00:00
Egan is great. He has a very aggressive bedside manner.
00:04
An aggressive bedside manner is, like, the nicest way possible call it a guy a dick.
00:09
This guy's definitely an asshole. And, you know, they're like, oh, you know, it's like, he's just very direct.
00:14
He's very he's very honest. He's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like, this guy will trample you.
00:30
What's up, Sam? Are you, I don't know, if you're ready, but I'm gonna ratchet up the intensity a little bit I'm gonna start
00:37
high intensity on the podcast. I'm gonna talk about some high intensity individuals. Would you like to hear about some high intensity individuals?
00:44
I wore my high school let letterman jacket. If you're not if you haven't noticed, I'm shocked. You haven't made fun of me. So I'm ready for high intensity. If you can't tell, I look like a, like, the big man on campus, really? You look like Al Bundy right now. Like, just dreaming about the good old days. So,
00:59
I don't know if you're ready for I wanna be I I I wish I could've took state. That's the vibe I'm in, and so I'm ready for some intense stuff. I'm gonna tell you about some people that I think you know of
01:09
A couple of them, I think you know a lot about.
01:12
But they're all tied together, and they are all what I would call
01:16
all in individuals.
01:18
They're insane.
01:19
They're all kind of insane, and they're insane in the same way, which is that they are all the way in on what they're doing.
01:26
And I was reading their stories, and I was kind of inspired. They're all very different stories,
01:30
but then I realized, no, no, no, it's actually the same story. It's about being all in. Okay. So who are these people? First, I wanna start with a guy named Egan Durban.
01:39
I think you know who Egan Durban is, but I don't know. Do you know his full story?
01:44
I don't know his full story. He kinda is shrouded in mystery a little bit. I know that he's been on top of the game since he was probably thirty or thirty five.
01:53
And he kinda controls. It seems like almost LA a little bit.
01:57
Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. So he is the managing director of Silverlake. And Silverlake,
02:03
is a giant private equity investor that invests in technology. So they have seventy two billion in assets under management, which is I'm pretty sure that's bigger than every venture fund
02:14
combined.
02:15
Did you say seventy two? Yeah. Seventy two. So if you take out the Vision Fund, I'm pretty sure this is bigger than, like, almost all VCs combined. Okay. So who is this guy? And, you know, he's got a crazy track record I wanna talk through, but, like, first, I just wanna give you a few quotes. Again,
02:30
about these all in individuals.
02:32
And I give you these quotes because
02:34
even though I don't do anything like this guy, I'm not
02:38
fund manager, I'm not a managing director of a private equity fund. I have no desire to be so.
02:42
I do see some of these descriptions of him, and I'm, like, It'd be nice to be called that. It'd be nice to to have that be a true thing somebody could say about me. And sometimes you just gotta hear it. You just gotta hear that level twelve exists for you to even, like, unlock that part of your brand. Okay. So let me tell you some things. So he goes he goes to school, goes to Georgetown, he goes to Morgan Stanley, and then he is known immediately in the, like, banking world. They they they interviewed some people and they go,
03:08
he came in as a entry level junior guy, right, early twenties.
03:12
And they go, Egan was immediately comfortable at the grown ups table.
03:16
And they go, he just carried himself very differently. It's not that he had the experience not even that he was smarter than anybody, but he carried himself, like, I belong in that conversation, and I'm gonna show up that way. And I'm not gonna just, like, label my self as a as a junior here, and I'm just here to learn. I'm just happy to be here. They never have that energy. The next thing that that I heard,
03:35
Egan is great. He has a very aggressive
03:38
bedside
03:38
manner.
03:40
An aggressive bedside manner is, like, the nicest way possible. It's calling the guy a dick.
03:45
This guy's definitely an asshole. And, you know, they're like, oh, you know, it's like, he's just very direct.
03:49
He's very he's very honest. He's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like, this guy will trample you,
03:57
and aggressive bedside manner is the next thing I learned. So nineteen ninety nine, He leaves, his banking the banking world to join Silverlake. And he's like, I think technology,
04:05
internet, this is nineteen ninety nine. It's the the dot dot com boom is happening. Like, I think this is the next big thing. I'm gonna go here. Until he goes, and he's like, he does a very smart career move. And you if you see this career move, you know this person's a winner, which is They join a thing that's working, but instead of staying at the mothership, they're like, hey, what's the next frontier?
04:24
And they're like, oh, we need to expand into Europe. He's like, cool. You got, like, plans or, like, a person in charge of that. They're like,
04:30
not yet. We wanna do that next year. We're gonna do a search to find somebody. He's like, cool. I'll move there now and I'll do it.
04:37
And so he moves to Europe, and he builds out the whole European business
04:41
for investing in European tech companies. Exactly. And one of the big tech companies that he invested in Europe is Skype. So Skype was a European company
04:50
Skypad had already had its run up, but then it had,
04:54
you know, kind of faltered. And so he partners with a a sixteen c a sixteen z at one point, and he buys Skype out for one one point nine billion dollars. And people were like, this is, like, it's hard to turn a technology company around. It's kind of on the decline. It's riddled with lawsuits right now. This is a messy buy. And he goes in, and he basically is like, alright. We're gonna do two things. We're gonna hire a great CEO. We're gonna settle all these loss and we're gonna actually invest in making our product better because the product's just been atrophying for for whatever for so long. And so he immediately settles a lawsuit. Tires a great CEO, starts with investing in the product. And in eighteen months, he sells the thing all cashed Microsoft for eight and a half billion dollars from one point nine to eight and a half billion. He basically triples their money, but on a, like,
05:36
billion dollar base, like, principal amounts. And so immediately makes a name for himself, after doing the Europe thing with that.
05:43
And he's doing this at a time when there's, like, a bit of a power struggle at, silver lake. And by the way, he's only, like, thirty five at this point.
05:52
Know how old he is exactly. Yeah. He's probably let's see. Yeah. He's probably thirty
05:57
thirty or early thirties,
05:59
is my guess. So two thousand and eight, financial crisis happening. And the founder of Silver Lake, this guy, Glenn Hutchins, one of the founders.
06:07
And he's like this crazy guy. If you go watch interviews of him, he's like mustache. He comes into the office with, like, barefoot. He never wears shoes. He's kinda like one of those, like, you know, one with Nature founder type guys, but he's in private equity, which is usually, like, suits and, you know, cut, you know, cut third type of guy. Alright, everyone. A quick break to tell you about Hubspot, and this one's really easy for me to talk about because I'm gonna show you a real life example. So I've got this company called Hampton. Join Hampton dot com. It's a community for founders between two million all the way up to, like, two hundred fifty million dollars a year in revenue. And one of the ways that we've grown is we've created these cool surveys. And so we have a lot of founders who have high net worth, and we'll ask them all types of questions that people typically are embarrassed to ask, but provide a lot of value. So things like how much the founders pay themselves each month, how much money they're spending each month, what their payroll looks like, If they're optimistic about the next year and their business, all these questions that people are afraid to ask, but, well, we ask them anyway. And they tell us in this anonymous survey, And so what we do is we created a landing page using HubSpot's landing page tool. And it basically has a landing page that says, here's all the questions we asked. Give us your email if you wanna access it. And then I shared this page on Twitter, and we were able to get thousands of people who gave us their email and told us they want this survey. And I could see did they come from social media. I can see did they come from Twitter from LinkedIn. It basically everywhere else that they could possibly come from, I'm able to track all of that. And then I'm able to see over the next handful of weeks how many of those people actually signed up and became a member of Hampton. In other words, I can see how much revenue came from this survey, how much revenue came from each traffic source, things like that. But the best part is I can see how much revenue came from it. And a lot of times, it takes a ton of work to make that happen. HubSpot made that super, super easy. You're interested in doing this, you could check it out HubSpot dot com, the links in the description, and I'll also put the link to the survey that I did so you can actually see the landing page and how it works and everything like that. I'm just gonna do that call to action then.
