Nobody's Coming to Save You

Why Conversation Matters

Alex Fredericks (00:00.294)
I am

Kevin Mooney (00:01.184)
I love it, man. Well, thank you thank you for being here. I appreciate the fact that you reached out and you wanted to be on the show and we had a really great talk when we we had our first intro call. I I could have spent another two hours on the phone with you. So thanks thanks for being here. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (00:17.980)
Sure. I appreciate you having me. I I think that conversation is how you find answers. So happy to be here.

Kevin Mooney (00:26.314)
Yeah. It's so funny conversation is kind of being like stomped on right now. Like let's not talk about it. Like here's my talking point, or here's my here's my belief, here's my my egotistical belief, or whatever that thing is, and I don't really want to discuss it and have it picked apart. It's something that's like very disturbing in our culture right now.

Alex Fredericks (00:53.622)
I believe that a good contrarian matters. If you can't defend your idea, if you're not willing to have a question, then what's the point? And if the other side of it is like if you're not willing to let go s of something that no longer works, then that's your problem. You know, like I'm I'm I'm only married to my wife, everything else is just a good idea.

Kevin Mooney (01:17.934)
Yeah, right.

Alex Fredericks (01:20.400)
You know what I mean? So like I'm happy to try it on. And if that doesn't work for me, it doesn't work for me. You know, like and and I'm also happy to try it on enough to go out into public. And if somebody wants to make fun of what I'm wearing, I'm either okay with that or I'm not. So I'm gonna go home and change. Right. And that's what conversation is. It's like it's okay to have a a notion of something, but unless you try it on, so unless it comes out of your mouth.

Kevin Mooney (01:25.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:37.645)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:49.648)
Then what's the point? And then somebody pushing back on it, either you're like, no, I totally look good in pink chiffon. You know what I mean? Or you d or you or you're like, you're totally right. I look like an idiot. Same thing with ideas and concepts and and and so conversation to me is important. If you're not willing to have it challenged, then I don't get it. And you're never gonna come up with like true consensus without going through the the

Kevin Mooney (01:51.118)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (02:17.625)
You know, the rigor morale of the grind of holding up your point and idea.

Faith Comes Before Belief

Kevin Mooney (02:21.932)
Yeah. So you you you said that a belief only matters when you can see it change what you do. And I wanna just maybe test that a little bit and see if that has been an idea that you formulated after all the things that you've done in your life, or if that came first and that has helped shape your life. Can you just talk to me about that statement by itself?

Alex Fredericks (02:50.043)
Sure. So I think that belief comes after faith. So first you have faith in something. I have faith, this will work out. And then you try it. It does or it doesn't. And when you've tried it enough times, you begin to develop a rubric of understanding. This is what works for me. And then you get to the belief part. I believe this is good for me. I believe I can accomplish this. And that's what I mean by that is that like

So first, like we were gonna talk about it later. I'll just put it here because it's a relevant term for me. I do Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I'm a black belt at it. I started when I was 40. I started because I was sitting on my couch having a groundhog day event, meaning my wife kept going to the gym. I was sitting on the couch day in, day out, day in, day out. And I said to myself, man, this isn't gonna end well. So I used to be an athlete, so I had faith.

that I could find something to go do. And I did. And when I walked into my first class and a and introduced myself to the owner who I'd spoken to on the phone, he said, I don't actually care what your name is, you won't be here in two weeks. Somewhere between like motivation and Adys, I happened to 15 years later, right? And somewhere along the way, faith that I could go and do something became belief that I was going to do this thing.

Kevin Mooney (04:03.374)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (04:17.561)
And that's what that's what I mean by it. There has to be an activity in it. Now for me, I wanted to get in shape. I wanted to fight Father Time. I wanted to lose some weight. And I believed that I could. However, I didn't have faith in what that was going to be. So I wasn't doing anything about it. I'm not a go to the gym, get on a treadmill guy. I'm not a it there were other things that I wasn't going to do. So when I found this thing, because I I used

To do judo and I have a black belt and other things. So I had faith that I could go into another martial art and do it. But not until I was actually in it and stuck around, back to the conversation part, and got beaten up and laughed at and, you know, tooled on and and and and and did I go, I really like this. I believe I can continue doing this. And that's really what I mean by it. There has to be action, right? Or else it's

It's, you know, paralysis by analysis or or you know, or whatever the other things like you're gonna think yourself into into a circle until you actually go do it. How do you have belief that you can?

Kevin Mooney (05:17.752)
Sure.

Where the Faith Comes From

Kevin Mooney (05:21.856)
How so even before belief you said faith. So where did the faith come from? And it doesn't have to be just applied to this one situation or this one discipline. Like where where do you have that thing inside of you? Where's the faith come from?

Alex Fredericks (05:26.235)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (05:38.852)
Okay, so that's the thing inside of you. And that is completely the most subjective conversation we can have here. I was hi I I work with a an executive coach. I believe everybody should have a coach or a mentor or whatever. And I have one in business. I've worked with her for a while. And I very jokingly said to her one day, You know, there's nothing about me that's suicidal. I'm pretty homicidal.

Kevin Mooney (06:02.792)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (06:04.825)
Because I don't think it's me. I think it's you. So in that, like I just have that in me. So if we're talking about me, the e the id the ego version of me, I just believe I can. I moved out of my house when I was seventeen. I thought I could go take on the world. I just believe that I can 'cause I have faith in myself. Now the next side of it to make it objective in a conversation.

Is that when you look around the world and you see what else somebody else is doing or what else is happening environmentally and and and you might say to yourself, I too can. And that's where faith is. I too can. There's nothing new under the sun. There are no great new ideas. There's just how it's applied to the modernity that you're in, the timeline that you're in. Like what is the temporal location of something, time and place? So in my mind, faith is I just look around.

And I mean this with no disrespect against my human fellow human being, but that putts can do it. I'm all in, right? Like so so that's what I mean. Like it you just get this notion of, and if you have that notion to go do it, you should be able to go do it. And then you have to find the rules, the regulations, the ideas, the things that don't work, the pushback that makes you get up the next day. Like we we were just talking, like right now I'm suffering from

Terrible turf toe. Like I literally can't put any weight on my right right foot. It has nothing to do with jiu-jitsu except for jiu-jitsu is this version of it. When I was like sixteen competing in judo, I absolutely shattered my socket and my toe. Here we are forty years later. I'm still suffering from it, right? So it's just going to happen. Did that stop me from training last night? No.

Kevin Mooney (07:49.454)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (07:53.722)
Because I'm good enough just to sit on my butt and let somebody try to attack me and I don't have to use my left big toe for that hour. Right? So you just get to that point where I believe I can still go trade. I believe because I have faith in my ability to to for my brain to process, please don't put big toe down right there. Right? Like and it doesn't. And that's what I mean. Like there's this whole there's a lot of things that are happening at the same time. I equate most processes to like the Rube Goldberg machine.

Kevin Mooney (07:59.545)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (08:12.044)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (08:23.183)
You know, like the boot that kicked the bowling bin that rolled the ball that did it and ultimately the f the fire hose fills up the balloon that shoots the hoop. Right? And that's everything that you do. When you walk outside, everywhere in the world, it's every person that you engage with, they have their own issues going on and their own goals going on. They might be fighting with each other, they might be in sync for them. You never know. Who's crazy, who's sane, is it gonna rain today? All of those factors.

Kevin Mooney (08:45.880)
Sure.

Growing Up in Manhattan

Kevin Mooney (08:52.622)
Do you think any of this comes from growing up in the New York area? Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (08:59.101)
I know it does. I I'm also of Generation X. I don't believe anybody's coming to save me. Literally. I literally don't think any nobody's showing up. I don't have the rich uncle. I don't have like nobody's showing up. And it and I there's nothing sad about that. That's reality. And then I grew up in Manhattan in like born in the 70s, raised in the 80s and 90s. We're honestly.

Kevin Mooney (09:05.240)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (09:25.945)
The world is outside. Right now the world is in our pockets, in our thing, but the world used to be outside. It still is, by the way. And for you to do anything, I just had to leave my little apartment, go downstairs onto the street, and then there's all these mitigating factors. What does he want? What does he do? Is he good? Is it so yeah, absolutely. But I will tell you it's mostly generational, truly. Like

Kevin Mooney (09:50.424)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (09:51.216)
When I first started touring bands back in the day, I had a roll of quarters in a Rand McNally. That's a map. And you would say to somebody, So we're we're just filming this for this temporal sake on a Tuesday. And I would say, Kev, I'll see you on Friday. And on Friday, I would knock on your door and be like, Alex, what's up, buddy? You know what I mean? Like, and that's was as much as happened between Alex and Kev because I didn't I wasn't wasting my roll of quarters on you, by the way. I'm halfway there. I'm a third of the way there.

Kevin Mooney (10:09.290)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (10:21.423)
I'll see you on Friday. And I had to figure out how to get to you, even though you might be like, yeah, I'm the big gray house on the corner, right? Like, and everything else was like choose your own adventure. What was going to happen? How can you problem solve this? oops, that went wrong. Did you do you have an extra tire? What? Like, whatever. And so a lot of my point of view comes from like, no one's coming to save you. So if you don't go do it, who's going to do it?

Kevin Mooney (10:23.202)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (10:49.667)
If you're not gonna clean this place up, who's cleaning this place up? Nobody's making my bed for me, you know?

Kevin Mooney (10:49.678)
Yeah. Nobody is.

Kevin Mooney (10:56.810)
I I just it's how I was raised and how I remember growing up, even though I'm in the millennial category. It was the same thing. It you just told your friend, Hey, I'll meet you behind Safeway on Friday or Saturday or whatever the thing was, and you'd show up and you had no idea if they were gonna show up, and maybe they did and maybe they didn't. And you just went about your day. so I have a lot of that.

Alex Fredericks (11:22.255)
Yeah, it's it's funny.

Kevin Mooney (11:24.222)
same mentality inside of me. It's so fun to to hear that mirrored back to me.

Hanging Up on a Late Zoom Call

Alex Fredericks (11:30.405)
I dumped off a Zoom call the other day 'cause somebody was five minutes late. Meanwhile, I can tell you that I've spent like three hours standing behind like a safe way waiting for my buddy to show up. You know what I mean?

Kevin Mooney (11:40.816)
Yeah. man. How how is that received in in your world? Right. So if someone's five minutes late for a Zoom call and you're out, you're just like, fuck this, I'm done. Like, how is that received? Because and we'll get to ToneWell, which the startup you're working on, but like

Alex Fredericks (11:44.003)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (11:59.772)
Well, that's funny. It w the funny thing is it wasn't ton well. As an entrepreneur, I still have a consulting business that I do every day. And the reality of it is is since it's not my business, it is my time. And it it's really simple. I only believe in two basic factors and then everything else is like to the moment, and that's reciprocity and and remuneration. Remuneration's easy. What are you gonna pay me? It's easy. But reciprocity

Kevin Mooney (12:07.523)
Got it.

Kevin Mooney (12:12.153)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (12:25.059)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (12:26.967)
Is legitimately, did you do your homework? Did you think about me? If I put in energy, did you give me back energy? If I'm on time, you're on time. If you're not on time, totally valid by the way, we do have text and WhatsApp and email and you could send smoke signals in today's world and I might one of my friends saw it on social media and it got to me in a half a second. So you're not having a respect of my time. Isn't me and and I'm sometimes not the like the softest pillow on the bed, that's fine. But isn't me

Kevin Mooney (12:47.033)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (12:56.645)
totally being an asshole. It's me saying you don't respect our time. So there's only time and money. Like we're talking business. We're not talking human beings. We're talking business. And there's only time and money. And those two things slam into each other. So if you don't have respect for my time, then clearly I'm not going to make the money that I want to here. It's just that it I've been doing what I do as a consultant in consumer goods long enough to know

Kevin Mooney (13:06.159)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (13:19.535)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (13:25.743)
That when it walks like a duck, cracks like a duck, it's a duck. It is never a gosling. It just isn't. It's it's a duck. It's so just treat it like it is and move on. Because the other side of it, funny enough, was the person recognized they were completely at fault and sent me a really nice email. I I don't even have the energy to be mad, so I could care less. I just went about my day. When I got the email, it and we rescheduled.

funny thing happened when I showed up for the next meeting, they were there before I was. And I'm always on time because I was a tour manager, so I'm always on time. So i if nothing else, the the reciprocity worked, right?

Kevin Mooney (13:57.401)
Of course.

Saying No to Clients

Kevin Mooney (14:08.067)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I was just gosh, something you said just reminded me of something. We'll see if I can talk it out, but I was asked to do this talk at a local event. And after one of the talks, one of the the one of the participants came up to me and was asking me a bunch of questions like, you know, how do I get started in the creative industry? How do I sell more? How do I

How do I get larger clients? And and I was just like, well, you first of all, you you can't compete with everybody else. You can't compete on price. You can't compete on process. Like you just have to show up and and do your thing. And what you were just talking about reminded me of it. I'm so sorry I screwed this part of it up. I wish I could remember exactly what you said, but

It has a lot to do with with reciprocity and showing up and showing up on time and keeping that that going without without stopping and just honoring your word and honoring the things that you do. And I've

Alex Fredericks (15:08.112)
Yes.

Kevin Mooney (15:16.973)
I think I was going in this direction. I was telling her that sometimes you have to say no to money. Sometimes you have to say no, yeah, no to clients. Sometimes you just have to say no, this isn't a good fit. Well, how do you get to know? You get to know by doing it a million times. And that's that's the point that you were kind of getting to there was like, I've been doing this for so long. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck, right?

Alex Fredericks (15:24.099)
It's the most powerful word there is.

Alex Fredericks (15:36.709)
Hundred percent. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (15:44.067)
It's a duck, man. And that's actually what you came to me for anyway. Like I don't have to like I'm a mean gym teacher and that's why you came to me, 'cause like you're fat, fatty.

Kevin Mooney (15:53.217)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (15:55.108)
You know what mean? As opposed to and I and like I mean that like hysterically, right? Like but that's so people only pay for two things. I don't care. We can argue this forever. Access and outcome. It's the only thing, particularly in today's age, that people pay for. So therefore, if my access is no, what are you gonna do?

Kevin Mooney (16:00.439)
Of course.

Kevin Mooney (16:09.988)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (16:20.163)
Right, you're gonna come back and figure out what how's that a yes? But Alex, but and now I can start. So when I was in the music business, I've like head chef and bottle washer done it all fine. But when I was a manager, I believe in surround strategy. I believe it for marketing, I believe it for everything. Surround strategy. Why? Because if I called Kev, guess what would happen? I'd have to take what Kev offered. If I could get Kev to call me, guess what? We're adding zeros to that number, right?

Kevin Mooney (16:47.790)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (16:49.111)
Same thing is true about access and outcome. So if you just have this unlimited access to me, what is my outcome? Nothing. If I can start limiting that access, but you still need to get to me, what will you do? Try harder, pay more, be more considerate, listen to my boundaries, whatever they might be. Okay? Same thing happens, like there's a law of exchange that we forget. Like, what is your value? What is your equity in the market?

What is the dividend? Meaning like what does the person get back from you? All of those things need to be applied to your life, your business, your energy, the people around you. Like I I I'm literally I'm too old of a cat to get fucked by a kitten. It's one of my favorite expressions. But I judge you by your friends because I don't need to keep my watch on the third dude off your shoulder. I just don't trust him. So I don't need you around me if that's the dude you're bringing with me. And I'm happy to be wrong.

Kevin Mooney (17:34.253)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (17:49.456)
Happy to be wrong. Still learning 53. We'll learn to my last breath. So if I'm wrong, we'll make the correction. I might apologize. We'll pivot and keep moving. I'm probably not wrong, because well, I managed a lot of hip hop artists in the 90s and there was always the third guy to the left. And since he is the third guy to the left, it's like he's in a boy band and you you're the you're the mischievous one. Well then you have to cause mischief. You know what I mean? Like otherwise we'll just get somebody else to do that job.

Kevin Mooney (18:06.799)
Ha ha ha.

Alex Fredericks (18:18.895)
You fit the suit. So those things become important. The most powerful word is no. But you actually have to mean it. And it's not being mean or onerous or rude. It's just no, that's not for me. No, I don't want to do that. No, that's against my morals. No, I don't like you. It's fine. Right? If like if your job is to be liked by everybody, you'll be the least authentic thing in the world. Meanwhile, if you're authentic, then the things that you attract are the things that are meant for you. Right? And that

Kevin Mooney (18:19.353)
Yeah.

Assets and Authority

Alex Fredericks (18:47.865)
That for me is like my business is predicated on I do two things for one result. I work with assets and authority to help business development. So when somebody asks me, what do you do? Well, I do business development for people. How do you do that? I help you maximize your assets and I help you build your authority. What do you mean by that? And then I can go on those two very and then there's a framework by which I I I I work by and it's this, this, that, that, this, that.

very concise. Is that for you? No. Okay, cool.

Kevin Mooney (19:22.263)
Yeah. It's so interesting. I've struggled for years to tell people what I do because it's full of nuance and it's all convoluted and it's just like everybody else, but it's not like anybody else. And for for years I have sat here and s told myself, I'm gonna figure out how to concisely say what I do for who. And I haven't quite ever gotten there.

Alex Fredericks (19:44.411)
Okay, so

So here's an interesting thing. The question is not what do you like to do? And that's the thing I answered forever. I'm very like, I am, if I find it interesting, I'm gonna go do it. If you wanted to talk about all the varying things I've done, you'd think I'm either like a completely schizophrenic guy or have the most ADD. No, I'm just super inquisitive. I want to know how that works or what that thing does. That's what I like to do. What I

Do for people though, my phone rings because somebody typically says, if you were me, right? I'm a problem solver for you. So then I said, Okay, well, what are they calling me for? Because they want to develop their business. By the way, it's a completely general term, because then we have to define what that actually is. And I said, Cool, what am I really good at? Well, I'm good at building assets.

I built a lot of consumer product. I've brought built brands. I've built people, talent, ideas, what is it? It's an asset. Back to the law of exchange. An asset is you as a company. What do you own? My asset, my intellectual property, the real estate, the right, the, the, the trademarks, the copyrights. Okay. What does that house under? Assets. Totally general. Gets into a much bigger conversation. And then, well, what can I help you do?

