Latest / Harder Than Life / The Man Behind Fyre Festival Finally Tells His Side | Billy McFarland

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The Man Behind Fyre Festival Finally Tells His Side | Billy McFarland · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
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• 0:30
  Most people think they know the story from the documentaries. What's the one thing they get completely wrong, brother? The biggest misconception is that the festival itself was fake. I didn't go to jail because of the festival. I went to jail because of how I raised money from investors. As much as I've learned from it and as much as I will speak negatively about my actions and thought process at the time, it was fun as hell.
• 0:54
  Good times are hard to replicate, but ultimately the decisions were made for the wrong reasons. And I think that we were all using each other. You could have a transactional encounter and you could maximize that one encounter, but to build something permanent is very hard when you're viewing it as a one-off transaction.
• 1:10
  I call that there's no honor amongst thieves. It was really hard for me to not get lost in the sauce, as I like to say. The sauce was the addiction to what power I believed I had or what momentum I believed I had at the time. You only have so much time, right? I lost 10 of my prime years trying to make amends with my family, with my friends, a lot of time in jail. You can't get that time back. When you take shortcuts, you end up cutting yourself out.
• 1:35
  The hard path is always the right path. Yes. Ever want to know which path away? Choose the hard one. Today's guest is one of the most misunderstood operators of the last decade. You know the headlines. You think you know the story, but you don't. Billy McFarlane was 24 years old when he was handed more money, more attention, and more pressure than most founders see in a lifetime. He didn't set out to run a fake festival. He was a kid who said yes to a room full of people who should have known better.
• 2:04
  That part of the story almost never gets told. Earlier this year, Billy successfully produced Phoenix, a destination festival on the remote Caribbean island in Utila, Honduras. International media coverage, real guests, real talent, a real island that liked him before he left. Next up is an invitation-only event to Turks and Caicos.
• 2:26
  This isn't a redemption tour. This is a founder rebuilding in public with receipts. If you've ever been the youngest person in the room, the most exposed person in the room, or the person everyone has already written off, this conversation is for you.
• 2:45
  Billy McFarlane, welcome to the Harder Than Life show. Kelly, thank you. Incredible intro. And I just want to let the guests know that we first met a few years ago when you gave a speech in Chicago. And personally, I was blown away by your public speaking. I learned a lot from you. So great to reconnect and be here. Well, I appreciate that. And I will tell you this much, Billy, your authenticity is...
• 3:05
  showed and i didn't know who you were and i had to go watch the documentary and the entire time even though i know how it ended because you told me i i was rooting for you and i could see man could i see me in you where where
• 3:21
  It just it's like I so my audience knows I sold drugs. I didn't wake up one day and say I'm going to sell drugs. I just got caught up in someone. It was and I keep thinking that's what happened with you. But most people think they know the story from the documentaries right from the from you. What's the one thing they get completely wrong, brother?
• 3:41
  The biggest misconception is that the festival itself was fake. I made so many wrong decisions, both like unethical, illegal decisions, but also just like silly management decisions trying to build the festival. But we did try to build the festival and I didn't go to jail because of the festival. I went to jail because of how I raised money from investors.
• 4:01
  So even if the festival was as good as advertised, I still would have been guilty of committing the same crime. And that's something I think gets glossed over or incorrectly told in the media. Billy, what's your relationship with God? Do you think that he played a toll of that rain that screwed everything? Cause honestly, I think you would have pulled it off. Yeah. So for people who don't know, there was a big storm that came in like the night before and all night, overnight leading up to the festival. And,
• 4:29
  We certainly would not have been as ready as we had promised. It might have been pulled off if the rainstorm didn't exist. And I think the defining moment was we gave the keys to this cargo truck to the son of one of our investors. I think he was like 16 or 17. And he ran over the only water line that we had that basically pumped the water to all the bathrooms and all the showers. And that took us over the edge.
• 4:53
  That thing was cursed. So everybody keeps wanting to talk about that, the 2017. Why should we be talking about Utila instead? That's a great question. It took eight years, but we finally built and executed its island dream. We went to a small island off the Caribbean coast of Honduras called Utila and held what we called Phoenix Festival, rising from the ashes last December. So we finally made it happen. It was a great win for us. I think the coolest thing was...
