#221 Alex Micol - The Truth of Making Money Online & Exposing Big Pharma Lies

Is the relentless grind the only path?

Or is there a smarter way to make millions without burning out?

In this episode, we sit down with Alex Micol, entrepreneur and affiliate marketer who has generated over $30 million by just dedicating 3-4 hours per day on his business.

We explore the work that goes in identifying high-margin products for affiliate marketing, mastering the art of focus, the role of fear as a motivator, and the shift from grinding to strategic planning.

Alex also reveals his motivations for transitioning to media, the nuances of creating engaging content, and the power of self development. Plus, get an insider’s perspective on the modern dating scene in cities like Dubai and Bali.

Make sure you watch till the end as Alex critiques the pharmaceutical industry, advocating for self-empowerment and holistic health.

Smash that like button and make sure you share your thoughts in the comments!


Alex’s Socials:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmicol

My Socials:
Instagram: Darrenlee.ks
LinkedIn: Darren Lee
Twitter: Darren_ks

(00:00) Preview and Introduction
(01:39) Balancing Work & Life for the Long Run   
(05:07) The Role of Motivation 
(09:40) Traditional Careers vs Entrepreneurship
(14:42) Following Passion vs Making Money 
(17:12) The One Person Business Model 
(21:38) Advertising Psychology & Creating Hooks
(28:11) Transitioning into the Content Space
(35:58) The True Meaning of Wealth vs Being Rich
(39:47) Moving to Dubai
(45:15) Thoughts on Dating
(48:57) Analysing Andrew Tate's Affiliate Marketing Strategy
(52:47) How to  Set Up Affiliate Programs
(58:38) Exposing the Pharmaceutical Industry
(01:05:44) Myths behind Overcoming Illnesses
(01:11:08) The Reality of Processed Foods
(01:13:24) The System Is Trying to Control You 
(01:17:57) Alex Micol’s Diet
(01:20:56) How To Equip Yourself to Be Truly Free?
(01:29:58) Life During and Post Pandemic

Transcript

Darren Lee: 0:00

He's generated over $30 million from his laptop, all with zero employees, only working a handful of hours a day. How does he do it? He is an affiliate marketer. He finds products with high margin that people want and he puts it in front of the right buyer to purchase. I wanted to find out how is this possible, so I asked him If you wanna make money online and not follow all the fake guru's advice?

Alex: 0:29

this video is for you. I want to figure things out, maximize them and then move on. While other people prefer to repeat it. The moment I started selling health products was the time I was getting healthier Again. The universe brought it together.

Darren Lee: 0:36

When you meet your heroes you think that they're like superhumans, but they're usually just really good at one thing.

Alex: 0:41

Stick to one thing and hyper focus, focus, like that's all you have to do in order to make it, but you're not getting to the next big goal because you just before we start this week's episode, I have one little favor to ask you.

Darren Lee: 0:53

Can you please leave a five star rating below, so we can help more people every single week.

Darren Lee: 0:59

Thank you, but isn't that interesting how like if you do nothing that's when you feel worse, yeah right, and even if you're really really fucking busy it doesn't matter if you're working four hours a week or six hours or six hours a day that is actually what's going to contribute to you feeling actually worse or better yeah, not a hundred percent, and it's fine, like it's funny, like if you don't do that, you don't know what you're missing out, so you think that state is normal.

Alex: 1:21

But if you get out of that and you stick to, and if you stick to it for a long period of time, anytime, you will not work out for a few days a week.

Darren Lee: 1:29

Whatever it is, you're gonna feel it and you're gonna go back in it so the opposite is also true if you're super unhealthy, you don't know what it feels like to be healthy that's what I meant.

Darren Lee: 1:39

Yeah and then and then you spend six weeks or two months, whatever, sitting down like a fucking fatty right not doing anything, but whereas, like where we come from just being somewhat healthy, well, obviously we're taking it very seriously. Then it's like, if you do get sick, you're like, oh my god, I do not want to go back to that life yeah and I think that was the biggest thing for me as well.

Darren Lee: 1:57

Uh, like playing fucking entrepreneur. It was like I didn't want to go down that path of being the typical person who's just burnt out fat lazy, overwhelmed, like what was that experience like for you?

Alex: 2:09

yeah, um, I guess same. Like you know, they say like oh, you have to grind, you need to train, you need to wake up at certain times, blah, blah, blah. I made a lot of money when I was eating shit, not working out, being fat and just have no private life. So obviously it's unsustainable and I think of life more as a marathon, as a sprint. Actually it's a marathon of sprints, I would say, like there's always. Sometimes we have to push, but keeping a balance is crucial, like for the long term.

Alex: 2:40

So all this culture around, I don't know, working too hard, like I think it's nonsense. Of course you need to put in the grind, but I think it's bullshit that you, you know, persuade people or viewers that this is how it is. You need to grind, wake up at five, blah, blah, blah, work all day, like when you have time to think, like I feel like that's what get people stuck in the rat race. You know Like they just work, work, work, work and never get time to think about. You know what they actually should be doing and not doing. Yeah, so my, actually my biggest switch. I mean there's levels to like, from zero to one. I had my experience from one to ten. I had another experience from ten to hundred. That's when I had I reduced my work hours. I went to a muay thai camp in thailand and in Thailand and I just decided to take it as an experiment to work just a few hours per day and just see how the business reacts Obviously fucking scared at first, but that's when the breakthrough came, after a few months.

Darren Lee: 3:37

It's funny, right, because it's almost like inconsistencies in what you see online. It's because if you're getting advice from a bunch of different people that are telling you to grind super hard and then some guys are telling you to do nothing, you get caught in what I call like the personal development trap. Right, it's like a rat race. You're just going around in a circle and circle, but not because the advice is wrong, because it's like everything is right in isolation. So zero to one, you need to grind your ass off, and then your ass off, and then one to ten, then you need to be a bit more strategic focus and ten to a hundred needs to make another adjustment.

Darren Lee: 4:06

But how do you think about that when you're like educating people online? Because that's something I'm very conscious of with the podcast is the fact that I want to make sure that we don't have like conflicting views, not from the guests, but mainly from me. You know, I don't want to say things that are, like you know, not in alignment week over week, and I've seen some of the biggest podcasters in the world actually have that kind of conundrum, which is like they run into saying things to just appease people versus having a consistent stream of thought.

Alex: 4:32

Yeah, I mean, I think like, yeah, it does help if you work hard in the beginning, at first, but if you die in that process or if you're like burnout too quick, what's the point? So I feel like, anywhere you are, I think it's good to like, I see, like I think life was like a tree. Like you know, it grows every day a little bit and you build out new roots to have a more stable tree. So you shouldn't rush the process. But experience is going to teach you that At first you don't know.

Alex: 5:07

I feel like when you're starting out, you're like super hungry and you want results fast, fast, as fast as possible, but over time. For example, now I'm doing new businesses but I've been in the place before where I didn't know if it was going to work. I mean, now I know it's gonna work. It's just, it's not an if, it's a when. Yeah, and knowing that gives you that peace of mind. Uh, to execute every day without rushing the process and chasing those results right away, because they could actually fuck it up. Yeah, so I think that's what, what you gain with the experience. At the beginning you don't know that, but sometimes I wonder what would, what would I tell my 15-year-old self? I would tell them relax, it's going to work out, keep doing what you're doing. The direction is more important than speed. Don't fuck it up.

Darren Lee: 5:57

Basically, that's interesting, man, and like, if you think about the beginning, and this is going to be interesting because we can go through like the evolution of like where you're at now and I want to go through the business structure, what you have to but in the beginning a lot of it is driven by fear. Right, that was the biggest thing for me was like I want this to work out. I don't want to go back to my shitty job. I was actually doing it on the side of when I used to work in finance. I used to work for like investment banks and I used to work for tech companies, vc companies, but I just wanted it much out of fear. And then you almost like evolve out of that.

Alex: 6:23

But that's fine, exactly that's fine when you had that evolution right yes, you need that because at first you know people chase pleasure, or like the passion, the ultimate goal in life. But that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself when you don't know nothing about shit. You know like you need to figure out a few things first, and I and I and I love to talk about this because a lot of people chase pleasure but it's better to run away from pain at first. So I was in school. I hated school. I mean, it was fun because I was fucking around with my mates and you were in school so early.

Alex: 6:54

Yeah, yeah, I, I guess, had um, the wake-up call, was sitting in the metro every single day and you know, you get faced with the question like what do you want to do when you grow up, or what do you want to do when you grow up, or what do you want to do when you finish school? So, thinking about, I was very thoughtful about it and I had two hours a day sitting in a tube doing nothing. I had no iPhone or whatever, so I would look around, I would look around and I would smile, I would laugh with my friends and people around me would look sad and I was asking myself where are they going? It's 7 am. They're probably going to work and this is how it looks. Like it looks terrible. I don't want to end up there. So how do they get there? It's the same path. You get good grades in school, you go to a good university, you get good grades there, so you're going to get a good job and then retire when you're 16.

Alex: 7:38

I was like no way. If so, then I started thinking about it even more. So then I was like, okay, what do I want and what do I don't want? And it's equally. Both are like knowing what you don't want is equally important as knowing what you want. And at first maybe you don't know what you want, but you don't know what you don't want. So sitting in school and knowing that after school or college I would need to go to university, whatever, like I don't want to do that anymore. Like I know I don't like it. So how can I avoid that step one? How can I and I know I still need to educate myself, but what I want to do, like I want to run away from that, and knowing that I wanted to run away from that was a big driver.

Alex: 8:16

So that's when my started being more active in my mind, like, okay, I need to figure out how to make money well, and etc. So okay, I want to do business. Is business school the best? No, who teaches classes in business schools? You know some advisors that read books about things but never actually put their hands in the dirt and figure it out themselves why, otherwise they wouldn't be sitting there. So, okay, do I want to get advices from that? Or maybe network and travel the world and meet other entrepreneurs?

Alex: 8:47

First decision clear how do I get there? Meet people locally, make some money. Try to go outside of your own little village. But it's damn hard at first because you don't have the money. Your friends don't know what you're talking about. They're not interested. So it's fucking difficult. So first I needed to isolate myself from, like my circle that was talking me down, making fun of me because I was building facebook pages and being obsessed with it. And I'm gonna make it, you know. Now they're all in the m's asking me how to start, but that's okay. None of them have even changed, right, if you think about it, yeah, that's fine. I mean, if they're happy, god bless them.

