# 33 Brutal Truths To Stop Wasting Your Potential - Alex Hormozi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AdkwqkE20M
Translation: zh-CN

[00:00] Welcome back, man. Another speed running

[00:02] podcasting booty call.

[00:05] That's the hope. Do more hard things

[00:08] every day is a great mantra, but it

[00:10] should be less about ice baths and more

[00:12] about making that decision you've been

[00:14] putting off for 3 months.

[00:18] Yeah. Um, I think that there's been a

[00:22] big misconception around hard stuff,

[00:24] which is just that, um, like running a

[00:27] marathon necessarily means that you can

[00:28] have a hard conversation with your wife

[00:30] um, by saying like, I do hard things.

[00:32] Um, but those hard things don't

[00:34] necessarily generalize. And so I think

[00:36] domain specificity is much more uh

[00:38] narrow unless you decide to generalize

[00:41] to an identity label of like I am the

[00:42] type of person who can do hard things

[00:44] because I ran this marathon or because I

[00:45] do these ice baths and then as a result

[00:47] I can then generalize that label to

[00:48] other behaviors. Um but if you can make

[00:51] that label and identify with it then you

[00:52] don't need to run the marathon in order

[00:54] to do the hard thing. You just need the

[00:55] label. What are the hard things that

[00:58] people should be focusing on more? What

[01:00] what are the step change function hard

[01:02] thing capacity skills that people should

[01:04] focus on more?

[01:08] I think it's being cognizant of what

[01:13] what other what outside forces are

[01:16] influencing your behavior in a way that

[01:18] is aversive or against your goals. And

[01:22] so if you're like, I want to start a

[01:24] business, but I am afraid of what other

[01:27] people will say, then it means that we

[01:29] are allowing those other people to

[01:30] control your behavior. And I think when

[01:32] you say it in really plain terms like

[01:33] that, you're like, "Wow, I didn't know I

[01:34] was giving them that much power over my

[01:35] life." It's like, I am not doing this

[01:37] because of them, which means they

[01:38] control me. And to me, like the hard

[01:42] thing is in some ways just not allowing

[01:44] that control to persist or to keep

[01:46] going. M it is interesting how many

[01:49] people can do hard things physically but

[01:51] can't do hard things decisively.

[01:53] I have so I have you know our security

[01:55] team and whatnot and this is a

[01:56] discussion that I've had with probably

[01:58] each of them at different times cuz

[01:59] we've seen combat and death and all that

[02:00] kind of stuff. Um, and what's funny is

[02:03] that like the amount of risk that they

[02:06] are willing to put their physical bodies

[02:08] in, like literally their lives at stake,

[02:09] but then how that doesn't necessarily

[02:11] translate to being able to have a like

[02:13] call it vulnerable conversation with a

[02:16] wife, spouse, lover, etc. Um, is just

[02:19] interesting. And this is again back to

[02:20] like these things don't generalize. They

[02:23] look good, but they do not mean the same

[02:25] thing.

[02:27] It's weird that we

[02:29] publicly admire the obvious hard thing,

[02:33] even if that isn't the one that actually

[02:35] makes the biggest difference to people's

[02:37] life direction. It's not predictive of

[02:38] being a good friend. It's not predictive

[02:40] of being the best partner. It's not

[02:42] predictive of being a successful

[02:43] business owner, but because it's more

[02:47] obvious, because it's more publicly

[02:50] laudable, uh, you can flex it online and

[02:52] you can tell people, "I ran a marathon

[02:54] as opposed to

[02:55] when my partner asked me a difficult

[02:57] question, I didn't shy away from it. I

[02:58] told them the truth."

[03:00] And to be clear, I think that those

[03:01] things are laudable in and of

[03:02] themselves. Like, you go fight a war,

[03:04] you go do like you go run a marathon. I

[03:06] think all of those things are are

[03:07] praiseworthy. It's just the

[03:09] generalizable

[03:11] component of that hard being, oh, I can

[03:13] do all hard things, is really the the

[03:15] misconception. But I do think that if

[03:16] you if for whatever reason you tell

[03:18] yourself a narrative that you because

[03:19] because you did this hard thing, you can

[03:20] do all hard things, then that's amazing.

[03:22] And

[03:23] by all means, if someone's like, I

[03:24] started doing jiu-jitsu and it

[03:25] completely changed my life, it's like

[03:26] that's awesome. But it probably isn't

[03:28] because you learned how to do guard

[03:29] better. Uh it's probably because like

[03:32] what guard what learning to do guard

[03:33] meant for you changed these other series

[03:35] of behaviors down the line. How

[03:37] correlative do you think it is people

[03:39] that do hard things physically versus

[03:42] people who develop the capacity to do

[03:44] hard things that matter?

[03:46] Can you re say that again?

[03:47] Let's say that doing hard things

[03:49] electively versus doing hard things

[03:51] decisively. The big difference between

[03:53] the two to me seems to be decisions that

[03:55] require emotion

[03:56] and decisions that require effort.

[03:58] That seems to be one of the big

[04:00] delineations here.

[04:02] So, so it's like the call it hard

[04:04] conversation versus hard physical task.

[04:06] Yeah. And how many people who develop

[04:07] the skill to do hard physical tasks as a

[04:09] transformation, how many of those do you

[04:11] think carry over into being able to do

[04:13] the hard thing emotionally?

[04:14] Probably the same in the opposite

[04:15] direction. The guys who are like can

[04:18] have quote hard conversations with the

[04:20] attorney who can get through all these

[04:21] complex ideas and have whatever then

[04:24] sucks on at jiu-jitsu or sucks at in the

[04:27] weight room or doesn't try hard. I think

[04:29] um I just think that skills are more

[04:31] specific unless you generalize them.

[04:33] How do you generalize? I think it's it's

[04:35] it's creating labels on identity with

[04:37] personality. And so if we if we if we

[04:39] ident if we define personality by um the

[04:43] aggregate of how you behave in all

[04:44] conditions, right? So all these

[04:47] conditions, how you act is your

[04:49] personality. The label we ascribe to

[04:51] that personality would then be the

[04:53] identity.

[04:54] And so if we decide to change that

[04:56] label, then that label, this is getting

[04:58] a little technical, but basically

[04:59] becomes a global reinforcer for your

[05:00] behavior. Like I am this, I am honest.

[05:04] And so we make this label and then

[05:05] honest has a lot of subbehaviors

[05:08] underneath of it that we then act

[05:09] because we believe that honest is good.

[05:11] And so we want to act in accordance with

[05:13] this global reinforcer for ourselves.

[05:14] And so when we enter a new situation we

[05:16] think okay what is in alignment? What

[05:18] behavior is most aligned with this label

[05:21] and then we do that and then when we

[05:22] don't do when we don't act that way then

[05:25] we feel guilty because we broke our own

[05:26] rules of behavior. So the big lesson

[05:29] here is just because you're doing hard

[05:31] things in one domain does not mean that

[05:33] it crosses over into all domains unless

[05:35] you purposefully try to make your

[05:37] identity wrapped up around it.

[05:39] A thousand%. I said when when I um I

[05:42] remember when I went to college my uh I

[05:45] I wanted to pledge a fraternity and it

[05:47] was in the SEC and they're known for for

[05:50] hazing and whatnot. And so I I called my

[05:52] dad and I was like, "Hey, this might be

[05:53] like bad. I might have to go through

[05:55] some stuff that's hard. I don't know.

[05:58] And you know one my dad's given me a lot

[06:00] of lasting gifts but one of them he said

[06:02] think about every hard thing that you've

[06:04] gone through up until this point. He's

[06:05] like there is nothing that they can do

[06:07] to you that is worse than that.

[06:10] And that actually was incredibly

[06:12] empowering. And I I remember when there

[06:13] were more hardships that were going on I

[06:15] just immediately went to the worst

[06:16] things that I had gone through and I was

[06:17] like oh my god this is nothing. So, I

[06:19] was able to like go through this

[06:21] relatively hard thing where there were

[06:22] people who were like cracking and crying

[06:23] and all this stuff. Like I want to say

[06:25] grown men, but I would say adult boys.

[06:27] Uh next to me. Um and I was able to

[06:30] stand tall cuz it was just like there's

[06:32] nothing that these other 21-year-old

[06:34] guys can do to me that has I have not

[06:35] suffered through.

[06:36] It's a good justification for doing hard

[06:38] things. That Rogan's got this line, the

[06:41] worst thing that's ever happened to you

[06:42] is the worst thing that's ever happened

[06:43] to you.

[06:43] Yeah.

[06:44] And if the worst thing that's ever

[06:45] happened to you is somebody misspelling

[06:46] your name on a Starbucks cup.

[06:48] Yeah. That's a big deal.

[06:49] But if the worst thing that's ever

[06:50] happened to you is a thousand times

[06:52] worse than that, I think one problem we

[06:55] have is recency bias that if you haven't

[06:57] been through a tough time right now,

[06:59] your memory of being able to deal with

[07:02] hard things, you kind of get velvet

[07:04] prison syndrome

[07:05] and uh sometimes you can forget. You're

[07:07] like, I guess chicks would say I'm still

[07:10] that [ __ ] of I'm, you know, like I'm

[07:12] I've still got that capacity. Uh

[07:14] sometimes we forget.

[07:16] Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the strongest

[07:17] frames that has gotten me through those

[07:19] harder times is that this is the story I

[07:20] will one day tell. And so it just like

[07:23] almost the more bad things that happen,

[07:25] it's like the more epic the story

[07:26] becomes. And so I mean, and the main

[07:28] beneficiary of the stories that we tell

[07:30] is ourselves because we're the we're the

[07:31] the giver and the receiver of most of

[07:33] the stories by by percentage of stories

[07:35] told. We are we are the biggest receiver

[07:36] of the stories. And so I think that's

[07:38] that's actually been I think just such a

[07:40] powerful frame for like of course this

[07:42] this terrible thing will happen and like

[07:43] doesn't that make the story so much

[07:44] better?

[07:45] Yeah. What's cool is I think when you

[07:48] say we're talking a narrative, story,

[07:50] personification, arc, hero's journey, it

[07:52] all sounds kind of wishful in a way,

[07:56] mythological, irrational,

[07:58] uh, symbolic, but that's the way that

[08:02] humans brains work. like we work in

[08:06] story and even if it's

[08:10] not strictly the way that the

[08:12] neuroscience behind how the medial

[08:16] prefrontal lateral cortex works in order

[08:18] to make us a tougher person. If you are

[08:21] the kind of person that tells yourself

[08:22] the story that you're the kind of person

[08:23] that can get through this, that is

[08:25] functionally exactly what you're

[08:27] chasing. Like what you're after is the

[08:30] story. And by putting that on the front

[08:33] end and going, "Okay, I'm just going to

[08:35] keep on building stories that I'm going

[08:36] to refer back to in future." I think

[08:38] you're actually being more direct than

[08:39] if you were trying to

[08:41] take a more rational view of exactly how

[08:44] behavior is put together. Like the story

[08:45] is the rational view of how your

[08:46] behavior and your identity are put

[08:48] together.

[08:53] There's a lot there. Um I think like

[08:56] with the neuroscience and the and the

[08:57] brain labeling and all that stuff, I

[08:58] have no idea. So that's that's above my

[09:00] pay grade. Um, but yeah, I just think

[09:03] about all of our all of our behavior is

[09:05] just in aggregate. We do what we've been

[09:07] rewarded for doing and it doesn't mean

[09:08] we get a cookie. It could also mean a

[09:09] bad thing goes away. There's there a lot

[09:11] of different types of reward. Um, and so

[09:14] if we remember a story, um, so like

[09:17] let's say you have that story of you

[09:19] went through this hard thing and then

[09:20] you survived, then it basically serves

[09:23] as a reminder of the reinforcer of the

[09:25] behaviors you did to get through it. And

[09:28] so it's almost like um with a kid who's

[09:31] smaller, if you're like, "Hey, remember

[09:32] last time you did this? You got ice

[09:33] cream." Um if you remind them of that

[09:35] reward, then they're more likely to

[09:37] repeat the behavior. And so I think we

[09:38] basically use that narrative as a

[09:40] reminder to in the short term increase

[09:43] the relative value of a reinforcer. And

[09:45] so if we think about like what is

[09:46] motivation in general, that's

[09:47] functionally what you're doing if you

[09:48] motivate someone. Like if you sell

[09:50] someone something for the short term,

[09:52] you increase the relative value of a

[09:54] specific reinforcer. didn't wake up uh

[09:56] wanting to buy cologne, but you see an

[09:59] ad and for the short period of time that

[10:01] the ad goes on, it increases the

[10:03] relative value of smelling good. Uh and

[10:05] so as a result, it changes your behavior

[10:07] and then you buy. And so I think stories

[10:09] function that same way where we use them

[10:11] to motivate ourselves in the short term

[10:13] to do the desired behavior that might be

[10:15] less comfortable in the short term, but

[10:17] we're reminded about the larger

[10:19] reinforcing event that we had in the

[10:20] past. How many people do you think are

[10:22] doing hard things publicly in order to

[10:25] not need to face the lack of capacity

[10:28] they have to do hard things privately?

[10:31] I don't know them. So I don't know to be

[10:33] honest with you. That's my honest

[10:35] answer. I don't know. I think some

[10:37] people really do hard things and it's

[10:38] what they capture online is a fraction

[10:40] of what they really do. And I think

[10:41] there are people who 100% of the hard

[10:43] things they do are online and they're

[10:44] not even that hard% of the hard things

[10:46] they do.

[10:46] Yeah. And they're not even that hard

[10:47] because they've got a squad of people

[10:48] behind them. Like I always I I can think

[10:50] there was a meme around this for a

[10:51] moment that was like but you had a

[10:53] like but you had a camera there. And so

[10:56] It's like girl collapses because of

[10:58] crazy news or something like that. It's

[11:02] you so there's just this this you know

[11:04] this element of you know

[11:05] mistrust performative nature.

[11:07] Yeah.

[11:08] Yeah.

[11:08] The three-step process of how to win.

[11:11] Number one realize no one is coming to

[11:13] save you. Number two take responsibility

[11:16] for your current position. Number three,

[11:18] be willing to sacrifice who you are for

[11:21] who you want to be.

[11:26] I think that those three is really all

[11:28] about power. Um, and the realization so

[11:32] the probably in sequence probably the

[11:34] first one should come first, which is

[11:36] you own everything. It's like, okay, if

[11:39] I own everything, then you can still

[11:40] hope that someone saves you, but it

[11:42] still relies on someone else to change

[11:44] your condition. And so it's like, okay,

[11:46] I own all these outcomes. Um I'm not

[11:48] going to rely on someone else to change

[11:49] my condition. But you're still there,

[11:51] which means you have to take the third

[11:53] step, which is that I have to sacrifice.

[11:54] They have to give up um something in

[11:56] order to get something else. And I think

[11:57] I think where people actually stay stuck

[11:59] the longest in their careers from an

[12:01] entrepreneurship perspective or just

[12:02] from a personal development perspective

[12:04] is um the trades that we are unwilling

[12:07] to make is basically the desire to have

[12:08] everything at the same time. And and the

[12:12] easiest analogy I have is like

[12:15] it is totally reasonable to want to have

[12:17] a mountain view and be on the beach and

[12:20] be walking distance from a Whole Foods.

[12:22] Um

[12:24] but you probably will not find a place

[12:26] that has all three of those because they

[12:29] are all at apparent contradictions

[12:31] or you know apparent odds. And so there

[12:35] but so so what happens is we just stay

[12:37] in this paralysis of indecision because

[12:40] we feel like all paths are settling and

[12:43] I think there's this

[12:44] movement or narrative around like never

[12:46] settle and things like that but people

[12:48] mistake never settle for never make

[12:50] trades and so we have this obsession

[12:52] with optionality or optionality maxing

[12:55] but options are only valuable when taken

[12:58] and so when we never take the option

[13:01] which means we don't cash in the option

[13:03] that we have available. Um like some

[13:05] options need to be taken and when they

[13:07] are taken other options disappear

[13:10] because just having maximum potential

[13:12] does not mean maximum reality because

[13:14] you need to commit.

[13:14] You have to commit which is the

[13:16] elimination of alternatives.

[13:17] And so like there I mean show me

[13:19] anything that was worth doing that did

[13:21] not require commitment which is an

[13:22] elimination of alternatives a trade-off.

[13:24] Um, and so in the beginning of our lives

[13:27] when we're younger, we are we are

[13:30] praised for maximizing our potential,

[13:32] right? How can we have as many colleges

[13:34] accept us? How can we have all the best

[13:37] grades? How can we have all the paths in

[13:39] front of us? But I think many people

[13:40] know people who are really successful

[13:42] earlier on by for maximizing potential

[13:44] but not realizing potential. And I think

[13:47] the gap between the maximization of

[13:49] potential and the realization of

[13:51] potential is the commitments that we're

[13:52] willing to make, which is the trades,

[13:53] the elimination of the alternatives when

[13:55] we have to start cashing those options

[13:56] in and realizing that some of them are

[13:57] are never going to come to fruition

[13:59] because we could only have one life and

[14:01] some of those trades are permanent.

[14:02] You can only not have a kid until you

[14:05] have a kid and then at that point you

[14:06] have, right? There's no going back,

[14:08] right? Um, you know, some decisions in

[14:10] life don't have refunds. Um, and and I I

[14:15] I think I think that is what I would say

[14:17] maybe in the earlier part of my my

[14:19] career, especially single guys, cuz I

[14:21] think a lot of that's like really

[14:22] prevalent in social media right now. Um,

[14:24] is just options maxing.

[14:26] Um, but we just even even in the attempt

[14:29] to options max, you still close off

[14:32] other options, which is that like you

[14:34] will not have the benefits of let's say

[14:37] a committed marriage

[14:38] early on because you've kept your

[14:39] options open,

[14:40] right? And like you will not have the

[14:41] benefits of like a very large business

[14:44] if you try to pursue five

[14:46] or don't pursue any because you want to

[14:47] not make commitments. And so I think

[14:50] that commitment is actually a really

[14:52] strong signal for maturation and growing

[14:54] up.

[14:55] Lots of mistakes were made by standing

[14:56] still. Like people think that in action

[14:59] isn't a decision but it is.

[15:01] Totally. I mean your conditions change

[15:03] through in action still like doors

[15:05] close. uh there are moments where you

[15:07] have opportunities where you have to act

[15:09] or they will go away. Um and so I think

[15:11] it's like being able to seize those

[15:13] opportunities and that means that you

[15:14] have to

[15:16] actively say no to something that you

[15:18] might want or might want a lot. And I

[15:20] think those are the trades that we I

[15:22] think I think being willing to make

[15:23] those trade-offs clearly and trade them

[15:24] for the things that you want more um is

[15:28] how people can progress through life and

[15:29] and get more of what they want.

[15:31] The pain of having to accept trade-offs

[15:33] holds a lot of people back

[15:34] 100%. and then they end up getting

[15:36] nothing. And I think that I honestly

[15:38] think that is like at the crux of why so

[15:40] many people are not realizing any

[15:41] potential at all. Um is because they are

[15:44] unwilling to make any trade and then

[15:45] make the biggest trade of all.

[15:48] How do you think about overcoming that

[15:50] decision paralysis? Lots of good options

[15:53] in front of you. Spent a lot of time

[15:55] trying to maximize surface area of of

[15:57] available options. And it's insane to

[16:02] say, but it's functionally true for

[16:04] humans that more options make you more

[16:06] miserable, not happier.

[16:08] Super true. And also, we probably know

[16:09] someone, I mean, I can think of people

[16:11] off the top of my head that didn't have

[16:13] many options, but the option that they

[16:15] had was very clear. Like this guy is a

[16:17] super nerd and just loves coding and it

[16:20] was very clear straight on. And so there

[16:23] was a lot of things that weren't

[16:24] available to him physically. probably

[16:26] wasn't going to be the sports star,

[16:28] maybe even in super great shape.

[16:30] But like it was almost like that path

[16:31] was predetermined. But then when you

[16:33] fast forward, it's not like they're less

[16:34] successful. It's that because they just

[16:36] already knew what they were going to do.

[16:38] They got to start pulling the future

[16:39] forward down the one path and start

[16:40] walking. And so there's again this this

[16:43] like fetish fetishization of having

[16:47] options and seeing that as a proxy for

[16:49] status when the reality is that you

[16:50] they're all blank checks. You haven't

[16:52] cashed any of them in.

[16:53] Yeah. And so, um, I think the original

[16:56] question ladders to like

[16:59] people get stuck because they don't know

[17:00] what they want. And I define what you

[17:02] want by what you're willing to sacrifice

[17:04] to get something.

[17:06] Take responsibility for your current

[17:07] position. What's that mean?

[17:10] Um, it's identifying yourself as source.

[17:13] And to be clear, it doesn't mean that

[17:14] like your position in reality is 100%

[17:18] because of you, but from a so this is a

[17:21] validity. This is a uh invalid but

[17:23] useful more useful way of going through

[17:25] life which is that it absolutely might

[17:27] not be your fault but it is still your

[17:28] problem.

[17:29] Mhm.

[17:30] Since you are the only one who you can

[17:31] influence directly than you are the one

[17:33] who is source and because like you could

[17:35] still be correct in saying that like

[17:37] because I insert grievance insert you

[17:40] know trauma insert genetic

[17:42] predisposition insert zip code I was

[17:44] born in um or language or poverty level

[17:47] or whatever it is. Um, all of those

[17:49] things could be true and yet you still

[17:51] have to take action as the only source

[17:53] that can change it.

[17:54] Mhm. No one's coming to save you.

[17:56] Yeah. Which goes back to the first one.

[17:58] The interesting thing about no one is

[17:59] coming to save you also means no one is

[18:02] coming to stop you.

[18:05] I think some people might

[18:09] I think actually as good as you start I

[18:11] think the the lobster or crab analogy in

[18:13] the bucket is in is so true. I actually

[18:15] think that the the hardest I mean I I

[18:18] think I mean for me again like the

[18:19] hardest part of entrepreneurship was the

[18:20] first set of friends that you have to

[18:22] relinquish because once you do it the

[18:24] first time you realize that you will

[18:25] still survive, you'll still make it

[18:26] through. You'll find new friends, but

[18:27] like in the first time it's it's

[18:29] sacrificing everything you've known and

[18:31] loved for something that you've never

[18:33] experienced and hope will happen and

[18:35] have no idea if it actually will. So the

[18:37] cost is known, the payoff isn't. And

[18:40] that is why I think it is the riskiest

[18:41] and why so many people struggle to make

[18:42] the job.

[18:43] Yeah. Did you know your gut controls

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[19:41] The world will reward you in proportion

[19:42] to your courage, not your intellect. The

[19:45] most dangerous person in the world is

[19:46] the one who continues to show up every

[19:48] day, even when the rewards are not

[19:49] guaranteed. Your potential is determined

[19:51] by the amount of uncertainty you're able

[19:53] to tolerate and how long you can

[19:54] tolerate it for. You can beat 99% of

[19:57] people if you can master the shame of

[19:59] rejection, the bord of repetition, and

[20:02] the pain of feedback.

[20:04] I was asked um if you could transfer

[20:07] only one trade to your son,

[20:10] what would it be? Um

[20:13] and I really thought a lot about it. I

[20:14] was like all the trades, what would I

[20:16] tra what I would transfer? And I think

[20:18] it's courage

[20:20] because if you don't have courage,

[20:23] nothing else matters. Like you can't

[20:26] take the you can't take any action. You

[20:27] can't do anything worth doing. You can't

[20:29] stand for anything because you have no

[20:32] courage. Um,

[20:35] and so I think that's why it's it's so

[20:38] much more preferable to be a failure

[20:40] than a coward. And I think that I would

[20:42] hope that I could transfer just that

[20:44] lesson and try and reinforce as many

[20:46] times as I can in his upbringing that

[20:49] like you have to you have to take jumps

[20:52] and you have to lose and you have to be

[20:55] willing to lose and then realize that

[20:57] losing doesn't actually make you a loser

[21:00] because losing is the is the is the

[21:02] first signal on the path to winning but

[21:05] like not playing is the actual signal

[21:08] for for a forever loss. What is courage

[21:10] to you?

[21:17] It's a really good question.

[21:19] I need to define it better. Um,

[21:24] being willing to take action where

[21:29] there's a large short-term

[21:34] cost

[21:37] with an uncertain

[21:41] delayed benefit.

[21:44] So, if you want to start a business and

[21:49] you think that you're going to get made

[21:51] fun of or snide remarks or like, "Oh,

[21:53] yeah, you're doing your podcast thing

[21:54] again. Oh, yeah. Don't don't don't miss

[21:56] out, right? You know, don't want to miss

[21:58] Friday night. It's a big podcast." Um,

[22:00] you know, you're going to suffer that

[22:02] short term. That's a known cost. And

[22:04] then the payoff is delayed and

[22:08] uncertain. Like not only will it come

[22:09] later, if it were guaranteed if you knew

[22:11] you were going to make a million dollars

[22:13] doing a podcast, then you'd be like

[22:14] whatever, [ __ ] it. Like it it takes

[22:16] significantly less courage, but I think

[22:18] it's the fact that it is unknown and

[22:20] delayed. So you basically have to be

[22:22] willing to get kicked in the nuts and

[22:25] multiple times and sometimes for

[22:26] extended durations

[22:28] before the hope that you will get

[22:30] something. But I think the only way to

[22:33] to to get through that kind of kicked in

[22:35] the nuts period for however long it's

[22:37] going to be um is realizing that you

[22:41] have two paths. One that is guaranteed

[22:44] which is that the path you're currently

[22:45] on will not get you where you want to

[22:47] go. And the other path it is not

[22:50] guaranteed to get you where you want to

[22:51] go but it's the only one where you have

[22:53] a shot where you do. And that's where

[22:55] your potential is determined by the

[22:57] amount of uncertainty

[22:59] you're able to tolerate and how long you

[23:00] can tolerate it for.

[23:01] And I think that also goes to the bigger

[23:02] the games we play, right? That like the

[23:05] longer the game you play, the bigger the

[23:06] game you play. And so if you want to

[23:07] create rockets that go to the moon, you

[23:09] have to be able to deal with uncertainty

[23:11] for just an absolutely absurd amount of

[23:14] time compared to most humans on any

[23:16] endeavor.

[23:17] There's a line at the end, pain of

[23:19] feedback.

[23:20] I'm interested in that.

[23:21] Um

[23:23] I mean rejection hurts. Uh failing

[23:26] hurts. And I think

[23:31] when you when you when you give it your

[23:32] all and then the market, society, the

[23:35] universe, whatever determines that you

[23:37] are still not enough, that is very

[23:40] painful. Um I think that in time

[23:44] you learn that feedback is fuel rather

[23:47] than failure. And once that new

[23:50] association gets paired, I mean, you've

[23:53] had plenty of incredibly successful

[23:54] people on this podcast and I would say

[23:55] many of them have the same kind of I

[23:57] would call it lesson is like it's not

[23:58] it's not failure, it's feedback or it's

[24:00] not failure. Um, but it just means that

[24:03] like fundamentally they have a different

[24:04] pairing for losing. And so everyone has

[24:07] to go through this because like

[24:10] like losing losing is good and feeling

[24:13] bad about losing is good because it

[24:16] forces you to change and that change

[24:18] means that over time as long as you're

[24:20] changing in the correct direction you

[24:22] get better

[24:22] or else you would continue to do the

[24:24] strategy that caused you to lose last

[24:25] time and you would just run it back

[24:27] again. And this is why I have this like

[24:29] I I thought on the way over here I was

[24:32] thinking about this and um like I think

[24:35] one of the big

[24:37] losses or failures of society right now

[24:39] is that we are trying to castrate the

[24:41] teeth from the pain of loss. We're

[24:44] trying to not allow kids people

[24:49] the feeling to feel bad.

[24:51] It's like we have determined that

[24:52] feeling bad is bad but feeling bad is

[24:55] not bad. Feeling bad is a signal. So

[24:58] that we need to change because if no one

[25:00] feels bad ever then it means that

[25:02] everyone is doing what they want to do

[25:04] all the time and that is not how a

[25:05] functioning society works. Sometimes

[25:07] people do stupid [ __ ] and need to know

[25:09] and feel bad for it.

[25:11] Eventually reality is going to come into

[25:12] contact with your decisions. Yes.

[25:14] And the more that that's put off the

[25:16] less likely you are to come up with a

[25:17] way to avoid that reality coming into

[25:19] reality. And so, so the way that you

[25:22] know right now what's going and this is

[25:24] probably the the more frightening part

[25:25] about like some of the media that's out

[25:26] there is like trying to just redefine

[25:29] reality and create a fantasy where

[25:32] you losing and you feeling bad isn't

[25:34] true. But it doesn't change reality. It

[25:37] just changes someone's perception of it

[25:38] for the short term and then they have to

[25:40] pay reality back with interest in time

[25:42] and like the check always comes due.

[25:44] It's just like the interest is much

[25:45] bigger. And so um in light of you know

[25:50] my son my child that I have in the

[25:52] future like I want him to experience the

[25:56] pain of loss so that he can learn cuz

[26:00] like how else can you learn? You have to

[26:02] otherwise it's just it's everything's

[26:04] quote you know going by feeling and then

[26:05] also somehow thinking that feeling bad

[26:08] is bad and also that feeling good is

[26:11] good and there's tons of things that you

[26:13] can probably do that feel good that are

[26:14] not good and there's tons of things that

[26:15] you can do that feel bad that are not

[26:17] bad.

[26:17] Well, what a gift to give somebody to

[26:19] say you can feel bad and not feel bad

[26:24] about it.

[26:24] Yeah. It's and like and that's okay.

[26:27] Like you lost. What will we learn? what

[26:30] will we do next time? Great. Do it again

[26:32] next.

[26:32] It feels like resilience.

[26:34] Yeah.

[26:34] As opposed to any time that you feel

[26:36] this emotion which is negative that is

[26:38] worthy of rushing in and panic and

[26:41] control and distance that that's almost

[26:45] like a formula for fragility.

[26:48] So laddered onto this I know we haven't

[26:50] talked about so this is this is fun. um

[26:53] is the idea that we need to like that

[26:55] because you because you feel bad, it

[26:58] means that the path that you're on like

[27:00] you need to change something. And so

[27:02] it's equal opposite which is like okay

[27:04] if we know that we're on the path of

[27:05] getting kicked in the nuts right now and

[27:07] I know I'm on my 17th or 100th podcast

[27:09] and I'm still not like a millionaire

[27:11] yet.

[27:14] I I have not achieved what I want yet.

[27:17] It does not mean that I have to change

[27:19] course.

[27:20] But earlier on you said that

[27:23] bad feelings, feeling bad are important

[27:26] to update the way that you're

[27:28] approaching this situation. So how do

[27:30] you distinguish between the two?

[27:31] No. And that's and that's u and I would

[27:32] say what you what you hit on is is the

[27:34] is the crux of it which is judgment

[27:36] which is like and this is one of the

[27:37] hardest ones is like how do you help

[27:38] someone recognize patterns of

[27:41] when you need to basically it's the

[27:44] internal question of when do I push and

[27:45] when do I pivot, right? When do I push

[27:46] through the hardship versus when do I

[27:48] adjust? Am I giving up on this set in

[27:49] the gym because I'm being a [ __ ] or am

[27:51] I giving up because I'm about to injure

[27:52] myself?

[27:53] Yeah. And so pivot. I like that.

[27:55] Yeah. And I' and I've worked with this a

[27:56] lot because it's a pretty classic

[27:57] entrepreneurship issue of like do I have

[27:59] product market fit or like do I need to

[28:00] just keep pushing you like you know

[28:01] where am I just trying to push up a

[28:03] hill? Um is that if one of the

[28:06] fundamental assumptions that you began

[28:07] your quest with has been proven untrue

[28:11] based on the feedback then that is where

[28:13] pivoting makes sense. So, if you said

[28:15] like, I think that I'm going to create

[28:17] um a doggy skateboard because I think

[28:20] that um a lot of dog owners will want to

[28:23] buy skateboards for their dog. Um would

[28:26] be like, and I believe that the

[28:27] percentage like and I want to make a,

[28:28] you know, a billion dollars doing this.

[28:30] Um that would mean that there's this

[28:32] size of the market. This percentage

[28:33] needs to be the take rate in order for

[28:34] me to get that that market share. It's

[28:36] like, okay, if if I talk to a hundred

[28:38] dog owners and none of them want to buy

[28:40] my my doggy skateboard, I would not say

[28:42] that is a push situation. I would say

[28:44] that is a pivot situation because our

[28:46] fundamental assumption that we started

[28:47] this quest with

[28:48] is false.

[28:50] And so we need to take that feedback and

[28:51] then pivot.

[28:52] If as we're going through they're saying

[28:56] uh maybe but like I don't know what you

[28:59] have in your hands. What the hell is

[29:00] that? So it's like the assumption is not

[29:02] proven but it's more of an execution

[29:03] issue. And so it's like okay I just need

[29:04] to get better. I need to push through.

[29:06] But it's like it is definitely one of

[29:08] the harder um lines to to know like

[29:11] where when should I push when should I

[29:12] pivot? Uh, what lesson do I learn from

[29:15] losing?

[29:16] M

[29:18] because losing losing teaches you [ __ ]

[29:21] and we just need to make sure that we

[29:22] learn the right thing.

[29:25] Like teaching will occur.

[29:27] Yes. Whether you take it away or not is

[29:29] up to you.

[29:30] It's the It's the um I I hired my first

[29:32] employee and he was a [ __ ] Therefore,

[29:35] all employees suck, right? So like

[29:37] losing will teach you something. It's

[29:39] just want to make sure that we learn the

[29:40] right lesson. I feel like this is a

[29:41] justification for making early decisions

[29:44] as right as possible.

[29:46] Oh, 100%.

[29:46] To try and avoid that PTSD of it's far

[29:51] easier to learn something than it is to

[29:53] unlearn something. Probably a hundred

[29:54] times easier to learn something than it

[29:56] is to unlearn something. If you've

[29:58] drilled a particular habit, a particular

[30:00] bad habit, if you have come up with a a

[30:02] mode of interacting with your employees

[30:04] or the world, because all of your

[30:05] employees, the first three employees,

[30:07] you get all of them [ __ ] you over and

[30:09] then finally you get to the fourth, you

[30:10] have to unlearn all of the compensatory

[30:12] mechanisms that you built on the first

[30:13] three. Now that you've got someone who's

[30:15] worthy of that, and you're restricting

[30:17] their progress, you're slowing

[30:18] everything down. You're being

[30:19] hypervigilant. It doesn't feel like a

[30:20] good place to work. Try and make your

[30:22] early decisions, right?

[30:24] Yeah. Changing a behavior with a long

[30:26] history of reinforcement is harder than

[30:28] changing one with no history of

[30:30] it's such a hardcore behaviorist.

[30:32] Yeah. Well, I mean it's the only thing

[30:33] that's made sense to me in the world.

[30:35] Like it's I mean it's been upheld.

[30:38] I mean it's just I don't even it's just

[30:43] my reality. So I'll say differently like

[30:47] many people do not get what they want.

[30:50] They look up at their lives and they're

[30:51] like this is not what I want. And so if

[30:53] you don't have what you want, it means

[30:54] that the model that you view the world

[30:56] through is incorrect or you have the

[30:58] correct model and the incorrect

[31:00] variables or insufficient variables.

[31:01] It's basically all it is.

[31:03] And so for me, the more I have looked

[31:07] purely at inputs and outputs, the more

[31:11] I've gotten my predictions correct. And

[31:13] so I have been super reinforced for

[31:15] using this style of of of thinking. And

[31:18] so I do it more. And so it's just and

[31:20] like I I I I read some of my old stuff

[31:22] and I'm like, "Oh man, like I could have

[31:24] said this in half as much words if I now

[31:25] I because it's understanding why. Like

[31:28] at the most basic level, it's just

[31:30] understanding why." Um I'll give an

[31:33] example and I think this is why the vast

[31:34] majority of the world like walks around

[31:35] confused, which is I don't have what I

[31:38] want. That didn't go the way I expected.

[31:40] She took that worse than I thought. So

[31:42] you're you're constantly surprised by

[31:43] reality. And so in in a simple sentence

[31:46] like Johnny stole because he's

[31:48] dishonest, right? Most people would nod

[31:51] their heads and be like, "Yeah, Johnny

[31:52] stole because he's dishonest." But we

[31:53] say, "What does dishonest mean?"

[31:55] Dishonest means it's a label, right,

[31:57] that we ascribe to somebody who does a

[31:59] series of different behaviors, one of

[32:01] which is stealing. And so if we were to

[32:04] restate that sentence with a broken down

[32:05] definition, it would then be Johnny

[32:07] stole because he's the type of person

[32:08] who steals, which is circular and makes

[32:10] no sense

[32:12] because the real reason that Johnny

[32:14] stole is because he's been reinforced

[32:15] for stealing in the past or he saw

[32:17] someone who got reinforced for stealing

[32:19] and then modeled their behavior. That is

[32:21] why Johnny stole.

[32:22] And so because of that basic

[32:23] misunderstanding, most people have these

[32:25] words that they use to explain their

[32:27] reality that they don't actually

[32:28] understand. And as a result, reality

[32:30] fools them more often than it should. he

[32:31] was rewarded for it or he was punished

[32:33] for doing the opposite of it.

[32:34] Exactly. And so um that basic that like

[32:37] and that what I just explained is is the

[32:40] difference between description and

[32:41] explanation. Um which is relatively

[32:44] heady and I think difficult sometimes to

[32:46] grasp but is at the most basic level

[32:49] like my worldview.

[32:51] This is what happened. This is why it

[32:52] happened.

[32:53] Why? Yeah. And so from that one kind of

[32:56] basic understanding everything else can

[32:58] kind of pretty much get laded up. And

[33:00] so, um,

[33:05] said differently, if if I wanted to tell

[33:08] a child, get good at basketball, right?

[33:12] Um, I would not tell him, get better at

[33:16] basketball, because a 5-year-old would

[33:19] be like, I don't know how to do that.

[33:20] What does that mean? So, I'd be like,

[33:22] okay, well, let's break it down. We've

[33:23] got dribbling, passing, shooting. Okay,

[33:26] do that a little bit closer, but they

[33:27] still probably don't know how to. If I

[33:28] say, "Go get better at dribbling,

[33:30] passing, and shooting." Still can't do

[33:31] anything with that until eventually be

[33:33] like, "Okay, passing. So, I want you to

[33:34] take a step with your left foot towards

[33:36] the the person, and I want you to extend

[33:38] your elbows and finish with your thumbs

[33:40] down. Um, and if the ball goes towards

[33:43] them in the direction that they're

[33:44] running, and they catch it, you've

[33:45] passed successfully." And then I would

[33:46] repeat that chain of events until

[33:48] eventually they would understand that

[33:48] that chain of behaviors equals passing.