• 5:20
  finding an island, a country, a tourism board, a government that was able to stand up to the international pressure, take the risk, welcome us, and really help us build what became Successful Festival.
• 5:34
  If you pay attention online, you're still, you know, people love to kick people when they're down and you're coming back up. There's a lot of criticism that said it was not successful. I've seen equal both ways. So what actually happened and because I know it was a success, but what actually happened and what are you going to use that model for the next one?
• 5:57
  That's a great question. And I think once the festival finally succeeded after a couple of false starts in eight years, I was initially so angry that people were still calling it a failure. And the range of emotions went from what are they talking about to like, even if we had Tupac resurrected to perform on stage, it still wouldn't have been good enough.
• 6:17
  to ultimately embracing it, right? And I think that the second people stop caring is when we don't really have a business. And ultimately, we're in the fun business. We're in the entertainment business. And people who are there to criticize every single move, they ultimately make it more interesting. So...
• 6:33
  I've been trying to understand that, reflect on it, and really embrace it, understand that the biggest fans are the ones who come in first, whether it's prize in the bag or this festival sucks, but they help drive the engine that is the attention and entertainment business. What specific blueprints did you take away from that that you're going to use in the next event? It's all about the people. And that's where I went totally wrong with fire the first time. You attract what you put out. And I was seeking...
• 7:03
  quick access to fame, success, uh,
• 7:07
  money, whatever it may have been. And I was attracting hundreds of employees, friends, associates, peers who also shared those similar mentalities. So I think that's where I really went wrong. And I think that's what we did differently for Phoenix. And I'm really trying to live life differently moving forward by having a core group of people who really care about each other and they're in it for the long haul. And they're not there to see what falls off the truck this weekend to get a quick come up.
• 7:36
  But we live and learn. You're living the real-life hero's journey, and I couldn't be more proud of you. You were 24 years old when that happened. How old are you now? Thank you. Yes, 34. So, well, it makes me get dated. Hey, I just did 50, bro, so I don't want to hear it. You look great. Walk me through a room at FIRE versus a room at BZM today. Who's in it and what specifically is different?
• 8:00
  Great question. Um, the room's at fire and as much as I've learned from it, and as much as I will speak negatively about my actions and thought process at the time, it was fun as hell, right? It was an intoxicating environment where a bunch of 24 year olds with tens of millions of dollars in the bank, the biggest talent in the world and a dream to make something happen. So for all that went wrong, uh,
• 8:25
  And the good times are hard to replicate, but ultimately, the decisions were made for the wrong reasons. And I think ultimately, we all wanted to succeed. And we were in it to build a positive business. But we're going about it the wrong way. And I think that we were all using each other. And I think it's probably the best way to put it.
• 8:42
  And whether an investor was using me, I was using an investor, I was using talent, talent was using me, etc. It felt very transactional. And I think a transactional life just doesn't last very long, right? You could have a transactional encounter and you can maximize that one encounter. But to build something permanent is very hard when you're viewing it as a one-off transaction.
• 9:04
  I call that there's no honor amongst thieves, man. Like when you're out there partying and everyone's got their own agenda, just ain't nothing going to happen, which is the converse, which is when everybody's rowing in the same direction, anything is possible. So let's get deeper into what did work at Phoenix. So it got international coverage and the locals of Utila stood behind it.
• 9:26
  How did you earn that after all of the negative press that came out of the fire where people said that they weren't paid? So how did you overcome that little obstacle? So I think the approach we took with Utila was we were just super honest saying, even if the festival doesn't work, you are going to get increased tourism. You're going to get media coverage. And we're going to be here. We're going to be boots on the ground with you. So I think they understood that even if we fail to deliver tourism,
• 9:53
  The artists we were promising or concert experience that we were promising, we were going to put this beautiful remote island on the map. And we did that. I think the other thing, too, is that we just lived there for three months before the festival and just had this mentality where we're not leaving Utila until this festival succeeds. So no matter what happens, like we're not going home. Like, here's my passport. Like, I can't leave until this works. And we just kind of had that like do or die mentality.
