00:00
If you wanna stay being a broke idiot, don't listen to the CEO. And then he'll be like, like, here's the first lesson for you. Do this. And I know what you're gonna say. Blah blah blah. Here's what I say about that. And then he'll like flashes like fancy shit.
00:21
So Sam texted me this morning, and he goes, we did over a hundred million
00:27
views this year for the podcast. And a hundred million, I thought he was wrong. I was like, no way. You gotta go double check that. He was right. We did, and that is way more than I thought we did. That is a bonkers number. I remember when we started this podcast, that sounded
00:44
completely crazy.
00:46
And what we wanted to do today, it's the end of the year.
00:49
We wanted to look back and find what were the key takeaways and lessons
00:54
that we learned
00:56
from the hundred million views that we had this year on the podcast. So what were the biggest
01:01
things that stood out when we look at the whole year were the biggest takeaways that we had.
01:06
Sam, where where do you wanna start? Yeah. Let me let's just get the lead out the way. Let start with the numbers. So I'm gonna give you I'll be transparent about a bunch of numbers, but not all, but a few.
01:17
Alright. So in the last
01:21
eleven so we have eleven we have ten days left in the New Year. So I we're not actually at a hundred million. I think technically we're at ninety five million, but I think it's the past few months. It's been, like, five million a week. So on YouTube,
01:33
we got eighty million downloads or eighty million views so far. That includes YouTube shorts, which is
01:41
those pop off sometimes and we'll get millions of views. And so I don't put too much emphasis on that. But so,
01:47
YouTube was around eighty million. And then downloads for the podcast, the actual podcast. So we call we call everything the podcast, but there's basically we call it the RSS feed that's spotify iTunes, whatever you listen to your podcast,
02:00
that was around fifteen million. And so collectively, we're at about ninety five million. We did a hundred and thirty one episodes,
02:08
which is a ton, by the way. Like, this job, it's fun, but that's a lot of work. Do you agree?
02:15
Like, or or do you do you still think that every episode is fun? Every episode is fun to me. And I feel like I'm able to,
02:24
I feel like I'm able to improvise well. So it is a lot of work,
02:29
but there are some days. Some of our best episodes are ideas we have
02:33
ninety minutes before we record. And someone sends a text saying, actually, what if we tried this?
02:39
And,
02:40
those turn out really well sometimes. I think it's because
02:43
What we've tried to do is make this podcast the byproduct of the other work we do. So it's like the the basic business model is do interesting business shit. So So invest in businesses, create businesses, talk to interesting people.
02:56
And then the pro pod is just distill the, you know, the the most interesting ten percent you're allowed to talk about and go talk about it. And so if we do that right, the pod's pretty easy. When we don't do that right, then the pod gets pretty hard. But it's kind of like exercising.
03:10
Like, some days I don't want to do it, and then almost every single time, even if it's a bad episode or something I didn't, like, I didn't love, I feel happy and I'm proud that I did it. So for me, it's it's it's like exercise. Alright. And I'll give you a few more stats. So do you want me to go through the most pop the top three most popular episodes? Yeah. What are they?
03:30
Alright. So we actually have two categories. So which is weird because the most popular episodes on YouTube are not the most popular episodes on
03:39
podcasts. So, again, RSS feed. So the three most popular episodes on megaphone, that's what we use to track this. First one is the greatest businesses of all times. Syops as a service work harder, not smarter hack. That was the the title. The second one was brainstorming chat, GPT, business ideas with billionaire, Darmesh Shah.
03:57
And the third one, shockingly, I didn't think this was gonna be the top one or one of the top ones was Nick Nick Huber, how to make millions from content without selling ads? That was the most popular, the top three most popular on podcasts. The top three most popular on YouTube It was the same one actually. It was brainstorming chat, GPT, business ideas with a billionaire. It was with Darmesh Shah that has four hundred fifty thousand views.
04:18
I don't know this for sure. I think he did something Dharmesh did to manipulate this. I think he,
04:24
for sure, emailed this out to his audience, I wouldn't be surprised if he bought ads or did something because Dharmesh loves to win and be number one. So he's number one on YouTube.
04:33
The second most popular one on YouTube,
04:36
ten years of money wisdom in under twenty minutes, four hundred and twenty five thousand, that is you by yourself. And I think you made that episode with YouTube in mind. Is that right? Yeah. Made that as a YouTube first.
04:47
And it worked. And then the third one was very recent. It was November second. How I bought a multimillion dollar a carton business for zero dollars, three hundred ninety one thousand views on YouTube, Sarah Moore, and Sean. And then I'll just say the fourth one was Martin Screlli when we interviewed him that had two hundred fifty seven thousand views.
05:05
So
05:06
that was a the some of those were a bit surprising. What do you think about that? Those make sense to me. I mean, each of those is basically
05:13
when I read the title, I'm like, yeah, I'd click. I'd click that. And that's basically what what works on YouTube is I click that and then you gotta deliver on the promise. And so,
05:23
you know, maybe this is maybe this whole content thing is a lot simpler, and you just gotta get the get the titles right. And then you work backwards from there, make the content off the title.
05:31
Well, and this this point is for any content creator out there. We, you and I, this show, we are kind of bastard children of content creators. So we started without YouTube.
05:42
We only went for
05:44
podcast downloads on podcast apps.
05:47
I think we had a YouTube channel, but it was really, like, you and I went to the best by, and we bought a camera, and we just set it there, and we just uploaded it. And and so we didn't really care about it. I think we'd only started caring about a year ago. And,
06:01
What's crazy is
06:03
if you really wanna do it the right way, or maybe not, but the really right way is you start with one in mind and you go all in on that. We didn't go all in on YouTube.
06:13
I don't think we should have, but
06:16
but I understand the argument that we should have because what works on YouTube doesn't always work on RSS Feed and vice versa.
06:22
And so speaking of YouTube, by the way, do you wanna hear here's a few more stats?
06:27
So we added, so we did a hundred and thirty one episodes. We added about two hundred fifty thousand subscribers. Oh, sorry, two hundred ten thousand subscribers subscribers. We started the year at a hundred and fifty thousand, and we ended with three hundred and sixty thousand. And you wanna know the the biggest needle mover besides actually caring about YouTube do you wanna know what it was that got a subscribers?
06:47
I I'm gonna guess it's the gentleman agreement. Is that not it? The the gentleman's agreement. And so for all the listeners out there, here's another takeaway. When you hear a YouTuber say, click the subscribe button and all that, and you hear everyone say that and it gets you you think it doesn't matter. We saw a
07:03
there's a distinct
07:05
point in the chart where we asked people to subscribe, and it went up. And so, like, it absolutely works. And so it's sort of like the thing. You know how people say,
07:14
why are you buying ads on Facebook? Nobody uses Facebook. No one clicks ads,
07:19
Nonsense. That is absolutely not true.
07:23
I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?
07:26
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
07:35
HubSpot, grow better.
