. It's pretty good, man.
Bryant: Thank you.
Joey: I'm enjoying it. I just found out about. I'd like to tell you that I already read it.
Bryant: Oh, that's great.
Joey: I found out about it last night.
Bryant: Oh, cool.
Joey: 'cause you have a business that I think is what most people talk about, and I'm sure we'll get to that, but I found out about the book and I was like, okay, I was intrigued. I got the video that you had where you had somebody read the intro, and the guy was like If Optimus Prime and Megatron's voices were merged, the guy's voice was awesome.
Bryant: Thank you.
Joey: So I got the book and I think I'm a little over halfway through it.
Bryant: Oh wow, that's fast.
Joey: Yeah, it's. Well, I'm cheating, I'm using Audible.
Bryant: Oh, that's good. Yeah, just fast-forward it times three and get it through. Yeah, that's great.
Joey: Oh man, I didn't know the hack on fast-forwarding.
Bryant: Yeah. You can double. That's what I listen to, I double it. because they talk so slowly because you have to record it at the speed that a grandma can listen to it, and so if you're listening to an audiobook, you can double time, and it is a little more intriguing and engaging.
Joey: I just got a life hack.
Bryant: Yeah, it's great. Finish a book in an hour.
Joey: Oh, wow. Well, then, I guess I came ill-prepared. I should have fast forwarded, I've found myself actually rewinding several times because there's nuggets in there, there's something like. Whoa, I need to hear that again. One of the parts that I went through that I've gotten past is the. Was it the window of? It was the window, not the window.
Bryant: Window of vulnerability.
Joey: Vulnerability.
Bryant: Yeah.
Joey: Tell me about that.
Bryant: I gotta look at the book to remember what that is, but ultimately, but I think it was when you take a risk and you fail, there's a moment there where you have an opportunity to register that failure as trauma or education, and we over-use the word trauma in today's society, so I don't want to over-use it, but anything that leaves a lasting mark on you to where you're afraid to do something again to me, that's a form of trauma, you jump off a cliff and break your leg, that's a traumatic experience, you're not going to want to jump off a cliff again, so when you take a risk and fail, there's that feeling of public humiliation, shame and all of those things, and it's like, right, when you fail is the moment to actually start doing practices to log that moment as an educational moment versus a traumatic moment, and so that's like the window of vulnerability, I believe that's what I'm talking about the book.
Joey: Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm talking about, that like right after you feel like there's a failure. One of the things is right after you've asked somebody out and they said no, or right after you tell a joke and it's crickets. It's like in that moment, there is an opportunity to grow or to recoil, and I think it's awesome, I'm going through it and it's got very. I'm shocked that you seem like a really young guy, and I'm like, how do you have this wisdom, and I've seen some interviews with you, and so I feel like, well, your father planted some seeds, you know what I mean and put this in so at a very young age, you didn't have this fear of failure, or did you and he helped you to get rid of it, or what happened.
Bryant: I still have a fear of failure. I think it's a healthy fear at times, but I feel like it's an ongoing relationship, and those people who act like they're not afraid of failure, I feel like they're just fronting. We're all afraid, it's wired into our DNA to be afraid of failure because we don't want to, we don't want public humiliation because that goes against the instinct or the survival. The instinct of building community, making friends, surviving socially, and so most of your failure comes from the fear of man, of being rejected, of people not liking us, people not accepting us, not loving us. And that's hard-wired into our DNA. So it's not something that is like. Oh, I have no more fear of failure; it's understanding that this is normal; I'm going to push past it. I forget who says it: Will Smith or some influencer. Courage is not the absence of fear but being afraid and doing it anyway.
Joey: Oh. Absolutely.
Bryant: And so, I think the more people can educate themselves on. If you understand that I'm either going to succeed or be educated, that takes a lot of the fear away, so it's also like, yeah, if I go and attempt this thing. I don't get the result that I want. Am I going to learn from that? So in the future, I can get closer to hitting the mark, that takes a lot of the pressure away because we feel like with social media and comparison, we have to measure up to what everybody else is doing, or everyone else is projecting that they're doing. And with the understanding that, no, I'm either going to get the result I want or I'm going to learn. I'm going to be better prepared to hit the mark I want next time, and so once you kind of realize that and I can settle in your soul, some of the fear kind of lifts off, 'cause it's not this high pressured high-stakes thing, or it's like, I have to get what I want, or my life is over, or I'm not going to be loved or accepted, or I'm not going to be successful. And it's funny because a lot of people don't want to believe that like we're talking about business, right?
Bryant: A lot of people don't want to believe that the venture they're pursuing right now is probably just education for the next venture they have, because everything we're pursuing right now, we think it's going to be the ticket that takes us to the next level, but a lot of times we have to go through so many ventures, a failure before we hit one that sky rockets or takes off and it's different timelines or different people. Some people will do it earlier, some people later, but the more we can see these ventures as I'm going to get everything that I can from this venture, I'm going to try to make this the successful one, but if not, it's going to propel me into my next venture.
Joey: So how did you. The thing that you said that kind of stuck in there, as you said, in your soul because I thought. I'll read books and self-help and personal growth, and they always sound great, like there are always wonderful little nuggets of wisdom and kind of cliches, but I tend to have a hard time getting it from here to here, so I can sit there and totally agree with everything you said, and I'd heard versions of it before, but it's in that moment when that window of vulnerability, I find that now that I've caught that phrase, that that's when my analyst brain kicks in and goes. Well, you know, you blew it this way, you put that, and I think there's some positive where it's like. Well, let's look at analysis so that we can make adjustments, but I find that mine goes down that other path where it starts to become what you called shame, so how, is it just always been in your soul, you said you don't lack fear of failure. But it doesn't control you. I think the way it controls a lot of people. How did you get that?
Bryant: I mean, a lot of it is being able to stop and analyze what happened, right, so I'll give an example. It's funny, I was on a podcast with a big pastor a few weeks ago, and it was an epic failure of a podcast. It hasn't been released yet in this episode, but they are releasing it in a couple of weeks. I talked to him afterward, and he was like, no, I love that you get great points and blah, blah, blah, but it was this thing where he was like. Hey, at the beginning of the push, it was like. Let's not talk about your book until the end, so this doesn't sound like a commercial for your book.
Joey: Oh, I already blew it.
Bryant: No, no, no, no, you're good, you're good.
Joey: Wait, wait, wait. There's a window. Hold on.
Bryant: Yeah, no, but it was you know, and because. So he started off that way, and he's like, Let's talk about your company first, and then at the end, we'll talk about your book, and I'm like. Yeah, sounds good. The first question he asked right out of the gate was. So, tell me about your book and how you got the idea for it, and I was like. Okay, it's called Hello My Name is Failure, and I go on this rant talking about it. And then he was like. Okay, well, tell me, how did you create it? And I was like. Well, it took me about three and a half, four years. I started writing it. And so I answer all these questions. He ended the podcast 10 minutes early, and I was like, that's weird. Why is he ending it early like? I thought we were going to talk about more stuff, and so I ended up calling his assistant afterward, and I was like. Yo, bro, that podcast felt weird. Is everything okay? And he was like. Well, you didn't want to talk about your company, you just wanted to talk about your book, and I was like, how are you talking about? That's all the questions he asked about the book. And then I went back and realized when he said, tell me about your book. He was talking about the Adventure Challenge book.
Joey: Totally.
Bryant: And I was like, Oh my God, and dude, just the shame spiral that I went on just from that, because you remember like, Okay, well, he said, don't talk about your book first question, out the gate is well my book. Hello, my name is Failure. That was. It's so funny because it was a failed podcast tour and an epic failure. Now, in that situation, I literally wrote down what could I have done differently in order to not have that moment to where there was that misunderstanding and people are like. Well, how would you have known he could have done this, he could have great. I could play the blame game and say it's his fault. He should have done this, but it's like in that moment at the beginning, he communicated, let's not talk about your book right now. Let's talk about your company.
Bryant: The first question out the gate was. Tell me about your book. I could have said. Hey, just real quick, I'm confused because at the beginning, you said not to talk about the book, and now you're asking about the book. Could you explain? Are we changing that, or what's going on? Oh, I'm talking about your company. Got it. And then I could have done that, right? And I actually emailed him, this pastor afterwards, and I was like, bro, I realized what happened, I'm so sorry. And he was like. Don't even worry about it; it's not a big deal, but there was an opportunity just to beat myself up, feel stupid, like. Oh my God, he's never going to invite me on again. I feel like an idiot, but it was just evaluating. Okay.
Bryant: This is what happened, this is what went wrong, what could I do next time, if I face this circumstance and I come up to this, I wrote it down, and then it sounds cheesy, and I don't say this lightly, because self-talk is talked about a lot on social media and self-help gurus and mirroring when you're talking to yourself in the mirror, but I literally will talk to myself like on my best friend, and I was like, hey, Brian, you had no idea that he was going to throw that curve ball, you were doing the very best you could, you showed up the most prepared that you knew how, and you swang and you missed. That's all right. What can you learn from it? So next time you're talking to some big podcast, you don't make the same mistake like, this is just a great education, you did so well, and it didn't linger with me, and then the second part was I went and told a friend who loved me about it, do this is what happened. And they have to laugh and be like. Oh man, I'm sorry, that's okay, and within 24 hours, that spiral that could have had me kicking myself in the butt every night while I was thinking about it turned into something where it was like. Oh, that was good.
Bryant: And not only was that good, but I don't feel any shame from that, and if any of the members of his team wants to not invite me back on or feel ashamed, it's like case I did the best I could, I'm surrendering this aspect of my life to God, because when I show up the best I know how, and I missed the mark, that's when it's like, God, I surrender that to you and whatever you want to do with that, it's funny, when we're living in anxiety and control, like when we're trying to control the future, we're deeming situations as good or bad, we don't know if something's good or bad, like have you heard the story of the farmer who, you know, he lost the horse and they're like. That's bad, and he's like. Well, maybe. And then I'm going to butcher this story.
Joey: His son goes to get the horse and comes back with another horse and they go, that's great, he goes maybe we'll see.