• 10:19
  sounds like radical accountability and radical honesty is what it sounds like just hey i'm here we're good everything's going to be fine so the the next events in turks and cacos and it's invitation only why invitation only and who gets the invite brother yeah so turks and cacos is a whole new beast uh the brand that turks and cacos has built really since the early 2000s has been one of the most premier brands in the caribbean
• 10:43
  So we are attacking a whole new challenge by trying to fit in to this high-end, luxurious family tourism brand that Turks and Caicos has built. Whereas Utila, our immediate value add was putting this beautiful remote island on the map. So different marketing challenge for us. And just trying to fit in and make our mark with doing it in a small way. It's a lot easier to have 300 or 400 friends of the company or friends of our team come and enjoy Turks and Caicos than trying to host 4,000 or 5,000 people in the first go around.
• 11:13
  So I think that goes back to the lessons of Fyre Festival One, like we can't have it all right now or we don't need it all tomorrow. Let's go step by step. Let's get a small win. Let's build with great people. And that will give us the foundation we need to expand properly. Who's getting the invite? I missed that.
• 11:29
  It's our marketing clients. It's many of the people who attended the first Phoenix event. It's the artists we work with and represent. So trying to keep it as in-house as possible, bringing people to what I think the press call is one of the best beaches in the world in Grace Bay, and it's having a great weekend together.
• 11:46
  I find you to be one of the most brilliant minds and one of the best communicators I've ever seen. And you're so likable in person. And oftentimes that you get misconceptionized. So what is the biggest misconception you're most tired of correcting?
• 12:03
  I think the biggest misconception is that we set out to scan people with Fyre Festival. I lost a lot on Fyre Festival. Ultimately, I had investors who lost a lot more, but I put everything I had into making it work. And I woke up the morning after with negative balances across all of my accounts. So it wasn't like there's...
• 12:20
  $20 million stash in the Cayman Islands, which people commonly think. And I was on the phone with a tax person recently, and they're like, the IRS knows that you have $10 million hidden. I'm like, I don't have it. They're like, how can you prove it? I'm like, I can't prove it doesn't exist. And it's kind of like this funny, like reoccurring theme where people think that we stole all the money from the Fyre Festival. So I think that's probably the biggest misconception. And the second thing is, I think I'm really bad at speaking with these like one on one selfie videos, so I've got to figure out a better way to start communicating your
• 12:50
  is going forward. Didn't you have a major restitution? And like when I met you, you were on, did you get it? Were you on parole or were you out on? When we met, I was on probation, which meant I literally had to ask permission to leave like a certain area of New York. So I knew I was in.
• 13:08
  We were in Chicago, so I was there for work and that was funny. But you paid out all the restitution. You did all your time. You've done everything. I didn't pay all the restitution yet. I'm paying it. I pay restitution every month. It's a big number and it's a percentage of income. So it's actually pretty fair. So whether I make $100 or $1,000, right, I pay a percentage of that income back every single month. And yeah, it's trying to climb a mountain. I believe everybody deserves a second chance. I've had second and thirds and it took me to the fourth time that I finally got my head together. But
• 13:37
  again, I'm going to vouch for you. I think you're one of the most outstanding, upstanding. That could have crushed people. The other thing is you were right there. It's not like you ran and hid. You were right there. So it's like if you were trying to scam people, I don't think you'd be standing right there.
• 13:52
  There was a really good story where a pretty well-known tabloid, they called me and on their website, they had somebody live streaming a video standing on top of this milk carton in the middle of the festival mess, like trying to get people to housing or tents or whatever it was. And the reporter on the phone said, we're running a story.
• 14:10
  that you ran away on your yacht with models and cocaine. First of all, I don't have a yacht. Second of all, I don't do cocaine. Third of all, your own website is live streaming me right here. So it was at that moment where I realized that the fiction of the story just became so much more interesting than the reality that there's just no possible way to control what was happening. Unfortunately, if it bleeds, it leads, and negativity gets so much more press now than positivity.
• 14:36
  it happens to me. Like I'll get thousands of comments of yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And one dude will say something about my hair or that I take steroids. And I'm like, yeah,
• 14:46
  Are you kidding me? Like, I had a guy yesterday, why don't you just cut your hair off? Because you look, it's a little messed up. I'm like, because I have hair, why would I cut it off? But that's how we are. It's negativity, let's go at it. Oh, how dare you? We need to get just, we need to all take emotional intelligence training and realize none of that stuff matters. If a 24 year old founder walked in right now with the same kind of capital,
• 15:15
  and the same kind of hype. What do you tell him in the first five minutes?