Darren Lee: 9:24

Um, but if they're happy.

Alex: 9:25

But if they complain like I don't judge, if you did this path and you're happy, like if you went to university, if you find a good job, god bless you. The goal is to be happy, not to have a million dollars in your bank, or both. Ideally both, yeah.

Darren Lee: 9:40

And you know from someone who's I come from from a traditional family and they've all done nutritional pot Some people are quite smart, do nutritional pot I can very much say that that's not the path to being happy. Right, because you don't unlock that extra element of wealth and then you go pursue freedom, which is what you've done and what I'm on the path for doing as well Then you unlock that next level, right? Right, whereas when I was doing those jobs when I was younger, I wasn't happy, I was completely depressed. During that process.

Darren Lee: 10:11

I remember I could barely get out of bed to go to university, go to these, to go to these jobs. So it's like, yes, the grass is always greener. It might seem like that, but the reality is completely different. Right, and I like to say, like rough words, rough roads and smooth, smooth roads, and rough for that exact reason, because if you can take the easy path like that go into university, get the job well, you're gonna have a pretty miserable end of life, right, and I've seen that over and over again. And of course, the opposite is also true sometimes, but I don't know. I would never want to be in a position where I don't have control on my own destiny and that's why I mentioned you.

Alex: 10:45

But the skills right, because that's what you have now yeah, I mean, if you need to choose your heart, then choose it wisely. And yeah, a lot of people finish high school and then they don't know what they want to do, so they pick university out of, let's say, not boredom, but because they don't know any better choice, but also because it's not in our educational system to give us other choices. It's all the same. You know, like this is um picture, um that I saw. Like uh three goes to school, gets out. They all look like the same. I call trunks.

Alex: 11:16

Like so it's like okay that no personality is developed. So when I was looking for colleges, I actually found one that was decent. It was focusing more on like on each individual, and I like that approach. What I didn't like was I had to sit there still like five hours a day and I was like when do I get to work with my business? More and more. So I didn't go, but yeah, I like it, man.

Darren Lee: 11:39

I like that because you were able to identify much earlier on. You know, most guys never get to this point. Think about that. They'll go through the job, they'll get the mortgage, they'll do everything. They'll never get to that point. I want to ask you about the driving factor. I've heard you mention that you know your family struggled with money. So did mine growing up, considered yeah, I mean normal family.

Alex: 12:01

Normal family, I would say.

Darren Lee: 12:11

the only driver I would say was my parents divorced okay and I always felt, uh, that I had to support my mom like since forever. So that was definitely one of the drivers. Do you think that's kept you driving continuously for the past couple years? Has that been a driving factor?

Alex: 12:19

yeah, for sure. Yeah, take care of mama. It's important for sure, man?

Darren Lee: 12:23

yeah, I think most guys like overlook that, right, is that what got them kind of in the beginning? They're thinking like, oh, like that's done, that's taken care of, but you need to like always be almost working on those different components, otherwise, like, why are we doing it? Right Again, it's not just about the money in the bank, it's about the life that you can create for people around you yeah, well, I was obsessed with money like for a good amount of time.

Alex: 12:47

That fear, you know. I was like I need money. You had kind of that feeling of scarcity. So even if you, if I started making thousands of dollars a day in profit, I was like let's continue, let's continue, let's continue at some point. It's funny.

Alex: 12:59

Um, I remember I got the millionaire status and I was like, fuck, this doesn't solve all the issues. Money solves all the problems. Yeah, I was like, okay, now, why is this still not like? I came home and I still saw the same problems in my family and I was like, fuck, I thought I would just cover my mom in money and that would be it. But then she wouldn't accept it. So now she works with me.

Alex: 13:25

So that's, that's the beauty of it. So you need to still find ways. But but, yeah, uh, a big driver so definitely a big driver was running away from what I didn't like. So it's not like I do affiliate marketing I didn't dream of.

Alex: 13:39

My dream was to become a footballer. If I followed my passion, I would still just play football. I mean, I still do, but it's not the only thing I do. So fuck passion, just get away from the uncomfortable situation you're in and like make it you're not gonna change.

Alex: 13:55

If you feel like you should be changing, that maybe it would be better if you didn't have to worry about your bills. No, you should never fucking worry about your bills. You should never worry not to have money in the bank or like count the money we need to pay rent. Like get that out of the way. And I feel like that's the first thing any beginner should do, like that's the first step. I feel, because if you have that continuous, these continuous emotions of negativity, of stress and like you know, know you get in that survival state. You're never gonna think bigger. So I feel like that's the first step I would go to. So like forget about making a million dollars, start with making five, ten thousand dollars a month and get, and then, from there on, build, start building, because I yeah, I don't know.

Darren Lee: 14:42

I think it's what's interesting. There is the fact that, like you need to be able to have that evolution. As you said, it's going to take time, but you need to evolve through it, and it was. It was definitely the beginning for myself, too, was the fact that I think, like it's really it's interesting, a lot of guys are so focused on the vehicle and they're thinking, like, is it affiliate marketing, is it sma, is it drop shipping, whatever? But they're less focused on, like, solving the problem for the individual, right, like who are we actually serving? How can we solve them?

Darren Lee: 15:09

Like you were working in, you were using gadgets. Right, you're using pharmaceutical products or supplements. Like they solve specific problems. That that's what people were buying them. So you were able to tap into that, which is kind of interesting, because then people aren't falling in love with the vehicle, aren't falling in love with the vehicle, they're just thinking about the vehicle, and I've seen a lot of guys, especially in bali, that you know that they're not growing or not getting bigger because they're too focused on. I'm trying to find something that suits me. Back to the passion thing right, passion is not relevant what's important?

Alex: 15:35

what's?

Darren Lee: 15:36

important is finding a vehicle that works with a media company. For that exact reason, right, media is super fucking hard. A lot of people want to get involved in the online space, especially in podcast space, so it works. My dreams were to build a unicorn startup, vc backed fucking tech company. I'm not doing that. I might do in the future possibly, but I'm doing what's working. Does that make sense?

Alex: 15:57

yeah it does, because you're prioritizing yourself first, you know sure, getting out of a situation, and I think that's smart. You know like, yeah, I mean again, I didn't want to. I I was also doing e-commerce before. Like I did affiliate, then e-commerce and back to affiliate. Why did I go back to affiliate? Quicker and easier, it got me to the goal faster.

Alex: 16:18

Like why would I work 15 hours, 18 hours a day, sometimes at peak? Because I had, like warehouses around the world, different gadgets, different products, blah, blah, blah manage everything import, export, marketing but I was like I'm making pennies on the dollars compared to when I was doing affiliate. And then I that's why on on the side, I restarted affiliate and then late 2019, early 2020, boom, and then I would work 5% of my time on affiliate. And no kidding, I think that year the peak revenue in one month was like $5 million and the peak revenue for my e-commerce was maybe 300K in a month. And I was like, okay, this has to stop. I can't work 95% of the time on something making me I don't know one $2 million a month, a year compared to a field. So then it was, I had to exit it and I stopped doing that.

Darren Lee: 17:12

And are you still one person business doing that?

Alex: 17:16

Yeah, me and my partner what? Yeah, it's funny because I know some guys that have like they do similar revenues as us, like 10, $20 million range. Guys that have like, um, they do similar revenues as us, like 10 20 million dollar range a year, I would say, or up to 30, and they have like I don't know how many employees in affiliate or no. No, no, classical agency yeah, because you work with more clients. It always depends, like, I think, other than agency, you can also make a lot of money if you have just a few clients that pay a lot of money. But in general, the the way the model is, it incentivizes you to have more people.

Darren Lee: 17:50

So it's so. It's every business, though right in some degree. Um, like if you were doing e-commerce, you're going to need more suppliers, more customer fulfillment, all that kind of shit. Right, same in a software company, you're going to need more people to work on customer support. So it's very interesting how like affiliate is like inverse to that where, boy, you can get your, you need the right products, yeah, you need the right products. We, we can get into that, of course, in terms of like your psychology, of how you've done that. But what's interesting is, uh, so like our company is it's a media company and we have, like it's, a client relationship so can you guide me through real quick yeah for sure so we basically uh, grow and monetize podcasts so that's some big

Darren Lee: 18:27

like creators. But what's interesting, what? What changed here, which is which is interesting, is the fact that I saw this scope creep more employees, more employees, more employees and we grew from like one to ten people very quickly not in the same relationship with the revenue going up, because I I saw it right I saw firsthand that we needed more people. What was the biggest switch there was with the clients we have. How can we make more money with them, not from them, but with them, and that's who went into more of like a growth partnership, so I would say, nearly 50 of our clients.

Darren Lee: 18:57

We have a revenue share on our business and obviously we need to provide a lot of value for that. Right, we need to help them with their offer and build their offer and everything. So we run the content, but then we also have the business running sideways, uh, with it, and I think what's interesting is like traditional agency like stuck at like six figures a year. The best agency is maybe like seven, and I think this kind of model that we're doing is an eight figure play. Uh, very tough to get there, of course, right, extremely tough.

Darren Lee: 19:24

I'm not trying to say that oh, it makes more sense you have the upside, and the way I kind of see it is like uh, it's like a vc model, it's exactly like that, but obviously you don't own the company, um, and I think that's where a lot of people kind of run into kind of problems with this, because, like, they'll get to their first 10 employees and, um, there's a load of you find it's interesting.

Alex: 19:41

You could own the, the company. I mean you could do a proper company with the creators if you're building out the business for them.

Darren Lee: 19:47

So it's not excluded for sure, and you could take a partnership of it or you could take an ownership of it, yeah, um, but I just think what's interesting there is the fact that you know you're only limited by your creativity, so you've cracked the fact that you've had to sit very small with your partner. There's no employees to be, but many people will try to replace themselves in a broken business that they haven't fixed. Do you get me? Instead of trying to optimize which, what you've done? Yeah, you become fucking razor sharp by getting your ads right but I did both.

