In short
Episode topic: Tyler, the winner of Beast Games 2, discusses his $5,106,000 prize, taxes, secrecy/NDAs, how MrBeast paid him, his military background, and what he thinks Beast Games tests and how it’s edited/controversy affects viewership.
Guest backgrounds
Tyler is a U.S. military pilot in a rigorous two-year pipeline. He flies MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicles (drone/UAS). He says he was selected for the “strong team” after applying via Instagram, with vetting based on background (including college football and prior show experience).
Key claims
He kept the win secret for eight months; only his wife knew. MrBeast sent the money via direct deposit, and Tyler says it hit his bank account on the 25th (after filming the reunion on the 26th). He expects federal taxes to reduce the final amount, estimating worst case around $3.5M and hoping for $4.0–$4.5M. He says he couldn’t split winnings with others due to contract rules.
Notable examples
He describes Beast Games challenges (strong challenge trap doors; hardest physical: hanging from poles ~100–200 feet; hardest mental: “cubes” for hours). He says Polymarket predictions were stressful because people messaged him screenshots. He also criticizes character development as sometimes boring, and notes cameras in dorms and mic’d bathrooms.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOWinning Beast Games 2
0:34 to 1:15
Hear about the journey and challenges of winning $5 million in Beast Games.
“It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.”
Tax Strategies After Winning
1:15 to 1:50
Discover how the winner is managing taxes and financial strategies.
“Tyler from Beast Games 2, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour.”
Receiving the Prize Money
1:50 to 2:26
Listen to the winner's experience of receiving the $5 million prize.
“and try to mitigate as much as we can, man.”
Plans for the Money
2:26 to 3:56
Explore how the winner plans to invest and manage the prize money.
“But that exact feeling, let's say it's in the moment, take your mind back to when the money hits your account.”
Balancing Military Service and Competition
3:56 to 5:00
Learn how the winner balanced military duties with competing in Beast Games.
“Because there's been multiple times where I've been away from family due to the natures of my work.”
The Application Process for Beast Games
5:00 to 6:12
Get insight into the application and selection process for the competition.
“It was a time where our manning was low, so it was more difficult to take that time off, but I had so many great supervisors and leadership that were so supportive of this unique opportunity.”
Strategies in Beast Games
6:12 to 7:18
Understand the strategies the winner employed to succeed in the competition.
“I work with a great group of people, very supportive.”
Experience Without Technology
7:18 to 8:08
Hear about the challenges of being without phone or internet during the competition.
“And then, uh, went through the whole process.”
Challenges Faced in Beast Games
8:08 to 9:30
Explore the physical and mental challenges encountered during the competition.
“It was another physical competition and then just military experience that I would be better suited for the strong team.”
Challenges in Beast Games
14:00 to 15:35
Explore the physical and mental challenges faced in Beast Games.
“Cause like they have like these little rings that you can kind of put your feet on, but they're very tiny and like, they kind of broke.”
Show all 49 chapters
Social Dynamics of Beast Games
17:17 to 21:27
Discuss the social experiment aspect of Beast Games and its effects on player behavior.
“You know, he puts us in these crazy situations where money is involved, challenges and stuff.”
Skill and Strategy in Competition
21:27 to 22:26
Examine how skills and strategies influence success in competitions like Beast Games.
“But you would say that it was a test of social intelligence.”
First Impressions of MrBeast
22:26 to 25:08
Hear about the initial interactions and perceptions of MrBeast during the competition.
“I think when I got to the top 10, when we got to the top 10, after seeing our families, I knew I had like a 10 % chance.”
Critique of Beast Games
25:08 to 28:04
A review of aspects that could be improved in future seasons of Beast Games.
“He had a lot of like famous influencers, streamers come through.”
Adjusting to Constant Surveillance
28:04 to 30:00
Learn how the contestants adapted to being filmed 24/7 during the competition.
“So the one thing I was curious about, because there were cameras everywhere.”
Bathroom Privacy and Mic Troubles
30:00 to 31:34
Discover the humorous challenges contestants faced regarding bathroom privacy and microphones.
“And then you're going to go see the, the audio people to get mic'd up after that.”
Controversies and Their Impact
33:00 to 35:06
Explore how controversies affected the show's viewership and contestant dynamics.
“Like I saw on season one, you know, there was a lot of backlash for the living conditions and stuff like that.”
Navigating Game Rules and Alliances
35:06 to 38:24
Understand the strict rules around money-sharing and the formation of alliances during the games.
“very strict um with that rule and they did not want to affect their chances of moving forward or getting eliminated from that or potentially getting paid out their money.”
Relationships and Rivalries
38:24 to 41:10
Learn about the dynamics of friendships and rivalries among contestants.
“Some people would, you know, just be playing very hard and people saw that, which kind of made them a target.”
Surprising Revelations from the Show
41:10 to 42:00
Hear about unexpected insights contestants gained when watching the show back.
“No, I don't think I had any enemies, man.”
Revelations from the Game: Insights on Alliances
42:00 to 43:19
Learn about the unexpected competitive nature of alliances in reality shows.
“seeing some of the conversations other people had was was interesting because you know you're seeing them and like you just remember like engaging with them throughout the the season in the show and stuff.”
The Secret of Winning: Keeping it Under Wraps
43:20 to 44:59
Discover the challenges of keeping a major win a secret for months.
“It was eight months of keeping it a secret.”
Betting Insights: The Risks of Prediction Markets
45:00 to 46:39
Explore the stress and strategies behind betting on reality show outcomes.
“What's crazy, though, is that the winner was spoiled.”
Navigating NDAs and Social Media Activity
46:40 to 48:09
Understand the complexities of NDAs in reality TV and social media behavior.
“Well, not necessarily stalking, but looking at for activity.”
The Challenge of Newfound Wealth: Strategies and Stress
48:10 to 49:29
Discuss the joy and stress of managing a sudden influx of money.
“I guess I'm only recently into Polymarket and I watch a lot of the odds.”
Future Plans: Investing and Real Estate Aspirations
49:30 to 50:39
Learn about potential investment strategies and real estate goals.
“were you unable to spend any of the money because that would be a display of newfound wealth no i I mean, I, as soon as like, like for, I think it was episode.”
Work-Life Balance After Winning Big
50:40 to 51:59
Explore how winning a large sum affects job satisfaction and life balance.
“So there's a lot of questions in the air.”
Becoming a Real Estate Professional: The Path Ahead
52:00 to 52:59
Discuss the requirements and challenges of entering the real estate market.
“So the stress of like making the right smart investment decisions is there for sure.”
Advice on Entering the Rental Property Market
53:00 to 55:04
Get insights on the current challenges of investing in rental properties.
“So you're going to be a real estate professional?”
Handling Family and Friends Post-Windfall
55:05 to 56:00
Understand the dynamics of relationships after a financial windfall.
“Well, she's had several calls with him and his team.”
Plans for the Prize Money
56:00 to 56:40
Discussion about the winner's plans for spending their prize money.
“She, she worked really hard to get her job.”
Unexpected Requests for Money
56:40 to 58:10
The winner shares experiences of receiving money requests from strangers.
“All of these other people that you know, they're reaching out to you, they're asking for money.”
Travel Plans and Family Vacations
58:10 to 1:00:30
Talking about desired family vacations and the logistics of traveling with kids.
“Never would have guessed this would have happened.”
Instilling Values in Children
1:00:30 to 1:03:00
Discussion on the importance of teaching children the value of hard work and financial responsibility.
“So, um, but if we were to fly first class, it would have to be like a trip to like Asia, you know, Korea or something like that, or go to Europe or something like that.”
Connections and Recognition
1:05:43 to 1:07:09
The winner talks about being recognized and reaching out for support after the show.
“Any, like, cool people that have showed up?”
Feeling Rich and Staying Grounded
1:07:09 to 1:08:28
Exploration of the winner's perspective on wealth and their continued work ethic.
“It's cool to let them know that I appreciate their support because it's a lot of people that came up and that were rooting for me.”
Financial Mindset and Early Lessons
1:08:28 to 1:10:00
Reflection on the winner's early understanding of money and smart financial habits.
“Um, still serving, um, still busy, still limited with time off and, you know, the, the chance to do whatever I want, you know, uh, I, I barely see my kids as it is, uh, right now with my work schedule.”
Mindset of a Winner: Financial Wisdom from Beast Games
1:10:00 to 1:12:04
Learn about the financial mindset of a Beast Games winner and their approach to newfound wealth.
“I'm pretty cheap and it takes a lot for me to buy things for myself.”
The Risks of Real Estate Investing
1:12:04 to 1:14:06
Explore the challenges and concerns associated with investing in real estate.
“games last, we'll ball out and live that lavish lifestyle.”
Strategies for Limiting Real Estate Footprint
1:14:06 to 1:15:54
Discuss strategies for limiting real estate investments and focusing on safer options.
“So like a lot of those I couldn't predict because they didn't even exist yet.”
The Burden of Being a Landlord
1:15:54 to 1:17:48
Understand the mental strain of being a landlord and the associated responsibilities.
“That's what I, I mean, I'm doing the tax free media bonds, but I also have some government bonds on the side.”
Stock Market Insights and Investment Strategies
1:17:48 to 1:19:54
Gain insights into stock market investments and the experiences of various investors.
“I would probably echo most of what he says.”
Timing and Luck in Investments
1:19:54 to 1:22:14
Discover how timing and intuition can lead to successful investments.
“I think I got 100 shares of Amazon and that's my exposure to Amazon.”
Gratitude and Reflection for MrBeast
1:22:14 to 1:24:00
A heartfelt message of thanks to MrBeast and reflections on his influence.
“But yeah, man, Palantir was one that I got in heavy at the beginning stages, just from some of my buddies talking about that and stuff.”
Rumors and Conspiracies Surrounding MrBeast
1:24:00 to 1:26:08
Explore the wild conspiracy theories about MrBeast and why people believe them.
“So keep being open to feedback like you are, criticism, and it'll pay dividends in the long run if you want to make this a long-term thing.”
Facing Criticism and Haters
1:26:08 to 1:26:59
Learn how to deal with criticism and negativity from others.
“And then today we helped a latte for Sam coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure a floral delivery van was able to make someone's day.”
The Spread of Outrageous Conspiracies
1:27:44 to 1:32:19
Discuss the bizarre conspiracy theories circulating in society today.
“And because the Epstein list is so big, no one's going to look through like a hundred thousand documents.”
The Impact of Social Media on News
1:32:19 to 1:34:28
Analyze the shift in trust from traditional media to social media platforms.
The Role of Clipping in Media Narratives
1:34:28 to 1:35:24
Understand how clipping affects narratives and public perception of figures like MrBeast.
