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- I always tell everybody a good investment is just when you don't lose money. 'Cause then when you actually make money, you get to keep it. - Right. - When you constantly, if you make big risk investments for me, then it's like you go backwards so far that it takes just to get back to zero. And so I like to be a little bit more careful than most people. I've never been a big stock market person. I always wished I was, but so many times I look at my friends and I go, "Oh my God, I'm so glad I wasn't." You know what I mean? But I've always invested in myself. - Yep.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the money Mondays. I have a very, very special episode for you today. We have combined the two biggest animal influencers together in the same RV motor home. We have the real Tarzan, hundreds of millions of views, Jay prehistoric pets, hundreds of millions of views together. We might get 1 billion views. All right. So the money Mondays, we talk about three topics. How do you make money? How do you invest money? And how do you give it away to charity? So let's get started.
Let's get right into it. Jay, give us the two minute bio. How the heck did you end up here with a snake around you? Two minute bio. Well,
I started out as a poor little kid, unfortunately, or fortunately, actually, I would say now, which ended up making me need to do something because I didn't have bicycles and all the cool toys that everybody else had. So I found myself in irrigation ditches till two in the morning. Didn't do so good in school. I didn't want to get out of bed. I did caught lizards, frogs, turtles, all kinds of odds and ends. And it really built a passion for animals. Yeah.
Where are we? We're actually at my... One of my dream situations was when I was about...
Eight or nine, there was a place called the Alligator Farm, and it just blew my mind. They had giant crocodiles and alligators, and Orange County land got so expensive that they just had to leave because they just didn't have enough money. And it was always a dream of mine to be able to one day. One day. One day. Everything starts with a dream, I believe, deep. And if you don't have a deep enough dream, then you won't probably fulfill it because you have to have enough passion.
passion to get through the impossible because I don't think anything good is just going to be handed to anybody. Yeah. And your location is a true destination. Like people fly in from all over the planet. I've seen so many influencers, celebrities, families right now. There's a bunch of kids running around. Like you have every spectrum. Like when did this become real? When did the store, when did the reptile zoo become real? I always like to say I started out when I was young and good looking. Yeah.
So it actually took me about 35. It took me 25 years to actually start to see the fulfillment of the dream. Yep. 25-year overnight success. Yeah, 25 years. And that's when I started to really have some success. And of course, the cool part was is despite not having money, I've had this ability to find the amazing moments in every bit of my life. I've always thought if you're going to work,
you know, 50 years a week and to do a vacation for two years. Why? I mean, two months, two weeks. I'll get that right yet. Why in the world don't I just flip that model and figure out a way to work less where you enjoy it and where work doing something I love. And to be honest, I'm,
Besides some of the paperwork and the financial end of it, every minute of my job is not work. Not one minute of it. I get to go all over the world. I get to do incredible things with incredible people. And somehow I use a term living the dream. And for me, that is literally living the dream. I mean, when I was the poorest portion of my life during the 06 pandemic,
crash 07 and I ended up being able to go all like two major trips all over the world and do crazy stuff and I had no money I was going I was you know doing it with at Prince's houses and all kinds of crazy stuff so
You know, it ain't about money, but money is a part of this planet's ran on. Yeah. Animals are hungry. Food's expensive. Yeah. That's the thing. Dreams are expensive. Yeah, for sure. That's the truth. Why did you choose this animal? Well, you've got, you've got a hundred, 200, 300 options there. Why this? Well, this isn't the only one today. I got another cool one behind us. All right, let's go. It's going to come out. This is actually reticulated Python. And this is one of the passions I had. I have a kind of an exceptional,
unique passion for big snakes, they're probably the worst choice for a financial situation. But I think that if you're really going to ever connect with finances, you're going to have to first connect with your passion. Because I really believe that
And maybe money's, you know, I mean, I think there's probably a lot of people going, what do you mean? Money is my passion. And that, you know what? They have more money than I'll ever see. And that's awesome. And, but I, for me, it was about connecting with my real true emotions on the things that I love the most. And for some reason I've always been attracted. I think you are too big dinosaur animals. I mean, you know, like,
2,500 pound crocodiles and giant sea turtles and huge snakes. Well, the huge snakes were something that I specialized in. And so my early stages was more of a focus of breeding the snakes to actually make the money for the dreams. Because like this snake here has a bunch of special genes. This is not my founder type of snake because these snakes are caught in the wild with different genetics. And
Instead of pulling animals out of the wild all the time, which who wants to do that? We can take captive animals that are threatened and being killed for their skins and all kinds of things. And instead of them coming in for pet trade and all that kind of thing too, we can take
We took them and we bred them. I started off with an endangered species. It was my real true first connection going into this business. And it was an Indian python. I almost had him dying overheated one time. And I remember I had this really expensive albino Burmese python. At the time, they were $3,000. And for basically a young kid, three grand was a ton of money. For sure.
a nice car back then, you know? And I went out there and it was overheated, but there I had this Indian Python that cost me 500 bucks. And it was like on the brink of death. And I was just like, oh God, please. I don't care if one has to go...
Let the money go. I want this Indian python to survive. It really affected me. It actually makes me emotional. It was that big of a deal back then. I'm surprised. I never really thought about how deep it was. That was the beginning of my real passion for animals. And then when I saw the first baby snakes hatch, it was just like a spiritual experience. Bringing life in. It was just incredible. Saving lives, protecting lives, creating new lives.
And inspiring lives, the human lives that actually come here and see what you guys do. Honestly, to be honest, I love animals, but people are my real passion. I mean, you know, people sometimes are like, oh, man, I don't want to hear that.