• 15:21
  Look, it was really hard for me to not get lost in the sauce, as I like to say. And the sauce for me wasn't necessarily drugs or alcohol. The sauce was the addiction to what power I believed I had or what momentum I believed I had at the time. And it was without having the life experience of failures of any kind of like significant magnitude, it was really hard to understand the seriousness of what position I was in and what could go wrong.
• 15:48
  and what responsibility I had. And I think I took that responsibility too lightly and thought it was more jovial and fun than how serious it really should have been. So the advice is take it really serious. Well, I get serious and you only have so much time, right? And look, it's 10 years later at this point now, I lost...
• 16:08
  10 of my prime years trying to make amends in my family, with my friends, have people take my phone calls, spend a lot of time in jail, and you can't get that time back. So decisions you make when you think you're young and invincible, they could really impact a serious percentage of your life.
• 16:25
  Brother, let me tell you more about you. And I'm not trying to man crush. I just, I just, I'm a good judge of character. And this is what I see. Most people won't even try. And you were 24 years old and took it on the chin and you're here 10 years later talking about it and, and, and you never shy away from anything. You are in the fight and I'm proud of you. You, you are a role model. Listen, I I'm sorry for the people that got that lost money. I get it. And that's,
• 16:52
  you took an L and you're turning it into a win and most won't you will. So I'm proud of you. Thank you. And with that comes learning and discernment. What do you say no to today? That 24 year old Billy would have said yes to in a heartbeat.
• 17:08
  Life is all about the people. And it sounds cliche, but it's 100% true. I was very desperate to make everybody around me happy in the initial fire days. And I think that like those short-term dopamine boosts or happiness or trying to make somebody feel good who doesn't really care about you and vice versa in the short term.
• 17:28
  almost always leads to shortcuts and leads to, you know, unhappiness in the longterm. So I think it's finding a core group and making decisions based on like longevity with that core group, rather than surrounding yourself with a ton of, you know, short-term people. You talk about people, let's get specific. Who are the people in the room now that weren't in the room then? You don't have to name names, but like for me, I have spirituality people, coach, coaches, massive influence. My room is,
• 17:57
  is strong. So who are the people that are in your room now that you keep speaking about? It's the second time you've said it. I know I'm saying people like it's easy, like for all the bad that happened. The people side for me actually was easy because when I went to jail, I saw who stuck around and who left, right? So like I had a really traumatic life experience that became that automatic filter on my behalf.
• 18:18
  And one of the things that I tell a lot of friends and people I speak with is that if you told me before everything went wrong, if things were to go as bad as they were, if I had picked the first five people to stay and the first five people to leave, I would have gotten every single person wrong. And that was like a really eye-opening moment was my judge of character was so poor and my...
• 18:40
  thought process about what was good and bad in the world was so wrong that I would have correctly chosen every single person about what their actually motivations and objectives were. Who's the one person then that you can't live without?
• 18:54
  Uh, I've, I have a fiance. Uh, she's pregnant. I met her before I went to jail. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So I met her before I went to jail. So she's a, she's a, she's a, she's a tough one. And she stayed. Yeah, she stayed. And that's, I think that's super, super rare, especially in like the social media era to, uh, to live through a lot of bad years. Back to the fire festival. What's the one thing about the original fire situation that went down that almost no one has ever asked you about?
• 19:22
  Really good question. The reason why we ultimately canceled the event was I was told that three people got killed. That wasn't true at all. Nobody was even remotely hurt. And I was standing there on this milk carton. I had the reporter saying I ran away. And then someone runs up to me being like, really, three people got killed. And then I remember we had...
• 19:40
  two 737 planes that we chartered and like plastered for like women in bikinis. I was, as a 24 year old, you know, boy, what, right. I remember calling, like calling the operator who called the pilots and we turned planes around in the air. And I think that was pretty wild, but I think the, the number of things that had to go right, that seemed insurmountable initially for things to go as wrong as they did probably doesn't get covered a lot. We had to solve so many seemingly impossible problems to ultimately fail at that level. So I think that's pretty interesting to look back and reflect on.