“If you guys are looking for a good clipper, I just want to say a huge shout out to Josh at Social Media Money.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Graham Stephan:Last night, you spent two hours deciding what to wear to the party. This morning, it'll take you two minutes to list it on Depop and make your money back. Just grab your phone, snap a few photos, and we'll take care of the rest. The sheer dress and platform heels you'll never wear again? There's a birthday girl searching for them right now. Your one-and-done look is about to pay for your next night out. Or at least the ride home. Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste.
0:33So what was the final amount that you won in Beast Games 2? $5 ,106 ,000. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm a competitor. I came there to go to the end. I came to win. Now that I have all this money, I'm trying to figure out what I have to do with it. How much money do you have left? The last time I checked, I had... What did you spend it on? A Lamborghini. And then I bought two new houses. I knew that there would be other opportunities to make money. What would you criticize about Beast Games? It's tough, man. Eight months of keeping it a secret. But the truth is...
1:20Graham Stephan:Tyler from Beast Games 2, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. You just won$5 million. and everyone wants to know, how much are you paying in tax? Exactly, man. It's a good question. I'm fortunate enough to have Texas as my state, so I don't have to worry too much about that, but I've got to mitigate the federal taxes. So right now, I've got a legal and financial team that I'm working with, and we're coming up with good strategies to move forward and try to mitigate as much as we can, man. And how did Mr. Beast send you$5 million? dollars just direct deposit man no issues with the bank no issues yeah it just showed up yeah it showed up like i was expecting it to be in the bank the 25th because usually you get paid out the episode uh after it airs uh so i was double checking the whole time you know it wasn't in there so i was like man did i fat finger a number or something like that so um but we we filmed the reunion the 26th and they didn't send it to there i i got there because they wanted to get my reaction when i sent it they sent the money to me so yeah they sent it that day they told me to check and just flabbergasted man it was it was surreal what did it feel like to get five million like that it was it was humbling man it was it was crazy you know i signed up to to do this for my family uh to change their lives to set my boys up for life and just to know that i accomplished what i set out to do and then see that money hit the account after the fact eight months later after keeping a secret it was just surreal man it was like a big relief to know to know like yeah i really did it like i can set my boys up for life so how much money do you have left yeah i think uh last time i checked i had 1.2 million dollars left what'd you spend it on i spent it on a lamborghini and then i bought a new house two new houses i'm just kidding i still got it all I still got it all.
3:21But that exact feeling, let's say it's in the moment, take your mind back to when the money hits your account. What's the first thought? Is it a sports car? No, no, not at all, man. My first thought was just like, wow, like I need to start planning. Like I need to make sure this money lasts and keep it for it to continue to grow. Because I'm not like an extravagant guy. I'm someone that likes to invest. You know, I want to make sure that this lasts a while to take care of my family. Because that's ultimately why I did it, to buy back time with my family. Because there's been multiple times where I've been away from family due to the natures of my work.
4:02And I've missed out a lot of monumental moments with my kids and stuff like that. So just whatever I can do to buy back that time. But on the actual number that you think you'll have when all is said and done, because you didn't get a specific number, how much will you have after taxes? um i'm not too sure man i'm thinking worst case scenario like 3.5 if i don't do anything with it just because you know all i have to worry about is federal um but ideally i'm hoping to to try to keep as much as i can over four close to 4.5 or something like that just depending on what strategies we roll with and uh go from there did you quit your job no no unfortunately i can't i I can't quit the military just like that.
4:47There's a whole process and stuff, but some conversations that we'll have down the road and then decide what's the best decision moving forward. So being in the military, how were you able to take so much time off to go to compete in these games? That's a great question, man. It was a time where our manning was low, so it was more difficult to take that time off, but I had so many great supervisors and leadership that were so supportive of this unique opportunity. So they decided to do what they can in their powers to make it so I could pursue this opportunity.
5:25Graham Stephan:How does that work? You go to your boss, you say, hey, I got selected to compete in a Mr. Beast competition. I need an indefinite time off, right? Yeah, and at that time - How do they pitch that? Yeah, at that time, we didn't know how long it was going to last. It was just a rough estimate. So I told them, I was like, hey their applications are live i'm gonna apply for this i'm not too sure how long it's gonna be and then when i got selected they're like oh man that's actually happened we gotta get this ball you know rolling so we can make sure you're able to do this but uh they were so super supportive man as long as you if you come up to your know your leadership uh with a potential opportunity as long as you come with a solution to you know kind of fix the issue with you being gone um you know they're more than likely gonna help grant the opportunity and do what they can to be supportive do they give you pr training because every answer that you're giving here is also like you know how'd you get the time off like man the staff is incredible supervisors are amazing they were super flexible to my every need of it sure it was a little bit of work up front yeah but hey that's what i signed up for yeah no i mean yeah we definitely have like public affairs in the military that give you PR training for specific things.
6:40But no, like, it was just awesome. I work with a great group of people, very supportive. I'm just thankful to be in a great environment that, you know, they're willing to let me pursue this unique opportunity and be gone for six weeks.
6:53Graham Stephan:So where did you see the advertisement to sign up? How did you know about it? Yeah, I saw it on Instagram. So I've been following Mr. Beast for a good time now. So So it came across my feed and this was after seeing season one. And I was like, man, the season one was awesome. Big adrenaline rush would be so cool to participate in this. And I was like, yeah, I might as well, you know, try, apply and see what happens and go from there. And then hopefully work gets on board with it too. And then, uh, went through the whole process. And what was the process like? What's the vetting? Yeah. So it starts with an application.
7:28so you gotta answer some questions fill out your personal details your job you know background checks stuff like that and then you submit like a one minute video talking about who you are where you're from your job now what was your inspiration for applying did you watch season one who was your favorite on season one and then what you would do with the money if you won so i sent in a video like that um you know i wasn't thinking like anything would come from it because I guess there was allegedly 400 ,000 plus applicants. So they picked me for the strong team. How did they determine that? They felt from my background playing college football, being on a previous show and making it to finale.
8:09It was another physical competition and then just military experience that I would be better suited for the strong team.
8:15Graham Stephan:Did you want to be the strong team or did you want to be secretly the smart team? I wanted to be the strong team because a lot of the smart people in there, you know they have huge accomplishments engineers ceos you know eight degrees photographic memory it's it's it's crazy the accomplishments that they had and you know i'm sure some of them looked at us like oh they're you know they're just jocks um but we got a little bit of brains too you know not a lot of people knew like my background um you know my training and stuff like that and you know just being in the military being a strategic thinker and stuff so it was nice to What is your background, your strategic thinking?
8:55What is it exactly that you do for the military? Yeah. So I'm a pilot in the military. So it's a two-year pipeline. It's rigorous training. You know, you really have no time to breathe. It's either sink or swim. And for me, I didn't have any aviation experience beforehand. So it was all brand new to me. So I just stayed in the books, studied hard, and then just did my best. What are you flying? So I fly MQ-9s. It's an unmanned aerial vehicle or drone or UAS, whatever you want to call it. But it's a pretty cool asset with multiple capabilities. How much is that drone worth? Upwards of 10, 30, 30 million or so.
9:34Have you ever crashed a drone before? Not that one. No, thankfully not. A DJI drone, maybe, but not that one. That's incredible. It's very challenging because you're not in the aircraft. So you need to know how to read systems and things like that. So you just have to know your platform inside out. And that's what the whole two-year pipeline is. What was your mentality going into Beast Games? Did you think that there was a real chance of you winning? What percent would you say that you thought you would win? And what strategies were you expecting to employ? Like numbers maybe you'd walk with? What was the whole idea for you?
10:11So it's funny because after seeing season one, seeing on the first couple episodes where we're chance, um and luck I told my wife I was like hey I'll probably see you in a week like I don't know if I'll last because it's all chance and stuff but luckily they got rid of that so I went in and then once we started getting through the grind and stuff I I thought I could make it far um but I didn't really believe in the my abilities to make it to the end because there's so many people so many accomplished athletes and smart individuals so I knew it was going to be tough and my wife and I kind of talked about it like hey if you can leave with at least 100 to 150 uh that would be awesome that would that would definitely change our lives and help pay off some bills so that was a number I had in mind moving forward and then to get to the strategy aspect um I just went in was my genuine self try to make good connections with people and just just be a good guy and just be positive and try to lay low to be conservative with what you say no one to be a leader and no one to be a follower and then make moves when necessary uh because if you saw like a lot of people that did a lot of talking and stuff like that they kind of talked themselves under the bus and they became targets so just knowing your place knowing when to speak up and whatnot and then when to take those roles on that's and that's ultimately what i did how long were you gone for in total?
11:37I think it was like 42 to 45 days. We left May 30th and we got back July 12th. So it was, uh, yeah, around six weeks, 42, 45 days, something like that. Were you allowed to have any access to your phone? No, not at all. As soon as I landed in Vegas, got picked up, we got shuttled to, uh, South Point, the hotel, and they confiscated our phones, any electronic device. They went through our suitcases, luggage and all that stuff. And then that was it from there. And we didn't see it until July 12th.
12:07Graham Stephan:What was it like going without your phone or the internet for that long? For me, it wasn't too bad. Like I've went through that before with the military. I did eight weeks without my phone. So I kind of knew what to expect. I was prepared. The only thing that sucked about that was not being able to talk to my family and see my boys. But outside of that, like I didn't have any issues. I thought it was a nice way to like cleanse from technology, social media and stuff like that and just live in a moment get to meet some of these awesome people and just get to know them more on a personal level did you see anybody having social media withdrawals i'm sure there was at the beginning yeah there's a lot of people that would mention like oh man i wish i had my phone right now to go on instagram tiktok and stuff like that but uh eventually like people got over that and they kind of adjusted and what was your initial impression from the first competition yeah the first competition i was like man they're they're setting off season two with a bang that's the smart challenge was pretty pretty cool and then the strong challenge was awesome they uh we were on that platform they lifted us i think 40 feet in the air and then they dropped those trap doors and we had to climb through it pick up a third of our body weight get the blocks and then climb back up and stack them um and then once i saw edited and seeing like the drone footage from that like i was like man they really set the tone with this challenge and it's going to be a crazy ride for this season.
13:30How difficult was that challenge? I looked at the physical challenge and look, I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman, but I was like, you know what? Like, I feel like I could probably do that.
13:39Graham Stephan:Jack's sitting on his couch. Yeah, eating my popcorn. I was like, you know what? I could eat. Like, how difficult was that actually? Yeah. For you, at least. I didn't really have any issues, man. It was fun. Like, I trained for it. Um, and it's just climbing down, picking up a 30 body weight. The, when you got down to the pole, it was a little tricky there. Cause like they have like these little rings that you can kind of put your feet on, but they're very tiny and like, they kind of broke. So essentially like I had to hold myself with one arm, trying to pull up a third of my body weight and then wrap my arm around, get the blocks and then climb back up.
