B Scar TV Podcast
Hi-Quality conversations with your favorite athletes, entertainers, thought leaders, and cultural tastemakers - hosted by NFL Linebacker Brennan Scarlett.
B Scar TV Podcast
How Having No Leverage Cost Me | Hi-Quality Quickie
In this Hi-Quality Quickie, Brennan Scarlett shares a personal story that taught him a profound lesson about leverage. As Brennan went on vacation to visit multiple countries, this story brings us to India, where Brennan experiences a new environment with new challenges of a language barrier. It is that challenge that causes Brennan to make tricky decisions.
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’Til next time... Peace ✌️
This is a high quality quickie by Beast Guard TV and we are back with another high quality quickiki by B-Scar TV, and I'm your host, brennan Scarlett. I appreciate you tuning in Before we get started, you know, I'd like to just thank you all of you. Whether you're a listener, whether you're a viewer, you are the support that is keeping this podcast alive. You are the life source of this, this podcast, and we appreciate you repping the team and tuning in and and hearing what I have to say, but, most importantly, hearing what our guests have to say. I'm so honored to be able to speak to the individuals who I've been able to speak to. We're just wrapping wrapping up Beast Guard TV season two and we're planning for season three, and I want to thank all of you for you know supporting and thank all of the individuals who jumped on season two to chop it up with your boy and share their insights, their experience. The wealth of knowledge that was shared with me is incredible and I consider myself blessed to be able to have the conversations that, the high quality conversations that I was able to have. And also I want to thank the team who's helped produced Beast Guard TV. This is much more than what you are looking at and listening to right now. There's a lot that goes into this podcast to stay consistent and to consistently produce at a high quality level. We have incredible producers, video editors, creatives, graphic designers. We have a lot, a lot of people who have put in time, sweat, energy and the creativity into this project, and so you know I'm blessed, and with that we're going to go ahead and dive into this high quality quickie, which really is now reserved storytelling time. But it's storytelling with a point. There's a point to these stories. This particular story today is to teach us about leverage.
Speaker 1:I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a businessman, I like to make deals. With deals comes negotiations. Negotiation is just a part of business and there you know, you always say there's the best negotiations, there's a, it's a win, win on both sides, they're winners. But if you don't know what you're doing, it's easy to be the loser in a negotiation or just not negotiate at all and not get the best deal that you possibly can. The key to business is leverage, because if business deals are hinged upon negotiations and negotiations, or the outcome of a negotiation is oftentimes dependent on your leverage, then leverage highly influences how well you're able to build your company, or how much impact your project is able to make, or how many eyes or ears your creative project is able to get, which then enables you to do more projects in the future. Leverage is all around us.
Speaker 1:I just took a three-week trip to Japan and India Incredible places If you have not been to Japan. I spent 13 days there between Tokyo, kyoto and Nagoya, and I would highly recommend that you guys take that trip because Japan is so different, but it's such a cool place. I won't go too deep into it, but it's a cool place. India I went to for nine days. I left, flew out of Tokyo, I flew through Hong Kong and then I ultimately flew into Delhi, which is a huge city, a lot of people and, again, a much different place than we have here in America, than you know, any of the, I guess, western countries that I've ever visited. Honestly, this is my first time actually going to the Eastern part of the world. India is almost directly on the other side of the world of Portland, oregon. When I met and it felt that way, felt very different, and I was a little bit off put I'm not going to lie because it was so different, you know, it just took me a second to to get my bearings. I wasn't in my hood, you know what I mean. I'm in a much different hood, so I would. It took me a second to adjust and I was a little uncomfortable, kind of tense, when I first got in. But I think you know understandably, if you've ever been to India, then you understand why I was a little bit tense for my first time. For those of you who have not, let me let me explain.