07:53
And it's free. Check it out in the description. Alright. Now back to MFM.
07:57
By the way, I think the other guy I think all three of the founders are like hippies. The other one, Roger,
08:03
Macamey, I think his name is. Do you know who he is? I didn't look him up too much, but, yeah, I saw him. He's a little bit of a hippie. Like, he's in, like, a Grateful Dead cover band. Like, if you, like, more people know him, I think, as the as a musician than founding this multicolored dollar to be. Because if you're if you're in the nineties and you're doing technology, then you're early. Right? And you're early because you're a believer in something You're usually an early adopter. You're not you usually, it's like the MBA's cub later. Right? The the the business school kids come later and that once once the opportunity's already to is crazy because Silver Lake Now is known as this, like, buttoned up place. Of course. As as as is Microsoft now and Facebook now and all the things that at one time was just, like, college kids, just living in a hacker house type of thing. So
08:46
two thousand eight,
08:48
financial crisis happens. That guy, Glenn, he's getting real stressed out. He's like, I just need to take a step back.
08:53
Eakin Durban's like, I'm here. I've been here. I'm ready for this. And so he starts to step forward. He had just done the big he just does the big, Skype deal. So he's kinda riding the the wind of that. That's that's, like, the big news, basically, in the in the industry. They're they're out to raise a fund, and he's like, I hope you raise that fund. You can use this tracker in my name, and I'll be one of the but I need to see it at the top. And so there's a bit of a power struggle. The other founders don't really wanna step back. He wants to sit at the table, power struggle. There's sort of the coup, and Egan and four new guys basically become the new managing directors and the founders, basically all end up stepping back. But a PE firm, there's not, like, one owner. It our PE firms a little bit like law firms where there isn't ever like an owner, but as you rise, you get an equity stake. And so it almost becomes partnership, not like that. It's a partnership either way, but,
09:42
usually,
09:43
and you raise a new fund, and when you raise a new fund, you define who are gonna be the how is that pie gonna get split up? And so as they raise fund after fund, the guys who were the main principles of the first might now have a smaller stake because the new people who are doing all the work are gonna have the big stake in the new fund. So that's kinda what happened.
10:00
So anyways, he gets it. And then he starts doing just crazy aggressive stuff. So just if you hear this guy's strategy, here's what he says. So in sixteen years, they've basically grown the thing like crazy, since since that all happened.
10:13
They've they've, you know, added, like, I don't know, twenty five, thirty billion of of assets under management during that time. And he says my goal is to be the best risk adjusted risk adjusted investor tech investor in the world.
10:25
What I'm trying to do is find one or two bets per year
10:29
I'm looking for all in bets, opportunities that I can't say no to. I have one or two bets per year, and that's it. I spend my whole year just trying to find one deal that is worth doing. And then when he finds it, he just pushes all the chips in. So he did this, like, with Alibaba, they put in, like, a whole bunch of money at thirty five billion in market cap, And then they six x their money from there because Alibaba became a multi hundred billion dollar market cap company. And he was like, just at the time, they're like, we see this as a Google sized opportunity
10:55
And this is, like, this is the Google of China. We need to be in this. And other people thought thirty five billion was pretty overvalued at the time. He didn't think so. Another example of this is he went to some conference and he spoke on stage.
11:06
And he's like, yeah. I don't usually do this, but, you know, whatever. It it'll be worth it. I'm sure. So he gets off stage and he bumps into Michael Del backstage. First time he meets the guy, about a year later, he does the biggest tech buyout
11:18
deal in the ever, which was taking Dell private,
11:22
where it's like a a multi billion dollar buyout where they took it private and ended up, you know, re revamping it. It was the biggest deal, I think, ever at the time.
11:31
He's also made some pretty, like, crazy bets. So some of the some of the the crazier things this guy's done. So first, I'll give you some personality crazy things. So
11:40
he sucked at golf, but he wanted to be good. He's like golf is like, you know, the businessman sport. And I wanna be good. So do you know what he did to get good at golf? No. Have you heard the story? So they have a gym for all the, like, employees or analysts at the company. And he just goes, and he just locks the gym. He shuts the gym down. He's like, there's no more gym. I'm gonna convert this until, like, kinda, like, over a weekend or whenever he converts the gym into a golf practice, like, a practice facility, essentially.
12:06
And then the employees are like, hey, where do we what happened to our gym? Like, that was a key perk. Where where do we go now? He's like, I don't know. Go across the street. Go ask Blackrock if you could use theirs. So for years, the analysts all went across the street to other firms, like, hey, can we? We use your gym, and you can turn it into his own private golf simulator.
12:23
We can't do it anymore.
12:24
That's kind of an asshole move. Right? Kind of an aggressive
12:28
move. Mean, what it is I wonder what his employee said. It's like, hey,
12:32
that's kinda lame. Right? Like, what about us? Now he's a eight handicap golf memberships at golf clubs around the world. That's the ending of that story.
12:40
Another one, he's kind of like, he gets criticized because he kinda wants, like, power in,
12:46
like, the Hollywood world. Like you said, I think he's, like, a power player in LA. I don't know if that's true or not, but he became the biggest backer of WME. He also did a bunch of other things. Like, the joke was You know, he's buying things so he can get, you know, access to the Oscars. Like, this guy is just, like, an absolute, you know, sort of, like, savage individual.
13:03
Another thing that he said. So he goes,
13:06
he goes, I'm not trying to take the most risk, but I am trying to be very concentrated in my bets. He says, just the way he phrase this, I like. He goes, we get paid to hit singles and doubles, then we steal third, and we come in we we come into home on a past ball. And it's just a different mindset than I'm trying to hit home runs. He's like, no. No. We hit singles and doubles.
13:25
Then through our kind of good operations, we steal third,
13:28
And then we we we get to score, we get to home on a pass ball, which is basically, like, you know, the market kinda continues to grow, and we benefit from that is is how I ran into that. So I really like that. He's he did not like people were like, you haven't done any investments recently.
13:42
This was back in, like, twenty twenty one. And he was like, I think everything in tech is overvalued.
13:46
All the unicorns. I think it's gonna be really rough for them. He goes every private tech company in the world right now, if you combine them, is three hundred fifty billion dollars.
13:55
If I could buy that whole asset class, I would I would do it tomorrow because I'm pretty sure that that will two or three x, but picking any individual company is really hard. Companies that are valued at a billion dollars might not go down just thirty percent on a correction. It'll go down to zero. There will be no bid for these companies, which is kind of what what exactly played out in the coming year.
14:15
He stayed away from late stage tech. So I just really thought this guy was great. He's done a few other deals that are interesting.
14:20
So in April of two thousand twenty, So two months into the pandemic, he invested a billion dollars into Airbnb. I don't remember the exact valuation, but my wife worked at worked there at the time. And at the time,
14:32
We were at home thinking, oh, well, Airbnb is going out of business. They that that whole company is dead. And they and when they invested, it was crazy. And I think it was an what was an eighteen billion dollar valuation? Yeah. It was something like that. It was, like, somewhere between, like, ten to twenty. And it was also, like, he structured it intelligently. I think I think there was, like, it was, like, debt. They had, like, you know, like, a warrant or something like that. It was like a good structure. I don't I don't know. They didn't release all the details, but the one interesting thing was He got criticized because he had never met Brancesca, the CEO. He made the investment sort of sight unseen
15:01
and, injected a bunch of capital to the business when it needed it. People were like, that was a is that a rash move? People doubted it, but Airbnb's done a fantastic it's done fantastic since then. You know, he owns, you know, But, you know, they they own five hundred million dollars of Manchester City soccer club. Like, they own a lot of different stuff,
15:18
which is kind of, you know, I don't know. It's interesting to me.
