Becoming Legend The Billion Dollar Blue Print To Be A Whale In A Sea Of Sharks From Berner

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What's going on, burner?

Hey, how you doing?

Doing fantastic.

Look at you, man.

My God.

You know, it's one of those things where the mystery of life itself presents just these

people that are just there that really have the energy to help inspire others to believe

in themselves.

I don't know, man, hell yeah.

Doing very well.

Man, I'll tell you what, you are on such the right path right now.

It's like the right place at the right time.

Have you noticed this in what you're doing?

Man, you know, I just feel whatever I'm doing right now, I just feel it's right, which

is like a good relief to just know you're doing what feels right, you know?

Yeah, because you're so giving in the way that, you know, becoming legend, the billion

dollar blueprint to be a whale inside a sea of shark.

That means you're willing to share your path with other people.

You're not hoarding something.

And that makes me, you know, be inspired by you even more.

Yeah, you know, like, sharing what I did right, what I did wrong as well, like a lot of

people aren't really open to that.

And I'm definitely in.

So wow, that's, that right there is facing your truth, then.

I mean, you know, if you're going to give us what's right, you're going to give us

what's wrong.

That's very interesting about your journey.

For sure.

100%.

How did you get on that decision making?

Because that's a 50-50 shot because most people would rather, if they burn out on something,

what they're going to do is they're going to move on and pretend it didn't even happen.

Yeah, you can't do that in 2026.

So I feel like, you know, especially with the amount of support I have just around the

world, whether it be from music, you know, from, from cannabis or from clothing, just

sort of me as a person.

I feel like it's important for me to be transparent with people.

They see what's going on.

So I feel like it's just important to be transparent also, like, if I could start responsibility

to share this kind of knowledge because if it happened to me, then it could definitely

happen to someone else.

And if I could prevent some, you know, mistakes along a business journey, especially for someone

that didn't go to school, I'm definitely going to share that, you know.

So then you do see it.

You do see that person that really does strive to become something.

But the school gets in the way because that's what happened to my daughter.

And she went on to graduate from UCLA, went off and got another degree from another university.

But yet that one high school got in the way, she drops out and goes through a different

university.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

I mean, also because when I see people, they kind of like have a very cool bond with my

supporters.

We know each other already and the fight they asked me for advice on things and whatnot.

So I feel like it's my, I feel like I got to, like, I know that person too well.

So I have to speak to them, you know?

Well, I love the idea that you're willing to share your journey with those you surround

yourself with because they always say a true champion has the best team.

How did you form your team?

Yeah.

Man, just by building, you know, I just, I look at talented people, right?

And like, I've been out here for almost 20 years doing music and I was able to meet

this thing with some incredible people on that journey.

And just, you know, I have a great team, a little creative and I'm super blessed out of

that team.

Well, I know how long it takes to put music together.

How do you have time to do everything else because everybody looks at me and says, hey,

look, do you ever get any sleep at night?

And my answer is, no, not really.

There's no time to sleep.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't sleep at night.

I think it's just like, for music, it's just like, for instance, I just booked a studio

from March 9th to the 15th and I plan on doing a full album and that stay there and that's

how I do it.

Like, I look at weeks.

I have nothing else booked.

I'm like, you know, this would be a good week to go band off some music.

A lot of life is life-ing right now.

If it's a good time to go document the way I feel, just what's happening.

So that's how I do it.

I kind of pick like a week, a week to 10 day time, go banding that shit out and that's

just that.

So if you go into the studio to drop your jams right there or you like me, I put them

all, you all sit there with a digital editor, glue them all together, then go into the

studio and say, all right, we need to mimic what I did over here in my home studio.

No, I can't think about that unless I'm in there.

So the way I like to do it in this way, this is the way I train myself to do it.

Maybe it's not the most effective way, but it's the way that works for me.

But the way I do it is I kind of live life and when I go in there, I just talk about

what I'm doing with.

I just, I force myself to focus here.