Speaker 1:So from Delhi. My plan was to take a bus from Delhi to my final destination, which was Rishikesh, which is a northern city in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is, you know, almost as most north as you can go of the country, and Rishikesh is actually, it's a holy city, it's at the foothills of the Himalayas. So I was leaving the Delhi airport, I was going to a bus stop and then I was going to catch a bus for five hours and go to Rishikesh. Boom, everything's cool. I ended up getting a taxi from the airport. Boom, I take the taxi, uh, over to the bus stop and immediately I'm like whoa, this place is different. Now I've been to some spots that, like that, has some crazy drivers, but Delhi takes the cake. I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm talking there was maybe three lanes, you know normal lanes of like a highway or a city street, but there were. There were like five or six cars like across the lanes, like the lane lines meant nothing, the lines meant nothing to these indian drivers, taxi, taxi drivers you know whoever they were. There's, there's cars on the street, there's uh, motorcycles on the street, and then there's tuk-tuks and the tuk-tuks were, were getting me. They they're like these three-wheeled Tuk-Tuks were getting me. They're like these three-wheeled taxis that have open sides, like they don't have doors like a Jeep, but a much smaller Jeep, and they just have like two rows, so maybe they fit four people and they're like an affordable way to get around. It's almost like their version of a Lime scooter or something. It's almost like their version of a lime scooter or something, except they're fuel driven and they got a driver, anyways.
Speaker 1:So I'm on the streets, folks are driving crazy. They're driving in the margins, you know, like off to the side, the margin of error between the cars where it's like inches. I'm talking like that, like it was so close and these cars were just continually honking. It was loud, it was just chaotic. I felt like it was so chaotic. So immediately I'm like, oh wait, I'm in a different spot. India's different it was it was solidified. And if, if, if any, if you guys know me like I'm gonna go with the flow kind of guy.
Speaker 1:So my research on india was a was a little bit limited. You know, I booked the flight, got my place, you know, got the bus and like I'm good to go, I don't, don't ask any more questions, I'm good, I'll figure it out when I get there. And boy did I figure it out. So, anyways, I get to the bus stop. Ultimately, first thing is that happens is I get out the taxi and folks just rush me. They rush me. It's like hey, so you know, a lot of them are speaking Hindi. Right, folks clearly see that I'm, you know, I'm not Indian, and so some of them are speaking English, like, hey, let me take your bag. You know, take it over there and over here or whatever. Where are you going? What bus are you getting on? It was just a lot. What time's your bus? Which one? Is it? This, that, that, that that you know, and I'm off rip.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I'm tense, I'm thinking that, oh, somebody's going to try to hustle me, somebody might say they're going to take my bag and run off with it Next thing you know. So I say, tell one guy. I'm like I'm on the Laxmi holiday bus. He said, oh, the Laxmi, the one that's leaving at 2.30? Oh, I saw it over there. And then this old dude pulls up. Old, you know, he's probably 60 something. He's an older, older fella. He's got gray hair, whatever. He said, yeah, I've seen the bus, but he's speaking Hindi. He didn't, he didn't say that to me. He's saying to the guy who's speaking English to me he's like, yeah, I've seen the bus. And then the guy tells me he's seen your bus.
Speaker 1:I'm like, all right, you see my bus. Like, can you take me to it? And I have my, my Arcteryx backpack, fire backpack because I had this idea that I'd be backpacking through India. But this backpack probably weighed 70 pounds. It was like the opposite of a backpack and like I was not packing light, I just bought it put a suitcase, the contents of a suitcase, into a backpack 70 pound thing. Like I had to really like haul it, like it was a, it was a chore to get it on to my back.
Speaker 1:And this old dude took my bag. And, I kid you not, he put it on his head, he put my bag on his head and we proceeded to walk. I followed this man. I followed him probably like 10 minutes. We walked through this big old bus station to my stop and, sure enough, there was a Laxmi Holiday bus. Dude, you know he was in there. He was like what time you take off? Boom, okay, cool, show me your ticket. I showed him the QR code, I was all set. Before he left, I went and got a water, a couple of chicken legs and I was good, hopped on the bus and I was gone. Comfortable bus, great bus ride. Um, it was about five hours.
Speaker 1:So I got to see, you know, the countryside of india. You know there's a couple things that I noticed. It's like, uh, very, it's a dirty place. To be honest, there's a lot of trash on the sidewalks, on the side of the highways. You know, just like in america, there's houselessness over there. You know, poverty, so I was seeing a lot of. I see when I've seen a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I also was noticing a lot of like wild animals. So it's wild dogs. You know a lot of cows, especially in the more like rural places, and I'm on the bus and at a certain point I like thought I saw, uh saw two dogs and I'm not joking you, I thought I saw two dogs dogs having sex. They were humping and I was like, but it didn't look like dogs. It was weird. So I like I kind of did a double take and I realize now I didn't really put it together then I kind of had the thought but there are monkeys, I'm seeing this from the bus I'm driving and I see it. It looks like dogs humping, which is kind of normal. But crazy that I would see that I'm on this bus. I just got to India. It's a crazy thing to see, but I double take it. I was like those don't look like dogs. I think those are monkeys, but I hadn't seen monkeys yet. Sure enough, there's a lot of wild monkeys in india, as over my the course of my nine days I come to find out that wild monkeys are a normal occurrence out in india. So it was a very it was off-putting thing to see, much less to see these, these monkeys fucking like it was. It was a little off-putting, but anyways, my bus drive continues.
