Tips for Deal Connectors with Brian Esposito

Josh
 Good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout on this show. This is, this is one of my favorite shows. I built 10 and all this stuff, but like I love the show because I get to talk with deal-makers and share their journey. Some of, sometimes deals go well and people cash out in that big it's and then sometimes deals go south and on today's show, Brian's going to talk to us about sometimes when deals go south, it might not be that bad and you can count your blessings in it. So, Brian, welcome to the show, man. 

 Brian
 I honored to be here Josh real quick. Before we get going, I have a little pop-up on my screen, so I don't know if you have that as well. 

 Josh
 Yeah, what's it say? 

 Brian
 It just says, oh, it's gone. Let's rock and roll. See a little speed bump. There's always a speed bump in life and now we're ready to go. 

 Josh
 It said, Brian, you are a fantastic guest and we're excited here. 

 Brian
 Well, it's sad, but yeah, I mean, it was so many accolades. I didn't want to read them. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Well, if I had an applause button we'd hit that up. Brian, why don't you tell us, first of all, where are you? Like what part of the world do you have? 

 Brian
 A one in the states typically operate out of New Jersey, New York area, as well as Nashville and San Diego. I'm in the process of moving all my holdings into the jurisdiction of Florida based out of Miami and with all my holdings in companies, we proudly operate in over 25 cities around the world. And that continues to grow. As we acquire, start or merge with new companies or projects, 

 Josh
 Cool to the great country of Florida. Welcome. We welcome. You bring all your business here, 

 Brian
 The Texas and Arizona there, they beat to their own drums and they do a well. 

 Josh
 Awesome. Awesome. All right. So first of all, like why Florida? Cause I'd love to hear this and then I'd love to go back in time, how you got started. 

 Brian
 Yeah. So I've been my professional career. I've been on this journey since the mid to late nineties, just turning for 41. I've experienced a lot over this career, and I've seen the movement in San Francisco. I've seen the movement in LA. Obviously I've seen the move in to New York. I went to meetings in 2012 and Nashville and I didn't leave for four years. There was an amazing movement. That's still going on there as well as Austin. I've seen these amazing opportunities and energy and successes and journeys in these cities. Nothing have I seen is what's happening in Miami right now. You're seeing industries across so many different sectors, obviously NFTs and crypto, or a big portion of that, but you're seeing large investment banks moving there. You're seeing huge tech companies move there. What's happening in Miami is across the board, many different industries, many seasoned entrepreneurs, CEOs, and corporate leaders that are moving there. 

 Brian
 I need to be there because that's where everybody is that I work with for the most part. I'm finding myself in and out of the city more frequently than not. That's where everybody's conducting businesses and doing deals. It's not a bad place to be. Plus we have a very big FNB and hotel flags and very heavily involved in the hospitality space. We have great projects on the way in the city of Miami as well. 

 Josh
 Awesome. Awesome. All right. Before we go into like the origin story of how you got started, because you're 41 years old, right? Your LinkedIn shows that you are 137. I, it took me like 10 minutes to get through, to go through all the like founders, investor, founder, investor, holding this and that, right. You you've lived a wonderful life of deal-making. Before we go into that, right behind you have the dude on a skateboard, 

 Brian
 It looks like, 

 Josh
 Yeah. Talk to us, you might have to paint a picture cause some people are just listening into a podcast, but paint a picture for some of the memorabilia behind you and why it's important to you. 

 Brian
 Oh no, this is a great studio known as a shared universe. We partner and work with them and do a lot of our productions out of their studios. We're looking to put these inside of the hotels that we're developing as well, the hotel. The owner, Ming Chang very heavily involved in a lot of these movies and amazing opportunities they collect and a great space to do these interviews out of. 

 Josh
 Awesome. That's a great idea. Putting, putting some of this stuff in hotels, right. 

 Brian
 I got to fill the hotel and you've got to give them experiences not to leave the hotel. While they're recording, they want to order some food and beverage. Everything's moving where to keep people happy. 

 Josh
 I like it. All right. Talk to us about your deal-making journey. Like where did it get started? You're 41 years old. Take us back to your first deal. 

 Brian
 Yeah, well, it's always been my own deal. My brain is always thinking about creating opportunities. Whenever I meet people, I always think these 1, 2, 3, or four people need to get together and we need to do something so early on in my career, I built the first B2B B2C e-commerce platform for the beauty industry. I launched over 1200 brands, some very big household names that you see today and all to serve for your shop, your supermarket or drugstore. As I was their first dealer, their first retailer, I helped them grow their brands. I always wrongly for a majority of my career for over 15 years, I was stuck in this trap of making other people wealthy. I was happy with the crumbs I was getting. Cause I thought that was my place. I didn't really properly value myself. I didn't value the connector. The connector is crucial in every component of a deal coming together, the connector can either make it happen or they can kill it. 

 Brian
 Everything resides on the comfort of the connector, the confidence and knowing when to speak and more importantly, knowing when to shut up. So, if you bring people together to do a deal, now what I do is I control the deal. I make sure that people don't run off with it and make sure they don't have business amnesia, which I've coined many years ago, Brian, who, okay. Damn well, who I am because I'm the one that made you very wealthy and created the opportunity for you. What I had to do is stop being invited into other people's worlds and create this world that I built now that has over 85 different holdings, over 150 joint ventures around the world. Like I said, operating over 25 different industries. Now I invite people into my world. I control the deal flow. I control all aspects of the deal. 

 Brian
 I'm the one that says we're going to move forward. Or we're not. It turned down more deals than I take, just because I want to work with good people. Money is a by-product of good people doing good work together. It took me a long time to figure it out. I am a, I'll use the word soft in my heart is I think everybody's good. I had to change my DNA to realize whether they're good or not is irrelevant. I'm not their judge. What is relevant is my time, my resources and my energy and my integrity. And then also my relationships. If I'm going to bring people together and create a deal, I need to make sure that it goes away, that I expected it to go. If it does go sideways more times than not, it was a good thing. Let it naturally fall apart because maybe it wasn't the right thing. 

