On today’s episode we are thrilled to be here with Dan Bennett, the Antipreneur and Founder of Video For Entrepreneurs, a platform that helps entrepreneurs & startups learn to look and sound great on video.
Dan’s Antipreneur moniker comes from a place of pushing against the status quo–which is something he’s done throughout his journey as an entrepreneur. From finding his love for video and storytelling through shooting music videos for his band, to walking away from a successful career in engineering…it’s been a wild ride.
Entrepreneurship is tough. And Dan’s not here to sugarcoat it. Tune in to hear his story behind becoming the Antipreneur.
Take Dan’s quiz: What’s Your Video Creator Type?
Dan’s Website: https://imtheantipreneur.com/ and https://videoforentrepreneurs.com/
Jessmyn:
Welcome to Interact’s Creator Stories Podcast. Interact is the easiest way to convert curious people into loyal and happy customers by using a lead generating quiz. On Creator Stories, we get to hear the entrepreneur’s journey. This is a podcast about how those creators took their knowledge and experiences to carve out a place in the world, owned what they know is special about themselves and turned it into a successful company.
Today we get to speak with Dan Bennett, the founder of One Minute Media, a company that helps entrepreneurs and startups learn to look and sound great on video. He is the host of The Antipreneur Show podcast and is a successful YouTuber. All right, let’s get started.
Hi, guys, and welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories Podcast. I’m your host, Jessmyn Solana, and as always, I’m so excited to be here with you. And today with me I have Dan Bennett from The Antipreneur. Dan, thank you so much for hopping on with us today.
Dan Bennett:
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I love sharing my story, especially with other really creative people. And hopefully, for anyone watching, you find one of three things, a little inspiration, a little education, maybe a little motivation. We’ll see.
Jessmyn:
I love that. And I know everybody heard your full bio already, but you do a lot of video and podcast work. So can you tell us a little bit more about who you are, what your business is, and then take us back to the beginning? How’d you get started in all of this?
Dan Bennett:
Yeah, for sure. The one sentence is I help entrepreneurs learn how to look and sound good on camera, and generally after that I be quiet, so people ask questions. That takes a multitude of forms, but most of the time I’m working with entrepreneurs who are already awesome. I’m not writing stories for them. I’m not telling them what stories they need to tell. I am facilitating how awesome they already are, and generally that takes a form of video. So video, for me, is the vehicle that’s taking that story where it’s going. And again, entrepreneurs are already awesome. So most of the time I’m just helping them get out of their own way and then capturing the essence of who they are and, of course, the services and products they offer and helping them grow their audience that way.
The way, way back. I think where I accidentally got a start in entrepreneurship, which I didn’t even know that word back then, was being in a band and not being signed. So we did a lot of touring, did all the things bands do. Website back then, I’ll date myself, it was MySpace. Merchandise, booking the tours, all the things, and, of course, have a standard website as well. To save money, I did all of that stuff myself. And then long story short, other bands were like, “Hey, we want cool looking t-shirts, and we want a website that doesn’t suck and all that kind of stuff. Can you help us?”
I left an engineering career that I hated because I never got to create anything from scratch in that career. And I was realizing that for these bands, I was helping them tell their story and create something from scratch. And that’s the part of engineering I always loved was actually designing. I just didn’t get to do it much in my career, so I was grabbing onto that.
And the printer that was making all of our merchandise saw that I had really great designs and we were selling a lot of merchandise and said, “Hey, do you tour with any other bands?” I’m like, “Yeah.” And he was like, “If you bring any orders in from them, I’ll give you a cut.” And that was my foray into a little bit of a entrepreneurial touch of like, wow, I can design and print and do these things for other people and help them tell their story.
And then one day I came in after leaving that engineering career, and John Hankerd, still a good friend of mine who ran that shop, was like, “Hey, you want a job?” And I’m like, “I’m in between stuff right now, so yeah, man, I’ll take a job.” And I ended up running the art department for a large apparel printer for about six years and really cut my teeth on what it’s like to interact with customers and clients, build what they need and help them tell their story. And that was the launch.
