My Views on Work/Life Balance

Work life balance/hard work, love, and happiness.

Okay, if we start with work-life balance, it was that [ __ ] question beliefs on it.

Yeah. So I will answer with how I derived my kind of life thesis, which was after we, uh, so when we went to, so we had taken about $40 million in distributions from Gym Launch, um, personally throughout the, you know, years that we ran the company. And then in the year of the sale, um, for those of you who've never sold a company before, you typically don't want to change a lot of things. You kind of want the company to just be, like, be stable, keep working, everything's fine. And so one of it's one of the most harrowing experiences to go through because you can't really change anything. And if you're the founder, you're always trying to innovate. So you can't do what you're normally doing. Um, and you also can't start the new. So you can't change current and you can't start new because if the deal doesn't go through, then you don't want to start two businesses. Remember, because we're, you know, cardinal rule number one, we're not chasing chasing women in the red dress. And so you basically have to sit idly by and just, like, let things operate. And so in that year, it was one of the most miserable years of my life because I basically had nothing to do. And, um, when I looked back on my life, this sounds like, you know, I looked back on my life as though it's been so long. I looked at the days that I enjoyed the most. And on those days, I had worked out, and I had produced something. And I had done both of those with people I liked. And almost all of those days, I'd worked many, many hours. And when I realized that the idea of working hard so that I can insert blank, the "so that" actually makes it still destination-driven. So that was when I derived what I called, "Hard work is the goal." It's just to work hard. That is my goal.

And then dieh on things worth doing. And I those are the days that I love. And I get a tremendous amount of pushback for saying this, and it bothers a lot of people. And to them, I say, live your life whatever way you want. This is again, my my life is not a sermon. It's a documentary. This is just how I do it. You can do whatever you want. And for the people who are dissatisfied, try it. And if not, no worries. Um, I really enjoy working. Like, the best days are like when I write those books. It's the happiest I am. And it's not happy in the moment because it's really hard.

But the amount of challenge is about proportional to my level of skill. And every book, I think, is better than the last. And the third book that's coming out is going to be [ __ ] awesome. I'm very excited about it. But there's nothing that I enjoy more. But in the moment, I'm like, "How do I break this down?" And I'm just rubbing my forehead and I'm like, "And then I, and I create two, three different frameworks. I'm like, 'Nope, that's doesn't work here,' and 'That doesn't work here,' which means some kid in Afghanistan is going to get stuck on this step because it doesn't work. I have to figure out how to get it so that it works everywhere." And I keep driving. But the moment it's like, it clicks. I'm like, "That's it. Fight me. Like, that's the framework. That is what I what I strive for." And for me, the love, the happiness, and work have all, because of the nature of my life, been one. Now, some people have lived their lives where their love life and their happiness and their work are all separate. Um, for me, it has just been life, and I like it that way. And for the people who are upset by that, I'm not upset about how you live your life. Um, I just choose to live it this way. And if in the future I change my mind, I'll change my life. If I get to a point where I'm like, "This is no longer a priority for me, something else is," then I will. But when I look at the centenarians and I look at the people who, like, I look at Warren Buffett as somebody and Charlie Munger as two of my heroes. Charlie worked until the day he died. And to be clear, I don't work on a seven-day calendar. Um, I don't work a certain hour. I work as much as I can until I feel like my rate of output drops precipitously because of fatigue. And then I, and I sleep. And then if I feel like on a on a longer time horizon of like, I've worked nine days, I've worked 20 days, I've worked 30 days in a row and I'm like, "All right, I feel like I don't have any gas today," then I'll take the whole day off. And whether that's a Tuesday or a Sunday or a Saturday, I take the day off. And that just is what it is. And I've just, I have learned to work that way. And I am okay with it.

The goal clearly for you then is the hard work itself and not a certain place you're trying to get to necessarily?

Because that always moves.