 Brian
 Also what I've learned in my career, it's not just connecting the right people. That's fun and exciting to do, but it's connecting the right people at the right time. You need to know what's going on in their companies and their worlds. Are they ready for this? They have the resources at the time and are they excited about it? That's that's fun. Also now what I pride myself in doing is, fixing problems was a big strength of mine. I was very good at fixing and solving problems for myself and for people. Cause I can just see things differently, but now as you get older and you become more experienced and more seasoned, it's avoiding those problems. That's, that's where the real fun and the real saving on your time and resources lies. 

 Josh
 Yeah. You mentioned a few things, right? So you're really good at fixing problems. Now there's a lot of problem fixers out there. We call them entrepreneurs, right? They see a problem. They go fix it. What I've seen through interviewing a thousand people is, for people who are great at fixing problems, if they run out of problems to fix, sometimes they create their own problems. Have you experienced that? Or, what's your take on that? 

 Brian
 Yeah. Yeah. I have experienced that. It's, some people just like drama that's also, you got to avoid those people too, depending upon how deep you are involved with their business or if you're contractually connected to them, I'm allergic now that to drama or negative people or anybody that's toxic, you got to go. If you're a friend, a family member, a business partner, if you are creating any negativity in my life that not just like a random, obviously we all face problems, but if you're a consistent drain on happiness, you got to go. If we can make a billion dollars and got it, I don't care. I'm more concerned about enjoying my day and being able to sleep at night and not being surrounded by toxic people. Yeah, to answer your question, that that's common. I think it's very common because of insecurities and people are always questioning their maneuvers or questioning people. 

 Brian
 They're questioning, are they doing the right thing? Now more than everybody's living in fear. You had that traditional business environment where it's scary. You know, it's very scary. It's to go out on the limb, it's scary to leave your corporate job. Or if you're going to stop teaching and going to be an entrepreneur, that alone is a very torturous journey. Especially if you don't have the right support system behind you, and now you start implementing the new way of doing business and things are done virtually, and there's of a correction going on across many different markets and industry. Now's a tough time to dive in, but it's also, I think the best time to dive in because now's where you look at what's going on, where's the opportunities and you can pick up things and assets or create deals at a discount because there's been of a correction. 

 Brian
 That'll that'll continue. I've I always get, I don't want to say a laugh, but that people get shocked that there's corrections and that the world is imploding. It's not the first time it's happened. It won't be the last time that it's happened. It's very humorous the way that I look at it, the way our psychology looks at things, and it just starts crying doom and gloom. When this is what happens, this is part of the journey and then look correct, and we'll rebuild and it'll happen again. Five, 10 years, whatever the cycles look like. If you think you can take a market from 15,000 to 35,000 and not think that there's going to be a correction in the Dow, well know, maybe I want to live in your world of delusional way of operating because that's just crazy. That's crazy not to think that there's gotta be some kind of pullback. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What we're preparing for as of the recording, we're recording this in July, 2022. World's getting a little crazy, interest rates are rising. People are, are we in recession? Are we not in a recession? We are in a recession. What's going to happen? It going to be oh, eight style? Is it going to be 2000? Is it going to be the eighties? Like nobody knows the future, but I'll tell you, here's how we're preparing. And I'd love to hear your thoughts. We are working with tons of different buyers and we're starting get ready to acquire things on value, right? Yeah. 

 Brian
 We're lucky to move already without even going any further well to move. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Commercial real estate we're, we're gearing up and then on business acquisitions, we're gearing up. However, with that said, that is something that I'm having to like every day, like prepare my mind and get my mind, ready to get my heart ready because I do battle with fear. I'm afraid. Like I've got young kids, nine, five, and two. Like, I want them to have a great life. I don't want them to go through struggle. One side, I'm afraid I'm fearful on the other side, I'm super optimistic. And my buyers are like, hell yeah. How do you, how are you gearing yourself up? Or how do you stay positive? I'd love to hear your thoughts, man. Teach me. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Well I, and I've been to Vietnam as far as it relates to business and getting my ass kicked left and right. There's a problem, I'm used to it. I don't, I don't look at the markets. I, we have a great system in place of creating value for my own holdings in companies, I'm trained public markets, create value boost, balance sheets grow from your positive earnings and your positive earnings. As long as it's sustainable. That's what your company should be valued at. I'm not the unicorn guy because unicorns, when they go public, as your experience shows you, the market is not stupid and they get pulled down and dragged down to a level that is based off of earnings. They'll call back up and they'll be at the IPO price. And then good ones will exceed that. But it takes many years. Watch, watch the Facebook's Uber's of the world. 

 Brian
 Everybody had a correction and they call back up to figuring out their company and where it gets interesting. It calls back up by firing people, right? They always start to look at what is the easiest way to create profits. It's not grow your business. It's to get rid of people, which I think is, which is unfortunate, but that's the easiest way to create some additional margins. As it relates to your kids, I'm very grateful. Not I'm not a father yet. I hope I hope to be soon, but I'm grateful for the bruises that I got because it made me be able to handle life. You know? I know you mentioned before that you don't want them to have to worry. You don't want them to go things. And I, I disagree with that. They should go through as much as possible within reason with your protection and support there. 

 Brian
 I speak like this because when I work with startup founders, I'm there to make sure that it doesn't go too far, but I need them to experience pain. I need them to experience that their decisions were wrong. This is what happens when you make a wrong decision. Because if they're not doing that, I'm not doing them a service being part of the company and helping them grow. They're not experiencing the practices that they need to become a well established seasoned CEO to be able to handle anything. Whether it's a market correction or they can't get supplies, or there's a huge surge interest rates, these are things that are out of your control and are going to happen. Whether you cry about it, whether you pray about it, things that are out of your control, you can not worry about you can not focus on, can not waste a single minute on what you need to focus on. 