Well, I help with authority. What is authority? That's how you show up in the world and how people show up thinking of you in the world. Again, super general. Because authority is both first person and third person. First person is how do you, Kevin, show up in the world? Third person is how does somebody speak about you in the world? And when those two things slam together, they become things like TED Talks or SEO or

Alex Fredericks (21:38.790)
Publi like all of the th but the the problem that I have, and I'm sure it's coming across is A, I like to speak and B I like to explain. Both of those things cost money. Me money. Because I've given you the idea. I've that it it's so what I did was I went, okay, what's the I had a client in neurofeedback years ago and we had the greatest conversation because he specialized in neurofeedback from Q E E G

Kevin Mooney (21:41.017)
Sure. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (21:51.054)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (22:08.323)
remotely specialized for PTSD by T B I. And I said, PTSD by TBI? Because yeah, post traumatic stress disorder caused by traumatic brain injury. Do you have understanding of like that could be everything?

Kevin Mooney (22:21.675)
Right, right.

Alex Fredericks (22:23.865)
Right? But it's been packaged so nicely. PTST post after traumatic. Define that one for me. Stress, define that one for me. And then disorder is just something's wrong. But those two middle ones, what's traumatic and what's stress is varying for everybody. Right? So that to me is like when we're talking business, some of what do you do? I do business development. so you're like a consultant?

Kevin Mooney (22:44.888)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (22:53.199)
Well, no, not really, because I don't do the financial side. What I do is I help people maximize their assets and their authority in the space so that they can hit their targets and their growth optimization. how do you do that? Well, I say, Kev, you want to be in control of your fate? And you'll say, Yeah, of course I do. Cool. Well, that means that you have an a focus, you're an authority at something, you know who your tribe is and you're into listening and emotion. And if we can get those four things aligned with my two buckets.

Kevin Mooney (23:22.841)
Boom. Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (23:22.939)
I haven't said anything, by the way. I've just described to you conceptually what we can work on. My two buckets. Two buckets are easy to monetize. A thousand things is going to spin your head. These are my two buckets. These this is the overarching handle, the fate construct, your focus, your authority, your tribe, and your emotion. And then we're gonna drill it down to what I can do for you in 90 days, 120 days, six months, a year, whatever.

It's calling for. And then somebody can understand that because then they start throwing speak back. what's the KPI? Well, I don't know. What is you what is your key performance indicator? Not mine. My key performance indicator is what my bank account says. What is yours? Right? Like, and that that takes the like I again came out of the music business. My mother.

Kevin Mooney (24:00.399)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. R yours, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (24:08.484)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (24:20.345)
And it might just be like a New York City mother thing, like a Jewish mother thing. She's like, Can you explain to me what you do? No, actually I can't. I I actually cannot explain to you the music business for somebody that has no idea what the music business is. Right?

Kevin Mooney (24:34.602)
Right, right. I feel the same way in brand and marketing. It's just way too big of a of a category to even try to explain. I'm curious, everything that you just said was super well articulated. And I'm curious if you have used a framework to develop this. Was this all life experiences and then just kind of compact it into one? Like, how did you get here? It's really solid.

Alex Fredericks (24:38.885)
Yeah.

Couldn't Read Until Sixth Grade

Alex Fredericks (25:02.831)
So I'm exceedingly dyslexic. I could not read until I was in sixth grade. That's not a joke. There's no hyperbole. I re I repeated third grade. And when I showed up for my second third grade, and all of my friends went on to fourth grade, and it was wildly embarrassing. So maybe that calls me PTSD because it was post, it's afterwards, and man, that was traumatic. Right? But

Kevin Mooney (25:28.918)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (25:29.839)
When the seriously, when they went to class and I had to go back to the other class that I had already done, I did one thing different. I started paying attention. And since I couldn't actually read, I used music as my foundation for learning how to use vocabulary and speech and and and. And then it teaches you how to tell story. So if you listen to somebody telling you what's going on with them, the teacher.

And then they ask you to give it back to them. I'm gonna give you the exact same words with my version of the story. It's that simple. Move forward. I I have lived my life very Jack Karouac. What I mean is like existential on the road. Today looks like a good day to go do X. I didn't have

Kevin Mooney (26:04.506)
Very interesting.

Into the Music Business

Alex Fredericks (26:17.025)
any outside responsibilities other than myself. Meaning like once I took ownership of my life, that's what I had to pay for. Or that's what I had to move around the earth. Or that's what I had to take care of. And that's what I did. I went into the music business. And I don't have any talents. Meaning like I don't I'm not a musician. I don't want you to discover me. The first band I found, I took to the heights of their ability, but they didn't go on to become the Rolling Stones. I say that 'cause the album behind you.

And I just started paying attention. And what I'm good at is problem solving. I'm actually really good at taking complicated things and making them simple. I'm good at solving puzzles. I'm good at sudoku. I'm good at find the dots. I'm not good at find the word jumbles. I'm good at every other type, every other type of puzzle. It's what I like to do. So when I got into business, I was in the music business, but I wasn't going to be the president of this, or I didn't belong to that crew, or

Kevin Mooney (27:00.228)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (27:16.687)
Hey, that's a great idea. Why don't I get to go on the ride? But as opposed to taking it personally, I just very simply recognized that my phone kept ringing to solve other people's problems. I had my own batch of problems, but I was my work, I was being hired, and I hate I hope this doesn't sound like grumpy. I was never gonna be picked for the actual team.

I was like the girl you made out with under the bleachers and you didn't tell anybody about. It's fine. But as soon as you know that and you don't take it personally, that's what my life became. So I just learned how to be succinct because it is what I do for people. Like I had I I'm very far out of the music business. I had a very, very well-known DJ remixer call me yesterday because he has a new track out with a huge classic artist.

And he said, What would you do? To which I said, I would pay me X amount of dollars to give you that. And he started to laugh because he knew I was a dead serious. And that's actually why he called. And then as soon as we agreed on terms, and I'm not an onerous pig, so like I know what he does and he paid the rate, and there's a scale of rate, and who fine. This morning I sent him

Kevin Mooney (28:19.320)
Ha ha ha.

A Plan That Makes Him Obsolete

Alex Fredericks (28:38.881)
A ridiculously detailed plan that had other people's phone numbers, like not mine. Call this publicist and hire her. Call that person, hire him. And I gave him a strategy that makes me obsolete, which is really important. I know very well that if he wanted me to manage him, he would have called me 10 years ago. I've known him forever. But he doesn't. And I might have offered it 10 years ago, but he doesn't. He wants to call me when he can.

Kevin Mooney (28:59.386)
Sure. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (29:08.409)
Knows I'll answer, pay me to go away. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Right? And that so I just didn't take it personally ever. Well, that's not true. I I probably I I probably burnt a bunch of bridges just for fun when I was younger. Right. And then as I got older, I was like, you know what? If that's what it is, how do attorneys make more money? They charge more because they did a good job last. So when the phone rings, I asked for more money.

Kevin Mooney (29:12.847)
No, I get it.

Kevin Mooney (29:19.843)
One point, sure.

Alex Fredericks (29:36.772)
Until somebody told me I was crazy and I probably wrote it down and was like, okay, for this silo, right? Right. Like I work with a lot of authors, first time authors that want to make systems out of their books. That is only going to make you so much money. I love doing it though. And I have it in my head how to do it for the individual once I know what they're selling. So I know how to make that effective for them.

Kevin Mooney (29:43.972)
Here's the ceiling.

Alex Fredericks (30:06.861)
And cost effective for me is different than I have somebody in the natural product business right now that I'm legitimately figuring out their business for them. Don't know why they thought they were in business prior to, and they are getting six times the rate that the author, who's already written the book. You already have the intellectual property. You already ha but you just don't know how to make it into a system so that it has a top of funnel, bottom of funnel, return, you know, all of that stuff.

Okay. Like just you know, now the other side of it, here's the truth. When I left the last firm that I worked for in twenty eighteen and I jumped into this by myself, I'm married, I have a twenty five year old child, I live in the suburbs, I have a dog and two cats, meaning I have bills. I put a number on the wall and I stare at the number. Hell or high water, I'm hitting that number.

I don't care if it's $20 an hour, $20,000 a gig. I don't care. I have no ego about it. There's nothing personal about it. It's just a number because otherwise I would just be standing in the woods somewhere, you know, but I'm not. I'm here. So, like, what is your skill? As you as it might come across, I have very few foivals in my speech. you know I'm saying? So that was because that's how I was taught to speak.

Kevin Mooney (31:20.143)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (31:34.460)
Speak, my father's a litigation attorney. I wasn't allowed, and I mean that genuinely, as the youngest of four children, I wasn't allowed to speak unless my grammar and my syntax were correct, which is why words like conversate don't come out of my mouth. No big deal for people that use it, but for somebody like me, somebody used to hire me, they still do, and say, Alex, could you go into the room and do X? Because I know you'll present it properly. If I understand it, I'm your guy.

Kevin Mooney (31:49.306)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (32:03.407)
So it is just my skill. Just l short answer to a long answer. It's like it's my skill, so that's what I worked on. Like if you can throw a fastball and that's not what you're practicing, it's not my problem.

Kevin Mooney (32:03.589)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (32:16.005)
Yeah. it's there's I have a lot in my head based on what you've said. To sum something up here, it sounds like your second attempt at third grade was the moment that almost everything shifted. You you built this faith at that exact moment. That's when it really happened. And from that moment on, you were like, fuck this. Like, I believe I can do it. I

Alex Fredericks (32:38.159)
Yes. Actually.

Where the Belief Comes From

Kevin Mooney (32:45.199)
I don't know why I screwed up and had third grade second, but you know.

Alex Fredericks (32:46.607)
So that's where the faith comes from. Well, no, no, that's where the faith comes from. You know where the belief comes from? I hit the wall at 500 miles per hour as a senior in high school. Okay. I I am an open kimono. I do not have regrets because I'm super happy with my life and I have a f and I have a relationship with the Lord. But when I was a senior in high school, I ended up in drug rehab for something I did not do. Took the bullet, it's fine, it's cool.

Forty eight days in an institution. I happened to have met my wife, so I expect that was the reason that I was there. We can move on from that part. But this is the important part. I was at a very prestigious boarding school in Princeton, New Jersey. And by the time that I got back, my life was well, for other people over. For me, different. How I was looked at from that moment forward left me to me.

The trajectory that I was on that I probably just could have knocked on the door and the door would have opened was gone. Because now I had a stigma attached to me. Right or wrong, doesn't matter. Funny enough, I was there for marijuana. So like it wasn't even like an interesting fucking drug. Excuse my language. It was like and to be honest with you, I wasn't busted doing anything. I literally had given a nickel bag. I can say this now because cannabis is legal, but I had this is the n early nineties. I'd given a nickel bag to my

Kevin Mooney (33:59.525)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (34:08.852)
Sure, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (34:12.879)
Dork ass kid that lived next to me. And by the time I got back, he had gotten fucking busted, probably for smoking weed in his fucking room like a moron. And I'm the guy from New York City that sold it to him. By the way, I didn't make my five bucks. So I definitely didn't sell it him. But his family was a little more stature than my family. My friend's father sat on the board of directors, so you're not expelling Alex. Come up with another o option 48 days and rehab later. Fine. All that being equal.

Kevin Mooney (34:18.672)
Ha

Die or Get to Living

Alex Fredericks (34:43.087)
This is the belief part, not for just the s the the sense of the story. When you're left to yourself, you have one or two options. Shut up and die or move on. That's it. I had that expressed to me once by an attorney I was working with. I had a really I found a huge band and I woke up one day totally dead. Just dead. They had hired another manager, they went another way. I was being sued for just just

Ugly, just some music business, ugly shit. Well, you probably could have just called me and I would have been like, Yeah, have a nice life, but you didn't. You went the route of like destroying me. And I'm sitting on my attorney's couch, like licking my wounds. And after like five hours of sitting there, he just turned to me and said, Alex, okay, here are your options. It's the middle of the night, you're on a lifeboat in the in the ocean, you have no oars, you don't know where you are, you only you are either five feet off the shore, five miles out to nowhere, either die or get to living.

Alright, I just looked at him and I went, I think I'll get to living. So my belief in me came when I heard every door shut. Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. aren't you the kid that went to weren't you the one? Like literally, this is 1991. So cannabis was looked at way different than now. So take a time machine back. I might as well have been like I was free basing cannabis.

Kevin Mooney (35:47.269)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (36:10.233)
Freaking heroin. You what I mean? Like I might as well have been like, no, I did do that to your daughter. Like it was crazy, it was crazy. But you realize that the again, nobody's coming to save you. It's not a bad thing when you're liberated and free. But if you don't get to living, what do you want to know? What do you want to learn? What do you want to be able to do? Whom

Kevin Mooney (36:16.752)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (36:36.591)
Been to 50 countries since I've worked for kings, I've worked for the biggest celebrities in the world. It wasn't defining, but what it was was clarity of understanding what you could believe in. I can believe in me. I can believe in my ability to know how absolutely stupid that situation was. Like, really? Okay. And I know who I really am. So I took the faith of what I learned in third grade.

Nobody likes to be laughed at. In fifth grade, funny enough, I read I think it's John Steinbeck, The Red The Red Pony, and I can't pronounce anything, so I when I had to stand up in class and get my book report, I said the red phony. PH

Kevin Mooney (37:20.527)
Wow. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (37:21.881)
You know what I mean? And the whole class laughed. Here's the funny thing. I didn't even read the book report. I had watched the movie. So what does it matter? Yeah, like fifth grade. Who does it who cares? Nobody. I promise you, if I ran into any of those kids today, I say, You remember that book report? They'll say no. In my head, yes, it was embarrassing. What's real? Right. That one girl laughed at me and pointed. You know, and you're like, Well, here we are.

Kevin Mooney (37:27.684)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (37:36.704)
No.

Kevin Mooney (37:41.489)
Yeah, it was the biggest moment in your life at that point in time, right?

Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (37:51.066)
I'm still here. I left Sony in 2007, try open an agency in 2008. Well, that was fun because the world crashed. Prior to that, I had a very, very successful record company, merchandise business recording studio, and then 9 11 happened that I was out of business. After that, like but you know what? I woke up the next morning, the sun came out, the moon still shined at night. That's belief that you're still going to.

Keep moving.

Kevin Mooney (38:22.181)
Yeah, it's incredible. I have so much of that inside of me. It's hard in it's hard in the modern day to to hold on to that thought or that belief, really, right? Because I my story is n nothing quite like yours, but similar in ways. Meaning from the

Very moment that I got my first job out of college, I realized I have no business working for somebody. You don't, I don't, I don't take orders, I don't follow instructions very well. I believe that my time is worth way more than 950 an hour packing boxes for somebody. And from that moment on, it's just been me. And I show up every single day.

Alex Fredericks (38:52.643)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (39:08.686)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (39:15.195)
Whether I know what I'm doing or not, I had no idea how to build websites. I just figured it out. And then once I learned how to do it, I started selling it to people. Then I had no idea how to do strategy or branding or market. And I figured all of that shit out. And then now I sell it to people. And now we're in a really weird place with AI coming through and people kind of buying from you less because they have this belief that AI will just solve all their problems for them.

And so here I am learning AI, trying to figure out how that thing goes, realizing it's a lot bigger of a rabbit hole than I anticipated. The whole point of this isn't to say, hey, congrats, Kev, you're you're constantly learning. It is just this idea that I still have to show up and I rely on myself every single day. So there must be a belief in there that I know I can do it, even if I've never done it before, which does make me almost unhirable or unemployable.

Alex Fredericks (40:03.515)
Course.

Kevin Mooney (40:14.575)
by standards for most companies because I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I'm gonna learn it and I'll be very proficient at it. I'll be good at it, but it does take a little bit of time. And it's just really interesting. I'm curious how you kind of maintain that belief, how you hold on to that.

Alex Fredericks (40:15.979)
Sure.

Ten Thousand Résumés, No Replies

Alex Fredericks (40:32.715)
Well, it's it's the exact same story. So I tend to work with some people on automated strategy for their business. Call it AI, call it automation, doesn't much matter. If I were to say, and there is no hyperbole in this, if I were to say to you that I've sent out ten thousand resumes in the last five years and I've never received one one inquiry or reply. Not one.

Which makes me either the least employable human being on the planet, or the universe saying, puts, what are you spending your time chasing somebody else's shit for? So there's that. Okay? And then one of the things that I think is really important is we haven't n nothing other than your choices that limit the choices that you have good, bad, and indifferent. Make good choices, bad choices go away.

Kevin Mooney (41:13.605)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (41:30.393)
So it's not a bad statement. But that's the only fate you can control. What's your focus? Choice. Who's you know, I'm an authority at being Alex. Who's my tribe? My friends. And what do I want out of them? I want them to love me, feel revered, whatever, right? So everything other than that, though, is a system. There is a system in play. The way that it rains is a system. We just

The way a tree grows, it's held together by sugar and fiber. It can be twelve feet wide and a thousand feet tall and live for a thousand plus years. It's still only sugars and protein fibers. But there's a system holding it together. So the system by which we are living in the societal system, the corporate, the career, the western, whatever system is actually made for a different version of people. And that's totally okay.

One of the best parts about being dyslexic is that I never fit the system. Because you could give me an IQ test and I'll blow you away. You can give me a math problem or a puzzle and I'll blow you away the second you give me reading comprehension. You'll think I'm Lenny from mice and men.

Kevin Mooney (42:51.097)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (42:52.867)
Okay. So how does that jive? It doesn't. So then you simply go, Well, that's not for me. Fine, totally cool. And then there is a concept that is Marshall McLuhan. Marshall McLuhan has a he's a I think he was British philosopher, societal lecturer. The median is the message. Okay. So the median. This is what we're on right now. Okay. Back in the day there was radio.

Ever heard of Orson Wells' War of the Worlds? And you're like, how did that happen? Because radio was the message. It was the signal. It was the way that information and trust and da da da da traveled. So nobody had heard something like that before. So, okay. Next, TV happened. Well, TV is the message. Think of all the great moments of television, from Seinfeld to Kennedy being assassinated, to everything in between. And that was the message. There were

Four channels worth paying attention to. Walter Cronkite was your authority telling you what it was the message. But we're now here in the digital age. And the digital age splinters reality, right? Like, we'll keep it on the easy side of things. How many clipping sites could you build in five minutes with f with 300 profiles? That's bending reality. Because back in the day.

