21 Brutally Honest Lessons About Life - Alex Hormozi (4K)

What did you call this? The podcasting booty call. We come together for a very intense three hours, don't see each other for six months, until I text you again and say, "What you doing?" It's exactly that.

All right, so we're going to go through some of the best lessons I've learned from you over the last couple of months. First one: "Control freak" is a word people with low standards use to describe people with high standards. You're not a control freak, you just want it done right the first time. You're not anxious, you care.

Do not expect mediocre people to support world-class goals. I think most people feel really lonely when you want something that doesn't currently exist. And so, some people call that a dream, some people call that goals. Whatever it is, you're trying to pull something from your mind into reality, and you want it done a certain way. And if it's not done that way, it's not what you imagined. And so people on the outside will throw stones and call you names that they think will change your behavior and get you to stop.

And the more I have been the person trying to pull things into reality, the more I've tried to weather and build kind of defenses against those things. So that when those stones get hurled at you by being called a control freak, or by saying you micromanage things, or that you have incredibly high standards, the answer is yes, because I want it done right the first time. Because either way, we're going. If you have enough will, it's going to get done the way that I want it to get done regardless, and it'll be less painful if we just do it the first time. Because we will still have to do it, and you may have to do it three or four more times, but eventually you'll just succumb to the fact that we're going to do it this way. And I think all of the great things that have happened for humanity have been from one man or woman who had an idea and just wouldn't let people shake it from them.

The standard of "right" isn't actually that insane when you think about it. It's just right. It's just done without error. And I guess that the margin that some people consider to be right and other people consider to be right just changes. I'm trying to think of a really good example for this, but like the level of detail. I mean, it's it's the difference between, it's the difference between a book that gets 10 or 100 five-star reviews and a book that gets 100,000 five-star reviews.

And everyone wants a silver bullet, but most of the things that make great products is 100 golden BBs. And so that's one of the things we have: there's no silver bullets, only hundreds of golden BBs. There's just hundreds of tiny little improvements. It's like, how can we look at the can? How can we improve the way it ships? What about the weight? What about the color scheme? How does it sit on the shelves? How are people going to look at it in this market versus this market? Are like, how does this name appear on hats and on shirts and on and on sites? And what's the RGB, you know, whatever the color scope is here versus there? And it's just a thousand details that someone who does not care will not put the work to look into because they're trying to check a box rather than to make something that people will love.

Or, um, I heard this from, shoot, I can't remember where it was from, um, but basically that the best art is art where the artist makes it for themselves. And where you see commercial work is where a bunch of people are trying to make something for an audience. And so it's, they're trying to like rinse and recycle stuff that actually solves no one's problems because no one is actually the audience. Whereas when you make it for yourself, there's thousands of people just like you who will, who have the same depth of understanding of it. But it feels selfish in the moment to make something for yourself. But when you make it for yourself, you actually make it for everyone. But you can be reliably informed that there's some non-insignificant minority of people who also think like you, yes, who also have the same problems as you, who also have the same fears as you.

So I'm going through two projects at the moment, one being a book and the other being Ut tonic. That is nascent and it's new. And that means that there's lots more of these small things that are actually quite big things. But I was telling you before we started about the fact there's a hyphen and there's a hyphen missing between one piece of copy and another piece of copy, but it's printed on a million cans. For [ __ ] sake. But being concerned about being seen as someone who has too high standards is something that for quite a while I felt ashamed about. Yeah, because you feel like a bother. You feel like you're being unnecessarily, it's not even detail-oriented, it's picky, cumbersome. Yes, yes, yes, yes, laborious. Um, and I realized probably last year, took me until last year to realize that not succumbing to stopping doing that is probably one of the only reasons why I've had any success.

I mean, I think if, so for anyone who's listening, if you have that, I, I would consider it a gift. Um, it makes sense for the majority of people to be opposed to that because you do make more, more work for everyone else. But the product of that work is so much better. And so if you want the work that you have to last and to be meaningful and make an impact, it comes from 100 golden BBs, of 100 particularities, of 100 peculiarities that you are picky about because the whole thing needs to work. And what happens is, if you have a big project, lots of people have to get involved, but there still needs to be one vision. Otherwise, it looks like a Frankenstein where everyone just checks a box of something they did in the past, they just copy and paste it over, and then it doesn't resonate with anyone because again, they just did it for everyone rather than for the artist.

And so using that as a frame has given me permission to be me in an unreasonable world. And so like, I told, I told this last time I was on, but when I did the book launch, I had, I, I practiced that presentation three times a day, every day for 30 days. So I did a 100 run-throughs, full-length run-throughs. First, where I did it out loud and recorded it. Second time, where I would watch the recording, um, and then edit in real time, and then do it again. And I did that every single day. And so then when I came live and had half a million people or whatever, it came out, I think, flawlessly. But people were like, "Man, you're such a natural at this." It's like, "Well, I did it a hundred times." And so sometimes people even hear 100, it's just a big number. But when you do a 100 repetitions of something, the first five times you're like, "Wow, I'm so much better." But then like, the difference between five and the next 95 times is what goes from being great to being a masterpiece. And like, it's that next 95 that I think is what makes people world-class. And that's where everyone falls off. And that's why most people aren't there.

Is this pull, I think, from people who don't have high standards to people who do have high standards to drag them back? It's this like, uh, moving back toward the mean. Yeah, is killing the only competitive advantage that you had. Couldn't agree more. It's, I mean, it's, it's conforming, right? It's like they, people want you to do what they find comfortable. And most things that are like, most companies deteriorate when the founder leaves. Because, and it happens slowly, because it's, you go from 100 golden BBs to 99 golden BBs, and it doesn't look that different. And then there's 98 golden BBs, and they're like, "I don't know." And then two years later, three years later, you're like, "I don't know, it doesn't have the same like magic as it was." What it was. And that's because the art behind it isn't there, because it's not unified anymore. It's not congruent anymore. It's a 100 departments making decisions with people copying, pasting things for an audience that doesn't exist, rather than one person who's trying to be satisfied for an ideal that they are trying with all their might to live up to.

I suppose this is one of the important reasons to have a singular figure that is the hub and all of the spokes come off it, because they're the only person that gets to see absolutely everything. And typically that would be the founder in a podcast, that would be a host. In any other, in a, um, solo music band, that would be the lead singer or the songwriter or whatever. They get to see everything. For instance, we've done some episodes before where it's been the night before, and I've been not happy with the color grade because the way that something displays on mobile is slightly different to the way that it displays in Premiere Pro, and it's slightly different to the way that it displays in a 6K photographer videographer's curved screen. I've, guys, it's like, it's not up to scratch. Well, we're not going to be able to get it in time for the export. We're not going to be able to get it in time to get it uploaded. And then there's checks that go through on YouTube like, well, it needs to happen. Like, it just, find a way to make this happen. And yeah, that, um, that impulse of just actually seeing it as something that you should lean into. Okay, well, it's not. And if you set the standard, and if everybody else gets up to that standard, what it shows is the people who continually push up against that and don't meet that standard, they're just not built for this particular company. They're built for someone else that makes a mediocre product, but they're not built for you who's making a world-class product.

And I, I, I really want to jam down someone's throat right now, um, the whole like, "Don't be a perfectionist." Like, you're proc, like it's just another word for procrastination. I actually think that's complete [ __ ]. I think that's my quote. Being, is it perfectionism is procrastination masquerading as quality control? Yes. Okay, so then I'm going to, I'm going to put us a sub, a sub-footnote on it that I think will, will add context, which is that most people who claim to be perfectionists are not perfectionists. They're actually procrastinating because they're not doing anything. And so it just is a socially acceptable label. Because the real perfectionists feel this, this sickness where they like want to itch their skin off until the thing's done, but they are trying to get it done. Whereas the perfectionist, or the, the procrastinator uses that to say like, "I'm not sure, I'm just getting it right." But like the person who's an actual perfectionist, one, wants to finish and is working every hour of every day on the thing and seeing progress towards it. Because if you don't know how your thing is getting better, you're not a perfectionist, you're just ignorant. They're also moving toward the goal every single step of the way, as opposed to just sitting back. I had this huge list of things that are not doing the thing. Planning to do the thing isn't doing the thing. Thinking about the thing isn't doing the thing. Getting angry at people on the internet that have already done the thing is doing the thing. And, um, there's also a people who are perfectionists within the thing that matters most are prepared to see things that are ancillary to that. For instance, you're not absolutely a perfectionist, I'm going to guess, with the short-form content that goes out on your Instagram. It's like, this is sawdust, as you call it. This is just, it's extra, right? It's, it's, it's freebie stuff. Look, if we have one in a 100 videos that have got a typo, or the hyphen missing, or something, all right. But if we're talking the school announcement release, if there's a [ __ ] typo in that, or in the, the video, one of the links is broken, or even if one of the links is slightly pixelated, yeah, that's something that I can have a problem with. So picking your battles as a perfectionist, I think, actually, or someone as someone with high standards, is super important. Because you can't have that degree of high standards at absolutely everything. Because if you don't pick your battles, you're not going to make sufficient movement at the velocity you need to actually make. So find the areas that are the highest contribution. Yeah. Don't compromise on those.

And it's funny you say that, because I, the way that I immediately reframed that was that the perfectionism was around volume. It's like, that is what we will, that is what we are optimizing towards. And then we can't. Because if we look at, if we knew how people responded ahead of time to content, then we would make things differently than we do. But I probably, like you, am often surprised, pleasantly and sometimes unpleasantly, by the stuff that just grabs hold and then just goes, you know, viral as hell, um, in content. And so I think part of that is making up for our own ignorance by increasing volume. And at, and so that would be like, it, my reframe on the perfectionism there is like, we know that if we make 10 pieces of content, it is more likely that we will have more people see it than if we try really hard at one. And so we make 10 because the net benefit of the 10 is. And so that's the ideal that we commit to.

Thiago Forte has a fantastic take on this where he talks about perfectionism allows people to sit back and not produce work at a rate required to work out what actually works. Have you heard the story of the, the pottery class? Oh, I feel like the, all right, well, this feels like total modern. Is this where someone comes in behind and then holds the thing in front? So there's two, two, uh, there's a teacher, and he's got two classes that he teaches. And one class, he said, says the only assignment for this whole semester is that you come back with a perfect, uh, clay pot. That's it. That's the assignment. The other class, he says, your objective is to make the most total quantity of clay pots, and you'll be measured by how many pots you make. And at the end of the quarter, the pots that came from the team that had to just make sheer volume, not only did they make more pots, but the quality of all of their pots was better compared to the teams that only had to make one. And it just underlines the, the biggest lesson that I've learned in my life, which is that volume negates luck. Is that you can try to be lucky and pick the one perfect thing and try and make it. But if you don't want to try and be lucky, you can just do so much [ __ ] work that you will, you will brute force your way to figuring it out. Like, if you do a thousand podcasts, you'll be pretty [ __ ] good at podcasts, right? But if you try to say, "Okay, you're, you're brand new, and all you have to do is make one perfect podcast." The problem is that you don't have the perspective from which to make a judgment to say, "What is good?" Because you have zero data to base anything off of. And so you're basing your idea of a perfect podcast on something that you've literally never done before. And so doing the volume gives you the perspective to then have the best podcast at number 1,000 or 1,001. Anyways, I just thought you'd love the clay pot. I, I know that story, but I thought it was photography. Oh, okay. So anyway, but no, I, I again, I don't disagree. And it's finding the thing that is to try and make this tactical. What is the thing that you don't need to focus on volume today? The goal is not to try and fit 10 podcasts into one set. It's to make this one as good as possible. But if it's shorts or reels or tweets or something, it's lower leverage, it's lower input. Just get, just get it out there.

All right, next one. Here's how to get older without getting better: Keep relearning the same lesson. If you keep making the same mistake over and over, the mistake isn't the problem, you won't. So I define learning by same condition, new behavior. And so when you go to a video game and you battle through the level and you battle the boss, if you keep doing the same thing to the boss and you keep losing, then you have not learned. Because you have the same condition and the same behavior. And so I often say that like, for anyone who's listening to this podcast, if the goal is to get better, and you're like, "Man, I really want to learn something from this podcast." If you listen to this podcast and then you're in the same exact conditions as you were before, and then you do not change your behavior, you learned nothing. And so using that definition has at least allowed me to change my behavior faster, which then goes into rate of learning, which I define as intelligence. And so a lot of people are like, "Man, he's so smart." But he just doesn't. It's like, "Well, then if he doesn't change his behavior and he's in the same conditions, he's a dummy. He's not that smart." And so if you are trying to battle the same boss over and over again, and you don't change what you're doing, and the boss keeps beating you, then it's not the game's problem, it's your problem. You are the problem.

And I think that's, um, like if you, if you continue, I talked about, obviously, I, I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs. But I usually do this when I have a crowd. I say like, "Hey, raise your hand if you work all the hours of the day." And a lot, you know, most of the crowd raised their hand. I say, "Okay, who here has been stuck at the same revenue level for six months or more?" And then I said, "Keep the hands up." And like, honestly, most of the time, the same hands are raised. And I say, "You're doing the wrong [ __ ]." Like, if you put all your inputs and the outputs haven't changed, then you have the same condition and the same behavior, and so you have learned nothing. And so that has always just been my reframe. And so over time, if, if you're moving up in entrepreneurship, or you're moving up in career, your behavior should change because it means you've learned.

Exposure to information isn't learning. Great deal. Are, it's true. It's true. And it's the same with memory. It's literally the way that memory works. The best way to work out how the human memory system works is repeated recall, not repeated exposure, right? You have to drag it out of memory and use it, not just see it a million times. And this is kind of the same thing with the lesson. It's, you can listen to any of the podcasts that exist on the internet, or the ones that we've done, or the ones that you love, or whatever. And if you don't apply anything, it, it's a waste of time. And this is the best solution for this is Tim Ferris's "The Good [ __ ] Sticks." Look, what's the thing from the podcast, or the book, or the audiobook, or the, the, whatever that you read or listen to, that you can't stop thinking about? That you go to bed and you think about it? That you took a screenshot or a screen recording and sent it in the group chat? That you like texted your mom about it at 3 in the morning? "Oh, this really explains the way that I felt in school," or "the way that I felt when such and such broke up with me," or whatever. That's the thing. That's the thing to focus on. But a lot of the time, the me, the problem with mental masturbation is that the amount of information you can intake versus the amount of change that you can deploy is asymmetric. Yeah.

When I was getting started on my, um, entrepreneurial journey, and I would say this, like, pre-this, I was, when I was a entrepreneur, like, I hadn't quit my job yet. I started reading all these self-help books. And I remember reading, like, it was probably like my 10th book in a row, and I realized that the words in that book contradicted, like, the second self-help book that I, you know, one was like, "It's all about goals." The other one's like, "It's all about taking, you know, steps." Or whatever it was, right? And I, and I all of a sudden, I was like, "You know, my life is the same. I've read all these books, but my, I still literally live in the exact same condo in Baltimore, doing the same job. Like, nothing has changed." And so I just made the commitment that whatever the next book that I was going to read, I would just not read another book until I'd done everything in that book. Um, and I, that's when I quit my job, and I did a whole bunch of other things. Um, and I've actually more or less stuck with that in terms of like, when I read books, or even listen to podcasts, I usually do it with an intention to get something out of it. And, um, I usually have notes up. And that's so my intake on information, because because I get asked a lot, I'm sure you do, like, I actually don't read that much. Um, I definitely don't read non-fiction. I read like fantasy every once in a while. Red Rising, baby. That's right. Um, but it's because usually I get overwhelmed with the amount of things I would have to do. And so I'm like, "I don't need more information." I'm like, "I'm like, I could read a chapter and be like, 'All right, that's it.' I like, it'll take me two weeks to do this, and then like the rest of the time is doing that."

And so how do you ensure that the things that you're reading are giving you good advice? Because if you didn't move on before you took two weeks to go and do the thing, but the thing was dog [ __ ], you've spent two weeks going backward. So I would probably, I would make the argument that I wouldn't have gone backward, because I would have gained the experience. And so I would have more context to know what the second thing was going to be. And that's just kind of like the trial by fire, learning through iteration. And I think I tend to do more of that, um, sort of a "all learn" philosophy. Yeah. And I, I would say that like, there, there are entrepreneurs who are definitely like super, super duper planners. And there are entrepreneurs who are more like, "Let's just move and break [ __ ] and we'll figure it out." I tend to be really this on the micro, in terms of like, "Move [ __ ] and break, you know, like, we'll figure it out as we go." And I just tend to be a planner only in the big, like, very grand, like, "What do I really want to do in 10 years?" But the majority of the time, it's like, "Let's see, and we'll, we, we'll learn." I've learned so much, like, so much of the content that I have comes from just [ __ ] up in business. And people were like, "This is such an original concept." I was like, "This is just because that's what my life was. I just like, I made this mistake and it didn't work." But I said this one thing one time, and then all these people bought, and I was like, "Ooh, how do I do that again?" And so like, it was always through iteration. And I, I, I read all these books, but there's just between knowing how, uh, or sorry, knowing that and knowing how. Like, knowing that maybe this works, maybe. But once you do it, it's a different type of learning. Where at least for me, it's about been that way. You could read, you could read a 100 books on sales, but when you take your first cold call, all of that goes out the window because you actually have to, you actually have to sell.

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This is related to something I wrote last week. Don't be so worried about people who imitate your work. They only know the what, but not the why. If you stopped being creative, so would they. A photocopier isn't an artist, even if it can recreate the Mona Lisa. I love that because you think like, you are source in that situation. And so everyone is there for like, a subset of you, and they require you to live. You don't require them. And the equal opposite is, I think we should be more fearful of when everyone stops copying you. Like, the day that no one copies you is far, far more frightening than the day everyone's copying you. Yeah. Jimmy Carr refers to China as a cover band. You know, great. It's like they're the cover band of The Beatles. And he says, you know, they're, they're good, and in many ways, they're able to produce things at more scale and so on and so forth. But they're not driving the innovation forward in that same way. Yeah. The idea of getting upset about people copying is just ridiculous. Like, yeah, that's all I, that's all you understand why it's painful, right? If someone's gone through, okay, let's test and test and test and test and test, and then finally find a particular formula that works, and then 10 people downstream get the benefit of this hard, laborious, effortful, late-night grind and iteration. And they just got to be like, "Oh, that thing." Yeah. I so I think that like, they, they'll be able to copy what they can see, but they won't be able to copy what they can't see, which is understanding why each of those pieces are in place. And when something changes in the future, they won't be able to iterate from there because they don't know why it was there in the first place. Why? Right. And so like, I mean, I've obviously dealt this with in a business context where like real dollars are at stake. And so like, in the gym world, you know, Gym Launch, for those who don't know, I had a big licensing company. We had 5,000 locations. And anyways, so we had basically business processes that we would, you know, iterate and figure out why this worked. And so then I had, I used to keep a list of names. And then I just, it got too long and tiresome to keep the names of all the people who tried to take the stuff and then sell it as their own. Um, I say their, I say their names every night before I go to bed. You think I don't remember you? I remember all of you. Um, and so none of them, 10 years later, are still around. And not, and none of them even came to a tenth of the size of Jamal. And it was because it wasn't theirs. Like the person that I would be far more afraid of somebody who comes out with a significantly better system than what we had to help gyms make more money and help their, you know, help their clients more. But like, to this day, like there still isn't one. And that one's Tim Lunch is still the category king in that, in in that industry. And so it's like, just, and that's because we put, and we were talking about this earlier, everything is R&D for us. And so we actually like, were the only licensing company that had an R&D department. And we would test, uh, we call them plays, but we test plays every, every 14 days. And so we'd spend 50 or 100 grand on just a test. We would be like, "All right, let's test this new marketing campaign." Or we'd say, "Hey, let's test this new, uh, high ticket sales processor." "Hey, what if we did, what if we tried to sell memberships via chat?" Let's just give it a shot, see what happens. And, and honestly, 70% of the time, it would, it was worse than the control. Like, it didn't work as well. And what we would do is we'd present it to the licensees and say, "Hey guys, guess what? We just spent 50 grand on that you don't have to spend money on. Look at the results of this." Sell membership. Yeah, yeah. The thing is, is that most people are actually really happy to to know that it didn't work, because it felt like they were scratching it like, "Oh, great. I don't have to do that one." Like, someone did that test for me. So anyways, um, all that to say, unless you have that, that trail of bodies behind you that led you to figure out this one thing, when there is a kink in the system because some external condition changes, which it always will, they then don't know. Which means you're always still going to be ahead. Yeah.