14:16But ultimately it wasn't, I didn't think it was too bad, man. It was, it was a lot of fun. I think you could do it. You think I could? I think you could, yeah, man. You could see a little bit of my traps through this shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it. What would you say was the most difficult challenge out of everything that you did within Beast Games? Probably the hanging from the poles 200 feet in the air. Either that or the cubes. Because we were hanging from the poles 100 feet in the air. We had different segments for rounds, time frames, and stuff like that. I think in total, maybe 20 minutes, 25 minutes I was up there.
14:50and then the people that went to the end were like 45 minutes or so um so that was tough because you're just you're getting fatigued and then you're just trying to hold on with all that you have to not fall but that was physically probably one of the challenging ones and then like mentally probably the cubes being in there eight hours and you have to like convince someone to eliminate themselves and then you know you're just asking for whatever you want making time go by but ultimately in the back of everyone's heads, it's like, we got to play a game. Someone's got to handcuff themselves. Who's it going to be?
15:24And what game are we going to play? So those two challenges were definitely probably the toughest in respect of physical and social aspect or mental aspect.
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16:41Graham Stephan:Honestly, if I were building a business of this level, this is exactly what I'd be looking at. And when it comes to AI, you have to be using it. Like we've started integrating it within the podcast as much as possible in terms of automating all of these tasks. And my gosh, it's able to save us so much time and the growth that we've seen over the last few months using it has been unstoppable, mind blowing. So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash iced. Again, the guide is free for you at netsuite.com slash iced.
17:12Graham Stephan:Again, that is netsuite.com slash iced with the link down below in the description. What would you say Beast Games is a test of? So it's like a social experiment. You know, he puts us in these crazy situations where money is involved, challenges and stuff. And it kind of like is a way to see like how people react to these different situations. Like, for example, Captain Shcribe, you're up there, a million dollars is on the board. All you have to do is press a button and that's yours. And seeing that four out of the five people didn't do that. You know, you got people online saying like, I want to press that button in a heartbeat.
17:49But seeing those people turn it down for their teammates, it's pretty awesome. You know, it's a chance for them to stay in the game too, their teammates, because they could have took that million dollars and eliminate their team and stay in the game.
18:02Graham Stephan:K-pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boys Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor. No, really. Stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. And participate in McDonald's while supplies last. But just as an example, it was crazy to see that. People turn down life-changing money. So it's very much so like a social experiment.
18:42Graham Stephan:Would you have taken a million dollars? No. No. That early in the game? Even though your wife said, hey, if we get 150, we're happy. And you could say, hey, honey, I brought home a million dollars. You went on a game show and turned down a million dollars. Yeah, she would have been mad seeing that for sure. but for me it was too early in the game and I was willing to bet on myself and risk it to make it further because I knew that there would be other opportunities to make money so I just took it day by day and then just took it challenge by challenge and then stayed optimistic and then yeah I'm a competitor I came there to go to the end I came to win like I wasn't going to take a bribe what if it was two million dollars two million dollars i would i would definitely consider it more for sure but um i likely wouldn't have taken it just because two and a half you could win half the prize because they're going to be out anyway two and a half i would consider it a lot more yeah so it's it's it's crazy man like you have that much money it's guaranteed but i'm just i'm such a competitor when you look at the odds and you say okay there's 25 people there and i could get half of the total prize by eliminating like seven of them yeah yeah you wouldn't do that no i wouldn't it's and i know it sounds crazy but if if i were to do it you know yeah i would have 2.5 but you know there's a chance to win five potentially 10 yeah but that's it's like a gambler's mentality there's like well i could just keep parlaying this thing even more it is and then you end up voted out and then yeah it was just a risk i was willing to take man i was i was ready to better myself and that's the thing you called them your teammates but in actuality i feel like the people that you were saving by not pressing the button are just your competitors yeah like those are the people that you're up against for sure and i can try to say oh yeah these are like people that you're like all working together but in actuality it's only one person that's going to walk with the money yeah and so that's the thing where it's like i was surprised that more people just didn't push the button earlier, especially after seeing season one.
20:49And then a lot of the people walk and they have, they get turned on either that or they walk with no money and you're there to, to try to make the money. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's crazy. But I think people realize that if you want to move far in this game, you have to build trust and have those solid relationships with people to move further in the game. So you can have people that you can rely on. Cause then that comes to a point where, hey, it's every man for itself. It's time to play the game. You know, alliances are at the door. You know, there's only one person that can win. And we all knew from season one, there'll be more opportunities to make money.
21:23So a lot of people were willing to to gamble or take that risk. But you would say that it was a test of social intelligence. Yeah. Of all things. For sure. That's really interesting. One thing I mentioned to Jeff when we filmed with him is that if you round up the people that made it to the top 10, top 15, top five of season one of beast games, they're probably overall like high skill, like high intelligence, just overall really well-rounded individuals with like a high stat sheet. You know, if you're like playing a game, they're probably like pretty max stats and things just generally speaking.
21:56And so if there are any recruiters out there, it's not a bad place to look for some talent. Would you agree with that? Like it's a test of, I mean, virtually every skill that you can possibly employ. Yeah, 100%. I would agree with that. Yeah. Like Jeff said, man, it's definitely a test. And it's very accurate with what you said, because it shows the different type of skills that you have, what you're capable of doing. And it's super accurate, man. I agree 100%. So at what point did you think that you're going to win? I think when I got to the top 10, when we got to the top 10, after seeing our families, I knew I had like a 10 % chance.
22:36I was extra motivated after seeing my family. And that's when I was like starting to feel like, Hey, I'm here. I can do this thing. We're so close. I just got to, you know, keep my head down, keep, keep playing to my strategy and then just make moves when I need to. So that's when I started to really feel that I had a good chance to win. How much strategy did you have going into it? So I watched this first season a couple times and I saw like different characters and how they played the game. And then seeing the ones that went the furthest, because Jeff was my favorite for season one, seeing how he played the game, I could relate to that because that's kind of how I embody myself.
23:16You know, kind of laid back, you know, love to meet people, very outgoing and, you know, I'm not quick to like be, you know, so loud or make moves, but be rational about it. So when I saw how he played, I was like, okay, I could see myself playing this way because that's the type of person I am. And I just went in there, did that. And yeah, it ended up working out for me. What was your first impression of Mr. Beast? My first impression of him was, so we had a steak dinner. He took us out to a steak dinner when we came to Vegas. and he came in, greeted everyone and he spent time talking to everyone.
23:52So I thought he was awesome. You know, I've seen him on his videos, YouTube videos and whatnot, doing all these awesome, amazing things. But then getting to see him in person and see him interact with people was pretty, pretty cool. What'd he say to you? I didn't get a chance to talk to him. He talked to a lot of people because at that point there was 200 people and we had like maybe two hours or so. But just seeing him interact and take the time out to talk to other people was really cool to see because he really cares about what he does. He's very passionate, and you could tell. And then as the season moved on and the numbers dwindled, we got more and more time to talk and engage with him.
24:30So what was your first conversation with Mr. Beast? I think our first conversation was probably about a challenge or something like that. He's very, like I said, very passionate, so he was always open to criticism, feedback. He would ask us, like, hey, did you guys like that? if you not if not like what could have been better you know what could we do to be better so he was he was very down to earth cared about what we thought and just very attentive so what criticism did you give him i honestly didn't give too many criticism man like i thought the challenges were well put together they're awesome like i'm i'm pretty laid back like it doesn't take a lot to like you know upset or you know for me to criticize things but i thought everything was well put together yeah and then like the social aspect the city everything was awesome like i was i was willing to sleep in a tent worst case scenario to compete for this money but they had all this extravagant like different opportunities and like the the city and challenges and stuff so yeah i had no criticism at all really what do you miss most from the beast games i miss the interactions with the players and the contestants and and and just the producers and crew because everyone was so nice so friendly they're they cared for us they made sure that we were doing well not only like physically and mentally and all but you know just make sure that we're maintained and taken care of so do you wish that you'd be able to compete in a future one because when i watch it i'm like that looks just fun above everything else it just seems fun to like yeah it's like summer camp yeah the good kind and you get to compete and hang out and make a community and you know you're getting a film so you can go back and watch it yeah and then just getting to see how the beast team works like the hours that they put into it the dedication the drive and how passionate they are it's it's a surreal environment to be in what would you criticize about beast games um that's tough there's there's not too much i would criticize honestly um i mean we can't just put out a fluff piece here no for sure for sure no i'm trying to think like the only thing like is that i can think of is just like we i mean we had like a lot of downtime um it wasn't on them you know it was there was weather days and stuff like that so there was things that you know we had a lot of free time and just you know not doing much so that was kind of frustrating not to do anything but outside of that you know just jimmy took on a lot of responsibilities he he was filming youtube videos, TikToks.
27:05He had a lot of like famous influencers, streamers come through. Um, so the only thing I had to criticize on this aspect is maybe take on less and get some more sleep because he was just constantly busy, but game wise, uh, you know, I, I don't really have any issues with that. Maybe some different games for season three, um, since we've seen a couple of the games and I know that was like a criticism online, but outside of that, like we were, it was awesome.
27:31Graham Stephan:yeah i gotta say my criticism was that some of the character development i thought was really boring yeah and i just found myself skipping through it just to get to the challenges because the challenges were great and i think it has to be a little bit more engaging and more like the fear factor like a little edgier yeah and less of like the drama between the players i wasn't a huge because the drama wasn't even that good and the relationship between that one like that was the only one that i actually followed because i'm like oh man they always get voted out but they made it yeah sometime yeah they did uh but that was it i just found it i just couldn't get through it i just skip skip skip skip and then i get to the challenge and i'll watch that yeah no that was that was definitely a criticism online i remember doing uh ask me anything on reddit and that was one of the things that they criticize so i think that's one of the names that they're they're planning to make a better development for characters moving forward in season three and giving more backstories and getting to know people more personal level.
28:32Yeah.
28:33Graham Stephan:So the one thing I was curious about, because there were cameras everywhere. Everywhere. Does that mean they have footage of you sleeping? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We had like three or four cameras in our dorms. Was that unnerving? It was. At first, it took a little bit to get used to. But after a while, it was just like secondhand nature. You just forgot it was there. but at first it was like man like because my bed was in the corner and one of the cameras was right next to my bed and then like every once in a while you'll just see it like pan and look right at you and stuff i'm just like oh man what does that feel like to be watched 24 7 because you know there's someone just like just staring at that screen watching you and listening to you everything you say it was it was tough man like it was it was tough to get adjusted to um and then And a lot of people, you know, were very conscious of how they conducted themselves because, you know, they don't want to put bad things out there in the world and stuff like that.
