Oh yeah, it was crazy man, I'm so excited for you to be here. I think since I opened these spaces you were my number one, like you were the guest I wanted, really, really to have here and we finally made it happen. So let me explain how these spaces
work before we start. It's a 25 to 30 35 minute interview with you NATO and then we can let the listeners up to add anything to the conversation. Maybe ask you some questions, maybe ask me some questions or if they want to play anything just let them be. Are we ready? We're ready.
Okay, let's go so the first question is when I ask in all these interviews, but it's it's one that I value a lot What got you to
to where you are today and what keeps you going. What got me what got me to where I am today and hard work dedication.
tenacity, gratitude, positivity, energy. What keeps me going?
my family, my wife, just being able to have the opportunity. That's what keeps me going. The fact that we have the opportunity is really something that I lean in towards and something I'm grateful for every single day. Yeah, I'm so grateful just to be alive that everything else is incredible.
Love it, man. What were you doing before Web 3? Before Web 3, I was running a snap on Tools Franchise, which is the number one tool company in the world. I did that for about nine years and I worked for my dad. So that's what I was getting into.
How was it? When you started Web 3, how did you balance being full-time Web 2 and creating what you were creating Web 3? Yeah, so I hated my job. So that was obviously a motivation for me to get out of it.
I made really good money so it was always a stretch to take that risk. You know, when you have a wife, that's your, you know, that's my first priority and everything. And I knew that if I was going to do something and had to be super, not secure, but I had to have a super serious plan. So I just started creating content.
I've had live hyped for a very long time, which is my brand. And Web3 allowed me to create a community of people that, you know, I was able to get in the dirt and talk to people every single day and develop those relationships that I knew was so important because of
the business I was already running and snap on where relationships were everything and people buy people and I just knew that if I could stay consistent do what I was doing preach every day what I was you know talking about and act like it I think don't talk about it be about as is my number one life motto and I was in body
not every single day and was it easy? Absolutely not. You know, I was up at 4 a.m. GMing to people. I was then I would go to work. I would still tweet, "Well, how was that work?" I would be in space as well as that work. And then, you know, got home, spent time with the kids. Then right when the kids went to bed, spent maybe 30, 45 minutes with my wife,#
and then do it all over again. And you know, now I've been blessed to be able to step away from that position and that job. And I guess full-time Web 3, I mean, I don't necessarily look at it like that. I just look at his full time of me chasing my dreams and we'll see if it pays off. I mean, I think if you've ran a business before in your backspin against the wall, that's#
incredible advantage and you know something that I did was I didn't own the business but I ran it like it was my business because it was my dad's and so you know from Being in the dirt and sucking at that job at the very beginning to being top five in the world I think that gave me the skills to go do whatever I want
I just have to stay committed. Lovely. Don't talk about it. Be about it. What a beautiful what a beautiful mantra. So starting live hyped. How did that happen and how has that been? Yeah, so while journey so
So I started live high probably about six years ago with my best friend Kyle and we went to a leadership course and we started volunteering for that leadership course and we just decided we wanted to do something bigger. He had worked with me at the time and we were driving to San Diego actually for Comic Con which was something we would do every single year with my dad and
We were like what do we do we need to create a brand and you know we went through so many different ideas and they were all shit right but you put us in a car for five hours and you can workshop it. Something so powerful when you workshop stuff with different people and we just came up with hyped like H.Y.
But we wanted to be an acronym. We were like, what about HIV/PED? You know, happiness, inspiration, positivity, enthusiasm, and dreams. We were like, holy shit. And that logo has to have a heartbeat because we're all about living our dash, which is the, you know, from when we're born, the dash is between when we're born and when we die.
And we were like this is the best fucking idea. You know you're adrenaline your dopamine you're it's like you just hit 5,000 likes on a post your dopamine is at top tier when you come up with an idea like that and You know we started creating a little bit of content. We made some shirts. We got a logo officially made
And we were off to the races. We were living hyped every single day and we truly believe that, you know, if you live hyped every day that your life will be amplified, whichever words you decide to live through the most, whichever, you know, if you want to live through all the words or just one single word, we thought that, you know, putting an emphasis on having heartbeats
limited amount of heartbeats every day was the main goal. And it was awesome. We used to get comments from customers saying like we're glowing. You know, I used to get so many customers tell me like you're on fire. Like it looks like you're just glowing because I was loving what I was doing. And you know, we were doing pretty wild content, some dance stuff, some air band stuff.