15:23
Let me tell you one other thing about this guy. So he said something that I found interesting. They talked about the W Media, and he goes, I love Ari manual. Because I talk to Ari Manuel every single day, which is just crazy. Like,
15:35
I don't even talk to my own business partner every single day. Let alone some investment I made. And he goes,
15:41
and people were like, you talk to Ari every day about what? And he's like, they're like, what are you guys talking about? He goes, Well, you know Ari. Ari average is a ninety second phone call. He's like, so we have a ninety second phone call, but we're texting and calling every day. And it's usually ninety seconds. It goes sometimes it's specific ask. Like, hey, we need this introduction or we need this this analysis or whatever. He's like, but I don't like to do formal board meetings every quarter too slow. I like the pace that Ari moves these ninety second phone calls every day, which takes me to the next all in individual,
16:11
Ari emmanuel. So
16:14
You you know Aru Manuel, and a lot of people know him because the character in entourage is based off of him. But there was some things that about him that I didn't didn't fully know that that was kind of interesting did you know he's one of three brothers and all three brothers do really interesting stuff? So there's a book that I read years ago. It's called,
16:32
what's it called? Something America the brother's emmanuel, I believe it's called. Brother's emmanuel, a memoir of an American family. And I think it's in that book, r e So Ari Emmanuel's,
16:42
probably a billionaire. He he's more than probably the the shot caller in LA.
16:47
His brother is Rah Emmanuel, who I think was the mayor of cargo and on Obama's cabinet or something like that, a political power player.
16:55
And in the book, Ari, and Raag, Ram, I think Ron is his name. They go Yeah. They go, p a lot of people know us, but they don't know that our third brother, Zeek, Ezekiel.
17:05
He's the smartest and the more successful brother. And his brother, Ezekiel,
17:10
I believe I'm gonna screw up the titles. He was head of what's the head of, like, health for the government under Obama? He basically made the the Obama of a Right? Like, he was the architect of the Affordable Care Act. I think he also has done some major things. I don't remember exactly, so don't quote me on this. Don't turn this into a short But I think he helped pioneer the heart transplant and things like that. Like, he invented, like, things that save lives. And he and the two brothers are, like, zeek's the smart one. We're just more, like, stubborn and bullheaded a little bit. So that's hilarious.
17:43
They asked him, they were like, hey, do you watch like entourage? Like, what do you think of Ari Gold? Is that is that you?
17:48
And he's like, well, they got some things right. You know, I am
17:51
very aggressive.
17:52
And there and then he's like, know, I didn't go into an office with a PayPal gun and shoot everybody. So, like, you know, I didn't do that. But, you know, they they got a lot of things right, unfortunately.
18:01
And he's like, they're like, you know, how have you changed over these? Are you still as aggressive? He goes,
18:05
look, here's here's what I have to say.
18:08
You need to know when you're on the field. When you're on the field, You're there to compete, you're there to win, and you're you're there to kill. But you he's like, the one thing I have learned is I've learned that I'm not always on the field, and sometimes I'm off the field, and I need to behave a little bit differently. Because that's the only change that's happened to me in, like, thirty years.
18:24
I thought that was also funny as an aggressive person. We know somebody who
18:29
worked and they told some pretty hilarious stories. So apparently this guy's day is like this. So growing up, he was, like, dyslexic, I think. So he he had to go to, like, a reading teacher for, like, three hours a day or something like that. And I hated it. I used to cry all the time. I used to feel so embarrassed by it. He's like, then I just realized whatever. This is my superpower.
18:45
I'm gonna win a different way. Okay. I can't read these text. I can't read this stuff. So I'm gonna surround myself with I'm gonna basically work differently, and I'm a surround myself with people who could do those things for me. And I'm gonna do other things that only I could do well. And so his day is basically he's like walking on a treadmill. He's got the earpiece in his ear. And his assistant is just call he just has, like, a call list. His assistant is just getting people on the phone that he wants to talk to for, like, thirty to ninety seconds at a time.
19:11
He just immediately hits someone up, calls him and in ninety seconds, makes the point hangs up, and then he's on to the and the next call is ready in his ear, and he just goes to the next one, which And I think it starts at like six AM. I think I read an article where he's famous for he would do something like two hundred calls a day, and it starts at six AM. And he's talking to people all day just making deals. Somebody told me he was, like, they're in his office, and he just has a bag of almonds.
19:34
And he's just whatever he wants his assistance attaching, he was throwing the almonds back of almonds at her. He just hit her at the end of the almond, and she would turn around. He's like, next call. I did the golf.
19:43
What a douche?
19:45
Exactly. All these guys, all of them. All of them have the same trait. All three people I'm gonna talk about. Okay. So He also had the classic story, the same st but there's it's like there's something about working in the mail room. So, like, David Gepin, Barry Diller, Ari Emanuel, all have the same story, which is basically started off in the Hollywood mail room
20:01
and used that as their, like, feeding ground. And I I was thinking about this. I was like, what is it about the mail room? If you think about it, what is the mailroom? So the mailroom is basically
20:10
it's the shit nobody else wants to do. So it's already a filter.
20:13
It's gonna filter out anybody who doesn't really want it because it's so unglamorous.
20:16
That's interesting thing number one. Interesting thing number two is the way it works is you're basically making copies of scripts and stuff, then you gotta drive it around town. You give it to clients. You deliver the paperwork. You get the You go fetch lunches, you hand off the lunches to somebody who's in a meeting.
20:30
And if if you do good at that, then you could become an assistant, then you could become an agent, and then whatever. But you, like, you learn and you're working seven days a week. And so the guys who ended up making it, they basically use that as their opportunity to build like, an incredible network because the job is kind of networking. And so they use that, the, like, used every rep of that instead of just being, like, whatever. I'm gonna just mentally check out. Actually build their power network, and that's kind of like, you know, part of how all three of those guys, you know, rose to power. Can I tell you the last one now? The last all an individual
21:01
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I'm I'm I'm into this. Okay. So you know this person well, but I don't know if you know the full story. I didn't know the full full story till I researched this, but Dana White.
21:11
So I want you to tell me kind of, like, a little bit about what you know, and then I wanna fill in some gaps of new things I learned when I was looking at this. Alright. So Dana White, I think he was a boxing instructor, but not like coaching real boxers. Like, it was like a jazzercise class in boss. He was in Boston. And he moves into this bad neighborhood, and Whitey Bulger, who's a big gangster at the time. He comes to Dana's office, or his his jazzercise gym or whatever. He goes, hey, man. You're in my hood, you owe me a thousand a month or something like that. And Dana White doesn't pay him because he's like, oh, I'm a tough guy. I don't need to pay this guy. And then eventually, he realizes that why he's the real deal, and he owes them ten or twenty grand. And Dana's like, dude, I have nothing. So he moves to Vegas to flee
21:51
He went to high school with these two rich brothers, the Fortiva brothers. The Fortiva brothers,
21:56
they, they come from a wealthy family. So they owned, like, penny casinos, like, where, like, people, like, it was like a low class thing at first where it was, like, their parents owned this this casino, and it's almost at a gas station, I think. Where, like, people would put in, like, penny slots. From there, they owned, a few other casinos. I think the Station casino
22:16
or Golden Nugget, I forget, but they're called And, so they get money. It starts working. And so the two sons, Lorenzo and Forteda,
22:23
they, or no, Lorenzo and what's the other one? Frank.
