From Addiction to Advocacy ft. Darren Prince | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 59

0:03What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Coffee's Proposers where we dive deep into stories of perseverance, success, and business transformation. Today's guest is Darren Prince, a celebrity sports agent and entertainment agent, entrepreneur, and author. Darren's journey from overcoming addiction to representing some of the world's biggest names in the world, including Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Dennis Rodman, has made him a powerful voice in both business and personal development. and personal development. Tune in as Darren shares the lessons he's learned from his incredible career and personal battles, offering invaluable insights on success, recovery, and maintaining balance.

0:52Please welcome me in joining Darren Prince. Thanks for having me, man. All right, Darren. Thanks a couple of times, but I made it. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for your patience and getting, getting over here. You know, I know it's a, it's a bit of a struggle coming from LA. Yes. We're all good. So I appreciate you. I like to start the show. I kind of briefly mentioned with the same question I ask everybody. And Darren, what's your morning routine? I got a pretty consistent one. I wake up, walk my dog, got a little bit of red light therapy. I got a lamp on my bed. I've got my grounding sheets. So that puts me right into a state of mind that's important to me for inflammation, brain health, all around health.

1:39I usually get about a one-hour workout in, do some meditation, and my hydrogen water. Hydrogen? Hydrogen water. I'm also very close with Gary Preck. I'm on the 10x wellness routine. So I do a lot to work on my physical state, my emotional state, my mental state. That's a great morning routine. I mean, that's a very, very thorough biohacking morning routine. And then five days a week, sometimes six, I hit my 12-step spiritual recovery, Munich's. One hour a day. One hour a day of spiritual recovery? it's a bunch of spiritual recovered addicts and alcoholics and you know 40 to 50 people whether I walk into a church basement or log on to a zoom meeting and that just brings me back into my purpose which is most important in life helping other people that are struggling that's awesome that's awesome Dan and that's you know living that life of perpetual purpose is just really what's keeping you going.

2:48It's everything. It's not the money. It's not the... No, man. I was with Magic Johnson two days ago. I've been a dear friend for 30 years. We were up at the Marriott in Beverly Hills and standing outside in the parking lot. And I told him I had to go back to see my mom. I'm originally from New Jersey. Moved out to LA seven years ago and had to take an Uber after dinner to get back to my hotel. There was four different Ubers to choose from. I just picked one that looked like it was the quickest. and a 40-year-old gentleman driving. Just wasn't happy. I could tell we just got in this whole deep conversation about life, and I told him about my journey.

3:23That I had a God moment on July 2nd, 2008, and I've been super ever since. And my life is about helping people, whether it's mental health, depression, anxiety, substance abuse. And he literally stopped the car, pulled over, turned around with tears in his eyes that he just left a detox center that morning. and his Medicaid insurance would only cover 48 hours. And I said, well, if you believe in miracles, I said, God put me in this Uber tonight because I have my aiming high 501c3 foundation that scholarship people that can't afford to go to treatment for substance abuse and mental health. He's checking into the facility right now.

4:03Wow. Parents went and talked to him. Kids cut him off. Life went and talked to him. call me two nights because they've never been so happy and he can't ever thank me enough that's incredible so you're you're 513c it's called the aiming high foundation that's awesome yeah which is the name of my book my book was called aiming high what an incredible story and it you know that's not serendipity that is just fate i told davy goggins on saturday i've been his agent for you know a few years now and he was at a lewis house event um lucid my guy too he's great and we're in the green room and he just uh he's like bro what's happening with you know work man how's life whatever i haven't seen in a couple months and i go bro i gotta tell you a story and i told him and he literally got up from the chair in the green room and just gave me a big old bro hug like he goes that is so badass man he goes so he got two of the most respected prominent people in the world you know two of them with Magic and Goggins.