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29:31So once after a while, people got used to it and they knew like what they could and couldn't do and stuff like that. But it was adjustment, man. Just constantly being watched.
29:40Graham Stephan:Is there anything that someone said on camera that's like, oh, crap, I should not have said that. Oh, plenty of time. Cut that out. Plenty of times, man. in the in our pods is what we call them the dorms uh we had some some funny funny conversations at night um that i'm glad that they didn't air but did anyone go and say hey listen jimmy we're having some locker room talk just some guy talk listen just make sure that's cut did anyone ever say that i'm sure i i think i can't remember who but i'm pretty sure like a lot of us joked about that with him like hey man like we're having some interesting conversations you know maybe maybe not pay attention or so yeah but um yeah we we definitely had like a bunch of locker room talk and you know it was just fun getting getting to have a good time with the guys and our dorms at night and then just you know have fun the last time where do you get privacy in the bathrooms that's where that's where you get privacy there's no cameras in the shower liked though No, you, you, uh, so usually when you wake up, if you tell them like, Hey, I'm going to go shower and stuff, like they'll let you do that.
30:46And then you're going to go see the, the audio people to get mic'd up after that. And you're mic'd up the whole day.
30:52Graham Stephan:So if you go to the bathroom, let's just say midday, you're still mic'd up there. They hear you. Yeah. So that's, yeah, that's definitely, uh, interesting. That's hilarious. Yeah. Cause it's also very difficult to pee when the mic is on you. Yeah. So some of us would take it off because there was a lot of times in the beginning where the mic would be on your back, like your back hip, and people would, you know, go to the bathroom and the mic will ultimately fall in the toilet and stuff like that. So they're like, all right, we got to change something. We got to put it in our pockets. Or if you guys go to the bathroom, just please take it off, put it on the counter, and then put it back on.
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32:59Graham Stephan:What other crazy stories have you seen that have not been published? Like I saw on season one, you know, there was a lot of backlash for the living conditions and stuff like that. But I haven't seen any crazy stories from our season at all. Not that I can think of. Anything that you noticed out on the field, like competing in the game that they didn't publicize that you thought maybe should have been shown? I feel like they definitely got everything that they needed to hype up certain things or like drama aspects in the episodes. maybe a few more conversations that they could have included. But outside of that, I think they represented and portrayed each moment very well.
33:40Graham Stephan:I'm curious how the controversy affected the first one, because from my perspective, that controversy may be very curious to see, okay, now I got to watch this show to see how this was playing out. I think it helped. But I don't know if the numbers of the second one were better than the first. Yeah. But I think a little controversy, you want just like a little edginess so that people say oh man that happened you hear about that and then all the the people make youtube videos about it and then people tune in yeah absolutely it's every advertising is good advertising in a sense so it it drew people more a lot more people back to season two to see you know if there's going to be any controversy or if there's going to be like certain drama or you know different situations like how is it going to pan out how's it going to play out different from season one so um i definitely think that helped with getting more eyes and attention to season two for sure were you allowed to split money with somebody else and say hey if if i win i'll give you a hundred grand no unfortunately not it was in our contracts where we can't do that because it would be considered a game advantage um so we weren't able to split money with other contestants did anyone try and say hey man we're not allowed to like they take the mic off they're in the bathroom yeah like i'll slip you 50.
34:53no no not at all everyone was super strict about that because they mentioned how if that were to happen it could if you made money it could affect you getting paid out if they found out about that or if you know you were talking about that too so everyone once they said that to us everyone was very strict um with that rule and they did not want to affect their chances of moving forward or getting eliminated from that or potentially getting paid out their money.
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35:52Now through April 22nd, while supplies last. Exclusion supplies to homedepot.com slash price match for details. The beginning, you know, I was still, like, when we first got in the city, you know, still trying to create those bonds and relationships and stuff like that. And at the time, like, I talked to a lot of people, but I didn't have, like, super close friends that I could, like, consider allies. That didn't happen until, like, later. so at that time I was like I don't know what team I'm going to go with who I'm going to align with and stuff like I'm close like I've talked in a good standings with a lot of people but I'm not like super close on a personal level just yet so I thought like for social aspect of the game that might not work out well for me moving forward so I was a little concerned there but ultimately I ended up finding a team at the beginning separated from that team and then joined another team and then went the whole way with them and worked out.
36:45Were you ever tempted to leave early from the games? Yeah. No, not one bit, man.
36:51Graham Stephan:Missing your family or anything or like, hey, maybe I should take this 300 grand and dip out of here. No, not at all. I missed them, but I was, I was there on a mission, man. I was there to, to set my boys up, to change their lives, provide for my family. And I wasn't, I wasn't going to leave without giving my all. Cause I didn't want to like live with what ifs like i know the before the second challenge it was maybe like two weeks in they had when they revealed season two uh competitors coming back in those 10 individuals had 100 grand cases and you could have took that bribe and self-eliminated if i were to took one of those bribes i would have been living with what ifs the whole time like if i didn't take this bribe what if i'd stayed in the game how far could i've gone could i've made more money could i've had more opportunities to do so how would my game be played so it's like how many people though regret not taking the case who've lost and they got nothing and then they look back and say i should have taken the case so i can only speak on like the top 10 portion because i got to know them more on a personal level and we had conversations like that but a lot of them don't necessarily regret not taking that that uh bribe a lot of them were were there to go as far as they can and just soak in the this once-in-a-lifetime experience so a lot of them were happy that they were able to make it the end and granted some of them walked away with nothing and you know they were happy with the experience of course they wanted to leave for something but they're happy you know that they had to they got to live this whole experience into its entirety what traits did you see in the people who failed?
38:31Some people would, you know, just be playing very hard and people saw that, which kind of made them a target. You know, strategic and the way you're thinking and like over communicating with people because a lot of people at the beginning were able to tell like who's trying to play the game really hard right now. Who's like overstepping. Yeah, who's overstepping and like making all these promises and talking to a lot of people and then like some of those people were getting caught in lies too which really stood out but uh yeah those those were like the traits were there any fights there was yeah there was not like anything like physical like anything like that but like more so verbally there was uh right before the obstacle course um two teams uh with the pugil sticks if you guys remember that they had like a little verbal um encounter right before the challenge so they wanted to go against each other and settle it on the obstacle course um then outside of that there's other drama too um all verbal nothing like no physical altercations or anything like that but there were some people you know had beef because not not everyone not a hundred people in the city is going to get along with everyone there's going to be people that are different different ways of life, different ways of thinking and how they conduct themselves.
39:53And, uh, so there was, there was definitely some clashing at times, but yeah, there was, there was a, there was a few. What do you think about the players who played dirty?
40:03Graham Stephan:Taking a little too much money? For example, I I'll talk about Nick when he took two 50 out of the 1 million. Me personally, I had no issues with that. Um, there was a moment where he came right around our graves right before he went to do his split. And he was telling everyone like, hey, I'm going to be going, whatever he was saying. And then when he got to me, I told him, I was like, hey man, because he was my number one ally in the game. Especially after you turned down the million dollars and allowed me a chance to stay in the game, continue to compete for my family. I was like, that meant so much to me, dude.
40:40I'll do whatever I can to help you move further in the game too. Like I got your back. And when we got to that point, I was like, hey, man, take what you want. Like, you turn a million dollars down. I'm not going to be upset. This is guaranteed money from you. And knowing his story, his background before the games, like, he deserved it all. He's such a great guy. And I had no issues with him taking it. I'm just thankful to have left with something from that instance in the game. Did you create any enemies on the show? No, I don't think I had any enemies, man. I think I was on good terms with majority of people 99 % of people maybe like one or two but 99 % of people I was on good terms with do you still talk to Jimmy much I talked to him a couple times he hit me up and asked me what I thought about the finale and like what I liked didn't like and stuff like that so we were chatting about that and then we got this talk a couple days later for the reunion and then after that you know he's been busy with work what was it
41:45Graham Stephan:like watching it back was there anything that happened with you watching it that you were unaware of in person yeah watching it back was definitely uh pretty well um for for me personally there's there's nothing that i wasn't surprised or didn't remember that i did that threw me off but seeing some of the conversations other people had was was interesting because you know you're seeing them and like you just remember like engaging with them throughout the the season in the show and stuff. And then, you know, you thought like, oh yeah, they're awesome. They're good people. But then you see some of the conversations that they had that were shown in the show and you're just like, oh wow, I had no clue that they were playing hard like that.
42:25So what's an example of that? I gotta go with my friend Katie. You know, she's awesome. She was in our alliance and stuff. But then there's a couple of episodes where she was having these conversations when she was doing different challenges or something outside of us. And then seeing some of the conversations that she was having and stuff, I'm just like, dang, she came to play. Was there anything she said specifically? There was one moment when she was doing the balance challenge. It was the second episode. And I remember her saying something like, I'm sniffing out the week. And I was like, dang, Katie came to play.
43:01She's a gamer. Because we didn't see that side of her when she was around us. Because she was in our alliance. She was with us all the time. But when I saw that, I was like, dang, okay, she came to play. She's a competitor. So that was pretty cool to see. How did you keep it a secret that you won? It's tough, man. It was eight months of keeping it a secret. The only person that knew was my wife because I told her the day I got back. I made it to you. And I have a piece of game. She's two champions. Stop it. And I won$5.1 million.
43:42no oh my god yeah and that's where you saw that reaction video from yeah and then i think uh january or so i got an nda for jeff so he can find out um so we could talk about like who gave you the like how did you get the nda to the previous winner yeah so i i just reached out to their production crew i reached out to mike cruz he's uh one of the executive guys on the show and uh asked if that would be possible and he said yeah we can make it happen so you can start game planning and you know getting good advice but if you're reaching out to jeff saying hey can you sign this nda for me it's pretty clear what's happening oh yeah that was that was that was after the fact i personally didn't reach out to jeff i reached out to the beast teams oh and then they reached out to jeff they reached out to jeff and then after he signed it uh then they connected us together via text okay yeah and how many people on the beast team knew about it i'm not too sure i think there was maybe because the finale was in saudi arabia i don't think they had like the whole production crew out there so whoever was on set that day were the people that knew and i'm sure more people knew too because they had to edit the videos amazon had to play their role in it so I'm sure there was a lot of people that knew.
45:01What's crazy, though, is that
45:03Graham Stephan:the winner was spoiled. You were spoiled very early on in Polymarket. Yeah. And it became very obvious who the winner was very clearly. Yeah. That was stressful. Because I didn't want them to think, like, I'm out here telling people and stuff like that. How much money did you make betting on Polymarket that you won? Five million. Yeah, man, I doubled it. Five million. I put my whole life savings into it. No, but yeah, I was very stressed because I think like maybe week six or seven, I had people like sending me screenshots of the prediction markets. And what were they saying? They're like, hey, have you seen this?