And my wife didn't enjoy that. She was like, I don't like this as an professional. And I was like, just just wait, like just just give me some time. Like I promise this will work. And you know, as some of our air band videos, for example, we're getting like 10 to 30,000 views on Facebook back in the day. So it was working. We were like, this is working. What we're doing. We#
Then we were like we don't want to sell t-shirts. I guess not what we want to do. I don't want to be a clothing brand because I mean, yes, that's it is easy to sell a ton of shirts That's not what we want to do like I want to actually impact So we just started creating more content and you know my wife like really wasn't on board she didn't see the benefit of of
doing this on my spare time, right? And it was taking time away from the family. So I took a massive step back, also had, you know, with doing that with my best friend, there was a lot of, I had a lot of resentment because I was doing 90% of the work. And so that wasn't good because we, you know, being best friends, I basically consider my brother like we've never
like we never had a serious argument ever in our relationship and I was just like I can't keep doing this. So then I just we just all both took a step back. We just tabled it didn't really do anything and then you know maybe three years ago before even web 3 we you know kind of a joke around about doing some videos did some
gratitude stuff and did some like Monday motivation stuff and it was okay and my wife still wasn't on board and then fast forward Web 3, you know, I came into Web 3 alone and I just was still live hyped. That was my at and I just started embodying that every single day and living living that and you know January of 22
2022 I started my gratitude day videos and those were you know those were it was I just was like fuck I just want more people to be grateful and Started doing that. I Didn't ever had a lot of likes never had a lot of views Went to Vcon in 2022 heard Gary V
give a speech about positivity and making positivity louder. And that absolutely changed my mentality where I came back and started my podcast the next week started being just absolutely relentless, which was something that I knew how to do. I just wasn't putting it in. I wasn't putting the effort. You know,
I just went super hard. I was in every space. I was bringing positivity. I was putting gratitude out. People started to realize, you know, my gratitude video is probably around 150 to 200. And I was just relentless. And my whole goal was to be undeniable. And that's kind of brought me to where I'm at now.
Beautiful man, you're killing it. I want to ask where did writing come from?
Honestly, I can't even remember. It was just on a space and I just screamed, "We are writing." It caught on immediately. People started saying it and then I started doing it more. I started going into every space. It didn't matter what the space was.
with my followers and it's translated to in real life events where I go to these events and people truly, you know, care about my message and what I tell people is that, you know, it doesn't matter how many followers you have because if you have a strong enough brand, that's what is the most important thing.
Beautiful. What what started NATO? What what lit your spark? Why do you do what you do? Why do I do what I do and I think I was just you know I'm obviously I'm super religious I so I think God just gave me this crazy energy and I want to give it to the world so the
the main reason why I hated my old job, I mean there was definitely reasons I didn't like it. But the main reason I hated it was because I just felt like every day I would go to work that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to. But it doesn't feel like what I'm meant to do in life. And I thought that was a disservice to myself, to the world. And that's what drives
me is that I want people to feel the same way that I feel every day. I think it's perfectly fine to be excited that every single day because we get to wake up and I want people to feel that. I want people to feel that positivity truly will change your life and it's not just toxic positivity. It truly is something
that has been proven that will change your life and I'm motivated to do that. And honestly, this is the best place to freaking do it. The bound of negativity that's in the space, the amount of stupid shit we deal with every day is absolutely crazy. I mean, people getting money sent to them.
for fucking phones. It's like crazy. Like people don't get rewarded for positivity in this space or being a good person or doing good shit and I'm motivated to put that on a pedestal. And if that means I gotta get 500,000 followers on TikTok and bring them here to Twitter, like that's fine. That's what I'll do. But my mission is so much bigger than just being on crypto Twitter.
Well, you've done it man. Your energy is absolutely contagious every single time I see one of your Gratitude videos not only I feel infinite gratitude, but I just feel
very fucking good. It's amazing and that was very well said, Mito. What has been your biggest takeaway on your work?