That's very interesting. Yeah, because if you understand the physics of the system, if you understand the dynamics of why you're doing the things that you're doing, and something changes, you can respond. But it goes back to people with high standards. You have to presume that you win in the weeds. Yeah. You have to presume that you win in the weeds. And if you do, and if you're continuing to be this close to it, yeah, as soon as things change, you go, "That's interesting. Why has that happened?" And that then allows you to continue to iterate. And you see it because you're in the weeds. Somebody who's all the way zoomed out, just like, "Yeah, copy paste that." They're like, they're one, they're late, because they have to see that it's working, see that it's working consistently. So they're already three, six months behind. Then they start trying to figure out how to implement it. And then they start implementing it. And then what they don't see is the things that made the conditions that made it work to begin with. And so like, if you just assume that you're always in the lead, then it means then, sure, second through 10th place will always copy number one. But to the victory go the spoils. And so you, like, no one gives a [ __ ] who is fourth place at the Olympics.

Reminder that if you want to be exceptional, you're going to be different from everyone else. That's what makes you exceptional. You can't fit in and also be exceptional. Both have discomfort. When you fit in, you have internal conflict because you're not being 100% you. When you're exceptional, you have external conflict because everyone sees you as different. Pick one.

When your friends start to say, "You've changed," remember, it's because they don't know how to say, "You've grown." I define words a lot because it helps me kind of like make sense of the world. And, like, "exceptional" is like an obvious one, right? We use the word exceptional, like, "You are not like everyone else." But even saying it like that, like, "You are not like everyone else." And so if someone says, "You're not like everyone else," then you can just reframe that as like, "I'm exceptional," and that's not a bad thing. Um, and most, and I, I don't, and I actually think that most people have, like, this might be counter to most people's beliefs, but I think most people have the potential to be exceptional. And I, because most people are peculiar in their own way, they just stifle that because they want to be accepted by most people. But in so doing, never accomplish what they want to do because they conform. Uh, and so like, if there's probably a lot of things about the world or even your world around you that you're like, "This never made sense to me," but then you do it anyways. And I, I think that a lot of innovation and a lot of what makes people exceptional is feeling, you know, thinking that thought or seeing that thing and then being like, "Huh, I don't think I'm going to follow that rule anymore." Like, "Why do I need to shower twice a day?" Huh? Like, I don't know. Like, "Why do I need to wear different clothing?" Huh? Like, there's just a lot of these social norms that people, people, you know, usually pass down to us, or they're, you know, bred into us in high school and college and things like that. But it's like, you see a guy who, you know, wears a cowboy hat and dress a certain way, and he basically wants to say, "I am this. I am this archetype of person." But if cowboy boots aren't as comfortable for you as New Balances are, and you know that, and you still wear cowboy boots, I would call you a fraud. Because like, that is like, it's a, it's like a micro rebellion against yourself. It's like, there is, and like, I look at old people a lot because usually they don't give a [ __ ] anymore. They've just like given up. And, uh, there was a survey that they did where the number one reason that old people like don't have as much drama and they're happier is they say, they, they cited, "Literally don't have time for it." Like, literally they don't have time for it. And I found that so interesting. And I was like, "Well, if I'm going to eventually be that way when I'm 80, I might as well just start being that way now." And so they usually wear like, really comfortable footwear. And like, they, they keep their surroundings, like, whatever weird peculiarities they have, they just accept them. And so I think a lot of like, if, if life is a long journey of self-acceptance, I think the earlier you can accept your own peculiarities as just part of you, rather than trying to justify them or mold to what you, to the archetype that you think is acceptable within your social circle, um, at least for me, like, there's this period of discomfort when you change anything because everyone around you wants you to fit within the label that they are comfortable with. But they also have the anchor of what you were before. Yeah, exactly. And so they try and like, they, people don't like that. And so they're like, "No, no, I like you in this box. So just say, I, I know you're having a little thing right now. Don't worry. Just, just." And they just want to shove you back into it. And there's, there's a lot of uncomfortable conversations that you have to have where it becomes really socially awkward. Um, and so like, I, I said one the other day about like, going home for the holidays. And the reason I don't like doing it is because often I have to confront a lot of people that I haven't seen in a long time. And they'll speak to me in a way that I don't like. And before that, I would roll it off, like, "Whatever, no big deal." But, but, um, I don't accept. Didn't you torpedo a family holiday a couple of years ago? Many. Yeah, I think. But that's the, when your friends start to say, "You've changed," it's because they don't know how to say, "You've grown." And because they see so few people who have, so it makes sense that they don't have that. So I see that as a lack of skill, not not malice. Like, it's not that they're bad people, they just don't even know it because so few people do change, so few people do grow.

Have you seen this image? It's a person whose heart and head are flowers. It's kind of a 2D drawing, it's a bit of a sketch. Okay. And, um, they say this person with the kind of smaller flower head and heart says, "You've changed." And the person on the other side with this huge blooming thing says, "I should hope so." Yeah. I haven't seen it, but I see it in my head. Yeah, it's brilliant.

One of my friends, George Mack, told me this five years ago, I think. I'm astounded by how many people want to be spectacular in life, but also want to be normal. By being normal, you are by definition aiming for average. Normal people get normal results. Exceptional people get exceptional results. You literally can't do what everyone else does and expect to not get what everyone else has got. By doing what everyone else does, you guarantee average results.

Okay, so this comes down to everything that, like, business. I mean, obvious, I come from the business and invest world. Um, like, if everyone is jumping on to crypto, like, by the time you have all the information to make a perfect decision, it's too late. And by the time you have consensus where everyone's like, "That's a good investment," it probably isn't, because it's already been mispriced, because it's already like, it's already inflated, it's above what its intrinsic value is. And so like, good investors fundamentally can think for themselves. And it's such an easy thing to say and such a hard thing to do. And so it's being able to say, if I shut myself in a room and and I had to come up with a value for something and just use my own mind to come up with what I think this is worth, it's that, that answer that you get in a room in isolation with no internet connection that you believe in. That number more than every single other person's. And most people can't do that. But like, that ability, and then what happens though, is if you really have to believe in that rather than everyone else's, you double check your [ __ ] math. Because if it is different than everyone else's, you have the op, you like, that is what opportunity, right? It's like, and you have the potential to make a shitload of money or lose a ton of money because you didn't check your math. And so the more I've been reinforced for thinking independently. And in the beginning, it's on small things. And then you just continue to reinforce that cycle of, "Huh, I came to this conclusion on my own. It seems different than everyone else's, but I think I think my thing makes sense. So I'm going to do that."

How would you advise someone to overcome that regression to the mean, that pull to not make way, to not be heterodox or non-typical when it comes to their decision-making? 'Cause it's hard. You're talking about this internal conflict versus external conflict. How do you make the internal conflict more important than the external conflict? For me, I was more miserable trying to make everyone else happy than I am now with everyone else unhappy with me. And so I think, like, from the social group I had before I quit my job, before going all the way like ground zero to today, I talk to no one from that time in my life compared to today. And I was absolutely miserable and unhappy and unfulfilled. And I would say that the majority of those people probably don't like me today because I changed. I didn't do what I was supposed to do. He thinks he's so fancy now, etc., etc. And I think I'm just okay with that. And so I think coming to terms with the idea that I could be absolutely rejected by everyone I know, but like me. I was more okay with that because the alternative was, I didn't want to live anymore. And so obviously, there's degrees and there's continuums and there's stages of where people are at with that. But as that being the taken to its logical extreme, would I rather live for them than live for me? I would rather be hated by everyone and like myself. There's a degree of honesty, is the right word, but it's also too simple. Like being completely 100% truthful with yourself. If that's the way that this is, why have I told you about the, uh, motocross, the rally cross thing that me and my housemate love? Okay? So, you know, like Colin McRae, these guys that drive four-wheel, there's the dude in the co-pilot seat, and it's five left bend, all that [ __ ]. Um, these guys that go to go and watch this are in the middle of some [ __ ] wood in Asia, right? In Scotland. And it's pissing wet, and it's November, and they've got a pawn shop on. And they get to drive for however long to get to this place. You can't even see. Thinking about it, the hairs on my arms are standing up. This is how [ __ ] dope it is. So these guys are there, and they see some dude in overcast, rain, freezing cold, soaking wet, go. And then they turn to the, turn to all of their boys and they're like, "Watching someone who loves anything with that much purity." Yeah. Fires me up. Fires me up. Like, we love watching. We don't watch it for what the cars are doing. We watch it for what it does to the spectators. And that degree of like, just unencumbered passion. Yeah. Not being apologetic. Like, they've probably, they're probably wearing comfy [ __ ], they're not wearing cowboy boots. You know what I mean? No one, they, they look like a, like a large condom in this pawn shop. Do they care? Right? They don't care. And that's purity. That's truthfulness and honesty. And really, like, what, what are you hoping to be able to look back on your life, or for people to say after you're gone? "If you don't do that, he was such a good guy and he never rocked the boat." "Yeah, he was such a good guy and he always conformed to our expectations." "He was such a good guy and he was so predictable." Right? Like, people think, and I did throughout a lot of my 20s, I thought that what people wanted from me was someone that they could easily predict. But I realized when I thought about the people that I loved in my life, I didn't love them because of how predictable they were. Yeah. I love them because of how unapologetically themselves they were. MH.

I have a friend who nearly ended a relationship that he's still with, who the love of his life, who's probably going to end up marrying, because he refused to not sleep on the floor for six months as part of a, Alex Becker is doing it at the moment. Like, he's like, "Sleeping on the floor seems to be like a pretty dialed idea." And she's like, "I'm not sleeping on the floor." Well, I am. So, so they didn't sleep together for like, you know, for for like a long time. Yeah. Like, that's those are the people that you love. And those are the people that you can, because they pay such a high price to do that, yeah, you can be very reliable at presuming that they mean what they're saying. Mhm. Because if they didn't really mean what they're saying, they would conform. They would take any easy path.

I love all of that. My, I was trying to kind of consolidate it for for myself and the listeners. For me, it, it just, it comes down to truly valuing your opinion of yourself more than other people's opinion of you. And it's, it's just, it's an easy thing to say and it's incredibly hard to do. Because that means that if you disagree with everyone else in the room, there's this meme that I love. I don't know if you've seen it. This this little cartoon of this one little guy, and then there's like an ocean of people that way. And it just says, "Yes, you're all wrong." And I just like, I feel like that meme. My, uh, Terracashi, my, my, uh, brother and editor in the battle against nihilism and and and towards truth, um, we send that meme back and forth to one another when we're like, "Yes, everyone is wrong about this. We are right." And I think it's just being willing to like, but the only way you can

Believe in a thing or an idea or even yourself is because you have the evidence behind you that supports that your belief isn't full of [ __ ]. So that when you're in that room and you come up with that one number and you say, "I think everyone's wrong. I think this is actually what it's worth," you're not just making it up to say you believe something different. You actually have proof and evidence that you're not full of [ __ ].

And I think that's the work. It's like, I did a, I looked into a lot of the stuff on the on the floor sleeping. I think it, it checks out. I'm going to do it. Like, I think everyone else is wrong. I think everyone else is wrong. And everyone's like, "You're an idiot." And you're like, "I think you're wrong." And that's okay. You know what I? And and it's just, most people can't do that. Just the idea of being weird is too much.

Like, just like, did you ever see, did you ever, um, this is quite old now, it's at least a decade old. I think it's called "50 Days of Rejection" or "100 Days of Rejection." I love it already. So it's a, it's a, a series of experiments that you do every day for 100 days. There's a different one each day. And one of them is, "Ask for a free coffee when you go to Starbucks." Oh, I love it. Just say, "Hey, can I have this for free?" Yeah. And it's, I don't know whether it escalates over time, but there's like weird stuff. Things that you do to people in public, things that, blah, blah, blah. And it's trying to overcome that. Like, it sort of, it's in your throat, you know, when you feel that and your cheeks get flushed and everything kind of gets hot, embarrassed around here. Yeah, it's that embarrassment. It's that shame. It's that, "What if they think?" Yeah. "What?" "Yeah, what if they think?" "What?" Yeah. So, yeah, I, I, someone should redo that. It's like a decade old now, but someone should redo. I think I'm certain it's called "100 Days of Rejection." YouTube idea. That would be a great YouTube idea to do 100, 100 days of rejection or whatever it is.

Um, all right, next one. Next one. I, I just want to like, I promise you, if you can actually go through 100 days of rejection, your life will change because you will realize that at the end of the 100 days, you're still alive and nothing changed. But it's, "I'm going to die." Yeah. That's the fear. The fear is, "I'm going to ask for the coffee and they're going to say no, and then everyone's going to laugh at me, and then I'm going to be alone, and then I'm going to be unsheltered, and then I'll be dead." Yeah, it's catastrophized to death. We all do it.

And so, I mean, obviously, I come from a sales background. So getting people to say no to me is something that I'm now, if you've asked drunken Newcastle girls where they're going tonight, darling, for a decade and a half on the street trying to give out wristbands for a free entry to a club night no one wants to go to, you get good at rejection as well. That's what I, I honestly think that, uh, everyone is always going to campaign for the thing that they did right. You're always going to say something along the lines of, "I think people can learn a lot from sales." And I'm always going to say, "I think people can learn a lot from being in club promo." But like, honestly, dude, the the insight that you get into human nature from doing that, from seeing what do people object to and why do they object in that way, and what happens if someone like gets physical with you because you tried to do, and you go, "Oh, well, I wasn't in the wrong." So de-escalating there should actually be quite easy. And I can have faith that everyone's going to see me as the right guy, even if somebody else took objection with what I was doing. So, yeah, long story short, become a club promoter.

All right, next up. Next one. There's a big difference between becoming known and becoming respected. Don't let an algorithm convince you otherwise. I mean, I think this is probably super pertinent for for people in our position, um, but I'll go from the internet perspective and we can circle back to IRL. Um, but I mean, a lot of people will make content. Obviously, I make stuff for me too. Like, talk about artists making things for themselves. Like, I make most of my tweets are just like notes to self. Um, but like, if I ever feel like I have to sacrifice who I am or the values that I believe in in order to like get more views or something like that, I see it happen more times than not because the algorithm and the views and the likes become kind of a proxy for conforming in in their own way. Like, "Everyone likes this type of thing, do more of that." And that makes me feel very like, "Dance monkey, dance." And, um, I think there's, there's few things that kill my soul more than that. And so I would rather, you know, I would rather the algorithm shut me off tomorrow and I continue to make stuff that I find interesting, that 10 people find interesting, that is actually the same stuff as me, than just have these viral hits that I feel like I'm Ronald McDonald in, um, and just feel like I've completely lost my soul. And I, I do think, as a side note, that if you do the first one, where your intention is to maybe help find the 10 people who are really interested in your thing, you probably will create more of the viral hits. But when you solve for the other way, I think you accomplish neither.

I have this theory that more creators fall out of favor because they become cringe than because they become irrelevant. I love that. You, yeah, I love that. I think it's, I think it's true. I think if you think about the thing that you do, almost anything that anybody is creating is public-facing because if it wasn't public-facing, it would just be a hobby. Doing your painting because you love painting is a hobby. Doing your painting to try and sell it is something that you do as a business or as a a public project. The flywheel is so vicious in the positive direction, and even more vicious in the negative direction. If it becomes cancerous or uncool or untrendy or catastrophic or cringe to be seen to be watching or listening to or consuming the thing that you make, it is you permanently going to be swimming upstream, and it is only going to get worse. Which is why you look at Shane Gillis. He's a really great example of this at the moment. He's someone who is great at his craft, big platform, moved to Austin, got all of the multipliers in place, but he isn't cringe. And because he's not cringe, if you've watched "Beautiful Dogs," his Netflix special, it's not uncool. It's like, there's this idea in publishing, 'cause I've been doing my research ahead of the book, there's this idea in publishing called the subway test, right? Would someone be prepared to have the full dust jacket version of your book out on the subway? All right? And if your book is like, "Stop Erectile Dysfunction," "L.A. The Erection Problem," right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like, "No More Flatulence Today," or something like, if that's, if that's your book, it's going to be very difficult. Or if it's written by somebody where it's like, "Oh, really don't want to do that." So, and, and this is the point where there are tons and tons and tons of people on the planet who have huge platforms that nobody respects. Mhm. And I've seen even within my seven-year career of doing this, the arc of people trade integrity for exposure and not be able to buy it back. Yeah, because there is no return policy on your integrity, on your reputation. And those people would give anything to be back in the cool kids' club.

I, I mean, this is a, like, I love this entire train. Um, I was thinking like, what, what creates like, what's, what's timelessly not cringe? Right? Like, so like, if cringe is the ultimate, like, what we don't want, then like, what would, what is forever not cringe? And the only thing that I can like, really think of is is just true authenticity, which is an overused word, but again, easy to say, hard to do. I think what is, what is forever cringe on the equal opposite side is is pandering. Like whenever you're seen as someone who's only doing stuff for other people's opinion, approval, likes, whatever, especially double cringe when it's for your own personal gain. And so if the equal opposite of that is, uh, something that is to my personal detriment, um, that is truly something that I believe in, it honestly doesn't matter what it is. Because there are some people that probably believe things that I don't believe, but I genuinely think based on what I see that they genuinely believe it. And it's, and they don't really stand to gain much for believing it. Yeah, there's no cringe there. It's just like, that fan, that man [ __ ] believes that. And I think that, um, some of the, you know, some of the characters in our current, you know, piosphere and things like that, like many people, you know, you say the word Trump and you have half the, you know, people who hate you and the other half that love you. It's like, I think most people agree that he believes what he says. Now, whether you believe the content of what he's saying is a different story. But most, like, I don't think many people have called him as somebody who's like, "I think he's, he doesn't really think that about himself." Like, "No, I think he, I think he really does." And even I'm just going to push the edges because that's where you have to like explore the fringe. Look at someone like Kanye, who's been borderline canceled for, I mean, multiple times, right? But like, why is Kanye quote unquote canceled? Because he hasn't been right? Not really. Like, if he came out tomorrow with a hit, a hit album, I'll bet you it would [ __ ] sell. Because I think that at least for me, from what I see, I think he does what he believes. And people might be like, "He's mentally unstable." "There's all these other." But like, no one thinks he's being fake. And I think that, like, if that becomes the north star of like, "I just never want to become cringe," then it's just never be fake.

