14 Patterns Behind the World’s Greatest Minds - David Senra
CChris Williamson
Small Business/StartupsManagementMental Health
Transcript
00:00:00I'm a lazy workaholic. I have to force myself to do it. My demeanor would be to do nothing.
00:00:06What's that mean?
00:00:06Okay, this was shocking. So I've been a massive fan of Rick Rubin for probably decades. I grew
00:00:12up listening to rap. He founded one of the most important hip-hop record labels in his dorm room
00:00:18when he was like 18 or 19. I think he's 63 now, and he's still making incredible music.
00:00:23So I've done a bunch of episodes about him going back like five, six years ago,
00:00:28going back five, six years, on my other podcast, Founders. So I read biographies about him. I read
00:00:32his book, Creative Act. Have you read Creative Act?
00:00:34Yes.
00:00:35Okay. And so then I had the opportunity to meet him and then record an episode with him. And I thought,
00:00:40I read his biography over and over again, watched every interview with him. I thought I kind of knew
00:00:44what to expect. And that was when he said, I'm a lazy workaholic. You can even watch the clip on
00:00:51the show where it's like, you're lying to me, Rick. What are you talking about? Because out of anybody
00:00:56in the world that gets paid to be themselves, you would say like Rick Rubin's got to be towards the
00:01:01top of that list, right? And I thought he was just completely obsessed with music. I thought he was
00:01:06just obsessed and absolutely loved his work. And his whole point is just like, no, I have to force
00:01:11myself to do it. Like, I like the act of creation. I like finishing the creation. But the five months
00:01:17of us doing thousands of takes, he goes, I don't like that. I wake up every day and I'm like, oh my,
00:01:22it's not like he said the line he said, he goes, it's not like I wake up every day. I'm like, oh my
00:01:25God, I get to go to work today. He goes, oh no, I have to go to the studio. And what was the reason
00:01:31I wanted to talk to you about that was because like, when you put that out, I got thousands of
00:01:35messages from people in all walks of life saying, this is exactly how I feel. Like I love after I'm
00:01:41done working. I like some parts of it, but I feel that I have to force myself to do it. And
00:01:46Rick's hilarious because he's like, you know, it's a beautiful day. We filmed at Shangri-La,
00:01:51his recording studio, Malibu. And I think, I think I might've said, or he might've said,
00:01:55he's like, I'd rather just be, you know, out here, butt naked in the sun instead of in the studio.
00:01:59There is a part of me that doesn't want to show up for anything. And I have to overcome that every
00:02:03day. Yeah. That's his, that's a direct quote from him, which is again, shocking considering
00:02:07because, you know, I understand if you're trying to do something, you do it for a year,
00:02:12maybe five years, maybe you can, you struggle through that for a few years, but this guy has
00:02:17been in the same industry, the same business, likely doing the same trade for four decades.
00:02:22And he says, he's felt like that forever. He's like, now he just has a little bit more control
00:02:26over his life. He was telling me that like the first 25 years of his career, it was essentially
00:02:30seven days a week, 16 hours a day in a dark recording studio. It's tough to do if it feels like a
00:02:36burden, if you have to make yourself do that. And you've got this tiny bit of enjoyment at the end,
00:02:40once you've shipped the product part of, part of my, like my heart sank a little because he is like
00:02:45somebody I admire and, you know, somebody almost like a hero of mine. And I feel the opposite. Like
00:02:49I wake up, you know, and I was like, I cannot wait right now. The, the team, uh, we took a two
00:02:53week break from the new show because the team was in Italy when team members is getting married
00:02:57and it was like close to depression. I was like, I miss not being able to podcast and have these
00:03:02conversations and like just do the things that I'm doing every day. So it's completely opposite.
00:03:05How I felt is how I thought Rick would have felt. So it was like very surprising. You see somebody
00:03:10that is literally the best in the world at what he does. He maintains a singular position and he's
00:03:14telling you, no, it's a fucking struggle for me too. What's driven him to keep going. If he
00:03:18dislikes the process that much, he loves the magical act of creation when something is not going well
00:03:23and they're, they're failing and they're failing and then failing and they're experimenting and
00:03:27experimenting. And then they just do one little tweak. It's like, Oh, now we got it. He's like,
00:03:31he says he's addicted to that, that moment of creation of figuring it out. That's what he likes.
00:03:35High-level problem solving. Basically the context window that Rick Rubin has is bigger than anybody
00:03:40else's for music. And he's just able to take all of this stuff in and
00:03:44I think you just nailed it. And this is something very common with anybody that gets to the top of
00:03:49the profession. You're going to notice that they have this encyclopedic knowledge of history in
00:03:52their head. So he'll talk about, you know, Oh, Hey, we're struggling with, you know, we're working
00:03:57with red hot chili peppers. We took an idea that the Beatles did 30 years earlier. There's this great
00:04:03documentary about his recording studio called Shingalai. I think it's a four-part documentary.
00:04:07And if they're struggling, he's got this like massive library and he'll just go in there. He's
00:04:11like, Hey, we don't know what we're doing. He'll take one of the musicians he's working with. They'll
00:04:15just pick a random book off a shelf, open to a random page and read a paragraph. And then they'll
00:04:19just talk about the paragraph. Did that spawn any kind of thought? And so, yeah, he's got this
00:04:23incredible knowledge in his head. Chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets. So this is a quote from this
00:04:30venture capitalist named Josh Wolf. And I think about this maximum all the time. It reappears
00:04:34throughout entrepreneurship history. It still reappears for people building companies. Say
00:04:38this comes from the founder of Apple Evans, a guy named Adam. Adam is probably the best
00:04:42founder. No one's ever heard of. He's running like $170 billion market cap company. They're
00:04:46going to print something like $6 billion in cash this year. And he's got 400 employees and Adam
00:04:52hires the context of this discussion we're having is that he won't, if you just have like this
00:04:57normal, you know, you, you grew up wealthy, you went to great prep schools, you got into Harvard
00:05:02pretty easily. Like he doesn't hire this kind of people. He looks for dysfunctional people
00:05:07to have something to prove. His number two is this guy named Raf and Raf has worked for
00:05:13Adam over half of his life. Raf is a high school dropout. Started working for Adam when he was
00:05:1717 years old, got kicked out of his house, had to live inside of the office. There's pictures
00:05:22they've showed me where he like built bunk beds in the office. He's now the second largest
00:05:26shareholder in Apple oven. So the kid's in his early thirties, the guy's in his early thirties,
00:05:31and he's got, you know, five or $6 billion worth of Apple oven stock, for example. And when you hear
00:05:37Adam and people like this talk about, Hey, these are the people I want to hire. They have something
00:05:41to prove. They're very hungry. They tend to work a lot harder. They're a lot smarter. They're a lot
00:05:45scrappier. But then I think what's also interesting is they're also telling you about them.
00:05:49And so one thing that, that drove Adam to build his company, because like I said, it's, you know,
00:05:55$170 billion market cap company. When he started the company, he tried to sell, he went around to all
00:06:00the top VCs in the world, try to raise money. He's like, I will give you a quarter of my company.
00:06:05I will give you 25% of my company for a million dollars. And he valued his own company at $4 million.
00:06:11Every single top VC in the world turned him down. Then they went and funded his competitors.
00:06:17And once they did that, he goes, then it was our company goal to drive those people out of business.
00:06:22And you go from, you know, saying my company's worth 4 million to 15 years later, I took my company
00:06:28public. It's now, you know, almost 200. I think the, the, the top it went to is like 220 billion.
00:06:33And he thinks what they're trying to do is like, he thinks there's a path to like a trillion dollar
00:06:37company. And he wants to do that by essentially having this like island of misfit toys. These people
00:06:42that were looked over by other people, they failed over and over again. Uh, they would not be hired
00:06:48by the big firms. It's a weird company with full of unusual business practices. You have to be an
00:06:54unusual person to thrive in that kind of environment. And he feels those are the best, the single best
00:06:57employees that you can find.
00:07:00What is it that you think drives somebody to keep going through that situation with that chip on their
00:07:05shoulder?
00:07:06I mean, dude, me and you have hung out a bunch. We've had crazy conversations off, very personal
00:07:11conversations. Uh, some of which we should have recorded. We were talking before here. I mean,
00:07:15you have this, like, you know, you grew up working class. It's like random part of the world. Uh,
00:07:22I think I obviously have this too. Um, I don't, I think like both you and I, and I think Adam fits
00:07:31into this. And I think Rafa, I just talked about, it's like the feeling I had is like, man, I was just
00:07:35like born in the wrong spot. Like, this is not, this, this is not my peer group. This is not going to be
00:07:40the destiny of my life. Like, this is why I mean you read so much where we listen to podcasts, why
00:07:44we were like huge into, you know, self-education and self-improvement. It's just like, well, this is
00:07:49the station I was born into, but like I can, the world is very malleable. And if I go after something
00:07:53with like maximum effort and drive and intensity, like I can change the world around me. I remember
00:07:58the first time we recorded, I think you were still living in the UK. This is probably like four years
00:08:02ago. And then you just gave me this tour of this crazy, insane studio you've built out. It's like
00:08:07you did this exact thing yourself. It's like, I didn't like my life. So I'm going to use that chip
00:08:12on my shoulder as fuel to prove that I am not subject to these circumstances. I can actually
00:08:17influence this. There's a Kanye West clip. Have you seen this before? It's him on The Breakfast Club
00:08:21talking about 2013 versus 2023. No, I'd love to see it though. Dude, it's not quite the edit that I
00:08:27wanted because a lot of the B-roll and stuff of all of the shit that he did, but this is, this is
00:08:32fucking spectacular.
00:08:33The interview for me from 10 years ago, everybody says, I love that interview. People didn't love
00:08:39it back then though, because I was speaking to the future. I'm 10 years ahead mentally and I'm trapped
00:08:46in today's time. And every now and then I crack you a smile for 2013, but I'm cracking you a frown for
00:08:522023. And I'm focused on what it's going to be. Just mark my words. As I'm Kanye West,
00:08:58you've seen my execution. Did I not become the biggest rock star on the planet? Did I not
00:09:04influence all musicians? Did I not go and get the exact girl that I wanted? Did I not start my
00:09:11family? Did I not ruffle the feathers of two presidents? Did I not get a chance to work with
00:09:17my idol? Did I not make Louis Vuittons? Did people not line up at the Yeezy store? Did I not make the
00:09:23college dropout? Late registration, graduation, 808s, Blueprint 1, Blueprint 3, Watch the Throne,
00:09:31Cool Summer, and Yeezus, if you like it or not.
00:09:33I love that. It's funny you bring that up because have you seen the documentary on Netflix where
00:09:38this guy's poor? He's living in a shitty apartment in Newark, New Jersey at the time,
00:09:42and he has a filmmaker follow him around as he's trying to sell his beats in New York City. Have you
00:09:47seen this? It's in terms of like- The biggest bet on himself. The hero's journey. In fact, I transcribed,
00:09:54I think the first two episodes of that documentary, you could skip the third episode,
00:09:58is like the perfect illustration of this idea that we talked about last time I was on the show,
00:10:02belief comes before ability. And you see that he's walking to the train and he's practicing his
00:10:08Grammy acceptance speech. He's never even wrapped a bar. He does not have a single out. It was so good
00:10:15that I was transcribing those two episodes and I was going to make it into a founder's episode.
00:10:20And then he did that like huge anti-Semitic rant. I was like, oh, I'm just going to put this
00:10:24shelf that for a while. We'll wait until he comes back around. Yeah, you're right, dude. I mean,
00:10:27this is the topic that's probably the most likely thing that I write my book about will be the lonely
00:10:33chapter. And it's moving from a place where you don't belong to one where you feel like you do.
00:10:39And it's, you're so developed that you no longer fit in with your old set of friends,
00:10:44but you're not yet sufficiently developed that you build the new ones. And you're stuck in this
00:10:48messy middle and you're thinking, well, the Rocky montage is three and a half minutes in the movies,
00:10:53but it's been four years for me. And what the fuck's going on? You've got all of this doubt and it's
00:10:56tainted by uncertainty about what the future holds for you. And everybody that's around you doesn't
00:11:00understand what you're doing or doubts what you're doing or actively stops you from doing the thing
00:11:04that you're doing. And it's a selection criteria. Very few people are born into an environment that is
00:11:11supportive for rapid change and growth because people don't like that. It feels like chaos. It
00:11:16feels like uncertainty. And if you make a lot of changes, it throws into quite harsh contrast all
00:11:22of the ways that I'm not changing. If you grow a lot, that means that my lack of growth is potentially
00:11:26on me. It's the same reason that in the black pill and the incel community, ascending as in being
00:11:31liked by women is one of the, um, it's, you become outcast if that happens because you're not a true
00:11:37sell. You're a fake sell. One of the reasons for that is if you can get laid or if you can get a
00:11:45phone number from a girl, maybe I can too. And hope with disappointment is way more painful than apathy
00:11:51with acceptance. And, uh, yeah, chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets.