Speaker 1:Riding along, I meet a really cool guy. His name's ashutosh. Ashutosh is. It was incredible. He came back.
Speaker 1:So the the bus was set up. It was basically there, was, there were beds. It wasn't like a sit-up bus, it was like a lay down bus. So there's a row of. You know, I was in the single row. There was a, a bottom, like your bottom bunk, and there's a top bunk. Then on the other side there was a row and there was actually two, so like there was two top bunks side by side and two bottom bunks and I was on the single. It was on the single side. I took the lower level. I'm not a top bunk kind of guy and uh, at our bus stop, it was like a little bathroom break halfway through, so we had been maybe on the bus for two or so hours.
Speaker 1:I start chopping it up with ashutosh. We hit it off, start talking about, uh, joe rogan. He is a ashutosh is computer developer. So we're talking ai, talking elon, you know. We're talking microsoft, open ai. We start getting into these discussions about india and computer programming and labor. You know, compared to America, and we were, we were really getting into it. So and that all happened at, like, the bus stop. So, boom, we leave the bus stop and taking the bus and Ashutosh comes back to me, uh, in my suite, and he's like you know, can I join you? Because then continue our conversation. I was like hell, yeah, come on, I got some snacks and water and all that. Come, pop a squat. So we end up chopping it up for like the next two hours on our ride or maybe, you know, like the next hour or so on our ride, and then Ashutosh goes back to his bunk. I take a little nap. I wake up Next thing, you know it's dark outside and I'm approaching my bus stop, my stop, you know, getting close to Rishikesh, 10 minutes away.
Speaker 1:So I start start prepping my things. I look outside the window it's dark, it's dark. It's around nine o'clock Finally the bus stops. It's about nine thirty and I look at my phone to see. You know where I'm.
Speaker 1:Where I'm at, the bus stop was about 20 minutes, a 20 minute drive from my final destination, the ashram that I was staying in. I didn't calculate for this, I hadn't planned for this that the bus stop. I thought the bus stop was going to be like walking distance to my final destination, because I was imagining Rishikesh to be this really small town that you can just like walk and go wherever you need to get to. That wasn't quite the case. So, boom, 9.30 pm, I'm at this bus stop.
Speaker 1:I'm de-boarding the bus, not knowing how I'm about to get to my final destination. It's dark, there's not a lot of street lights, there's a lot of honking tuk-tuks flying by taxis. You know it's the trash. It's like I just seen some wild monkeys, dogs out. It was crazy and I'm like. So I'm like kind of like shit, what am I about to do? What do I do from here? Now I got to get to my final destination. Man, thank God for Ashutosh. Ashutosh is like where are you going? You know, I show him.
Speaker 1:Ashutosh goes out, he speaks in Hindi to one of the tuk-tuk drivers. He speaks in Hindi and he's like comes back. He's like Brennan, he will take you. You know I talked to this dude. I was like how much? I was like how much. I asked AstroTosh how much it gonna cost 100 rupees. I was like all right, bet Cool, 100 rupees, take me where I'm gonna go. Bet, perfect, show the guy All right, cool, I get in this tuk-tuk.
Speaker 1:I got my big old 70 pound bag. I got my book bags, got my laptop in it. I got my cash you dollars for rupees. So I'm out here with my whole life in this tuk-tuk. I'm sharing this tuk-tuk with three other dudes, strangers. Right, it's like a uber pool, essentially. I'm carpooling in this tuk-tuk. It's dark out. I'm going, you know wherever I'm going. Ashutosh, you know, I'm trusting that.