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I think that avoiding cringe and and aligning authenticity as best you can, and it's a permanent battle because you are not inside of a vacuum. And you see other people doing things and there is temptation. And you need to respond to the audience's feedback in some regard, or else you're just going to be making something that nobody [ __ ] cares about. But you also need to not compromise too much. One of your old ones related to this: people are attracted to authenticity, but it's hard to define. For me, here's my best attempt: true alignment of what you think, what you say, and what you do. The hardest part is realizing that our thoughts are [ __ ] and that we have to fix them instead of faking the next two. Wholeheartedly agree. You said it, man. Yeah, that's dead on.

I've got a, I've got a really cool idea. Herostratic fame. Many people would rather be hated than unknown. In ancient Greece, Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis purely so that he would be remembered. Nowadays, we have nuisance influencers who stream themselves committing crimes and harassing people purely for clout. Herostratic fame. Yeah, that's like the, "You gain the world but you lose your soul" kind of. I mean, I, I'm also the last person to judge. Uh, and so like, if that's what you want, then by all means. I don't think it's what people want. I think that they, they think it's what they want.

I've been playing with this idea or this name. One of the concepts that the book will be focused on is intentionalism. Mhm. And essentialism. Greg McKeown is one of my favorite ever books. And I figured it would be a nice like hat nod. Doing what you mean to do and wanting what you want to want is so [ __ ] hard to do and so rare because we're built to conform. I think one of the, my life goals, and I can summarize it in a question, but, um, is to be fearless. And it's, I mean, equal opposite, courage is another word, but I love this question, which is, "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" And I just, I love thinking about that when I'm thinking about big life decisions. Like, what would I do if I weren't afraid? And it's usually like, the big one, the, the bigger thing that I really want to do, but I'm afraid to do it. It's like, that's what I should do.

Um, and to your point about, you had the five things that you told your team, the one that we have is, um, originally it was something that we called One of One, which is, "Make only things that we can make." Like, you'll never see a Coca-Cola business breakdown from Alex Romer because anyone can do a Coca-Cola business breakdown. That's not One of One content. But if I say, "I doubled the sales of this company by implementing these four things," no one else can say that because no one else did it, right? And so it's One of One. And so as the book launch and whatnot came, um, we took One of One and it became this big, massive thing. And it wasn't, it stopped being about like, "What can only do things that that only we can do?" It was about doing things that we didn't even know we could do yet, which became One of Zero. And that's why that became the brand that I'm going to continue to wear for the next few years, um, and build that association. But I think that that kind of encapsulates my personal life goal, which is like, "What would I do if I weren't afraid?" And "What would I do if I didn't, if I knew I couldn't fail?" And the idea that I will never wish for fewer epic stories at the end of my life. And I've never regretted failures. I've always regretted things that I didn't try. And so just along those lines of trying to create more bias internally towards action rather than inaction, and normalizing consequences of failure, as, as we said earlier, win or learn. And I think that that little frame, believe it or not, um, for anyone who's like on the teetering edge of like, "What should I do? That thing?" When I was debating quitting my job, which is still the hardest decision I've made to to this day, still of the many that I've made, um, was I figured that if I didn't make the entrepreneurship thing work, I would have a hell of a story for business school. And that was actually like, the, the reasoned argument that I gave myself for being willing to quit. Was that I think that with my experience, I'll still be able to get a job and I'll have a really cool story of entrepreneurship that I could use to apply to get into business school and then eventually get a job later. And so most times we catastrophize any failure to death, right? Which is like, "I'm going to, I'm going to fail. I'm going to lose on money. I'm going to be homeless. No one's want to talk to me. I'm going to die." Right? But like, if you, if you play it out two natural steps, like, "Okay, I lose everything. What do I do?" I would probably have a couch or floor that someone would lend me because at least socially I haven't been, I haven't [ __ ] everyone I know. And so I have that. It's like, "Okay, so I would have some capacity to do that." Okay, is there anything that I could do in the meantime in order to make money? Well, sure. I could drive Uber and strip. And I've already, you know, I've told this story before, but for me, that was genuinely my plan B. Because I knew that I could probably make 70, 80 grand a year driving Uber. I could probably make 150 stripping, maybe 200 strip with the gay bars, the guys pay better. Uh, and then, uh, and, you know, boom, I've got $280,000 a year. I could live on the floor and then I could restart again. And so that's because I don't have a lot of shame with that kind of stuff. That's not like, that doesn't matter to me. But I think playing out the fear. Lela says this, and I love it, but that fear is a mile wide and an inch deep. And so it looks like this ocean that you're going to step into and drown. But as soon as you step into it, you realize it was not that deep at all, and you can keep walking through it. And, um, I just love that visual. Because a lot of times when it's like, we have this anxiety around this big decision we have to make, if you actually take the step and realize that it's not death, you're not going to drown immediately, there's plenty of other steps you can take from there, even if you get a little wet.

Did I tell you my story about a friend who went through a cancellation and was worried he was a coward? Oh, like a, like a public cancellation thing? Okay. So I went for dinner quite a while ago now with this guy that I was pretty interested in, and he knew what I did. And we went, sort of bumped into each other. And what are you doing? Uh, let's go for dinner. And I knew about the situation that he'd been through, but he didn't know that I knew. So I was like, "Tell me, like, I'm, there's no pressure." And he was able to be unincumbered and basically went through like a, a tough cancellation where, kind of, the whole world came down to bear on him. And he was telling me this story. I was in a very interesting time. I like being very reflective. And he said, "My whole life, I'd been worried that I was a coward. Was terrified that I was a coward. But I'd never been through a situation where I'd had to bring absolutely everything to bear on my life." And I'm a hard man. And I like to hang around with hard men. And I like to shoot guns and do Jiu-Jitsu and and and be around Navy SEALs and stuff like that. But I always had this fear in the back of my mind that I might secretly be a coward. And then he said, "The cancellation thing happened." And it wasn't a very difficult one rep max. It wasn't a really hard CrossFit workout. It was something outside of his control. He used this term that I love. And he said, uh, "I could always hear my better self clearing his throat in the room next door." And I always wondered what would happen if I had to really, really wrangle everything, if the whole world came crashing down on me, and I wanted to work out whether or not I was a coward. And he said, "Thankfully, he kicked the door in and came through." But I just love that. "I could always hear my better self clearing his throat in the room next door." But he'd never been fully tested. Done lots of hard things, lot of ACC claim, very successful, blah, blah, blah. But we all know that's your thing, right? Like, but I'll know about whether or not you've left something on the table. And, uh, yeah, he, there was always just 5% still in the tank when he was doing things about how he felt about how invested he was. He always had to get out of jail free card in one way or another. And, yeah, I love that. I [ __ ] "I could always hear my better self clearing his throat in the room next door."

Two things on that. So I think if we're, if we're consoling some of the points we were making earlier, the "but I'll know" refrain. I think that a lot of the personal excellence comes down to making the "but I'll know" more important than the "but everyone, what will everyone else think?" Because the, I think the true test of whether you're a quote perfectionist or not is if everyone else in the room says it's exceptional, and then you say, "But I'll know it's not because I don't think it's exceptional yet." If you still break what everyone else believes is beautiful so that you can make the thing that you make, it the way you want it to make, or make it the way you want it to be. I think that is probably like, the, the truest test of whether or not you really do value your own opinion over those of other people's. And if you really want to be true to, quote, the art, whatever your art is. Art, I'm using it as a generic term. It could be the career, or the, even like the ex, the, the financial projection that you're supposed to do at your company. Like, there is a way you could do it and do it absolutely [ __ ] excellent, and there's a way you could do it that you could phone it in and probably not get in trouble. But the things that you'd know, and then you'd be the type of person who always phones it in. And that to me is disgusting. And that would make me disgusted with me. And that is the thing that would make me want to peel my skin off because I would hate me. And I think that's why so many people do hate them because they do settle and they do make these things and they do know and still ignore it. And so they ignore the man in the other room who's clearing his throat and they shut the door and they lock it and they never let that guy in. And so they look like everyone else, they act like everyone else, and they get what everyone else gets.

America was built on the backs of men who smoked cigarettes, drove without seat belts, and had bacon for breakfast. If you miss your biohacking routine this morning, you're going to be okay. There's a time for leverage, but there's also a time for violence, which is just brute force. People get really obsessed with optimal, which is getting the most bang for your buck. But there's also maximizing, which is just getting the most bucks. You lose more life trying to optimize everything than just living it. The stress of trying to be perfect is killing you more quickly than your imperfections.

I think that's an ode to being, being willing to take huge amounts of imperfect action towards one goal and being willing to sacrifice other things for an extended period of time, despite the fact that other people say they're making a sacrifice. Like when we enter seasons, I call it, you know, the season of no, which is where you have, I have extended duration where I say no to almost everything. And most people say that's unbalanced. And they hurl that as though it's a bad thing. They're like, "That's so unbalanced." You're like, "Yes, that's the point. Because if I had a balanced outcome, then I won't have the outsized return on this one thing." And so again, like, there's so many these little insults that people will throw at you, like, "You're unbalanced," "You changed," "You," that they intend as insults. But if you actually don't take your society-programmed response and say, "Oh, they mean to insult me," but if you actually think about what they're saying, they're saying something that's true. And then we just need to be okay with that truth because that was the choice we made to begin with. And so I think about that a lot, which is like, how many things do people tell me that they intend to insult me with that I can take as a compliment?

Didn't someone bump into Lela walking down the street? Yeah, it was, it happened so recently. So yeah, we're walking in the street, someone bumps into her. I like, we don't always walk like side by side because there's lots of people, so we like split up sometimes. Anyways, she, she comes back to me and she was like, "Guess what this guy just said?" And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "He called me a skinny [ __ ]." And I was like, "What?" And she, but she seemed so happy. And I was like, and I was like, like, I just kind of shook my head. Like, "Tell me more. Like, explain." She was like, "I mean, he said I was skinny." And I was like, "This is the, this is the perfect example of him hurling an insult and her choosing not to be insulted." Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. But really, do you really mean it? It, it, like, there, like, I wonder how many times we've been insulted, even like in my younger days, where someone said something to me that like, if I had my current brain, I could have been like, "You, you really mean it? Thanks, man." And, um, yeah, like, so unbalanced. I mean, remember, I remember I took that as such an insult for such a long period of time. Now, part of that was because when I, I was being brought up, balance was like one of the big frames of my household. Was like, "You have to be balanced." Which really just meant you have to be awesome at everything. Um, but balance was the, was the word. So being unbalanced was, was a term that was used as an insult. And so, um, for so many years, I wanted to be balanced. Um, but then I was like, "Well, nothing great was ever achieved by people who tried to be great at all things." And so I was like, "Okay, I'm just not going to." I'm not, I might not have a great relationship for a long period of time. I mean, there was like, a lot of people don't know this, but in the early days of our rel, of our relationship, um, even when we were married, I told Lela, so the first three years, um, I said, "The business comes before our marriage." So a lot of people don't know that. Um, and I was like, "Well, to me, it made sense. It was like, most people break up over money. The business makes money, so the business feeds us, and then we will be okay." That was kind of my, my thinking around it. Um, and we eventually flipped that, said like, "If we're good, the business will be fine." Uh, but took three years to get there. Um, but all that to say, like, I think having periods of imbalance, and maybe to be fair, if we, if I hadn't had that, that priority at that time, maybe Gym Launch wouldn't have been what it became. And so I can't look back and say like, "I should have done it different," because it's really easy to say that now. But like, I might not be here to say that if I had been that way.

Oliver Burkeman's got this great frame where he talks about, "Choose in advance what you're going to suck at." Oh, yeah. It's in "4,000 Weeks." And if you are a type A, go-getter person who has what I called the curse of competence, your options in life are restricted more by what you choose than what you can do. Mhm. You will feel disquiet when something that you used to be great at begins to slip because you focused your attention elsewhere. You used to be in really great shape. You said that one of your goals this year was to get a raise or to be able to buy your first house or to find a partner or to do whatever. Hey, guess what? If you're spending four or five nights a week going to places where you can maybe date, or going out on dates, or doing whatever, you're probably not going to have as much time to dedicate to the gym. If, if you want to get that raise or be able to save for your first house or whatever, you're going to have to work later, which maybe means that your friends are going to drop off. If you pick whatever the thing is, there is a price that you begin to pay. And this cycle began for me so frequently toward the back end of my 20s where I would dedicate myself to a thing, then something else would begin to slip. So I would then go, "Oh, I'll just, I'll, I'll just give a little bit." I'll just give a little bit to that. And it's not an additive system, it's multiplicative. It's not 2 plus like three, it's 2 times three. And that means that the more that you attend to the thing that you say that you're going to do, the more the gains accrue to you. And then you can still pivot back. But you need to periodize things. And this is, this is a frame that I wish, even now, it's still something that I struggle with. Realizing that now isn't forever. The thing that you're doing right now doesn't need to be forever. Yeah. If you are coming out the back of of the searching for the partner thing and you're like, "Hey, guess what? I gained 15." All right, well, dedicate yourself for the next six months to going to the gym. But this isn't the rest of your life, right? And once that thing's done, "Oh, well, guess what? I'm back to, you know, 12% body fat. I feel great about myself. What's next?" It's not forever. Yeah, it's just for now.

Yes, we have a frame that we actually use a lot. Um, I, I always think about these things from a business context, but they end up retroactively, you know, applying to life. Um, but when we're making big strategic decisions, we say like, "Which problems would we prefer?" Rather than talking about like the gains and what's the upside. If we have like, you know, let's say we're going to make a big investment in software for this company, or we're going to make a big, you know, huge new service line, or we're going to just decide to develop a physical product, right? I mean, I know you, you're like, you're literally on the just back half of of a big decision like this yourself. It's like, "Okay, let's imagine what the problems are going to be if we, if we decide to do this new service category." Well, some people are going to complain that they're not getting results from this thing. Uh, we're going to have a ton of like, we might have some negative reviews in the short term that we're going to have to deal with. Like, let's look at what happens when one of our favorite customers tells us to [ __ ] off. Like, what, like, like, let's really sit in what each of these problems is. And then when we, when we spell out all of the problems, and we don't even think about the upside, say, "Which of these problems do we prefer?" And which are we more equipped to deal with? Sometimes we have really amazing innovation and, in my opinion, like, really solid decision-making that comes afterwards that minimizes kind of the, the post-decision regret because we also know what negatives would have come with the path unchosen. Because most, most times, like our regrets from, come from the path unchosen because we imagine it only with the upside. We only think about, I think there's a, there's a [ __ ] there's a book that where a girl lives many different versions of her life. "The Midnight Library." Yes. And the thing is, is that there's these pieces of her life that she imagines are going to be amazing, but then she realizes her best friend's dead, or all of a sudden she's pregnant. And you're like, "Whoa, what happened?" And so we don't take into account on the paths not taken, the things that we would have lost along the way. And so I think really good decision-making and also regret minimization is that when you make the decision, you think about the downsides too, and you remember what those downsides are. And for me, that has been one of my strongest frames for like, "I didn't decide to do that." Were all that? Oh, yeah. Those were a lot. I'm glad I, those are problems. I'm very happy I don't have to deal with now.

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Thinking about the perils of over-optimization is something I brought up with Huberman last year. And, you know, I think a lot of people, I have a friend who's a very well-known DJ that told me he was falling out of love with DJing because he knew that it was damaging his sleep. And because he knew how important sleep was to performance, that he'd kind of got him the bar stool had been turned upside down a little bit. And the thing that he was trying to do was being sacrificed for the thing which is supposed to facilitate it. Mhm. And that's where the, "You lose more life trying to optimize everything than just living it." The stress of trying to be perfect is killing you more quickly than your imperfections.

All right, so I, I, I'm glad we came back to optimization because, um, there's obviously on the extreme, there's, uh, guys like Brian Johnson with Blueprint who are trying to like live to 200 or live forever. Um, and I, I respect the, I respect dedication to anything always. Um, and interestingly, around, I've always been a maximizer. So I've actually not really been an optimizer in my life. It's just like, as soon as I have an input-output equation where it's like, N equals X, and it's like, and if I want 10X, I do 10N. I'm like, "Great. Then can we do a thousand N?" Like, I just want to do as much of that as I humanly possible. Um, but when we, like, I love competitors who like optimizing because I always see it as a weakness because it's so easy to exploit. It's like, "Oh, you need your eight hours of sleep?" Or, "You need your morning routine?" Or, "If you don't have your supplements, you're just totally [ __ ]?" Or like, "I didn't have my coffee this morning, so I can't function." Like, I love to compete against people like that because they're so easy to break. It's fragile. Yeah. And so what happens is the optimizations become superstition. Correct. And so my, my fear around, and I, and maybe I take a more extreme stance on this, but like, I've always wanted to be able to, with an internet connection and a laptop and a foldout chair, go make money. And always have that as my star. That anything else is extra. And I feel like I lose more quickly when I get into this optimization cycle around. Because I remember years ago, I, um, I bought one of those rings that tracks your sleep. And I kept trying to like set sleep PRs. And you can only get so high, anyways. And then I started stressing more about not hitting sleep PRs that I was sleeping worse than when I wasn't tracking it. And so then I was like, "Well, [ __ ] this thing." And I slept fine the next night. And so, um, obviously microcosm. I'm a big believer in tracking progress in general, but just the idea that we become so overly romantic around these things that sometimes you just have to break [ __ ] and sometimes you have to be violent. And sometimes when you're on your journey, you're not going to sleep much. And you're going to, you're going to like, there was a, a two-year period where I did, uh, turnarounds for gyms. I flew around the nation every month. I would do a new gym. I ate out of gas stations and I ate gas station food. And I gained weight during that period of time. And it was for then, and not forever. And I'm in shape now. And so whatever, who cares? And so like, I used to tell this when I was selling weight loss to people. I'd say like, "Who cares if you get in shape for six weeks out of 80 years?" And like, right as they're about to sign up for a membership, I was like, "You want to." And then this is how I would sell longer memberships. But like, it's also true. It's like, "You want to sign up for the six weeks." But like, "Susan, like, who cares if you lose 20 pounds and you're still overweight six weeks from now, and then you gain it back the next six weeks, and you're still the exact same weight for the rest of your life?" And so I just, I think the absolute dedication to maximization, so that becomes a part of your identity and your character, has been one of the outsized returns that I've gotten in my life. And just being absolutely willing to, like, I'm, I'm pretty violent about this, but like, list all the things that you aren't willing to give up for the dreams that you have. And that is what the person who will beat you is willing to give up.