• 20:09
  When's the due date for the kid? It's in September. Do you know what you're having? It's a girl. I'm super nervous. Oh, you should be. But I'll tell you what. I have a daughter. She's 17. Okay. They take care of their dads. So take care of her. But keep away from guys like me and John Sarasani. I understood. That's the hard part. You're the founder. You're the face. You took the legal hit. Who else should have been accountable on what?
• 20:37
  would you say to them now? Great question. I'm certainly the most guilty one. And there's no doubt about that. I think I was the world's worst financial fraudster of all time. There wasn't this back room where there's this seven or eight set of books that I was hiding. And I think I had 20 people who had my password for my bank account. I never had my own debit or credit card on my hand. Somebody else had it at all times.
• 21:03
  Everything was so loosey-goosey. So I was pretty bad at doing things illegally and improperly. But yeah, I was the guilty one.
• 21:13
  I fucked up and I lied to investors. And I think at the surface of what does that mean? I think what it means is that people who had backed me for a number of years, when I came to them and asked for more, and I truly believe fire was going to be bigger than what I had tried in the past, which it probably would have been if it succeeded. But I think it was taking advantage of that trust was really the worst crime. There's a great lesson in there, is the ego and being stubborn. And at 24, you're taught to just keep grinding,
• 21:43
  You'll follow one course until success. Go, go, go, go, go. But at some point, it would have been wise to look up and be like, yeah, this isn't going to work. But, man, I've been there. And I just, I commend it. And you have a life lesson that you could never, ever teach somebody else. It would have folded most people. So how did you rebuild your relationship with money and capital after coming out of all this then?
• 22:12
  I don't know if I have rebuilt that relationship. Wow. Yeah. It's tough, right? I think the fire was such a weird period of time where I'd wake up during the week and there was a financial person or a team and he'd assemble a spreadsheet
• 22:30
  called daily urgent payments. And it was basically the money that we had to pay that day or else we were fucked. So it's like, I'd wake up and some days it wasn't much. And some days it's like, hey, we need $4 million before 2 PM so we can then wire it out before the 4 PM deadline. And that was an everyday thing for probably two or three months.
• 22:49
  So we were accomplishing financial miracles often the wrong way, right? Just to stay afloat. And I'm not sure if I've recovered from that. I think I probably overestimate my ability to earn on some days. And yeah, just don't really know where I'm going to fall on that spectrum yet. Is all you're doing right now is these events or do you have a normal nine to five? I do marketing work as my main source of income. And then I'm also filming a couple of TV shows, like doing the appearances and speeches and have that whole kind of like public persona revenue stream as well.
• 23:19
  How can people book you? Through my company called BZM. So I have an agent manager who handle all the appearances, but tell them to start booking me on some more stuff. We need some more. Nice. Are you off probation now or are you still on? I am. I am. So I'm allowed to travel, which is nice. You can be free to go about the world. Good for you. Free to travel.
• 23:39
  Walk me through what a successful event looks like to you now versus success look like in 2016. Success now are people coming out of the event, having met somebody new who they didn't expect to meet and forming a relationship. So whether it's a business relationship, a personal relationship, just a new friend group, I think it's the coolest thing. I think what I am really good at is bringing people to different places.
• 24:02
  And I'm also just like have friends who are just like so radically different, right? Whether it's a guy who did 30 years in jail, who I'm super close with, or it's a music artist, or it's like a super nerdy tech guy. I'm just like, have a really diverse kind of like awkward friend group. And I think when they come together and just do different adventures or explore different places together, that's where a lot of really great relationships are formed.
• 24:22
  You are definitely a people person. You have what the kids call, what do they, riz. Your charisma is off the charts. Once you meet you, and hopefully we're doing a good job of explaining that, we'll get some people that hate you that comment. But if you have a chance to meet Billy, you can't help but like the guy. You're just a likable dude. And the amount that you've grown in the three years since I've seen you,
• 24:46
  is remarkable. You're very humble, but a kid will do that to you. So will a fiance. So congratulations. Take me through the Phoenix week, inside to the Phoenix week. What's a moment from the ground in Utila that the cameras did not capture?
• 25:04
  I love that. I think we were operating Phoenix in Honduras and it was during the presidential elections in Honduras. Oh, I had no I had no exposure to like Central American elections and everything that goes on. It's not like the U.S. There is violence, there's chaos, and there's probably a lot more going on behind the scenes. Right.