My biggest takeaway? Oh, that's a good question.
My biggest takeaway, you know, probably just
leaning into the relationships that matter the most and not spending time in very odd like dumb places. I'll say a quote that actually Eric Thomas used
incredible motivational speaker. He said it at Vcon when I was struggling with, let me get to it. Sorry, I'm pulling it up right now. You know, I was actually struggling with
this interesting thing that was happening where Gary, Gary V didn't know who I was and I was like, you know, kind of discouraged. But then I realized like, you know, even though I feel like he should know who I am, you know, having opened his conference, that's not why I did any
of my, I've never done anything for Gary. Like none of my mission is for Gary. None of my mission is for any celebrity to know who I am. And so it was an interesting time where I was like, man, I'm just like wasting so much energy, giving a fuck if he knows who I
I am. And then the next day, right, I got this like crazy long conversation with my really close friend Dan and then Danny and we talked about it. And like I had to air it out because I had to, you know, because I have preached self awareness, I have to be self aware. And my wife helps me incredibly with that. She's incredibly self aware. And so
I had to voice it out to get through it to like work through that. And the next day one of Eric, Eric Thomas said, he said, go where you're celebrated not tolerated. And I think that's so important because there's so many times where, you know, you want to please other people. And it's just like, I mean, I'm just
fucking crushing. And if I wake up and I know that I'm just gonna fucking crush every day, he literally doesn't matter. And that's the type of energy I have. I have that energy times 10 in person. And I get to share that with anybody that meets me in person. And you know, like you said, when you watch my video, snuff below that the energy
You know talks to you or like you feel that is like my energy is 10x in person and when I meet you know random people and they can feel that that's that's basically my whole mission is for those people to feel that like you can just be super excited and super passionate about your life
Love it man. So you rocked a little bit, but it was I understood perfectly I think talking about that I want to ask what what brings you most joy?
in life what brings you most purpose in life what feels your heart what feels your soul what feels your curiosity
My kids and my wife for sure are... Oh no, I think I'm rugged. Hold on. Wait, can you guys hear a... NATO? Thumbs up.
Am I rugged? Am I rugged? Oh no, I can't hear you.
Can you drop down quickly and see if that works?
Okay, hold on here we know there we go. Yes So yeah, my wife and kids man there everything to me, you know my all my wife to be happy and You know she's wanted to be a mom her entire life so you know the fact we have to
three beautiful children is amazing for her and watching my kids and grow up. And you know, when you have kids parenting is the long game. That's what I like to say. Like I didn't know what the fuck I'm doing. I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing. But there's little micro things that you can do and you can really like drive
home and then out of nowhere your son will just start talking about gratitude. It's like holy shit. Like we've talked about gratitude a hundred times and maybe more and now he's like damn I'm grateful for you right. It's like those are the types of moments that those those are just fucking change your life like I don't know it's it's absolutely
my youngest son, Braxton, you know, being in his cast, he's literally my motivation. Like that motherfucker is the happiest dude in the entire universe. Everybody loves him. He's got the fucking smile. He's got the best smile. And also helping people. It is very impactful, especially when I go to
these are all events when people come up to me and they tell me how much what I'm doing needs to them. That's everything to me. And it just drives me to do more. It's like my fuel. Like I don't need, you know, that's what was so crazy about the whole Gary V. thing I was saying earlier is like I don't need that because I have people coming up to me telling me like that
I'm actually helping them. I had a few people tell me that they that I changed our life, which is fucking mind blowing to me. But that's the type of stuff that truly, you know, that truly drives me and pushes me to go forward because I know that what I'm doing is extremely important. And I know that what I'm doing is needed. And I
know that what I'm doing is working. And so if I can just do that amplified, it's just going to help really change the world because ultimately I think selfishly I want to change the world for my kids. Like I don't want my kids to grow up in a world that's full of fucking negativity entitlement. And I don't want them to have to deal with that shit.