Bryant: He falls off, breaks his leg, that's bad, and he's like, maybe we'll see, then the draft happened, his son couldn't go to war because his leg was broken, so it's this whole thing where it's like unfortunate things happen to us, and we as humans decide to assign value is this good or bad? We actually don't know. So it was so funny because I looked at that situation, and I was like, maybe his assistant said that was bad. But we actually have no idea. Maybe that podcast comes out and maybe the way we talked about the book or talked about stuff ends up selling 10,000 copies because of that blender, but we have no idea. Maybe someone else heard the podcast and they heard the way I talked, and I was like, the way he talked about it, right now, it makes me want to invite him on the podcast here, so it's quite interesting because it's not being powerless and saying, Well, whatever happens happens, I'm going to trust God, it's saying, I'm going to show up as prepared as I can, the best I know how.
Bryant: And if I fail, I'm not going to deem that as good or bad. I'm going to learn what I can from it and then trust God with what happens in the future, and that in itself takes a ton of pressure off us and a ton of the anxiety off because it's like we actually don't know what's good or bad that happens, we actually don't know if this thing that felt uncomfortable, this thing that felt like a bummer, or we miss the mark, it's like we don't know if this is something that's going to ruin our future or take us away from more success, it could be the thing that launches us into success, and an example of that is, when I was starting my company, the Adventure Challenge, I launched a Kickstarter.
Bryant: I wanted to make $10,000. I threw this whole thing together, I didn't have a business partner at this point, I launched it and I'm like praying, bro my God, please let this go viral, please let people buy this book and please let it. And I'm praying every day. Refreshing it every 10 minutes. I sold maybe 20 books. It didn't go viral. It failed, and I'm like, This is bad. Like, I can't make my book because what I thought I needed to do didn't work out if you fast forward into the future, I realize if that Kickstarter had gone viral, I would have gone bankrupt because I did not have the pricing right. I did not have everything set up, and many Kickstarter stories have been like that when I don't set the numbers perfectly, and if it scales, they get after and then they have to refund everybody, it is a huge hit to their brand. Nobody trusts them. They think it's a scam. If a venture challenge had gone viral on Kickstarter, the exact thing would have happened, I had it priced at 20 bucks a book, and I didn't even have a manufacturer yet, and the manufacturer that I was going to work with, I was going to charge me like 18, 20 bucks a book, so it would have destroyed it or I would've had to ask for more money.
Bryant: And so it's so funny because when you're placing. When you're trusting God with your future, it's like, I'm going to show up the best I can in that moment. It was the best I could, but I believe he was protecting me from something that could have been devastating and what it did go off. Everything was in place, the price point was in place, my business partner was in place, to the point where when it blew up, we were ready to reap the benefits and profits from it.
Joey: The takeaway from there is number one is having faith in God and not getting caught up in the moment like you're supposed to live in the moment, but at the same time, like you said that looked. It felt like a failure at the moment, but it was actually a springboard to success. 'cause you're really young, 'cause I'm. I don't want to say how old I am, but I'm a lot older than him and.
Bryant: I like you say, I'm young 'cause I'm 30 and I'm like, man, I'm getting up there.
Joey: Oh, brother. Oh, my goodness, if. I got bad news, I won't say how this ends, I'm 52.
Bryant: Oh, you're not old.
Joey: So, what you just said you were on old at 30.
Bryant: No, but so you're not old. Yes, I feel like 65. That's when you're old.
Joey: Let's just put it this way. I'm old enough to be your father.
Bryant: It's true.
Joey: In fact, I might be the same age as your father.
Bryant: Yeah, it's true yeah, yeah.
Joey: So you got a lot of wisdom. And I'm wondering if you learn certain lessons as a kid. This mindset that you have, where you're not oblivious to failure, you're not somebody who's like you see some of the people that are like adrenaline junkies and they're just doing stuff, you're like, what's going on in your head? Jumping off towers, doing all kinds of crazy stuff. That's not you. You clearly have a voice that says, hey man, I think we blew it, but it's not a dominant voice, and so I'm wondering, is that stem back to when you were a kid, and you talk about your dad being a youth pastor, right.
Bryant: Yeah, yeah.
Joey: And some of the lessons he taught you, he planted the seeds of failure, can be your friend, right?
Bryant: Yeah, yeah.
Joey: Do you think about some of these things? You play sports.
Bryant: Totally. Yeah.
Joey: Miss out, and your dad's like, It's okay, we're going to go back to the.
Bryant: Well, it's funny, before I answer that question, I'm actually an adrenaline junky, I'm a certified skydiver, I do bungee jumping and all that kind of stuff.
Joey: Okay well, that threw my hypothesis away. You're absolutely wrong. Okay, thank you.
Bryant: No it's funny cause I actually sold my parachute last year 'cause I felt like I was supposed to give it up, but yeah, I've jumped off a plane like 55 times, done bungee jumping and I've done everything crazy I could think of, and now I'm chilling but so yeah, growing up, it was interesting because I don't think my dad was. He wasn't consciously teaching us about failure, and you know the rebounding and stuff, but I have a sales background going up from as a kid, because my parents were entrepreneurs per say, where they would make these cross-necklaces and then we'd go selling door to door as early as I can remember as a child, we did this and we'd go into these neighborhoods, and it was like. I remember as a kid seeing a neighborhood and being like, I bet we get four sales from this neighborhood, and it was almost like I was analyzing a statistic, okay, there's 100 houses here, maybe 4%. We get a yes. So, going door-to-door, I was like, hey, my name is Bryant, and we're selling these cross-necklaces to raise money for a mission trip to Africa.
Bryant: Would you like to buy one? No. Hey, my name is Bryant. You know what I'm saying? It was almost like, no, no, no, yes. Got it. And I never expected two in a row to say yes because the kids were like. Oh, you got your yes. How many more before we get another yes? And it was a numbers game, and sometimes we. And sometimes.
Joey: Great training man.
Bryant: We don't review our life as a numbers game, where it's like, you know how many videos do you have, how many reels do you have to post on Instagram before one maybe takes off, you know how many times do you have to audition for a movie role before you get apart, how many open mics you have to have at a coffee shop before someone invites you to join them on a... On a song or write an EP, it's a numbers game. And so as a kid, that's really what it was, it was understanding the fact that. It just takes time. The thing I wish I would have understood as a kid is that after each no, maybe saying, why did they say no? When did they say no? I could have said something that maybe changed their no, because, to me, it was kind of more of a powerless idea of just.
Bryant: No, no, no. Yes, no, no, no. Yes. And you, there's nothing you can really do about it. You're just hoping they say yes. But there's an educational experience there where you could have turned that from a 4% conversion rate to an 8% conversion rate. Maybe if you had studied, why did people say no? And so, I've given this example on so many podcasts, so forgive me if any of your viewers have heard this before, but it's like when you show up to bat, somebody throws a curve ball, you swing and miss. It's not just like, well, I'm just going to keep swinging, and hopefully, the bat will meet the ball at one of these points. It's like, well, why did I miss? Do I need to choke up on the bat more? Do I need to? I'm not a baseball player, so I'm going to give horrible values.
Joey: Me either.
Bryant: Am I going to, grab the base more? Am I? Do I need to swing harder? Do I need to keep my eyes and what am I doing wrong to where I can hit the ball next time? And evaluating what, and it becomes like an internal evaluation. Jason Valentin says it is like a scientific evaluation of what is wrong versus an external judgment. Instead of being like, I'm bad. I'm never going to be a good baseball player. I'm never going to be a good songwriter. I'm never going to be an influencer. I'm never going to be a good salesperson. It's like, well, you're just, you have these educational gaps right now. Learn to fill those, and then you're going to slowly close that gap. And it's funny, and I don't know if your audience is Christian or not, and so if I'm talking about God too much, I apologize.
Joey: No, please.
Bryant: But I see in the church a lot, a lot of us become victims to our circumstances. We talk to God about these dreams we have. God, I want to. I feel like God's called me to be a steward of money and influence the influential, or I feel like God's called me to hang out with Justin Bieber or to be a movie star or whatever. And it's like, that's fantastic. What are you doing about it? Well, I'm just waiting for God to open doors. Or I went to an audition and they said no. So I'm waiting. No, if God's given you a dream, he's empowered you to go fail, learn from that, and then to keep going. He's in like, favor does not look like, we look at somebody and like, oh, they have so much favor on their life.
Bryant: Yeah. You didn't see what favor looked like for them five years ago where they were broke getting into credit card debt failing. They felt like they were embarrassment to their family. They were getting evicted from their house, and their car got repoed. That didn't look like favor, but that was favor for the individual. 'Cause it was giving him education to where now he's in the spotlight and everyone's like, so much favor on that dude's life. And it's like, that's not what favor looks like. Favor looks like the grace to fail. Get up and try again. And I feel like that's what was hardwired into my brain as a kid of being like, it just sucks at the beginning. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be this Instagram highlight reel that looks so amazing. It can look like just falling face forward in the mud and getting back up, wiping it off and doing it again. And so I'm grateful for that because I saw my dad fail a lot growing up, and I also saw him trying again. And it was like, some things worked and some didn't. So does that answer your question?
Joey: Absolutely, man. I think saw, I was thinking of Joseph when you were talking about, so much favor, but you didn't see him when he was in a hole. His brothers had just thrown him in a hole. You didn't see him in jail. You know what I mean? It was he, did you think he was favored then? No. So, and the Bible's full of that. But it's, you touched upon also, you said, if you see on Instagram, I think that is something that's more prevalent now than was say 20 years ago, is that there's this facade of what people's lives are like.
Bryant: Totally. Yeah.
Joey: And it's, it, especially with young people, how do they know that's not reality? Do you know what I mean? How do, it's probably like when I was a kid and people would talk about the TV and Hollywood not being real, which we know it isn't. But we know now how much that's not real. But when I was a kid that felt real. When I watched tv, the Fons, I remember the, dating myself, Arthur Fonzarelli was real man, of course. He wore a leather jacket and the same clothes every day. I didn't put two and two together and go, dude. And he's kinda short to be so tough. And how is he manipulating electronics by simply hitting the outside? Right. No, but I get, and that's what's going on with I think, social media right now as kids, young people are being told this instant story. And it's kinda, it's almost like, it's always been there. It's always been part of humanity. There's always been people that thought, man, I gave it two whole tries and I didn't succeed, so I'm a failure.