Alex: 20:16

I tried to replace myself in a broken business that I still had to figure out and then I did the opposites. But you gotta fail and learn for sure, man. Actually it was impossible to replace myself from this one like and I've tried, even when I was speaking like all of it, what do you think that was? So consider my average day or, like, let's say, average week would look like make a couple ads and wait, and I've seen especially my niche in us all of the ads. Why? Because I was also the one, let's say, innovating. Uh, because we had this format of ads via sales. It's not new, but we were pretty much the first ones to run a 40 minute ad on platforms. Usually you see like two minute ad, whatever. So then because of that, it started boom, like this was the winning format. Then, when you find a winning format, I just focus on improving it and always like get the attention again, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then the side effect was that everyone started doing it, which is fine, but then everyone would copy. So I never really looked at others. I mainly stayed focused on what's working for me and that's it, and that's why I had to stay creative and I knew what I tested in the past all the angles so I knew what was working and what not.

Alex: 21:38

So before you catch up to that level for this specific niche and this market on this platform platform, you need to have all this experience. So it's very hard to teach. So there are many good video editors. I'm not a great video editor, but I know how to make these videos, you know. So I don't have motion graphic skills or whatever. It's not even really needed. I mean, you can hire some people to do basic things, but what's going to make money? That's what you know. In fact, marketers nowadays are sort of video editors as well. Like, if you find a pure video editor, it's not going to necessarily marketing, but a marketer will be able to make a simple video ad if that makes sense.

Darren Lee: 22:20

And talk me through that process. So, for people that don't know the context, like, you're basically running ads to products, right, and you're doing affiliate from that, so you're taking a percentage of this, but what is it that you've learned about the psychology of people buying because you're doing an e-commerce, right? What is it that you're learning that you're tapping into, especially in how you create things right, even the videos and everything?

Alex: 22:51

because, as you said, no one can replace you right? So let's try to understand how, how you do it. Yeah, um, you always need to. I think it's the basics nowadays um, cooking people for seconds, don't make them skip um. And usually, how do you? How do you hook? Like it's a big topic. It's not easy to create hooks.

Darren Lee: 22:59

It's not repeatable, sorry it's not like repeatable that anyone can do it Like it's specific.

Alex: 23:05

It's hard, like it's simple, but it's not easy. And even if you grab their attention, are you going to be able to convert it? But let's just stick to the first part. I went through so many angles and usually, like, because we work with health stuff, um, you can't make jokes about health, for example. You need to be serious, you need to stick to facts, you need to speak, stick to very common things that people eat in our case. So basically, like finding ways to relate to people, but not the usual way, like because anyone that starts running ads and wants to make a hook for a product and they come up with a hook idea, I promise you that hook idea has been, uh, tested over and over again and it's not new and fresh.

Alex: 23:56

So you gotta think deeper. That's why everyone comes like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna sell coffee. Like, oh, do you feel tired in the morning? I've seen that before. It's more interesting, like to maybe go around it. So, instead of like which milk is better for you, oat milk or this?

Alex: 24:13

So then you face them with, like, a question of health. Like we all have that situation where we go to the supermarket, we order a coffee, we're faced with that question. It's slightly deeper and it's also more interesting because we think about it. No, what is it? Is it better to have whole milk, but do they put like antibiotics and blah, blah, blah? Or better, oat oat milk, but there are too many oils. So that's more interesting, I think, but it's something you have to test. I'm not saying this angle will work now, but it's one of the angles that work for us, for example. But you need to think that extra step. It's not, you know, and that's why it's important to test many, many different angles and the hook will define the success of the campaign most of the cases, because 70 percent of people are going to drop out after 20 seconds.

Alex: 24:58

same with a podcast, same with a youtube video everywhere, so that's why it's the hardest thing to do. And then, of course, there are all the triggers, and afterwards I like, uh, you present them with problems. You try to relate, uh, with people, with what they face in terms of problems, um, so you create this emotional relatability.

Darren Lee: 25:20

I'm just talking strictly about ads, because you can't manage everything, though you know the way you've taken this into your content, the lessons you've learned over those years is exactly how you create youtube videos, podcasts, short form tweets yeah, have that emotional connection, have that hook, have that relatability relevance authority figure yeah, it's the same shit, man yeah, yeah, it is, in the end it is.

Alex: 25:43

I would say, yeah, I'm just more, let's say, vertical on this, but yeah, now we're sort of making youtube videos as well, and as you can take over right, yeah, but it is still different, like making a vsl and making a banger vlog.

Darren Lee: 25:55

It's different true, true, but it's almost like your starting point is really really high though, because intuitively, you know well, if I'm talking about something that's completely unrelated to my potential audience people that are young and want to get into the affiliate space it's going to be all over the place, right? So you're able to kind of bring through those stories, and that's why skills compound, right. It's like everything you do helps you in your next endeavor. Like you said about the business, your next business. Of course it's horrific, everything is horrific in the beginning, but you've been stacking for so long that, subconsciously or consciously, you have their uh, you have the capacity basically to go to the next level yes, and you have the confidence as well.

Alex: 26:38

Confidence, I think the confidence is the main thing, but still there's so many business people that try to get into media and they don't make it, and there's so many people in media that want to run a business and they can't make it. So there's so many differences that you have to um own and I think that's the hard part. And now I'm figuring out media because, uh, distribution of content is changing the game for many businesses. It's a different way to build audiences. I made an example with friends and I speak about it often Like if you do paid ads to sell your courses, you're not going to create community as much as you're going to create community if you create media pieces that you distribute, and combining the two is powerful.

Alex: 27:24

without you know, annoying people with ads, yeah, so it's a deadly combination.

Darren Lee: 27:27

Yeah, it's everything right because it's like you run all the four. But actually if you were to add in extra elements not relevant for you, but it'd be like outreach, right. So if you get really fucking good at outreach which is where I started from in sales I was able to basically bypass the ability to worry about can I make another sale, because I can always contact someone getting better at contacting people. So it's like, if you can run outreach, if you can do content, if you can do ads and if you have like a referral program in your company, you're pretty much fucking good for the rest of your life. Right, put me in Alaska naked, I'll work my way out. You know there's like, but it's like you're, you're building up to it. Let's, let's actually get into that because, um, I found it very interesting because, like, your bread and butter was an ads and now you're coming to the content space.

Darren Lee: 28:11

So what was the trigger for you to come out of, like, the anonymous world and then come into the content space? Like, what was that trigger initially? Do you want to launch a podcast for your business, but you don't know where to start? Remove the stress, pressure and all the overwhelm that comes with it by working with Podcast University. If you're an ambitious individual who wants to build your influence online, grow your own podcast and also stand out from the crowd, podcast University is for you. We help you with the strategy, equipment, the content, your guests everything you need to create a top tier podcast. The content, your guests everything you need to create a top tier podcast.

Alex: 28:47

If you want to learn more, check out Podcast University and start your podcast journey today Boredom, curiosity, to try something new, new challenge, because money is not a big driver. I want to make a lot of money. I'm a capitalist, I love money. Money is great, but I want to continue a lot of money. I'm a capitalist, I love money, money is great, but I want to continue growing, so this is like the next step.

Alex: 29:09

Also always had this desire me to like do media. I consume a lot of media, but I never wanted to do it until I proved myself that I was worth doing it. So that's why I stayed low-key, because I had to like it just served me better. Like imagine I started doing content while my campaigns would crush it. Like I would have a plan B and fuck plan B. You need to stick to plan A and make it work and like just destroy it. Like become great at it. So, after a few consecutive years of like damn, there's not many people in the space doing this, there are, but like it's a small percentage I was like okay, I need the next thing. You know, like I I'm I'm a bit different than my partner. I I want to figure things out, maximize them and then move on, while other people prefer to repeat it over and over again, which is great, but how my mind works is like I need a new thing to figure out your ceo yeah, more creative.

Alex: 30:15

You know, like I, my mind gets bored after some time. If I repeat it a lot, I'm, I don't. I don't jump from one thing to another, but after some time I need to. So I think that's. It's a. It's kind of like a thin line between, like uh, being creative and not sticking to anything. You know it's a thin line nowadays, because kids cannot focus on anything. You know they can't watch a podcast if there isn't fortnite playing on underneath. You know that's, that's ridiculous. That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous.

Alex: 30:45

So, if you have that issue, delete social media and get your fucking head straight first of all. So then in business, you can, you know, run smooth. Same thing, because a lot of people want to be a youtuber, nowadays, an affiliate marketer. They don't want to start an agency and at the same time they want to do other 10 different things and they want to buy meme coins to become a millionaire. Agency and at the same time, they want to do other 10 different things and they want to buy meme coins to become a millionaire, gets you fucking nowhere. Stick to one thing and hyper focus, like that's all you have to do in order to make it. Then, if you maxed out on an approach and that is not serving. Well, find a new way to get your goal, but don't quit on the entire thing. How?

Darren Lee: 31:22

do you?

Alex: 31:22

identify. That Takes time, like I feel like for me, it was enough to know that it was possible and people around me were doing it, so that's why I found people in the world that were doing what I wanted to do. And it's funny because when you meet them, you're like this guy is not smarter than me and he's doing it, so it's possible, so I can do the same. And that's very empowering, because if you're in your little bedroom and you don't know it's possible, I mean, you see people talking about it, but it's different. Like that's why I wanted to meet people in a space that they're doing it. That gave me that confidence boost. It in the space that they're doing it, that gave me that confidence boost. It's always cool. Like sometimes I meet people that I only know online or they're watching their videos, blah, blah, blah, and then when you meet them, it's like it's a fucking dude. He went through the same shit as everyone else. He's not an alien, he's not a superhuman, he's a guy that just worked longer than you.

Darren Lee: 32:22

Yeah, so and also he's great at one thing, right. I heard tim ferris and chris williamson talk about this, which which is like when you meet your heroes, like you think that they're like super humans at everything. Right, but they're usually just really good at one thing running fucking ads, building houses, um, running ultra marathons, whatever. But they're very good at one thing and then they're just human for everything else and hopefully they haven't destroyed the rest of their life, right, which is often the case with people at the very, very top right and it's fine.

Alex: 32:49

You know, like when you're it's hard, like it's hard to to grow in all areas at the same time, but I feel like it's it's better to do it that way, like at least for me. A lot of people just grow in one uh category of life and they forget about the rest. But they needed that in order to understand it and get to a comfortable place with that category and then build up the others. So first, two years of affiliate marketing I was an unhealthy cunt Like I didn't take care of me and I used to like I was always sportive, blah, blah, blah. I got fat, wouldn't sleep, did all the wrong things, but I made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Is it a mistake? Looking back, I can't say it's a mistake.