 Brian
 What is in your control, what business can you go out and grab? If you're an acquisition mode, what kind of banking partners that you have that you can lock in some lines of credit, some low interest rates that go out and acquire these businesses and what businesses can you acquire that you can pair up with your other holdings to create more profitability and more opportunities and more deal flow. That's what I do. I I'm a glorified matchmaker with my own holdings. I just like making peanut butter and jelly by connecting a and B and creating something that wasn't of value before. Now has it boosted both company's balance sheets and creating the new market, create a new piece of IP product technology or service. We're servicing a market with combined resources with more higher profitable margins. So, I'm not doing anything, I'm not curing cancer. 

 Brian
 I'm just trying to survive and create value and work with good people. I like your strategy now is the time to go out and make those moves. You shouldn't be afraid because you're older now, what moves to make? You should feel confident in your moves me 10 years ago, I made every wrong move you can think of, but now I can look at something and smell it immediately. If it makes sense or not. You gotta move quick, because if you're in a position that to take something down and acquire it, hesitation, it'll kill you. That'll cost you more money than, than going after and making the deal happen. 

 Josh
 Yeah. So you talk about deals going south. That's, let's peel back the onion. Let's let's take a look at one and something that you've learned, would love to look at a deal, gone wild with you. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Without naming names. I mean, there's hundreds of them. The, the, the best deals that goes south are the ones where the person saying that they have something and they don't is absolutely hysterical. I don't know if you've found yourself in this position, but you'll be solicited a deal. Or in my case, it's usually my banker or accounting firm or a compliance firm that will connect me with one of their other clients, because they know how I work and they need a silver bullet for lack of a better word that helps save something. You start, like you said, peeling back the onion. I'm talking with somebody that's handling a Bible telling me they own the property. They own the airplane. They own the rights to something. I'd rather, they just would have told me they didn't because I still want to work with them and figured it out. 

 Brian
 I got to spend 30, 60 days to come to a conclusion that they don't own the rights to anything. They don't actually have any assets. We've been wasting all this time and energy and legal documents. They just, I dunno, like a deer in the headlights looking at me like, I'm some wrong with me. I'm like, I can't buy air from you. You don't own anything. There's nothing we can leverage. There's no value here. Why w why did you lie? Why did you make up something and continue to lie about it? And that's amazing. Like, I was just step back and look at it like a movie, like, what the hell did I just go through? Which is why I don't believe even the, my bankers anymore, or my accountants. If they tell me something, I'll take that on face value anymore. I got to go and do even more due diligence to see if there is really an asset. 

 Brian
 There, there is really something unencumbered that we can potentially make a move on and create some value. Most of the deals that go south or sideways, or are typically ones where the people are lying, they don't have what they say they have. Or, and I don't wanna knock brokers because, that's, there are some valuable ones, but brokers will kill a deal in a second. It's amazing how a broker of a deal. If they don't get the inflated value that they think that it's worth, they rather get nothing. They rather kill the deal, which is mind boggling mind, boggling to me, they'd rather get 0%, rather than seeing a fair deal go through and then make some money. So, from my experience, a lot of the brokers in these situations will kill a deal because of their own unrealistic valuations on the transaction, greed and ego. 

 Josh
 Yeah. They've funded experiments. I forget the name of the experiment, but, they'll pretty much say there's two people in a room here's $10. If you both have to agree to it right before you can cut it up. Right. So it makes sense. If you're going into a room with nothing. Now you have any bit, you should say yes, but if you get to see what the other person's making and comparison with you, people will kill a deal. If the other person's making more greed will kill a deal. 

 Brian
 A hundred percent or broker will use you to go out and work another deal and keep, and then you start chasing your bid or value, which is crazy. This is why I always love to be principal to principal now. That's where you can just guns on the table and what do we want to accomplish here? And we want to create value. We want to unlock dormant assets. You know, what is the play here? And how does everybody benefit? Not just the principals and the deal maker, but the, all the stakeholders. If it's a public company, the shareholders who involved is going to win in this deal, and you have to leave the table where everybody has some win under the belt and a fair deal. I don't like the, I mean, I love Carl Icahn is one of my favorite people to like, watch and see what he's done. 

 Brian
 I don't, I like the strategy of that, but that's not my style. My style is fair deals, good business, sustainable long-term growth, because you never know who's going to be in a room 10 years from now that you did wrong and a deal that is now going to determine your next chapter of your life or the future of your business. So, and I can't be in every room at the same time. I always need someone in that room. I don't, I don't wanna say praising me, but saying, oh, Brian has said, he's a good guy. Someone you should do business with. I need that to always happen. I need to have some person in a room saying my name. And it's interesting. The more that you grow and the more deals that you're doing, the Reece that I have a few days ago, somebody called me. 

 Brian
 He's like, can't believe I was at a private party in London where we're going to do a deal with this company. I started the person telling me, then he said, I started to think, maybe we shouldn't do the deal. My name came up and they both again put their guns on the table and said, oh, you work with Brian. Yeah. You work with Brian. Yeah. They did the deal, but that was amazing to me when they both call me. There was no reason for these people to be in that room. I think there was 20 people in the room. They don't, they're not in the same industry. They're not in the same businesses. I didn't even know they were going to be in the same room together. It looked like it was an orchestrated move, but my name just happened to come up. And that happens very frequently now. 

 Brian
 And it's cool. It's I love it. And, and it works in my favor because I always do what I say I'm going to do. Sometimes it takes me longer to get there. If something happens, I always try to make it right. If that takes a while, then it takes a while. I think at the end of the day, my integrity is really all I that I have. I want that to be as strong as it possibly can. If I leave this earth tomorrow, I want to at least have some positive mark on a deal, a situation, or the work that I've been trying to do. 

 Josh
 If you, we don't want this to happen, right. This is a predict. If he, if he did leave and looking back, what are you most proud of out of all the things you've done or accomplished or become? What's one thing that you're like damn proud of that. 

