The Truth About Sports Memorabilia (And Why Authenticity Matters) | Ben Beeri

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Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers.

Today, we're sitting down with one of the owners and founders of Golden State memorabilia,

the largest distributor of authenticated memorabilia on the planet.

Please welcome Ben Bury.

Thanks for your brings with me.

Welcome to another episode of Coffees.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

Yeah, it's been a fun conversation so far.

I'm chatting with you, and as I told you in the beginning, I love sports memorabilia.

It's cool to meet with someone that has the biggest selection on the planet of sports

memorabilia, authentic sports memorabilia, and we're going to dive right into this.

What is it that really attracted you to a marketplace that is number one, hyper competitive, number

two, there's just a lot of shade around sports memorabilia.

What is it that drew you to that business?

For me, it was more of a passion.

I just like going to basketball games when I was a kid.

I'd bring my cards, I'd bring my photos, I'd bring my jerseys, and I'd try to get autographed

from the players, and I thought it was cool.

I grew up in the Bay Area.

Big Golden State Warriors fan.

They were not a very good team.

No, they just didn't get it.

They're not a very good team.

It got a little bit better.

They drafted in 09.

They drafted a guy by the name of Stefan Curry.

Yeah.

They started climbing to relevance, and it was cool to just a massive collection over

the years, and honestly, just grow a collection of autographs that I enjoyed, and my business

really became a continuation of growing that collection.

I wanted to get to a point when I started my business where I wanted to have 10,000 unique

items for sale on our website, store, online, and then we got to 10,000, we wanted to get

20,000, and then we got to 20,000, we wanted to get to 30,000, and we got to 30,000,

it's like, okay, it's a lot of items.

Let's kind of start selling some more stuff, try to get it down to 20,000 again, or start

getting it down.

I realized less is more when carrying a diverse set of inventory because so many of the

different athletes are very niche, and it's nice to have the large selection of things.

But most people gravitate to the few athletes many times, rather than the many athletes

once.

You know, 30,000 unique memorabilia pieces.

What is the value of something like that?

It gets up there for sure, we got items.

One Jordan item is like 30 grand.

Sure, yeah, we get items from $30,000 to $30,000, I mean, if you could be higher than that

even, but it really just depends on what the scarcity of it is, how many can get produced,

what the item it's on, sometimes just one trading card could be tens of thousands of dollars

alone, you can add an autograph to that, and it climbs in value even more.

Yeah, so you have, that 30,000 is a combination of cards and sports memorabilia, or just-

Well, they're all autographed, right?

So it could be autographed cards, it could be autographed jerseys, photos, balls, any type

of item, really.

What's the most expensive piece you've ever sold?

Most expensive piece we've ever sold.

Well, I mean, there's a few different ones, right?

I mean, usually it ends up being somebody who's deceased, or it's scarce, I mean, you

sold like Lou Gehrig items before, I mean, I had a Jackie Robinson on a nice big photo,

that was a pretty cool item.

Some trading cards, some trading cards of guys like Steph Curry or Michael Jordan or

Kobe Bryant, and so people like the goats, people like the players, it really stick out,

and-

That's right, I love collecting forms.

Have formed like a connection to them, like I mean, people see that and they go, hey,

I don't just admire Kobe Bryant for who he is on basketball court, I admire him, like

Kobe Bryant for who he is as a person, what he represents and the mamba mentality and

how he inspires me to work better at my craft of what I do every day.

I couldn't be a professional basketball player, I admire a guy like Steph Curry for his consistency

and his loyalty and his infectious joy in which he does everything he does with, I mean,

the guy goes on the basketball court and he elevates everybody around him, and each one

of his teammates becomes better for being around him, teammates, coaches, fans, training

staff, like there's guys like Steph Curry, you meet people and like there's not one person

who doesn't become better around him.

Yeah, I had a friend who had a Michael Jordan Warren jersey that was signed and he bought

it for $200,000.

Well, it's probably gone up in value since.

Yeah, not crazy, like I'm like, here I am bragging about my Michael Jordan jersey, it's

probably worth $10, $12 grand and he's got like, no, my nose DNA verified Warren by Jordan

at such and such.

Have you ever carried any of that kind of stuff where it's like, game Warren jersey,

we could game use stuff from time to time, but again, it's like the higher an item climbs

in value, the more niche the market gets, right?

So unless you decide you want to take the item to auction and liquidate it, right?