07:39
Yeah. And, actually, that was one of my takeaways for the year was
07:42
when we were like, alright. We start growing on YouTube, what are we, you know, what are we not like about what what's stopping us from wanting to do that? And one of the things is dude. I don't wanna be that guy. He was like, alright, guys. If you like this video, click the like button and smash the subscribe button and turn on notifications as well. It's like, oh, god. I gotta turn into you know, like, inflatable arm YouTube guy.
08:02
And, you know, like, in front of the car dealerships, it's like that, that way, you know, conflatable arm balloon thing. Was like, oh, god. I don't wanna do this. But you had a really great idea of this idea of the gentleman's agreement. So, basically, how do you do
08:14
the cringe thing in the non cringe way. Right? How do you turn lemons into lemonade? You did it with a gentleman's agreement. I think we also did it recently with the thrill of the shill, where it's like, yeah. Alright. Look.
08:25
We wanna have ads to promote our businesses. Cool. That's fine. And I think the audience gets that that's fine. But how do we not make this an experience that's annoying for us to do, like, sit down and record these, like, shitty ad reads.
08:37
And then on the audience side, they just wanna hit the skip button. It's like, what would be neither? What would be fun for us and fax fun for them to listen to. And then when we switched to the thrill of the show, I feel like that was a good idea.
08:49
And I think that's something that people should do more of if you could pull it off. Right?
08:53
You should basically set a standard of, like, no. No. No. I'm gonna have my cake and eat it too. And, I feel like we did that in two areas this year. And I I feel like that's a That's something worth
09:03
worth remembering as we go into next year of, like, alright. What would also be, instead
09:09
of something that's kind of lame or a bit of a drag or just kind of extra work. How do we make it awesome for us and the audience? Because it didn't take that much more effort do that. It just took a little bit of, you know, charm. No. And it wasn't hard at all. The the problem was the gentleman's agreement that we would always tell people about. It, like, faded out. Like, it got We forgot. It got not it got not novel. And we were like, oh, shit. We have to come up with another one. And I, like, watch all these YouTube videos, and I just see one and I write down, and I'm, like, copying that, copying that. And I just have forgot to say it. So we've screwed up by not being consistent. Do you wanna go, like,
09:45
tit for tat a little bit and, like, just go through, like, interesting things that you've learned throughout the year? Yeah. Yeah. Alright.
09:51
I'll go first with one. So
09:53
this podcast is steady yeti. This podcast is the tortoise not the hare. So it grows
10:00
very steadily. You could put up this chart from social blade that's, like, your our YouTube growth. And it's great. And that, you know, we started the year under a hundred fifty thousand. We're ending the year almost four hundred thousand.
10:11
But there's, like, no spikes. This thing is just a line that's just creeping up, like, a, you know, like,
10:18
This is, like, if my uncle goes for a hike, this is what it would look. This is, like, what it would look like. It's a it's a map. It's, like, this is his straw, right here. And so I'm, like, what is this? This is so different than everything else I do because
10:30
I am much more of a
10:32
go for the home run, try to do something incredible,
10:35
And then if it doesn't work, or even if it's, like, you know, you find something that's good,
10:39
just don't really follow through. And this is, like, a leak in my game in a way, but I kind of took some tried in this.
10:46
Let me give you some examples. So on Twitter, we all joined this group chat called the hundred k club. We all had, I don't know, ten to twenty thousand Twitter followers, and we all, five or six friends, we all wanted to hit a hundred k. We independently had that goal, and we all did it.
11:03
We all surpassed it.
11:05
But we all did it very differently.
11:08
Nick Huber, Nick Huber did it, and he's kind of polarizing So he'll say controversial shit that, he believes, but he'll kinda spice it up a little bit. He knows what he's doing. He uses controversy to grow. And Sal Hill is like, every day I wake up, and I open a fortune cookie, and then I type it out to whatever it was. I'll put that onto it. I'll do it every single day, and I'll do a thread every every Tuesday and Thursday. And why would I not? It works. And we're like, why would it not? Cause it's so boring to do that, but he's
11:37
He did it, and he did it. And he grew the most out of all of us. I think he's, like, at a million. And he did it with, like, what I'll call more cookie cutter stuff Yeah. Feel good.
11:48
You know, kept it, you know, pretty safe. No controversy.
11:52
No real, like, I would say, like, not much original,
11:56
you know, storytelling or or wisdom, but more, like, general best practices, like, kind of, you know, stuff we've heard before but packaged well. He's posted so many videos of children and just probably titled it humans are amazing. Yeah. But I love my son.
12:11
Like, I'm never gonna write that shit. Right? Like, you know, I looked at my son and I was like, hey, listen. You're never getting that. Alright? You've never had that for me. I'm not I'm not using you for that, and you're not using me for that. Alright. We're not doing that. But jokes aside, you know, saw Hill was more of consistency,
12:28
And,
12:29
and just put out, you know, he was ready to hit base hits. And he just base hit it his way to a million.
12:35
And I did the opposite. I didn't have a schedule.
12:38
I didn't draft things. I didn't have a ghost writer. I didn't do anything. I just
12:43
Had if I had probably six tweets that went viral.
12:46
One was like this clubhouse threat. One was about the metaverse. One was about
12:51
Elon Musk. One was about whatever. I just had a couple of these things go go really, really viral.
12:57
And I would go weeks and weeks without even tweeting, and then I would just do and and I got to maybe three hundred fifty thousand. And so here's the lesson learned. The joke's on me in the end. So this is kind of the the long one to take away is I was like,
13:09
Your boy's a home run hitter. I just go for the big swings. I don't have to do all that consistent CBS.
13:16
I just come in Just mic drop with a viral thread and I peace out. And I was so happy with myself.
13:22
I kinda looked up at the end of the year. I was like,
13:26
like,
13:27
the people who did the consistency thing got way further
13:30
and had ended way less like,
13:33
They didn't have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to do it. And I felt like I was having to pull a rabbit out of a hat in order to to get growth to happen. And because that's so hard, I could only do it so often. The podcast, because I do this with you, and you are a more structured disciplined guy, you're like, let's set recording dates, and let's never miss them.
13:51
And I'm like, dude, what if we did, like, ten episodes in the next two days? But then, like, you know, if I'm busy, let's not do an episode. Like, I would have had a totally different schedule. I would have such worse results. And when I look at this, it's like, damn, consistency wins again. This brings me By the way, it's,
14:06
it's five I think we're is this five hundred and fifty or five hundred and twenty? So we're, like, five hundred hundred plus episodes. Yeah. Five hundred and thirty three already said. So we're five hundred plus in. It's a lot. That's a lot. And we record like clockwork, same time, same days every week, no excuses.
14:24
And so
14:25
would have never done it online. Some excuses. We've had some excuses, but We have reasons.
14:30
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sickness,
14:32
children,
14:33
and, that's about it. So alright. So but, I guess, the the the this takes me to one of the biggest lessons I learned was through the podcast we met. Andrew will consent people know about him. But I also met his business partner who, you know, Chris. And Chris said something at a dinner that I've I've shared on the podcast, but Dana, what it was the question of the year. He goes, Do you know somebody was talking about some something they did. They failed. They, like, but I'll and then somebody else to, like, kinda pat them on the back was like, well, but, you know, you learn so much. I'm like, oh my god. I learned so much. Many lessons learned. So many.