Kevin Mooney (43:52.697)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (44:15.183)
I've done remnant television like having to buy ads at three o'clock in the morning in to in Sheboygan. But it was the same ad. It wasn't the ad for Sheboygan edited in re So we're in a time of it's a different medium to right, and that is the message. That's what you're living in. It's why we're so fractured and why we're so divided. Because I can subdivide you into the nanodecimal point. So you can only get you.

I say that for anybody that's an outlier, anybody that has a thought, anybody that the the reason I can't get hired, other than I'm a rambunctious human being, is like is is my a st or whatever that thing is called, keywords just doesn't match up. Sorry, I didn't work for Pricewater House Cooper. Sorry, I didn't go Whatever.

Kevin Mooney (44:57.681)
Ha ha ha.

Kevin Mooney (45:13.190)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (45:13.241)
Right. So like you just you get disqualified because the system that is is not actually looking for you. So as soon as you recognize that again, nobody's coming to save you and you are left to your own, then you just go, you know what? That's fun. And I still every once in a while go through the exercise because I've been on LinkedIn since two thousand and three. That shit, I'll jump into the job thing. Let's see what's out there. I'll take a five hundred thousand dollar salary. I could do that in my sleep.

No, I definitely can't do that in my sleep because I didn't work for Procter and Gamble or DLA Piper or or or So you just go, Well, that's not meant for me. Like it's just not right. So like then the race is still running, right? Like the gun went off a long time ago. And if you're not getting to running, then everything's gonna pass you by. So then you're like, okay, what can I like to think about? I

Kevin Mooney (45:44.763)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (45:50.587)
Yeah.

AI Since T9 Texting

Alex Fredericks (46:06.191)
I was I literally started building databases on FileMaker Pro before Excel existed. I've been doing blockchain since it was called organized data through Salesforce and OBI. I've been doing AI since fucking T9 predictive texting. What do you think large language model means? So when we had stupid Nokia phones and I could only hit one through zero, how many times? There's only so many words in the English language.

Kevin Mooney (46:25.122)
Right, right.

Alex Fredericks (46:33.965)
And believe me, if I'm doing them one at a time by character, I've eliminated anything that's multi-syllabic. It's short words. So me guessing what the next word is, not magic. It's just how quickly can I run through a database before you can get to the end of the word. That's all right. So now move forward into what we're calling AI, which is not, but we'll leave it at that.

Kevin Mooney (46:46.040)
Right, right.

Kevin Mooney (46:52.644)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (46:58.459)
Sure. It's right. It's I've had a lot of discussions about it's not that. It is the fact that it's just an LLM or large language model.

Alex Fredericks (47:04.857)
Right. Yeah, but with inside of that they have us arguing over things that like, we're arguing over AI is gonna take over the world, and then there are people like, Well, how could you argue that and then put out a a an you know, an AI slop poster, and you're like, Well, first off, let me explain this to you. I've been making I've been on Illustrator since it took me fifteen hours to do one freaking layer and I had to do three, five, twelve layers for the poster, and then

Kevin Mooney (47:23.025)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (47:34.190)
I've been watching that engage for 20 years. You don't think that they know how to hierarchically make a poster? Of course they do. That is not intelligence. That's automation. There's only so many hierarchical, even though I disagree with what the slop looks like, there are only so many room in an 8x12 hierarchical like it that's that's math, people. Right? Like that's math.

Kevin Mooney (47:46.533)
Right. Right.

Kevin Mooney (47:59.804)
Right, right.

Alex Fredericks (48:02.489)
The AI that they have you scared about, you've never met. That's that's the archons coming down from on high. You've you don't know what that looks like. That's why you should be scared of it. The thing that we're t looking in front of us at, the ChatGPTs, the Claude, the Kimmies, the whatever, keep listing them. Those are large language models. We have built them. When I first turned on the internet.

Kevin Mooney (48:07.515)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (48:31.141)
Sorry, the World Wide Web in 1983 with an Apple II C computer with a 14-4 modem that went through Fairley Dickinson University in North Jersey, the Library of Congress was already digitized. It really was. So when AOL launched AOL in ninety seven and they put a bajillion of those disks around the world for anybody that remembers, and everybody then ran into the internet.

Well, the internet was going through somebody's doorway. And can you if you could explain to me why there was an exponential amount of pornography already on the internet, let alone the Library of Congress was over there and nobody went to the Library of Congress to start reading about Faustian whatever. They stayed over here and waited for four minutes for boobies to upload. Right? Now, if we've been training that, if you've been training that for thirty years.

Kevin Mooney (49:14.875)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (49:27.791)
How many keystrokes, how many keywords, how many heat maps, how many That is what you're living through in LLMs and automation of my CRM scraping. I can get I can upload your CRM and tell you who I too can go through my Gmail that I've been on since 2004, I believe, because I was on Hotmail before that.

Kevin Mooney (49:54.117)
Well hotmail.

Alex Fredericks (49:54.222)
And I too can download all of the information, drop it into Claude, write a quick prompt because I'm not a moron and say, this is what I'm looking for, qualify between one and ten, do this, that, that, and get the information. There's nothing AI about that. Right? So my point in that whole rant bringing back home is like people like you and I, we just weren't meant for the system. You were just kind you were intelligent enough to f figure it out soon enough to be like, dude.

Kevin Mooney (50:09.913)
Right. Right.

Alex Fredericks (50:23.821)
I'm out, right? Like I that's what I mean by like Jack Karowak. I mean like on the his two big books were on the road and Dharma Bums, right? And it was about existentialism. Like, you mean I can just jump on a motorcycle and drive across the country and work in a bar for a month and a half to make more money to make it to the other side of the country? Cool. They didn't tell me that. No, they told you to go get a job in a factory for twenty five years and then take a vacation.

Kevin Mooney (50:25.061)
Yeah.

Myers-Briggs and Personality Types

Kevin Mooney (50:49.328)
Right.

Yeah. It wasn't until later in life that I started learning about the Myers-Briggs personality type stuff that that really, really helped me understand. Because I've always had this in my head. I've always thought like, I don't know about all this stuff. I don't know about some corporate job. I don't know about a suit and tie and go into a big office in New York. I don't know about this. I don't really want to do this. I want to can I just make money this way? Like

Alex Fredericks (50:58.607)
Yeah, sure.

Kevin Mooney (51:21.039)
Actually, why do we even need money in the first place? You know, all this stuff kind of w has been in my head. And it wasn't until the Myers-Briggs it was put in front of me in college. And I went through it and I wasn't paying attention to it that much because I was trying to focus on doing the schoolwork and get a decent enough grade so that I could get, you know, a decent job and and climb that ladder. But it wasn't until afterwards.

Alex Fredericks (51:25.189)
Yeah, of course.

Alex Fredericks (51:31.705)
Yeah.

What's wrong?

Kevin Mooney (51:50.350)
after I was fired from that first job. And then I started, you know, dicking around with selling products on the internet and sourcing from different locations in the world and trying to get a cheaper price and duh, you know, all of this stuff. And then a friend of mine introduced me, reintroduced me to Myers-Briggs, and it just started to all click. And from that moment on, I realized I don't belong in what we call the system. I don't fit in that thing. So the road is going to be long and hard.

And so somewhere in that that time period, maybe it started when I was six, I don't know. But I've always had this belief that I'm a little bit different than what the standard status quo says. And it's just been a long, hard road ever since. I'm not, I would never change it for anything, right? I it's it's a big thing for me. But I'm wondering how much you think the personality types, if you know much about it.

influence any of this that we're talking about? Do you think it is maybe at the core of it or is it something we adopt later?

Alex Fredericks (52:52.847)
I think I think that I think that all of that stuff is accurate. I I like so I it's funny, I had a conversation with one of my guys on my ToneWell team this morning. We were talking about human design. And human design starts with a basic understanding of like the most founded born at what time, what place, where, right? Like it's very and so we were one of our th colleagues didn't wasn't aware of what we were talking about. So I simply said to him, I said

You know what a VIN number on your car is? He said, Yeah, of course I know what a VIN number on my car is. I said, Okay. So like let's just say it's a Volkswagen. You know exactly w what factory, what line, by whom, where like it it it is the information of the car, right? It it it it's how it's registered. So you know exactly what transmission and what it it was made in it was made in Mexico City, not Germany. If I were to take that information and then I put it in through the course of that car's history, I can track what's happening.

And you'd be yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, if I were to say to you, okay, so it's this VIN number of that make and model, and I'm like, it's a 96 Jetta made in Mexico City, you who might know something about transmissions would say, hell no. That was the worst transmission ever put in a car. So I say that in the to be flippant about there's information and timestamps with things. So personality traits, your human design, the the book of one, the law of Seth, all of these.

Kevin Mooney (54:05.595)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (54:22.213)
Things, they're real. Tony Robbins has made a enormous career on personality sets because they're real. You are a really great collection of

Possibility and probability, right? Like possibility you possibly could, probability it will or it won't. So I think that having an understanding of yourself is really important. One of the things that we do discuss in ToneWell is helping people build better relationships with themselves. And that's predicated on us trying to give you informational ideas of what you are. So if we're talking about like self-growth, I am

Only like a real revolutionary when it comes to myself, everybody else, go join the crowd, have fun, right? But you recognize that you're not taught anything in school about you. There's nothing about you that you're taught, like how to get in touch with you. a million years ago, whilst doing psychedelics, somebody said to me, You should probably never stare in a mirror. So, what did I do for like three hours? I stared in the mirror. One of the worst.

Kevin Mooney (55:16.719)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (55:32.813)
Stare the mirror.

Alex Fredericks (55:33.732)
One of the greatest, worst experiences of my life. One of one of the most fun, terrorizing experiences of my life. Because, like, if you don't confront yourself and your ego and your subconscious and the voice that screams yes or the voice that screams no, then who are you to somebody else? If you haven't I actually said this to my uncle the other day, who's in his like late 80s and he was decrying how his newest relationship fell apart. It's like his fifth marriage. And I said to him,

Very straightforward. It's really a shame that you've never done the work for yourself. Like, don't get me wrong, maybe it was the wrong lady. I doubt it, because six months ago you were deeply in love with her. And now, like, I didn't want to share my milk, so it's over. And you're like, what the hell is wrong with you? you I got it. I got it. You lived forward. You never took the introspective.

Kevin Mooney (56:08.069)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:22.608)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (56:29.145)
So knowing what type of personality you are is also like knowing what you're allergic to. Right? Like if you have allergies to f to peanuts and you don't figure that out, but you keep going to, you know, Seshawan and eat the peanut sauce and you're in the hospital every time, whose fault is that? Not the restaurants, you know?

Kevin Mooney (56:34.949)
Yeah, for sure.

Kevin Mooney (56:48.996)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (56:52.465)
Do you think though that some of the personality types are incapable of doing the things that you're talking about and those are the ones that are built for the system or the system is built for them? Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (57:04.368)
Yes.

Both. It it it it works both ways. If you are a malignant narcissist, you are a great leader. Doesn't actually make you somebody that that I want out in front. Somebody that is so obsessed with them. Great guy out great guy to go lead, 'cause but doesn't make you the person you want. The system is designed for the system. The system is not designed for the individual.

You don't need the system. You really, truly don't. You could figure out how to get your own land, your own property, your own place, build your own food, build a community around you and barter. Matter of fact, if you really wanted to get deep into it, there are constitutional rights that you have for land and usage and purpose. They've just been so obfuscated by law. By the way, those are different.

That you believe that you have to pay XYZPDQ. And you do when you want to be in the system. If you don't want to be in the system, like don't ever come ask me for anything not in the system, you could still survive in this world. You very well could. And they're they put on the fringe and they sound like crazy people on social media. But you can become a sovereign person. You can take your rights back. You can own land without having to pay tax on it.

Kevin Mooney (58:12.912)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (58:21.841)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (58:35.503)
You have to be in the right place and do it properly. But you can. You can avoid the federal tax system if you do it properly. If you do it improperly, you're screwed. But here's the thing every tether that you cut is one last comeback, meaning I can't go back to that. Which is why ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent don't. Because that is the system. The system is built for that. So every time someone's like, my god, we should just

Kevin Mooney (58:44.411)
Sure. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (58:58.361)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (59:04.603)
Crash the whole thing down. Just look at them and wait five seconds. And then they'll pick up their phone. And you're like, good luck with that.

Kevin Mooney (59:10.051)
Right. Do you ever worry about the system just completely shitting the bed and crashing and and then being like, Whoa, what's next?

Alex Fredericks (59:20.333)
Nah, I've had fifty-three years on this earth. I'm good. I it it doesn't it's not a concern of mine. It's not a concern of mine in many ways. One, I have a good community of people around me. I'm confident that after the chaos, things will pull together. Two, how's it falling apart? If it fell apart instantaneously, believe me, something else happened. Like, my god, look at the bright light in the sky we're done. Right? Like okay, cool. So anybody that made it underground.

Kevin Mooney (59:23.024)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (59:35.654)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (59:45.646)
Yeah, right, right, right, right. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (59:51.237)
Good for you. Good luck. All right.

Kevin Mooney (59:52.313)
Yeah. But also good luck in the future because there's nothing left and so what are you gonna do? Like, yeah, you Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (59:56.358)
Yeah, good luck. Good just good luck. Like there are some things like there is so much fear mongering just to keep you in place. So let's just take this as humanoids. Okay. As humanoids, we got a couple million years.

I don't matter. I matter for me. I have three sisters. They all have children. I have children. My DNA, you know, the reason for being here, just ants in a colony, has already been fulfilled. So everything else is how how good of a person, how good of a time, what can you do for the people around you? So I don't actually fear that stuff. And then the other side of it is like to me, let's be honest, like I

Kevin Mooney (01:00:14.577)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:28.711)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:00:42.041)
You know, I I live in a carry state. I I'm a black belt and I'm a black belt in jiu-jitsu. Like what are we talking about here? Yeah, like you know what I mean? So like depends on the level of chaos and how stupid are the people around you. And my this they're all stupid. My my this summer, my house was so we'll say like the six house grid. My my neighbor, the next door neighbor, and the three behind us. We all had gardens growing different things.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:44.796)
Sure. Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:49.691)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:55.858)
Well, they're all stupid, right?

Alex Fredericks (01:01:10.105)
Not that hard to do to knock down the fence and now all of a sudden there's Whip some of them canned, I'm a pickler, some of them are are canners, some of them are dry g okay. That's gonna take a minute to figure out. Yeah, okay, there might be a couple lean years, but

Kevin Mooney (01:01:27.472)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:01:28.473)
The only thing that's gonna go away is the instantaneous. You know what I mean? Like

Kevin Mooney (01:01:32.796)
Sure. I could go back to that. I I enjoyed the nineties.

Alex Fredericks (01:01:38.063)
When I was a kid, I say this to people like when I was a kid, if you called my house past ten o'clock or on a Sunday, period, somebody better have been dead.

Kevin Mooney (01:01:46.599)
yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:01:48.645)
There was and my father was a very, very successful litigation attorney, like argue at the Supreme Court level. Our phone still didn't ring at night. There was no emergency that you need to call me at my house. Could you imagine today if your client, boss, whatever, couldn't get in touch with you at 11 o'clock at night? Just for some whimsical

Kevin Mooney (01:02:02.565)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:12.997)
Yeah, it's

Alex Fredericks (01:02:15.247)
So maybe the prior and maybe that helps prioritize things that become important again. Because again, people pay for access and outcome. Access is free right now, which is the whole thing about AI that makes me laugh. People like, well, I'm just gonna use GPT for that. You're like, cool, go use GPT for that with no expertise on what you're actually looking for. It's the outcome part. Sure, access. But what's your outcome? Right? So it's like the societal crashing shit. That's like if it does.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:15.653)
Thought.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:25.073)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:39.750)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:02:45.751)
Okay, they've been telling it to me since the Nostradamus TV special on HBO with William Shatner that destroyed my childhood. You know what I mean? Like, whatever. It's cool. And and when it doesn't.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:52.837)
Ha ha ha.

Starting Jiu-Jitsu Later in Life

Kevin Mooney (01:03:01.125)
Yeah, sure. Right. You just keep you you're still moving forward, right? And that's that's the thing at the end of the day. Is that kind of how you feel about jiu-jitsu too? Just keep moving forward. Like, first of all, jiu-jitsu is a crazy thing to get into later in life. I got into it in my late thirties. It didn't last it only lasted a couple of years. I started getting injured a lot and I had to

Alex Fredericks (01:03:04.795)
Still moving forward. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:03:11.877)
Very good.

Kevin Mooney (01:03:30.713)
I had to stop and pull out of it. And I had to fix some of the things that my my body were going through. And I can't wait to get back. But there's this daunting idea about going back, which is it's not that I'm just trying to get to a black belt. It is the whole entire journey, but it's daunting because there's so much work that you have to put into it and you do have to just keep going. You can never stop going.

Alex Fredericks (01:03:56.539)
Yeah. So

Kevin Mooney (01:03:58.151)
And then once you hit the black belt level, you still have thirty more years of learning and education. So it never ends.

Alex Fredericks (01:04:03.995)
Black belt is the beginning of being able to be conversational. That's it. It's all it is. It'd be like I can speak Spanish in a classroom and now I'm gonna go to Mazatlan versus San Miguel Andiende and they have little different accents. I I don't know. But I can still speak it, can I? You know? So jiu-jitsu is is done more for me than most things in my life.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:09.572)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:22.034)
Sure.

Right.

Biting People as a White Belt

Alex Fredericks (01:04:31.149)
I will say that the worst injury that I sustained in jiu-jitsu, I did sustain as a black belt. I was doing a modified judo fireman's carry, and when I came over, the guy landed right on the crown of my head and compressed the top of my neck. So I will say that it never stops. jiu-jitsu did more for me emotionally and as an adulting like way, like made me grow up.

So when I first started jiu-jitsu, and I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but it's actually kind of funny. I used to bite people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I would get so frustrated that I couldn't get out from blah, blah, blah, that I would ultimately just bite you. That didn't work so well. I didn't go over very well. Wasn't really liked. And ultimately my my professor was like, You do realize if you do that one more time, you'll never win.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:08.912)
Really? You were that guy?