Joey: It's like, man, you gotta give it more than two. But it's seems a little bit more amplified now. And so I think it's really important to tell the, it's like the hero's journey got wiped away. I think the movies that we really like, the stories that we really like, they always come back to the hero's journey. Right? That whole idea. And I want to talk about your hero's journey. 'Cause you've got a couple of good points, that I'd like you to talk about, but it's kinda like we're wiping that away. The latest movies that are failing that they're like, these movies are awful. And they're like, well, it's because you don't appreciate, some label, right? It's like, and then somebody analyzed the movie and goes, there's no hero's journey here.
Bryant: Yeah.
Joey: There's nothing. This hero didn't, this hero's just the most powerful being. And they face no challenge. And then you want us to somehow root for them. It's like saying like, oh, isn't this guy awesome? He was born with a trillion dollars and then he turned it into 1.1 trillion. You're like, and well, he investment bank. No, you, the, the person that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Yeah. The story like. Hey, I had credit card debt. That's when you get people, you pique their interest. And then I did. And that's kinda your story. I mean this was not the adventure, company. Was not your first venture. You'd tried several things and I, can you tell us a little bit about that? About maybe some of the businesses you started and when God spoke to you and said, buy this camera. Can you tell that story? Can you feed us into that?
Bryant: Yeah. So yeah. So as a, I had a lot of like small businesses. As a kid I cut grass and hired a few friends to mow grass and all that.
Joey: Sales management.
Bryant: Yep. Exactly. And it's so funny 'cause capitalism at its finest. I remember I would get a client 50 bucks, hire my friend at $30 to do it, and then they got mad at me for doing that and I'll quit because they were like, that's not fair. You're keeping 20 for yourself when you're doing none of the work and.
Joey: 40% for sales and operations. And that's cheap. Labor was taking 60% of gross.
Bryant: Just tell that to a 16-year-old.
Joey: Are you kidding?
Bryant: I'm trying to explain that.
Joey: Are you kidding me?
Bryant: It was, and I remember feeling bad about it. 'Cause I remember, I actually thought it was bad. I remember actually being like, I don't want to tell 'em what I'm taking, because, and then one of 'em found out and was like, this isn't fair. You're paying us and you're getting, and I'm like, I bought the equipment. I'm getting the clients I'm doing, I'm taking all of the risk. And so it's just funny 'cause in today's society, and I can't make a lot of videos about this because the majority of people are employees. And so if you make a video, validating business owners or showing the other side of management, then you're just going to get torn a shred in the comment section. But it's true because people are like, all these CEOs are making millions of dollars while they're paying their employees who are doing all of the work.
Bryant: And I'm like, well, that job wouldn't exist if they wouldn't have created the opportunity for you. And they're giving competitive wages compared to the marketplace. And they're, a lot of these people that I know who are being wise with their money aren't just taking their money and blowing it on ridiculous stuff. They're building other companies and creating more job employments. Now that's, there's nuance to that. Obviously there are very greedy corporations and people who are scamming employees. But at the same time, it's like, well, you also have the power to go and do this yourself and take the risk to go bankrupt and to try to start something and only 5% of businesses work after five years. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's just funny.
Joey: Both these truths, they're not mutually exclusive. You can have CEOs that are doing, bad things. You can have boards that are bankrupting the pension plan and running off with golden parachute. And then you can also have people that took on insane amounts of risk—employed a bunch of people, thus blessing their families. And I like, I'm a big Elon Musk fan boy.
Bryant: Totally. Me too.
Joey: Yeah. I'm that guy. A great quote about being an entrepreneur. It's like, chewing broken glass while staring into an abyss. Yeah. I was like, oh, he nailed it. Nailed it. And we were talking before camera, the entrepreneur work 80 hours a week for yourself so you don't have to work 40 hours a week for someone else. It's if I think you either have it or you don't.
Joey: I think you either have that spirit, you get it or you don't. So I don't want to, I kinda want to come back to your story, but I feel like there's a good opportunity for her to us to talk about something is that there's a lot of the arguments that are going on right now in our society, I think really good lies are based on facts. I think you take a piece of truth or a fact and then you can build a great lie, a story on it. And I think that a lot of the anxiety that the younger generation is having over the, we'll call it the finances in our country, I think they're absolutely right. I think their assessment of what's causing it, and I think that their solutions are what's wrong.
Joey: I think that, capitalism to me comes from the Old Testament. The book of Nehemiah is awesome. If you remember, Nehemiah was the cut bearer, and he was sent, God sent him to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was in dire straits. And they had, there's a whole story about mortgages. I don't know if you remember, 'cause Nehemiah is one of those books. You might have read it, but.
Bryant: I'm not familiar with it. Yeah.
Joey: Yeah. He's the cut bearer. So I won't get too far into it. But the bottom line is, Jerusalem is, half the people living there have mortgaged their mortgaged to the other half. And he's like, what? They're basically enslaved. And he says, he pulls everybody together and says, you have to forgive your brother's debt right now. So there's two components that come outta the Old Testament that are very, to me, very key. They are the checks and balances to capitalism. And that's the two years of Jubilee, the seven year Jubilee, and the 50 year Jubilee. Seven year jubilee is where we get our bankruptcy laws. That's why after seven years you can file bankruptcy and then your credit's cleaned up. Right.
Bryant: Interesting.
Joey: So seven year Jubilee was where there was this low standing debt was wiped off. Then the 50 year jubilee was where this long standing debt was wiped off. And the idea behind it was, over time, too much wealth will accumulate with too small of a group of people, and then their descendants who didn't really do anything, who don't really bring value to the marketplace will become basically kings and will abuse the system. So this idea was that, okay, we want to reward, we want to capitalistic system where people are ing rewarded to build things, but we have to have checks and balances.
Joey: And we don't have that in America right now. That's why you have members of Congress that effectively make the same as a high school principal or a superintendent, and yet they're worth tens of millions of dollars. It's clearly the system is broken. And I don't need to say any names, to because it's on every party. Every there's, yeah. If you check, there's a great, website called Quiver Quantitative, and it's a group that they make a bunch of, software products around analysis, but one of the products they offer is, they track all of the buys and sells of members of Congress. And so it's like these, it's like, wow, we've got a bunch of stocks of bonds in Congress. And it's, no, you don't, they passed a law saying that they can trade stocks and it's on insider information, but that's not considered in insider information.
Joey: So if they know that Lockheed's going to get a giant government contract, or if they know they're about to pass something that's going to shut down all the airlines, they can short sell, stocks, and they make tens, hundreds of millions of dollars. That's an example of how, and so then younger people come along and say, look how the system's rigged. And in a way they're right. But it's not like, okay, a better system would be like a socialist system. Right. Because you're not seeing them succeed anywhere. The country with the highest GDP in the western hemisphere, Venezuela, they have more resources, oil, gold, all this stuff. And they, most of the country lives in absolute poverty. 'Cause they turn to socialism. It just, it's it's a broken system. Right. So the young people are right in their anxiety saying. Hey, this is broken and I don't like it.
Joey: They're wrong in their assessment of why it's broken. The people that we have elected are basically, unfortunately the system without mechanism is that it's attracting people that do these things. Do you know what I mean?
Bryant: Yeah, yeah.
Joey: And so we, we do need a cleaning up of the system. Now the beauty of, I'm going to use a word that used in the book, the accusers, the accuser, you talk about the accuser and shame. The beauty of what the accuser's doing right now is getting us to fight over frivolous things that seem like the real cause.
Bryant: Totally. Yeah.
Joey: And versus saying, wait a second, you have a system to go look at this guy. This guy's evil. If you only vote this guy, oh, she's so bad. If you can just replace her. People come and go and the system just keeps ramping up. And it's not, there's no one person. Or this party or that party. These are distractions. And so we do have, I agree with the younger generation and the genuine angst that they're having over it. It's just I agree. The assessment and the solution, I think is, and I think it's very hard in our system, in a system wit talked about Instagram and that immediate gratification and this idea that the whole world's partying and I'm not invited. Everybody's got a Bugatti. Everybody's just partying like a rock star.
Bryant: I like how you said Bugatti.
Joey: Bugatti, Bugatti, Bugatti. Do I get the fingers how he does the fingers always. But it feels that way. It feels like everybody's drinking crystal. And why am I so there must be something wrong. It's like, that's not the reality. And these things converge to put us where we are right now. That's one of the reasons why I love talking to entrepreneurs. I love talking to people who are like, no, I wasn't born on third base. I really did hit a triple You know what I mean? I hit a double and then stole third, so I love these stories. So, I hijacked what you were saying. I want to come back to it.
Bryant: No, no, that's good.
Joey: So as a kid, you learned when you told me that you went door to door, that was an insanely powerful and valuable lesson that sticks with you. That like no. Okay, great. Enthusiasm, right. To the next one. It's a numbers game. That is huge. Because most people I think they're like. Hey, you want to buy this? No, that's it. I told you this is horrible. This is the worst product ever. Let's go home. I think that's what most people think. I thought I would get a Bugatti. And this is no Bugatti. So let's go back. I want to go back to your childhood. I want to talk about you're a capitalist at an early age. And you were underpaid, in my opinion, 40% for operations, finance, sales. You were underpaid. Labor was overpaid, in my opinion. I don't know of an industry where labor takes 60%.
Bryant: Oh dude, I don't know.
Joey: That's crazy.
Bryant: And to them it was I was ripping 'em off, but it didn't last very long. Once they caught onto that, they ended it. And so I ended up doing all the work and getting all the money. And so, but that was the first business I can remember starting. I remember having, me and my brother Trey, we always wanted to make a go-kart track, that was our dream or buy a go-kart. And so we had this church directory where it had all the phone numbers of everyone in the church. And so I, we probably went through that church directory 50 different times as kids selling new things. Selling a new service, a new product, a new thing we could do for them. And I just, I'll never forget every year the new church directory would come out and I'd look and be like, how many new phone numbers are in here?