• 25:23
  than in a typical, I think, first world country election. And just made the logistics hard. And going back to the first fire, we kind of got flashbacks, right? Like, how are we going to get a barge full of bathrooms across the ocean during the election cycle? Or how are we going to get a generator when the presidential candidate rented off the generators? So it was kind of just fun navigating that and just having like a front row seat to a government that fully supported us, right? But at the same time, watching their entire election cycle go down.
• 25:52
  Pretty cool as experience. There's a documentary, an unscripted show, and a musical from Rita Ora and Taika Waititi.
• 26:01
  Which one is closest to the real you? I've never watched... There's been like four or five documentaries made. I haven't watched any of them. None of them? I haven't watched any of them. We are filming, or we wrapped up filming a new one that followed the journey to Phoenix and throughout the development of Phoenix. That one hasn't come out yet. So I've seen some previews of that one. I believe that one's going to be the closest thing to the real story. So...
• 26:26
  hoping it air sometime soon, but yeah, I don't have a role in producing it, but I was obviously a central character in the making of it. Yeah. Send that over to us. We'll share it. And so we can get some exposure. Cause yeah. Thank you. I just, that's, it's just a good story, Billy. I,
• 26:42
  Again, people are going to make mistakes. We've all made mistakes. You're 24 years old. You're 10 years older. You're going to have a baby. You've never ran away from it. You never denied anything. That's what...
• 26:57
  You want people to do. So I just, I can't sing your praises enough because a lot of people are the victims. You know, you go in prison, everybody's innocent. But you, you, no, I get it. What do you owe the people who bought tickets to fire and how are you paying them back today? I think we brushed on that a little bit, but let's, let's be specific.
• 27:18
  So the restitution, which is the legal payment that I had to pay back, that goes back to the technical victims, which are the investors. And that's really the only legal victim bucket. There was some money owed back to employees in the Bahamas. I've been paying that monthly as well. That wasn't required, but something that's obviously super important.
• 27:37
  The dollar figures there are a lot lower than what might be reported. So we're almost done paying that back. I believe the majority, if not all, the ticket holders have been refunded. I get a lot of comments being like, oh, you still owe me money for tickets. I don't know if those people actually had tickets to the festival. So from what I understand, the majority of the ticket holders were refunded. So Proudy, when did you realize you were going to rebuild again? And was there a single moment?
• 28:00
  I think what was really difficult, and it was all deserved, but being in prison and having people who knew me well, whether it was close family or close friends, who were so exposed to the negativity online, in the media, through documentaries, through television, whatever it may be, and not being able to talk to me to level set again, starting to have the worst negative thoughts. I remember a comment from somebody super close to me.
• 28:29
  Hey, Billy, we're concerned that we don't think you're able to even work in an ice cream store moving forward. No offense to anybody that, but seeing people who knew me for 25 years start thinking that I couldn't even go to the bathroom by myself, it just gave me this drive where it's like, hey, I can probably do something a little bit better both for you and for the world than people think right now. It gave me this drive to go back out there and improve competency, I think is where it all started.
• 28:55
  You know, when I went to jail, I went to the right perfect time. I went in 1996 or 97, so it was pre-internet. Man, do they make it hard for you to rehabilitate and walk away. So the resilience that you've shown over and over
• 29:15
  again, is remarkable. And I'm not sitting here, I don't want anything from you. I'm not a man crush. I just, I've been there. I've been in your shoes. And I just want people to understand that everywhere you go, someone either absolutely loves you or absolutely hates you. And you just, you're bringing a daughter into this world. And what do you want her to know about you when she gets old enough to know what Fyre Festival is?
• 29:39
  The biggest thing for me is that I'm not going to give up until it's all right. And I don't know what I don't know what that means to be all right. But I think I'll know when I get there. Such good answers. I mean, short, sweet to the point. If you could go back and put one experienced operator in the room next to that 24 year old Billy, who is the person and why? That's a great question.
• 30:05
  I think there's two different routes. One is an operations person who could be like, hey, the idea to build a city in four months doesn't make any sense and no one in history ever has done it and there's no way you can, right? I think that's one answer and two is a financial person. So probably both. But I think to someone who I would have respected and looked up to, who would have told me that the ambition was good, but the goal of trying to build a city on a remote island needed more time and more resources than I ever had.