00:11:56Do you like, uh, it's funny. You never know where you're going to resonate with. Um, and I think that
00:12:02out of all the thing about how many short form videos we we've probably consumed in our lives,
00:12:05like, I don't know, tens of thousands. And there's like this one minute, maybe 30 second clip of
00:12:10Shia LaBeouf. I don't even, I don't even pronounce his name, the actor, Shia, whatever his name is.
00:12:15And he said something where it was just like when me, you and George were talking right before we
00:12:18started recording, uh, you'll, you'll feel this like when you read, you know, somebody else's life story
00:12:23or a book, you're like, Oh, I feel like I'm reading about myself. Like, this is exactly how I feel.
00:12:27And he was talking about, he's another person that chips on shoulders, put chips in pockets.
00:12:31He was talking about, he's like, Hey, I don't care what you think. He was, he's like, because he goes,
00:12:36I grew up in an environment where there's like no support. So what the defense mechanism and the tool
00:12:40that he used was, he's like, I had to convince myself that my opinion about what I was doing in my life
00:12:46was the most important opinion. And he literally, and he would cut everybody else out of his life
00:12:52that gave him like counter evidence that, Hey, you're not going to make it as an actor.
00:12:57Go back and watch the documentary on Kanye. There's just like, there was nobody around him
00:13:01that he was even, you're not going to keep you in your life. If you said, Hey, just be a producer.
00:13:05There's that was a great Kanye clip that you played. One that I watch all the time. It's a minute
00:13:10long. It's called Kanye West spazzing out. This is before he put out his first album.
00:13:13And he's, he started the clip starts. He's like hitting his hands. He goes, don't compare me
00:13:17to any other producer rapper. Cause at the time there was other people that started in production
00:13:21and didn't start a rap. And he went over and over again. He goes, Hey, he goes, you understand
00:13:25at one point, my beats were whack dog. He goes, I taught myself how to make hot beats. These are
00:13:29his words now. He goes, and it's the same thing with rapping. He goes, I don't know how to rap.
00:13:33I'm going to teach myself how to do it. That growth mindset. And he goes, and the clip ends
00:13:38and the great thing goes, and I have a leg up because I hear my beats first.
00:13:43The mind is a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way.
00:13:47Okay. So that is a line from another rapper, this guy named NF, who's one of my favorite
00:13:50rappers. And that reappears throughout not only the books I read, like all these books on
00:13:56history's guest entrepreneurs that I've read for my other podcasts. But when I start sitting
00:13:59down and talking to, you know, some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, like I do for
00:14:02the new show, this came from Toby Luque, founder of Shopify. And it was the most surprising
00:14:07conversation I may have ever had in my entire life. Okay. Cause you go in, like, if you'd
00:14:13never met somebody before, you're going to, there's going to be some kind of like typecast,
00:14:16right? It's like, you got this German engineer who built a $200 billion company and this, one
00:14:22of the most successful technology platforms that ever been created. And he started as a, by
00:14:27himself with a single laptop in his wife's childhood bedroom. Cause he had no money and they literally
00:14:34had to be supported by his wife's family at the time. And so you think this guy's German
00:14:39engineer, he's going to be super analytical. And then you talk to him and he's all about
00:14:42intuition and vibes for lack of a better word. And his whole thing was just like, well, the
00:14:48way you view yourself is very important. And you should know that you can change the way
00:14:51you view yourself and what you tell yourself, the inner monologue that you have is very
00:14:55important. And so for a long time, he told himself that I'm afraid of public speaking. I'm afraid
00:15:00of it. I'm bad at it. That's just who I am. And what he would do again, this sounds like
00:15:05willy foo-foo nonsense, but it actually works. He's like every day for 10 minutes for I think
00:15:09a week or two or however long it took, he would sit there and write a hundred times. I love public
00:15:13speaking. I love public speaking. I love pub. There's nothing else to that. Just the same
00:15:17positive affirmation. And he was brain, literally brainwashing himself to now he's phenomenal
00:15:22on podcasts. He can, he can give a presentation in front of his thousands of employees. He can
00:15:26go on stage. He loves public speaking. He literally changed his brain. And so I think this is really
00:15:31important on, uh, not only like the people you keep around you, uh, we just touched on. It's
00:15:35like, dude, I don't have any money in my life. That's like pessimistic or negative. Like these
00:15:40kinds of people are like, they're cut out root and stem. Uh, I, my information diet is like,
00:15:45I read old books and I talk to smart, interesting people. The way that I choose who I talk to is like
00:15:51the conversation we had. How do I feel after I just had an hour or two hour conversation, Chris
00:15:54fucking alive, excited. Like you had George's idea about sofa friends and treadmill friends.
00:16:00You should, yeah, repeat it though. Yeah. Yeah. Just that after some people you feel like you need
00:16:04to go and lie down on a sofa and stare at the ceiling for a while. And after spending time with other
00:16:09people, you feel like you want to go and run on a treadmill to post content clarity or post not
00:16:14clarity, the equivalent of for after you watch a piece of content on the internet from a creator
00:16:18that keeps on popping up in your feed or that maybe you'd subscribe to for a while or not so long of a
00:16:23while. How do you feel after that? Do you want to go outside and ring your mom? Do you feel like you
00:16:27can achieve more? Do you feel like the world is against you or for you? Do you, are you a bitter and
00:16:31looking for enemies or are you positive some and thinking about abundance? And again, I think
00:16:37people are just way too cavalier on what they put in their minds. So like, I'm just going to sit on X
00:16:41and I'm just going to, the algorithm is going to push whatever it wants into my brain. And I'm going
00:16:45to sit there and receive it. That's crazy to me. It's like, you're influenced by everything. You
00:16:49should be very careful. The mind is a powerful place. What you feed it affects you in a powerful
00:16:51way. You just like, you don't put shit in your body. If you care about your health and the way
00:16:55you look like, why wouldn't you do that same thing for your mind? Yeah. Someone once described
00:16:58modern wisdom as spirulina for your soul in a sea of fast food for your amygdala. And I was like,
00:17:04yeah, that's quite nice. But okay. So this ties to, I think a large theme of the discussion that we can
00:17:08have today and a lot of discussions we had in the past. It's like, man, you get one life,
00:17:12you get one life. You have to do something. I do think work for most humans is like a source of
00:17:17meaning, at least for you and I, it's like, I feel really freaking good about the podcast I make and
00:17:21the information I put out there and like what I'm putting out there and to, to play on this other end
00:17:26where it's just like, you're just like junk food for the mind. It's like you, this is your one shot
00:17:30of life. And this is what you did. You have to feel good when you hear stuff like that.
00:17:33I really think if people could, if people could go to the end, just for a moment,
00:17:39if they could speed run two alternate universes forward, one where they did the equivalent of
00:17:43selling their soul and getting all of the success, but not resonating with what it was that they did
00:17:48or speed running it in a way that meant that the success came, but it came without effort and
00:17:53without personal sacrifice and without like investment of yourself and the other one where
00:17:58you had 50% or 10% of the success, but it was spoken truly from you. Like I, I, I've been around
00:18:06enough people who have done something that resonates and that they love, who are way less successful
00:18:11than others that have got bigger platforms. But the people that have got bigger platforms are way more
00:18:15miserable, way more miserable because they don't, they don't feel it. Like you don't want to be,
00:18:20you don't want to achieve success. You want the feeling that being successful gives you
00:18:25and you can get the first without getting the second. If you're not careful, you can achieve
00:18:31success and not feel it, especially if you do something that you don't really care about.
00:18:35I would, I would say though, like the benefit to tie, to tie this together is like the benefit of
00:18:39reading old books is like, I just finished rereading this biography of Joseph Pulitzer from the Pulitzer
00:18:44Prize. And he built one of the most successful media businesses and he was doing around this time,
00:18:48the civil war. That's how he got to America. He was a very poor, he was a Hungarian immigrant.
00:18:52By the time he's 17 years old, his father and seven out of his eight siblings have died and from like
00:18:57disease. And so he has to come fight in the civil war because he has no money. And there was a bunch
00:19:01of wealthy American businessmen that were trying to, to seed the union army. And they figured, Hey,
00:19:06we'll get a bunch of European men, say, we'll pay for your passage over here. And if you survive,
00:19:10you'll get X amount of money. You can, you start a new life in America. That's how Pulitzer got to start.
00:19:14Now he built, uh, his media at the time was he had two of the most successful, uh, newspapers in the
00:19:20world, including the most successful newspaper in the world. Now the negative part of his, and where
00:19:24he kind of laundered his reputation by seeding the Pulitzer Prize and the Pulitzer School of Journalism
00:19:29is that he also is credited with the invention of yellow journalism. All yellow journalism is now is
00:19:35like exactly what we see when we open up Instagram or X. It's just sensationalism, violence, sex,
00:19:41things that just speak that for hundreds of years, thousands of years have piqued human interest.
00:19:45So not that it's good for you. It's just that you're interested in it. It's compelling. So if
00:19:49you read this book, cause I always get shipped because people are always like, Hey, like you don't,
00:19:53I don't know anything about current affairs. Like I don't pay attention to news. I don't read
00:19:56newspapers. I don't look at any of that stuff. And so I'll get a lot of stuff about this.
00:20:00And my thing is like, if you just read Joseph Pulitzer's biography and William Randolph Hearst,
00:20:04who copied his career off Pulitzer, like I did, and you'll see the connection. You'd be like,
00:20:08why am I doing this? Like do that first and then say, you should, you know, redline this negative
00:20:13information about something's happening 3000 miles away or 5,000 miles away over and over again for
00:20:17your brain. I've learned from over a thousand podcast episodes that the easier you make your
00:20:22health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf, right? You want to keep it simple
00:20:26and not mix a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger. That's why
00:20:33I'm such a huge fan of AG1. One scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food
00:20:38sourced ingredients in a single daily drink. And now they've taken it a step further with AG1
00:20:43next gen backed by four clinical trials. And in those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient
00:20:47gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10
00:20:52times, even in people who already eat well. Gone are the days of needing to buy a load of pills in the
00:20:57gym parking lot from some juice bro in a cyber truck. But if you're unsure about it, AG1's got
00:21:02a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can try it every single day for three months. And if you do not
00:21:06like it, they will give you your money back. Right now, you can get a free AG1 welcome kit that includes
00:21:11a bottle of D3K2, an AG1 flavor sampler, and that 90 day money back guarantee by going to the link in
00:21:16the description below or heading to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. Speaking of poor immigrants that
00:21:23come to the United States, do you know what that cigar is? No. Do you know where it's from? Cuba.
00:21:30It's the last factory that's still hand rolling cigars in El Titan de Bronze, Cali Ocho,
00:21:38Little Havana in Miami. Yeah, yeah. And that's the same street that your grandfather walked down.
00:21:43Oh, that's funny. When he arrived in Miami with nothing. That's incredible.
00:21:49Yeah, that's incredible. I guess it goes back to chips on shoulders, chips in pockets. I have this
00:21:57weird interest, right? You know this. I have basically four interests. It's history, podcasts,
00:22:02reading, and entrepreneurship. And the entrepreneurship thing is really, really important to me because,
00:22:06like you said, my grandfather was a poor, uneducated person in Cuba. He was 38 years old.
00:22:11He had a newborn son, which is my father. He had two jobs. He was a butcher and he worked in a shoe
00:22:16factory and Castro takes over. And somehow a man who had no education, did not speak English and had no
00:22:23resources, realized what was happening and realized I have to get me and my family out of this country
00:22:28right away. And he comes to America. He's an immigrant to America and rebuilds his life. Now,
00:22:32he made a bunch of bad decisions once he got here, too, that I've learned from and avoided. Like,
00:22:36I didn't ever go to prison like he went to prison. But that one decision, I'm always fascinated by this,
00:22:41because, like, that one decision of a man that I don't remember meeting, because he died when I was
00:22:46really, really young, so I have no memory of him, it's, like, literally changed the trajectory of my life.
00:22:49And one of the most important things about growing up in South Florida as the son of a Cuban immigrant
00:22:52is I would constantly, nine, seven, ten years old, meet people that came over here on rafts. I was like,
00:22:58this is such a weird thing. It's like, that's a one-way trip. Where are the Americans going to the end of
00:23:01Miami Beach and putting their kid on a raft and hoping to get to Cuba? So I kind of inherently
00:23:06understood that I was born into a very special environment. No control of him. I didn't make
00:23:10that decision. His decision changed the trajectory of my life. And I do think one thing I'm trying to
00:23:16do with the new show is, like, hey, I'm very pro-capitalistic. I'm not, I'm against crony
00:23:20capitalism. I like people that build products and make other people's lives better and then spread
00:23:24those products and services to more people. And as a result, they can generate wealth for
00:23:28themselves, for their employees, for, for shareholders of public companies, like John
00:23:32Mackey, founder of Whole Foods. I've spent a bunch of time with him. Uh, we've become friends. He was
00:23:36one of my first guests on my new show and his whole thing, he grew up in, he was a hitchhiking hippie
00:23:42dropping acid in Austin where we are today. Right. And he's just like, Hey, I think that Safeway is
00:23:47poisoning us. I'm going to make a Whole Foods grocery store. Right. And then do that for decades.
