Ted Dhanik -I Found My True Self By Being Authentic Online & Offline

Business executive and entrepreneur Ted Danick joins the We're Out of Time podcast. When people see you online and they meet you in person, they say something to you, wow, you're so different than I thought you would be. I just thought that that was normal. And then it started to hit me. It's like, I'm inconsistent. That means that I'm not authentic. I am one person now. So my identity is clear. You know, I want to be able to add value that improves someone's life. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our listeners. Because of your incredible support, We're Out of Time has reached number one on Apple's mental health podcast chart, number two on the health and fitness chart, and number 26 overall. We couldn't have done this without you. Thank you for being part of this journey with us. Thank you for listening to the We're Out of Time podcast with Richard Tate. If you haven't already, please follow the podcast, rate and review. And if you're getting value out of We're Out of Time, share it with someone else you know. If someone has a problem with substance use disorder, please call one call placement. That's 888-831-1581. And if we can't help you, we'll make a referral to someone who can. Please, We're Out of Time. Ted. Hey. How do you pronounce your last name, ma'am? It's Danak. Danak. Yeah. Okay. I'm from India. So, you know, there's a lot of smart Indians. Yeah, we are. Are we allowed to call them Indians? We, you, what do you call them? Why people can call them Indians? Yeah, we can call them a bunch of other things. But you know, like we're, we're trending, by the way, right now, just so you know. Indians? We're trending. Indians are the best people ever. It's been, you know, it's time, you know. I'm 49 years old. I spent, you know, like 35, 40 years trying to, you know, trying to figure out if Indians were actually cool or not. And then five, seven years ago, people started telling me that we're cool. You know, it's always been cool. It's crazy, you know. Like, I don't even have to talk about yoga or meditation anymore, you know. I got a guy, one of my good friends, Gary, who is now 75. And at 18 years old, he went with his buddy. They were from Chicago and they went to India. Gary came back. His buddy didn't. Oh, his name is Rodinoth Swamy. Wow. And he is the most godly man I've ever met. Wow. Right. You guys have always been cool. Thanks. You were the last person to get them, get the memo. You know, I don't go to India often because they have enough Indians there. They don't need one more, you know. So I just been kind of avoiding it. But I guess it's probably time. I need a chaperone and we use one of my white friends that are really from probably from Venice, you know, that really want to be, you know, they want to go to India. Everybody wants to go. Everybody wants to go to India. Everybody wants to go to India until they get there. And then it's kind of like, whoa, you know, it's kind of, it's a humbling thing. But yeah, it backs you, circling back to your question. I was involved in Myspace since the beginning. Would you do that? I was head of strategic marketing. My title was the VP of fun. VP of fun. VP of fun. Now, Richie Rosenblatt, you know Richie? No, Richie. And he did really well after he did demand media and a couple other things. Isn't he the one who started Facebook? No, he was involved in Myspace. I mean, that's what I meant. Myspace, I'm sorry. No, it's okay. Different Jewish guy. So it was basically a company before Myspace. It was called eUniverse. And then eUniverse became a company called Intermix Media. And there's a guy named Brad Greenspan involved and then Rich Rosenblatt and a couple others. So they're a part of the parent company of Myspace at the time. Right. So that's how Rich was involved. I did a lot of work with Rich after that too. So he's a great guy, isn't he? He's just a nice guy. He's just, but he's always been that way. Since he was a kid, he was the sweetest guy ever. Do you know him for a long time? Yeah, we were in the same pledge class at UCLA. That's good. So yeah. And then he went on to start his own fraternity, which I thought was the greatest thing ever. From when he was 18. Wow. And he started his own fraternity. So he's always been, I always root for him. All right. How was it at Myspace? You know, these questions are very similar to the ones I recently, I was interviewed recently for a documentary. So we did, did you remember Van Toffler? I don't think so. Okay. So he ran MTV during the Myspace era for about 20 years. He was the president there. Okay. So if you remember the whole thing, they were trying to buy Myspace Viacom, trying to buy Myspace. And then that failed and the CEO got fired as a result of that. And then we ended up selling the news corp, which was a big mistake. But anyway, so Van was involved. And so he, we shared a lot of the pop cultural events during that time. And so he started a documentary business many years ago. And they've done really well. And so he reached out to Chris, Chris, Josh, and a few of the original Myspace guys as well. And, and basically asked them if they would do like the authorized documentary for Myspace. And they agreed to do it. So they reached out to me and how was the only one that was really close to Tom, you know, and it's still am. So couldn't get Tom on board. Who's Tom? Myspace Tom. Okay. Yeah. Myspace Tom. Myspace Tom. Okay. Yeah. And couldn't get him on board, but he, you know, he's a very private guy. You know, he doesn't really, he doesn't want any, any, any attention, you know, right? So, so yeah, we did the, you know, we shot for a bunch of hours, a few months ago. And, and they interviewed a lot of really interesting people that were on Myspace and were discovered by Myspace like Dane Cook and so many others. And it was a really interesting, you know, event as far as, you know, kind of recapping all the stuff that happened. We had to find all this media, all these videos, all these photos, all this stuff. You have a big, you have a big capital event. We did, we did do, we did well, but you know, I did well too, but I did well before that as well. First thing I saw was that Bugatti, that black and white, that black and red Bugatti. Sure. Do you have a Bugatti? Yeah, it's trouble. It caused a lot of problems that car, you know, why? Because so I'll give you my track record. So there was, I started my career in the mid 90s in the Silicon Valley. I'm 49. I was working right during college and out of college, I was working for Dotcoms, you know, like really quickly, you know, just fully immersed pretty fast, became one of the few, you know, a dozen people in the country that had a specialty in business development