22:26
Frank, they, they they become kind of guys in Vegas. They actually start a few companies, and they buy a few companies. One of them was Gordon beers, which was a cider and beer company. They were one of our first advertisers at the hustle. And they so they start making deals. Dana comes to them and goes, hey, man. This thing called the UFC
22:43
It's kind of a sport. I know you guys, you brothers are somewhat into jujitsu. I went to one of these events. They're pretty amazing. The guy's selling the brand
22:51
In reality, what we're gonna get is a crappy little octagon and just the name UFC. It's two million dollars. Let's buy it. They get convinced to doing to do it. Dana gets four percent of the equity, the other guys get the rest, but they fail for four or five years. So they're in the hole, like, thirty five million dollars.
23:07
They come up with this brilliant idea to have a TV show called the Ultimate Fighter in order to promote the events. The events are kind of popular, but, like, that's not really making money. They create this event called the, this TV show called the Ultimate Fighter. They convince Spike TV to air. At the time, Spike TV was a pretty big deal, but not that big of a deal. And they do this series, and they're like, dude, we're gonna round the money. We can't afford this series anymore. Then Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner have their famous fight. And at the time, it was a huge deal. I was a kid. I remember watching this fight. I get a phone call from a friend being, like, You gotta turn this fight on. This is so amazing.
23:39
At the end of that fight, there the winner is supposed to get a thousand dollar contract. At the time, it was or a hundred thousand. They called it a six figure contract then, that was a big deal to get a six figure contract. The fight is so good, even though one guy won, but it was so great. They give both of them six figure contracts. From there, the UFC kind of took off. That was, like, the turning moment. And so Dana and these two brothers, two brothers are kind of the business like brains behind it, and they're really low key behind the scenes, but they run this business and eventually it sells for four billion dollars to Ari Emmanuel's company.
24:10
And, now it's, like, the hottest thing going. Is that they're, like Very good. Very good off the cuff. I like it. I wanna fill in a couple of little details here that I thought were interesting. Stuff I didn't know. So you're right. Dana grows up in Boston,
24:23
but he and he goes to college twice drops out twice in the first semester. He's like, this shit just ain't for And so he goes to college, drops out to us. He ends up as a bell hop. So he's a he's a bell he's a bouncer, he's a bell hop, He's, like, doing asphalt laying. Like, you know, he that's what he's that's what he's doing with his life. He wants to be a boxer,
24:42
but he sees a guy come in who he knew as a boxer and he looked up to. And that guy was just totally punch drunk, and he's like, oh, shit. I can't do this. So he's like, maybe I should teach like, boxing classes, like, boxer size instead of, instead of actually trying to be a boxer. So that's kinda like the opening now. He's doing all that and he describes that he wants to He's like, I wanna maybe get into boxing promotion.
25:04
And he's like, I'm not sure exactly. Maybe I could be a boxing promoter, but he's a bellhop at the at the one of the hotel. And He describes the day that he quit.
25:13
And he's like, I was just sitting there. And he's like, actually, we used to get paid pretty well for being a bellhop. I forgot what it was. It's like, you know, twenty two bucks an hour or something back then. He's like, it's not that the money was so bad. He's like, and I like the guys that I worked with. But he's like, am I just gonna do this shit forever?
25:28
And he's like, I had the realization that every day that I do this, I'm not doing it's another day that I'm not doing the thing I want. He's like, because before I used to feel like, you know, I could always someday go do something.
25:38
And he's like, you know what?
25:39
Screw it. He he says,
25:42
so here's here's what he says about it. He goes,
25:46
He goes, if I had to tell you one thing and he's giving a talk later, he goes, it would be to take the risk. He's like, because when I quit and I actually went for my thing, Guess what? I realized I can always come back and be a bellhop. Like, this life I have is always here because it's the bottom. It's not where I wanna be anyways. What do I have to lose? I, you know, worst case scenario, I could just come back and just get another job like this. He goes, but I will never get back this window of time I have right now in my twenties that, like, I can go and take a shot at something. And so that was kinda, like, his mindset and his mentality. So he quits, and he's like, I wanna start so he starts trying to he's doing the boxing thing. He's trying to trying to become a promoter.
26:24
And then you're right. The the mob thing happens. Here's what he said about. He goes,
26:28
these guys show up and they're like, hey. You owe us twenty five hundred dollars.
26:32
And he's like, he's like, in the movies,
26:34
it's cool when you see, like, mobsters and mafia. If it's real life and they want you, shit, super scary. He's like, that is not cool. And he's like, so I he's like, I was like, I have no way of paying this. He's like, so I'm just gonna because I go home that night. I just go to delta dot com, and I bought a one way ticket to Vegas. He goes, I left all my shit there. It looks like my TV, my dresser, like, I just left her there. I know I couldn't do anything. Is it as I just ran away, basically, from these guys once I realized that they're pretty serious. I bought a one way ticket to Vegas. And the guys who are behind it, it was it was whitey Bulger who's, like, the real deal. He's, from the movie black mask with and he's the the character behind the the departed.
27:11
Yeah. Exactly. Like, when he first when they first came in, they were like, hey. You owe us twenty five hundred dollars. He's like, I don't owe you that. I'm for what? I don't have it. Like, what do you want me to do? And then couple weeks go by, and then they call them and they're like, you owe this money by tomorrow, one PM, or else? And he was like, oh, shit. Okay. I gotta get out of here. So he's left, basically, that night.
27:29
Couple other things. I thought he was friends with the Fortitas. They actually didn't know each other. Like, they they only knew of each other in high school, but they weren't friends. And what he said was, basically, they they knew of each other, and they knew they they liked Dana because Dana was kind of like,
27:43
like, basically,
27:44
he tells the stories, like, we had this class that we all hated. And he's, like, Dana realized that the teacher was, like, really, like, uptight. And so it was kinda sucked to be in that class. But because the teacher was uptight, like, one little thing could distract the teacher and throw them off, So he's like, Dana would go to the restroom, and he would kick this door really hard. And he'd kick the door really hard, make this huge sound. The teacher would go, like, become irate. Like, who the What is that? Who's doing that? And it'll go try to find the person. Dana would run away. But the class would basically half of the class would go by would know teacher because, like, teacher would be looking for somebody. So he used to do that, like, every week. And then one day he did it, but his shoe, like, flew off. And he was like, oh, shit. I don't have, like, he's like, he just had to jet. So the teacher found the shoe and realized it was Dana. And Dana got in trouble, but the routine has always, like, logged that in their mind. They're like, man, you take a bullet for us, basically. So years later, they're at a wedding. And they meet meet up, and they're like, dude, I haven't talked to you so long. You know, how what what do you do? And he, like, learns Furtida's do. He learns what he does. One of the things Dana says, he's like, yeah. I teach this, like, boxer side class. I'm doing jiu jitsu, and I think Lorenzo was like, you know what?
28:48
I'm doing good in business, but, like, I'm not really doing anything fitness wise. Like, I wanna trade jujitsu. And Dana's like, alright. Sure. I've heard that a million times. Nobody actually shows up. Lorenzo, the next morning, is there ready to do jujitsu. That's how they actually got to know each other. That's how the Fortitas started to fall in love with, like, you know, fighting or MMA.