15:03
And Chris goes, like, what?
15:06
And you would think for somebody who went through this traumatic experience,
15:10
And so many lessons learned that they would be like
15:14
number one, this. That's the most important lesson. Number two, this. Number three, this.
15:19
Those lessons weren't at the tip of their tongue. In fact, the lessons weren't even in their head. They learned actually nothing. And Chris correctly called it out, and I had never heard anybody question this assumption
15:30
that when somebody says I failed what I learned,
15:33
he was like, you know, I don't think people really learn. He goes, and in fact, Some people who when I asked them what they learned, they say something that tells me they learned the wrong lesson. And I think that's what happened to me this year.
15:46
On the consistency versus, like, big home run virality thing?
15:51
I think I learned the wrong lesson.
15:53
I was cursed by the fact that I did go viral a few times, and I I did pass my kind of hundred k goal.
15:59
And, actually, the lesson was, dude, if I just had consistently tweeted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday probably would've took me thirty minutes. I'd probably be at a million followers instead.
16:09
And,
16:10
And so I think I learned the wrong lesson. And I think that Chris's question of,
16:16
did you even learn the right lesson from this experience?
16:19
It showed up everywhere for me this year. Everybody I talked to, I realized, yeah, more people fell into that camp. The outlier was
16:28
somebody who went through something
16:30
and had the right takeaway from it. The outlier was that?
16:33
Well, I would say to you,
16:36
And this isn't a leading question, but it it is for me. My when I ask myself this, which is, is that even worth it? Is having is being popular on social media even worth it? And I talked to a lot of people who
16:48
are significantly more successful than I am in turn terms of traditional success. They've built bigger companies, whatever.
16:55
And they'll ask about getting popular on social media. And my immediate response is, like, but why? Like, you're doing you're doing awesome, and you could be private. It sounds way better. And so I would wonder, is it even worth it to have a million for you? In your case, actually, the answer is probably yes, but
17:11
that's something that I always ask people when they talk to me about social media? I think for a lot of people, the answer is no, because it's almost the cliche example of, play stupid games when stupid
17:23
prizes. It's like, if you play the I wanna be popular on social media game, you win the wonderful prize of
17:29
having
17:31
bunch of followers who, you know, don't really know or care about you, and you basically turning your life into a performance for them. Right? So you sort of win the stupid prize in the end.
17:41
For me,
17:42
my the, like, you know, after a bunch of soul searching, it became very obvious that the thing I actually wanted to do, the thing that would bring me the most joy in my life
17:49
is I get to be kind of, like, one of these, like, thinker guys. It's, like, I think, you know, I don't actually wanna be Elon Musk. I wanna be Tim Ferris.
17:56
And once I realize that, and that sounded very true for me, like, okay. Then I gotta do that. I gotta go learn cool stuff. I gotta synthesize,
18:04
you know, information from a bunch of places.
18:06
And then
18:07
Yeah. Which is super fun for me, and then I'm gonna try to teach it. And I like teaching it. And I'll, you know, I'll try to share it. I'll try I like sharing it. Why not? I'm so excited about the stuff that I'm figuring out. I'd like to create content. And I'm good at creating content. So it's a good fit for me. And so, for me, it is probably the right game. I wouldn't say being popular on social media is the right way, phrase it. I think it is, like,
18:26
getting to be a thinker, like, you're making that your your actual job. Sure. Sure. Sure.
18:31
But you're right now. Me me calling it popular on social media, it's, like, calling it a creator. Like, it just it's like, oh, that's cute. That's not how I meant it. But that sounds sounds like. Alright. The biggest thing I learned this year, and I have a bunch of But number one, the biggest thing. So I'll I'll set the stage here. So I think last
18:49
spring, I I do remember what month it is. We were like, alright.
18:53
I had I was at the two so, basically, when I sold the company, the HubSpot, I had, like, a two year deal where,
19:00
I stock head of S, whatever, that ended in February.
19:04
And then we had to renegotiate
19:06
some stuff, some some contracts.
19:08
And I think We started that. Where did we start that? Do you remember which month? End of April. End of April?
19:14
It didn't end until September. Is that right? Did it was it September where it ended? Something like that. It's August September. So we go to negotiate this, and I'm a pretty soft guy. I have known all along that I'm bad at negotiating. I It was a fair amount. Hard on the outside soft on the inside. Yeah. Like, I I just I'm not good with uncomfortable coverage sations.
19:35
I,
19:35
I I just I don't love confrontation. I want people to think that I'm easy to deal with.
19:41
But I leave a lot on the table. I leave a ton on the table.
19:44
And we go to negotiate this contract.
19:47
And Sean, you were like, let me take a lead on this. And you did so many things that I thought were the stupidest thing ever.
19:57
And I was, like, You're being rude. This is stupid. You're being, like, you're asking for too much. You're
20:03
being difficult.
20:04
You're in the weeds much. Why do you care about this one, you know, it'd be like a five page or eight page contract. And you're like, this one sentence, guys, we need to talk about it. Like, we need to change this word from, like,
20:14
you know, like mandatory to optional or I don't even remember.
20:18
Yeah. Like, it like, you were, like
20:20
and I think we probably had ten revisions. And I and we had a we you and I had to hire a lawyer to go through all this stuff, and we sweat the details so much. In my heart, I was like, everything about this is wrong. And you wanna know something?
20:34
I was wrong. You were right. You negotiated this wonderfully.
20:38
And,
20:39
I learned so many things, and I could summarize this in, something that you had said. I think you said someone told you, which is the person who could be most uncomfortable in the negotiation will oftentimes win. Yeah. I think that I think that's it. So the way you said it isn't ex actually the way I would say you said, you know, whoever's more uncomfortable will win. And it's actually, like, the first thing in a negotiation is realize it's not about winning. Like, both sides want things. Usually different things, You have to make sure both sides get what they want so that both sides feel like they win. But
21:08
that, it is true that you have to be willing to be uncomfortable.
21:12
For much, like, almost like the definition of the word uncomfortable. For longer than you're comfortable being uncomfortable. Right? That was the that's what I was trying to say because you know,
21:22
it's very easy in the moment to say, if I push this button, the pain stops and the uncertainty goes away,
21:29
and the item goes off my to do list.
21:32
It's very tempting to wanna push that button. Well, like, I'm not particularly that. So at the hustle, we did enterprise sales So we, you know, a hundred thousand dollar plus advertising deals. I wasn't particularly good at that, but one thing that I learned early on was it's for any salesperson, it's best to not be like a hard hitting. Like, I'm gonna sell you this. I'm gonna sell you this. Instead, you say, alright. So what are you guys looking for? Like, what would what what are you trying to get out of what do you need more customers or, you know, you you basically ask them what they want and then you tailor a solution or or or or position your solution to fit their needs. Right. You did a really good job of that. We're like, alright, HubSpot.