Man, people are important. And I just think that relate because I was orphaned at 14 and my mom died when I was four. I was adopted in the first place. I think I have a special connection with the fact that everybody's your family and that that is the most important thing is people and your relationship with them. I think you must have that, too, because I notice that you do a lot of.
My whole life's about people. Well, you put a lot of effort into raising money for great causes. I've seen you work with some incredible people. And that to me is like inspiring because I hope, you know, I've had a couple years of crazy money and I just like I want to figure out a way to make them again now. Honestly, I don't need money. I want to give it away. But I, you know, I need to have a couple more of those years. Of course. That being said, start little, it grows. Yeah.
That's literally what the Money Mondays is about. So we're going to do a quick switch out because we have another guest animal that's here with us inside the RV Motorhome. While we do the switch out, I'm going to ask Tarzan. You also like snakes. Your recent video had 90 million views of you trying to hold on to a king cobra. What was that thing? Tell us about that. I went to Indonesia and home of the
King Cobras and reticulated pythons. These guys battle for territory. So when a retic is small and a King Cobra is an adult,
the King Cobra preys on the reticulated pythons. So, but once they reach a certain size, they don't become really a food choice because they're just too big, you know? But yeah, man, that video came from me, you know, going on a trip over there. I actually called Jay when I was over there and said, Hey, I'm in Komodo Island. You got any friends over here I can go visit? So, you know, I always call some of my OGs and old friends, you know, that have been around the world before and see if they have any places that I should go, like any hot spots and stuff like that. So I ended up... Relax,
I ended up going to a spot where right now in Indonesia, it's going on three. It goes six months dry, six months wet. And it's been three wet seasons in a row. So it hasn't been a dry season. So wherever there is land...
Tons of snakes. Right. So my buddy's like hey, I know a spot where my uncles live. When are we going? Whenever you want 2023 is gonna be a travel year for me, baby. I like that. I like that Let's go man make the ultimate animal reptile animal collab. Yeah, man. It'd be fun All right. So we have a new guest. Can you tell us about this? Yeah, this is actually coconut. There you go Yeah, let me get some of that Watch out for she will bite she can bite
And she's apparently going to pee a little bit. There you go. She is beautiful, man. Is that awesome or what? Yeah. Talking about a dream. That's $50,000 animal. Wow. Who would think I'd ever even have 50 grand? I don't know.
That's some money right there. I always say I rub together two pennies and they turn into nickels. And then I rub together two nickels, they turn into quarters. And I rub them together and they turn back to pennies once in a while. But I never give up. Now they turn into coconut. Exactly. So what is coconut? Coconut is an albino American albino. He knows. Go ahead.
Tell them all about it. This is an albino American alligator. You look so happy. Yes, man. I mean, you're always touching. I mean, growing up in, not growing up in Florida, but I live in Florida about a decade now. And you see regular alligators, but when you see an albino, leucistics, they even got pied alligators out there now, too. Absolutely. And they're just so funky to look at, man. You know, just a crocodilian that's yellow. What? That was sick. Yeah.
The thing you'll notice about animals and people that love animals, it'll take us right back to our childhood. Yeah, man. And we connect with our, we love connecting in a lower, more exciting, I mean, instant energy right in his face. One thing I love about these alligators, they have a nictitating membrane. So it's like a goggle that goes over their eyelids. That's cool. If you guys can zoom in on it, let's see if we can see it. Almost. Almost. Right there. And watch it come back open.
Nice and slow. Look at the thing. There it is. Right there. So cool. They go underwater and that, that nictated membrane goes over their eyes to the over, over to open their eyes underwater and look around and have built in goggles and their ears close. That's crazy, man. So cool. I don't want to get bit here, but right here is actually an ear. I've never seen the inside, but somebody said they saw the inside and it's like,
A Martian's brain. Yeah. Have you ever seen the inside of one? No, never. Yeah. Chris was telling me. Wow, man. All right. So we have three topics to go over. Otherwise I'll be talking about animals for the next 16 hours. Okay. How do we make money? Exactly. How do we make money? How do you invest money? How do you give it away? So we're just going to ask real quick, rapid fire questions. How can people make money or how do you make money in the animal business? Well, a lot of people ask me how I got here and they say, what did I go to school for?
I literally just doubled down on what I was good at and I just carried it anywhere I could figure out a way to monetize it.
I just tried to, like I said, I literally started breeding the pythons because it was my passion. And the pythons turned into, I wanted to do education. And doing education pays decent too. You go to schools, you go to special events, you do corporate parties and events. And so I really kept it simple. I mean, I just thought, hey, I see you doing some stuff that's so simple, but it adds up. I mean, at the end of the day, I always tell everybody,
Good investment is just when you don't lose money because then when you actually make money you get to keep it right when you Cost if you make big risky investments for me Then it's like you go backwards so far that it takes just to get back to zero And so I like to be a little bit more careful than most people. I've never been a big stock market person I always wished I was but
So many times I look at my friends and I go, oh my God, I'm so glad I wasn't. But I've always invested in myself. And that's really the truth. This was a long time ago when I started. I had a little pet store. And a little pet store, I decided, you know what? I'm looking for a niche market.