[33:50] And if they do it a lot and they hit the

[33:52] target many times, they would be good at

[33:54] passing. And we'd repeat that all the

[33:55] way down until they're good at passing,

[33:56] dribbling, shooting, etc. and then

[33:58] eventually would describe them as a good

[33:59] basketball player. But that basic

[34:02] unbundling and rebundling of terms is

[34:04] why I think the vast majority of people

[34:05] are wildly um confused by what's going

[34:09] on around them is that someone says,

[34:11] "Why don't you love me?" And he's like,

[34:13] "What are you talking about?" He's like,

[34:14] "I pay the bills. I take out the trash.

[34:16] Like, you know, like what do you want

[34:18] from me?" And she says, "Uh, like you

[34:21] don't tell me I'm pretty. You don't hug

[34:23] me. uh like you don't listen to me when

[34:26] I when I you don't never never ask me

[34:27] how my day is going. And it's because

[34:29] for her she defines love in these

[34:32] behaviors and he defines love in these

[34:34] behaviors and so then they fight forever

[34:35] rather than just saying like what does

[34:36] that mean? What does that mean? Um we

[34:39] had uh we had two employees that were

[34:41] arguing about something uh at

[34:42] acquisition and one was like hey can you

[34:45] um I would be fine if you were just like

[34:47] kind and polite to me and um I was like

[34:50] okay what does that mean? And uh there

[34:54] was obviously a moment of like

[34:55] hesitation there cuz it's like okay so

[34:56] you want the other person to guess what

[34:58] you think in your mind means good

[35:00] behavior but you've never articulated it

[35:01] and so you want them to guess and

[35:02] somehow get it right.

[35:03] Mhm. And so finally it just was like can

[35:05] you ask more questions rather than

[35:06] making more statements and the other

[35:07] person was like yeah sure it's like

[35:09] great but that basic thing now and

[35:12] they're fine now and everything's great

[35:13] and so but like this is why I I view the

[35:16] world and behavior because I have wanted

[35:19] things but I didn't know how to get them

[35:22] which is happens in reality and so as

[35:25] long as I live in reality I prefer to

[35:28] define things through reality and then

[35:30] reality tends to behave far more as I

[35:32] predicted it Ward. Before we continue,

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[36:39] in the description below or heading to

[36:41] timeline.com/modernwisdism

[36:43] and using the code modernwisdom at

[36:45] checkout. That's

[36:45] timeline.com/modernwisdom

[36:49] and modernwisdom at checkout. On the I

[36:53] want you to do this, but I didn't tell

[36:54] you. It's that Neil Strauss line,

[36:56] unspoken expectations are premeditated

[36:58] resentments,

[36:59] right?

[37:02] You do this thing that I didn't tell you

[37:03] to do.

[37:04] Yeah, probably not deliberately because

[37:05] I think a lot of people do it, not on

[37:07] purpose,

[37:07] of course, but it's a unconscious

[37:10] premeditated resentment. The the

[37:12] investment that you are making will be a

[37:14] resentment in future that you aren't

[37:16] aware is about to come about.

[37:17] Yeah.

[37:17] Another thing on the uh people's map of

[37:21] reality is inaccurate. I think one of

[37:24] the most obvious realizations that you

[37:27] can have when you hear somebody who

[37:28] complains a lot is that their framework

[37:31] of reality is incorrect.

[37:33] Oh, by a mile.

[37:34] A complaint is you saying, "Why is

[37:36] reality not delivering that to me which

[37:38] I anticipated?"

[37:40] And reality doesn't care. Reality is

[37:42] just going to continue to deliver to you

[37:44] that which it is giving.

[37:46] Why is there all of this traffic on the

[37:48] way to work? There shouldn't be all of

[37:49] this traffic. I didn't anticipate all of

[37:50] this traffic.

[37:51] Yeah. I assumed there wouldn't be

[37:53] traffic. Reality disagreed with me.

[37:56] Reality is not wrong.

[37:57] It's undefeated.

[37:59] Reality is undefeated. Yeah, it's a

[38:01] million and0. A million TKOs's.

[38:06] So, this is really I mean

[38:09] I can talk about this as long as you

[38:11] want. You know this. Um,

[38:13] so what what this becomes really

[38:15] interesting is um how often this

[38:18] misconception of reality

[38:21] causes people to get fooled and keep pe

[38:24] keep the wrong people in their lives and

[38:27] keep sometimes the right people out of

[38:29] their lives. And so um I call this uh

[38:33] malicious benefit or um well-intentioned

[38:36] harm. And so on one hand uh

[38:42] if there are a number of people who make

[38:45] let's say negative videos about you,

[38:48] they intend to harm you.

[38:51] But when you look at your media and the

[38:54] way that you are compensated through the

[38:55] impressions that you earn and the amount

[38:57] of relevance that you have, you make

[39:00] more money. And so though they intended

[39:03] to hurt you, they have taken their time

[39:06] and effort which you normally have to

[39:08] pay people for and then for free promote

[39:11] you. What a gift. It just means that

[39:14] they are incompetent at doing harm,

[39:16] which is wonderful. You want all your

[39:18] enemies to be incompetent in their

[39:19] harming. On the other hand, you have

[39:22] somebody who loves, I'll use this in

[39:24] quotes, right? Loves you, uh, means you

[39:27] well, but is also incompetent. And as a

[39:30] result, whenever they enter your life,

[39:32] your life gets worse. They cause

[39:35] negative consequences to occur. And so,

[39:37] a lot of people care a huge amount about

[39:40] intention. And this was one of the

[39:41] larger shifts that I think happened in

[39:43] my I'll call it career, but just my life

[39:46] um was completely stripping people of

[39:50] their intentions and only looking at

[39:52] their outputs. And that made navigating

[39:56] relationships significantly easier for

[39:58] me because it allowed me to remove the

[40:01] noise from the signal of the person. And

[40:05] so there are some people like I mean

[40:07] honestly the reason that one of the this

[40:10] is like probably the very beginning of

[40:12] this kind of thought change was with Ila

[40:15] like I had an adviser if you want to

[40:17] call it that at the time and I was like

[40:19] I'm not sure if I I want to marry this

[40:21] girl. I don't, you know, help me, you

[40:22] know, make this decision. And he said,

[40:24] "Well, just look at your stats." He's

[40:25] like, "Are you in better shape?" And I

[40:26] was like, "Well, yeah. You know, she

[40:27] eats healthy and she goes to the gym, so

[40:28] I you know, I go with her." And he's

[40:29] like, "Okay." Um, so you're you you're

[40:32] exercising more, you're eating better.

[40:34] Okay. Are you drinking as much? He's

[40:35] like, "No, she doesn't really drink."

[40:37] And I like drinking. I'm probably a bad

[40:38] influencer.

[40:40] He's like, "Okay." So she decreases this

[40:42] kind of negative thing. Okay, got it.

[40:43] And he's like, "What about what about

[40:44] business wise?" I like, "Oh, I'm making

[40:45] more than I've ever made." And she's

[40:47] helping me do that. He's like, "Okay."

[40:49] And so he just went down the list of all

[40:51] these different kind of components of my

[40:52] life that I could measure. And he's

[40:54] like, "It seems like your life is

[40:54] significantly better with this person in

[40:56] it." Um, and when I contrast that to

[40:58] some of the call relationships I had in

[41:00] the past, it was almost the opposite.

[41:02] Like I would get into the relationship

[41:03] and all of a sudden like I wouldn't work

[41:04] out as much and I wouldn't eat as

[41:06] healthy and I would go out more and uh

[41:07] my business would suffer. Um, and so

[41:09] like all the things that I cared about

[41:11] would go down. And so even though I

[41:13] don't think that person had any

[41:13] malicious intent, I think they had good

[41:15] intent, but they had well-intentioned

[41:17] harm. And so

[41:20] that that that lens has helped me make

[41:23] so many decisions in in a way that

[41:25] removes a lot of the emotional weight

[41:26] behind them, which is like, oh, I I

[41:28] absolutely believe that you are a

[41:29] well-intentioned person. I was like, I

[41:30] just think you're very incompetent at

[41:31] doing at doing good for me. Like, you do

[41:33] not have the skill to help me. I'm not

[41:35] prepared to be the collateral damage of

[41:38] your good intentioned errors.

[41:40] Yes. Um as you spin around trying to

[41:43] give me a hug, but by accident punch me

[41:45] in the face.

[41:45] Yes. Like it's you're driving down the

[41:47] street and because you didn't mean to

[41:50] but weren't paying attention, you ran

[41:51] somebody over. Functionally, the

[41:53] difference between that person being

[41:55] dead because you didn't mean to cuz you

[41:57] were texting on your phone or because

[41:58] you're a bad driver and you swerving off

[42:02] the street to hit them, the outcome is

[42:04] the same. And this is something that our

[42:07] society actively disagrees with because

[42:09] if we look at how our laws are written,

[42:11] we try to tease out intention and we

[42:13] change punishment and consequences based

[42:15] on intention. Is that not important to a

[42:18] degree?

[42:19] It can be, but I'm just more saying um

[42:21] I'm not saying should or shouldn't, but

[42:22] I'm saying in terms of how you navigate

[42:25] getting what you want out of life, if

[42:27] you were the one who got hit, you're

[42:29] dead either way. Mhm.

[42:30] And so when any n equals 1,

[42:33] I would look at the signal, what happens

[42:36] rather than the intention 100 times out

[42:38] of 100.

[42:39] Is there any space? It sounds like uh

[42:44] for as long as this person in my life

[42:45] benefits me.

[42:46] Mhm.

[42:48] It's good to keep them in and the moment

[42:49] that they stop benefiting me, then I get

[42:52] rid of them.

[42:53] Mhm.

[42:53] To some people that would come across as

[42:55] a very transactional view of

[42:56] relationships. I think it assumes a

[42:58] binary of benefit, not benefit. And most

[43:01] people have many things that they do.

[43:03] Like let's say somebody, let's say

[43:04] you're like, I'm married to somebody.

[43:05] What happens when that person stops

[43:06] serving me? Well, it's very unlikely

[43:08] that tomorrow someone stop goes from I

[43:11] help you in these hundred ways to I

[43:13] either hurt you or help you in zero.

[43:15] It's more common or more likely that you

[43:17] had a hundred ways and now 10 years

[43:19] later they help you 70 ways and maybe 10

[43:21] years later they help you 40 ways. But

[43:23] if you're at least cognizant of the

[43:25] hundred ways that that person helps you,

[43:27] then it allows you to articulate, hey,

[43:28] when you do these things, it helps me a

[43:30] lot. It would really mean a lot to me.

[43:31] Um,

[43:32] reinforcement again.

[43:33] Yeah. I mean, and and and

[43:35] I appreciate the the Yes. Um um but like

[43:40] in different terms, I was going to I was

[43:41] going to put my my Chris hat on. This is

[43:42] just good communication, right? Like how

[43:45] do I know what you want until you tell

[43:46] me? And I think that people say what you

[43:49] just said, which is um people would see

[43:51] this as transactional. And then I would

[43:53] say and

[43:57] yes and why is this wrong? Why have you

[44:01] decided that having an exchange is

[44:03] incorrect? It's how society works. All

[44:05] of capitalism, which is the best

[44:06] societies have been built on exchange,

[44:08] voluntary exchange.

[44:09] I think some people would feel icky

[44:10] about applying that exchange capitalism

[44:13] dynamic inside of friendships and

[44:15] intimate relationships.

[44:16] I think that exchange happens either

[44:17] way. They just don't want to say it. If

[44:19] if you have a friend and you are like ah

[44:23] we're we're ride or die. It means you

[44:24] have a long history of reinforcement

[44:26] which means you have a long extinction

[44:27] curve. It just means that you've been

[44:28] reinforced many times for this

[44:29] friendship which means that you're

[44:30] willing to deal with blips but the

[44:32] amount of blips that you're willing to

[44:34] deal with is proportional to the history

[44:35] of reinforcement. If someone new comes

[44:37] into your life and has almost done

[44:39] nothing good and then does a blip, you

[44:40] don't have as much balance in the

[44:42] system.

[44:42] Exactly. You have no reason to. So the

[44:44] hope the basically the extinction curve

[44:46] is functionally just how long you're

[44:47] willing to hope that the good thing

[44:49] comes back.

[44:50] You probably should have a degree of

[44:51] recency bias though.

[44:53] Oh yeah. Because if the person's

[44:54] behavior is change Yeah. for sure it's

[44:55] going to be it's always discounted.

[44:57] Someone that was 50% a good guy and 50%

[44:59] an [ __ ] The 50%

[45:01] that is closest to you is more salient

[45:04] than the 50% that started 10 years ago.

[45:06] Oh yeah. If it was front half back half,

[45:07] 100%. And that's and honestly and this

[45:09] is like I think this is super relevant

[45:10] for a lot of people like people do

[45:12] change.

[45:14] And that's okay. And you can be friends

[45:16] with the person they once were and no

[45:18] longer friends with the person they are.

[45:19] And that's okay.

[45:21] Mark Manson dropped this unreal line

[45:23] that reminded me of you.

[45:24] Okay.

[45:25] Do hard [ __ ] Not because it's fun, but

[45:28] because the win actually means

[45:29] something. You bled for it. You broke

[45:31] for it. You earned it. Easy wins are

[45:34] forgettable. Hard ones change you.

[45:37] That's the point.

[45:39] That's your line. Everything is hard and

[45:42] no one cares.

[45:48] Um, I'm sorry accomplishing your dreams

[45:50] wasn't fast, easy, and risk-f free.

[45:53] Like,

[45:55] they wouldn't be dreams if they were,

[45:57] and you wouldn't call them wins if they

[45:59] were easy, cuz they would just be you

[46:01] tying your shoes. And what was once a

[46:03] win when you were five is no longer a

[46:05] win when you're competent. And with

[46:06] increased competence comes increased

[46:08] stakes. You have to be willing to bet

[46:10] more, put more on the line to win

[46:11] bigger. Which means like if you're a

[46:13] billionaire playing $10 hands of poker

[46:15] is a complete waste of time. Uh Gabe

[46:18] from I Prevail. He's the drummer from I

[46:20] Prevail.

[46:21] You will always think you suck. That's

[46:24] okay. It's okay to suck compared to your

[46:26] standards. As you grow, so will your

[46:28] standards. That doesn't mean you

[46:29] actually suck.

[46:36] Yeah. I think it just be the the

[46:37] actuality of sucking versus the

[46:38] perception of sucking.

[46:39] Correct. It's that as as you increase in

[46:43] capacity, you increase in standards. And

[46:45] given that your standards will always

[46:47] outstrip your capacity, there will

[46:48] always be this felt sense lack between

[46:50] where I am and where I want to be. But

[46:53] yeah, that Mark Manson line I think is

[46:55] really important in sort of an era of AI

[46:59] because you can speedrun or shortcut

[47:02] getting the outcome without putting in

[47:05] the requisite inputs. Now, because

[47:07] everybody's obsessed with leverage and

[47:08] trying to get as many outputs from as

[47:10] few inputs as possible, that does make

[47:12] sense. But when you begin to fully

[47:13] detach it from it and you don't focus on

[47:17] the journey that got you there in the

[47:18] same way and you're not scrutinizing the

[47:21] outputs with the same level of finitude

[47:24] and and resolution cost.

[47:26] Yes.

[47:26] Yes. And it's not just the outputs that

[47:30] matter. It's not just the output. And

[47:32] this is where the sort of leverage crowd

[47:34] doesn't fully come into reality. It

[47:37] doesn't come into contact with the way

[47:39] that humans are telling themselves the

[47:42] story of their life. If all if you could

[47:45] come up with some sort of super quick

[47:46] code that would write hundred million

[47:49] dollar leads for you,

[47:51] the entire project would feel different.

[47:55] Your process of getting that it could be

[47:56] word for word the exact same. Take every

[47:58] word that I've written and create this

[47:59] book based on this brief. Think

[48:01] Mhm.

[48:03] I would prove that AI knew a lot about

[48:05] leads but not me. And I think that I

[48:07] mean um I think this this this sits at

[48:11] the discrepancy between saying the

[48:12] output of your life is

[48:16] who you become and the aggregate set of

[48:18] behavior that you've learned over your

[48:19] life or if the output of your life is

[48:21] the stuff that you that exists as a

[48:24] result of you being here. Um and that is

[48:28] more of a philosophical question than I

[48:29] think it is a like right or wrong. I

[48:31] think you can make arguments for either

[48:32] side of like the p the purpose of your

[48:35] life is what changed as a result of you

[48:36] being here, what you did or who you

[48:38] became.

[48:38] Yeah. Um or the purpose of your life is

[48:41] all of the outside only existed to

[48:43] change the inside. And I think there's

[48:45] there's arguments for both. I have I'm I

[48:47] would say I have strong affinity towards

[48:48] both definition definitions because um I

[48:52] would say that when I go through harder

[48:53] times, I lean more towards like this is

[48:55] happening for me. And when I'm going

[48:57] through easier times, it's like I'm hap

[48:59] I I am happening to it.

[49:01] Yeah. Yeah.

[49:02] Yeah.

[49:03] I'm happening to reality.

[49:04] But the binary of that

[49:06] Yeah.

[49:06] seeing it as only one or the other will

[49:09] create a kind of fragility. If all that

[49:11] you're focused on is outcomes, then

[49:13] you're never going to think about

[49:14] becoming the person who can generate

[49:16] those outcomes because you're going to

[49:17] find shortcuts that don't necessarily

[49:19] work. And if you're only ever focused on

[49:20] inputs, you're never going to actually

[49:22] work out if all of this suffering

[49:24] amounted to anything. Show me some

[49:26] George uh in the house last night was

[49:28] reading one of these books and he he

[49:30] wasn't happy with the way that the

[49:32] author had put together the sentence and

[49:34] he says show me something I can drop on

[49:36] my foot.

[49:37] That was his line. Like I can't drop

[49:39] anything on my [ __ ] foot with this.

[49:41] Show me something I can drop on my foot.

[49:43] Wishywashy vague language. Do you

[49:46] remember the park bench scene in

[49:48] Goodwill Hunting?

[49:50] No. I think it long enough ago. Yeah.

[49:52] Sound of park bench. Robin Williams

[49:54] talking to Matt Damon about love and he

[49:55] has this line. He says, "Love is an

[49:58] active commitment, Will. It's a choice

[50:00] to value someone else's well-being as

[50:01] much as your own." If you watch the

[50:04] film, you'll know that he doesn't say

[50:06] that. He says this instead. You wouldn't

[50:09] know about sleeping sitting up in the

[50:11] hospital room for 2 months because the

[50:13] doctors could see in your eyes that the

[50:14] term visiting hours do not apply to you.

[50:18] It's the same thing, same idea, right?

[50:21] Idea, picture, words. And that is the

[50:23] order. Not idea, words, pictures. Show

[50:27] me something I can drop on my [ __ ]

[50:29] foot.

[50:29] That I can drop on my foot.

[50:41] It's clear language.

[50:44] Both of them. Both of the examples.

[50:48] I think it's interesting because with

[50:50] the drop on your foot, it's like I think

[50:51] the the the picture is obviously like

[50:54] more emotive. Um,

[50:57] and because of that can be more

[51:00] motivating, more persuasive, etc. Where

[51:02] I think the drop on drop on my foot part

[51:05] where I like where where I have

[51:07] struggled as a human being is taking

[51:10] that idea and saying I want to do that.

[51:13] I want that type of love. And then

[51:15] saying, well, the person I love is not

[51:18] in the hospital and I don't have the

[51:21] opportunity right now to sleep standing

[51:23] up and have a doctor know that visiting

[51:24] hours don't apply to me.

[51:26] What do I do?

[51:28] And so then it does go back to um what

[51:32] I'm willing to give up in order to

[51:33] maintain something. But

[51:34] it's interesting when there isn't that

[51:36] level of pressure.

[51:38] You know, when you brush up against the

[51:40] grain of life, when you're swimming into

[51:42] the stream, it's very easy to see effort

[51:45] because the whole world is bearing down

[51:46] on you. So, there's an enemy to go up

[51:48] against. I think when things are easy,

[51:50] like, okay, well, what does love look

[51:53] like when things are easy? Uh, we

[51:56] talking relational love. Yeah.

[52:03] I think it's really, well, I'll just say

[52:04] more how I measure it. Um, but I think

[52:07] it's just what you're willing to give up

[52:08] in order to maintain something. And so

[52:09] if I have a relationship and I have

[52:11] somebody that I love a lot that I'm

[52:12] willing to give up everything, including

[52:13] my life in order to maintain that

[52:14] relationship. Um,

[52:17] and so or for that person or for that

[52:19] idea, for freedom, for the country. Um,

[52:22] if you love something a lot, you're

[52:23] willing to give up everything for it.

[52:24] Um, and so when that person asks you to

[52:27] do something or doesn't ask you to do

[52:29] something and you think that they would

[52:30] still like it,

[52:32] then you are willing to inconvenience

[52:34] yourself to a large degree in order to

[52:36] do that. Um, and I think that like the

[52:39] reason this stuff is so valuable for me

[52:41] is that like

[52:44] it allows me to both give the things

[52:46] that I think the other person wants or

[52:48] that they've told me they want, but also

[52:50] how to differentiate who is using words

[52:52] in order to try and manipulate me. when

[52:54] someone like dude dude you know I love

[52:56] you know um if it was bromance obviously

[53:00] um

[53:01] but then you could say what have you

[53:02] given up in order to maintain this in

[53:05] what way have you inconvenienced

[53:06] yourself uh in order to maintain this

[53:09] relationship

[53:10] because all of the actions you've taken

[53:13] you've taken out of convenience and this

[53:15] relationship has been only beneficial

[53:17] for you

[53:18] which is fine there's nothing wrong with

[53:20] that but there will come a time where

[53:22] our needs are at odds

[53:25] and in that situation I would like to

[53:27] know how reinforcing was all the other

[53:29] stuff so that it is worth basically it's

[53:32] saying like how much good was the good

[53:33] for you so that you're willing to deal

[53:35] with some bad can that lead to a

[53:37] situation where you almost purposefully

[53:42] try to seek out difficulty in an attempt

[53:45] to stress test relationships because

[53:48] not all relationships should have it the

[53:50] the glorious friendship would be

[53:52] seamless between you and another guy and

[53:55] there's never anything you have to

[53:56] navigate and it's all just beneficial

[53:58] and positive in both directions.

[53:59] I have a friend like that. I've been

[54:01] friends since sixth grade and I don't

[54:04] think we've ever had conflict which is

[54:06] great and rare and that's why we are so

[54:08] friends. Um but no, I think that it's

[54:12] it's okay for conflict to occur. It's

[54:14] okay for seasons of friendship to end.

[54:16] Um, but you can measure how how how good

[54:19] of friends you are by how and I don't

[54:20] know how much inconvenience he might be

[54:22] willing to deal with with me, but we

[54:24] just it just so happens that we really

[54:27] haven't had any need for conflict or

[54:29] competition.

[54:30] He's a an FBI agent and so his measures

[54:33] of success, like he has zero, there's no

[54:35] jealousy, there's no envy, there's no

[54:36] anything. It's just like, how many bad

[54:38] guys you catch today? He's like, bro,

[54:39] you got to hear this one, right? And so

[54:41] we can just and he's like, you know,

[54:42] then he'll just ask ridiculous questions

[54:44] about money stuff because he just thinks

[54:45] it's funny.

[54:47] Yeah.

[54:48] Yeah.

[54:48] So, and and that has worked out well.

[54:50] But

[54:52] most people have no idea where the

[54:54] testosterone levels sit. But what if I

[54:56] told you there was a solution? Something

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[55:31] testing would usually cost thousands,

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[55:56] You're behind because you're in a rush.

[55:58] And you're in a rush because you feel

[55:59] behind. and you feel behind because

[56:02] you're in a different season than the

[56:03] people you're comparing yourself to.

[56:05] You're not behind. You're just early.

[56:11] Yeah. It's measuring the output

[56:12] difference with um

[56:15] without comparing the input difference.

[56:17] I think it's basically it. It's like uh

[56:19] why isn't my podcast like Rogan's? It's

[56:21] like okay well he's got 10 more year. I

[56:24] don't you would know the the answer to

[56:25] that, right? 10 more years and however

[56:27] many more podcasts um more and so it's

[56:30] okay well if I were to match that and

[56:33] have done it back in time would I have

[56:35] the same would I be bigger

[56:36] the same skill with the same

[56:37] all of that and so it's it's it's it's

[56:39] comparing outputs without comparing

[56:41] inputs and I really just think it comes

[56:42] down to that at the most basic level now

[56:43] most of the time um you are early

[56:46] because most people who make that I

[56:48] would call it uh error in judgment are

[56:50] earlier in their careers and I also

[56:53] don't think there's anything necessarily

[56:54] wrong like a lot of people are like

[56:55] comparison is the thief of joy. Um, I

[56:58] don't agree with that. I think

[56:59] comparison is how you measure things.

[57:01] Like this this this is the discrepancy.

[57:04] Labeling the discrepancy as bad as the

[57:06] thief of joy.

[57:07] Comparison in general is how you can

[57:08] know what the discrepancy looks like

[57:10] between what you want and what you have

[57:11] so that you can fix it.

[57:15] So, we should compare. Absolutely. You

[57:17] should compare yourself to Rogan. I'm

[57:18] just using you. But like, you know, I

[57:20] should compare myself to Elon. Of

[57:21] course, I should. Um, so I could look at

[57:24] the massive discrepancy between between

[57:26] me and Elon. Um, and that just gives me

[57:30] clarity on what things I need to do to

[57:32] try and decrease that.

[57:34] How do you think about getting rid of

[57:36] the label of bad?

[57:40] I think that

[57:42] the first the first action you take when

[57:45] you have not been reinforced for an

[57:47] action you do through modeling. So, and

[57:50] this is why we do these types of

[57:51] podcasts. I assume I mean is that if you

[57:55] haven't done the hard thing or the hard

[57:57] thing that you want to do or taking the

[57:58] bet or taking the risk, we look for

[58:01] other people who have been the penguins

[58:02] who jumped off the edge first and was

[58:04] there an alligator. Well, no alligators

[58:06] for penguins, but polar bear at the

[58:07] bottom uh to to eat them or did they

[58:11] swim and get to the next iceberg and

[58:12] then they found whatever. Um so we look

[58:15] at other people and so modeling is a

[58:18] very real way. That's how you learn

[58:19] everything when you're a child is you

[58:20] look at what other people do. Good

[58:21] things happen to them. Okay, I'm going

[58:22] to do that. And so in the short term, we

[58:25] model the long-term play is that once

[58:27] you take that first step, ideally you

[58:29] don't get eaten by a polar bear and

[58:31] instead you also get a fish and then you

[58:32] go up and then you get reinforced for

[58:33] that and then basically every moment

[58:35] after that is your own experience

[58:37] becomes the loop. But the first jump

[58:39] comes from looking at whatever everyone

[58:41] else does and then takes the jump. Now,

[58:43] where that's so difficult to do is that

[58:45] you're looking what everyone else is

[58:46] doing or at least the people that you

[58:47] want to emulate, which is, you know,

[58:48] really important. Like, don't listen to

[58:49] the people closest to you. Listen to the

[58:51] people closest to your goals. Um, which

[58:53] is not necessarily the same people,

[58:54] often not. Um, I want to listen to them.

[58:56] I want to look I want to model their

[58:57] behavior. Um, but then also still

[59:00] ignoring all of other people. So, it's

[59:02] like I'm listening to these people. I'm

[59:04] ignoring these people. But behavior is

[59:06] tough because you're still valuing other

[59:07] people a lot. Yeah. Um and so I think

[59:10] this is why so many I would say again I

[59:12] come from the entrepreneur side but like

[59:14] successful entrepreneurs have a very

[59:16] first principles approach of thinking

[59:17] because at some point no one has gone to

[59:20] the moon and you just have to say like

[59:22] does physics prevent me from doing this

[59:25] and then when you reason everything from

[59:26] the ground up um you're able to find

[59:29] discrepancies between what people

[59:30] believe and what's true and that's

[59:31] obviously where opportunity exists.

[59:33] your David Deutsch pill with that. Does

[59:35] physics

[59:37] prevent me from being able to achieve

[59:38] this? If not, then I just think

[59:40] possible. Yeah, it is possible. Yeah. I

[59:42] think one of the reasons that these

[59:44] episodes

[59:46] resonate

[59:48] is that

[59:51] a lot of people who want to do things

[59:53] aren't around people who know how to do

[59:55] them. And the harder the thing is that

[59:57] you're trying to achieve, the rarer it

[01:00:00] is to find people who are able to

[01:00:01] support you in the doing of it or and

[01:00:04] not even just support you, but give you

[01:00:06] legitimate advice about how to get that.

[01:00:10] I I 100% agree and this is something

[01:00:12] that I've I' I've struggled a lot with

[01:00:13] because the what gives you the

[01:00:16] credibility to gain media and attention

[01:00:18] is being exceptional in some domain most

[01:00:21] of the time. And being exceptional in a

[01:00:23] domain makes you unrelatable.

[01:00:25] And so it's kind of this very difficult

[01:00:28] uh catch 22 where

[01:00:30] credibility and relatability are

[01:00:31] inverse,

[01:00:32] right? And I but like to your point,

[01:00:35] poor people are surrounded by other poor

[01:00:37] people and then assume that that is

[01:00:39] everyone because it's everyone they

[01:00:41] know, not everyone that exists, but it's

[01:00:43] their everyone as far as they're

[01:00:44] concerned. And I think that's what makes

[01:00:45] it so difficult in the beginning to to

[01:00:47] get out of that first bubble is because

[01:00:49] you have to look outside and look at

[01:00:51] some people who might even appear

[01:00:52] unrelatable and try and grasp at the

[01:00:55] straws of their character, their origin

[01:00:56] story where again people could hear me

[01:00:58] say that I slept on the floor that I

[01:00:59] didn't have enough money, whatever. But

[01:01:01] like they only see me not then. No one's

[01:01:04] interviewing the gym owner who's

[01:01:06] sleeping on the floor who's going to

[01:01:08] someday become something because they

[01:01:10] don't know yet. That's your one regret

[01:01:13] or one of the regrets that I have that's

[01:01:15] the same as yours which is I didn't

[01:01:16] track the early journey enough.

[01:01:18] If anyone is listening to this I I I'm

[01:01:21] not a big advocate of regrets in general

[01:01:23] but like a behavior that I would have

[01:01:25] changed that I don't think would have

[01:01:26] changed the outcome is like document and

[01:01:30] you don't have to share you don't have

[01:01:31] to share it publicly. Just take

[01:01:33] pictures, take voice notes, email

[01:01:35] yourself, whatever whatever catalog you

[01:01:37] want. I remember one of the most

[01:01:39] important personal moments that I had

[01:01:41] was when I lost everything for the first

[01:01:43] time. Um, I screenshotted my bank

[01:01:45] account. So, I went from having, you

[01:01:46] know, six successful gyms to losing all

[01:01:48] of it and having $1,000 to my name. And

[01:01:52] I remember looking at my bank account. I

[01:01:53] was like,

[01:01:55] "Wow, that's what the bottom of the

[01:01:56] barrel looks like. That is," and I

[01:01:58] hadn't, you know, seen a number that low

[01:01:59] in a very, very, very long time. Even in

[01:02:00] high school, I had more than that just

[01:02:02] cuz I had jobs and I didn't have

[01:02:03] expenses. And so, um, I screenshotted it

[01:02:06] and it was this very cathartic moment

[01:02:08] for me because I was like, never again.

[01:02:10] Like, I will not let this happen and I

[01:02:12] will have this be part of the story I

[01:02:13] tell. And I still have that screenshot

[01:02:15] and I show it because like, so

[01:02:18] basically,

[01:02:20] you want to document it because you

[01:02:22] believe that you will be the hero that

[01:02:24] will overcome. And I think that if you

[01:02:26] can if you can really just grasp it,

[01:02:28] like just beginning the documentation

[01:02:29] story, like even the fact that Kanye had

[01:02:31] some of those early videos, it's like he

[01:02:33] believed that he would make it and he

[01:02:34] believed he would use it. And so I think

[01:02:36] one of the one of the greatest things

[01:02:37] you can do is and it was like it was

[01:02:39] almost like at that point like I I I

[01:02:40] believed when I took that screenshot

[01:02:42] that I was going to win and I did

[01:02:43] believe I was going to get it back.

[01:02:45] Um and so the earlier you can have that

[01:02:47] realization that like I have to document

[01:02:49] this monster otherwise I won't be able

[01:02:51] to tell the story. And the story, the

[01:02:52] receiver of that story, the biggest

[01:02:54] beneficiary of that story is you.

[01:03:01] I wish I'd done the same. I wish that

[01:03:03] I'd done the same. You know,

[01:03:06] all the way back in my previous life,

[01:03:08] there was a a period in my placement

[01:03:11] year, I would have been 20. I was living

[01:03:13] in Scotland. And one of the problems

[01:03:14] that you have with running businesses in

[01:03:16] events, especially long single outcome

[01:03:20] events, is that it's all costs until you

[01:03:23] finally get to cash in the revenue. And

[01:03:26] there was a dwindling pot of money that

[01:03:28] we had because we were putting all of

[01:03:30] this time in and driving from Edinburgh

[01:03:32] to Glasgow to Sterling to Dundee to come

[01:03:33] back to hand out flyers, to manage the

[01:03:35] guest listers, to restock the bars with

[01:03:37] the t-shirts, to sell the thing. And the

[01:03:39] event wasn't going to happen for another

[01:03:40] month. And that just meant it was all

[01:03:43] output. I needed to pay for my gym

[01:03:45] membership and I needed to eat food and

[01:03:46] I needed to drive to these different

[01:03:48] places. Dwindled, dwindled, dwindled,

[01:03:50] dwindled. And we're not going to get to

[01:03:51] withdraw this money until it happens.

[01:03:52] And I had a friend who came to help me

[01:03:55] hand out flyers cuz my business partner

[01:03:57] needed to look after freshers week in

[01:03:58] Newcastle and I was going to look after

[01:03:59] freshers week across all of Scotland. I

[01:04:01] had my friend who came up a bit of a

[01:04:03] rough dude but nice guy and he'd grown

[01:04:06] up in serious poverty in the northeast

[01:04:08] of the UK and this was the first time

[01:04:10] that I was out of money zero zero money

[01:04:14] and I could have rung my parents and I'm

[01:04:16] sure that they would have sent me some

[01:04:17] cash but I had too much pride and I felt

[01:04:19] too ashamed to do it and there was this

[01:04:21] moment where we were in this flat and uh

[01:04:25] Saki Hall Street in Edinburgh on the far

[01:04:28] side of Edinburgh uh sorry Dean Park

[01:04:30] Road Dean Park road on the other side of

[01:04:31] Edinburgh and I was saying, "Hey, man,

[01:04:33] like I uh we're out of food in the house

[01:04:35] and I I don't know where we're going to

[01:04:36] get it from." He, "Oh, don't worry, man.

[01:04:37] I'll just go and steal some."

[01:04:39] And his background, his background from

[01:04:43] his upbringing was that when you run out

[01:04:45] of money, you go and steal food. And I

[01:04:47] remember thinking,

[01:04:48] "Yeah, it's world.

[01:04:50] I've got myself to the point in life

[01:04:53] where

[01:04:54] stealing food is a realistic

[01:04:57] decision." And that do I want to video

[01:05:01] my friend Dean like stealing sandwiches

[01:05:04] from the Tesco around the corner?

[01:05:06] Probably not. But the fact that that

[01:05:08] story only exists for me in my mind and

[01:05:10] then the only way that I can communicate

[01:05:12] the lessons that I took from it and the

[01:05:13] way that it made me feel is by having to

[01:05:15] go through this retelling. Uh yeah,

[01:05:19] capture [ __ ] especially in the

[01:05:20] beginning.

[01:05:23] The worst case scenario is you delete

[01:05:24] it.

[01:05:26] Like that's the I'm just saying for like

[01:05:28] what's the downside of doing it? The

[01:05:29] downside of doing it is that you quote

[01:05:30] don't use it and that you delete it. But

[01:05:32] the like the upside of having it as an

[01:05:34] artifact of kind of the stepping stones

[01:05:36] of of who you wanted to become I think

[01:05:38] is invaluable.

[01:05:40] Everything looks like luck to the

[01:05:41] unskilled. Ignore them.

[01:05:45] Yeah.

[01:05:47] Um

[01:05:53] you have to have skill.

[01:05:56] In order to perceive and recognize

[01:05:59] skill, you have to have a base level of

[01:06:01] skill. Now, you don't have to have the

[01:06:02] same level of skill as somebody else,

[01:06:04] but the greater skill you have in any

[01:06:06] domain, the more you appreciate the

[01:06:08] skill of somebody who's exceptional. So,

[01:06:10] for example, if you don't understand the

[01:06:12] rules of basketball, it's just guys

[01:06:14] passing a ball around and you don't know

[01:06:16] who scores or how it works or why

[01:06:18] they're wearing different shirts. Like,

[01:06:19] you have no understanding what's going

[01:06:21] on.

[01:06:21] Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a great example

[01:06:23] of this.

[01:06:24] No idea. Is that good? Is he Is the guy

[01:06:26] Is he winning?

[01:06:27] Yeah. Yeah. Who's winning? Who's

[01:06:29] winning?

[01:06:29] Right. And then the And then the greater

[01:06:31] your skill, the greater your

[01:06:33] appreciation for how how good someone is

[01:06:35] at that thing.

[01:06:36] Resolution, more dexterity.

[01:06:38] 100%. And so like for that reason, if if

[01:06:40] people who are around you as you begin

[01:06:43] to walk, you know, up the ascension of

[01:06:45] beginning to get successful, you have

[01:06:47] your first signs of life like, "Oh my

[01:06:48] god, this might actually start working."

[01:06:50] Um, and you get angry. Um, I'm only

[01:06:53] speaking from experience here. When

[01:06:54] people attribute the success um to luck

[01:06:57] rather than effort, the reality is one,

[01:07:00] there was probably some luck. Two, um,

[01:07:03] they don't have the skill to recognize

[01:07:06] your skill. It's a question of

[01:07:08] competence, not um, malicious intent.