And then the final stamp on that was being in a band. We were wrapping up. We had done six years worth of touring and playing and selling and all that stuff. And entering into my 30s, I’m like, “I don’t think this is going to happen, so let’s wrap it up and put a bow on it.” And in doing that, we did a CD/DVD split. For you young listeners, a DVD … No, I’m just kidding. So I wanted some visuals and audio altogether. So we shot a narrative music video as well as behind the scenes being in the studio and all that stuff.
And that’s where I caught the video bug and was like, “Wow, this is the most powerful way to tell a story. The design’s nice, the print’s nice, but really, man, if you can capture on video what you’re all about, that’s powerful.” So that’s my transition accidentally into entrepreneurship. And ever since it’s been about helping people who are already doing something awesome capture that, display it in front of their current audience in a way that makes it seamless for a new audience to come in and watch and listen and hear that story as well because they’re doing such a good job of sharing that story.
So at the end of the day, I call it the medicine in the cheese. I hide great storytelling in the cheese, which is video, which is what a lot of entrepreneurs want. So if you think of a veterinarian that try and get your dog to take a pill and it won’t take it, hide it in some cheese and it goes down a little bit easier. So that, in a nutshell, is my backstory.
Jessmyn:
I love that. It sounds like you did a ton of different things. Is there any part of you where you wish you could go back to either playing music professionally or even back to engineering?
Dan Bennett:
Engineering? Definitely not. Best decision I ever made walking away from that career. And the hardest part about walking away from it was that I was good at it, so it was easy. Not saying engineering’s easy. It just came naturally to me, so it was never hard to have a job to make decent money, blah, blah, blah, the American dream, whatever. Don’t miss that at all. It was mind numbing. I was never able to be creative, and most of the roles I had, we were just taking old prints and updating them for a new customer. So I was never getting to create.
Music, I feel like we put a really nice bow on it. So I think not playing professionally opened up the door to be a casual listener, and I could never do that. The whole you’ve seen the wizard behind the curtain. When you’re in a band, it’s more industry than it is the love of music. And now it’s more so of just throw on a playlist and get some work done, and I can enjoy music in a new way nowadays. So I miss that in the sense of camaraderie and performance on stage. But I wouldn’t want to go back to it. I like what I do now, so I guess I’m old.
Jessmyn:
I love that. Nah. Well, I ask that question because I feel that there’s people out there where either A, they have side hustles or they’re in something that they might be in that space where they’re not sure it’s working anymore, or they want to try something different, they feel like this is the way to go. What is that transition like, and how do you work through that?
Dan Bennett:
The first thing I’ll tell your audience is that I keep it real and the whole Antipreneur moniker comes from a place of pushing against the status quo. So the first thing I would say is it sucks. Like most things in life, there’s good on the other side of the suck, but I can’t be it’s incredible and there’s no such thing as failure, only learning and whatever. That’s true to a degree, but entrepreneurship’s tough. And my analogy for it is always, especially creative entrepreneurship, my analogy for it is if 10 people ask me, “Should I be an entrepreneur? I see what you do. I’ve got a side hustle. I’m thinking about doing something, starting a business. I want to start a business. What do you think?” I say, “Don’t do it.”
And if one out of 10 is like, “Hey, Dan, don’t tell me what I can’t do, man, watch me,” that’s probably the one person that’s actually got a shot at finding some success in starting their own business and moving forward. Because you have to have some certain level of don’t tell me I can’t and some level of just disregard for comfort and safety and things like that. But if you feel like you’re a problem solver and there’s a problem that you’ve identified that needs to be solved, I also feel like there’s a slight responsibility there to at least try and do so.
So that’s how I approach it, I guess. I am often jealous, in a very positive way but still jealous, of the people who scratch their own itch and a bunch of other people wanted that too. And then there was …
Jessmyn:
Oh, I lost you.