Quit trying to run an ad that one person out of 10,000 is going to care. Instead, go buy something so cool and put it in an enclosure and everybody's going to talk about it. And this is before social media. And eventually, that model turned into the reptile zoo. And so people get to come from all over the world. I mean, it's amazing. I have princes. I have all kinds of crazy billionaires. Everybody. I see it all. No, it's like from the poorest to the richest. I love it. To me, that is –
It's just incredible. I mean, I remember one day I came to work and a little girl run up to my leg, hug my leg and say, oh, I love animals. And then in the afternoon, I had a 60 year old man practically tears to meet me. And then in the evening I had Snoop Dogg. And then I had the biggest bodyguard in the whole place wrapping his arms around me, hugging me. And I thought, how could it get better than this? Forget money. I mean, to be honest, how does it get better than that? Every one of them willing just to, you know,
put themselves out with, to me, if you got community, you got everything. Absolutely. So you mentioned investing. My investment strategy that I always preach about on stage over and over is called 40, 40, 20. Right. I do 40% low risk.
40% medium risk, 20% high risk, which is like the shot at glory. Hopefully it works out. I agree with that. The 40% low risk, I'm hoping to make like five to 9% a year. It's not going to make you rich, but it's just to kind of like take care of things, cover inflation, et cetera. The medium risk, the 40% here, this is where I like the most. This is real estate, the stock market, investing in cash flowing businesses like restaurants, drag cleaners, et cetera. I'm hoping to make 10 to 30% in that middle range right there.
The 20% high risk, which is the fun part, you know, you cross your fingers and hope you're right. I'm hoping that these things over here, the low risk, medium risk will cover that. Yeah. Or you'll hit a grand slam. Or you'll hit a grand slam. And it never takes, like I said, you never lose enough that you, that's smart. I mean, I listened to your, that, and I've literally this year, I'm going to try to engage more and more of that because I actually have money. Yeah.
And it's always better to never go all in on any one thing. Right. You know, I've had some big, big companies in the past are publicly traded, huge poker site. And when you're all in on one thing, any little thing can change the entire market. We never expected the whole world to get shut down. We never expected a whole industry to get shut down. You know, you can't expect those things. And so that's why I'm preaching all the time and created a whole podcast around it. Talk about money so that people start to make investing cool.
So one thing I did do is a little bit of real estate. I have a second property. Nice. And that's been good to me. For sure. And now I'm looking for a third property because I want to move into a third property, I'm hoping. I mean, but I'm also...
Got my ear to the ground thinking it's not time, but unless the right deal pops. There's going to be some great deals in 2023. I think so. Some really great deals. I believe. I've always done good with my real estate choices. Even though I've never had enough money to get in whenever I did, it went big on every time. The biggest thing is to stay calm in the midst of chaos. Yeah. While everyone else is freaking out, you stay calm, wait for the right situation, and pounce. Pounce.
It is funny because literally reptiles, people say they're not smart. And I say, why don't you go try to catch us? We have to use pesticides, traps, all kinds of things to get a rodent. A snake doesn't even have hands and they catch rodents for a living because they absolutely don't let an opportunity go by. And I have lived my life very much like
And the respects that when I see an opportunity, even if I'm a little scared, I take the risk. If there's an opportunity, I'm going to take the risk. What's the risk? You're going to shake it off and you're going to build it back up. No risk, no reward. I never look back. I never look back. If it's a bad choice and it worked all wrong, that's okay. I learned. Now maybe next time I'm still going to take the risk, but I'm going to maybe be more calculated at it. I like that.
So Tarzan, hundreds of millions of views. How do you make money? Is it brand deals? What do you do? Merge. You have my wild breed merge, you know, did brand deals with Foot Locker and Arizona Ice Tea and Ignite, you know, YouTube partnerships, you know, Instagram partnerships. So,
Constantly turning that wheel, trying to figure out how I can say, yo, can I put ads or commercial space on these videos? And also reinvesting in myself, same as Jada. There's a lot of times where I'll take branded trips and someone will pay for a trip. And then I'll take my money and go on a trip and there's no brands. So people can get the full experience of...
you know having indonesia experience without having a commercial saying hey shop this shirt it's like yo this is straight animal street i remember well it's only been like maybe three years and you showed up you had like 200 000 followers yeah man man you just kept knocking out the
part because you kept grinding you didn't care you didn't care about nothing instant success but it came anyway yeah man and i think that yeah that's awesome five million in a year you know so went from working 725 an hour for six years at a pet store plus you know weekend tips doing parties and stuff like that to making 500 bucks for our instagram story that's why i knew something changed you know i was like i give my weeks my weeks you know more than a week's salary
Living the dream? Living the dream. Hey! I love it, man. It's just beautiful. Beautiful, man. All right, so this question is for both of you. There are a lot of people that have animals, and there's a lot of people that try to be animal influencers. You guys have obviously become the titans in the space. What is it that you think that makes you stand out, or what can people do to try to make better animal content?
Well, to stand out is to be authentically yourself, you know? And like how Jay is, you know, he's a people person. He loves, that's what drives him. He's passionate. You can see, you know, he's crying talking about something that happened 20, 30 years ago. You know, when you're yourself and you can- 36 years ago. 36 years ago. I wasn't even born yet. Yeah.
You know, you have to be 100% yourself and people will gravitate towards you. You know, they're going to feel something in common about what you're doing. And as far as animals, man, you got to give them the best life possible. I see Jay do a lot of mukbangs with his animals. He gives them chicken, shrimp, fish, oysters and crabs and crayfish, you know. Make sure your animals live in their best life, you know, because these animals are what make us cool. Right.
You know, we're not cool by ourselves. The animals make us cool, you know? So, yeah, man. I always tell the videographers, hey...