for one thing. And then ended up being, what was it? It was the one thing. Do you remember Lending Tree? Sure. So I was one of the guys at Replica. I was the first guy to replicate Lending Tree in a company called Next Tag back in, it was a comparison shopping engine, sold for a billion, half of it sold for a billion dollars many years later, but it was a price grabber competitor, you know, back in the days, which is also gone too. So we created a lead business inside of there to mimic basically to completely compete against Lending Tree and we took them for a run as well. So I was the guy that did that. And then that's genius. So you developed the whole lead gen, the consumer lead, consumer personal finance lead gen side for the business. That's genius. So that it was a big business. It got to like, you know, at that time, like half a million bucks a day, you know, it was pretty good. And then I got recruited by lower my bills. Well, let's go, let's go back. Sure. You're in Silicon Valley at this time at the height of it. I mean, it ain't the 2000s, but it's 90s. This was in the 90s. Oh, so this was right when it was blowing up right before it fell out. Yeah, it was. Okay. What were the drugs must have been off the hook at that point? Yeah, I mean, the only okay, so that's the reason why I stopped all of that stuff to and left one of the reasons why I was, I mean, the drugs tell me about the drug scene in this. You know, like, I don't I wasn't exposed to that side of it because I didn't even drink alcohol, you know, and so we don't do it, but you knew of the culture. We knew about it. It was crazy. The parties were insane in the office environment. This is before the whole Me Too movement. So there's like crazy happening, you know, everywhere we'd see it. Employees. That drives me nuts. Does that drive you nuts? Yeah. Stuff that you did 20 years ago. Okay. Which was totally acceptable, by the way, that now all of a sudden, a bunch of carons are getting, you know, all uptight about something that didn't age well. That's disgusting. Look, I had a discussion yesterday and I'm not like trying to get political here at all. But I'm just saying that like I have some friends that are liberal and they're super feminine, you know, like you guys, you know, like, so there's a little bit of correlation. I can't really tell. I don't have any super masculine, non, you know, super masculine liberal friends, you know, like super emo, you know, it's crazy. Right. That's when the Bay Area got really around that time of the dot com boom got heavy. Bay Area house music scene became really prominent. That's the house music scene in the San Francisco was numbers between Chicago and San Francisco. They were the top two in the country. Right. And what came with that ecstasy, right? MDMA. That's right. So, you know, we had the best house music. We had the best music. And it was happening, you know, pretty much every night of the week. And, you know, and yeah, there was a lot of ecstasy out there, you know, and then there's another study that came out around that time, like 2001 or so. And it was and I just heard or watched an episode, a documentary that that was false, that it created MDMA created black holes in your brain. Everyone heard about this back then. This recent documentary said that it was meth that created the black holes, not MDMA. Right. It's out of side of relief. You know, I was just like, well, the meth, what it does is it eats, it eats your brain. Right. It does. Yeah. Because first of all, you're up for so long, right, that you have the hallucinations. Sure. So, there's that whole thing. But the constant exposure over time just eats away. Just it literally takes you away from yourself. I mean, you just you have nothing left. Yeah. I mean, I've never had an experience with that, but I knew people that did and they never came back. Never. They don't come back. At a certain point, they don't come back, which is why you got to get them early. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the dot com boom was great. And we had a lot of great momentum in the Bay Area. And I was just really over the whole entitlement. There's a lot of entitlement there. People that didn't deserve to make what they made, they were just there. That's right. And these people that were in higher positions didn't know what they were doing. They were just there. And it's weird. It's just then you need warm bodies. And by the way, those warm bodies get massaged at lunch. It was the craziest thing ever. Everyone's making crazy money. So, I wanted to get out of that whole vibe. I wanted to be. Is that when one went to? That's when I went to lower my bills. Yeah. What about BDR? I'll tell you about that later. Okay. So, I came, I was recruited by a company here, Startup, really early company called Lower My Bills. You know, Mankoffin? No. He's a Santa Monica guy too. He was an incredible, really, really smart guy. And we were based in Santa Monica. We're the Yahoo Center for years. And then, yeah, so I built the same business, continued, built a lead gen personal finance business at Lower My Bills. And then we sold it. We got to over a million bucks a day in revenue, sold it to Xperian, did really well. After that, joined MySpace. Tom invited me to be a part of MySpace, Tom, be a part of it. Is that his name? MySpace, Tom? MySpace, Tom. It's his legal name. Just kidding. Tom Anderson. Okay. Yeah. No, he's a. MySpace, Tom. Yeah. He's an incredible guy. I mean, if you ever meet him, you'll understand why he's the smartest guy I know and most honorable, you know, highest core value is just the incredible dude. Wow. Yeah. He's never had any alcohol, no drugs. I think that's somebody I was definitely want to meet. Where's the same clothes every day? You know, just a nice base. Well, you know why they do that. Yeah. Why do they wear the same clothes every day? Well, it's a simple thing. They don't want to put invest mental energy into it, you know, it's kind of like. Your wardrobe. Exactly. You know, yeah. So I get it. I'm a little different, but whatever. So, and that's why we compliment each other. We've been best friends for a long time, you know. So, so it was on MySpace until 2008. And then I left MySpace in 2008, our earnouts ended. And I wanted to be, I wanted to solve a problem. So around 2007, I was tasked with solving a problem for MySpace. We had seven to 10 billion ads a day that were going under monetized. So I created a self-serve platform at lower my bills to sell remnant inventory. So I decided that, Hey, you know, we need a self-serve platform at MySpace to monetize the remnant inventory, you know, created a platform called MyAds. And we sold inventory through there, ad inventory, and did pretty well. And then so I