I'm like, I'm in a $2,300 a day studio with the engineer at cost.

And production at cost is so I can't, I can't fuck off when I'm in there.

They just focus on music.

And so that's the way I do it and it works really well for me at least, you know.

Your favorite place in the studio is at the actual room itself, which is always freezing

for some stupid reason, or is it right there in the engineer's room?

Oh, and I like a nice of freezing.

You're really, oh my god, jokes, there's jokes about me being in the studio about how

cold it is.

I keep it like 61.

Oh my god.

And what I hated about it was that you're always in there alone because yet we, I would

always bring in the musicians one at a time, drop the tracks down.

Okay, let's see what we can do with the vocals.

Who do we need to hire now?

Get that next person in to do the drums, didn't like them.

Let's bring in the next one.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, that's, yeah.

I mean, I'm in there.

You just focus and we have big hangout sessions and I like that.

I bring people out there to make music and that's about it.

Yeah.

How do you build a brand in this 2026 in a clickbait generation?

Because it seems like that we, I see these beautiful ads and then when I go there, clickbait,

how do you get beyond that with your business?

Yeah, you know, I find it a lot tougher now than it used to be.

For me, back in the days, internet was new, it was fresh and I was sharing things that

people never seen.

I was very consistent.

I was very good at it and I fucking reached the world.

But I've actually been stuck on 1.9 million followers for about five years now.

Which makes it zero.

Hence, I've been, I've been told I should be around 13 million by now, but I guess that

meta has some type of way for the face of weed and that's probably what they're looking

me on.

Like I'm a big face for spokesperson for weed.

But for someone trying to build a brand today in 2026, I feel bad for them.

It's not easy.

I have a hard time promoting things like my book, like music, and then it was like things

have gotten really tough because everyone's on the internet and everyone's on some clickbait

shit.

I think that right now it's time to be more creative than ever.

Even for this book, for instance, like I'm trying to find ways to promote the book this

way outside the box.

We're taking clips to audio, but we're making like little visualizers with them, animated

visualizers.

We're making dog style visualizers.

It's super important that you just think about different ways of marketing your stuff.

But man, most of you tough to launch a brand in a TAs world.

We'll see how you are.

I mean, you're so in touch with where people are walking.

Do you sit at a Starbucks and just watch what people are doing or you're bop into like

a target or something?

Because I mean, it seems like you're speaking our street.

Yeah.

No, I just pay attention to the world and that's like the world just, it's moving in a crazy

fast direction.

You can share something super incredible and it's gone within moments, right?

People don't have a lot of patients online anymore and so I feel like it's harder to reach

people in 2026 than it was before.

Well, man, when you're creating things like you are with that streetwear, my God, that's

just talk right there.

That's going to get people to say, hey, where did you buy that?

Where can I get that?

How can I get my hands on that?

Yeah.

I think we also done a great job just like building other customers.

You have to think we've been doing this for almost maybe like 12 to 15 years already.

The fact we're still in business is amazing because a lot of kind of clothing goes up and

then kind of hits this low peak and then goes down.

So the fact we're still irrelevant right now is a very good sign and I think that's just

buckets.

It's pretty impressive.

Are people buying it for the collector's edition side of it because I noticed that with

a lot of shoes as well as with different baseball caps.

It's like you can ask them about, is that your favorite team?

No.

So what is it that serves as the hook on your or the or the worm on your hook?

I think that the closures are spalking dope.

Yes.

I think they're like great designers.

We have great cuttings so and we have great we have great product and that's what kind

of keeps us alive.

And then when you jump into those cookies, my God, I mean that's got to be I mean that's

hot all over the nation right now and people are making that investment.

How do you keep supply and demand on track when a grocery store can't even do that?

What's tough?

I mean in each state you have to have different producers, there's different laws and different

regulations.

Right.

So you're dealing with the living plant so it's kind of hard tough to keep that thing you

know the same way in every market.