5:06And I connect more with them about that stuff than any amount of business that we do. It's easy to make money for the people that I work for. But I've always been about the personal relationship. And every single one of them have had their own adversity, which is what this is about. Every guest you have on here, it's the trials and tribulations. Yeah, we've gotten to the external space of success. But what if you dealt with internally and how you've evolved and allowed those opportunities to actually make you better, smarter, wiser, and then what you do to help others when you get there. You know, the next question I have for you, Darren, just so the audience knows it, just has more context other than my introduction.

5:46Like, what is a 20 ,000 foot overview of what you actually do? Okay, so I'm a sports and entertainment agent. I started Prince Marketing Group in 1994. Magic Johnson was my first client, still is to this day. I worked for Muhammad Ali, Smoke, and Joe Frazier. They've both since passed. Jerry West was a dear friend and client, passed away on June 12th, which I'm still crushed over. We've got clients, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Charlie Sheen, Carmen Electra, David Goggins, Larry Bird, Dominique Wilkins. I just got to have fun with him. You're their sports agent. Yeah. but basically there's so we basically focus on endorsements commercials keynote speeches um any sort of branding opportunities social media campaigns all that type of you know marketing opportunities um by the way i'm gonna talk to you maybe i can do some collabs with some of those folks that'd be great yeah for sure i know everybody yeah you know everybody for sure and those are just the names i'm remembering we really know we have a great roster chevy chase Chase has been my guy for 30 years.

6:55So you do all of the other stuff outside of their normal job? Yeah. I mean, most of them I've been with during the course of the height of their careers too. So there was, it's a strange time, but for the better, like back then you would think the commercial opportunities and the marketing the torsions were big, but now they're all so iconic, the majority of them, that what's old is new again and everything's retro. Yeah. And most of the young stars of today pay such mad respect to my clients that it's in their own way, it's also kept them super relevant where their marketability is at like an all time high.

7:36Yeah. Just to be candid, your clients, like there aren't clients like that anymore. Like the current celebrities are like YouTubers. Exactly. They're, you know, in the they're basically you know in tiktokers exactly they're not iconic brands like hulk hogan magic johnson these are legends you represent legends man and they um they embrace it and and and they love it you know they're there for their fans otherwise they couldn't be able to work for them you know i see the way they are running out in public and getting mobbed and getting bombarded they want to make sure everybody gets time they want to make sure they show their appreciation which isn't exactly the young culture today because you all see something on tmz or social media where they'll rush through and avoid fans and i'm like shake my head over that because you know as an agent i represent them and they represent me so you know the to me there's just no need for that sort of behavior now there's a time and a place yeah you don't walk over to a dinner table at a restaurant when they're having dinner with their family you wait for them to get up and then approach them because that I feel is a little bit inappropriate.

8:49Allow them to be who they are. I'm curious, you work with the elites of entertainment. What is the general personality that you see, the general personality characteristics and traits? Do you see a humility like Hulk for example he seems like a really humble godly guy always they all had moments of adversity but they've all had this unstoppable mindset hulk first went over to japan in the 70s to wrestle and the wrestlers intentionally broke his leg and he just used it as fuel to people of his body get stronger get wiser and said he's never letting that happen again so when he came back the next around a year or so later, you know, he was more in a mental and physical state of mind to just understand the game.

9:42And, you know, you said a couple of minutes ago, I mean, it's one of the most iconic figures in the world whose brand has now transcended four generations, 40 years. I mean, we could be at events, keynotes, appearances, whatever it might be. The amount of six, seven, eight-year-olds wearing Hulkamania gear that never saw him wrestle unless it's on YouTube or their father or their uncles are telling stories. It's remarkable. He actually humbled me one day. I was down in Clearwater Beach a few years ago. And I call him Terry. His real name is Terry Bollea. And I went with three of my agents to get like a couple of days with them.