80% animal, try to make sure I'm in there somewhere. Because you know what? It's not about us. Life is not about us. If you make it all about you, you will never have relationships that matter. And it's really, I mean, still the most impressive thing I ever see you do, to be completely honest. I mean, making money, I meet so many billionaires, rich people.
but taking your money and investing into other people is epic. I mean, the toy drives, the, you know, the raising the money for orphans, obviously orphans have a big spot in my heart. You know what I mean? I hope to do a nonprofit, you know, in the future soon and, and work towards, you know, unfortunately not as much animals as, as humans that just got to,
bad shake in life. You know what I mean? You didn't have it too easy. I didn't have it too easy. And for some reason, I've noticed more and more that some of the most famous people didn't have it easy. Everybody thinks we all got it some handed down. So if you're an influencer, I think that at the end of the day, do it because you love it or you're wasting your time. Right. Amen. Amen.
End of wasting your time. I've seen so many people come because they think they're going to go get rich. If you can't do it for free, you'll never do it for money. Right. Because you'll just get tired of it because the money will no longer have the shine it had when you first got it. For sure. When we first moved here, I was six months old and we actually moved a few blocks from here. Not really close to here. Wow. And I was there until I was eight years old. We had no money. Parents get divorced. Moved to San Diego. We're living in like this 85-year-old lady's extra room. See, I never knew this. Extra room.
So from like eight to 15, I had literally no money and we didn't even have anything. And so, you know, surviving on 20 grand a year for a family of four in Los Angeles. And as soon as I turned 15, I worked at Ruby's diner with the sailor's cap on, worked at Qualcomm stadium, peanuts, cracker jacks here. I worked for a stockbroker under the table, three jobs at the same time, saved up money like,
That made me who I am. Not having money made me who I am. It took me a while to realize that having the most... What I thought was the most unfair start in the whole world was my advantage. For sure. It was literally my advantage in life. Because I was...
It was only up. Yep, only up. I mean, not only was it not only up, I knew what the bottom felt like. And I didn't really want to be there. But I was comfortable if I ended up there again. And that made me able to take risks that other people would never take. Because I was like, you know what? I started at 14 years old. No mom, no dad, nowhere to live, no family of any kind. And dang it, I'm old enough now. If I have to start all over from scratch, I'll be fine. So I just do. I believe in really...
Whatever your convictions are, stick to them. Yep.
All right. So the third and final topic, we talked about how to make money. We talked about how you invest money. How do you give it away? And by the way, when it comes to, when I say give away money, when it comes to charity, it's not just about the actual money. Even though this is the money Mondays, you can do charity with your social media power, with your efforts, with your cell phone, and just rallying the community together. Most of the charity events you guys see me post about Thanksgiving food drives, toy drives, back to school drives, et cetera. That's just rallying the community together. Whatever I buy or donates,
optional. It's the community of 400 people showing up as volunteers. That's the work. That's the effort. So a lot of times, again, when we talk about giving away money to charity, not just about money, it's time and energy as well. So for the both of you guys, what is it and what type of charities do you like and what types of things do you want to get involved in or already have gotten involved in? Start with you. So you guys both are from California. So I came here about like four or five years ago for the first time. And I was actually homeless in Miami for a while, maybe like a
about a year and a half I slept behind underground rub tiles and worked and I know a little but it wasn't no easy ride I didn't know I thought you had an easier ride but like I said it always shocks me it's like
Everybody has their stories to keep them going, you know, so when I came here to Cali I seen Skid Row and it broke my heart man, you know And I later on done already some business with some guys selling merch and I had like some zebra print and cheetah print clothes and I over ordered on a bunch of stuff sold out all my stuff and then I had like maybe like 15 grand worth of clothes left and I'm like man, you know, I don't want to sell it I don't want to put it on sale. I
Drove up there packed it all up with the skid row and gave it all out and it's one of the best feelings you know of giving back someone that didn't have clothes and still to this day I'll drive around skid row and I see like a couple shirts over there and I'm like damn man You guys still got those clothes from you know, four years ago and it always gives me that extra edge to give back You know and we were just recently at the reptile show and someone had one of our shirts on I'm like man It just it keeps that fire alive, you know, so just giving back whenever you can man. It cost nothing to be nice, you know, I
I can't agree with them any more in the world. And one thing that's been nice is having all these animals. I've been able to do a lot of fun events like autism. They do a couple of huge events. We do Ronald McDonald House, which is a great charity. I'm letting...
People that don't have the money be close to their kids being treated with cancer. I really got a special place in my heart for underprivileged people. I mean, I don't know what you'd call them. People just didn't get a good fair shake. You know what I mean? Because I feel like they're capable of being the next most important people on the planet Earth. And all they need is a little bit of hope, a little bit of belief. And I was lucky because I was a stubborn person.
honestly nasty little kid that just never took no and when they told me I would never make it I never believed them and I spent my life proving them wrong but some people it crushes them and so any way that we can help my daughter is involved with a organization that basically works in a area that's underprivileged we'd love to give there and help there and so I just think that
I, like I said, I love animals and it doesn't mean I don't give money to animal stuff, but man, I want to save people too. I want to help, help people. Your daughter has like 20 million followers now. It's crazy. Crushing it. She's a little better looking than I am. I didn't get mine with all my looks. I got mine with my cool, amazing animals that I got to share. Yeah.