[01:07:11] And I think just just defining it that

[01:07:13] way has made it significantly or made it

[01:07:15] significantly easier for me to realize.

[01:07:16] was like, "Oh, they they they don't have

[01:07:19] the ability to recognize what I didn't

[01:07:21] because if they did have the ability to

[01:07:23] fully comprehend the skill that it took,

[01:07:26] they would be able to do it, too."

[01:07:27] Mhm. Mark Manson, James Clear have got

[01:07:30] an idea that's similar to that. You only

[01:07:32] envy the lives of people whose

[01:07:33] sacrifices you cannot see. It doesn't

[01:07:36] make sense to continue wanting something

[01:07:37] if you're not willing to do what it

[01:07:39] takes to get it. If you don't want to

[01:07:41] live the lifestyle, then release

[01:07:42] yourself from the desire. to crave the

[01:07:45] results but not the process is to

[01:07:46] guarantee disappointment. You only envy

[01:07:49] the lives of people whose sacrifices you

[01:07:51] cannot see.

[01:07:52] Yeah, I love Jimmy Carrs. Um, people

[01:07:55] want what you have but not what you did

[01:07:57] to get it. It's just so good. You know,

[01:07:59] I I I think the first time I heard that

[01:08:01] I was like, [ __ ] I wish I had written

[01:08:02] that.

[01:08:02] I was on this pod.

[01:08:03] Yeah.

[01:08:04] So good.

[01:08:04] I wish I'd written that. Um, but yeah,

[01:08:07] and I think I think part of it is just

[01:08:09] like it goes back to what we started

[01:08:10] with around trades is like they're just

[01:08:14] price tags and you can totally say that

[01:08:17] something costs too much. Like that is

[01:08:20] good. Like those shoes are nice. They're

[01:08:22] not worth a billion dollars

[01:08:24] or whatever that relative. Yeah. To me.

[01:08:26] And so I think that being able to say

[01:08:28] like I think it is okay to say something

[01:08:30] is both good and not worth it.

[01:08:33] And people have a hard time with that.

[01:08:34] So they say it must be bad because I'm

[01:08:36] not willing to pay the price for it. But

[01:08:38] it's like they might be great shoes.

[01:08:39] They might not be worth it for you, but

[01:08:41] they're still good shoes.

[01:08:42] I think what particularly hurts is when

[01:08:44] you as a person who's put a lot of

[01:08:46] effort in, see the price that you paid

[01:08:47] to acquire a skill

[01:08:49] and it appears to be dismissed by

[01:08:51] somebody that doesn't understand it.

[01:08:52] Or when you buy the shoes and then

[01:08:54] someone says, "I can't believe you

[01:08:55] bought those shoes. There's no way I

[01:08:57] would ever do that." And you're like, "I

[01:08:58] know you would never do that. That's why

[01:09:00] you don't have them." And it's okay that

[01:09:02] you don't have them either. I'm not

[01:09:04] saying that as a judgment on you. It's

[01:09:05] like you don't have the shoes. I do. I

[01:09:08] thought they were worth it. You didn't.

[01:09:10] And guess what? We both are different

[01:09:11] people who live different lives. And so,

[01:09:12] we have stated the obvious.

[01:09:15] In other news, Shopify powers 10% of all

[01:09:19] e-commerce companies in the US. They are

[01:09:21] the driving force behind Gym Shark and

[01:09:23] SKIMS and Aloe and Newton, which is why

[01:09:26] I partnered with them because when it

[01:09:28] comes to converting browsers into

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[01:09:40] you didn't get into business to learn

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[01:09:44] with the inventory stuff [ __ ] on the

[01:09:47] back end. You just want to get down to

[01:09:49] creating and promoting an awesome

[01:09:51] product. And Shopify takes all of the

[01:09:53] mess off your hands and allows you to

[01:09:55] focus on the job you actually came here

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[01:10:00] and get the same checkout that we use

[01:10:01] with Newtonic with Shopify. Right now,

[01:10:04] you can sign up for a $1 per month trial

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[01:10:07] description below or heading to

[01:10:09] shopify.com/modern

[01:10:11] wisdom, all lowercase. That's

[01:10:12] shopify.com/modernwisdom.

[01:10:15] Avoiding people who make it harder for

[01:10:16] you to achieve your goals is the highest

[01:10:18] form of self-care. The fastest way to

[01:10:21] change your life is to get around people

[01:10:23] whose minimum standards are your life

[01:10:24] goals. It's like I violently agree with

[01:10:26] both of these statements that I wrote.

[01:10:30] I agree with me.

[01:10:32] Um it'd be great if you didn't agree

[01:10:34] with you. If I was like whoever wrote

[01:10:36] that is a [ __ ] idiot. Um,

[01:10:40] this is at the heart of the And I I was

[01:10:42] I wrote that um right in the thick of my

[01:10:47] thinking around malicious goodwill

[01:10:50] or sorry um uh malicious benefit and uh

[01:10:53] and well-intentioned uh harm

[01:10:56] was just um I think I had some people

[01:10:58] around me at that time that had had done

[01:11:00] me harm and had said but I didn't mean

[01:11:02] to. Um, you know, I had good intentions.

[01:11:06] And if you're telling that as the person

[01:11:09] who was texting and driving to the wife

[01:11:11] of the person whose husband you killed,

[01:11:13] um, I don't think I think they are

[01:11:16] justified in not caring.

[01:11:19] And I think that if that person who

[01:11:22] continues to drive while texting

[01:11:24] afterwards because they lack the skill

[01:11:26] to not drive without texting and

[01:11:28] continues to run over your spouse or

[01:11:30] whatever, um, you are justified in

[01:11:34] removing them from your life despite

[01:11:36] their good intention. And I just think

[01:11:38] intention is desired result, which is

[01:11:40] like if I my intention was this, this is

[01:11:42] what I wanted to have happen. And it

[01:11:44] it's literally just a lack of

[01:11:46] competence. Incompetence is incredibly

[01:11:49] rare. So it makes sense to remove many

[01:11:51] people who are not competent at helping

[01:11:53] you either

[01:11:54] intentioned but incompetent.

[01:11:55] Yeah. And so I think that's why being

[01:11:57] really clear about like hey if you do

[01:11:58] this this would help me this decreases

[01:12:00] my risk of failure that would be helpful

[01:12:02] for me. Um makes serving and I say that

[01:12:05] like serving you as a friend or as a

[01:12:07] spouse or as a whatever. Um it g you

[01:12:11] give people the tools to help you and I

[01:12:13] think that you should totally do that.

[01:12:15] If some if you give someone the tools um

[01:12:18] and then they choose not to help you,

[01:12:19] then I think you were also justified or

[01:12:21] it would be it would be rational for you

[01:12:24] if you value your goals more than you

[01:12:26] value the relationship

[01:12:27] to sacrifice the relationship for the

[01:12:29] goal. And again, we would say which one

[01:12:30] you love more by the one that you're

[01:12:32] willing to give up.

[01:12:36] The harshest truth every young man must

[01:12:38] eventually learn is that everyone was

[01:12:40] always rooting for you. Your parents

[01:12:42] want you to be a great son. Your wife

[01:12:44] wants you to be a great husband. Your

[01:12:46] boss wants you to be a slam dunk hire.

[01:12:48] Every first date you've ever been on,

[01:12:50] they've been rooting for you to get

[01:12:51] laid. Every time you started to tell a

[01:12:54] joke, people hoped it would have a

[01:12:55] hilarious punchline. Your proximity to

[01:12:57] anyone is a reflection of themselves,

[01:12:59] meaning the deck is never stacked

[01:13:01] against you, and your failures are

[01:13:03] completely your own. Denzel Rust, I was

[01:13:07] like, who wrote that one? Um,

[01:13:16] it's all your fault. No one's coming to

[01:13:18] save you.

[01:13:20] Sacrifice who you are. But people aren't

[01:13:22] against you, especially the people that

[01:13:24] are in proximity to you. People's

[01:13:26] proximity to you is a reflection of

[01:13:27] themselves. We hang around with people

[01:13:29] who we want to be like and who we want

[01:13:33] to win so that we can be in the

[01:13:35] collective glory of it. So this is where

[01:13:38] the worldview I think is is super

[01:13:39] important for me at least which is like

[01:13:41] we hang around people who who've

[01:13:42] rewarded us for being around them.

[01:13:44] So either they've remove stuff that we

[01:13:45] hate or they um give us stuff that we

[01:13:48] like. And I think where it becomes

[01:13:50] difficult is where you have competing

[01:13:52] priorities where you have multiple

[01:13:53] things that you like and you want to

[01:13:55] shift. It's where you begin to change.

[01:13:57] Basically your motivating factors start

[01:13:59] to change but your environment hasn't.

[01:14:01] And so what was once reinforcing for you

[01:14:03] or was once rewarding no longer is as

[01:14:06] much.

[01:14:07] And so this is where people feel this

[01:14:08] tension between desired of like this is

[01:14:10] the life I want to live versus the life

[01:14:11] that I have.

[01:14:12] Trade-offs.

[01:14:13] Yeah.

[01:14:14] I mean I could I've I've given a

[01:14:16] tremendous amount of thought to

[01:14:17] trade-offs and I really think it comes

[01:14:18] down to that is that people are just

[01:14:19] unwilling to make trades.

[01:14:26] Why?

[01:14:31] Experientially, why? Because we want

[01:14:34] everything.

[01:14:36] And when we get everything we wanted, we

[01:14:39] no longer want it because we have it.

[01:14:43] And I think there's this amazing

[01:14:44] comedian, I think his name's Kanan. I'm

[01:14:46] going to mess it up, but he says he has

[01:14:47] this awesome bit on this. It's like more

[01:14:50] philosophy than comedy. And he says,

[01:14:52] "All the joy is in the getting." He's

[01:14:53] like, "But once you get it, you just

[01:14:55] have it." He's like, "And getting so

[01:14:58] much better than having." He's like,

[01:15:00] "But the only thing worse than having is

[01:15:02] losing." And then you lose and all you

[01:15:04] want is to have it again.

[01:15:06] Um it's like a two-minute bit. And and

[01:15:09] he's like, "You know, you don't you

[01:15:10] don't get kids, you have kids." And he's

[01:15:12] like, "You are have. And that is why you

[01:15:16] will never be satisfied." Ah, but yeah,

[01:15:19] you only either live in the desire or in

[01:15:21] the have. And the have is

[01:15:22] unsatisfactory. And the desire is always

[01:15:24] compelling and out of reach.

[01:15:26] Leila um has been talking to me about

[01:15:28] this more recently where she's like, you

[01:15:30] know, the things that that make you us,

[01:15:33] etc. Like very good at business is

[01:15:35] always seeing where things could be

[01:15:37] better, where things could be improved.

[01:15:40] And it's this incredibly, you said

[01:15:43] earlier, these habits that have been

[01:15:45] reinforced, these grooves of behavior

[01:15:47] that lots of water has run through,

[01:15:49] right? Um, and being able to live life

[01:15:53] with two modes, I find incredibly

[01:15:55] difficult, which is like

[01:15:58] all I am in one part of my life is

[01:16:00] dissatisfied. and seeing the

[01:16:02] imperfections in what we do.

[01:16:05] And then the key to satisfaction of life

[01:16:08] is saying everything is great or rather

[01:16:10] I accept everything as it is and I do

[01:16:12] not wish to change it. Um and I think

[01:16:14] that conflict is I would just say just

[01:16:16] one that I I not conquered just one that

[01:16:19] I

[01:16:19] that line about problem to be managed

[01:16:21] not paradox to be solved.

[01:16:22] Yeah. Dicho. Yeah. Exactly. It's a it's

[01:16:24] a problem to be managed not a dichotomy

[01:16:26] to be solved. Yeah.

[01:16:29] Yeah. I I I don't and I think many of

[01:16:30] these things like there there is no uh

[01:16:32] oh number 42 that's the answer like that

[01:16:34] is the answer to this. I think that we

[01:16:36] just we do the best we can and I think

[01:16:37] again to the question that the started

[01:16:39] with with just why do people have such a

[01:16:40] hard time with trade-offs? Um which is

[01:16:43] that the trades

[01:16:46] we don't want to make the trade.

[01:16:49] We want to be able to date everyone and

[01:16:52] have the benefits of a committed

[01:16:53] relationship. And when you begin to walk

[01:16:56] down one of those paths and see the

[01:16:57] other one start fading into the

[01:16:58] distance, people have an emotional

[01:17:00] reaction and then they change course and

[01:17:01] then they flip-flop back and forth

[01:17:02] between these two things. But then they

[01:17:04] never actually get to realize any of

[01:17:05] them because loss is more painful than

[01:17:07] gain.

[01:17:08] If you lose 5, it is more painful than

[01:17:13] finding 5.

[01:17:15] And that means that you're always going

[01:17:17] to try and avoid loss as opposed to

[01:17:20] expedite gain even if you would be

[01:17:23] happier by doing that because the pain

[01:17:24] of the loss is always going to be felt

[01:17:26] more more

[01:17:27] and probably short-term long term as

[01:17:29] well.

[01:17:29] Yeah. Bill Perkins has got this line. He

[01:17:31] says people will endure years of misery

[01:17:34] to avoid a couple of minutes of pain.

[01:17:37] Oh my god. Yes. Incredibly true.

[01:17:43] And again, if we think about motivation,

[01:17:45] it's just that that that short-term pain

[01:17:47] is always immediate. And so it auto

[01:17:49] always motivates you not to do it.

[01:17:51] So you always you have many motivating

[01:17:53] operations that are that are working on

[01:17:54] us at any any given moment.

[01:17:56] And so even though something is

[01:17:58] short-term, like even it's funny cuz

[01:18:00] like many people obviously there's some

[01:18:04] people who just love going to the gym,

[01:18:06] there are significantly more people who

[01:18:07] don't love going to the gym the moment

[01:18:08] they get to the gym. Then you warm up

[01:18:10] then all of a sudden you feel good

[01:18:10] again, right? there's this this period

[01:18:12] where you're like I don't necessarily

[01:18:13] want to go right now. And so you have a

[01:18:15] motivating operation at all times that

[01:18:18] is working against your your best wishes

[01:18:20] or you know your best desires.

[01:18:22] And our goal of motivating ourselves is

[01:18:25] to tell ourselves those stories so that

[01:18:28] in the short term we can overcome the

[01:18:30] short-term discomfort so that we can get

[01:18:31] the long-term benefit that we ultimately

[01:18:32] want that we know we want but we're

[01:18:34] reminded and the first time you work out

[01:18:36] it only looks like pain. And then we

[01:18:38] model, we look at somebody else who's

[01:18:40] already done it for a long time and say,

[01:18:41] "Well, I want that." And so we model

[01:18:42] that and we borrow that credibility,

[01:18:44] that outcome of the penguin that jumps

[01:18:46] off the cliff, like I want the fish,

[01:18:48] so I guess I'll try and do that. And

[01:18:50] then after that, the the loop takes

[01:18:52] over.

[01:18:53] It's like hyperbolic accounting rather

[01:18:54] than hyperbolic discounting.

[01:18:56] Mhm. And it happens both ways. So like

[01:18:58] for example, if I'm if I want to set an

[01:19:01] alarm, right? If I set an alarm at 5:00

[01:19:03] for the night before for 4:00 in the

[01:19:05] morning, I'm going to wake up super

[01:19:06] early and I'm going to do all this [ __ ]

[01:19:07] right? We get the benefit of the idea of

[01:19:11] our productivity when we set the alarm,

[01:19:14] but the cost is discounted because it's

[01:19:16] in the future.

[01:19:17] But when we have to pay the cost, it's

[01:19:19] immediate. And so the benefit of hitting

[01:19:21] the snooze button is immediate. And the

[01:19:23] cost of getting up is also immediate.

[01:19:25] And so we hit the snooze button. And so

[01:19:27] it's like it that that I feel like that

[01:19:29] is the microcosm of humanity of setting

[01:19:31] setting an alarm 12 hours before or 8

[01:19:33] hours before you're supposed to wake up

[01:19:35] and being like super jacked about it

[01:19:37] because you only get the benefit and

[01:19:38] there's no price attached to it. But

[01:19:40] then in the moment that you have to make

[01:19:41] the trade all of a sudden you your

[01:19:42] priorities change because the

[01:19:43] motivations have changed.

[01:19:45] Yeah. And the long-term benefit of what

[01:19:47] will happen to your life if you become

[01:19:48] the sort of person who gets up early is

[01:19:50] also in future.

[01:19:51] Mhm. And if you do it a few times in a

[01:19:53] row, then you tell yourself, I am the

[01:19:54] type of person who does this. And then

[01:19:55] that becomes a second operating

[01:19:57] operation which can help you overcome

[01:19:59] the short term. Like I'm a big believer

[01:20:01] in um in I am statements as motivating

[01:20:04] operations, meaning like I am this type

[01:20:06] of person. Um I tend to be really

[01:20:09] hesitant to say I am statements because

[01:20:10] I believe they're very powerful in terms

[01:20:11] of changing behavior. Um but it's also

[01:20:13] something that I feel like I listen to a

[01:20:15] lot when I'm talking to other people

[01:20:16] like what I mean this happens a lot

[01:20:17] especially in dating. The thing about

[01:20:19] first date, second dates. Um, people

[01:20:21] were like, "Well, I'm a like in in in

[01:20:23] the first meeting, they'll give you like

[01:20:24] 20 I ams." Like, "I'm a I'm a neat

[01:20:26] freak. I'm a blah blah blah." Like, they

[01:20:28] just give you, "Okay, here's my lattice

[01:20:29] work of my beliefs about myself."

[01:20:31] Um, when in reality, all of these things

[01:20:34] are just shortorthhand for a number of

[01:20:36] behaviors underneath it. They're saying,

[01:20:37] "I'm a great at basketball and I'm also

[01:20:38] great at swimming." And you're like,

[01:20:38] "Whoa, there's so much here." Um, but

[01:20:41] where it gets difficult is when um you

[01:20:43] need to stop dribbling and start

[01:20:44] passing, but you said, "I'm great at

[01:20:45] basketball, but I'm supposed to do both,

[01:20:46] but I actually need to change only one

[01:20:47] of them." And that's where people get

[01:20:49] into these really hard times. Which is

[01:20:50] why I think defining everything into the

[01:20:51] granular and then moving it back up. But

[01:20:53] being able to go clouds to dirt on these

[01:20:56] definitions of behavior allow you to

[01:20:58] change who you are much more fluidly

[01:21:01] because you you understand that the

[01:21:04] label is actually just that. It's just

[01:21:06] shortorthhand. It's not reality. It's

[01:21:09] just a bucket to make communication

[01:21:10] easier. If I

[01:21:11] I can't be bothered to describe all of

[01:21:13] the things that this particular term

[01:21:14] means.

[01:21:14] And it would be unreasonable if I had to

[01:21:16] say he's a good basketball player. But

[01:21:17] instead of saying that, I'm like, "Oh my

[01:21:18] god, he's really good at at taking his

[01:21:19] right foot and putting in front like it

[01:21:20] would it would it would be ridiculous."

[01:21:22] But you have to understand at that level

[01:21:24] in order to communicate really clearly

[01:21:25] in my opinion.

[01:21:26] Yeah.

[01:21:27] This tension between excellence and

[01:21:30] satisfaction

[01:21:31] is an interesting one. I had this line

[01:21:33] this year which was what you are praised

[01:21:35] for in public you will pay for in

[01:21:37] private. M a lot of the time the things

[01:21:40] that make you fantastic operator when it

[01:21:43] comes to business and your career often

[01:21:46] can be

[01:21:48] totally unadaptive maladaptive when it

[01:21:51] comes to the kitchen table competing

[01:21:53] priorities

[01:21:55] and I like this is this is such a this

[01:21:57] is one that I I think I think a lot

[01:21:59] about this um because there is a

[01:22:02] priority there is one that you want more

[01:22:05] and I think people have a lot of trouble

[01:22:06] with that. This is why people who are

[01:22:08] monomomaniacal often get so much further

[01:22:10] than people that don't because even just

[01:22:12] the thinking cost of managing navigating

[01:22:14] the trade-offs.

[01:22:15] Yeah.

[01:22:16] That's why someone asked me

[01:22:21] basically how how monomomaniacally

[01:22:23] should I go after my career and I said

[01:22:25] well it depends on what phase you're in.

[01:22:28] Uh, but I think it is almost impossible

[01:22:30] to make a big swing, make big progress

[01:22:34] in your life without going complete

[01:22:37] sicko mode for an extended period of

[01:22:39] time.

[01:22:39] Yeah, it's about 10 years.

[01:22:40] Yeah.

[01:22:40] I mean, I've just I think it's it's like

[01:22:42] about 10 years

[01:22:43] of just going um

[01:22:44] I'm not going to compromise.

[01:22:46] Yeah, it's no compromises. It's no,

[01:22:51] there's this um episode in in Breaking

[01:22:54] Bad and the title was I think no half

[01:22:56] measures and I think it was about

[01:22:59] whether you punish someone or kill them.

[01:23:00] But that was

[01:23:02] but I remember watching that episode and

[01:23:04] the the line stuck with me a lot like no

[01:23:06] half measures either do or don't. And I

[01:23:10] think that

[01:23:15] half measures yield null outcomes. Yeah.

[01:23:19] It's not that you get half results.

[01:23:20] Yeah. And so what many people are

[01:23:23] plagued by is they are doing half

[01:23:25] measures in four domains and have

[01:23:27] yielded none. And they feel like they

[01:23:30] are trying all the time. They're working

[01:23:33] every hour that they're awake to pursue

[01:23:35] or serve four different masters. And

[01:23:38] it's the realization that

[01:23:41] compromise on one means getting neither.

[01:23:45] And I think that people have a hard time

[01:23:47] with that because they're unwilling to

[01:23:49] say, I I I want one thing more than

[01:23:51] another. And I think you just have to be

[01:23:53] able to say like, I'm willing to

[01:23:54] sacrifice

[01:23:56] this thing, not forever, but for now.

[01:23:59] Obligation, because of anchoring bias,

[01:24:02] because of the momentum of where you are

[01:24:04] now, because of the fear of regretting

[01:24:06] it.

[01:24:07] This is where

[01:24:11] this is where the inaction thing comes

[01:24:14] back in. People

[01:24:17] think that in action has no cost, but it

[01:24:19] it does have a cost.

[01:24:21] Usually it's higher

[01:24:25] like um

[01:24:28] it's like money loves speed, wealth

[01:24:31] loves time, poverty loves indecision. Uh

[01:24:38] and if you think about in action

[01:24:42] as an action we are we are always doing

[01:24:46] something. Even if you were watching

[01:24:47] television you are taking an action.

[01:24:50] It's just not make it's not making any

[01:24:52] progress. Well maybe you're making

[01:24:53] progress in a show. Maybe you're making

[01:24:55] progress in your in your relaxation.

[01:24:57] Maybe your resting heart rate drops.

[01:24:58] Like you like things are always

[01:25:00] occurring. Um, and I think it's just

[01:25:02] whether we are

[01:25:04] voting with our behavior about the

[01:25:08] outcome that we truly want. And most of

[01:25:11] the outcomes that we truly want happen

[01:25:12] at a delay, which is what makes them

[01:25:14] worth wanting.

[01:25:16] But also makes them equally hard to get.

[01:25:20] Don't listen to other people's opinions.

[01:25:22] Friendly reminder that most people are

[01:25:24] fat, poor pansies, and don't listen to

[01:25:26] them when they try to deter you from

[01:25:28] whatever it takes to succeed. The

[01:25:30] average person will always try to keep

[01:25:31] you average. It makes sense that if you

[01:25:33] want to be extraordinary, you will do

[01:25:35] things that an ordinary person would see

[01:25:37] as extra. This is the really hard part

[01:25:40] that I had to come to terms with. It's

[01:25:42] that a lot of people want to see you

[01:25:44] fail because it justifies the risks that

[01:25:46] they chose not to take. We always have

[01:25:48] to think about listening to the people

[01:25:50] who are closest to our goals, not

[01:25:52] closest to us.

[01:25:59] We yearn for the approval

[01:26:04] of

[01:26:05] many people

[01:26:08] who don't have lives that we want.

[01:26:12] And so if they have a specific life,

[01:26:16] then it means that that is what they

[01:26:20] think is valuable. And if we don't want

[01:26:23] what they have,

[01:26:25] then why would we value their weight on

[01:26:29] our decisions?

[01:26:31] And so it's like you have this, they're

[01:26:32] like, we have this mold that is my life.

[01:26:35] Your life no longer fits my mold. And

[01:26:38] you're like, right, I don't like the pot

[01:26:39] that that mold makes. And so somehow

[01:26:42] when people state the obvious, which is

[01:26:44] that you were living your life against

[01:26:45] my preferences,

[01:26:48] we somehow feel like that needs to

[01:26:50] change because when we're younger and

[01:26:52] growing up,

[01:26:53] we can't leave.

[01:26:54] Yeah. You can't leave and you do need to

[01:26:56] live your life according to your

[01:26:57] parents' preferences, your teachers

[01:26:58] preferences, your classmates's

[01:26:59] preferences, your principal's

[01:27:00] preferences. Um, but when you get older,

[01:27:03] you do have to break the mold and decide

[01:27:05] what mold you want. And in so doing, you

[01:27:08] will be against their preferences. is

[01:27:10] and if the vast majority of people have

[01:27:12] a life that you don't want, then you're

[01:27:14] going to do things that the vast

[01:27:15] majority of people don't agree with.

[01:27:16] Mhm. I think the average American adult

[01:27:19] is obese, likely to be divorced, and has

[01:27:21] less than 1K in the bank. And doing what

[01:27:23] everybody else does sounds like a great

[01:27:27] idea, but it's actually a reliable route

[01:27:28] to a life that you're probably not

[01:27:29] looking for.

[01:27:35] This is I feel very passionately about

[01:27:39] this particular topic because

[01:27:43] it means that the path to exceptionalism

[01:27:46] is lonely

[01:27:49] and loneliness is something that we

[01:27:54] decry as a society that there's

[01:27:56] something wrong with it. There's

[01:27:57] something bad. There's something wrong

[01:27:59] with you.

[01:28:00] If many people disagree with you, but

[01:28:04] this is but success and pursuit of large

[01:28:07] endeavors is one of those few domains

[01:28:09] where

[01:28:12] everyone disagreeing with you is a

[01:28:14] signal that you are actually

[01:28:17] doing something different. Now,

[01:28:20] sometimes you doing something different

[01:28:23] is the wrong move. I think um Larry

[01:28:26] Ellison said this. He said, uh,

[01:28:30] if everyone thinks your idea is stupid,

[01:28:33] either

[01:28:34] they're right or you're right.

[01:28:38] And if you're right, then you're likely

[01:28:40] to make a lot of money. I'm loosely

[01:28:42] paraphrasing, but basically, it's like

[01:28:43] we have to be willing to do exceptional

[01:28:46] things in isolation

[01:28:48] and deal with the pain of rejection. Um,

[01:28:52] and some of rejection isn't people

[01:28:53] saying, "No, I don't want to buy from

[01:28:54] Some of rejection is people just

[01:28:56] rejecting your behavior, rejecting who

[01:28:57] you're becoming, rejecting the choices

[01:28:59] that you're making.

[01:29:00] Um, and I think that rejection often

[01:29:01] times is harder because it often

[01:29:02] surfaces as snide remarks,

[01:29:05] jokes that are demeaning, that have a

[01:29:07] little bit too much edge to them, like a

[01:29:09] little bit too much truth, or even just

[01:29:11] being excluded. A more silent version of

[01:29:13] that, not commission, but omission. Oh,

[01:29:15] we won't invite them out. Oh, you you

[01:29:17] you turned up to squash practice. I

[01:29:19] didn't know it was on. I just thought

[01:29:20] that I don't know. Do you guys not tell

[01:29:21] me? Oh, yeah. Well, all right. Come on.

[01:29:23] Join. Yeah, this those moments and I

[01:29:26] think those moments are very painful.

[01:29:28] Um, but you you trade those moments for

[01:29:33] the many moments when you're at home

[01:29:36] alone

[01:29:38] looking at your life around you and

[01:29:40] saying this is not what I want.

[01:29:42] I don't want to be here.

[01:29:43] Right? I don't want to be here. I don't

[01:29:45] want to be who I am

[01:29:46] and I don't want to be there with them

[01:29:47] either.

[01:29:47] Right? And so it's no man's land. Um,

[01:29:50] and I think that that is like the

[01:29:52] beginning of the metamorphosis, the

[01:29:54] beginning of the transformation.

[01:29:54] It's the single most powerful idea that

[01:29:56] me and you have come up with, the lonely

[01:29:57] chapter by far. By far. And I think the

[01:29:59] reason that it speaks to people is that

[01:30:02] the amount of doubt that you have to

[01:30:04] endure when doing this for the first

[01:30:07] time when nobody around you understands

[01:30:08] what you're trying to do. When you're

[01:30:10] actively being discouraged from making

[01:30:11] changes and you have no promise of glory

[01:30:13] or success on the other side of it is

[01:30:16] one of the most perfect cocktails of

[01:30:19] pain and discomfort that you can go

[01:30:22] through. And this happens on every

[01:30:24] mountain. So it happens on your first

[01:30:26] mountain and it happens on your second

[01:30:27] mountain. Like if you are you've

[01:30:29] achieved some level of success that

[01:30:30] everyone around you deems as successful

[01:30:32] enough by their standards not yours when

[01:30:34] you pursue the next summit they then all

[01:30:38] of it begins again the machine begins

[01:30:40] again. I actually think that for a lot

[01:30:42] of people the first big lonely chapter

[01:30:46] that they will feel will be after their

[01:30:47] first success because for a lot of

[01:30:49] people the first success is done within

[01:30:51] the frame that they're already inside

[01:30:53] of. They get to the top of it and

[01:30:55] realize it wasn't what they wanted. And

[01:30:57] then some people decide to go back down.

[01:30:59] Uh maybe some people don't need to go up

[01:31:03] the first mountain to realize they're

[01:31:04] somewhere they don't want to be. But for

[01:31:05] a lot of people, especially people that

[01:31:07] are driven and and pushed toward

[01:31:08] excellence, I think they actually have

[01:31:09] to get there within this was my story,

[01:31:12] right? getting

[01:31:14] one of the biggest events companies in

[01:31:16] the UK running an organization that is

[01:31:19] cool and fun and I got to define and I

[01:31:22] was the boss and everybody knew me and

[01:31:24] there's some wealth and some status and

[01:31:25] some freedom and there's girls.

[01:31:30] Everybody's telling me that this is

[01:31:31] something that I should be happy about

[01:31:33] and satisfied with and for some reason

[01:31:35] it didn't feel right. And the only way

[01:31:39] to try and find something new is to let

[01:31:41] go of something that everybody else is

[01:31:43] telling you is something that you should

[01:31:45] want

[01:31:47] local maximums.

[01:31:49] And it's like the furthest up they can

[01:31:51] see up the mountain. And then when you

[01:31:52] get to that new local maximum, you have

[01:31:54] a different perception than they do. And

[01:31:55] you can see the next peak and they

[01:31:57] can't. And

[01:31:58] some people don't need to go up the

[01:31:59] peak, but I think a lot of people do.

[01:32:01] Yeah. I um

[01:32:02] I wonder if those are different types of

[01:32:03] lonely chapter. Wonder if there's a

[01:32:05] different type of a lonely chapter of of

[01:32:07] letting go. I I I've kind of been hold

[01:32:09] that thought. I I just I really wanted

[01:32:11] to talk to you about the difference

[01:32:12] between having fallen off and having

[01:32:14] never made it

[01:32:16] and having fallen off a lot of the time

[01:32:18] is somebody going from one local maxima

[01:32:21] to another local maxima that's higher or

[01:32:23] to a global maxima. Like sure, some

[01:32:25] fall-offs occur not through choice, but

[01:32:28] that evolution might be somebody going,

[01:32:30] "My priorities have changed."

[01:32:32] Mhm.

[01:32:32] And you are judging me on the scorecard

[01:32:34] of the game that I used to play.

[01:32:37] I'm not bothered about that anymore.

[01:32:39] Oh, that guy fell off.

[01:32:42] And I have two two completely different

[01:32:45] thoughts about this. Um,

[01:32:47] one is short and then I'll I'll make the

[01:32:49] longer one. Um, I realized when I was I

[01:32:52] was writing something a while ago, um,

[01:32:55] that

[01:32:57] when you haven't when you have no

[01:32:59] evidence or no proof that you're going

[01:33:01] to be successful, everyone will ask why

[01:33:02] you're working so hard and then once you

[01:33:05] win, everyone asks why you're working so

[01:33:07] hard.

[01:33:08] Mhm.

[01:33:08] You know, that was the Mark Manson one

[01:33:10] that he said, "We'll tell you how lucky

[01:33:12] you are." Oh,

[01:33:13] and you liked the idea of

[01:33:16] No, they just ask you again why you're

[01:33:17] working so hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:33:19] Yeah. Yeah. And

[01:33:20] it was a funny remix.

[01:33:21] Yeah. And um and it was just a

[01:33:24] realization that people were literally

[01:33:25] always going to ask me why I was working

[01:33:27] so hard or why you were working so hard

[01:33:28] and why are you pursuing your goals?

[01:33:29] Because they're saying that your goals

[01:33:31] are not the goals that I would pursue.

[01:33:32] And to which you would respond, yes.

[01:33:35] The second thing was um I was I was

[01:33:39] talking to an entrepreneur, really

[01:33:40] successful, and they were saying, "Hey,

[01:33:42] I really want um I want to dominate my

[01:33:44] market. I want to put everyone else out

[01:33:46] of business, blah blah blah blah." And

[01:33:48] I, as somebody who has put people out of

[01:33:51] business, um I will say that

[01:33:54] it doesn't come with parades and it

[01:33:56] doesn't come with balloons and it's not

[01:33:58] Goliath versus Goliath because by the

[01:34:00] time you actually beat them into true

[01:34:02] submission, it's really like a giant

[01:34:03] beating a child

[01:34:05] because it's almost never a true fair

[01:34:07] fight and there are no rules and there

[01:34:10] is no referee and no one determines you

[01:34:12] the winner. And so what ends up

[01:34:13] happening is you get bigger and bigger

[01:34:16] and bigger and then they shrink into

[01:34:17] irrelevance and then you see a Facebook

[01:34:19] post that says that they've changed

[01:34:20] their goals and that they actually

[01:34:21] determine that this isn't as important

[01:34:22] to them as it once was.

[01:34:24] And I think that one that's okay.

[01:34:27] Um two, it's not satisfying at all.

[01:34:31] three, when you see the jobs and the

[01:34:33] employees that actually worked at the

[01:34:35] company that were just, you know, living

[01:34:37] their lives and have kids and all of a

[01:34:39] sudden like this idea of this conquest

[01:34:41] that you're going to beat someone feels

[01:34:43] significantly less rewarding.

[01:34:46] Um,

[01:34:47] that's glorious.

[01:34:48] 100%.

[01:34:49] And

[01:34:52] I used to I used to joke that when

[01:34:55] losers lose, they change their goals

[01:34:57] rather than say they lost.

[01:35:00] And

[01:35:02] I think it's more that they might have

[01:35:04] at some point while they began to lose.

[01:35:08] Maybe it's the first quarter or the

[01:35:09] second quarter of their game, they're

[01:35:10] down by a few points. They might have

[01:35:12] some awareness of what it would take in

[01:35:14] order to win, but they determined at

[01:35:16] that point that the trade was no longer

[01:35:18] worth it.

[01:35:19] And I think that that's okay. And I

[01:35:21] would say that that has that is a shift

[01:35:22] that I've had personally is that if

[01:35:25] someone no longer determines that the

[01:35:27] price is worth it, then amazing. they've

[01:35:29] made a they've made a conscious

[01:35:30] decision. What I what I I would say I

[01:35:33] advocate against is having that decision

[01:35:35] made for you because you weren't

[01:35:37] conscious of the decision being made to

[01:35:38] begin with

[01:35:39] and then just basically accepting it.

[01:35:41] Can vengeance be deranging in that way?

[01:35:43] Then

[01:35:44] say it again.

[01:35:45] Can vengeance be deranging?

[01:35:46] Uh for whom?

[01:35:47] The desire to get one over on this

[01:35:50] person. It compels you to act in a way

[01:35:53] which is being

[01:35:56] puppeted by them in a very odd way.

[01:35:59] Yeah. They control you.

[01:36:00] Yeah. The the person that you're trying

[01:36:02] to beat has

[01:36:06] cajol you and tempted you into doing

[01:36:08] something that isn't necessarily in your

[01:36:10] interests. And then when you do reach

[01:36:12] the finish line, they're never going to

[01:36:14] say, "Well played, man. Fair fight."

[01:36:16] Yeah. Exactly. No one else knows. It's

[01:36:19] it's largely just this silent war

[01:36:21] between you and your projection of them.

[01:36:25] And and to be clear, like I I think that

[01:36:27] vengeance and revenge can be incredibly

[01:36:29] motivating. And if if the only fuel that

[01:36:33] you have is that to get what you want,

[01:36:36] then use what you have. But I think that

[01:36:41] the the outcome of it of beating a

[01:36:44] specific person is not nearly as

[01:36:46] fulfilling as you think it will be.

[01:36:48] But if along the way you can create good

[01:36:52] from it, then I think that there's some

[01:36:55] reconciliation of pros and cons that

[01:36:57] happens of like good stuff happened, bad

[01:36:59] stuff happened, and is there more good

[01:37:00] than bad? Um that we sum up at the end

[01:37:04] of our lives. But I find it interesting

[01:37:05] when I think about when I look at like

[01:37:07] the oldest, you know, the old wise men

[01:37:09] that I that I pay attention to or that I

[01:37:12] read their dead books or they're dead,

[01:37:13] the books are alive. Um, it is

[01:37:16] interesting how how much they talk about

[01:37:17] like the folly of youth and how how how

[01:37:19] much we value things that never really

[01:37:21] mattered to begin with.

[01:37:22] Um, and how and I I try to think like

[01:37:25] what is that guy going to say about what

[01:37:26] I'm currently doing and will he approve

[01:37:28] of it? Um,

[01:37:29] and I don't I mean to be clear like I

[01:37:31] always have the answer, but I think it

[01:37:33] it takes the edge off both sides. Uh, on

[01:37:36] the downside if you do you know have

[01:37:38] your losses it's like well this this is

[01:37:40] okay. M

[01:37:41] um and on the upside when you do have

[01:37:43] your wins you're like I'm not that

[01:37:45] important.