Yeah. And so, um, Jesse Ller has this, and maybe, maybe I'll, I'll be able to steal it from him someday. Um, but he told, I saw him show a picture of his kid finishing a race and putting a zero up. And what that signified was nothing left in the tank, that he'd spent everything he had on the field. And I would, and it's like I have this visual of, uh, the 300 movie where the queen says to the king as he goes off to battle, she says, "Come back with your shield or on it." And I kind of see, like, my work that way. Like, I can't imagine a better way to go out than, like, doing the thing I love. And it bothers a lot of people that I love something different than they love. And it's like, it really, it really bo it bothers me that it bothers them, to be honest. Um, because I, I make no projections, like, do whatever you want. And I feel like if, if I ever had a, like, one thing that that people took from me, it was like absolute freedom. And because of that absolute freedom, we are 100% responsible for our own lives. And so where we place the the finger of blame is also where power flows. So if you blame your parents for your life, your parents have power over your life. If you blame your boss for your bad life, your boss has power over your life. If you blame you for your bad life, at least you can change you and you can do something about it. And so I think absolute responsibility has been my my core tenant. And if you have a life where you're like, "I don't want to care about work that much and I just want to spend all my time with my family," I'm like, "Congratulations. You [ __ ] won. That's amazing. Just don't assume that everyone's you and that winning for me is is the same as winning for you." And and I think the the times that I talk about this, I I know that my my message won't resonate with everyone, and that's okay. But it's for the few people who were like me and felt like everyone told them there was something wrong with them. And I still get people to tell me there's something wrong with me. And if wrong means not normal, then yeah, you bet. But it's more so that like you are different, and that's okay. And I think that if you're if you're okay with that, then it unleashes this whole new realm of possibility of being able to do what you want and kind of like I had the, you know, you do a hundred of these and you look at the top 10%, do 100 of these, look at the top 10%. That was my way of trying to operationalize happiness because it was this ephemeral thing that when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, I struggled a ton with. I was very depressed. I looked at, you know, religion. I looked at a lot of different things. And this is common for people at that age. And, um, I I came up with a mantra for me at that time which was [ __ ] happiness. Now, people then hear this and I'm sure this will get taken out of context, but that was basically like this release moment for me where by continually chasing happiness, it always existed outside of me. And so it was always this carrot that was in front of me that I could never really get to. And so by saying [ __ ] happiness, I was like, "It's unattainable. I'm just going to work and I'm just going to do the stuff I want to do." And when I started doing the stuff that I wanted to do, I looked up years later and I was like, "I actually kind of like my life." And I was like, "Is this what happiness is?" And I was like, "I don't know." But I think one of the the major plights of humanity, myself included, is the expectation that life should be different than it is. And so we we create this idea that whatever we have right now is not what it should be. And I think "should" is the is the root of all pain. Is that all the things that we think should happen but aren't is our is basically the measurement of our pain. And so I've tried to eradicate "should" from my life. "Should" for other people. "He should do this. They should do that." Um, and just just lean into "is." It just is this way. I work. Period. Not, "I should work more. I should work less. Or I should work differently. Or I should see my mom. Or I should call my dad more." I do this. And if something changes, I will change. And so unconditional "shoulds." Now, if there is a condition of like, "If you want to make more money, then this is a higher likelihood you might want to consider doing this." Those are things that I don't consider in that category. But just the generalized "shoulds" of, "He shouldn't do that. He should he should build a family. He should have kids. He should have gotten married earlier. He should have gotten later. He should have married someone different. He shouldn't have the the life that he has. He shouldn't work this way." According to what? And so for me, that is my my theory on life on on on happiness, work, and love has been very unified because I love my work so much that I got out of a relationship. And when I, you know, started dating Ila, I said, "I am not willing to change this. And so you have to be willing to deal with me working this way, or this won't work because my relationship with my work is the most satisfying relationship I have." Now, people will hear that and be like, "Well, that's because he's never experienced true love or whatever, whatever, whatever narrative they'll they'll say." But it's like, you haven't lived my life, and I haven't lived yours, and I don't project anything onto you. Um, but I, I like, I like, I love what I do. And I like, I get attacked for liking what I do so much. And I like working a lot. And and it's because they have negative associations with the word, and that's that's their own history of of of their experience with the word. I see my goals and my relationship with my goals as one of the most sacred things that I have because I see them as a relationship with myself.

And so those those proxy when someone comes in and says, "Hey, you know, sweetie, you've been working too much." According to what? Why should I stop? Right? Um, now let's do this other thing. And people will probably see this as a, they'll put whatever labels they want on it, but like, I just said, this is what I would like to do with my life. And if you can incorporate yourself into that, that would be amazing. And so my second date with Ila, after we talked about business for four hours on our first date, was I said, "I'm gonna be working all day. It'd be cool if you worked with me." And she just worked next to me. She had her own thing, but she just worked beside me. And I was like, "This is nice." And over time, eventually was like, "Hey, maybe you want to work on my thing with me?" And she was like, "Yeah, that sounds good." It was a little bit more than that, but like fundamentally, I got her to switch switch to to working on it with me. And at that point, what we got to talk about was what we were creating together. And to me, that's been, you know, the journey of my life. And it's been, it's been amazing. And, um, I'm not saying it works for everyone. I would say it probably doesn't work for most people. Uh, but it has worked really well for me. And it would make sense for me that my path would be different than most people's because I don't behave like most people. And so I would have to have a different formula for how I derive, you know, meaning or joy from my own life. And since I don't believe in inherent meaning, um, just the meaning that we choose to ascribe to things, then it's up to me to create that meaning within the work that I do. And so the reason acquisition.com was all based on, and it was during that year where I just basically had nothing to do where I was like, "What do I want to do with my life?" because I don't need to work anymore. And that was, you know, we'd taken 40 out before the sale, and then we obviously got the sale. Like, I don't need to work. I like to work. And I, I try to spend, I look at, you know, I had this boss that told me this, and was one of the one of the catalysts for for looking at life this way. She said, "I had just had like a good weekend or something, and I came in like chipper." And she said, "Well, you must have had a good weekend." And I was like, "Yeah, it was it was good." And she said, this, it was like an off-handed comment. She said, "I'm pretty sure the key to happiness is living as many days in a row like that as you can." And it was actually like really operational. Like I could, I was like, "I can use this." Like, what are the good days? How do I live as many of those days in a row as I can? And so I've, you know, I've been attacked for like saying that I don't really enjoy going on vacation very much. Um, and it's because like, I just want to get, I just want to get back to doing the thing that I really enjoy doing. And I remember we, Leila and I went to, uh, Mexico, uh, this year for a week. And it's always during the week of Christmas because no one works. And it drives me nuts. And I've just like, I've just given up trying to get, you know, get everyone [laughter] to work because even if my team will work, because my team will, because they they're crazy too. Other teams won't, and vendors won't, and it's just anyways. And so while we're there, all I came out with was like, "This is for other people and not me, and that's okay."

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