22:07
Tell me everything you guys want. And we'll try to accommodate or or or I'll phrase my solution to fit your needs. And and and we you did a really good job at that. Alright.
22:18
So
22:20
let me do a simple one.
22:22
This year,
22:24
my cash flow, so my monthly income I think went up by, like, four and a half x.
22:31
However,
22:32
I didn't I I was very focused on making money.
22:35
And I didn't and I normally don't care about, like, you know, expenses or, you know, it's, like,
22:42
You know, that phrase, it's like, it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep.
22:45
That's true. I just don't really follow it very well.
22:48
And the biggest expense sounds good. Always. Sounds smart.
22:52
The biggest expense always is taxes. And I didn't do a lot of tax planning. So this is a very simple one. One of my big takeaways for the year is,
23:01
lesson learned, again, that taxes are your biggest expense once you can start making real money. And
23:08
I looked into a bunch of different
23:10
opportunities.
23:11
And at the only at the end of the year, did I,
23:14
do something smart, which was
23:17
I know somebody very well who is
23:20
phenomenal at real estate. They have a very niche application of real estate
23:25
They crush it.
23:27
Like, I'm talking about, went from zero to owning a billion dollars in real estate with no outside capital.
23:34
In, like, you know, eight years type of thing.
23:36
And
23:37
I watched them do that brick by brick. I know this this this, like, specific thing that they do where they have a bit of an unfair advantage where why it works. And I never really asked them to participate in a deal. I was, like, you know, don't take any external money. So why not? But I know that we have a good, really good relationship. So I was like, maybe they would take it. So finally, it towards the end of the year, I was like, hey, can I, like, deploy some capital here? Because
23:58
If I can invest with you, I think I'll get a great return, but also I'll get that sweet, sweet depreciation.
24:03
And,
24:04
so I will get, know, sort of a double return on my side because I get the, you know, returns for the property, but I also get the tax savings today. I just started doing it And it is so good. It is so smart, and I'm I am so regretful that I didn't take this more seriously earlier. And Jess Ma came on the podcast, and she said
24:23
it was her that triggered me to go take action on this. She goes,
24:27
I go, do you spend a bunch of she goes, oh, I wanna talk about what riskier will do with their taxes. And we didn't even really get to that in the episode, but during the pre call, I was like, what do you mean by,
24:36
we should talk about it, like, and she's like, well, think just the general thing is that most entrepreneurs
24:41
really don't spend enough time on on their taxes. And I get it. They wanna build their business, but she's like, If you just look mathematically, like, this is gonna be, you know, between, I don't know, thirty to fifty percent
24:52
of all your income every year. It gets taxed this way. And twenty plus percent of your gains,
24:59
of all your investment gains gonna get taxed this way. She's like, it's financially
25:03
irresponsible to not at least spend five to ten percent of your time on this. And then I did the math, and I was like, Ten percent of my time would be five full weeks of a year.
25:13
I was like, there's no way I'm gonna do that, but I was like, I should at least bend, like, two, one, you know, like, something where I'm actually focused. So who did you hire? Like, did you, like, attack strategists?
25:24
I talked to a few, but I you know, the reality was it's not that hard. Like, the real real estate really is the best way to do this because what you do is you take,
25:34
you know, you take
25:35
income and you have taxable income coming from one place. You take that cash. You deploy that cash into real estate,
25:42
And my, you know, my wife is a real estate professional, so we have we can offset the active income. And so you
25:48
you put the cash there. Now that cash is gonna grow in the property but you got all this tax lost to wipe out your your taxable income, if that makes sense. So so you get cash on both sides, but the taxable income gets gets, you know, reduced by using real estate. So it doesn't really take, like, I don't need to Well, it it by the way, it is hard.
26:06
It it's hard to find deals that are are good. I mean, like, I've bought Well, that's the key. Like, I knew this for a long time. I was like, great. What am I gonna do? Go look for four plexes in Missouri. Like, I I don't have the time or energy or expertise to do this. Then you have a bunch of different, like, you know, fund manager type people. You're like, alright, I gotta vet them and figure out if they're any good and and and do a couple deals with them. And I could do that. In this case, I was lucky that I had a very longitudinal relationship with somebody
26:31
that I had seen do this with their own money. They're not a money manager.
26:36
And so,
26:37
and they get you know, far above average returns because of what they do. And so anyways, that that became, you know, the thing I'm gonna do. So anyways, we We should talk more later. You should do this too. I I'm, like, so convinced that this is a good idea
26:51
for people in our position. And I think most of our friends in our circle
26:55
all, like, internet money people, and we'd, like, kinda suck at the the real world money stuff. Yeah. I suck at it. Alright. I've got a another one. I've titled this loose cannon, loose results.
27:06
So
27:07
for the majority of my career, I've been a loose cannon.
27:11
I would say silly stuff, and it would get a reaction, and I would get results sometimes.
27:18
I gotta put that asterisk sometimes.
27:20
Like, a laugh
27:22
or, like, I was in the media business. We are still in the media business, which is, like, I could I I can go the obnoxious or blunt or ridiculous route, and I can get clicks. And the problem with that is as you get more popular, you have to decide, are you gonna go all in on that, or
27:41
are you gonna not go all in in you wanna be this medium ground, the medium ground is bad. And so here's here's an example of someone who goes all in on it. Dave Portnoy.
27:51
The guy's a missionary.
27:52
He but here's what here's what that means. So he says ridiculous stuff.
27:57
He had a sex scandal this year regardless of what the facts are, I'm not even debating what the facts of that of his issues were. He was accused of being,
28:08
I I I it might have been, like, crazy, like, assault, like some really bad shit. And he went all in on it, and he came out with, like, and he, like, He kind of I don't think he joked about it, but he, like, confronted it head on. But then there's other things that he's done where he's, like, look, I'm so rich. I can do all this stuff. And But there's a downside to that. The upside is he got lots of traffic. He, you know, whenever he goes through any type of scandal, he gets lots of views. And somehow, imagine he gets faith in those ads. The downside is obvious, which is you are now this guy where you've gotta live this life where you're this loose cannon guy, you say whatever you want, and you're a huge target.
28:43
Then we've gotten really close with Andrew Wilkinson, who is not a loose cannon. He says some stuff, bluntly, but inch and he's a very honest guy, but he's reserved a bit. More measured. Yeah. He's more measured. We had,
28:58
sciad on the what's what side's last name?
29:01
Balky. He's one of the best guests we've had. Very measured. The guy's only thirty two or something, and he's in the ballpark of being a billionaire. He owns all these companies.
29:10
And off air,
29:12
when I've hung out with him, he's a a little bit less measured. But on air, he was definitely he he was very, like, I look, my matters. I need to have a good reputation. And he cared about that stuff. We also had Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan, probably
29:25
the second or third most successful guy we've had in the podcast. Very measured,
29:30
very honest, but very, like, straightforward, but also, like, calculating.