Kevin Mooney (01:05:22.641)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:05:29.657)
Pack in this room. So, but what it showed me, this is gonna sound silly, was I had things to work on. Why am I taking this so personally? I literally can just tap. Literally. But I didn't. There was something psychological that I needed to work through. And learning how to deal with pressure, bad situations, not feeling good, super important. Next. The thing that jiu-jitsu

Kevin Mooney (01:05:30.829)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:40.743)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:05:57.378)
also gave me was you just have to show up. You don't have to have a plan. You need to just walk in the door. The more you walk in the door, the better you'll get at it just by proxy. The more you walk in the door, the better the outcome comes. The more you walk in the door, the more everything stays on the other side of the door. The more just show up. It's one of the things that drives me crazy. Again, back to the hanging up on the person that was five minutes late. Most people don't show up for themselves in this life.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:00.849)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:18.343)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:06:26.821)
They're coasting, they're looking for somebody else's shit. They want to follow an influencer or a show up for yourself. Go do the hard thing. It's not easy. I live in Pennsylvania. I have D1 wrestlers everywhere. That's not easy. But guess what? Show up. Then along the path, I learned something that literally changed my life. I'm at a seminar.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:34.898)
Yeah.

Flow With the Go

Alex Fredericks (01:06:53.635)
And I'll give him credit. His name is Daniel Belisa. He's like a 15 time world champ from from Brazil, animal of a human being. And I'm at a seminar as an early white belt, but he's giving me some extra play because I'm in my 40s. And he comes up to me, he's like, brother, Boha, Boha, brother. Yeah. You you really need to learn how to flow with the go. And I looked at him, I said, Don't you mean go with the flow? Because isn't that what you meant? And he says, No.

I speak five languages. Maybe my English is broken, but I know what I'm saying. I said, okay, please explain. He was speaking jiu-jitsu, by the way. And he says, sure, man, if you just go with the flow, you're gonna fall for anything. It's what I'm actually doing here. I'm making you give me your back. I'm making you give me your arm because I'm letting I'm funneling you in a direction and you're gonna go with that flow and I'm gonna beat you. However, if you learn to flow with the go, you will learn to sustain the bad position.

Kevin Mooney (01:07:30.802)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:07:51.750)
Deal with the pain, be okay with being in it, that it knowing that the time you'll know. But you'll you'll be all right with that. And then you'll wait for your opportunity. And when your opportunity arises, that's when you go. It changed my life. It legitimate it it changed how I dealt with clients, how I deal with people. I'm a New York City guy in the eighties. Like I like to fight. I have a I was a I was a

Kevin Mooney (01:08:06.531)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:14.172)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:08:15.739)
qualified for junior nationals in judo as a kid. I have a black belt and a couple other things. I'm from New York. I just like to fight. It's cool. We're good. Let's go. It changed my life. It changed how I looked at things. One, because I had to immediately apply it to jiu-jitsu. Ninety percent of my game is defense. I'm really difficult to beat because I'm okay with eating shit. I'll just sit here until I get that under hook and boy, my turn.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:38.865)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:08:42.819)
Right? Like I'll that's just how I that's how I roll. It's how I go. It drives people crazy. I do something called the Stephen Hawking, which is just a defense where I'm kind of on my side. It's really kind of an obnoxious thing to say, but it's like imagine jumping in a wheelchair. Right? Anyway. So like I'm good with that because I'm waiting for my opportunity. That helped me magnitudes of order in my life.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:43.119)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:53.476)
S sure, but I get it. Yeah.

Awkward Silence and Never Justifying Your Price

Alex Fredericks (01:09:08.131)
Stop chasing that person that's clearly already said no, that they haven't been kind enough to use that word. Stop overselling so you're costing yourself money. When you've when you've put something out, wait for it to come back. And if it doesn't come back, you need time to know it didn't. But now you're creating these Doppler effects, like waves that bounce over themselves and you don't know what the true signal is. Sit there awkwardly. Awkward silence is one of the greatest negotiating tools of all time.

Kevin Mooney (01:09:36.849)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:09:36.974)
If you can sit there awkwardly, it's chicken, and the other person speaks first, you win. Don't ever justify your cost. Ever. Talk about your value. That's the same thing. I'm def I'm I'm defending a darse. I'm defending an arm bar. I don't want to justify to you this. I want to keep my cost to myself, right? These things it immensely applied. And then here's the other part of jiu-jitsu.

Kevin Mooney (01:09:42.503)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:10:06.339)
It's one of the most addictive things I've ever done because I like solving problems. And it's really funny what high speed chess with consequences baked into like forced yoga can do for you. Like it really like your brain, there are a lot of things you go into autopilot. Mm-mm. This is still active problem solving. And though I go to my happy place because I I don't believe my eyes at all.

Kevin Mooney (01:10:10.374)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:10:17.861)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:10:32.537)
I close my eyes typically when I'm rolling with 99% of people, only white belts, because I don't want that stray knee where because you have no idea what you're doing. But back to being dyslexic. For me, the world is shapes, colors, and images. That's what the world is. So as soon as I close my eyes, it's like the highest speed processing. It is RAM, random access memory in a processor as fast as I can move it, trying to what that does for your spirit.

Kevin Mooney (01:10:38.374)
Yeah, you don't trust him yet. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:11:02.339)
It's like I got a Ferrari, which we all have. It's in the garage, and I only take it out on certain fall days when it's super nice so that I can get the picture. But imagine if you can get that fucking machine throttled all the way out. That takes some time to let the but you're drive but you're dropping gears on people. Like that is and that's what we are. And that connective tissue like is hard for people.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:12.230)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:26.534)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:11:31.599)
Like it's one thing, I work out, okay, but is your brain connected to working out? Probably not. It's counting reps, right? Which is why things like CrossFit or Tough Mudder or things like that become interesting. The obstacle course is really interesting because I have to do the math. I'm counting steps. Like I was I teach fundamentals. I was teaching something to somebody the other day. And I was like, You guys know how to walk? They're like, Cool. I was like, then do me a favor, stop counting your steps.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:37.660)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:44.870)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:56.786)
Ha ha ha.

Alex Fredericks (01:11:58.202)
Because you're doing geometry in your head when you don't think about it. Like just go walk up the stairs, walk down the stairs. You've just done rise over run math. There is an equation in that that your brain went, that's an eighteen cent it, you know, eighteen inches up, thirteen inches over, whatever it might be, right? Like that. That's you got to know it it that expression it chang it legitimately changed how I looked at the world because I was old enough to understand what he meant.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:06.952)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:14.331)
Right. You just gotta flow with the go.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:20.819)
That's interesting.

Alex Fredericks (01:12:27.861)
And I have a lot of scars. You know what I mean? Like I've made a lot of mistakes. I'm cool with them. It's fine. I'll talk about I'm not embarrassed by any of them, 'cause they were mine and I owned them. And if I was wrong, believe me, I said, Yeah, I was wrong. And if I was wrong, duh, I went, Well, what what did I do in that where I lost control or where I went too f Right. Right. 'Cause the it's always two to tango. Even if I wasn't the guy to throw the punch, I clearly

Kevin Mooney (01:12:33.703)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:47.187)
To be wronged. Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:12:55.823)
got into a situation where I made you hit me, right? Like and so so flowing with the go, it's jiu-jitsu is jiu-jitsu is in everything. It it really is like it's a square and a circle moving inside of itself and that's representative of the universe that you're sitting in.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:59.090)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:12.411)
Yeah. that's it's really interesting. Just in my short time in in jiu-jitsu, you know, the hardest part about jiu-jitsu is letting go of the thinking, the ego, the ability to flow with the go, right? If somebody tries to take you one direction and you resist, you've just opened yourself up for something. And if you just flow with that go.

then you're gonna roll into another area that is probably right into another thing in another situation, another problem solving situation. And it's super interesting.

Alex Fredericks (01:13:42.798)
Into another thing.

Alex Fredericks (01:13:48.804)
You know, it's it's the same thing in life. So I don't know. I I heard this said and I wish it were mine, but it's not. It's like it's the serendipitous of the event with inside of the plan that actually changes your life. Right? So I I'm going to New York to go sit down with John Smith at XYZ PDQ. What happens between me leaving my house scene, John Smith, and getting home? Who do I interact with? What's the opportunity? What did I see? Maybe that thing is the thing that made all of the difference, right? Like

Yeah, Robert Frost, you know, to two paths a line in the woods. I took the one less travel lab made all the difference. He could have made the one that was totally but he didn't. He went that way. And that to me is like that's what jiu-jitsu is, it's what life is, it's jumping in the river. But it's jumping in the river not like a like like a fool. Like don't don't don't be a troglodyte. Don't just be some caveman. Be somebody that's thinking about who do you want to be? How do you wanna show up in the world? What do you want to be known for? They

Everybody has a nickname. They call me ODB. Because I am an old dirty bastard. I just fucking am. That is how I roll. That's what you get from me. That's the way we're gonna go. And then the other side of it is I'm also the dude that can take the beating. I don't care that you're two hundred and sixty pounds, six foot three. It makes no difference to me because I can keep my I can keep my limbs within side of the ride. Do you know what I mean? So like

Kevin Mooney (01:14:50.694)
Ha ha ha.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:01.158)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:10.768)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:15:12.217)
Sooner or later, you being the big strong guy are gonna make some big strong guy move and believe me, there's an underhook or a look, your foot's sitting there. Pfft Th look, I'm gonna break it. You know? That's life.

Walking Away From a Fortune

Kevin Mooney (01:15:21.436)
Sure. I wanna tie this, I wanna tie all of this back to money and then move into ToneWell a little bit because it the it applies so perfectly. And y you had said to me in a previous conversation that in your early twenties you'd walked away from an engagement and a fortune because of a dream. And you also wrote that you didn't know if that was wisdom.

Or fear. And I'm curious if you know what that is now based on all of the experience that you've had.

Alex Fredericks (01:15:59.418)
No, that strikes me as an accounting I'll get when all is said and done. So I have a very strong mind's eye. It's what's allowed me to get off the mat a lot. I am

My biggest personal fear in life is mediocrity. Not fame. Could care less if you know who I am. It's mediocrity. Did you squeeze everything out of this that you could and put as much of your essence, the good part of you, into the world? So I had a dream. I was engaged very early as or young as you mentioned, and God bless her. I hope she's had a great life. She was coming into an enormous fortune.

And I had a dream where I'm legitimately the person that I am this now, I mean by age, and I was anything but who I wanted to be. So I walked away from that. And I walked away from where I could have just sat around and been somebody else and not had a care in the world and you know, so on and so forth. And it's about ownership. That's all it is ever about. It's like are you the captain of your own ship?

Now it's I have no problem with people that took the traveled path. None. It's good for you. I am not that person. I am the person that walks up to the woods, sees a path, sees the non-path. I take the non-path. I like the hero journey. I'm a Joseph Campbell human being. I believe in the archit in the archetypes of who we are. So when I had this premonition, this vision, whatever, of the version of the person that I would become if I compromised where I was.

Now the other side of it was I was with the wrong person and I actually and I actually knew it. My wife, who is my best friend, I met pre-story when I was in high school at in drug rehab. She was 14, I was 18. We stayed the best of friends.

Kevin Mooney (01:17:47.706)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:18:04.975)
We kept missing each other in life. I was from New York. She was from down here in Philly. And every time we would get to try to get together, some the world had a different plan or a different whatever. We were too young and stupid to actually tell each other the truth, like I love you and I don't want you to walk out that door. Fine. So when I got to the precipice of that dream, was it you're not being faithful to yourself? Was it I don't want to be who this person is? I I I money's awesome. But understand that money is called currency.

Kevin Mooney (01:18:19.943)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:18:34.789)
For a reason. It's the current part. It's the electric what does it do? Where where does it come in as electricity? What does it move in your life? What is the frequency that it is? What what tone does it set for you? Money is very important. It's awesome. But if it's the end all be all, then you've plugged into the wrong fucking outlet. And that was the thing for me. There's a myriad of reasons. Most, first and foremost, like I'm I'm a

Kevin Mooney (01:18:37.404)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:18:57.096)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:19:04.665)
Married to my best friend, believe in true love. It was love at first sight when I when I met my wife, like one of those lightning strikes. So what the was I doing with somebody else? She was a perfectly wonderful human being. I hope she's ha gone and had a great life. And I hope that her family's money, 'cause it sure wasn't mine, has done some good in the world. But I just didn't want to be that guy. And I don't and I don't lie to myself that way, because again, like I know my scars. Believe me, I've made some fucking

Kevin Mooney (01:19:22.695)
Sure. Sure.

Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:19:32.963)
Stupid mistakes like, wow, p you chose B and it was A? Whoa, but that wasn't one of them. That was just that was just one of those material what do you mean? You're not gonna have a three country houses. Yeah, well that's okay, 'cause that's a lot of furniture to pick, you know, like fine.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:37.517)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been there.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:46.813)
Sure.

Right.

Yeah, it's

It's insightful to have that level of of thought into something like that. Cause there's a lot of people who don't. They just they're like, I made a decision, so I'm gonna stick with it. And they just stay down that path. And so this is in one category of your life, but you know, the same thing kind of happened as you're raising money for your current business. Like you you're walking away from some level of money, and that probably has to do with fit or timing or something.

And you know, it's hard for somebody to understand where the line is for that. And, you know, yours is yours is pretty clear. It it's a pretty solid line in the sand. And though that line in the sand is probably riddled with nuances because it happens in your brain, it's still pretty clear to where to the point where people can see it when it's said to them.

Alex Fredericks (01:20:48.709)
Yes. You know, here's the thing though.

Kevin Mooney (01:20:50.375)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:20:54.849)
It's difficult being the least financially successful of your friends. It's hard. I'm not gonna lie. Like it it I am not a captain of industry in the way that my brain thinks I could be. It's fine. I've made certain choices not to compromise on other things and those like every choice you make has, you know, an equal it limits the choices you have, an equal and opposite reaction. Like it's all all of these things are truths. It's

Kevin Mooney (01:21:02.599)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:21:26.555)
Who do you want to be happy with as you? I lead with kindness and an open hand. I've given an enormous amount of things away. I I'm not onerous in a that was mine 'cause I pulled it out of the ether.

Here you go. All right. Like that's this experience. I did not set the inflation rate. Right. What I mean by that is this. When I was a kid, and I literally mean like a kid, if you were to say, dude, I just want a million bucks, you were Gucci, man. That was it. You were good. I had a friend of mine in ninety-five, I think it was, say, I want a billion dollars. And we all laughed at him. And he said, This was ninety five. We laughed at him. Said,

Kevin Mooney (01:21:50.173)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:21:58.343)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:22:11.739)
billion dollars, you're fucking nuts. He goes, if you got a billion, you got nothing. And he was he was serious. He was serious because he understood to me the I didn't the world changed and I just went, I just want to go, I want to be me. At the end of the day, my goal is to be the best version of me that I can. When somebody says to me, you know, somebody else would, my answer 99.9% of the time, is well, I'm not somebody else. Like I I'm not looking to be them.

Kevin Mooney (01:22:16.167)
Wow.

Sony and the 360 Deal

Kevin Mooney (01:22:35.421)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:22:38.715)
I'm I'm I'm looking to be the best version of me. And if the best version of me comes from walking away with something else that has a tagline to it. They do. To for me, it if I had taken this job, then that comes with these things. And these things might have a whole bunch of things that I don't actually want to do. But to have this thing, I need to do that thing. Like I worked at Sony.

I was never going to be the president of Columbia Records. I don't have a law degree. Cool, but I could have been a fucking h henchman sitting in the middle. Believe me, I'm smart enough, know how to do it, raise my litigation attorney, have the right relationships. But when they introduced the 360 contract, I could not, could not have an artist sign it. I would sit there and explain to them why they wouldn't want to. Because I actually got into it because I like music. It changed my life.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:12.903)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:28.752)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:23:34.199)
I love art. I like artists. I want people to be able to make a living on their creative juices. And the second that you sign this document right here, mister eighteen year old, you're not gonna own anything of yours for you see where it says time in memorium? That means forever.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:51.954)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:23:53.382)
And I just I couldn't do that. So therefore I was never getting out of this. And when those two things, when you understand it's the teeter totter, and when you understand that, you go, well then that's just like and then I can't be mad. I have an intern of mine. Well, it was hard to say 'cause it was nineteen ninety three. I had an intern of mine that's now like yeah, that's now like the chief blah blah blah of one of the huge record labels. He was always a scumbag. Always.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:14.888)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:24:23.385)
He was never not a scumbag. Matter of fact, it's why I hired him as an intern. Didn't like him. Didn't like anything about him. Never liked him. Never will like him. Doesn't matter. When I brought him in as an intern, I went, I need you to do X, Y, Z, P D Q. The guy did it. He also happened to take every piece of information that he got for me. Not a critique. It's a knowledge point. And I went, this kid's going somewhere. Somewhere that I don't want to be. But now

Kevin Mooney (01:24:30.516)
Worse.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:47.988)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (01:24:52.473)
And I can call him today because he's got to answer my phone. And I can be like, hey, scumbag. I'm just not wanting to use his name. Hey, scumbag. You remember that time that I XYZ P D Q? Yeah, cool. Do this for me. Click. Because I don't want to be that person. There wasn't there's nothing in me that says, I need you to know me. Never has.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:58.772)
Sure, sure, sure.