So it's a learning it's a learning curve and there's no blueprint to we're kind of

writing the blueprint as it goes.

We figure out what works and what doesn't work and who we like and who we don't like

and so it's a lot it's a lot to keep a keep a living plant product on point all around

the world.

But we figured we figured we're figuring it out right now.

You've put so much energy in in the cookies and things like that, but the one thing that

we're seeing, especially here in the Carolinas is the rise of these THC infused drinks.

Are you going to jump on that train as well?

Yeah, we have some products right now.

I'm looking like really dial that didn't expand it.

I think we've done a good job.

I know one of them won an award recently and I think it's doing really good.

But I feel like I want to like spend a little more time to kind of like dial in the branding

of it and kind of make sure that it feels good and it's kind of stand alone product.

Well, I can't imagine the kind of laws that you have to or the hoops that you've got

to go through because it just seems like even here in Carolina, they're putting different

age groups ahead of who can really truly have it and it's like, wait a second, the rest

of us have to wait for this, but I understand, but I don't understand.

Yes, it's pretty trippy and also a lot has changed a lot too.

So you have to stay on top of it.

How do you do that?

I guess you surround yourself with the right people when it comes to those laws.

Yeah, I definitely have to think the team they stay in tune with everything.

There's a whole compliance side of things that just keep us up to date.

So now, did you ever foresee cannabis being on the move like it is today?

Because I mean, you've gone from the street corner to corporate to even higher and higher

you keep growing in a position that with so much competition, some people would be dropping off,

but not you.

Yeah, I definitely saw this.

I saw this a long time ago.

It's probably built a brand and I think it was very, very, you can see what you can see

exactly right now.

I see people coming to our store, you know, ex cops after you teachers, veterans and just people

knowing people and I was like, yeah, this is going to be big one day.

And you're not afraid to talk about your inspirations and influences.

I mean, that's the fun thing about this.

I mean, it's almost like you truly honestly believe in an open door policy.

For sure.

To get there though, that's trust, man.

I mean, that means that you trust the people that you're walking with.

Yeah, 100%.

To get there though, that I guess I'm digging deeper into this hole going, okay,

it's like, we all want to have this team and it's like, burners got it.

Burner, how do we get our hands on such a team?

Yeah, I mean, I'm in the compound right now.

Like we built a, we built out a dough bag.

I built that dough bag spot here for all my team to come and join.

It's very comfortable.

It's very good advice for creativity.

But definitely if you can't, if you don't have the right team and I'm going to get to where you

want to go, you know, get to have the right team at the dedicate, you know,

delegate things to certain kind of people.

You have to make sure that you put the right people in position.

And I feel like, you know, the, the better team, the farther you can go for sure.

I've always believed that creativity is the addiction.

Do you see that inside your circles?

Yeah, I get high at bringing things a lot.

Yeah, me too, you too.

And the way you deal with that is you just keep making more.

It's almost what they say that about Doritos when we were growing up.

Ah, keep eating them. We'll make more.

Pringles, yeah, Pringles.

Are you going to get into that side of it?

I mean, because as, as, you know,

hemp and stuff like that and cannabis continues to grow beyond, you know,

THC infused and cookies and things like that.

Do you find yourself maybe one day opening up a cannabis grocery store of types?

No, not that.

No, not that.

I definitely just want to master our craft and make sure we have the best genetics out there.

I want to make sure that we have the best flower around the world.

I'm trying, trying to figure out how to put that in place.

We just want to focus on just like,

genetics, flower and maybe some food products outside of cannabis.

I don't really believe that.

I don't know, I'm not really into like the edible foods things.

So, you know, I don't know if people love it,

but that's not really my thing.

I would love to maybe just use some food products or some of my outside cannabis.

Well, I've seen so much research on this and people are so afraid of it that,

you know, the alcohol sales are going down.

Cannabis is going up.

I mean, that just seems like a wide open world for you to travel on.

Yeah, my daughter is in college right now and ask her,

you know, what's going on in school?