10:22And we went for sushi. And we're all sitting at the sushi bar when I got up to go to valet to give the valet guy Hulk's car ticket. there was about a hundred people standing behind us at the sushi bar waiting for him to get up probably took him a half hour to get outside another 20 people following him outside in the park and i look at him and i'm like i got this look on my face because brother what's wrong and i said terry we come out here to hang out with terry bolea and it's still the hulk holgan show like i want to just get our bonding time because personal relationship is everything to me well any of my clients will tell you that put his hand on my shoulder good brother remember this if the world didn't treat me if I was still the heavyweight champion you and I wouldn't be boys because there never would be a connection initially over business so I gotta make sure every single person gets to tell me their story the the highlights and the times in their life where they were unhappy and they watched a match and you know they got their mind out of a very dark place to have the thrill of watching me with their father, their uncle, whatever it might have been.

11:30And I'm like, you know, it's a good point. I'll never complain again. You know, that sort of mindset, that kind of celebrityhood, the type of guy that Hulk is, I don't think that there's a lot of celebrities that exist like that anymore. No, they're not. It's like you said earlier. They just rush through. They don't give the fans time. They don't really know. God gave Hulk Hogan so much and he literally just gives it back. He's always telling people how to live their life, how to improve their life, how to be better human beings. And same with Magic Johnson, who you also represent. Magic's what he's done.

12:08Irvin, I call him by his real name, Irvin. What he's done. I mean, not since probably Muhammad Ali will we ever see a post-career legacy, but Magic's actually done in the business world. to a level that he told me in 1996 we're in honolulu hawaii i booked him for a keynote we knew each other for a couple years at that point we're having lunch at the elikai hotel overlooking the ocean beautiful setting and he uh he goes what was that talk that we had a couple years ago because you remember i was like yeah i wound up getting out of i had a baseball card company i went from a mail order baseball card company i sold at a million dollars when i was 19 years old to doing private autograph signings with athletes and celebrities.

12:54That's where I met a lot of my talent. I eventually got out of that company and had an informal meeting with Irvin Magic at his hotel room in Michigan. I told him my vision. I made a terrible mistake in the memorabilia business that I wrote about in my book. I was investigated by the FBI for mail fraud. you want to talk about challenging times, got off. They charged me with making a false statement about one of the suppliers, which I trusted. During those two years, he was selling me product and he wound up actually going to prison. It was a major fraud ring for fraudulent autograph memorabilia.

13:33But the bulk of my business, we were actually doing autograph signings in person with some of these icons. The judge realized I made a mistake. And they charged me with a felony record making a false statement, bro, I lost everything. I went from having millions of dollars in my early 20s to being almost a million dollars in debt. And this fly fishing trip in Alaska with my dad changed our lives. I took my last three grand. My dad was so pissed, but fishing was always our thing. And on that boat, he's like, what's your next move? He goes, you're going to stay in the business? I'm like, no, dad, I want to be an agent.

14:06I just don't have eight years to go to law school. And he drops the fishing pole and he looks at me this gorgeous stream in Alaska. And he's like, law school, life is about who you know, not what you know. Joe Montana, Chevy Chase, Magic Johnson. He goes, you're dialed with the biggest people in the world. He goes, just tell Magic your vision. I bet I'll help you. And so I was with him back to the initial part of the story. I'm with him in Michigan. And I told him, he knew what I was going through, stuck by me, knew I made a mistake. He goes, look, you're a good dude. and you made a mistake. And I know about making mistakes.

14:42This was only a few years from his HIV announcement. And he's like, God tests great man and woman and you're being tested now and you're going to make lemonade out of lemons. But here's what I'm going to do for it. I'm going to give you two years to be my agent. If you don't use those two years to knock down every door utilizing me to build your agency, I'm going to fire you because life isn't about how successful I become, Darren. I'm going to be a success in the world of retired athletes that I've never seen before. He goes, it's about how successful I can make you and everybody else around me because when you get there, then you're going to pay for other people.

15:21Wow. That's an incredible story. That's an incredible story about magic. That's a testament to magic's personality. Everyone knows, and I've been, you know, magic's been a hero to me since I was six or seven years old. but you know just to see and i i had the opportunity to meet magic in person at a keynote speech that he did and he is probably one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs i've ever met and he's diversified his portfolio like and amassed so so many different businesses but one thing that's similar with every business that he starts is it's intentional and it's to serve. And he's always looking and seeking to do God's work.