00:23:52Fast forward two decades of him just having that idea. It's like, I just want a place for people to shop
00:23:56to get healthy food. And as a result of the appreciation of his stock, he was telling stories
00:24:00on the podcast. He's like, these are normal people. They were stocking shelves. They were checking you
00:24:04out. They were bagging your groceries and they got stock options. And because Whole Foods was successful
00:24:09and they played a role in that, they were able to send their kid to college. They never thought they'd
00:24:12be able to pay for college. They were to buy a house. Those things should be celebrated. We should
00:24:16be given a platform for people to tell these freaking stories.
00:24:19Find a simple idea and take it seriously.
00:24:21Oh God. So you even, I think have made fun of me. The fact that I won't stop talking with this guy
00:24:26named Todd Graves.
00:24:27Chicken guy.
00:24:28Okay. I have some fun. I have some hilarious stories. I don't even know if some of these I can't
00:24:32tell on the podcast because now me and Todd have become friends. So Todd Graves, I think the episode
00:24:38I did on him was like Todd Graves and his $20 billion chicken finger dream. So this is going to take a
00:24:45while, but this is worth it. So Todd Graves has this idea. His initial idea is I'm going to remake
00:24:53what In-N-Out did for cheeseburgers. I'm going to do for chicken finger meals, right? He's like,
00:24:57I'm going to have a super simple menu. Like you go to Braves and Canes, you have basically an option.
00:25:03Do you want three chicken fingers, four chicken fingers or six chicken fingers? People are like,
00:25:07oh, you should make a chicken finger sandwich. Okay. That's fine. I'll take two pieces of bread and
00:25:10put my chicken fingers on it. There's your chicken finger sandwich. It's the,
00:25:13the, he's been running this business for 30 years. The menu has not changed in 30 years. He's like,
00:25:18oh, In-N-Out is successful in California. Why can't I be successful in, he started in Louisiana and
00:25:23Baton Rouge and LSU was his first, was his first restaurant. Just selling one item, but doing it
00:25:28better than anybody else. Just like In-N-Out tries to be the best hamburger, you know, than anybody else
00:25:32when, when Harry Snyder founded the company. And that idea of find a simple idea and take it seriously
00:25:38is a, as a maxim from Charlie Munger, who's a hero of mine, who I talked about the last time I was
00:25:42on your show. And what you'll, what Charlie spent six decades, seven decades studying is he wanted to
00:25:48study extreme business success. And what he realized is like, oh, what we find in business. And I would
00:25:53say in life, because me and you were doing this with podcasting is the winning system all oftentimes
00:25:58goes ridiculously far minimizing or maximizing one or a few variables. All the people that we've talked
00:26:06about, all the people I've had on my show, all the successful entrepreneurs that you, that you'll
00:26:10talk to our, our, our study. It's like, you realize they have very simple businesses, even if what
00:26:16they're doing is super complex, like what's more, more complex about shooting a rocket and landing
00:26:20it. But if you read about Elon, he's like, all he talks about is simplifying, taking the idea very
00:26:24seriously, deleting, reducing complexity. So Todd Graves, his whole thing was like, well,
00:26:31I'm going to sell, his original idea was I'm going to sell chicken fingers better than anybody else.
00:26:36And I'm going to do it to drunk college kids. That's what he thought was the total adjustable
00:26:39market that he had. And then he realized, so he thought I'm going to be able to sell it to you when
00:26:43you're out drinking. But he was also open during the day. He starts getting busy during the day.
00:26:47And because he just focused on doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else is if you wanted
00:26:50the best chicken fingers, you're just going to go to him. And so even when he breaks down, like
00:26:55he's got like three or four moving parts on the, on the menu, it's like the chicken fingers, it's the
00:26:59coleslaw, it's Texas toast, it's the fries, there's nothing else. And then he doesn't separate himself
00:27:04from the customer. So like you could draw, he's got 900. When I talked to him a few months ago
00:27:08on my show, he had 915 stores all owned, no franchises, by the way, he was growing faster in year 30
00:27:16than he'd ever in his history. So he's adding like another hundred.
00:27:19How old is he?
00:27:2052. No, no. He's 53 now because he started the company, he was 23 years old.
00:27:24And you, you can drive into a Raising Cane's and place an order and everyone, and Todd Graves
00:27:30is the one giving you the order. He, his, his business card says, fry cook, cashier, CEO.
00:27:36So sometimes he's handing you the order out of the drive-thru. Sometimes he's in the world,
00:27:39like literally dumping the chicken into the oil and doing it. Cause there's no separation
00:27:43between him and his customer. And his idea was just like, well,
00:27:46it's served in boxes, right? And he goes, as long as that box that I give the customer is the best
00:27:51box they ever get, they'll just keep coming back and back and back. And because he'll never sell
00:27:55the company. The reason I say it's a $20 billion chicken figure dream is because he owns over 90%
00:28:00of the company. It's valued at least $20 billion. He's rejected multiple, multiple billions of dollars
00:28:05in acquisition offers. He says, I can't sell it because he believes this is going to sound crazy,
00:28:10but he truly believes that, that God put him on this earth to be good at chicken fingers.
00:28:14And he's building this business so he can build a lot of wealth and then help people. And so he does
00:28:19a ton of charity work, supports a lot of people. And that's what he does with his money.
00:28:22One of my favorite stories about billion dollar ideas, uh, Joe Hudson, his daughter came bouncing
00:28:29down the stairs after he'd been talking about businesses for a while over the last week. He
00:28:34was a VC for a good while has raised, I think maybe a hundred million dollars over his career
00:28:37and daughter came bouncing down the stairs. And she said, um, I finally got it. I've got my billion
00:28:42dollar idea. He says, Oh my God, it's a, it's a, an idea that you think is worth a billion dollars.
00:28:47She says, no, no, that that's what I didn't think that's what it was. No, I I've got an idea that I
00:28:53wouldn't sell for a billion dollars. Isn't that cool? Yeah. It's such a better way to frame a
00:28:59billion dollar idea. Yeah. What is something that you would do that you could build that you wouldn't
00:29:04sell if somebody offered you a billion dollars? I, I get a lot of shit for this in, um, because
00:29:08obviously a lot of entrepreneurs listen to both my shows and listen, it's none of my business what
00:29:12you do. I I'm not concerned with other, what other people do for their lives. I don't give advice.
00:29:16I just like build the life that I want to build, but I'm not interested in like start, scale, sell.
00:29:22And in some cases, like I've had good friends of mine, so they know it's a joke. They'll call me
00:29:25like, Hey, I sold my company. I'm like, Oh, sorry to hear that. Cause it's like what the whole point
00:29:29in my opinion is like, you want to get to your last company. You want to get to the idea that you want
00:29:33to, what did I say when I was on your show last time that if you love what you do, that your exercise,
00:29:37you should be death. Like I just got done saying, I get sad when I don't podcast. It sounds
00:29:42fucking ridiculous to a lot of people, but like I took two weeks off of not having these conversations.
00:29:46Some people do grow. Some people have phases and periods. I loved running nightclubs for a while.
00:29:53Not going to love running nightclubs forever. And that was time. There was a time and a place
00:29:58for that to happen. Uh, everybody goes through periods. Now, some people managed to land on the
00:30:02thing, which is an infinite game for them and also fits their personality across time as they age and
00:30:07mature and change.
00:30:08But I would say, and that's the key, all the experiences that you had, you couldn't, I think
00:30:13you use the word speed run all the time. You couldn't speed run that. You have to go. I was 32
00:30:17years old before I found my path. It was another five and a half years before it was able to pay my
00:30:21bills. Like some people, Kobe Bryant found it at 13. Could you imagine how crazy that it is? Like
00:30:26finding your life's work that early. I read this, the bunch of biographies on the founder of Cadillac,
00:30:31Henry Leland. He founded Cadillac when he was 60. He founded Lincoln Motors when he was 70.
00:30:35It took him 60 years to find his path. That's the point. It's like, there's not like a time you have
00:30:39to do it by, but all these experiences should, in my opinion, should be getting you to the thing
00:30:43where it's just like, it's not about a dollar amount. It's not about an acquisition. It's not
00:30:47about a sale. It's like, you literally, I love this so much. You couldn't pay me to stop.
00:30:50Yeah. The loudest boos come from the cheapest seats. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active.
00:30:55So I had this incredible conversation with Dana White and I've been a massive fan of the UFC for a
00:31:01decade. But even a, maybe even a bigger fan of Dana to the point where like, I'll watch the press
00:31:07conferences, his press conferences that he does. They're usually like 20, 30 minutes long after
00:31:12fights of the fights I didn't even get to see. He's just a phenomenal communicator. And one of the
00:31:17things I most admire about him and his life stories, one, I think it's very important. Like the way he is
00:31:24on camera, when you're watching press conferences or on a podcast, he is exactly, there is no difference
00:31:30between the person you're seeing and the person and interacting with him in private, which is really,
00:31:34I think really admirable and fascinating, personally fascinating to me. But what you realize about him
00:31:40is when he's like, you know, he built the largest combat organization in the world and he's got tens of
00:31:45millions, maybe a hundred million followers throughout all different platforms. And he just gets so much
00:31:49shit about the way he's running his business. And so you sit down with him and the loudest booze come
00:31:55from the cheapest seats. That's from this guy named Russ, who you had on your podcast. That episode was
00:31:59excellent, by the way. And I love Russ too. I actually just talked to about him a bunch on this
00:32:04episode I just did with Steve Stout, because Steve Stout's done a bunch of phenomenal interviews with
00:32:07Russ as well. But what you realize about like Dana and really anybody's like, if you're going to do
00:32:13something in the world, it's like Dana could put on a fight, like the fight he just did at the
00:32:17White House. That card was incredible, right? Five fights. I think it's the only time in UFC history
00:32:22it was five knockouts. There's still people complaining. It's still, you should have done
00:32:27XYZ. You shouldn't have done this. You should have done that. It's like, and his whole thing is he just
00:32:30like cuts all that stuff out. And the second part of that quote, where it's like making mistakes is a
00:32:35privilege of the active. He, on the episode and in other interviews, he'll talk over and over again.
00:32:40It's like, oh yeah, like I fucked that up or I made this mistake. It's like, if you're going to do
00:32:44anything, it's reframing the mistake is not always something to avoid. It's like, yeah,
00:32:49that means I'm trying, but it's very high trust. It's one of the best things that you can do as an
00:32:53employee. If you mess up, own it as quickly as possible. Yeah. I fucked it. It's when someone
00:32:58starts to hedge and cajole, even when Dana got pinned for that situation with him and his wife
00:33:02in the nightclub, immediately he just took it on the chin. And I think that you can tell a lot about
00:33:09somebody by what happens when they're backed into a corner socially like that. And he just
00:33:13owned it. It's like, yeah. So he, so after we recorded, so he's got this insane setup in his
00:33:18office I should talk about. So he's got his office, right? Which is, it has like all these crazy art
00:33:23and like, uh, like little pieces from his, his career. Memorabilia. Memorabilia and these crazy
00:33:29quotes on his, uh, his walls, which I'll get to in one second. Then the other side, he's got this
00:33:33insane, like professional, uh, like professional, um, sports team level gym that only he and his
00:33:42friends work out in. And then the other side we record, he's got a bar because he loves smoking
00:33:45cigars, drinking whiskey. And then he has entrepreneurs come in every day. I think he
00:33:49took like, I forgot what the number, like over a hundred meetings, maybe 200 meetings last
00:33:52year of entrepreneurs coming in and he loves entrepreneurship more than he loves fighting.
00:33:55And he just like gives them advice. Sometimes he does investments. He just like wants to bullshit
00:33:58and like hang out with people building companies. He's just like obsessed with that.
00:34:01But, uh, so we spent a bunch of time afterwards and he's showing me throughout his office and
00:34:05he goes, you might've heard about this little dust up I had with my wife. I'm like, yeah,
00:34:09I'm familiar. And so he goes, after that happened, I put that on the wall. And right when you're
00:34:14walking out of his office, it says, uh, may God have mercy on my enemies. Cause we won't,
00:34:18or I won't. There's a clip that I've just sent to Jared. It's my favorite Dana clip.
00:34:24You can bet against me, bet against me. Tell me it's not going to happen. Tell me it's
00:34:28going to fail. I love it. I love every minute of it.
00:34:32Okay. So there's a reason on the, you, me and you were talking about the episode I did
00:34:36with Dana before this. And I kept bringing up Todd Graves because like, when I sit across
00:34:39from somebody, I have this thing where it's like natural pattern matching. So like Dana's
00:34:43talking, I'm like, Oh, that's kind of like, like Rockefeller did or Henry Ford did or like,
00:34:46and I kept getting Todd Graves vibes because Todd Graves said the exact same thing where
00:34:50he's just like, I need people to tell me that I'm going to fail. And he's like, I just use this
00:34:54fuel and energy that I love people telling me they can't, that I can't do like what I want to do.