 Brian
 It's not going to sound corny, but it'll be this moment. And I'll tell you why. Like, everything that I've done has led me to now be on a great interview with you. And that's what I'm proud of. I'm proud of people wanting to speak with me. People wanted to hear about my experiences and hopefully one person somewhere in the world heard one of these discussions and learn something. I may be, I was a little boost that they needed to get through the day or something clicked in their mind to go after if something that they wanted to go after. That's what I'm most proud of. Not, not the money or the deals or the people that I work with. I've always worked with celebrity types throughout my entire career. People would want to take pictures with them and share it everywhere. That's, that's not my style. 

 Brian
 I just, I like to just create value. Over the last few years, I really find a rewarding and therapeutic for me to go through my hell, which was a lot of hell to get where I am today. Use that to share it on platforms like this, to use that, to work with startups, even at the fortune 500 companies that I get to work with. Yeah. My experiences put a little light on whatever those companies are trying to do and make them successful. That's what I'm proud of. I'm proud that I'm able to help people go after their dreams and succeed with me being a spoken their wheel to be able to accomplish that. 

 Josh
 Yeah, dude, super cool. You're proud of the hell you went through to become the man you are today that people even in London are having conversations and going off his name's on it. I'm in. Right. And that's cool. The, 

 Brian
 It sounds like noxious. I hate saying that, but that's a real story and that, yeah. I just think that's cool. Well, it sounds a little obnoxious, right? 

 Josh
 Who cares? Right. Well, a good name is far more valuable than Ruby's a good name. Like w we might do things and we might accumulate wealth that wealth could disappear tomorrow when inflation goes off. Right. A good name will push through you. You just said, yeah, I know at firsthand talk about a time where maybe you accumulated a lot, and then you lost a lot. What went on between your ears? 

 Brian
 Oh, 2016, or we 12 20 16, a drunk driver hit me head on, I was stupidly going back to the office four in the afternoon, just because I'm a worker I'm in Nashville and this lunatic just hits me. Two things on that point, I shouldn't have walked away from that. Secondly, I'm so glad she hit me because I'm still here. She could have killed somebody. She could have ruined a family. I would take the head over and over again. The second thing that happened was my entire model and world was completely wrong. At the time I had 30 or so holdings, I was building this in my mind, this controlled chaos, but I knew what I wanted to accomplish completely surrounded by the wrong people. That's from legal accounting banking, certain senior executives, like once I was ripped from the equation and couldn't do my usual performance, there was nobody there. 

 Brian
 And that's my fault. I don't, I learned not to blame anybody too. I put, I put these people here and I take a hundred percent of the blame on that. Once I was ripped from it, I was a deal maker. I was the one putting my name on the line. I was the one getting the lines of credit. I was the one maneuvering assets to leverage, to continue to grow and build what I was building. What I had to quickly figure out was not be bitter or angry because that could have easily have happened. I was very torn of hating the world and hating people that I co-signed for loans so they can get home so they can get cars. I help certain employees, progress in life and give them bonuses when they probably shouldn't have, because I like to do that. I like to help people and take care of people. 

 Brian
 And I was last to eat. Anybody listening stopped being last to eat. I made up this Jesus Christ model where I want it to take care of everybody else. If there's any crumbs, I would scoop around and pick up some crumbs during that time, if I wasn't lasted for 15, 16 or so years, I would haven't had an arsenal of resources that would have weathered the storm of me getting in that accident and keeping things going. I'm very glad that didn't happen because again, it was the wrong model I needed to. I needed to rip the bandaid off of what I was building and completely rebuild and restructure from a different value proposition. Me being the center of that value. I am the one that creates the value. It's my brain. It's my strategy is my relationships, my risk-taking and my work ethic. I'm going to value myself first and foremost and properly now understand what is the price of me prior to this? 

 Brian
 I knew how to price technology knew how to price products and services and solutions. It's very easy to X plus Y minus Z. Here's your costs go to the market and have a multiplier. I had to figure out what was my worth? I had to start to rebuild. Who's now in my inner circle. That was, probably some people, it sucked for them, but I don't care. You, you were not doing me any service. You were drain on me. You were using me. You took advantage of me. The minute that the, this money train had no money in it, you were nobody, nowhere to be found. Nobody was in the trenches with me. When I had to rebuild, that was with me for years, decades. It's very disheartening that can make somebody very angry, very bitter, very upset. I just knew if I'm going to go through life like that, there was no way in hell. 

 Brian
 I'm going to be able to rebuild this. I did it once I can do it again, but there's no way I could do it. If I hated the world, my energy and my personality is I like people. I like working with people. I created an opportunity. If I cut that energy off and I'm very standoffish and start to throw out this vibe where they could tell that it's closed off and I couldn't, there's no way I can come back. You have to play this mental game with yourself to like compartmentalize the hurt, the pain, the sorrow that is disappointment and keep fighting and keep pushing forward. That's what I was able to do, took a lot, many years to be where I am right now, after that accident. But again, very grateful. She hit me and I've rebuilt. I think every built stronger and better than before. 

 Brian
 In the future where everything collapses again, but it's okay. I know I can do it again. I know I can rebuild, but right now it's a really beautiful symphony of companies, shared resources, opportunities, and the right people that know what we're trying to accomplish and are working their asses off to make sure that we always create value and do good work. 

 Josh
 Super cool. All right. You get hit by a drunk driver, 2016, there's this one shoulder, the good guy, right? The angel, the other shoulders, the devil. You're you have a choice to make bitter angry. You can build a lot of s**t out of pure p**s and vinegar and rage, right? You could be like, I'll show you all and you can build. We've seen a lot of people build it and destroy partnerships, but you're like, Nope, I'm thankful for this, which is crazy. I'm thankful that I got nailed. I'm thankful, but I'm going to build something different better. And I still need people. I might need to change some people around. How did you, how did you go yes. To this voice over here and choose that because that's a harder path versus let's just blow some s**t up, right? 