16:03Yep. Always. And always wanting to better the communities. You know, there's slogans we are the communities we serve. And he just surrounded himself with such an elite team too. He utilized his platform as a mega MBA start during his playing career. He would go out to the quirt side seats an hour before the game to do shoot around and stretching so he can network with all the power people in Hollywood. Because you know, at that time, if he could cultivate relationships, make lunch appointments, dinner appointments, go to their office, that at a certain point his career is going to be over. So now he's got those relationships.

16:41Yeah. Nobody thought about that back then, but him. He was really a trailblazer. He was really a trailblazer. As a matter of fact, and I told you yesterday, we launched Dan Fleischman's mortgage company. and the intention behind it is to help celebrities, entertainers, etc., who have a show and everyone knows that that show is going to end. We had a couple of use cases that presented some professional athletes who have amassed a wealth of a portfolio, 40 properties, during the time the show happened. And then the show ended and guess what? The show is over. I got 40 properties. you know and the target audience the demographic is to you know rappers athletes to help them amass a real estate portfolio because one thing that it's going to do two things it's going to do is one it's going to help them build wealth but more importantly it's going to help them stay grounded so that while the wealth is coming they're not out partying doing drugs whatever else comes with with success they're like oh i got tenants i gotta fix the toilet i i can't go out and party or whatever it is you know like i got i'm a landlord you know like i got lawsuits so worry but whatever it is you know like it helps them keep that mindset so it helps them continue on that path of success and that's kind of like the journey or the vision that i had for this because you know leveraging that that that group um and and really just helping them to serve those people because they're they're clueless you know these entertainers these you had a couple youtubers young youtubers at the event you know some of the most uh well-known they're like the current like you know backstreet boys or whatever it is you know when they go out into public people are screaming 19 years old buying properties and i'm like i'm using them as use cases and i work with them myself but like there's so much need in that community because they they impact they're the the influential people who are impacting the next generation so you know just to kind of drive more attention to to them and help them so because they're the ones who are helping our kids you know You know, getting back to what we were talking about before the interview, I told you I'm a partner in a private equity group called the Legacy Fund.

18:52My boy, James Amorosi, Kevin Harrington, the Shark Tank judge, Dominique Wilkins, exact same mission. It's about educating athletes, entertainers, minorities, certain communities that don't have the education about financial literacy. And next year, we'll be breaking ground on the first Dominique Wilkins Financial Literacy Center. and what we're doing is athletes entertainers more so athletes because they die twice for that expression they die once their career is over and then when it happens naturally they don't know what to do yeah they're lost and the majority of them go broke within five six seven years football players are hurt with her in two years yeah so what our focus is is allowing them not just to invest in unique opportunities with the incredible due diligence team that we have, but to give that opportunity to actually be on the board of advisors for the companies they work for.

19:50So they actually have a purpose now. So just like you said, they're not in Vegas. They're not popping bottles, dropping 10, 20 grand a night, not blowing their money on stupid crap, like crazy cars and taking 20 people on vacations because they're role models. And what happens, just like you said about the young youtubers other parts of that generation looks up to that yeah and so now you're just repeating the cycle instead of breaking the cycle that it's about the long game yeah you know yeah and if you live a certain way for a certain reasonable period of time you'll have anything you've ever wanted anyway and what i've seen especially for working for the icons and the legends that I have, doesn't mean as much once they get to that point, because you're now so disciplined and so driven with what you're doing.

20:43And you see the ability that these businesses you're a part of have to give back and give other people opportunities. Yeah, of course you enjoy your life and you do what you want to do, but it's the mentality is so different than what it would have been when you look back 10, 15 years earlier, or when you're in the primary career because you just realize you're actually building and scaling something that could potentially be generational wealth. So why go out there and live in a certain lack mentality, which the majority of retired athletes do and a lot of young superstar athletes still do. They don't have the education.