That's awesome, man. So what does the future hold for you? Well, I wrote a book. I hope to release it in 2023. It's kind of some of the tough, amazing things that happened in my life. I
literally consider my life a miracle. I've had so many things happen that were unexplainable, you know, the impossible over and over. And I want to tell a story on how it happened. And I've had a lot. And then also I'm working on a TV show on Roku, which is kind of exciting. It's something I've always wanted. Funny part is, is I wanted it so bad and I didn't have it. And then when I wasn't that worried about it, because I kind of made it, ta-da!
It's just how life works. Yeah, I mean, I think that one thing I've learned in life is the things you need, you don't need.
Right. And that sometimes we get overly focused on something that we think we need. And if we just go out and be ourselves and help other people, you know, you end up being exactly what you dream about. It's just you have to let go and let it happen. And so that's a couple big things, you know. Hopefully maybe another location in the near future.
So, but we'll see. I kind of want to work towards that charity thing first. I like it. Yeah. Tarzan, what's the future hold for you? Hey man, animals, you know, uh, there's, there's nothing actually else to it. You know, uh, I was born for the life of animals. You know, they saved my life, you know, a long time ago. I hadn't really had a purpose until I figured out like, I want to be a herpetologist, you know, when I was like three or four years old and I just always stuck to that, you know? So, um, during my dark days and my darkest times, um,
Animals have fed me, kept me alive, kept me off the streets, kept me traveling around the world. Look at this guy. Don't let this one take your ear.
It's strong, right? Very strong. You think a little animal like this wouldn't be as strong as strong. Yeah, man, just learning more. You know, I want to travel more, travel deeper, you know, meet more indigenous people, learn about animals and their natural habitats. You know, I spent a lot of time in zoos and, you know, in captivity. So when I get to go look at animals and learn from the natives and locals, that's my life's mission, man, you know, and also to help give back over there as well. So.
So what's interesting is the Money Mondays is meant for people to learn about investing and how to grow their wealth, et cetera. But I noticed with both of you, if I handed you $100 million or you had $100, you both, I think, would have the exact same smile. I tell you, it wouldn't even change me 1%. The only thing is I'd be stressed out wondering where to give it to and give it to somewhere that's going to make a difference. That's the truth. That was one of the hardest things for me when I had a little bit of money was like, oh my gosh.
I want to be, I want to use this money like a good investment. You know, I mean, I don't care about it, but I, but I care about the fact that you want it to do. You've done it. Like I said, I, you're a perfect example of putting some effort into putting money in the future. Money is a tool. And a lot of times the whole concept also, sorry, the way I always end the podcast is I say it's rude to not talk about money. Right. And oftentimes people are like, Oh, money is the root of all evil. Look at the joy you guys bring to
to the world think about the billions of people that are going to see the content you create that brings them joy there's money involved in that you have it's expensive to take care of the hundreds of animals you guys both have it's expensive the the overhead the content the creation it's millions of dollars to run your guys's world so millions right and people are like oh you shouldn't make money off this or you shouldn't make money off that
You have to have money as the tool to continue to perpetuate what it is that you believe in and what you're passionate about. And if you believe in what you're selling, it's rude of you not to sell it. So if you think you're good at your vitamin helps people, your energy drinks helps people, your health and fitness helps people, it's rude of you not to sell it. I think a lot of people are always scared. I don't want to sell. I don't want to be salesy. If you think your product helps someone, it's rude of you not to sell it to them. Back to genuine. Genuine.
Genuine is what everybody wants. They just want to know the real way to get healthy. They want to know the real way to be happy. They want to know the real way to make money. They don't want gimmicks. They don't want fake. They don't want the sales pitch. They just want to know the truth. You said a good thing. Money is a tool. Yes.
You know, and people, people, people get used. And really the funny thing, you use money and you don't use people. Right. All right, guys, you are watching the money Mondays. We have a couple of requests. Please like and subscribe. Also, we want you to share this content because we want to continue to teach people how to make money, how to invest money and how to give it away. I'm here with our co-host, the real Tarzan, Jay Prehistoric Pets. Make sure to follow them on social media. We have coconut here. We've got all these guests.
All I ask for you guys to do share this content so more people can see it and I promise you deep in my soul we're going to teach you guys how to make money, invest money, and give it away to charity. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays. We are co-hosted by The Real Tarzan. The Real.
This guy gets over 200 million views a month, and he is here with us right now to talk about animals. And there happens to be an animal on our main guest for the evening, Mr. Tim Kennedy. Nice. I wasn't sure if you were referring to me or the snake. Why do you have a snake on right now? Oh, because they're awesome. Yeah, they're awesome. So, Tim, if you could give us the two-minute version of your bio so that we can get straight to the money. Oh, man, this is a mess.
All right, so 18 years in special forces, entrepreneur, have about 10 businesses. I own Holy and another eight that I own a bunch in. I was an MMA fighter for a long time, so I fought in the UFC, Strikeforce, IFL, WC.
I fought for world title a couple of times and I'm one of the few fighters that have the amazing distinction of being a two-time title contender but never being called champion. So that's humiliating. That's shameful. It's embarrassing. I'll call you champion. Okay. And now I own a private school. I own a defensive tactics training company. Father of four amazing kids. Beautiful wife. And man, I'm just...
Try to make the world a better place now. That's amazing. So we only talk about three topics here. How do people make money? How do they invest money? How do they give it away to charity? So we're going to walk through step by step those three topics. We like to keep our podcast short. It's around 35 minutes. That way you guys are working out or driving to work. You can listen to this in one sitting. So Tim Kennedy, what are some ways that people can make money or what are some ways that you like to make money?