love it man, we're fucking writing. I talk about I talk a lot about goals and habits in this space in general. So what are your goals, NATO? Short term midterm, long term. What do you want to do with yourself, with your brand, with your family? Give us some
I just read them too. I don't need to hide it from anybody. I want everybody in the world to know my goals so that they can start working for me. Yeah, long-term goals. I'll speak on the main stage of Vcon. So I want to give a keynote just me, but on they do 30 minutes I believe and I want to be on the
the main stage. I'll speak five more times this year at five different conferences. I'll raise a million dollars for my foundation by May of next year. I will move states and keep my house in Las Vegas as a rental. So one of our big goals as a family is to move
States and get out of Las Vegas, get out of Nevada. So that's a big, big, big goal for me and my wife as well. I want to have at least $50,000 in the savings count. I want to pay off my car by the end of 2024. I will be, I want to be, I will be in 50 schools by the end of
next year with Hype Foundation working with them. I will have 50,000 subscribers on YouTube by the May of 2024 and I want to be financially free by the age of 35. One of my biggest goals in my entire life since I was 18 years old would be able to retire at 35.
It's gonna happen. I don't know how it's gonna happen but it's gonna fucking happen. I've been telling everybody that since I was fucking 18 and you know, I don't want to be financially free so I can buy a bunch of shit. I want to be financially free so I can do whatever the fuck I want.
wherever I want, speak at fucking 30 conferences in one year, bring my family with me. Yeah, this is like just so many different things that I could do and I know it's gonna happen. So yeah, there's a little bit of alpha.
No, it will happen dude, you're fucking killing it. It's amazing. It's such a big, big inspiration. Look man, something that I talk about a lot in these spaces like I said are habits. So I'd love to know the day in the life of NATO and we already talked about this a little bit.
But what do you enjoy the most about your days? Is it maybe those 10 minutes of sunlight or a little bit of reading in the afternoon? Having your coffee with your kids, whatever. Chair. Day in the life of NATO.
I do my best to wake up at four, but anywhere from four to four, 45 every morning, get a workout in Tuesday through Saturday. I workout and a lot of times on Sunday Monday, I'll still ride the bike or get some little bit of cardio in.
Then I make some coffee, make a little bit of coffee, I'm cutting down coffee, I'm actually working on completely eliminating it because I don't need it, which is painful to say. And then my kids wake up, I spend some time with them, but normally I go straight to my office and I'll bring the kids up to my office, they'll be playing with toys when my wife is sleeping.
my wife will wake up normally now that I'm at home will eat breakfast together, which is fucking amazing, something I love. And then I just get to work, right, calls, whatever I'm doing, GM, I mean, it doesn't matter, Twitter, content. I mean, there's so many things, there's a fucking million things to do every day and prioritizing those, I think is very important.
And you know, celebrating wins every day is something that I'm working on. I'm not very good at that because I just have a go. I just go. I don't know how to stop. I just go. I gotta work fucking 24 hours if I could. But I know that you have to have balance. And then normally I stop like dead at 5 p.m. Pacific.
and I go spend time with the wife and kids and have dinner. Something that my wife really is emphasizing on me being home now full time is having dinner together because a lot of times before when I was at work for snap on I'd get home. I mean, fucking could be 536, 637. It just didn't, you know, it didn't matter. I don't know what it was never consistent.
and the drive home was like an hour. So it could be anything, you know, I could get home in so many different times. So that's something she puts emphasis on and then spend time with the kids normally until seven, they go to bed. A lot of things right now is we're spending time outside, which I absolutely love. My kids literally could live outside even if it was 110 degrees. So it's fun to watch them and
Just grow, you know, watch them grow is think something that's so important is to be present. I think being present is something that's locked in our society and in the world and it's so fucking important. Like if you've really present and that can mean like I have to put my phone literally in a different room. I guess totally fine. So I can
completely be present with my kids and my wife. And then, yeah, just hanging out with my wife after the kids go to bed and maybe working at night, sometimes I work at night. I don't really do any extracurricular activities because I'm just so motivated. I don't feel like, you know, I feel like you do have to have certain things that you do
for fun, but I'm just not there yet. Like I used to be a big video game player, but I had to eliminate that because I'm just like so motivated for my goals and I don't want to have any regrets. That's my thing is like a big thing that drives me. You asked me earlier and I can't put it in say this, but it's just no regrets. I live with that every single day is that I just don't
want to have a regret when I'm on my deathbed. And if that in that might mean I don't play fucking video games for the next five years or I don't play video games till my son my oldest son can play video games is like I fucking love video games, but you know what I don't want to have a regret saying like I didn't give me give it 110% to make the hype foundation the biggest fucking mental health foundation in the world.