Dan Bennett:
So I’m often jealous, but in a positive way of people who start a business where they were scratching their own itch, and then there was a for that, and there was growth that happened because a lot of times they find a bit of passion and a bit of love for what they’ve done because they were trying to fix their own problem. But problem solving in general, I think, is something that if that’s in your blood, then it’s worth the bumps and bruises you get along the way, starting something creative and building something that solves a problem.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I know I always think about, myself at least, is just Google, Facebook, all the stuff that someone just threw out there and everyone was like, “We want it. We want it.” And I feel like Josh, our CEO, says this all the time, that doesn’t actually happen for a majority of the people who start businesses. It’s more of this long, very long process trying to get yourself out there, trying to get people to actually see what you’re doing. And then somebody starts to catch on, and then slowly it gets there. But you have to go through this process. It’s not always the Facebooks and the Googles of the world.
Dan Bennett:
I always feel like if there was such thing as unicorns, they would be in the middle of a pack of 100,000 normal horses that are the same color. They’re out there, but you don’t see them from the edge. That’s for sure. All you’ve got to do is in drive into an industrial complex anywhere in middle America and see 40 businesses you’ve never heard of, and they don’t even have signs out by the road because they’re just internal businesses that do a certain function, to realize that yeah, there’s not a bunch of Facebooks and Googles out there, for sure.
And I’ve been part of a business or co-owner or something for almost the last 20 years. I haven’t worked for another company in a long time, but my own thing, I’m almost seven years in. And I’m still figuring things out, struggling, trying to shift from freelance of one-to-one work for bigger companies to serving more of the general everyday entrepreneur or solopreneur so they can solve their problems at an affordable price. And that comes with its own struggles because it’s really easy for me to get that big, high-paying work, but it’s not always super fulfilling. And I love helping people who are me, just a person running a business that needs little help. So there’s a lot of different ways to come at it, but sexy is not a term I would use for entrepreneurship myself. No.
Jessmyn:
So when you’re getting started in the video industry, you I’m sure were like, okay, this is really cool, but there is a price tag that comes with the equipment that you would need. So for somebody who’s getting started, they’re really interested in video, how would they keep within budget or get where they need to be, but at an affordable price?
Dan Bennett:
There’s a couple of different roads there. If you’re doing video work for other people, which I haven’t done in a long time, I’m still doing components of that in the work that I do for sure. And I’m creating my own content every week as well, so I’m still producing. But if you’re doing video work for other people, there’s two ways to do it, and one is to be a really smart collector. The good part is with a lot of electronics, especially cameras and microphones nowadays, they hold their value pretty well. So you can get something used, and there’s even ways to find used stuff with warranties still on it. And then when it’s time to upgrade, you can coincide a sell with a purchase, so you’re not coming straight out of pocket brand new. Or if you’re buying brand new, at least you get a little bit of padding from your old gear, so you can level up that way, and I think that’s smart.
The way I would do it is if you’re actually trying to create video for other companies in a production style would be to rent your gear. So every time you do a production, you build your rental fees into whatever you’re charging and then rent the gear for the duration of that shoot and then send it back. There’s some places in the states where that’s harder to do because maybe there’s not the facilities in your state, so you have to have stuff shipped in, takes a couple extra days. But those are two ways to do it.
But I’ve got to tell you, nowadays, if you’re not doing full productions, if you’re not doing commercials and big promotional things or music videos or whatever, just a little point-and-shoot camera, your cell phone, a couple of decent lights, a decent microphone. A lot of people are doing sponsored campaigns and stuff with just a couple pieces of gear laying around the office. So you don’t always have to go crazy Hollywood to make money there too.
What I do is help entrepreneurs learn how to film themselves. That’s the majority of the work I do. So I’m trying to enable entrepreneurs to have a great thought and then hit record and make the gap between those two things as small as possible. So we’re still talking about gear and stuff, but a lot of times it’s a DSLR that can plug into your computer and be used as a webcam with a screen that flips out and you can see yourself well. That’s the requirements because tech is so good now you don’t need a ton. And a decent microphone at 150 bucks that’s USB based, so you can just plug it into your computer too. So we’re not going crazy with gear nowadays, just enough where it looks and sounds great.