You don't really get a quick turn on it, so sometimes it's like, do you find the right

buyer for the item or are you just trying to get rid of the item, move on from it and

get into something else?

When you're carrying 30,000 pieces of inventory, do you have buyers lined up beforehand to

acquire it?

Like, how does that work?

Because that's a lot of inventory to carry and how do you even carry that stuff?

It's not like you carry it in a warehouse, it's got to be like, armed, guarded type of

facility.

Well, you have items that sure you have buyers want to snatch up as soon as you get them

in stock, but a lot of items, you just kind of buy them and hold on to them and make them

available to the right buyers on the right marketplaces and each buyer knows what they're

looking for.

Each buyer knows what team they're a fan of, what celebrities they're a fan of, and they'll

go and they'll search, hey, if you're a fan of the Houston Rockets from the 1994-1995

championship and you want an autograph of Robert Orie because you thought he was a badass

on that team, you'll go online, you'll search for a Robert Orie autograph, they're typically

not very expensive, and you'll go ahead and you'll buy one of those and that just kind

of ends up hitting kind of all the nostalgic fields of, hey, I was a fan of this team X amount

of years ago.

For me, I thought Jason Richardson was awesome when he was on the Warriors in 2001 and 2002

winning a dunk contest.

We didn't get all star players back then.

The Warriors didn't really make the playoffs, like it was just what moments can you hold

on to that you connect with as a person, you think are cool, that you want to commemorate

and that ultimately becomes a reason for wanting to collect something and wanting to go

online and search for something and wanting to have it so you can enjoy it.

That's awesome.

So, you know, we talked about the fraud that's going on in the memorabilia world and how

prevalent it is now.

Now I bought and stuff off of eBay and sadly now eBay now has this other level of authentication

outside of PSA because you could say, you're buying something on eBay, it's PSA graded

and PSA is like, this isn't from us.

So how often are you encountering counterfeits in the memorabilia space?

So for us specifically, I mean, we do our due diligence on each and every item we sell

and we ensure that the items we sell are authenticated.

There isn't a single item that we sell that isn't authenticated and has gone through

all the checks and processes to ensure that, hey, the item that our buyers are getting

is authentic.

The thing that I would kind of advise people who are looking to purchase memorabilia to

do, whether it's from us or somebody else, is to educate yourself on which autographs

are the authentic autographs versus which ones are not.

If you go online, you type in, you're looking for a Kobe Bryant autographed jersey and one

is available to you for three or five hundred bucks, it likely wasn't signed by Kobe Bryant.

Yeah.

So what do you sell a Kobe Bryant signed jersey PSA graded for?

I mean, they range depending on the type of jersey, how it's displayed, air of the autograph.

I mean, you can probably get a Kobe Bryant jersey for five to ten grand nowadays.

Yeah.

I'm actually working with the church.

Now I'm going to, I got a, I designed it really well, like a Kobe sign ball authenticated

by the Lakers with a Kobe PSA nine rookie card and like a really cool picture display.

I'm hoping that the church can get 12 to 15 grand for it.

That'll be nice.

Yeah.

So, you know, like, I like to collect myself and then I like to buy memorabilia to raise

money for charity because people will spend top dollar if it's a donation.

So it's like a way that I've been able to look kind of like get a multiple on my investment

for charitable contributions and it's cool.

Anytime you can give back to someone, I mean, like you're really coming from a place of

giving and looking at things to, hey, like, I'm not doing this for me.

I'm doing this for somebody else and it's really cool.

Anytime you can put yourself in a frame of mind to be able to do that.

Now let me ask you at what age did you realize like this is what you want to do?

You want to get into sports memorabilia for a living?

Well, it was funny.

So I always enjoyed getting autographs from players.

I always thought it was cool.

I still enjoy it.

I still enjoy it.

I had an interesting upbringing in which me getting autographs was frowned upon by parents,

like teachers, everybody at school.

Everyone's like, hey, Ben's too focused on getting autographs and got to a point where

when I was 12 years old, I was actually put in for psychiatric evaluations.

Like, hey, what is wrong with this guy?

He's too focused on these autographs.

He's not getting his good grades in school.

All this collecting autographs is interfering with him in school.

He's not getting his good grades as he could be getting.

And what's wrong with him?

Like, we need to get him some help.

We need to get Ben some help.

What's going on with him?

And I was very focused on it.

I really enjoyed it.