Bryant: And then I loved it. 'Cause when it was like, oh, it's fall, we could rake leaves. We get the church directory, open it up. Hey, is Ms. Patterson there? Hi, Ms. Patterson, this is Bryant Ellis, I'm CJ's son. We were wondering if you would like us to, rake your leaves. $30? No. Okay. The next 25, and it would, we'd go through the whole list, write down who said yes, who said no, who didn't answer. You'd have your little piece of paper. And at an early age, it was just like, yeah, that's how you, that's how, that was your warm list of leads and you would call them. And so I remember my first business job, you know Tim Marinello.
Joey: That name sounds familiar. Why?
Bryant: So N computing, I'm trying to think of what else, what other company he was a part of. But he's been like CEO and manager of a lot of these different companies here in Redding.
Joey: N computing was the two, the little, virtual back when that was the little computers they would set up. To try to get over the license issue of like, okay. I do remember. Okay. That's why that name's familiar, yeah.
Bryant: So he was my boss when I was 18 years old.
Joey: Oh, wow.
Bryant: I worked for N computing. He's the CEO and part owner of a venture challenge right now.
Joey: Nice.
Bryant: So it's funny because he, he was my first boss, and he, I remember working for him, and it was my first sales job at 18. I sat down for the interview and he'll tell you to this day, he was like, the reason I hired you is 'cause of how well you interviewed. And it was like, well, interviewing is just selling yourself. You're just sitting in front across from somebody and telling them what you think they want to hear. And it was just, it was honestly like I was really good at selling myself, not great at delivering. And so I, but with his company, I did.
Bryant: So I did a great interview. They hired me. They were giving us a tour of the office, and they were like, yeah. So, the record number of evaluation units sent out in one day is 10 units. And immediately when he said that, I felt like the Lord said, you're going to break that record on the first day. And I was like, I'm going to break that record on the first day. And so we went through training, a couple days of training, and then I get my little office, they put me in the room and they give me my list of leads. And I sold 12 that day.
Joey: Nice.
Bryant: 12. It is my first day. And they nicknamed me the Eval King. And it was one of those things I was like, this is so easy.
Joey: And then people would come in and listen on my calls. And they were like, we want to hear what you're doing to get these evals sent out. And so I'd get on the phone with a, I'd be like. Hey, is the IT director there? And they're like, yeah. And then I would just BS them as if the principal sent me over to them and made me want to, I was like, yeah, I don't know. The principal Atkins said that maybe I should talk to you. I dunno, I have these evaluation units of desktop virtualization. And the thing is like, we're just trying to get schools to test it to see if it would work. Can I send you one of these and if you don't like it, just sell it on eBay?
Bryant: Yeah, sure. Cool. Great. Well, I'm going to get your information and we're going to send this to you. We'll set up a data to test it, just plug it into the back of your computer. You're basically taking one computer and you're extending the resources of that one computer into 10 or 20. So instead of paying, a thousand dollars for each new computer, you're just paying 50 bucks. And I'm like, and it works great. We use it here. All these schools are using it and I think it's a great product. He's like, yeah, sure. Send it over. That's how I did it. As other salesman would get on. Hey, Mr. Brown, we have this revolutionary new product that we know you'd be interested in.
Joey: Which you shut down immediately when you hear that.
Bryant: Exactly. Yeah. It was like, I acted like I didn't want to be there, but I had to tell them about this because it's going to be a benefit to you. And I would say it in such a way to where it was like, you don't really have a choice, but I'm going to send this to you and we're going to have to do this because the principal's setting it up. And they were all like, and we great leads from that. And it was funny because some of the account executives would under the table, hire me to take phone calls for them an to close their sales. And I got in trouble when they found out I was doing that. But it was, it was just funny because to me in business, it was just.
Bryant: There's an obstacle, how do you get over that? They give you a list of rules and ways to do it, and you go, "Ah, it doesn't sound like it would work. I'm going to do it my own way. And so as a young person and growing up, it was always like, entrepreneurism is just expert problem solving. Somebody says, "Well, how do you get somebody to take this product?" Ah, you just convince them through X, Y, Z. And I loved it that way. And that really translated over to Adventure Challenge whenever, like all of. Well, 80% of our revenue comes from creating Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Google ads. And so just.
Joey: Really?
Bryant: Yeah, 80%. So it's like, in order to sell something, you have to make a video. And in order to make a video, people are scrolling on their phones, how do you convince somebody to buy a book? And a lot of companies, especially back in the day when I was doing this, people were making these elaborate Harmon brother type commercials. And Harmon Brothers could do it, because they were great at script writing and executing. But then so many other people were spending $10,000 $15,000 $20,000 grand on a commercial and it wasn't working. And I was like, "No, we just need an iPhone, and I'm just going to get two friends to do one of the dates. I'm going to film it. This is going to look really simple. It's going to look like an influencer is making it and then we'll post that. And so I paid $50 bucks, hired two models to come and do one of the challenges. They made an apple pie. One of them was blindfolded, filmed it on my iPhone, grabbed a bottle of Tequila, locked myself in a room, drank Tequila and edited on my iMovie account and gave it to Ben, my business partner.
Bryant: And we played with copy. And at first, we had all this elaborate copy, like, this is the best date idea ever. Your significant other will love you if you get this. Tested it, nobody bought it. Tested a whole another copy, nobody bought it. I tried it like four or five times. And then finally I was like just put best date idea ever. That's it. That add made us our first one, three, four million dollars.
Joey: Nice.
Bryant: Yeah. And it was like, and it's crazy because we go back to that and it's like some people overcomplicate ways to make money. And it's really just like, you're just figuring out a way to convince somebody to buy it. And it is not that hard. And you don't have to spend all of this money creating this crazy, elaborate commercial where it's like, we've made. We spent like $200,000 grand on this one commercial and it's made us millions of dollars, but we've also spent a $100,00 grand on a commercial and made us jack.
Bryant: And so it's like, you need a mixture of the both. You need some good ones to set your branding, but it's like, especially if you're starting, it's like sometimes simple is better. It's like, are you just quickly showing people pain point solution? That's it. Pain point solution. And don't try to over educate them. Date night's hard, this fixes it. Your girl wants to spend more time with you, this fixes it. You're not close enough in your relationship, this fixes it. And that does it. And so it's been easy to sell products where the pain point is easy and the solution is simple. And so that's been a lot of. I don't know if I'm answering your question. I feel like I'm going off this tangent of sales now, but.
Joey: You totally are. No, but that's awesome. I'm enjoying it. This may never see the light of day, but I'm going to enjoy it.
Bryant: Totally.
Joey: It can get one view.
Bryant: Yeah.
Joey: No, I love. What I heard when you were talking was this is. So my background. Now, I have a weird background, but right now I spend most of my time in digital marketing. And so I heard A/B test.
Bryant: Yes.
Joey: And just iteration. Just iteration.
Bryant: That's it.
Joey: And just, you keep going then you just keep digging. Oh, I found gold. Cool. Keep digging there. And then you dig until there's no gold. And then you are, "Okay. Back to the grind. Dig, dig, dig gold, go again. And that's just, you have to embrace that versus we've gotta make the perfect cheer. The perfect ad. Like, brother, if you made the perfect ad, it's only going to last for so long and then it'll be ad fatigue and you gotta go make another one. So just embrace. Yeah. No, I.
Bryant: But you're talking about failure though.
Joey: Yeah.
Bryant: A/B testing is failure, failure, failure, success. That's what it is. Yeah.
Joey: Are you familiar with any of the tenets of Kaizen at all?
Bryant: Uh-uh.
Joey: Okay. So Kaizen, I'm going to. I might butcher this, but I think Kaizen came out of Honda. In the Marine Corps, I was introduced to Kaizen and it's this philosophy and I don't know if it's literally continuous improvement, but it usually, when people say Kaizen, they follow it with continuous improvement. And there's a few tenets of it. And one of the tenets, there's some operational tenets out of it. Like that's where the kanban board came from. So Honda.
Bryant: The kanban board.
Joey: Kanban board, have you ever seen those like software boards? We have to-dos, in progress, done, ready for review, and you drag in software Kanban. Okay. So Honda, back in the day when they had their assembly line, they would have a manager up at like the site tower thing. And every person would have a rack where there'd be a to-do like a board for them to do. And the manager would put the boards out. And so you'd walk up and you'd get your to-do, and you'd go do it and come back and turn it in there'd be another one. And the idea was, it was focus. That was one of the points was, instead of giving you a board and saying, "Here's 29 things we want you to do. Go do one, come back. Okay, here's number two. Okay, go back. Here's number three. Wait, you didn't do number two. Go back. So that's one of the. There's physical tenets of Kaizen, but there's a philosophical thing baked into it that I think Western culture struggles with. And it is that, nothing is perfect. You are always in a pursuit of perfection and you will never achieve it.
Bryant: Gotcha. Yeah.
Joey: So you're going to constantly make mistakes. One of the things that also came out of it is in Western culture, if Joey makes a mistake, Joey, you're an idiot. How could you do this? In this more of this Kaizen approach is Joey made a mistake. Oh, Joey found a flaw on our system. Thank you Joey. Okay, let's fix this. Appreciate what you did, Joey. Now can you go back to work? No, there's no shame. There's no, you idiot. You blew it. There's none of that stuff. It's "Ah, okay. Yeah. Our system needed to be. Thank you very much for that." That's insanely powerful. And I felt like when I was listening to your book, I was hearing that, that like, "Ah, okay, this is an opportunity for us to fix this." Because you talk about the difference between failure and I think losing, right?
Bryant: Yeah. Losing and failing. Yeah.
Joey: Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the difference between losing and failing. You okay?
Bryant: Excuse me. Yeah. Swallowed my spit wrong.
Joey: A good host would have water for you.
Bryant: No, you're good. I was just thinking, I should have brought water.
Joey: I am not a good host.
Bryant: I know you're good.
Joey: You know what this is, this is me failing. Next time I'll have water.
Bryant: You're good. I usually bring a water bottle. I quit bringing bubbly water, 'cause then I'm burping in the mic too much. And so I usually just bring some flat, but losing and failing, the difference between losing and failing is losing is when you show up to a risk unprepared, you swing the bat and miss. To me, that's losing. There's nothing you can learn from that, because when you show up prepared, you swing and miss, you can evaluate it and say. "What did I do wrong that I could do better next time?" And then you make that change and then you show up for the bat again. Like failing's good, in my opinion. Like if I'm using the two analogies, like failing is good, losing is bad, failing's being powerful, losing is being a victim. And we get caught in that victim mindset. It's like, oh, I showed up. It didn't happen. It's not meant to be.