Dinner With Phil Ramone and Paul Simon

Alex Fredericks (01:25:19.299)
It's why I was a great tour manager or a great production guy or a great producer or engineer or an admin guy. I once had the absolute blessing of running a label group with Phil Ramone. Phil Ramone was 16 time Grammy winner. Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel. That allowed me to have dinner one night with him, Burt Bacharach, and Paul Simon. Are you kidding me? I'm in, bro. I'll do whatever you want. Because I will actually be the dude just standing in the corner with the clipboard.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:43.560)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:25:48.110)
I don't care if anybody talks to me. I don't care if you know who I am. I don't need free tickets to the Knicks. We're good. However, when the other side of it came around and they were like, Well, now, Alex, we need you to go sign this kid for perpetuity. You're like, I can't do that. So you just learn who you are. It's like I couldn't marry somebody. She was coming into a fortune, not some money, fortune. This was nineteen ninety nine, and it's still a fortune today.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:05.022)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:26:18.021)
Fortune. And I went, I I I can't be that person. So at some point you just get real with yourself because that's actually how you make money. I make money because I know who I am. I make money because there are things that are not for me. I've said no to a bunch of people. I say it very politely. No, I don't think that's for me. You know what that gives me? Credibility. As opposed to the definite maybe or the yes but can't.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:18.034)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:42.868)
Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:26:48.685)
If I said yes and I then delivered you poop on a platter, who you gonna tell about it, nobody? But if I say no, respectfully, of course, you know, Kevin, I just don't think that's for me. But you should call my buddy Bill. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill would be I've been doing this for 30 years. I know a lot of people. So call Bill, call Saeed, call Kathy, call tell them that I sent you and that I think that you guys would do I've had huge.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:53.724)
Nobody, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:27:15.885)
Successes of people calling me with no remuneration money being made, but reciprocity. Like, Alex, you connected me with Skip 10 years ago. We're now a Fortune 50 company. How can I help you? actually, I'm perfectly aware of that. Tell Skip, I say hello. I hope the wife and kids are fine. Could you? Yeah, of course I'll do that for you. Okay, cool. That's currency, also, right? Like that's a

Kevin Mooney (01:27:19.987)
Yeah.

Yeah yeah. It comes from that.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:37.257)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:42.750)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:27:46.340)
A social currency or a social equity or and you build those things because I know who I'm not. Like I I I'm really not that guy. So like in jiu-jitsu, I'm not your leglock guy. Let me bring over my buddy Danny. He's a goddamn wizard. I'm not that guy. You want to learn how to do a straight arm bar? I'm your guy. You're it y you know what I mean? Like that's and don't get me wrong, I can do leglocks because I roll with Danny all the time.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:05.394)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:16.136)
Sure. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:28:16.251)
Do you know what I mean? But like it's not my I don't care. Like, I'm not really like, the K guard to the backside fit like it's just not my thing. I can do them because I'm a black belt. I can do them. But let me show you how to go from the Kamura tea bag to the straight arm bar. That's my jam. really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same thing in life. Same thing in business, same thing in personality, same so like, no to the head of this conversation.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:25.555)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:28:44.675)
Is so powerful because it it allows you the freedom to say yes. When I was in my twenties, I used to say yes, now what's the question? Because I meant it. Cause I needed to make the mistakes. You needed to fall down. You needed to find yourself over your head. You needed to. And then slowly it became, you know, that's one way to look at it. Have you thought about it this way? And then it became, you know, I don't really think that I should be the guy to, and now it's full on. That's not for me.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:53.054)
Sure, sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:29:13.541)
But let me help you get to where you're going. Cause I I don't want to leave you in the desert. I'll point you to the oasis. And when you get there, say Alex sent you. So if I ever find myself there, I can be like, hey guys, I'm like, Alex, right? Yeah. And that's, you know, I I I just think that one of the things that people are s rushing for right now is is like, how do I get to the thing that I haven't built the version of yet? It's why I despise.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:13.810)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:22.643)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:26.088)
Remember me? Hey.

Fake It to Make It

Alex Fredericks (01:29:42.618)
I will say this to anybody that wants to hear me. I despise the expression fake it to make it. That is presupposing that when you do make it, you're a fraud. If you faked it the whole way, you are fraudulent. On the other side of it, if you simply said if you can see it, you can be it, that means.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:58.292)
Mm.

Alex Fredericks (01:30:05.881)
That as you go, you're gonna learn and you're gonna pivot and you're gonna find the information. You're gonna seek out the mentor and you're gonna try things on that didn't fit because you can see it. I can see it. It's right there. I just have to make it real. And to get that, I gotta do this step and get to that thing. And I gotta really meet Kev. How do I get to Kev? Ooh, Kev's last five guests. I know her. let me get to her. And then, right? Like I got to you by doing homework.

Kevin Mooney (01:30:23.795)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:30:31.166)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:30:32.291)
You're on a tip sheet. I get the tip sheet. I do the homework on the tip sheet. I get a lot of them. Is this right for me? I don't know. Let me go look. Let me ooh, I watch that podcast. I like that. Where can I find his email? his email is listed. How do I get? Hello, my name is. Here we are. Right? Like that. That is so important. As opposed to like one of my one of my friends' girlfriends, and she made me laugh. And I don't she was a sweetheart. She didn't mean it. She literally said to me, I want to be.

I wanna be Instagram famous. And I said to her, Cool, for what? She had no answer.

Alex Fredericks (01:31:07.195)
She had no answer. And I was just trying to promote the conversation. I wasn't even trying to be difficult. I went, that's so cool. For what? Like food reviews, baking, knittering, yarning, like Doesn't matter.

Kevin Mooney (01:31:19.374)
Right. 'Cause there's a million things to be known for.

Alex Fredericks (01:31:23.515)
I wanna make leaf sculptures. Wow, how cool. I could totally see a million people watching leaf sculptures a day. It's the fall, right? Like, didn't have that answer. Had the foregone conclusion without how do I become the? Well, see it in your mind, little mind's eye trick. Close your eyes. See it. Open your eyes. What's the first step? How do you get there?

Kevin Mooney (01:31:49.695)
So good. It's so good. Hold on one second. I'm gonna shut these blinds. They're blasting me in the face, but I'm gonna come back and I wanna I wanna talk about the way that you're talking about currency, which should launch us right into ToneWell, because I want to get into promoting that. But the way you're talking about currency is really cool to me and how you're pairing reciprocity with

Alex Fredericks (01:32:17.083)
Remun remuneration.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:19.144)
That's the word. See I couldn't say it. But hold on just one second.

Alex Fredericks (01:32:22.107)
Yeah, of course.

Money Versus Currency

Kevin Mooney (01:31:34.934)
All right. It should be a little bit better. yeah, so I'd love I love the way that you're talking about currency. And I've always had a problem.

Not with currency, but I've had a problem with money. And the line that I've been saying for the last, I don't know, five years is that I don't care about money. And the reality is I don't I don't care about money. I just know that money is a a necessary evil in in our world today. It's what helps us at least, you know, buy the food to keep going. It it helps us move from one place to the other so that we can do the work that

Alex Fredericks (01:31:57.077)
They were different.

Alex Fredericks (01:32:05.579)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:22.692)
feeds the in the rest of the system, but your version of currency and it is the current is is really fascinating to me.

How do I want to segway this?

Alex Fredericks (01:32:35.263)
You can't you can't power anything without it.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:38.506)
Yeah. You can't you cannot power anything without it. The system fails without it.

Alex Fredericks (01:32:44.103)
Any system, any breaker, any system needs a current running through it. It's just the way it goes. So

Kevin Mooney (01:32:48.568)
Right. Yeah. I think it's super fascinating the way that you're thinking about it and the way you're talking about it. That was the one thing that I was picking up out of that.

Alex Fredericks (01:32:56.428)
So here's the thing. So I I too, for a very long period of time, used to say, I don't care about or I don't like or I don't need or money. Now, not to be an idolater because I'm not, but money is a physical construct and that when you bash it, it knows. So

Putting things in their right place matters. So there's a difference between I really fucking hate Kev. He's a douche and I don't need him around me out loud. Verse You know, Kevin's okay. I I I I I'll I'll I'll deal with him when I need to.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:45.924)
Hm.

Alex Fredericks (01:33:48.459)
They're different. And the reason for that is because money is the physical manifestation of the transient property of currency. One of the problems that we exist in our world is that we have hoarding of capital. Capital is not actually money either. You could never convince me that Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. I'll sit here for five days and let you do that.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:15.236)
Hmm.

Alex Fredericks (01:34:17.823)
But since he was funded from Sequoia Capital since he was nineteen, and I'm confident that he too, like you and I, could not go up to his bank and get more than X amount of dollars out at any given moment, he ain't fucking got it. What he has is more currency than anybody. He is current. He is of the time. He's the modern Edison current. He is has currency. He has the now, the now.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:29.487)
Sure, sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:41.645)
Mm.

Alex Fredericks (01:34:47.644)
The now. So he is propagated to a level of volume that you think he has a lot of money. He doesn't have a lot of money. He has a lot of capital. Capital is your ability to move things from here to there. The capital of the United States was Pennsylvania. The capital of the United States is now Washington, D.C. It was moved because the vacuum of power was moved. The

Currency of power was moved. Okay? Many reasons. One to put it into District of Columbia so that the United States of America Corporation could be formed. We'll leave that over there. However, what's really important when it comes to money, because I don't chase her.

It's not worth it. Don't ever chase the hottest girl in the room. Just have a conversation with the average human being and make them laugh. The hottest girl will look. She, too, needs to be heralded. Money is a physical property. It needs to be held and heralded and enjoyed and laughed and shared. And that's the problem is that we don't have enough current in our currency. There's not enough going around. Well, we all know there's plenty enough to go around. There's not enough.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:44.293)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Raising Money From Gatekeepers

Kevin Mooney (01:36:04.205)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:36:04.905)
Going around because the capital has been frozen. And I can say this as somebody that's an entrepreneur in a startup trying to raise capital. I have to deal with people that's entire job is gatekeeping capital. So I can't get the currency that I need to build my business because they think that the money that they are sitting on gives them fucking value. And it doesn't. It makes them useless gobstoppers.

They're just things to break your jaw if you chew hard enough. As opposed to the capital markets, the way capital should move, the way currency should move. Back to my rate of exchange conversation from much earlier. If you knew what your market value was and what the equity that you brought to something, ergo, you would know what your asset is to people. You would then know why somebody would want to invest, mean spend with you.

And what dividend they get, probably an emotional reaction that makes me feel greater. my God, I smell better. Right? And in that, you should have a transactional relationship. It's moving, it's moving, it's moving, it's moving. So money, I believe this purposely, has been dictated to us, whilst we all know it's physically disappearing. There's no more penny. If there's no more penny, then there's no more individual.

What I mean by that is if you've removed the ability to count by one.

You're starting at a nickel. That's five. That's we. That's not I. That's we. It's not I. Therefore, the individual has been grouped. Therefore, money, which is the physical manifestation, is not the problem. The problem is the current by which it's moving. And since we've moved into accredited transactional place.

Kevin Mooney (01:37:39.492)
Well

Alex Fredericks (01:38:02.303)
That can be tracked. What's your input? That's your output. What did you do? That's at my discretion if I like it or not. That is actually electrical flow. That is literally there's a gate or a limiter or a compressor that's stopping you. You have a limited amount of capital that has been given to you. You are being compressed by the system. You are unbanked. How can I be unbanked?

Kevin Mooney (01:38:27.043)
Mm.

Alex Fredericks (01:38:30.058)
So I just say that to say in the way that we think about and speak about things, particularly the flow of commerce, the the remuneration. That's why I use the word remuneration, because you could remunerate me in a bunch of ways. You can remunerate me with capital. You can remunerate me with food. It's called barter. You could remunerate me with credit so that the next person calls and I charge them. You could. There are a lot of other ways.

Kevin Mooney (01:38:55.962)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:38:57.226)
Just the dollar bill that we used to fold up and put in our pocket. But we've been stuck thinking of it that way. That's why I speak about currency, because electricity is the thing that powers the world. The current in a circuit is the thing that lets the switching happen. And that's where most people want to be. Like you want currency in the market. It's why we are now in influencers. So I started in fame.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:09.348)
Yeah.

From Fame to Celebrity to Influencers

Alex Fredericks (01:39:25.215)
Fame was Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, they were famous for. We then moved into celebrities. What I grew up in with celebrities. You celebrated somebody on the big screen, on the TV, on the radio. You celebrated them. Okay? And we've now moved into influencers. The micro and the macro. That literally means by definition what it is. How does it influence your decision? So influence is the new currency. Used to be celebrity. I've done 60 celebrity engagements fragrance.

Skincare, sub vitamins, supplements. They were DNA of somebody's celebrity. You would celebrate Jennifer Lopez, so then she should have a fragrance line. Cool. It's now what is her influence and what kind of currency is in that? Right? That's why you're looking at impact and velocity. When you put up this post, how many people did it reach and how fast? Impact and velocity. In that is what your influence point is. Therefore, I can deem how much.

Currency you are worth. So if I went to like Tribe or one of those UGC platforms and I put out a SKU of what am I looking for? Impact, velocity, reach, what am I willing to pay? That's the currency based upon scale. That's why I frame it that way because money money is the golden handcuff, and we all recognize that. I got the job at Smith Barney.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:41.763)
Hmm.

Alex Fredericks (01:40:51.867)
And now I'm 20 years in. I have the 401k that I can't walk away from because I'm not allowed to actually touch it. They have to manage it for me. And if I do, I'll get hugely taxed on it. One. Two, I'm now scared to move my position because I've been doing this for 20 years. I can't go anywhere else. Two, you have no currency. You have money. And that's where all of us look at and go, I don't want to be that guy because he's got a lot of money and he's a scumbag or an idiot or fat or whatever.

However, what we should be talking about is the currency. What value to the equation are you adding to so that it revs? And that's that's why I speak about it that way, just because I understand that, like I don't remember when it was a couple years ago, they told me I could start taking pictures of my check. Right? So if I could take a picture of my check and TD count says it's cool, then there's no dollar.

Kevin Mooney (01:41:43.961)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:41:49.859)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:41:50.417)
There's no there's no dollar. There's no actual money. Money is d like I don't did the Federal Reserve actually print those trillion dollars or did they just put it on their balance sheet?

Kevin Mooney (01:42:00.833)
Right. Right. You're right. gosh, this is this is I I've been kind of sitting here in outer space as you're talking, because I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking about each individual word and how you're talking about it. And it's very fascinating. I don't know exactly how to articulate

Alex Fredericks (01:42:05.267)
Yeah. So that's that's why I speak about it that way.

Kevin Mooney (01:42:29.721)
the question or questions that I have. But going from

You know, Einstein to celebrities to influencers. I forgot what you called that bucket. fame. You were famous. Yeah, you were famous, and then we celebrate them and now they have influence. are we just moving the target by changing the name? And it's really just the same exact.

Alex Fredericks (01:42:42.379)
Well, first was fame. You were famous for being Lou Gehrig, famous.

Alex Fredericks (01:42:49.994)
Right. So

Alex Fredericks (01:43:00.393)
N well, it comes down to the system. It comes back. It it Fatty Arbuckle was the biggest guy on radio. I don't know if he was radio or if he was early television, but it doesn't matter. You understand what I'm saying, right? Orson Wells, the war of the world, was radio. He was the most famous guy on radio because that was the message and that was the median. And then when we move to the next version of light being projected onto things, whether television or the big screen.

Kevin Mooney (01:43:10.198)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:43:27.945)
You needed celebrity. You need to celebrate people. There are people, very few people that can name you five playwrights, three artists, two tap dancers, a scientist, and a you used to be able to do that because those people were famous. They were Marie Carey was famous for. Einstein was famous for. Dutch Schultz was famous. A famous gangster. He was famous. But those messages were based in the medium. They were telegraph or telephone or

Kevin Mooney (01:43:29.721)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:43:56.409)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (01:43:57.767)
Or radio or newspaper. So you needed to recognize the name. They had to be famous for so I could talk about science, right? But then we moved into the projectile world, the projection world, the TV and radio. And to keep your attention for the system, we had to make people that were celebrated by you. We're gonna celebrate. Like I love Tom Cruise, terrible fucking actor.

Why have I seen every Mission Impossible? Because I celebrated him. I used to watch the TV show as a kid. Hey, yeah, great new next mission impossible. There's value of zero in that. Okay. But we've now moved into the complete ego world. That's what these are. That's what these machines are. So, in that I need an influencer. Because you're not celebrating them any longer. Because honestly, if I'm ripping them down, how am I celebrating them? I'm not, but they're influencing me.

Kevin Mooney (01:44:54.543)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (01:44:56.925)
It it is the cleanest definition because we call them celebrity as opposed to celebration people. Right? Like it's really what celebrity is, people that you celebrate. But influencers are exactly that. And I I hold no grudge against my fellow human being, but how much fun have people made about their Kardashians are nothing but influencers. They're only famous for. And you're like, but they're on a 20-year run. What are you talking about? They're as influential as

Kevin Mooney (01:45:22.797)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:45:27.709)
I don't know, like whatever, you know. Name me somebody from a different place. You know what I mean? Like they are of the zeitgeist because the the the the message and the median for them, social media, reality TV, the digital ecosphere. Okay. So in that it's just a c it's all just control systems. It's just it's literally control grids. That's that's

Kevin Mooney (01:45:33.850)
Right, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:45:56.667)
all it is because we're as human beings have a need for larger c conductivity outside of our own little tiny pools. You would be totally okay if

You just dealt with your neighbors for the rest of your life and the people in and around you, and you guys got together. The Dunbar effect, it's 150 relationships, it's all you can actually manage anyway. It's why we build things up and rip them down and build things up and rip them down and build things up and rip them down. I managed this kid a bajillion years ago called the Mighty Duck. He was on Vine. He had a baj a billion loops or some crazy thing on Vine. We then moved him from Vine to Facebook and Facebook. And by the time that

His Facebook era was over, twenty seventeen. I couldn't keep pivoting him because it moved on. There was a new set of influencers. And if I were to say the Mighty Duck and I were to say Vine to you, somebody that's young enough would go, huh? And then other people go, yeah, I remember Vine. It was seven second loop or something. But it's moved on. And now there's a new version of him, if not a thousand times over. Right? So it's just the it's just the system by which we live in, which is why I go to currency, because currency is really important. It it

Kevin Mooney (01:46:45.625)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:46:56.112)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:47:08.189)
It truly is. Like the the energy in the system.

Kevin Mooney (01:47:09.561)
So it so staying on currency just a little bit more for my brain because I'm I'm listening, I'm hearing, I'm learning, it's got my brain spinning. but if maybe if we were to sum it up, you can tell me if I'm wrong. But the way to earn currency is through authority.