And most of the time the work I’m actually doing is helping entrepreneurs get out of their own way. Once they get the tech and the strategy, they feel like they can now give themselves permission to be great on camera, which I know was they’re all along, but sometimes they need to go through the process before they’ll open up, and then they can start creating great content. So those are the levels of producing for other people and then helping people produce for themselves.
Jessmyn:
Love that. That was so detailed. Thank you. And when you were getting started yourself in video, how did you come up with this is what somebody who would be great on camera would do?
Dan Bennett:
I think I took my attention to detail. I’ve been in Photoshop since like ’98, so I was already making our flyers, making our website, stuff like that. So I was already designing and paying attention to detail. And when it came time to shoot a music video, I’m actually super proud of what we pulled off because all we had was a place to crash and food. We didn’t pay a single actor on our entire project, and they all knew that up front, and we got really, really creative with how we did it.
And one of the ways I pulled off actually bringing in some actors who went on to be on HBO television shows and commercials and a couple in movies and stuff, to bring in that talent, I noticed that a bunch of them had reels, but the reels were two- to five-second clips from the work they had done, just all smooshed together. And so I was like, “How can we make this valuable for them to drive in from another state and give us their talent for just some pizza and a cot? How do we make that happen?”
And then it dawned on me one day after just looking at all these reels and noticing how bad they were that what if, instead of just shooting the shots we needed for the scene for that part of the music video, we actually shot the full scene with audio so that way they had full clips, they had full scenes that they could take with them and add to their reels. And every time I pitched that, 100% of the time, every time I pitched it to an actor, they’re like, “I’m in, I’m in. I’m in,” because they couldn’t buy that. They couldn’t get that. They’d be on a commercial, be featured for two seconds in that commercial, and that’s all they had was that two seconds to show someone. And we were giving them full two- to five-minute scenes that they could really show off their chops.
So we just got super creative, and that has always been the way that I’ve tackled every problem since is what can I squeeze out of this? Even if I have a budget, what can I do to make it run smoother or really get the most out of other people and nowadays help entrepreneurs look and sound great on camera? How can I trick them into doing so, or how can I make them feel comfortable when maybe they’re uncomfortable and just find creative ways to do that? Because at the end of the day, not to sound too fluffy or cliche, but story development is what I do. It’s pulling the best out of people and then capturing it. And so anything that gets me there quickly and gets obviously the client there quickly too is what I’m after. Got to get really creative sometimes.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I love that. And I feel like we’ve talked about this in the past, so I want to make sure that I bring it up because I was like, I have to remember this for the actual episode. But tell me more about how you came up with the name Antipreneur. I love this story.
Dan Bennett:
I always start this the same way because I wish it was a better story, and that’s what I always say, I wish it was a better story. I was just recently at a in-person networking event, and I always wear my Antipreneur t-shirt, and man, does at work. I just grab a whiskey, lean on the wall, and for two hours people come to me and talk to me. So I don’t even got to do any work. It’s great.
So late 2017, I was making some just casual video content for my content marketing just to stay top of mind in front of people. And a lot of times I would rant and rave in a positive way, but still just complain about some aspect of video or entrepreneurship or something. And I was just sitting around irritated because not that this has gone away yet, but it was like the steep incline rise of the digital guru, the coach who’s coaching coaches on how to coach coaches. It was everywhere, and I was just so sick of it.
And I was making this joke. I’m 42 now. I would have been 37 then, so I was just making this joke that back in my day, when you said you were an entrepreneur, people would look at you with concern and be like, “Oh, you don’t have a job, huh?” Because you’re trying to build something. And in 2017, I’m saying this on camera at the time. Nowadays, it’s this sexy term. And if you say you’re an entrepreneur, everyone’s like, “Oh yeah, me too.” And you’re like, “Cool, what do you do?” And they’re like, “I got 4,000 Instagram followers.” “Cool. What’s your model? What are you selling? What’s your business?” “I got 4,000 Instagram followers.”