00:35:00And Dana's the same way. Dana has another great quote, uh, that I was watching when I was prepping
00:35:04for the episode where he's just like, uh, he goes, I'm the world's best friend. And if you want to be
00:35:08friends, we can do that. But if you want to be enemies, I can do that too.
00:35:11Wow. Fuck. That's good.
00:35:14Yeah. He's really, really good. I could talk to, I mean, I told him, I was like, listen,
00:35:18I'm just going to drive. If you're cool with you, I'm going to drop in with this
00:35:20film crew every like six months. Cause I could talk to him an hour over and over again. The
00:35:25guy never runs out of stories. The funniest thing that's ever been said on my podcast
00:35:28came from Dana White. It really pisses them off because if you think about how much struggle
00:35:33went into, to, to building UFC into what it is today, it's like they bought it out of almost
00:35:38bankruptcy for $2 million. They dumped another $40 million into it. This goes back to what
00:35:42we were just talking about. Like you love it so much that they couldn't pay you to stop.
00:35:46They lost money for like seven years. He wasn't making any money. And he tells this great story
00:35:51of his partner. Uh, one of the Fertitta brothers is the first year they get into the black means
00:35:55they're making profit. They're writing out like all the revenue on the board. And Dana's like,
00:35:59what does that say? And he goes, it says, you're going to make a million dollars this year.
00:36:02It's like, wow, that's incredible. Dana's a multi-billionaire now, like multi-multi-billionaire
00:36:07now, but he was just happy just to make a million dollars after seven years of failing. He's
00:36:11like, if I just do that, I could do this forever.
00:36:14Before we continue, most people in their thirties are still training hard. Their protein is dialed
00:36:18in. They sleep better than they did in their twenties. Discipline is not the issue, but
00:36:23recovery feels somewhat different. Strength gains take a little longer. The margin for error
00:36:28starts to shrink. And that is why I'm such a huge fan of timeline. You see, mitochondria
00:36:34are the energy producers inside of your muscle cells. As they weaken with age, your ability to generate
00:36:39power and recover effectively changes, even if your habits stay strong.
00:36:44MitoPure from Timeline contains the only clinically validated form of Urythlin A used in human trials.
00:36:50It promotes mitophagy, which is your body's natural process for clearing out damaged mitochondria
00:36:54and renewing healthy ones. In studies, this supported mitochondrial function and muscle strength
00:37:00in older adults. It's not about pushing harder. It's about actually supporting the cellular machinery
00:37:04underneath your training. If you care about staying strong into your thirties, forties, and fifties
00:37:09beyond, this is foundational. Best of all, there is a 30 day money back guarantee plus free shipping
00:37:14in the U.S. and they ship internationally. And right now you can get up to 20% off by going to the link in the
00:37:19description below or heading to timeline.com/modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout.
00:37:24Successful people listen. Those that don't listen don't last long.
00:37:27Okay. So this is shocking because if people know that's a quote from Michael Jordan. So if you've ever seen the
00:37:39last dance, people think, Oh, Michael's this like tyrant. He's this dictator. He thinks he knows better than anybody else.
00:37:44And, uh, there's this great book called Michael Jordan, the life. It's like 700 pages long. Uh, it's by this guy
00:37:50named Roland Lazley. And I've read that book twice. It fundamentally changed my life. And in that, that I found
00:37:56that quote in that book. And when you realize like, no, no, Michael's a sponge and all he wants is useful information
00:38:04that's going to help him accomplish his goals. And so a lot of this, this applies to business. It was like, I went to Ed
00:38:11Catmull's house to record a podcast. Ed Catmull's the founder of Pixar, right? Pixar has made, they invented
00:38:16the first computer animated film. They make some of the best films for families and for kids and for even
00:38:21adults that watch it. And he worked with Steve Jobs longer than anybody else. He worked with Steve for 24
00:38:27consecutive years. And he speaks a lot about it. He's like the, the, the way he's Steve is described, Steve
00:38:32Jobs described in the media compared to the person I knew, it's not the same person. So he always tells
00:38:36these stories and adds this color. And he goes, Hey, uh, Pixar was a public company for three
00:38:40years before Disney acquired it for like $7.6 billion in that 10 year period. This is Ed telling
00:38:45me a story. Now Steve fired two members of the board of directors from Pixar. Well, most people don't
00:38:53know is why he fired them. And so I asked Steve why he fired him. He goes, well, they, those two people,
00:38:58they never disagree with me. And so therefore they never disagree with me. They're not adding any value
00:39:03to the company. It's like successful people. Listen, those that don't listen, don't last long.
00:39:08What Steve understood when Michael Jordan understands what all these people get to the
00:39:12top of the profession understand. It's like, there's no upside in being wrong. And so it
00:39:16doesn't matter if you give me, you, you're the reason I started doing video podcasts. Do you
00:39:20remember having this conversation years ago? You're like, you, we don't have to like.
00:39:23You're retarded. You're not doing video. Exactly. So it's like, I could have been like,
00:39:27oh, like what does Chris know? Well, he's got the eighth biggest podcast in the world. Maybe he knows
00:39:30some shit. Maybe I should benefit from the fact that I get access to him and we're friends and he can
00:39:34give me advice. Cause you're not doing it to like criticize me. You're like, hey, you could be doing
00:39:37better here. Yeah. You held me accountable. It's like, you can, you should be doing this. You can do
00:39:41a better job here. I think people get confused a lot of the time when it comes to taking feedback,
00:39:46taking criticism and they assume that, uh, you know, committing yourself to one thing, being on
00:39:52this path, disregarding the chip on the shoulder, they incorrectly pattern match or they, they ignore
00:39:59advice and think that it's self-belief. And that's pretty dangerous because you're just stuck in local
00:40:06maxima there. Like you're never going to reach outside of that. And, uh, yeah, I, I think an awful lot
00:40:12about looking for humans who are able to update their worldview, like, uh, um, strong opinions loosely
00:40:21held, uh, as opposed to loose opinions strongly held, which is what most people have. They haven't
00:40:25really arrived there with conviction and vigor. They've just kind of tumbled backward. They've, uh,
00:40:31sliding, not deciding into whatever their worldview is. There's, there's actually an interesting story.
00:40:35Um, in one of these books I read where, uh, Charlie Munger, when he was trying to convince you of something,
00:40:40he would first state the best counter argument. And would that tell Jews after, you know, he's very
00:40:47verbose and he would talk for probably like 30, 40 minutes before he's gonna let you talk. I had
00:40:50dinner with him and, uh, I'd say he spoke 99% of the time, which is good. He was, has all the
00:40:54information. What the hell am I going to say? But, uh, what I thought it was interesting is like,
00:40:58what does that imply? It means he thought about this so much that he could start with the best
00:41:03counter argument and then essentially rebut that counter argument and say why he believes
00:41:07something different. And I think that's like an excessively valuable skill. I've never even heard
00:41:11of anybody else doing that.
00:41:12Mm-hmm. Wise people don't solve problems. They avoid them.
00:41:15No. Wisdom is prevention. That is lit. So that's a Munger quote. Wisdom is prevention.
00:41:20And, uh, he had a, this is the experience of when I went and had dinner with him.
00:41:26Um, and, um, this, what you realize is like, you know, any, if you live long enough, I think he has
00:41:32another quote where he's like, if you live long enough, bad shit's gonna happen to you. It's like
00:41:34inevitable. And you read his early life and it's like, he had the worst possible thing that could
00:41:38happen. He was going through a divorce. His nine year old son, uh, had leukemia before it was curable.
00:41:43And so his nine year old son is like literally wasting away. And he is like, watch his son die
00:41:47slowly. And he would leave the hospital and like walk around the streets of Pasadena, just bawled,
00:41:52crying his eyes out. He's like probably 35, maybe 38 years old when this is, this is happening.
00:41:56And yet you spend time when you realize like, he is just like, nothing can face him. He's like,
00:42:02problems are inevitable. And his whole thing was like, well, it's, you're not smart because you solve
00:42:07problems. You're smart or you're wise because you avoid them. And so the advice that he gave us was
00:42:12like, if you just focus on being around really, really great people, like a handful of really great
00:42:18friends, you know, and you don't need many, there's probably a limit to how many you could
00:42:21have maybe four or five, really like people are gonna do life with for your entire life.
00:42:24You know, they love you. They're high quality people. They're not shitty people.
00:42:27He has this other side of this is another Charlie Martin quote. He says, most, he's like, uh,
00:42:32most people are rat poison. He's like, there's a lot of just evil and low quality people.
00:42:37You should avoid them. So you build relationships with great people, people that you love and
00:42:41you can do life with, and then you find great work. And once you find the great work,
00:42:45you stay in that great work. You don't jump around like you do that for the rest of your life.
00:42:48And by surrounding yourself with great people and having work that you feel is great
00:42:52and beneficial to the world, that avoids, that eliminates most of the problems that are under your
00:42:56control. And then life will still throw up problems that are outside of your control.
00:42:59Your kid gets sick, you get cancer, whatever the case is. But the, the, the smart thing is to,
00:43:04it's not to solve the problems. The smart thing is to prevent them from occurring ever.
00:43:08Yeah. There's a, an insight that it's far easier to date somebody who compensates
00:43:13for your shortcomings than it is to fix them. That you are the sort of person
00:43:17that likes to go to bed early and you've decided to get into a relationship
00:43:21with someone that wants to go out partying until three in the morning.
00:43:23Maybe your 9:00 PM bedtime is a personal failing because you feel like you need to have more control
00:43:30over your life than you actually do. Maybe it would be beneficial for you to work through
00:43:33that in some way and loosen up and you could go to bed at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock or something like that.
00:43:38Or you could just get into a relationship with somebody who compensates for your shortcomings.
00:43:45And he's like, actually, do you know what it is? I'm not going to make you feel insecure about that thing.
00:43:48I want to go to bed at nine o'clock too. So many of the situations that we end up having to,
00:43:54we have basically a frustration budget in life every single day.
00:43:58And it gets sapped out of you by all of the different interactions.
00:44:01Let's say you're going to dinner and your friend that you're hanging out with is just like really annoying.
00:44:07And every single time you go for dinner, you're super annoyed by them.
00:44:09And then the next morning you wake up and you've got to deal with some real things at work
00:44:13that you can't get away from or that's part of a mission.
00:44:15You're like, I have less in the tank to be able to deal with this issue
00:44:19because of the situation I went through last night,
00:44:21or because of the fact I had to stay up till three in the morning
00:44:23because the girl wanted to go and watch some fucking DJ in some nightclub or whatever.
00:44:27And now I'm tired and I didn't even want to go, but I did it because, you know, I'm going to compromise.
00:44:30It's really important to compromise. Wisdom is prevention.
00:44:35Like just avoiding problems altogether where you can.
00:44:39Like problems are inevitable and they're going to come and smash you in the face.
00:44:42Choosing, like there's no nobility in meaningless suffering.
00:44:48There's nobility in meaningful suffering, but there is no nobility in meaningless suffering.
00:44:52And I would say like, there's a great quote in Spanish that I'll translate.
00:44:57It's like, this person will drown in a cup of water.
00:45:00And this is what I mean.
00:45:02Like the first part of that is before you find your life's work and and like hopefully you're doing something that makes the lives of other people's other people's lives better.
00:45:10It's like you have to ruthlessly edit who gets access to you.
00:45:13Like the first episode I ever did of the new show was Daniel Ak, founder of Spotify.
00:45:17Right. And if everybody always asked me like, oh, if you had a if you could have like a personal board of directors from all the people you've read about all the dead entrepreneurs, who would you be?
00:45:27And I have an answer for that. And then like, what about for living? Like, who would your personal board of directors be?
00:45:31I was like, I only need one. And it's like, Daniel, the advice.
00:45:34The reason he was the first guest is because the relationship we were able to build and the friendship we were able to build is like he's like the wisest, one of the wisest people I know.
00:45:42I call him Swedish Buddha. He's like he built one of the greatest apps and technology companies in the history of the world. Right.
00:45:47And did an unbelievable, had an unbelievable struggle to do so. But he's just very wise.
00:45:53And he almost all of our conversations, I was just with him a few months ago, we were racing cars outside of Stockholm.
00:45:59And we stayed up late one night and his whole thing was just like, I still have notes from the conversation.
00:46:04It's just like, it's like, man, you just have to ruthlessly edit who's around you.
00:46:07It's like you're just like we said, like the mind is a powerful place where you feed affection in a powerful way.
00:46:11He's like, especially you, you have a huge platform. I can't imagine what your freaking text messages or inbox look like.
00:46:18It's a mess. It's a mess.
00:46:19Yeah. Coming on your show could literally change some people's lives.