Darren Lee: 33:34

It's a learning process, it's part of it, though right, that's what I'm like. Wealth is a. It's an equation. So it's like health, fitness, money, spirituality, freedom, mindset it's everything right. But it's almost like if you only had the freedom which a lot of people do in their teens. They don't have any money, right, so you have that gap. So it's very hard to tell someone who doesn't have money that life is fucking not perfect with money, but at the same time they need to go and acquire it, to realize that themselves and then make the change.

Alex: 34:09

And that's fine, like that's completely normal. Yeah, yeah, I, I it's. You can't judge people that just focus on one thing, because it's everyone has their own time for everything. You know, some people never get to have a family because they never focus on it, because they're just like addicted to work and the only thing, the only thing, about money. Some people never make money but have an amazing family.

Alex: 34:25

I mean, and you put it on a scale like what's more important? That's subjective and but I, my approach to life, is like try to grow slow but steady. That's I try to. Again, I see life as a tree, so I want to grow in every aspect, kind of sometimes I push something further, but then I try to catch up on the rest. You know, like a tree, so I want to grow in every aspect, kind of sometimes I push something further but then I try to catch up on the rest. You know like a tree builds itself and it's gonna grow, and I don't know just a few trenches and then forget about I don't know. I just visualize it like this. This works for me and and I like it. It makes me feel good. So even if I don't see results right away, I know it's gonna come.

Alex: 35:03

I've been in that place before, so I see people doing better. I'm like, okay, yeah, maybe not this year, give me five years, whatever it is, but I will get there Because I've did it before. It's nothing new. I started with Facebook pages, so I didn't know that I could make money off them. But I saw these other pages with hundreds of thousands of followers and I pages with hundreds of thousands of followers and I didn't know how to get there, and then I got there. Then I saw people making money with it. I didn't know how to, and then I got there and I started feed it. I saw people making tens of thousands of dollars a day. Didn't know how to, and I got there. Now I'm in media I'm gonna get there.

Alex: 35:37

That's what you built, you know. That's why I feel like for beginners is important to build out that confidence and have those. For beginners is important to build out that confidence and have those small wins. You know. Build up that confidence without rushing it, because then and it makes it easier it makes it also more enjoyable yeah, but people are trying to get to the end goal without any of the hurts of right.

Darren Lee: 35:58

Tell me true, the difference between um rich and wealthy?

Alex: 36:04

well, I mean, rich is someone with money, wealthy someone with time and money, and that's a big difference. I'd rather be wealthy than rich. Like, uh, wealthy is the the main goal? Like you don't have wealth. If you're working 15 hours per day, every single day and you can't get off it, it's okay. If it's a phase it's needed, so do that. That's not some periods of my year, but if you, if you're stuck in it, then you're not wealthy.

Darren Lee: 36:39

I think that's where, like, the workaholic approach comes in right. People want to. They set a precedent, they follow it. Then they want to stay consistent with that and it's consistent with the idea, not necessarily with what's required, like you're the perfect testament to that. You cut your hours down, you didn't need to work it, you were able to optimize what what you were doing, and you were able to get better at what you're doing. That's kind of like the goal, right, um, or again, you get people, you, you hire people that help you in that pursuit. Yeah, would you ever consider, uh, going big, like building like a, like a bigger business, like that, committing like more of your time, more of your resources because you have the skill Is that something that's ever in your path going forward?

Alex: 37:20

Yeah, I would say now media, media distribution takes a lot of people if you want to scale up. So that's where I see makes sense to have more people. But again, it has to make sense. A lot of people hire just for the sake of hiring, too fast burn funds. So even if you have money, you can still like dig yourself in a hole. So but in this case it makes sense.

Alex: 37:46

That's why I never like I felt like in my industry, in affiliate industry, it was cool at some point to suddenly everyone had a team. I was like why do you have a team? Yeah, because we have media bars and this, and that I was team. I was like why do you have a team? Yeah, because we have media buyers and this. And that I was like but do you need them?

Alex: 37:59

It's like, maybe you, maybe you don't, you're not getting to the next big goal because you're just spreading out thin. So a lot of people ask me how do you get to a hundred thousand dollars a day in revenue? I was like well, where are you running ads? Oh, I'm running them in poland. I was like you need a lot of products to do 100k a day in total. Why don't you focus on one product in a bigger country, such as, like us, you're gonna get to 100, you get to 50, but god damn it, I mean it's good. So like then you, you get so stuck in the process that you don't think, you don't have time to think and have the clarity to make better decision, to actually grow. So now with more experience, I'm like I have some PTSD because I hire people from the past and they work out. So now I'm getting back into that, but this time with more confidence and experience due to my past successes.

Darren Lee: 38:53

Well then you know what you're hiring for, right? That's the thing. Yeah, you know. Most people don't know why they're hiring. Does that make sense? They're basically just filling the void because they're bored, as you said, right?

Alex: 39:04

Or they don't know what they're doing, and that goes back to, you know, hiring people in a broken business. I feel like it's important you understand it first, and then you know how to hire better. Yeah, you know how to hire better. Right, they say hire your weakness, but you still need to know what your weakness is and how it works. So you're more conscious about hiring, and then you're also more conscious about when to fire people. A lot of people don't fire, you know. I've been guilty of that too. You know. Then you fall in love. Or you're like you're too nice, or you think like it's going to work out, but this is. Or you think like it's going to work out, but it's equal as believing that I don't know. You meet a girl and you think like she's going to change for you. That's absolutely wrong. So that's when you need to become strict as well. Firing is more important than hiring 100%.

Darren Lee: 39:47

I've had to leave a bunch of people go over the years and the way it was framed to me was like if you're afraid of that person going to a competitor because they're that, because they're really good, then don't fire them. Right, you know, walk through the process, you need to get them better. But if they're not someone that's going to light up your business or light up a competitor's business, then they shouldn't be in your company in the first place. And also, if you can't sit on an eight-hour flight with them, you need to be able to have those like you need to have a relationship right with these. So it's just different ways to look at it, right? I want to pivot more into. You moved to Dubai, so you moved to Dubai and now you're based in Bali. How much do you think? Well, your accommodation at your cross too? How much did that influence the business Versus, like it was really on you when you moved to Dubai? Did that help you grow your business, grow your brand?

Alex: 40:35

I guess it's in the process, but my peak years were me traveling with a small suitcase, parachute and helmets. That's all that's. When I peaked. That's exactly what I did. But that came after years and years of work and then finding the right combination of things with the right partners and just scaling it, just maintaining a good level.

Alex: 40:57

Now I moved to Dubai because I want to build out more things. So if I keep traveling I would be in a different headspace. I'm not I hyper-focus on one thing. Now I feel like I can finally take on more. I feel like I'm ready to take on more. But to take on more, I feel like it's good for me right now to have a base. That's why I moved to Dubai because I like the place. It's not far from my family, it's stimulating and services and lifestyle is amazing, so everything you need it just comes your way very quickly. So that's why I liked it.

Alex: 41:32

I was contemplating between LA and Dubai, but then I ended up picking up Dubai LA, because I have partners there. Again, I work in the US, that's my main operations run in the US. But yeah, I just prefer Dubai. So, yeah, because I'm doing the affiliates and it keeps running, but I feel like I master it enough to dedicate some extra time to other things, but without underestimating the need to offer affiliate. But yeah, now I'm doing media and as a side project I was telling you, um, building out in in Uluwatu uh villas. But that's a slow, fun side project because it doesn't require me to be there every single day. Maybe sometimes you need to follow some things, but it's since you're building it slow, but that's why I'm here, but I'm not based here. I just come here every now and then just dip in and out working on projects.

Darren Lee: 42:27

I think that's the right way to approach it. Right, because if you were to be here 24 7, you would occupy the mental real estate right? I think that's where it gets interesting, with the fact that if you have that separation, you're able to come in, do what you need to do, move on and move on to the next thing. Tell me about, like the lifestyle of the boy you mentioned dating as well, before. What's, what's that like?

Alex: 42:49

it's a fun mess. It's definitely a fun mess, so, uh, it's um. I think never in history there was such a place on earth where no, but imagine it. Like the travel options nowadays and the money, and like never in history, like, think about it. A hundred years ago we had the girls around the villages there, but dubai just brings out, brings in chicks from all over the world, from the villages in ukraine, from the favelas of brazil, from remote places. They all come there. So it's very hyper focused in terms of beauty, but also in terms of money, because dubai had the vision 50 years ago to build a city that is Dubai nowadays. And it's not because they have oil and gas, because also Qatar has oil and gas, saudi, blah, blah, blah, but they had the vision to make a desert attractive. So shout out to the leaders in Dubai, because they understood they're running Dubai like a business. That's why they were able to grow it.

Alex: 43:58

And now, if you check Riyadh or Qatar, they're taking, taking inspiration from that. They're trying to catch up, because they were like, oh my god, first it was all haram what dubai was doing, but now it makes sense. You know, you attract a lot of smart people. So I think middle east is going to be the new europe. Europe is going down, middle east is going up 100, and so it attracts a lot of uh, people that first were not happy with certain circumstances in the world. Starting from, you know the the little cuff cuff situation. Then wars, political instability, and people go there not just for not paying taxes, but when you're there it's just refreshing because during those hard times no one really speaks about those topics. So you get there and you're like you just focus on what matters, right, yeah, no one is talking about oh, how many did you get? Uh, or the war or this, and that it's just like a safe place where to live. It's like a bubble.

Darren Lee: 44:52

It's honestly a bubble same way, same with bali right, but it's also a bubble, for different reasons but it's the same thing. You just come and you do your own shit.

Alex: 45:00

Uh, and all that western world is just yeah, that's why it's attracting a lot of people. That's why a lot of people come to bali, go to dubai, like travel and find these safe places around the world. So then you have the combination of people with money, smart, blah, blah, beautiful girls. So how is dating? Dating is, uh, very easy. But easy doesn't mean it's good. So after some time, yeah, you can play the game. You know it's all fun and games, but can be empty as well.