 Brian
 Yeah. I don't know. I know I'm an old soul just inherently there's things that I know that I shouldn't know. There's my styles of doing work and relationship culturing is different than most. So there's just something about me. That's very old school and I think there's enough history in our lifetime. That's documented that we all know what we should do and what we shouldn't do. It's pretty, it's, I, it's pretty easy. I'm sorry if you're listening to this and you think it's not, life is pretty easy. You just have to block out the noise and go after what makes you happy. If it's things which, maybe unfortunately for my sake, I'm not money oriented. I think if I was, I would have avoided a lot of problems. I don't care about things. I don't want things. And that's a little lonely. Where too is I don't aspire to like go out and get a nice watch or a boat or a car. 

 Brian
 I don't care. I just want to keep building. I want to keep creating. I want to keep seeing people be able to survive and thrive, but it's it just, I just knew maybe from movies, I don't know. I just knew if I was bitter and angry and was successful monetarily, then I'm not successful as a lonely angry world. Look at Ebenezer Scrooge. I'm like, maybe there's just filmography and books and stories that we've heard. We know what we should try to aspire to be. I don't care what kind of cold technology comes out. There's certain human needs that we all want. We want to be loved. We want to feel affection. We want to, we want to be acknowledged. If you can just fill those simple needs and block out all the b******t, you can have a great life. If don't go on Facebook and Instagram and start comparing your life with other people because of what they're showing off, that's an empty life. 

 Brian
 If you're chasing things, you will chase things forever and you need to cut that out. You need to be happy with what you have today. Always aspire to want things. I think, I think we should all aspire to be able to have freedom and choices, to accumulate things that you feel reward for your hard work, but not because you're entitled to it, or because you want to compete with somebody else or you'll be chasing your tail forever. If I woke up every morning, comparing myself to bill gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, I'd be miserable as hell and I'd never be happy and I would never feel accomplished. I think I should feel very accomplished for what I was able to pull off. And, and if I were to leave tomorrow, I I'd be holy s**t. I did a hell of a lot more than I thought I would have done. 

 Brian
 And great. I'm happy. See you later. 

 Josh
 So I'm out, right? Mike drop. It's super interesting. I interviewed a Navy seal, right? Like this guy bad-ass is right. And, he talked about in the interview and he was just saying, at the end of the day, this is a Navy seal, right. I just want it to be loved and appreciated. I wanted it to be special. And a lot of. 

 Brian
 Navy seal, I think I said the same two things before. 

 Josh
 What I'm trying to do is compare you to a Navy seal. You have the same mindset as a seal. Q bad-ass. You have angrier. 

 Brian
 Without getting up at four in the morning and training like animal. And obviously Navy seals. I can't compare myself to them or anybody that's seen action, but my world and my business experiences tore my heart out, blew my brains out, tore my limbs off. Like I have. Yeah. I emotionally can connect with that experience because I, again, I've, it's been awful at times. I put myself there, I put myself in those situations, not other people's fault for the actions that they did or the outcomes, it's my fault for allowing myself to be in that situation and for not having the strength to remove myself from that situation. That's that's a really strong person is when you can just say, okay, this is going to stop. You're no good. Or you're not that you're not good in that you're going, or you're good. This is not working for me for that reason. 

 Brian
 Like the sharks will say, I am out. That's when you've come into your own and you have via, you have a voice. It's great to have a voice in many boardrooms or deal rooms that I'm in. I'm the guy that sits back quietly, analyzes everybody and understands it's everybody's emo. Now that I'm older and you can reference me . I actually have a voice. I have the same mentality. How, when I was 18, I have the same thought process, the same outcomes that I want to happen, but nobody would hear me that would be a waste of my time because I you're a year kid. You're young, you don't know anything. I don't agree with that. I, I see young kids that I'm like, that's a bad ass. That's going to be one amazing CEO when I'd hope I get to work with that guy or girl. 

 Brian
 Now that I've grown up more and I have age behind me, you start to have a voice. And that's where life gets very interesting. When people will listen to you, finish a sentence and whether they believe what you're saying or not is irrelevant. They're actually giving you the floor to speak. I'm grateful for being able to experience that now, because I've, it's been a difficult journey in that aspect where I actually felt like I had a voice in a room. 

 Josh
 That's cool. Super power in business. And what's your kryptonite. 

 Brian
 Oh, that's a damn good question. What is my kryptonite? My kryptonite is one that help everybody. I've had to learn to say no to people. And for those people, I'm sorry. I'll point them to somebody else. I'll always try to help, but there's 7 billion people. I get messages every day with people wanting me to help them. I, if I dilute myself too thin, everything falls apart. I, I, I, I do think my kryptonite is wanting to help as many people as possible. And that's not realistic. 

 Josh
 Superpower. 

 Brian
 Being a connector. Yeah. A hundred percent. I, we could speak about something later today and I'll think of somebody that I met 20 years ago in an airport. I'll these two people need to connect. Like, that's just the way that my mind works. And yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. That's, that's my, that's my connecting, right? Like that's how God wired me. Like, I'm not really great at anything, but when you're talking to me, I'll be like, oh, here's seven people who needs to meet, and this is what they can do in my brain. I see it. 

 Brian
 Yeah, me too. But now I control the whole thing. 

 Josh
 I've got to learn that from you because we connect and we take small slivers of a thousand pies, but were getting into a position where we need to be in more control. So I'd love to, you know, 

 Brian
 Got it. To share those tactics with you. And it's the right way. The connectors should be the most valuable piece of the deal. 

 Josh
 Share three things that connectors. Cause I, I, I know the people who wrote the books, I know people who run in these large masterminds in these communities and such like that connectors are powerful. Yeah. Give us three golden nuggets that it's just like, if you're a connector, you must do these three things. 

 Brian
 Okay. Well, first thing you need to do is watch the chicken wings seen from Tommy boy because he goes through, when he rips up the piece of bread of how he killed the deal, that is so crucial. I'll send that to people that are smothering the opportunity that they're creating. You gotta, you gotta trust the process, but I'll go back to controlling the situation. You just know what you can trust the process unless you're controlling the process. First and foremost, the two or more parties that you're bringing together have to understand that you are part of the deal. One of my earlier tricks was okay, well, I'm going to be an advisor to both companies. They can't write me out of the deal. That was one of my earlier repurposing. Who am I, how do I create value? I will gladly connect people. If I'm an advisor, an equity holder in both sides, I don't have to worry about the outcome because it'll raise the, raise, the boat, the rising tide raises all boats. 