[01:37:46] A lot of this feels to be about the

[01:37:47] expansion of time being able to see

[01:37:49] things on a broader time horizon. Is

[01:37:51] that fair?

[01:37:56] Time and space. I think those are the

[01:37:58] two things that can shrink or expand

[01:38:00] anything, right? And so like if you zoom

[01:38:02] in the the the atoms of this table

[01:38:04] versus zooming all the way out to the

[01:38:06] cosmos all of a sudden you know whether

[01:38:07] two monkeys are having a podcast that

[01:38:09] they're recording matters significantly

[01:38:10] less. And also when we think about the

[01:38:12] billions of podcasts that get recorded

[01:38:14] over the next however many years it it

[01:38:16] shrinks it. Um but in this exact moment

[01:38:18] this becomes the most important thing

[01:38:20] that I'm focused on right now. So, um, I

[01:38:22] think playing with time and space as

[01:38:24] ways to cope with hardship is one of the

[01:38:28] most viable tools that you can have in

[01:38:30] terms of getting through

[01:38:31] to zoom into enjoyment, zoom out of

[01:38:33] difficulty,

[01:38:34] pain. Yeah,

[01:38:37] you can get competent at nearly anything

[01:38:39] in 20 hours. The problem is most people

[01:38:42] spend a decade delaying the first 20

[01:38:44] hours. More potential is wasted through

[01:38:46] in action than incompetence.

[01:38:49] I saw a TED talk years ago where a guy

[01:38:51] talked about how he learned how to play

[01:38:52] the guitar in 20 hours. And that TED

[01:38:55] talk changed my life. Not because I

[01:38:57] learned to play the guitar, but all of a

[01:38:58] sudden

[01:39:00] complex tasks or seemingly complex tasks

[01:39:05] felt incre much

[01:39:08] much more attainable. I was like, okay,

[01:39:10] I might not be the best website

[01:39:11] developer in the world, but in 20 hours

[01:39:12] I can have a website. And that 20our

[01:39:16] mantra for me has just been like two

[01:39:17] days, two full days, two 10-hour days

[01:39:20] fully focused, you can pretty much go

[01:39:21] from zero to not hero, but zero to

[01:39:24] competent. Um, and when you string

[01:39:28] hundreds of those 20our days together, I

[01:39:30] think you become incredibly dangerous.

[01:39:32] We were talking earlier about range the

[01:39:34] book. I think being cross-dep

[01:39:37] departmental being cross um what's the

[01:39:40] multi-disiplinary

[01:39:41] thank you disciplinary multi-disiplinary

[01:39:44] is is is

[01:39:48] hard to calculate how valuable it is

[01:39:50] because of the because the the first 20

[01:39:53] hours of almost every discipline is

[01:39:54] probably the biggest most meaningful

[01:39:56] concepts from that

[01:39:57] from not being able to ride a bike to

[01:39:58] being able to ride a bike

[01:39:59] yes being able to not read to read um

[01:40:02] even if you can't read Shakespeare but

[01:40:04] you can read all of a sudden like 80%

[01:40:06] the world of Shakespeare is now opened

[01:40:07] up to you. It's just a matter of time

[01:40:08] before you get there.

[01:40:09] Yeah. And even if you could never read

[01:40:11] Shakespeare, the 80% of the books that

[01:40:12] you can read as a result of a sixth

[01:40:14] grade reading level is basically more

[01:40:16] books than you have time to read. Um and

[01:40:19] you will get the largest returns from

[01:40:21] those first 20 hours. And so there's a

[01:40:22] very strong argument for trying to

[01:40:24] collapse the time between uh wanting

[01:40:26] something and beginning those first 20

[01:40:28] hours. And because the the 8020 of your

[01:40:31] of the skills you gain that are that

[01:40:34] have utility like that your usefulness

[01:40:36] across a huge amount of domains is

[01:40:39] multiplicative not additive. So I I I've

[01:40:42] said this example before but like you

[01:40:44] know Jay-Z in the very beginning it's

[01:40:46] like he might have had some rhythm or

[01:40:47] something and then all of a sudden he

[01:40:49] you know learned how to rap and then he

[01:40:51] learned how to sell. Now some people say

[01:40:52] maybe was sold earlier than that but

[01:40:54] I'll just leave it there. He learned how

[01:40:55] to sell and then all of a sudden he

[01:40:56] learned how to market. And with each of

[01:40:57] these additional skills, his income

[01:40:59] didn't go up by like, oh, 1 plus 1

[01:41:01] equals 2. It went, you know, one, well,

[01:41:04] one's a bad number. So 2 to the 10th

[01:41:06] power all of a sudden becomes

[01:41:07] significantly greater um than what you

[01:41:10] can do. And so when

[01:41:12] when unsure about what step like when

[01:41:16] you're not sure what to do,

[01:41:22] build potential

[01:41:24] because when the opportunity does come,

[01:41:28] you want to be ready. And so it does

[01:41:30] make sense in the beginning of your

[01:41:32] career to maximize optionality. It's

[01:41:34] just that you have to be willing to

[01:41:35] trade it in. And so when you're not sure

[01:41:37] what to do, the logical thing to do is I

[01:41:39] don't know what I'm going to do

[01:41:40] tomorrow, but I'm going to get a good

[01:41:41] night's sleep. I don't know when I'm

[01:41:42] going to meet a mate, but I'm going to

[01:41:43] start getting in shape now. I don't know

[01:41:45] what I'm going to sell, but I'm going to

[01:41:46] start building an audience and making

[01:41:47] content. There's always an argument for

[01:41:49] like you if you don't know what to do,

[01:41:50] there's still plenty of things to do.

[01:41:52] And but the goal is not necessarily to

[01:41:54] do those things forever. It's to do

[01:41:55] those things to then use them as the

[01:41:57] launch pad to get the thing you really

[01:41:58] want. The trap is opening up so much

[01:42:01] optionality without the concordant

[01:42:04] decisiveness that you end up being

[01:42:06] trapped.

[01:42:07] Yeah.

[01:42:08] You end up being stuck because you

[01:42:09] think, I've got all of these directions

[01:42:11] that I could go in. I've spent all of

[01:42:13] this time building up

[01:42:15] uh paniply

[01:42:18] of roots that I could take my life down

[01:42:21] and I do not have any ability to decide

[01:42:23] on which of those to take.

[01:42:24] Paniply.

[01:42:25] Paniply. You like that?

[01:42:26] Myriad. Cornucopia. plethora.

[01:42:28] Yeah. Yeah.

[01:42:31] Two people that are obsessed with

[01:42:32] language have have a war with each

[01:42:34] other.

[01:42:35] But one is British, so he wins.

[01:42:39] You only need to get rich once, so you

[01:42:41] might as well work as hard as you can to

[01:42:43] get it done as fast as you can. The

[01:42:44] fastest way to attract what you want in

[01:42:46] life is to deserve it. By doing so much

[01:42:48] work, it becomes unreasonable not to

[01:42:50] achieve it. Do so much work it would be

[01:42:52] unreasonable that you fail. The seat at

[01:42:54] the table is yours if you want it. Do

[01:42:57] the hard work. Build the skills no one

[01:42:59] can ignore. Adjust your mindset to match

[01:43:01] where you want to go. Then pull up a

[01:43:03] chair and sit down. You want to work

[01:43:05] with such relentless obsession that when

[01:43:07] people see you, they're grateful they

[01:43:08] don't have to compete against you. The

[01:43:11] fastest shortcut is to stop looking for

[01:43:13] shortcuts. Do the work. Are those all

[01:43:16] mine? All one.

[01:43:22] Violence is the answer.

[01:43:25] There's There's two. There's two quotes

[01:43:27] on the on the in the first few pages of

[01:43:30] our sales handbook internal

[01:43:31] acquisition.com. One is volume negates

[01:43:34] luck and violence is the answer. And I

[01:43:38] would say that those are like credos

[01:43:39] that that the team lives by and I think

[01:43:42] violent team.

[01:43:43] Mhm. They are um and violently

[01:43:45] successful. Um, I think I think there's

[01:43:49] a lot of power in

[01:43:55] in knowing that you're doing every

[01:43:58] single thing you possibly can to win.

[01:44:03] Because if you are if you can look at

[01:44:04] yourself in the mirror and say, I have

[01:44:06] controlled the controllable,

[01:44:08] I think there's some entire entirely the

[01:44:11] controllable, not the uncontrollable.

[01:44:13] Those things can happen. I could do my

[01:44:14] book launch and there can be a lightning

[01:44:16] strike and there can be no power in

[01:44:17] Vegas. That can happen. But in the event

[01:44:19] that that happens, if you if you leave

[01:44:21] it all in the field, if you have nothing

[01:44:24] left in the tank,

[01:44:26] I don't think there's a feeling that's

[01:44:28] more satisfying as a man than knowing

[01:44:32] that you've given everything that you

[01:44:34] had to give to an endeavor that you

[01:44:36] deemed meaningful.

[01:44:38] And so Leila and I have this thing that

[01:44:39] we say a lot, but um a man must have a

[01:44:42] quest.

[01:44:44] And I just really really like that. It's

[01:44:46] like you need to do something. You need

[01:44:48] to go towards something. And your quest

[01:44:50] could be the best being the best father.

[01:44:51] It could be it could be being the best

[01:44:53] musician or the best podcast or the best

[01:44:55] businessman or the best tire replacer,

[01:44:57] the best sweeper,

[01:44:58] whatever it is. But like I think I think

[01:45:01] being questless, being aimless, and

[01:45:05] never being able to use the violence

[01:45:08] that you are capable of in the pursuit

[01:45:10] of an endeavor that you find meaningful

[01:45:12] is where people find themselves lost and

[01:45:16] without hope. Because

[01:45:21] hopelessness comes from a perceived lack

[01:45:23] of options. We don't know what to do.

[01:45:27] Anxiety comes from many options but no

[01:45:30] priorities. And so there's many things

[01:45:33] to do but we aren't sure which one.

[01:45:35] And so a quest

[01:45:38] remedies both of those because you have

[01:45:40] one path that you're clear on. And

[01:45:45] you know the only thing that you have

[01:45:48] left to do is destroy everything in your

[01:45:50] path to getting to where you want to go.

[01:45:52] And I'm using strong language on purpose

[01:45:54] rather than saying that you literally

[01:45:55] need to destroy everyone. but more so

[01:45:57] the ideas, the thoughts, the doubts, the

[01:46:00] the perceived risks that aren't even

[01:46:02] really risks. Um

[01:46:05] those are the things that we have to

[01:46:06] march triumphantly towards. And I think

[01:46:09] um having someone in your corner uh

[01:46:14] who believes in that better version of

[01:46:15] you is one of the the rarest gifts that

[01:46:20] you can have in life. And there's a line

[01:46:23] from 300 that I love. The queen says to

[01:46:26] Leonitis, she's she says, um, "Come back

[01:46:30] with your shielder on it." And I think

[01:46:32] that we all want a spouse or a partner

[01:46:35] who can who can reward us for the good

[01:46:40] fight because what that queen is saying

[01:46:43] in that moment is not like, "I want you

[01:46:45] to win." She's like, "I want you to die

[01:46:47] trying." M

[01:46:49] so and I think that that's that's like

[01:46:50] all we I mean to be fair that's

[01:46:52] literally all we will do is die trying.

[01:46:54] All of us will die trying. And I think

[01:46:56] um well rather all of us will die some

[01:46:58] of us will die trying. And I think

[01:47:01] that's that's about as good of a life as

[01:47:04] I think anyone can really ask for. One

[01:47:07] of my least favorite groups of people

[01:47:08] are those without a quest mocking those

[01:47:10] who have one.

[01:47:16] wastess of space. Well,

[01:47:19] it causes doubt. This is another reason

[01:47:20] why the lonely chapter thing resonates

[01:47:22] so much that people who are in it have

[01:47:25] their certainty about wanting to get out

[01:47:27] of it diminished by people who can't see

[01:47:30] the fact that they're in it. And you go,

[01:47:32] [ __ ] All of my friends are saying,

[01:47:34] "Well, why why are you staying in? Cuz

[01:47:35] you want to go to the gym in the

[01:47:36] morning." What does it matter if you

[01:47:37] miss what does it matter if you miss

[01:47:39] your workout? Doesn't matter if you It

[01:47:41] doesn't matter if you miss your workout

[01:47:42] tomorrow, dude. Go, No, I really, really

[01:47:45] want this thing.

[01:47:47] and my wanting of this hard thing and

[01:47:49] the efforts and sacrifices and

[01:47:51] trade-offs I'm having to make in order

[01:47:52] to get there.

[01:47:55] The doubt that already exists inside of

[01:47:57] me is being multiplied by people who are

[01:47:59] outside of it. And if I could give

[01:48:02] everybody a gift, it would be the

[01:48:04] ability to turn down the volume on

[01:48:06] people who don't understand the goals

[01:48:08] that you're trying to achieve.

[01:48:10] It shouldn't be your job to explain

[01:48:12] yourself to people who don't understand

[01:48:14] what you're trying to do.

[01:48:15] and the confusion of this person gets it

[01:48:18] and understands it and this person

[01:48:21] doesn't, you shouldn't be listening to

[01:48:23] them at equal measure.

[01:48:30] I have a lot of live translation that I

[01:48:32] think um I've wired into being able to

[01:48:35] handle some things that were difficult

[01:48:37] um which is like I pretty much translate

[01:48:39] all hate into you live your life against

[01:48:41] my preferences. And so whenever they're

[01:48:44] saying all of these things of like, "No,

[01:48:45] you don't have to go to the gym. We

[01:48:46] we're doing this other thing." It's just

[01:48:47] saying, "You're living your life in a

[01:48:48] way that's against my preferences.

[01:48:50] You're valuing things that I don't

[01:48:51] value." And you're like, "You're right."

[01:48:52] And so it doesn't mean like we don't

[01:48:54] need to have the same values, at least

[01:48:56] in the short term. Um, and I think just

[01:48:59] accepting that that is okay and that you

[01:49:02] can still be friends, at least in the

[01:49:03] short term, is fine. And what they're

[01:49:06] really trying to do is get you to comply

[01:49:08] with their way of living. Because maybe,

[01:49:11] not always,

[01:49:15] when you live in accordance with your

[01:49:17] new values and new preferences,

[01:49:20] it brings into sharp contrast how they

[01:49:22] are not living in accordance to theirs.

[01:49:25] Yeah. Yeah. This was what 10 years ago

[01:49:29] when as a club promoter I decided that I

[01:49:32] was going to take six months off from

[01:49:33] drinking which now sounds like

[01:49:35] commonplace now is almost a caricature

[01:49:37] of something lame that people do too

[01:49:38] much and drinking has come back around

[01:49:40] but 10 years ago I was on the [ __ ]

[01:49:42] frontier

[01:49:44] and I remember when I stopped drinking

[01:49:46] so many of the people that I would hang

[01:49:48] out with went from being surprised to

[01:49:54] ribbing mockery to almost offending did.

[01:49:57] And I think a lot of that was people

[01:49:59] realizing, oh [ __ ] the fact that Chris

[01:50:02] has stopped drinking throws the fact

[01:50:03] that I need to drink in order to feel

[01:50:05] social into harsh contrast. My bad

[01:50:08] habits are being highlighted by the fact

[01:50:10] that someone near me has broken them.

[01:50:15] And what's really interesting about that

[01:50:17] is that you made money from other people

[01:50:18] drinking. And so you clearly had no

[01:50:21] problem with anyone drinking. you just

[01:50:23] chose not to drink for you so that you

[01:50:25] could grow the business, get more in

[01:50:26] shape, whatever.

[01:50:27] Makes it feel even more elective, which

[01:50:28] makes it feel like even more of an

[01:50:29] insult,

[01:50:30] right? Which is which makes it also more

[01:50:33] more ridiculous how violent they were

[01:50:37] about opposing this choice because you

[01:50:40] were like, I'm not projecting anything

[01:50:41] on you. I would prefer it if you drank.

[01:50:43] Please,

[01:50:44] please spend as much money as you can at

[01:50:45] the club.

[01:50:46] Continue.

[01:50:46] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:50:47] Right. Um, but even that like it's a

[01:50:50] perfect example because there's there

[01:50:52] wasn't a shade of judgment behind it

[01:50:54] because you are incentivized to have

[01:50:56] them.

[01:50:57] I was opening the doors myself

[01:50:58] and cracking the bottle.

[01:50:59] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.

[01:51:01] And so like I actually think it is the

[01:51:02] perfect example because it shows that

[01:51:05] like there is it is not about you. That

[01:51:07] is the point because there was no

[01:51:10] judgment. You were literally

[01:51:11] incentivized them for for them to

[01:51:12] continue that behavior and yet they

[01:51:14] still felt bad and angry that you were

[01:51:17] do not doing something they were doing

[01:51:19] which then made them feel that they felt

[01:51:21] like they shouldn't be doing it either

[01:51:22] and then they just projected it on to

[01:51:24] you. And it's like when you have these

[01:51:25] this violent opposition,

[01:51:28] one of the things that I've actually

[01:51:28] been more recently thinking about is

[01:51:30] like no one hates you. They hate the

[01:51:34] projection that they have of you that's

[01:51:36] 99% made up because no one can know 100%

[01:51:39] of you. Like the only person whose hate

[01:51:41] you should really pay attention to is

[01:51:42] your own because there's no other person

[01:51:45] on earth who has full context to who you

[01:51:47] are. And so the person that that

[01:51:49] someone's making fun of or they hate or

[01:51:51] that they're disagreeing with is the

[01:51:53] person and within the context of here

[01:51:54] obviously that's that's consumed

[01:51:57] six 30-second clips of you over the 37

[01:52:01] years you've been alive and has filled

[01:52:04] in the blanks for every other minute of

[01:52:06] your existence with the exception of

[01:52:08] those three minutes that they have

[01:52:10] consumed.

[01:52:11] Correct. And so how much weight I should

[01:52:14] probably proportionally weight the

[01:52:16] opinions of people based on the shared

[01:52:20] experience that they have of my life

[01:52:22] with me. And so if someone has spent one

[01:52:24] day with me out of the 37 years that

[01:52:26] I've been alive, I have 37* 365 more

[01:52:29] context on the individual than they do.

[01:52:32] And so I should probably weight it

[01:52:33] appropriately to that. There's a idea

[01:52:36] from Gwendogal which is about this. It's

[01:52:38] called tilting at windmills.

[01:52:41] An online stranger doesn't know you. All

[01:52:43] they have are a few vague impressions of

[01:52:44] you, too meager to form anything but a

[01:52:46] fantasm. So when they attack you,

[01:52:49] they're really just attacking their own

[01:52:51] imagination. There is no need to take it

[01:52:53] personally, which is related to this

[01:52:54] principle of humanity. Every single

[01:52:56] person is exactly what you would be if

[01:52:59] you were them.

[01:53:00] This includes your political opponents.

[01:53:02] So instead of dismissing them as evil or

[01:53:04] stupid, maybe seek to understand the

[01:53:06] circumstances that led them to their

[01:53:07] conclusions.

[01:53:10] You know, I love that. Um,

[01:53:13] so good.

[01:53:14] Um, it also teases out something that I

[01:53:17] might have to put my put my my hat on

[01:53:19] for, but

[01:53:20] switch it um which is that if everyone

[01:53:24] if you were going to be the same,

[01:53:30] if you were the exact same person as

[01:53:33] they are, if you were them,

[01:53:36] then it removes the concept of free

[01:53:38] will. Uh-huh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh.

[01:53:42] Uh-huh.

[01:53:47] Yeah.

[01:53:49] If you're poor, try the buy nothing

[01:53:51] challenge.

[01:53:52] The buy nothing challenge. For 30 days,

[01:53:55] buy nothing except food, rent, gas, and

[01:53:57] insurance. Don't bring your wallet with

[01:53:59] you when you leave home. Pack lunch. See

[01:54:01] how much you save. Repeat until you have

[01:54:04] as much as you want. Brackets pairs well

[01:54:07] with working 12 hours a day. Being good

[01:54:10] with money literally just means spend

[01:54:12] less than you make and put the extra in

[01:54:15] things that go up, not down.

[01:54:20] financial education in two tweets. Um,

[01:54:26] the hardest part about most things isn't

[01:54:31] knowing what to do,

[01:54:33] it's doing it. And the hard part about

[01:54:37] doing it is that you're often more

[01:54:39] rewarded for every action except for the

[01:54:41] one that you need to take. And so

[01:54:44] there's a hundred things you can spend

[01:54:45] money on. There's only one nothing.

[01:54:48] And so

[01:54:50] every it's so exhausting to not spend

[01:54:53] money when you don't have any because

[01:54:55] every single thing that you want or many

[01:54:57] things that you want have price tags

[01:54:58] associated with them and you have to at

[01:55:01] all moments in the day say no a hundred

[01:55:03] times in order to quote spend nothing.

[01:55:06] And so it's this muscle that we have to

[01:55:09] build. But I I I strongly encourage the

[01:55:12] buy nothing challenge because

[01:55:15] one, you realize how little you can

[01:55:17] really live on.

[01:55:19] And when you realize how little you can

[01:55:20] really live on, you realize how much

[01:55:22] more risk you can actually take. Because

[01:55:24] the apparent downside of what if I lost

[01:55:26] everything becomes incredibly tangible,

[01:55:28] which is like, well, I lived on $200,

[01:55:30] $500 worth,

[01:55:31] not even that bad.

[01:55:31] Yeah. It's actually and when you realize

[01:55:34] that and this is I think Morgan Strusel

[01:55:36] I say his name right. Um

[01:55:39] when we look back in time at some of our

[01:55:41] happiest moments uh we think we were

[01:55:43] happy when we were poor. Um but I'll

[01:55:45] just say on an anecdotal level um

[01:55:49] my one of my own words um

[01:55:52] we often say that we'll be happy like we

[01:55:55] already have the things that we said we

[01:55:56] want that would make us happy.

[01:55:58] Yeah.

[01:55:58] And yet here we are.

[01:56:00] Yeah. This is a nostalgia discount for

[01:56:02] sure that

[01:56:04] nobody ever believes that we're living

[01:56:06] through a golden era.

[01:56:07] Golden eras only ever occur in history.

[01:56:10] The good old days. Yeah, it's always the

[01:56:12] good old days. I asked a question

[01:56:14] actually recently which was there's

[01:56:16] certain periods that people look back on

[01:56:20] nationally

[01:56:21] as times that were particularly

[01:56:23] wonderful.

[01:56:24] I did ask the question, do you think

[01:56:26] anyone will look back at 2026 and think

[01:56:28] that it was the good old days at some

[01:56:30] point? Uh, every generation believes

[01:56:33] that they're living through a moment

[01:56:34] which is marketkedly different than the

[01:56:35] generations before. This one does feel

[01:56:37] particularly

[01:56:39] unremarkable

[01:56:41] in that way. To a degree, yeah, I think

[01:56:44] when I I'm trying to project forward

[01:56:48] stuff that currently we think about with

[01:56:51] loving nostalgia from the past. And I'm

[01:56:53] not sure, but then probably during the

[01:56:55] '9s, right, did people think that WWF

[01:56:59] and F-16 fighter rocket, the fighter

[01:57:02] jets and and Limp Biscuit were going to

[01:57:05] be what people in three decades time

[01:57:07] would look back on with loving

[01:57:09] tenderness.

[01:57:12] So, I'm going to say two things that I

[01:57:13] think are um so one,

[01:57:17] a behaviorist can explain the the the

[01:57:19] nostalgia paradox,

[01:57:21] which is that

[01:57:23] across species,

[01:57:25] negative consequences fade.

[01:57:27] Mhm.

[01:57:28] Fading affect bias.

[01:57:29] Yeah.

[01:57:30] And but positive doesn't.

[01:57:32] Mhm. And so that's why you have your ex

[01:57:34] that you always want to go back to cuz

[01:57:35] you forget how crazy she is and then you

[01:57:36] see her and then you're like, "Oh my

[01:57:37] god, I forgot how crazy you were." um

[01:57:39] and why you drink and then the next

[01:57:41] morning you say I'm never going to drink

[01:57:42] again and then seven days later you're

[01:57:43] drinking again to my life

[01:57:44] right and so um but like even being

[01:57:48] cognizant of the fact that punishment

[01:57:49] fades and reward sticks is helpful for

[01:57:52] making decisions in the future so that's

[01:57:54] thing one second is that like when I

[01:57:58] really think about at least the eras of

[01:57:59] my life so I'll just talk personally

[01:58:02] when I think about when I was you know

[01:58:04] sleeping on the gym floor um

[01:58:08] In a lot of ways, that was like the good

[01:58:10] old days. Like I was I was fighting

[01:58:11] really hard for something I really cared

[01:58:12] about. And then, you know, there was a

[01:58:15] moment where it started to work and I

[01:58:16] started, you know, launching gym to gym

[01:58:18] to gym with Ila, which was like,

[01:58:21] was it necessarily the good old days,

[01:58:23] but like it was she and I and we were

[01:58:25] figuring it out. And I think I have a

[01:58:26] lot of respect and admiration for that

[01:58:29] kid who was just working his ass off.

[01:58:31] Even though I didn't know what I was

[01:58:32] doing, I just try. I tried. M um and

[01:58:35] then obviously when things started

[01:58:36] working out with gym launch and it was

[01:58:37] really scaling it's like I remember that

[01:58:39] period and like I think you can you can

[01:58:40] ascribe a good old days especially on a

[01:58:42] personal level to like almost every

[01:58:43] season of life when you look in

[01:58:45] retrospect but just because the the

[01:58:47] negative has faded

[01:58:48] false

[01:58:49] um and so

[01:58:52] it's one of these things it's like it's

[01:58:55] like a great way to feel bad about how

[01:58:56] you feel today because you know you

[01:58:58] should feel better because you know you

[01:59:00] will feel better about today in the

[01:59:01] future because the future will of today

[01:59:04] without the negative consequences and

[01:59:05] the stressors of today that in the

[01:59:07] future seem irrelevant. Um, and so it's

[01:59:09] like whenever you think about this stuff

[01:59:11] like what is my what my my operation for

[01:59:13] gratitude is imagine something good,

[01:59:17] imagine losing it and then realize that

[01:59:20] you haven't lost it. That is how you

[01:59:22] feel gratitude

[01:59:24] at the most basic level.

[01:59:25] Mhm. And so

[01:59:30] whenever you repeat that operation

[01:59:32] either in your mind or in reality like

[01:59:34] you feel gratitude and so I think

[01:59:36] nostalgia is a flavor of that as we go

[01:59:38] back in time. Um now we we can't get it

[01:59:42] back. Um but I guess we can see it

[01:59:44] through a new lens.

[01:59:45] That's the memory dividend thing

[01:59:47] from Bill Perkins.

[01:59:48] I phenomenal book everyone.

[01:59:50] Die with zero. Going by Die with Zero.

[01:59:52] Really really good book.

[01:59:53] Really great. Three hours to read.

[01:59:54] Fantastic. Um,

[01:59:58] yeah. I think some of the areas that

[02:00:01] people rely on with more nostalgia from

[02:00:03] a personal standpoint,

[02:00:05] times with more simplicity and fewer

[02:00:08] trade-offs, I think tend to be looked

[02:00:10] back on with, huh, I was really

[02:00:14] singularly focused in that way.

[02:00:15] Life was simpler then.

[02:00:17] Correct. And there is an accumulation of

[02:00:20] complexity. So I wonder if

[02:00:23] simplification would be a way to remove

[02:00:26] some of the restrictions between now and

[02:00:29] front running some of that gratitude for

[02:00:31] now in the moment.

[02:00:33] I think that's really interesting

[02:00:34] because I think that the complexity of

[02:00:36] our lives in the moment that we were

[02:00:37] living them was just as maxed out is as

[02:00:39] it is now because we're human, not

[02:00:41] because life was more complex, but

[02:00:42] because we always find the maximum

[02:00:44] amount of problems that our brains can

[02:00:45] perceive. And so at any given moment,

[02:00:47] whether you're, you know, 20 or 40, like

[02:00:50] you're you might have absolutely more

[02:00:52] problems when you're 40, but you also

[02:00:53] have higher ability to deal with those

[02:00:55] problems. And the problems that you

[02:00:56] perceived when you were 20, the worst

[02:00:58] thing that's ever happened to you is the

[02:00:59] worst thing ever happened to you. You

[02:01:00] will still have the same number of

[02:01:01] problems. And so the idea of simplifying

[02:01:03] our lives is really just an attempt to

[02:01:06] mirror only the incomplete memory that

[02:01:08] we have of that moment.

[02:01:09] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm gonna try and

[02:01:11] get rid of the tradeoffs that I did have

[02:01:14] to do in the past in the moment to make

[02:01:16] the moment more like the past.

[02:01:18] Yeah.

[02:01:18] Yeah. There's a Adam Lane Smith taught

[02:01:21] me this a couple years ago. I think it's

[02:01:22] really really true. Your life does not

[02:01:24] need to be easier. It needs to be

[02:01:26] simpler. Your system is designed to

[02:01:28] handle stress and challenge, but not

[02:01:30] complication.

[02:01:32] You probably handle hard things pretty

[02:01:33] well, but feel overwhelmed when they

[02:01:35] become messy. Do not attribute to

[02:01:37] difficulty that which can be explained

[02:01:39] by complexity.

[02:01:44] Really cool.

[02:01:45] And I think that's that's where a lot of

[02:01:48] stress is felt. And this is the line

[02:01:51] from whatever [ __ ] four episodes ago

[02:01:53] where uh there's no such thing as being

[02:01:55] overworked, only underested. That

[02:01:57] overworked

[02:02:01] is the asterisk

[02:02:04] overworked at a small bucket of things.

[02:02:07] But there is such a thing as being

[02:02:09] spread too thin and overworked across a

[02:02:12] larger bucket of things. If all that you

[02:02:14] have to do for the next 6 months or two

[02:02:17] years is write a book,

[02:02:20] it's going to be stressful, but it's

[02:02:22] going to be enjoyable. If you have to

[02:02:23] write a book and raise a kid and manage

[02:02:25] finances and go to work and try and get

[02:02:27] in shape and connect with your partner

[02:02:30] and your mom's ill and

[02:02:32] it doesn't take it only takes two or

[02:02:34] three of those and people fall apart.

[02:02:36] System is designed to handle intensity

[02:02:38] but not complexity.

[02:02:45] I think I think most people would be

[02:02:47] astonished at how much they can

[02:02:48] accomplish if they remove things because

[02:02:51] I don't I don't think focus is also not

[02:02:54] additive but multi multiplicative in

[02:02:56] that

[02:02:59] the best things that I've ever made

[02:03:01] books things like that the best works

[02:03:03] that I've created have been things that

[02:03:05] had

[02:03:07] many coats of paint and so I can look at

[02:03:11] the same project over a long period of

[02:03:14] time when I'm on good days, on bad days,

[02:03:15] it rains, it's it's it's sunshine, Leila

[02:03:17] and I are good, Leila and I are bad like

[02:03:19] through all these different seasons. And

[02:03:21] so I look at the work through as many

[02:03:23] lenses as I can and then it it creates

[02:03:26] it creates the texture to the work that

[02:03:27] gives it that depth

[02:03:29] of and I like the many coats of paint

[02:03:30] cuz like you have to let it dry. Like

[02:03:32] it's very rare that something on the

[02:03:33] first shot is very good. It just takes a

[02:03:35] lot of attempts, but you you can't get

[02:03:37] that surface area of thinking if you can

[02:03:40] only think about it a handful of times.

[02:03:42] And so there's only so much thinking

[02:03:44] time that you have, which means that if

[02:03:47] you give it to five projects rather than

[02:03:49] one, getting one in deep on five

[02:03:51] projects is rarely a novel concept. Like

[02:03:55] you rarely will come up with something

[02:03:56] that is is inherently unique because

[02:03:58] many people can give one-inch deep

[02:03:59] thought towards any idea. Well, also

[02:04:02] somebody who is 1/5if as good as you at

[02:04:05] doing that thing are giving 100% of

[02:04:07] themselves. So you're basically

[02:04:11] cailing your capacity by spreading it

[02:04:13] across multiple things. And again, I

[02:04:15] relate things back to business, but um

[02:04:18] in some ways, you believing that you can

[02:04:20] pursue multiple masters is actually

[02:04:23] arrogant because it assumes that the

[02:04:25] people that you compete against can't

[02:04:27] beat you when they're fully focused on

[02:04:28] one thing and that you can somehow

[02:04:30] compete with three or four or five

[02:04:32] people at the same time and still win.

[02:04:35] And maybe you can, but I think the vast

[02:04:37] majority of people just lose.

[02:04:39] Stop whining. Every position has an

[02:04:41] advantage. Younger means cutting edge.

[02:04:44] Older means more experience. Smaller

[02:04:46] company means more personalized. Bigger

[02:04:48] company means longer track record. Rich

[02:04:51] means resources to use. Broke means

[02:04:54] nothing to lose. You aren't limited by

[02:04:56] your resources, only your

[02:04:57] resourcefulness.

[02:05:07] There's always a way to win.

[02:05:13] just not always a enough desire to win.

[02:05:18] The uh

[02:05:21] position of simplicity as well. I think

[02:05:25] so much of today is about trade-offs is

[02:05:27] cool.

[02:05:30] Looking across all of these, I can't see

[02:05:33] any of them that would be improved by

[02:05:36] complexity.

[02:05:37] young, old, small, big, rich, broke.

[02:05:41] It's a universal rule that cuts through

[02:05:43] all of them, which I think is really

[02:05:44] interesting. But yeah,

[02:05:48] everybody is able to find a reason why

[02:05:51] the situation that they're in is either

[02:05:54] great, but more typically not great.

[02:05:57] Because finding all of the ways that the

[02:06:00] thing that you have or don't have either

[02:06:02] limits you or restricts you in a way

[02:06:04] that it wouldn't if you were somebody

[02:06:06] else or in a different situation

[02:06:08] allows you to frontr run why you might

[02:06:11] fail in future.

[02:06:14] This is the reason why inversion is one

[02:06:16] of the most powerful ways to get what

[02:06:19] you want because we are hardwired to

[02:06:22] survive and part of survival is threat

[02:06:26] identification. What are all the

[02:06:27] problems that exist around me in my

[02:06:30] environment in my life that threaten me?

[02:06:34] And so when you try to think about

[02:06:35] what's good with your life, you have to

[02:06:36] sit there and be like, okay, I have to

[02:06:38] do my 5-minute journal in the morning

[02:06:40] and think what three and you're like

[02:06:41] sitting there, you're like, okay, what

[02:06:43] three things am I grateful for? Right?

[02:06:45] And you have to like try to do that,

[02:06:46] especially if you do different things

[02:06:47] every day, right? But what's

[02:06:49] interesting, and this is why I think

[02:06:50] Munger was so was so brilliant with

[02:06:52] this, is if you frame what are all the

[02:06:56] threats that I have to accomplishing

[02:06:59] what I want. What are all the things

[02:07:00] that are going to get in my way? Um, if

[02:07:02] I had to guarantee failure, what would I

[02:07:04] do? It's much easier to come up with the

[02:07:07] list of all the things that will

[02:07:08] guarantee failure because we're

[02:07:11] programmed to find those threats. And

[02:07:13] then all you have to do is just flip it

[02:07:15] as soon as you figured out that monster

[02:07:17] list of the things that guarantee your

[02:07:18] failure. And then you just do that. You

[02:07:21] know what's a cool version of this? If

[02:07:22] you were to design a day or a lifestyle

[02:07:24] for your worst enemy who's trying to

[02:07:26] beat you,

[02:07:27] what would it be? Uh and the inversion

[02:07:30] of the inversion is imagine that you

[02:07:34] were going up against you but with a

[02:07:37] mustache.

[02:07:38] Yeah. It's you versus a mustache. And

[02:07:40] this version of you is doing everything

[02:07:41] that they can to beat you. They know all

[02:07:43] of your failures. They know all of your

[02:07:44] shortcomings and your fears. What would

[02:07:46] that person do?

[02:07:49] Just do that. Do what that person would

[02:07:51] do that would beat you. Do what you with

[02:07:52] a mustache would do to beat you. And

[02:07:55] that's one of George's ideas. And I

[02:07:56] think it's really cool. It's the same as

[02:07:58] basically what would you do if you had

[02:07:59] 10 times the agency

[02:08:01] because presumably that person would

[02:08:03] have way more agency. They wouldn't

[02:08:04] doubt themselves as much. They'd be more

[02:08:05] decisive. uh they would uh reduce

[02:08:10] complexity, they would be less

[02:08:12] distracted.

[02:08:15] So there's there's a there's a frame in

[02:08:17] the investing world which is if someone

[02:08:18] else were to come and buy 100% of your

[02:08:20] company today, what would they

[02:08:21] immediately do in the first, you know,

[02:08:23] 30 days?

[02:08:23] Holy [ __ ] I can't believe that they're

[02:08:25] spending this much money on catering.

[02:08:29] I can't believe they still have that guy

[02:08:31] um who was good two years ago and just

[02:08:33] shows up for work now. Um, and I think

[02:08:36] it's because what that frame provides

[02:08:38] you is

[02:08:40] an emotionless view of your current

[02:08:43] situation. You are your best the person

[02:08:46] that you would your your your worst

[02:08:48] enemy

[02:08:49] would have no emotion about Yeah. with a

[02:08:52] mustache would have no emotion around

[02:08:54] making the hard call because he's not

[02:08:55] you, he's someone else. And the person

[02:08:57] he's firing is not your best friend,

[02:08:59] Todd.

[02:09:00] It's just this inadequate person who's

[02:09:02] no longer upskilled. And so when we make

[02:09:05] these when when we talk through, you

[02:09:07] know, we have these podcasts around

[02:09:08] feelings and emotions and whatnot, like

[02:09:12] there is the

[02:09:14] there's the feelings that we there's the

[02:09:16] experience of life of the things that we

[02:09:18] feel while we go through it and then

[02:09:20] there's the the decisions that must

[02:09:23] occur in reality. M

[02:09:25] and I think trying to serve both masters

[02:09:29] is where people get I don't want to say

[02:09:31] in trouble but at least they understand

[02:09:32] that they are making a trade. I keep

[02:09:34] Todd on because I feel guilty. Okay, we

[02:09:38] at least understand that Todd is hurting

[02:09:39] your business and you would rather hurt

[02:09:41] the business than have the conversation

[02:09:43] with Todd.

[02:09:44] Show me your priorities.

[02:09:45] Yeah. And we know the priorities.