And the way that you gain authority is maybe through some of these other outlets like you're talking about, because

Because you can become famous or a celebrity or an influencer. Is that a an appropriate way of looking at all of this? I'm pulling the authority back from the beginning of the conversation. There was Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:47:55.787)
Well, I think I think it depends upon who you are. So I think that if you had focus and authority, you could make a really good living. And then there's scale. Scale is the equalizer. Like what is a good living to you versus a good living to somebody else? I look at like all these old homes available, and if I had the inclination and two hundred thousand dollars I could go buy a thirty acre farm in Virginia right now, and you could rehab the thing, then what's the scale of that? And once it's done verse

Kevin Mooney (01:48:06.937)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:17.882)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:48:23.733)
Where I live right here, right now, like the same amount of acreage over there would be like three million dollars. So there's scale. Yeah, there there's that. So what's a good living to you? Is a good living a hundred grand, fifty grand, or a million dollars? That's that's your question. So focus to me, focus and authority are it's why of all the things that I s that I could do for people, I always just bring it to two buckets because those two buckets are pretty broad buckets. And then the other person fills it in.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:29.455)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:37.476)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:48.867)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:48:50.737)
I I work with I help you maximize the return of your asset and build your authority in the space. And then they'll say, Well, what's what do you mean by authority? And I could say, Well, where are you speaking? What lectures are you doing? Do you have a Substack? Are you on Reddit? Whatever their variance are is. You know, and then there's the third person version, meaning, like, if you're a company, how do you answer the question to a blog? Not what I publish. Alex's company is the best, the best, the best, versus.

Hey, I want to know something about XYZ. that's Alex's company. That's how you show up. You're an authority in that space, right? So those things allow for your ability to monetize. And then once you can monetize something, can you scale it? And if you can scale it, can you defend its position? If you can do those two things, then yeah, you're set for a good enough run to at least manage the

Kevin Mooney (01:49:24.013)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:49:40.751)
You're set for a good run at least.

Four Clients at $2,500 a Month

Alex Fredericks (01:49:46.963)
What's next? What how do I add to that? So I I like I said I start with a very basic understanding with my clients. And then I write a scope of work. Once I have that understanding, I don't write a scope of work first because what if I had make an assumption that I didn't need to make? Or a value proposition that they weren't gonna pay for? So you just start first and you say, okay, I wanna make whatever, I wanna make 10,000 a month. Fine, cool.

I my I have a program that's 2500 a month. Okay, then I need four of those. Okay. But if I do it properly and I can get four of them, and I can get four of them end over, end over, end over, end over, end over, end over, end. I've now done twenty of those. And if I have twenty of those, then I'm definitely an authority at that thing that I focused on. So now I can scale that and make that, we'll call it in today's world, I make it an automated, that's an

Kevin Mooney (01:50:35.845)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:50:44.007)
automated program and now for you to deal with Alex

Here's my program. You can buy it for 2,500 bucks. I've done it 20 times with success. Here are my case studies and and and. But for you to get to me, my time is now worth X, $2,500 an hour. Right? And if I can do those two things, there's probably a program that slots between those two. Right? And now I can scale. And then I can say to myself, well, I only want to work 30 hours a week.

Kevin Mooney (01:50:57.445)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:51:02.298)
Right. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:51:19.807)
Five hours a week, an hour a day. And that's how you put a success ratio together. The other side of it though is like how much can I eat? And that's those are it's any platform. I don't care what it is. It doesn't matter. It could be social or or advertising. It doesn't matter. How much do I want to engage in the push out and then I have to get an ROI and I have to have a burn rate? And now it's a little more complicated, right? It's a little more.

Kevin Mooney (01:51:31.418)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:51:48.304)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (01:51:50.815)
you know, in that space. So like

Kevin Mooney (01:51:52.590)
Yeah. I've played in that. I've played in that as I as I closed down my agency and started up my freelance venture, right? It was very much in this this direction, right? I didn't want 50 clients. I wanted two to four clients paying me X amount a month that because I don't I don't need a million dollars. I don't need twenty million. I don't need a hundred million. I just I do this because I love it.

And I know about it and I can help other people understand it, deploy it, you know, have results from it, whatever. But I don't need a ton of money. So I only need four. Where it starts to get weird is if all four leave at once and your runway starts to kind of be chipped away at and and run out or something like that. And then it's about who comes in the top of the funnel next, right? And getting that stuff and

Alex Fredericks (01:52:32.789)
Right. Exactly right.

Alex Fredericks (01:52:41.290)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:52:46.795)
That's the hard that's the hardest part of entrepreneurialism is as a hunter, as a hunter, because that's what we're we're not farmers. Farmers is having a business that runs every day, everybody walks in the door. Yes, you might have an off season. Yes, force majeure, it hailed in August. But it's a you could do the rise over run equation of how many crops, how many things I built. Fine. Problem with being a hunter is that you're always tracking, then you're trying to kill. You have to skin it and you have to eat.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:50.765)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:53:02.885)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (01:53:14.613)
problem is when I'm eating I'm not tracking anything and when I'm tracking anything I'm not killing anything and when I'm hunting something I haven't eaten something it's very it's very difficult but it's actually why systems were invented. It's back to the thing why I like working with authors. Right? So like you have an intellectual property. You you you've developed something now how do you get engagement points for people? Like there's a reason there are belt systems in jiu-jitsu. Really, truly

Kevin Mooney (01:53:21.626)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:53:29.637)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:53:44.263)
It's so that you know where you are and what you need to do next. One has nothing to do with the other. I could be a black belt forever and some division one nineteen year old blue belt walks in. Guy's gonna tap me. It's not like the end of the world. But I know where I am in my scale of things. So being an entrepreneur is really difficult that way. That's why developing systems matter. Like, I love being a best spoke tailor. I love it. I love it. But you know what? I might have a

Kevin Mooney (01:53:57.519)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:01.861)
Yeah.

Pocket Squares Before the Bespoke Suit

Alex Fredericks (01:54:14.165)
Like a set of pocket squares that I've come up with just so they can sell every day. Every day somebody's buying my pocket squares, my lights stayed on, pocket squares, I ate some food, pocket squares, because I really want to make that Teflon best spoke three piece suit, and I gotta find the guy that likes my patterns. Right? So th there is that balance of both.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:22.980)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:35.312)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:54:40.583)
And it's hard for most people to understand to replicate that system, but it's a system. It's like, you know, and how do you actually graduate somebody from the pocket square to getting the best spoke suit?

Kevin Mooney (01:54:42.157)
So hard.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:48.218)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:55.225)
Right. And it's also funny how, at least for me, I've always started at the bespoke, you know, full suit. That's where I've always wanted to be and play in, right? And the reality is that having the everyday pocket square is probably the easy first step. It's the less risky first step. And then that can get to that bespoke suit.

Alex Fredericks (01:55:16.213)
Well here's the funny here's the here's the funny thing in that here's the funny thing like that. So the person there are more people that buy off the rack than buy custom couture, right? So everybody knows that you go to Nordstrom's or JC Penny's or whatever, wherever the hell you go shopping, fine. And if one day you showed up with one little pocket square, that's what people would notice. Same thing in business. Everybody's running their you were you everybody's using if I see one more

Kevin Mooney (01:55:39.482)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:55:44.745)
Clawed or manis designed website. It has and I don't care about the content. I can just peg it the second you see it, right? Like I just know I know what their wireframes look like. And that's so like okay, that's fine because you're just starting your business. Totally cool. But if I go onto something and I see one custom thing, I'm like, that's a growth possibility. So it is how you also track something. So if like

Kevin Mooney (01:55:53.624)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:10.041)
Right, right.

Alex Fredericks (01:56:13.213)
A friend of mine, we all go out to a bachelor party and everybody walks in from their suits that they bought at fucking today's man, whatever. You know it. But if that one dude walks in in his today's man suit but has a custom pocket swear, you're gonna ask about the pocket square. And that's how the next client comes in the door to get their own pocket square. And if you're good at upselling, now they're you know what, the whole suit isn't for you. But I definitely, you know what, I got a pair of chinos that I think would look great on you. Or

Kevin Mooney (01:56:21.509)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:26.223)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:31.141)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:56:41.385)
You you do know that you could wear jeans, but this blazer takes it that right? And that's that's where that comes because the pocket squares always hitting. It's always hitting. Everybody loves my pocket squares. My paisleys beat everybody's paisleys, right? Like whatever. And but that one thing is the other side of it, is that the person that buys off the rack with a little bit of flair, right? So I take the opposite approach in my life.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:50.074)
Yeah, I love it.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:57.371)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (01:57:08.221)
It was something I heard Steve Bannon say in an interview many years ago. They're like, why do you dress like a slob? And his answer was so succinct. His answer was because my clients are billionaires. And if I walked into the room wearing a $100,000 watch or a $5,000 cashmere sweater or whatever, that's what they'd want to talk about. But I walk in the room dressed like this, and all they want to know is what I can do for them.

Kevin Mooney (01:57:29.168)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (01:57:36.686)
It's really interesting.

Alex Fredericks (01:57:38.143)
Right? So the op it goes both ways. Like, how do you not out peacock a peacock? Super important thing to do. And how do you give somebody a little bit of like here's a little taste of color and they go out and they're my god, dude, that's the dude, I can't believe you went bold with that pocket square. Yeah, man. Where'd you get that? I got this guy, Alex. Sh don't plead like let's not and then everybody's at Alex, right? Same thing.

Kevin Mooney (01:57:44.431)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:58:00.613)
Sure.

How ToneWell Got Started

Kevin Mooney (01:58:04.314)
Yeah, it's super interesting. we could we could stick on this for a long time. I've got a whole bunch of like references in my head to what we're talking about, but I wanna know you know, how ToneWell got started and where does it come from in this this analogy of the the pocket square. How did we land on on ToneWell?

Alex Fredericks (01:58:25.823)
So, you know, it's so ToneWell. I'll just give the wind up first, I guess. So ToneWell ToneWell is ToneWell is my company. we founded it three years ago. We went live in January of this year. We use voice as an analytic. We take a 30-second sound clip, run it through a proprietary algorithm, extrapolate about a thousand biomarkers, and delivered prioritized wellness reports to our clients in under five.

Kevin Mooney (01:58:31.958)
Yeah. Give it a shout.

Alex Fredericks (01:58:52.694)
the reason that I think that that's important is because I think the world's drowning in data. And I think people come up short on like the most fundamental question, which is why don't I feel well? And feeling well is not diagnostic. Diagnostic is what's wrong with you. We are an analytic. We tell you what's going on with you, what's happening in your bioterrain, the different systems, the different opportunities, your vitamins, your minerals, your hormones, your supplements, all of those things. So that's what we do. I got here by natural progression.

I started in the music business. I started as an engineer and producer because I wanted to be a manager. And I figured, hey, I should probably learn how to make records so that I can find bands and make the demos and go shop them, whatsoever. And when I started making records in like the early 90s, we would edit our mixes, we would edit our tapes using a razor blade. Two inch tape. Cut it with a razor blade. You better be right. Seam it back together, keep moving. And when you went to the mixing desk and you would mix

the record. On the console would be an oscilloscope. And an oscilloscope is like a circle diode with an XY and then an infinity symbol going through it. And when the infinity symbol was all fuzzy, you would say, I think something is out of phase. And you would start at the bottom of your frequency stack, make your way all the way to the top of the frequency stack and figure out what was fighting with itself. You know, like the hi hat and the guitar or the guy's vocal and the bass and

They just weren't smooth and jiving, they weren't in the pocket, they were fighting against each other. So you use gates and limiters and compressors and you get it clean. Why? So that there was scale to that. How does scale work there? Well, in your little tiny car speaker, it sounds great. But when you go into the stadium and there's a speaker twice the size of a school bus, it might rip somebody's head off if the frequency isn't good. Signal to noise ratio is what that's called. Fast forward a million years.

Kevin Mooney (02:00:37.766)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:00:44.679)
And I have a client that's in the PEMF space. It's actually this client right here, this yellow halo sitting behind me. And P and they use a Tesla coil and amplification to to deliver frequency, pulse a pulse magnetic electric frequency, as a modality. It happen they happen to be FDA approved for autoimmune disease like kidney and Lyme disease. I'm currently using it for my turf toe and my knee and my hip. I have pain.

And what it does is it modulates so it changes the shape of the sine wave and then bundles specifically specific frequencies on it for modality delivery. There's a difference between it's a new moon and I have my period and I'm in a terrible mood, or I've torn my meniscus, or I have Crohn's disease. All different things, all opportunities that frequency can help you with. So in having a conversation with them about well, probably about four or three or four years ago.

I said, well, this is amazing. I understand intrinsically what you're doing. I'm helping you get to a bigger audience. I wasn't on the FDA side. I was on the consumer side. They have what they call journeys. They have 400 different ones from everything from environmental toxins and flu, literally to inflammation or headaches and everything in between. And I said, so could we build an analytic? And they asked me what I meant. And I said, Well, if I were to give you frequency, could you tell me what?

Is bundled onto it. They said yes. There is about a hundred years of research behind it, starting with Tesla and Wilhelm Reich and Royal Reif and and. And then there's a ton of in of industrial applications, like how do you think a CT scan or a CAT scan or a QEG works? It's using bundled frequencies to a specific focused purpose. And if you're interested, go read these papers. I went and read these papers.

I called up a dear friend of mine who's a co my co-founder, but a dear friend at the time. His name is Dr. Bear Walker. He's a double PhD in molecular biology and chemistry and a true pioneer in bio tracking machines, using bioresonant frequency to read your systems. I said, hey Bear, I found this company, XYZ, PDQ. Here's the papers, these are the things. What do you think about it? Well, Alex, I know it to be true, but let me go read their papers. So on and so forth.

How ToneWell Works

Alex Fredericks (02:03:05.655)
And in that we came up with ToneWell. so what we do is we use a static database. So a static database is important because I'll tell you in a second. And in that static database, we have 160,000 and growing points of information. So mapped against this equals that, this equals that, this equals that. Why static matters is because to the conversation we were just saying, it's true. I can scale it, I can defend it, and I can audit it.

Audit isn't a word I used before, but scale. I can do one person at a time, I can do a hundred thousand people at a time, no worries. Defend one equals one all of the time. Where did I come up with one? This paper, that peer review, this thing, this clinical, that trial. I can defend why one equals one and audit. Important for this. Audit.

Kevin Mooney (02:03:53.808)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:03:58.951)
If you're like, hey, I put in my thing and it came out like that, how do you prove that to be true? Well, I can go back into the system, use the database and your file and audit it and say, here's the output. AI floats, it moves, it but a static database is static and it's a database. It's locked. So I automate against it. We get a JSON script out of it. In there, we process our templates. So

I was entrepreneurial very early in life in the music business. It didn't work out. Nine eleven really almost bankrupted me, put me on a couch, sleeping on a friend on my girlfriend at the time's mother's couch. Like really n wiped me out. So I haven't been entrepreneurial since. I wasn't in the mood. Good enough. Let me you know, let me go be a mercenary for other people. But when I found this, I just had that chocolate and peanut butter moment.

Kevin Mooney (02:04:49.479)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:04:53.833)
I could put these two things together and come out with something better. Here's Rhesus, right? And I just had a light bulb going off. Basically, because like if you don't build something, then you're working for somebody else rest of time, rest of life, right? And I th and I understand this implicitly, and I wanted to go build something because I think in a world that's hot, flat, and crowded, which is what wellness is, that that that actually is the opportunity.

Kevin Mooney (02:05:06.513)
Sure. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:05:21.737)
So imagine if like you're in a football stadium, you're in University of Michigan football stadium, there's 115,000 people and the and it's packed and everybody's on the field. If I'm on the field and playing my game and I just gotta make one good move, the entire audience is the crowd is gonna go crazy. And that's what hot, flat, and and crowded is. You just have to make a move.

Kevin Mooney (02:05:39.772)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:05:45.749)
You don't have to be the biggest and the baddest on day one. You have to make a move down the field and have people pay attention. They start talking, and then all of a sudden you get the ball more and and and now you're the captain of the team. Right? And it's just what I saw as an opportunity. And what I really like about it, and I said it earlier, is that our goal is to help people build better relationships with themselves. I I I don't think that people have an idea of why.

Kevin Mooney (02:05:56.421)
Yeah.

Trackers Tell You What, Not Why

Alex Fredericks (02:06:13.553)
XYZ is happening to them. So like you have an aura ring or a Garmin or a Whoop or an 8 sleep, God bless you, or a Fitbit or an app, whatever. I don't care. And you see that you have a completely objective score in your sleep. Why? You don't know. You know that you're tracking your sleep. I track my sleep. Okay, so why is your sleep off? I don't know, but it tells me it is. Okay. Well, what if it's something that's totally

Kevin Mooney (02:06:13.937)
No.

Kevin Mooney (02:06:34.076)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:06:38.790)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:06:43.262)
In your power to correct. Your empathetic nervous system doesn't have enough magnesium glycinate to relax at night. Your melatonin is low. Your vitamin B is low. Your boron is off. Your manganese is shot. Your digestive enzymes are wrong. A myriad of things are in your chemistry experiment. And as I said earlier, and your Rube Goldberg machine. For you to be the the

The meat sack machine that we are moving around, a lot of systems are operating. There's a lot of synapses firing at the same time. Just to twitch my fingers right now, I got a million different calculations happening. And in that, there's a the chemistry of it, like how your cells aspirate, what vitamins are working, what minerals, you know, the metal, the minerals that make the electrical charge, all of these things. And if you could get some insights into why.

Why that is, you might change how you feel. One of our, because we're raising capital and I have to have statistics in my head. One of my favorite statistics is Google publishes a number that 540 million unique queries are done a month in the United States alone into general wellness. That is, I don't feel well. That is not I have Lyme's disease and I'm taking medicine X and it's giving me purple P. That's I don't feel well. Right? And that so to me, that's why I ToneWell.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:55.492)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:08:06.955)
It's like I just see an opportunity in the market to help make a change, make a difference, not be mediocre in my life, deliver something to somebody that I t in I I totally understand it. I could speak with frequency on any level. I could talk on the the metaphysical, like in the beginning there was the word and the word was God. That means that the universe was spoken into creation.

Kevin Mooney (02:08:19.332)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:08:30.291)
All the way down to the absolute nano side of science where I could explain to you the oscillation of and why that affects you. So that's what we're doing. That's why I'm here and what I'm what what I'm about.