Alex: 45:30

So it's not just dangerous for girls, because I think, like girls are easily hurt by this dating game or easier but also men, like I think men underestimate what comes with dating multiple girls for an extended period of time. Then you get, you're not sensitive to it anymore. Then what happens when you actually find a good girl? Will you ever settle? You know it becomes like almost an addiction. Forget almost. It becomes an addiction and it's and it's a problem. Anything you get addicted to is a problem. So you have to be mindful of that. But again, it's very tempting, even in bali, because you have so many options and I guess it can work. You know, works for some time, forever.

Alex: 46:15

I don't think that's health. Even jordan peterson says what's I mean? That's kind of what a psychopath does for sure, using people for short-term pleasure. So if you put that in perspective, like if you continuously date multiple girls, where are you putting out? Are you actually a psychopath? I know that's not a popular opinion because you know like certain influences in romania tell you to like yeah, you gotta, you gotta, have a lot of chicks, you're gonna smash them blah, blah, blah, uh. But yeah, I don't think that's uh truly healthy over an extended period of time. In fact, all these, like the tate brothers probably they don't do that. It's just a fucking clown act which works.

Darren Lee: 46:54

I think they're hilarious, but you gotta have some stability in life for sure, man I remember I interviewed sadia khan, who's based in dubai as well, yeah, and she had a really interesting point on this. She mentioned that, like a lot of the girls run rings around the guys as well. So like a guy will think that he has like four different girlfriends and then, but they're girlfriends, but the women take off their rings and they're actually married and they also have four different boyfriends, yeah, and they're getting like prada bags, their fucking food and five palm, all that stuff taken care of. So it's almost like working like as an inverse relationship basically. So it's almost like everyone is making themselves worse in that process and I don't know.

Darren Lee: 47:35

It's like it's very true. It's just funny because, like, when you're younger I don't know how old are you 26, you're 26, 28. When I was 21, 22, that was fine, right, it was kind of like. When you're really young, like that's like it's like nearly acceptable, but as you get up into your 30s, right, like is that really what you want to do?

Alex: 47:55

definitely not. No, because you become more aware of energies and actually you know it's a big ego thing to say, look, I have a couple of girlfriends. They're not your girlfriends. Yeah, maybe some girls love you more than others, but again, it's different. You know, like I don't know Every time I ask, yeah, I have a couple of girlfriends, but these girls, they run around and the next guy, if the next guy is available, he will take it. Yeah, very easy, because they want to be committed to someone and feel safe. And if you don't give them them safety because you're fucking around, then they will always prefer, at some point, someone safer. So for you it might be an ego booze.

Alex: 48:29

I'm gonna smash four chicks this week. Great, again works for some time. It's fun, don't get me wrong. But I don't know. I feel like when I'm 40, I prefer to have a wife and kids and things like that. I think that's like looking at my grandparents. That gives me more joy than looking at I don't know fuckboys running around all the time On Twitter. Yeah, I mean, that's a trend nowadays.

Darren Lee: 48:57

Yeah, I want to ask you about that actually. Um, so you mentioned tase. What you as someone is an affiliate marketer. What do you think about? Like tate's affiliates plan? Yeah, shitty product.

Alex: 49:08

Great strategy like terrible product actually, like disgusting. It was actually also pyramid schemes. You can only become an affiliate if you pay. You have to become a member to actually access their program. But overall I think I feel like he rushed the process so he didn't take care of the branding. That's why I got him, got him in trouble. Uh, media, media speaking without living out all the legal stuff. But yeah, it was a genius like I mean content distribution rewarded by commissions, epic. He only had to get on cameras and just say the most absurd things to piss people off, make people laugh, make them feel something. So kids would just cut that out, post it online and get views and then put the link in bio. People would subscribe and then we'll get like 50% of the first sign-up, which is $25, because the sign-up was like $50. Then it increased, I think, to $100, whatever. But genius, like affiliate-wise, he cracked the game in a different way that was unseen before.

Darren Lee: 50:09

I heard something interesting recently on this. It was Steve Tan. You know dropshipper Steve Tan.

Alex: 50:15

I know Steve. He was one of the first guys in 2016 to come to the affiliate show, go on stage with his brother and say we made $2 million revenue in a month and we were all like holy shit. You know he's a cool dude man he's known him for years now.

Darren Lee: 50:32

He's such a cool dude.

Alex: 50:33

He got you into business right.

Darren Lee: 50:35

Yeah, I met him about a month ago and I was asking him about, like you know, how Capital Club did our content and like what's the structure?

Darren Lee: 50:45

in there. Same thing, same thing, right. But I was like, oh, like you know, you got it like not, you got it from Tate, but it's a Tate model. And he was like, no, no, no, no. He like I have to stop you there.

Darren Lee: 50:59

He was like this model has been running, uh, tiktok in china for like six years. He was like they got it from them and let me tell you about how it's actually done. And he was like, yeah, on tiktok, you can create like a billion fucking platforms in china and there's a billion people in china and they run this like at scale in like a tiny little unit, not them specifically, but people in china, and they've been doing this for like five or six years. And you're like, yeah, that's actually the model. He was doing, a different variation of it, but it's like yeah. He said something interesting as well about content was the fact that whatever we're doing right now, it was done in china like four years ago. So they sprinkle out the ideas, how to do stuff, but they're so insular and they're able to preserve what's working in content, media products, everything. Yeah, without giving it away. Yeah, I mean, they are controlling, they're able to preserve what's working in content, media products, everything, yeah, without giving it away.

Alex: 51:40

Yeah, I mean they are controlling the narrative. It's a bunch of marketers that use CapCut and follow the terms and conditions on how to represent the brand, have blocked keywords lists to control the narrative, so they're marketing it, and the way they do it is they want to put as many billboards out there and it doesn't matter if you're going to piss people off or some people are going to hate you. They're still going to see you and that's what you're feeding off. So then they're going to attract some people and convert them into users for their platform. So that's smart. It's more controlled than what tate was doing. They was just aborting anyone without many, without any branding control.

Alex: 52:22

So it is, yeah, maybe they they took it. They saw it happening more in on in china, but they only started doing it now, yeah. So I think it was a wake-up call as well, to see that you can combine it with education. Or maybe they just decided to pull the trigger, not whatever it with education, or maybe they just decided to pull the trigger. Not whatever it is, but it's fascinating. So it's definitely something. I'm looking into it and it's it's fun to execute. It's a new thing too for sure.

Darren Lee: 52:47

For sure, because I remember you, I heard you mentioned before about, like how businesses can use affiliate. Like how can you set it up from a business perspective? And it's quite interesting because you know we do like high ticket client services, but there still is an affiliate component because a lot of people who follow us will actually recommend our service to other people like, oh, like you know, our boss or whatever might use it. So we're getting kind of like distribution through helping people through education with the content, but that's opening up doors, that's affiliate programs for people, which I didn't even realize it was coming intuitively right. And I just like think, like how do you think about that from what we was prospective, like how can you add that component into your business? Because there's different ways you can slice and dice.

Alex: 53:31

So if you refer to your friends, that's one thing. If you take 5%, 10%, it's free money. You do it once or twice done. But if you want to scale with affiliates, you got to take that referral small commission away. Like that's not how you should think about affiliate. Affiliates leverage usually paid media, also organic, and therefore they need high margins to make it worth it. So if you sell a product of 50 and you get paid 10, it's not gonna work. The affiliate is not gonna have the incentive to actually promote the product. And that's why not every company is ready to do affiliate marketing at high scale, because they don't have their uh, their system optimized. Because affiliate should be a way to acquire customers at low cost or almost free and then monetize those customers on other, second, third purchases.

Darren Lee: 54:28

But not the first one, sorry, the value ladder from there yeah.

Alex: 54:32

So I work with businesses that understand this and pay me the highest commission possible because they know that I can bring them hundreds of customers a day, if not thousands, and they will start working on those customers later on. So basically I take the entire revenue of the first sales, even more sometimes. So if the AOV is like 150 bucks, I get a hundred bucks easily, if not more. So if you take off the costs, they're probably breaking, even slightly losing money. But then if they're good at it afterwards with the LTVs, they're going to make money. And that's how you crack media buying in general, like, if you a lot of companies, especially in America, they don't make much money on the first sale, if not any money. So it's possible to do it in other smaller countries where you know, in blue oceans, not the red oceans. So if you applied red ocean tactics into blue oceans you're gonna fucking smash. It actually might be even too early to do it because then you um, you accelerate the growth in that market too quickly. But so if if I run e-commerce in italy, I want to make money on the first sale, if I run it it in the US, I don't care about making money right away. I will optimize my shit so I can make money afterwards.

Alex: 55:42

So if you're running affiliate, you should get that in perspective, because the space is very competitive and you want to give your soldiers, your media buyers, your affiliate the best tools possible in order to make it, which includes good commissions.

Alex: 55:56

So if you're sending a digital product for $200 and that's all you sell, yeah, then if you give a high commissions, you're probably not going to make money. But if someone told me today I can, if you have one product for $200 or $1,000 or whatever, and they tell me like, yeah, I'm going to bring you a thousand customers a week and you pay me $1,000 for your $1,000 product, I will take it right away because then I have a base that I can work with and that's exciting. But if I'm being greedy, I was like no, I want to maximize the profit on those thousand dollars a day and I don't think about the future that I'm going to give them the lowest possible commission and not scale 100%. So that's the difference and I think like that's important to understand. You want to be, you want to give an excessive almost payouts that's applicable to even very, very high ticket stuff as well.

Darren Lee: 56:48

Right, because I think our average, our average monthly retainer is 5k. It's pretty standard. Right for client services. But I would pay out 25, which is like 1300 or 1400 appointment closers. No for referral okay, so yeah.

Darren Lee: 57:02

So if someone gives a referral, it's like 1500 paid out and that's obviously like a lot for someone who's walking in the street was like, oh yeah, my maid here can help you, whatever. So that just keeps. What I'm trying to say is like that keeps the incentive high. So it's like that's a higher scale, but if you did on a lower scale, it's obviously the same thing too. Right? No one's going to fucking ship your product for you on your behalf if you're paying them ten dollars. Yeah, it's completely different. Yeah, I want to ask you specifically about what you were doing. So you mentioned to me that like, uh, the pharma world is like bullshit. The one, the pharmaceutical world, the big pharma world, oh yeah, so let's, let's dive into that. So you're a healthy dude. You train what? What made you change your mind on that or what gave you the insight into that? Are you an entrepreneur who wants to build your influence and authority online? You may have tried some of the hacks and tricks, but none of it has worked. And it makes sense.