• 30:34
  With the AI now, you're probably going to pull off some really crazy things going forward. But what's after the Turks and Caicos event?
• 30:43
  I think what's going to happen a lot with the AI is people are going to start valuing more in-person experiences. And as we have more free time, we're going to start pushing for more unique experiences. And it's going to be going to an island like Utila that we might not have heard of pre-Phoenix. It's going to be meeting somebody who might work in a different industry. And today, when we're 60 hours a week programming or working in fashion, and we don't have time to get outside of our own worlds, it's going to allow us to connect with different kinds of people.
• 31:11
  And I think that opens up new experiences and new relationships and new ideas. Again, we talked about resiliency and I didn't really get your input on this. What would you say to the listener who's going through a challenging part of their life and they think that yesterday, I don't know when this is gonna air, but yesterday, Claude Lemieux, who's one of the most fearful, fierce hockey players committed suicide. And usually when people commit suicide,
• 31:39
  it's because they believe that the world would be a better place without them. And they feel believe that there's no other options. So I'm going through a tough time, a lot of male listeners that are harder to life show.
• 31:49
  you arguably went through the toughest time that anybody could ever go. What would you tell them? What advice, what did you use to get through it? Yeah, I did 10 months total in solitary confinement and there was some guys in there who were there for years. And some of those people, they found ways to like do kind acts for others. Even though we were locked in like our own cages, they'd find a way to pass you a magazine or to convince a guard to bring you some extra food. And like, there was, I think the guys who really had it the worst,
• 32:17
  they got their purpose by making it a little bit easier for somebody else who hadn't been through extreme hardships. I think that's what really taught me is that even if you have nothing, you can still provide a little bit of value for somebody, and then you can find pride through that. So even at your lowest point, you could be without anything in this world, you could do something for somebody that helps them. And that uplifts you and makes you feel good and gives you some positivity and momentum.
• 32:41
  service to others. Billy McFarland. That is beautiful. What were you in solitary confinement for? Is it because you're so pretty? So I went twice. One time I broke the rules. I had a USB device to record a book and that was certainly not allowed. So very guilty. And then the second time I recorded a podcast over the prison payphone. I love how you said that. I heard that. Not excited. Yeah. Did it ever get released, the podcast?
• 33:10
  One episode was released. I never listened to it after though. That is too funny. How come you never listened, watched any of the documentaries? I just don't know if I'm ready for it. I think I'd probably focus on the wrong things. One of the biggest like phenomenon in the documentaries were that the people who interviewed, they were, they didn't really have the roles they claimed to have. I think most people who were senior in the organization, they went on to have careers afterwards and they didn't want to associate themselves with a failure. So they distanced themselves from the documentary.
• 33:39
  And a lot of the tangential characters, they overplayed their role to get a stop in the dock. So there's a lot of people who weren't really around claiming they were around. The people who were around just didn't want to have any association with it. So it pissed me off. Five years from now, what does BZM look like? And what's the story you want told about Billy McFarlane?
• 33:58
  I think the story that I'd like to be told is that I just didn't give up or didn't quit until I made it right. And I just have this like reoccurring dream where I can go and shake the hand to the people that I had wronged. And whether that's paying them back financially, whether it's rebuilding trust, I think everybody kind of has their own desires for what that looks like. But at least having them and me both acknowledge it like, hey, you didn't stop until it happened. So I just like love to be able to shake their hands and have that moment.
• 34:25
  What do you want your legacy to be when you ultimately take your last breath on this earth? Just he made it happen. Right. And I think like making it happen first starts with like making it right. What's the number one lesson that 34 year old Billy has learned that 24 year old Billy and even 14 year old Billy didn't know. Cause as I growing, as I turned 50,
• 34:50
  Everything, the advice that I'd give you, everything you think you know, you don't know. And the whole thing is, life is much simpler than we make it out to be. And most of the things we tell ourselves is absolutely false.
• 35:03
  So what's your advice? I think one is when you take shortcuts, you end up cutting yourself out. And I see it now with a lot of people and I'm like, this person's so smart, but they just cut themselves out of every equation. I think two is just like, don't take things so seriously. And a lot of times, like if I found now people who maybe are the most negative towards me or who don't take my phone call anymore, sometimes it's because of me, but most often it's because of their own fears.