I would always sort all my cards or photos, sort my autographs and just had fun with it.

But I got about a year or so later than that.

I got kicked out of school when I was in middle school.

And that kind of sent me down a path of, well, what did I do wrong?

Like needing to kind of reflect on myself, understand, hey, what got me here?

And how do I get out of this next situation that I'm getting into and kind of work to

prop myself up?

Me going and getting autographs was a problem to people in the past.

Well, I now stop doing something that I'm passionate about because people are telling

me that I shouldn't.

And I ultimately kind of took a little bit of a break from it and then came back to it

during my high school years and I was more passionate about it than ever before.

And I learned a little bit about the business side of things and I'm like, it's full steam

ahead.

It's time to get going on this.

And I really, I started working more on the business side of things when I was 20 years

old and things started heading in the right direction.

And I'm really grateful our business is going to turn 10 years old in April, 2026.

Wow.

And what age did you create the bit, uh, incorporate it?

I was 20 years old.

20, so now you're 30.

Turning 30 in a couple of weeks, I guess I'm getting old now.

What can I say?

Haha.

You're not 40 yet.

You got plenty of time.

Um, now, you know, what would you say to someone who's looking at getting into

sports cards, sports memorabilia for a living?

I would say that make sure it's something that you enjoy doing and it's something that

you're passionate about.

Uh, there's plenty of other fields in the world that can be more lucrative than sports

cards and sports memorabilia, sports cards and sports memorabilia is a fun business

to be in.

You can certainly make a living and certainly make a good living.

But if you really look at every type of business and the levels of scalability to them, there's

many other businesses out there that are far more scalable than sports cards, sports

memorabilia, uh, because there's only so many authentic autographs that are being signed

by each and every athlete.

There's only so many cards that are being produced that have value by the sports cards

company, right?

So you essentially end up getting in a business of buying and selling and you can make money

doing it.

You can make a living doing it.

You can make a great living doing it and it's awesome and it's fun.

But I would say to make sure that it's something that you genuinely enjoy doing because if

you get into it without any passion or enjoyment of doing it, uh, there's going to be days that

aren't the best days and those days are really going to knock you down and discourage you

and you're not going to want to do it anymore.

Now after you finish college, you're what, not 20, 21, you're 20 years old or 22 when

I finished college.

22.

And then you go to your parents, you know what?

I'm not going to pursue whatever my major was in.

I'm going to go to sports memorabilia.

What was that like?

That was an interesting time for me.

So I graduated college.

I really didn't have a full level of belief in myself that I could go for it.

Go for the entrepreneurial dream.

Go for my business full time.

And what were you questioning?

Well, I was questioning myself and like myself limiting beliefs.

And I grew up in an environment that wasn't really conducive to my growth.

I wasn't told that I could do anything that I want to do.

I was told that, Hey, Ben, you've got these loves.

You've got these passions, but that's what they are.

Their love is their passions, like go find something real to do for a living type of

thing.

So I graduate college and I go on some job interviews and I, at this point, I was working

on my business part time and I'm like, maybe I'll go on some job interviews and

make an extra 40 or 50 grand a year so I can help fund my business.

And I want a couple of job interviews and I remember walking out of a job interview

one day and going, I don't want this fucking job anyways.

Like there's like, I can't see myself getting up in the morning and coming to work here.

I'm just going to send it.

I'm just going to go and work full time on my business more than full time.

Every hour, every waking hour of the day and I started working on Golden State

memorabilia 16 hours a day, seven days a week and I probably did that for the next.

But your business relies on capital contribution.

Absolutely.

How did you get capital to attain the inventory to make it as business?

You could work as much as you want until you're building the face.

But did you get like a loan?

Did your parents, you know, actually now, I was, I was very, I was very grateful.

I had, I had some help from a previous venture that I did when I was 17.

I got into the ticketing business and I would buy and sell tickets to Warriors basketball

games.

And that's kind of way too much.

I mean, it wasn't a ton, right?

But it's like, hey, when you're starting a business and you've got, say, built up 50

to 100 grand, it's like I can go and start buying some autographs with that.

Yeah.

Start reselling it, start buying some more autographs and resell those.

So you had initial venture.

And so I ended up in 2019 when the Warriors moved to the Chase Center.

I probably had about 100 grand saved up and that's what they wanted for the tickets to

get the seat licensing fees at the Chase Center.