 Brian
 That allowed me to be a piece of mind, connecting people. Secondly, a second tip for a connector is like I said before, know the right time. So you know the right people. You got to take your emotion out and you're excited and you're jumping around like, oh, there's an opportunity here. Take a moment, speak with both sides or both or more sides. Find out where they're at. Are they looking for new opportunities? Because they have the resources to go after something. Do they have a team in place that can manage something? Get, do of homework and find out if these people are ready for, for the connection. The third piece is no one will know when the hell they shut the hell up. Okay. You're bringing people together for them to make magic. Your magic is bringing them together. You're the bowl for the ingredients. 

 Brian
 You're the bowl and the bowl was great in the beginning and one on the table. I'll start putting the ingredients in and let them start to create something magical and step in when and if needed, but I will say, if anybody BCC'd you on a response, they should be dead to you because you can actually see them physically taken your email address and your name out, and they're physically moving it. They're coming up with some b******t line, Brian to save your inbox. Like it's oxygen to save your inbox from additional threads of what you created. We're going to take you out of this. You don't get bombarded with the deal that we're going to make. Thanks to you. The minute somebody BCC'd, you drive to their house, pull them out in the driveway and beat the s**t out of them because that is the rudest, meanest, cruelest thing anybody can ever do to you. 

 Brian
 It's, you physically see them removing you from the deal and never work with them again. That's that's my third piece of advice. 

 Josh
 This is not legal advice. Do not beat them, but all right. So. 

 Brian
 I mean, it was when were kids growing up, when there was a problem, you took it to the streets and you figured it out. Those people became great friends because you built a mutual respect for each other and there's, that's missing in business. There's that ideal of integrity and mutual respect. And, and the time that someone goes to bring people together. Yeah. The visual time that somebody does to remove you from that is it's very hurtful and it's wrong. And people need to know that's wrong. And it's not a nice move. And I'm speaking from experience. That is not a nice thing to do to someone in that brought you an opportunity that people believe will create value. 

 Josh
 Yeah. So this is so cool. Cause here's the connector. I don't know if you've experienced this. The connector goes, I'll make all these connections. Cause I could see, I see almost like a baseball card, their stats, strength and strength that they go together, a great team. Like I'm a team builder, right? I've done this before for a tech company. This was at a time where I was, I cashed out my government pension to build a tech company I'm going bankrupt. Right. I lose all my money. I'm on food stamps. I connected this tech company, this founding team, and they became a multimillion dollar business. I got a gift basket with some fruit and some cheese. I was like, oh great, thank you guys. Value or separate restless of prosody or whatever the word is. There's this, there was this thing in my head is if I create enough value for other people, karma will come back and that to be up and be like, go Josh, you did it. 

 Josh
 Here's a chunk of our business. It doesn't happen. When did you learn that? That is b******t, right? Like that doesn't. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Again, I didn't learn it soon enough. I went on that hamster wheel for 15 or so years. I'm a big believer in karma. However, it doesn't come back in the forms that you're giving it, it comes back in good. Obviously it came back for you with hopefully young, healthy kids and great looks like you are killing it. You're fine, but it doesn't come back financially. Here's, here's the cool part of the story that you told me, you knew what to do. You knew that you were going to create value. That's your stat, that's your stat that you created a million dollar deal between two people. Their negative stat was how they treated you and they have to deal with that. That's on them. The fact that they sent you a gift basket is probably I'm a little upset that I didn't even get that. 

 Josh
 I'll share mine with you. I didn't need it. 

 Brian
 I'm sure he didn't. I, I would have thrown it out, stepped on it all the time and emotional stupid person. So I get it. You should feel self-worth that you did that. That's your stat. I liked that reference a lot and that's where you go to say, okay, I know what to do now. How do I do an to protect myself? That's the evolution of the connector? That's the evolution of the dealmaker? How do I do the deals? How do I create value and opportunities and make sure that I'm protected. That's, that's just part of growing that's part of experiences. If I, if that was given to me early on, I, I don't think I'd like the person that I am today. I'm glad I had to learn it. I'm glad I had to get smacked around and deal with awful people because I know what to look out for. 

 Brian
 And, and I appreciate the art of that deal. I appreciate the effort and the time and the strategy that goes behind that. Knowing when and when and who to do that with another really important thing people need to think about is I always say too, it's who, oh, it's who we know we got the job. It's always known. Yeah, that's fine. It's really so much more important on who not to know. I think that is worth its weight in gold is who not to know. I'm so glad I have a giant list of people who not to know. Those people, oddly enough, everybody that's ever done me wrong. Or I know I said before, those are it's my fault. I'm not saying they did me wrong being consistent than I was my fault for being at situation. However, because of those person's actions and how it affected me, I have met some lifelong friends and business partners because they also got screwed. 

 Brian
 We have this common bond where two people got screw, we built a friendship. So everybody serves a purpose. Every situation serves a purpose and you can Monday morning quarterback. Anything, whether you rationalize and justify, just so you get through the day or really does serve a purpose. I can speak firsthand that it most certainly does. 

 Josh
 I love this. There's the three who's who to know who not to know and who knows you. Right. Great. Yeah. Well, well it's a three who's, it's a Brian and Josh thing. The three who's. All right. So little bit of a personal question. I grabbed your phone. I pick it up and we, I, I go to your music and over the past 10 years, there's a song that's been played the most. If I sorted. 

 Brian
 The by 59 sound Gaslight Anthem. Great, great song. Sorry. Did you find that you're gonna finish your question, but that's what it is. 

 Josh
 I was going to say everything except that song. Now I don't even know what is the song? 

 Brian
 Brian Fallon, a Jersey boy. It's called Gaslight Anthem. It's it's a Bruce Springsteen type of music, but the 59 sound is one of my favorite songs of all time. And he's a phenomenal singer songwriter. I'm a big fan. 