[02:09:47] It's just are the priorities the

[02:09:48] priorities you want?

[02:09:49] What what are you willing to sacrifice?

[02:09:51] Well, you either care more about Todd or

[02:09:54] more about not feeling guilty than you

[02:09:56] do about your business.

[02:09:57] Yeah.

[02:09:58] Show me your priorities.

[02:09:59] And And we know them. We know the

[02:10:01] priorities. And so, um, oh, behaviorist.

[02:10:05] Look at you, man. Um,

[02:10:07] yeah. And I think that like your life is

[02:10:09] a consequence of your priorities. And

[02:10:10] the question is just whether or not like

[02:10:13] many people want to want, they don't

[02:10:14] actually want.

[02:10:16] Yeah.

[02:10:18] They want to be willing to give up

[02:10:19] things in order to get stuff, but they

[02:10:21] don't actually give up things in order

[02:10:23] to get stuff.

[02:10:25] Above your intelligence, above your work

[02:10:27] ethic, you will be compensated in

[02:10:29] proportion to your risk. Pro tip: If

[02:10:32] you're afraid to take the risk, write

[02:10:34] down in excruciating detail what you're

[02:10:36] actually afraid of happening, step by

[02:10:38] step, what happens next when you fail.

[02:10:41] You'll often find it's not so bad when

[02:10:43] you spell it out. Fear exists in the

[02:10:45] vague, not the specific.

[02:10:55] So risk comes in a handful of flavors.

[02:11:00] One is what we know we will give up that

[02:11:03] we hope we will get something back from

[02:11:04] that's bigger.

[02:11:06] There's also the we want something

[02:11:09] bigger but we will pay a cost. So

[02:11:11] different ways of saying the same thing

[02:11:13] like it's going to be uh lose something

[02:11:15] good get something bad

[02:11:17] um are the are the things that risk

[02:11:19] presents for us.

[02:11:23] A different view on risk that I've been

[02:11:25] thinking a lot about is proportionality

[02:11:27] of risk.

[02:11:29] And at the most basic level, this is a

[02:11:31] lot of what you know, investing really

[02:11:33] is, which is there is always risk, but

[02:11:35] is the risk priced appropriately?

[02:11:38] And Peter Thiel had this commentary

[02:11:41] around Elon where if he had just had one

[02:11:43] of his three companies succeed, it would

[02:11:45] have already been a crazy win. But

[02:11:48] somehow he got all three of them to

[02:11:50] become I guess now you know

[02:11:51] multi-billion trillion dollar plus

[02:11:52] companies.

[02:11:54] And he said he must know something about

[02:11:56] risk that all of us don't understand.

[02:11:58] And I think there's something incredibly

[02:12:01] powerful about studying the person who's

[02:12:02] accumulated the most wealth in history

[02:12:04] or at least in present day. Um and that

[02:12:07] that man's understanding of risk is

[02:12:09] different and it's probably a more

[02:12:10] accurate view of true risk rather than

[02:12:12] perceived risk. And he often talks about

[02:12:14] like, well, the downside of trying as

[02:12:16] hard as you can is basically nothing.

[02:12:19] You are, if you're in the developed

[02:12:20] world, the likelihood that you starve to

[02:12:21] death is almost nothing. And there are

[02:12:23] there is free shelter if literally no

[02:12:25] one in your social construct would allow

[02:12:27] you to crash on a couch. And that

[02:12:29] assumes that during the day you are

[02:12:30] incapable of working in any way that

[02:12:32] generates money, which there are many

[02:12:34] ways to generate money that do not

[02:12:36] require tremendous skill, at least

[02:12:37] today.

[02:12:38] And so the downside is nothing. And so

[02:12:41] that is why the risk of going after

[02:12:43] whatever it is that you want is

[02:12:45] mispriced by the vast majority of people

[02:12:47] because they have this fear of the big

[02:12:50] thing that's good that's going to go

[02:12:51] away or a big bad thing that's going to

[02:12:54] come as a result. But the big bad thing

[02:12:56] is nothing,

[02:12:58] but the big thing that's good that they

[02:12:59] miss out on is everything.

[02:13:02] And so the risk is almost always

[02:13:05] mispriced because our brains are wired

[02:13:08] to mispric it. Because if you mess up

[02:13:10] once, you don't pass on your genes and

[02:13:12] you die. But it is in no way wired to

[02:13:15] maximize your potential and what you're

[02:13:17] capable of.

[02:13:20] This mismatch between ancient

[02:13:22] programming and the modern world is kind

[02:13:24] of hilarious. We got a nervous system

[02:13:26] that was built to fight bears and now

[02:13:27] it's worried by group texts. Uh

[02:13:31] it's true. It's true. And uh how do you

[02:13:35] think about Let me add one more piece on

[02:13:37] that risk piece. Um, I was talking to an

[02:13:39] entrepreneur um, a week or two ago and

[02:13:43] she had grown her great-grandmother's

[02:13:45] business from 4 million to 44 million in

[02:13:47] 3 years. It was like awesome, super cool

[02:13:49] story. And it became obvious to her that

[02:13:52] her brand and needing to create more

[02:13:54] content was kind of the constraint of

[02:13:56] her going from call it 45 million to,

[02:13:58] you know, 200 million and beyond. And

[02:14:01] she said, "Okay, so do you think I

[02:14:02] should like hire an editor?" And was

[02:14:05] interesting. She's like, "Well, how much

[02:14:06] is that going to cost?" And so the

[02:14:07] business is doing a million month profit

[02:14:09] now. And what was interesting to me is

[02:14:12] that often times we don't also

[02:14:14] recalibrate our appetite for risk as our

[02:14:18] exposure to opportunity expands.

[02:14:22] And so you right now are still operating

[02:14:24] from the $4 million business owner risk

[02:14:26] angle where you were making a million a

[02:14:29] year and one or two editors was 10 or

[02:14:31] 20% of your net income. when you're

[02:14:33] making $12 million in profit, we should

[02:14:36] be thinking about how do we make a two,

[02:14:37] three, $4 million bet that we think is

[02:14:40] going to result in an extra 200 million

[02:14:42] or 100 million on top of that, which is

[02:14:44] a phenomenal return. And so, I mean, I

[02:14:46] open up the offers book with one of my

[02:14:49] top two quotes from Jeff Bezos when he

[02:14:52] talks about how if you have a 10% chance

[02:14:54] of a 100 of 100x payoff, you should take

[02:14:57] that bet every time knowing that you

[02:14:58] will be wrong nine times out of 10.

[02:15:01] The difficulty

[02:15:03] with that example contrasted with

[02:15:06] reality is that if you were at a casino

[02:15:09] and you had a 10% chance of a 100x

[02:15:12] payoff, of course you should take that

[02:15:15] bet, but then just assume that the

[02:15:18] minimum bet is 10 years and you only

[02:15:22] have three hands to play.

[02:15:24] Yeah.

[02:15:24] And that's the reality of life. That

[02:15:27] said, when we look at what that loss of

[02:15:30] that 10% when that 10% when the 90% of

[02:15:33] the time that it fails

[02:15:35] isn't actually a loss though,

[02:15:37] you've accumulated a lot along the way.

[02:15:39] Yeah. And you've you've gained

[02:15:40] experience, you've gained lessons,

[02:15:41] you've gained skills, you've gained

[02:15:42] network, you've gained relationships, um

[02:15:44] perspective,

[02:15:46] and so you only move forward by taking

[02:15:50] these shots on goal. And I think that if

[02:15:52] every risk was only seen as zero

[02:15:55] downside, only upside and either I win

[02:15:57] or I learn, which we are not the first

[02:16:00] people to say that, but whatever version

[02:16:03] of that narrative you need in order to

[02:16:05] realize that life has given you an

[02:16:06] endless amount of scratchoff tickets and

[02:16:08] you just get have to cash them in.

[02:16:11] I think that more people would take bets

[02:16:12] and more people would win.

[02:16:13] It's way better to be high conviction

[02:16:15] and wrong than low conviction and wrong,

[02:16:18] you know?

[02:16:19] like I'm just going to go for it because

[02:16:21] at least if you're high conviction and

[02:16:22] wrong, you move sufficiently quickly to

[02:16:23] be able to update your system based on

[02:16:25] the results that you got.

[02:16:27] It's why indecisiveness again and that

[02:16:28] inaction thing, inaction has a cost. Do

[02:16:31] not make the assumption that inaction

[02:16:32] has no price. So, it does have a price.

[02:16:34] Yeah. And it's and it's and it's a this

[02:16:36] is one of those labels that we're saying

[02:16:38] at the very beginning about

[02:16:38] shortorthhand. It's like inaction isn't

[02:16:40] even in action. We are always taking

[02:16:42] action. It's it's action against your

[02:16:44] priorities versus action towards your

[02:16:46] priorities. Which of them will help you

[02:16:48] accomplish what you want?

[02:16:49] Mhm. And when you think that presumably

[02:16:51] nobody wants to be less decisive,

[02:16:54] there's very few. I mean, there's being

[02:16:55] rash, which I don't think is the same as

[02:16:57] being decisive. When I've met the

[02:16:59] threshold that is satisfactory or should

[02:17:02] be satisfactory in order for me to make

[02:17:04] this decision, I make it is not the same

[02:17:06] as I make a decision before I have

[02:17:07] sufficient information in order to be

[02:17:08] able to make it.

[02:17:09] It's an information question, not a time

[02:17:11] question.

[02:17:11] Yeah. Uh but when you think

[02:17:15] don't practice what you don't want to

[02:17:17] become and if you are practicing being

[02:17:20] indecisive

[02:17:21] couched in the wrapper of keeping

[02:17:24] optionality open you're just practicing

[02:17:28] being indecisive

[02:17:29] over and over again. And if you think of

[02:17:32] your indecision as an investment in your

[02:17:34] future decisions i.e. making them

[02:17:36] harder.

[02:17:37] That actually makes indecision a really

[02:17:39] a really really horrible pitfall to go

[02:17:42] down.

[02:17:43] I remember one of the things that

[02:17:44] allowed me to take the bet to quit my

[02:17:46] job was and I I people see me now but

[02:17:49] like I I'm still very riskaverse. Um

[02:17:52] believe it or not. Uh and so I mean

[02:17:55] remember I was a you know finished I

[02:17:57] didn't have the like school failed me.

[02:18:00] What do I do? I had the opposite cursive

[02:18:02] options. I had done really well. All

[02:18:04] that kind of stuff. And

[02:18:07] the thing that got me was if not now,

[02:18:10] then when?

[02:18:12] Because I figured a future version of me

[02:18:15] that I was delaying this decision for

[02:18:17] would either have a wife to support or

[02:18:19] wife and kids to support,

[02:18:20] right? And I was like, so if it's this

[02:18:22] hard for me now,

[02:18:24] how do how can I make the assumption

[02:18:25] that it's going to somehow be easier at

[02:18:27] some point in the future? And if I

[02:18:28] really say that I want this thing, then

[02:18:30] how can I not do it now when it the the

[02:18:33] chips are most stacked in my favor?

[02:18:35] Yeah.

[02:18:36] And

[02:18:38] um you said one other thing earlier that

[02:18:40] I I um oh about uh we we have a desire

[02:18:45] for perfect information in order to make

[02:18:48] a perfect decision from a world that

[02:18:50] will give us neither. And so we have to

[02:18:54] be willing. So, like what separates a

[02:18:55] rash decision from a well-informed

[02:18:58] decision? Well, taken to the natural

[02:19:01] extreme, a perfectly informed decision,

[02:19:03] the decision has often been made for you

[02:19:05] because the outcomes have already

[02:19:06] occurred. Which means that if you have

[02:19:08] perfect information, the opportunity has

[02:19:10] already gone away. And so, we have to be

[02:19:13] willing to make some assumptions. We

[02:19:15] have to make some bets. Which is why

[02:19:17] having a worldview or a good model of

[02:19:20] prediction makes you better at getting

[02:19:22] what you want because you can say listen

[02:19:24] I know this I believe this based on my

[02:19:27] pattern of how I think the world works

[02:19:28] and because of this Phil and I think

[02:19:30] this is a good a good or decent bet and

[02:19:32] a lot of that calculus is the what's my

[02:19:35] upside what's my downside if I'm wrong

[02:19:37] and if we know that the downside of

[02:19:38] being wrong is zero

[02:19:41] then go for it

[02:19:42] what's that all all loss is just

[02:19:44] psychological until death

[02:19:45] do this Jaco

[02:19:46] I of course I saw that and I was like

[02:19:48] [ __ ] Joo shout out. I love that quote.

[02:19:51] Yeah,

[02:19:52] it angers me how good it is.

[02:19:54] So good.

[02:19:55] I was thinking about it's been almost

[02:19:58] exactly a year since me and you sat down

[02:19:59] and a lot of the

[02:20:02] this is seventh time you've been on

[02:20:04] maybe something like that. Is it really?

[02:20:05] Maybe. Yeah. Sixth or seventh plus we

[02:20:07] did the one with me and me and Ila

[02:20:11] and I think there's always an

[02:20:13] interesting progression. And so one of

[02:20:14] the things that I've noticed looking at

[02:20:16] the time capsule of the last year of

[02:20:18] your writing and what I've been thinking

[02:20:20] about too is uh risk, uncertainty, and

[02:20:23] decisiveness seem to be themes that are

[02:20:24] in there a lot. And I came across this

[02:20:26] Nibil Kareshi quote that

[02:20:30] is maybe a little self- serving, but I

[02:20:32] think it it's really true about why

[02:20:36] drilling

[02:20:38] 20, 30 hours, 40 hour, however long me

[02:20:40] and you have spoken, why it's why I

[02:20:43] think it's important and why I don't get

[02:20:44] bored of it. He says, "A cursed fact of

[02:20:47] the world is that the most important

[02:20:49] life lessons you learn are the hardest

[02:20:50] to communicate to others because they

[02:20:52] always sound like cliches." Mhm.

[02:20:54] And there's a bit of me in the back of

[02:20:56] my mind that hears,

[02:21:00] "It's not that deep, bro. You're over

[02:21:02] complicating it. You don't need to look

[02:21:03] at life with this level of resolution.

[02:21:05] This seems to be unnecessarily

[02:21:07] dissecting. Uh this is

[02:21:11] uh majoring in the minors. Uh this is

[02:21:15] taking too seriously things which don't

[02:21:17] matter in that sort of a way. Paying too

[02:21:19] much attention. It's a kind of fragility

[02:21:22] of optimization, etc., etc. And

[02:21:27] the fact that lots of things that are

[02:21:30] important sound like stuff that you've

[02:21:31] heard before doesn't discount the fact

[02:21:34] that you need to hear it. Because if you

[02:21:36] know it that well,

[02:21:39] why the [ __ ] are you still in the same

[02:21:40] place? If you're bored of hearing about

[02:21:44] how important cold, dark, quiet is in

[02:21:47] order to prepare your bedroom for sleep,

[02:21:49] why does your sleep still suck?

[02:21:52] Why does your sleep still suck? If

[02:21:54] you're bored of hearing how it's

[02:21:57] important to integrate emotions, but

[02:21:59] there are times when you need to put

[02:22:00] them to one side, that they're

[02:22:02] information, not a master,

[02:22:06] why is it you still don't have a good

[02:22:07] relationship with your emotions? If you

[02:22:08] know this stuff, if it's so obvious, if

[02:22:10] this is the sort of thing that you

[02:22:11] should have been taught by your father

[02:22:13] or you should have learned in school or

[02:22:14] you shouldn't have had to wait until

[02:22:15] you're in your 40s to understand,

[02:22:18] why is it you haven't mastered it? And

[02:22:22] the most important life lessons that you

[02:22:24] learn are the hardest to communicate to

[02:22:26] others because they always sound like

[02:22:27] cliches.

[02:22:33] We need to be reminded more than we need

[02:22:34] to be taught.

[02:22:37] And so that means that the gap between

[02:22:40] what we have and what we want

[02:22:44] is typically not a lack of information,

[02:22:46] but a lack of execution. And so if it's

[02:22:49] a lack of execution, then it ladders up

[02:22:51] to what are the motivating operations

[02:22:52] that are either preventing me from doing

[02:22:54] it or that are insufficient to compel

[02:22:55] me.

[02:22:57] And so

[02:22:59] this is why I think Chris and I go into

[02:23:01] this very very minute detail about okay,

[02:23:06] you would just sleep on your friend's

[02:23:07] couch and how bad is that? And trying to

[02:23:09] actually spell out that the down like

[02:23:11] how do you put the picture like we were

[02:23:13] saying earlier with uh the the the

[02:23:15] waiting room or the the hospital bed?

[02:23:17] It's it's trying to take three steps

[02:23:20] forward into the reality of what living

[02:23:22] through your downside would look like so

[02:23:24] that you can realize that the downside

[02:23:26] is 10 times worse in your mind than it

[02:23:28] is in reality. And if it's 10 times

[02:23:30] worse in your mind than it is in

[02:23:30] reality, then it means that you can take

[02:23:32] actions in reality because the downside

[02:23:34] doesn't really exist. And the

[02:23:36] excruciating detail is needed in order

[02:23:38] to be able to bring this imagination

[02:23:39] into reality. Oh, I can feel that. I

[02:23:41] imagine what it would be like to be on

[02:23:43] my friend's couch. I know it would be

[02:23:44] brown. It would be on the left hand side

[02:23:45] of the room. I would have a little thing

[02:23:46] on the floor that would be a mobile desk

[02:23:48] that I might work at.

[02:23:50] And sometimes it takes actually reaching

[02:23:52] out to a friend before you take a big

[02:23:55] jump and say, "Hey,

[02:23:57] if all this I'm about to do something

[02:23:59] wild, if this went to [ __ ] would I be

[02:24:01] able to crash to your place for like an

[02:24:03] extended period? I would be willing to

[02:24:04] do X, Y, and Z. I don't think it's going

[02:24:06] to happen, but would you be willing to

[02:24:08] do it?" Because you saying that you're

[02:24:09] willing to take me in is going to allow

[02:24:12] me to do that. I would say that if you

[02:24:14] actually have real friends, 10 out of 10

[02:24:16] of them would be like, "Yeah, dude. Go

[02:24:18] for it."

[02:24:18] Like, "I got you." And I think having

[02:24:22] like I had there was a handful of people

[02:24:23] that um I probably called every single

[02:24:25] night during the six months leading into

[02:24:27] me quitting my job where I basically

[02:24:28] rehashed the exact same decision a

[02:24:30] hundred times uh with them and reerived

[02:24:32] it.

[02:24:32] I think people would be surprised to

[02:24:34] hear that.

[02:24:34] I think people would be surprised to

[02:24:36] hear that Mr. Decisive seemingly would

[02:24:40] need to have

[02:24:41] that conversation. I also think it's

[02:24:43] cool to hear that story because

[02:24:47] it legitimates

[02:24:49] somebody's bravery in the face of

[02:24:51] uncertainty and repetition. I think a

[02:24:54] lot of the time we feel like we're a

[02:24:55] burden to our friends for asking them

[02:24:56] for advice about the same problem that

[02:24:57] we've come to with before. I've done it

[02:25:00] with you and like hey man I Yeah. No,

[02:25:04] it's not new.

[02:25:07] Yeah. No, it's the Yeah, it's the it's

[02:25:09] that it's the same thing again. I'm

[02:25:10] sorry. is yeah I need to say no no no

[02:25:13] new perspective no I need to say the ex

[02:25:15] I need yeah it's going to be it's the

[02:25:17] conversation from last week but but now

[02:25:20] again is that cool so

[02:25:25] the the the license giving people the

[02:25:28] license

[02:25:31] to be

[02:25:33] boring

[02:25:36] in their learning and in their need for

[02:25:38] support from people like I'm sick of

[02:25:42] moping about this situation and I have a

[02:25:46] friend that's prepared to sit in it with

[02:25:48] me. That feels really good

[02:25:52] to give more color to that that period

[02:25:56] because one of the things that Leila and

[02:25:57] I were talking about was she has a

[02:26:00] desire to make successful people more

[02:26:02] relatable so that people who don't have

[02:26:04] successful people around them can feel

[02:26:06] like it is attainable. Mhm.

[02:26:08] Um, so I'm going to add a handful of

[02:26:11] colors to that little chapter and

[02:26:13] hopefully people will be okay with it.

[02:26:15] Um, so in that in that time period, um,

[02:26:19] many people know this, but I got fired

[02:26:22] and so like who would fire Hermosi, the

[02:26:24] hardworking maniac? Well, I just wasn't

[02:26:26] that good of an employee. Um, and so I

[02:26:29] basically just read books all day

[02:26:31] instead of working. Um, and I read most

[02:26:35] of the self-help books that you've heard

[02:26:36] of. Um, hund00 million offers, $100

[02:26:39] million leads. Those were the books I

[02:26:40] kidding. I wasn't reading.

[02:26:45] No, but I was reading, you know, and and

[02:26:47] to be fair, I don't think any one of

[02:26:49] them re I say like I can I can say a

[02:26:52] handful of them phrases in entire books

[02:26:56] stuck with me. Um, one phrase I heard in

[02:26:59] a book, can't remember which one it was,

[02:27:00] was want.

[02:27:03] And the phrase disgusted me so much

[02:27:05] because it was like, "Oh yeah, all those

[02:27:06] people who just want to be

[02:27:07] entrepreneurs." And it just said it

[02:27:08] flippantly. It wasn't even decrying the

[02:27:10] term. It just said like, "Oh, yeah. This

[02:27:11] is how we define these people who are

[02:27:12] like not there but like business

[02:27:14] interested

[02:27:15] and

[02:27:16] but the nonchalance is even more

[02:27:17] insulting."

[02:27:17] Exactly. And that's why and I was like,

[02:27:19] I'm that I am this disgusting thing. I

[02:27:22] don't want to be this. But that still

[02:27:24] wasn't enough to motivate. It was a

[02:27:25] negative operating. You know, it was

[02:27:27] negative, but it still wasn't enough.

[02:27:29] Um, I listened to Arnold's ladder of

[02:27:33] success speech that he gave. This is

[02:27:35] obviously 15, 16 years ago. Um, it was

[02:27:38] this speech. I found it on YouTube and I

[02:27:40] listen to it like every morning before I

[02:27:42] go to work.

[02:27:43] Um, you cannot climb the ladder of

[02:27:46] success with your hands in your pockets,

[02:27:47] you know. Um, and I listen to that every

[02:27:51] morning. I um I read uh Relentless by

[02:27:55] Tim Grover and it was basically the

[02:27:57] first book that I think gave me

[02:27:58] permission to use called The Dark Side

[02:28:01] to get things done. And I'd be like I

[02:28:02] would say now I don't necessarily

[02:28:04] operate 100% from that same perspective,

[02:28:05] but it was what I needed at the time.

[02:28:08] And I called a friend of mine, his name

[02:28:11] was Victor. He was considering quitting

[02:28:12] his job too. And so every night we

[02:28:14] basically just like planned and schemed

[02:28:16] of how we're going to our exit plan of

[02:28:18] how we were going to we just mentally

[02:28:19] masturbated the idea of like what

[02:28:20] freedom would be like if we actually

[02:28:22] left. And I would have this I you know I

[02:28:24] had to have an early Bluetooth thing

[02:28:26] which is a piece of [ __ ] now. Um and I

[02:28:29] remember I had this cowhide carpet in my

[02:28:32] apartment that I got from IKEA that the

[02:28:34] path that I would walk on while he and I

[02:28:35] would talk started getting treaded. Um,

[02:28:37] so there's this line in the middle of

[02:28:38] that in my house

[02:28:39] where I would pace

[02:28:41] and and the and so the things that that

[02:28:45] and I and I and I would have the lunch

[02:28:48] with my dad, the like, hey, I'm going to

[02:28:50] I'm going to quit my job and do my own

[02:28:51] thing. I didn't have that lunch one

[02:28:53] time. I had that lunch many times. And

[02:28:56] each time he would reasonably talk me

[02:28:58] off the cliff and say, listen, this is

[02:29:00] the boring chapter. You're just going to

[02:29:01] do your few years and then you're going

[02:29:03] to go to business school and like this

[02:29:04] is the plan. Um, and so it was very

[02:29:07] clear that I was following a path that

[02:29:09] was trod upon. And to be clear, my dad

[02:29:11] absolutely did what he believed was

[02:29:12] best. And I think his intentions were

[02:29:13] perfect. Um, and so all of these things

[02:29:18] were happening with me for me during

[02:29:20] that period of time. And I just remember

[02:29:23] having read as many self-help books as I

[02:29:25] could, you know, get my hands on. And

[02:29:27] then I looked around my room and

[02:29:28] apartment and realized that my life

[02:29:29] hadn't changed at all.

[02:29:32] And

[02:29:33] that was when I

[02:29:37] Googled online and decided I was going

[02:29:39] to start a business. I narrowed it down

[02:29:40] to three. And then one guy got back to

[02:29:43] me who had a gym. And even then when I

[02:29:46] had my first conversation with him, I

[02:29:48] was like, I really want to start a gym.

[02:29:50] He's like, so you don't have a gym? I

[02:29:51] was like, no. He's like, okay, well,

[02:29:53] basically, uh, you're going to need to

[02:29:55] like do something before I can help you.

[02:29:57] And he said, you need to make a serious

[02:29:59] commitment. Make a decision. So, I I

[02:30:02] thought about this for a while and then

[02:30:04] um a few weeks later I texted him. I

[02:30:06] said like, "I'm ready." And so, I called

[02:30:08] him back up again. He's like, "Well,

[02:30:09] okay, great. So, you have a lease.

[02:30:11] What's the you know, what's the" And I

[02:30:12] was just like, "Oh, oh, no, no, no. I

[02:30:14] don't have that." And he was and he was

[02:30:16] disgusted and he was like, "Lose my

[02:30:17] number, dude." Like, and he was

[02:30:19] disgusted by how little I had done in

[02:30:23] that meantime. And so, all of these

[02:30:25] things happened. It wasn't one of them.

[02:30:27] And so as much as I can say like I just

[02:30:28] read this one book and my life changed

[02:30:30] like sometimes you have to hear it a

[02:30:33] hundred times before it either sinks in

[02:30:35] or there's enough negative or enough

[02:30:38] positive or both that it gets you over

[02:30:40] whatever perceived threshold of action

[02:30:41] that you have. And so it was only when

[02:30:44] all of those things happened and I came

[02:30:46] to the realization and I also applied to

[02:30:49] business school cuz I was like what do I

[02:30:50] do in the meantime? So I was doing four

[02:30:52] hours of GMAT uh problems every day

[02:30:54] because I I was still violent then. um

[02:30:57] so that I could ace the GMAT and then I

[02:30:59] got above Harvard's midcore and then I

[02:31:01] was starting I was doing all the

[02:31:02] applications because it's something else

[02:31:03] that you can do that you can

[02:31:04] procrastinate with and so I did all the

[02:31:05] applications into business school and

[02:31:07] one of the questions that came up was

[02:31:10] how will uh a Harvard MBA or Booth MBA I

[02:31:12] can't remember help your short and

[02:31:14] long-term goals and I remember

[02:31:17] belaboring over this this question for 3

[02:31:19] days and I answered all the other

[02:31:20] questions and I was singing about it and

[02:31:21] I was like I don't think it is going to

[02:31:23] help my long-term goals because I looked

[02:31:25] at the math of Okay, it's going to cost

[02:31:27] me $120,000. This is at the time. Um,

[02:31:30] and I won't be able to make money for

[02:31:31] two years. So, I'm going to stop making

[02:31:32] money and it's going to cost me 120. And

[02:31:34] then the starting salary was 120 or like

[02:31:36] average starting salary post business

[02:31:37] school. And so, I thought to myself,

[02:31:40] could I take two years, $120,000,

[02:31:44] and within that period of time believe

[02:31:46] that I could get to the point where I

[02:31:47] could make $10,000 a month, but I would

[02:31:49] own a business rather than having a job

[02:31:50] to then maybe someday own a business.

[02:31:52] And I believed that that bet felt

[02:31:54] reasonable. And so even then you're

[02:31:56] like, "Okay, so that's when he quit."

[02:31:58] No. And so it was all of those things

[02:32:01] and then finally the realization that I

[02:32:05] that it was never going to get easier.

[02:32:07] And so then the fear that I was never

[02:32:10] going to start the business that I said

[02:32:11] I wanted to someday start.

[02:32:14] The fact that that that I actually had

[02:32:16] an exploding offer from life, which is

[02:32:18] that it was only going to get harder and

[02:32:20] that I realized how hard it had been for

[02:32:22] me to that point to still not have made

[02:32:23] a decision. And it was the fear that I

[02:32:25] was never going to make it which

[02:32:26] compelled me to make it.

[02:32:29] And that's what got me to pack all my

[02:32:32] [ __ ] drive my car halfway across the

[02:32:33] country, and then then and only then

[02:32:35] call everyone and tell them that I had

[02:32:37] left so they couldn't talk me out of it.

[02:32:38] And so if anyone is like, man, the so

[02:32:42] decisive hermosi or whatever, like it

[02:32:44] took a herculean effort and to to

[02:32:49] suspend a shitload of doubt and risk

[02:32:50] aversion. And also in terms of when I

[02:32:53] talk about this stuff with caring about

[02:32:55] what other people thought, I cared so

[02:32:57] much about every thought other people

[02:32:59] thought that I I knew that I cared so

[02:33:00] much about what other people thought

[02:33:01] that I wasn't even willing to hear them

[02:33:03] because I knew if I did hear them, they

[02:33:04] would talk me out of it.

[02:33:06] That's how fragile your conviction was.

[02:33:08] Yes.

[02:33:08] That one sentence from the wrong person

[02:33:12] moving you back in that past direction

[02:33:14] would have pulled you. I needed to

[02:33:16] physically create so much space that

[02:33:18] even if they had talked me out of it, it

[02:33:20] would still take me a day and a half to

[02:33:21] drive back. And so the reason I think

[02:33:25] you read one of the quotes earlier like

[02:33:27] if you want to change your life, change

[02:33:28] your environment is so powerful is that

[02:33:32] your environment as it currently stands

[02:33:34] right now, the combination of where you

[02:33:36] live, where your friends are, the

[02:33:37] routines that you have, the places you

[02:33:39] go have created loops of behavior for

[02:33:41] you. And so the best way to change what

[02:33:44] you're doing is change the entire

[02:33:46] environment. Like there's the the

[02:33:47] Vietnam War vets. They did this research

[02:33:49] study. You probably heard of it, but um

[02:33:51] all these guys did heroin when they were

[02:33:52] in Vietnam. It was like 25%. It was a

[02:33:54] gigantic percentage. And then weirdly

[02:33:57] when they came I think Clear talks about

[02:33:58] this in his book. Uh when they came back

[02:34:01] only 10% of the heroin users uh relapsed

[02:34:05] into heroin only. I mean but still it's

[02:34:07] it's small compared to heroin that's yes

[02:34:09] the success rate of or the failure rate

[02:34:11] of rehab institutions it's like 78%.

[02:34:15] So it had a 8x you know a difference in

[02:34:19] in in relapse rate but there wasn't even

[02:34:22] rehab that happened. The only thing that

[02:34:23] happened was that every single

[02:34:25] environmental cue was changed. And so if

[02:34:28] you are having trouble getting out of

[02:34:30] your current condition then get out of

[02:34:32] your current condition. Move. Go to a

[02:34:35] different city. Even if you can't move

[02:34:37] to a different city, move across town.

[02:34:38] Move 30 minutes away. Train at a

[02:34:40] different gym. Go to a different coffee

[02:34:41] shop to work.

[02:34:42] Yeah. Make different friends for the

[02:34:43] short period. And realistically, you

[02:34:45] probably won't make different friends.

[02:34:46] But just stop hanging out with the

[02:34:47] friends you got for a period. And if you

[02:34:49] decide that once you've gone through

[02:34:50] that session, that series, that chapter,

[02:34:52] you still want to be friends. If they

[02:34:54] are really your friends, they will

[02:34:55] welcome you back with open arms. If they

[02:34:57] only were friends with that version of

[02:34:58] you, then that's not the version of you

[02:34:59] that you want to be, and that's not

[02:35:01] where you want to go back to anyways.

[02:35:02] And so

[02:35:05] that was one of the trades that you made

[02:35:06] to become who you wanted to be.

[02:35:07] It's crazy that we think we can change

[02:35:09] our thinking environment whilst keeping

[02:35:11] our external environment the exact same.

[02:35:13] And we're going to just continue to use

[02:35:17] I don't know what what type of effort we

[02:35:20] think it is that we're applying to our

[02:35:22] own brain whilst experiencing the same

[02:35:24] cues and stimulus but hoping that our

[02:35:28] thinking is going to adapt.

[02:35:30] You have to change to change. And it

[02:35:33] sounds so like is that sound like a trit

[02:35:35] truism or whatever like cliche. Yeah.

[02:35:37] If nothing has changed, nothing will

[02:35:39] change. And so you have to be like

[02:35:42] something has to be the catalyst and you

[02:35:44] were the only like either you get in a

[02:35:45] car accident, your girlfriend breaks up

[02:35:47] with you, you can use the negative at

[02:35:48] least like if you are not happy with

[02:35:50] your life and then something bad happens

[02:35:52] to you, be grateful for it in the moment

[02:35:54] because it means that you a change a

[02:35:56] chaos variable has entered the building

[02:35:59] and that means that you have the ability

[02:36:00] for a short period of time before

[02:36:01] equilibrium gets reestablished that you

[02:36:03] can change [ __ ] without the same

[02:36:05] consequences because all of your loops

[02:36:06] got got muddled. Mh.

[02:36:08] And so like those are the periods of

[02:36:09] time where you can go through tremendous

[02:36:10] change because you're like well [ __ ] it.

[02:36:13] Everything that I thought to be true

[02:36:14] isn't. So what else uh that I think was

[02:36:16] false but isn't

[02:36:18] and then you can start moving towards

[02:36:19] it. Came across this line from beauty of

[02:36:21] SAS. It is an unwritten rule of life

[02:36:24] that after every prolonged period of

[02:36:25] hardship and uncertainty there is going

[02:36:27] to be a period where you achieve quantum

[02:36:29] leaps across multiple areas of your

[02:36:31] life. The only requirement is that you

[02:36:33] do not give up on yourself.

[02:36:40] Failure and success are on the same

[02:36:42] road. It's just that failure is an

[02:36:44] earlier exit.

[02:36:45] Mhm.

[02:36:46] Mhm.

[02:36:50] What's that one about? Whatever you do,

[02:36:52] don't be the guy who gives up at the

[02:36:53] exact moment when you should be fighting

[02:36:55] with everything you have.

[02:36:56] You'll make it through either way, but

[02:36:58] there's only one way you'll look back

[02:36:59] and be proud of yourself.

[02:37:04] This is the metaphrame of the story that

[02:37:06] we one day tell. Like we tell stories of

[02:37:08] who of what type of person we are all

[02:37:10] day long when we're confronted with

[02:37:11] different decisions. What type of person

[02:37:12] am I? And

[02:37:17] I would like to be known to myself as a

[02:37:19] fighter is that I'm willing to fight for

[02:37:22] what I want and for what I believe in.

[02:37:25] And I think that

[02:37:27] and that is why I think I would want to

[02:37:28] have courage be the one thing that is

[02:37:30] transferred. M

[02:37:31] and I think it's because

[02:37:34] I'm going to go back to that season

[02:37:35] because I think it's where all of it

[02:37:37] like

[02:37:41] I I was a really good student at

[02:37:45] Vanderbilt. I was vice president of the

[02:37:48] powerlifting team. I was president of

[02:37:49] the fraternity that I was in. I had a 38

[02:37:52] I think GPA. Um and I graduated in three

[02:37:55] years. But I was so afraid of not

[02:37:58] getting a job that I took the first job

[02:38:00] that I was offered from the first

[02:38:02] person, which was an introduction my dad

[02:38:04] had from a patient of his. And to be

[02:38:06] clear, so we were like, "Oh, it was a it

[02:38:08] was an epism." It wasn't a great job.

[02:38:11] But I was so afraid that I would be

[02:38:13] jobless that I just took that job. And I

[02:38:16] only say this to say that like

[02:38:23] you can change your stars.

[02:38:27] like you can change your stars.

[02:38:27] like I was not the type of person who

[02:38:29] who does the types of things that I do

[02:38:31] now then and

[02:38:37] I I I I retell those stories.

[02:38:40] I don't talk about talk about them as

[02:38:42] much because um honestly I block most of

[02:38:45] them out because I was in so much pain

[02:38:47] during that period of my life. And the

[02:38:50] reason that I'm willing to keep making

[02:38:52] content and write books and all that

[02:38:53] stuff um is because I know that there is

[02:38:57] a another person

[02:38:59] who is going through a similar chapter

[02:39:01] and worried if they are sane or if it is

[02:39:03] only them and it is not.

[02:39:06] And so like

[02:39:10] you can't compare yourself to people who

[02:39:12] are different chapters. You just have to

[02:39:14] believe that you can change

[02:39:15] incrementally, one behavior at a time,

[02:39:18] over an extended period of time, and

[02:39:20] that those changes will aggregate, that

[02:39:22] they will stack up. Um,

[02:39:26] because like we don't know what the last

[02:39:28] chapter is going to look like. We only

[02:39:29] know what the next page does. And we get

[02:39:31] to write that today. And

[02:39:34] like I was

[02:39:37] I was so driven by fear. I was so I was

[02:39:40] so afraid of everything.

[02:39:42] um during that chapter and so it was

[02:39:45] like other people's opinions what if I

[02:39:48] fail what if this doesn't work out what

[02:39:50] if people make fun of me like I had all

[02:39:51] this this fear around it and like the

[02:39:54] emotionality that I have now towards it

[02:39:56] is because of the the

[02:40:00] a mix of of pity and pride that I have

[02:40:04] for that young man the young Alex that

[02:40:08] was going through that because

[02:40:10] I'm proud that I made made it through

[02:40:12] that, but I also pity the amount of pain

[02:40:15] that I was going through um to to to

[02:40:18] make that jump. And so

[02:40:22] I don't I don't know who's listening,

[02:40:23] but like

[02:40:27] fear can be useful if you know that you

[02:40:30] were driven by fear to some degree. And

[02:40:33] in some ways it's almost shameful to say

[02:40:35] it because it was the reason that that

[02:40:38] the word that I never want to be have

[02:40:39] used described for me is cowardly is

[02:40:42] because I behaved like a coward. I was

[02:40:44] afraid of everything. I was afraid of

[02:40:46] failing. I was afraid of my dad's

[02:40:48] judgment. I was afraid of of everything.