21:17They typically come from nothing. They're handed a ton of money, ton of opportunities, and they think it's never going to end. And guess what? one day you wake up and it's over. It's a finite show. It's a very finite show. One of the things I'm proud of is I had a young YouTuber and we got him into a house. His first property is going to probably amass probably 50 properties by the time he's 23. But the first video he did, he did a video going to his house, 18 years old. Millions of kids saw this kid buying a house. What do you think that's going to do? It's helping the future generations instill this entrepreneurial mindset, not just like, I'm going to dig off from my life.

21:54And then with what you guys are doing in the financial literacy piece, and that's great, there's so much opportunity in homeownership and amassing a real estate portfolio now that we can help you guys in terms of collaborating or adding another ecosystem to help these guys acquire real estate. Because that's the easiest thing. Because if you tell people financial literacy and stocks, and put your money in these bonds or Bitcoin or whatever. They're these intangibles. Exactly. They're these intangibles. They're just like, and there's a lot of reluctance in believing that. And so you got sports agents are telling their football athletes, put it in the stock market, put it here.

22:35Like, no, put in this property that you can go to and kick the tenant out yourself. Use your brute to get the tenant out if he doesn't want to, or whatever. Go fix the toilet yourself. Like, this is a little bit more tangible, hands-on. And produce some passive income. Produce some passive income. and you know and dan's fleischman said this yesterday it's like the biggest regret anybody has with real estate that they sold their real estate yeah like there's no one that said oh i said you know no one goes oh i you know sold the right like the biggest regret anybody has you look back at the properties you sold over the years like damn we should have sold that yeah i should have kept that yeah there's there's never been one piece of property that we've been happy about selling exactly but i'm like oh my god i'm so glad i sold that yeah it's later like oh that was such an idiot you know so so we apply that mindset get these guys buying properties and just like don't worry just buy and buy and just you know you'll depreciate you'll make a killing on your tax you know deductions right now and you know don't worry about it it'll work itself out exactly rents just keep going up but it gives them a model yeah we have to find some synergy yeah there's definitely a lot of synergy i think that we can help in that foundation with whatever you know because i i really believe with what in what we're doing to help at a macro level and for me it's not like i'll do it for free like you know it for me it's the vision of helping these guys and and you know like greg let's go was up there yesterday like such an intelligent athlete you know just he inspired the whole entire crowd because you see this athlete talking about real estate talking about llc's talking about protecting his assets talking about amassing a wealth portfolio talking about being able to like retire now he's 39 years old how long does the skateboard his career last it's over you know like it's over at 39 years old you got maybe a few months left you're like a senior citizen in that world you're like a senior citizen exactly you know um but he's ready he's ready for retirement he's ready to to basically take his game to the next level he's buying a couple more units we just closed on a three-unit forum in michigan but these guys could buy all over the country you got eric spofford buying teaching just general broke americans to invest and Section 8 housing.

24:43People have no idea what kind of, like paying 30 % cash on cash returns in real estate. So there's just so much opportunity and so easy. Right now with the products that we have, you don't need income to show. You just literally need your down payment. So these rappers, these athletes who don't have consistent income, all can get into properties like that. That's amazing. And so they don't need to worry about, oh, I don't have tax return. I just got this hit record and that's all I've ever done, you know? Like, no, we can get you, like, take that money, roll it into. And develop some wealth preservation habits.

25:16Immediately. You know, immediately. It's going to ground you. It's going to, and it's going to force you to want to do it again. Yep. And so your career is going to have longevity and you're going to have wealth and a legacy. So that's kind of the mindset that I have kind of going into the vision that I'm going to help Dan with. And we're rolling with that as he kind of goes on with it. Right. You know, and whatever I could do to help you guys with whatever you guys are doing. And I'm doing a lot of speaking engagements, kind of informing the community, especially since we're because the mortgage community or the mortgage space has been.

25:47Taboo since the crash. So there hasn't been a lot of like, you know, resources to the given to the general public. It's been like taboo, like, hey, especially in the like I'm a broker and a banker. So we broke brokers, especially us. We've gotten the biggest stigma. We were the cause of the crash. Right. So now coming back into this space, it's like we have the ability to help people beyond belief. And we just kind of need to make, we have to really just echo that message. So people are just knowledgeable about what's really going on. Financial literacy. Financial literacy is important, but there's a stigma with that too.