realized that there's a bigger opportunity for this and probably every other publisher on the, on the, you know, on the internet at the time. So I left in 2008 with the blessing of upper management to build a technology to help MySpace monetize better. That was Engaged BDR. Wow. So created Engaged BDR. Did you own BDR? I was the, I was the founder, chairman, CEO, two other partners. Did you own it or was it sold? No, no, I sold it. So that company started. No partners? No, just two partners, my, my operating partners, you know. And I was a larger shareholder and, you know, any founder zero at the time. I'll go through all of that. So we started the company 2009. We did over a million a month in revenue within 30 days. Super profitable. Did hundreds of millions of right away, right away within the first month. Never raised the dollar of equity or debt until the IPO. So ran it for, since from 2009 to 2017, raised no money, had no debt, nothing on the balance sheet was all incredible. Right. I guess hundreds of millions of revenue. And then decided that we need to start acquiring. So I started buying companies with paper, no cash, you know, just selling a dream, you know, and like explain that like Robbie Lee. Do you know Robbie? Explain that for the audience though. Sure. So I was on paper. Explain that. Yeah. So I was selling a dream. So I would go to these companies that were strapped for cash that had a pretty good business, you know, they just couldn't raise money. It was a weird time. You know, it's always a weird time, right? Hard to raise money for people that aren't seasoned, right? So kind of leverage that and say, hey, look, we can inject as much capital as you need. You know, we will, you'll, you'll roll with us in the IPO. You know, you're going to be able to be finally liquid because you're in this trap, in this private vehicle with no liquidity. You know, you couldn't sell your shares if you wanted to. That's right. So we gave them a, we sold them a dream of like, hey, look, here's our, you know, here's our prospectus. We're going public soon, you know, and we're audited. We're ready to go. We, you know, have the S1 file and everything. We're like, oh, we're going to do this. And, you know, they say, oh, how do we get on board? You know, like, and so it was, it was more of like us telling them the facts and giving them the data and then them saying, we want to be a part of it. So I rolled up a bunch of companies as part of it and they're all periphery, you know, technologies that would help us grow and help us, you know, drive customer, you know, customer lists and supply lists and stuff like that. And, and we did that. We did it. We put it all together, rolled it all up and then it was time to do time to do a listing and then the market fell apart in the U.S. So that time, this is 2008, 2009. No, this was 2016, 15. Okay. There was two, there were two companies listed publicly traded in our sector. There was only two at the time ad tech companies are only two. There was one called Rocket Fuel and another one I forgot what it was called. And they were trading at like 100 times revenue at one point, you know, and then they had gotten smashed down so hard that they were trading a 0.1 times revenue around the time we're ready to roll, you know, so we're, hey, this is not going to work for us. This valuation doesn't work for us, you know, everyone's, all the bankers are telling us that, hey, your comps are terrible in this industry right now, you should wait. And it's like, we're not waiting, you know, we're going to go. So I went, you know, I had my CTO, my CFO had just finished a few listings in in Australia right before, you know, he became my CFO, right? So he was CFO of two publicly traded companies in Australia. I said, should we take a meeting in Australia? He said, I can get it done in a week. I said, okay. So we took some meetings and we got the valuation we wanted in Australia. And what valuation? It was, it was 10 times revenue, 10 times revenue, something like that. Okay, that's fine. 10 times revenue at the time. So that was great because over here is 0.1 times revenue. You know, like it was insane. So then I did a road show and I did a 10 day road show. Got rid of that. Got rid of the US stuff, just took industrial, did a 10 day road show. We did like 10 meetings in a day. At first day, it closed the entire round, you know, like everything. And then we opted to keep going. So we modified the offering and we ended up raising like, you know, throughout the whole, the project, we ended up with like 80 million bucks or something like that. What'd you sell it for? Oh, okay. So later we ran it for, it was public from like 17. And then in 22, we just merged with another private company over there. So ended up liquid with my shares and I ended up being taken out from there. But I actually still have shares in the other vehicles. So it's, you know, it's one of those things where public company life was, for me, at the time, it was so hard because there's so much exposure. The old Bugatti thing, paparazzi would shoot me and the next day I get smashed, you know, the stock would get smashed because they write a story about me saying, you know, that, oh, this guy's overpaid and all this stuff, you know, just, it was, why would the stock take a hit because you own a Bugatti? Well, in Australia, they have this thing called tall poppy. It's a, it's a syndrome. So it's kind of like, you know, over there, the culture is very different. So over there, it's like they want to chop down everyone that stands out. It's crazy, man. It's a real, real crazy thing out there. So they really, they don't want, nobody stands out, you know, nobody is flashy. Nobody's this, that they, they, they hate you if you're that way, you know, so they started to, you know, they started to hate me. So just tell them it was an investment vehicle. You don't drive it. This isn't something you drive. Well, you just doubled your money in a couple of years. I did, I did sorry, interviews and, and we, and they asked me about that and it's so crazy. And I would say, hey guys, do you remember? I've, I've had other ventures before this, you know, like I made money. I've been making money since the nineties, you know, like this is not, I didn't buy this car with the money I made from this company. I've, I have investments, I have real estate, I have, I've had exits, I've had, you know, I've made money, you know, so it's just there. They're just so they hate anyone that stands out. It's crazy. They want to cut them down. They literally call a tall poppy. They will call you when they see you, they call you a tall poppy and their mission is to take you down. It's really crazy. So I got, you know, I got, we're not moving to Australia. Yeah, but