Darren Lee: 57:52

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Alex: 58:38

It's interesting it all came together. The moment I started selling health products was the time I was getting healthier again, so it kind of like the universe brought it together. Supplements are cool, so if you sell supplements, you should give realistic expectations and you should make clear that what you're selling is not the magic pill that's going to get you shredded, for example, but it's going to improve your overall health. It promotes health and things like that. So we became very sensitive to that topic to sell it in a very ethical way, also because at the scale we're running, there's no other way, because we I mean we got fdas or other entities sometimes reaching out because something was I wouldn't say wrong, but just out of context or it was lacking some context, we had to add it.

Alex: 59:31

So that's that's. That's to give some context on how um strict we are with our ads because they were seen by millions of people. And then you get shut down. We don't get shut down. We never get shut down because we have a good legal team. But we need to be mindful of certain things. People go out and promote things like I don't know, take the supplements, you're going to lose 10 pounds.

Darren Lee: 59:54

Let's get into that as well, man.

Alex: 59:56

I love to expose scammers, so I, the entire pharmaceutical industry is a scam because they don't want to empower people. It's very easy to go to a doctor and give the doctor the entire authority over your health. It's a very lazy approach, like if I go to a doctor and I follow every instruction that the doctor gives me, I'm taking zero responsibility for my own health, and that's fucking dangerous for my own health. And that's fucking dangerous because you're basically giving someone with uh you know, dress like a doctor the keys to your future and that's very dangerous. But people do that and people are taught that way. People are not taught that you can heal yourself. People are not taught that over prescription is an issue. The amounts of people that die like.

Alex: 1:00:45

Let's go through the most common death reasons in the US. The first one is cancer. It's like half a million people 600,000 people die of cancer every year. Heart diseases second place. Number one reason why people die. The number one reason why people die is due to uh treatment. So either over prescribed, over prescribing drugs or the wrong treatment, but no one speaks about that. Why? Because it makes a lot of money. So that's why it's even insane how many people are sending actual pharmaceutical drugs, not right now.

Alex: 1:01:26

In the US, sometimes there's a new drug coming on the market and people make a lot of money selling that, because they just give out commissions like crazy, fucking hell. Now there's like Ozemptic oh, it's so easy to run it as an affiliate, if I wanted to, or as a seller that sells directly to B know b2b in the us it's highly incentivized, but it's fucking dangerous because you don't know what you're selling. You know so it's it's. It's there's a wrong incentives and big pharma is trying to control this whole narrative that you need to consume drugs in order to heal yourself. What they don't want to let you know about is that you can actually heal yourself, and it's all also a foundation of how medicine is taught. It has the wrong layers. It's all based on Newtonian physics. So you basically to make it short you're going to cure something by just focusing on the one part.

Alex: 1:02:24

If I have a problem on my knees, they're just going to analyze the knee and not you as a whole human being and how you live. So, for example, if you start going to other doctors that have a more holistic approach, like osteopaths, when I have issues with my knees, they start analyzing me as a whole. How do you eat? What do you do? Do you sit all day? Blah, blah, blah. Because even if, for example, if I have stomach problems and my stomach is tense, my back muscles are going to be tense. It's going to affect the way I walk. Therefore, it's going to affect how my knee can feel.

Alex: 1:02:56

So that's coming out now, it's becoming more popular and and that's also based more on, like, how your environment is, so more on the quantum physics. Right now they're studying more how quantum physics works and it's one of the layers on how chemistry and then biology. Like, if you change the rules, if you imagine like a pyramid, and the base of the pyramid is physics If a physical law changes or we understood something new, then all the rest needs to adapt, because that's how mechanism works and mechanism works with physics. So if you change, if there are law changes at the bottom, biology needs to adapt and that's not happening. So, and why it's not happening as well? Because it's incentivized not to change, because you sell pills that people buy and it makes money.

Alex: 1:03:49

So medicine is doing a terrible job in treating things like cancer or heart attacks or Alzheimer, but it's doing a very good job in treating things that are isolated. If I need to cut something out, if I need to have a surgery, they're doing doing a fantastic job on that, but they're not promoting self-healing. Why? Because it doesn't make money, so that's why it's a scam. But actually you can heal yourself and that's something that, for example, doctors like joe dispenza or bruce lipton bruce lipton is amazing wrote a book about epigenetics, how your beliefs, how the environment can change your biology. Because, with all the dogma that came with, for example, the discovery of the dna back in the 50s, uh, basically, if your family had cancer, you're likely going to have cancer. That's a lie. It's not true. 100 and if you believe that that it's true, it's also disempowering. It's going to happen. It's going to happen.

Darren Lee: 1:04:46

You're trapped because the beliefs affect your biology so I completely agree with absolutely everything you said. And just to add to that, um, I had like family members talk about how heart disease was in the female side of my family and the individual that was saying it was drinking full fat coke, eating crisps and chocolate bars like breakfast and drinking loads of alcohol. And I said, well, you're going to end up getting that heart disease that's passed down to you genetically if you fucking eat those that coke and all that shit. Right, because that's just going to happen to you. But if you stopped doing that and stop feeding into this bullshit narrative, then it wasn't going to happen. And take it out. In contrast, like I've literally never been healthier my entire life. I don't need any processed food, no sugar, train, six days a week, get my recovery, get everything in, and I've never felt better and everything that I was told has become completely false over the years. Right, you mentioned, like the illness and the family. Do you believe?

Alex: 1:05:44

also that it's because believe is even, I would say, almost important as doing the right thing believe in terms of?

Darren Lee: 1:05:51

do I believe that I'm healthier? Believe that?

Alex: 1:05:54

if you believe that it's not going to happen to you, or even think. You don't even think it's an option, because if you see, I'm not going to get sick, what our brain processes is sick, not not sick. So you're still gonna think about sickness. But if you shift away from that and maybe working out six days a week helps you, that you're gonna. You're gonna run away from it even better.

Darren Lee: 1:06:17

But I don't even consider as an option right correct.

Alex: 1:06:19

That's.

Darren Lee: 1:06:20

That's important, because if you still consider as an option, despite training, it's still there and that is dangerous that's super interesting because when, even when I was younger, I played sport at a very high level around 100 meter track, played ropey at a high level, nice and um. You know, getting injuries really is really common, being injured is really common, and from 17 to 21 kind of was always injured, like small fractures or hamstrings or pulls whatever. And then it's almost like, as I've gotten older, I've gotten healthier and fitter. I don't even consider that stuff. None of that stuff is, even if it is even in the frontal cortex of my mind, because I just get up and I focus on things that I enjoy and I work on things that I need. Like my nutrition is dialed in. Obviously in bali it's so easy, right, you can have cooks, you can have everything at the highest level of food and even if you eat like very, very premium quality food here it's nothing like it's like 40 a day max, you know, um, but you mentioned illness. So one of our clients uh, this is kind of relevant to me one of our clients in our, in our company. She works in the science space, very, very high end, like very on the same level as like huberman and Estates, and she had a study, an observation study that was done by one of the biggest investment banks in America. I don't want to mention the name, but they estimated the size of the industry of illness and that industry of illness is growing and isn't that great for investors, because now we can invest in pharmaceutical companies who can market to the illness industry. It's health, not illness, right, but they've created an industry that's around people being fat, lazy, broke and now they're recommending doing statins and all this shit for your blood pressure, versus, uh, alleviating stress, eating well, getting good recovery, focusing on all the variables that you need, but instead give you this pill.

Darren Lee: 1:08:07

Now I come from Ireland, which is like pretty cheap for medical care, but as a result, people go to GPs, general practitioners, and there's actually like an epidemic of over-the-counter drugs. For sure, like paracetamol, all those kinds of drugs. People just take them 24, seven. And what's ironic is that I was also even in that position when I was younger. I was like you know, you might have a pain or an injury or whatever, just take a, just take a thing, right.

Darren Lee: 1:08:32

And it was only until you literally zoom out and I feel like most entrepreneurs like have that kind of in them. It's like the ability to zoom out and be like, why am I doing it this this way? Uh, and I know it's been interesting, right, because the past I've always been healthy, always trained at a high level. But even the past couple years I've changed my diet quite a lot. I've went from sleeping very little to a lot, you know, seven or eight hours very frequently now, changing my training, and I just think that, like the second you stop trying to learn is a second you, you fall into this bullshit, right, and thinking, oh, I'll just take this pill or whatever. Very disempowering, it's crazy, right. Yeah, if you go back to the entrepreneur's goal is to have control over what happens in your life, you've just lost that fucking control, right?

Alex: 1:09:18

yeah, and on top of what you just said, that the illness industry makes a lot of money. There's incentivized for insurances to kick in 100 and in america is just insane. It's a whole ponzi scheme, 100 with the insurances and all it's just like advice. It's just they're just making it bigger. That's why they're trying to give us shitty food and that's why eating good, organic stuff it's super expensive and the average person can't afford it. You know, like before walmart or so, like in us, you would go buy food and like by local shops and have good quality stuff. And now you can't compete with those prices because walmart came in and has a lower quality chicken at a lower price. So people prefer that. When I'm in LA, for example, I eat at Erewhon. Erewhon is super. It's overpriced, to be honest, but you have everything is organic and everything tastes amazing and I just love it. But it's a luxury nowadays.

Alex: 1:10:19

For sure we're going to start eating, you know, insects before we know it. If you look at what the world economic forum speaks one time a year when they meet up in switzerland, it's very interesting. You can actually see where they're planning to go and how excited they are. They are. That's the scary part like when you start seeing these people that actually have influence in the world. How excited they are that they're going to install microchips or, you know, scan our brain waves during work, and how they're going to penalize us or, uh, incentivize us to think about certain things while we work. For example, if you get distracted, they're going to penalize it and deduct it from our salary, versus if you just behave normally, nothing is going to happen to you. And how excited they are about speaking these things is fucking crazy. And then how they want to normalize it we're going to eat insects and how they promote all this vegan bullshit.

Darren Lee: 1:11:08

That is just a fucking hoax anyways like have you heard about the ultra processed food? So there was um dr sean baker was on joe rogan, he did like the research on it was like, well, he didn't do the research, the research was done by the company. It was like some american large company that were trying to create ultra processed food, which is not just like regular process, it's like it's another level of refinement and they were trying to categorize that that actually had more nutrients because they're injecting nutrients like vitamins and shit minerals than regular food. So the fact that it's ultra processed, they're saying, well, we can inject the minerals that we want in it, so you're actually going to get a better profile of food.