There's a phenomenal blog post that talks about why guys aren't getting girlfriends. And this is pre-modern mating crisis, so it's not, it's not to do with like imbalances on Tinder and tall girl problem and all that, all that stuff. It's a, a guy who thinks that the bare minimum is acceptable. So he talks about how, "I'm always on time, and, and you know, I hold the door open, and I say please and thank you, and I'm nice to my mom." And the dude, I'll never forget it, there's this line in in the blog post where the guy who's like having this pretend dialogue with this imaginary person goes, "So [ __ ] what? There's a guy who does all of those things, and he plays the guitar well?" It's like the, the song lyric, "Baby, you're the whole package, and you pay your taxes."

Yeah, I mean, I think also to the same degree, I mean, like, I'm, I'm no mating whatever expert. No idea. I got married early, did all the things that, you know, whatever you're not supposed to do. Um, yeah, and yet, if you, like, if you are true to you, like, what's the most un-cringey thing, right? Is you being you. I'm pretty sure that I turned away plenty of girls that were like, "This guy's successful, he's in shape, uh, you know, decent looking, strikingly handsome." But they'd meet me and they'd be like, "What a [ __ ] weirdo." But the thing is, is like, they like, and I remember I had, um, there were so many girls that I was like, "You're pretty, and I, I just don't care at [Laughter]." And so I like, I just, I wanted someone who got my peculiarities, who was like, not only like accepting of them, but just like down for it. And so I, I walked through most of my, and to be fair, as a side note for anybody who like wants to quote, "Be exceptional," you're going to be different, and people are going to think you're weird. And like, you might not get second dates. But real, real, you're not going to want the second date, too, because they're not like you. Like, when you get unplugged, you're like, "Oh, wow, everyone's a sheep. This is weird." And you just go on a zillion first dates to be like, "Yet another one. Yet another one." And every once in a while, you see a glimmer in someone who they're like, "Oh, you think for yourself. Like, you can make your own conclusions." I remember when Lela and I went on our first date, we were, we were, we went at a, at a frozen yogurt store. And so of course, I'm like, "So, you know how they make their money here, right?" I was like, "So these things weigh this, they charge this per ounce," and I was like, "Breaking this whole thing down." And she was like, "Oh yeah, and they do this and this." And I was like, "Wait, you see this too?" Like, you, it wasn't like just like, "Alex just talking about the child out of the [ __ ] six sense or whatever it is." I was so excited because normally I would just have to like talk, I would talk about the stuff that at least I like to talk about because then we'd pass the "not good dating strategy." I'm going to myself. Yeah. But then she also like, talk about this stuff. And I was like, "Holy [ __ ], what's the alternative?" The alternative is to find someone who falls in love with a role that you're playing, right? That's the best that you can hope for, right? And then lock yourself in to a future of having to perform in a way that this person has become accustomed to. And there's nothing that can be more lonely than I can possibly imagine than pretending every single hour of every day that you're someone you're not.

Do you know who Dr. Robert Glover is? No. "No More Mr. Nice Guy." No, but I like the title. Had him on the podcast last week. This guy is a [ __ ] boss. So cool. Like mid-60s or something now. Huge goatee. Smokes cigarettes. Uh, probably, probably rip starts that by this, this office, by the way, is completely, it's like smoking enabled. We're in Vegas. Um, and he had three essences of an attractive man. And I think it's a really lovely frame. The essence of an attractive man: he's comfortable in his own skin, he knows where he's going, and he has fun while he's going there. Nailed, nailed. So good. So good. But like, that, if you think about that as, okay, so if, if, if you're, and like, even like an attractive man, whether you're married or not, like, I mean, on the flip side, it's like, do you want to be married and then choose to become unattractive? Well, no, of course not. And so it's like, if those are three ideals, it's like, you have, you have direction in your life, you're internally comfortable, and the fun part is what makes you, I mean, partially attractive. Now, mind you, if you just have one of the three, you can, you will find a mate who's attracted. Like, if you just know with all your [ __ ] soul you're going somewhere, people will want to rally behind you, even if you're not having fun, and even if you're not got 10 kids, right? And even if you're not that comfortable in your own skin, but you're like, "That guy, no matter what, he's going to [ __ ] get there." On the flip side, if you don't know where you're going, and you don't even have much fun, but you're like, "That guy is comfortable." Like, say what you want, but that guy is good with him.

That's an like that. Al, like, if you just had one, and if you just have a shitload of fun, you don't know where you're going, and you're not that comfortable. Like, you'll still have people. Um, I'd probably prefer the first two to the third, but, you know.

But like, as ideals, like, [ __ ] very strong. The only insults that hurt are the ones we believe. Next time someone insults you, remember they're going to die. Everyone will forget about them. And if no one will remember them, then you might as well forget about them now. They are irrelevant. Your dream, your actions, your outcomes. So now you know what the inside of my head looks like.

Um, um, I mean, I, I, uh, I put almost everything immediately to death. Um, and that's like, maybe it's a coping mechanism, maybe it's a perspective mechanism. Um, but like, you want to hear? I, I was really strongly considering having a parody, um, tweet profile of my own that I also run, that no one would know that I run, that is just like, all my very, very controversial beliefs. Um, but I'll, I'll, I'll throw a taster out now. Um, murder is just picking when someone dies. So it's like, if you hate someone, it's like, you can just look at them, be like, oh, you're going to die eventually. Like, and so like, the idea is like, in your mind, you could murder every enemy you have. You just, just don't get to pick the time. But I just find that so such a like, murder only changes when, not that someone's going to die. And so if you think about like, retribution on someone, it's like, this person said this thing to me, H, I want to kill him. It's like, oh, no, you don't even have to. They'll die. They're going to die already. Like, you don't even have, like, don't worry about it. They're going to die. And so it sounds so silly, but just connecting those two dots, I was like, wow, that's incredibly peace-giving. So like, why have a vendetta when life will take care of them for me?

Uh, and so I just like, you know, as a, as a, as a totally different frame, I was talking to somebody who has cancer, uh, in my life, and, uh, they were like, really concerned. They were like, this has, uh, has a 95% mortality rate over the next five years. And, um, you know, me being me, I was like, well, you know, 70-year-olds probably have a 60% mortality rate over the next five years anyways. I was like, and life has 100% mortality rate. So, you know, worse, yes, but like, how much worse? And so like, um, they didn't think it was funny. But, but just as a, as a, it, it was intended to be comforting. It didn't succeed. Um, but, uh, all that to say, uh, these, these things that people cast on us, um, it just whispers in the wind, right? Like, if we think that our whole meaning is, is so infantile, the idea that someone else can influence our trajectory when they themselves will disappear and become irrelevant seems so silly to me. And they don't have our best interest at heart. No, they have the opposite of our best interest. Yeah, they're literally trying to destroy you.

What about the only insults that hurt are the ones we believe? What about that? Oh, yeah. Um, well, I, cuz I like other people get, uh, with things, and then I've also had times where someone says something with the intention to insult, and it doesn't. And I was like, how can I get that to happen every time? And so it's the classic example of, you know, Chris, you have green hair. And then you would say, okay, whatever, sure. But you don't believe it. So it doesn't really matter. And so I think there's, there's a, there's kind of a dual-sided, like, lesson, at least for me, in this is that when we are insulted, I try and pay attention to it because I think, okay, either there's something here that they're right about, and that I don't like about myself, in which case the response is to agree. And that's what's so frightening. And so it's like, if someone, so recently had someone, someone made some thing blasting me about, um, I don't go home for the holidays. I made this whole, I made this video about it. Um, and in the first five seconds of the video, of course, I'm like, if you love your family, [ __ ] go home. This is not, this is for everybody else, right? But of course, no one actually watches that. Who makes that piece of content? And so they just went on this tirade about me. And I just said, God, I suck. Period. As my comment. And because there's no, the, the, the stoic response to hate is to agree and one-up. So level one is agree. So someone says, Alex, you're a [ __ ] idiot. And you're like, believe me, if you knew half of it, you'd think more than that. Because it's the only way you can respond. And so my mental judo for these things, and I've just, I try to now, the good news for you and I is that we get lots of practice, right? Every day we have people hating on us. And so I get to, I get to practice. So like, people, people meet you in real life, and they, they're trying to insult you. You're like, dude, I have so many reps on this. Like, oh, good. And so it's just like, can I one-up their insult? Like, if someone insults me, it's like, dude, let me, I, dude, you think that's good? Let me tell you how to really get me, right? And so just the frame of agreement evaporates conflict.

Yeah, that's your thing about, um, most people are more interested in winning than being right. Yeah. So you just say, sure, you're right. Yeah. Alex, you're an idiot. All of your business advice is terrible. Be like, you're right. Now, what? Where do we go from here, right? Wasn't that fun? And so we talk, like, because, like, I like human behavior a lot. But like, it's called, it's, it's a, it's an extinguishing event. So like, when you, when you, when you pull a slot machine, when null is the outcome, it nullifies. Agreement is the ultimate nullifier for insults. And I, I think that like, if the, the faster I, I reprogram that, so it's like, if you ever feel insulted, either like, first, is it, is it true? Like, if you are insulted, you believe them. Okay. Uh, do I believe them because there's an element of truth? If there's an element of truth, why am I insulting? I should agree with them. It's just because we have some ego behind it of like, I, I'm going to be perceived a certain way, or maybe because it's poking a hole, it's wedging into the inauthenticity that someone has brought into the light, something which we thought we were able to keep in private.

One of my other life goals is to die with no secrets. Why? Just because. Because if we think about, at least for me, if I think about authenticity, to be seen as I truly am, then I would have no secrets. And I try, you know, I try really hard, uh, to not hold anything back, content or otherwise, um, so that I don't need to have, I don't want to have a hundred faces. Because if you always have something in the back room, that means that to these people, you're this person, and this is in the back room. To these people, you're this person, and in the back room. But the fewer back rooms I have, the more everyone is in one room, and I can be just me. And that means that some people will hate me, um, and some people will like me. But they will actually like or hate me, not the idea or some facet. Like we were saying earlier, that when you're in a relationship, putting on the act and putting being the performer, they're not hating the idea of me, they actually hate me. And at least there's some weirdness about, like, at least that's true.

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No matter what stage you're in, there's a, a lesson that I learned from Rob Henderson, which is like an interesting addition to what we're talking about here. And he asked the question, why do we feel insulted or why do our cheeks flush when somebody accuses us of something that we know that we haven't done? And the issue here is that we don't exist in a vacuum, and we care about other people's interpretations of us. And a disinformation campaign, even if it's grounded in falsehood, can still negatively impact our status. Mhm. So even if you know that this isn't true, and all of the rest of it, functionally to everybody that isn't you, or maybe many people that aren't you, or maybe some people who are influential that aren't you, this can have the same impact as if it was true. Yeah. So that the man being an island, and I have faith in my own word. Yeah. As soon as you start to build this out, it's, there's a reason for trepidation there. Mhm.

I think so. I was trying to think about like, the, what are, what are counter-examples? So like, if someone attacks your character, right? So let's say, uh, someone comes out and says, Alex did some sort of sexual allegation or something like that that I know isn't true, whatever. But they say that. Now, that's going to blemish my reputation. Right? Now, I can't be like, you're right. And if you really knew, right? Like, right? So I can't, if you knew the half of it. Um, so like, so like, those, those are the situations, right? So, so like, if someone just says, like, you're, you know, you're full of [ __ ] or your business advice is bad or whatever, then that's one thing. Um, but in those situations, um, the only counter that I have seen is to be louder. And so if someone increases the volume on something, I don't believe that you draw attention to that person. I actually, I've more or less not been in the, I'm going to address someone directly, but I make counter what this person says without addressing them and be 10 times bigger and louder about it as a way to counteract that. And so like, I had a bad reputation in college, which I, I've shared some of that in my story before. Um, and the reputation was that I was a philanderer and was, you know, all about girls and whatever. And so I wanted to not have the reputation. And so it wasn't like I was going to go talk to those girls and be like, I need you to recant your story. Um, I had to make my actions so much louder that I was no longer going to be that way for an extended period of time to counteract that thing. And so if we're thinking about like, how to respond to people being shitty to you, if you believe what they say and it's true, agree and one-up. If what they say is something that isn't true but does blemish your reputation, then you can only be respond by being louder with the truth. And I think that like, I, I think about these things, obviously, we're in a position, we have to deal with this all the time, um, as like, almost playbooks for dealing with shots.

Well, this is one of the things that people got wrong about Dave Portnoy's cancellation. So I didn't even know he got canceled. Dave had sex with maybe two, two or three girls that sold the story. No, separately. Okay. Sold a story to the Atlantic, I think. Yeah. [ __ ] num. Um, sold, sold a story to someone and they were, they were looking around. And I think they're still going. I'm pretty sure that only a couple of months ago, they tried to notify some pizza event that he was doing. Do you know that we're investigating him about that? And then he called them out. So what's happened is there's been million Me Too allegation things that have come across. People saw the way that Dave Portnoy responded. He came out of the fences, absolutely swinging, like swinging so hard. Said, this is [ __ ] bollocks, it's baseless. I think he maybe even somehow had video evidence or or audio evidence or some kind, maybe internal CCTV cameras. Basically, all of this stuff is dog [ __ ]. Yeah. People took Dave Portnoy. Didn't take any [ __ ]. And, and, and he didn't back down. And he didn't do an apology. And he didn't do the rest. It's like, yeah, guess why? Because he didn't do it, right? Because he wasn't in the wrong. Yeah. If you are the guy that did do the thing, yeah, you don't have that. That's a firm foundation. What you're doing there is just creating this like cathedral of of lies and dog [ __ ] on top of a sandcastle of lies and dog [ __ ], which will then get found out, and you get hit, you get slammed 10 times way, way, way harder. Yeah, rightfully so, to be fair. You'll get that's the thing. So learning, okay, why did he do this particular tactic? Well, he ran that play, yeah, because the basis of where he was at allowed him to be loud as [ __ ] about the truth.

One, one thing that we talked about earlier with canceling, and I have, um, so relatively contrarian views on canceling. I genuinely believe that you cannot be canceled. You only are. You can only be canceled in two ways. You can be canceled if you choose to stop making content, stop being public, or all means and methods and channels of communication that you do not control remove you from it. So like, for example, uh, there's Tate, right? And he had his, like, he's not allowed to be on the platforms. But they allow his content to be on the platform. So has he been canceled? No. I would argue not. And there's still other platforms, and he continues to make content. So you only, so I, to me, this is actually really, um, uh, kind of heartwarming, uh, security feeling. I, I get warm and fuzzies around it. Reassuring. Thank you. Um, because it means that cancellation is, you have to agree to be canceled. No matter how bad, like, if you mess platform one, yeah, a, yeah, if they, if they, uh, if they had AI face recognizing him and and eliminated from the platform, he would be canceled. Like, there's no method of communication outside of in person. He would have no leverage. Agreed. But barring that, if you continue to make content, no matter what you did, people will find out about you. More people will know about you, and your message will get disseminated. And whether you choose to, like, recant something that you did, you know, like, right or wrong, apologize, or do what Dave did and say, like, this is complete bollocks. He's my little UK term. Um, and just be even louder. You choose to be canceled. And I, I like that because I, I like to have as many things under my control as I can. Yeah.

The, I, I've been like thinking about the streak and effect because everyone's always said, you know, cancellation makes people bigger. I think that is cope. I think it's massive cope. I don't think that cancellation makes people bigger. Alex Jones, for instance, when he got, he got about as close to unpersoned, I think, as you can get. Very, very. I wasn't seeing for the last, whatever, five years, eight years, whenever he got taken off Twitter. I wasn't seeing him on YouTube unless he was on somebody else's show. I wasn't seeing him on Instagram. I wasn't seeing him on Twitter. Steve Will Do It as a good example as well. Like, he can't even be in the background of other people's YouTube videos. And he's got shares in Rumble and he's doing all of this other stuff, but still, that's a pretty big unperson. And I think it's kind of cope to say, oh, but so many more people are searching them. Like, the entire internet is built on convenience. Yeah. If you think that making it more inconvenient for someone to access someone makes them bigger, you are fundamentally forgetting human nature. Now, maybe in this, you know, beautifully utilitarian, rational view of the world, the person that wants to see the thing, they might go and get the thing. But it's like, hey, guess what? Like, TikTok's got an unlimited scroll. Yeah. And they're just going to keep going. And if they don't appear, they don't appear. And to draw this into IRL for everyone who's like, okay, well, that might be convenient for Alex Jones and whatnot. Like, he can't, or he can, or can't be canceled, whatever. I think that at least for me, the through line on this is like, if you do some embarrassing thing, which happens, we're human. The only way it compounds into being like, a much bigger problem is if you become a recluse. You choose to not go out. You choose to not, you choose to disassociate with everyone else. Like, you choose to agree to the terms that the people around you are telling you you have to agree to. And that's where I think you can say, no.

Destiny's got this idea. He told me this story. I think it was like VidCon or VidSummit 2012. And Destiny's sprayed it around a bit in his career. And he was at this huge YouTuber convention. And his ex-girlfriend or something got access to his Twitter account and leaked his dick pics on his Twitter while he's at this VidSummit thing, surrounded by his peers. So he's trending. So it's not only, oh my God, look what's happening on the internet. It's, oh my God, the internet has now become real life. And it's in front of me. And there's thousands and thousands of people. And they all know what's going on. And you know, Finding Nemo, just keep swimming, just keep swimming from Dory. His is just keeps streaming. He says, everybody only remembers your last four streams. Yeah. So sure enough, you went on first stream, just the chat is lit up, taking the piss out of him. And oh, like, here it is. Second, second one, still lots and lots and lots of jokes. Third one, uh, like a few less. Then fourth one was pretty much gone. Yeah. After four streams, it's not funny. We've all heard it. Yeah.

So true. Jordie got, um, he's like a British UK, uh, YouTuber, big guy. And, um, a few years ago, his DMs got leaked from his verified Instagram account saying some like pretty dirty sex stuff to a girl. And she was of age. She was of age. Yeah. There was no, it was like, it was kind of, I guess it was intimate. It was intimate and like embarrassing or whatever for him. But he, uh, he was silent. Pretty much silent for five days. And then got probably the best roast comedian in the UK to come on and annihilate him. Yeah. For 20 minutes in a video and put it out on his own YouTube channel. And it's that B. Rabbit thing. Tell these people something that they don't already know about me. Like, what joke are you going to make that Steven Toast, like, literally the most vicious, funny, sardonic UK roast person, hasn't already said? And it showed that he could laugh at himself. Dude, this is the, uh, so this is the take. What they say, one-up them, right? And so like, I'm going to take what they say, find a person who is professional at one-upping them, and then bring them in, and then publish it to your million-person YouTube channel. Yes.