29:34
Sarah Moore was another person. Sarah Mora Sarah Moore, she's explicitly said, I don't wanna be famous. I'm only gonna be here, and she still said good stories, but I'm sure that she, like, her reputation was in mind, things like that. And I think that,
29:48
I'm not willing to go the day of Portnoy route, for sure. I don't want that flack. I've said
29:54
very mild things, and I'll get flack for it. And I'm like, yeah, I just don't wanna live this life where I or I go hardcore. So anyway, a takeaway is I've actually wanted to pull back some public persona stuff, not reveal certain numbers. I don't wanna be a target. I don't wanna have fight these battles. I don't get joy from that. I used to get joy from that, and I would respond to haters constantly
30:15
online just to prove, like, so you can't talk shit to me. I'm, like, I'm a real guy. I I read all the comments.
30:21
That's stupid. I don't wanna be that person. That that that's a pretty big takeaway. You you've done a good job of, like, you've not you've actually had a few fires this year where you said some stuff that you got called out on, and you didn't back down from it, but you also didn't engage in it. I don't even remember.
30:38
There was, what did it? There was a time where you criticized someone who worked for you, and it caused a little bit of a spat on the internet.
30:45
And I I I don't remember another time, but I think that that's what I'm referring to. And in my head, when I'm hearing you say that or and when I'm seeing that, I'm, like, I wanna stay out of this. I don't want any of this drama. I don't wanna I don't want I don't want this stress. You know, we've seen it with Chama, a bit where He put himself out there, and he's done some contradictory things that he's taken a lot of flack. And I respect that he's, like, owned up to it, and he, like, spaces it head on. I don't wanna live that life. I thought I did. I don't. As we've got more popular, I I for sure do not wanna live that life. And I prefer to be more private now than I was in the past.
31:21
That's a good one. I have kind of a related one. So
31:25
one of the best meetings I had this year was with James Currier.
31:29
James courier, for those who don't know, he is the founder of something called NFX, which stands for network effects. They basically they they have, like, I don't know, a billion dollars of assets under manager. They they invest in tech startups.
31:41
He's been in he's a Silicon Valley o g, so he's been building
31:44
successful tech companies for, like, you know, twenty years or something like that. Yeah. It's had I I think multiple hundred million dollar plus exits.
31:51
Correct. And super fun guy. So I go to his office. So I drive down to Palo Alto.
31:56
I don't usually leave the house, but for James, I'm there. And literally, it's just me and him in the office. I was like, where's everybody else? He's like, yeah, we don't even have that many people, but also, yeah, nobody's coming to work anymore. Works from home, says it's me and him in his office for a couple hours.
32:10
And,
32:11
he shared with me a piece of advice.
32:14
That really stuck with me, and I started seeing everywhere. Something I hadn't really thought about. So he goes,
32:18
he goes, can I give you some unsolicited advice? I was like, please. And he goes,
32:23
You know, today, he drew this, like, line on the whiteboard. And he's like, he goes, he goes, I really like what you guys are doing with your show.
32:30
But
32:31
I don't know,
32:33
like, where you go from here? He's like, you're kind of in the middle. He's like, meaning, if I think about
32:38
really upmarket.
32:40
He's like, you know, when we make content, we're not making content that we don't want a million views. If we did a million views on a piece of content, we've probably made the wrong piece of content. He goes, because what I'm doing, if and in fact, he's like, I'm trying to invest in, you know, whatever. It's the next Airbnb, the next Twitter, the next whatever. So he's like, I need
32:58
the most ambitious founders in the world who are building, you know, like, venture backed tech
33:04
companies to read our stuff, really care about it, and think when I'm gonna raise money, I'm gonna go to NFX. And he's like, so
33:12
you have us and a sixteen z and others that are trying to be really market because we're trying to attract a certain
33:17
quality founder of which there's only, you know, a smaller pool, but they also care about different things. They're only gonna you know, they don't wanna hear about the the vending machine side hustle. Like, we'll we'll be like, oh, dude. This guy's got eighteen vending machines. He's making twenty two k a month. Isn't that sick? And, like, he doesn't care about that. They're trying to get, you know, only people who are gonna, like, disrupt the health care system or some shit like that. I don't know. You know, it's such a big idea who even knows what it means. By the way, I would disagree with him. I I think that the I I think they care enough to listen, but not enough to actually do anything about it. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And the vending machine thing actually, you're right because I meet a lot of these people, and they're, like, pretty fascinated by, like,
33:54
the economics of stuff that's outside of their world because there's some business nerds.
33:58
I think they actually care enough to be entertained by it, but that's but that's about it. But, like, then you have on the other end of the spectrum, you have, you know, let's say and I I love Gary V, but, you know, Gary V is basically, like,
34:09
motivation,
34:10
grind. Like, hey, you gotta, like, his content will be literally. He's like, I'm gonna pull up to this garage sale, and I'm gonna flip this VHS for, you know, on on eBay. And imagine if I did that every day, you could you you that could be your hustle. And it's like so I could make, you know, a hundred grand a year. It's like a kinda a job can do that, but this is, I guess, the the entry level of entrepreneurship. And it's like, and he he has a huge audience.
34:33
Which I respect, by the way. But if you still wanna do it. Gary, you know, like, what's the deal for? Like, the best investments Gary has made. I think came from his peers, like his friends he hung out with. Not, like, is listeners in that way. Right? No. No. His fans. Right?
34:48
And he probably, like,
34:49
I I shouldn't speak for him, but I guess, like, it's very easy if you're in that position to be, like,
34:54
It's great because I get huge numbers,
34:56
but
34:57
I'm not necessarily it's not like a two way thing. I'm not learning back from my audience as much. Maybe I'm, you know, I'm happy to sign autographs and take selfies, but I'm not try I I'm not excited to go have dinner with five people in this group because I don't feel like it's gonna, you know, iron's not sharpening iron there. Right? Like, I am a I'm more hanging out with white belts. And so I kinda wanna when I'm trying to spar, I wanna spar with black belts. Anyways,
35:18
so he's like, you have a decision to make. You're in the middle right now with my first million. You kind of have a foot in both camps. And he's like, it's gonna be very tempting for you to go down market.
35:28
And he's like, don't do it. He's like, go if anything, go upmarket.
35:33
And he's, like, in the long run, you're gonna want you're gonna be more interested in the topics that those people are interested in. You're gonna not wanna keep saying the same, like, beginner level.
35:43
Here's how you, you know, literally, here's how you make your first million. Here's how you get Here's how you should quit your job, and here's how you get a startup idea, and here's how you incorporate an LLC. Like, you're not gonna wanna make that content as you grow.
35:55
And he's like, you should
35:58
Steer up, Arkez, like, my only advice to you is that.
36:02
I think that was so smart, and so I don't even know why he said that me, because who's even thinking about that? I wasn't even thinking about it. But now, like, I'm just gonna give you an example. Alex Armozu, I think is,
36:12
in one hand,
36:14
absolutely killing the content game. I think Alex is awesome. I think he's super, super talented.
36:19
But I think he's making a mistake in that he goes very down market. I'm just gonna read you some titles of his last of videos he's posted in the last, like, two months. Okay?
36:27
How to make so much money it makes you sick?
36:35
How to get rich this Black Friday?