 Josh
 How's it got? I'm just kidding. That that's a good. 

 Brian
 For us. I don't have the right acoustics in it. So that's a great song. You should listen to that. And Kings of Leon back down south. I don't know why. I absolutely love that song. I'll play that over and over again on repeat. 

 Josh
 That your like pump song, like when you're heading to a dealer, like they're on the Kings of Leon PLLs and you're like rocking out to them. Yeah. 

 Brian
 I'm a big fan. Big fan. They've been, they've been with me on this journey. 

 Josh
 Yep. Now, before we hit record you mentioned DMR in your, like, I'm kind of an old soul and yeah. How did, how, when you say I'm an old soul, what does that what's that mean to you? 

 Brian
 Yeah. Great question. I just resonate with that type of time period. I just wish I was there. I liked the movies and music. I watch all the Dean Martin roasts all the time. I'll revisit things like that to maybe if I'm in a down mood one day to kind of perk me up. Yeah. I think I just, I shouldn't say life was better. Cause life is pretty real. Life is pretty damn good for all of us right now, putting some things on the side, we're very blessed with the access. We have to food and water and shelter. And there's a lot of us. It's not like this. It's not the crusades anymore. I mean, there's the times are period where millions of people were being slaughtered and it just because CNN wasn't out there doesn't mean it didn't happen. I think we're doing pretty damn well with seven plus billion people, which I feel like I'm the only person ever says that. 

 Brian
 I do feel like that period, the Dean Martin type period is where I, if there are old souls, I feel like I was really in my prime then. And I really just love that era. I love the way people dressed up to go to a movie. Like there's just certain things that I I think are missing a little sense of pride in our day to day activities. I think how you present yourself to the world is a, you're feeling good about yourself and B you'll invite other people to want to know what you're about and that's how you create opportunities. And, and that's just how I try to live my life. 

 Josh
 Yeah. They had style back then. Right? It's swag. They had swag, right? Like the hats, like I'm an, I love flat caps. I've got a hat rack over here, but I love flat caps and maybe it was from my grandpa wearing them or whatever, but I love flat caps and fedoras and stuff like that. What's your favorite article of clothing? 

 Brian
 Oh, the a sports jacket or a blazer. I was a vest guy forever. I used to throw a vest. I still throw a vest on, but. 

 Josh
 You spend time in Colorado. Cause Colorado VCs, they always were, there are still. 

 Brian
 Commanders. 

 Josh
 No, the vest, the vest, they it's the, 

 Brian
 No, I just always throw a vest on, even in high school. Like I just always thought I looked cool and the best, I dunno, I like a vest in a pocket watch. That was like something I thought was coolest. S**t. Yeah. I always throw a sports coat on our blazer, but I'll wear a t-shirt on there and I'm not wearing a tie or dress pants anymore. Those days are over. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What deal are you working on now or in, or heading towards that? You're super excited about. 

 Brian
 There's again, not to sound obnoxious, but there's probably over a hundred in the pipeline. We have a amazing hotel flag known as Evie hotels, Ken Patel, the CEO and chairman, or created the first world's crypto and Ft hotel. First flagship open up in Phoenix. We're bringing a crypto trading floor much like the New York stock exchange into the hotel environment where we're removing the ballroom and creating a more profitable use of that space. Bringing what I believe is missing in the crypto world is something for the generational wealth to see and say, oh, that's no different than buying stock. That's no different than buying a bond are no different than buying any type of asset or commodity. We think that physical floor with CNBC or Bloomberg style media component will help bring in most of the wealth that's sitting on the sidelines that don't understand that I don't believe it. 

 Brian
 We have a mazing NFT project on is Bape space clan. We became one of the world's fastest, largest growing and empty projects in the world. We've had two very successful drops. Our last one on last Monday sold out in over 30 seconds and it's old school, old soul business practices that I always do is find a new, fill a need, create a great story. Show that there's real value and utility behind it and make sure it's profitable if you're going to go into business, they'll see that you deal in the public market or specs. You can't go into business and not think profitability. You have to be able to make money, sell something, do a service, but it's gotta be profitable after your taxed earnings, you need to be able to keep doing it simple as that. If you can't be profitable or generate revenue in a business, don't go in business. 

 Brian
 Don't get it. Don't get caught in this valuation trap, raise money, run out of money, raise money, ran out of money. Maybe one day, maybe you make it and you own 1% of your company and you had an IPO and you still gotta go back to work. Be very careful what your, with what you're trying to accomplish as an entrepreneur and treat your equity like oxygen. Don't give your lawyer stupid amount. They'll give your uncle a stupid amount. They'll give your best friend from high school, stupid amount. It's your idea. It's your brain. You're taking the risk. Don't give anybody anything, unless they earn it or can continue to earn it and perform and support you. 

 Josh
 Yeah. How do you know you? You're winning, right. So 10 years, 20 years, you're 41. Let's just say 40 years from now. You and I are sitting, listening to a record. Some Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, some slight. 

 Brian
 Animal. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Gaslight Anthem. Right. We're sitting there and you're drinking your bourbon and I'm drinking it tequila. Nice, nice. We're sitting on a rocking chair and we look back and we go, damn it, Brian. We did it. How do we know we've made it? 

 Brian
 Well, we're still alive. We should be happy if we're breathing. There's something in our glass, we made it. We're good. My definition of success is a little different than most. Like I would suggest we made it. If went through life, not hurting anybody. If we did everything we possibly could to try to rectify it. If we can both sit back and say, Hey, listen, we did the best we could. We created great opportunities for not only for ourselves, but for other people. We're able to sit back and sip a delicious liquor and talk about some of our older days and laugh about some great moments. Then we made it. If either of us go home that night and we're alone, or we're angry or bitter, I think if we're alone, it's, it would be the hardest. And we didn't make it. We want to be able to go through this life, be surrounded by loved ones, people that admire or respect us or appreciative of us. 