And I told myself that I would be better off investing this into my memorabilia business

than I was into the tickets.

And that was one of the best decisions I ever made because later that season five games

into the season, Steph Curry gets hurt.

And then later that season, they got suspended for, the season got suspended for COVID.

And I would have lost my 100 grand trying to sell the tickets.

So a little bit of divine intervention.

And I was able to, I got, I was very fortunate that I made the decision that I made to kind

of invest more in the memorabilia side of the business.

And it was just, honestly, it was building and managing a collection.

That's what started out and ultimately it turned into, hey, how do I structure a business?

How do I hire employees?

How do I build a team?

How do I train employees?

How do I, I mean, you got to teach yourself about taxes, you got to teach yourself about

accounting, you got to teach yourself about leadership and hiring and how to inspire other

people to share in your vision and grow.

So it's, how many people are part of your vision now?

Part of my vision.

I mean, it was interesting.

There were points in time where I was managing upwards of 20 people and it's like, and we've

gotten down, I mean, nowadays we have people coming in and out.

I mean, we've got slightly upwards of 10 now.

And you end up getting in a spot where it's like, how do you inspire other people to go

and chase their dream careers?

Whether it's with you or not with you, if somebody on my team wants to go and do something

else in life, how do I give them the tools to go out and venture into a space where they

can go and do that?

I mean, that's what it's about.

It's about helping other people grow and seek their passions, seek their dreams.

Totally.

And everyone's different, right?

Let me ask you this though, because I'm always fascinated with people who built a career.

I mean, I don't know anyone that's really built a sportsman in a business.

I had someone who built a sports card coaching the biggest in the country business and they

taught, teach people how to do sports cards on the side.

But like, sportsman and billiard is so niche to begin with.

And then you dive into the niches of the niches.

And to be honest with you, the profit is in the niches with any industry, whenever there's

a niche.

So what niche have you found to be like the most lucrative in the sportsman and billiard

business?

Well, the niche that we have is our autographs are authentic.

And there's so many different parts of the business in memorabilia and collectibles.

And there's so few people who sell authentic autographs, an overwhelming majority of autographs

that are available on the market for people to purchase are usually not signed by the

person that they claim that they're signed by.

That's fascinating.

You say that.

How do you know that?

Well, I mean, you go online and you look and all of a sudden, hey, there's a brand

new style of a Lakers jersey signed by Kobe Bryant and Kobe rest his soul has not been

with us for the last five years.

You cannot have possibly signed X jersey or whatever it is.

It's being sold for two or three hundred bucks.

And you see all this stuff.

And there's people who are praying on buyers that lack an education as to which of the signatures

are authentic.

So we really look around and look at all the great companies in our industry that are selling

authentic memorabilia and I commend them because I know what it takes.

I mean, you've got to take the time.

You've got to sit down with an athlete and athlete has to sign the autographs or you've

got to purchase the autographs from people who are reputable, who obtain the autographs directly

from the athletes.

And at the end of the day, the niche is an athlete or a celebrity took a pen and signed the

autograph themselves.

And that autograph has then gone through an autograph authentication process and has been

authenticated.

And only then can be made available to sell.

What is the autograph authentication process?

The autograph authentication process usually runs through one of three main companies, PSA,

JSA and Beckett.

And they have experts who take a look at these autographs, compare them to known examples

of autographs signed by said athletes and celebrities.

And they come to a conclusion in which they deemed the autographs to be either likely genuine

or likely not genuine.

And in order for an autograph to be authenticated, one of these experts has to deem the autograph

to be likely genuine.

And so then we end up with these autographs that are authenticated and we can make them

available for our buyers to purchase.

Now let me ask you this, because it seems like your business probably suffered a lot

in the beginning.

Can you recall one of your greatest struggles in starting, well, I will say this.

First of all, as an entrepreneur, I think the greatest struggles you go through in business

are personal, because you tie your personal identity to how your business is performing.

And early on, when you start a business, any business, there is a very, very, very

significant chance that your business is going to fail.

Like you walk into starting a business, like if you were to tell 20-year-old Ben, hey,

in 10 years for your business to still be alive, the odds are 99 point whatever percent

is you are going to fail, your business is not going to be around in 10 years.

And that's the reality of the situation.

So I am essentially going into something knowing that I have a less than 1% success rate

of staying around.

And there is this constant, am I going to be able to do this?

Is this business going to be viable?

Am I going to get to a point where I can make a living?