Well, nothing against influencers, but I don’t know if you have a business. I don’t really know if you’re solving a problem yet. And so just making fun of that fact. I said, “Forget it. I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m an antipreneur. I’m anti magic pills and silver bullets and blueprints and take my course and you can have a Ferrari or use a laptop on the beach, whatever. I’m more about business fundamentals that matter, but what you build on that foundation is yours. And how dare I tell you what to build. Because most of those things I’m lashing out against are something that worked for someone else, and they’re trying to sell it to you now instead of them actually helping you grow your business that’s custom to you.”
So it went out that way on accident. I didn’t plan it. And then my audience was like, “Wait, what? Huh? Say that. What was that? Antipreneur? Is that a thing?” And me being someone who’s very open and honest, I’m lazy when it comes to business. I want to get to point B as fast as possible. So when it came time to launch the podcast and do a YouTube channel, I just called it The Antipreneur Show because I didn’t want to work too hard at trying to name it. So it stuck.
And then the last little fun tidbit to that is that there’s a performer named Dan Bennett who had his 15 minutes of fame in the late ’90s, mid to late ’90s. Came up through the late ’70s, early ’80s. And he does magic and stage performance and all this stuff. I think he’s still active actually, to be honest. And he had been on some late night shows and stuff like that. So when you search Dan Bennett on Google, no matter how many articles I write, no matter how many podcasts I’m on, he still is the first three pages of the results.
So if you Google antipreneur, you’re going to find me. So I guess it’s my workaround to try and rank on Google as well. Just look for The Antipreneur. Don’t worry about my name.
Jessmyn:
I love that. That actually makes so much sense. What do you do with that besides give yourself a cool name? I love that. It’s funny because you keep saying, I know you’ve said this before, that it’s not that cool of a story, but it is a cool story because it happened so naturally, and people gave you this idea in a sense because they were like, “Hold on, say that one more time.” And you were like, “Oh, this is something they like.”
Dan Bennett:
Yeah, wait a minute. And one of the beautiful parts about it is currently, not only is it an ice breaker if I’m at an in-person event, people put themselves in one of three piles. It’s either indifferent, curious, or they’re upset. They’re like, “Hey, I’m an entrepreneur. We’re at a networking event. Why does that say Antipreneur?” And I just look at them and smile and say, “Oh, it worked,” and then I be quiet. So it does that job for me.
But the other thing that it does that I’m finding a lot of pleasure in is, so you got to imagine if you’re listening and not watching, I’m a bald guy with a beard, tattoo, earrings, rock-and-roll dude, jeans, t-shirt, boots, very straightforward, denim and cotton. And I’ve sat in some of the top boardrooms in the country, at least, Fortune 100, executive suites pitching and winning jobs. There comes a level where no one cares if you have a suit on. They just want to know if you can deliver and if the product’s going to do what you promised.
So taking that into the Antipreneur vibe of just crushing the status quo, that’s what I’m after most of the time, I notice that everyone, even if it’s only one-half of 1%, everyone’s got a little bit of rebellion in them. And everyone has a little piece where they’re like, “Well, I push against the status quo sometimes.” There’s always this desire to be a little bit of a rebel, and I love that. So that is something that opens up in the people I work with too. And then they’re generally thrown off but also like the fact that I’m very empathetic and kind. And even though I look like a biker, I’m not an a-hole. So that mix of things all comes together, and it’s this accidental persona because I don’t have enough energy to put on a real one.
Jessmyn:
I love that. So speaking of personas though, if you think about it, when people come, I feel like the most successful people in business, it is your true personality, and that’s what people attach themselves to. Because you could find somebody who does the same exact thing, but if you don’t vibe with who they are or what they’re about, then it’s not going to work out.