She's a very popular school.

And she's like, yeah, people don't, people drink.

And I really, they like to smoke and that's cool to hear.

Because I feel like so many things happen without alcohol that we,

you know, wish we could have prevented.

Yeah.

Isn't it kind of odd that back in the 1970s,

we would look at, you know, cannabis as a Cheech and Chong movie.

And now days, I mean, it's a serious business.

Yeah, I mean, it's a real business.

I mean, motherfuckers are making a lot of money off.

And people love it.

They want to consume it all over the world.

So it's definitely a business should be taken seriously.

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The name of the book, Becoming Legend,

the billion dollar blueprint to be a whale and a sea of sharks.

We are back with burner.

As a businessman and talking about your book,

Becoming Legend, the billion dollar blueprint to a whale inside a sea of sharks.

Do you see that there's a lot of outsiders trying to tap into

what you've spent 20 years trying to build here?

In other words, here comes total wine.

Here comes this grocery store chain.

Everybody's trying to tap into your cookies,

your fear, your line and stuff, or is that just part of the circle?

It's just the way that business works.

It's, you know, we call it the green rush.

So everyone's trying to get in right now.

Yeah.

And that's cool.

I mean, I welcome everyone to the game,

but what I will say is if you're coming into the game

and you're not really familiar with it,

hire someone to get someone on your team

that actually knows what they're doing.

I'd love to see you like in concert,

because I would love to see what that merch table looks like.

Not only would you have all the streetwear and stuff like that,

but would you bring the cookies

or do you have to go by law

and have to get that passed through all different tests?

We can have the weed there at the merch table.

I can tell you this.

So if you come to one of my shows,

it's probably one of the smokiest experiences you've ever had in the life.

The fans go crazy.

They find, they find it as a contest to see who can smoke it out the most.

And some of the shows are kind of hard to perform.

I can't lie.

It's like it's really, really, really, really, really, really smoky.

And you can't really breathe in there,

but it's really cool.

And I think that you enjoy it.

I was going to ask you about that,

because the energy level and the mindset

can go through several different chapters and changes,

depending on the person.

How do you deal with a live crowd like that when you're performing?

I just soak up the energy.

I mean, I just soak up the energy.

And I think they kind of just,

they kind of feed me with the way I need it to get up there and do my thing.

I've been performing for a long time now,

and I fucking love it.

It's amazing.

When did you realize inside your heart that it was time

to put together the book, Becoming Legend?

Perhaps I got cancer.

I thought it was like, you know,

I should probably tell my story and I got better.

And I thought I'd been on a roll and I've been through a lot.

And I thought, you know, it's just time to share this story

that people will be wanting to know.

Yeah.

So is it like me, then, because when I had my heart attack,

everything on day number two was different than the last day.

In other words, all of a sudden, it's like,

okay, now it's time to start working on something other than just something

that's inside your head.

Now let's, let's reach out and grab people.

I don't know if I want to do anything I never did.

And I think that's why I wrote a book.

Yeah, yeah.

And do you find yourself going on a book tour of any of any type?

Because in all honesty, what I got out of the book is that this truly is a path.

There's a lot of people with brilliant ideas with no place to go right now.

And your book says, yeah, let's talk.

Let's have a conversation.

There is a place for you to grow rather than go.

Yeah.

I did an event last night in San Francisco at the ferry building.

There was a couple of hundred people.

There was really, really good turnout.

And then I have an event tomorrow in Arizona.

But I really want to focus more on like just, just kind of move it around

naturally and just kind of seeing people.

I didn't really set up a big book tour.

I think the two events will be good enough.

And then some more focus on the content.

Like the audio book promotion stuff like that.

I love the audio book because that's where people are as well.

Because they're listening to podcasts.

They're listening to the audio books.

To me, that's a one-on-one intimate.

Is it your voice that's on there?

It is. I have not read the books since Phoenix and Ham.

So, you know, it was a lovely challenge.