00:46:22And so the problem is they're going to give, they're going to act in a way to you that's not their real self.
00:46:28And so Daniel's point about this was just like, you know, if you, if you feel you're developing a friendship with somebody, have other people you trust, then go and spend time with this person because the way they act with you might be different from them.
00:46:37But I'm telling you all these people, and I've built a lot of friendships with a lot of the guests I've had on my show.
00:46:42The amount of times they have told me, it's just like everything comes down to the quality of people that you have around you.
00:46:48Your life is your relationships. That's another great maxim. Your life is your relationships.
00:46:52If you have a bunch of shitty people around you, like you're going to have a shitty life.
00:46:56They're going to cause drama unneedlessly because they, they will drown in a cup of water.
00:47:00And wisdom is, wisdom is avoidance. Wisdom is prevention.
00:47:04You, you have, I've cut a couple of these people out of my life in, you know, way less than I have to now because I've been so like, I have a very small circle.
00:47:12I would say I just talk, my natural tendency is not to have a thousand shallow relationships.
00:47:17It's just talk to the same half a dozen people over and over and over again.
00:47:20And when I'm doing that, I can be by myself.
00:47:22I'm very comfortable reading a book, making a solo podcast. Like I don't give a shit.
00:47:26I don't need to go out and like constantly socialize and expose myself.
00:47:30So like the vagaries of all these people, like, uh, like corrosive and destructive behavior.
00:47:35I'm not interested in that.
00:47:36Create according to your own taste, not for applause, critics, algorithms, or market demand.
00:47:41This is Rick Rubin. Like you and I, we just talked about this.
00:47:46We just both read his book creative act.
00:47:48And towards the end of that book, he has this thing called like the house on the mountain test.
00:47:51And here's the great thing about reading books about people and then getting to talk to them.
00:47:55Like you get, you get to go deeper.
00:47:58And I want to tell you a story about James Dyson.
00:47:59We can get there in a little bit.
00:48:01Uh, I think it's really important about this, but what Rick Rubin's point was just like your North star and whatever you're doing.
00:48:08He, the metaphor he uses, he goes, let's say you bought a house.
00:48:10It's on a mountain.
00:48:11It's so, so remote.
00:48:12No one is ever going to see it.
00:48:14But you, he goes, do not put in your best effort to decorate it and to design it.
00:48:19Just like you would want it done.
00:48:21Like you're the only person that we see it.
00:48:23No one's ever going to visit.
00:48:24What do you do?
00:48:25And the answer to that question, that is your revealed preference.
00:48:28That is what you actually want to do.
00:48:29And so when you look at Rick Rubin's career is what does he do?
00:48:33He just makes the music that he wants to listen to.
00:48:36He is not, he says over and over again, don't think about the audience.
00:48:40Don't think about the customer.
00:48:41Don't think about the end user.
00:48:43Like you're probably not unique.
00:48:45Me and him talked about this.
00:48:46You're not that unique.
00:48:48So if Rick Rubin likes this song by Johnny Cash that with a guitar and just, you know, and just this guy's voice, what's the chance that he's the only person in the world that likes that?
00:48:58Probably 10 million people that like the same kind of music Rick Rubin likes.
00:49:02Just like me and you, we talked about this before we started recording.
00:49:04We make the podcasts that we want to listen to.
00:49:06We both are obsessed with podcasts.
00:49:08They've made our lives benefit.
00:49:09They've benefited our lives immensely.
00:49:11I've learned more from reading and podcasts than I ever did in school.
00:49:14Like I'm just making the stuff that I'd want to listen to.
00:49:16I listen to them before they come out.
00:49:18Could you imagine like your life is making a podcast and you have to listen to it before it goes out and you don't like it?
00:49:26Doesn't make any sense.
00:49:27So I think that the idea of like the metaphor of you're designing a house on mountain.
00:49:30No one else is going to see it.
00:49:32You should design your life that way too.
00:49:33There's parts of your life that you share with other people, but there's huge swaths of it that only, you know, you should design those, those parts of your life.
00:49:43Same exact way as the parts that other people see.
00:49:45A rule of thumb for anybody that makes things on the internet.
00:49:48Would you consume your own content?
00:49:50If not, don't post it.
00:49:53I was with you one time and you asked somebody and there was a 30 second pause.
00:49:57Yeah.
00:49:58And after 30 seconds.
00:50:01You know the answer.
00:50:03Wow.
00:50:04I'm like, dude, if it takes more than five seconds, the answer is fucking no.
00:50:07Yeah.
00:50:08Raid your own life, create a grand theft life.
00:50:10Okay.
00:50:11You told me before I missed this episode of yours, but you just did this like round table.
00:50:15What do you call these round table episodes?
00:50:16Rabbit hole.
00:50:17Rabbit hole with Tim Urban.
00:50:18Yeah.
00:50:19Tim Urban, like, I don't know, 10 years ago wrote this crazy essay on Elon and SpaceX and Tesla.
00:50:25He kind of predicted a lot of the shit that occurred in the last decade.
00:50:28And he had this thing called grand theft life.
00:50:30And what he realized, realized about Elon was like his ability to step outside of himself.
00:50:35So me and you are going through life all the time.
00:50:37And we're kind of like, right now I'm looking at you.
00:50:39My view is a lot better than yours is, right?
00:50:42Like you're a lot more handsome than I am.
00:50:44But like, this is my experience.
00:50:46And you're kind of get like siloed into like, this is, I'm just experiencing it as it happens.
00:50:52Right.
00:50:53And this started because Toby Luque, I'll go back to Elon in one second.
00:50:57I sat down with Toby Luque, founder of Shopify, which again, is probably my favorite conversation that I've had on the podcast so far.
00:51:02And he has this idea, when he says this, he's running a $200 billion company.
00:51:07And he goes, I like to take the view that a core, I'm a corporate raider.
00:51:11I did not start Shopify.
00:51:12I do not run Shopify.
00:51:14I have now extracted it from the owners.
00:51:16And now I'm the new owner.
00:51:18And the previous management was crazy.
00:51:20And then I go through and look at every single other thing that I would change.
00:51:24Why do you need to step aside?
00:51:25Because like, if you're just going through your day to day, there's so many problems he's not seeing.
00:51:28You have to step back in Tim Urban's Grand Theft Life essay that he was writing on Elon.
00:51:35It's like, you see that Elon does that mean you were talking about this before where it's like, okay, if you look at yourself as if you're playing Grand Theft Auto, like your character, you play Grand Theft Auto.
00:51:44Mike, my, my character needs money.
00:51:48So I got my character goes does jobs.
00:51:50Now he has more money.
00:51:51My character is stamina.
00:51:52He's running from the cops.
00:51:53He needs better cardio.
00:51:54So I take him to the gym.
00:51:55You just literally say like from the outside, me and you, I hope you don't cut this from the podcast.
00:52:00We had, we were in Hawaii together and we had many, many late night conversations about issues with women that mean you were both having that.
00:52:07I swear to God, if there was a, there was just a casual observer, right?
00:52:11Just listening.
00:52:13They were just like, Chris, David, this is, these are simple solutions.
00:52:17You just can't see them.
00:52:18Cause we were in a built, like I could see what was wrong with yours and you could see what's wrong with mine.
00:52:22So this idea of just stepping out your side.
00:52:24And I love the idea that again, putting into entrepreneurial terms, like some guy is now taking over my business or taking over my life.
00:52:31What would he change?
00:52:32Yes.
00:52:33You need a pause and you need a way to step back and go through this like right now.
00:52:37George has got this idea where he talks about, um, imagine that there was an evil version of you, a man with a mustache.
00:52:45What would he do to beat you?
00:52:47What would another version of you with the mustache do to beat you?
00:52:51Or that question of if you had 10 times the agency, what would you do?
00:52:54Well, with that situation, it's like, you know, where your shortcomings, where your biggest shortcomings lie.
00:53:01Like there's going to be this person.
00:53:02Okay.
00:53:02They would be way more decisive.
00:53:03They wouldn't, they would, uh, need less certainty in order to reach conviction.
00:53:09Um, because I know that I, I, I spend too much time vacillating and flip-flopping back and forth and I, I, I don't commit so quickly.
00:53:16And then I know that the version of me with the mustache, he would arrive at the outcome way quicker because he wouldn't be doing the flip-flopping or he would be more cutthroat when it comes to, um, not giving people third and fourth and sixth and seventh chances.
00:53:33Because I keep doing that and it keeps on burning me.
00:53:36That's what he would do.
00:53:37And then you just go, okay, just, just do that.
00:53:41Um, what, what would your answer to that for your own life be right now?
00:53:44The decisiveness thing I think is probably, uh, uh, not far off.
00:53:47Um, my required level of certainty in order to make big decisions, it's quite a high bar.
00:53:57And that's led to me making very few mistakes.
00:54:00Like I haven't made every business that I've started has succeeded.
00:54:04Uh, um, almost all of the projects that I get involved in and very good, but it also, if you're not failing, it's probably an indication that you're not moving forward.
00:54:10It's probably an indication that you're not moving quickly enough because you could move a little, uh, the headroom for moving more quickly is probably still quite high and you would still end up with a pretty good hit.
00:54:19Right.
00:54:20Uh, so something like that.
00:54:21How about you?
00:54:24I think, especially the last year, the biggest mistake, you get distracted, especially because like, um, there was like a slow build to Founders Podcasts.
00:54:32It never like, it's like, I was like a frog in boiling water.
00:54:35Cause it took five and a half years to break through another, like, it was like eight before it was like any substantial thing.
00:54:41Three, three and a half, four for us.
00:54:42Yeah.
00:54:42So like you, it was, that was great.
00:54:44It was actually like in hindsight, I wouldn't change anything.
00:54:47Cause it's just like, oh, I'm still the same person.
00:54:48I don't feel any different.
00:54:49Yeah.
00:54:50Like where the new one, because I had an existing audience and it kind of like, so it was like disorienting how fast my life changed.
00:54:57And then this is, it goes back to Daniel Ek and why he'd be like my, uh, you know, my sole person on living board of directors is, uh, he's just like, just stay away from the circus.
00:55:07That's the advice that he would give me over and over again.
00:55:09Um, so the evil version of you that's trying to beat you with a mustache would just get less distracted.
00:55:14He'd be more simple.
00:55:15Uh, and this is what I've gone back to doing where Daniel's advice is just like, uh, we just had this phenomenal dinner in New York.
00:55:20And then, uh, he was driving me to a friend's house and he's just like, your life is very simple, man.
00:55:24He's just like, he's like, if you just sit in a room and make podcasts and don't do anything else, you know, obviously spend time with your friends, take care of your health, but like, you don't have to go to fucking dinners.
00:55:33You don't have to go to conferences.
00:55:34He had this conference called just sit in a room and make podcasts, says the guy that owns Spotify.
00:55:40Do you think there might've been a somewhat of a, uh,
00:55:43No, cause he's, he just stepped down. I promise you. It's not like, no, no, no.
00:55:47Cause like my, my shows are always going to be somewhat niche.
00:55:51Like your show will always be 10 times bigger than anything I do because I'm just narrowly focused on entrepreneurship.
00:55:57But what the advice is because I remember texting him. I was like, Hey, are you, uh, you're going to brilliant minds, which was his conference.
00:56:03And I don't think he was there this year. He goes, he goes, no, and neither should you.
00:56:07And that's when he just, Hey, he goes, just stay away from circus.
00:56:09But this is similar to if you do everything, you will win.
00:56:11No, that's okay.
00:56:13So we can get to that in one second.
00:56:14So let me finish this.
00:56:16Cause I think I like that you asked the question.
00:56:17It's like really helpful for me to now kind of do grand theft life and now step back and say what I would do.
00:56:22So I was like, I have work that I really like to do.
00:56:24I really like to read books.
00:56:25I really like to make podcasts, you know, I like one on one conversations, maybe one on two.
00:56:33I can't do like group stuff.
00:56:34I'm very introverted.
00:56:35It makes me very uncomfortable.
00:56:37I think like, and then I've got to figure out like the dating part, the girl part.
00:56:44But other than that, like, I think the distraction is, you talk about something to do with this last time that so many of history's greatest entrepreneurs have been totally shit with women.
00:56:56Like they're just pussy hounds or they're unable to hold a relationship together.
00:57:01But I don't know whether to give them their due.
00:57:04I wonder whether part of it is less they're bad with women and more the traits that make you a very successful elite level entrepreneur.
00:57:18The kind that you study probably give you some traits that make it difficult to be in a relationship with you.
00:57:24So I wasn't expecting to talk about this, but I have some interesting ideas.
00:57:27So there's this great book that was written by Arnold Schwarzenegger's girlfriend.
00:57:31He lived with this girl when he was 21 to 26.
00:57:34So he was still well, like, again, he's dominating this weird niche of bodybuilding, but he's not the Arnold that he's been becoming, but he's the same person.
00:57:41So you see it's coming.
00:57:42And it's 300 pages of her just be like, why is this guy not acting normal?