Like, we, um, so we actually teach this from a customer service. I know I'm going totally across pilot nation here, but we call there's, there can only be one person in the angry boat. And so customer comes in, they're shouting. And I learned this from my, like, ear, one of my earliest business mentors. I worked at a fur coat dealer. So like, brushing, you know, furs. It's a glorious job. Um, I was 18. It was a summer. And so this lady walks in, and I was at the, the retail shop, which normally I was in the warehouse where the, the peasants were. And, and so this lady comes in, and she's making a whole mess of noise. And the guy walks towards me, cuz the owner. And I see like, roll his eyes. And then as he turns, turns the corner to go where she can see him, he, like, his face turns into a smile. And then he's like, he's like, Miss Robinson. And then he just goes into rage mode. And I was like, whoa, what's happening? And he was like, wait, there was a button missing on your jacket. He's like, give me that jacket. He, like, pulls it out. He's like, who sold this to you? Who let you walk? He said, did anyone see you in this? And he was like, tell me their names right now. I'm going to get the, they're going to be out of here. Like, we're going to end, like, we're going to get terminate their employment. We're going to make sure that they never eat again. All the stuff, whatever. And she, all of a sudden, she backs, she was like, oh, no, no, you know, it, no one saw me in it. I just got, I just saw it when I got home. If you guys could just, of course, we're going to fix it. Of, like, no question whatsoever. And so of course, she, he takes the ticket, she leaves. He comes in the back, and he just looked at me and he was like, only one person can be in the angry boat. And I, and it was a lesson that has stuck with me. And like, and so in this, in this instance, everyone is angry at you. And so the only thing you, cuz people are contrarian by nature, all you can do is be angrier than them at whatever it is. And so like, getting the comedian to, like, oh, you think he insulted me? Like, here's a picture of my cold, shriveled dick after a nice cold, after my polar plunge. You want to see? Like, so it's just, it's like, can you do that? And it's just leaning into what feels unnatural and uncomfortable. But it's the only way to respond.

You cannot wish for a strong character and an easy life. Each is the price of the other. What if what you're going through isn't hard? What if you're just sensitive? I think that most of us can look back on our lives to 10 years ago and think about the problems that we were dealing with then and think about how much of a pittance and how small those problems were compared to the problems that we deal with today. At least that's how I probably feel. Maybe you feel the same way. And so I then think, okay, well, if I feel that way about the problems that I had 10 years ago, then 10 years from now, Alex will look back at the problems that I'm dealing with today and feel the same way. And so if he feels that way, then about the problems that I have now, then the only difference is the perspective that he has that I don't have. And so I might just be a sensitive little pansy. And maybe these aren't problems at all. Maybe these are just facts of life, and I need to habituate to them.

Because I remember, um, my first lawsuit, right? Because it's like, when you're in business long enough, you make enough money, you're just going to get sued. It is what it is. And I was listening to, um, Elon Musk talk about this. And at any given time, Tesla has hundreds of lawsuits. At any, like, just they, they have, they have massive departments of legal, just for all the different things that are going on. And it was thinking that a requisite for success is a problem. Like, you cannot become the wealthiest man in the world and not get sued. Like, getting sued is an indicator that you're actually, is a, is a requisite for being there. There's no, no person has been there without this. And so reframing what I used to consider a problem as a, as a point of evidence that I am on the path that I originally chose.

I remember the first time that I ever tried to incline chest press 20 kilos. And as I got it up, this in the center for sporting excellence in Newcastle gym. And as I got it up there, I didn't have the tricep strength to be able to keep it. And I watched this thing slowly come down to my, and it just landed on my nose. I like, sort of bailed it, bailed it out off my nose. Yeah. And, and now it's not even, it's not even the warm-up to the warm-up to the warm-up set. So the problem is that we don't have very good memory. We don't have theory of mind for ourselves, for a previous version of ourselves. I've always thought that it would be such an amazing talk. Maybe Neuralink can do it some point in the future. You know how people want to go back in time and they want to see a different place? I would love to go back in time in my own mind. Mhm. And remember the texture of my own existence and what were the things that I thought about.

I've told this story before, but it's pretty illustrative. Day One is a journal that you can use for your phone. It's pretty good. And for me, it's big [ __ ]. It's like, big things are happening. If I open Day One, some, some [ __ ] shit's going down. Um, and breakups and, and, and illnesses and, and being worried about people dying or whatever, the, whatever the [ __ ]. I once opened it to write down that the MC in Room 2, the R&B room, room of our Saturday night club night, had told me that he was leaving to go to a competitor event 15 miles away. And I remember thinking that it was so salient to me that it deserved to go in along with breakups and, and do I go on this reality TV show or do I not? Because I was adamant that that would be the beginning of the end. Because the only reason the Asian Sock, the Asian Society came down was because they like this particular MC. And if he went, then Asian Sock would stop coming. And if Asian Sock stopped coming, then that would mean this, and then, and then the whole business would go, and I'd be dead. But I don't think that anymore. And there was one, there was one time where I hadn't worked our events for quite a while. And a DJ that used to work for us came through. And he thought that he'd wind me up by saying three minutes before we opened that something was up with one of the CDJs. Something's up with one of the CDJs. A couple of minutes before you open, things are bad because there's usually not a spare. And it means that the night's going to be delayed or whatever. And there was lots of people outside waiting to come in or whatever it might be. And he was expecting a response on from a previous version of me, which would have been the one that would have gone into Day One and typed about the fact that the CDJ hadn't worked. And I just said, oh, okay, well, uh, I don't know, we'll fix it. And he called out, broke the fourth wall and said, oh, I like, it's not broken at all. Like, I just thought that I'd wind you up, but you didn't play the game. I'm like, oh, right. It's the, like, you've grown or you've changed thing. Yeah. He was like, Juke. The, don't, don't punk the game. Yes. Don't punk the game. Yeah. I think the point is to always punk the game as many times as you possibly can, especially if you're the one getting the game played on you by yourself.

What's your framework for quitting things and moving onto something new? How do you know when you're quitting because you're being a [ __ ]? And how do you know that you're moving on from something that's no longer worthwhile, man? So there's a, there's a handful of questions that I think everyone faces that, um, you never know the right answer to. And so it's like, how much is the right amount to invest versus consume? Is one of those answers? Like, if you invest, if you consume nothing and you invest everything into it, to tomorrow you end up with a life where you enjoyed nothing and then you have a big pile of delayed gratification in the extreme results and no gratification. Right? And so like, these are, these are rather than either or, they're continuums. And so to be managed more than, uh, problems to be solved. And so I think just from a, a decision-making framework, that's number one. Um, number two is, so with regard this one, which is, do you push or do you pivot? Which is how I, I frame this question. Um, pushing, like, do I push through whatever this hardness is? And there's like, something that's in sight that I think I can go to. Or there are fundamental things that have changed that make my original hypothesis wrong. And so I'm, I'm, I'm telling the secret right now. Um, but for me, I won't quit if no new information has come to light. And so if I say I'm going to do this based on these assumptions, if those assumptions have, have still held, then it's a push situation. If there's new data that's come to light that changes the nature of why I'm pushing or the outcome for what I'm going to get from pushing or the way that I'm pushing is incorrect, then I would quote quit. But quitting has a lot of, um, heavy terminology in, you know, I'd say personal motivation masturbation. Pivots much softer, right? Because I think that everything is a pivot except for stopping. And so I think even reframing, like language matters a lot, and I care a lot about language. And so like, nothing is quitting unless you stop. And if you continue to pivot and you continue to push, either of those are activity. And so you will stumble upon something that does work. In which case, do more of it. Um, and so that has always been my frame. But it's, I have an initial assumption or series of assumptions for a desired thing. So let's say I want to, I want to build my social media brand. I say, okay, I believe that if I make, you know, content about things that no one else can make content about, that is more higher level business stuff than is out there, because most of the YouTubers are YouTubers, not business people, there will be an audience for that. And in the beginning, I will have fewer people who follow it. But if I make really good stuff over time, eventually people would tell people, and I will get better at making content, and that will grow. So if I'm at year two, and, and the thing is, is like, do I have leading indicators? And so like, even in business stuff, like we, I don't need the outcome. But are there lead, leading indicators that are telling me that this, I'm on the right path? And so identifying ahead of time, just like we have problems that we identify, like, okay, if we succeed, like, people are going to recognize you in the street, you're not going to be able to go out as much, like all these other, these are problems that I'm have to deal with. Cool. I'm willing to pay for those. But what are the, what are the things along the way that will tell me that even though I haven't achieved Mr. Beast them, that I'm on the right path? And so I think having those little indicators allow you to keep taking steps towards the, the ultimate thing and continue to push.

I mean, I have a different, um, tweet, which is that the world belongs to those who can continue to work without seeing the result of their work, continue to do without seeing the result of they're doing. And it's really the person who can do that for the longest period of time. And that's usually because they're still getting leading indicators. It's just that it's amounting to a much bigger mountain. And so like, if you want to do big [ __ ], it takes a way longer period of time because the, the easy [ __ ], the little hills, everyone conquers really quickly. I'm on time. I say, please and thank you. It's like, so [ __ ] what? And so like, if you want to do something that most people can't do, literally just extend the time horizon on the things that most people can't weather. Like, there's so much opportunity on the other side of being willing to persist for an extended period of time on the correct path without getting positive reinforcing from your environment. And the longer you can stick with something without that positive feedback loop in terms of the big external thing, the, the, the easier the opportunities are because so few people can pursue them.

In James Clear's Atomic Habits, I think he interviews maybe the Chinese weightlifting team's head coach. And he asked, what is the difference between the absolute elite world champions and the ones that simply qualify? And the coach said, the absolute elite are the ones who can continue to come in every single day without getting bored. That was it. And Matt Fraser talks about it as well, where he says that doing an hour and a half of monostructural work on the rower, you've got to do zone two. Hey, guess what? You don't even get the benefit of feeling like you worked that hard. You just get to kind of, yeah, whatever, like 24 strokes a minute or something like, slow zone two, whatever the, whatever the thing is. Um, but no one's fired up for that. He said, people make a mistake in believing that I'm fired up to go and do that session. I'm not fired up to go and do that session. I just go and do that session.

We were saying, um, so there's a lot of people say like, do the work. Um, and in Gym Launch, and it's continued into our stuff today. But do the boring work is what we call it. And, uh, boring is what makes you rich. Boring, the boring activities. It's the, it's the double-checking the emails. It's writing the follow-up sequence that you really don't feel like writing. And honestly, just getting it done will make you significantly more money than not getting it done. And so it's like, it's, it's following with a lead from a month ago. And just being like, hey, by the way, are you still interested in that thing? It's the stuff that you don't want to do. Like, no one's like, I can't wait to follow up with these leads that haven't responded to the last two text messages I sent. But if you respond, if you follow up to everybody, you will make more sales than presuming that it's an effective strategy. Because there are ways that you can continue to chug away and do a thing with no positive reinforcement. But hey, guess what? That's the direction that you're supposed to be going in. And you're walking over there. Yeah, that's a push. And pivot, right? Like, if, if no one responds, then I would say I have zero leading indicators. But if you have enough response rates, then it, then it's worth the, the toil. Um, but I, I, so I mean, Michael Phelps talks about this too with, uh, with swimming. Like, just laps after laps after, like, he doesn't even have the variety of like, different moves or different, like, it's just laps. Just sheer volume of work. And, um, I call the Rocky cut scene. And almost every successful person that I have ever encountered has gone through not a month or a year, but many years of doing work without reward, where they have to do things that other people find boring. And they have to sacrifice things that everyone finds interesting. That most people want to do during that entire season of their life. And they basically sacrifice a season of other things that they would prefer to do to do stuff that they would not prefer to do because of the one thing they want most. And that's the Rocky cut scene. And instead of lasting five minutes, it just usually lasts five or 10 years.

You're going to lose sleep. You'll doubt whether it'll work. You'll stress to make ends meet. You won't finish your to-do list. You'll wonder whether you made the right call and have no way to know for sure. This is what hard feels like. And that's okay. Everything worth doing is hard. And the more worth doing it is, the harder it is. The greater the payoff, the greater the hardship. If it's hard, good. It means no one else will do it. More for you. I think a lot of entrepreneurship and even personal growth is training yourself on how you respond to hard. Because in the early days, hard was, ooh, stop. This isn't good. I should, I should, this is a warning sign. This is a red flag. I should slow down or I should stop. You know, I should pivot. But the more I think about it as a competitive landscape, as I'm clear on what this path is supposed to look like, and these rocks and these dragons are things that I'm going to have to slay along the way to get the princess or get the treasure, I get happier about the harder it is because I know that no one else will follow. It's a selection effect. And I think if you can, if you can shift from, this is hard, to no one else will be able to do this, then it, it, it flips from being this thing that you're like, oh, poor me, to, oh, poor everyone else who's going to have to [ __ ] try. Yeah. And I think that is so much more motivating as a frame for the exact same circumstance.

Yeah, that's awesome. I was thinking a lot about the lonely chapter that we talked about the last time. That was the best, most powerful idea, I think, that we came up with. And if you see there basically being no shortcuts toward getting the thing that you want, there are ways to be more and less efficient. There are ways to do things with more and less of a positive disposition, which can actually make the journey feel an awful lot easier. But ultimately, if you assume that largely everyone needs to go through the same challenges that you're going through, every single difficult thing that you do is kind of like a massive wall that you need to get over. And you go, wow, [ __ ], I'm so glad that I've got over that wall. And think about how many people are going to be selected out. It's like the Hunger Games, you know? Think about how many other people are going to fall that wall. There are people only root for people who don't need it. Like the amount of times when I was on my lonely path, where I was too different from the friends that I had, but not successful enough to be friends with the people that I wanted to be friends with. That's when that's when you want people to root for you. That's when you want people to support you. Once you've already won, people are like, he's amazing. He's so good. But like, that's the time when you need it the least. And so you always have to be the person who roots for you before everyone else does. And it's usually a single clap in the auditorium for a very long period of time. It is a slow clap that's just you rooting for you. Um, and that visual, I think, is one that you can kind of take. Because it is, people struggle to do things alone. And the path of the exceptional person is one of an exception, which means that you are not with other people. And rather than fighting that or bemoaning it, see it as an indicator that you're on the right path. Because if everyone else were cheering you on, then it means you're not in the right place. Because it means you're just like everyone else. And that's not where you want to be.

It's an interesting paradox that the energy it requires to start doing something is way more than the energy required to continue doing the thing. And that the beginning of doing anything results in the lowest amount of reward, both internal and external, than when you've been doing it for ages. So I think about this a lot with the show. There was this stat that Spotify told us, 85% of the listeners of this show found this in 2023. Right? And I thought at the end of 2022, remembering at that point, I'd been on Rogan, we were at like 650k. We've got, you know, we've been doing 550, 600 episodes deep. Like, I'm, I've got it. I've done the thing. Like, this is me doing, if this isn't [ __ ] doing the thing. I've moved to Austin, Texas. I've got an O1 visa. I've got like, the, all the rest of the stuff. Jordan Peterson's been on twice. You've been on. And yet the, what, everything up until that point is two months of growth. Yeah. I mean, we made, we made more money for just from a revenue perspective, we made more money and more subs in one month, December of last year, than we did in the entire first three and a half years of the show. So it's this odd paradox. And one of the things that you need to ensure, I've had this idea about, protect your passion at all costs. Because if you, if you begin to hate the thing that you do, you negatively change your trajectory. And that means that at the time when you can benefit the most by every single unit of work, which is the later that you go, presuming that you continue to hit that upper trajectory, if you've completely killed any passion or desire to do the work in the early stages, because you, you've not protected it appropriately, that can be by focusing on the wrong things, by not rewarding yourself, by not building it with people that care about you, by, you know, just not, not celebrating when you hit milestones, all of the things that actually help to keep you going. Being a character by the time that you get to the stage where each unit of effort allows you to gain a thousand or a million of each of the things that it would have done at the very beginning, you've inverted the, like, the passion equation. Takes way more energy to start a thing than to continue doing a thing. And yet, in the beginning, the rewards are way lower than they are at the end. But if you don't protect your passion, your motivation is at its lowest when you are at your highest amount of efficiency in terms of returning your time put in.

I think a hopeful message that anyone can think about who's in that hard period or in that start period is that it won't get harder like this. This is the hardest part. And so if you can just make it through this, everything else is downhill. It's not that the things that you're, the dragons are going to slay aren't going to get bigger. They are. But you become so much more equipped to slay them. And you have so many more allies. You have people on the stands cheering for you. You have the audience. You have all of these other things that are behind you. But in the beginning, it's just you with a stick against a bear. And arguably, that fight is a harder fight to win than beating a dragon when you have a nuclear bomb and Six Nations behind you. And so it's not even like the, the size of the hardship. It's just also the resources and how few of them you have. And how so much of the beginning is literally burning the one thing you have, which is time, because you have no leverage. You don't have the money to pay other people to help you. You don't have the resources to go like, get someone to, to, no one can learn it for you. It's like, there's a lot of the things that, that we care about a lot. Like, no one can work out for you. Doesn't matter how much money you.

Have no one can learn skills for you. And so, in the early days, like, it feels so painful because you're like, you look around to see who can help you, and then you're like, "[ __ ] it's me again." And I think getting comfortable with the idea that each of these things kind of, like, *Slumdog Millionaire*, if you've seen that movie, where he—I'll give you the TL;DR: he goes through his entire life of randomness, and he gets on *Who Wants To Be A Millionaire* version in India. And it has 12 questions to make a million dollars. And from only 12 random experiences in his life that seemed meaningless at the time, was he able to answer all of the questions and then ultimately win?

The skills that you develop along the way, like Steve Jobs learning calligraphy that then became Apple fonts that, you know, transformed how we type. Those early days, that little trench winning in the weeds, often times gives you these huge advantages later on because you have more context than anyone else. And so, rather than lament them and hate the fact that you're going through it, remembering that these will be arrows that you put in the quiver that you're going to be using to slay the future bigger dragons. And so, expecting it to be easy is what makes it much harder than it ever is.

I've always loved earning my stripes with the things that I've done, whether it was with nightlife or running the podcast or doing whatever. And I think there's like a degree of nobility to it. But functionally, that's kind of, that's just like, it's a nothing. Like, what's the, where do the, is the nobility? But I think the reason that you can feel noble about it, and the reason that it gives you a positive reward, is, is you know that you understand every single inch of the things. And that if you want to hold a conversation.

We went out for dinner with our new CFO and accounts people on Saturday. They said, "You ask a lot of questions. Most people don't ask very many questions." And I also don't care at all about accounts, really. Like, I'm not doing this for money. But they said, "You ask a lot of questions." Said, "Well, I don't ever really want to walk into a room and not be able to hold my own, at least just competently, if it's to do with something that I care about." The same thing goes for this. Like, I, I started to learn about focal lengths and frame rates and negative fill, reverse contrast lighting. And then, sure enough, two years after we started doing it, a bunch of different—I sent you the Instagram thing, like this really awesome film Instagram that had been following for ages, picked us up for what we were doing and gave us props, independent of the talk thing, which is fundamentally what we're here for. And we created this entire new industry of like cinematic podcasting, which was recognized by, as far as I'm aware, like the best cinematic—it's called Film Light. At Film Light, people can go and see it on Instagram, like the best decoder and analyzer of cinematography. And two years ago, when we started, I remember thinking, "[ __ ] it, like, I love the way that they've broken down what happens in Ad Astra. Oh my God, the whole thing was shot on 35mm. Each different scene got two pairings of colors and stuff like that." And then, but the reason that we were able to get there, at least in some part, is I can have a conversation with people.