Darren Lee: 1:11:49

But the whole fucking idea from food is that you get the organic minerals right, like that's why the issue with a vegan diet is like when you supplement with it. It's like why don't you just fucking eat the meat in the first place? Now, whatever it is ethical reasons, people do it, but it's still not the same as eating the actual food, right? Um, and like this. We can just many different examples in that. But what I just think is interesting is the fact that that's when we move more into like powders and insects and all this bullshit, which is like we go back to the core of like what we should be eating, like I'm fully animal-based 100 in terms of just red meat and fruit comes out of the floor and everything is organic in bali. Um, but it's expensive.

Alex: 1:12:29

It is expensive, right and it's a luxury and they they make it in a in such way so it's harder to escape. Yeah, it becomes harder and harder. So nowadays it's not like an option to. I think it shouldn't be an option to become a solopreneur or make money by yourself. I think it's a fucking necessity if you want to survive. So that fear is still in me. I had more fear when I didn't know this, when I didn't have the money. But I was looking around and I was hyper paranoid. I was like, fuck, they're doing the Bilderberg meetup the same day the European cup starts and who meets there? The same day the european cup starts and who meets there? You, you see the kissinger, you see the, all the presidents of different countries, you see ceos of huge companies, airbus and they all meet there. No one speaks about it because everyone is distracted by a other huge event. And I'm like, fuck, this is all designed. You put the dots together and you can't unsee it anymore.

Darren Lee: 1:13:24

100 when was that for you? When did you have that unplugging?

Alex: 1:13:27

I think uh, 15, 16, something like that. When I started, I don't know, I was just always curious how the world works, how does this work? Blah, blah, blah, just asking questions until you start finding answers and you're like holy shit, like it's interesting. So I was hyper paranoid, like you know. Actually I feel like over time, because I was so focused on other things, I became softer on that topic, but I was hyper sharp. I was so focused on, like, getting out of the system. I was scared when I was doing biometrics and all of that.

Alex: 1:14:00

It's insane the level of control there is and people don't realize that it's insane the level of control there is and people don't realize. Because if this type of control happened overnight, like all the new ways to control us came out the same day, we would wake up. But how they did it is very smart. Every now and then they introduce something new. After something happened, by causing fear, they introduce new way of to make us, make us feel safe. So then we accept this new um type of control central bank digital currencies after covid, right, yeah, everything.

Darren Lee: 1:14:34

Don't handle cash. You should central bank digital currencies. So I.

Alex: 1:14:37

I want to. I want to talk about how I live like I was four years old when 9-11 happened from no controls or very light controls at the airport to full-on body scans with the excuse of a very traumatic event. Then they introduced a new technology that we carry out every day everywhere we go, which is a phone, so we're incentivized by a benefit now. Then the comfort of traveling around and just having your face scanned biometrics in your passport. Then traumatic events like you know, the viruses and things like that You're going to accept to inject something in your body. Next thing that is already being talked about since many years is microchips in your body. But it's funny when you find papers or researches or what the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, puts out as documents. It's very interesting to read them and see that all these scenarios have been already studied and they're just being applied over time. So it's fucking scary when you go read.

Alex: 1:15:36

There was a paper in 2010 talking about four different scenarios by the Rockefeller Institute or Foundation, and one of the four scenarios was if the cough virus would come or any type of. So it was interesting how they predicted what would happen and it's exactly what happened. It was written that China would be the country that would take the most extreme measures, the people would have to wear things to cover your mouth and drugs would be produced and basically, that the control from top to bottom would be restored. Because, if you look at the past years, a lot of people had distrust. There's a lot of distrust in the government, but when these events happen, people tend to follow the government again they obey. Happen. People tend to follow the government, again they obey. So seeing how much obedience there was by the people, how much policing happened between people, that all the fucking npcs dressed like you, you're not this, you're not wearing that, it was scary.

Darren Lee: 1:16:37

That's what scared me the most and that's the element of, uh, social proof as well. Um, in influence by robert cialdini. He talks about how, if people are in indecision, so they don't know what to do next, they'll look to the masses to just basically conform. So if you see someone fall down the street, people freeze, but they don't freeze because they're afraid. They freeze because they don't know what to do. But if one person goes over, everyone will go over and help them. So generally, so generally, that's where a government in particular will take as much leap as possible Because they know that in that moment that small window could be four hours, 20 minutes they have the authority figure, yeah, and they can say shut off the fucking flights, close down the borders.

Alex: 1:17:14

Yeah, yeah, it's the right thing. And then everybody will hold to it and it's just very interesting to observe, right, because it just takes a few people to and it's funny because they can take the leads, because they create the circumstances as well, if you want to like, and they also create they own the infrastructure.

Darren Lee: 1:17:31

Right, it's just like. I go with a view it as well as like well, you're a business, you can do whatever you want. You can stop tomorrow, you can slow down, you cannot run the ads because it's your house. I think people think that because you have a business or whatever, you don't have control. But it's the opposite. When you are the one that owns the chips you're the casino that runs the house you can do whatever the fuck you want yeah, and it goes deeper than just the government level.

Alex: 1:17:50

If you zoom out and you check where the money goes, you will always understand what's happening talk to me about food.

Darren Lee: 1:17:57

So what do you eat? As a result, like, tell me true, like your, your diet and everything uh, processed food, vegan butters, uh, vegan steaks.

Alex: 1:18:06

Yeah, it's amazing. All of that stuff makes me feel empowered and I'm finally a pussy. I finally reached my ultimate level of pussy, nice, and by the way I go by, uh, she him, depending on the mood as well.

Darren Lee: 1:18:20

So depending on so, do you get like a lot of things organic in Dubai, like what's your process?

Alex: 1:18:26

Yeah, like one of the first thing I wanted to stop doing was checking out the price tag when I buy food. I just wanted the best thing possible. That happened, unfortunately, very quickly. It's the best freedom you can have. Sure, just buy what's healthier. So I don't care if I spend a lot of money on food. I spend a lot of money on food. I spend a lot of money on food, I'm the same.

Darren Lee: 1:18:47

I spend crazy amounts. It's probably the most I spend in a month.

Alex: 1:18:50

I care about grass fed or grain fed. It tastes better to me as well, but it also feels better. The eggs it's also insane when I go back to Europe how the level of food is going down every time I go back. Like how the level of food is going down every time I go back. Like the eggs, the, the chicken, the costs, like, if you wanna, there are different ranges in germany, like one, two, three, four, four is the best, and it's like if you get 250 grams of chicken it could cost you 10 bucks, but if you get level one it costs you like three bucks. So obviously people are gonna go for the shitty one. But also the whole game of bio labels and stuff is also a scam. Yeah, cause even like, like in America there was no. I mean, you can say organic or free range, but free energy is a scam, yeah.

Darren Lee: 1:19:35

They just fuck them into the crate Right and they're like, oh yeah, free range.

Alex: 1:19:37

Yeah, it's a. It's a fucking scam, like the farmer's markets in the us, because you can actually buy from farms directly. But the the law says that if you, if you want to labor your, your eggs as free range, you just need to open a door for five minutes a day and that's called free range. And the chicken live in a space by like two feet times two and they're like I don't know how many chicks inside. So it's like it's a fucking jail, but it's a scam's all. They all play with the perception of people.

Darren Lee: 1:20:07

You want to hear something crazy. So you know, when you're in America and it says like made in America or like the beef is from America, for America to say that in their products, all they need to do is do something to the product in the supply chain. So a lot of the meat comes from like south america, comes from like brazil or colombia or argentina, and they send it up and it's all factory firmed down there and they send it up and then they put a stamp and a stamp they put is made in america and because they put the stamp on, they're entitled to do it legally. It's fucked, man. Yeah, it's so like I've got food from whole foods and shit super expensive. Threw it on the pan and 400 grams or 200 grams of chicken, to keep it simple, just shriveled up into a tiny bowl and it's like 12, 13 dollars.

Darren Lee: 1:20:56

You know, what you do as a result of that, like what's the action there?

Alex: 1:21:00

I was about to say it. You're want to be truly rich or wealthy, buy a farm. Buy a farm. We're going back to the roots and it's needed, like I always think about farming, that's why buying land and things like that is cool. And if you have land, you have part. In fact, again, if you follow money, you see all these, you know billionaires. They're buying land. No one talks about it. But jeff bezos is buying so much land because he's going to control that food is never going to run out. So if you control foods, it's a big win. That's why buying whole foods is a was a great move by amazon. They're all buying acres and acres and acres of land just big deals, and that is giving them power or water. People are buying water. We're going back to roots because it's going to be needed. It's going to be expensive to survive and eat healthy food.

Alex: 1:21:54

So I'm not going to name drop anyone, but I was not close. But I was with this Italian politician, very influential in Italy, and his son told me some scary things. He told me that some class of people have to go and that's just how it is and it's for our survival and that's why certain things are happening in the world. Mind that I was like 19 when I heard that are happening in the world. Mind that I was like 19 when I heard that. And, to be fair, I'm always debating one thing like we always label these things as a very mean thing, but I keep a door open saying like I'm not in control of the world. But if I was, would I behave the same way. Are they things we don't understand that it's better that the common public doesn't understand because it's easy like, oh, this is evil, blah, blah, blah. And in many ways it is, but sometimes might be needed. But I wonder, I wonder. I like I can't imagine, even if I question that I still don't comply.

Darren Lee: 1:23:04

Let's say yeah, well, the average person doesn't have the tools to be able to deal with the reality of the world, like if you knew what was ever exactly happening. That's why you made a good point about, like, what can I control and that's a big thing for me too is that I'm aware of this and I take control of myself and my family around me, but I can only influence what I can influence and I'm not going to put my head up and be a martyr, right, because that's just like a stupid move to say, like it'd be to be the front of it and then you're just gonna get taken down, basically, right. So it's like, what can I do?