[02:40:50] And I the the flip that made it for me

[02:40:55] was just using that fear against

[02:40:57] something bigger was that I was more

[02:41:00] afraid of not of of looking back on my

[02:41:03] life and never having tried. And I knew

[02:41:07] that that would be so empty and I would

[02:41:09] be so filled with regret and that I knew

[02:41:12] that I would beat myself up over it

[02:41:14] every single day as I got older that

[02:41:17] that existence was was more terrifying

[02:41:21] to me than the practical consequences of

[02:41:26] me taking a step where I would fail. And

[02:41:28] it sounds it's very easy for me to say

[02:41:30] now to you or anyone who's listening

[02:41:33] like of course the downside's not that

[02:41:34] big. go to sleep on a friend's couch,

[02:41:36] whatever. But at the time for me, it was

[02:41:40] everything and it was all of the status

[02:41:43] that I had spent all of my time trying

[02:41:45] to accumulate. I was president of this,

[02:41:46] president of that. I'd done all the good

[02:41:47] grades. I had a good job on paper. Um,

[02:41:51] and so

[02:41:53] whatever fuel you have, whether it's

[02:41:55] anger, whether it's shame, whether it's

[02:41:56] fear, even if you have all of them, like

[02:42:00] if you know you have them,

[02:42:03] try and put them behind you to to get

[02:42:07] you to run away from it. If it's right

[02:42:08] now, it's in front of you and it's it's

[02:42:10] preventing you from taking the next

[02:42:11] step. And so it's like if you can just

[02:42:13] put it behind you so that you're running

[02:42:15] away from this this future. It's like

[02:42:17] run harder away from the future

[02:42:21] that your current path is taking you

[02:42:22] towards that you're afraid of than the

[02:42:25] short-term path that running away from

[02:42:27] it is going to run you into. It's like

[02:42:29] you either have to be, you know, uh it's

[02:42:31] like in

[02:42:33] I'm taking some liberties here. Um,

[02:42:37] it's like you can either fear the whip

[02:42:39] of the the person behind you or the

[02:42:41] enemy in front of you and the direction

[02:42:43] you face is the one that you fear the

[02:42:45] the least.

[02:42:47] And so if you know that there's an enemy

[02:42:49] in front of you and a whip behind you,

[02:42:50] it's like you just need to in the short

[02:42:52] term increase the pain of the one that

[02:42:54] you want least.

[02:42:56] Have you seen Succession?

[02:42:59] Uh, the first season.

[02:43:01] Okay. So

[02:43:01] I don't watch it because it's too real

[02:43:03] for me. So, it's it keeps me up and like

[02:43:06] basically I get I get too like amped

[02:43:07] when I watch it because I like it, but

[02:43:09] I'm like I can't do this before bed.

[02:43:10] So, I need like vampires and like

[02:43:16] in the final season, Tom is having a

[02:43:19] conversation with his wife and he says,

[02:43:23] "I wonder if the pain that I would feel

[02:43:27] without you

[02:43:30] would be less than the pain that I feel

[02:43:32] by being with you.

[02:43:37] And that seems to be what you're talking

[02:43:39] about here.

[02:43:40] It's 100% that. And I

[02:43:42] you talk in retrospect about that period

[02:43:44] about what that guy went through.

[02:43:45] Doesn't sound like pity to me. It sounds

[02:43:47] like grief.

[02:43:48] Sounds much closer to grief. Like

[02:43:50] somebody

[02:43:52] nearly died or did die or suffered a lot

[02:43:54] and didn't deserve it.

[02:43:55] Oh, I think that person totally died.

[02:43:57] Like the I don't want to say the man I

[02:43:59] was the boy that I was totally died. And

[02:44:01] I think I mean the hardest the hardest

[02:44:04] loss that I had to take was the the boy

[02:44:06] that I was in my father's eyes that was

[02:44:08] living up to his expectations which is

[02:44:09] all that I wanted.

[02:44:12] And so sacrificing that and it took

[02:44:15] years and my dad and I are cool. We're

[02:44:17] great but like for a for a season that's

[02:44:20] what I I I had to sacrifice that person

[02:44:23] and it was all I had wanted was to make

[02:44:25] him happy. And so and again no fault of

[02:44:28] his own but that is all I wanted. And so

[02:44:31] it's like I had achieve I had achieved

[02:44:33] the dreams that I had as a younger man

[02:44:35] and in so doing it had become my

[02:44:36] nightmare. And

[02:44:40] that's why the third point that that you

[02:44:42] read about no one is coming to save you.

[02:44:44] Everything is your fault and you have to

[02:44:46] sacrifice who you are for who you want

[02:44:48] to become. Um I think is so real for me

[02:44:52] is that you do and like like someone's

[02:44:54] dreams will die. It is yours or theirs.

[02:44:58] So, you just want to make sure that the

[02:45:00] person who is dreaming for you has

[02:45:02] bigger dreams for a life than you do.

[02:45:04] And sometimes well-intentioned people,

[02:45:07] because they want to be practical and

[02:45:09] they want to be realistic, have smaller

[02:45:11] dreams for you than you do. And if they

[02:45:13] have smaller dreams, then you should

[02:45:15] listen to you and not them.

[02:45:18] Obviously, your dad built a a story

[02:45:20] about what success looks like.

[02:45:21] Yeah.

[02:45:22] And you rejected it slowly but loudly. M

[02:45:27] now that you're about to have a child,

[02:45:30] what story are you going to tell that

[02:45:31] kid

[02:45:33] of of that period or no this story about

[02:45:35] what success looks like? Like how how

[02:45:39] certain are you that the story that you

[02:45:42] tell your son isn't just a new version

[02:45:44] of the same cage that you had to break

[02:45:46] out of?

[02:45:48] It's something that I think a lot about.

[02:45:50] Um how do I, you know, the the child is

[02:45:54] going to be born into

[02:45:56] by the time he has memory, he will be

[02:45:59] the son of a billionaire. That's

[02:46:02] that's a lot. Um,

[02:46:08] and in some ways I like don't wish that

[02:46:09] on anyone, but I'm and yet I'm bringing

[02:46:11] someone into that. Um, which has its own

[02:46:15] thought circles I won't get into. Um,

[02:46:19] but I am going to focus him to the

[02:46:22] degree that I can influence his

[02:46:24] behavior. um on

[02:46:30] on being courageous

[02:46:34] on leaving nothing on the field. I will

[02:46:38] care endlessly

[02:46:40] about his effort and very little about

[02:46:43] the outcomes

[02:46:46] assuming he controlled the

[02:46:47] controllables. and I will

[02:46:52] hold an incredibly high standard and it

[02:46:55] is because I respect him and believe in

[02:46:59] him and that he has the potential to

[02:47:00] achieve it. And what's been very

[02:47:03] difficult for me cuz I haven't I haven't

[02:47:05] fully defined this and maybe I will by

[02:47:06] the time he's born or by the time he's a

[02:47:08] little older is is I've had trouble

[02:47:10] trying to define what a successful

[02:47:11] parent looks like and what a successful

[02:47:14] child look like. Because if we decide if

[02:47:17] we define a successful parent by the

[02:47:18] output of the child, there's a whole

[02:47:21] hell of a lot of people that have had

[02:47:22] pretty tough parents that have turned

[02:47:23] out really good. But then does that mean

[02:47:25] that the parents are good or bad? I

[02:47:27] don't know. Um,

[02:47:30] and the successful child is the

[02:47:31] successful child that he is happy. I

[02:47:34] tend to reject that that definition

[02:47:36] overall. Is it that he has purpose? I'd

[02:47:39] probably prefer that. Um, because I

[02:47:41] think happiness can be fleeting. Purpose

[02:47:43] tends to stick a little longer. Um but

[02:47:46] at the very end of the day I think um

[02:47:49] character which I still just define as

[02:47:50] just huge sets of behaviors um

[02:47:58] I want him to be brave and I want him to

[02:48:01] try his ass off and if he does that

[02:48:04] well no matter what he will be good

[02:48:07] enough for me but uh I will just more so

[02:48:11] make the commitment that given all the

[02:48:12] resources that I have both mental and

[02:48:14] and financial. Um, I will do the best I

[02:48:17] can with what I have um to give him the

[02:48:19] maximum possibility of achieving what he

[02:48:22] wants.

[02:48:22] Have you been thinking about life

[02:48:24] differently for yourself with the

[02:48:26] prospect of a kid on the way?

[02:48:27] Not really. Um, that might surprise some

[02:48:29] people, but like first off, I'm not

[02:48:30] pregnant and so I don't believe in the

[02:48:32] we are pregnant. Uh, I do not have a

[02:48:34] baby inside of my stomach. Uh, and so

[02:48:37] um, no, I haven't. Uh, my behavior

[02:48:39] hasn't really changed because my

[02:48:40] conditions haven't really changed. Um I

[02:48:42] suspect that when you know the child

[02:48:44] comes I will I will change accordingly.

[02:48:47] And I think that it's this is one of

[02:48:48] those I would say like uh internet straw

[02:48:50] mans of like well just wait till wait

[02:48:53] till the kid comes. I'll be like yeah

[02:48:54] and then I'll change like there'll be a

[02:48:56] new condition so I'll change to that.

[02:48:57] It's just like what if you change your

[02:48:59] mind then I'll change what I'm doing.

[02:49:00] You know it's just like this has worked

[02:49:02] for me so far and I'll probably take the

[02:49:04] things that continue to work and I'll

[02:49:05] probably adjust others. I don't think

[02:49:07] that having children in any way is going

[02:49:09] to get in the way of the goals that I

[02:49:10] have. Um, and my my my proof points are

[02:49:13] that the, you know, wealthiest, most

[02:49:14] successful business people in the world

[02:49:16] almost all have children. And so, like

[02:49:20] I see that as pretty strong proof that

[02:49:22] it's not something that that prevents

[02:49:23] you from achieving, you know, business

[02:49:24] success. And to be clear, business

[02:49:26] success for me is more so like I want to

[02:49:27] leave everything I have on the field.

[02:49:28] And if that results in growth, then

[02:49:30] great. If I have many seasons of

[02:49:32] hardship ahead of me, which I'm sure I

[02:49:34] do, and moments of plateaus and

[02:49:36] stagnation and things like that until I

[02:49:37] figure out whatever the next thing I

[02:49:38] have to do is or the next person I need

[02:49:39] to become or, you know, sets of behavior

[02:49:40] that I have to do, then that's that's

[02:49:42] the game. That's that's what I I sign up

[02:49:44] for that. I chose this. Um, but I also

[02:49:46] know exactly what I chose this what I

[02:49:48] traded this for, which was the the young

[02:49:52] boy uh and that life. And I would

[02:49:56] happily make that trade 100 times over.

[02:49:57] And so I in no way say that my life is

[02:50:00] perfect or anything. Far is far far from

[02:50:01] it. But it is the life I chose and I am

[02:50:05] okay with that.

[02:50:06] You talked about changing your

[02:50:07] environment often changing your

[02:50:10] desired outcomes.

[02:50:12] Going to be about as big of an

[02:50:13] environment change as you've had in uh a

[02:50:16] decade.

[02:50:16] Yeah. More.

[02:50:17] Yeah.

[02:50:20] I'm sure it will change me. And I

[02:50:23] What would be the most surprising

[02:50:25] outcome?

[02:50:27] I think the most surprising outcome is

[02:50:29] that I don't change at all.

[02:50:30] Right. I actually think that

[02:50:32] the second most surprising outcome.

[02:50:34] Um I'll I'll I'll say the outcome that

[02:50:37] might surprise other people the most is

[02:50:39] that I think there's a very real chance

[02:50:41] of a reality where like I work

[02:50:43] significantly less than I do now. Um

[02:50:46] because I prefer hanging out with the

[02:50:47] kid than I do working and if I do then

[02:50:49] that's what I will do. Is that a pathway

[02:50:51] of satisfaction that hasn't necessarily

[02:50:55] been

[02:50:57] front and center of your life for quite

[02:50:58] a while?

[02:51:00] Uh basically being willing to enjoy a

[02:51:01] moment for the sake of the moment and

[02:51:03] nothing else. Um

[02:51:04] it's a less instrumental view. Yeah.

[02:51:06] A lot of your life and mine as well is

[02:51:09] very instrumental.

[02:51:10] Yeah.

[02:51:10] I will do it because I will do it

[02:51:12] because not I will do it.

[02:51:14] Yeah. Also because I enjoy it.

[02:51:16] Yeah.

[02:51:16] But there's only one more step.

[02:51:18] Yeah. Yeah. Um,

[02:51:21] yes. And I think it's just because it's

[02:51:22] in accordance with values that I have.

[02:51:23] Like I want to be a good father and so I

[02:51:25] deem that a label that I would like to

[02:51:27] live up to and so I'm willing to make

[02:51:29] some trades.

[02:51:30] And I think that's I will I will be

[02:51:33] making trades in the future and I will

[02:51:35] try to make the trades the best I can.

[02:51:36] It interesting that after a decade and a

[02:51:39] couple of decades of contorting yourself

[02:51:42] into this very specific type of engine

[02:51:44] or a sort of a sort of monster that

[02:51:46] sucks in challenges and spits out

[02:51:49] completed tasks that to most people

[02:51:54] holidays sound like leisure but to a

[02:51:56] certain category of people holidays feel

[02:51:58] like work because they need to let go of

[02:52:00] the routine and pathway that they've

[02:52:02] sort of constructed themselves into.

[02:52:05] uh that there might be a lot of work

[02:52:07] required in order to be able to co-sleep

[02:52:09] with your kid at 3:00 in the afternoon

[02:52:11] with it laying on your chest reading

[02:52:13] fiction or not. You just lying staring

[02:52:16] at the ceiling thinking this is cool.

[02:52:18] Huh? That should be

[02:52:22] naturally, biologically, hormonally,

[02:52:27] energy expenditurally

[02:52:29] relatively seamless to do. And yet

[02:52:31] there's potentially going to be a ton of

[02:52:34] areas for growth in you there.

[02:52:38] I'm sure I'm sure that it will uh be a

[02:52:42] new challenge and uh I will dedicate my

[02:52:46] effort to succeeding at it

[02:52:49] the same way I do other challenges.

[02:52:51] Um and I'm sure I will be uncomfortable

[02:52:54] as I have been with other challenges.

[02:52:56] And I will try and meet that discomfort

[02:52:58] with action and let myself get used to a

[02:53:01] new reality. And I I will do my best to

[02:53:06] enjoy it every second of it because I

[02:53:09] mean I do look a lot at older guys who

[02:53:12] have kids. And I one of the really fun

[02:53:13] ones to look at is people who have

[02:53:15] second families. So they kind of like do

[02:53:17] first run, first wife, kids, whatever.

[02:53:19] And then take

[02:53:20] exit did the first business. How does he

[02:53:22] run the second one?

[02:53:22] Yeah, kind of. And so what's interesting

[02:53:24] is I've I've tried to observe what those

[02:53:26] guys do differently and almost to a man

[02:53:29] they'll say I should have spent more

[02:53:31] time with the kid and like and it's it's

[02:53:33] one thing to say that you you you should

[02:53:36] have. It's something very different to

[02:53:39] see them do it the second time around.

[02:53:41] Now there's the obvious of like well

[02:53:44] easy for them to say because they built

[02:53:46] the empire the first time and so like

[02:53:47] they get a doover

[02:53:49] that was collateral damage and getting

[02:53:50] to the point where they're sufficiently

[02:53:51] satisfied. I thankfully, knock on wood,

[02:53:55] whatever you want to do. Um, I I built

[02:53:58] what I needed to build to feel

[02:54:01] like I had a sufficient platform to

[02:54:04] provide for a child. Um, in all manners,

[02:54:07] both like my time flexibility. I work

[02:54:08] because I choose to, but like I have the

[02:54:10] flexibility and we cannot work whatever

[02:54:12] and and the kid can have whatever. the

[02:54:14] side effect of you working whether you

[02:54:16] chose to or not is a degree of material

[02:54:18] comfort and ticking off of the

[02:54:20] accomplishments that closes the loops

[02:54:22] around them.

[02:54:23] I think that um if I can live this

[02:54:26] season trying to steal as many chapters

[02:54:29] from people's second

[02:54:32] go

[02:54:33] I'll see that as

[02:54:35] a good idea and um I'll basically use

[02:54:38] that off of modeling like I'm just

[02:54:40] looking at what what good thing seems to

[02:54:42] happen for them. I'm going to try try

[02:54:43] that and I'll adjust as we go, but I'll

[02:54:45] probably use that as my base case

[02:54:47] baseline and then and I'll I'll I'll

[02:54:50] figure we'll figure it out together, you

[02:54:51] know.

[02:54:52] Well, I uh I have a little have a little

[02:54:55] ah

[02:54:56] something

[02:54:59] pending loading.

[02:55:01] Yeah,

[02:55:02] loading competence.

[02:55:03] Yeah, it's very important that the

[02:55:05] baby's got good merch. So,

[02:55:06] it's all about the merch.

[02:55:07] Yeah,

[02:55:08] that's right. Well, this uh this spot on

[02:55:11] him is is uh we have a a retail price

[02:55:13] for the ad space, so I'll uh I'll let

[02:55:14] you know and then

[02:55:15] Okay, that's cool. I imagine I I assumed

[02:55:17] it would just be acquisition.com, but

[02:55:20] front end of the funnel, front side of

[02:55:22] the baby.

[02:55:23] Yeah, it'll be like a NASCAR driver with

[02:55:24] all the sponsors. Yeah. Yeah. Uh if

[02:55:27] you're going to chase a dream, go all

[02:55:29] in. If you're going to love, love

[02:55:31] fiercely. If you're going to walk away,

[02:55:33] never look back. So many people never

[02:55:36] even give themselves a fighting chance

[02:55:37] because they never fully commit. If

[02:55:40] you're going to go, go all the way. Dot

[02:55:43] dot dot. No half measures. I was about

[02:55:46] to say no half measures. Um I was like

[02:55:49] no know who wrote that. Um

[02:55:53] yeah, I think so many solutions are um

[02:55:55] aren't fully committed to and as a

[02:55:56] result they don't actually work and then

[02:55:58] we think oh this this path was wrong.

[02:55:59] This business was a bad idea. I

[02:56:00] shouldn't have started making content.

[02:56:02] um when it never had a fighting chance

[02:56:05] because we didn't even do close to the

[02:56:06] amount of volume that would be

[02:56:07] sufficient for it to work and not for

[02:56:09] nearly the duration that um would be

[02:56:12] required. And so it's like people don't

[02:56:14] do enough for long enough to get

[02:56:16] anything to work. And I think the

[02:56:18] biggest issue there is because we expect

[02:56:19] our dreams to be accomplished faster and

[02:56:21] easier and risk-f free when it will be

[02:56:24] hard, take a long time, and we will

[02:56:26] sacrifice more things than we expected.

[02:56:28] And I think one of the hardest parts

[02:56:30] about um accomplishing big things is

[02:56:32] that the cost is unknown. So even though

[02:56:34] it is more than you uh you know you're

[02:56:36] giving up some stuff, but you still

[02:56:37] don't even know everything that you're

[02:56:38] going to give up.

[02:56:39] It's like running a race and not knowing

[02:56:40] how long it is. I don't know where the

[02:56:42] finish line is.

[02:56:43] Yeah. And what's what's fascinating

[02:56:45] about that is that like if you know

[02:56:46] where the finish line is, you can

[02:56:47] usually handle just about anything. Um

[02:56:49] it's

[02:56:50] Uber works.

[02:56:50] Yeah.

[02:56:51] That's the re the main reason. Yeah. You

[02:56:52] can order a cab from anywhere and you

[02:56:54] don't need to work out the local taxi

[02:56:55] number and stuff. The main reason why it

[02:56:56] works is you know how far away the car

[02:56:58] is and know how long this weight is.

[02:57:00] Remember in the before times just ring a

[02:57:03] cab and it would just arrive.

[02:57:06] Yeah.

[02:57:06] At some point.

[02:57:07] Yeah. I think uh Roy Sullivan had the

[02:57:10] thing about the uh I think the tunnel uh

[02:57:12] this is your people's thing but you

[02:57:14] could see people complained about how

[02:57:17] long it took and they could either build

[02:57:20] another tunnel which would cost billions

[02:57:21] of dollars or they could do what they

[02:57:23] did which was just tell you how long you

[02:57:24] had to wait and it like solved all the

[02:57:26] concerns.

[02:57:26] Right. It was um Heathro airport. Yeah.

[02:57:30] Uh Terminal 5. If anyone's ever taken a

[02:57:32] connecting flight inside of Terminal 5.

[02:57:35] It's mad how many times I've done that

[02:57:37] and it's always the same [ __ ]

[02:57:38] escalator. I don't know whether it's

[02:57:39] because I fly the same route or if

[02:57:40] that's just the one funnel to go up

[02:57:43] through internal security for the second

[02:57:44] time to briefly enter England before you

[02:57:47] then fly back out without actually being

[02:57:48] able to leave. And people were

[02:57:50] complaining about the fact that it was

[02:57:52] taking too long to get through security.

[02:57:55] And classic engineer problem, they

[02:57:58] decided we're going to get new detectors

[02:58:01] and we're going to speed up the conveyor

[02:58:03] belt and we're going to have an S-shaped

[02:58:04] queuing system which will spread people

[02:58:06] out into more fingers so that the

[02:58:07] security checking people can get them

[02:58:09] through and more expeditious just

[02:58:11] millions, hundreds of millions of

[02:58:13] dollars in reoperating costs. And Rory

[02:58:17] and his team are like, let's there might

[02:58:18] be there might be a cheaper solution.

[02:58:20] And they fixed it by just putting wait

[02:58:24] time posters

[02:58:26] 15 minutes from here, 20 minutes from

[02:58:27] here, 25 minutes from here. And the wait

[02:58:29] time was always 5 minutes longer than

[02:58:32] the amount of time it took to get moving

[02:58:33] fast. Moving.

[02:58:34] Yeah, dude. We They said it was going to

[02:58:35] be 25. We went in 17. We got a bit of a

[02:58:38] bonus.

[02:58:38] Get some good time.

[02:58:39] Yeah, dude. That's why that's why his

[02:58:40] book's called Alchemy, right? Behavioral

[02:58:42] science applied well is kind of like

[02:58:44] magic.

[02:58:45] Yeah.

[02:58:46] Yeah. But

[02:58:47] yeah, the no half measures thing, dude.

[02:58:49] Like

[02:58:52] So much of the pain

[02:58:54] that people feel when it comes to

[02:58:56] decisions is in the indecision. Even in

[02:58:59] making the decision, it's the

[02:59:00] uncertainty when they do it. And this is

[02:59:03] what

[02:59:04] common

[02:59:06] optionality focused advice is, well, if

[02:59:11] the decision's reversible, then it it

[02:59:13] doesn't really matter so much, but you

[02:59:16] should treat reversible decisions still

[02:59:17] as if they're irreversible. And this is

[02:59:20] Brian uh David Epste's new work which is

[02:59:24] people are much happier with

[02:59:27] irreversible decisions than with

[02:59:28] reversible ones. For instance, if every

[02:59:32] jeans store that you went into did not

[02:59:35] allow returns or exchanges, you would be

[02:59:37] happier with your jeans. Even if you

[02:59:39] wanted to exchange them or return them,

[02:59:41] the kid store,

[02:59:44] you can't return the kid. So most people

[02:59:46] are very happy with their kids. this is

[02:59:48] just

[02:59:49] you can't yeah I mean you can't you

[02:59:50] can't really go back and so it makes

[02:59:52] it's way less cognitive effort to just

[02:59:53] justify and rationalize that it was a

[02:59:55] good idea

[02:59:55] so I

[02:59:57] am an investor and a huge advocate of uh

[03:00:02] embryo selection through IVF and

[03:00:03] Herasite which is the company in the

[03:00:05] world that's best for this

[03:00:08] have just an endless list of

[03:00:11] philosophical justifications medical

[03:00:13] justifications biological justifications

[03:00:15] humanitary humanitarian justifications

[03:00:18] And I think that if you agree that

[03:00:20] trying to avoid disease is good, it

[03:00:22] scales all the way up to trying to

[03:00:23] increase robustness, which is pretty

[03:00:24] much any trait that you care to care

[03:00:25] about. The thing that I'm still yet to

[03:00:29] hear a compelling case in argument

[03:00:32] against is buyers remorse because if you

[03:00:37] have chosen

[03:00:39] this particular embryo out of a list of

[03:00:42] 10 because this one had the particular

[03:00:44] diagnostic criteria and dashboard that

[03:00:46] you like to look up. Now, the thing

[03:00:48] that's weird is this is already

[03:00:50] happening by doctors cuz they look

[03:00:51] through the scope of the microscope and

[03:00:53] they go,

[03:00:54] "That one looks

[03:00:55] round. That one's it's a B C, right? You

[03:00:58] don't want the C's. B's probably not.

[03:01:00] You've got three A's, two A's in there.

[03:01:01] Let's try and implant this. One doesn't

[03:01:02] take one, whatever." Uh, so this was

[03:01:04] already being done and eyeball by the

[03:01:06] doctor, but even that wasn't your

[03:01:08] decision. So, you can maybe be angry at

[03:01:10] the doctor, but it's like, hey, look, we

[03:01:11] just took the advice of a professional

[03:01:12] here. We decided to do the thing. That

[03:01:15] is the one

[03:01:17] element that I wonder whether when this

[03:01:19] becomes more widespread whether we're

[03:01:21] going to see just a a little tweak.

[03:01:24] I don't think so.

[03:01:25] Okay. Just because I don't think the the

[03:01:27] like cuz it I think it would be more

[03:01:28] akin to um you go to the gene store and

[03:01:31] they show you uh maybe like a thread on

[03:01:35] a a a thing and maybe a dye and then but

[03:01:40] the genes that you get you still can't

[03:01:42] return. And so it's it's so far from the

[03:01:44] final product. If they had if you had

[03:01:46] six kids and you could only pick one and

[03:01:47] they were fully you and you could talk

[03:01:49] to them and then you're like but you

[03:01:50] can't go back. I think people might have

[03:01:52] more because you would have seen what

[03:01:53] the other

[03:01:54] Yeah. With the full with the full Yeah.

[03:01:55] Yeah. Don't stop trying because it

[03:01:58] didn't work. It never works the first

[03:02:00] time. It takes everyone a different

[03:02:03] amount of time to realize everyone is

[03:02:05] just thinking about themselves. No one

[03:02:07] was watching and you should have just

[03:02:09] done whatever the [ __ ] you wanted to all

[03:02:10] along.

[03:02:13] Yeah, look at old people.

[03:02:16] Like old people have it figured out.

[03:02:18] They're I mean

[03:02:21] my I did so my my my father's father

[03:02:24] died before I was co you know able to

[03:02:27] function. Um but my dad had called a

[03:02:30] father figure who functioned as a

[03:02:31] grandfather on on that side. And one of

[03:02:35] the things that I always admired about

[03:02:36] him was that he literally didn't have

[03:02:39] time for this.

[03:02:41] He's like, "I've got like 10 years. I

[03:02:43] literally don't have time for this." And

[03:02:45] so his his his give a [ __ ] level was so

[03:02:48] low um that he just he walked through

[03:02:52] life

[03:02:54] unscathed by the worries that weigh down

[03:02:58] most people. Like, "Oh, I wonder if I

[03:03:00] said that uh too rudely to that per."

[03:03:02] It's he was just he was he was already

[03:03:04] on to the next thing. He's like I

[03:03:05] literally don't have time.

[03:03:06] That's the youth is wasted on the young

[03:03:08] thing.

[03:03:08] Yeah. But it's it's one of those like

[03:03:11] you

[03:03:13] I so funny you brought that up. I don't

[03:03:16] know if youth is wasted on the young. I

[03:03:18] think um you just have call it peak

[03:03:22] cognition and health state and you don't

[03:03:23] know anything besides like nothing hurts

[03:03:25] and everything works and then you just

[03:03:28] have a a slow degradation of everything

[03:03:32] works and nothing hurts until and then

[03:03:34] at the very end you just

[03:03:36] nothing works and everything and

[03:03:37] everything hurts.

[03:03:41] Yeah. And I think that's just it.

[03:03:44] There's definitely a a unique

[03:03:48] value in

[03:03:53] the future is long and broad that has

[03:03:57] equality all of its own that is only

[03:03:59] available to people that are young.

[03:04:01] Right? That is not nothing and it does

[03:04:03] not just exist inside of your head.

[03:04:05] You're able to make a a materially

[03:04:08] different type of plan when there is a

[03:04:10] long amount of time in front of you than

[03:04:11] when there is a short amount of time in

[03:04:13] front of you. assuming you don't die or

[03:04:14] something else happens.

[03:04:15] Of course, the or the probability

[03:04:17] distribution of you being able to

[03:04:19] fulfill these plans is different.

[03:04:20] And this is Bill Perkins thing about

[03:04:23] it's not memory dividend, but it's you

[03:04:24] can only do certain things at certain

[03:04:26] periods of life.

[03:04:27] A really great concept.

[03:04:28] Yeah. That uh going downhill skiing at

[03:04:32] 80 is unlikely with your knees. I think

[03:04:35] he told me he's 50s

[03:04:39] and he said um he got offered the

[03:04:41] opportunity to go wakeboarding. Wake

[03:04:44] surfs a lot. He got the opportunity to

[03:04:45] to go wakeboarding

[03:04:47] uh year ago, a couple years ago and he

[03:04:50] didn't want to go. He was tired or

[03:04:52] something and then he realized thought

[03:04:56] this is probably one of the last times

[03:04:57] I'm ever going to be able to go

[03:05:00] wakeboarding. I don't think I'm ever

[03:05:01] going to be able to do this again. and

[03:05:03] um

[03:05:05] he did and that that very well might be

[03:05:08] it. There are certain things that you

[03:05:09] can only do at certain times and I think

[03:05:11] what we're trying to do and it's

[03:05:13] interesting about that cliche

[03:05:15] line,

[03:05:17] unteable lessons. uh we we choose to

[03:05:21] learn the hard lessons the hard way. And

[03:05:22] what we're all trying to do is get as

[03:05:25] many cliches into our experience in

[03:05:28] order to be able to skip over the most

[03:05:31] well-known pitfalls of the ages

[03:05:33] ourselves. Like we're trying, we know

[03:05:35] that it's coming. We know it's going to

[03:05:36] happen.

[03:05:38] For some reason, we refuse to learn by

[03:05:40] the doing of others. We have to choose.

[03:05:42] We we we decide to do it ourselves.

[03:05:43] We're trying to like pick up.

[03:05:46] We're trying to embibe the most

[03:05:50] commonly held wisdom that is least

[03:05:53] absorbed by everybody. Money won't make

[03:05:56] you happy. Fame won't fix your self

[03:05:58] worth. You don't love that hot girl.

[03:05:59] She's just pretty and difficult to get.

[03:06:01] You should see your parents more.

[03:06:03] Nothing is as important as you think it

[03:06:05] is when you're thinking about it. All of

[03:06:07] your worries were a waste of time.

[03:06:11] We're just trying to

[03:06:13] the mountain of evidence and exposure is

[03:06:16] greatest and our ability to it's like a

[03:06:18] it's a some sort of macronutrient which

[03:06:21] is unbelievably pervasive and

[03:06:23] unbelievably hard to absorb like you can

[03:06:25] ingest tons and tons of it but for some

[03:06:27] reason and what we're trying to do is

[03:06:28] find the enzyme or the particular way to

[03:06:31] cook this thing so that we are able to

[03:06:33] finally absorb it but yeah uh

[03:06:37] it takes everyone a different amount of

[03:06:39] time to realize everyone is just

[03:06:41] thinking about themselves no one was

[03:06:42] watching and you should have just done

[03:06:43] whatever the [ __ ] you wanted to all

[03:06:44] along. Like that is every old person

[03:06:47] ever telling you that. It's just a case

[03:06:49] of okay, how quickly can I believe that

[03:06:52] the people all of the old people are

[03:06:54] right? Cuz it's one of two things is

[03:06:55] true. Either all old people have arrived

[03:06:59] at a similar sort of insight, which is

[03:07:01] that one, or they've all been inducted

[03:07:05] into some sort of SCOP

[03:07:08] cult to lie to younger people about the

[03:07:12] same coordinated false flag in order to

[03:07:15] get them to do something. I don't know.

[03:07:17] I think so. So each of the isms that you

[03:07:20] just said to me is a clear behavior loop

[03:07:24] where there is a super strong short-term

[03:07:26] reinforcer and a very long long-term

[03:07:29] one. And so almost all of those are

[03:07:32] things that you would opt for in the

[03:07:34] short term. And so until you have a

[03:07:37] strong thing that tells you that that is

[03:07:39] wrong, the other magnet is just too

[03:07:41] strong to resist for the vast majority

[03:07:43] of people. And I would also imagine that

[03:07:45] the the older folks have a much closer

[03:07:47] proximity to death, which I mean, when

[03:07:50] you see one or two people die, it can it

[03:07:52] can affect you. When you see like a lot

[03:07:54] of people die and the good ones and the

[03:07:56] bad ones and the in-betweens, all of a

[03:07:58] sudden you're like, "Wait." Because I

[03:08:00] think like when you go through death or

[03:08:02] someone close to you dying, I think one

[03:08:04] of the most jarring pieces of death is

[03:08:06] how quickly everyone else moves on and

[03:08:08] how everyone just keeps operating as

[03:08:10] though that person never existed. And of

[03:08:12] course there's the like I always

[03:08:13] remember you know XYZ person and of

[03:08:15] course that's fine but like the world

[03:08:18] moves on and I think when you see that

[03:08:20] happen at times unless you are

[03:08:22] completely delusional you assume that

[03:08:23] they will that it will move on from you

[03:08:25] and then I think what it does is it

[03:08:27] creates this huge this this gigantic

[03:08:29] pill of humility that I think older

[03:08:31] people have. Not all older people of

[03:08:32] course there's there's oddballs but like

[03:08:34] I think by and large old people are

[03:08:37] significantly less competitive. There's

[03:08:39] less ego, I would say, as a as a class.

[03:08:43] They're more like that's a young man's

[03:08:45] game. Like, I don't I don't want to.

[03:08:47] Basically, they just choose not to play

[03:08:49] at a lot of the status games and things

[03:08:50] like that because they've just seen

[03:08:51] people with the best status and the

[03:08:53] worst status, they all die the same and

[03:08:54] everyone moves on just the same. And so,

[03:08:56] I think they they shift more to more

[03:08:58] being present because also they could

[03:09:00] die soon, too. I think that's one of the

[03:09:02] reasons why seeing somebody who is old

[03:09:05] playing a game that they should have

[03:09:07] transcended gives us a sort of a sense

[03:09:09] of like we wse a bit. The

[03:09:11] it's like cringe almost.

[03:09:12] The the businessman who is in his 60s

[03:09:15] still attending every high-powered

[03:09:18] conference who already has done the exit

[03:09:20] as many times as is needed trying to win

[03:09:23] the validation of the same group of

[03:09:26] people who have cycled through a bunch.

[03:09:27] He never he never exit. It's like being

[03:09:29] stuck on the level of a video game whose

[03:09:31] boss you defeated.

[03:09:33] Yeah.

[03:09:33] And just going back and running it back

[03:09:35] again because maybe this time it would

[03:09:36] be different.

[03:09:36] Yeah. I think Arthur Brooks talked about

[03:09:37] this with like uh like from strength to

[03:09:40] strength in that book or like the second

[03:09:42] like everyone has to make this leap from

[03:09:44] first level of fluid intelligence, high

[03:09:46] energy, high work ethic to at some point

[03:09:49] you make the second jump and some people

[03:09:51] don't and then it just becomes this

[03:09:53] kermagins these very miserable older

[03:09:54] people and he's like you have to make

[03:09:56] this leap where you switch the way you

[03:09:57] work. But you're not an old person is

[03:09:59] not going to beat a young person at

[03:10:00] being young,

[03:10:01] right? And that's and that's where

[03:10:02] people and that's where I think some of

[03:10:03] that cringe and it happens on both

[03:10:04] sexes, men, you know, men men and women.

[03:10:07] Uh the you know, the six-year-old woman

[03:10:08] who's trying to pretend like she's 20,

[03:10:10] like it's

[03:10:10] Yep. Yeah. There's something there, too.

[03:10:12] If you're nervous, do more. It's hard to

[03:10:15] be nervous when you've practiced the

[03:10:16] same thing a thousand times in a row.

[03:10:19] When in doubt, stack reps. Anything you

[03:10:22] start, you will suck at. It will be

[03:10:24] embarrassing, but you will survive. Then

[03:10:26] you will realize that looking like a

[03:10:27] fool lasts a moment. Being one that

[03:10:29] never started lasts a lifetime.

[03:10:32] I think people wildly underestimate the

[03:10:34] value of accumulating significant enough

[03:10:37] volume that it's no longer something

[03:10:39] that you have a reaction to. So you

[03:10:40] desensitize yourself to it.

[03:10:42] Um and so like for example

[03:10:44] exposure therapy. And so if you if you

[03:10:46] if you give a speech and you're nervous

[03:10:48] about the speech, if you do it enough

[03:10:50] times that you are bored of doing it,

[03:10:52] that you are sick of the presentation,

[03:10:55] you're probably ready. And so I

[03:10:58] How many times did you do the book

[03:11:00] launch?