Fucking beautiful dude. I have two quotes for you about regrets regrets none lessons plenty and You were talking about being on the moment in the moment There's a beautiful quote from Deepak Chopra We're no longer human beings. We're human doings. It's very important to stay in the moment
maybe take 5, 10, 15 minutes from your day to do absolutely nothing. And well, out of what you just, what you talked about right now, what do you enjoy the most out of the day or is it the whole day? Yeah, I would probably say the whole day, like I don't have anything particular that I
Like a really like his number one. I mean spending time with my kids is is a lot of fun, but I mean I enjoy just the hustle like the grind the getting on conversations like with people or phone calls or there's just so much. I mean, I love it all. I love my podcast anytime I do my podcast. I'm fucking extremely passionate about that. But
Yeah, it could be anything. I mean, just a day by day something could be more impactful than something else, right? Like, I mean, it could be like, I had a, you know, I have a call with a VC today and that could be the best part of my day or I have a podcast and I with my guy Chris, like that could be the best part or spending time
time with my kids. I don't know what the fuck we're going to do after I get off work, but it could be the best part of my day. And so I think just being grateful for everything, you know, and of course I'm so grateful to be at home now. It's like 10 acts, you know, last Monday, I think it was fucking Monday. I don't
Remember, yeah, I was probably Monday my son hid it. I was literally hosting a Twitter space in it and my son hit his head on the ground blacked out wasn't breathing for like five seconds. Definitely got like a super serious concussion of my wife took him to the emergency room because I was home.
home. There was no 45 to mid to come home for her to go to the ER. I just w was watching the other kids w and he ended up being fine. And you know, that's I'm f
Beautiful man. I'm so glad you're your kids good So how do you balance everything? Is there any like specific? Practice or activity or habit that allows you to avoid burnout? Stay in peace. Stay in touch with yourself
Yeah, you know, balance is a very interesting interesting topic and you know my first NFT I ever bought was called a balanced beetle and that was Gary's project and I bought it because I'd always always search for balance I think balance is something you always have to work on. I don't think you can achieve
the infinite amount of balance because life throws you shit every single day. But what balances me is just gratitude. It's just like literally everything to me is gratitude and it could be like you see something and you know you get imposter syndrome for a second, but
like no, like I'm grateful because I'm a dad and I have my kids right it could be there's so many different ways that people can figure out balance in their life but it's it's all it's important to not judge yourself it's important to you know fail often and fail fast it's important to
just be in touch with your emotions. I think self-awareness is a huge key to balance because if you're doing something that you don't love and that's going to lead to burnout because you're just going to get to a point where yeah, you can work your ass off but you're going to get to a point where it's just like fuck this.
to keep doing this, you know, especially in a world that doesn't reward certain things. I mean, it's so important. And like I could have never done my gratitude videos for fucking whatever, 470 days if I didn't love it. I just, I wouldn't have been able to because I don't get the most likes. I got, I'm not rewarded.
For showing up every day. I'm not rewarded for being in every fucking Twitter space That's not the things that I get rewarded for which is completely fine because that's not why I'm here and it could be super hard for other people because a lot of people do care about engagement. They do care about Money and shit, and I'm just like no, I just
I just care about happiness. Happiness drives success. And if I feel myself getting out of touch with that, that's where I have to lean back into gratitude. I have to lean back into so many other of my core mental state because if I'm not, then I'm going to be a wreck.
So so well said I'm gonna invite the the listeners up NATO because I have one last question I want to ask but I want to invite people if they want to add something to the conversation maybe ask you or I a question so the last question
NATO is, is there any advice you'd like to leave the world or the people listening here to the recording or to the live show? Any advice of whatever you want? Any advice? Just be grateful for what you have.