Dan Bennett:
It’s all over really. Besides the occasional outlier, it’s all over. And I talk about that a lot in the work I do. There’s this magic three stage thing that happens with video. And the first thing is the know, like and trust that we’re all after can begin through video. And I always imagine someone sitting in their bed watching Netflix with some Cheetos dust on their hoodie watching my video. It doesn’t have to be sophisticated. They don’t have to be in a room with me. They can just absorb content like many of us do.
And then the second thing, I don’t have a better term for it yet, I call it micro fame. If you’re on a screen and you do it well, you don’t have to be incredible, but if you look and sound good and your stuff, you start to build a rapport with people without even knowing them. And there’s this little bit of, “Oh hey, you’re the guy from those videos.”
I’ve had a lot of people take me up on my 15-minute free strategy call and be at the beginning of the call and be like, “I can’t believe I’m talking to you.” And I’m like, “I’m just a dude in Texas. It’s okay. Don’t worry.” But there’s something that comes with being an authority in your field and being on screen that starts to establish that connection.
And then the third thing is if you are in real life, so say you do have coffee or you jump on a Zoom call or strategy call, discovery call, anywhere where they get to meet you quote, unquote in real life and you hold up their expectations of you based on what they’ve seen in video, it’s a done deal because now they know you’re legit. You’re how you were in those videos. They want to work with you or maybe they don’t, and that decision could be made at that time.
And that little three-stage thing with video is one of the reasons I think it’s the most powerful medium as far as marketing and storytelling. Because at the end of the day, I get feedback like, “Your voice makes me feel calm. And when I work with you, I don’t feel so overwhelmed by this whole process. And when I listen to your podcast, you’re such a good storyteller that I just find myself drawn in.” And those are all things that I’m not trying to do. I’m just so lazy that I’m only being myself because I don’t have the energy to do anything else.
So it is as cliche as it might be sometimes. I just put out a video a couple days ago on how to not make boring videos. And one of the things was be yourself. It is your secret weapon because it’s the one thing that no one else can do. So I’m definitely all for it.
Jessmyn:
So true. So true. What was it? I feel like it was a couple of days ago. I was scrolling on reels on Instagram and I noticed everybody sounds exactly the same. They do this perk up in their voice and they talk. Even the fluctuations of how they speak is exactly the same. And at that point, you have to think about it. If you are scrolling or you’re on YouTube, if you sound exactly like everybody else, no one’s going to want to watch you. But if you have that one little thing that makes you you, people are going to be like, “Hmm, that’s a little different.” And even better if everybody else sounds the same and you don’t.
Dan Bennett:
And all of these things can be traced back to effective storytelling and the components and tools of storytelling that have worked for millennia. One of the great things this pattern interrupts, it exists for a reason. Another one that I preach all the time is leading with conflict. Showing the dirt under the rug, pointing out the problem, getting occasionally, at least, away from the bells and whistles and services and all of the results you’re going to get. Those are important, but sometimes you’ve got to point out what sucks and how you’re helping people stay away from what sucks.
The video I’m editing right now to go on my main imtheantipreneur.com page, because a lot of people show up there and they’re like, “I kind of know what you do, but I kind of don’t.” So I made a video just to put there. I have this part in the middle where I say something about taking your business to the next level, and then it record screeches, goes into a different shot. And I’m like, “Don’t you hate when people say take your business to the next level. What does that even mean? What if you like the level you’re at? What if me saying take it to the next level is implying that you’re at a level you shouldn’t be at? What if we just create a great video at the level you’re at so you can more effectively communicate to your audience? Anyway, back to the show.” And I go back to the rest of the video.
That’s the Antipreneur way. It’s let me interrupt this. Let me poke fun at something that’s ridiculous. Let me say, “Man, all these videos look the same. I think I’m going to do mine in black and white today just so someone can be like, well, that was different.” And I love that you noticed those patterns because I think one of the most powerful things you can do is interrupt them.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I love that so much. That’s great. Well, I have two last questions for you, if you’re up for it. Yep, there you go.