00:57:47It's like, because it's Arnold.
00:57:48He's one of the most driven people in the world.
00:57:49I could have solved that for you in 10 seconds.
00:57:51Right.
00:57:52And the end result when I made the episode on that book was like a successful entrepreneur or anybody chasing after somebody.
00:57:59You need a supportive spouse or no spouse at all.
00:58:01No spouse at all.
00:58:02Right.
00:58:03And that's the key there.
00:58:04What I would also say is I've been talking to this guy.
00:58:06He considers himself like a consultant to some of the most famous people in the world.
00:58:10Right.
00:58:11And what I find interesting is like he can essentially pattern match across, let's say, a hundred of the most famous people in the world.
00:58:17These are like mainstream celebrities.
00:58:18It's not like me and you.
00:58:19Right.
00:58:20Right.
00:58:21And he talked about, but in some of these people are also happen to be captains of industry because Elon's one of the most famous people on the planet.
00:58:27He's not one of his people.
00:58:28He talks to you.
00:58:29But, and he goes, the problem that these people have is when you're really successful like that, you have an expansive personality.
00:58:36That's the word that he used, expansive personality, which means the more you succeed, the more you want to succeed.
00:58:42Napoleon said this in French and you could, it translates into appetite comes with eating.
00:58:48Usually you eat and you're full.
00:58:49These kinds of people, the more they eat, the more they want to eat.
00:58:52So his point is like these people also have usually bad relationships because there's a ton of infidelity.
00:58:59Right.
00:59:00Because it's just like, they're expansive and in every element of their life, they're, they're increasing their skills.
00:59:06They're maybe their movies getting better, bigger.
00:59:08Maybe their business is getting better, expanding, but in this very narrow, but very important part of your life, which is like your romantic side, you're expected to not have those same personality traits.
00:59:16Now, I don't have that issue.
00:59:18I can stay with one person at a time.
00:59:21Um, the, the issue that you have is like, whether it's a very close friend, a business partner, a spouse, these are all very similar relationships.
00:59:30Like they, they look, they're very deep partnerships.
00:59:33And so you have to be, take your, take, be very careful to make sure you're picking the right person.
00:59:37And especially you, because you're handsome, rich, super famous.
00:59:42Like you have, I've seen some of your dams.
00:59:44Okay.
00:59:45Like you have, um, I hope we cut in that laugh over there.
00:59:50Yeah.
00:59:51Make sure you add that in.
00:59:52Um, like you have so many people trying to get to you that want something from you that doesn't mean they're good for you.
00:59:59And that's where you have to be careful.
01:00:01That's where you have to be somewhat paranoid.
01:00:02Most people have no idea where their testosterone levels sit, but what if I told you there was a solution?
01:00:08Something that identifies low T faster than a high school bully, and it won't cost you all your lunch money.
01:00:14That's where function comes in, gives you access to over 160 lab tests, including a deep dive into your full hormone panel.
01:00:20Every result is reviewed by clinicians.
01:00:23Anything out of range is flagged and you get clear explanations with a personalized protocol with actionable next steps.
01:00:29So if something's off, you know exactly what to do about it.
01:00:32Whether you just need to go to the gym more or you need to play Creed louder in your car, function will tell you exactly where your testosterone and everything else stands.
01:00:41Normally, this level of testing would usually cost thousands, but with function, it's $365 a year.
01:00:46That's $1 a day to stop guessing with your health and start knowing.
01:00:50And right now you can get $25 off, bringing it down to $340 bucks.
01:00:55So get the exact same blood panels that I do and save $25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout.
01:01:07That's what discernment is, right?
01:01:08Being able to distinguish between good and not good, between somebody that's got your best interests at heart and doesn't.
01:01:13You know the advice I've gotten from some of the most successful people in the world about this?
01:01:16They'll just like make sure that she's a good person.
01:01:19That's it.
01:01:20They just have to be a good person.
01:01:21But good people are few and far between.
01:01:23And what I mean by good is like not selfish, not doing this just because of what's good, what they get out of it and willing to.
01:01:30And in many cases, dude, Jimmy Iovine, okay?
01:01:33Jimmy Iovine, we got to talk about this because this guy's the best.
01:01:36So when people used to ask me, hey, you know, who did you want to meet?
01:01:41You haven't met.
01:01:42Jimmy Iovine, I'd have a list and Jimmy Iovine would be in top three.
01:01:45And people are like, that doesn't make any sense.
01:01:46Most people don't know who Jimmy Iovine is.
01:01:47But one of my favorite documentaries is this documentary called The Defiant Ones.
01:01:50Have you seen this?
01:01:51No.
01:01:52You've got to watch it tonight.
01:01:53So it's a four part documentary.
01:01:54It's technically supposed to be about the relationship, the working partnership between Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.
01:01:59That's been going on for decades.
01:02:00It is really one of the best documentaries about entrepreneurship and these kind of wild personality types.
01:02:05Dr. Dre is a wild boy.
01:02:06He was probably highly likely a child prodigy, the best in the world that he does.
01:02:11Jimmy, same thing.
01:02:12He was in the music business for five decades and has succeeded from engineer to producer to record label executive to building a business and selling it for $3 billion to Apple.
01:02:23And so I, Jimmy was on my show, we live close to each other.
01:02:28He's nice enough that I get to hang out with him and like talk to him on the phone and hang out with him all the time now.
01:02:32And it's what's fascinating is when you talk to these older guys that are, I think Jimmy's probably 70 years old by now, he's got more knowledge about life in his pinky than I do in my entire body.
01:02:42Like he's just lived through, he's just seen everything.
01:02:45And his biggest thing was, he's like, if you want to be successful, he's like, you probably don't want to be successful for a year, for five years.
01:02:51You want to do it for a long period of time.
01:02:53And he's like, I've been around some of the most gifted, talented people in the world.
01:02:56He's worked with everybody from John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen, to Tom Petty, to Dr. Dre, to Eminem, to literally everybody.
01:03:04And out of the one, he's like, most people, the advice he gave me, he's like, most people cannot handle success.
01:03:09Yeah.
01:03:10You're not destroyed by a competitor.
01:03:13There's not going to be another Chris Williamson coming in here and out competing in your podcasting.
01:03:17You're going to do, if you're going to fail, you're going to do it yourself.
01:03:19And what Jimmy said, he's like, they fall into four buckets, which I thought was interesting.
01:03:23Number one, drugs.
01:03:25I don't do drugs.
01:03:26Not going to be an issue.
01:03:28Like, avoid them.
01:03:29Alcohol.
01:03:30Second one.
01:03:31I don't really drink.
01:03:32Number three, megalomania.
01:03:34Because remember, he's in the music industry.
01:03:35He's like, listen, you start out, I mean, Kanye, I think he, I'm a huge fan of his first four albums.
01:03:41I think this is what happened to someone, in my opinion, what happened to him.
01:03:44It's like, and Jimmy was saying, it's like really hard that like you get on stage every night and there's 80,000 people telling you, screaming your name and telling you how great you are.
01:03:53The problem is to come off that stage and then still be dad or husband or friend.
01:03:58Take the trash out.
01:03:59Yeah.
01:04:00Yeah.
01:04:01And, and you not think, and then what happens is the reason he calls it megalomania is because they loved you because of the work you put in.
01:04:06The megalomania thinks, now you think you're some, you're not even human, you're like some kind of like God.
01:04:10So therefore I don't, I just show up and it happens and they, they stopped putting the work.
01:04:14Then it shows up on the work.
01:04:16And then there's just like the death spiral.
01:04:17And then the fourth thing was women.
01:04:19And Jimmy Iovine has been very, uh, he was like very open about this.
01:04:24It's in the documentary where he, his dad was his best friend, like best friend talks every day.
01:04:31Jimmy was dating a playboy playmate and his dad died suddenly unexpectedly.
01:04:36They did not see it coming.
01:04:38And right after his dad died, he decided to get married.
01:04:41And he says in the documentary, we've talked longer detail privately, but you know, just like I married the wrong person.
01:04:50He's very beneficial of how all the kids and he's got great relationship with his adult kids.
01:04:54Now he talks to his kids every single day, but he's just like that, the wrong woman in your life, the wrong man in a woman's life can literally destroy you.
01:05:02And so I think that, I think this is like, we could have, we should have an entire podcast next time to come here.
01:05:06We just talk about the stuff we've talked about privately.
01:05:08Yeah.
01:05:09Fuck me.
01:05:10Yeah.
01:05:11But it is, it's, it's a very hard part of your life because I do consider it almost like a drug.
01:05:16Like these people don't start out, Hey, I'm going to get addicted to pills or heroin or alcohol and they're smart and successful.
01:05:21It's arrogant to think that wouldn't happen to us.
01:05:23So that's why I think it's so important to like talk about it.
01:05:25Agreed.
01:05:26Agreed.
01:05:27Yeah.
01:05:28I had this line from earlier this year, what you are praised for in public, you will pay for in private.
01:05:32And a lot of the time, the single mindedness, the resilience, the motivation, the permanent growth mindset, the attention to detail, the unwillingness to compromise, the hyper vigilance, the anxiety, dedication, all of these things.
01:05:49And in the business world, it's called reliability, consistency, uh, uh, non-quitness.
01:05:59Fantastic in the boardroom can often make you a forgotten person around your kitchen table.
01:06:06I had, uh, Andy Stumpf, Navy SEAL on the podcast.
01:06:09And he said, I built, built my entire identity around being a guy that doesn't quit.
01:06:14So that made me an amazing SEAL team member.
01:06:16Also made me stay in a marriage for a decade longer than I should have done.
01:06:19Yeah.
01:06:20I don't quit.
01:06:21Not the sort of guy that quits.
01:06:23You know, there are certain domains in which the things that you do publicly aren't meant to be applied.
01:06:30And a lot of those are the ones that happened privately.
01:06:33And then when public and private begins to sort of mesh and blend together, that's what we get with modern social media, right?
01:06:39That you can't see the distinction between the two.
01:06:42And the problem is like, you're constantly comparing like your relationship to other people's ideal relationship, which is very destructive.
01:06:49And what I would say about this is like, you talk about being hyper rational.
01:06:54I think you approach your business.
01:06:55I fucking know a lot about your business.
01:06:57Like you're very rational.
01:06:58I actually don't think we should, and I don't want to, and will not do in like your romantic life.
01:07:05I think you have to like, you should be a little bit irrational.
01:07:08It is definitely like a more irrational, emotional thing.
01:07:12That's why I think the advice that I keep getting over and over again is just like, make sure the person that you're letting into your life, the one that you have a serious relationship with right now, is just a good person.
01:07:19That they actually care about you, that they actually want good things for you, because it's not going to work if you try to approach it with like a rational mind.
01:07:26It is default irrational.
01:07:27And what I would say, this is something like, so we have a good friend, Sienna LaRocca.
01:07:34Yep.
01:07:35And one of the conversations I had with her was just like, what are you lying to yourself about?
01:07:40Yeah.
01:07:41And this could be an entire discussion at dinner because everybody's lying to themselves about something.
01:07:46And what I didn't understand about myself, especially until I started the new show, because I was just, I was sitting in a room by myself for a decade, like talking to myself, like no one was around.
01:07:55And I always thought like, I didn't need anybody.
01:07:57And like, I'm a loner and like, you know, other people aren't that important to me.
01:08:02And I realized like, no, that's a lie.
01:08:04Like I had just a lot of low quality people around me, but like, if I could have access and develop relationships and friendships with high quality people, that is my drug of choice.
01:08:13Like, I remember when I went to record with Todd Graves, we flew into Baton Rouge and recorded in the very first Raising Cane that he built with his own hands.
01:08:22He built it with his hands.
01:08:24It's insane.
01:08:25And I remember calling a good friend of mine.
01:08:27He's kind of like, uh, he's like an older brother, like a mentor, like a coach.
01:08:30Um, and I called him and I was like, I'm in trouble.
01:08:33And he goes, why?
01:08:34I go, cause I'm already addicted to doing this.
01:08:36I feel like I'm high as a kite right now.
01:08:38I've never done ecstasy.
01:08:39Never done MDMA.
01:08:40I have to imagine this is what it feels like.
01:08:42I want to do this all the time.
01:08:45Um, and so I guess like what I didn't understand what I was lying about myself was just like that relationships,
01:08:51that relationships weren't important to me where the truth is they're more important than anything else.
01:08:56So I'm sorry to monologue to you, but I think, let me just get this out real quick.
01:09:00If you don't mind, I desperately did not want to be a loser.
01:09:05And that's why I'm a workaholic and I've worked full time since I was 15 years old because I saw up and down my family tree.
01:09:10I was just fucking terrified of winding up just like them.
01:09:13And this is the chips on shoulders, but chips and pockets.
01:09:15Like I, I, I'm not a strategic person.
01:09:17I genuinely just throw a lot of hours and effort.
01:09:20I don't think I have any strategy.