That's the biggest thing. 40% of the world doesn't have clean water. It's 4 billion people. I mean, that's statistics absolutely crazy. And I think get excited. Get excited about waking up in the morning. It's such a simple thing, but you can kind of pull you forward in so many different ways.
like celebrate like you won the fucking lottery every day because that's the that's the
That's what's the truth is that we did we win the lottery every single day we get to wake up and not everybody is blessed to wake up every day. And so I think people take that for granted and it's it's fucking sad.
sad to see, you know, especially like my parents, super cynical people and they have such a good fucking life. But they complain a lot. And so I think just be fucking grateful for what you have.
Oh beautiful man, beautiful, very very well said. This has been such an amazing show. I'm talking about gratitude. I'm so fucking grateful we got a 30 minute
the conversation and I've been craving this for a long time. That was amazing, NATO. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I want to welcome Nugget to the stage. How are you, my man?
Gentle tornado it has been a long time. It's a long time. I think that's how you pronounce your name. Gentle tornado is probably one of my favorite people in Web 3. And you know what? That's the only reason I came out on this stage today. Gentle, I just appreciate you
so much. And I'm so glad to hear your story that others are showing their appreciation towards you. You really do have an impact, not only in my life but in others. In the positive connotation that you give up, I just love it. Every time I see your video on my timeline, I just get so excited.
because of you and your influence, even in my own spaces, I end every space saying something I appreciate simply because you doing that has made me realize I take things in life for granted and I need to start appreciating the small things in gentle. I just wanted to say thank you so much for that.
you are a prime example of people who are moving forward in this space, people who are trying to build, people who are here for the people not just for themselves and I want you to realize that and you matter, you are special, you hold a special
place in my heart in the 14.5 thousand others who follow you, tornado. You are amazing. I'm glad this space was happening. I'm glad to hear a bit more about your story. And then I'm going to end off with this other quote I heard which ties into something you guys were talking about. I heard that the pain is temporary.
But the regret is forever gentle. I love you. Thanks for doing what you do in Web 3. You're the last fucking ride now get fuck man. I love you so much man. I'm so grateful for you. Great for all those kind words. You guys get you got to get tight with snuffalo man. Nugget how old are you?
I wasn't. How are you, Doug?
14 and if ironic you say that I'm actually creating a list for once I'm back officially on Twitter of people I went network with and Shennephul think that's it is already on that list. Shennephul Oh, but he's 16 bro so you guys got a collab
get some fucking young energy in there and just dominate. I mean, you guys are already dominating. I mean, the, yeah, you guys have got to leg up, man. And so anytime you don't, anytime you find yourself, you know, being in the world of negativity, right, like we're surrounded by
it every day. It's so easy to fall into it. Just keep training yourself on that gratitude man because it'll just truly change your life. You got to train yourself to be positive because there's so much negativity. I mean the Lasada ratio literally tells you that it's three to one.
Okay, so it's three positive emotions to one negative emotion. That's how strong negativity is. So that's how you have to over amplify it. You guys at the ages of 14 and 16 get to do that every single day on this fucking app and in your life.
I love to end these spaces with an outro
music chosen by the guest. So first of all, what song do you want me to play? Hold on a second. Hold on. There's no way I don't hear you. There's no way. Can you hear me?
Wait, Nidok, you do me a favor, you drop down again and come back. I'm so, so sorry. I can't hear anything.
Okay, here we now. Yeah, man. Twitter's a live live changer. What's up? So what what song do you want me to play? Okay, it's called Sufus. I don't even know. That's how you say it. S-U-F-F-I-C-E by NF.
Wait, let me just, let me start the song, is it this one? Perfect.
Before I play this song, I need a ride from you. I can't go too loud because of the families in the house, but we are absolutely riding. Every day we ride, we wake up, we ride, we lunch, we ride, we go to bed, we ride, we ride the next day, we're riding forever.
I fucking love you dude, let's play the song
♪ Now they never, they know crackin' under pressure ♪ ♪ The boys clever, if I did it it was stellar ♪ ♪ Nobody fresher, stop complaining man my head hurts ♪ ♪ She's catchy records and nothing really but a walk in the park ♪ ♪ From a hardy cataloging dog got some stars on ♪ ♪ I'm not a smarty young, really wanna start with ♪
If I did it then I did it right this thing has
Thank you everyone for joining NATO thank you so much