Alex: 1:23:32

part of my contribution that I want to expose myself to, um, because all the other stuff, as you mentioned, by this guy that's happening, like those things are happening, you know, uh it's a very thin line with, like said, you don't want to be a martyr but at the same time, you want to help your friends, exactly people around exactly yeah, so nowadays, doing that it's an art, yeah, and we've seen that people that are doing it well, people that are doing it aggressively and very impactful, but they get burned. So it's a very thin line to be able to know how to navigate that, and I think somewhat is needed. You know, like it's interesting to see that there is a resistance out there. Uh, free speech and all of that. We can can always question and be very thoughtful and actually try to understand the motives, for example, of why Elon Musk I don't know buy Twitters and promotes free speech. There's a bigger play there.

Alex: 1:24:34

But at the same time, it's cool to see that there is some common sense left and there's still people acting that way. Common sense, something that is missing nowadays, and I think like if you have common sense nowadays, you have a future on media, because people relate to that, like some people are just so on the left wing extreme, blah, blah, blah that they lack common sense because of that, and people that have some common sense easily get labeled as like conspiracy theorists or whatnot, but actually just fucking common sense in many ways. And seeing that they're getting together like I don't know funder of telegram, durov or tucker carson, mask trump, even to some degree, you know, like they're all, obviously they're all. They have their interests, but it's nice to see that there is a thinking mind behind that acts differently than the whole narrative that is trying to be pushed. Yeah, which is all this fucking pussy stuff.

Darren Lee: 1:25:31

What if you think about it right, If you go all the way back to the Roman times? So why the Colosseum was made was to suit people. There was lots of uprest in Rome. They wanted to become a Republican again and the only way, the only way they could keep people from revolting was by running games.

Alex: 1:25:48

And entertain them, entertain them.

Darren Lee: 1:25:50

What's modern entertainment? Social media, sport, all this shit is like modern entertainment to get people to sued, basically, and cope right. So I completely agree like we're losing more common sense, but it's actually been around forever because yeah yeah, they always try to control the narrative and when people don't have the base.

Darren Lee: 1:26:07

So we go back to the beginning of this conversation, which is like we don't have the base of stability, money, freedom, access, information. When you don't have that, you kind of scramble and I've seen my parents scramble for years, right, and as a result, you don't have time to think about all the other shit going on because you're just trying to survive, right? So what do we do with those people that are trying to survive? We occupy their brain with news, sport, tv shows, reality TV, keep them busy and we can focus on our own stuff. It's like a baby People talk about they don't want iPad kids. But the second your child starts screaming people put the fucking iPad there Right, because it can get them to be. Distracted. Child starts screaming people put the fucking ipad there right because they can get them to be distracted so you can focus on what you want to do.

Alex: 1:26:48

But again, there is a thin line as well, of course. For example, when you fly on planes during the day I don't know if you notice, but sometimes it's just dark in the plane. Why do they do that? Because if it was light, people would just stand up all the time, go to the bathroom, occupy all the corridors and ask for drinks non-stop, and the crew doesn't like it. They want to sit down and relax, so they keep, uh, everything dark. Yes, so at the macro level is the same thing.

Alex: 1:27:12

It's easier to control people if you control the narrative and you keep them busy, as you say. So actually you can see in the gladiator, the movie, how, how that is. Uh, that is part of the movie like there's a commodore trying to control or get influence in the city of rome and the empire of rome and he announces a I don't know a full month of games or like a full period of games, and then there's a gladiator coming in and killing him. But it's a side story, but it's interesting. As you said, it started. It was always there history doesn't repeat itself it runs Always.

Alex: 1:27:47

It's just like a different scale, because right now it's more global than local. Before it was more local than with internet and all the travel options and blah blah. We were all more interconnected. That's why we feel fear if there is an attack happening on the other side of the world. The same type of control. Why do they promote terrorist attacks around the world? Fear the world? The same type of control. Why do they promote terrorist attacks around the world? Yes, if they, if they like, logically thinking of common sense, if someone kills people in paris and their goal is to get attention, would I give them attention? No, I would. I would promote their game. But maybe it's intended to promote their game because they want to install fear. So the best thing if you actually want to stop terrorist attacks is not to talk about it. What's the point after that? If no one knows it happens, it would not have all this influence, but they want you to let you know that it happened. Why Fear? It's easier.

Darren Lee: 1:28:41

Well, fear is easier to control, so it's yeah, man, I've just seen that time and time again. You know, what's interesting is the fact that we can look at america and see that from the outset and we're like, oh yeah, like you know, mainstream media and whatever, but it's happening at a local level. It's happening everywhere but they don't realize it. So, especially in ireland, right, you have like one news channel that owns everything and everyone sits down 9 am, noon, 5 pm and 9 pm for the news, almost care how religious it is oh yes, and people sit down and they watch it religiously and they'll watch the car crashes, the murders, the rapists, all this shit pop up and up.

Darren Lee: 1:29:17

And then they go to international news wars, crime, whatever but instead of like, shilling the negative news, there's not one bit of positive news. Right, but we know this, obviously. But the impact then, as a result, as a result of this means that people are more fearful to leave. Why do you want people not to leave? Because you want them keeping the country right, and I know in particular ireland. We're not happy when a lot of young people our age got up, moved to australia or she would move to austral. It's really weird, but there's like 40,000 people went after this pandemic, which is, like most of the 20-year-olds, only 4 million people in Ireland, right, so it was interesting to observe, right, because if we told everyone that the world is scary, we can keep them here?

Alex: 1:29:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, during this pandemic it appeared that there would be the army at the border. That happened, no one that happened, I mean some places.

Darren Lee: 1:30:08

Yeah, happened in ireland it happened it was, but it was my partner flew in and, uh, they like detained her because they wanted to look at documents and everything, and it was the army that took her off the plane in ireland that's insane.

Alex: 1:30:21

It's reality. I traveled a lot during this pandemic, same. It was the best time to travel Best flights, best Cheapest flights.

Darren Lee: 1:30:30

Yeah, it was amazing man.

Alex: 1:30:31

No, it was amazing. But people were like, wait, how can you actually go there? I was like you take a car, you go to the airport and you take a fucking plane, but because of the fear people thought it was impossible. No, but because of the fear, people thought it was impossible. No, insane, insane.

Darren Lee: 1:30:46

I loved it, man. It was great. I was able to travel wherever I wanted. I was getting like seven-star hotels for like $40 a night and to Dubai.

Alex: 1:30:54

Everywhere.

Darren Lee: 1:30:54

Everywhere man. I was in Mexico, I was in Tulum. It was just such a nice time, right, yeah, yeah.

Alex: 1:31:02

It's counter-n.

Darren Lee: 1:31:02

Selfishly, I would repeat 2020 and that's what happens, even even in asia. Right, people are like, oh, it's so busy, it's like you should have seen in 2020.

Alex: 1:31:11

It was a lot better back then yeah, actually in a like in china uh, everything was more advanced than even america, with all the narratives. And control the social scores, if you can get on flights or not, if you have a low social score penalized, if you walk on the wrong side of the road, things like that. It's even scary. But what? What does that teach us? That? They're just a few years ahead, so it's coming here and they will find a way to make us think that that is okay.

Alex: 1:31:41

And I like the example of putting a frog in a pot and slowly start heating up the water till the frog gets comfortable, becomes warmer and warmer, and then frog starts being tired because of the heat and then it just doesn't, is not able to jump out of the pot anymore and gets cooked. We're getting cooked same way, slowly, slowly. But you're only aware if you put dots together, if you have time to think. People don't have time to think. I come home, they get influenced by the media and they think this is how it is. They never have time to think.

Alex: 1:32:17

That's why I feel like, yes, it is important to grind hard and make it a blah, blah, blah, but allocate time to actually see what's happening around you, to survive, to improve your business, to connect the dots, because once you connect them, you can't unsee them. All these random things happening around the world, all these terrorist attacks, all these things, what is the narrative? Where is it going? And when you see this, every time something happens you're like aha, all right, and then all these theories end up being true. But then, oh yeah, but now it's obvious that 9-11, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, back then you were policing that we have to you can't connect the dots forward, it's only backwards, right.

Alex: 1:33:00

Steve Jobs.

Darren Lee: 1:33:01

Yeah, and that's the whole reality with this stuff. But what I like about you, know your perspective on this is the fact that you're well equipped, right Going forward. You're not 21 year old figuring it out anymore. You know, you have the resources in place. Basically, you have the assets, you have the resources. I think that's what most people aren't thinking about that stuff, too, as well, which is why I was grinding so much for so many years, so that then, in the event of something happening, not even to do at a macro level, a micro level things are okay.

Alex: 1:33:30

we're able to take care of it. I think paranoid is, uh, it's not paranoid. Being being aware of what's going on is the first step. So then you realize the importance of being self-sufficient. Yeah, and, by the way, I don't think I'm fully self-sufficient. I don't have a fucking farm. If tomorrow they cut down the food supply, I'm fucked. So I'm not in full control, but I'm getting there. But yeah, as you say, people don't have the tools when they start out, and that's a very difficult place to be and it's not like things get easier, but over time you just have more tools. You're equipped to actually survive better. So I think to be full independent, you need to be able to provide for you and your family fully, not just financially, but like actually own the things that help you live. That's why I'm obsessed with having a farm and I'm checking farms since almost too long. I think I should just pull the trigger because I'm still comfortable. You know the frog in the pot. I can just go and deliver and order foods.

Darren Lee: 1:34:26

Yeah, but it's not reality okay, last question where would you buy the farm?

Alex: 1:34:32

I would buy multiple farms, but what if they shut down one and then I don't have the other one? That's why I need more than one jet park left and right.

Darren Lee: 1:34:39

You don't own the land, right, you think about it.

Alex: 1:34:41

No, even if you own the land, then maybe something happens in the country and they take it away. So if you want to be anti-fragile you have, you need more setups and you need to have more planes and means of travel so you can actually escape. You need an atomic like a bunker or something like that. You need it all you know like and in more places. Because if now in bali and it happens now I'm f-u-i-K-A-D, you know like, I cannot travel right away, so I need, in my idea I've had multiple jets, multiple farms, multiple bunkers, multiple everything Then I have some level of comfort. Right now it's still like I'm so fragile they block a flight. I'm stuck here.

Darren Lee: 1:35:20

Block a bank account, block a social media platform? Yeah, you know, you're always one click away from them. Yeah, I want to say a big thank you. I feel like we could go for a couple of hours, man. Hopefully you enjoyed the session, hopefully it was different, and uh, yeah, man, it's just fucking sick. I loved it.

Alex: 1:35:34

Oh, thanks for having me, man.