Bryant: And then you know. And there's a nuance. I talk about the nuance where it's like you show up. People say trust God with the end result. And I believe that fully. You are giving your future, putting your future in God's hands, but if you don't show up the most powerful way you can, you're not giving him much to work with. And so it's like losing is showing up unprepared swinging and missing and being like, "Well God, I gave it to you." And he's like, "No, I've empowered you to show up prepared." And I use this example all the time, is. As my brother's a standup comedian and he does these different shows and he'll bring different comedians who are nervous or trying to get their first gig going.
Bryant: And he had this one person come on their show, and he was like. Hey, you could do five minutes today on the show. You're down for that? And this person's like, yeah, I would love to do it. So it's two weeks goes by, the show happens. This person gets up and just is like. Hi, I'm, just bombs, just sucks the fun out of the whole building. I'm sitting there, and everyone's butt is clenched, 'cause it's just so awkward. And I was like, this is embarrassing. And I'm thinking, man, this is an epic failure. I wonder how this person's going to feel I'm going to talk to this person after. And I went up and I said, what happened? Are you okay? That kind of felt like it bombed. And this person said, "Yeah I just. I didn't prepare. I just showed up and winged it."
Bryant: Gotcha. So you got given this opportunity and instead of preparing for it, you just winged it. And then you splattered everywhere. You have nothing you can learn from this experience except for be prepared next time. And it's like, but if this person would've went up and told a joke that they had prepared and rehearsed and nobody laughed, that joke doesn't work. Or maybe I can change the wording on this joke, another joke. Oh, that got a little bit of laughter. That got a little laughter. You see the miss Daisy, it's some. There's some show called The Marvelous Miss Daisy, or.
Joey: I've heard of it. Yeah, I haven't seen it. It's. Yeah.
Bryant: Yeah. Basically, it's so funny because in that show she does that, she watches her husband perform comedy, and she's always taking notes, got 10 laughs, got no laughs, got four laughs, got. She's evaluating what works, what doesn't. She's not judging it of like, you're a bad comedian. It's like, that didn't work, this worked, that didn't work, this worked. And then she would give him feedback and he'd be sitting there like, oh, whatever. I don't know, I'm just bad. And she's like, no, no, you got 14 laughs on this one. If you just tweak these two words. And he is like, shut up. So she ends up and becoming a comedian herself and becomes very successful that's the show. It's not a spoiler alert because it happens early on, but I'm like, that's the difference between losing and failing is you show up to an opportunity, you give it your best, and then you've missed the mark and you say. "What can I do differently?" And so, and that's why I said I see a lot of victims in the church because a lot of people want to blame that devil or God or not favor or something where it's like, man, you did not show up and put your best foot forward that God gave you.
Joey: I think that. You know that story of when Christ is fasting in the desert and the devil comes to him and he says, "Hey, jump off. And Lord will send." I'm horrible at paraphrasing.
Bryant: I know what you're talking about though. Yeah.
Joey: But he says. Do not tempt the Lord thy God. So you're like, oh can you tempt God. No, what it means is you don't put your failures at God's feet. You don't not do the right thing and then lay it at God's feet. Because.
Bryant: That's a great analogy.
Joey: I didn't. I'm sure I heard a pastor say it. Trust me. But that. 'Cause I remember the do not tempt the Lord thy God. We've all heard that. And he talked about it. He was like, you're not tempting God. God was like, oh, well maybe I. No, it was like, you don't lay. You don't do the wrong thing and then say that I'm supposed to step in and fix it every time. And we always heard, we've always heard the God helps those who help himself. That's the little saying that tries to get you to get off the couch. To be like, you called. You went and knocked on a hundred doors and you sold four, man, that's helping yourself, man. That's doing. That's you knocked on a hundred doors. And that I think so powerful. You make. I have four kids. And I think that one of the mistakes I'm making is that my. I give my kids a lot. I've kind of been like, and some of them they. I gotta be careful 'cause I don't want to say their names. But you know which one you are.
Bryant: Listen, Billy.
Joey: Yeah. You know who I'm talking about.
Bryant: You spoiled little brat. No, I was kidding.
Joey: But he does. He's also the baby. But I've given him too much and I need to like. He needs to earn it. What's funny is then in other ways outside of the home, he is a rockstar. And I think it's because in those structures it's like, look, you either win, 'cause he's a phenomenal athlete and he operates at the highest level across multiple sports. And I'm not Tiger dad at all. I am not like. I am the. Oh, right on we showed up like we'd go to things, oh, I'm kind of nervous. I'm like, brother, we won. What do you mean? We're here. The very fact that we showed up, we won.
Bryant: That's great.
Joey: But that's. But I'm also not competitive that way. So I'm just like, dude, you got. You're invited. 10,000 kids try to get here. There's a hundred of you. Are you kidding me? And he's like, yeah, but I want first. I'm like, okay, well then eat your vegetables. I don't stretch. They'll tell you dad wasn't a rockstar athlete. But I feel like I've. Within the home. I need to get.
Joey: Let them go and knock on those doors. Let them. They need to taste that failure and then taste the success. So they go. It's there. It's not because it was unfair. Somebody else got it. Like, 'cause hey, you know what, I'd like a Bugatti. Yeah. I won't. Well not really, but I have other Bugatti dreams.
Bryant: Totally.
Joey: I have. There's plenty of Bugatti esque things that I'd like to have that aren't cars and I. Even at 52, I find myself, I've had some successes, but I find myself giving into that negative voice. Just this week I had a tough week where just a couple of things were ramping up and you catch yourself going into victim mode. And that's why I was so curious, because I was. The book and just your story and the fact that you. You're at 30 years old are insanely young and very successful is you say you had it, but if you have that fear of failure, it's very small. And so I'm just wondering how much of it was nature versus how much of it. It sounds like your dad didn't have a fear of failure.
Bryant: I know. It's so hard. 'cause dude, like I could sit here and tell you all the things that scare the crap out of me.
Joey: Like?
Bryant: Public speaking. Public speaking scares the crap outta me. And it's funny because I understand that it's also a numbers game. And I remember the first podcast I did, it doesn't feel like public speaking podcasts. I still. My palm still gets sweaty before podcasts, but it doesn't. Leading up to a podcast, I'm never like, oh my God. I say that I was. I did Chris Valentin's podcast a couple months ago and I was great until an hour before then I was like. Then you get there and his interns are there and some people are there watching and you're just like, okay, how's everything? But public speaking, standing in front, live in a group of a bunch of people is like it's terrible.
Joey: They say that's more. More people are scared of that over death. Which, that blows my mind.
Bryant: It is true. Yeah.
Joey: It's not my greatest thing. I'm not like, yeah, I love public speaking, but just the idea of like, yeah, yeah. I'll take death. Like, whoa, what? What's the worst? Brother, take some tomatoes in the face. And let it booze like.
Bryant: And it's funny because like you said what's the worst that can happen. Tomatoes in the face and booze and it's funny 'cause yesterday I had to do public speaking and we had the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Joey: That's right.
Bryant: Company. And then like.
Joey: Congratulations, by the way.
Bryant: Thank you. I appreciate that. Were you there?
Joey: No, I was told it was by invite only.
Bryant: Oh, weird. Okay. Yeah. I wasn't in charge of the invites, but we basically. Even my parents, like, it was like the day before and I was like, are you guys going? And they're like, we weren't invited. And I was like, you guys should come. But the mayor was there, city council, all of our employees, the employees families KFCOR was there to do an interview. And I was more comfortable doing the interview with KFCOR than I was standing in front of everybody with a microphone being like, "Hello. You know? And. But I love it. And I have a gift in public speaking, like when I'm actually public speaking, I'm alive, I'm energetic, it flows good. But dude, leading up to public speaking, I'm not eating. Someone wants to come up and talk to me and I'm like, don't talk to me.
Bryant: I'm pacing in circles until it's my time to talk. My business partner's up there speaking and I'm like walking back and forth pacing as my heart rate's up. And it's like, dude, there's 200 people here. What's the worst that can happen? You go up and stumble on your words and everyone's like, he's kind of awkward. Great. You go home and you learn from that and you do it again. It was like, am I prepared? Yes, I'm prepared. I wrote down what I want to say and I'm good to go. And it was like, but it scares me. And it's one of those things where I'm like, I need a hundred times, I need to create an itinerary where I'm public speaking in front of some schools in front of some audiences and I need to just set that time to do, 'cause I need to get rid of this.
Bryant: But it's the fear of public failure. It's the fear of public shame. And I know it's like, that's not going to go away from creating this perfect mindset to where I fully understand. Someone on Instagram messaged me the other day. They were like, well, if you're nervous, it just means that your mindset's not that. I'm like, okay, whatever. You take a hike like you're going to get nervous if it's important to you. Now the level of nerves and if you let the nerves affect your decision, that's where it's like you're broaching it on your identity is based on what other people think. But some of the nerves won't go away until you do it enough times to where you understand that the threat's not that big of a deal. So skydiving for me, the first 12 times I jumped out of a plane, my heart rate's up, I want to throw up, my palms are sweaty, I'm looking out the door, I jump to where now if I get an airplane, I'm chilling. I'm looking at the view the door opens and I'm like, sweet. And then I'll go do a back flip out of a plane, and it's no big deal. Sometimes repetition is the only way to gain the confidence to do what you think you need to do. And so for me it's like, yeah, public speaking, that's one that I need to go attack. That's probably the biggest one I can think of, but it's like, yeah, I'm scared, and I don't think that that's going to go away until I just put myself in the arena and make myself do it.
Joey: Well, I think a big one is fear of the unknown. And so, how do you get rid of that by making it known? So desensitizing, that's what you're talking about. Hey, those first 12 jumps. First one was probably. First or second one 'cause the first one. The first one's gotta be pretty tough. Second or third one's probably right up there too, because you're like, did I get lucky on the first one? And the analytical brain's like trying to go through like look, this is how many people jump every day and then blah, blah, blah, and this how many people don't. But at some point you're just now it's not unknown anymore. It's not like.