36:38
Watch this if you're tired of being broke.
36:41
The real reason your business isn't growing,
36:45
a bunch of these. Right? So, like, I I don't wanna, you know, pick on these, but These are more down market video concepts, and they'll get views for sure. And, like,
36:55
the comments will kinda show you. People people, like, oh my god. Change my life, you're my hero, blah, blah, blah, and that it's not that he's not doing a service for those people. However,
37:04
I I look at that. I think for me, the game I wanna play is definitely gonna be not to go down market, to resist the temptation,
37:11
to try to create that content, and to focus on creating up market content, which is gonna have a lower view count number.
37:17
But it's gonna have a higher value per viewer and more of the audience, and it's, like, I'm creating a magnet. I'm not creating an audience. I'm creating a magnet with my content. And I wanna attract the right people. And so,
37:29
anyways, that was a big lesson or takeaway for me that I wouldn't have otherwise thought about.
37:34
Yeah. I think, so, like, sometimes some of the contractors who work on this podcast will suggest ideas because they're just looking at, like, YouTube
37:41
analytics
37:42
And I'm like, no. I I I ate eight out of the ten things. I I don't think would would work. It's Apple sold iPhones for five dollars. It sell more units too. Right? Like, but if you're building an up market brand or if you're Louis Vuitton, like, you you don't want to
37:56
go down market. There's another guy we met And and we fall victim to it as well. I I don't wanna act like our shit don't stink, but, like, even though you and I will fight it, like, sometimes we will Correct. The only reason this is less than resonate is because it's something I'm wrestling with. Right? If I have a solved problem, I don't really care about it. It doesn't stand out as a big takeaway because I didn't I didn't have the problem in the first place. This is a problem I have. So I'm trying to figure out where to go, and this advice was very helpful.
38:20
There's another guy who does this. Have you seen this guy on Instagram, the genius CEO?
38:24
Yeah. Yeah.
38:26
You know, he came to
38:27
he he's in Austin right now. I think he's so funny. I think he's so funny. So, like, I find him hilarious. And, like, when I met him, I can't tell if it's it's a grab the joke. Like, it's, like, there's a lot of, like, nuggets in there, but he'll be he'll be, like, bad bunny is only making thirty million dollars a year. What a bitch move. We're gonna teach this guy how to make a billion. Like, it'll, like, insult these people, and it's pretty funny. Yeah. He'll be like,
38:51
He goes,
38:52
this product this product is gonna bust faster than a bunch of you chumps out there. So let me tell you how I would do it. I was like, well, yeah. Like, what a hook?
39:00
But so we met this guy in real life. In real life, total sweetheart and very smart guy. Right? Super nice dude,
39:06
humble, whatever. And then I'm like, And then I'm like, what do you have this, like, ridiculous mustache? Your fingernails are painted? You got this, like, crazy chain and a Gucci purse, but, like Well, he looks like a celebrity. He's, like, a tall, good looking guy, but IG, like, like, a a male IG thought,
39:22
but you're in person, you're a totally respectable, humble, nice guy dad. And he was, like, Oh, yeah. I created this character. He's like, I realized, like, what hits on IG is gonna be, like, fancy cars, fancy shit, six pack abs, hot girls. And he's, so he's like, you know, I just do that. It's my character,
39:39
and I built a following. So he's got two hundred thousand followers on here. His content is hilarious.
39:44
It's so funny. He's but he's selling, you know,
39:47
f b a yo.
39:49
You know, basically, like, I made my millions selling drop shipping, basically. I, you know, doing f b a brands,
39:56
you know, you're if you wanna stay being a broke idiot, don't listen to the CEO. And then he'll be like, like, here's the first lesson for you. Do this. I know what you're gonna say blah blah blah. Well, here's what I say about that. And then he'll, like, flashes, like, fancy shit. He's like, this is a video of me buying this von Cliff,
40:13
you know, necklace.
40:14
It's so funny. I love it. And I'm like, what is happening with this guy? But I think he's also gonna be trapped in the down market thing. Right? He's selling a mastermind. You gotta go pay to get into He's gonna make millions of dollars doing this, but I don't think he's got any, like, you know, I don't think he's got any way out. You know, that that is a, he's cornered himself in that way. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I I he's a good follow. He he's very funny.
40:37
Alright. Let me give you another one. So the biggest takeaway that I I want
40:41
people to have in this podcast. We've done it now for three or four years. Is and and and at first, I, like, I'll go get a haircut and they'll be like, so what do you do for work? And I was like, oh, I did this. I do that. I I work on this podcast, and they're like, what's the podcast about? And I'm like, well, it's called my first million, but it's not like the title is inaccurate, and and I'll I'll explain what it's about. And What what I what I tell people is that, look, we've had
41:04
multi multi billionaires on this show.
41:07
We've had
41:08
employees at companies on the on this show. I think what we care about is people who create a path and they do it. Not necessarily
41:17
Like, I don't necessarily think just because you are a billionaire, you are particularly better than anyone else. Like, what I care about is someone who says, I'm gonna be great at this weird type of art intentionally
41:27
choose a game. So they choose a game with intention,
41:30
and then they play the shit out of that their game. Right? That is that the description? Because that's what it is for me. That's exactly it. And so for example, the guy I talk about all the time, Brett Adcock, he's not like me. He's like, well, I'm gonna raise a billions billions of dollars and try to create a five hundred billion dollar company. I'm I'm inspired by that, but I will never I don't want to do that. Or even this example we just gave, the Gena CEO, He chose to play that game, and he's playing the shit out of it. I respect that. I don't wanna do that, but I I
41:58
I kind of admire people who intentionally choose their game and then play the shit out of it. I admire the hell out of it. Or we've we've had John Kugin, John Kugin,
42:06
started soylent, which scaled to be a a fairly large business. He's got another company. And now he's like a full time content creator. He has a a YouTube channel And he it's beautifully done. He's doing it wonderfully. And then we've had Rob Deardic on. We've had layered Hamilton on guys who aren't the Silicon Valley's type of lifestyle, kill it, whatever they do. And I admire all of them equally.
42:27
And so the takeaway that I've had, which is there's a million ways to get to where you wanna go, or there's a million ways to get to a certain way, to a certain place. What and for a lot of these people, it's money, but there's still a million ways to get there. And there's you shouldn't just, like, for example, when I moved to San Francisco, I was like, you have to raise VC. You have to do this. You have to do this. But then we meet, sayed, who
42:49
brings all the I imagine
42:50
yeah. I imagine he's worth five hundred to a billion dollars. He started a WordPress blog, which sounds crazy stupid, if you don't know what you're talking about, which I didn't, turns out that killed it. Then he bought tons of gas stations. Now he owns fifty different word plug ins. Collectively, that does over a hundred million in revenue. He's a young guy in Florida, not even a cool part of Florida. He's not Miami. I think he's in, like, Tallahassee or I forget where, like, somewhere in Florida. No disrespect Tallahassee. I see Ari, but look. I'm afraid. There's just there's just people that listen to this podcast, like, oh, man. They're hometown where they grew up
43:23
It's good. Short Lauderdale. I don't care. I'm from I'm from Saint Louis. Alright. I could say these things. I'm not from a cool place. So all the Baltimore's out there. You know, like, I I feel that for you. To the tier tier cities out there.