Speaker 1:Ashutosh told this guy, you know, not to just like kidnap me and take me to wherever he's going, but take me to the final destination. I'm, you know, I'm looking around at these dudes making sure that there's no suspicious characters and that they're not trying to get to pull one on your boy, you know. So I'm, uh, I'm riding on the tuk-tuk now. I got all my stuff. The doors are open. I'm just, you know, just seeing the taking it in, I kind of settled in a certain point. I'm like'm just, you know, just seeing the taking it in, I kind of settle in a certain point. I'm like, all right, well, I'm here, this guy's going to take me to where I need to go. Everything's good.
Speaker 1:We get maybe 15 minutes up the road, get to a stop. Three of the guys who are sitting back with me. They get off. They. They're at their stop back with me. They get off, they, they, they're at their stop. And then there's one other guy in, like the passenger seat of the tuk-tuk next to the tuk-tuk guy and then the tuk-tuk pulls over. Uh, the other dudes get off and it's just me and he looks back at me.
Speaker 1:The driver looks back at me. He's like said something in Hindi, but I could tell what he said. He said get out. He said something like get out the car. You know, I could, like I don't need to understand Hindi to know when a dude tells me to get out the car. I'm looking at my maps Like we ain't at my stop, we're not where I need to go. The driver didn't speak English, really, but the dude in the passenger seat, he did, and he was also telling me like yeah, get, like, get out and catch another tuk tuk and go to your, go to your spot. I'm like I mean, they probably seen the dread, the fear in my eyes. I'm like yo, I don't know where I'm at. You know where I'm going. I'm going with you. Take me.
Speaker 1:What happened was the guy in the passenger seat was going like not the opposite direction, but taking, you know, not going in the direction I was going. So they were basically saying get off and catch another tuk-tuk and go up to where you're going, you'll get there quicker, whatever. But I, like you know clearly, like the seat, I'm uncomfortable, I don't know what's going on. And so the dude in the passenger seat was just told he spoke in hindi to the driver and was like, said something. And then he looked back at me. It's like all right, just stay and stay in the car, he'll go, he'll drop me off and then he'll come back and take you. It's like all right, bet, good plan. I don't know why we even thought of doing anything different like this is the we're good, this is the plan. Boom, we were getting, we're tuck, tucking all the way up to wherever this other dude is going. You know another, just saving grace, this guy's just a saving grace.
Speaker 1:Then they stop, we get to a stop and, uh, the dude in the passenger seat looks at the tuk-tuk driver and he looks a little irritated. And I'm paying close attention to what's going on because, again, I'm on tens right now. I'm just, I'm really alert. He looks at him, he's irritated, he's trying to figure out, he says something to him and the tuk-tuk driver clearly like refuses again, I don't, I'm not. I don't understand the language, so I'm just a hundred percent reading body language. But I see the passenger was irritated. The tuk-tuk driver refused to do whatever the passenger wanted it to do.
Speaker 1:Come to realize that the driver wasn't trying to go down this little back street to get the passenger closer to his drop off, to his destination. It looked like the street, you know, had some potholes, maybe wasn't finished or whatever. Or whatever the case was, the driver was like nah, get out. You know. I was like oh, I know what the driver's saying because he just said this to me, telling the dude get out. And the dude is like you know, he gets pissed off. So they start yelling at one another.
Speaker 1:I'm in the back seat, I just got, I got my 70 pound backpack in the back seat, just looking back and forth, back and forth, not knowing what's going on. But look like they were, like they were yelling to the point where folks on the sidewalk is like they stopping and listening, they watching, like I'm about to see a fight, like they about to start getting down. Ultimately, the dude is just like basically, he's like here, here's the money, here's the money, whatever. And the taxi driver was like fighting back Was like no, keep your money, keep your money, you know whatever. And so then it ends and I'm sitting in the back like this dude who's the passenger was low key, like my saving grace. And now y'all just got the guy who just translated for me, y'all got beef, so I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, tuck, duck driver pulls off, going back. I recognize the streets that we're going back on because we're about to go and catch on the main road that he tried to drop me off and in the first place. So I'm OK and I'm looking at my maps, my art, cool, this is all tracking, it's all checking out. We're passing by these little shops and the place that I was staying is called an ashram. It's essentially like a spiritual center, like a yogic spiritual center, where gurus and yogis could teach their ways and students and devotees can come and learn the ways of yoga. Uh, it's programmed out and foreigners can also stay if they wanted to come and learn, and that's where I was staying and so very uh like humble accommodations.