other than that, the coffee is great. The people were great, you know, and I had a lot of fun every time I was going. I was going there every six weeks for years and, you know, it was, it's a beautiful place. It's really great. Tall poppy. Yeah. It's, it's wild. Anyways, so that, that ended. And then so now, like, you know, for the past three years, I've been on this critical thinking sabbatical, right? Because we ended up in a position where we're, you know, there's like one, there's always like one out of a dozen to 50 people, you end up being one of those people in, you know, on in the industry or on the planet that has the ability to think a certain way and has solutions for this specific type of problem. You know, it's a misnomer. Divergent, which means that you, you're gifted in certain areas and you're weak in other areas. Where are you weak? Yeah, I think that where I'm weak is, I think when we're working, you know, when we're working on these things that we're just becoming fully consumed and our purpose for life is fully this, you know, like, it is diminished and distracted and it's like, what is it? You know, you start working, your purpose becomes work, you know, and that's how we, that's how culturally we're built Indians as well too, you know. So I lost a big part of myself during, you know, all of that, especially in the public company side. It just, it was really draining and it really killed me. And will I do it again? Of course, because I've, you know, what do you do with experience, right? Where are you weak? I think I needed three years to recalibrate and refined, you know, like, re-identify who I am. That's not weakness. That's, that's, that's regenerating. No, no, it is now, but where I was weak during that era was the identity. I lost my identity, you know, my personal identity and the old, all the spirituality, everything was just, you know, who's kind of gone because the purpose was the business at the time, unfortunately. Well, that's how it works when you have a startup, man. That's just the way the world works, right? You know, you've got employees, they expect to be paid. Okay, we got to figure out how to pay them. Exactly. No, I get it. I get it. So how do you go into something without being all in? You must be a lot smarter than me because if you can have balance in your life, right, and start something, which by the way, starting something from nothing, as you know, is the single most romantic thing in the world. Right. Okay. Yeah. So how do you have the balance or okay, if you're starting something from scratch, because I mean, other than seeing my kids, like I get nothing, but 20 hours a day, 18, 20 hours a day of work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's how it is. It's how it was always, you know, and I realized that, okay, so all of that stuff is great. I think it's awesome. If the value for someone is there, meaning, look, the business that we were in, in my space, huge value for everyone, right? Right. Huge value, right? Lower my bills. Huge value for consumers and huge value for banks, clearly. Ad tech, last company, programmatic advertising, ad exchange. Where's the value? Who's the value for? I don't know. Advertisers and, you know, and publishers, it's like whatever, who cares about them, right? So it wasn't really something that was, you know, we were so romantically involved around and it became a business that the purpose kind of failed us, you know? The purpose was like, yeah, it's like, okay, clearly, we're trying to like figure out why we're doing this besides making money, you know? And that's not a good business to be in. You know, like, I don't like that sector anymore. I'm not involved in ad tech anymore because I just feel that, you know, I want to be able to add value that changes or improves someone's life, you know, somehow, right? Because we've learned that the only fulfillment we truly get is by doing things for other people. That's really where the only fulfillment comes. I can't really do anything for myself to be fulfilled, right? I'm not going to get another bull guy. It's not going to make me fulfilled, you know? It doesn't do for me. I can't believe the first one didn't. Doesn't do anything for me, right? It doesn't, right? So who cares? Like, all I can go away tomorrow, don't matter, right? But what does stick with you is the value you bring to someone's life and you inspire positive change or you help them get to the next level or whatever it is, right? Whatever that is, and it's clear, that's where the 15 to 18, I don't know about 20, but 15, 18 hour days are warranted because your purpose is so strong, right? As a leader in ad tech and influencer marketing, what trends are you most excited about or concerned about in how brands reach consumers today? Great. There's some huge shifts happening right now. And we saw it from like a whole MySpace world, you know? Like originally, we're doing like, you know, we're just running ads on all over the site for brands and, you know, that shifted to these influencers getting big and running their own brand campaigns really early, you know, and that started and then you kind of fast forward to Instagram and how Instagram influencers getting paid for distribution and content. And that was early. And then they have brands involved running ads from their, you know, whitelisted their ads from their pages. That's effective. And then now what we're seeing is less money is being spent on distribution, meaning these big influencers are, you know, there's less money being spent there. So if you have an influencer with like 2 million followers, brands are preferring to get UGC campaigns done. User generated content. So user generated content could be content from any, anyone doesn't have to be, even it doesn't even have to be an influencer. It could be like, you know, stay at home mom with like 10 followers who cares, right? They're just buying the content. And they buy the content with the rights to run the content on ads, right? So basically, they'll be using the content to run their own ads basically. And a lot of these, that's a new thing. That's a new thing. Yeah. So UGC generally influencer campaigns were comprised of two components. Why is that a good thing? Why is that a workable thing to get a mother who has a video of her kid with ice cream all over his face? Well, there's some product that's being, you know, being promoted in the video. And so that that piece of content might have just costed them like 200 bucks, you know, and like nothing. And they can use that piece of content in an ad and run their own traffic. You know, these user generated campaigns are, you know, generally the influencer campaign is comprised of two components. One was the videos, right? They would do