43:36
It's
43:37
it's it's objectively not like the place to be. And and but what I'm saying is I appreciate the hell out of people like that and learning about all of these different ways. And my biggest takeaway from this year and doing the podcast which is there's a lot of different ways to do it. You just have to choose where you wanna go and you gotta choose what rules you're willing to play by. But there's not one way to do it. And I wouldn't even I wouldn't even go as far as to say there's one that's likely. In fact, if I had to say that, I would say the one that's likely to get there is starting a small services business and just growing it over fifty years and paying yourself a good salary after year ten and doing that for for decades. Which is not at all what I would have expected. You know, it's just a a normal small business owner that does it for a long time is significantly
44:22
more likely to have a higher income and die rich than any other way, but there's a lot of different ways to do it. And that's one of the things I appreciate. Appreciate by doing this podcast.
44:33
That's a great one. And I do think that that's the
44:36
if you zoom out, that is kind of the point of the pod. The point of the pod isn't saying do x or do y. It's check this out. You can do x. Here's how that works. You could do y. Here's how that works. You could do z. Here's how that works. And by the end of it, You're either gonna be in one of two positions. Some people hear all that and get overwhelmed.
44:55
They don't know where to go. There's too many po too many paths, too many possibilities.
44:59
They
45:00
it's where paralyzes them. But I hope that's not most people. I think for most people, the the net reaction is kinda like Wow. Winning and being successful is this thing that feels scarce.
45:11
If you're not around it, right, like, where I grew up, I didn't know any business people. Nobody in my family was a business purple person. Nobody and I'm my cousins, not my aunts, not my uncle. None of them did businesses. Are you raised in Tallahassee?
45:23
Born in Oklahoma.
45:25
And, the
45:26
and so, you know, I wasn't right. Ari just already just flicked me off or make it better to tell. I asked you, by the way.
45:32
And so So, you know, I I wasn't around it. It seemed like this faraway thing
45:38
that I didn't really even understand.
45:40
There was no map. And I thought maybe there's one path, but I don't know it. And I'm not invited to that to that party. And then my hope is that if you listen to this podcast, you're gonna hear Over the course of a year,
45:52
a hundred different examples
45:54
of ways to win,
45:55
and how they work. And at that point, it's just a matter of choosing. And all of a sudden, winning and success becomes this thing that instead of being scarce
46:03
and difficult
46:04
is
46:05
abundant. It's everywhere, and it's right at your fingertips. If you just start start doing whatever sounds most intriguing to you, and then you just keep playing the game, you're, you know, it'll it will work out for you.
46:16
That's I think that's what the pot ultimately does for people. Good.
46:20
I hope it does.
46:22
I have one more. Do you have one more?
46:24
You go.
46:26
Alright. My last one.
46:28
So we had Scott Galloway on. Scott Gall is a guy who He he sat on the pot. He goes, I'm worth over a hundred million dollars,
46:35
and he also said in that same sentence, I'm deeply afraid of running out of money. We had Morgan Houssel on most recently, and he said something like,
46:45
he knows that you shouldn't necessarily set goals for money And he knows, like, objectively he's got enough that he likely won't ever run out, and he knows that he shouldn't check his net worth. But then, also, we press him on it. And he was like, but, of course, like, if I'm laying at bed at night, like, just because I know what I'm supposed to do, I still wonder what it would like be like to have more.
47:05
And I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast.
47:09
Maybe Jack Smith. Maybe Jack Smith, but Jack Smith's like a freak. But I don't think we've ever had anyone in the podcast regardless of what they have. They don't want more. And that sounds like a really negative thing of, like,
47:22
what you have enough. Why do you need more? Why do you need to achieve this and that? I think it should be the opposite. And I think the takeaways, no matter what you have, you're always gonna feel that there's another level and that you should one up. And I don't think that's a depressing takeaway. I think the takeaway should be you will always want more accomplishments,
47:38
more achievements,
47:39
And that is okay. That is totally okay, and that is normal. And just expect that wherever your goal is, once you achieve it, you're gonna feel satisfied only for a short amount of time, and then you're going to want to achieve more. And that's,
47:52
basically,
47:54
ninety five or, no, I would say ninety nine percent of the time, that's true, and that's okay. It's okay to want more. Right. I think there's a healthy way to go about it, and there's an unhealthy way to go about it. I would say Scott probably has unhealthy ways. I would say I have unhealthy ways. And I think you can change those unhealthy ways to healthy ways, but no matter what you have, You will accomplish it whatever your goal is, and you will get there. It'll take six months, and you'll say,
48:17
what's next? How do I do it again? How do I do more? And just expect that that's going to happen.
48:24
Yeah. I think when people hear that, it sounds like
48:28
you know, it sounds wrong or sad or bad or something like that.
48:32
But another way of looking at that same thing is,
48:35
the concept of infinite and finite games.
48:38
And so the my my understanding of it, I I haven't spent a ton of time on this, but my understanding of it is a very simple understanding is A finite game is one where you play
48:48
for the result. So you play in order to achieve an outcome, and you're hoping to get to that outcome
48:55
That's the purpose of it. And then an infinite game is one where you play for the sake of playing.
49:00
And so you you you play because you want to play.
49:03
Now if you look at that in practice, so for example, for me, basketball is something I I consider, like, an infinite game. Right? Like, I I play because it's so fun to play. And I want to play
49:14
and my goal is not to, like, win and stop. My goal is
49:18
to win, but I wouldn't stop if I won because but not because it's, like, greed. It's, like, well, winning is a is baked. It the scoreboard
49:27
makes the game more interesting.
49:30
And,
49:31
in a in a small burst. Yes. Of course, we're trying to win the four you know, by the end of the fourth quarter, I wanna have the higher score. But ultimately, like,
49:39
you know, hey, alright. Let's run it back. Let's play again. Let's play it till our legs fall off. It's it's basically how it's always felt for me. And that's the closest thing I felt
49:47
to an infinite game until kind of business came in, and it's actually very, very similar. It's like,
49:51
I like having a scoreboard. It makes it more fun to play when you do keep score,
49:56
but I'm not trying to get to a result to I'm not doing work to get to a result, and then I'm gonna stop working. It's
50:01
I like playing.
50:03
I plan to keep playing. I'm playing for the sake of playing, and the but the scoreboard makes playing a lot more interesting and fun and intense. And that should be the takeaway.
50:11
The takeaway is that because I had the or I previously had the if I get to this, I will not feel stressed and I won't work anymore.
50:19
The reality is I still felt trust. I felt less stress, though. There's no no doubt about that. I felt a lot less stress. And six months later, I was like, but I have to go and do something. I I feel like a piece of shit just sitting here and I feel good contributing.
50:33
And so why do you think you if I just said, why do you still feel stressed? Do you think you feel stressed aft even after the event?