45:42Like, did you win? And what would you say? I was like, dude, I think they're just voting for me because it's like a six, seven trend going on like that meme. Like, I don't know how accurate this is. Like, don't ask me for any advice. I'm not going to tell you what to do with your money type of thing and stuff. Or I would just like ignore it. Like if it was like my close friends or something like that, just not give them anything. Because all the people that hit me up were like my close friends. And they had zero idea that I won until the finale. But then those who lost, were they not able to tell other people that they lost?
46:14They weren't supposed to. I'm sure some people did. And I think some people did from conversations that were had. But you're not supposed to. you're supposed to abide by the nda that you signed so it's it's so impossible because you
46:29Graham Stephan:can't because people are going to be coming back sooner than others well yes i'll say this yeah the people that got out early they were very in tune with what was going on a show because i remember getting out getting my phones and then seeing like there's a group chat on instagram and they were like like detective level like looking to see who was active on instagram when and like when was the last post and like activity wise so like yeah that's true because if you're posting on instagram then that would suggest that you got out yeah and so did they tell you you can't do that no they gave you your phone back and then you had free reigns and they just said hey just don't tell anyone yeah i mean we all sign ndas so um but yeah it's like i remember seeing a chat and like conversations with people there were like there were people in there just eyeing and stalking people's pages.
47:22Well, not necessarily stalking, but looking at for activity.
47:24Graham Stephan:It's going to be impossible to enforce. Yeah. Unless if you keep everyone there for the entire duration. You have to keep everyone for the entire duration, but then you get the footage, and you have to keep that final episode, or no, probably the whole season, to a small group of people. Yeah. And then how do you prevent any one of the people at Amazon from reviewing the thing? Yeah. You probably have 50 to 100 people who have had their eyes on that final episode to approve it. I think there's like over a thousand production workers and stuff like that on set. Yeah, because you could narrow it down.
48:01Graham Stephan:Best case, top 10. I can't believe they did it for the first season. How they kept it a sequel. I don't think Pauly Market was. No, it was Pauly Market had Jeff winning by like week two or three. Really? Really? Yeah, it happened in both seasons. I didn't realize that. I had no idea. I guess I'm only recently into Polymarket and I watch a lot of the odds. And you could see as soon as something spikes up, I'm like, okay, that's an insider. They know what's about to happen. We're about to invade this because no one's going to dump$10 million into this obscure bet. Exactly. And sure enough, it happens.
48:34Yeah.
48:35Graham Stephan:So I'm not paying attention to it. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild, man. Like I didn't really know too much about Polymarkets until our season and people were sending me screenshots. and then just looking back and seeing like the odds shift heavily like week two or three like me going from like i don't know five percent ten percent to like 50 60 percent so i was like dang this definitely some insider trading all you have to do is look at probably the top five largest accounts and say it's probably one of them but even then it's it's somewhat anonymous yeah exactly and then what if it's someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone how far down the line do you have to go exactly point if they're risking their money from like a tip to a tip to a tip i think they kind of deserve it at that point because they could just as easily be wrong yeah absolutely man they went through the whole thought process of how to like you know go through multiple like different levels of like security in a sense of how to like do this so were you unable to spend any of the money because that would be a display of newfound wealth no i I mean, I, as soon as like, like for, I think it was episode.
49:43Or I guess, no, they gave you the money after it was. Yeah. But like episode, I think it was seven or eight, you know, I made the hundred grand and stuff like that. So I was able to spend it as soon as I got it. But the five million didn't come to the finale. So. So what did you spend the hundred thousand on? Uh, so yeah, I've only really spent money on that. And that's literally just been for like legal services, financial services, just to, you know, get the best advice of. You haven't treated yourself or your family to anything? No, not yet. Not even like a steak dinner? No, we just, we haven't had the time.
50:15My wife's work schedule is busy. My work schedule is busy. We really haven't had that much time. And then trying to figure out vacation time because my wife travels for work too. So she's got a trip coming up this upcoming week. And then, you know, she's got like a trip every month or so. How does it feel clocking into your job now as opposed to before? you know there's there's definitely days where i'm just like oh man i gotta go to work and you know do this but once i get there man like what what helps me get through the days is just being around like awesome people the the people that i work with really help the day go by faster and you know make the job enjoyable you know i i do like doing the job there's days when it's tough and there's days when it's awesome um but ultimately the the people are what make the job worth it for me how much longer do you think you're gonna stay employed um it's definitely some conversation i have to have it's a process in the military to separate uh for for this reason so i'll have to have those conversations and then i don't know could be potentially the end of the year oh wow uh yeah ultimately it just you know i have to make the best decision what works for my family and stuff, how soon we could do it or the timeline.
51:34So there's a lot of questions in the air. And would you say that your overall happiness in life, your average happiness, there was an increase after getting$5 million hitting your account? Oh, for sure. I was definitely, yeah, definitely a lot more happy and less stressed knowing that I got that and knowing that we can live more comfortably now and we have more things more money to do more things invest more and set up ourselves for our futures so definitely an aspect but there definitely comes like a stress level because i've never had this much money in my life before you know newfound wealth and this absurd amount of money you know there's that stress level of like trying to be a perfectionist trying to make the best strategies moving forward and how to use that money to ultimately, you know, get you passive income and then to have it continue to grow.
52:33So the stress of like making the right smart investment decisions is there for sure. It's real. What are you going to be spending the money on? Uh, so I'm thinking about getting into real estate and then investing some and ETFs, dividends, and things like that. We'll see how much I do. But real estate seems like it's a good way to make passive income and help with mitigating taxes too. So you're going to be a real estate professional? Or what's the plan on that? So if I get out of the military, I'll definitely look to become a real estate professional because I think you have to have, I've heard conflicting information.
53:12You need to have like 700 or 750 hours. Yes, correct. But then I've heard someone say like, if you own properties, you're technically considered a real estate agent. No. So.
53:24Graham Stephan:No, you have to spend, I think it's 700 hours, but also more time on that than you do anything else. For sure. So if you spend 701 hours in a military, then you're disqualified. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. Depending on like, if I get out, when I get out, that will definitely determine if I can meet that requirement and stuff. So. here's what I'm worried about is you're running down the clock right now to become a real estate professional ideally it's something you really start in January February March the latest and we're at the end of March now and I don't like the idea of buying rental property for tax purposes unless you're just gonna buy a rental property because it's like oh my god this is a great rental property and I just so happen to be a real estate professional yeah and this property is great otherwise and it's icing on the cake then I would do it but it's for sure I don't think in this case it's worth it to buy rental property at this level uh for any sort of passive income because real estate right now is a really volatile market yeah we just had our weakest home sales in years yeah so and that's that's why like i'm trying to like work with uh our financial team that i've because i think maybe you guys have worked with amanda before right yeah Mm-hmm.
54:41Did Jeff put you in contact with her? Oh, cool. Here we go again. We like Amanda. We're always just shouting out Amanda Hahn. She's a tax strategist. All right.
54:48Graham Stephan:Amanda, we'll link your information. Your email is going to get inundated. So I'm so sorry. But she said I could technically share it. So I'm sharing it. So just listen. If you get hundreds of emails, it's not our fault. Yeah, we gave her information to Togi as well. Oh, yeah. She's working with Togi. Nice. She's working with him now? Yeah, yeah. Well, she's had several calls with him and his team. Yeah, she's phenomenal. And so that was a great recommendation from Jeff. Yeah, man. Yeah, because Jeff said that you guys put them on with her, and then he paid it forward to me. And it looks like I'll pay it forward to season three winner.
55:23She is good.
55:23Graham Stephan:Just be very careful getting into a rental property and then doing the depreciation. It's just going to be hard for you to become a real estate professional. Right now is a difficult market. It can be done, but you got to be so careful about that. Yeah. And that's, that's one thing that we've, we've talked about too, as my wife and I, like, would she be willing to potentially leave her job to do this full time to build those real estate hours as well? So definitely some conversations. Um, what does your wife do for work? She's a HR. Uh, she did a little bit of recruiting, but she, she does HR.
55:57And does she want to quit? No, surprisingly not, man. She, she worked really hard to get her job. she loves it and she doesn't plan on quitting she she can't see herself not working does she want to spend some of the money oh yeah she definitely she definitely she's not like super like gung-ho about spending a lot of it um but one thing that we're gonna do first is get her a new car um she she definitely needs a new car what kind of car i think she's looking at like tellurides palisades stuff like that nothing crazy yeah she hasn't mentioned like lamborghinis or like A Range Rover, that's a great car.
56:32Graham Stephan:A G-Wagon would be nice. Yeah. For tax purposes. And what about all of these other people? Yeah, for a real estate business, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. All of these other people that you know, they're reaching out to you, they're asking for money. I feel like that's pretty, just run of the mill, that's pretty standard when you come into a windfall. Have you experienced much of that? So I'm surprised that I haven't seen a lot of people come out of the woodworks, family-wise, friend-wise, asking for money. It's more so like a lot of strangers like i could go onto my instagram and look at like thousands of messages of people just asking for money uh it's wild and some of them are just straight up like direct with it like hey give me fifty thousand dollars i'm just like dang man like not even did you do it no okay not even like that was my other account i asked not even like a hello or anything like that like it was funny i remember one message i got uh this one guy was asking me to pay for his frat dues so How much is that?
57:29I think like, I don't know, a thousand bucks or something like that. So I thought that was pretty funny. But yeah, it's wild. And then like, I'll have people that will engage, like, you know, say that they're super supportive and like they're rooting for me and stuff like that. And like, I try to answer those messages because I want people to know that I appreciate their support. And we'll have a conversation and stuff like that. And then they'll just hit me with like, you know, I'm really struggling right now. Like anything would help and stuff. And I'm just like, man, like that's a tough situation to be in because, you know, I want to use this platform to help others out.
58:01But like, I got to take care of my family first. And then those closest to me before I start doing that. Once I have that all settled, then I'll look to like, do what I can to help others out. So it's definitely been interesting. Never would have guessed this would have happened. Kind of got a heads up from Jeff too, because Jeff experienced it a lot too. But yeah, I really haven't had like family members come out asking. And it's just more so been like people online and absurd amounts. I've been getting that a lot lately. Have you? I don't know if it's real or not, though. Because I'm getting it as well.