So on the investment side, I always have these three Ps. I'm looking for purpose, the person, and
and then the plan. If those things, the purpose first and foremost, if that's not aligned with who I am and the values that I share, like we're never going to be, you know, good partners. So that idea, the vision, the value, you know, like making sure, so I have a really clear mission statement, you know, whether you believe in divine intervention, whatever, like I believe I was put on this world for a very specific reason. And if I'm going to partner with somebody or I'm going to be doing something in business, they better be aligned with that. So that purpose is a really big one for me.
And the person, every time that when I was fighting, I was living off while I was in the military. We were really frugal. We were really diligent and disciplined with our finances. So we had lots of extra money from when I was fighting. And those three Ps would be the way that we would invest that money. The person, we need to see that person.
motivated, hardworking, great work ethic, organized. The person that's faithful in the small things is going to be faithful in the big things. So like that healthy person, like they're getting up early, they're exercising, they're not eating crap, they're not drinking every night, they're not going out and blowing their money while they're partying.
Like just being a good person is, is a really key indicator about how that person's going to be as a business partner. You're like, are they a faithful spouse? Are they kind to their kids? Are they kind of their animals? You know, like they're just an asshole. Like I don't want to be a business with an asshole. So between that person, that person per purpose. And then lastly is the plan. Yeah.
I want legitimate plans. Like, hey, I have this idea. An idea not being able to be executed on the operational side, it's useless. So that plan of, you know, here's my real business strategy. Here's how I'm going to land out. This is where I'm getting the capital from. This is how we're going to grow it. This is how we're going to scale it. And when you have those three things in combination that are happening in a really cool, innovative way, it just seems to work.
So early in your career when you were in the military, do you feel like nowadays, is there a way for people to make money by joining the military or does it have to be much more for a purpose or is it both? Why should someone join the military now? It's both. It's both so much. My kids have full rights scholarships essentially that was given to them by the military. So I fought, went overseas and the 9-11 GI Bill, I was able to gift to my kids.
Um, you know, a whole bunch of my expenses that I had from college were paid for by the military. Um, they provide, provide me three meals in a cot and they, I got to see the world. I got to learn, I got to travel, I got to learn languages and understand, you know, how business worked internationally. Um, and, uh, but they also gave me one of the greatest things, which was knowledge. They showed discipline, you know, and, and I have a lot of discipline in a lot of areas of my life. Uh, but,
And I was born with that. I had a great mom and dad that showed me lots of different things, but that discipline ultimately was instilled by the military. They really laid it out for you about how you're supposed to be. Matt has said it great. What's the most important thing that you do in a day? And he says, I wake up and I make my bed. And that's the first thing that he does. And he gets multiple wins. You were talking about it earlier. You get multiple wins and that momentum of success just starts building and compounding and truly that J curve and the exponential growth increases.
So like I want little wins. I'm going to get up, I want to make my bed. You know, I'm not going to have coffee and a sugary cereal. You know, I'm going to drink a bunch of water and then I'm going to walk outside and look at the sun for a second. I'm gonna come back in. So I make a real breakfast for my kids. Like my first real act of something is to do something for somebody else. I'm providing them real natural free range chickens that we have on our property, you know, on a scrambled eggs and oatmeal doing it the right way. So like the first thing that they do in the morning, I'm setting them up for success.
And then that just starts building and compounding. And by the end of the day, the momentum and the energy, it's like I'm a force. You also mentioned that you have a private school. Do people know about this? What is that? No. So that was a close hold initially. That was really hard. I think I'm good at a lot of things, man. Starting a new school was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
It was definitely outside of the realm of my expertise and man, I failed hard the first year. And thank goodness that the families, the founding families that were there believed in the purpose and the mission. So like, hey, we believe in you, we believe in this purpose, we believe in this idea, we'll stick with you. Year one had to get rid of almost my whole entire staff. Like everybody but one had to go packing. And then by year two,
I have this amazing staff with this energy. We have a gigantic waiting list. Thousands of people are applying. 1,200 people on a waiting list. This is so cool. It sounds so cool. And now it's like, how fast can I scale? How much capital am I going to put in this? Am I buying land? Am I really going to switch from 60 students to the ability to have 600 students in one jump? Is that too big? Should I not go that big? That's the decisions that we're looking at two years in. But again, that purpose...
plan and person, having the wrong people had a great purpose, had a great plan and man, we flopped because we had the wrong people. And then slight adjustments with the right people with an optimized plan and now it's just like, here we go. So Tarzan, your entire purpose since you were three years old is animals. How did you monetize the animal industry?
Well, when I first started on Instagram and social media, I actually did one of my first trips out of the country. I was like, man, I went to Costa Rica first. And my second trip, I said, man, how can I bring people on a tour? So I met up with a guy that had like a hook
hook up at a resort and uh they was going bankrupt he's like man i need tourists so i got like 15 people to pay like three grand a pop and he actually didn't want any money you know he's one of the people that know about his place so i made all that money to keep the 45 grand wow first time i mean imagine making seven minimum wage and then right i don't know we're making 45 grand and going to another country it's like two years and i made them buy their own flights and stuff but took care of the food we had a great time you know but so i got started man and then it was a wrap after that
Pull on hustle. Not hustle. Cause like your, your energy about, about animals is contagious. You know, like your smile is sincere. It's so genuine and authentic that when, you know, like when you brought those snakes out today, you could just, the room, you saw people starting getting weird edgy and you're just feeding off all these different energies. You're so excited with the sincerity of trying to share this passion that you have. You know, I was like, dude, this is so cool. You know, I'm not gonna,
And I love these things, but like watching you interact with these people and getting them to move through these barriers of fear that they have for themselves, like,
I'd follow you all over the world. I hate to go to like insert some psychopath country. I'm in, man. Let's go. I'm in. Yeah, man. I mean, you guys know the best things on the opposite side of fear are just all the best things. So everybody's always scared of something, but it can't be snakes. And if it is, I want to get you over that because look at you. You're chilling. You're hanging out. It's lovely, man. And I love seeing other people be happy with it. I know you have a Belgian Malinois, right?