And it's this constant, keep working, keep working, how do I get over the hump?

Can I generate revenue?

Can I be profitable?

Can I afford to pay rent for a warehouse?

And all these different things that keep coming up and all these different expenses and

all the costs of doing business that are unforeseen that happen to every business owner.

And those early on struggles are ones where you have to keep pushing through.

And you almost have to have a certain sense of like self delusion to believe that you

are going to make it against the incredible odds that are stacked against you.

And I remember very distinctly, we were just kind of starting to get over the hump, we're

just starting to generate some revenue.

This was around March of 2020 and COVID lockdowns happen.

Everything shut down.

I lived in Northern California and the Bay Area, our business was based out of Walnut

Creek, California.

That was one of the most shut down parts of the country.

And there was a stay-at-home order and all of a sudden I was not allowed to go to my place

of business.

And I had to sit there and I had to make a decision.

I knew that I had signed a lease on that warehouse not too long before that my business would

not survive if I had to continue to pay rent for a business that was non-operational.

And so I made a promise to myself, I went into the office against a stay-at-home order,

seven days a week with no exceptions.

Thankfully during COVID there was no outside distractions.

It could work my 16 hour days without being bothered by anyone.

There is no pressure to go out and be social, there is no friends getting together, there

is nothing going on in the outside world.

I could go to my place of business, laser in, be laser focused, and the first week of

COVID there was no sales, everybody was uncertain, nobody was buying anything.

I was sitting there questioning like is my business even going to survive, I remember

going to the office, there's no orders to ship, there's no, like none, none, I can't.

Because people are like why am I going to buy a member of the house, I'm going to die.

And it's like okay, like I've got to pay my employees, I've got to pay rent, there's

no money coming in, there's no revenue coming in, okay, how much money do I've saved,

how many months can I keep my business going for, and all of a sudden a couple weeks later

things kind of started kicking up a little bit, people realized it's like hey, yes we

are stuck at home, we are going to get through this, we're not going to die.

And all of a sudden sales kind of started kicking up a little bit, and I'd say memorabilia

probably became more popular than ever at that time.

Why do you think it became more popular than ever?

I think people were at home and they had an opportunity to reflect on what they could

connect with.

And regardless of your background or your demographic or what your interests were or political

beliefs were, you had a certain connection with an athlete or a celebrity and you resonated

with that person.

Whether you were mourning the death of Kobe Bryant at that time or whether he thought

Luca Doncic was the next big athlete or Patrick Mahomes is dominating or hey Tom Brady's

on the Buccaneers, what the hell's going on here, like how is this going to go down?

And you've built a connection to an athlete and you resonate with an athlete, resonate

with hey Taylor Swift's coming out with a new album, this is going to be cool, I'd love

to own a piece of memorabilia of hers or I just watched this movie I think, who was it,

it was the Ozark show, I remember we were selling, we were selling like I played

Marty Bird, we were selling memorabilia, it was like okay we haven't been able to sell

this guy in years, all of a sudden now people are buying him, it was with Jason Sudakis

it was and people are buying his memorabilia and it's like and people were at home and they

had a chance to reflect on who they could connect with and when people find a moment of

connection that is when they decide to purchase a piece of memorabilia to commemorate that

moment of connection.

It's incredible that during that uncertain time of COVID that people were buying like

their favorite actors, what was like during that doubtful time, what is it that really

kind of gave you that hope that you were going to get through this?

I think for me I felt like I didn't really have too much of a choice, like my entire personal

identity was tied to the success of that business and if the business failed then I was a failure.

If the business succeeded I thought I would be a success and it was really interesting

what happened and what unfolded in my life over the next couple of years where I realized

that my business was viable by many measures my business was viewed as successful by many people

but I didn't feel successful as a person, I didn't feel whole, I didn't feel adequate and

it's so interesting chasing the external successes that other people view and getting to that

place and realizing it's like okay now the personal work can begin and that was something that really

hit me hard because yes I am, my name is Ben Beary, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner,

I own this business, Golden State Member Villia, but I am not the business, I am not the heartbeat,

like I am separate from the business, I am a person, I need to work on myself, I desire to have

friendships, connections, I desire to love people, I desire to be loved, I desire to accept

people, I desire to be accepted and it's like how do you separate your personal self from your

business and I didn't think I could do that because I felt that I had to be the heartbeat of

the business and that was a really interesting journey that that prompted for me.