content for the brand. And then the other side was the distribution. So an influencer with like two million followers, just like fast forward to like the Kylie Jenner's, right? They have like hundreds and millions of followers, right? So that is different because they do deal with her. And then they get this huge reach to the content side of it. So basically, what they've taken it apart now brands, and they're basically just saying that, hey, we want to buy the content and they pay literally like 200 bucks or 100 bucks or sometimes 50, like whatever it is, they buy the content and then they run it in their own ads. And by the way, this makes media buying more effective because the media buying side is like, do you remember the ads before? They were just like, you know, like static ads, like a banner or something like that. Now they're videos and it's a real person, you know, and a lot of times someone using the product is a testimonial. And so we have one more layer beyond this, which is really interesting. So imagine like, imagine putting out RFQ or RFP request proposal. What's an RFP? A request for proposal. Okay. For UGC user generated content on a bunch of platforms for, you know, like a segment of like, let's say moms, right? And it's a baby product, right? It's a baby bag or something like that. Right. So all these moms, they don't have to do, they're just home chilling with their kids, right? And, you know, so they're filming this content and they're just really trying to, they're all trying to become influencers right now. And by the way, it's really crazy. So they're filming this content. And then now the brand says, hey, by the way, we're going to give you an affiliate deal. We're going to give you a percentage of sales that you generate, right? And you get a code, here's your code, whoever buys this, you know, you get a piece of it now. So what they're doing now is this is called CPA, right? Cost per acquisition. It's old school, you know, affiliate marketing stuff. Now what they're saying is instead of paying anyone for anything, we're going to do affiliate deals with these small micro influencers, they have to create the content and they have to put it up on other pages and whoever buys will happily pay for that. You know, that's it. So that's kind of where it's evolving to now. So that side of the world is growing really fast. All right. The influencer marketing space has matured. What were the biggest surprises you encountered building iconic reach in 2009? Dude, you have more businesses than I had sobriety dates. Iconic reach was one of the first self-serve platforms out there for Instagram. Mid and long tail influencers. Essentially, what we're trying to do is have these influencers like 20,000 followers, 5,000 followers, up to, you know, up to 50,000 followers, and have we had hundreds of thousands of them sign up on this platform to basically sell their, sell their posts through inventory and then advertisers would come to the platform and choose, you know, either groups of influencers, a range of influencers or one by one and basically upload their creative. Here's what we want to, here's what we want to run. Here's the, you know, the copy of the content and here's the prices, you know, for each one. And so that was like one of the very early marketplaces for brands to be able to buy posts, essentially buy posts on Instagram. It did well for a while, but it was early, super early for, for self-serve. The market didn't really understand self-serve really well. The brands wanted full service still, you know, we're like, hey, no self-serve, they wanted full service, so we're doing all the work for them still. So we had account managers doing it for them, you know, on the influencer side, influencers would sign up and then they just wouldn't really follow through. They'd have brands sitting there trying to reach out to them. They wouldn't log in. That's still good. These kids, yeah, that was crazy. So it was too early for that. So we needed basically more roads to be paved in the self-serve world. And so the behavior needed to change a little bit. And so we ended up making a full service business out of it and then, you know, basically scrapping the self-service side. But, but yeah, that was, you know, it was pretty early, you know, it was like 2010, 2009. We're really trying to build a marketplace for Instagram posts. All right. So I want to know something that just hit me. You're like a serial entrepreneur. Okay, that's how you, that's how you live your life. What are you doing for self-care? Self-care, yeah. That's all I talk about these days, by the way. Good, give it to me. So not because it's trending. It's because I feel like, you know, the three-year sabbatical away from critical thinking, you're really just trying to be painting contrast between my previous life and now. The only things I really care about are wellness, fitness, health, spirituality, and sleep. Those are the five things that that's all I really care about. It's like five pillars, the five pillars of that breed self-worth. Right. So I have a book. It's called the winning by osmosis. It'll be, it'll be out the next few months. But basically, I talk about, you know, I talk about this stuff there. And I think that spirituality is really broad. I think my version of it, it's not like the whole Venice thing, you know, like everyone's like wearing the hats and stuff, you know, they're super spiritual and the caves and the ponchos and stuff. It's different. Spirituality is endogenous for me. Right. So it's endogenous. Endogenous is internal. Right. Everything's internal versus all things external. Right. You don't need symbolism really to- Things. Things don't matter. Things don't matter. Right. You don't really need symbolism to prove you're spiritual. You know, that's also exogenous. Right. I'm from India. These are meditation beads. They're blessed by Hindu monks. I grew up in India. You know, so it's kind of like, you know, it's not really symbolism. It's just like, hey, that's just kind of who I am. And you know, Chris Pan. Chris Pan. Chris Pan. Chris Pan. I don't know. He has this company called My Intent. And he makes these bracelets and everyone has them. He's one of the early Facebook guys, real nice guy. You know, you should meet him. And mine says peace. So, well, it's all really- Peace is invaluable, right? It's very hard to get, you know. So it's all I really want or really care about. But self-care, you know, from that standpoint, really spiritual from practicing TM for about a dozen years, transcendental meditation. The guy that you, if you want to learn TM from here, he's here in Sanamana, good Danny Goodman, you know, the TM Center. He's been teaching TM for about 48 years. He was right hand to