26:26It's like, I don't need to worry about credit repair. I don't need to, I don't care about my credit cards. It's like, no, financial literacy is like complete financial literacy, home ownership. It's which is pretty much the most important thing right now for financial literacy. And especially because if you do it right at a young enough age, when you don't need the money, the banks and the lenders will give it to you. When you need it, if you don't do it right, good luck getting it. That's right. So, Darren, you know, what's fascinating. We talked earlier, like you started your first company at what age?

27:0014, 1984. 14 years old. What age did you know you were an entrepreneur? I was probably an entrepreneur, 10 or 11. I know you haven't lived here your whole life. I don't know if they make them anymore. They used to make juicy fruit gum, big red and wrigglies, and they would put a pack of 10 in a strip for 99 cents. I'd go through like a hundred bags, maybe more a week where I was buying them for 99 cents and selling them out of my locker for a quarter of a pack. So I was two and a half times on my money. I pay a couple of my big Italian football player friends. I'm still close with this day to stand guard in front of my locker.

27:39So people weren't stealing quarters or packs of gum. And oh, you know, I was crushing it. I mean, that one on nobody at the school even cared. It was great. And then my father was in direct mail coupon advertising just wasn't for me. And I had a severe learning disability. Apparently growing up i was put in small classrooms which we can get into how that sort of affected my eventual drug addiction because of my lack of self-worth and self-esteem and the only thing i liked was this business teacher elliot lowvy who i'm still close with this to this day and he's now retired when my book aiming high came out in 2018 they invited me back to speak to my entire high school he coordinated the whole thing which was very special and he challenged the class one day to go home and create a business.

28:28Now, in my mind, I had one. Even though I wasn't executing it, I would have three different jobs. I was squeezing orange juice. I was a busboy. And I worked in the stockroom at a sneaker store. And all my friends that were getting into dating could care less about baseball cards. So I'd buy all their collections. And then the ones that wanted to hold them, they cared more about these players, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Don Mattingly, Daryl Strubbe, Roger Clemens. But I knew that a lot of them got these older cards from their uncles and their fathers. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Drew, DiMaggio, Babe Ruth.

29:02And do you have any of those cards? 100X. I would give them the newer players that I would get out of packs and I would take their old cards. Wow. Because I would give them a card that might be worth five or 10 bucks, but everybody knew. And this old card, I would look up in the price, it got to be worth 100 or 200. And I did that for about a year so before i knew it i had a collection of about nine nine or ten grand worth of cards and i asked my dad then i just said hey mr uh lovy challenged the class to go home and create a business i need insurance for my baseball cards my dad thinks i'm a little bit crazy at this point what do you need i'm like i don't know probably nine or something because all right i'll get you a thousand dollars worth of home insurance in case we ever get a flood i got no dad nine grand he goes how the hell do you have 9 ,000 artists of Facebook because I run upstairs show them the price guide come down with a box of cards because who can you sell it to and I said it's funny you said that I opened up this big newspaper it's this big the local paper in Livingston it's called the West Cessna Tribune and the local holiday and had a card show coming up in two weeks for 20 bucks you get an 8 foot table so Steve Simon runs my agency now Prince Marketing Group we go back yeah 40 44 years i've known since i was 10 we decided to put up 10 bucks each he was going to get four feet i was going to get a four feet the only difference is steve just threw some cards in a box the morning of the show because he was doing it just for more fun i spent two weeks every single night after school preparing perfect signs and the layout and uh very over the top the display cases and i made over a thousand dollars on that afternoon at 14 he made 50 bucks wow he had a good time but he just you know really didn't have a vision to create a a baseball card empire and i just dove in that was it i mean i was doing cart shows every weekend i was running ads and the bible publication back then of the hobby called sports collectors digest i was the first uh one of the first people in the state of new jersey i think to get a cell phone when i was 14 it's a company called bell atlantic in 1984 and the phone cost me three grand and it was three dollars a minute and i had a rubber antenna in a leather case and i'd have it in my locker so in between class i'd be able to call up it actually had like a a voice a computerized voice that would tell you who called that was the best technology back then and i would call a stockbroker back and these guys all started getting to know me for my ads and on the weekend i would go to shows find the cards that they wanted, upcharge them.