Dan Bennett:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
Okay, second to last question. What are three things most people would not know about you?
Dan Bennett:
Well, before they listened to this show, most people don’t know I was in a band and toured, got to open for some of my heroes, tour with some of my heroes, do some really fun things and meet some incredible people all over the United States. If you’re up for it, I can give a link to our old music video that you can put in the show notes and people can watch a music video, if they want.
Jessmyn:
Yes. I also want to see it.
Dan Bennett:
It’s kind of fun. It’s really hard rock, so be prepared. But it’s fun because I can sing, but I don’t just walk around every day singing, especially as an entrepreneur. So a lot of times people watch it and they’re like, “I was expecting that to be terrible.” And one of my favorite parts about that is a lot of times when people watch it because I actually can sing, they’re like, “Hey, that wasn’t terrible.” And I get it when people say I’m in a band. A lot of times you’re leery of what you’re about to watch. But definitely super fun, a great time in my life and really taught me a lot about entrepreneurship even though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time.
Another thing, which we’ve hit on in this episode, so if you’ve listened to the episode, this won’t be new to you, but it would be new to most people. It’s just that sense of I’m covered in tattoos. You can’t see them all because they’re under my t-shirt area or whatever. But love ink, love rock-and-roll and metal, like I said, bald head, beard, tattoos, earrings, all the things. But I’m soft. So people, I think, don’t know that, and that a lot of times, I’ve had some people be pretty candid on calls where we get halfway through it and they’re like, “Can I just stop and say you are nothing like what I thought you were going to be?” just based on visuals and stuff like that.”
And I’m proud of that stuff. So my headshot, I’m wearing a shirt that’s got a skull on it. So a lot of times people are like, “I don’t know if that’s business appropriate.” And I’m like, “Well, you probably shouldn’t do business with me then because this is how I roll.” So that’s a second thing.
A third thing that people might not know about me, I love ritual. It is such a powerful thing to me. I don’t have a bunch of my own, but I’m just so respectful of them. I love when people have something they take time to do or something that’s enriched in someone’s culture. The closest I get is if you buy me a shot or we break bread together at your home or your place where you live, those things are gigantic to me as far as respect when, for someone else, it might just be an everyday occurrence. But the ritual of sharing alcohol or sharing bread with someone is really important to me. So I love things like Norse mythology and culture and all those sorts of things where there’s just a lot of ritual and culture built into a certain thing. So that’d probably be the third thing.
And then a bonus thing. I love so much when people are passionate about something I don’t know about or I don’t care about. And I don’t mean I don’t care like I don’t care about that. I mean I don’t care because I’m not in that world. But comic cons are incredible to me. I’m not in that world. I don’t love comics. I don’t watch a lot of that kind of stuff. But people dressing up and embodying a character and going and hanging out with other people who love it just as much, that stuff is so cool to me. So I love when people are really passionate about something.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I love that. Did you watch Vikings, the show?
Dan Bennett:
Oh yeah, that I did. That I did. Yeah.
Jessmyn:
I crushed through that whole show.
Dan Bennett:
So good. So good. I feel like they served the original Vikings show pretty well too, because I think the new one happened whatever they said 100 or 200 years later on the fictional timeline. So I like that they called back, and that’s a favorite of mine, for sure. You found a little golden nugget there.
Jessmyn:
And they made it seem like … Sorry, this is totally off topic to the episode, but they did this thing where they were like, “Oh, were they real? We don’t even know if they were real.” But I actually finished the last season of the original Vikings right before that came out.
Dan Bennett:
Oh, so you went right in.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, it went straight through for me. So it was a cool experience because I just remembered everything obviously that just happened. And I recommend doing that.