58:36Graham Stephan:But some of the accounts look like burner accounts. Yeah, they look like fake accounts. But also what's weird is that they ask for money. A lot of them say like, hey, been following you for a while. Or, hey, I heard you're very generous. Not true. But then they ask for money. But then I check their account because I always am just like curious. and they have like one photo up and they're not even following me. Yeah. Like you would have seen that. At least it's free just to follow. I wonder how much that works then. Like, do they have these just like AI chatbot agents or something that they just deploy these accounts out?
59:09Yes. And just hit up all of the checkmark accounts. And somehow like they spend$5 and they get back$7. Yeah.
59:17Graham Stephan:I bet because all of a sudden this has come up for me in the last five months. It's I probably get three to six a day. Yeah. Every single day out of nowhere. And they're all very similar messages. Yeah, I've had a lot like that. Like I've had a lot that are from legit accounts. You can tell like they have a lot of followers and some of them follow me too, but none. There's been a lot of accounts that like are following 200 people when they have like zero to one followers and stuff like that. Right. That don't follow you. Like you said, asking for money and stuff just straight up. They'll send like some sketchy link or whatever.
59:49Never click on those. Of all of the things that you're going to spend money on, because you still will spend some of the money you got. What are you most excited to spend? I'm excited to spend it on a much-needed vacation with the family. You know, that's something that we've been talking about doing. We just got to find, like, the right time when our schedule is aligned to do that. Are you going to fly first class? Yeah, I think. Really? Yeah. Wow. I was not expecting that. Yeah, I was not expecting that either. Have you flown first class before? Where are you going to go? If we were to fly first class, it's got to be, like, 10 to 14-hour flight.
1:00:23Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to do it for, like, three-hour flight. It's not worth it. Like I, I, I flew here in freaking middle seat. I sat middle seat here. So, um, but if we were to fly first class, it would have to be like a trip to like Asia, you know, Korea or something like that, or go to Europe or something like that. Cause we lived in Europe and we really loved it out there. So, um, yeah, at least once just to say we did it. So if you're flying first class, does that mean your kids are also flying first class? now they're gonna be but no i'm just kidding they'll be in business yeah i would definitely treat them really wow but i don't i would argue that's not worth yeah same here so like i don't think i would i would do like something like a trip like that like super far away because it's it's tough to travel to long distances with kids oh it's just you and your wife then yeah like if if definitely my wife and i would do a nice trip like that and we would we would fly first class together um but when we do like a family trip with our kids then you know we'll probably just do business or something like that Because they're young, man.
1:01:32See, what I think is that if you still really do want to fly first class, but not be separate from your kids to show your kids, like, hey, sorry, you can't come up here. You can always just say, like, hey, look, first class flights are like$5 ,000. Back economy is like$500. How about this? I'll buy you that Lego set that you want and you won't be sitting up with it. I guarantee you they'll probably want the Lego set. They'll want the Lego set over sitting in first class. Any toys. Yeah. Definitely use toys to an advantage in that situation. But then again, for me, like I don't, and my wife is on the same page with this.
1:02:06We don't want to expose our kids to like a lavish, extravagant lifestyle. We don't want them to, you know, grow up spoiled and feel entitled. We want them to know what hard work means so they can, you know, work hard and achieve what they can. We don't want to give out free handouts and stuff. So we really want to instill those core values into them. So they know like, if you want to do something, you have to work hard to get that. So we don't want them to grow up kind of, you know, snotty and like rich and stuff like that. I mean, they'll definitely get taken care of, you know, with investments and stuff like that for when they turn 18, pay for college and things like that.
1:02:44But we don't want them to, you know, be spoiled, too spoiled growing up and have that sense of entitlement.
1:02:51Graham Stephan:So now if you run your own business, you already know this because making money is one thing, but keeping it organized is another revenue comes in, expenses go out. But without a clear system, everything starts to get messy. And you really feel that when tax season rolls around. Suddenly, you're going through all of your statements, wondering what went where. And mostly from what I've seen, the business itself is often fine, but it's just keeping organized with the finances that becomes the problem. Thankfully, though, that's where tools like Relay really come in to help. Relay is a business banking platform built to give business owners more clarity and control over their cash flow.
1:03:25Graham Stephan:Now, one thing I like is how easy it is to build structure. With this, you're able to open up to 20 checking accounts, which makes it simple to separate income, taxes, payroll, and savings instead of running everything through one place. Relay also lets your teams have their own custom logins with their own permissions as well, so a bookkeeper or assistant can handle the day-to-day while you still see everything happening. Paying vendors is really simple, too. You could send ACH, wires, or checks from the same place with built-in bill pay. And Relay also connects directly with both Xero and QuickBooks, which just keeps everything organized and your books clean.
1:03:56Graham Stephan:For a lot of business owners, having a system like this is the difference between scrambling at tax time and actually running the business. So if you want to build a clearer system for how your business handles money, scan the QR code on the screen or click the link down below in the description to learn more about Relay. Now really quick, I just got to say that when Jack and I first started the Ace Coffee Hour, we were winging it. We were figuring out everything ourselves from like the best cameras to use, the best lenses, how to edit, how to even get guests to begin with. Every day was a new challenge.
1:04:25Graham Stephan:Thankfully though, if you're starting today, you have one of the industry's best business partners and our sponsor is incredibly relevant and that would be Shopify. Shopify is like having an all-in-one business partner. They power millions of businesses worldwide from major brands like Mattel and Gymshark to entrepreneurs just getting started. And here's a fun fact, you've probably already used Shopify and had no idea because if you've shopped online in the US, there's a really good chance it was powered by them because they handle about 10 % of all American e-commerce. What's really great about Shopify is that they give you access to a complete design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates to build a beautiful online store that perfectly matches your brand.
1:05:01Graham Stephan:There's no coding needed, and their AI tools even help you write product descriptions and enhance your photos. Shopify also makes marketing incredibly simple with easy-to-use email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they're scrolling. Plus, they handle literally everything from inventory to shipping to returns, which is basically just all of the complicated stuff you do not want to deal with. So make sure to start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing, all you gotta do to get started is go to shopify.com slash ICH with the link down below in the description.
1:05:33Graham Stephan:Again, it's shopify.com slash ICH, shopify.com slash ICH. The link is also down below in the description. Thanks so much to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. Who's sliding in the DMs? Any, like, cool people that have showed up? Yeah, I've had, like, a lot of, like...
1:06:10So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. People with big followings reach out. You know, a lot of people were showing their support and appreciation and whatnot, which was greatly appreciated. And then a lot of people reached out for, like, podcasts or just a chat and things like that. It's hard to keep track of. But, yeah, it's just mainly for, like, just showing the support. and then you know if you're ever in the area let's get together type of thing maybe do a podcast or grab lunch and just learn more about the story the background story of these games and then just about my life and family and stuff so uh it's been cool i've never would have imagined i'd be in this position where people want to hit me up just to talk and stuff like that i just see myself as a normal guy that just you know works hard tries to stay humble and do you get recognized in public often now when i go out in public yeah so usually like i'm so busy working so i'll go to work and then come home go to the gym and then spend time with family grocery store and stuff like that but as i traveled here like this is the first time flying since the finale to come out to do something uh i got recognized a bunch of times in the airport and then a bunch of times in the strip and then um in the hotel too how is that for you uh it's surreal man it's it's crazy Like I said, I never thought I'd be in this position where people want to come up and take pictures of me.
1:07:40But it's cool. It's a cool opportunity. It's cool to let them know that I appreciate their support because it's a lot of people that came up and that were rooting for me. So it's surreal. It's awesome to have that feeling that people were cheering and rooting for you.
1:07:57Graham Stephan:What's your advice to the next contestant of Beast game? don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and then just know when to step up into leadership positions and know when to be a follower so ultimately just build those connections early because that that'll help you out in the long run do you feel rich now no not really man i i i know it may sound crazy but uh i don't really feel like i'm super rich like nothing has really changed for me in my life. Like I'm still, I'm still working hard. Um, still serving, um, still busy, still limited with time off and, you know, the, the chance to do whatever I want, you know, uh, I, I barely see my kids as it is, uh, right now with my work schedule.
1:08:43So, uh, I don't feel like anything's changed. It's just, no, there's a big number in my bank account as of now. So.
1:08:50Graham Stephan:What's crazy though, if you have three and a half million after taxes, let's just say, and you spend 3 % of that. It's really about 100 and we'll call it, we'll round up$120 ,000 a year, $10 ,000 a month for the rest of your life, which is good. But it's not like you're balling up at the club, pulling up in an SVJ, you know, iced out watches. In real estate, you could probably get like 5 % though. Like that wouldn't be a stretch. Yes and no, you'd get 5 % upfront, but you might miss out on some of the appreciation long-term. You don't know how the real estate's going to do. For sure. But yes, you could theoretically do 5%.
1:09:25Yeah. Yeah. No, it's crazy to think about, man. I definitely still plan to do what I can to make passive income on the outside. Whenever I choose to make that decision to get out of the military. My wife still works too. So we'll have that salary. But nothing's changed. Like we still live within our means as we did before, you know, this blessing. And we continue to do that. I'm not super extravagant. I don't need like the nicest cars or the newest iPhone or the nicest watch. Like I got an Apple watch, man. I'm fine with that. Like I'm not an extravagant person. I'm pretty cheap and it takes a lot for me to buy things for myself.
1:10:04Like my wife will just see me going back four for two weeks. Like, should I buy this? Should I not? And then, you know, ultimately she will encourage me, but I'm just, I'm, I'm willing to, you know, do what I can just to make smart investments and then
1:10:19Graham Stephan:set my kids and have you always had that mindset yeah it's crazy because my mom has told me from a young age that i've always been smart with money i remember when i was like four or five she was saying i had like 20 30 bucks in my piggy bank and they were like looking for cash for something like that and i told them hey i have money i can help out and then i went and got my money and they were like surprised I had that much money like saved up with at five years old you know just from what they give me and they they know I don't like to spend money you know I like to see it grow and do what I can invest I've always been like that like I'm not the type of person that's going to go out and buy a lot of clothes and stuff like that like I I want to be smart especially with this newfound wealth I want to make it last and I want to continue to watch it grow.
1:11:10And that's what I plan to do. And Amanda's, you know, working wonders. It's interesting.
1:11:15Graham Stephan:You and Jeff, both winners of Beast Games are like pretty conservative when it comes to money and not spending it. I'm curious if we're going to see a winner. Do you think the person who's going to be like, yo, I bought this Lambo, I rented this penthouse, check out these watches. Do you think that type of person could win Beast Games? Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent, man. You could just, I mean, it's all social game. Like if people like you it can it can help you go far farther because i i view it as beast games as like a way of being like a team aspect up until the end so um yeah i feel like someone in that mindset could win and they'll have the opportunity to do whatever they want and go crazy like that because i'm sure there's going to be a person maybe season three or four or five or however long the beast games last, we'll ball out and live that lavish lifestyle.