Kevin Takes the Test

Kevin Mooney (02:08:43.374)
think it is I think it is it's so cool. I had the opportunity of of taking the test. I took it twice. we did it two different ways and I I I kind of don't even know where to begin because it's so fascinating. How could you take a 30 second clip and like it's not just about the clip

It's about even like the delivery mechanism of the clip, right? So I do it over my phone. Like, how are you picking up all those different frequencies just in that? Is my phone tuned differently than the next person's phone or something to that effect? Right. Just having a podcast, I could go over here to my little roadcaster and I could twist some knobs and I can lower the volume. I could make it deeper. I can add some punch and sparkle and all this stuff to it. And I'm not saying that these aren't things you've thought about.

To me, it's just fascinating that you could take a clip and as quickly as you can come out with the results that that you get. For instance, this I'm I'm looking at the report right now. you know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get too far into to my results necessarily, but I can say that it says, hey, immunity needs a little bit of support, hormones need a little bit of support.

Those are the two things that I have been working on right now. And I've asked, I've asked my whoop, you know, what's going on with me, and it can't tell me shit. I've asked my doctor, and it's like, and the doctor is like, Well, your blood says this, right? And you're like, Okay, well, that kind of supports what I think the data is telling me on whoop, but I don't know what any of it means. So you throw a couple of things at it, right? You throw this vitamin, this, this, this,

this drug at it or whatever. You go to the acupuncturist, they're like, here's some herbs, you know, herbs help move some shit around for you. And you're like, Great, I don't know what any of this is doing. And you find yourself anywhere from five hundred to a thousand dollars a month just throwing shit at the wall, hoping something sticks. If I had gotten this report, it well, a couple of years ago it would have been different because I had a massive dip in testosterone, right?

Kevin Mooney (02:11:06.191)
So this report would look different. I've put a lot of energy into it. But the point is that if I had gotten this up front, I'd be like, maybe I don't need to be focusing so much on the sleep portion of this, because this is telling me that my hormone signals are off the charts or they're they're screwed up or something. And I'm I'm paraphrasing for the sake of of my side of the argument here.

But it's just fascinating that that's something that you can pick up through frequencies. And maybe to sum all this up and ask you a question is do you think people are gonna believe it this shit? Do you think they're gonna understand this shit? Do you think that they're gonna actually to do this? Like, and I'm not just pressing on your business model. I'm I'm curious.

Why Your Voice Carries the Signal

Alex Fredericks (02:11:49.929)
So

No, that here's the thing. No no no. I I pro I Okay, we open this up about conversation. I like somebody that's a curmudgeon. I like a contrarian. Because when you prove your point, they're then your best friend. So let's just take this one by let's just take this one bite at a time. Okay. So let's understand where your voice box is. Your voice box

Kevin Mooney (02:12:13.073)
We're already friends, Alex, but yeah, keep it going.

Alex Fredericks (02:12:22.119)
Is sitting between your vagus nerve, which is your nervous system, in front of your brain stem, underneath your brain, above your heart and your lungs, and your vocal cords kind of look like a saxophone read. They're just vibrating. So they are projecting your nervous system and your physiology at all times, just by the thousand of things that need to happen for this to work. The process of the brain, the nervous system, everything, the movement of your mouth, the movement of your tongue.

The breath that you take in, the breath that you take out, what makes the the sound audible. Okay? Next.

What we're actually doing is using something called FFT to begin with. It's called fast foyer transfer. It's how we're having this conversation right now. You are not hearing my voice. My voice is being picked up by my microphone right here, split into zeros and ones, beamed through satellites, put back together by your speaker. And because of the timbre and the vibration and the breath and the patterns, you're getting a facsimile, probably pretty damn accurate.

of my voice, which means that it had to be able to take all of the electrical flow, rip it apart, put it back together at the speed of light,

And play it for you. So there's that. Next. There is how do we get here? So we get here based upon some things that people just discount in the obvious. If you've ever said to somebody, I don't have the bandwidth for that, you know that didn't really resonate with me. I didn't like that place. I didn't like the vibe. Frequency words. All of them.

Kevin Mooney (02:14:12.571)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:14:12.799)
If you ever put on a piece of music and the mood that you're dependent upon makes the hair stand up on your on your arm, that is legitimately resonant frequency. It is resonating and moving energetically the cells and making a physical reaction. Frequency. If you've are up on current affairs and know what the Havana syndrome was, frequency. If

You've ever had a CAT scanner, a CT scanner, an MRI, frequency. If you've ever had a concussion and had a QEG cat put on your head, frequency. This conversation to go philosophical either is, isn't, or always will be happening. Frequency. Why? Because we're recording this on Riverside that uses a particular bandwidth. The signal by which I'm speaking is being picked up.

And sent to you in the bandwidth. So that means that it's being amplified, right? And it means that it's coming back tuned to you. So all of these things are around us. If you've ever thought about somebody and they showed up, like we we live in this wonderful mystery that we discount because we've been told otherwise. Right? Like we all know, in particularly now with the conspiracy of the worlds and everything true.

That like Western medicine's a little screwed. You really shouldn't be taking petroleum-based pharmaceuticals. And prior to the Rockefeller Foundation, like medicine was taught totally differently. And now you're in this world of of being prescribed something. I'm prescribing this as opposed to this is for you. So there is all of those factors, right? Like it's just the it's just the way the it it goes. What you did was both of our opportunities. One

Kevin Mooney (02:15:45.008)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:15:57.083)
Mm-hmm.

What the Scan and Report Show

Alex Fredericks (02:16:08.391)
Our app is based around the easiest, most frictionless opportunity we could give you. Speak for 30 seconds, we process for 25 seconds. What am I processing? 160,000 points of information are being overlaid against what looks like a chart. And I'm looking for the outliers. So anybody watching this, not listening to this, behind me, I have a bunch of photos. If I walked in my room.

And the photos of the animals from Namibia, which is what these are, wasn't there? I can be like, hey, what happened to the animals? It's easier than taking inventory of every piece of everything on my walls. So as soon as I have outliers, I know what I'm looking for. Okay. And that's the first context: 25 seconds of processing. The email that you get from us only has three priorities in it. Because what are you going to do past that? And they are legitimately priorities.

Kevin Mooney (02:16:59.249)
Sure. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:17:01.843)
So where I notice sleep might be off, your priority might be your minerals or your hydration. It might be the things that you don't recognize, but they are prioritized because they affect sleep, stress, inflammation. Okay, so there's that. You then go into our app and you get our five to seven page report. Depends upon what we see, based upon categories that you recognize. As I just mentioned, sleep, stress, inflammation, digestion.

Pathogens, toxins, hormones, hydration, the things people ask about. Great. Those two are prioritized. This is green. Good. Leave it alone. This one's yellow. Maybe you should know about it. This one's red. Full stop. Deal with these. And then there's the last layer, what we call our intelligence concierge. This is the only thing that I've mentioned so far that is actually LLM AI for this common parlance based. Everything up to what I've said, I have no context. None.

We have no context. We haven't asked you any questions. I don't ask your history. I don't want to know about your family. This is about you. The snapshot of the now. We are in the now. What is happening now? So when you go into our app and you and you give our intelligence concierge some context.

Kevin Mooney (02:18:02.311)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:18:17.643)
It's really stressful week. My boss is on town sitting on my head. My wife's been arguing about the kids going back to school soccer. My one kid won't eat Brussels sprouts any longer. I haven't slept in a week. And last night I went out with some buddies and man, did I eat too many chilies. Context. That now understands why you're bioterraining your digestion or your cortisol or whatever. And now I can do something about the priorities of what recommendation looks like. So there's that first engagement. Second one.

You then sent us a physical file. So our physical file that we still do for our practitioners is a much deeper engagement. It's a minimum of fourteen. Sometimes I did one this morning for me, for my foot, specifically looking for where my minerals are and I have no potassium and my manganese is shot because I've been training too hard. Yada yada yada. I had a 21-page report this morning because it was super, super, super in-depth. Right? So

I just say that to be like, where is the engagement point? What are you looking to know or do about? I had very specific questions this morning about my minerals and my vitamins loads, as if I were at a practitioner. Hey doc, what's wrong? Here, Alex, let me tell you. So there's that. Here's the interesting thing and why I say it's an analytic. This is very important to me.

Kevin Mooney (02:19:22.471)
Sure.

Waiting Two Weeks for Blood Work

Alex Fredericks (02:19:32.383)
Doc, I don't feel well. Alex, come and make an appointment. Today is Tuesday. I'll see you next Thursday. Okay. Next Thursday I walk into the doc. Hey Doc, these are my symptoms and I'm telling you what's going wrong. I feel okay right now, but Alex, that sounds like a problem. Let's send you out for some blood. Okay, cool, Doc. When can I schedule that? Next Thursday. Hmm. Okay. Next Thursday, so that's two Thursdays from where I am right now. I've gone in and I've gotten my blood taken. When does that blood get back to the doctor?

When does the doctor call me and tell me what he saw in my blood? It's completely accurate. Yeah. It's completely accurate because it is chemistry, totally accurate. But what can I do about it today on Tuesday, the twenty seventh? The answer is nothing. Zero zip net nine zero. Can't do anything. So then therefore, how did I change how I feel? How do I empower myself?

How do I make different choices? How do I build different habits? How do I support the things that are going wrong? And by the way, if I wasn't having that moment at the time that I got the blood drawn two weeks from now, did it capture what I was really looking for? So I think there's room for everything, but it's based upon what it is that you want to accomplish in your life. We have a woman that's in her sixties that's like a devotee of ours because she's very affluent from

The greater New York City area, and she could go to any doctor she wanted. Wasn't the problem. The problem was is when she showed up, there was nothing going on. But at three o'clock in the morning, she was having these hormonal issues that like the house was on fire. And by the time I get to the doctor at ten A. or blood at two o'clock in the afternoon, like all things being equal, I got nothing going on. Meanwhile,

Kevin Mooney (02:21:20.005)
Yeah, I think we've all been to those those appointments where you're like, my god, yesterday I thought I was gonna die, but I feel okay now. Like what what happened? And the doctor just says, I don't know, I everything looks good on my end.

Alex Fredericks (02:21:23.122)
Everybody has.

Alex Fredericks (02:21:32.191)
Get back to me. Right. So like and and doctors want to be helpful. I don't think otherwise. But if today I'm having this episode like I am, like I actually know I have turf toe. It's not a big deal. What I wanna it hurts, but what I wanted to know is about my minerals and my hydration level, because I'll never I can put as many ice packs as I want on my foot. It will never

Start getting better unless I feed the system what it actually needs. You know, it's a machine. The machine's saying, hey, dude, I'm missing something. It's why I'm getting this flare-up right now. So to the woman with hormones or to me right now, that's a snapshot. Like literally, right now I want some answers. I want to know what choices I can make for the rest of my day. Am I taking more magnesium? I didn't know I was short in potassium. I'm always short in magnesium. I didn't know I was short in potassium. let me go get some potassium in me. And

Kevin Mooney (02:22:07.804)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:22:25.193)
Because I happen to have the throttle. I asked. I I I don't care about dosage. That's like age, weight, size, shit. But I care about there are types of magnesium, glycinate, malate, they're different. There are types of right, like w should I take zinc with no, no, because it will negate this or that. Like for example, testosterone's a really good one.

Kevin Mooney (02:22:43.407)
Mm.

Alex Fredericks (02:22:48.426)
My testosterone level's okay, but I've been taking estrogen blockers for a long period of time. And I take DEHA. DEHA is the peptide that is the precursor for the amino acid chain that is both, you know, the testosterone and the right. They they estrogen and testosterone are on the exact same chain. And if you're not supporting it, then it might start going away. So that's my point. My point is like.

Kevin Mooney (02:23:06.620)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:23:15.748)
Right. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:23:16.915)
If you can get insights into yourself, that's why. Now, how does it work? It works because the Mayo Clinic in 2012 pu sorry, 2015, published the findings from 2012 on about cardiology and how they use voice as it. It works because go into any frequency device and you're getting the right frequencies. So the others are true, right? Like it it just it just is the universe that we're living in. If you don't understand that you're just giant.

You know, you it's back to the mindset if you can see it, you can believe it, because if you can start creating your own reality by the frequency that's coming out of your mind, I promise you it will show up in front of you.

Kevin Mooney (02:23:49.489)
Right.

Why Not Sell to Hospitals?

Kevin Mooney (02:23:56.217)
Right. I have so many thoughts. The first one that I just want to say out loud is

Can you just take this to hospitals and direct primary care offices around the country and sell it there and kind of do more of a B2B model as opposed to D to C?

Alex Fredericks (02:24:13.557)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:24:18.591)
We could that comes with a couple things, which is called clinicals, which I as an entrepreneur has avoided because I get to stand on the shoulders of giants at the moment. What I mean by that is this. There are go to PubMed, go to Mayo Clinic, go to Cleveland Clinic, go to John Hopkins, go to Harvard, MIT, yeah. They all have studies in frequency, every last one of them. A NIH has a a literal department to frequency and voice everywhere.

As soon as I want to get into the medical system and get a billable number to it, then I have to do specific specifics. So I'm in a cohort that I'm trying to close right now around Lyme disease, Lyme X. It's the program. Lyme's disease. And though I could tell you if you had Lyme or not, because it is a frequency signal, like it's an organic frequency, and I could tell you it's not my goal. My goal is presupposing that you already have Lyme's disease because you're in this cohort out of that hospital.

Kevin Mooney (02:24:54.503)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:10.299)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:25:15.669)
It is for hospital. They have 7,500 people and one cohort. I want to manage what's called your longitudinal wellness. Like, how do we get you feeling better over a period of time? And your bioterrain. Bioterrain is a really fancy expression for all of the things happening inside of you at the same time. So if you woke up on any given day and the signal of Lyme's disease is heavy, meaning like I can't get out of bed. I feel like absolute crap. Every symptom, every da da da.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:16.027)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:25:45.193)
You might want to know what happened, what got me here. Now, the other side of it though is if you can manage your bioterrain over a long enough period of time, you're not going to beat Lyme's disease, but you can keep it at one. It doesn't need to be at an 11. So, to what you were saying earlier about doctors, like I have I I have chronic fatigue syndrome. I have chronic fatigue syndrome because I have problems with H. pylori, Candida, and Epstein Barr. And when those three factors

Kevin Mooney (02:25:57.339)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:26:13.995)
Start fighting with each other, I I I'm just going to bed. I'll see you in a couple weeks. Now when I show up to a doctor with chronic fatigue syndrome, the last word syndrome being the operative word in this sentence, they don't know what to do. Because I didn't go to a gastroenterologist for my candida or my H. pylari. I didn't go to a virologist for my Epstein bar. I did I went to a general guy that's like, I bet you're tired, but I don't know why.

Kevin Mooney (02:26:18.065)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:26:42.917)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:26:43.370)
And nothing against them, but they're not they don't have any more information than I have at that moment. But if I started today, which I do, I manage my candida with very simple or oregano pills. Not that difficult. We everything that we recommend is what I call over the counter, meaning like you can go get it. Yeah, and if you c if I can manage, which I do, my H. pylari by taking something called Mastic and my Candida by taking oregano pills, then

Kevin Mooney (02:27:01.808)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (02:27:13.641)
All right, cool. Got him at bay. No no exhaustion today. And that's that's the thing that we c that that I hope for people. Like I true I I mean it when I say I want you to build a better relationship with yourself because then you started to say, what else can I do? You know, when I left Sony in two thousand and seven, I was a cigarette smoker and a Coca Cola drinker. And I would drink like a six pack a day and smoke a pack and a half a day. The first thing I did was quit drinking soda because it was no longer free and I was just cheap and out unemployed.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:18.075)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:27:43.689)
And I lost like 15 pounds in two weeks from not drinking soda. So I said to myself, what's the next thing I could do? Well, the next thing out the window was cigarettes. Because I went, yeah, I don't hate myself. I don't want to kill myself any longer working a job for miserable people. And then I said, What's the next thing I can do? And I started eating better. And that's the way most things go. Back to the difference between faith and belief. If you have faith in something and then you begin to see some signs, you begin to believe. So if you can believe you can be healthier because you can do these simple things.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:46.950)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:56.389)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:09.360)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:28:13.651)
I can simply take magnesium or I can simply take oregano or I can go get turmeric or ashwanganda or boron or zinc or you know, then like all of a sudden, I can take a good trace mineral and I feel better. What else can I do?

Kevin Mooney (02:28:31.623)
What else should you do? Right. You know, like that's the that's the whole idea behind it. And it's so funny when you allow yourself, I'm gonna divert just for a second. When you allow yourself, we're at two and a half hours now. When you allow two and a half hours of a conversation, the

Alex Fredericks (02:28:33.587)
Yeah. Yes.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:51.473)
progression from where you've come from, the hurdles that you've overcome, the way that you think about life and business, and you take these words and you boil them down to their simplest form. No shit, this is what you started. Of course. This is great. And it makes perfect sense. And and and not only is it super cool tech, meaning

Alex Fredericks (02:29:06.773)
Question is.

Yeah, of course it is.

Kevin Mooney (02:29:18.181)
You are you really are just standing on on the shoulders of giants because you've used their research, but you're putting it together in a way that can be served up to the common person that they can understand. And my only worry for you in this thing is that people might overlook it because of how simple it is. And I'm I'm I really don't want that to happen. I because I I love this, I believe in it.

Alex Fredericks (02:29:29.683)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:29:41.803)
Bro. The hardest thing that we're dealing with right now, like I'm I' again, I'm super open kimono. I really am like I'm not trying to I I don't pretend to be anybody. is product market fit. Like right now it sells for fifty nine dollars. Yeah, don't get me wrong, guys, love to have it five dollars, love to have it two dollars, but I need to be doing a million scans a day, a week, a yeah, like

Kevin Mooney (02:30:07.591)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:30:11.739)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:30:11.901)
And right now it is I got it, it's a luxury and I don't believe it. All of that stuff, like all things being equal. I I get it. I really do. It's very difficult to be an entrepreneur. It's super difficult to like everybody's got an opinion. I I I understand it. And it takes like the one domino to fall and all of the other ones, all the mosaic that you set up. I and and that's what I have to deal with every day. Like

Kevin Mooney (02:30:20.209)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:30:35.665)
Mars.