What was the greatest lesson in that journey? The greatest lesson is that you get to learn something

new about yourself each and every day and that everything in the past that has happened in your

life has happened for you, not to you and that the future that is ahead of you is unknown.

You have no control over it, there's nothing you can do to get the future to reveal itself

but to just accept and embrace that hey the future is unknown and I'm here for it and I look at

things now and I'm just grateful for how everything has played out in my life, I understand that it's

all been a part of my purpose and I'm genuinely looking at the future and I have no idea what's

going to happen in my life but I'm excited for it, I'm here for it. Yeah, I mean that's the part of

the journey. Now what do you think some of the best advices that you received during the journey?

I think the best advice I received is to just not stray off from who I am as a person

and to not diminish who I am in search of acceptance from others

and to lean even further into who I am as a person and into my authenticity

and that there are going to be people out there that judge me or that don't see eye to eye with me

or that don't accept me but as long as I can accept myself and be myself and show love to other

people and be respectful to other people and accept other people for who they are but that's really

what matters and just to be the most authentic version of myself that I can possibly be and hopefully

inspire others to be the most authentic version of themselves that they can possibly be.

Have you had any mentors in this memorabilia business because it seems like so niche like

who can help you? It's very niche. We have an industry that's pretty tight in it. There's a lot of us

that know each other. I'm very grateful that I've had an opportunity to be around the industry's

leaders and learn from them and just see how they operate their businesses directly. It's really

just a small group of us that go and make an effort to try to bring authentic autographs

to people and have autograph signings with athletes and celebrities and ensure that these

autographs are authenticated and they're made available to our customer base.

You guys have your own signings? We do at times and our competition isn't each other. It's

really refreshing to see that, hey, here's a guy who owns another company. He's selling an

authentic Michael Jordan autograph. I would rather somebody buy from him than buy from the guy who

posted $10-$500 Michael Jordan shirt as he's on eBay that are not signed by Michael Jordan.

That guy's going to sell his 10 before the guy with the real one's going to sell his one. That's

interesting. It's all kind of like, hey, how do we root for each other? How do we come together?

You're in the super fraudulent competitive world. We root for the people that do things the

right way. You root for the people that have integrity. You root for the people that want to see

the authentic autograph end up in the customer's hands. If somebody buys an autograph from somebody

else in our business who owns a business and is selling authentic autographs, I don't view that

person as a competitor. I view that person as a colleague in our industry because they are out there.

They're trying to get authentic autographs in people's hands. They're doing things the right way.

They're doing things with honor and integrity. Honestly, we need more of that and the more of that

we get in this business, the more we can educate the end consumers to, hey, there's a difference

between authentic autographs and autographs that are not authentic and hope that more market share

shifts towards purchasing the authentic autographs versus the non-authentic autographs.

Now, right now, is there a competitor that you can think of that you're like, I want to be

you already dominate the memorabilia space. There's nobody living in here. My only competitor in life

is myself and it's you versus you. I want to be better tomorrow than I am today. I hope that I'm

better today than I was yesterday and it's really cool when you're on this constant journey of

transformation as a person to see who the person that you get to become is and whether that's in

business or whether that's personally it's there's all these different sectors and different

things that you can get interested in in life and there's different seasons of life and one

season you may be really interested and really focused on one thing and the next season of your

life you're really interested and focused on the next thing and you can always come back. You can

always go back and forth to the different things that you're interested in and just keep pushing,

keep becoming, keep transforming. It's like this is such a wonderful life that we get to live.

It's such a privilege to wake up every day and do something that I love for a living. I'm so

grateful for it. It's such a privilege to wake up every day and get to see people that I love,

talk to people that I love, share a conversation, share whether it's a meal or a night out and it's

like, that's what really matters at the end of the day. It's like, who do you love? Who loves you?

Who do you care about? Who cares about you? Who do you accept? Who do you respect? Who accepts

and respects you and who are you becoming? What journey are you on? Who are you becoming as a person

and are you proud of the person that you're becoming? Or do you need to give yourself a look in the

mirror and say, hey, I am not heading down the right direction right now. I need to change the

course that I am heading down so I can become the person that I am meant to become. That's great

advice and that's something that I always ponder and ask myself, am I the guy that I want to be

right now? Am I the person that I'm being? Am I hitting my personal goals? In a business that

where you don't get a lot of mentorship and you don't have competitors to really aim for,

how are you driving your goals right now? What is it that's keeping you on that path

because there's really no way to learn. You're setting the path. You're the trailblazer.