You know, it's my own words.

Like having to read at six and a half hour book is kind of challenging.

Yeah.

It was an experience.

I won't forget.

Let's just say that.

Oh my god.

I remember I did my very first one.

And it was like, how many pages do I have to read?

165.

What page we are now for?

No, you're kidding me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was hard for me to like move around a lot and talk on my phone and text.

That's me.

I have a lot of DVD from being a business guy.

But to have to sit in the room with a book in front of you.

My eyes are starting to burn now.

I started stressing out a little bit.

But it was good.

I'm glad I did it.

How often does a new idea come to you?

Is it very often?

Oh, there.

That's why I built this spot.

I got three guys working on different things right now.

All at the same time.

So you never say no to you.

No, I mean, I try to more than ever now because it's fucking to put me in a crazy position

and never say no to myself.

But yeah, when I see something, I feel I want to do it.

Yeah, because I mean, that's what music is all about as well as writing.

And that's what I love about writing is that once you once you start tapping that out,

you realize there's going to be eyes on the other side of those words.

And you're going to influence them.

Yeah, it's like if this does well for me, I definitely want to write more books.

And I was kind of like censored a little bit.

Like I don't want to dive too deep into certain things because it's my first book.

And I wanted to get out there.

But there's a lot of things I could touch on.

I can't wait to do it.

You can do graphic novels because I can see that in your writing.

Because you're very descriptive in your writing.

Yeah, I want to do all that.

Like I thought you'd look, I've dropped 46 albums already.

And so I don't really know how much more music I can make.

I'll probably make music forever because I like it.

But for some point, I kind of want to transition to storytelling.

Speaking of that music, AI seems to be ripping a lot of people off.

I mean, what are you protecting that voice of yours?

Because I mean, look at what was this?

What is he saying?

I'll write, I'll write, I'll write, I'll write.

That's now copy written material.

Yeah, I think AI, it's a blessing in the curse.

So it's already hard enough to stand out as an artist now because everyone's making music.

And there's just streaming.

So people get lost and stuff.

Like there used to be a album coming on.

People would go buy that physical album, have to dive into it and dedicate themselves to the album

because it wasn't budding.

Now it's like skip it, skip it, skip it, listen to 100 different things.

AI is a lot of AI artists out there.

And there's also a lot of AI production, which is kind of crazy.

You can go to the app called Soono and have them make beats for you.

It's like, what the fuck is happening here?

So I feel like it's a blessing in curse.

You could use things like Soono to help you produce things faster,

but then it kind of makes things not less, not as special.

So I don't really know.

I'm just going to keep doing me and help that people like it.

Well, you're in the department of new discoveries.

There's always going to be somebody new that's going to become walking through your doors.

That have no idea what cannabis does to their imagination.

They're expecting that red bull high.

How do you explain to them that it's not like a red bull?

Shit, I mean, I let them figure that out.

Everyone's body is different.

Yep.

Yeah.

And kind of comes and buys the bag and they love it.

And it makes them feel up and happy and kind of amped up cool.

If it makes them feel down cool, they didn't like it.

They go find some else cool.

So I don't really try to explain to people what things are going to feel like,

because I don't really know what they're going to feel like.

They're all different.

Oh my God.

I mean, you just explained my wife.

She has one token.

That's it.

She's done for the night.

And it's like, you've got to be kidding me.

What must it be like to be that damn innocent?

Yeah.

But to grow from there, I mean, it's like,

and I can't help but bring up shark tank here.

I'm shocked that I haven't seen you on shark tank yet,

because of those cookies as well as that street wear.

But it's one of those things where I'm always thinking about

what's the next best thing?

What's the next best investment?

Yeah.

I mean, for me, I always invest in myself.

I don't know why I like to invest in other things.

I can't really control what other people do with my bread.

And so, and money is really hard to come by these days.

But I like to invest in myself.

Sometimes I do invest in other things

and other people.

But mainly right now, say as well, I'm trying to invest in what I want to get done.