01:09:22Um, and so I thought forever, like my, my work is how I protect myself because it's, it's gives me my independence.
01:09:29It allows me to build a world that I can control because I didn't have control when I was younger.
01:09:33It allows me to take care of family members and other people to help.
01:09:36And it's like, it's my thing.
01:09:37It's the only, it's more important.
01:09:38If you were asking, it's like more important than anything in my life.
01:09:40And I realized that that's a lie.
01:09:43Like if you ask what's the most important thing in my life now, it is my relationships.
01:09:48It's building and maintaining and deepening the relationships I have with people that are very high quality that I love with everything.
01:09:54And now right underneath that, my work's like bumping up against it, but this is still my number one priority.
01:10:01And I think also you'll see for people like you, you're super driven, just like I am.
01:10:05You for, you forgo some professional success if you want like a deep romantic relationship.
01:10:12And I would say that's what like makes life worth living.
01:10:16You should do that.
01:10:17You should make the irrational choice.
01:10:19How do you square that circle with the single mindedness that most great people have?
01:10:22I don't think you can.
01:10:23I think like there's an ebb and flow.
01:10:25Like if you look at a snapshot of like my own life, right?
01:10:28Where undoubtedly I think I would be even more, I would be more successful if you didn't take out those huge chunks of time to build these relationships, both romantic and friendship wise.
01:10:41But that's not the kind of life I want to live.
01:10:42Now I've met people like that.
01:10:43I know some of these people have been on my show.
01:10:45You get around them and, and you literally like, where's all your friends, dude?
01:10:50They're not, that's not important to them.
01:10:52That's not what they're going for.
01:10:54They're, they're, they're playing a different game.
01:10:56What I'm saying is like, that's not for me.
01:10:58Like I want, I'm not saying a balanced life cause I'm definitely not balanced, but like I, relationships are more important than my work.
01:11:04That's just how I feel.
01:11:05Far fewer people than think it are introverts.
01:11:08Like you're probably not an introvert.
01:11:10Your friends just suck.
01:11:11That's a, that's a great way to think about it.
01:11:13And if you had better friends, you'd want to hang around them.
01:11:16There's like everybody has been at a dinner table and adored the conversation and not wanted it to end.
01:11:21Yeah.
01:11:22Okay.
01:11:23Well, what, what happened there?
01:11:24Did you change for the evening?
01:11:25No, I was just around people that resonate.
01:11:28I was around people who I usually don't resonate with, but for some reason they were really on form that night.
01:11:32Well, you can just get friends that are kind of on form all the time.
01:11:36And you can also hang around with people who were never on form.
01:11:39I I've had friends of mine.
01:11:41Tell me this.
01:11:42It goes back to where we're saying the mind is powerful place, which your feet affects you in a powerful way.
01:11:45They're like, man, you gotta be real careful about the way you describe yourself.
01:11:48And I think around this, I kept saying I'm introverted.
01:11:51I'm like, I want to be alone or all this other stuff.
01:11:54And you're like, this is like, that's not how you are to your point.
01:11:56I think it's more of like an energy thing.
01:11:57Like the conversations we have, I leave George Mack's treadmill.
01:12:02Yeah.
01:12:03If you put me in a big party with a bunch of strangers, I'm like, there's no energy and I got to run away.
01:12:07So it's more like, am I getting energy from this?
01:12:10Or am I very uncomfortable?
01:12:11Is it draining my energy?
01:12:12If you go to sleep on a win, you'll wake up with a loss.
01:12:16So this is actually a Conor McGregor quote that he said, I'm pretty sure it's in the documentary called Notorious, which again, he did the whole Kanye thing where he's like, poor kid in Ireland.
01:12:27He's like in collections, not paying his credit card bill.
01:12:29I think he's working part-time as a plumber.
01:12:31And somehow he had the foresight to have a camera crew follow him around, document his life.
01:12:36Cause he was just so convinced that he was going to be the champion one day.
01:12:39He's going to be one of the most successful professional fighters of all time.
01:12:42And it's interesting that some of these people don't take their own advice because they get to Daniel X point.
01:12:48They entertain the circus.
01:12:49They go to the events, they start buying, you know, loving the material rewards, the drugs, the women, all the stuff that comes with, you know, success.
01:12:57And one of my personal heroes is getting James Dyson.
01:13:01One of the best days of my life happened.
01:13:04I think it was last, maybe October, maybe November in New York city.
01:13:09I got to spend a few hours with James Dyson.
01:13:11I did an episode with him.
01:13:12And the reason this was so important for me, people like the vacuum cleaner guy, like what the hell are you talking about?
01:13:16It's like, no, no, no.
01:13:18Out of every single biography and autobiography I've ever read in my life.
01:13:21And I think as of today, it's like 425 or something like that.
01:13:24Cause it correlates with the founders episodes I've done.
01:13:27If I, if you only read one book, it'd be his first autobiography, which is called Against the Odds, an autobiography by James Dyson.
01:13:33Cause it's not about today.
01:13:36You fast forward, he's 78 years old.
01:13:37He owns a hundred percent of one of the most successful private companies in the world.
01:13:40He wouldn't sell it.
01:13:41I had a friend that tried to buy it.
01:13:43He, he guessed my friend to try to buy it.
01:13:45That if James would sell it fetched between 60 to 80 billion, James has no outside shareholders.
01:13:52That's a hundred percent of it.
01:13:53My friend put a flyer out to him saying, we want to buy your company.
01:13:57He paraphrased the response that came back from Dyson, which was fuck you.
01:14:00This is a family heirloom.
01:14:02It's not about the money.
01:14:03He's a, he's an engineer.
01:14:04He's a designer.
01:14:05He's obsessed with the work that he's doing.
01:14:07So it's, that book is not about this.
01:14:09It's not the 78 year old James Dyson.
01:14:10It is the Dyson in his thirties and mid forties.
01:14:13That is just failing for a decade and a half over and over and over again.
01:14:165,126 failed prototypes.
01:14:18The 5,127th one is the one that worked.
01:14:21It's the James Dyson that's going to bed.
01:14:23Cause he's working in a carriage house, which I guess is like a garage in England.
01:14:28What is a carriage house?
01:14:29No idea.
01:14:30I had to look it up.
01:14:31It's in the UK.
01:14:32So I figured, you know.
01:14:33So it's like a detached little workshop outside of your main house.
01:14:36I think it's in Bath, England where he might, where he is, where he's failing all day long,
01:14:41walks inside, passes his little, his kids, gets into bed, cries himself to sleep.
01:14:46Then his kid is four, sees him failing.
01:14:48His kid is seven.
01:14:49Dad's still failing.
01:14:50His kid is a teenager.
01:14:51Dad is still a failure.
01:14:52And so the reason this was so important to me is because I knew I wanted to podcast.
01:14:56I knew I loved it more than anything else.
01:14:57I have this irrational love of podcasting that people make fun of me for.
01:15:00And I'm fine with, but I was having no success.
01:15:03It was not that like I wasn't making any money.
01:15:05It was, I was, it was costing me money to do this.
01:15:08My, my savings went down every month and I, for some reason wouldn't quit.
01:15:12And one of the reasons I don't think I quit is because episode 25, the very first time
01:15:17I read James Ice's book is I read this book and I'm like, well, this guy struggled for 14 years.
01:15:21Like I can give it a go for a year.
01:15:23It wound up being five and a half.
01:15:24I didn't think it'd take that long, but like just knowing that story and rereading that book over and over and over again.
01:15:29It just, I was able to relate to him.
01:15:30It was like, he didn't give up.
01:15:31Why do I have to give up?
01:15:32Like, do you know how good you're going to feel if you get to the other side of this?
01:15:35And I did have a lot of faith that I would get to the other side of it.
01:15:37And so when you meet James Dyson though, like I read his first autobiography at least five times.
01:15:43I've read the highlights from the book hundreds of times.
01:15:45This is not a joke.
01:15:46It's not, I'm not exaggerating.
01:15:47I read his second biography, which he wrote when he was in the seventies twice.
01:15:51I read, he has, he wrote an encyclopedia when he was like 45 or 50 about, he's obsessed with inventions.
01:15:57It's called a history of great inventions.
01:15:59It literally is like somebody printed out a Wikipedia page of like 200 inventions with hand scrawled notes.
01:16:06There's a picture of me and James going through the book and me showing him like me annotating every single thing.
01:16:11And so be able to sit with him.
01:16:12I thought I understood him completely.
01:16:15And there was still, this is why it's so powerful to be able to talk to these people.
01:16:18First of all, he sits across from you and you realize that he's built.
01:16:21He doesn't, he's not a, he's not a absentee executive.
01:16:24He does the work.
01:16:25He's, and he's on the, the manufacturing line.
01:16:28He's in the engineering meetings.
01:16:29He's in design meetings.
01:16:30So you sit across from him.
01:16:31He's a very thin guy.
01:16:33His fingers.
01:16:35His fingers are probably twice as wide as mine are.
01:16:40Why?
01:16:41Because he's been working with his hands.
01:16:42Like if you look at your biceps, like your, how many curls did you do to get those biceps?
01:16:46How many, like him tinkering with his hands did he get?
01:16:49He's got massive fingers.
01:16:51They don't fit the rest of his body.
01:16:52Cause it's like a lifetime of tinkering.
01:16:54It's incredible.
01:16:55But then the reason I say, if you go to sleep on a win, you wake up at a loss is like most people that have success.
01:16:59They're like, I fucking made it.
01:17:01Look at me.
01:17:02I'm the best.
01:17:03And they forget.
01:17:04It's the work that got in there.
01:17:05Not them.
01:17:06It's tied to the megalomania thing.
01:17:07Where Dyson's not like that at all.
01:17:08I didn't understand his organizing principle.
01:17:10And so this is what he said.
01:17:11He said, okay, I pick up a product, right?
01:17:14I look at it.
01:17:15I think about how can I make it better?
01:17:17I make it better.
01:17:18I put it back down.
01:17:19Short mile later, pick it back up.
01:17:22How can I make it better?
01:17:23I make it a little bit better.
01:17:24Put it back down.
01:17:25And he went through this over and over again.
01:17:27I think he used a coffee cup in the episode.
01:17:29It's been, you know, six months.
01:17:30I don't remember.
01:17:31And he goes, and I just didn't, I just did that for 45 years.
01:17:34I never stopped.
01:17:35That's the anecdote to the anecdote.
01:17:38I don't know if that's the right word to going to sleep on a win.
01:17:42He never slept on a win because he likes the activity itself.
01:17:45He just, he has an engineering mind.
01:17:46Everything around him.
01:17:47He says it doesn't torment him, but he'd see this table.
01:17:49He's like, I think I could shave off a little bit there.
01:17:51I could fix that.
01:17:52I could do that.
01:17:53That's how his brain just works.
01:17:54And he just loves it.
01:17:55It's like a giant puzzle to him.
01:17:56And that's, I think that's the way to do it.
01:17:58It's just like, man, if you just love the activity for the sake of itself and you never
01:18:01stop improving it, like you're not going to fall prey to the failures and disasters
01:18:06of like a Kanye or a Conor McGregor or any of these other people you see.
01:18:09It's fascinating that that was a quote from Conor McGregor.
01:18:11Somebody that's had one of the biggest fall offs in history.
01:18:13Unfortunately.
01:18:14Yeah.
01:18:15Did you know your gut controls your energy, your recovery, how well you absorb everything
01:18:19that you eat.
01:18:20And the one nutrient that keeps it all running properly is fiber.
01:18:24Well, it turns out that 95% of Americans don't get enough of it, which is why I'm such a huge
01:18:29fan of Momentous' Fiber Plus.
01:18:31Most fiber supplements are a one trick pony, one type of fiber solving, one part of the
01:18:36problem.
01:18:37Fiber Plus is a three in one formula built to tackle digestion, gut barrier strength, and
01:18:41blood sugar stability all at once.
01:18:43I use this every single day.
01:18:44It is kind of hard to get enough fiber just through food alone.
01:18:48And best of all, Momentous offers a 30 day money back guarantee.
01:18:51So you can buy it, try it every single day for 29 days.
01:18:54And if you don't love it, they will just give you your money back.
01:18:57Plus they ship internationally.
01:18:58Right now you can get up to 35% off your first subscription and that 30 day money back guarantee
01:19:03by going to the link in the description below or heading to live momentous.com/modernwisdom
01:19:07and using the code modernwisdom at checkout.
01:19:11Yeah.
01:19:12I've kind of been obsessed thinking about the difference between what it feels like to have
01:19:17fallen off and what it feels like to have never made it.
01:19:20I would rather never make it.
01:19:22I am.
01:19:23This is another thing where you're surprised.
01:19:24Like when I've talked to Michael Dell about this, Daniel Ek about this, Todd Graves,
01:19:28Brad Jacobs, like all these, every single person I just mentioned is worth 10.
01:19:31Michael Dell is worth like $200 billion.
01:19:33And he's just like, it's not the love of success.
01:19:36That's the fear of failure.