29:03
So what happens is while he's doing that, he becomes an agent. Same thing as Ari Emanuel becomes an agent first be before he becomes a business owner. He starts representing Sego or Teez, I think. Tito and Chuck Ladell, but the UFC is, like, so small back then, even though these guys are the big stars, they're so small. But that in doing that, he's negotiating a contract with the owner of the UFC. He's like, you gotta pay tito more. Look at how much money this guy's bringing in. He's the face of this. You gotta you gotta you gotta step up. And the guy's like, the guy's negotiating negotiating. He's like, finally. He's just like, look, Dana. There's no money. Alright? This whole thing is gonna fall over. Like, You're not wrong, but I have nothing to give.
29:37
And Dana's, like, in that moment, like, basically, should have been a disadvantage, like, shit. My main business is gonna go down the drain.
29:44
You know, the owner can't pay him can't pay my fighters. Like, this is over. But he turned that disadvantage to an advantage. He's like, then he that's when he approached the Fortitas to be like, hey. Let's buy this thing. And the one funny thing is that owner had mismanaged his business so bad that they didn't even own UFC dot com. He had sold it just get a little bit of cash to user friendly computers and the data had to go buy it back from user friendly computers dot com
30:07
and, like, get back to UFC dot com's domain. Which I thought was amazing. And I think when they bought it, Dana was like, what did someone asked Dana and they go, what did you get when you bought it? He goes, well, he had this, like, octagon. Just basically just, like, a cage and, like, Matt's, which is not very expensive,
30:23
but it was really just that name. I love that name UFC so much. We hadn't had the name. Exactly. And then he's like, you know, they had put forty million more dollars into it. He felt so bad. He's losing his friend's money, and they were trying to make it work, but it just wasn't working yet. And Lorenzo calls, and he's like, dude, do this anymore.
30:39
Like, I can't keep bleeding money like this. If you could, like, can you try to sell this thing? And Dana's like, okay. My buddy needs me to sell this. And so he's like, He calls everybody. And he calls back Lorenzo the next day. He's like,
30:51
there's not a lot of appetite for this thing. I think the best we could do is get six or seven million bucks for this. And Lorenzo is like, okay. Let me, let me call you tomorrow.
31:00
Next day he calls him. Who knows what he had for morning that back that morning for breakfast? But he's like, Fuck it. Let's keep going.
31:06
Like, you know, let's put in another ten million one last chance to turn this business around, and then that's what they used to create the ultimate fighter that ten million. So he's in fifty. There are fifty in? They were fifty million in. Well, it was all funded by the family's casino and previous successes, which I think they were really rich, but I think they were not rich enough that fifty was I mean, fifty was a a significant sum. And when it sold for four billion, those guys, the brothers each own forty forty percent of the the business, basically time. Dana made three hundred sixty million on the sale and, like, had a, you know, ten percent kicker. Some other crazy things about Dana. So
31:38
it takes a pretty rough dude to, like, build the UFC, and I think this guy is kind of like a no holds barred kinda guy. Well, have you ever met any of the UFC fighters? I think you and I have been around him because we have a friend that has been around him. They're they're They're all insane because if you think about what it takes, so what what's it take to get in your underwear
31:55
and fight to the death in front of a million people? You have to be an animal. You don't have all your screws. I'm doing that. And and so data has talked about it. He goes, I don't think you guys understand. Like, someone will say something homophobic or racist. And he's like, dude, that's, like, not even close to as bad as it gets when when you're working with these guys, they're they're insane. And drama happens every single day. You only hear about a small portion of it. But it UFC would not be
32:19
it would not exist. It would not be what it is if it wasn't date as, like, force of will. Some other ways that he's just all in. So Do you know he's like a banned Blackjack player from multiple casinos? And which is funny because it's like,
32:30
you can't really have an edge playing Blackjack.
32:33
The only edge he has is that he's willing to bet absurd amounts of money and then he wants to walk away. There's well, there there there's stories about him, like, before it was hugely, hugely successful where he's like, I made a million dollars last night at a casino.
32:45
Yeah. Exactly.
32:47
Of course, as anybody's ever gambled those, you'd never tell the stories about losing the million dollars. You only tell the ones where you made the million. But his strategy, one thing he'll do, he goes and he bets seventy five to a hundred thousand per hand.
32:58
And if he just wins the first two hands, he'll walk away, which is just, like, infuriates the casino because that, you know, they're They need the the large law of large numbers to catch up. And he's like, if he makes two hundred grand, he'll just immediately bounce and, like, I got him. When he starts to get in the hole, that's when they, you know, that's when they get him. So, you know, it it's he just a kind of a impulsive individual.
33:18
A couple of other things that that I thought were kind of interesting. So he's, like, growing up, his dad was alcoholic, and here's what he said. He goes, my dad was never around. And if he was around, he didn't want him to be around. He goes, he was not a good guy. He goes, but I wouldn't change anything. If I hadn't grow up like that, I would not be me. Right? I had the toughness that that built in me would not I wouldn't have that if if I had just had, like, a nice you know, safe upbringing. The other thing he says, he's like, I didn't have a car. So he's like, I just biked everywhere. I went in Boston. He's like, so I bought a walkman, and I would put on Tony Robbins. And I would listen to, you know, the giant within. He's, like, in every day, I would just ride around on my bike, kinda, like, working myself into a frenzy listening to that thing, just getting anywhere I needed to go. And he's like, it was my kind of escape from, like, the shittiness of my life. He's like, and then I started buying those tapes for anybody as gifts because it was, like, so impactful to me, which I thought was Dude, isn't that funny though? So Dana Dana White is is a tough guy. Right? Like, I think that he's a type of guy who you don't wanna mess with physically or in business. Like, He's he's he's a he's a legit tough guy. And even he listens to self help stuff. I always thought it was funny. I was I used to be ashamed of, like, listening to a Tony Robbins or something. I was like, I don't wanna talk about And then you realize that, like, even the bad the badasses, like, consume a lot of this stuff in order to get pumped.
34:32
Yeah. The people who have improved themselves seem to have done something to prove themselves.
34:37
It's insane.
34:39
One other thing. He had the same thing like the mail room thing. So he said, I didn't know this part of the story, but for three years, Like, he doesn't really talk too much about it. He's like, I worked under a guy. He's like, I basically did an apprentice shit. And he's like, I told myself, I'm gonna spend three years with this guy because I know. If I spend three years with this guy, I will know everything there is to know about the fight business. He's like, today, I'm not the guy who can go be the next Don King or go become the next big promoter of the fight business. I know that's where I wanna go, but I gotta learn. I gotta earn my stripes. So he did his version of the mailroom. He's like, he works for this guy. He's like, for three years, I worked harder. He's like, you know, the Whatever my actual wage was, like, per hour must have been just ridiculously low with the number of hours I put in. He's like, but I did every job there is. He's like, I was a cut man. I was a corner man. I was a referee. I managed the talent. I would read all the contracts even though he never even asked me to. He's like, I put in three years so I could know the ins and outs of the entire business so that that prepared me to do what I wanted to do. And he's like, I I knew that's what I needed. You haven't actually explain how they're all the same. They're all just maniac all in individuals. Right? They're people who basically,
35:43
Ari is a good example of this. So Ari kind of had already made WME was the biggest agency, one of the big one of the top two agencies in Hollywood. Right? And he'd already made it. And I talked to somebody and knew him. I'm like, why did he buy the UFC? Like, and to buy the UFC,
35:57
he raised, like, he tapped his network. He raised every dollar he could. But then he basically had to, like, leverage and mortgage WME. So he kinda put everything he had worked for at risk to buy a very high risk asset at a very high price.