So each of the things that you do, when you not only win in the weeds but live in the weeds, then allows you downstream from that to see the things that other people aren't seeing. There's a quote that I love from Dr. Cash. I'll probably butcher it, but "Experts have more ways to win than beginners do." And so, if an expert goes into any setting that they're expert in, they have so many faster feedback loops that reward them in the moment before the ultimate outcome. So, if you're a master video editor, there's so many things you can do that while editing, you make one change and then it looks right. You have a positive feedback loop. And so, I think when you're on the start path, you can't look at the outcome as the only positive, because you will never make it. And so, the positive frame that I've always used is, sure, you can have the external ones of like, "I like thinking about my first videos had like 133 views." And I'm like, "Well, if I had an audience of 13 people, I used to spend years pitching, you know, weight loss stuff to rooms of 13." And that was fine. And so, thinking about that way was helpful. But the, the most helpful frame was thinking about who I was becoming as the asset that I was building. So, in real time, whenever I finished a long day's work, I was becoming more like the type of person who could work for five years without reward, and that would be part of the story I would someday tell. And some, some of the biggest reinforces I've had in my life has been future-casting the story that I would tell about the shitty period that I was in. Like, I remember when I was sleeping on the floor at my gym because I didn't have enough money for two rents, and I was like, "I will [ __ ] tell this story." And when I lost everything for the first time, I, like, I have the screenshot of the bank account. Like, when I show it people, they're like, "Oh, look, there's that thing." But they forget that there was a person who screenshot it to be like, "This won't [ __ ] happen again." And I think having a larger narrative of where you're ultimately going, one, gives you the vision of where you're like, the, like knows where he's going. But it allows the dragons that you have to slay along the way, the hard things that you have to overcome, to feed into the larger narrative of who, of the story that you'll someday tell.

And so, like, no one ever tells stories about the hero who made it all happen immediately and had no hardships. No one cares, right? Like, "Okay, you were born to a billionaire." Is there a story there? Not really. But everyone loves the story because we can see ourselves in the character and how much we hope to be like them. And it's the being like them, not the having what they have, that we usually like. And so, reframing ourselves as the hero of that narrative in my harder times was what really got me through that. And thinking, "I will tell this story someday."

Have you heard Rogan talk about the "be the hero of your own story" thing? Mmm. Oh, dude, this is old now. I think this is maybe, maybe even 10 years old. 10 years old. Um, and he's in one of his old, he's in the LA podcast studio, and he says, "Imagine that you're in a movie, and imagine the movie begins now, and you're the hero of the movie." Yeah. "What would that guy do?" Yeah. "What would that guy do right now?" Yeah. Because you are.

I just got into business. Um, so, actually, I just made the investment in School. Um, and I was talking to Sam, the founder. And I said, "What—" Sam, Sam, Sam. That's the way he says his own. Oh, yeah. Um, and I was, and I was talking to him, and I said, "I want to give you the single easiest razor to predict my behavior." And I said, "Whatever will be the most epic story is the thing that I will most likely do." And so, often times, the most epic story is not the shortest outcome to victory. It's the long sag that results in this big thing later, eventually. And I was like, "If you ever want to know if you're, like, I'm not sure what he's going to do in this situation, just wonder what the most epic story to tell would be." And that's usually what I will do. And I don't know if that's self-serving, but that's, that's genuinely my razor for even making the, like, the big decisions about, "Okay, I'm going to sell Gym Launch. I'm going to, I'm going to marry Lila. I'm going to slum it and live at the gym. I'm going to fly around and do turnarounds. I'm going to start this whole idea of a media company that just gives exclusively." Like, how do, like, how do I put all these together? It's like, "Well, what would be the most epic story?" And I thought of this idea of just like, when I think about who that story I want to tell is, is this billionaire that documented the entire thing the whole way and just gave. Because I always thought I was like, "I wish that Elon Musk and and Warren Buffett and all these guys would have like, I would love to have seen 1997 Amazon content." And a lot of the content in terms of like, it, it's getting five views. It's like, it's okay because when we make it, they're going to come back and watch this. So I don't need them to watch it today. I want them to know that it's here when I do. And I think that got me out of the loop of it. "I have to win right now." And then every one of them is just dropping, uh, a kernel or a breadcrumb for future meat to refer back to until you win.

"F it, it always goes unnoticed. Get used to it. No one roots for you until everyone roots for you." That's just how it works. Yeah. Yeah. People only root for those who don't need to be rooted for. It's strange to think about how mimetic and fallible everyone—me and you, everybody that's listening to this—is. The stuff that I've said on this podcast for like six years, since the first time that I ever said it, seven years, and it's only been within the last 18 months that it's gone viral. It's the same sentence, the exact same sentence, said into the same microphone, slightly nicer lighting. And in some ways, it's reassuring because you go, "I [ __ ] knew that was right. I knew that thing that I was saying was right." And I kept saying it until people realized that it was right. But another part of it is the medium matters more than the message, in many ways. The frame matters more than the picture.

I would say that the medium, the medium and the message are inextricably linked. Like, if Elon Musk tweets, "I'm taking a [ __ ]", it will get a zillion shares. No, because he's the richest man on Earth and has done more entrepreneurial endeavors that have pushed humanity, I think, than anyone else at this point. And so, like, you can't separate the message from the messenger. And I remember when I was in middle school, I learned this lesson where I was in Spanish class, and there was, you know, there was the class clown or whatever. And I was like, "I want people to laugh at my jokes." And so I made a joke that was a joke that that guy probably would have made. And it was a self-deprecating joke. But the thing is, is that like, that guy was kind of a bum, and like him making self-deprecating jokes made sense because of the context of who he was. But I was a straight-A student who was really good at sports. Yeah. And no one thought it was funny.

And fast forward, you know, 10 years. There was a joke that had in our fraternity, which is, "There's nothing funny about an in-shaped body." And so, like, the, I agree with you and that the me, the the medium of the message matters. And so people won't root for you because we use the, the delivery mechanism usually as a filter for whether we should even trust the sword. And so, I tell the story of the, the teacher who's talking about dollar-cost averaging into the S&P and giving investing advice. Like, they might be like, "Man, like, I give better investing advice than Warren Buffett does. Like, he's saying the same thing as me." It's like, "And you know what? You're probably right. The only problem is, you didn't build Berkshire Hathaway. And so no one gives a [ __ ]." And so the thing is, is that we use someone's evidence and authority as a filter for how little we need to process the information. Because if you're listening to a teacher, you have to then think, "Okay, can I separate the message from the person? Can I independently analyze this and say, is it good? Is it bad?" If Warren Buffett says you should buy this, you don't need to analyze. You figure, he knows more than me. He has more perspective. And I will just take it as fact. And so, it's actually lazy consumption on behalf of everyone else that gives authority so much resonance and so much sharability. Because they're also protected. Because if you share something Elon says, you're protected by Elon and his brand. And so, the hard work is getting to the point where you have the evidence that people are willing to feel safe agreeing with you. And the only way for them to feel safe agreeing with you is for you to disagree with them for a very long period of time until you prove that you're right.

Rory Sutherland's got an idea where he says, "No one gets fired for hiring KPMG." Yeah. Such a good line. And it's true. People would sooner fail by following a blueprint that's been done before than risk succeeding by trying something new. Because if you try the new thing, any failure is on your shoulders. If you follow the blueprint, even if it's been total dog [ __ ] the last 10 times that you've tried it, but we followed the blueprint. You know, we did the thing that was the same before.

Michael Malice, uh, like, literal professional internet troll, told me when we, one of the first times that we met, "I wouldn't be able to say one tenth of the [ __ ] that I can if I was taller than 5'7"." He's like a small guy, but he can get away with being kind of like the Loki of Poe on Twitter. Because if he's, you know, 6'5" and built like Alan Richer, yeah, it's going to seem like he's bullying. Yeah. But there's something funny about him, like, like, you know, dip, dip, dipping away. There's also something the, until you win, effort always goes unnoticed.

I realized this with, and it made me like a little dispirited, how fallible people are around success. Do you remember Billy McFarland? Guy that did Fyre Festival? That festival at Pablo Escobar Island? And then everyone got stranded and nearly died. Yeah. If he'd been able to pull off an even remotely passable event, people would have hailed him as a marketing genius. Yeah. Regardless of the fact that he was continually flying back to New York to raise money in an unethical way for a project that he didn't know if it was going to work, and all the rest of the stuff. So, literally, the line between charlatan grifter who's out of his depth and visionary pioneer who makes things work when no one else believes that they can, is just outcome. Everyone thinks you're crazy until it works. And so, I mean, if, if you think of, of the outcome as the trump card, then all of the pain and suffering that you lead up to that point, if you're just—I'm trying to think of an appropriate saying. Um, I was going to say "balls deep" certain—that no matter what, you will die or you will get there, then the likelihood that all of the things that you've done up to that point will then be justified in retrospect is super high. And I actually see that as super, um, compelling as a, as a thing to latch on to in harder times.

Yes, but the ends justifying the means is a slippery slope. I'm a Machiavelli guy. Have you seen, speaking of that, and you mentioned Robert Greene earlier on? You should buy the 25th anniversary edition of *48 Laws of Power*. Just came out last year. Leather-bound, gold embossed. I have it. Oh, you got it. And you've seen the thing on the edges? His face is very cool. The, the super cool printing. Yeah. Dude, so for the people that don't know, you remember you would get those things in packets of cereal when you were a kid, and you could sort of move a, a little bit of plastic from left to right, and it would look like a football player was running or something like that. It's basically the same, but on the edge of a book. If it's flat, it's just gold foil. If you open it one way, so the pages splay out, it's Robert Greene's face. And if you open it so the pages splay out in the other way, it's Machiavelli's face. The [ __ ] coolest book. Just. And I've seen a lot of influencer gifting of books. It's a big deal at the moment, you know, you send the book out and maybe they'll post about it and it'll help with sales or whatever. And there's some very elaborate ways, I'm sure that you've received some of these, um, because I know that you're on the same mailing list. There's some of these that are super, super elaborate. And I remember being like, "Oh, that was like, I don't know, like cool or whatever." But that Robert Greene book, as soon as I saw that it did that, like, "I'm sending a [ __ ] video of this to anyone that I can. Like, this is like magic." Yeah.

So, yeah, what is it? You're doing sales because you sucked at marketing? You're doing marketing because you sucked at product? It's a great noism. It's so funny because, um, like, with the, the book launch, I, I, I didn't do any of that. I just always, I wanted people, I want people to read the book because, like, if someone posts about the book before the book's out, then, like, I wanted no one to have read the book until the day it was out, you know? Um, but yeah, I'm the, the longer I've been in, at least the business game, and we were talking about Legendary Foods, it's just product. Like, I had a roommate way back in the day who's now a really successful entrepreneur, and we were both like, early days, poor as [ __ ]. We happened to live together. And he read this book. He just told the title, and just like, stuck with me. He said, "Too good to fail." And I just love that as a frame. It's like, if I open a sandwich shop, how can I make the sandwiches too good? Like, just, if someone takes a bite, they're like, "[ __ ], this is the best sandwich I've ever had." Like, if you just get that, then the rest of it doesn't matter. And so when you're like, I mean, I think about this in business decisions, but probably also in life decisions, is I think Tim Ferris talks about this, the one big domino. It's like, what is the one thing that if I just get this one thing right, everything else shrinks into irrelevance? And I think about that from, like, the hero story of what you said with Joe Rogan, which I love that frame. It's like, "Okay, boom. Now you're present in your movie. What would that guy do?" It's like, "Well, what one big thing could that guy accomplish that would make all of the, all of the mediocrity of your life up to this point irrelevant?" And why are you not putting every single ounce of your effort to prove that one point so that you could then justify everything up to that point? So it wouldn't have been mediocrity, it would have been the path to get there. Exactly. Thank you. It would have been the journey.

People want to find their passion, but you don't find it, you create it. And you create it by getting good at something. And to get good at stuff, you start by doing something you suck at. Then you get good. Then you like it. Then people ask, "How did you find your passion?" Answer: "By starting when you sucked and not giving up." Yeah. I hate the passion mantra. I really do. I mean, part of it was because, um, I'll even, I'll even play it out. So, I, I read all the same self-help books early on when I was, you know, in my entrepreneurial days, and I was trying to find my passion. And I was into fitness. And so I was deciding between fitness, test prep, because I was good at test prep, and, uh, frozen yogurt because I like dessert, right? So I've like, these are my three quote passions. Which let's just translate that into things you're interested in. And so, as soon as I started the gym, my passion disappeared. It became work. And I had a different mentor later in my life who said, "Never create work around your passion, because then it'll become work." And he was a guy who's a very successful business guy. And I think about that actually more than I, than I share. Because it's just complete and utter [ __ ] because it assumes that what you're going to be doing every day is the thing that you're currently really interested, which also doesn't make you money. And so your behavior has to change. And whenever you're doing these new things, one, they'll be new, which means you will suck at them, which means you'll probably not like them. But it's also part of it. And so, like, I would prefer to take the extreme opposite position of, "Everything will suck, and eventually you will get good at the things that you suck at, and then you'll enjoy being competent at that thing, which will then probably give you status, and you'll enjoy the fruits of status more than the pain of doing the thing." And in so doing, create a positive feedback loop that you'll actually keep sticking with it. And so, I'd rather set the expectation that everything is terrible all the time, for forever. Now, let's see if we can make our, now let's see if we can become the person who can still do it anyways. Um, and start that as the baseline, rather than trying to assume that I need perfect conditions in order to start. Because I mean, starting is the perfect condition. Like, whatever condition that you're in that you start was the perfect condition.

There is such a thing as intrinsic motivation, though, as well as extrinsic. You can do something. There's a whole myriad of things that you could be potentially good at, and many of them could give you renown and and and money and social clout and that feedback loop. But there are some that you will enjoy doing for the sake of doing them more. I don't disagree. I was, remember a note that I wrote to myself when I first started the podcast and I decided to turn pro with it, which is one way to turn something you love into a labor is to monetize it. Okay? Because as soon as you decide that you're going to really, really go for this, if you want to turn pro at something, I use this example in, in my live show, of a pickleball player. So this guy loves playing pickleball, and he gets to turn up on a Saturday and play with his friends. You know, if it's cold outside, he doesn't need to go and play. And if he's tired, he doesn't need to go and play. And if he's hungover, he doesn't need to go and play. And then he decides to turn pro. And he thinks, "I'm turning pro at this thing that I love. I can't wait to make what I love into my career." But he doesn't realize that, hey, guess what? If you're hungover, you still need to go and train. Yeah. Or actually, no, you don't get to be hungover anymore, because the guy that isn't hungover is the guy that's training better. So you now need to stop going out with your friends, and you need to train when it's cold, and you need to work on game tape and mindset and hydration and nutrition. You need to do S&C and you need to have a physio. And you need to not see family as much. All of these things came along for the ride as soon as you decided to turn pro. Is that a price that you're prepared to pay? And that's an interesting question to ask yourself. Am I prepared to sacrifice my pure, unencumbered, unmolested love for this thing in order to try and become the best at this thing?

I think it's really tough. And I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna shoot my own advice right now in the, in the head, or at least my positioning right now, which is that it's very easy for someone in, you know, my position or in your position to say, "This is kind of what it takes." And or rather, "This is like, you should find your passion." Because, like, transparently, what I do now every day, I actually really do love. I live more or less the same day seven days a week. And, like, I'll tell you what it is, just so we can have context. But I wake up, and then I go to my office here, and I work for six hours writing my next book. And then I take two hours of calls, typically. And then after that, I lift in the gym that I custom-designed with all the pieces that I love. And then I go and eat with my wife. And then I go to my condo, and I sit in my recliner that overlooks the entire city. And I read. And then I go to bed. And I do that every day. And I love every aspect of the day, with the exception of maybe the two hours of calls that I have to take. But I see those as a necessary thing for everything else that I have there. Now, could I stop doing that? Maybe. But for me to say that that's what your day needs to look like in order to get into the top floor with the view that looks over these things, and so that you can not make money for two years while you write a book that eventually makes money, or whatever, is, is not true. And so it's the difference between, like, "Oh, I should fly private because that's what rich people do." I should play basketball because I want to be tall. And modeling the top, the behavior at the top of the mountain, rather than the climb. And so they're completely different. And so this whole idea, unfortunately, and I don't blame the people who do this, is they see their current life, like I would see mine, and say, "Well, what do I do now? I do everything that I love." Okay, okay. But I didn't get here doing everything that I love. I did a fuckload of [ __ ] I hated. And I did it for a very long period of time. And I did not have anyone to root me on. And in fact, I had many people who were actively trying to destroy my path and tell me why it was a terrible idea.

I had this idea about, um, why you should stop taking advice from successful people. Mmm. Because most of their advice is not about what they did when they were at your stage. It's about what they do now, right? And it's the same thing around pushing work-life balance. You know, I, what I found after 50 years at Disney is that really the most important thing is what—all right, well, how did you get to this stage? What did you do when you were two years in? Because that's where I am. Yeah. What did you do when you were broken, living on the gym floor? Because that's where I am. Don't tell me about the complicated routine or the, the, the balance or the flying private. The bar stool's upside down, and you're, you're mixing up the ends for the means. Everything on my write-up. So this is, I mean, I, I remember in a lot of excruciating detail what it took me to get here. Um, but I will say that I had a ruthless focus on dollars per hour. And so, and I'm just giving tactical advice right now, but everything that I could trade away for more time doing the thing that made me money was what I did. And so I remember the first time I made a $500 sale, and it took me 30 minutes. And I was like, "Every hour of every day, this is what I'm going to do." And anything that is not talking to someone in exchange for them giving me a credit card so that I can charge it and make $500, anything that makes me less than $250 per hour or per per 30 minutes, I'm giving to somebody else. And so after that first sale was like, "I'm never cooking again. I'm never grocery shopping again. I'm not cleaning again." Because I knew that in one sale, I could pay for that person for the month. And so, like, as, like, the ruthless focus on, "What can I do that creates an input to output being money equation?" And me, at least for me, it was pouring everything I possibly could into the input and eliminating everything else.