Joey: I've done this more than 13 times, are you kidding me, it's time to do a backflip. I'm. You talking to someone who's scared of heights. To the point where I have physical reactions when I see other people in situations.
Bryant: Oh, wow.
Joey: There's this, like video and I think it's in Argentina and the husbands and the wife is kind of sliding on the edge of this rock and it's several hundred. Yeah, exactly. You haven't even seen it. Your face has given up, but she's sliding and she doesn't fall. But just seeing her and she's getting on the edge and he's like, oh, a little bit further. And she doesn't fall, but it. Man, my body like starts to tense up. It's like, this is a two dimensional video on a screen, but you're just that. So I've wanted to skydive, but I don't see myself... That's one of those. But I don't see myself coming over that. I find that kind of funny how you overcame that. It's like nothing. But again, I guess you gotta get 13 public speakings. And then it'll kick in.
Bryant: Yeah. And it's funny because there's. I did. My dad's a mission. Was a pastor of missionary growing up, so we traveled the world as kids preaching. So I have tons of public speaking things I've done as a kid. When I was 23, I started getting panic and anxiety attacks just out of nowhere. And it was linked to the sick. It was like this autoimmune disorder that I had. And so I would just basically be always throwing up all the time. I couldn't have a single day without throwing up. And so any kind of anxiety or nerves that would come would make me also want to throw up. So public speaking then became this huge thing where it was like, well, I'm not just nervous, but now I'm going to go up there and just throw up. And so it became this fear that just turned into this massive public. And so now I healed my gut. It was like leaky gut and some other stuff. So I got that healed.
Bryant: Since then, I've done public speaking maybe five or six times. And I gave myself the grace to be like. It's not what I need to do right now. I'll tackle that mountain when I feel like I'm supposed to get to it. I'm getting close to that mountain where I can feel like I need to actually start making sure I go after that. But podcasting, it was like, that was a huge step because that was, like, I remember the first few podcasts I did. It's hard to articulate thoughts sometimes just with friends when you're trying to prove a point. It's even harder when you have a camera on you, a microphone in your face, and somebody's like, be intelligent. And then you're like, ugh. You know. And I remember watching some of the first episodes. The first podcast I ever made is called A Slightly Awkward 18 Minutes. And I posted it after I recorded it. because it's really me just kind of fumbling through words, trying to articulate ideas, but I posted it 'cause I'm like, this is a failure.
Bryant: I tried and it didn't go the way I want. And so now speaking on podcasts is fun for me. Like I look forward to it. It's something that I enjoy, and I like it. And I know public speaking will be that for me too. But I think people need to give themselves the grace to take on risks that aren't these monumental risks. Another analogy I've used on podcasts before is if you're going to the gym for the first time, if you're a couch potato, you're not going to throw four plates on each side of the bar and try to lift it. You're going to break your arms.
Joey: That'll be your last day at the gym.
Bryant: It will. And it'll traumatize you.
Joey: First day in the hospital, last day in the gym.
Bryant: And you're probably never going to go to the gym again after that. 'cause you're going to hurt yourself badly. And, but it's like, no, you go to the gym and maybe the first time at the gym, it's intimidating. You just get on a treadmill and walk a mile and then maybe next time you go, I'm just going to do some bicep curls. And then next time, maybe you do walking bicep curls. And then you do some pushups. It's like, just get comfortable going to the gym and being around the people. 'cause it's intimidating. You go to the gym, there's all these muscular people and you don't know how this machine works and you look like an idiot and people are watching you. It's like, just get comfortable with the atmosphere, dude. Just do laps around the gym. And then, so set a skill of one to 10 that you're scared to go to the gym. What's a one look like?
Bryant: Showing up to the gym and doing pushups? What's a two look like? Walking on the treadmill? What's a three look like? And you're taking these small risks, level two, level three, level four to where you look back and taking a level seven doesn't even feel like a big deal to me. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't even feel like that big of a deal. And so some people think that failure looks like I need to go take a level 10 risk and face hundreds of people shaming me publicly. It's like, no. If you want to be a public speaker, get 10 of your friends and go talk in front of them or five of your friends and then give a testimony at your church and then maybe years down the road try to sign up for a TED talk.
Bryant: Like it's all about these small levels of saying, am I able, and do I have the capacity to take this risk right now? No, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to take the risks that I can. And so, I mean, like, dude, if you have kids, you have a baby, you have all these responsibilities, it's like the last thing you want to do is go and do an open mic, standup comedy in front of a hundred strangers. Like, but maybe you can write some jokes and tell them to your friends. Maybe you can make a video on Instagram and see if it gets some traction of you telling some jokes. I'm like, there's so many ways to slowly learn to embrace the aspect of taking risks, failing, learning and evaluating without it being these monumental kick yourself in the butt while you're trying to fall asleep moments.
Joey: You're absolutely right. It makes me think about like, atomic habits, daily habits. It's trying to break things down and saying, Hey man, okay, great. You have this five year goal. What do you gotta do on a Monday? Yeah. To get there. How do you get, like, can we break it down so it's digestible that it's doable. It doesn't seem, you know. That's what I heard when you were talking was like, yeah, just, start small. Get some wins. The momentum will help carry you forward. And I get it back to that we live in a time right now, especially young people, they're just being sold a, like a bad vision because it goes straight from you're 18. Okay, you're 18 and a half. Do you have a Bugatti yet?
Joey: No. Like, okay, you're a failure. You're a nobody, you'll never be a Top G. And, I keep throwing them. I can't, once the Bugatti got planted in the brain, suddenly it became, like, it's like you learn a word and then you use the word all the time. You're like, no. So, but in your book, also, one of the things I was thinking about was, and I haven't finished it, so if this, and maybe I'm going to do a spoiler, but I thought, do you have like any, like a workbook that goes with this or do you have any plans for taking this from a philosophy into, okay, now we're going to make action items.
Bryant: Yes.
Joey: Now we talked about it. We got it. Can you talk about that or did I just.
Bryant: Yeah, no, no. Yeah, so it's not in the book, but it's called The Fail Journal. And I have, it's not on Amazon yet. It's been done for years. I just haven't put it on Amazon. It's sitting on a shelf in some distributor. But literally it's a very simple journal. It's called the Failed Journal. And literally before you take a risk, it asks you a few questions. Like, what is the risk on a scale of one to 10, how big of a risk is this? What are you hoping to achieve from the risk? What's the worst that can happen? What's the best that can happen? That's it. Then you take the risk. What actually happened? What can you take from this? Was it a failure or a success? Or was it both? What can you take from this experience to give yourself education for the next time?
Bryant: And the last question is, who did you call and process this risk with? So it's just a series of questions to go through before you take a risk. So you're asking yourself a few questions. And, it's interesting, they've done some like psychological evaluations on what happens to a person before they take a risk. If they imagine the worst case scenario happening and then they come to terms with it being okay if that happens, then you go out and take a risk. You're not actually as nervous. You're still nervous. But if you feel like it's a level nine, maybe it drops to a seven, that's a big jump. If you're nervous for public speaking, right? So, I'll always do that before taking a risk. 'cause I'll be like, what's the worst that can happen? They all think I'm socially awkward.
Bryant: They're like, it makes sense you were homeschooled. You're not good at speaking. You look like an idiot. You should let this person talk. Can I live with that? Yeah, that's fine. Because they don't have power over my destiny. Cool. What's the best that can happen? Maybe there's someone in the audience who invites me to another thing. Maybe somebody has this thing maybe it gets recorded and the clip goes viral on social media. Maybe this happens. That sounds cool. Alright, let's go. Take the risk. What happened? I stumbled over my words a few times, but I got my point across. I felt confident. Somebody cried when I said this. And it made me feel good that it hit their emotion. It was a success. What can I do better next time? Maybe not talk about this subject so much. Didn't seem to land. Call my business partner, Ben. Hey, remember that happened? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm connecting to somebody who loves me to talk about these things.
Joey: Is that a key step is that you connect with someone afterward.
Bryant: Yeah. Connect to somebody who loves you. Get connect. 'Cause when you fail and like the shame is this feeling of being disconnected from love. Like that's what a lot of shame is. It's like, I'm not worthy of people's love. I'm not worthy of being seen, known and admired. So when you fail, that's the feeling that you get is I'm not good. And so connect to somebody who really loves you and cares about you and just talk about the experience. Most of the time, if I call it my friend, Abby, she's like laughing her head off when I'm telling her about this epic failure. When I called her about the episode, the episode, the podcast that went bad, she's laughing so hard. And she's like, Oh my God, anybody would have made that mistake. That's so funny.
Joey: I was thinking it when you told me a story. I was like, I don't want to blame the other guy. But that was a little bit ambiguous.
Bryant: Well, totally.
Joey: You Know what I mean?
Bryant: And it's like, but call somebody and be like, this is what happened. And they're laughing and they're telling you, they're giving, they're meeting you with empathy. They're sometimes being the person that you can't be to yourself. And, so I say, go to that first and get that love. Get that connection. Oh, I'm so proud of you, dude. That was so big. You took that risk. That's a scary podcast. There's like a million people who listen to that. Of course you're going to be nervous. And then afterwards be like, then give yourself a self talk. So I'm like, connecting to love is such a big practical tool. And it's like everyone should do that. Even if it's a good risk that pays off or it's a bad risk that does it. I'm calling someone who loves me and I'm connecting to love and I'm feeling what they have to say about the thing. And then sometimes you, expect them to be like, oh, it's not your fault. And they're like, well dude. Yeah. Like, you didn't prepare. What were you thinking? Like you're better than that. You know? And they call you to that standard of like, oh yeah, I should do better. I should have prepared. And so, yeah, it's called the Fail Journal, but it's literally a journal that helps you process through your risks. So it actually logs it as education versus trauma.
Joey: No, I was thinking because with a lot of the personal growth or self-help, there's the abstract and then there's the concrete and the, I think you want both. You want the big idea, okay, here's the big ideas, but now how do we get that into a Monday between 9:00 and 11:00 AM type thing? Because I think it can be lost. A lot of people can accept the idea that you're giving them of like, Hey look failures. I mean, who has 100% in life, right? Okay. Michael Jordan, who, pick your greatest athletes and if you bat 350, you are a rock star. That means that, most of the time you are failing. Right? So we get that, but then it's like, how do you implement it? How do you make it part of your feedback system? And so that's where I was thinking this needs like a workbook.