36:10
You know, for sure. Was the
36:12
to tie it all in, I think Silver Lake was the funder or one of the bigger fenders. Exactly. So Silver Lake sees what Ari is doing, and they're like, If Ari Emmanuel's going all in on something, he will not lose. He will not let this fail. Ari Emmanuel mortgages everything he's worked for to go all in on this bet. Dana
36:30
has options to sell the business and actually had an option to sell for almost a billion dollars more, he said. But he turned it down because he wanted to work with Ari because he knew Arie is the guy who's all in, and the future upside of this thing is gonna be bigger with Ari even if today's payout is a billion dollars less. And so they all shared that trait of why they all wanted to be in business with each other and why they all wanted to back each other. And the Fortina brothers, no different. Same reason they wanted to back Dana. And do this deal was they're also wired like this. So to me, that was the commonality amongst all these people. And if you watch a you a big UFC fight, you're gonna see Ari Emmanuel you're gonna see his girlfriend to his left, and then to his right, you're gonna see egon. And then a few seats down is gonna be Dana. They're always they always sit in the exact same spots. For all the big fights and you see them. And I remember seeing egon there. I'm like, who's that guy? That's always there. And that's how I learned about him. And Dana said when he sold the UFC, he's like, it kinda in my head. He's like, I spent two days. I just, like, he's like, I just had, like, a bender in my hotel room because I was like, what do I do? I have three hundred million dollars in my bank account.
37:30
My best friends who have been doing this with me are gone now. I'm doing this on my own,
37:35
and we kinda made it, but I'm used to being the guy who is fighting for fighting to make it? What happens when you make it? He's like, it really screwed my head for two days. And I was like,
37:44
alright. Well, I guess I'm just I'll just go back to doing exactly what I what I know how to do. I just go back to doing exact like, just don't change anything. Just keep operating the same way. And so how what do you know about the frititos? Furtinas, I didn't look up their history too much when I thought I wanted to know their personality a little bit. A couple little bullet points I have here. They work out every day together, the brothers at seven AM. I like that. I just like that as a brotherly thing to do. The second thing, they attend all meetings together. So they're not, like, delegate divided conquer. They're, like, No, bro. We're going to all the meetings together. They both sit there. They drink a Diet Doctor Pepper, and they attend almost every meeting together as well. And then they, like, ball out. They got yachts and planes and art. And their cousin tillman Fortiva also is a baller. And so, like, they're just kind of a crazy family that made it this,
38:26
wild wild west time of Vegas. I was gonna say, do you know who their cousin is? Their cousin is Tillman.
38:32
Tillman got famous because he I think he bought in to Landry's
38:37
which is, I think, what, is it a steak steak restaurant in Texas? From there, he bought many, many other things including, like, bubble gum shrimp and, like, a ton of, like, those
38:47
not fast casual, but, like, Applebee's, like, not nice, but, like, kinda nice if you're broke and you wanna go out to eat, type of situation,
38:55
and then eventually he bought out the whole company after taking it public. And I believe now it's one of the most profitable
39:02
privately held companies where he owns one hundred percent of it. So there's a lot of a lot of privately held companies that are quite huge his company is one hundred percent owned by him. I think it I read his biography. I think it does something like three million dollars a year in EBITDA, and he bought the Houston Rockets as well. So he's like, but he's He's known as being a real asshole. The other Fatita guys, all the interviews I've seen with them, they seem shockingly
39:26
There's still sharks, but they seem shockingly well well mannered
39:29
and calm and and and they they seem like really easygoing if that is such a word that could be described these types of sharks.
39:37
Yeah. They they are incredibly respected.
39:40
I'll leave you one last little quote I liked from Dana. So he said,
39:44
He goes, you know, about the risk taking thing. He's like, you know, he's like, you can always go back to your job, but here's what you can't do. You can't go back and get this opportunity again. You can't rewind time. You can't make get back through youth to take risks. He's like, I realized that I didn't wanna be on my deathbed with a bunch of I shoulda's.
39:59
He goes, he goes, and he goes, not everything I've done has worked. And what I've learned is that even if it turns out shitty, it's not just that you learn how to win. Sometimes the most important learning is I thought I wanted to do this, but it turns out that's not what I wanna do. And I thought that was a really wise thing that most people don't say. What's he referring to? Walking away from the UFC? It might have been, like, could've been anything. Could've been like when he want thought he wanted to be a boxer that he goes in and he realizes, oh, actually, like, only through trying this that I learned that that's not actually the thing I wanna do. Oh, this is Dana. This is Dana talking. And so I thought that was good because everybody talks about, oh, it's okay. If you fail, you'll still learn. But
40:36
rarely do they explain this that one of the most important things in general in life is just figuring out what is the thing you actually wanna be doing? Most people go their whole life never never finding and then they're in their thirties or forties or fifties, and they feel like it's too late to even try a new thing. They're so far down one path. They don't wanna go back to the bottom of the mountain and try a new path. And so I thought this is so important to know is, like, early on when you're not that far up the mountain,
40:59
use that to your advantage because you can go back to the beginning and choose a new path, And that sometimes going down the path, it's not just about becoming a better hiker. It's about learning. This isn't a path I like. And the only way I could've known that was by trying. My biggest takeaway from these stories
41:13
is loyalty.
41:15
So I've heard Dana in the Lorenzo Brothers talk about their little trio, their their three person team.
41:22
They're crazy loyal to one another. And I was always envious that I didn't have, like, a brother that was about my age who I wanted to, partner with or work with. And so I've read about the Lorenzo Brothers a lot, and I'm very envious
41:35
of that relationship that they've had. They seem like they've had a healthy relationship with their parents, who are business people. And then when they brought in Dana, They are all crazy loyal to one another, and they never disrespect one another publicly.
41:48
It's all it seems like a great partner And that's been my biggest takeaway from from these guys is loyalty. Even Dana, I don't like many of the things that he's done. And I'm actually not a trump supporter, but he was like, Trump was nice to me in two thousand and eight or something like that When nobody else was. He's like, no one would no one would help us. Trump helped us I remember that. Therefore, I I'm gonna repay him. Now I don't think Dana is a straight up guy all the time. Like I said, I think he's done a lot of messed up stuff. But his value of his his how he looks at loyalty, I appreciate at least and when it comes to those three those two brothers. Yeah. You're kinda like that too where, like, loyalty is a,
42:27
deep rooted value. I feel like if someone's loyal to you or disloyal to you, even in small way. I feel like that goes really deep in your core. Is that right?
42:37
I don't forget. So someone will do something.
42:40
Someone, like,
42:42
Do you remember that story
42:44
that,
42:45
I explained about how I asked a reporter if she wanted to freelance for the hustle. And she said, that's cute. And I, like, have always held the garage and I wanna destroy here. I went and re reread the email.
42:57
She didn't say that's cute. She said, that's so sweet. I appreciate you so much, but I'm not interested.
43:03
But for some reason, at the time, what?