31:36Yeah, it eventually became so big that I dropped out of college my freshman year. Sold it probably about a year after college for about a million bucks, the whole company. Wow. You know, the crazy thing is if you look back at what cards you probably had in your collection. Oh, bro, I got a picture of a Holiness Wagner card in my phone right now. I just posted it on social media two weeks ago. 1990 or 91, I picked it up for$75 ,000 from a private buyer. flipped it 24 hours later i took 20 friends to an italian restaurant in west orange i don't even think it's there anymore new jersey called 91 that's i flipped the card for 125 grand i made 50k on the flip in 24 hours kenny golden it's got the biggest auction house in the world right now he's a dear friend of mine since i was a teenager uh i've sent him i sent down ravelle the picture they both like send me crying emojis that's probably a seven and a half to ten million who are today.

32:32Oh, yeah. Because they're, and it's actually Kenny Golden because I watched that show. I love that show, by the way. Great show. I got Ric Flair on there and a couple of clients. You got Ric Flair on that show? I got Ric on there the first season. I saw that episode. And in that show, he mentioned that cards and comic books go up more than like quadruple what stocks are. Oh, it's not even close. It's like. It's far surpassed real estate and every other it's the greatest asset you can buy the collectible market is unreal it's and it's not slowing down it's not slowing down because now especially if they're unique enough even the new modern day stuff the car companies are getting smart and they're starting to these insert cards these rare signed insert cards and i mean the rappers when they had fanatics fest last month i know we had hulk there i didn't make it um it was just insane they had 200 000 people there And you've got Travis Scott buying cards.

33:33You've got Dana White buying cards. These box breaks now apparently are exploding. You have stock workers that have no problem buying an open box of 2024 cards from Topps or Upper Deck for$100 ,000 a box to open 24 packs, hoping that there's a card in there worth a few million dollars. That's a one of one. You know, it's like artwork. It's unbelievable. the culture behind it and it's exciting because i was a card collector my whole life too and i still i still buy cards so i'm still a collector i i got back into it during the pandemic and through 2021 i put a ton of stuff that's sitting in my safe i'm just riding it out i don't have the time to buy sell and flip anymore and it's really elevated with the psa grading and everything so and they're right down here psa they're here in orange county they're around this area yeah yeah i didn't know that yeah yeah yeah but the slapping takes forever man you gotta really be patient unless you're paying like a rush service you know i think most people are waiting anywhere from standard rush is like two to two to three months to get cards back and then if it's uh if it's like basic standard i've heard people are waiting like six to eight months or more wow there was a time i'll tell you it was crazy during the pandemic when i was sending all my stuff down there my assistants uh i was driving them crazy they're getting 10 15 packages a day of raw cards so they have to write out the form fill it out upload it send it you actually didn't care if it took a little bit longer because they were so backed up with covid and they didn't have the biggest stuff because your money was better sitting in those cards waiting for the lottery ticket to show up three or four months later and open up the box and it slept i mean there wasn't one purchase that I made where when those cards came back slabbed, the value didn't minimum double in a period of three to four months.

35:29That's how hot that was at the market back then. So, and I know it's still super strong. It's incredible. I love to say it. I mean, like, cause I'm not really buying like I once was, I got back into it for a year and a half during the pandemic, but I still get a shows cause a lot of my guys sign autographs and I love walking around. I've got relationships with friends that I've known for 40 years. and, you know, just seeing a lot of these young dynamos and in the hobby that were like me and now they've got way more ability to make incredible amounts of money compared to what I had back then because there was no Internet, you know?