Speaker 1:With that uh comes that you had to bring. I had to bring my own towel and toilet paper. I didn't have that in my 70 pound bag. So I asked the truck driver, who speaks no English, you know, I don't speak Hindi, so I Google, I Google a couple of pictures. I Google pictures of toilet paper and I Google some pictures of a towel and I showed up both of them. You know, I showed them to him and he's like he understands.
Speaker 1:And I was like yeah, can you stop so I can get some toilet paper in the towel and show the pictures? All right, he looks at me and he said 300 rupees. I said 300 rupees, hold on, it's only 100 for you to take me from all the way to the bus. Stop up over there. I only need you to stop for like five minutes. If that, I was like 300 rupees. No, not 300 rupees.
Speaker 1:I said, uh, I said like 150, 150. Right, like I don't know the. You know, at this point it's my first day in delhi. I don't know the exchange rate super well, but I understand. Like if I'm gonna pay for a big mac and I pay five bucks for it and then I want a side of fries, it ain't about to be 15 bucks. You know, like it just didn't, it didn't add up to me. I know that. I know the economics, so I was like, nah, 150. He said 300 rupees. Oh, I drop you off right now. I looked at, I looked at that man. I said 300 rupees total. He said yeah, total. All right, man, it's taking me to go get my toilet paper damn it, get my toilet paper. So, folks, all in all, I went and I got my toilet paper, I got my towel and eventually this man dropped me off a couple blocks up where I needed to be too, and I had to take my big old bag and all my belongings and hike up a big old hill in the dark, not knowing what was going to happen to me. But eventually I got to the place that I was supposed to get to, thank God.
Speaker 1:But through the whole experience experience I learned a lot about leverage. The thing that about leverage that I learned is a couple things. One, when you're doing business, you gotta know how to speak the language. By the end of my trip in india, I learned a couple of Hindi words. One kitna. Kitna means how much. Another word beast rupees. Beast rupees means twenty dollars. Between those two things, I started to understand how to get deals.
Speaker 1:The other factor is understanding the landscape Right, understand how business is being done? How is business being conducted? Over my nine days I understood that a tuk-tuk drive that takes you 15, 20 minutes should not cost $100. It's really cost like 50. If somebody pauses for a little bit, maybe that's an extra 20 rupees. So you know, I better understood that that man charging me 300 rupees in that moment was that wasn't the market price, right. So understand the landscape, understand how business is being done and understand your market when you're doing negotiation. Number three have an alternative. Have an alternative so you can weigh your options In the moment when that man said 300 rupees, if I could have hopped out of that tuk-tuk and held another tuk-tuk and grab my own toilet paper and such, and that tuk-tuk would have took me, I probably would have saved 150 rupees, easy, right, because I had option. So when you're negotiating, be aware of those three factors Speak the language in which, in whatever industry that you're operating in.
Speaker 1:Speak the language. Understand the landscape of the business. How is business being done? What is the market? What are the costs? What are the income? How much? How much do services cost? How much do products cost? So you understand how much your services or products should cost. So you understand how much your services or products should cost.
Speaker 1:Number three always have alternatives. Have your eyes on your next move. Just in case option one doesn't pan out, you got option two. That's what I got for y'all today. That's what I got for y'all today A little high quality quickie. At the end of the day, india was an incredible place I would recommend anyone and everyone to visit. Uh, delhi was cool. Spent a day there, and that time in rishikesh. Honestly, I can say with, with god's honest truth. After that moment, uh, my life was changed for the better from my experience there. And so, um, you know, if you ever got any questions, hollaller at me, you know, at BScar on IG, make sure you all, if you have not already, subscribe to the channel and please keep listening, keep dropping gems.
Speaker 1:Bscar TV season three is going to kick off here in the next couple of months. We'll have plenty of high quality conversations. Until then, tune in for the high quality quickies, tune in for the group chat and until next time, y'all peace. This episode of beast guard tv has been brought to you by scarlet creative. For the full-length video episode and more content, find us on instagram, youtube and tiktok at beast guard, and please leave us a review. Drop a comment. What do you want to see? What do you want to hear? Who do you want to hear from? We would love to hear from you. This is your host, with the most Brennan Scarlett signing off Peace.