Dan Bennett:
Yeah, definitely. If you’re listening or watching, do that. I’m jealous that I didn’t get to do that because I wrapped the original right when the last episode came out. Fun fact since we went off topic. Trevor Morris, go to Spotify, look him up. He’s done all the soundtrack for the original Vikings and this one. So fun fact because we went off topic a little bit. Trevor Morris, if you look him up on Spotify, he’s done all of the soundtracking for both Viking series as well, some other stuff you would recognize. And I’m one of those weirdos that falls asleep to tribal music and Viking music and stuff like that when I go to bed. So he’s a fun one to listen to. Really accomplished musician.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I wonder if he did that really big TikTok sound. I don’t know music very well, but it sounds like something that came out of Vikings, and it’s usually people talking about how scary the ocean is.
Dan Bennett:
Oh, I know what you’re talking about. I’ll have to look because he’s had his hand on it.
Jessmyn:
And it goes prrr, just like that for super long. And I’m like, oh, this is nuts.
Dan Bennett:
I wouldn’t be surprised. I wouldn’t.
Jessmyn:
I’ve got to double check to see if that’s it, and then I’ll let you know. So last question for you. If you could give yourself a single piece of advice at the start of it all, what would it be?
Dan Bennett:
Oh man, it’s a hard one because there’s definitely things on my timeline that I could have done without. But at the same time, if I had the power to change then, I don’t know if I would based on that whole I wouldn’t be where I’m at thing. 2020 lost everything, shut down my business, personal bankruptcy. I was being sued. All my tenants quit paying rent because they couldn’t be enforced. Evictions couldn’t be enforced. Very quickly, I call it the great bandaid rip of 2020, lost everything. And many people did, so I’m definitely not making any less of that.
And in that time, I had 12 people I encountered them because I got so frustrated that it was happening, I had 12 different people say, “Man, this sucks, dude. I’m watching what’s happening. It’s tough. And you’re selling your stuff out of storage just to pay groceries and holy crap.” I’m finding solace. I’m saying this to me. I’m finding solace in knowing that you’re such a resilient person. I’ve watched you be resilient for decades.
And the 12th person who said that was a good friend of mine, Rob, and because he’s a good friend, I was like, “Can I keep it real with you?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “It really upsets me that you just said that.” And he was like, “Well, I’m sorry.” I’m like, “No, no, no, it’s not you, it’s me. But you’re the 12th person to say it’s a good thing you’re resilient, man.” And I started thinking, when does resiliency actually become too stupidity? And maybe you should stay down and not get hit by that next swing that’s coming at your face. And I dealt with that.
August 2020, I go out into the forest to find myself. Part of that was just having a whiteboard and doing some soul searching. And as I thought back on what had happened in the previous couple of months, I was so thankful that I had 12 people in my life that reminded me that I’m a resilient person. Even though it’s so frustrating to hear it when you’re in it, and you’re like, “Yeah, great, I’m resilient, whatever. That’s not helping me pay my bills,” it is actually.
So if I could go back and tell myself something at any of the chapters of my life, it would be that the things that seem the most frustrating and the things that seem like they aren’t that big of a deal often turn out to be that way. It’s something that anyone can tell you the best, the brightest, the deep thinkers can tell you, but until you experience it yourself, you just don’t know. So maybe the one way you would listen to someone else instead of experiencing it yourself is if it was you coming back in time to tell you. So I think that’s what I would tell myself.
Jessmyn:
I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on our show with us today. And before I forget, can you let everyone know where they could find you online?
Dan Bennett:
I try and keep it super easy. So if you’re thinking about video, if video’s something that you think you should be doing in your business or you’re curious about or you already make great video and you want to know how to make money with it, quiz.video is my interact quiz. Tried to make it real easy to find. It’s just quiz.video. Takes you right there. And then danhaslinks.com has all my links. So those are the two best places to start. If you Google or search on any platform antipreneur, you’re going to run across my stuff. And then my website is, imtheantipreneur.com if you want to talk to me directly through a website. But danhaslinks, that’s got all the links on it.
Jessmyn:
Love it. And we’ll link that for you guys, so you can check it out in the show notes. Sweet. Well, thank you so much and everyone else, we’ll see you next time.
Dan Bennett:
Thanks for having me.