Episode 24 Gurkha Sample Pack Cigar #4 | Balvenie 17 DoubleWood

Yo yo yo yo yo. We are back again for another podcast episode of Sticks and Stones where we talk life, love, and the brotherhood of the leaf. So this is cigar number four in the Girka sample pack. So, if you remember, the beast was great. The Marqueesa was great. The last one I did, not so great. Um, you know, I hate this. I hate this name. But we are going to do the manufacturers's evil. I mean, this the little figurehead, the little um mascot, whatever you want to call him. He looks like a possessed little guy. Whatever. No, let's see. Okay, we are going to Okay, go in here. >> Where's the spoon at? >> I'm podcasting right now. Yes. Uh, let's see. All right. Way too snippy snippy. Using my Viva Levita AJ Fernandez ashtray tonight. I do love this ashtray. Uh, okay. So, let's let's give it a snippy snippy. This one for the next one. Oh, guess it's not relighting. [ __ ] name, but it's a it's a pretty decent stick. Okay. And what are we drinking tonight? We are drinking the Belvini 17year double wood single malt scotch. This is one of my favorites. Look at that. Look at that color. To all my people watching on YouTube, if you're just listening in on Spotify or Apple, you can't see [ __ ] But just take my word for it. Wow. I got to say the smoke output on this thing is pretty damn good. [ __ ] So good. Okay. That actually pairs really good. [ __ ] Yeah, the uh the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park are back here to kill me. Okay. So, that's not it's not a bold cigar. I would clock that somewhere mild to to medium. Hm. Interesting. That might be one of my favorites so far out of this sample pack. So, one of the things that I've been doing recently because I'm trying to build my book of business in a different state. I am licensed in two states right now for commercial real estate which most of the states in the United States they don't have a separate commercial real estate license real estate broker's license. I've qualified and I've got one state test, well, one prerequisite test to take and then the state test for New York and then I'll be licensed in three states and then the next state will be Florida. And building a book of business is not it's not an easy task, especially if you haven't spent a lot of time there, you haven't grown up there. It's It's a lot easier when you spend a lot of time in one place, but I go back and forth from Texas to New Jersey. Building a book of business in a new state, a new area, new market, new demographic is not easy. There's a lot of different ways that you can do it. And recently, I've been, you know, you have to do the essential stuff. You have to put yourself out there on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on all of these different things. Residential, it's essential to be on LinkedIn. It's essential to be on Instagram, but not necessarily essential for commercial. However, it does help. You have to produce content similar to what I'm doing now. podcasting, YouTube videos, kind of how-tos, stuff like that. Put out blog articles. You should have a web presence, social media presence. But there's something to say about interpersonal connection, one-on-one meetings, and a great way to do that is networking events. But man, I've been doing so many networking events in the last month. Kind of like multiple in in a day. You know, most people do one networking event a week and I've been doing like multiple per day. Um I think I hit three in one day once. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it literally is a crapshoot. You don't know what you're going to get. If anything, you may not get anything. For the most part, I have been connecting people with other people in my network so that they can get something out of it, which I get a lot of fulfillment out of that, but it also doesn't build my book of business. It helps me expand my network. I meet more people. I make more friends doing that, you know, doing that. but it does not build my personal book of business. I had a networking event to go to tonight. But I was just like, you know what? I'm I'm so tired. I've got content that I need to make for you guys. I have some proposals that I have to get out, you know, things like that. And that's kind of tonight more important for me than going to another networking event. Having said all that, having a sense of community, getting out to these events, I think is crucial. It's very important if you're first, if you care about your community, that's that's number one. Secondly, if you're a business owner, if you're self-employed or an independent contractor, I think that networking events are essential. Definitely not knocking them. It's not a dead thing. Even though we are in a digital world, everything is digital, everything is digital marketing and social media and meeting people that way and apps and websites and all this sort of stuff. It's which is all great, but building up a network without one-on-one meetings, I think, is is feudal. I mean, if you think that you can do this without meeting people and being one-on-one with people, you are going to find out that you are wrong. You definitely need to meet people. You definitely need to see other people, network with people. You know, you you might run into somebody. I ran into somebody. I did a networking