[03:11:01] Over a hundred. Easily. Easily over a

[03:11:04] hundred. Um it was a lot. But but by the

[03:11:09] time that it happened, I was like, I

[03:11:11] know what the next slide like I had

[03:11:13] words on the slides, but I knew what the

[03:11:14] slide was going to say because my my

[03:11:16] words started started them before the

[03:11:18] words appeared on the slide. Um, and

[03:11:21] that is that has just become my limus

[03:11:23] test because I like I said earlier like

[03:11:26] I definitely cared a lot about what

[03:11:29] people thought. And so you can do the

[03:11:31] very hard work of not caring what people

[03:11:33] think or you can do so much work that

[03:11:36] there's nothing left to control. Like if

[03:11:38] you've controlled the controllables then

[03:11:39] I think at least for me personally my my

[03:11:42] anxiety levels around performance and

[03:11:44] things like that go down to essentially

[03:11:46] zero because it's like I have done this

[03:11:47] before and before I did both launches

[03:11:49] cuz I've had them I've done two big ones

[03:11:51] now. The first one that I did, I did at

[03:11:54] a venue and the the woman who like kind

[03:11:56] of ran the whole thing, she's like she

[03:11:58] had people going on stages and all the

[03:11:59] time and she said something right before

[03:12:01] I got on stage. She said, "You were the

[03:12:03] most calm out of any person that I have

[03:12:04] seen." And I just remember looking at

[03:12:06] her in the moment and I was like, "I I

[03:12:08] have done this before." And I said it a

[03:12:11] little bit violently, but I was just

[03:12:12] like, "This is not my first time doing

[03:12:14] this." Like, I will do exactly what I

[03:12:16] did the last 20 [ __ ] times I did

[03:12:18] this, and that is all I will come. I

[03:12:21] will do my job. And I just that's why

[03:12:25] I'm a big fan of the the Patriots under

[03:12:26] Belich like like do your job. Like you

[03:12:29] cannot control everything. Do the things

[03:12:31] you can control. And it just it takes so

[03:12:34] much of the anxiety and the second loops

[03:12:36] of thinking and third order consequences

[03:12:37] that you're worried about out of your

[03:12:38] mind because that is it. And so if you

[03:12:42] if there's a lot of stakes

[03:12:44] do so much volume that it would

[03:12:46] unreasonable that you fail. And then at

[03:12:47] that point, if you do fail, you will not

[03:12:49] blame yourself because you're like, I

[03:12:50] did my part and that's okay and next

[03:12:53] time I'll try and control the things

[03:12:54] that are outside.

[03:12:55] And the judgment of other people becomes

[03:12:57] less scary because your likelihood of

[03:12:58] failure becomes lower overall and less

[03:13:01] culpable to you.

[03:13:03] Yeah.

[03:13:03] In uh

[03:13:06] uh admission. People think after they

[03:13:08] fail, they think to themselves like,

[03:13:09] "Oh, I I should have done this

[03:13:11] differently. I should have done that

[03:13:12] differently." It's like, well, think

[03:13:13] about what you're going to say when you

[03:13:14] fail and then do that before you fail

[03:13:17] and you probably won't fail. That's why

[03:13:20] I think people feel so agrieved when

[03:13:23] something happens that was out of their

[03:13:25] control when they'd done everything cuz

[03:13:28] it is going to suck if there is a

[03:13:31] lightning strike in Vegas and you go,

[03:13:33] "For [ __ ] sake, dude. I worked so

[03:13:35] hard. I worked so hard. Everything was

[03:13:37] done." Yes, it's not your fault, but

[03:13:39] there's a it's not that frustration

[03:13:41] won't come and that you won't be

[03:13:42] agitated at it.

[03:13:43] It's a different flavor. And it's

[03:13:45] certainly better than blaming yourself,

[03:13:47] but it's

[03:13:51] like I think about, you know, botched uh

[03:13:55] pediatric surgery, something like that.

[03:13:57] You know, you got the kid that had been

[03:14:00] in the traffic accident to the hospital

[03:14:02] on time, but that surgeon that

[03:14:05] particular day just wasn't paying the

[03:14:06] right amount of attention or whatever

[03:14:08] happened. And then there's, you know,

[03:14:09] there's some bad outcome.

[03:14:12] [ __ ] Like, we did everything. We did

[03:14:14] everything. and we did everything is

[03:14:18] reassuring

[03:14:20] but it there is a type of lack of

[03:14:23] control that comes along with that that

[03:14:25] must be also very difficult to deal with

[03:14:27] the same for

[03:14:28] business launches and everything else.

[03:14:30] So two fun things there. So, one, people

[03:14:33] don't know this, but the day before the

[03:14:36] launch, the last one, um I had someone

[03:14:40] filed a TTRO, which is temporary

[03:14:42] restraining order to try and prevent me

[03:14:43] from launching the book.

[03:14:45] Let's just say an adversary. And the

[03:14:48] hearing for the whether I could do the

[03:14:51] book launch was at 4:00 on Friday for a

[03:14:54] launch that I'd spent $10 million on and

[03:14:57] almost two years of my life plus the

[03:14:59] other books leading up to this, right?

[03:15:01] And so at 4:00 there was going to be a

[03:15:04] decision. Obviously it was dismissed,

[03:15:05] but like there was a world where I was

[03:15:08] not going to be able there's a parallel

[03:15:11] universe where I wasn't going to be able

[03:15:12] to launch the book.

[03:15:12] What time did you launch the bug?

[03:15:14] 9:00 a.m. Saturday,

[03:15:15] right?

[03:15:17] Like tight.

[03:15:18] Did you have to attend the hearing?

[03:15:20] No, I had my my my council do it. Um,

[03:15:22] but what was interesting is that when

[03:15:24] like when they when they told me that we

[03:15:26] that it was dismissed and that we had

[03:15:27] won or whatever, I um my honest reaction

[03:15:31] was like darn it would have been a

[03:15:32] sicker story. Like I swear to God

[03:15:35] because I already was like this book is

[03:15:37] so good people want to make it illegal.

[03:15:39] Like it would have been like the

[03:15:40] marketing would have written itself. Um

[03:15:42] but anyways I say that say like one is

[03:15:45] like I'm a big believer from a

[03:15:47] marketer's perspective you should never

[03:15:48] waste a crisis and that means that

[03:15:49] there's always a story to tell and

[03:15:50] you're the best person to tell it to.

[03:15:52] The second one is that um especially

[03:15:54] with a kid coming uh I call them like

[03:15:56] getting kicked in the nuts type problems

[03:15:58] which is if if toddler wakes up and then

[03:16:02] decides to you know if I let's say I had

[03:16:04] something that was super valuable and

[03:16:05] very fragile finds it and then destroys

[03:16:08] it and it's you know a year and a half

[03:16:10] you know year and a half old or two

[03:16:11] years old

[03:16:12] in that moment there is nothing that I

[03:16:16] can I can't there's no screaming there's

[03:16:18] no punishing it doesn't comprehend

[03:16:20] what's going on all I would do is

[03:16:21] condition it to hate me if I were to

[03:16:23] punish it in that moment. And so I just

[03:16:26] have to suffer. Like there's there's

[03:16:28] nothing to do there. You just suffer.

[03:16:30] And you can try and avoid it and put it

[03:16:31] elevated. Of course, control the

[03:16:32] control, but let's assume that you did

[03:16:34] that and it still happened. Um and but I

[03:16:37] think there's a certain amount of peace

[03:16:39] knowing that like you did what you could

[03:16:42] and

[03:16:44] [ __ ] happens. Like there's just nothing

[03:16:45] you can do. There's just nothing you can

[03:16:48] do.

[03:16:49] And I think in some ways that's very

[03:16:50] frank. Like [ __ ] happens to everybody.

[03:16:55] It's interesting how

[03:16:58] I think about this when I watch uh

[03:17:00] people perform, especially people that

[03:17:02] have become very familiar with their

[03:17:03] craft. So

[03:17:05] people

[03:17:07] leak out who they are in the breaths in

[03:17:11] between the things that they're doing.

[03:17:13] Hm.

[03:17:15] Somebody's character is not revealed

[03:17:16] with how they pick you up on the first

[03:17:18] date, but it's how they treat the

[03:17:20] waiter, whether or not they hold the

[03:17:21] door open for somebody else who goes in.

[03:17:24] And I think about this when I see

[03:17:25] performers on stage, the watching a band

[03:17:28] this year and seeing the drummer who is

[03:17:32] playing and his stick breaks and while

[03:17:35] he's playing the particular beat, he

[03:17:37] just seamlessly switches. this hand

[03:17:39] reaches behind him, picks up another

[03:17:40] one, twills it twice, and then gets back

[03:17:42] to it. Now, that that is something that

[03:17:43] you have done 10,000, 20,000, 30,000

[03:17:47] times. It's got nothing to do with the

[03:17:49] actual role of playing the drums, not

[03:17:52] the skill or the talent of playing the

[03:17:53] drums, but it's the breath in between

[03:17:55] what he does. And I think about the same

[03:17:59] here with

[03:18:02] easy for anybody to look composed when

[03:18:04] things are going well or even when

[03:18:06] things are going neutral, but it's very

[03:18:08] exposing when things go poorly about

[03:18:10] their character. It's the breath in

[03:18:11] between the big thing. It's you going,

[03:18:14] well, what I'm here to do is give the

[03:18:15] presentation for the book. Okay. Well,

[03:18:17] how do you deal with a TTRO the night

[03:18:19] before, right?

[03:18:21] That's the reach behind. Can I keep

[03:18:23] going? I see it as um

[03:18:26] I actually so to to and this is not to

[03:18:29] pop the the bubble of romanticism around

[03:18:30] it because I do think that's really

[03:18:31] elegant. Um it's just how you behave

[03:18:34] under different conditions and so if we

[03:18:36] see personality is how you behave in the

[03:18:38] aggravative conditions. It means that

[03:18:39] you can behave under perfect conditions

[03:18:40] and you can't behave under imperfect

[03:18:42] conditions which means that you need to

[03:18:43] practice behaving in imperfect

[03:18:44] conditions so that you can behave the

[03:18:45] same way. And so again, part of the

[03:18:47] reason I think of having so much

[03:18:48] practice uh being basically being a

[03:18:51] proxy for the preparation is that you

[03:18:52] will have been exposed to so many

[03:18:53] different conditions that none of them

[03:18:55] what happens when the clicker stops

[03:18:56] working.

[03:18:57] Exactly. And I had that happen during

[03:18:58] one of them. Uh one of my practice I had

[03:19:00] two the two times I had the clicker

[03:19:01] stopped working. So I was like, "Oh, am

[03:19:02] I going to do that?" Like it didn't

[03:19:03] happen. We were live. Um one of the

[03:19:05] issues

[03:19:05] had it have happened, you've already run

[03:19:06] that,

[03:19:07] right? We we figured that out. I had

[03:19:09] another run where um I had the the case

[03:19:11] of the book stuff and then it all fell

[03:19:13] over. Um, I had I had I I had one where

[03:19:16] like I put it they they were backwards.

[03:19:17] They were like upside down or whatever.

[03:19:19] So like on the camera.

[03:19:20] Tell me about that.

[03:19:21] So there's there's there's all these

[03:19:23] different permutations that like it's

[03:19:24] like you can you can you can decrease

[03:19:26] the likelihood of failure if you try and

[03:19:27] get all the failures out before you

[03:19:28] actually before it counts.

[03:19:29] And I think that's like at least for me

[03:19:31] how I approach performance is how do I

[03:19:33] get all the failures out of the way so

[03:19:35] that I have the highest likelihood of

[03:19:36] succeeding uh when when the time that

[03:19:38] matters counts.

[03:19:39] I wonder if Elon intended to do that

[03:19:41] with the Cybert truck. How many times

[03:19:42] have you tried to throw that steel ball

[03:19:45] at the window of a cybert truck?

[03:19:46] Presumably not. None.

[03:19:48] Yeah,

[03:19:48] presumably it's happened before. You

[03:19:50] just get a little bit over excited with

[03:19:51] too much adrenaline and launch it with

[03:19:53] too heavy of an arm. Yeah, you'd be

[03:19:56] surprised how far you can get by only

[03:19:58] knowing what you want and not accepting

[03:20:00] anything else until you get it.

[03:20:04] So, we've talked about commitment and

[03:20:05] and and decisions a lot. Um I find it

[03:20:08] interesting like decisions the the root

[03:20:09] of that from Latin is decadere which is

[03:20:11] to cut off and commitment is the

[03:20:14] elimination of alternatives and so

[03:20:15] they're almost like you know cousin

[03:20:16] cousin words in terms of their meaning.

[03:20:18] Um but by definition

[03:20:22] if you are the most focused person in

[03:20:24] the world then you would have nothing

[03:20:25] but the one thing that you focus on. If

[03:20:27] you're the most uh focused reader in the

[03:20:29] world you would only read. You would not

[03:20:31] drink. You would not sleep. You would

[03:20:32] not eat. You'd be the most focused

[03:20:33] reader in the world. Anything that is

[03:20:34] not reading is making you less focused.

[03:20:36] And so if you know what you want, which

[03:20:38] I think is for many people more

[03:20:40] difficult because it's not knowing what

[03:20:41] they want, it's deciding all the things

[03:20:43] they're willing to give up in order to

[03:20:45] get what they want because what you want

[03:20:46] is what you're willing to sacrifice for,

[03:20:48] right? And so if we want multiple

[03:20:49] things, which one of the things that we

[03:20:50] still want are we willing to sacrifice

[03:20:52] for the one that we want more. And I

[03:20:54] think if you get clear on the thing that

[03:20:55] you're willing to sacrifice other things

[03:20:56] for that you're willing to put all those

[03:20:58] things on the altar to sacrifice for the

[03:21:01] one thing life gets to our point earlier

[03:21:03] about simplicity much easier because you

[03:21:06] have a singular lens to make all

[03:21:07] decisions through. Kobe was notorious

[03:21:09] for like does this make me a better

[03:21:10] basketball player? That was it. It just

[03:21:13] every decision was filtered through that

[03:21:15] lens and so it makes decision-m

[03:21:17] incredibly easy. And so the amount of

[03:21:19] mental bandwidth that you get back

[03:21:22] is all of it. Um but the the hard part

[03:21:25] for most people is making the decision

[03:21:27] that this is what they want. Um not once

[03:21:30] you made the decision

[03:21:32] sticking following through.

[03:21:32] Yeah. It's the elimination of

[03:21:33] alternatives, not the continued

[03:21:36] commitment to the thing which is none of

[03:21:38] the alternatives.

[03:21:39] We tal like there's tons of stuff on

[03:21:40] productivity for like switching costs

[03:21:41] being you know horrendous. But I think

[03:21:43] that what is not talked about enough is

[03:21:46] basically the cost of switching desires.

[03:21:49] Like you're you're switching wants.

[03:21:51] Yeah.

[03:21:51] And and the the the amount of time and

[03:21:54] effort that gets wasted in the loops of

[03:21:58] making the decision and then yearning

[03:22:00] for the cost of that decision that you

[03:22:02] already said was worth it. So, one of

[03:22:04] the things that's been really helpful

[03:22:05] for me for big life decisions when I

[03:22:06] have, I would say, conflicting

[03:22:07] priorities, like multiple things that I

[03:22:09] want, is when I make the call, I'll

[03:22:11] usually write out a document that

[03:22:13] explains all of the reasoning in its

[03:22:15] it's an it's an it's an in its totality

[03:22:18] so that I don't So, one, if I if I if I

[03:22:21] have this moment of doubt again, I

[03:22:23] revisit it and then I read it again and

[03:22:24] then it basically closes the loop almost

[03:22:26] instantly. And so, rather than have

[03:22:28] these endless thought loops, I'll have

[03:22:29] one or two, I'll reread it and then it

[03:22:32] kind of goes away. And this is

[03:22:34] especially on on the relational side. If

[03:22:36] you let's say you had a breakup or

[03:22:37] something like that and you're like or

[03:22:38] maybe you were the one who did the

[03:22:39] breakup and you know you could get them

[03:22:40] back but you don't know if it was the

[03:22:41] right decision blah blah blah like

[03:22:43] writing out every reason that you did it

[03:22:46] because you forget. And this is the

[03:22:48] whole point about punishment fades and

[03:22:49] reward sticks is that in the moment of

[03:22:50] pain after she comes back and she's

[03:22:52] crazy, you have to remind yourself of

[03:22:55] all the [ __ ] of all the things that you

[03:22:57] know you will forget. So it's almost

[03:22:58] like you're writing a warning letter to

[03:23:00] your future self of like don't forget

[03:23:02] about this. Remember the time she keyed

[03:23:03] your car? She did it again. Right? Like

[03:23:05] you have to put all those things down so

[03:23:06] that when you're in that moment of

[03:23:08] nostalgia looking back, you know what?

[03:23:09] Those were the good old days. You know,

[03:23:10] she wasn't so bad. Maybe I was being a

[03:23:12] little bit uh unreasonable. You can read

[03:23:14] again. You're like, "Oh my god, I can't

[03:23:15] believe thank god I I made that call."

[03:23:17] But that way, you don't actually have to

[03:23:18] then waste the next six months

[03:23:19] relearning the same mistake again

[03:23:21] because you already documented in an

[03:23:23] artifact.

[03:23:24] That's called borrowed authority

[03:23:25] exercises.

[03:23:26] Borrowed authority, but instead of

[03:23:28] borrowing it from someone else, you're

[03:23:29] borrowing it from a past version of you.

[03:23:30] M yeah,

[03:23:31] I like that.

[03:23:32] Yeah. Yeah. The the fading affect bias

[03:23:34] thing is pretty fascinating. Adam

[03:23:35] Masriani says that

[03:23:38] uh tragedy plus time equals comedy is

[03:23:40] the closest thing that exists as a

[03:23:43] formula in human psychology. Tragedy

[03:23:45] plus time equals comedy. Like some stuff

[03:23:48] that was kind of horrendous in the past

[03:23:51] over a long enough time horizon becomes

[03:23:54] neutral or hilarious and some stuff

[03:23:56] sticks about as bad, but even the bad

[03:23:57] isn't as bad. But yeah, it's a tragedy

[03:24:00] plus time equals comedy is kind of true.

[03:24:03] And I think that's one of the reasons

[03:24:04] why Gallow's humor that uh soldiers use

[03:24:08] when they're away that was talking to

[03:24:09] this British SAS guy and he got one of

[03:24:13] his teammates got friendly fired in the

[03:24:15] ass uh by a misfire from someone's

[03:24:17] handgun and they're in the middle of a

[03:24:20] firefight surrounded by enemy

[03:24:22] combatants. They're now going to have to

[03:24:24] get this guy out of there. That guy is

[03:24:25] not going to be able to fight anymore.

[03:24:26] They're going to have to sub someone in

[03:24:27] for the team. Maybe this means everybody

[03:24:29] everyone just started laughing. It's

[03:24:32] like for [ __ ] sake, everyone laughed.

[03:24:35] Like I I do get the sense that trying to

[03:24:37] bring forward humor as a tool. How do

[03:24:39] you think about that? Like you serious

[03:24:42] guy take up a suit uh with a um an

[03:24:46] existential level of of

[03:24:49] drive. How do you think about the role

[03:24:52] of humor? So, it's funny that you even

[03:24:54] said serious guy because like I would

[03:24:55] say I'm serious on this podcast because

[03:24:56] we talk about serious things, but like

[03:24:58] um if you were to talk to my team like

[03:25:02] the recording studio is a not PG zone.

[03:25:05] It is not like everyone knows there's

[03:25:06] two places HR is not allowed. One is

[03:25:08] where I record and the second is the gym

[03:25:10] and like there's just no HR allowed. I

[03:25:12] just got to deal with whatever side of

[03:25:14] me. Um, but if you were to look at my

[03:25:16] newsfeed right now, it is entirely

[03:25:17] standup comedy. And so I'm probably

[03:25:21] closeted or not not like I'm a I'm a

[03:25:23] huge stand-up fan. I it's almost all

[03:25:25] that I consume. And it's because I think

[03:25:27] that comedians are modern day

[03:25:28] philosophers. Um, they point out these

[03:25:31] apparent truths that we don't want to

[03:25:33] look at. and some comedians,

[03:25:34] some and but what's interesting about

[03:25:36] comedy specifically is that

[03:25:38] most of the time they say statements

[03:25:42] that they would be punished for saying

[03:25:45] in any other condition than on stage.

[03:25:48] And so comedy gives this veil of

[03:25:50] protection, which I think we need to

[03:25:51] protect. um

[03:25:54] for them to say things that like if you

[03:25:56] think about comedy at the most basic

[03:25:57] level for like a human, kids can laugh

[03:25:59] when they see someone do something they

[03:26:01] should get punished for but not get

[03:26:03] punished. So you see Roadrunner get

[03:26:04] smashed with a hammer or whatever um and

[03:26:06] then they laugh, right? Or you see, you

[03:26:08] know, Three Stooges, like you know,

[03:26:10] whatever. And so it's slapstick because

[03:26:11] that's the level of humor that a child

[03:26:13] can understand, but it's basically

[03:26:14] punishment avoided.

[03:26:15] And so we laugh. And so when somebody

[03:26:18] goes up there and says something they

[03:26:19] should get punished for, they should get

[03:26:20] bonked on the head, but they don't, we

[03:26:22] laugh. And so I find that like

[03:26:24] endlessly. I mean, I laugh um a lot. So

[03:26:28] uh I don't remember the question was,

[03:26:30] but yeah, I'm a big fan of comedy.

[03:26:32] Yeah, it was uh what's the role of

[03:26:34] comedy in

[03:26:36] manipulating

[03:26:38] using using humor as a tool, I guess, in

[03:26:41] that way. But I the ability to dispel

[03:26:44] this thing feeling serious. Yeah,

[03:26:47] by laughing at it is kind of magical.

[03:26:50] It's like the bogurt in Harry Potter.

[03:26:52] Like, how many of my big fears can I

[03:26:54] just laugh about how funny this will be

[03:26:56] soon?

[03:26:57] Uh, and if I can pull if I think it's

[03:26:59] going to be funny eventually, I might as

[03:27:00] well think it's going to be funny today.

[03:27:02] That's a [ __ ] great archive poll to

[03:27:05] think about the boat in in Harry Potter,

[03:27:07] which is how you do it. It's to make it

[03:27:09] look silly. this is the thing that you

[03:27:10] are most scared of and the way that you

[03:27:13] get it to [ __ ] off is to turn it into

[03:27:15] something hilarious.

[03:27:16] I still remember the first time I

[03:27:17] learned about this. I was probably 11.

[03:27:19] Um my friend um we were on this road

[03:27:23] trip and he

[03:27:25] at 11.

[03:27:26] Yeah. Well, I was there were parents who

[03:27:28] were driving. Yeah. But there's there's

[03:27:30] him and his brother, right? Yeah. We

[03:27:31] were just crushing crushing life. And um

[03:27:35] and right before the road trip, he uh

[03:27:38] they had just picked um like those those

[03:27:41] yellow cherries, whatever those are. You

[03:27:43] know, the little they're like cherries,

[03:27:44] but they're yellow and red, like golden

[03:27:46] cherry. They look like golden apples,

[03:27:47] but they're whatever. They're cherries.

[03:27:48] Some sort of cherry. And they just

[03:27:50] picked them from like the tree that had

[03:27:52] just gone ripe, whatever. And there was

[03:27:53] a whole bowl of them, and he had all of

[03:27:55] them. Uh and then we went in the car to

[03:27:58] go on this road trip. And about an hour

[03:28:01] into the trip, he's like, "I I I need to

[03:28:05] go to the bathroom." And they were like,

[03:28:06] "Well, we're not there yet. Like, we'll,

[03:28:07] you know, we'll stop at the next

[03:28:08] bathroom." He's like, "No, no, like I I

[03:28:10] really need to go to the bathroom." And

[03:28:12] so, they had to pull over to this like

[03:28:14] small town that had nothing. And they

[03:28:16] literally knocked on doors to see if

[03:28:17] someone would let an 11-year-old kid uh

[03:28:20] in. And so, there was an old lady who

[03:28:22] said yes through a window. I couldn't

[03:28:24] even make this up. and we had to go

[03:28:25] through this spiral staircase up to her

[03:28:28] her flat or whatever her apartment. And

[03:28:31] I was behind him because they were like,

[03:28:32] "Well, all of you kids are going to go

[03:28:33] use the bathroom if we're going to stop,

[03:28:35] right?" And so it's his dad, it's the

[03:28:37] it's the old lady, his dad, him, me, and

[03:28:40] then his younger brother, and then the

[03:28:41] mom. Actually, the mom in the car, but

[03:28:43] anyways, that was the that was the

[03:28:43] lineup. I'm looking up and as we're

[03:28:46] walking up, I just remember this

[03:28:49] horrendous smell. And then I was like,

[03:28:51] "Oh my god, he's ripping ass." And then

[03:28:53] I see just a [ __ ] deluge of [ __ ] just

[03:28:59] come out and drip down his leg and it's

[03:29:01] on the steps and he's walking through

[03:29:03] and we're all trying and it was

[03:29:05] horrendous. And he's 11 and anyways he

[03:29:09] goes he has to wear his dad's boxers

[03:29:11] because he shits his pants, right? So

[03:29:12] his dad doesn't have boxers, he has his

[03:29:14] dad's boxers on and he was so humiliated

[03:29:18] and he was like don't [ __ ] joke about

[03:29:19] it blah blah blah blah. and and

[03:29:21] obviously we're 11, right? And so and so

[03:29:25] his mother when she saw it cracks up at

[03:29:29] this happening even though he's like

[03:29:31] super serious about it and she says you

[03:29:34] are going to laugh about this in a few

[03:29:36] years like this will be a very funny

[03:29:38] story and I just remember that she was

[03:29:40] already there she like she was already

[03:29:43] there she was already this is hilarious

[03:29:44] and she was like it might take you some

[03:29:46] time but this is very funny and I that

[03:29:49] was like that was the time where I

[03:29:50] learned that was Like

[03:29:53] your tragedy plus time is comedy. Ken,

[03:29:56] if it becomes that eventually, then you

[03:29:59] might as well have it now. Of course, we

[03:30:00] have a TTRO. Haha. Like, how ridiculous

[03:30:03] is this?

[03:30:04] Unreal.

[03:30:05] What a better story it'll be. Cuz like I

[03:30:07] don't remember anything about that trip

[03:30:08] besides the fact that he [ __ ] his pants.

[03:30:10] That'll definitely breach the threshold

[03:30:12] for emotional activation. Yeah. Like

[03:30:14] novelty and intensity are the two things

[03:30:16] that create emotion. That that would

[03:30:18] create memories. That's definitely one

[03:30:19] of them. that talking of the young

[03:30:20] people thing. Young people don't want to

[03:30:23] work hard anymore. No, young people

[03:30:26] don't want to work hard anymore for you.

[03:30:29] You have to create a company worth

[03:30:30] working hard for.

[03:30:33] Yeah. I mean, I just fundamentally

[03:30:35] reject that humans have somehow changed.

[03:30:36] Um I do think that there are going to be

[03:30:39] preferences that change between um uh

[03:30:43] what do you call not classes uh

[03:30:45] generations. Thank you. Generations. Um,

[03:30:48] but they just work differently. But

[03:30:50] there, I mean, I see some 15-year-olds,

[03:30:52] 20-year-olds that are just as motivated

[03:30:53] as 15 and 20-y olds. And I see some lazy

[03:30:55] 15 and 20-year-olds that were just as

[03:30:56] lazy as 15 and 20-year-olds that I knew.

[03:30:58] I think it's just convenient more than

[03:31:00] anything. And typically, it's easier for

[03:31:02] older people to say that we had it

[03:31:03] harder and you did. So what? And also,

[03:31:07] most generations say, "I want to make it

[03:31:08] better for the next generation." And

[03:31:09] then when it is better for the next

[03:31:10] generation, we resent them for it being

[03:31:12] better and easier. But wasn't that the

[03:31:14] point? And so it's really just like

[03:31:15] resenting them for receiving the gift

[03:31:17] that we gave them.

[03:31:24] What does creating a company worth

[03:31:26] working hard for mean?

[03:31:28] I think it's a combination of the micro

[03:31:30] environment within the company and then

[03:31:31] the global reinforcer that the company

[03:31:33] stands for. And so I see when when Elon

[03:31:36] says, uh, we're going to, you know,

[03:31:39] Mars, or more realistically, we're

[03:31:41] saving humanity, which is, I think, what

[03:31:43] most of the people who are bought in,

[03:31:45] um, on his vision see, um, he's created

[03:31:48] the most noble cause of all kind that

[03:31:50] you should, a goal big enough that it's

[03:31:51] worth suffering for.

[03:31:53] And so people are willing to suffer as

[03:31:55] long as the price is worth it, we're

[03:31:56] willing to go through just about

[03:31:57] anything. And so making the company

[03:31:59] worth suffering for or worth working

[03:32:01] hard for is about number one making sure

[03:32:03] that where we're going is a place that

[03:32:04] people feel inspired to work towards,

[03:32:07] right? I think this is worth doing. On

[03:32:10] the micro, it's okay, how can I make the

[03:32:12] work environment something that people

[03:32:14] want to come back to? And that a lot has

[03:32:16] to do with just training leaders and

[03:32:18] managers in order to make environments

[03:32:21] that ward off people who suck and

[03:32:23] encourage people who don't suck.

[03:32:25] Yeah. If you have a company that

[03:32:27] continues to get great talent that you

[03:32:29] should, you can hire people who just

[03:32:31] weren't right or were not going to work

[03:32:33] hard or weren't going to be bought in,

[03:32:34] but after a while, especially if you've

[03:32:36] got enough staff that work for you, if

[03:32:37] they continue to be demotivated and to

[03:32:39] not want to work hard, it's a you

[03:32:42] problem. What What What's more likely

[03:32:44] that all of your exes are [ __ ] who

[03:32:46] are argumentative or that you're the

[03:32:47] argumentative [ __ ] Because you are

[03:32:49] the common denominator between all of

[03:32:51] these different exes

[03:32:51] or them. Me and them, there's two. them

[03:32:54] is the other, right?

[03:32:55] Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[03:32:57] No, but so no to your point in

[03:32:59] seriousness, um if we if we see that as

[03:33:01] culture, right, which is this big

[03:33:02] amorphous term, but obviously it's in

[03:33:03] the business world, so I've define it,

[03:33:05] which is um the rules that govern

[03:33:06] reinforcement in organization, right? So

[03:33:08] what are the if then statements that

[03:33:09] when someone does this, this happens?

[03:33:11] And so the culture of any group, not

[03:33:13] necessarily even a company, but of any

[03:33:14] team, any any group of people, it's

[03:33:16] going to be what are all the things that

[03:33:17] are rewarded? What are all the things

[03:33:19] that are punished? And then kind of

[03:33:20] third category is what are the things

[03:33:21] that um are themselves reinforcing that

[03:33:24] we permit but we shouldn't,

[03:33:25] right? And so being really clear and

[03:33:28] this is why I'm big on defining things

[03:33:30] in observational terms is so instead of

[03:33:32] saying, "Hey, uh Susie was lazy." We say

[03:33:34] like Susie doesn't respond to Slack

[03:33:35] quickly and she showed up late to two

[03:33:37] meetings. Okay, so that's what she did.

[03:33:40] Is she lazy? That's a label that doesn't

[03:33:42] really help anybody. But if I can tell

[03:33:43] Susie, hey, people are beginning to

[03:33:45] describe you as lazy

[03:33:46] and it's because of these things. I'm

[03:33:48] assuming you don't want to be described

[03:33:50] as lazy, right? Okay. If you just ch do

[03:33:53] this instead next time. And it just it

[03:33:56] just it cuts out so much of the noise of

[03:33:58] like this generate. It's like many of

[03:33:59] the times they don't even know

[03:34:02] that's what good looked like.

[03:34:04] No one ever defined success. No one ever

[03:34:06] defined what the what the standard was.

[03:34:08] And so I see that probably the most

[03:34:10] important job of the leader is to hold

[03:34:12] the standard. Is to define what good

[03:34:13] looks like in observable terms so that

[03:34:15] everyone knows this is success. Mhm.

[03:34:17] Therefore, failure is also obvious,

[03:34:19] right? And then obviously all the

[03:34:21] downstream implications of that of how

[03:34:22] do you model behavior so that other

[03:34:23] people do it, etc.

[03:34:24] It's very hard to have a vision when you

[03:34:26] have bills to pay.

[03:34:27] I saw this old white guy giving

[03:34:29] financial advice on TikTok, getting

[03:34:30] roasted in the comments, boomer, fake

[03:34:33] guru, etc. The guy was Ray Dalio. That's

[03:34:37] when I realized there was no amount of

[03:34:39] success that can legitimize you to the

[03:34:41] ignorant. If you actually met everyone,

[03:34:43] you'd realize some people aren't worth

[03:34:44] being loved by. It's a good thing to be

[03:34:46] hated by a bad person.

[03:34:57] violent agreement,

[03:34:58] but that that moment with Ray Dalia was

[03:35:01] like it was actually like there are

[03:35:03] these moments that you have that change

[03:35:06] the way you behave and that was one for

[03:35:08] me that I don't want to say it was the

[03:35:10] last nail in the coffin because I don't

[03:35:11] think anyone is impervious from outside

[03:35:13] influences but it was a significant nail

[03:35:16] in the coffin of the public opinion uh

[03:35:18] for me in terms of content um

[03:35:21] because when I like I because I think to

[03:35:24] some degree maybe I'll just speak for

[03:35:27] There's always a chase for more

[03:35:28] legitimacy. Like, am I legit yet?

[03:35:31] Am I like, do I need to be billionaire?

[03:35:33] Yeah. Do I need to be a billionaire to

[03:35:34] be legit? Do I need to be a deca

[03:35:36] billionaire to be legit? Like, when am I

[03:35:38] legit? Right? Um, which which really

[03:35:41] means when will everyone love me and no

[03:35:43] one hate me?

[03:35:46] But

[03:35:48] when I and I when I was writing that, I

[03:35:49] was thinking to myself like,

[03:35:52] oh, everyone loved me. Well, I've met a

[03:35:56] lot of people that I think that if they

[03:35:58] loved me, I don't think I would like me.

[03:36:00] I wouldn't see that as a compliment.

[03:36:02] Yeah. And so then it was like, "Oh,

[03:36:04] well, this is just this is a fixed cost.

[03:36:08] I just would prefer to be liked by the

[03:36:09] correct people and I should prefer to be

[03:36:12] disliked by the incorrect people." In

[03:36:15] which case, great. Some people didn't

[03:36:17] like me. That makes sense. I'm not for

[03:36:19] everyone.

[03:36:19] Adam Masion's got the two laws that

[03:36:21] govern the internet. The internet is a

[03:36:23] very big place and people have differing

[03:36:24] opinions.

[03:36:26] Just when you combine those two things

[03:36:28] together, it means that some huge

[03:36:31] portion of people are going to hate you.

[03:36:33] Yeah.

[03:36:33] And as you get exposed to more, given

[03:36:36] that the internet is a very big place. I

[03:36:38] had uh Joe Santagardo on the show. Um

[03:36:41] one of the biggest podcasts in the world

[03:36:42] recently sold out MSG [ __ ] huge. Sat

[03:36:45] there and the first thing that I said to

[03:36:46] him, I was like, "Dude, you they do the

[03:36:48] same plays as we do on Spotify. the same

[03:36:51] play. They got their award, their uh

[03:36:53] button award. That's literally the same

[03:36:55] announcement. I got mine. Nonzero number

[03:36:58] of [ __ ] plays, right? Worked very

[03:37:00] hard at it. Like, Joe, what do you think

[03:37:02] is the uh big podcast just sold at MSG.

[03:37:06] I do tours too. I podcast like how ven

[03:37:10] diagrammy how much? And he's like, I

[03:37:12] think it's like the headlights of a

[03:37:13] [ __ ] Jeep. It's like two big circles.

[03:37:15] He's 80% women at his live events. It's

[03:37:18] 90 95% women for him and his co-host.

[03:37:21] Hilarious comedian.

[03:37:23] I've never heard of it. So yeah,

[03:37:24] being on YouTube, The Basement Yard,

[03:37:25] Joe, like [ __ ] awesome talent. Like

[03:37:27] generational talent at what he does.

[03:37:31] All of the comments. All of the

[03:37:32] comments. I like this guy. Who the [ __ ]

[03:37:34] is he? The internet is a really big

[03:37:37] place. It's a really, really, really big

[03:37:39] place. And sometimes you can have that

[03:37:42] which is, wow, two van diagrams come

[03:37:44] together and they actually mix quite

[03:37:46] nicely. Other times it's like oil and

[03:37:48] water. And given the fact that the

[03:37:49] internet's a big place and lots of

[03:37:51] people have different tastes, the

[03:37:52] problem I think is

[03:37:55] taking feedback from people who you

[03:37:59] think are your people but aren't. M

[03:38:02] because the difference between huh this

[03:38:04] person is unencumbered and has a type of

[03:38:09] uh unbiased perspective of me that is

[03:38:11] novel and useful to take as opposed to

[03:38:14] people who have seen a lot of me and can

[03:38:16] frame maybe I was a bit mean but they

[03:38:18] know I've got enough ballast in the

[03:38:20] system that they give me a pass as

[03:38:22] opposed to this person that saw me for

[03:38:23] the first time was like I think you were

[03:38:24] a bit rude to that person you go [ __ ]

[03:38:26] actually do you know what maybe I was

[03:38:27] but the other side being this person

[03:38:30] just isn't my people

[03:38:33] determining those two from the internet

[03:38:36] with the disembodied egg profile thing

[03:38:39] or everybody everybody now especially

[03:38:42] with how the platforms work. Everybody

[03:38:43] can go viral because it's no longer

[03:38:46] about followers which I feel like

[03:38:49] unbelievably annoyed by that I was small

[03:38:52] when followers mattered and now I'm big

[03:38:54] when just content matters. Like I I

[03:38:56] invested into the market when it was

[03:38:58] really really difficult and now that I'm

[03:38:59] at the top of the market, it means that

[03:39:01] it's easy for everybody at the start.

[03:39:03] Whatever. But the same thing.

[03:39:05] How do you how do you really feel?

[03:39:06] Yeah, it's true. It's true. It is. It

[03:39:09] is. Uh the followers seem to matter an

[03:39:11] awful lot and meant that you just piss

[03:39:12] out huge plays because of your

[03:39:13] subscriber base. And now everybody, but

[03:39:16] the fact that anybody can go viral, how

[03:39:18] fantastic. It's egalitarian. It means

[03:39:19] that new creators can come through and

[03:39:20] I've seen lots of them and I coach lots

[03:39:22] of them and help them to try and get up.

[03:39:24] But at the same time, that means that

[03:39:25] people who aren't creators can go viral.

[03:39:28] Someone can just yap because they wanted

[03:39:30] to. I was on this American Airlines

[03:39:32] flight and I can't believe that this

[03:39:33] thing happened, but you wake up the next

[03:39:35] day and you're a headline. You go, "Ah,

[03:39:38] I don't know if all of these people who

[03:39:40] don't know who I am are my people or

[03:39:42] not." And the feedback is very difficult

[03:39:43] to discern.

[03:39:44] Or if they see the 15 seconds, I think

[03:39:46] there was that lady who had that she,

[03:39:47] you know, went off on the airline pilot.

[03:39:49] I I don't know anything about it. I

[03:39:50] literally only know that. I thought you

[03:39:52] were going to say the one about um that

[03:39:53] this is like 10 years old now. The chick

[03:39:55] that said uh I'm heading to Africa. Hope

[03:39:58] I don't get AIDS. Lol. Just joking. I'm

[03:40:00] white. Um and she got she tweeted it

[03:40:03] before she got on the plane. Got off the

[03:40:04] plane and her whole life was in flames.