The VC Who Didn't Have 30 Seconds

Alex Fredericks (02:30:39.518)
I I was on a call with a VC a couple of weeks ago and I jumped through every fucking hoop that they gave me. Seriously. I rebuilt the deck for the ten minute presentation they wanted. I answered the questionnaire four times. I went through their junior associate and then blah blah. And when I finally got on a call with the guy who I mean this with all due respect to everybody fucking listening.

Kevin Mooney (02:30:57.042)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:31:05.769)
I'm too old of a cat to get fucked by a kitten. So if you show up and you're like half my age and you haven't done a third of the homework, you can just fuck right off. Okay. So I'm having a conversation with this guy, and he's he's literally asking me the same questions that I have filled out in the questionnaire, that I have filled out in the thing, that I have filled. And I'm totally happy to be redundant because maybe that's what you need. Maybe your mommy still makes your bed. I'm happy to be that guy. I want your money.

Kevin Mooney (02:31:08.326)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (02:31:36.125)
Until I don't. And this is where and this is what happened. So we're having a conversation and and he's asking me all of these questions. Some of them were interesting, some of them were astute. Some of them were like, No, no, no, no, no, you don't tie your shoe that way. I think you're a Velcro guy, but that's fine. Cool. We're good. And I said to so so he when we're done him asking me these questions, we had fifteen minutes for the phone call, by the way, because you know, that was his day to meet everybody.

Kevin Mooney (02:31:37.787)
Yeah, of course.

Kevin Mooney (02:32:06.311)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:32:06.559)
Cool. So he said, Do you have any questions for me? I said, Sure. I only have one question. He goes, What's that? I said, Have you tried the app? He said, No, I haven't yet. I said, So let me get this straight. It takes 30 seconds. You didn't have 30 seconds? Because I spent like three hours preparing for this 15 minutes. You didn't have 30 seconds? That is the challenge I face in the world. It's somebody that doesn't have enough respect for themselves.

Kevin Mooney (02:32:25.669)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:32:31.174)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:32:34.901)
Bro, for me it was obvious. This isn't a match. It was it was literally 15 minutes, regardless of how like up in my feelings I was. It was 15 minutes. I could stand on my head for 15 minutes. That's three jiu-jitsu matches of dealing with heavyweights. Whatever, bro. No harm, no foul. I'm gonna go walk my dog. My life goes on. But that's the problem. The problem is that everybody knows better. Everybody has their own opinion and nobody just wants to believe.

that there are answers. It's so much easier to curse the darkness. Meanwhile, lighting the candle is literally a flicker. Imagine if you were in Madison Square Garden, any arena and all of the lights were off. All of the lights were off. One person in their pocket grabs a lighter. It doesn't even need to fully light. If they just flicked it, you would instantly notice it. Instantly notice it. And I bet you you could probably locate it well enough if you were paying real attention. That's the thing about what it takes to make the difference in your own life.

Kevin Mooney (02:33:02.971)
Yeah. For sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:33:21.306)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:33:26.331)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:33:31.069)
It's actually paying attention and then going to find that thing that was the s that spark in the dark. So for me, I get up every day. I love talking to people. I could talk for five hours because I like conversation. What we've built is incredible. What we want to help people it do, I genuinely think is a is a good cause. I have the battle though, it's Benfold's five. It's the battle of who could care less. It really is.

Fascinating to me that I've watched people throw enormous amount of money away on the stupidest, most pedantic, useless things. And you're like, no, it's fifty nine dollars. Well, I don't I don't I don't

Kevin Mooney (02:34:15.644)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:34:16.361)
Okay, but that $59 comes with a 10-day program. So it's not just the scan. You then get 10 days of engagement with our concierge that I might actually be able to solve that problem for you. Why you're not sleeping, why you're so stressed, why your inflammation hurts, what's your digestion probe. You So you're willing to go on and buy shilajit from some, you know what I mean? From some influencer, and you couldn't tell me what shilajit was if you wanted to, but

Kevin Mooney (02:34:36.987)
Sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:34:42.369)
Or or pay six hundred dollars a month for health insurance that doesn't get you any answers anytime. So why not replace it with something that can do that pretty quickly?

Alex Fredericks (02:34:48.819)
Any right like

Why ToneWell Won't Make AI Videos

Alex Fredericks (02:34:53.920)
Right. And for me, that's like that's the it it's funny because that's like the hardest rub, but it's the fun part. Right? Like I don't have money, we don't have marketing money yet for meta, so I have to be creative about. We don't have you know, like I was having a conversation with one of our guys this morning, we were talking about videos that we needed to make, and we're both like, dude, we can't do AI videos. He's like, Why not? I was like, Because we're not an AI company and everybody assumes that we are.

Kevin Mooney (02:35:00.857)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:35:20.442)
Right.

Alex Fredericks (02:35:20.447)
So if I started making like, you know, AI ambassador things, you would totally know that's what it is, right? And I was like, okay, but we're like fifteen thousand scans in at the moment. I'm confident that I could use something like Riverside, go grab five people, have a 20 minute conversation and have enough like founder style. Like, you have to be creative and like how do you get to pe right? And that's that's the hardest part. Bootstrapping is the hardest part, but it's also the fun part because when you figure it out and you get that aha moment, you're like,

Kevin Mooney (02:35:25.787)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:35:38.075)
Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Kevin Mooney (02:35:46.501)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:35:50.741)
Dude, that worked. You know, I was I was having a conversation with this black belt the other day. There were three of us, all black belts. And one of the guys showed us a move that we both the myself and the other guy looked at each and were like, hold on, that's been there the whole time. And the third guy who who who was like the highest ranking black belt was like, yeah, the whole time. I what you you guys don't do this? And we both looked at each other like, no, we've never seen that. And it was the simplest, most direct

Kevin Mooney (02:35:52.124)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:36:18.815)
concise, it was beautiful how simple it was, and we were like, you mean that's been there the whole time? That's like fun marketing. You have to go through all of this and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean I could have just done this the whole time? And that's where we are as a company. It's really hard. You know, I'm in these conversations with like HHS and NIH and BARDA and like all of these big acronym places. And they get it intrinsically because they have to.

Kevin Mooney (02:36:28.636)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:36:46.503)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Fredericks (02:36:46.921)
And then you have a conversation with somebody that's actually suffering that you want to help, and they're like, But why is it real? I'm like, dude, have you ever turned on your radio? And you you just believe that driving at 200 miles per hour, that when you put on WXPN eighty eight eighty eight three, that that's there at all time, and you're you're okay with a 78 meaning seventy-eight revolutions per minute record is being broadcast through the air with all these other radio stations?

Kevin Mooney (02:37:14.897)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:37:15.399)
And you are okay that that piece of music coming in crystal clear, like so y you don't want to accept that frequency also works the other way? Like it's right, like that's p part of the problem is part of the fun.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:24.804)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:29.999)
Yeah. I it does seem like it's gonna be a lot of fun trying to solve those problems and trying to get the mangoes to market, right? It it's I I don't know. I want it to I want it to to crush it because I think it's great. I was I was shocked by what I saw. granted it did say that I I had like chlamydia or something like that, and I was like, Whoa, what is this? you know.

Alex Fredericks (02:37:34.901)
Yeah. Yep.

Alex Fredericks (02:37:46.539)
I know.

Alex Fredericks (02:37:54.911)
No, C no C H pneumonia.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:58.533)
That's what it is. And I was like, What is this? You know, like I don't

Alex Fredericks (02:37:59.743)
Okay. And it's called and I'm and it has nothing to do with us. It's called chlamydia pneumonia. I don't know what for reason, who, why, or where. And it's CH pneumonia is the precursor of pneumonia because it's caused by a viral load. Now, again, don't know who the person was that named it that thought thought chlamydia pneumonia was the great way through, but that's that's Nope. Pre it it means that it means that your system was run down and you had the precursor to pneumonia.

Kevin Mooney (02:38:20.881)
Sure. I was shocked. I was like, what do I have here?

Alex Fredericks (02:38:29.343)
Which isn't like full blown viral pneumonia, it's like you got a bug, you can go knock that out.

Kevin Mooney (02:38:29.530)
Yeah, I mean

Kevin Mooney (02:38:34.810)
Yeah, it's so interesting. But like that level of detail in in a response to me is like, whoa, what what what is going on? Because I I had let me just tell you the story really fast. I it was during like the story could be super long. I'll make it short. I was having just life troubles transitioning from career to career, stress was super high, new baby on the way.

Alex Fredericks (02:38:43.285)
We had a really

Kevin Mooney (02:39:03.749)
Baby comes, I dropped the baby, and she fractured her skull. And I it sent me into fucking outer space, right? I was in the worst, worst physical shape ever. And we were rolling into the winter season, sicknesses came around. I got something or another, and then that turned into something or another. And then that turned into pneumonia. And it was a hellacious experience.

Alex Fredericks (02:39:12.088)
yeah. yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:39:31.595)
Yes.

Kevin Mooney (02:39:31.801)
And I have a direct primary care provider. So she was able to just come to the house and be like, yeah, you got pneumonia, you gotta take this. And and that's great, but it didn't help the everything around the time period where I was sick, right? Or when I was starting to get better. And that shit was it was awful. It was the worst experience. And since that moment, I've been like,

I don't care. Wave crystals over my back, you know, spray water on me, whatever you need to do so that I don't ever get there. So when I got the results that said, the chlamydia pneumonia, I was like, What in the hell? Is this coming back? Do I is this still something that is left over? What is it, you know?

Alex Fredericks (02:40:09.877)
Yeah, CHMONA. Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:40:15.091)
It's it's it it it props no. So it it actually is like one of those things that is still reminiscent. Just because you've beaten it didn't mean you killed it. It's one of those like like so I just started taking sour sap bitters and black cumin seed oil, because I know I have parasites. Everybody has parasites, it's just the way it goes. And like

Kevin Mooney (02:40:23.961)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:37.777)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (02:40:38.855)
I feel a little bit bloated recently and I can't get rid of these ten pounds. I eat really well, but like I feel super like, you know, I'm in my fifties and I feel a little bit bloated right now and a little bit I'm like, you know what? I haven't done a parasite cleanse in like a decade. So I gotta imagine that that you know, it's just the the you know, the the way that you gotta drive sometimes. It's one of the so we had this UFC guy.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:53.701)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:58.992)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:41:06.131)
Yeah, big doubter. It's fine. I'm cool, man. I'll I'm happy to play the game. And and I sent it to him and he he called me immediately. Immediately. And he said, How do you know that my left abductor is torn? Nobody knows that. Me and my trainer, he's like a real UFC guy. Me and my trainer are the only people that know that. And I said, Dude, I don't know shit. I didn't even read your report. I don't know anything.

Kevin Mooney (02:41:22.193)
Yeah.

Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:41:30.232)
Right, right.

Alex Fredericks (02:41:31.997)
You need to understand that you're broadcasting it, so it's clearly something you need to take care of. Like you might think you're working on it, but it's showing up. And if it's showing up, yeah, take care of it. He went, he went, I'm he's a true believer. my god, it was the craziest thing. I'm gonna tell everybody. Tell everybody. Like that's that's why this is so cool on some levels. It's just like I get to like

Kevin Mooney (02:41:36.774)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:41:44.250)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:42:00.437)
I I'm just a microscope. I'm not actually like you you gotta point it at something. Like I'm just this fool sitting over there that if you took it out you could see a whole lot more depth, you know?

Kevin Mooney (02:42:02.097)
Yeah.

Sure.

Kevin Mooney (02:42:09.977)
Yeah. I you're just positioned as a tool, not a a database of knowledge or you know, some higher power that's gonna tell you how to fix your life. It's it's just it's a tool, it's a lens to look at your health through.

Alex Fredericks (02:42:14.368)
Yes.

Alex Fredericks (02:42:21.235)
Right. So like

Alex Fredericks (02:42:25.931)
I have I have some problems with like the the modern system that we're in. Like I I'll call them out because I don't give a shit. But companies like Function Health, there are like billions and billions of dollars valuation now with hundreds of millions of dollars raised and they still do the same shit. I'm glad they repackaged it, but they're still sending you blood tests. now it's to your house? wow. And I still have to get a phlebotomist, and then they send it out for a hundred and three tests.

Kevin Mooney (02:42:47.077)
Right.

Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:42:54.774)
Some random big enough number that you think it's everything. And they send you all of this information that you have no idea what to do about it. And by the way, you have the precursor for cancer, because fucking everybody has the precursor for cancer. And by the way, we invested $85 million in cancer clinics. Like I'm so ti I'm just tired of that as opposed to maybe I could give you some insights to yourself. If you choose to take actions, this is how we can help you.

Kevin Mooney (02:42:57.926)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:43:07.397)
Sure.

Alex Fredericks (02:43:24.543)
Like our recommendation engine is everything over the counter like legitimately. We have a default setting of like maybe go talk to your doctor about that. We're not trying I'm trying to be like your best friend. Do you know what I mean? Like I'll listen to you. I can make some recommendations. This is what we see. Our back end is connected to only like the Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, the like it these are real answers. Real not I'm not going to Reddit or Facebook. These are real answers.

Kevin Mooney (02:43:38.246)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:43:53.381)
Yeah. Yeah, we're not Google searching this.

Alex Fredericks (02:43:54.673)
And now, but it comes down to like do you want to know and do something about it? Or do you just want to know? That's on you, man. Like I like how I feel matters to me. So and I'm getting older and I like my my father's ninety and still plays tennis two hours a day. And like if I can get to that, which means that I have to take care of the equipment, right? Like and you gotta

Kevin Mooney (02:44:04.283)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:44:17.339)
Yeah, you you've won.

Alex Fredericks (02:44:21.983)
figure out like where it's topped off and what I'm deficient in and how I can feel better and and God God forbid you have something real going on and you don't know it. Like I was having a conversation with somebody from Cleveland Clinic today. He's a thoracic surgeon, great human being. And we were talking about ToneWell and you know, I was like, you know the problem is is that like th you wake up one day and you're like, you know, something feels off and then you don't do anything about it. And then like six months later you're like, that's not right.

Kevin Mooney (02:44:50.992)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:44:50.996)
You don't do anything about it. And then, like two years later, you're screwed. There's an awesome company, no affiliation to us at all, called Throne. Awesome company. They take they install a camera on your toilet. So that essentially you can analyze your poop. Well, what's interesting mostly is that like it is like colon cancer is like the number one cancer in men because we don't do anything about it.

Kevin Mooney (02:44:56.326)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Mooney (02:45:08.121)
Interesting.

Alex Fredericks (02:45:20.337)
And the time between your you showing a physical sign and colon cancer is could be between seven and ten years. So imagine if like I don't know, I had a a fissure, a hemorrhoid, or whatever, a spot, and I did something about it, it mayv may never metastasize into colon cancer. Problem with colon cancer is when you have colon cancer, good luck. Enjoy yourself. Okay. And that's just my point. Like there's a prophylactic point.

Kevin Mooney (02:45:38.523)
Yeah.

Great. See ya.

Alex Fredericks (02:45:45.703)
In the world that we're in, like if you took more care of you and had a better relationship with you and more information that you could act on, you'll have a better life. And that's you know, that's my whole point on everything is like no one's coming to save you. I promise you. Believe me, no one, even when these like the aliens land, they're not coming to save you.

Kevin Mooney (02:45:56.476)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:08.483)
No. They're not h coming to give you a big hug, that's for sure.

Alex Fredericks (02:46:13.137)
If they they they already would be if they wanted to. You know, so like maybe do it for yourself. Like maybe learn the new skill. Maybe go outside for a walk. Maybe eat better. Do some athletics. Figure out what you're actually deficient in. Like again, I've I've lived a pretty good life and I know that I've lived pretty hot, flat, crowded, and I've been put away wet and all of the expressions that go with it. So I've probably burnt through a pretty good layer of my amino acids and my enzymes and my

Kevin Mooney (02:46:15.426)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:36.220)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:46:41.983)
vitamins and my minerals, you know what I mean? Like it's a pretty good guess. Maybe I maybe I can fill them back up.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:42.619)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Where to Find Alex and ToneWell

Kevin Mooney (02:46:49.725)
Man, Alex, it's this has been incredible. I I appreciate you coming on. tell everybody where they can find ToneWell, how they can access it. this has been great. I I love I love ToneWell. I think it's so fascinating that you can pull all of that from from your voice. tell everybody where they can find you first, and then I might ask you one more question.

Alex Fredericks (02:47:15.155)
I I appreciate it. So I'm an easy guy to find. so I'm Alex Fredericks. I'm Alex Fredericks.com. I'm Alex Fredericks at LinkedIn. I'm the first Alex Fredericks on Google. So I'm pretty easy to find. and also my email, all the same. ToneWell is ToneWell dot co. That's t o n e w e l dot co. So ToneWell dot co.

Also easy to find. And if you want to find me at ToneWell, I'm Alex at ToneWell.co. All simple stuff. we are I the OCD that I have in my life is I have no unread messages, texts, or anything. So legitimately, if anybody wants to reach out, I promise you you will get a reply. not just from me, but it is the ethos of our company. So if you have any issues and reach out to support or if you reach out to scans, whatever whatever, they all get answered.

Kevin Mooney (02:47:52.337)
Very simple.

Kevin Mooney (02:47:59.975)
Yeah.

Alex Fredericks (02:48:14.281)
Regardless of our size or our how busy we are, I I think it's very important. One of the problems in the world is ghosting. Like if you can't just say no to somebody, that's your problem. So we do the opposite. Right. And I'm I'm happy to engage with people as a you know, I clearly I have a a couple of opinions. I'm glad to share them. I'm glad to share them and have one or two.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:23.175)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:26.502)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:36.744)
Just one or two.

Alex Fredericks (02:48:40.137)
I'd like to think I'm pretty damn good at what I do. It's I am an authority at being me. So if I can help anybody in any way or want to engage or anybody has an idea about ToneWell, or if you know anybody that wants to write checks or wants to come in as a partner in our affiliate growth, like we have an enterprise side, things like telemedicine, corporate wellness, hospitality, retreats, all of that stuff we're in on. So

If there is a opportunity to be had, please reach out.

Kevin Mooney (02:49:11.561)
Super cool. Awesome, Alex. Thanks for your time today. Stick around. I want to ask you a couple more questions. All right. Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Alex Fredericks (02:49:16.917)
Course.

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