event. They're putting up a they're putting up a Margaritaville resort here in um the space center area and it's supposed to be the flagship of Margaritavvilles because it's going to have a lazy river, it's going to have a marina, there's going to be a lot of action going on, rooftop bar, the whole thing. And everybody goes there to network because the hotel that it previously operated as and I think it was shut down. It got reopened when it when it um was purchased by the Margaritavville franchise owner. Reopened it. It's back open for business. And a lot of people who are interested in investing in the Margaritavville go there on certain nights. So, I went there on one of those nights. I was going with a business partner and I ran into somebody that I didn't know. Didn't know this guy from Adam, but he mentioned the company. It's a franchise that he was a franchise owner here that I actually knew his counterpart franchise owner in San Diego. And I just mentioned, "Yeah, I know somebody from the San Diego franchise." And he was like, "Oh, Rob." And we were just like, "Oh my god, you know Rob and I know Rob and um you know we and then we hit it off and you know it was a great guy. You never know who you're going to meet is basically what I'm saying. You never know who you're going to meet. You never know what can come of it. And I know this is like really hypocritical. If you just stay home, you're never going to find out. But I've been doing so much of it that, you know, it's not going to kill me to stay home one night. Man, that is phenomenal. I wish they just didn't give it such a [ __ ] name. The draw on that is like fantastic. Smoke output is great. I mean, you can see the ash is beautiful. It pairs so well with this scotch, man. So, I've mentioned this a couple of times. I'm supposed to be going to the Premium Cigar Association, mega show, mega conference, whatever you want to call it. It's going to be in New Orleans this year. Super duper excited about that. I want to interview a bunch of my heroes at this thing because I know Steve Saka's usually at these things. Possibly AJ Fernandez, the crew from Drew Estates, which I absolutely love their product. probably somebody from Alec and Bradley. So, I'm really really excited for that. I'm excited to meet other cigar content creators. That's going to be like really fun. Really excited for that. But I really don't know what to expect either because it's my it's my first time going. So, and I got to be honest, when I called for my membership, the lady wasn't the nicest. I'm not going to lie. She She was not very enthusiastic. She was not super duper helpful. So, that's not like the greatest first impression, but can't hold that against the the whole thing, right? So, I am still very excited. It is my first time going. I don't really know what to expect, but I'm very, very excited. And I've lived in Texas. This is my second time living here um for many, many years. And I've never been to New Orleans. Now, I hear it's not, you know, it's nothing to write home about. It's nothing that's that's any, you know, great. You know, I've been kind of all over the world. Uh, but I've never been to New Orleans, so you know, that's going to be a first for that as well. Wow, that's really good cigar. So, I've talked about this a couple of times already, and it's just like it's it's not that it ever gets old. It's just that there's so much [ __ ] on this situation. These Epstein files, oh my god, it's like every single I mean, there was millions of files. I think they said like over 2 million files, whether that's emails, documents, videos, photos, all kinds of stuff are coming out about this guy every single day and everything that the [ __ ] that went down on that island and all the places that, you know, he frequented. It's first of all, it's sickening. That's the first thing. It's sickening. I don't think human beings should treat other human beings like that in any way, shape, form, or fashion. But the people that are coming out of the [ __ ] woodwork that were involved, were there had some sort of a supply chain into this. It's just astounding, right? So, like Jazelle Bunchon, they said, was there a bunch of times, I guess, before she was famous. And I guess that's how she may have become famous or got the connections to get where she needed to get to be famous. I I don't know because I I haven't read the files. I haven't gone through any of these websites that show the videos or all that kind of stuff. I'm just seeing what's out there on social media and YouTube and, you know, all these other things. But the one thing that really surprised me about some of this stuff that's been going on with the Epstein and all that is if you're familiar with Adam Sandler, his wife is in every one of his movies. Well, almost every one of his movies. And she's like the the the brunette kind of attractive, has like a a long face and she's always a very like really good supporting character. Her dad was a prominent lawyer in Miami, I think Miami or New York or probably both. And he represented Epstein in one of his many allegations and trials and whatever, but he was a supplier. He would supply the young girls and boys to the Epstein island and it was modeling. He was supplying models. But then it got really really bad and once like everything went under investigation and we're talking