Today's podcast was a different one and that's because this brain has been enamored by one man and one industry. The Ice King and his empire of ice. The original hustler. Jesus did water to wine? Try ice to a shit load of cash, that's a religion I'd follow.
Ohhhhh wahhhhhh, cry! Poor you! You have to make a new excel spreadsheet? It's time to go wait a few tables to pay rent? Your boss is being mean??? Ohhhh poor baby :(((((... sike. Let me tell you about a man named Frederic Tudor and how he decided to make his nut. Not a man that made his fortune behind a computer, not a man that made it entertaining the masses, rather, a man that entered the financial elite by SAWING BLOCKS OF ICE OUT OF HIS LAKE IN HIS BACKYARD AND SELLING IT. That's right. This dude used a manual saw to cut up the ice in a lake in his yard and then decided to ship it across the Atlantic and try and sell it. Seeing as though our friend, The Ice King, started his little business venture in 1805 it is safe to say they didn't have Instagram, but if they did, Gary Vee as we know him wouldn't exist.
Freddy Tudor's level of hustle is something that I don't think will ever be paralleled. A level of hustle that would make even the biggest champions of hard work rethink their entire existences. Gary Vee, sure he works hard, has some nice tips, big hustle guy; but this guy does stuff like buy old toys from garage sales and then list them on ebay. Don't get me wrong, I love Gary Vee but flipping trading cards on the internet doesn't hold even a candlestick nevermind a candle to MANUALLY CUTTING APART ICE AND SHIPPING IT ACROSS THE ATLANTIC. I feel like people aren't quite getting that. How the fuck do you even cut up ice? Forget selling it, forget transporting it, forget marketing it, forget keeping the ice from melting... in the year 1805 how in god's name does someone cut ice out of a lake. The idea of that happening rivals shit like how they build bridges, or skyscrapers, it'll just never make sense.
Maybe more impressive than actually selling the ice is the fact that anyone even had an idea to sell it in the first place. Winter comes, snow falls, and this dude just saw dollar signs. Titan of industry. Again, talk about hustle. I hate to keep bringing up Gary Vee because I actually do like him but he's just the number 1 poster boy for "hustling" today and I can't help but think of how much The Ice King dominates him in every facet of hustling. Gary Vee always talks about finding and flipping mundane shit for cash (toys, cards, garage sale chachkis) etc. This fucking guy was flipping frozen water. He looked around every year when December rolled around as the weather was proverbially pelted him with lemons and he made the sweetest lemonade anyone's ever tasted. Imagine that. That's like someone selling literal grass, not weed, literal blades of grass that rollie pollies and shit live in and becoming a multi millionaire off that.
I think I'm kind of clever for coming up with outside of the box sports apparel designs and slinging those around? This guy puts me to shame. The Ice King - The Origin of Hustle.
More on the podcast from today