Maharishi. He's opened thousands of TM centers around the world. So he taught me TM years ago. And then I send people to him, you know, every month still, I gift it the private courses to people that need it, you know, and I send it to him, send them to him and he takes care of them and it changes lives. And then there's a Sanamana, good people don't understand. Let's do one at a time. Sure. People don't really understand the benefit of meditation. Sure. Okay. We talk a little bit about that and kind of educate the viewers. Okay. So benefits of meditation, I think, look, we have this internal dialogue, right? Like we all do, you know, all the time, whether it's positive or negative self-talk, there's all kinds of self-talk going on all the time, right? And in this era, a lot of it happens to be negative for a lot of people, you know, this is probably one of the toughest years for a lot of people. I've had a lot, you know, I have a lot of discussions with people, I just, you know, I have surveys all the time. There's a lot of things going on from like stuff that's outside of our control, like the fires, like the political stuff, you know, the ice raids, the, you know, all the happening. And then, you know, financial crisis that everyone's in, you know, no one's making money like they were before. I mean, you know, like insurance companies are not paying, you know, like whatever. It's just, it's just a very, it's like 2020 has never been eclipsed yet. You know, we haven't, we haven't recovered since the pandemic starts, right? It's true. Like I haven't made the kind of money I used to make before 2020. I still haven't made that kind of money. You know, it's, it's really, it's not, it's not like a surprise. I mean, something happened anyways. So meditation, for me, there's a lot of traffic. I'm one of those people that are, you know, when you try, you know, when I try to meditate and, you know, this is what's going on for years, I try to meditate. There's so much noise and traffic that I would just give up because like, I'm not doing it right, because you have these apps like Calm and all these other apps, they're trying to teach you how to meditate. They're literally telling you to quiet the noise. So I thought, hey, I'm not cut out for this because I just can't quiet the noise, right? So then I met Danny Goodman, one of my friends gifted me, you know, a TM private thing. And I did not know that it was going to be with the man, you know, to, you know, basically the right hand to my Arieshi, the guy who created the TM practice. And if there's anyone you want to learn meditation from, it's him. And by the way, he's in Santa Monica, you know, that's like a God, right here. That's a God shot. You're definitely going to give me that because I got another thing I could, I could really improve on because I've got to practice. Yeah. But it's not itself taught practice. So and then I got a better one for you too, right after that. So this one. So Danny taught me, he gave me it, looked at the Vedic astral chart. And he said, you know, there's some, there are sounds that are in Sanskrit that are associated with my Vedic astral chart, right? So it gave me a sound that's unique to me. And that sound, we're not supposed to repeat it, but that sound, I chant it during my meditation in my head. I'm chanting the sound. So as I'm chanting the sound and all but not but not out loud. No, no. Yeah. And all this noise, all this traffic is there. It's there. It's there. It's going, going, going. And TM says, don't quiet the noise. Let it flow. Because if you don't, you're going to be like, you hear me clogged up, you know, you got to let it, you got to let it go. So like clouds, just let it go, let it go, let all of the noise and the traffic just let it flow, like let the traffic do its thing, let the noise, let it be. So what are you doing? So what are you doing with it? You acknowledging it or? I'll tell you what happens. Within 10 minutes, right? It's gone. The noise is gone. And by the way, so is my chanting. Chanting disappears. And I'm gone. I'm in this super deep subconscious state within 10 to 15 minutes. My meditation will go for like 45 minutes an hour, sometimes even longer, right? Really? You're up to that. Yeah. But I'm telling you, that's the best first time. Dude, that's the best. That is the best time you can spend at the beginning of the day to jumpstart your day. Of course. It's great. It's fantastic. And I've been missing a lot lately, but I need to get back into it. But I'm saying that TM is so different from, you know, other practices that they literally tell you, let the noise be loud. Who cares? Just let it roll. Because definitely we have a lot going on. And you say, if you don't let it flow, it has to come out somewhere, you know, and that's beautiful. Right. Next one. The next one is, since I got really deep in the meditation, I said, okay, look, what I'm doing is it's called subconscious diving. All right. I'm really like, understanding like I'm finding and after a while, you start finding things in your subconscious that are like, whoa, you know, like, I need to work on this, I need to work on that. I need to figure this stuff out. You come out with to do this, right? So then one of my friends owns a company called Better You, Better You Health. He's in West Hollywood. He's got telemedicine telemedicine business, great nationwide. And he's got doctors in every state basically, and they're doing ketamine therapy through, you know, through the phone, right? So yeah, and then that is dangerous. No, no, it's actually fine. It's actually fine. It works really well. So I did that. I did a few of those. And I started talking about it publicly in videos, you know, and then so my space time, my best friend, he's like, you wanted to make sure that it was safe for me. So he started reading the science. So I read the studies and the study was for six sessions, intravenous, though, not, you know, Better You gives you lozenges. And you, you know, you do with the lozenges and they're fine. It's your journey for an hour, you're surfing your subconscious, it's really profound and it yielded really crazy results. And I'll talk about the results in a bit. But the study was intravenous, six of them, one every 48 hours. And that's to expand neuroplasticity. And I'll talk about the science around ketamine in your brain is really crazy. But so Tom wanted to, you know, he found a clinic in Santa Monica called Golden Afternoon. He did, you know, he did the full six pack there. And it changed everything for him. He did. He wanted to make sure it was safe for me. And he read the science and the science was incredible. So he did it. It made so much change for him, profound change that he bought half the clinic. So I was the clinic