about years ago. This shit's been going on for years and years. He just it's all coming out of the wash now. But years and years ago, they put him under investigation. And then when they found out that he was supplying underageed people for Epstein's clientele and whatever getting you know whatever he goes to prison shortly after being in prison they find him the same way they found Epstein if you believe that. So somehow or another, he ended up unal alived by hanging. This is Adam Sandler's wife's father. So Adam Sandler's technically father-in-law. You don't know how deep and how far this [ __ ] goes, guys. I mean, it's pretty [ __ ] scary. I mean, you see the chick on all the movies and she goes to every event with him and all this stuff and it's like looks like the clean, you know, Suzie Q, whatever, innocent, doesn't look like, you know, she can hurt a fly. And who the hell knows? She started off as a model. Going to leave that there. God, man. I haven't I haven't had this in a long time. I haven't had the Belvini 17 in a long time. I don't have much left either. That's sad. It pairs so well with the scotch. I can't say it's one distinct thing. It's one specific thing. I can't pull like any and it it could be the scotch too. I can't pull like any specific tasting notes out of this thing. This is really good. Huh? So, I want to bring something up. Whether you take this as a professionally or personal relationship or romantic relation, how many outings do you pay for? I'm kind of a firm believer that, you know, as a gentleman with your girlfriend, wife, significant other, whatever, you should you should pay the man, the male party should pay for the outings, right? Dinners, lunches, drinks, coffee, whatever. when it comes to a personal relationship, platonic, friends, whatever. I think that who whoever suggested and then sometimes, you know, you go Dutch, sometimes it's like 50/50. Um, but for the for the most part, I think if you have no intentions of going anywhere or going out or whatever, and a friend says, "Hey, I'm going to go for coffee at this new trendy whatever cafe. Why don't you come with me? I'm in the camp of that person should be paying. I mean that may be just me. Now technically the way I believe is I don't go go out anywhere if I can't pay for everyone, right? Just in case just in case if it gets to that like that awkward I'm going to reach out for my wallet and you know ain't [ __ ] happening like they're not going for their credit card. That's not happening. You can pay for everyone. Like if you can't, then I don't go. Uh it's as simple as that. Where do you draw the line? Do you draw the line? I mean, if if you're going out, if you're taking clients out, like I get it. Sometimes someone wants to pick your brain and they want to invite you for lunch or whatever, right? Do you you pay instead? Now, I'm also I'm also in the camp of yes, you pay instead because I'm not a fan of someone throwing something as juvenile or minuscule, however you want to look at it, in your face. So, what do I mean by that? really can't stand it when someone will throw, you know, but I bought you lunch or I bought you drinks or whatever in your face. So, I'm of the school of don't let anybody pay for you if you kind of feel the vibe that it may be disingenuine. If you feel like they're going to kind of hold that over you, don't do it. Don't do it. It's a lunch. It's a breakfast. It's a coffee. It's drinks. You know, just don't get hammer drunk. Don't have, you know, 15 bourbons. You know, just have a drink or two and be done with it. Pay, move on. But do you draw a line? Do you have a boundary? Do you if you were in the situation where it's a let's just say it's a client that you've had for a while, do you let them pay? When do you pay? You know, that's a that's a tricky one, too. Platonic friends, that's that's an even bigger one. So, like when my friends and I go out, we're always fighting for the bill. Someone's always fighting for the bill. it becomes like a big argument and whatever. But where do you like are you the one always paying or are you always picking up the bill or someone else always picking up the bill? You know, like how how do you see that? Just a thought. I don't know. And just so you know, Sticks and Stones, we're coming out with a few different websites. We're launching shortly. Very excited about that. Where you can interact with us. You know, you can sign up to be a remote guest and when we have the new studio built out, an in-person guest. Very excited about that. You can communicate with us on the Instagram, Facebook, the YouTube channel, and then we're going to have something on the websites where you can interact with us on the websites. So, really psyched about that. And then all I can say is look out for upcoming merch. So, that's that's happening soon as well. Guys, this is a it's a great cigar. I mean, I just wish they had it in a bigger VLA. I wish they had it in like a 60 ring, but other than that, I can't I can't talk [ __ ] about this thing. It's It's good. I mean, the manufacturers evil is the shittiest name I've ever heard of, but um really good stick. So, with that, I am going to finish my cigar. I'm going to finish my scotch. Maybe have another. And I will catch you guys on the next episode of Sticks and Stones. Until then, stay blessed and above all, keep it rolling, baby.