[03:40:07] Family Guy did a bit about this. Brian

[03:40:09] did it before he got on a plane. So

[03:40:10] good.

[03:40:12] and they saw and the world saw however

[03:40:16] many less than you know 280 whatever the

[03:40:19] characters is and took that and then

[03:40:20] just said this I know everything about

[03:40:23] who you are yeah this is everything that

[03:40:24] you are

[03:40:25] um and I think that in a nutshell is

[03:40:27] like why we can't take too much weight

[03:40:28] for okay that they have consumed 280

[03:40:31] characters of every character that

[03:40:33] you've ever said or thought in the

[03:40:34] history of you it's like one thing that

[03:40:37] um I think brought to to argue the

[03:40:40] complete opposite side of this. Um, I

[03:40:43] think there's a very powerful question

[03:40:44] which is what if they're right.

[03:40:46] Mhm.

[03:40:47] And

[03:40:49] and so what? So, for example, I get a

[03:40:52] ton of like juice head gear, steroids,

[03:40:55] whatever.

[03:40:56] Said Jew said,

[03:40:59] I don't get that one. Um, but

[03:41:02] but I get a lot of like steroid related

[03:41:03] stuff, especially if I don't have uh,

[03:41:05] you know, my my flannel on. Um, and I

[03:41:08] used to be like really offended by it.

[03:41:10] And then uh Ila was like, "You've taken

[03:41:13] steroids." And I was like, "That is a

[03:41:15] fair point.

[03:41:17] What if that ride?"

[03:41:18] Yeah. And it's just like And I was like,

[03:41:19] "Oh, this makes sense." And then like

[03:41:22] Ila people, you know, get after her her

[03:41:24] voice being low and uh it's like she's

[03:41:27] like, "I took steroids."

[03:41:29] So yeah, that's how that happens.

[03:41:32] Anyways, uh

[03:41:33] moving on.

[03:41:34] Yeah.

[03:41:36] Do you know Joe Hudson? Have you come

[03:41:37] across him yet? No, he's been on my

[03:41:38] podcast. He's uh Sam Alman's coach, head

[03:41:41] of human culture, performance, something

[03:41:43] at OpenAI, like one of only maybe two or

[03:41:46] three people that deserve the title of

[03:41:47] master coach. Dr. K being one of them.

[03:41:49] Probably Tony, I guess, too. And uh his

[03:41:53] handle on Twitter is FU Joe Hudson. And

[03:41:57] I was like, where's the FU from? It's

[03:41:59] like because people say [ __ ] you Joe

[03:42:00] Hudson. because that one of my friends a

[03:42:03] long time ago said, "You know what, Joe,

[03:42:05] you're an asshole." And I thought about

[03:42:07] it for a while and I realized I am an

[03:42:09] [ __ ]

[03:42:11] So sometimes the things that people say

[03:42:13] to you just are true. They're just

[03:42:15] right. And in the fighting against it is

[03:42:19] where all of the pain is.

[03:42:20] That's all the pain. Exactly. And then

[03:42:21] as soon as that like that happened, I

[03:42:24] either that comment stopped happening as

[03:42:26] much or I stopped seeing it. I don't

[03:42:28] know which one actually happened but

[03:42:30] either way it stopped affecting me and

[03:42:32] so like I mean I guess it is simply a

[03:42:34] frame of acceptance of like what if

[03:42:36] they're right well maybe they are right

[03:42:38] and so what

[03:42:39] what does that mean? Oh, well the answer

[03:42:42] what works whether they're right or

[03:42:44] wrong.

[03:42:45] Which is why I mean that's one of your

[03:42:46] old ones, right?

[03:42:48] I'm thinking about one of my favorite

[03:42:51] lines of yours that I keep coming back

[03:42:53] to this year.

[03:42:55] The stress of being perfect will kill

[03:42:57] you more quickly than your

[03:42:58] imperfections.

[03:42:59] Stress of trying to be perfect will kill

[03:43:00] you more quickly than your

[03:43:01] imperfections. I think there's a

[03:43:04] burbling but pretty rapidly growing

[03:43:06] anti-optimization

[03:43:08] cult at the moment. And I think that

[03:43:10] people are feeling overwhelmed with

[03:43:13] advice. I think they're uncertain about

[03:43:14] the future. There's loads of chaos going

[03:43:16] on. Is AI gonna take my job? Is the Iran

[03:43:18] war going to bleed over here? What's

[03:43:19] going to happen? Is Trump going to run

[03:43:20] for a third term? Is there going to be a

[03:43:22] civil war? There's too much. There's too

[03:43:24] much information. I'm overwhelmed with

[03:43:25] screens. I haven't got good sleep. I'm

[03:43:26] taking too supplement. And they just

[03:43:28] want someone to simplify life. You can

[03:43:32] simplify life by trying to wrangle it

[03:43:33] down into an aggressive routine. But

[03:43:35] what that looks like from the outside a

[03:43:36] lot of the time is sort of fragility.

[03:43:38] And this is your America was built on

[03:43:40] the backs of men who ate bacon for

[03:43:41] breakfast and smoked cigarettes. Like if

[03:43:43] you miss your morning routine today,

[03:43:45] you'll be fine. Um the line between this

[03:43:49] is important for me to improve my mental

[03:43:50] health in order to create the structure

[03:43:52] that I need to make progress and this is

[03:43:55] a glorified rain dance that I'm doing

[03:43:57] because I'm superstitious about how

[03:43:59] things work. I even saw this with Joo.

[03:44:01] the first ever episode I did with Joo,

[03:44:03] he was in a bit of a

[03:44:07] tur mood as a tur man that was like tur

[03:44:11] squad and um and someone brought it up

[03:44:14] to him afterward uh a couple of months

[03:44:17] later on Twitter and he said I hadn't I

[03:44:19] hadn't trained that morning. I was in a

[03:44:20] bit of a grump

[03:44:22] hadn't been to the gym and I reflected

[03:44:24] about that a lot and I brought it up to

[03:44:25] him. I spent a few days with him over

[03:44:27] Christmas and uh I was like remember

[03:44:29] when that Yeah. So interesting because

[03:44:32] training is obviously the

[03:44:35] structure that you have built a lot of

[03:44:37] things on and it makes you feel good and

[03:44:39] it facilitates your performance

[03:44:41] but if the removal of the training

[03:44:45] doesn't allow you to do the thing there

[03:44:47] is a kind of fragility that's baked into

[03:44:49] the system there like you want to be

[03:44:51] able to perform regardless of whether

[03:44:52] you've got to train or not and the

[03:44:54] training builds on top. Does that make

[03:44:55] sense?

[03:44:55] A thousand%. If the if the routine that

[03:44:59] you do is additive, great. Then you have

[03:45:02] baseline performance without it. If the

[03:45:06] routine creates dependence to do

[03:45:09] baseline performance, then it becomes a

[03:45:11] crutch and then you become fragile. And

[03:45:13] so, yeah, I'm I would say on this on the

[03:45:15] spectrum of routine versus [ __ ]

[03:45:17] maxing, I'm on the [ __ ] maxing side of

[03:45:20] like just work. um grab, you know, grab

[03:45:23] your grab your stim grab your stimmies

[03:45:25] and uh and get to it. And I think it's

[03:45:27] because my I think one of my big fears

[03:45:29] um in life was is is becoming soft. Is

[03:45:32] allowing

[03:45:34] like nothing feels like success

[03:45:36] is letting the laurels soften me to the

[03:45:39] game, which is like the reason that I

[03:45:41] still do like Q&A with, you know,

[03:45:43] smaller business owners that are, you

[03:45:45] know, doing, you know, a few million

[03:45:46] dollar a year or whatever is that's

[03:45:48] going to come off weird.

[03:45:49] um

[03:45:52] is I have to stay connected to the

[03:45:54] earth. I have to stay like grounded here

[03:45:56] otherwise I will lose the edge that is

[03:45:58] where all the details are one.

[03:46:01] And so um I'm a I'm a

[03:46:05] as a flag for self. If you cannot

[03:46:08] function without your routine, your

[03:46:10] routine owns you. You do not own it.

[03:46:13] Full stop. If it's just additive, great.

[03:46:17] And that means that if you don't have

[03:46:18] it, you should still be able to win.

[03:46:19] Because one of my big beliefs is

[03:46:23] whenever someone has an excuse for

[03:46:24] losing that's like, "Well, it wasn't a

[03:46:25] perfect day for me." It's like there's

[03:46:28] this um scene in I think it's Invictus.

[03:46:30] It's uh Matt Damon movie. He's like a

[03:46:32] rug ball rugby player, whatever with

[03:46:34] Morgan Freeman,

[03:46:35] South South Africa. Mhm.

[03:46:36] And there's this scene where Morgan

[03:46:38] Freeman is Nelson Mandela and he's

[03:46:40] talking to Matt Damon

[03:46:42] and uh I think Matt Damon says something

[03:46:44] to the degree of you know uh we're we're

[03:46:46] not playing it 100%. And I think Morgan

[03:46:48] Freeman says no one ever is and it's it

[03:46:52] was it was like I don't even think it's

[03:46:53] a quoted part of the movie but I

[03:46:55] remember seeing that and being like [ __ ]

[03:46:58] like no one's ever at 100%. It's like

[03:47:00] saying I can I can win the I can win

[03:47:02] with if I have perfect weather, perfect

[03:47:04] conditions, perfect whatever. And so I

[03:47:06] think that's why having trying to get

[03:47:07] all the failures out so you can try to

[03:47:08] create or recreate the randomness that

[03:47:10] imperfect conditions can and still win.

[03:47:14] And I think that's why I'm such an

[03:47:15] advocate of of uh of just win like like

[03:47:20] it does like it just because the thing

[03:47:22] is is after the game is played no one

[03:47:24] remembers whether the ref gave you a bad

[03:47:26] call or the weather was bad or whether

[03:47:29] your starting lineup had two entries on

[03:47:30] it. No one remembers.

[03:47:33] And so if they're not going to remember

[03:47:34] it in 20 years, then it should be a

[03:47:35] reason that we're going to try and lose

[03:47:36] today.

[03:47:37] There's a Floyd Mayweather quote where

[03:47:40] he says, uh, you felt like you were on

[03:47:43] your A game today. And he says, I ain't

[03:47:45] got to use my A game, my B game, my C

[03:47:47] game. I can use my Z game. I don't even

[03:47:49] have to hit him hard. The result's going

[03:47:51] to be the same. The prospect of being

[03:47:53] able to beat somebody with your C game

[03:47:55] is really [ __ ] cool.

[03:47:56] I love it. It's violent.

[03:48:00] Most people think the hard part is

[03:48:01] getting started. The hard part is

[03:48:03] continuing to do the work when the

[03:48:04] excitement wears off and the grind feels

[03:48:06] hopeless.

[03:48:12] The visual that I always think about

[03:48:13] this is the marathons. Marathon runners

[03:48:16] is that people get excited at the very

[03:48:18] beginning of the marathon where there's

[03:48:19] all these balloons and their friends and

[03:48:21] they're like che them on. There's music

[03:48:23] and then at the end of the marathon is

[03:48:26] where everyone cheers you on at the end.

[03:48:27] But the marathon is one in the 26.1

[03:48:30] miles between those two tenth of a mile.

[03:48:33] And it is the boring, unending,

[03:48:35] relentless, mundane middle.

[03:48:37] And I think the game is mastering the

[03:48:39] middle. It's just the it's just

[03:48:40] unending, unyielding. And

[03:48:44] everyone can get motivated for a moment.

[03:48:47] It's just like people feel motivated,

[03:48:49] but like motivation is is incredibly

[03:48:51] ephemeral, right? It vanishes. And

[03:48:53] that's why having creating the

[03:48:55] conditions that make failure less likely

[03:48:57] is so important because if we can make

[03:49:00] successful actions the most likely

[03:49:02] actions, success becomes the most likely

[03:49:04] outcome.

[03:49:05] And I think that is like that is the

[03:49:08] piece that people miss because they

[03:49:10] actually stack their deck against

[03:49:12] themselves by never arranging the

[03:49:14] conditions to make successful actions

[03:49:15] the most likely action.

[03:49:18] So, it's like I have to have like I have

[03:49:22] to use perfect willpower to go out with

[03:49:23] my friends and not drink. I have to uh

[03:49:25] and because of that, I'm going to stay

[03:49:26] out late, but I can I'm going to have

[03:49:28] I'm going to get home and immediately

[03:49:29] fall asleep and and if I if I fall

[03:49:32] asleep perfectly, I will get up by the

[03:49:34] time that I have this interview or by

[03:49:35] the time I need to give this

[03:49:36] presentation. Um, and they need

[03:49:37] everything to go perfect in order to

[03:49:39] have one win. when it is much more let's

[03:49:43] use anti-fragile to set up the condition

[03:49:45] so that everything can go wrong and you

[03:49:47] can still win. So when we did the launch

[03:49:49] for the money models launch one of the

[03:49:51] frames that we had is we wanted it to be

[03:49:53] inevitable. And so in order for it to be

[03:49:54] inevitable we wanted to have three or

[03:49:56] four different ways that we could break

[03:49:57] the record

[03:49:59] was that like if we only do this we

[03:50:00] break the record. If we only do this we

[03:50:02] break the record. If only this happens

[03:50:04] we break the record. If only do this

[03:50:05] break we break the record. And we

[03:50:07] figured that if each of these had 80 or

[03:50:09] 90% likelihood of of of happening that

[03:50:12] the likelihood that we'd break the

[03:50:13] record would be very high. And at the

[03:50:15] end of the day, we still didn't know.

[03:50:16] But I think stacking probabilities

[03:50:20] and in in thinking about I'm going to

[03:50:22] I'm going to bridge this for a second,

[03:50:23] but I think the number of ways that

[03:50:26] people attack the problems in front of

[03:50:27] them is not nearly enough in terms of

[03:50:30] volume and not with nearly enough the

[03:50:31] intensity. Like they're not going at it

[03:50:34] with full measure. Like if you knew that

[03:50:36] your your family was going to die or the

[03:50:38] thing that you care about most was going

[03:50:39] to disappear. How differently would you

[03:50:40] attack this problem and how many

[03:50:43] different ways would you attack the

[03:50:44] problem? If you said, "Ah, man. I I

[03:50:45] don't have a job right now." It's like,

[03:50:46] "Okay, well, what have you actually

[03:50:48] done?" Right? And it's like, "Well, I

[03:50:49] applied to three places." It's like,

[03:50:50] "Okay, cool. Well, how long did that

[03:50:52] take you? It took me 45 minutes." Okay,

[03:50:54] how many hours are there in a week? How

[03:50:56] many hours are there in a month? What

[03:50:57] are you doing that's not that that is

[03:50:59] increasingly likely that you get it?

[03:51:00] Basically, nothing. And so there's

[03:51:02] nothing that stops you from applying to

[03:51:03] a 100red or a thousand jobs in a month.

[03:51:05] And the likelihood if you apply to a

[03:51:06] thousand jobs and you have the requisite

[03:51:08] uh requirements that you don't get one

[03:51:09] is very low. And so it's just like why

[03:51:11] are you not doing that? And I don't know

[03:51:13] the answer to that because I've just

[03:51:14] been a relatively violent person by

[03:51:16] nature.

[03:51:17] Um

[03:51:18] but I think once you have a very clear

[03:51:20] path to getting what you want, it's like

[03:51:22] okay, how do I remove everything that

[03:51:23] prevents me from getting it?

[03:51:24] Mhm.

[03:51:25] Mhm.

[03:51:28] Not in a self agrandizing way. I am

[03:51:29] flawed too, but I'm just saying it

[03:51:31] helps.

[03:51:33] It's It is true that more dreams are

[03:51:35] destroyed by distraction than

[03:51:36] incompetence.

[03:51:38] And that's in the micro, but in the

[03:51:39] macro as well,

[03:51:40] a billion%. If you had So, if you had a

[03:51:44] a white room that you were locked into,

[03:51:46] and there was nothing in the white room

[03:51:49] except for one black dot. What is the

[03:51:52] most interesting thing in that room? The

[03:51:54] one black dot. And so people struggle to

[03:51:57] get motivated to do the work because

[03:52:01] there are other more interesting things

[03:52:03] to do than the work. And so you're not

[03:52:05] going to willpower your way through

[03:52:07] making work more interesting. But you

[03:52:08] can absolutely put yourself in a

[03:52:10] situation where work becomes the most

[03:52:12] interesting thing.

[03:52:14] And that is how you do a shitload of

[03:52:16] work.

[03:52:17] We talked a lot about risk. I said, you

[03:52:19] know, over the last sort of 12 months,

[03:52:22] looking at what you've talked about,

[03:52:23] uncertainty,

[03:52:25] managing risk, but respect is something

[03:52:28] else you've been thinking about a good

[03:52:29] bit. What have you another R word, the

[03:52:31] other R word? What have you been

[03:52:32] thinking about to do with respect?

[03:52:34] Well,

[03:52:36] one that you

[03:52:37] I'm so excited you I'm so excited you

[03:52:38] asked. Um, so I've been trying to think

[03:52:41] about

[03:52:43] the operation of respect because I

[03:52:45] thought, okay, what what is something

[03:52:47] that I' I've wanted my whole life,

[03:52:49] right? I think many men want respect.

[03:52:51] Some people say status, but I'll I'll

[03:52:53] define respect um as this.

[03:52:59] So respect is letting someone else's

[03:53:02] word change what you do even when they

[03:53:04] cannot make you. So if I respect

[03:53:07] someone,

[03:53:08] what they what they say changes what I

[03:53:11] do even though they cannot force me to

[03:53:13] do it.

[03:53:14] And so there's two sides of respect.

[03:53:17] There's the earning of respect and

[03:53:18] there's the giving of respect. And so I

[03:53:20] was trying to encapsulate this into an

[03:53:23] acronym that I could remember because I

[03:53:24] know I'm going to talk about this a lot,

[03:53:25] especially with our leaders, the

[03:53:26] company, because leaders want respect.

[03:53:28] That makes sense. But how do you how how

[03:53:31] how do you gain respect and then also

[03:53:33] not pass the line of being a tyrant,

[03:53:35] right? And so the acronym that I have is

[03:53:38] powers which is the behaviors that earn

[03:53:41] respect is number one is that you pay

[03:53:43] the cost which is that you sacrifice for

[03:53:45] the group where they can see it. So if I

[03:53:49] I remember the first time um so when I

[03:53:51] was when I was a pledge back in my

[03:53:52] fraternity days it's a group where

[03:53:54] everyone's even right no one's no one's

[03:53:56] special and there was a particular

[03:53:59] senior who was known for being a bad

[03:54:00] hazer and he called the goats and so the

[03:54:03] goats had to go to the house and you had

[03:54:05] to go in pairs right and so he called

[03:54:07] one guy and the guy was like

[03:54:08] it's goats it's just a derogative term

[03:54:10] derogatory term for a pledge

[03:54:13] okay

[03:54:15] yeah worms goats whatever um well goats

[03:54:17] cuz they're gophers and they go do [ __ ]

[03:54:18] for you. Anyways, they um and so he just

[03:54:21] looked at the group of, you know, 18

[03:54:22] other guys and he's like, "Who wants to

[03:54:25] come with me?" Cuz we knew he was going

[03:54:27] to get hazed. So, somebody just has to

[03:54:29] basically sacrifice themselves. And so,

[03:54:31] I remember was like, "I'll go with you,

[03:54:32] dude." And it's a tiny act where that

[03:54:35] sacrifice gains respect from the whole

[03:54:38] group because that micro benefits

[03:54:40] everybody else for not having to go

[03:54:41] through it. And so, when you are in a

[03:54:43] new organization, this is the operation

[03:54:46] for respect. you sacrifice yourself in a

[03:54:48] way that benefits the whole um in a way

[03:54:51] that is visible. You don't have to do it

[03:54:52] visibly because then it looks cringe but

[03:54:53] like they will see it eventually.

[03:54:55] Signing up early.

[03:54:57] Yeah. Number two is outcomes which is

[03:55:00] that things get better when you are

[03:55:01] involved for everyone. And so

[03:55:03] functionally it's competence which I

[03:55:05] would define as outcomes improve with

[03:55:07] your involvement that are traceable to

[03:55:08] you repeatedly. So it's the opposite of

[03:55:10] luck or free riding right? Three is

[03:55:14] word. Your word, right? The W, which is

[03:55:16] what you say will happen happens. And

[03:55:18] what you say you'll do, you do.

[03:55:21] E is in force. And this is the sticky

[03:55:23] one I'll get to more in a second, but

[03:55:25] it's you don't let people cross you

[03:55:27] consistently.

[03:55:29] The R is restraint, which is that you

[03:55:32] hold back when you could punish more and

[03:55:34] you give more credit than you need to.

[03:55:37] And then S is steady is that you

[03:55:39] function in highstake situations the

[03:55:42] same as normal situations.

[03:55:45] And so what ends up happening is that

[03:55:49] enforcement is basically your compliance

[03:55:52] floor which is that if I enforce rules

[03:55:54] of like this is how I want to be treated

[03:55:57] then people will at baseline just do

[03:56:01] that. But that is where you have a

[03:56:02] tyrant on it on their own because you

[03:56:04] need the other ones to have respect. You

[03:56:06] have to be competent. Like if you have

[03:56:08] just uh enforcement of rules but you

[03:56:10] have no competence, things is not better

[03:56:11] for anyone, you've never beared any

[03:56:13] cost,

[03:56:14] everyone [ __ ] hates that guy. And the

[03:56:15] moment their ability to make that

[03:56:17] person's life worse goes away, so does

[03:56:19] the behavior. And so the key that

[03:56:21] separates basically fear driven or

[03:56:23] compliance versus respect is that they

[03:56:25] have to be able to do it even when you

[03:56:27] have no ability to make them.

[03:56:29] Now on the flip side, if you have all of

[03:56:31] the competence things, but you have no

[03:56:33] enforcement, then you're the admired

[03:56:35] doormat. you do things for everyone, but

[03:56:36] like no one respects you.

[03:56:39] So then the next thing that comes up is

[03:56:41] like, okay, so enforcement, and this is

[03:56:43] probably the hairiest of the of the ones

[03:56:45] that is still required. And so there's

[03:56:47] three things that have to happen in

[03:56:49] order for you to be obligated to enforce

[03:56:52] a standard, which is that number one,

[03:56:54] someone has to know the standard you

[03:56:56] have. You're like, "Please do not talk

[03:56:57] to me that way. Please do not address me

[03:56:58] in that manner." whatever the whatever

[03:57:00] whatever do not do not turn in the

[03:57:02] dinner that's cold whatever

[03:57:05] they have to have a known standard.

[03:57:07] Number two is that they have to have the

[03:57:08] ability to adhere to that standard and

[03:57:10] then three choose not to.

[03:57:12] Mhm.

[03:57:13] Now a lot of times people can feel

[03:57:14] disrespected but if you've never

[03:57:16] articulated that this is a preference of

[03:57:18] yours that you do things a certain way

[03:57:20] and then you basically punish someone

[03:57:22] for treating you in a specific way

[03:57:23] without ever having told them then that

[03:57:25] is when you'll be seen as tyrannical.

[03:57:26] unspoken standards are premeditated

[03:57:28] disrespects.

[03:57:29] Yeah. And so, so imagine the situation

[03:57:32] where you have a chef who's, you know,

[03:57:35] he takes a a [ __ ] hole, turns it around,

[03:57:38] is, you know, best-in-class chef, and

[03:57:40] he's got um a new and he's known for

[03:57:42] both being incredibly hard, but everyone

[03:57:45] who works for him loves him. So, it's

[03:57:47] like, how do we how do we manage these

[03:57:48] this apparent contradiction? So, new new

[03:57:51] sue chef comes in, messes something up.

[03:57:54] The plate get comes back in, and then

[03:57:56] the head chef takes it, dumps it, and

[03:57:58] looks at the kid.

[03:58:01] He says, "You just cost us that table.

[03:58:03] We're going to comp the bill, but don't

[03:58:05] worry, you're still with us. Show up

[03:58:07] again at 6 a.m. tomorrow and do better."

[03:58:10] So, you have the moment. We have to

[03:58:11] enforce it, but it's about the behavior,

[03:58:13] not the person. And that's the big

[03:58:14] that's the big unlock.

[03:58:15] What would doing it about the person

[03:58:17] look like? So it's basically you lazy

[03:58:21] piece of [ __ ] It's basically labeling

[03:58:22] them rather than the behavior and

[03:58:24] criticizing who they are rather than

[03:58:25] what they did. And so the three things

[03:58:28] is number one, it has to be a known

[03:58:30] rule. Number two, they have to have the

[03:58:33] ability to follow it. And number three,

[03:58:34] choose not to. That is when a

[03:58:36] transgression occurs. Now then it comes

[03:58:39] into okay what are the consequences that

[03:58:41] happen? Does that mean that you just let

[03:58:42] people transgress after you say hey

[03:58:44] don't do that and hey don't worry I

[03:58:45] still love you. Well, the consequence

[03:58:48] for crossing you needs to be consistent,

[03:58:50] which means that every time someone

[03:58:52] crosses you, there needs to be a

[03:58:53] consequence. If there isn't, then you

[03:58:55] teach people to gamble with you because

[03:58:57] it's a re it's a variable reinforcer.

[03:58:59] You need to have consistent reinforcers

[03:59:00] which extinguishes the behavior. And so,

[03:59:02] it has to be consistent. It has to be

[03:59:04] immediate and it has to be escalating.

[03:59:06] Which means if the first time I tell you

[03:59:08] I say, "Don't worry, you're with us. Be

[03:59:10] here tomorrow. Do better." Fine. If you

[03:59:13] do it again, then it's like you're off

[03:59:15] for the night. If you do it again, you

[03:59:18] don't come back. And so there has to be

[03:59:20] an escalating consequence because what

[03:59:22] happens is at some moment it stops being

[03:59:24] about punishing the behavior and it

[03:59:26] should be about punishing the pattern of

[03:59:28] behavior which then means it is the

[03:59:30] person which might be at that point I

[03:59:31] don't want to I don't want to train this

[03:59:32] person anymore. And so at that point you

[03:59:35] have to respect the standard for

[03:59:38] everyone. and out of owing it to

[03:59:39] everyone, we have to let this person go

[03:59:42] even if they're a perceived high

[03:59:43] performer.

[03:59:45] And so, um, the flip side of it, so

[03:59:48] that's the how you earn respect is you

[03:59:50] do powers. You sacrifice for the group.

[03:59:52] You have outcomes that you demonstrate

[03:59:53] competence for. Your word is your bond.

[03:59:55] You do what you say you're going to do.

[03:59:56] You enforce the standards publicly,

[03:59:59] swiftly, consistently, and escalatingly.

[04:00:02] You show restraint when you could yell

[04:00:05] like go [ __ ] nuts on this kid for

[04:00:07] [ __ ] something up. you choose not to

[04:00:09] even though you could. And then S is

[04:00:11] that you're steady even when the the

[04:00:12] biggest Michelin star uh judge is there,

[04:00:15] you still act the exact same way as

[04:00:16] though they were just a normal dinner

[04:00:18] table. On the flip side, it's like,

[04:00:20] okay, how do I give respect? Because

[04:00:23] this is equal opposite. If you're like,

[04:00:24] well, this person needs to show me

[04:00:26] respect. And I think this is important

[04:00:27] because if you're like, I felt

[04:00:28] disrespected. Well, one, did we did we

[04:00:31] say what our preference was? And this

[04:00:32] has been super useful for me because I

[04:00:34] sometimes will feel disrespected by

[04:00:35] somebody who who doesn't know. And so it

[04:00:37] helped me just to say, "Hey, you might

[04:00:39] not have known this. Don't do this

[04:00:40] again. We're still cool. You didn't

[04:00:42] know.

[04:00:43] If you do it again, now we have a

[04:00:44] problem." Right? So I uh I just came up

[04:00:48] with an acronym hearted, which is all

[04:00:49] all I could make from my memory. But

[04:00:51] basically, honor, which is that you

[04:00:53] respect their preferences, you respect

[04:00:54] their lines, and you don't test the

[04:00:55] limits. E is esteem. So you praise them

[04:00:58] when they are not present.

[04:01:01] Attend, which is that you listen to them

[04:01:03] without cutting in or interrupting.

[04:01:06] You are reliable in that your word is as

[04:01:08] good to them as as there's as theirs is

[04:01:10] to you. If you say, "I've got the soup,"

[04:01:12] you'll get the soup. You show them

[04:01:14] respect by saying what you said you were

[04:01:15] going to do to honor them. The next is

[04:01:18] truth. And this is where it gets a

[04:01:19] little bit more interesting. You tell

[04:01:21] them straight, including what they will

[04:01:23] not like. And so that means that if you

[04:01:24] really respect someone, you don't cuddle

[04:01:26] them,

[04:01:27] just like a parent would respect a

[04:01:28] child. I'm not going to dumb this down

[04:01:30] for you.

[04:01:32] And then E, this is another hard one, is

[04:01:34] expectations. is that you hold them to

[04:01:35] the same standard

[04:01:38] and so you don't lower the bar for

[04:01:39] someone because otherwise that's just

[04:01:40] watering it down and diluting it.

[04:01:42] Don't talk down to me.

[04:01:43] Bring the standard down to their level

[04:01:44] of comfort.

[04:01:45] Exactly. And so it's equal opposite. And

[04:01:47] then finally, D is defer. Is that in

[04:01:49] their area of expertise, you defer to

[04:01:50] their decisions. And so this has been

[04:01:52] really helpful for me to define this

[04:01:54] because respect is one word, but it has

[04:01:55] many behaviors underneath of it. And so

[04:01:57] by defining it that way, it's been

[04:01:59] incredibly helpful because when I'm

[04:02:01] talking to leaders, it's like you need

[04:02:02] to earn respect and resp and you earn

[04:02:04] respect in this way. And that way I

[04:02:06] could say you have not visibly

[04:02:07] sacrificed anything for this group or

[04:02:09] the outcomes that you've generated in no

[04:02:11] way have demonstrated competence or you

[04:02:13] said you would do this thing and then

[04:02:14] you haven't done it or uh you are

[04:02:17] allowing people to treat you in a way

[04:02:19] that is not the way that a trader a

[04:02:21] leader would allow someone to treat them

[04:02:23] and you have not enforced anything.

[04:02:25] Um I would say that that happens on the

[04:02:27] E happens on both sides. I would say

[04:02:28] that I have some leaders in the company

[04:02:30] for example who are overly enforcing and

[04:02:32] people absolutely comply with what they

[04:02:34] tell them to do but it's because it's

[04:02:36] all out of fear

[04:02:37] of just get just don't cross them right

[04:02:39] but you don't know what they're what it

[04:02:41] is which just means that they look like

[04:02:42] a loose cannon.

[04:02:44] Um on the other side you've got the

[04:02:45] people who are really competent but

[04:02:46] they're just like ah you know it's okay

[04:02:48] you know like you know happy golucky but

[04:02:49] like they don't get the respect because

[04:02:51] they never earn force anything. I can

[04:02:52] think of two different leaders in my

[04:02:53] company right now that are on both sides

[04:02:55] of this. Both competent, but one that

[04:02:57] probably over enforces and another that

[04:02:59] basically underinforces. But until I had

[04:03:01] the words and these behaviors, I can't

[04:03:04] give them good feedback, which is why

[04:03:07] I'm so adamant about defining these

[04:03:08] terms in terms of behavior because then

[04:03:09] I can actually help someone gain

[04:03:10] respect. And so if you were like, man, I

[04:03:13] [ __ ] no one respects me. It's like,

[04:03:14] well, there's the list.

[04:03:16] What things did you miss or what things

[04:03:18] have you not done? And that's just like

[04:03:20] this is something that I've it's

[04:03:21] obviously a huge passion of mine because

[04:03:23] defining the vague or defining the

[04:03:24] amorphous in terms that people can be

[04:03:26] like wow I I did that operation and I

[04:03:29] now have gotten respect.

[04:03:30] Yeah.

[04:03:31] Yeah. Like that's very cool for me. I

[04:03:32] read a really great essay about uh how

[04:03:38] status is accumulated and there's

[04:03:41] broadly two ways especially ancestrally

[04:03:44] dominance and prestige. Mhm.

[04:03:46] And the interesting thing is that in

[04:03:47] times of war, tribes tend to prefer

[04:03:50] dominant leaders. Problem being that a

[04:03:53] time of war hopefully, if you don't

[04:03:55] lose, will last. It'll end. Then you're

[04:03:59] stuck with this tyrannical dominant guy

[04:04:01] who's surrounded himself with sick fans.

[04:04:04] And that's when you want someone who's

[04:04:05] prestigious. And to find someone who's

[04:04:07] prestigious, the issue being that

[04:04:09] sometimes they're not as decisive or as

[04:04:10] cutthroat as you need in a time of

[04:04:13] crisis. And um

[04:04:17] this was the issue with Churchill,

[04:04:18] right? I mean Churchill was like an

[04:04:19] amazing wartime leader and then didn't

[04:04:21] he didn't do as well after a bit of a

[04:04:22] tyrant. Yeah. I mean he he wasn't built

[04:04:24] as a peace time leader. Yeah. He just

[04:04:26] that wasn't what he needed.

[04:04:28] UK history.

[04:04:28] Yeah. Of course, dude. Here's one about

[04:04:30] Churchill. I'm reading The Splendid and

[04:04:32] the Vile, which is the best book about

[04:04:34] Church. You'll only go the whole book. I

[04:04:36] think it's 500 pages and it's

[04:04:39] 18 months is what it covers. And it's

[04:04:41] all of the journals and diary entries

[04:04:43] from all of the different people. Best

[04:04:45] thing that I learned about Churchill so

[04:04:47] far is that he really hated whistling.

[04:04:49] He was like allergic to whistling. And

[04:04:52] there was one day there was a boy that

[04:04:53] was walking down the street whistling.

[04:04:54] And he ended up in this huge back and

[04:04:56] forth with this like 11-year-old kid,

[04:04:58] you know, some street urchin.

[04:05:02] And uh Churchill, one of the biggest

[04:05:04] wars before his uh uh like campaign

[04:05:07] began was between him and this

[04:05:08] 11-year-old child. Brilliant. Absolutely

[04:05:10] brilliant. Uh, finishing this off, just

[04:05:13] talking about like probably the word of

[04:05:14] the day, risk.

[04:05:17] You can't get rich if you never risk

[04:05:19] losing money. You can't get loved if you

[04:05:21] never risk getting rejected. You can't

[04:05:23] get strong if you never risk getting

[04:05:24] injured. You have to risk looking broke

[04:05:26] to get rich. You have to risk looking

[04:05:28] weak to get strong. You have to risk

[04:05:30] looking desperate to get loved. Egos

[04:05:32] hold back more dreams than failure and

[04:05:34] rejection ever will.

[04:05:48] It's like risk not have not. It's like

[04:05:50] you have to put something on the altar

[04:05:53] at the most basic level. It's like the

[04:05:54] first step is what you're willing to

[04:05:56] lose. And it's

[04:05:59] it is trade of a known and inferior

[04:06:02] thing for a unknown and superior thing.

[04:06:07] And it's the fact that it's unknown that

[04:06:09] is the thing that bugs everyone.

[04:06:10] And I think

[04:06:12] most of

[04:06:16] gains, most of the gains in life and the

[04:06:19] the lack of gains come from

[04:06:25] being unwilling

[04:06:32] to sacrifice mediocrity.

[04:06:37] It's interesting to think about

[04:06:38] sacrificing mediocrity,

[04:06:40] right? But that is that I think that is

[04:06:41] the that is the appropriate term. People

[04:06:44] fear being less than extraordinary and

[04:06:48] in so doing sacrifice being

[04:06:50] extraordinary.

[04:06:51] Mhm.

[04:06:54] It's like you sacrifice one either way.

[04:06:56] And so either you sacrifice being

[04:06:58] extraordinary to be ordinary or you

[04:07:01] sacrifice ordinary for the chance at

[04:07:03] being extraordinary or less than

[04:07:04] ordinary.

[04:07:05] But if you really think about it, many

[04:07:07] people who are ordinary have failed. And

[04:07:09] so you're really just still ordinary.

[04:07:11] And so why would you not sacrifice

[04:07:12] ordinary for extraordinary?

[04:07:16] [ __ ] yeah, man. I appreciate you. It's

[04:07:19] always good to sit down with you.

[04:07:21] Pleasure was mine as always. All right.

[04:07:23] See you next time, everyone. Dude.

[04:07:27] Yes. Yes.

[04:07:29] So good.

[04:07:31] We speak [ __ ]

[04:07:36] There we go. Sit back down. You can uh

[04:07:39] present you with two versions

[04:07:42] of a very famous photo that's going to

[04:07:44] be behind you for most of the episodes.

[04:07:46] A Rembrandt.

[04:07:47] Yeah.

[04:07:47] Uh an original.

[04:07:48] Yeah, this is an original. I'm not sure

[04:07:49] if you've noticed.

[04:07:50] Um I'd like to thank my friends and

[04:07:53] family. Uh

[04:07:57] Your hair is also really short here,

[04:07:59] too. So, you look like in this one, you

[04:08:00] look like a child with the

[04:08:02] I do.

[04:08:03] I look like some sort of freak child

[04:08:05] with bicep veins.

[04:08:06] I think it's like ancient chip and

[04:08:08] nails.

[04:08:09] Yes, it is. But for some reason, For

[04:08:10] some reason, you're in Hawaiian shorts.

[04:08:12] I didn't notice that. And then the one

[04:08:14] behind it is the uh this is the

[04:08:16] original.

[04:08:18] All class.

[04:08:19] It's just Yeah. All class, no breaks. I

[04:08:22] love how they've kept me in a necklace,

[04:08:24] but this one's become like so Barack.

[04:08:27] Yeah,

[04:08:29] we're a tasteful group.

[04:08:30] I think we're looking at at truth.

[04:08:32] That's true. That's correct. That's

[04:08:34] correct. Disregard risk. Look at truth.

[04:08:36] Yeah.

[04:08:37] Yeah. [ __ ] yeah.

[04:08:41] Congratulations. You made it to the end

[04:08:42] of a full podcast episode. You are not

[04:08:44] so Tik Tok brain that you've completely

[04:08:46] dissolved into nothingness.

[04:08:49] Why not watch another one right here?

[04:08:53] Go on, press it.