43:05
I read it, and I went and reread it the other day when I was talking to Sarah. And I was like, maybe she actually wasn't being rude. But for the last ten years,
43:13
I've been waiting for this woman to make a mistake, and I wanted to pounce on it just to get revenge because she dismissed me. I've been wanting to do that so bad, and I've so thankful that that hasn't happened yet because she actually wasn't rude to me. I reread it. But the point being is if someone's disloyal to me, I wanna destroy them. And the people who are loyal to me, yes, I I go all in on them because
43:36
if you don't look, I moved to San Francisco with not knowing anyone the way that you get ahead is you have to have a a group of people who you do everything for and you expect them to do everything in return. And once you find that group of people, it helped you so much. Not just in life, but or not just in business, but for everything else. It helps so much. And we have a friend who is so incredibly loyal
43:58
that it, like, sets a standard
44:00
It's almost annoying. You know who It's almost annoying. I don't understand. He
44:04
buys the best gift and I feel like I've gotta go with, like It's not even about the kiss. It's like,
44:09
I know that if I was in trouble,
44:12
this guy would drop everything,
44:15
He would drop everything more than my dad would drop everything to come to come help. And he would say send location. Send me location. Exactly.
44:24
It's it's a location. I'm there.
44:26
This guy his loyalty his level of loyalty is, like, next level. I don't even know why. It's not like it's ever even been tested in that way. I've never had to send me a location, but why do I feel that way? I have no idea. But the but I do. You can't convince me otherwise.
44:40
Because he has shown it in the budget, like, small ways that you know that the big way would always be there. And But, man, it it's paid off wonderfully for him. He successful on his own, but he's been he's definitely gotten ahead. But then there's been times I was with him one time, and he wanted to ride a skateboard. I go, Ramon, don't ride shape or dude, you're forty years old, you're about to hit your head. Do not do this. He does it anyway. He gets a concussion. I we gotta take him to the hospital. We have to we take care of his kid while he's in the hospital for two or three days. And so he's been repaid a little bit in his loyalty, but it's paid off. And I and I and I've seen I'm like, I feel like I owe you so much that I will do anything in return to to get you back. And so it's helped him so much.
45:19
And so, anyway, I expect that about these guys? Is that how loyal they are? I was thinking about here's a little philosophical thought experiment for you. You know you know the phrase, f u money. Like, oh, he's got f u money. And I think a lot of people aspire to have that. But an interesting question is,
45:34
what are the other f u's? Like,
45:37
You know, maybe,
45:39
you know, Sam, you could be like, I have f u health. Right? Cause if you're if you're in absolute pristine health, you have physical fitness, you're you're extremely athletic, you're mobile, you're whatever. Right? You can have a few health. Like, what else could you have in? I think Ramon has he has a few loyalty.
45:54
Right? We're like,
45:56
It is it is he is just full, a fully abundant in the loyalty that he has for others and that others will have for him because me and you and everyone, I'm sure that he's friends with, we would all go to bat for him completely.
46:07
And I just as a thought experiment, it's like, what are the other versions of f u? That actually are more valuable than having a few money. Have you ever thought about something like this? That's a great question. So what else what are the other options besides loyalty?
46:20
Like, my trainer, my personal trainer, he's got, like, a few happiness.
46:24
We're, like, the guy's happy no matter what's going on. Which is kind of the way that f u money works. It's like, dude, he'll do whatever because he's, like, he just doesn't give a shit. He just doesn't care. My trainers like that with he just doesn't give a shit There's traffic? Oh, I'm having a party in my car. Oh, this person cut me off? Well, oh, I'm, you know, whatever. He just makes his own version of of, like, always in a good mood no matter what is going on. He's completely
46:47
unconditional. He's completely
46:49
invincible.
46:50
I think you have it. I think you have that. I aspire to have that.
46:54
Well, in my opinion, from my perspective, you have that. I was thinking the other day, I'm like, when does Sean ever get rattled,
47:00
or does he ever get, like, stressed and unhappy. And there's been stories,
47:04
and I've seen it firsthand, where someone has said something to you rude or
47:09
you've had something didn't break your way, and it and it was a tough break. And
47:14
you're you're hard to, like, get down. I mean, I've been with you when you've lost a bunch. I've been a you make a bunch, but I've seen you lose in a variety of bets that you've taken. You don't get rattled. You tweeted out something the other day. You said,
47:27
your
47:28
your pucker, butthole. What was it?
47:31
I was like, everybody's got a butt clench number. It's an it's an amount of money where It makes your butthole pucker up a little bit. And it's good to know where your pucker number is right now. And just keep note of that. And I was like, because I had just wired a bunch of money And, like, it's not even that I was, like, worried. It's not even that I was, like, worried. Oh, I'm gonna lose it. But I was literally, like, let me just double check the routing number. Let me just make sure I got that right, which I don't usually Like, I don't usually bother to be like, okay.
47:54
Palms are a little sweaty. Let's go ahead and hit the button. Like, if you're Dude, I do that with a thousand dollars. I don't just pass the best. Like, animation when you're gonna send an email. You know, you know, the one I'm talking about, where it's the monkey's finger about to push the sand and it's sweating and it's trembling because it's like you're about to email your whole let's just are you sure you got all the details, right? That's, like, that's the pucker number for for some people with their email list. And so I think everybody's gotta know Your number was high. I I I'm like that with a thousand. And so when I think about, like, why am I stressed about certain things? I definitely try to think You know,
48:25
there was, who was it? I think it was JFK. He had a photo of Abe Blake on his desk. And he goes, I just always try to ask myself, what what would Abe do? Sometimes when I get stressed, I think, what would Neville Maduro do and what would Sean Prairie do? Like, how would they handle this? Neville Maduro is another person who has no stress. There was one time when he was trying to he had never owned a house, and he was thinking about buying a house. And he had never thought about finances because he's been making a great living for years and years and years, and he never thought about money. He could buy whatever he wants, And he was thinking about what house he wanted, and he was just gonna pay cash, like, or something like that, where it was like a big investment, his first big investment. And then he was talking to my wife and I, and he goes, I couldn't go to bed last night. I mean, because I was thinking about buying this house, and I can't buy exactly everything I want, and I actually have to, like, second guess some of the things.
49:09
And then he we were just sitting there. We didn't say a word. And he looked at Sarah, and he goes, is that stress?
49:15
And we were like, yeah, dude. That's what stresses. Like, finally, you experienced it at the age of thirty eight years old. And,
49:22
you you It goes to a doctor. It's like, what is this thing right? Stayed up, like, for an hour last night just thinking about this, and you and Neville have that same thing where you have a very high tolerance.
49:34
It's crazy when you see it because people take pride
49:37
They're like, man, I don't tolerate no disrespect.
49:40
And it's like, what are you really saying there? What you're really saying is like what do you say? You you tolerate it?
49:46
You can't disrespect me. If you say something, that says something about you, not me. What do well, you can't bother me. Like,
49:53
you know, there's a great way Tony Robbins said this. He goes,
49:56
How cheap is your happiness?
49:58
Meaning, if all it takes is somebody doing something really little to take your happiness away, your happiness is cheap. You you got the TJ Maxx of happiness. Right? You are the low you are the dollar store of your of your your mood is in the dollar store. Right? Anybody can go get it for so little. Someone could just take the grocery cart in front of you that you wanted, and now you're a little bit piffed. Right? Right? Like, don't be cheap with your happiness. Be expensive. Be luxury. I heard a very funny story about you, and if this violates anything, we'll delete it. So I was with Ben last night for at Ramon's birthday. We did a little birthday thing for Ramon.
50:29
Then told me this funny story about how you were thinking about writing a book, and you meet with this amazing author. And the author asks you something
50:37
Or maybe he was like, why do you need my help? And you were like, well, I think I could do it. I think I'm I'm talented enough to do it. I just don't have the time right now, and I just would rather you do it. And you said something
50:48
that, I guess, this guy thought that you were being rude. And the guy in the middle of the meeting goes, well, stop the conversation.
50:55
I'm out of here. This is not a good fit. And instead of being insulted, your your takeaway was, wow, I really respect that about you. You did a great job of, like, standing up for yourself.