 Brian
 I would say we know we made it after went home and see what's happening in the household. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Now, if I'm at hanging out at a beauty salon or something and your mom's talking and I was like, oh, Brian, I know your son, Brian, or maybe your aunt or something like that. I go, tell me, what does Brian do? Does your mom know even what you do or aunt or? 

 Brian
 I don't even know what I did. I stopped answering that question a long time ago. No. 

 Josh
 Yeah. It's, it's awesome for people out there who want to connect with you, explore some of the deals you're working on, or maybe have you take a look at one of their deals. What's a good place for someone to connect with you. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Well the corporate sites EIE dot R O C K S. E I e.rocks on LinkedIn and Twitter. Brian J Esposito. I get back to everybody. So don't be shy. Send me a note, send me a message. I'll review. Anything that you possibly want to send. Just don't be aggressive. Just that's all I can say. Don't, don't watch the Tommy boy scene with the chicken wings. If I can't help you, I always will point you to somebody that I think it would be a big asset or help you accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. 

 Josh
 All right. So you mentioned Tommy boy. I was gonna, I was going to wrap it up there, but we gotta, I love Tommy boy. It's such a great message about what's another movie that you've watched and that you've pulled a, a piece of wisdom business or life wisdom from that many people may have missed. 

 Brian
 Oh, godfather. I got to watch godfather. If you want to learn anything about life, I'm not even not. Cause I'm a tie-in, it's just every life lesson you can think of is in that movie. I'm a, one of those someone I'm a big movie buff. I'm trying to think, I guess Glen, Gary and I always walk away. You can always walk away with something fun there. Just for kicks, watch Alec Baldwin do a spoof on that. On SNL. When he's in the elf shop, it's hysterical. 

 Josh
 Coffee's for closers kind. 

 Brian
 Of thing. Always be cobbling closing. Great. It's one of the best scenes he's ever done on SNL. Yeah. What's another, I'm gonna reflect on this and message you. Cause I always, I'm always watching some movie and thinking that was good. I got to apply that to my life. Yeah. I think godfathers stands out first and foremost as family values respects and creating business. I mean, outside of killing people and all of that stuff, but yeah, there's a lot of really good life lessons there. You know, I'll also, I'm sorry. My, my favorite movie of all time is the devil's advocate that. 

 Josh
 Good I'll put Chino. 

 Brian
 Oh yeah. The best part about that movie sucks. This is the best part about that movie, which what sucks is the last scene. If you haven't seen it, I'm going to give it away. Because if you haven't seen it by now, it's like 30 years old, you have reuse lawyer famous case. Somehow is working with the devil throughout this whole situation, this whole case. He's doing everything he possibly can to stay good. He sees what will happen if he goes towards the devils, pull. And he's like, he did it. He got through the court scene, he was admirable. He pushed away defending a guilty person and he just did something no other lawyer ever did. The last scene, when Al Pacino's walking down the stairs, as a reporter saying, we've got to get your story out there. You're an amazing lawyer. You're going to help people over the world, blah, blah. 

 Brian
 You could see counter Reeves, ego, get fueled and saying, okay, yeah, we got to get this story out there. The reporter turns into the devil and says vanity my favorite sin. You can see no matter how good you tried to be that devil. Yeah. That's a, it's an interesting movie to watch and apply it to your life, your personal life, your professional life, and always trying to do the right thing. If you believe in good and evil, it seems like evil always has a fine way of Danny at the end. Yeah. 

 Josh
 Yeah. So got it. I got to dig into this . Do you have a few more minutes? I think this is important. 

 Brian
 Message. It, if it's important, we gotta do it. 

 Josh
 All right. This thing on ego, right? I'm a guy who had a massive ego and I built some cool stuff, but I've also had some massive failures. I've been bankrupt. I've been on food stamps. I've been in venture capital one day and then a back of a moving truck the next day. Ego has been something that I've constantly had to like drown and starved. What's something that you do to help keep ego into check and into, or even when working with founders. Right. We had an IPO were billionaires, whatever. All right guys, humble, humility, humble swag. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Humble swag. Well, first and foremost, congratulations, I'm getting zero sense of any ego from you. I say, wait a way to work on yourself through, 

 Josh
 I starved that ego. He's such an ego monster cookie monster, man. 

 Brian
 Yeah. Whatever it takes. I think ego and greed are the kiss of death. Yeah. You have to ask other people because I don't think I ever had an ego or an arrogance about me. If I do to anybody, I'm sorry. It's just not how I think I portray myself again. Cause I don't care about things. Egotistical. People want things. They want power. They want control. They will. I mentioned control in the deal, but that's just so I don't get hurt. They want to have the nicest car on the drive where they want to have the biggest boat in the marina. I don't know that, that shit's empty to me. I don't care about that. Therefore, I don't think I have an ego. I have a sense of pride that I wanted. I want to do good. And I want to do good work. I want to succeed in the time that I'm spending on something to bear some kind of fruit for everybody involved. 

 Brian
 That's more of a question for other people. Cause I could be completely in denial, but I don't think I've ever had to push ego down. There were times where I had to bring it out of me. Just, just to take control of a room. There was, that's been more of a difficult thing is pulling at that ego or arrogance out to just knock other people around and get them back in line so I could be wrong, but I could be completely delusional, but I don't think I I've ever had to deal with that. 

 Josh
 What's the question I should've asked you that I completely screwed up and did not ask you. 

 Brian
 I think he crushed it. I think you absolutely crushed. I appreciate the time and I can't think of anything. One hell of an interviewer for sure. 

 Josh
 Thanks dude. Thank you. As always fellow dealmakers in the audience, reach out to our guests and say, thanks for being on the show. If what they're saying resonates with you, their contact information will be in the show notes, connect with them directly and say, Hey, heard you on the deal. Scout. Want to do a deal with you. Want to chat with you and connect with them. That's the mission and purpose of the show. Now, if you are working on something and you want to talk about it here on the deal scout, head on over to the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next till then talk with you doc, talk with you. I do this a thousand times. Talk with you all on the next episode. See you guys.