I made this video on Facebook before I was quote Alex Roney, years ago, when I still had six gyms before I even did the turnarounds. And I, I made this video, almost this documentation, but I said, "So I want to open up my seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth location. And I have the spots picked out. And I'm already working all of the hours that I'm awake. And I've already given up Saturdays. So the only thing that I have left is like Sundays and evenings. And so I am no longer going to be watching any football. And I'm no longer going to have Netflix at all. And that is what I'm giving up for seven, eight, nine, and ten." And I remember just making this video of like, "That's what I'm sacrificing." And I think a lot of people create these to-do lists. When, in my experience, it's been so much more useful to write down all the things that I'm willing to sacrifice. Because if you sacrifice everything, there's nothing left than to do the one thing that matters. And I think Jerry Seinfeld talks about this from a writing perspective. He says that every day, no matter what, he sits down and he writes for two hours. Now, he doesn't have to write, but he's not allowed to do anything else. And so he can sit there, but there's nothing else to do except for write jokes. And so I think a lot about that from the climb perspective, which is like, most of everyone who's listening to this who isn't achieving what they want is [ __ ] with their time. They think that they're spending all their time working, but your output, like, you don't even know how to work. I'm being really real with you. Like, you think you know how to work, you don't know how to work. Like, the amount of output, like, and I, I'll measure this by like, "What is your output?" It's probably not as high as you think. And so, rather than trying to learn all these productivity hacks, the ultimate productivity hack is no, N-O, is you stop doing [ __ ]. And then when you create space, then you can fill it with the thing that matters. But trying to add on more to your schedule of all the things that you're not willing to sacrifice is the very reason that you're not doing what you need to do.

A lot of people would look at that life of, "I'm going to sacrifice evenings and I'm not going to watch football anymore," and say, "Well, what's the point? If you make yourself miserable on route to achieving the goal?" Totally. If most of your life is journey, not destination, and it makes you miserable on route to it, why do that? So that was the thing I was mentioning earlier where it's like, let's take the absolute extreme of, "It's going to suck and it's going to last forever." How can I be okay in that circumstance? And I do have the fundamental belief that circumstances have nothing to do with how, what your subjective well-being is. And so, if monks can be super chill in, wherever monks do monk things, and have nothing, and have higher subjective well-being ratings than anyone else here in the Western world, it clearly isn't external. And so, then, if I'm going to be just as miserable being mediocre as I am doing this [ __ ] that's going to amount to something, then I might as well do the [ __ ] that's going to amount to something and be miserable there, and at least have something to show for it.

Does this story I learned about Victor Hugo, famous writer from history, do you know this about what he did with his servant? Mmm. So, um, Victor Hugo needed to make himself write. So he paid his servant each night during the middle of the night to come into his bedroom and remove the bedclothes from him, turn the heating off, and then lock his bedroom door from the outside. And he wasn't allowed to leave until Victor slid six pages of handwritten work underneath. So, you know, you look at Opal, which is this app for, uh, iPhone, which stops you from using apps, or Frozen Turkey, Cold Turkey, which is the same thing for desktop. And that's just the digital equivalent of Victor Hugo being locked in his bedroom with no bedding and just a quill and a few pieces of paper, and then having to slide it underneath the door.

And I want to push back on something that you said right before Victor Hugo, which is, you know, somebody, somebody might ask, like, "Why would you do all this stuff if you're not happy?" That assumes that my goal in life is to be happy. What is your goal in life? To do epic [ __ ]? Genuinely? To be useful? And so, why place "do epic [ __ ]" over "be happy"? Because when I look back on my life in retrospect, the things that bring me the most joy in the moment are the things that I was willing to sacrifice for for an extended period of time. And those pay memory dividends far greater than the momentary cost that I had in the moment. And so, I think it's a, a long-term, short-term thing. But a frame that continued to paralyze me for a long period of time was an obsession with happiness. Like, it was truly an obsession. It was an obsession of mine in college. I almost, almost got into positive psychology because I thought that was really interesting. That's what I, that's what I, my passion, right? I consumed all that stuff. And I drove myself mad with it. And I actually was more sad and depressed than anything, which is probably why I was trying to find all this positive, dippy stuff. And I just cracked one day and I was like, "[ __ ] happiness." Because it felt so out of reach that I was like, "Just [ __ ] it. I'm just not, I'm not even, I'm not even going to shoot for it. I'm just going to do stuff." And that's all I'm going to do. I'm just going to do stuff. And what happened was, like, a few years later, dot dot dot, a few days later, I looked up and I was like, "Huh. I'm not not miserable." And so I actually identified for a very long period of time as, "I'm not a happy person, comma, and that's okay. I'm fine with that. I accept that." And there was this huge conflict for such a long period of time where I was like, "You're supposed to be happy. Why aren't you happier? Like, there's something wrong. There's something wrong with you. Something needs to change." Rather than saying, like, "Maybe the level of happy that you are is fine. Who am I? Like, what happy am I comparing myself to?" And also, if whatever your current state is, if you just say, "happier," which is really when people are like, "I want to be happy," they're just saying, "I want to be happier than I am." Which means that you create this distance between where you are and where you want to be, which is the recipe for being unhappy. Is saying that I want to be happier. So it doesn't matter how happy you are, you want to be happier. And so by relinquishing the desire to be happy, I ended up enjoying a lot more of the stuff that I was doing because I did make it a requisite for, for my activities. So then it became a pleasant surprise. I was like, "Oh, this doesn't suck. Huh. How nice."

Two famous psychologists, Daniel Gilbert and Daniel Kahneman, have quite divergent views on happiness. It's quite interesting. So, Daniel Gilbert talks about how if you spent every minute of the rest of your life on a floaty Lilo in a pool drinking cocktails, in retrospect, you might not have found much meaning, but each individual moment of experience would have been enjoyable. And he believes that constitutes, to him, a life that is well lived. I disagree with this guy entirely. Daniel Kahneman, and this is my position too, which is, a well-lived life is one which, in retrospect, you are glad that you lived. Right? So, one is leaning toward hedonic pleasure, and the other is leaning toward meaning. So, one, you could say, is happiness, and the other is meaning. It's my belief that your disposition largely influences where on that spectrum from Lilo to do hard things you need to sit. And you will have friends, and I did for a very long time in the nightlife industry, have friends that just seem to be so [ __ ] happy not doing stuff. Like, just they would float through life, and they wouldn't ask themselves, "Am I actualizing my [ __ ] virtue? Is this the highest integrity that I can do with these things?" And all the rest of it. And I was envious of those people.

You ever seen a dog? You see a dog on the floor, and it's just lying there, and you think, "Oh my God, if only I could be that dog." Like, it just wants to go for a walk and have food and like, go pee-pee. That's it. That's all it wants to do. And you think, "[ __ ], it would be great to be that dog." But like, guess what? If your constitution doesn't allow you to be that dog, the only way out is through. And this was something, the first time that I went to go and see Peterson, someone asked him a question, and they said, "The depth of my consciousness causes me to suffer. Is it a blessing or a curse to feel everything so deeply?" He thought for a little bit, and he said, "Take more of the thing that poisons you until you turn it into a tonic that girdles the world around you." The only way out is through. And it's kind of like, as soon as you realize that there are things that you do that give you satisfaction, and there are things that other people do that give them happiness, and you've tried that route, the only way is to continue doing the thing that you know that works. And I think that you were an example of someone who is optimizing heavily for meaning rather than for hedonism. And that's not to say that there are people, and this is, I said this on the last episode, the fundamental thing that people don't understand, as far as I can tell, about your worldview is that the thing that you do for work and the thing that you do for fun are the same thing. They can't imagine that because that's not the way that it is for them. And it's not, maybe it's not the way it is for most people. But if you're the sort of person that finds meaning more enjoyable than happiness, you need to optimize for the thing that you enjoy the most. And I'll toss in, and meaning lasts longer.

And so, I, I'll be super upfront. If that, those friends of yours in, in the nightlife, I've, there's nothing wrong with that in my, in my way. Like, as I see the world, like, if that's you, and you're like, "I [ __ ] love everything I do," then like, you won. Just keep doing that, you know what I mean? Um, but I think a lot of the message that Chris is saying here is, if you've tried that path and it hasn't worked for you, then you have this dark door that's in the corner that you've been trying all the other ones that have nice gold edges and really shiny things, but there's that door that you keep looking at, and it's the other side of you that's clearing his throat in the other room. And it's like, you just have to bust through the door. And I think that the, like, giving yourself permission to be unhappy, or at least for me, giving myself permission to be unhappy for an extended period of time in order to get what I wanted, gave me so much relief from, honestly, I don't like using the word nowadays because it has so many associations, but just from like the depression or the funk that I was in for a few years. Yeah. Just, I just didn't like my life. And I'd achieved by most measures, because I, I did, I don't have the, um, I, you know, school failed me. I was whatever, like, I wasn't that, I finished in three years, and I did really well in school, and I had a really good job. Um, but it was empty for me. And so my, like, my goal is things we talked about earlier, but my, my personal goal is to squeeze every ounce of potential out of whatever I have. And I think that if you feel like you have potential left over, then it will eat you alive until you do something about it. Not to piss off the positive Poes in the room, but if you haven't gotten what you want, then you're not worthy of it. Period. And that's okay. Now you can admit that you suck and improve. Better to know you're bad for a season than pretend you're good for a lifetime. You're not making as much money as you want because you're not as good as you think you are. You're not struggling from imposter syndrome, you're a student and pretending to be a teacher. No student says they feel like like frauds for trying to learn. You're a fraud when you get up to teach the class and you've never done it. Deep. I think it's just giving yourself permission to suck. It's giving yourself permission to be unhappy. It's giving yourself permission to not achieve while you do for a long period of time. It's giving yourself permission to lose friends. It's giving yourself permission to do things that's different than people your social circle or your age group are doing. It's giving you permission, giving yourself permission to be an exception so that you can become exceptional.

And a lot of that, the whole positive poly mantra of like, the, I saw that, I saw a post a girl made, and she was like, "You are worthy." And that's what made that tweet. All my tweets are just responses to [ __ ] I see. And so this girl was like, "You, like, I say this to myself in the morning, like, 'You are worthy. You are amazing. You are a goddess.'" And I was like, "You're not a goddess because you don't control me." Um, and you don't have the things that you want. You keep thinking that you saying that you're worthy is going to somehow make it true. But like, the way that you know you're worthy is that you have it. That's it. Like, that is the litmus test. Are you worthy of a billion dollars? Well, are you a billionaire? No. Then you're not worthy. And so, just like, I think we have these things. It's like, uh, you're unbalanced. It's like, you're not worthy. There's these things that we're programmed to say, "Oh, that's bad. You have to tell everyone they're worthy. You're everyone's beautiful." No. If everyone were beautiful, then no one's beautiful. And yet again, we're back at square one. And so, it's, it's, I guess, drinking the tonic. It's, it's going through the [ __ ] which is honestly the boring stuff that no one wants to do for an extended period of time. And, uh, accepting that you suck and that it is okay. Because the first step is accepting that you stuck, you suck, so that you can do the second step, which is doing something about it.

What about, "You're not making as much money as you want because you're not as good as you think you are"? That's, I mean, I'm obviously in the business space. And that follows up with the other one with the imposter syndrome. Like, people are like, "Man, um, how do you not suffer from imposter syndrome?" I was like, "Because I've done what I said I've done." And the people who get up on stage and try and teach a class on [ __ ], they haven't done it. It's like that. Like, you feel like an impostor when you're an impostor. Like, don't try and kill that voice.

Listen to that voice and get the evidence to make that voice shut the [ __ ] up. Like, if I get on stage and I say, "I can bench 315," is there, like, do I feel like an imposter when I say that? No.

I stay fact. Presumably, if you're pioneering and breaking new ground, you know, you're you just put the biggest investment that you ever did into this new thing. That is a new level that you get to. And that's one, that's to do with finance. But there could be another one that's to do with capacity or competence. You could be sitting down in a room doing a deal which is time-bound in a way that it's never been before, or is in an industry only tangential to one that you've been in before. Each time that you do something new, by definition, you're an impostor because you haven't done it before. Now, if you're teaching, that's different. But if you're entering, if you're growing sufficiently quickly, most of the time it's fresh snow.

So, I like this is a topic I love. But I think the difference between doing something new and being an impostor is one is pretending you're something that they're not. So, like, I made the biggest investment. School. I'm making a bet that I think communities are going to be huge. And I think that there's a ton of people who want to, you know, teach skills they have in communities, etc. And school.com can help. But, like, it would only be an imposter if I said, "This is like, I guarantee it. No matter what, this is going to be the biggest thing ever."

And one of the big things that I repeat, and from the marketing front, I say it all the time. I say, "State the facts and tell the truth." Like, the best marketing in the entire world is truth. Now, if the truth isn't compelling, it doesn't mean you lie. It means you change the world to make the facts compelling. As in, if I say, "Man, I want to be like," I see this one all the time. Uh, 18-year-olds who like want to be a motivational speaker, right? You say, "Okay, well, what are your facts?" You've done nothing great. So they then lie so that they can try and claim success that they don't deserve, so they can get authority that they can't back up. And eventually are called out and are flat. And to be fair, they only impress people who don't know anything anyways.

So, if they're honest about it, they look at their fact sheet and say, "What would, what would a motivational speaker have to have in order for them to have authority?" And then that becomes your action list of what you need to do. And then once those facts are the truth, then you can state the facts and tell the truth. And then people will be like, "Wow, that's so motivational." But all you did was tell the truth.

And so, like, that is why I've so wholeheartedly rejected one. Like, "You are worthy." You're not worthy. If you had it, then you wouldn't even need to say you were worthy because you'd already [ __ ] have it. And if you were, and like, I struggle with imposter syndrome. Why? You only struggle with imposter syndrome because you're [ __ ] lying. Like, that's why you feel like an imposter. And, like, well, I didn't. The thing is, is you can fudge the truth. Like, you can, you can not lie. Very different than telling the truth. Like, I can make something seem a certain way without deliberately breaking the law. But I'll know. And that's why you feel like an imposter because you [ __ ] know. And there's the guy in the other room who's clearing his throat, be like, "That's not [ __ ] true." And then that discord.

But if you just say what you have done, or you say what you are doing, "I'm making this big investment. It's a big bet for me. The reason I'm making this bet is because I see this trend and I think it's a good idea. I could be [ __ ] wrong, but I'm not going to feel like an impostor because of it because that's the truth."

Thinking about the community thing, I had a conversation a little while ago. I don't, I don't think that you're that you're far off wrong, especially in an age of automation. This guy made a really great point, which you probably thought of, which is one of the very few things that you can't automate is community. Can't AI community? No. What you're going to have? I mean, maybe BS. Yeah, yeah, exactly. One guy, one guy and a thousand bots that are all doing it. Maybe GPT 10 can do that or whatever. But the next, this interquartile period, whatever we're coming up to, yeah, is the easiest way to to hedge against automation. I think is to focus on community.

All right, next one. If you can be in a bad mood for no reason, you might as well be in a good mood for no reason. If it's not going to change your life, it shouldn't change your mood. If the cost is peace of mind, don't buy it. Yeah. If you can be in a bad mood for no reason, then you can be in a good mood for no reason. Which means that if you can do something that's amazing and still have a [ __ ] day, it means you can do something that sucks and have a good day. Which means the entire excuse around, "I don't want to do all these hard things because as a proxy, it makes my mood sad," is ridiculous. Because it means that we are ultimately in control of how we want to perceive the work that we do. And so I think that is ultimately the most freeing thing that you can do in terms of how you can equip yourself to get through those harder periods.

Why do you think there's so much cynicism at the moment, especially on the internet? It's easier. You can always defend. No, like, we, we actually do with this a lot at acis.com from an investment perspective. And, um, we actually have to check ourselves, which is, it's always easy to find a reason not to do an investment. So we have a no bias. And you should have. I mean, you should overall have a no bias. Like, you should say, "Okay, here's all the things that could go wrong." And you have to kind of think that way because you have to manage risk. But if you say no to everything, you're always right in the short term. But you're, but if you never make an investment, you're wrong in the one way that matters, which is you get no return. And so, like, you always miss the short-term losses, but you lose the big long-term gain. And so it's again, this is a a continuum to be managed more than a problem to be solved. But cynicism is short-term. It's like every.

So, okay, this is so when you go home, right? And you want to start a new business, or you have a girl that you're bringing back, and your friends and your family are like, "She's not going to last," or like, "This isn't going to, this isn't going to be forever." They are right, literally every single single time, except for the one time you bring your wife home. And in that time, they're all wrong. And it's the one time that [ __ ] matters. And so the idea, like, but the thing is, is because of the false positives or the true positives, they might have been right literally 19 out of 20 times. And if they were right the first time, and the second time, and the third time, and the fourth time, why would they bet against no on the fifth time or the 50th time? But you only need one yes or one positive to change your entire life. And so there's this habit, and that's where cynicism comes from, where we get so many positive reinforcers for saying no and being right. But it's only short-term being right. Because you have to make big bets to win big. And that also means that you're wrong plenty of times. And people aren't willing to look stupid for being wrong.

This school bet could go wrong. I'm betting it's not. But everything has risk. And I've been public about it, right? And so, like, if anything, but like, I've played this out. So like, I, like, I'll tell you how I played this out. I was like, "If it goes wrong, I'll document the things that I that I learned and that I'll apply next time." And I'll do what I've always done: state the facts and tell the truth.

It is strange to think about how being cynical or skeptical or kind of sardonic or cutting or aloof, it's used as a proxy for being smart. Oh, the worst thing that body could be accused of is naive. That's what they're trying to optimize against. They don't want to be seen as naive. "Oh, you [ __ ], you hope that everything was going to be good." "A, that's, I mean, that's cute." Like, you know, the world will teach you. It'll, don't worry, don't worry. It's like, it'll, it'll, you'll learn, you'll learn. Yeah.

People don't want to be naive. And they'll be right. And that's what's, that's what's painful. Is that it takes more effort to start in the beginning. And more people are right about the fact they're like, "Hey, you're not going to hit it big." And guess what? A month in, you're not. But they're only measuring on months. And at six months, you're also not going to have hit it big yet. And they're going to be like, "I'm still [ __ ] right." And at a year, you're still not going to hit it big. And they'll still be [ __ ] right. And every day that you haven't hit it, they're going to feel like they were right. But they're wrong because they're measuring in days, and you're measuring in decades.

There's this idea from Ghandi called the cynical genius illusion. Cynical people are seen to be smarter. But sizable research suggests they actually tend to be dumber. Cynicism is not a sign of intelligence, but a substitute for it. A way to shield oneself from betrayal and disappointment without having to actually think.

There was a, there's a tweet on, um, Doomsday Money Twitter guy. And he said, "Uh, yeah, he's predicted 16 out of the last three recessions." And the thing is, is that no one, no one recalls the other 13 times that guy was wrong. Yeah. And, and they don't recall all of the gains that probably were made in the marketplace by people who didn't sell during that time period.