1:12:09So it won't be me though. So if you guys were in my shoes with$5.1 million, what would be some of the things that you would do with the money?
1:12:21Graham Stephan:I would certainly look at the tax strategy of it and see if it makes sense. I'm just worried about investing in a rental property right now with this market. You could do it yeah if you became a real estate professional yeah and you satisfied all the requirements i would say that's a possibility because then you have more money left over after tax to put in real estate that could make you some money back uh otherwise if it's just you pay the tax and you move on you keep it simple yeah i like just a broad range of index funds us international say some index funds man you've been heavy on index funds for a while Like, I hate to say it, but like a lot of this is in hindsight too.
1:13:02Graham Stephan:But like a lot of the real estate investments I made were good for YouTube content. But my gosh, when I look at the hassle factor of it, the amount of money that I made from it, all the mental stress that they put me through, it's not worth it. For sure. And now a lot of that is an LA problem. And if we take LA out of the equation and we put my rental properties in Las Vegas, I would probably have a different opinion on it. Yeah, for sure. But like when I bought these properties, you could never tell me back then, oh, yeah, it's going to take you a year to evict a tenant. Oh, yeah. You can't raise rent as much as CPI.
1:13:39Graham Stephan:Yeah. Oh, the tenant has to be two months late on their rent now to be able to give them a notice to pay or quit. Like all of these things. And now what's even crazy is they want to put a mansion tax on properties that sell for more than$700 ,000. Really? A mansion tax. That is not a mansion. That is a tear down one bedroom in a bad part of town. So they want to put these additional taxes. And I'm like, for what? So like a lot of those I couldn't predict because they didn't even exist yet. For sure. But I'm just saying there's so many regulations and anti-landlord policies now that make me very nervous about putting any money in real estate.
1:14:18Yeah. And I've always had concerns getting into it, dealing with like tenants and stuff like that for the reason you explained. Because that's definitely a huge fear of mine too. It's like you just get that one tenant.
1:14:29Graham Stephan:That's not. Everyone gets one. Yeah. So I've had one tenant. It was my first tenant ever. Yeah. That was the one tenant I've had to evict. Everyone else since then have been really fortunate, has been awesome and has been with me for a long time. Nice. But how I feel is that I'm like rolling the dice and hoping I don't hit a seven. Yeah. Every single tenant. And I'm rolling like, oh, great. I got a five. Okay, fine. But then like every year you just roll again. And if you get the seven, you're like, ah, crap. Well, by the numbers, eventually you're going to hit a seven. Yeah. So that's it's a scary feeling, man, to like run into those issues and have to deal with them, too, because I'm yeah.
1:15:08Like you said, it's probably super mentally draining and exhausting trying to deal with those issues.
1:15:13Graham Stephan:It is. And so that's the reason I'm trying to get out of that. I'm trying to sell that. I just it's it'll be a weight lifted off my shoulders. Are you trying to like limit your footprint in real estate then? or yeah yeah i want i want to own nothing except for our primary residence okay because right there there is just like this anti-landlord sentiment right now especially with housing and landlords are the scapegoat of like oh they're the bad guys they're the ones causing all the problems yeah and i don't see that changing anytime soon for sure and so i just say why do i want to be a part of that i don't i don't have any interest anymore in that so then if you were to limit your footprint in real estate you would just look to do like index funds etfs stuff like that i prefer that by a long shot and then i would keep a little bit on the side and maybe treasuries or something really safe yeah uh and that could maybe be 20 yeah and just something safe and that you have that to fall back on or if the market crashes 30 40 you have some dry powder that you could buy in yeah and if not then you have something you could always fall back on for sure do you ever have you guys ever considered like cds for any purposes or no just because like the tax-free muni bond and it'll probably be virtually the same yeah but it depends on what your tax bracket is yeah if you're in a really high tax bracket the tax-free muni bonds work otherwise i think for most people just a good government bond yeah for sure right now they're paying like three and a half percent yeah and you could sell out of it in a day it's really easy really it's really nice Okay.
1:16:45Graham Stephan:That's what I, I mean, I'm doing the tax free media bonds, but I also have some government bonds on the side. Nice, nice. You make three and a half to 4%. You don't have to worry about it. It's just, it's not bad. It's stress-free. And then you spend time with your kids. Yeah. Because imagine, imagine you're at the park with your kids and a tenant calls you. Says, hey, I busted the toilet. This is your responsibility. Go fix it. Yeah. And then an hour later, the plumber hasn't called you back and the tenant's calling you. Why isn't my toilet fixed? Yeah. This needs to be fixed now. It ruins the whole day.
1:17:14Graham Stephan:yeah even with a property manager they still you know they some of the work falls in you yeah absolutely and that's that's always been like a big fear of like having those situations because it's it's all it's not a matter of when not if because i'm sure everyone goes through it um and yeah it was just yeah that would be mentally draining to deal with and stuff so yeah some people love it and that's their personality and they can handle it and for them. It's just, uh, there is good opportunity if you know what you're doing, but I'm just not, I'm not seeing the opportunity right now. It just doesn't exist to the same degree that I saw it six years ago.
1:17:49For sure. Yeah. What about you, Jack? I would probably echo most of what he says. Are you paying quarterly taxes or are you just going to do like the lump sum? I think I, what would you guys recommend? Cause I think I'm doing lump sum. So then what does it do? 2027. Yeah. Next year. Yeah. Then if that's going to affect your income, then yeah. Tax-free community bonds probably make the most sense at least for the remainder of this year for sure and then you'd be able to put i mean most of it in you could probably take i mean i would lump sum it personally actually maybe for how old you yeah jack's 33 if jack's 33 yeah man i would i would aggressively dollar cost average then that's just me personally yeah because you're still really yeah and i would just do the same thing that he did like index funds international maybe yeah i I don't really have a problem with that.
1:18:37International outperformed US last year. The last year. And so you can't really go wrong with that. For sure. Yeah, because like the rule of thumb, right? Every seven years, it's expected to double your value. And I would live off of like a very low withdrawal rate, ideally as well. Like even if you could start out, because I would even, I'd be surprised if you were spending more than$5 ,000 a month, probably, in your current situation. Like you're probably trying to save and invest as much as you can. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so like if you could do a 2 % withdrawal rate on three and whatever million that you end up with, assuming you don't get like a bunch of write-offs, then you could live like that.
1:19:12And your lump sum that you have invested could continue growing at that low withdrawal rate. And then you could slowly inflate your lifestyle like as time goes on. But for right now, just bless yourself with the freedom, not necessarily with like increased hedonic spending. Yeah.
1:19:26Graham Stephan:I don't see us ever doing that. What Chris Camillo would say. He would say lever yourself as much as possible into Amazon. Yeah. Really? Yes, he'd go triple leveraged Amazon. Really? And if you lose it, you just aggressively double down. Yeah. Apply aggressively to Beast Games 3. Double down, nice. So he's huge on Amazon then? Very big on Amazon. How do you guys feel about Amazon? I invested a little bit. I bought. Yeah, I got a little bit too. I think I got 100 shares of Amazon and that's my exposure to Amazon. Yeah, I think mine's like 50 shares. Yeah, that's about it. I went in a little bit more aggressively, but that was because I listened to his show quite a bit.
1:20:08And he just, he said recently, he's like, I just bought three medium-sized houses in Amazon. And that is immediately after buying five medium-sized houses in Amazon. I was like, okay, like if he's that bullish on it, like maybe I'll put some capital. Yeah, put a little bit, see if it pans out.
1:20:22Graham Stephan:Yeah, I can't buy individual stocks. No? No, because I check them way too much. But I do, what I do like to buy is I just buy a few shares of something or a small amount, like maybe a thousand bucks max. and I just see how I would have done. For sure. Just in case. And then if it's down, I feel, oh, good. I didn't go heavy into that. If it's up, then I feel bad that I didn't invest more. But at least I know. If it dips and it's a company that you believe in, would you dollar cost average in? Yeah, I've done that a little bit with Robinhood and I was buying in the low 70s. I did not get into Robinhood when it was like back in the teens.
1:20:58Ugh, Robinhood ruined me. Yeah, because it had all that bad reputation. and stuff um at the beginning with like gme yeah jack sold jack sold the bottom i had to i got margin called but it was i had like ten dollars a share wow yeah i think it was i think it was like 11 or 13 dollars really it was i mean it was in my fun account and so i didn't necessarily care about the money and i was just kind of like it was my robin hood account yeah uh and then i also had like my other you know m1 account which at the time was like my main brokerage and i just like you know why not i really like robin hood stock and i also it was palantir as well so it was robin hood and palantir and i got margin called on both of those really yeah dang yeah i went heavy into palantir um back when it was like six to ten bucks oh my gosh yeah yeah you're just like
1:21:45Graham Stephan:jeff yeah like jeff was like a pretty dude i got that jeff's in your ear right now yeah yeah he's big into tesla too yeah we talk a lot man like i got into tesla back in like 2020 i got like 20 these shares back then I mean that's probably served you incredibly well yeah and then uh I got into Nvidia uh really really at a early stage too back in like 2021 2022 before it blew up too so I just right time right place man just had good intuition and it's worked out you have a good history of being right time right place yeah yeah I mean I did I did my due diligence and like i talked to other people that were so bullish especially on palantir had a couple buddies that were very bullish and stuff like that and they're like you know they're gonna start signing like contracts with you know the military and a bunch of other different contracts with dod stuff and yeah they've they've just signed a lot of dod contracts and been doing and performing well so You got to give us a heads up before you, I got some, uh, some Intel, this stock we believe is going to do really well and I'm buying a little bit.
1:22:58Graham Stephan:So, uh, now might be a good time. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But yeah, man, Palantir was one that I got in heavy at the beginning stages, just from some of my buddies talking about that and stuff. So I was like, all right, I'm going to trust your due diligence. I did a little bit of mine and it just took off, man. It's crazy. It's been pretty well. If you were to leave one piece of wisdom to Mr. Beast or one thing that you'd like to say to him, he's watching right now, what would you want to say? Just thank you for the opportunity, for blessing my family, for changing my life. And I'm super supportive and grateful to be a part of this experience.
1:23:41And I love watching what he does, all of the good he does for other people. He changes a lot of people's lives. So continue to do that. Continue to be your humble self. Continue to care for your people, to receive criticism openly. and implement those changes like you have and you'll continue doing big things. Beast Games will be around for a while. It'll be like the new survivor. So keep being open to feedback like you are, criticism, and it'll pay dividends in the long run if you want to make this a long-term thing.