So for us, it's how do we get authentic collectibles, authentic memorabilia and customers'

hands? How can we give them the experience of connection? If somebody grew up and watched

Kobe Bryant play and loves Kobe Bryant and wants to purchase a Kobe Bryant autograph.

Everybody wants one of those, no. Whether they watch them or not. I want them to have one

that was actually signed by Kobe. Yeah. And they're not easy to find,

but I want them to have the correct one. I want them to have the right one. I want it to be

signed by Kobe. There's nothing that breaks my heart more than when I go and I see someone and

I visit someone and they're, oh Ben, you're in the memorabilia business. This is really cool. Oh,

yes. I have had this Kobe Bryant jersey on my wall for years. I got this as a gift and I look

at it and I'm like, that wasn't signed by Kobe, bro. And that really becomes a dilemma of when you

can tell someone how you break that to them because it's like, no, it's authenticated. Bro,

that's global authenticators. It's not a real company. It's really like it's it's it's heart

wrenching because people invest their hard earned money into this. Yeah. And they invest their

harder and money into these collectibles and a lot of these collectibles are purchased because

they want to have a connection with an athlete. A lot of these collectibles have value and people

invest in them because they know that, hey, this item could potentially appreciate and value.

And I want to have it, right? And it's like, so for us, it's how do we at the most creative with

ensuring that people are getting authentic autographs? We recently started our framing services

so we can help people custom display the autographs as they would like them. And how do we get creative

and help them display the autographs as they would like to have them display? And also, how do you help

people display other moments in their lives? Hey, we can also frame wedding photos. We can also

frame diplomas. We can custom cut all the different logos and colors and that stuff has been kind of

cool and kind of fun to play around with. And how do you at the end of the day help somebody

commemorates something that is meaningful to them in their lives? And how do you bring that to

them and for us, that's what drives us. And you're doing this at scales. So people are doing this

with you and you're doing this at a massive level of production. It's fun. A couple last questions

before you joined. This one's about goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself,

a goal for your family, which I'm your single now, so I'm assuming you know, your family,

whether it's your immediate family or relationships you have. And then a goal that you have for

for your business. It was really interesting. I've been reflecting on this a lot lately.

And I've gone down this journey over the last few years of discovery and becoming and learning

about who I am as a person. And it really just comes to a place of how can I unconditionally

accept myself and love myself and respect myself. So I can unconditionally accept others,

respect others and love others. And stay true to that on a daily basis.

Be my most authentic self on a daily basis and help inspire other people to go down

that path of love, respect, acceptance, authenticity and radiate that to other people.

Because at the end of the day, I'm going to die one day. We all are. And when I die one day,

nobody's going to say he drove that car. He had that watch. He lived in that house. He owned that

business. We're going to say this was a Ben as a person. This is the impact that he had on my life.

I am better for having interacted with him or having known him. And I really

just have a great sense of peace and knowing that I can be that person to other people.

And whatever has meant to happen for me in life with relationships is going to happen.

There's meant to happen for me in my life with family that's going to happen. I know I'm going

to be a great father one day. I've always wanted to be. And I know that's going to be a good path for me.

Whatever has meant to happen in my business or business as at this point is going to happen.

And that will continue to head in the right direction because I'm passionate about it.

My team is passionate about it. And how can I help my team grow their careers? How can I pour

into them as people and help them develop as people so they in turn are able to pour more into

the business so they can increase their value so they can generate more revenue for the company.

So I can pay them more. So they've got more fruitful careers and a more successful path ahead.

And how do you ultimately just elevate the people around you? I mean the most

significant people that you come across in life elevate the people around them.

And it's like the Golden State Warriors don't win those championships without Steph Curry as the

heartbeat. That's right. And they come into work every day. The training staff is better. The

coaching staff is better. Players around him is better. Kevin Durant was able to win a

champion a couple championships with Steph Curry. I mean it's like we're one of the most

talented players in the world Kevin Durant. They needed that heartbeat and that leadership

of Steph Curry and that radiated all that joy and all of that love through the locker room.

And it's it's infectious when you're radiating joy and you're radiating love and you're just

respectful to people and you accept people for who they are. And that's really the path

that I desire to go down. Just a constant state of growth, a constant state of becoming

a constant state of raising my vibrational frequency and hopefully inspiring others to

raise their vibrational frequency and become the most authentic people that they can be. Like

Joe, when I'm around you, I just want you to be Joe. I don't want you to be anybody else.