do they there's a doctor there specialized. So it's all the ketamine. It's it's ketamine therapies. Yeah. But it's intravenous. Okay. So he did it. So he did it. Yeah. And he said it was safe. Yeah, it's profound. And the science is crazy. And he had a great experience, unbelievable experience. And lots of change came out of it, like so much change, you know, like unbelievable. Has he ever done has he ever done acid or mushrooms before? Tom is a very, that's why yeah, but that's why he had that experience gone. Yeah. So anyway, so he did that. And it made, you know, profound change for him. And so he bought half the clinic. And so I went there, tried I've done like 20, 30 sessions over there, as well. And it made a really, really big difference for me as far as like understanding my identity. It's like sort of subconscious diving, like surfing your subconscious and figuring out, you know, like, acid and mushrooms. Yeah, for sure. Ever done it, right? So for people. Yeah, but I have I own a mushroom company. So, you know, you've done the mushrooms. I own a mushroom brand. Yes. You own a micro dosing mushroom. I do. Yes. I'll say. Yeah, I talk about it on a lot of podcasts as well, too. So, yeah, so still side bin and we're strain specific. And so I've been, you know, in that I've been in the mushroom side for about four or five years now. And, you know, really has changed a lot for a lot of people, you know, how people get off of Adderall, how people get off of. When is the first time you did mushrooms? About five years ago. Okay. Yeah. So that's why. Because you're 44, 45, right? You're going to have an experience, right? Which is profound. Sure. Okay. When, you know, I've been doing that for years. Sure. Right. So for me, I just lean into it like I did that toad poison. Yeah, yeah. Five MEO. I had to do it because I wanted to see what it did. Stupidest thing I've ever done. You see, was it the kaleidoscope? It's toad poison. Yeah, I know. Mila, what do you see? I don't. Yeah. It's stupid. Sure. It was lame. It was lame. Totally lame. Yeah. Right. Did the ayahuasca? He was telling me about that. Ayahuasca. Is it any good? Yeah, he didn't change. He did. I didn't do it. I'm like, he's like, change everything from my dude, you're the same dude. Like, that's how people, that's how people react to it that haven't done hallucinogenics as part of their using. Because, you know, dude, you always have an experience like that on that stuff. You know that. All right. Next one. So you said, say, let's go to sleep. Yeah. So I don't have the aura ring with me now, but I track my sleep, and you slap, track the stages, and you control what you eat, and before that, and you're fasting and stuff. You don't want to eat like close to your time you go to sleep. You want to sleep around 10 and 11. Your circadian rhythm isn't impaired. How many hours? Hey, eight hours. Eight hours is good. So sleeping later and then sleeping for eight hours is not the same thing. Because the circadian rhythm is, some people say, I go to sleep at midnight or one o'clock, and I'll sleep for eight hours. It's the same thing. I'm like, no, it's not the same thing because you lose your REM because it's in the beginning of it. Your circadian rhythm, you can't change that. So by trying to compensate for your later sleep by sleeping longer, it doesn't work. You could track it when you're aura ring, it'll tell you. Well, I have an aura ring and no one taught me how to use it. So I don't know how to do anything. I wore it for like three months, and you're supposed to wear it on your left hand and your left ring finger. So the only thing that happened is I got no looks, no nothing. Yeah. Yeah. So basically it is, I don't know. Sleep is critical. Sleep is critical. What was the next one? Meditation, sleep? What was the next one? Fitness. Fitness and wellness. I'm really focused on wellness. I think a lot of it has to do with skincare, the stuff we eat, and be really careful about what we eat. One unit foods. Apples and apple. Yeah. Bananas, whole foods. Steak is the steak. Yeah, absolutely. I was carnivore for six years. I was OMAD one meal a day for six years. I did all that. I changed now. I eat twice a day now. I'm still mostly carnivore. I still eat some vegetables. The whole thing about lectins and oxalates and stuff like that and the vegetables. I don't eat spinach. I don't eat kale. Why? Spinach is extremely high in oxalates and in so's kale. Oxalates cause all the crystals that form stones and kidneys and they're very inflammatory. And then as far as lectins, beans, and legumes, most of the vegetables have lectins in them. Lectins are known to cause all the autoimmune diseases known to man. And then fitness. So trainer five days a week just waits. Just waits? No cardio. I need to, but yeah, for the last six months. Doing any stretching? I need to, but I don't. Okay. So that's the only thing that I'm working out with weights, but I have to start stretching because, dude, do you have trouble putting on your socks in the morning? So bad. Yeah. Right? I'm just like weird, like you're tight everywhere. Tight and just like all the time. It's bad. Yeah, we need to stretch. That's our strength because when we're older, now we're decrepit and you know. The stretching is a big problem for me. It is for me too because I'm tight and it hurts. But you know what, you know how I do it now? I do it with meditation. And so what I do is I just, I know it hurts, but I just get quiet and I lean into it and I do it really slow. And then I just forget that I'm doing it and pretty soon my knee was up here and now it's down here. That's great. It's just how I do it. Okay. So we've got sleep. We've got exercise. We've got fitness. Well, fitness and the nutrition and the self care. Right. Which for me means going to get my teeth cleaned every quarter. Well, I get it every month because I smoke scars. But I try to tell people at least every- At least through how's they're- At least, well, I try to tell them at least twice a year. Okay. But you get your eyes checked once a year and you get your blood drawn twice a year. It's like- I do it every 45 days. Yeah. The blood. I've been on hormone therapy for 10 years now. So all my hormones are managed by my doctor for a long time. He's also in Santa Monica. What's his name? I think Santa Monica. Daniel Mogadam. Yeah. So he's been managing my hormones for 10 years. Basically, we get labbed every 45 to 60 days and we're checking for basically tea, estradiol, progesterone, all the other stuff. That's the red blood cell count, etc. But you do the cholesterol and everything. Yeah. All of that stuff too. It's really critical that we're managing the hormones because once we get to a certain age, we stop producing it. So it's not- You