Bryant: Totally.
Joey: This needs like a journal. So I guess, well at the end of the book when I get to the end, will it tell me about the journal or are they too disconnected?
Bryant: No, they're disconnected. I mean, I haven't even advertised it yet just because I give it to people. If I'm doing like entrepreneur coaching with them, I give them the journal when we start. 'cause I'm like, you're going to be taking risks in this process and I need you to write them down. Because it's amazing to look back at a year and be like, oh dude, I was so scared for my first podcast. And now I get on and it's, I don't feel nervous or I was so scared to ask this girl out and now I feel great, asking somebody out or my first standup comedy, my first show. It's so amazing to see your progress because if we're not documenting it, we usually forget it. And we don't see the microscopic growth that we're actually experiencing. And so, yeah, I need to get on my butt and actually just like, put it out there so people have it. But I keep pushing it off 'cause I just got engaged last week and I've been Prepared for that.
Joey: Congratulations.
Bryant: Thank you.
Joey: And you had a ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday? I mean, you kind of got a lot going on.
Bryant: Yeah, it's been busy. And so I've been trying to like, okay, I need to market the book. I need to market the journal. And then yeah, we have all these different projects we're doing, but I'm almost like, ah, we'll take it a day at a time. So, if anybody listening wants a copy of it, just DM me. I'll send you a free one.
Joey: We'll put some links in the description and everything. We're going to link to several things. The book.
Bryant: Cool.
Joey: And, I was, when we were talking, earlier you said, I don't know if the, podcast, the one that you said was a failure I don't know if it'll sell thousands of books. And in my head I was like, well, did you give them an affiliate link? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'cause if you didn't, let's just assume all those sales came from this podcast.
Bryant: Yeah, Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I have no. I'm pretty sure because the producer usually gets that kind of stuff out. But, yeah, I'm sure. p>Joey: No, that was just me being those, My attempt at standup humor, audience of two.
Bryant: Well, I need to figure out affiliate link. That's a good idea actually. My brain's working now. But yeah.
Joey: So you said that you were homeschooled And you lived in a lot of places. When did you find yourself in Redding?
Bryant: So I lived in the same place. I just traveled a lot. My dad was a missionary. So we would go like to Africa, south America, Mexico, things like that. I moved to Redding when I was 18 years old.
Joey: Oh, okay.
Bryant: Yeah, 18. Lived here for three years, then moved to San Francisco for two years, moved to LA for one year, moved back up to Redding. And then a year later is when I started the Adventure Challenge.
Joey: How did that, I know a little bit about a tiny bit of the story. The story where you said you told a lie. And then you owned up to it. Right. And so can you maybe take us back to what you were doing? Just.
Bryant: Yeah, I was in an acting school and I was also, I was an inspector, like a building inspector. And so they would give me a building, I would go take a bunch of pictures of it and then I would fill out the report and then submit it to the company. They'd give me like 300 bucks. It was fantastic. 'cause I was living in LA when I got the job, I could visit four buildings in a day, make a ton of money, make enough money for the whole week and then, then the next week do work another day. So I loved that job and I was pursuing acting at the time. And so if you know anything about acting, it's like you need to have a free schedule so you can go audition when they ask you to come in. So it was the perfect gig.
Bryant: And then I moved up to Redding and I was in an acting school and I liked the job 'cause I was able to just to fly down to LA, inspect some properties, fly back up, continue acting school and I'd have enough money to live off of. And it was great. And like, even my friend group that I was in, they always called me the rich friend. 'cause I made like five or six grand a month. And compared to my friends, they were making like $1,800 as like a server. And so, I was like, yeah, I'm making money balling, have a Nissan Altima and make six grand a month. And, a lot of my friends were like, how do you get this job? Can you, you know, and it was, it was a God thing. I got the job. But one of the weeks was really busy and the, my boss sent me all these inspections and I was like, I bet I could just call the front desk and tell him to go around with his cell phone and take a bunch of pictures and then just send them to me.
Bryant: 'cause that's all I'm there for is to see these things. And I'm like, they've never said I'm not allowed to do that. And I'm getting the information. And I'm an independent contractor so they can't legally tell me where to be from my job. So I created a whole series of why it was okay. Called them. They sent the pictures, filled out the report, submitted it, it worked like a charm. So I started doing that a little bit more often. And one of my boss calls me and he was like. Hey, did you ask them for pictures? They're telling me that you asked them for photos. And I was like, no, you're crazy. That wasn't me. I was there. And he is like, okay. He is like, they're saying you did, but we have no proof one way or the other. And then immediately I felt convicted.
Bryant: I was like, I'm lying. And that goes back to the point I was making earlier. Like, I was so scared of getting fired because I was like, if I get fired, that's bad. If I get fired, that's not good. That's bad for my future because then I can't pursue acting and I can't do this and this and that. But the Lord was like, you need to call and confess to that lie. 'cause you are not telling the truth. You are not there. And I was like, God, I'm going to lose my job. And he's like, and who knows what happens with that? And I'm like, ah, had this meltdown called my boss, Hey, I lied. And he was like, that's so integris of you. Thank you so much. You're definitely fired, but how big of you fair enough. So I get off the phone, I'm crying, freaking out, drive to Best Buy.
Bryant: 'cause I was like, I need to figure out a way to make money. And real estate photography felt like a good gig because at the time there was like one or two people who did it, nobody at the time had that box, that kind of 3D scans the house and stuff. And I was like, dude, I know realtors and mortgage lenders and all these people, I could literally just go to their office and say, I want to be your photography guy. I'll give you a cut of everything, whatever. So I had this whole plan. So I went to Best Buy, started filling the shopping cart with all this photography equipment and I saw a Polaroid camera sitting on the shelf. And I felt the Lord say, buy that camera and make your book. And so I had the idea for the Scratch Off Adventure book maybe six months ago is when I got the idea.
Bryant: And I felt it with such conviction. It was like, it's one of the few moments in my life I could be like, no, I heard God. Like, I felt it in my spirit. And so I was like, all right, God, whatever. So I bought the Polaroid. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought, a notebook and some stick on glue stuff. I ordered the scratcher material for Amazon. I have a whole video of me documenting that day. I could show you some time, but literally I'm just like, all right guys, it's day number one for the Adventure book. And I'm just like putting this whole thing together. And yeah, two years later it was a multimillion dollar company and it was wild because that process of like making, it was so weird because I felt so embarrassed when people would say, what are you doing right now?
Bryant: You're not in acting school anymore. And 'cause I didn't want to tell them I'm making a scratch off activity book 'cause it just sounded so dumb. And I was like, ah, I'm just living life and blah blah. And I just wouldn't tell them what I was doing. And it was a rough season. It was a lot of failure. It was a lot of calling friends and asking them to give me seed money, meeting with investors. When I finally made the book, I got a whole meeting with these investors, and I sat down with them, and they were like, we want 40% for 20 grand, but we're taking away all of your veto power if you sign with us because you don't have any business experience, we want to run the company. And at that point, I was like, yeah, it sounds good, let's do it.
Bryant: Like, I just want to make this book. And then, one of my friends is like, do you want to work with these guys? And I was like, no. They're just like a bunch of old dudes. Like, they don't know anything about this. And she's like, well, why don't you ask Ben, like, he's your friend and he's got some money. And I was like, Hey Ben, you want to join my venture and give me 30 grand for, or 40 grand for 30%? And he was like, yeah, So we literally wrote up a contract right there. He bought 30% right there for $40,000. And the rest is kind of history. We just started the company and it took off.
Joey: And you said Ben is the, now he's the.
Bryant: CEO.
Joey: He's the CEO. Okay. What was his background?
Bryant: So he had another company. It was called Fresh Start Debt Relief. And so he had a few salesmen. It was actually quite funny 'cause he had his office here in Redding. He had like three or four salesmen and an assistant. And when, I got so much in debt when I was making my prototypes and samples, I was maxing out credit cards and paying rent with it. I got like 30 grand in credit card debt. And then I got to the point where like my car, they were looking for my car to repo it, so I had to hide it. They were, the landlord was threatening to kick me out and I was using credit cards to pay off credit cards to pay off credit cards. Like that's how bad it was. And so I messaged Ben and I was like. Hey, do you need any salesmen?
Bryant: Like, I'm better than any of your salesmen. Like, I'm so good. Like, I told up my history with sales and in computing and stuff, and I was like, let me work for you for a year. I'm going to save up money and then I'm going to leave so I can make this book. And he is like, sure. So I was working at his office and then on the side in between calls, I was like making my book and stuff. So he was my boss. And, but before he even was a business partner. So then literally I was like, when, his assistant was the one who encouraged me, like, why don't you just ask Ben? And I was like, okay. I was like, Hey Ben, you want to do this? And he was like, yeah, let's do it. So he gave me some seed money, but I was still kind of running it alone and building it until we kind of figured out a way to run this ad that started to scale and make some money, like a little bit of money. And at the same time, his company was starting to plummet. Like they just hit a dead end and like they weren't making sales, he ended up needing to borrow money from Adventure Challenge to pay his employees.
Joey: Oh wow.
Bryant: And it was just getting really rough. And I was like, Ben, what do you think about shutting down your company and then we do this full time? And all of your employees become Adventure Challenge employees. He went on a walk, put his headphones in, listened to music, came back an hour later and was like, let's do it.
Joey: And when was that?
Bryant: 2018, October 2018.
Joey: Nice.
Bryant: Yeah. And so literally, we have employees to this day who they were working for Ben Day at a debt. Fresh Start Debt Relief and now they're still employees of Adventure Challenge. And so we literally tore down the cubicles, put hammocks and couches and bean bags instead, renovated the whole office and.
Joey: Startup vibe.
Bryant: Total startup vibes and then we launched it and so I was a CEO for the first three years of the company and then I just burnt out and it was like operations and all of this is is just not my strong suit, I'm better at ideating creativity vision casting leading the Sea Level team, and so I promoted him to CEO and then I played the role of chairman. So basically I'd meet with him and the other executives to see what was going on and what was happening in the company and then make decisions from there.