• 35:32
  Right. And like a lot of people are like, Oh, well, maybe I'm doing something wrong. And if I'm talking to him, then I'll get in trouble with whatever I'm doing. It's like, it's so often not about you. So don't take it personally. And just understand that people always act out of their own fears and desires and very rarely because of you. That is so true. One finger pointing away three pointing right back at you. And exactly people's fears and childhood trauma. I found out most of the stuff is unhealed childhood trauma. It's
• 36:00
  I grew up rough and everything I did was based on that younger self out of scarcity and what you just said, fear. And you can flip everything around into love because everything is love and love is a positive feeling and it does everything. So I know I sound like a woo-woo guy, but I have done more work on myself than most people in the last six months than most people have done their whole entire life.
• 36:27
  I went through this IFS training that just redefined my life. Really? Everything apart. We hit a cap at both companies. And I'm like, I'm the problem. And I looked in the mirror and I said, what is holding me back? And I didn't know. And I was sitting here in studio and I interviewed an IFS therapist. And I looked at her and I said, I need to hire you.
• 36:49
  I'm going to tell you when you do real therapy, I just gave a speech the other day and I tell people that I highly recommend coaching and counseling and both. So one points out the blind spots and one holds you accountable. And people are like, I've tried the therapy thing. I go, the therapy thing? That's like saying I went to the gym and I didn't sweat.
• 37:09
  You're in the gym and you rip your muscles and you walk out in pain. That's growth. If you do the therapy thing, it had better be the worst thing you've ever faced in your entire life or you didn't do the therapy thing. Interesting. And I'm telling you, I've tried hypnotherapy. I haven't tried. I've done hypnotherapy, EMDR therapy, talk therapy, plant medicine. I grew up rough.
• 37:32
  but I owned it and now I live a happy life. I'm sitting in Florida on a Friday. I head back to Detroit tomorrow to, to, for my nephew's 40th birthday. And then I'm back here next week. Life is good, but you, if you're operating on fear and scarcity, everything is very serious.
• 37:52
  And if you're so serious in your life, you're not having, you're not experiencing life. So at the end of your life, there should be no regrets, not the regrets that people talk about. I have no regrets. If you have to say you have no regrets, there's some regret. You have a lot of regrets. Well said. All right. Anything else you'd like to finish up? We're going to do a rapid fire next, but is there anything I didn't ask you that you feel compelled to share? I'd love to come back in a couple of years in the studio in Florida and give an update, but it was good to, good to see you again.
• 38:21
  That is an absolute must because we'll be the number one podcast. We're going after Joe Rogan. I believe in you. And I'm trying. And that's why I did all this stuff. So we like to do this thing rapid fire. I got seven quick questions. One word, one sentence. Short answers, simple, and just for people to get to know you. So the beach or the boardroom? Beach. Yes, sir. Best city you've ever thrown an event in?
• 38:50
  Utila, I'll go with the island. One person you want backstage at the Turks event. Drake. Ooh, bigger flex, the orange tile or the Phoenix and Utila? Phoenix and Utila. It's harder when everybody's against you than when everybody's supporting you. Ooh, that's so good. So by the way, I forgot to say this. Choose the hard way. The hard path is always the right path.
• 39:18
  Yes. If you ever want to know which pathway, choose the hard one. And it's almost always the right way. Movie, docker, musical, which one captures it best? I'm going to go with the movie because it's yet to be made. So hopefully I cast an input. One thing you would tell 24-year-old Billy in three words. You have time. Next destination after Turks.
• 39:45
  Back to Utila to build a permanent Phoenix hotel there. How do you even get to Utila? It's a great question. You either fly to the mainland of Honduras or a nearby island called Roatan and then take a boat over from there.
• 39:59
  Really? Wow. Yes. Billy, you are harder than life. I adore you. I promise you that in a couple of years, we'll have you back on in studio. We'll talk about your beautiful daughter. And when that documentary comes out, please send it over, text it to me, and I'll share it. I'm going to take a lot of grief for this, but you got a fan in me. I really...
• 40:19
  I can read people very well. I'm from the streets of Detroit and you were open and kind and, and, and just, you're just a good person. And I'm sending you a lot of good love and I've got a lot of good vibes, my friend till next time. Be harder than life, everybody.
• 40:34
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.