Well, one of the things that really caught my attention.

And I would love to put this on a poster somewhere with your name on it.

And that is is that we have these young entrepreneurs that want to get rich.

And you're saying, no, go for the legacy.

It's just as important.

I mean, especially if you have kids like,

money, you don't take money with you when you go.

That's right.

And the money will pretty much be around the moon.

You go, this is for your family or whatnot.

But if you leave the legacy, then that's just forever, right?

So that's my goal at this point in time.

I like making money is cool.

I love to make money.

I love doing incredible things in my family.

I like to have nice things.

But also, I would love to leave it nice legacy behind.

So when I'm gone, people remember that.

And they see that and that's something your family could be proud of.

So they always say that when you write a book,

you're cleaning out the closet.

That's what Julia Cameron says with the artist way.

I'm just going to go in there and clean out my closet.

Do you feel the same way that that's what you did?

No, not yet.

Should I have to write a few more books if you won't?

There's a lot more to talk about a lot more.

When was your writing time?

Because I'm a morning person.

I've got to write always at about 6.37 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah, so this book was written in about 10 days.

Maybe like 10 days to two weeks.

Nice.

I came into my building here and I just spent a few hours a day.

I'd turn my phone off.

I wrote it in my notes and my phone.

Like there were some real ghetto shit.

And it was amazing.

I'd priced about two or three hours a day working on it.

Fuck did it happen fast.

But like it's really a country like my music honestly.

I just picked the days any time to do it and I just did it.

Were you thinking about the music while you were writing the book

because there is that kind of a melodic vibe to it?

Did you have music on in the background?

No, I was about to fuck them up.

Yeah, no music.

Wow, you got me, so it's definitely inside your veins.

And because you've got to rhythm about your music,

you've got to rhythm about your songs.

And then everything about you is that rhythm.

What happens when that rhythm goes

and it's got a clink in it?

I mean, how do you pick yourself back up?

Man, I just, I just get motivated to keep winning.

I mean, shit, shit's stuck right now for me.

I go like shit's tough.

Like just businesses fucked up for your boy.

But what I did was focus on doing a new album.

Focus on releasing the book.

Focus on just like doing a level in the candidate space.

So I guess when things are bad, when there's a clink,

I just get more motivated to keep going.

Like, I never act like everything is good.

You want a super guy?

I find problems.

That's just the way.

We're going to get a TV show from you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can't talk about it, can you?

Not, can't.

I mean, it's a scripted series and I parted with Stacey's share

for those listening.

She's a big dog in the space.

She's done incredible things in movies.

Some of my favorite movies ever.

And we had it with FX for a while.

You know, just wasn't really flowing the way we wanted to.

So we pulled it and we're getting it developed now.

But yeah, it's going to be like a scripted series.

Can you imagine going back to step one and doing it all over again?

Or is it that you would say, okay, if I went back to step one,

technology would be much differently and it might be an easier journey?

Yeah, I mean, I think I kind of got a sweet dog.

I feel like if I start now again for scratch,

the technology would not be on my side like it was before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what's fun about creativity, though.

It's that they keep giving us this stuff to use as tools.

I'm going, oh, shit, I'm busted now.

Because they keep giving me these tools.

Yeah.

Wow.

Where can people go to find out more about everything

that you're doing, Berner?

Because I mean, I mean, it's like opening up a page over there on Amazon.

You've got a ton of stuff going on.

I think the best way is to follow the Instagram,

B-E-E-R, N-U-R-4, and five, also the X.

I could just use that as my platform to talk to my people.

Excellent.

You got to come back to this show anytime,

or if you come to Charlotte, man,

we got to get together for some face-to-face time

and really dive into the depths of everything that has made you a legend.

Thank you, brother.

Hell yeah, we'll love you.

Yeah, excellent.

Will you be brilliant today, okay, sir?

You too, bro.

Have a good day.

Thank you so much.

All right, brother.