People love dogs. People don't know that, you know, people love animals. So some people love snakes and you don't have pet snakes, but, but perfect opportunity, you know, that's awesome, man. So you've been in multiple industries, Tim, when you were in the fight industry, it was strike force, UFC, et cetera. Is there money in the fight industry? Is that too low for the fighters? We've heard lots of different stories and media. Yeah. The fighters make nowhere near what they should make.
and nowhere near what's fair for them to make, nowhere near what is sustainable for them to have a career. You know, you're looking at Mario Shugan Hua that just retired. He has serious brain damage, tons of TBI, tons of knockouts, ton of concussions, broken hands, broken legs. He has no healthcare. He has no retirement. Hopefully he did something with his fight purse while he was working or he had started some business that would be able to sustain him. Otherwise, the day he's done, he's done.
you know, good luck that he has, he has nothing. And, and, um, that Cowboy Cerrone, you know, like a great friend. He, uh,
he did it right. The last five, five, 10 years of his career, he's finding great sponsors. He's transitioned into racing. You know, he's getting kind of a voice, um, that will carry into acting, you know, he's taking acting lessons. So when he starts the day that he retires, he drops his gloves in the center of that octagon. He's boom going to, he's already setting himself up for the next thing. That is a very rare thing. The vast majority of fighters, when
when they go and retire, they're left drowning. They're treading water as best they can and they're just floundering and slowly sinking under... We know the statistics of professional athletes in retirement, how fast they go bankrupt. Well, these are professional athletes that are retiring, not retiring, they're stopping to fight with no other source of income and tons of damage to their bodies and without really usable skills.
So no, it is shameful what they get paid. It's embarrassing the profit margin. If you go to almost every single pugilistic sport, from wrestling to boxing, it is indescribable how selfish the promotions are and how they're paying their fighters. How do you think that gets fixed?
How many times have we tried? I've been part of two different unions, starting up two different fighter unions to try to have a collective bargaining, you know, but the,
the organizations, the promotions have these athletes by their balls. And that one thing that is so difficult to overcome is, and I was victim of it too. I want so bad to be the best in the world. I so desperately want to be known as the world champion. And what am I going to sacrifice for that title? You know, my body for sure. My finances, absolutely. My marriage, most people, right. And it's all for that, this, that,
carrot right in front of them that they're just constantly chasing for forever. And the promotions know that. Dana's been in the fight world for long enough to know exactly the thing that drives all of his fighters. It's terrible. Okay, so we talked about making money and you talked a little bit about investing money. Why is it that fighters, athletes, etc. should be considering investing money after their career or along the way during their career? While you're
while you're fighting, you have this... Window? Yeah, this tiny little window to make this money. And there are a lot of fighters that want to stay hungry...
So they, they need to fight again. You know, Connor's a great example of it where he would spend himself to near bankruptcy. So he had that hunger to get back in there when he didn't need that money anymore. We've seen how he's been performing after that. You know, that hunger is, is a big motivator. Mike Tyson is another example of that. You know, he would spend himself into poverty. So he had to go back out and perform. Um,
That is so dangerous and it's idiotic. In that small window that you have to make that money and then invest that money,
The money that you just hold on to hoping that in retirement, you're going to live off of, you know, like obviously inflation, we're fighting the taxes that we're fighting. But your inability to redirect that revenue into something that is going to over a long period of time, continue to generate me more money. Like that's your window to do it. And while you're fighting,
You don't need that money. I don't need that money in the bank. I know I'm going to fight again. But when I get hurt or I go to kick a guy and my shin shatters or I get knocked out and it's bad and the doc's like, man, I don't know what's going on, but I don't think you should get concussed again. Cool, man. I've already pivoted. I'm ready to go. And I've been planning for this from my very first fight. And I started investing early, early. In my 17-year career,
you know four or five years in i started using all of my fight money to do very specific things sometimes there's improvements on houses bought a b&b bought a little a little compound with four different uh like this uh duplex um like i just kept going every single time all the money would just be redirected into something else outside of fighting you know i love it
So we talked about how you make money. We talked about how you invest money. Let's talk about how you like to give money away and why charity is important. Are there any charities that are important to you? And why is charity important for athletes, people in the industry, and why they should be considering charity as well? It is as important. I love that those three things are the foundation of the Money Mondays is that giving aspect is
in every single religion, you see this encouraging to give back. And it's not just to help those that don't have, it's also to help you. How are you able to give unless you know how much you have? How much are you able to give unless you understand how much you're going to be getting? First of all, it forces you to budget. It forces you to understand the accounting of your own life and to be a good steward of your dollars. And then with that person, purpose, and plan, I'm able to
Give to things that contribute back to...
the areas that I care about and I work in. So, you know, I have my community, I have my tribe. I want that community and tribe to be very healthy, strong, and powerful. With rising tides, all boats are raised. So if I'm giving back to veteran organizations, if I'm, you know, the things that hurt my soul, you know, when I was in the military and I was watching, you know, in South America and the Caribbean, seeing human trafficking be really common, and I couldn't do anything about it because of the positions and the roles that I was in. Now coming back and be like,
well, now I can give to these organizations or I can help, or I can donate, you know, I can donate time. Um,
Afghanistan is a really great example. During the fall of Afghanistan, the veteran community was just dying. Like watching 20 years at war, the whole entire country's crumbling. You know, we lost how many friends, how many soldiers lost their limbs there. And now we're watching the entire country be taken back by the Taliban. So we founded our own nonprofit, Save Our Allies. And then we not just founded it, then we went overseas and started evacuating thousands of people out of the country that were allies of ours during the war.