51:05
Where I don't know what happened. The here's the here's the story of what happened.
51:11
We meet with this guy. He's a book development guy. So, basically, there's there's somebody in between an editor, a publisher,
51:17
a writer, and a book development guy is just the guy who's gonna help you think through the concept in flush it out. Right? So I'm like, who's the best in the world at this? Right? And a question I will always ask. Who's the best of the world at doing this? I wanna talk to them. So I read this guy. Who's the best in the world at doing this? What he asked me was not why do you wanna write this? I didn't say I don't have time. What he said was, what do you wanna write about? And I go, I go, I think I could write about anything. I was like, I could write a book about storytelling. I could write a book about marketing. I was like, I feel like this actually the the problem is maybe I'll write multiple books. I don't know, but I wanna I was like, I have so many ideas. I want you to help me think through which of those ideas. And he goes,
51:50
that's a nightmare.
51:51
He goes,
51:53
He goes, that's probably the worst answer you could give to somebody like me. He goes, I want somebody who spent ten years, twenty years of their life only thinking about one thing. And that's the thing that they need to pour into a book. The guy who's like, oh, I could write about any anything and everything. Oh, god. That's gonna be miserable for me to figure out. And he, like, ended the meeting, like, before the meeting. No. He did but he goes, that would not he's, like, he's, like, that I don't wanna do that. That's not a fit for me. So he didn't end the meeting, but he's just he's just was, like, I'm gonna be honest with And I go,
52:20
I was like, all you did was make me want you more. I was like, that's exactly what I want out of my development time. Yeah. Push back because the speech I had given about What are the things I could write about and why? It was a good speech. It was an a plus speech. It was only sixty seconds long, but I was like, I made a strong point there. And whenever it's ever and ever somebody can say the truth in the face of my persuasion,
52:40
I have an extreme amount of respect for them. It's not about generic pushback. It's about truth The guy said the true thing, which was that's not what you want when you're writing a book. What you want is
52:49
I my whole life has been building up to this one book in this one moment and this one thing that I can't wait to pour out of me because I've I've refined it in my head for ten years. And I was like, that's actually right. And I wanna work with you even more
53:03
now. But I also agree with you and that you're completely right. Thank you. And I was like, I I, like, thanked him profusely for that. The same thing happened the other day on a tax call? Well, by the way, my my point being is I think that's a really healthy way that you approached it. Let me tell you about a more offensive thing. That happened. That was, also not offensive to me. I've been looking for a a tax person, and I was, like, so I created this whole, like, tax data room. And I sent it to a couple of people. I was like, hey, I heard you're good. Take a look at my situation and tell me what you think. And most of them, they're like, hey, took a look at this. I did three calls. First call, door number one. Guy goes,
53:39
He took a look at everything. It looks really good. I have two suggestions of maybe if you did this instead, you could save some money. It's okay. Thank you for your suggestion.
53:47
Person number two says, hey, this looks, this looks great. You know, congratulations
53:52
on all your success.
53:54
Know, I definitely think we can handle this for you. We have other clients that are similar, and I feel really confident about it. I said, okay. Thank you for that. Cool. Not quite what I'm looking for, but but okay. Thank you.
54:05
Third third door. I get on the call. This guy goes, alright. I took a look at everything, and,
54:10
I'll be honest with you. You have way too much complexity for how much money you make.
54:15
And I was like,
54:16
thank you. I feel the same way, but a part of me, my ego was, like,
54:21
did you look at the numbers? They're they're going up. That's actually twenty twenty two. Twenty twenty three is better and better. And twenty twenty four is gonna be great. Like, my ego wanted to be like, are you saying? I'm a broke little bitch because, like, that's what I heard. Well, you heard that lady, like, that writer say that's cute, and she didn't actually say that. In my head, what I heard was,
54:39
You're too poor for me. Thank you. Like, you know, I I don't really wanna do this.
54:43
And I felt that for, like, fifteen seconds.
54:46
But then more than that, you know, I and I let myself have the feeling for fifteen seconds of, like, my ego, like, being deflated, like, a, you know, a pin pricking my balloon there.
54:55
But I was like, what do I actually want? Let me remember what I actually want. And I hired the third guy, of course. I was like, I totally agree. Can you help me fix this up? And he's like, and then as we were talking, he's like, actually, now that you've told me more, a lot of this does make sense because the trajectory,
55:08
but, like, you know, I still think we need to simplify
55:11
And I still think that, like, you know, you really gotta ask yourself, do I really wanna optimize all this for taxes or would I rather just spend my time making, you know, actually growing the business and making more money? And I'm, like,
55:21
You, sir, are exactly what I've been looking for. And even though that first punch hit me right in the gut, and I wanted to get defensive,
55:29
I have learned that that gets me no absolutely nowhere, and I just let that feeling go in fifteen seconds. And that's actually the tip, by the way. Everybody has the same feelings, It's just that some people hold that for, like, ten years. Some people get mad for three days. And then the goal is, like, can you just have the feeling for thirty seconds and move And, like I don't think that should be the goal, dude. Rage is an amazing motivator.
55:50
I have achieved a whole lot remembering being dumped by a high school girlfriend.
55:55
You've had great accomplishments,
55:57
but you should probably remember that, like, you want all those accomplishments because you think they're gonna make you feel better. At feeling rage is not the better you seek. So you can deal with that. We can deal with easy rage is not the way. Right? Just remember, you never want the thing. You want the feeling you think the thing is gonna give you. If using rates, it appears not the way.
56:15
Abs aren't built in the kitchen. They're built by an eighth grade girlfriend telling you that you're not good enough. Just remember that. As they're built by a crumbled up Valentine car. Yeah.
56:26
Yeah. Bro, can I tell you a funny story?
56:28
I was in seventh six to seventh grade, and I really liked this girl, Rachel.
56:33
And I was, like,
56:34
I wrote this, like, poem, Valentine thing. Like, basically, like, folded it up. I cut it out. I write this thing,
56:41
and I,
56:43
show it to her. And she I I show it. I I I don't know what I did, but, like, I basically gave it to her. I think I was so nervous that I didn't even
56:50
say anything.
56:51
I just, like, handed her a note.
56:54
And I'm standing there and she opens it up. And she reads it, and she's like, oh my god, Sean. This is so sweet. And I'm like, it worked. And she was like, this is amazing.
57:04
Who's this for?
57:06
And I was like, and I'm like
57:09
and in my head, I was like, I could just be courageous and be like, this is for you.
57:14
I love you. Actually, it turns out that I seventh grade love you.
57:17
And it said, I was like,
57:19
it's for
57:21
Chelsea. I just made up a name. And she's, like, who's Chelsea? I was, like, she doesn't go here. She's, like, and I was, like, and I was, like,
57:29
She was like, what? And I'm like, yeah. You know that,
57:32
that improv con she was at that. I met her. She goes to another school, and she's like, Did she just made the most elaborate lie? And for three months,
57:39
I kept up this charade that there's some girl that I met that likes me and I like her in that note I showed you where that was for her.
57:46
That's that's where I was.
57:49
That's where I was.
57:50
I don't know how I don't have abs by now. That was pretty devastating
57:54
beat down. Somehow that didn't even work for me. See, you gotta use that rage to get those haps. Although, that She doesn't know. I hope she listens to Rachel. I hope you're listening to There was no Chelsea.
58:04
There was a you were Chelsea. There was no Chelsea. Now she knows. That's awesome.
58:08
That's it. That's the episode. That's the pod.
00:00 58:32