can use peptides, HCG, or a variety of them, or you can- CJC. CJC1295, all the IPAMs, Moralin, I know all the peptides. Moralin. Yeah. So we've got the wellness, we've got the meditation, and we've got the sleep. What are the other two? Yeah, health, wellness, fitness, spirituality, and sleep. Okay, let's get to the spirituality. Yeah. Okay. I hate religion. I think God hates religion. Absolutely. How do you do? Okay. But I love God. Like, I talk to God all day long. No one doesn't talk back to me. Yeah. Okay. But when I need direction, I ask for it all day long because I don't know. Sure. Right? And I feel the pulse. So I just feel the pull and I go that way. And then I check in to see where I have to adapt. Right? You can't explain that to people, especially people in the corporate world, because they look at you like you're a moron, like you're a freak. Okay. What's your spiritual condition like? Yeah. So I grew up Hindu. So my parents are practicing Hindus. And I feel the same way about religion. I feel like Hinduism is a pretty tolerant religion. Yes. So it's more of- Very spiritual. Yes. And so is Buddhism. Yes. I feel that I have- I've just been agnostic as you know, since the beginning. Like I didn't really understand all of the deities and all that stuff in the Hindu religion. So I just, you know, yeah, there's a super power, you know, and we are all bound by, you know, some, you know, someone or something or some, you know, some format that is bigger than us, you know, because there's everything is bigger than us, you know, people are bigger than us, you know, there's like so many events in our life that we have to, you know, there are, you know, humbling and we have to be practicing humility. And, you know, there's no reasons for that, you know. So we are, for me, from that perspective, I take certain things from my background being Hindu and, you know, like meditation, you know, obviously is one of them. And I think that's been a really important thing for me. And that kind of led to the whole internal versus external thing, you know, we have always, Hinduism has always said that all the gods are within us, you know. So from that perspective, I always felt that everything we needed was within us. And I kind of was conditioned to that at a very, very early age. So from that standpoint, I truly believe that I am not free entirely from this all the exogenous stuff, but I'm on the path to being free from that. Now, I'm not going to join an ashram or anything like that. But, you know, I do feel that I feel that the answers are here. And they're not outside. Do you know what I love the most about you? The fact that you're centered. Thanks. Right. So I look at you and I see you're centered and the world is crazy around you. Okay. And you're not judging it. Sure. It just is what it is. Do you know that's first of all, that's a muscle I need to build. Okay. Everybody needs to build. That is the biggest gift in the world to where you're not being run by your circumstances and you're in control and you decide what you're going to give your attention to. Sure. So I can get into this because it wasn't always like that. It was discovered through my subconscious diving that my identity was not the collective identity. So for a really long time, I had this identity that I thought was mine. It was this identity that was combined or a collective of my environment. That's potentially even people around me. Right. So I had to separate my... So no, no, no. Go back to that. So you're drinking your own Kool-Aid. You're getting all these good things happening and you're now... Is that what it was? Well, it was part of it. So a big part of it was what defined me. And I never really asked that question, right? What defines who... Well, you do ask the question. You're doing it the way the world's doing it. I got to have the car. I got to have the house. I got to have the toys. Sure. That's where you were. That's where I was. And I was because that's society's markers for success. Right? That's right. And we all want to be successful, right? Because that's what society's taught us. Right? That's what it is. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So what defines me back then was different than what defines me now. What defines me now is comprised of just me, meaning strip away everything, strip away everything because nothing comes with you. What defines me is in your last moments, what value did I bring to anyone else in this world? What did I do that made me different from the next person? So you want to leave this place better than you found it? Absolutely. And I think that's what we're all here for. Right? My man. That's what we need to be. But nobody knows it. Yeah. There you go. So yeah, that's it. All right. So I had to figure out what my identity was. I had to separate myself from all this and then come up with an identity. You know, like the clear... I'm going to tell you the clear sign that you have an identity that is not yours. Let me tell you what it is. When people see you online and they meet you in person, they say something to you, wow, you're so different than I thought you would be. You're so different. And you know, I just thought that, you know, that was normal for people forever. And people would say that to me all the time. They say, oh, you're so different. I'm like, oh, whatever. You know, like whatever. Right? And then it started to hit me. It's like, wait, what? I'm inconsistent. That's right. Right. I'm inconsistent. That means that I'm not authentic. This is not authentic. Why are there two identities? Like I'm different in person than I'm different in like another venues. It's not supposed to be that way. So let me correct that. So then I decided that I need to fix that. But I need to figure out who I am first to be able to publish who I really am. And by the way, now it's been this way for a few years when people meet me and they see me online or see me watching my videos, whatever, and they meet me in person, they say that I'm the exact same person now. I am one person now. So my identity is clear. I am just one person. I am not associated or affiliated with any other identities or with any other groups of people or with any other person. That was beautiful. Thank you. So I beautiful. You just need to be you know, you really need to be and when this happens, you really start to highlight the differences between you and other people and the rest of the world. All right, buddy. This was a great interview. What a bit. What a pleasure. Thanks for having me. No, thanks. No, thank you. Let me ask you a question. How can people find you? Instagram at Ted skilla. Height spell it from T. E. D. S. K. I. L. L. A. How do you spell that again? T. E. D. Okay, cool. See you next Tuesday.