Americans, SIVs, green card holders, you know, like something that was saving my mind, saving my soul, but also like impacting every single person in my community. Like to this day, I can't walk onto a military base or into an American Legion or a VFW. And somebody's like, man, I was thinking about killing myself over what was happening in Afghanistan. And then I, I, I find out that you guys loaded a plane, a C-17 full of 500 people and flew it out of Kabul. I was like,
dude, we did that 30 times, you know, like thousands of people in 10 days. Um, so it is so good for, for your soul, but it's also so good for your finances. Um, if you're doing it in the right way, it's helping with taxes. If you're doing it the right way, it's giving back to a community that you care about. Then as that community thrives, let's just say, um, if you want to be super selfish about it in a community that you have a B and B in,
And you are giving back to that community and that community is getting healthier and the prices of the properties in that area are getting better. Like not only are you saving money in what you're giving as a donation and there's limits to what you can do in IRS, but the area that you own stuff in is getting better. So you shouldn't do out of a selfish monetized position, but it is better for everybody. It's better for your soul. It's better for your finances. And it's better for those that you're giving it to.
And the way that I do it is I all back to my purpose, like my our mission statement of my company that owns everything is to preserve and protect and to provide everything.
We want to teach people and equip people to preserve human life, to protect human life and to provide for their families. And, um, you know, that's, that's everybody. That's, that's Muslims. That's blacks. That's whites. That's, I don't give a fuck who you are. I want you to be the best version of yourself so you can preserve and protect human life and then provide for your family.
And doing that philanthropically is so rad. It's so rewarding. And we're going to have... You're wanting to give back. How many different ways can you give back in preserving wetlands? That's a way to do it in wildlife. In conservation, I'm going to be looking to support anti-poaching operations. Two totally different humans, but with the same kind of passion towards different ideals. Awesome. Yeah.
I think the biggest thing I gathered from what you said was it wasn't about money. It was energy, effort, and gathering people together to have a common good or a common goal to go fix something or go do something. You didn't talk about money to go save people from...
What was it called? Cabo? Yeah, Cabo was the city where we were stuck. It wasn't talking about money, like how much it took. It talked about the efforts that it took of your teams to go out there and bring 30 planes of people back. The way you talked about each aspect in the same way with Tarzan for the animals, it's not about him donating $1,000 or $10,000 or $100,000 or a million bucks. It's about getting tens of millions of views about, wow, we need to help save this animal. We need to stop poachers here because of X, Y, and Z. It's not always about the money part of it.
It's lovely, man. Absolutely. You know, it's so gratifying to man and be able to help animals that can't speak a language, you know, they don't have no, I have no shot against humans, you know, so I'm making my life to save them because I feel they saved me, you know, and saving wetlands and anti, you know, helping anti poaching. It's the best thing, man, you know, so. All right, Tim, last question. In the year 2023, there's going to be a lot of chaos. Oh, man.
You deal with a lot of situations, a lot of bad guys, try to help people with your schools, try to help people with work, defend people, train them on guns. There's so many aspects of your life. How do you stay calm amongst the chaos? So preparation, you know, if you're walking out to the octagon and you think that you're going to be calm in that fight when you haven't done any of the fight camp, you're insane, right? You're about to get knocked out or choked out.
So if I'm before I deploy overseas, we do a PMT, a pre-mission train up. We know what our mission is and we reverse. We look at our metal tasks, all the things that we're supposed to be good at and how are those things going to be utilized in a combat environment? And we focus on those tasks. So by the time this pre-mission train ups done, I've done all the things I need to do. So when I go to war, I'm ready to do it. I'm prepared. It's a pre-mission train up.
If I think I'm going to move into 2023 without properly preparing, if I'm not going to be financially fit and physically fit, if my household isn't in order, you know, like you're crazy. How are you going to respond to the chaos when you're not even a good position as an individually responsible citizen? Where I can't, I mean, I hope I can get to food. What?
Hope? That's your plan? Hope? It's not a plan. You don't look like, well, what you're doing, this is exactly what everyone should be doing. You should be able to educate your own children. You should be able to feed your own children. You should be able to protect your own children. And you have to be able to do that. You can't do it by yourself. You have to have a community and a tribe that can go along with that. So like, you have to be faithful in the small things. You don't get to pick when, where, how, why the economy is going to crash. Somebody is going to mug you. You don't get to pick any of those five W's.
You can only control what you can control and preparation is all of that. So be sleeping, be exercising, be having a healthy diet, be diligent with your finances, be intentional with your friendships and your family. You're going to be in a really strong position so whatever happens, man, I prepared for this. Bring it, bitches. All right, guys. You are listening to the Money Mondays. We are co-hosted here with the real Tarzan. We were just interviewing Tim Kennedy.
I have one favor to ask you guys. Like, comment, subscribe, share this so that we can help teach more people about money because it's so important and I think it's rude to not talk about money.