Bryant: So I actually live in San Diego. And so I come up to Redding once a month for about a week to meet with the team, IDA, do brainstorming and stuff. And then I go back to San Diego and surf. So, and then I'm able to work on.
Joey: That's the tan, I was like, man, you have, you had a great tan.
Bryant: Thank you. Yeah. So, but that's how that's what happened. So yeah, literally it was just crazy, because it was like that was how our partnership started. It was so wild. I actually saw one of the guys who was in that investor pitch yesterday. He came to the ribbon-cutting and he was like, where do I know you from? And I was like, I pitched the book to you at the very beginning. He's like, oh that's right, glad to see it's working. I'm like, me too, thanks. And so it was it was funny, it was just one of those things that. Yeah, it's kind of a crazy story.
Joey: How many people do you employ? Because you guys are a pretty good size.
Bryant: We had a cutback. 2023 was bad. I mean, just e-commerce all over...
Joey: Tough year for everybody, man. It's a changing year.
Bryant: Yeah. I don't think we made profit. I think we broke even last year. But we had to fire. Dude, I think it was like 35 employees.
Joey: Oh, wow.
Bryant: So we had 110. I think we're at 60 now.
Joey: That still makes you in this county. Those are employees in this county, right?
Bryant: Yeah.
Joey: I don't know how many businesses employ 60 plus people in this. You know what I mean? When you get outside of the hospital, and definitely push government aside, because to me, that doesn't count. I don't know how many companies actually employ 60 people. So you got to be one of the major.
Bryant: Yeah, I mean, it's doing well. I mean, it's so funny, because the first few years, we were so profitable. Millions of dollars profit. And then we hit that thing. And it's like, it's been great, because we're able to stay a float while a lot of our partnerships and friendships in e-commerce have been dropping like flies and going out of business and a lot of companies that we really liked. And so last year was like, we just need to survive this. That's what entrepreneurism is.
Joey: It is.
Bryant: It's just ups and downs. And it's like I feel blessed that we've been able to ride this low and start making it back up again. And so, but yes, we have about 60 employees. And yeah, we just finished our HQ office because we would had like 10 different buildings that all of the employees were scattered around. And now we're in all one big building. And it's, it's so cool. Like, it's such a nice building. I love it.
Joey: That's awesome. And where is it down off Oregon or?
Bryant: It's right next to Woody's. So it's the same building as Woody's. But we occupy like 7,000 square feet.
Joey: Upstairs?
Bryant: Upstairs. On the downstairs too.
Joey: What's in the downstairs the downstairs is like a.
Bryant: It's nothing, it's more.
Joey: Was there a store there am I.
Bryant: Excuse me it was a antique mall.
Joey: Yes that's what it was I was going to say this I've been in there yeah antique mall okay.
Bryant: Yeah so we're looking for a tenant currently actually for the bottom. So yeah, because we bought that half of the building, we occupy the top, and then we're looking for a tenant for the bottom.
Joey: So you started this company, you crushed it, you decide you were going to write a book that's doing well. You kind of hinted in there that you do business coaching. Did you say.
Bryant: Yeah. And I mean, if just, just a disclaimer, if people reach out to me, I say no, most of the time, because I did business coaching in the past where it was kind of like people starting from the ideation phase, and it's just. I got burnt out from that. It's like I enjoy it when somebody has something that already has traction and I can come in and dump gasoline on it. And so I take very few clients and it's usually people who have started the scaling process and they need somebody to help come in and help blow it up. And so I do that as well.
Joey: Got it.
Bryant: Which is really fun. Yeah.
Joey: Is there, do you have any? 'Cause it sounds like you're a serial entrepreneur and you're not going to slow down and you are a very young 30. So besides surfing, is there, do you have like another project that you're getting ready ramping up for?
Bryant: So yeah, we literally partnered up with this big influencer and we're making a product with him and that's pretty big. We're coming out with an app that's going to be pretty big and a few other projects that I can't actually say right now until we release more information on it.
Bryant: But yeah, there's a few projects that are really fun that I'm excited about. It's kind of like, I feel like we're in the phase of going from Netflix when they were in the DVD phase to the online platform phase. I feel like we're on the precipice of that right now. Nice. And so it's a lot of risk and a lot of kind of going back all in on some ideas that were like, this might or might not work. But it's a fun journey because I feel like the ideas are from the Lord. And so, yeah, we're excited. You know, the, the mantra of the company is inspire human connection. And so everything that we're creating, it's like, we're not, we're not just a scratch off book company, we're actually going to start creating things and giving people tools and ways to practically live that out. And I'm so excited about it. So that's kind of what's on the horizon for right now.
Joey: That's awesome, man. That's the, I've, I hadn't heard. So don't take it personal. I hadn't heard about you guys, right? Of course, yeah. But I live a very sheltered life and somebody was actually saying, Oh my husband and I, we did this and then we did that. I'm like, Oh, that was really cool. That's pretty funny. Oh, yeah. It's part of that adventure company thing. I'm like, what are you talking about? And they were like, Oh, well, there's these books and you know, you and it was very, very cool. It was like the the baking of the pie blindfolded type stuff. There's about you know, let me tell you. I'm like, so anyway, there's this company. But it was I thought it was awesome. Thank you. I thought it was awesome. And I felt like that's something that's very much needed. I feel like there is. I try not to be negative. But I am, that there is something going on right now and people are, it's never been better times as far as like, when you look at like, you know, birth rate and.
Joey: You know, we just go back a hundred years feels like, no, it's forever ago. A hundred, maybe 150 years ago. And the number of people that died and how young they died and how children. That doesn't happen anymore. Right? Nothing. Our numbers have never been better, but people are very sad. It seems like there's this almost like pandemic of sadness. And I feel like it's a lack of human connection.
Bryant: It is.
Joey: And you're seeing humans that they're very stressed out. And when they come together, there's conflict and it's. We need something like that. We need something like what you're talking about. Like, Hey, let's, let's connect us. Let's and not connect us at a rally where two opposing groups are going to come and fight with each other, which seems to be, no, let's, let's get, let's get humanity back. And so when I, when they were, she was telling me about this and the fun things that she was doing, that's what it really was. It was, and it was, I liked that it was the word adventure was in it.
Joey: But it wasn't the, Oh, you're going to go climb, you know, and jump off a tower or something. It's like, no, we're just going to spend some time together and connect. And so I think that's awesome, man.
Bryant: Thank you.
Joey: And I look forward to, I look forward to more successes. I'm really grateful that you came on. This has been, I hope you've had a good time. I've had a very good time.
Bryant: Absolutely. Yeah.
Joey: In anything closing, is there anything, we didn't cover that you're like, man, I really wanted to, I don't want you to look back on this one and go. And the second podcast failure I had was that All Redding podcast.
Bryant: Not at all. No. I mean I've never actually had a blunder like that on a podcast. That was the first and.
Joey: I don't think it was a blunder But that doesn't sound that bad man.
Bryant: It definitely isn't it's just funny because but you know, but.
Joey: And in all fairness you have dropped something in there as I was on my book tour. So you went to somebody's podcast on the book tour. By the way. I don't need you to talk about the book like.
Bryant: Okay. Yeah, he was trying to make it feel natural so the audience didn't feel like it was like a commercial But but yeah, I mean I think the the one thing is I think the biggest thing I'm trying to push nowadays is. What you said you said there's an epidemic of loneliness and depression and suicide and we have more opportunity. Than any other generation before us right we have more resources for people to be fulfilled and happy.
Joey: Yes.
Bryant: But a lot of the people think connection is oh we have more connection because I can be on social media And I can connect to my high school teacher from back in the day and blah blah blah I can connect with them. But it's like the amount of connection, we're not actually pursuing connection on these apps, we're pursuing it attention. And attention is the cheap counterfeit of connection. And that's what everyone's pushing to get. Attention is currency. And it's the biggest currency right now. You could be a multi-cagillionaire, but people don't bring you on their podcast because you only have 7,000 followers. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, they don't, they don't care what you've actually done. Are you getting attention? Right. And that's what I've been experiencing with podcast stuff and a bunch of other things where it's like, well, what's your follower account?
Bryant: And it's like some of the happiest people I know have the least amount of followers because they're not like hoarding or hoarding themselves out to get this attention and I'm like, then I really want people to be able to slow down and actually ask like am I putting myself in positions to connect with people who love me and actually to make these valuable connections and I think it's one thing that the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. It's a fantastic book. I don't know if you've read that one.
Joey: I've heard of it I haven't read it.
Bryant: It's one of those top ten books I'm like everyone should read this especially if you're an ambitious entrepreneur Because it'll convict the crap out of you and it literally is like don't be. It's not saying don't be ambitious But it's showing you what a false matrix we live in and how we're dedicating a lot of our time trying to hit these marks at society these men and society have created to hit and it boosts their economy but not yours.
Bryant: And so it's a really interesting book, but I have. I know I'm never going to reach my full potential as an entrepreneur as a creator because I'm not willing to sacrifice what it takes to get there. Like I'm more concerned about connecting to loved ones, starting a family, having kids, connecting to my parents, connecting to my community, being in the water and surfing and pursuing dreams. But it's like the happiest I've ever been is when I've actually learned to create that balance. And so that's the last thing.
Joey: Are you balanced right now?
Bryant: I'm very balanced right now.
Joey: Well, right on, man.
Bryant: It took me years for that. And I know that there's. I'm sorry. Last thing I want to say that I understand that it's hard to create that balance sometimes, especially depending on what season you're in. There's sometimes there's not the perfect balance you can get, but I'm grateful to be in a place in life now where I can create the balance and pursue that. So.
Joey: That's awesome, man. I feel like you've given us a blueprint.
Bryant: I definitely would I highly suggest the book I haven't finished it but I'm loving it so far and the message is good so get the workbook linked out I think that is I think once somebody gets the philosophy it's like okay now you need to enact it now it needs to become Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday type of thing so thank you so much for coming on man.
Bryant: Thanks for having me.
Joey: I had a great time.
Bryant: Yeah me too.
Joey: Awesome okay thank you.