01:19:37It's like, for me, that is my worst nightmare that like, I do mean that.
01:19:43Like I would rather never make it than make it.
01:19:46Right.
01:19:47And then lose it.
01:19:48And so this is why I wanted to say something earlier that you just, you just prompted this
01:19:53thought.
01:19:54It's like, it's weird because like I'll meet with like young entrepreneurs a lot.
01:19:56Right.
01:19:57And I feel like the middle child because I'm not my twenties anymore, but I'm not 70, you
01:20:02know?
01:20:03And so I'm in both of these worlds.
01:20:04And the advice I give to these like 25 years ago, you should go and spend some time with
01:20:07like a 65 year old, 70 year old.
01:20:09Like, like try to get an afternoon with Jimmy Iovine.
01:20:13Who's in his seventies.
01:20:14Who's seen everything in the world.
01:20:15Or James Dyson.
01:20:16Who's seen everything in the world.
01:20:18Like we, we have this guest list that we want, we want to get, and it's in reverse chronological
01:20:23order by age, because some of these guys, like I got to sit down with Charlie Mugger.
01:20:25Never got to record a podcast with him.
01:20:26Now it's the opportunity is gone.
01:20:27Same thing.
01:20:28Got to sit down with Sam Zell.
01:20:29Never got to record a podcast with him.
01:20:30They have all this knowledge and all you have to do is just like sit down and they'll,
01:20:35they, they're already down the path that you're, that you want to go on.
01:20:37And they'll say, Hey, watch for that pitfall there.
01:20:39What don't, don't turn right when this is going to happen to you.
01:20:41Cause you realize like everything that happens to us is not us.
01:20:44If somebody else was sitting in your position, they'd be getting those DMS too.
01:20:47Like they just would.
01:20:48It's not you.
01:20:49It's the position that you're holding.
01:20:51Um, and I, yeah, I think it's like super important.
01:20:54People say I have a fetish for old people.
01:20:56I don't have a fetish for old people.
01:20:57Just like, I, I want to avoid the failure, the, the, the set to success.
01:21:05And then the decline in failure that you see so over and over and over again.
01:21:10There's this interview in 1999.
01:21:12Eminem said, I ain't in this for the money.
01:21:15I'm in here for the respect.
01:21:16If I had a trillion dollars and I fell off, I'd be the most miserable person in the world.
01:21:21He grew up in poverty, but he favored status over money.
01:21:25He stayed, he favored skillset.
01:21:27So what, um, he has a line that I think, um, fits into how I view my own work.
01:21:32And he says, uh, a plaque and platinum status is whack.
01:21:35If I'm not the baddest.
01:21:36And what he, what he was saying at that point in, this is 2003.
01:21:40When I think the Eminem show came out 2002, maybe.
01:21:43And his whole point is that time is like every rapper had the same goal.
01:21:46I want to go platinum.
01:21:47Cause then you get a plaque.
01:21:48So that's a plaque and platinum status is whack.
01:21:50If not the baddest.
01:21:51His contemporaries, his peers were like, I'm good because I sold a million records.
01:21:55It means people I'm popular.
01:21:57And it means I'm making a lot of money.
01:21:58And his thing is like, I want to be the best.
01:22:00I don't want to be the biggest.
01:22:01I want to be the best.
01:22:02And this is why you and I have talked about the craft of podcasting so much.
01:22:06And about like, we, we had a 30 minute discussion with George before we started recording about
01:22:11like, how do you pick guests?
01:22:12How do you think about things?
01:22:13Like we were obsessed with this stuff.
01:22:15It's like, I want to make something that I could point to.
01:22:18Like I could tell my, Jeff Bezos says this great line.
01:22:21He's just like, we're trying to build something that we can tell our grandkids about.
01:22:25And such things are not meant to be easy.
01:22:26So in his case, like he should be very proud of building Amazon.
01:22:28It's one of the best companies ever created, right?
01:22:31I am very, very proud of some of the things that I have made.
01:22:36And I have a daughter.
01:22:37So my daughter is 14 now.
01:22:39I just recorded this episode with Mr. Beast, which won't be out for several months.
01:22:43But she was a huge fan.
01:22:45So she got to come with me and meet him.
01:22:47And Mr. Beast is a massive fan of my first podcast founders.
01:22:50His Spotify wrap, he'll screenshot and send it to me.
01:22:52It's like founders is number one on there.
01:22:53And for her, I'm very proud that somebody she admires is saying, hey, your dad's work is like really valuable to me.
01:23:01And she came with me to record with Todd Graves.
01:23:03She loves Raising Cane's.
01:23:04And she knows Spotify, like her favorite app is Spotify.
01:23:07And my friend runs her favorite brand, Mad Happy.
01:23:10And all these people are telling her like, your dad's work is really important to my life.
01:23:14You should be proud of him.
01:23:15That's like, that's worth more than money.
01:23:17It's worth more than a million dollars or 10 million that you'd get if you sold 10 million records.
01:23:22I do think it's more addicting and it's certainly more fulfilling to be admired by people that you admire.
01:23:27And it's one thing to just seek status.
01:23:29It's another thing to seek money.
01:23:31But to seek status and respect in the eyes of people who you have judged to be worthy of admiration.
01:23:39Inside and I would say outside your industry for sure.
01:23:42And even more important inside.
01:23:44Yeah, because they have the highest amount of taste.
01:23:46I think you opened the last episode we did together.
01:23:48You're like, did you hear my Q&A where I said you're the podcaster's podcaster?
01:23:51Correct.
01:23:52It's like, I do this to this day.
01:23:55I go around and collect more data on podcasting than anybody else.
01:23:59And we share it.
01:24:00We don't hold anything.
01:24:01And in one case, I remember my friends David and Ben who did the Acquired podcast.
01:24:06I was on a walk with David, I don't know, like three months ago in San Francisco.
01:24:09He's actually taking me to the airport because we're just good friends.
01:24:11And I had found an idea from Rob Moore and Andrew Huberman that I gave to them in terms of like, you have a skew.
01:24:17You have an asset in your podcast that you're not currently monetizing and it's very valuable to advertisers.
01:24:22And this is what they might pay.
01:24:23And I told David this idea and on the walk, he's like, hey, by the way, thanks for that idea.
01:24:27We're going to make $3 million from that idea this year.
01:24:30I stole the same thing from Rogan back in the last year.
01:24:32Yeah, exactly.
01:24:33So like the point is like it's all positive some with us.
01:24:36It's like I consider the historical analogy for me and you is like the filmmakers, right?
01:24:41If you study the early days when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma and all these guys were in their 20s.
01:24:49They were friends.
01:24:50They hung out.
01:24:51They traded secrets.
01:24:52They watched each other's movies.
01:24:53They gave themselves feedback.
01:24:54Because at the end of the day, if you go watch Steven Spielberg's Jaws today and George Lucas' Star Wars tomorrow, what did Steven Spielberg lose?
01:25:01Nothing.
01:25:02What did George Lucas lose?
01:25:04Nothing.
01:25:05It's like all positive some.
01:25:06Kind of is pointless doing the big journey thing if you don't get to share it with people.
01:25:10And if people are in tangential industries or even in the same sort of an industry, just being able to see the impact that you've had on somebody that you respect and admire and know that, hey, like that idea, that was the reason that David paid so much attention to video.
01:25:24That was a little, that was just like a little, a little contribution.
01:25:27Not nice.
01:25:28Our, our nice ripple.
01:25:29Our mutual friend, John Coogan, right?
01:25:31Just, they just had this phenomenal acquisition with TPBN.
01:25:34But well before even that, I've been working with John and like talking about podcasting with John for years before he even started TPBN.
01:25:40And he was one of the first viewers of the new show and he's just like, why are you guys only shooting on three cameras? Why don't you shoot five? And he explained why. And then me and Rob made the change immediately.
01:25:51And then we're all in a group chat together. And Rob had mentioned, you know, we had a good shot and I think John was like, hey, this shot looks good or whatever.
01:26:02You know, cause again, it's, it's both, hey, you can approve here, but this is also dope. Like I like this. And Rob's like, yeah, you're the one that told us to do that.
01:26:09Just give us the idea. Yeah. Exactly.
01:26:10Yeah. Thank you.
01:26:11Jerry, can you pull up on the main TV? Can you just throw the profile shot of me up so that David can look at why you need seven? I'm going to explain to you. I'm going to commit you to two more, two more cameras.
01:26:20So, uh, we've always had medium tight and then the wide to kind of classic. I guess if you've only got three, you're going wide, medium, medium, but this shot where you go very side on, it's beautiful.
01:26:31It's really, really nice. And what you can do, you can reverse frame it. We haven't done it here, but if you move, in fact, I can do it, I can do it by doing this. So if I go like that there, you actually end up with a complete opposite framing.
01:26:46And, uh, that's used in documentaries typically when there's going to be a pivot in the story. Yeah. So someone's talking, someone's talking, someone's talking. And then there is a, uh, a moment where things are going to take a turn for the worst or something.
01:26:59It's the, it's the, uh, the minor chord that somebody plays on the guitar and you're like, oh, something's about to happen. And it just feels very intimate. So that's why you need seven. Um, season eight winner of the biggest loser was this dude called Danny, just to round out the difference between having never made it and having fallen off.
01:27:15I was watching the documentary about the biggest loser, uh, accusations of it being, uh, predatory and bullying and, and dangerous. And people were getting fucking cardiac arrests and being heli lifted out of that, probably a big helicopter, I guess.
01:27:30And, uh, uh, he said, uh, there is an extra special shame. When you feel being a failure, there is an extra special shame. You feel being a failure after you've been a success. And, um, yeah, I mean, the, there is a huge, huge.
01:27:47Ick that people have, and this is going back to what you said that some people are just not built for success. Uh, Lewis Capaldi is like my canonical example of this. And I'm so glad that he actually managed to fix his issue and come out the other side of it. But he had all of the singing ability to be this.
01:28:02Billions and billions and billions and billions of record sales artist. And he didn't have the constitution for a long time to be able to handle the attention. And so many people think that the problem, the reason that they're not famous and they're not where they want to be is because they don't have enough talent.
01:28:18To be in the camp of people who has enough talent, but lacks the constitution to be able to handle the side effects of being that talented. It just has to be like, well, it's going to be very uncomfortable.
01:28:30I want to like also, like, I think we should say something like, I don't think success, like, I think you should have an internal scorecard, not an outer scorecard. So what I mean by that is like, some people let society or other people define what, that they are successful. So what I mean by that is like.
01:28:47Like, not that I have less downloads in the future. I don't even know how many downloads I get. I don't care. It's what I, the definition of success that I use, I actually got from Steve Jobs, which was like, did I make something I'm proud of?
01:29:03That's, that's it. As long as I keep making things I'm proud of, or if I, the alternative of this is like, you know how much time it takes to make a great episode, the amount of prep that you have to do. And for my other podcasts, like I have to read an entire book.
01:29:16The danger there is that I give into the circus, given to the distractions and say, oh, I used to put in 30 hours of reading. I can do like six, or I can read like the CliffsNotes version and still be as good. That is to me is like, when I consider myself a failure is like, I'm not, I'm no longer making things that I'm proud of. Now you have to make things you're proud of. And also the other side of it's like, you have to get it to.
01:29:38In front of people and they're smart and dumb ways to do that. But like, so there is another element of it.
01:29:43It doesn't make sense to be the super cool underground band that nobody actually listens to. Oh, it's because they don't get it. They're not sophisticated enough. I think eventually you need to listen to the market. You're like, you can be as proud as you want of the thing that you do, but your opinion in terms of taste might not be on the money.
01:29:59There's a great line from David Ogilvie, who is one of the greatest advertising agency founders in history. And he says, you can't save souls in an empty church. And if you feel that modern wisdom is good for people, then you have a moral obligation to get it to as many people as possible. If you truly do that, which I think you do.
01:30:14I truly believe that people that are interested in building a business, creating a product, changing their lives in some manner, which is what the, the word entrepreneurship, it's French for has ideas. Entrepreneur is has ideas and does them. So that's why I consider a podcaster entrepreneur, a filmmaker, an entrepreneur, a person building Amazon entrepreneur. It's all the same thing to me, an athlete, an entrepreneur. It's just somebody has an idea that they want to see shape, take shape and actually exist in the world.
01:30:42And so I would say like, if you believe that the work that you're doing is good for the world, then I would consider a moral obligation to get it to as many people as possible.
01:30:54David Senra, ladies and gentlemen, dude, you rule. I appreciate the heck out of you. Why should people go to keep up to date with everything you do?
01:31:00Just search David Senra in whatever podcast player or YouTube that you're listening and subscribe and listen.
01:31:04Join us. The podcast is podcast and listen to founders as well. All right. Goodbye, my beauties.
01:31:09Bye.
01:31:12Yes, we did it again. So good.
01:31:15Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, another one that I know you love, it's just here.
Community Posts
No posts yet. Be the first to write about this video!
Write about this video