1:24:16Graham Stephan:What do you think about the rumors that Mr. Beast is a part of the Illuminati? No, I think those are crazy, man. There's been a lot of like crazy accusations and like rumors and stuff like that. I've seen that people say he's the Antichrist. I've seen that too. Yeah, I've seen so many crazy things, man. It's insane. Is there anything though that you've seen that you're like, maybe there's some truth to that? No, not really. Like the main things I've seen is like the Illuminati, like the Antichrist and stuff like that. And then I saw something about like... Sociopath is one. Narcissist is another thing.
1:24:52Yeah, narcissist too. and then um like he's just doing everything like he doesn't really care about people he's just doing it for like himself and stuff but like he invests a lot of his money back into youtube videos to making good content for his fans and subscribers and to changing people's lives like this guy has a lot of money he doesn't need to be doing this he doesn't need to be giving out money to people and stuff like that but he does and i mean it helps his brand too but like you don't see a lot of people like that these days that are willing to use a lot of their money to invest back into their content to helping change people's lives why do you think so many people believe these crazy conspiracies i don't know man i i think partly maybe they just they're just trying to look for maybe a fault in him from all the good that he's doing there's got to be one thing that is wrong with him there's one thing that you know he might be kind of you know different or have something negative about him.
1:25:52So maybe they're just trying to look for something just to bash him for. Cause he does a lot of good. You know, he's a, he's a good guy. He works hard. He's passionate with what he does and he's changing people's lives a lot, like a lot of people's lives. And like, when you see someone doing good and, you know, performing well, like some people won't like that. They'll hate on that. You know, you're always going to have haters and there's just people out there that are probably trying to you know make some money off of you know his his image by bashing him or something like that you know get attention have you had any haters yeah i've had haters what do they say yeah you know a lot of people that didn't believe in me or didn't support me or you know bash me for whatever reason and stuff and that's fine you know some of it could be true some of it could just be made up but at the end of the day you You just got to block out the noise, stick to who you are.
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1:27:43just keep one foot in front of the other man just stay optimistic and always look for the good in
1:27:48Graham Stephan:things you know it's crazy i see a lot of people believing now uh speaking of conspiracies that ellen degeneres and leonardo dicaprio eat babies and that they've gone to the island and eat babies i have seen that and i'm just i remember seeing it i'm just reading i'm just thinking like what is wrong with people man like that's so extreme what's so funny is that right now the new trend is to leak these Epstein emails, but they're fake emails. And because the Epstein list is so big, no one's going to look through like a hundred thousand documents. So you leak a fake email that says like Ellen DeGeneres is going there and like sucking babies.
1:28:26I feel like, oh my gosh, this is it.
1:28:29Graham Stephan:We, we always knew there was something going on in Hollywood, but now it makes sense. They, they go through these satanic ritualistic experiences to be a part of the Illuminati to get these acting roles. And it involves eating babies. Yeah. I remember seeing that and I'm just like, man, people are like crazy. They believe it. And it's crazy. Yeah. People will believe anything these days because like you can, you can with AI and stuff, like you can make some believable stuff. And there's a lot of people out there that will believe anything without factually checking things. It's really bad. I have started to distrust anything now that I see on Twitter.
1:29:12Yeah.
1:29:12Graham Stephan:Because there is so much AI information out there that, like, there was one, I hate to say it, I fell for it. I reposted an AI video. Oh, man. And it was so realistic. And someone later posted. That person's thinking, like, I got you. I took it down. I took it down, though. As soon as I confirmed. And what's even crazier is that I kept asking Grok before posting it, is this real? Yeah. Confirm this is real. show the source of this image and it showed all of it I was like this is real and then someone commented this is a fake video this is from this and of course then I re-ask Grok in a new prompt is this from this video game and then sure enough it says yes it's from that video oh man it even got Grok dude dude it's bad yeah it's so bad man like it's hard because even with like all the propaganda and like news outlets and stuff like that too like it kind of like makes you question on what's right and what's not.
1:30:08And then like a lot of people are just having a hard time believing things and like they'll just go with like the most like politically correct or whatever. And then without fact checking things.
1:30:19Graham Stephan:You know what? This just made me realize, I would say for the last four years, we've swung away from traditional media and we've gone to new sources like Twitter because it's more instant. at the time it was more accurate and legacy media was so far behind that by the time you saw it, it's like, oh no I knew about that on Twitter, six hours ago it's swinging back to legacy media now I don't believe something unless I see it on one of the big sites because if they publish misinformation their threshold, they'll get sued but meanwhile, if some dude from a random account posts something on Twitter they can see whatever they want to but there's no repercussion for that but if a legacy media does that they get sued out the oblivion they lose all their credentials but some new account could get millions of views just saying whatever like yeah you know eating this or that or something got blown up today yeah it's not true yeah it's crazy man it's crazy to see that that's shifting things because i yeah at one point in time i was going to twitter yeah for a lot of my my news related articles and facts and things like that and now like it's hard to tell like there's this one guy on twitter i used to follow and like he just he just posts the most outrageous things now um he has like over a million followers and stuff i remember when he had like 10 000 followers and he just posts like the most incorrect outrageous things and people are believing it like as a joke or i don't know if it's a joke i i don't know but like if you saw some of the posts like it does not read like as a joke like it's like in a serious like manner could be the babylon b i love the babylon b if you know what that is they like purposely post misinformation yeah yeah it's there's a lot of parody accounts out there but it's buried that it's a parody like you have to go into the account itself and it's like this is satire yeah yeah i think his name was like matt something he was gonna find you matt he was a big doge guy back in the day but like every time like his some of his posts were just pop on my timeline i'm just like like what is what are you posting dude like but they get money yeah the more outrageous it is because i've been exactly i've been tempted just to post some rage bait out there and have it be insanely inaccurate but like harmless inaccurate uh but you know they don't get engagement man but it gets engagement like the more ridiculous you say something or the harsher the stance you take that's really unpopular the more views you get and you're paid directly with the amount of views that you get exactly man that's why like you see a lot of like controversial things these days because people do it for the engagement the views we had one i felt really bad for we had sam and colby on the podcast and we were going to intro with a joke on them and the joke was dude did you just hear what happened like no what happened and we say mr beast just sold his channel to disney and i'm like no you're kidding i'm like no i'm dead head serious he just like this just happened that's why i'm bringing it up to you really like yeah five billion dollars and they say no way holy crap i'm like and jack chimes in like yeah it's kind of crazy like it just got leaked or something just happened but yeah it's confirmed and then they're like oh man and then we say just kidding and they're like ah we had a good laugh we started but they clipped it before the just kidding and that went crazy on twitter to the point where jimmy even had to address it and say i did not sell my channel to disney and i felt terrible that i sent him a message afterwards be like hey if you watch the go we say just joking it's been a harmless thing and i genuinely felt really bad yeah because it's like i was about to ask man did he hit you up about that like dude what the heck or something no i reached out proactively but also it's like he gets clipped out of context so many times that was one of like three that day yeah and so it's like anything he does it will be clipped up oh yeah for sure and that's that's probably what leads to people like you know having these like bad views or something like that judgment on on him it's like these different clips and stuff so speaking of clips by the way i do have to say for all of you watching our iced coffee hour clips some of them do end up getting millions millions of views we end up driving a lot of traffic from them even back to the original episodes.
1:34:44Graham Stephan:If you guys are looking for a good clipper, I just want to say a huge shout out to Josh at Social Media Money. We'll link to him down below in the description. For any other YouTube channels or people who want to get involved with his clips, he's fantastic. He posts for us every single day, multiple times a day. He's pretty hands off. So we'd highly recommend him. He's been working with us for years, by the way. This is the sole clipper we've worked with for the past, what, three or four years? Yeah. I think we were actually his first, were we his first client? We were one of the first clients.
1:35:11Graham Stephan:We were one of the first clients. go back on our accounts all the way three, four years back, all of that stuff is done by Josh. So shout out Josh and he's linked down below. Yeah. I'm not a fan of the social media money name. He knows this, but beyond the name, he's great. I don't like social media. He knows. Comment down below if you should change the name. Tell him he should change it. Say, Josh, change the name of social media money. We don't like that name. Please. But genuinely, he's got a great service to check him out. Tyler, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. Really appreciate it.
1:35:37Graham Stephan:We'll link to all your information down below in the description. And how about this? If you guys want early access to our next podcast is posting next week, channel members have early access to that episode right now. And if you join as a channel member, you get bonus content that could only be seen there. So if you want a sneak peek at next week's episode, here you go. Enjoy. Thank you so much for joining as well. And until next time. What's so unique about this podcast is that you both are known for real estate and the show selling Sunset and selling some of the most luxurious real estate. Why talk about AI today?
1:36:09This is something that we haven't seen before. The real question is, is anything going to stop AI? I don't think there's going to be any constraints. And if there's no constraints and it keeps going up and to the right, there's no stopping it. How do you not get horrified thinking about this, though? Like, what's the optimistic part of it? I think the best strategy, honestly, is maybe to be hopefully optimistic. I think there's a 10 to 30 percent chance it kills us all. But there's a 70 percent chance that we live in an age of abundance that you couldn't even have contemplated 10 years ago.
1:37:08Transcription by CastingWords Not juggling. Make the switch today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:00 - How Much Tax on $5 Million?
2:32 - How Much Money Is Left?
4:26 - Getting Time Off from the Military
6:53 - The Beast Games Application Process
8:24 - Military Drone Pilot Background
11:18 - 6 Weeks Without a Phone
12:24 - First Competition Impressions
13:58 - The Hardest Beast Games Challenge
15:05 - Sponsor - NetSuite
16:47 - What Beast Games Really Tests
21:57 - Strategy & Studying Season 1
22:40 - First Impression of Mr. Beast
24:36 - What He Misses Most About Beast Games
28:41 - Being Watched 24/7 & Locker Room Talk
30:34 - Sponsor - CookUnity
31:59 - Unpublished Stories & Season 1 Controversy
33:33 - Can You Split Money with Other Players?
34:22 - Moments of Self-Doubt
36:59 - Traits of Players Who Failed
40:16 - Watching the Show Back
41:49 - Keeping the Win a Secret for 8 Months
48:04 - What He's Spent So Far
50:09 - Did $5 Million Make Him Happier?
51:10 - Real Estate & Investment Plans
55:17 - Strangers Asking for Money Online
58:21 - First Class Vacation Plans
1:01:22 - Sponsor - Relay
1:02:42 - Sponsor - Shopify
1:04:13 - Who's Sliding into His DMs?
1:05:59 - Advice for Future Contestants
1:06:15 - Does He Feel Rich?
1:10:16 - What Would You Do with $5 Million?
1:21:24 - Message to Mr. Beast
1:22:17 - Mr. Beast Conspiracy Theories
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