There was this, uh, broad, you, you know, people forward [ __ ] on WhatsApp. And if it's been forwarded lots of times, it even says it at the top, "Forwarded many times." It's like a little warning. And this happened, I think, around COVID. There was an image of one guy, one squatty, wearing like army gear, walking through the streets of London. And this was forwarded on what as evidence that the army was going to come and hold people in the house at gunpoint. And if you left, it was going to be martial law was going to be deployed on the streets of London. And this went [ __ ] nuclear, completely interstellar, absolutely everywhere. What happened with that, right? What happened with what happened with that thing? Not a single person who decided to spout this half [ __ ] baked opinion that never turned out to be true, ever got held to account for that. And I must have received that message like five times. Yeah. Like, "Hey, you, you don't get to just make these like ridiculous, like actually stupid [ __ ] claims about the world and then no one call you to account."

I'm going to hit on the cynicism point. Um, the world belongs to optimists. Because if you're going to do anything big, you have to believe that it can happen, otherwise it never will. That Shan Puri thing. The cynics get to be right, and the optimists get to be rich. Yeah. Like, if you look at it from a percentage of success rate, I've been wrong more times than I've been right. I have failed more times than I've succeeded. But you always succeed more, and or right more, in the big ways than the people who've been right all along and are wrong. Trevor says this, my my editor. He says, uh, "99% right and 100% wrong." So like, they're, they're right 99% of the time, but they're wrong 100% because the only thing that matters is the big one at the end.

Like your family and friends will say, "That every girl that you ever a date is not good enough, except for the one time you find the girl that you're actually going to marry." And then it doesn't matter. Or like, "This won't last," or like, "This business idea, it's not going to work." And you might have nine failures. I, I failed my first nine businesses didn't really amount to anything. Nine, nine. As in the first one, spent time [ __ ] failed. Second one, "This one will be different." [ __ ] failed. Third one, "This is the one." And then seven, six more after that, right? I'm just painting this picture because like, it's painful as [ __ ] because the whole time everyone is telling you, "I told you so." And they're right today, but not forever.

If the cost is peace of mind, don't buy it. Why? I use the peace of mind as a as a indicator for breaching values. So that's the I want to become known rather than and sacrifice my reputation in order to do so. And so for me, I would lose peace of my. Like, right on the edge, I'm like, "I don't know, this is a little bit edgy."

I had a guy, um, who shared a bash clip of me. And what's a bash clip? Oh, like somebody like took my clip and then was like, "This is wrong, whatever." And, um, and so I looked at the guy's profile and I saw he was a VC. And I was like, "Huh, okay. I know who this is." Oh. And so I DM'd him and I was like, um, "Do you disagree with this?" And he said something. And then I just eviscerated him. And he was like, "You're right. I overstepped. Because I wanted to try and do a viral clip. You are fundamentally right, and I was wrong." And so like, that is what I would never want to be like. That is disgusting to me. And so the cost of making a viral clip to try and trend jump when I know that fundamentally the thing isn't right is not worth the price.

There's a, this shows up in in other ways. So I had to, what the [ __ ] did I do? I, I think I tried to throw a used Splenda packet in a bin in a restaurant. You know, yeah. Did that. But I was leaving. And I was like, "It's next to the bin. Someone will get it." And I walked, oh, yeah, 30 yards away. Yeah. [ __ ] yeah. Turned around, went back, put it in the bin. Yeah. You'd know that's a piece of mind.

And this is another one of those interesting reframes. This is really, really interesting to me. If the cost is peace of mind, don't buy it. You can see, and I did for a long time, my inability to move in as ruthless of a way as I as other people do as a weakness, as a vulnerability. And I realized in retrospect that it's just a higher standard that I'm holding myself to. And that can be, that will result in many times me doing things that, and and and having things that I need to overcome.

I'm working on my people-pleasing tendencies as hard as I can at the moment. To not, to not. Yeah. I, I end up, um, I don't like to disappoint people. True. I don't like to do things that causes other people to feel bad or, uh, feel hurt, or to tell them things that, uh, they don't want to hear. That's why that, um, Dr. Robert Glover, the "No My Mr. Nice Guy" was just so [ __ ] like, very, very, very incisive. But I realized even with that, I had, I had a conversation with a friend. And it's to do with this book. And there's a bunch of ideas that everybody's been working on in my friend group for quite a while. And I was like, "I really want to write about this thing." And sent him a long, overly arduous voice note explaining about how conflicted I was because it's not my idea. Now, no one owns the truth. That's one of the brilliant things about working through quotes and things like this. Is no one owns it, right? Like, if it's accurate, nobody gets to own the truth. It's just an it about the way that reality exists.

So I sent him this big long voice note. And he replied to me and said, and I, in it, I'm over patent matching a lot of the things I'm doing as people-pleasing. Like, it's the, I think I sent you that tweet about, um, "I just learned about the recency bias." And of all of them, I have to say, it's my favorite one, right? It's like, you see this new thing, and it's the hot new toy that you're playing with or whatever. The, like, shiny new toy. And he responded and he said, "I wanted to say how grateful I am that you, in amongst all of the stuff and the book and the show and all of the different people pulling on your attention, that the first place that you would go to when thinking about this idea is how I would feel, rather than how you can like, weedle it so that you get the outcome that you want or whatever." Uh, "I would be, be very hesitant in you saying or you calling that people-pleasing when it's one of the reasons that I love you as a friend." I was like, "Huh, that's interesting. That's a reframe that I hadn't anticipated." And that is again, the peace of mind thing.

Now, your level for peace of mind may be different to somebody else's. But I don't think that that's something that you should be ashamed of. You know, as a fun challenge for anyone who's listening, try telling the truth in social settings. So when someone invites you to a party, instead of coming up with a fake excuse that you both know is a fake excuse, just say, "I don't want to go." Really [ __ ] with you. Um, and if someone like says, "Hey, can you, you know, help me move?" You're like, "I don't want to." It's very freeing. Because the thing is, is that like, their response is on them. And if I just, I try and anchor myself to truth. If I just tell the truth and state the facts, I'm good with me. And if someone, and I, I ask because I had a exchange recently where I said that, um, I say it often. And now people who are around me are accustomed to the fact that I will just state the facts and tell the truth. Um, I said, "Would you have preferred that I've lied to you?" And the guy just, I was like, "So you would prefer that I lie?" I will not be associated with someone who would prefer that I lie to them because it makes my life difficult because then I'd have to lie, which then would breach one of my my values.

So in the future, you know, I, I had someone who, um, recently was like, "Hey, um, hey, if you need anything, you know, let me know how I can help." I'd be like, "You don't mean that." Because if I actually need something, you will not help. And so it's, it's really uncomfortable for a lot of people because it, it breaks a lot of social norms. But I think that learn, it's kind of like the hundred NOS is like being comfortable. Like, it's just being comfortable with the truth. And the truth is one of the, the scariest, ugliest things. You know, like, "Why don't you want to go on another date with me?" "I don't like you." "You're not worthy." But like, people are so uncomfortable with that. And I think that the, I've just tried to shed [ __ ] as much as I could for my life. And it's just made thinking a lot easier. And also dealing with relationships a lot easier. Because you also, by shedding social niceties, when you do also state the truth, when I say, "I think you [ __ ] killed that," people know that I [ __ ] mean it because you don't just say that. And so I would say most of my team, for example, if I pay a compliment, they know that I mean it. And I don't have to say like, "Hey, like, if I'm being honest, I really, you, like, I don't have to." And it makes your words mean what you say. And I think that is like, I, I aspire to be a man who, when I say things, people know that I mean them. And I think a way to do that is to stop saying things that I don't mean. And so I'm trying to cut as much of the words that are niceties and things that I don't mean and are nonsensical and [ __ ] that I've been taught to say in this social situation.

When someone says, "Make sense?" I say, "No, it doesn't make any sense." People are like, "Oh." Because when when someone says, "Make sense?" at the end of a sentence, we are trained to just nod and say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," even though if you didn't even process it. But if I don't think it makes sense, I say, "No, I don't think it makes sense," or "No, I don't understand." And again, you don't want to look stupid. But looking stupid in the moment so that you can better understand something makes you not look stupid for the rest of your life when you actually understand it. And so I've just, that has been a huge effort of mine is to make, make words great again. Um, make words mean what they mean again. Yeah. And I, and I, and I really, I, I aspire to do that in my writing. And I especially in my social relationship because time is so valuable, and we have so, so little of it. And I don't want to waste any of it pretending to be someone or say things that I don't mean.

It's normal to not know what you're doing. Yeah. If you did, it wouldn't be called growth. High-five your fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and carry on. Do you get tired, stressed, sad, hungry, frustrated, unfocused? Do you feel misunderstood? Great. You're human. You don't need medication.

I have a, a huge vem distaste for, uh, mental medication. And I think one is because it's overprescribed. Two, because people over WebMD themselves. And fundamentally, people find a problem with being human. And I think a lot of that is because of the social norm that we should be never hungry, never sad, never angry, never frustrated, never feel like we're misunderstood. And those are the, those are the troughs and peaks of humanity. And we can't only wish for sunny days because otherwise we'd have droughts and no one, everyone would die. And so it's wishing for something that isn't true and will never happen. It's wanting a lie. Which is why I'm so against it.

Now, are there people who they can test their neurology and whatever? Maybe. But like, honestly, a hundred years ago, this [ __ ] didn't exist. And people just dealt with life. And I think people were happier then than they are now. And so clearly, this solution hasn't, hasn't been much of a solution at all. And so I, if I, I, you know, I try. Have I don't have that many extreme stances? Well, maybe I do. But one of my extreme stances is that there is nothing wrong with you. Because even if there is something wrong with you, how do you benefit by saying there is something wrong with you and then accepting that label unto yourself? Because the alternative to that is accepting your current existence as maybe this is better than everyone else's. And I'm just choosing to believe that it's wrong. And all of this is around some big mighty should that we think and that we worship, that we should be a certain way that we're not. And I think that discrepancy, that word, I've tried to eliminate as much as humanly possible from my vocabulary. Because like, "I should." What should? Nothing. According to whom? Why should I be happier? Why should I be have less anxiety? Why should I feel more understood?

And so like, pretty much the beginning of every ad for like Levitra or whatever, you know, whatever the new serotone, you know, SSRI thing is, it's like they describe humanity. They just say, like, "Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you horny? Are you like, are you dissatisfied in any way?" Well, the cure of that is a pill. Which I wholeheartedly decry. Anything that gives an if-then statement for happiness. So like, "You will own nothing and be happy." Like, you want to say that you're going to change my external condition to change how I feel? Just, I just reject it as a as any kind of if-then. "I will be happy." But like, the pill, overmedication part, I'm, I've had too many people too close to me ruin their lives topping from SSRI, SSRI, and getting on cocktails of pills and and and they've got a sleep med, and they've got a wakeup med, and they're just, they're just a walking pharmacy. It's crazy.

For people who aren't American to look at the way that America deals with this. I remember, so in the UK, just for context, you can't get prescribed melatonin. You can't buy it over the counter. You can't buy it on Amazon. My video guy, when he flies over here, takes it back. Like some, like he's Pablo Escobar with melatonin tablets instead. Like going into CVS, "Am I allowed to get this?" That's the degree of difficulty that it is to get prescribed anything. And in America, the first place that people turn when they have a problem is the pill bottle. I mean, I have two physician parents. So like, and I would say Western, you know, for the most part, Western medicine through the, just believe in all pharmaceuticals and all that kind of stuff. And so I've, I grew up really close to it. My grandfather is a physician. So like, just lots of medicine in the family in general. And I, um, I just hate it. I really do. I don't hate a lot of things, but I really, I really, I hate, I hate what it does to people. And more the underlying thing is that they reject being human. And they think there's something wrong with them. And so many people waste all of their time trying to solve a problem that is life, rather than living it. And it drives me nuts. Like they, they, they, they search for the medication rather than confronting the problem. Like, you don't have an anxiety problem. You need to deal with whatever the thing you're worried about is. Like, I, I mean, man, I have too many controversial beliefs. I'm getting into much of it. Like, you drink a lot because you're stressed. If you deal with the thing that stresses you, that's the trigger for you drinking. So yes, there's addictive properties to drinking. I'm not going to, I'm not denying that. But the thing that leads the drinking, the condition that creates that, that's something that you can attack. And so I think so little attention is given to accepting reality rather than saying there's something wrong. That people waste their entire life searching for an answer that doesn't exist.

What about it's normal to not know what you're doing? If you did, it wouldn't be called growth. High-five your fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and carry on. If you knew what you were doing, then you would be stagnating because you'd be doing nothing new. And so if you're going to do something new, then that is what would be the catalyst for growth. And so you can't want to grow and also want to know everything you're doing at the same time. It's like the two beliefs contradict one another. And so I think that's a lot of, a lot of the discontent that people suffer from is they want two things that are polar opposites. They want the really strong character, they want the easy life. Like one is the price of the other. You have a hard life to have great character. You have an easy life, you have, you have shitty character. Everything came easy. You want to grow, you don't want hardship. Hardship creates growth. And so they want both. And you can't. Like, it's, it's wanting the Jordans without paying the price. They're the, and the price isn't bad. It just, the price is what it is. And so it's just, do you want the Jordans or not? And if you do, then don't lament the price tag. Pay the price tag and be happy you have the Jordans. And if you don't want the Jordans, then don't buy them.

There's something in here is around comparing the lessons that people who have achieved success tell you about how to also achieve success. When they're using that pattern, which is, "Well, they look like they know what they're doing. I should look like I know what I do. I should feel like I know what I'm doing." But you don't know what you're doing, right? You're you're a white belt, and that person's a third-degree black belt in whatever it is that you're trying to pursue.

State the facts and tell the truth. I mean, my, I mean, the amount of, you know, 900 follower Instagram accounts that all I see is people espousing advice on how to grow their social media following. You're never going to win. Like, you don't get it. Like, you, like, I've been following, like, you don't get it because the content of what you're putting out, sorry, the evidence that encapsulates your message disproves literally everything you say before you open your mouth. And the thing is, is that people are obsessing about the algorithm, and this type of font, and "I should do vertical format," and "I should do horizontal format." And I use this as an analogy that you can draw to anything. But everyone has that friend who is a train wreck on relationships who gives relationship advice. It's just like, it doesn't even matter if the advice is good. You're a train wreck. It's the fat friend who gives advice on how to be fit. It's just like, and they're like citing all these studies, and "You should try these supplements." It's like, you're a fat [ __ ], just shut up. Stop. Like, there's, don't waste your breath. No one is listening. And so it's just, it's missing the big obvious thing. And so again, it's like that big domino. You're like, "I want to get into fitness." Like, there was a friend of mine, actually, who's in the fitness space. And he's like, "I really want to grow my fitness business." And obviously, like, I have books on it and I videos and did that for a whole past life. And I was like, "Dude, you're not in shape." He like, "But I know all these." I was like, "You don't look like someone that anyone wants to look like." And so the thing is, like, for whatever you're doing, the big one thing is like, if you were look like a shredded god, you could say, "Eat fried chicken every day," and people would buy your [ __ ] because like, what's the one big domino that if I just did that, everything else would take care of itself? Do that. And every ounce of effort you're putting into not doing that is a waste. Basically, the V Shred model. Actually, really nice guys. They're in Vegas. Well, he's like, Public Enemy Number One for the fitness bros.

What was your definition of trauma that you taught me on the phone? Oh, yeah. So, um, because this word is so thrown around on social media, my god. Um, I was like, "Okay, I have to define this so that I can try and like understand it." Um, so I believe trauma is when you have a punishing event that permanently changes behavior. That's it. So if you, you know, are a kid and you touch the stove and you burn your hand, and you never touch a stove again, you were traumatized. Now, the thing is, is that that's a positive consequence. So is trauma bad? I don't know. Was the consequence bad in that situation? No. And so a lot of people use the, "This person traumatized me," as the as the transgression. Whereas the question is, what was the result of that quote trauma? Because trauma is just accelerated learning. And so if you have PTSD, for example, if you were abroad and had lots of bombs going off, then you had rapid learning. So you have trauma that permanently changes your behavior around loud noises. And so you generalize loud noises from this environment to now when someone honks, you, you know, freak out. And you think about those situations, right? And so just defining the world around me has helped me navigate it a lot better so that I can understand what we're talking about. Because there are so many, you know, people like, "Trauma is a feeling in your body that you have to, you have to release the trauma." I'm like, "What the [ __ ] are you talking about?" You know, release trauma. You changed behavior due to a stimulus. That's it. And so if you want to change your behavior back, you create a new condition that reinforces the new behavior you want. Period. Because otherwise, we appeal to mysticism and we just say lots of like nonsensical [ __ ] that the whole woo-woo world is all about.

I actually spoke at a woo-woo event, which was really funny. How did that go? Surprisingly well. I just started by being like, "You will all disagree with most of the things I say, but they, uh, they kind of mystify my nihilism, so it worked out fine." How'd you do that? Well, because I just describe actions. And so they describe those actions as attraction for what, whatever. And I was like, "Attract, repel, whatever. If you, you know, make 100 calls, you'll have more people who know who you are than if you don't." That's the same as putting out an energetic frequency to the quantum realm. It's that saying that you want money. I have no idea what any of that means, dude.

There was a podcast that I got linked to from a girl in Austin who got inducted into some weird cult that was sacrificing period blood at the full moon so that they could get Birken bags. Yeah, Austin's a weird place. So you, you were there for a while? I was. Yeah. Well, too weird for me. Spat you up.

Alex, I appreciate you, man. Thank you for coming on. What's next? What can people expect from you next few months? Um, well, all my effort is in the, the school games. So we're, um, I mean, I can talk about him, I cannot talk about him. Yeah. Um, so yeah, so I, I just made the biggest investment in my life and now co-owner of school.com. It's a platform where you can build what you want to build, learn what you want to learn. And schools will give you the tools, community, and the education to help you. And so we've actually created a whole thing where people can start all this stuff for free. Because I just, I believe my whole platform has been education. That's what I believe in. I think the education system is broken. And, um, teachers don't get paid or given the resources to actually teach students. And they're, you know, they're supposed to teach tests that they know don't help students. Students get educated on stuff that doesn't matter in the real world. And they own amounts of debt for a piece of paper that doesn't make them anything to pay off the debt that they're in for the rest of their lives. And I just, I hate all of it. Which is why we started making the content that we do. And so, um, this is one big investment that I'm doing to try and make my small dent towards helping fix that. And I don't like, I obviously talk about business, that's what I know. Okay. But one person can't, can't do that. Like, I can't change. I mean, I can try, you know, but like, I, I don't, I don't think one, one person is going to change the world. And so, um, I wanted to invest in a platform that would help other people do that for one another. And so whether it's like, you know, how to paint and you want to teach people to paint, you know how to fix Hondas and you want to teach people to do that, like there are so many more useful skills that we can trade with one another. And I think Ben Franklin said, "There's no more high, there's no more noble a deed than to help another, no more to educate." And I, I wholeheartedly believe that. And so, so, um, I mean, that's what I'm investing my my dollars and my time into. And so, um, yeah, that's that's the, that's like my whole next year in terms of what I'm investing. Obviously, acquisition. We continue to invest. We're family office. And so if you have a business that you want to sell or scale, you can hit us up. Hell yeah. I'm going to enjoy watching it happen, man. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode with Alex, you will love my 2-hour conversation with David Goggins, which you can watch right here. Go on, tap it.