50:40
Because I think that
50:42
I I the the stress, I I think that I well, like, to get, like, therapeutic. It's all baked into some type of childhood trauma, and and and that just takes years to, like, unwind. But why does it, why,
50:53
part of the stress is comparing yourself to others,
50:56
and so you want to achieve more and also wanting more stuff, which is,
51:01
what do they say? Desire is hell. Or desire is pain. Yeah. Or desire is suffering. So wanting more stuff,
51:08
which I try to combat by just I'm like, no. That won't I try to, like, say this won't make me happy, comparing myself to others wanting more stuff and also just wanting to get rid of a chip on my shoulder. Right. I'll offer you a different answer that might be true for you. I don't know if it is or not, but I I I think I I believe this is more true because I hear a lot of people talk about it and it's like,
51:30
Chout of trauma. It's like, alright. Well, nothing I could do about that. That's literally the past. It's written. It sounds like it's a it's a long unpacking process. I don't wanna do that. Like, I I still got suitcases over here. I haven't unpacked from vacations I've been on. Like, how's it going? I'm not trying to unpack years of childhood trauma.
51:47
Similarly,
51:49
it's like, oh, I have to, like, stop the feeling of envy or desire? Oh my god. Which will never happen. Wired as an animal.
51:55
That sounds like a game I'm never gonna win. So I actually think there's a different answer, which is
52:01
em, emotion. The emotions you feel are much like muscles.
52:05
It's basically you've had a lot of practice at stressing. So what happens is People practice feeling a certain way, and they don't think about it as practice. But what does it mean when you do something all the time irregularly? You are habituating yourself or practicing doing that. You're giving reps at doing it. And then sun one day, suddenly, they changed the the environment, and they think that All that practice and that muscle that they've basically developed and practiced and wrecked daily will just go away. And this new muscle called contentness and contentness and happiness will appear because the money the the bank balance in your, you know, Bank of America account has changed.
52:43
No way. Right? And so I would actually say it's the opposite. If you wanna change that feeling, it's not the money. It's, you have to find a way on a daily basis to practice having that feeling. You wanna you wanna feel happy. You gotta practice happy. You wanna feel content and peaceful. You gotta practice content and peaceful. Gotta practice that more than you're practicing anxiety and fear and stress and all these other things. And so for anybody out there who's listening,
53:05
Sam is absolutely right. Your feelings not gonna change, but I don't think it's because of these, like, deeply rooted psychological
53:13
and historical reasons a simpler example, a simpler explanation might be that I've really just gotten a lot of reps practicing one thing. And therefore, that's easy and familiar and habitual for me. And I gotta start practicing the other. The same thing happened when we sold the milk road. I talked to Ben, and I was like, Ben, how does it feel for your first kind of big exit for you?
53:32
And he's like, honestly,
53:34
it doesn't feel like I I'm kinda disappointed. Like, it doesn't feel, like, very much. Like, it doesn't I don't feel that much. And I go, He's like, maybe it's because maybe if the number was bigger, maybe this, right, he started going down that path. And I was like, no, dude. It's because You're trying to feel like this kind of victorious joy.
53:50
How many days out of the year, the last three hundred sixty five days did you feel that? Like, zero. It is you let yourself feel that zero.
53:57
And so what do you think all of a sudden today you're gonna turn on and be really good at feeling that? Like,
54:03
No, dude. It's practice. Like, you if you wanna feel that, we gotta do that regularly so that that muscle's there. And, Do you, did you come up with this theory on your own? Or did you steal Tony Robbins, when I was at that event, he has a similar thing. He calls it your emotional home. He goes, everybody's got an emotional home. He's like, because he's like he's like, look, watch watch this.
54:23
Raise your hand if you're somebody who,
54:25
you know, sometimes gets a little pissed off every razor hand. You say raise your hand if sometimes you are just super silly, having fun, being playful. Everybody raise their hand. It's like, okay. So we're capable of both. You are not, like, just an asshole or just a super nice, easy going guy. We all fluctuate. And he's like, but it is true that we have an emotional home. It's the place or your like your home, it's the place you spend the most time. And he's like, if your emotional home is that you are stressed out, it doesn't matter if you sell your company for a billion dollars. If you did if you grinded for seven years, you were stressed all the time, you're not just gonna become a different guy all of a sudden, right, because that's your emotional home. But he's a good news is you can move it. Is that you can move it if you basically practice it. Right? And he's like, so we wanna
55:10
basically,
55:12
you know, you don't wanna wait for the for things to happen to feel a certain way. He's like, you wanna have it on call that you can change the way you feel, like, that fast. Can you do that? Can he change the way you feel that fast? And a lot of the event of Tony Robbins, and the reason why people feel like almost like he's manipulative is because he literally is manipulating the way you feel. He's showing you that, like,
55:33
you can change the way you can go from focused
55:36
to jubilant,
55:37
to,
55:38
Zen and calm and reflective,
55:40
to motivated and inspired
55:42
in, like, a thirty minute span just by the way he's kinda prompting you. And,
55:47
the trick, obviously, is to learn to do that yourself so that you now are in control of your own mood. You're the master of your own mood. And that's that was big that became a big focus for me after that event. That was my big takeaway from the event was that. And then I started practicing that for, like, seven years.
56:01
I wish you had come up with that on your own because you don't realize it, but one of the big three, like, psyche, you know, so there's, like, Sigma Freud, and then there's two other guys who are considered, like, the godfathers of nineteenth century, like, psychoanaly analytics and all the stuff. And one of the guys is Alfred Adler.
56:19
And he's got there's a book called the courage to be disliked. That's quite good. And what you are saying is exactly in parallel with what he has said about, like, happiness and, like, it's like, well, you're anxious because you are choosing to be anxious and you don't you're not choosing to do the other thing, and he's got this whole book on it. But you you didn't realize it, but you've just discovered,
56:38
you know, the theory of relativity,
56:41
just, like,
56:42
Albert Einstein. You didn't even know about it. So you're kind of, like, one of the big three It sounds like a smart guy. Yeah. Like, out the side of us. I'm gonna go check the game. So so so that's you. Alright. Where do we go from here? Is that it? That's it. I think we wrap it up. Thank you for everybody for listening.
56:58
You know, those those views aren't gonna view themselves. It's because of you guys.
57:03
But, you know,
57:04
we
57:05
we we just talked about wanting more.
57:07
Sam, are you satisfied? Are we are we done do we have enough subscribers, would you say?
57:12
We only have three hundred sixty. You know, mister Visa has a hundred a hundred million. We're nothing. We're losers.
57:18
I'm anxious about this. And so if you've enjoyed this episode, if you've enjoyed any of our episodes, subscribe on
57:24
YouTube, but also go to Spotify, go to podcast, the the Apple version. Subtribe all those. Go to therapy and stop wanting this, or you could just click the button and make us feel happy. Which one?
57:35
Save us years of therapy.
57:36
And just click subscribe
57:38
and just say, you're welcome in the comments. And we know. When you say you're welcome,
57:43
it's because you saved us years of therapy. You just gave us what we wanted instead. Alright. That's the pod.
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