And I accept you for who you are, for whatever is good, for whatever you're struggling to accept

yourself with, for whatever you've got going on. I just want you to be you and I want to love you

for you and I want to accept you for you and I want to respect you for you and I want to be able

to do that for the people that I come across in my life. So that's where I'm at right now and

that's what I'm excited for. It's coming up for me. I love that. And what about a business goal?

Business goal is I want to see my team, the people who are on my team feel as successful as they

can feel. I want my team, people on my team to feel like they're working their dream jobs,

to be proud of what they tell people when they are asked, what do you do for a living?

They can radiate the same level of passion that I can radiate, they can feel valued,

they could feel like they're growing not only professionally but also personally.

And I imagine that there's going to come a time where there's going to be other companies as well

that I'm working on and just have one big family of a team that we're working with that we're

all pushing to make the world a better place. And that's something that really excites me about

business and I recently started my own podcast and the authentic journey and it's about how I can

dive as deep as I can dive into my authenticity and inspire other people to dive as deep as they can

dive into their authenticity and it's just it's fun the stuff is fun you and I are having

conversation it's amazing like just two humans connecting. Yeah what's been some of the best lessons

you've learned from your podcast? One of the most amazing things I've found when you have the

privilege of sitting down for a podcast with somebody is you get to know that person better as a person

and I can already love you and I can already accept you and I can already respect you.

But I know that after we sit down for the podcast I actually get to know you better. Yeah.

Money can't buy that like there's no greater feeling than knowing it's like hey you and I just set

down for a podcast Joe I know know your heart better than I knew it when he sat down and there's

no greater payment than that there's no better gift than that. It's amazing what a one hour

conversation can do to a relationship because it's a dying attribute we don't do this very often

nowadays it's always some sort of distracted conversation you're on your phone you're doing this

you're doing that you're you know but a podcast is literally unobstructed although there's

cameras and we're live and this and the other it's unobstructed unfiltered raw content that's

a conversation that you know where I'm looking you in the eye yeah and unfortunately in this

society these days it just doesn't happen yeah doesn't happen one last question for you

when you're in front of the pearly gates what's God gonna tell you?

God is gonna tell me that

every day when I woke up in the morning I had an opportunity to elevate myself

and elevate others elevate their soul into the best version of their soul that they can be

I sought out human connection that ultimately turned into soul connection and when you can get

past the human connection part connect with other people's souls and elevate those souls and help

every person be their most authentic self and be the best version of themself they can be

and get people on a state of constant becoming and constant elevation and constant leveling up

of themselves personally their soul get people to their goals get people to show themselves to the

world and talk I mean there's so many you and I were talking about this earlier how many

entrepreneurs are out there that are hesitant to share their stories hesitant to share about

themselves hesitant to let people know what they've been through what they went through their

failures their successes and I feel like there's so many people out there that the world would love

to hear more from and I think that God would tell me that it's like hey Ben you went out there

you're authentic and you genuinely wanted to elevate the people around you and look at how

many people you elevated and for me that drives me each and every day and I'm like excited to wake

up in the morning and see who I can impact and who I can elevate on a daily basis let's go beautiful

well said if people want to connect with you how do they find you can find me on instagram

benberi b-e-n-b-e-e-r-i I recently started my podcast the authentic journey podcast

or on Spotify, Apple, YouTube wherever you get your podcasts

Instagram the authentic journey pod golden state memorabilia gsmemorbilia.com

and we're on instagram at gsmemorbilia you can check out all the different collection all the

different stuff we're happy to help you guys with all of your framing and display for your

collectibles needs autograph authentication services different valuations on items appraisals

answer different questions and really just help ensure that you guys end up finding like the most

authentic autographs that you guys can find and just ensure that you guys are getting the real deal

whenever you guys purchase an autograph or purchase a collectible anything that you want to

add to your collection we want to make sure that what you're getting is genuine and we're always

happy to help so definitely feel free to reach out to us would love to hear from you guys

love to hear your guys' feedback on different stuff

Ben it's been a pleasure to have you thank you for jumping on the show

benberi guys golden state memorabilia make sure to check them out god bless

if you're a podcast host listen up this one's for you my name is allie jackson i'm the host of

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