Episode 559: James Beshara: Top #2 Angel Investor Shares Why He Backs The Founder Not The Business

27:01For 49 years and 11 months, they've been in maintenance mode. Exactly. Just maintaining, getting back to neutral with those two cups. And they feel when they're out of neutral, they're like, oh, there's these two cups, I need them. Well, you do need them to get back to neutral, but you're not getting anything more than that maintenance mode when you drink those two cups after 30 days. If you add in a second cup, a third cup, if someone's listening to this and they add in like a fourth cup, they'll feel it for 30 days and then they're in maintenance mode. You can take about 12 days to get off and then get back into, you know, feeling that.

27:34Cycling it, you mean? Yeah, cycling. But all this is to say that you aren't getting much of the benefit. You're just getting back to neutral. But every time, 50 years in, five years in, 55 days in, you are getting the negative effects of the vasoconstriction, the limited blood flow to your brain.

27:56Let me share my daily routine game changer with you. It's the Momentus 3. I've been using their protein, their creatine, and omega-3 combo for months now, and the results are undeniable. These nutrients are key for long-term health and performance, but hard to get enough of through diet alone. The Crea Pure Creatine boosts both physical and your mental performance. The grass-fed whey tastes great with no weird aftertaste, and their omega-3 is a must for recovery. Since adding these, my energy, my recovery, and my overall well-being has really improved. So if you want better performance, this is the way to go.

28:38Visit livemomentous.com and use my code JEN for 35 % off your first subscription. that's livemomentous.com code gen for 35 % off your first subscription trust me you'll be happy you did

29:04okay i have a question for you can your body acclimate to drinking a magic wine everything in magic wine outside of caffeine does not build tolerance really oh it's like i said it's It's like the, you know, I almost tell people like, if you can put aside the knee-jerk reaction of thinking this might be a commercial for, you know, some guy's own product. Yeah, it's not even. Right, if you can put that aside, the ingredient choices are so fascinating. Yeah. That it's why we have you. You've had so many people take it from elite athletes to the person that you wanted us to send it to Italy recently.

29:44Right. Like they've tried everything. Oh, I'm sorry to say, A-list, actors and actresses, athletes, moms, entrepreneurs, all alike. Everyone's obsessed with it. Maybe the best cyclist of all time. We won't even mention it. That has tried everything else. That's right. And yet they're like, can you send more of that? And it's a, that is a result. Did I give you him too? Yes, I did. I'm giving you a hundred. Oh my God. I know. My Rolodex for you guys is pretty vast. Holy crap. What was so nice about that one too was he took the time to also write a note back and he said, I've got to say whatever you've done.

30:19And this is so impressive because my wife actually loves this and we get all these products sent our way and she doesn't love any of them. It's rare for an actual loved one. So that was really kind. But when I say, if you can put that aside, it's a really fascinating dive into the ingredients that, like I said, you could buy on your own. You don't need to use cordyceps, mushrooms. You can get on your own. Cognizant, you can get on your own. Also like stuff like rhodiola and stuff like this. Rhodiola. You can buy it. But is it as effective on its own or is it the combination and sequence together that makes it?

30:51They call it the entourage effect. Yeah. So yeah, biohackers and all of our formulators. And we have a scientific advisory board of these titans in this space. That's been a constant trek is how do we get the best minds around the table? Like Dr. Andrew Weil, who if you've never had him. Yeah, he's great. He's amazing. He is so amazing. He's like the OG functional doctor that you'll cover with time abs. Are you friends with him? I actually really like him. I would. Yeah, I would love to. Can you put me in touch with him? I really do like him. He's so great. He's the best of all these people. I know.

31:22He's functional. And he goes on to Joe Rogan. He doesn't have some commercial interest. No, he's just really not. He's just like, hey, matcha is great for dot, dot, dot reasons. Hey, Rodial Rose is great for dot, dot reasons. I'm like, mention magic, Mike. And he never does. He just keeps it so cool, you know, objective and independent. And he's on your advisory board? Yeah. Okay. He's ahead of our advisory board. Oh, he is? Yeah. After a while, he's ahead. Yeah. Shut up. Dr. Dan Engel, who also goes on, you know, all the big podcasts. He's a brilliant neuros—he's unique because he's a neuroscientist.

31:55And he's a MD and PhD. And he is—he also overlaps with a lot of psychedelic research, which is really rare to get— Oh, yes. Two of those, but all three is really rare. So great neurologist and neuroscientist. And just has, he's so open to all plant alternatives to things. And there are no psychedelics in Magic Mind, even though the name, some people think they're That's a lot of people always asking that too. I'm like, nope. So then, okay. So obviously clearly people love it. There's 12 ingredients. You made it. You basically concocted this whole thing in your kitchen. Yeah. It's been around for how long now?

32:31Like seven years, you said? About five years. Oh, five years. I've been doing it on my own for about 12 from, it started all started with a heart condition that limited how much caffeine I could have each morning. And that's how it all started. Half a cup of coffee. Yeah. Or I was like, I have coffees in the end. I'll be all. I was drinking six to seven cups a day. And my doctor was like, with your condition, you can't have more than half a cup. And I was like, there is no effing way I can get through it down half a cup of coffee. And then he said this one thing, then we will, we can wrap up the magic mind content.

33:03and the long ass commercial. It's not even a commercial. I think people should know about this. It's that good. Yeah, and this is a great point around green tea or anybody that wants to add L-thiening to their morning ritual. This doctor, this brilliant doctor in San Francisco, he said, you know, with your condition, you really can't have more than a half a cup of coffee because it'll trigger your irregular heartbeat. And I was like, dude, there's no way I can get through a day on half a cup because like a true addict. I was my, it was the only thought from the day of hearing out a heart condition, we're going to go next door to the ER and have your heart shocked back into rhythm.

33:42Like I didn't care about any of that stuff versus him saying that. And he said, well, have you ever tried green tea? It has this compound in it called L-theanine that extends your body's absorption of caffeine over a longer period of time and dials down the stress response for how much caffeine or for the caffeine that you're consuming. And I was like, wait, this Elthea stuff, wait, there's a stress response. And I could add this Elthea stuff that he just mentioned to my morning ritual to get more out of my first cup of coffee. And that was 12 years ago. That was the beginning of my engineering brain going crazy down the rabbit hole of what else does nature and science give us to add to the morning ritual to get the most out of it.

34:19And so how many do you drink a day just out of curiosity? I drink one original and then in the afternoon, every once in a while, I'll have a magic mind free. And then the sleep one. Okay. What's in the sleep one? Don't go into the, just tell me. Okay. You have the best ingredients, my favorite ingredients in sleep are magnesium, chamomile, there's valerian root. And, and then I love lavender as well, but it's a low dose lavender. So why does it work so well? Like, why are people so crazy for it? Okay. And this gets back to your question of the 12 ingredients. And yeah. So yeah. Rodeola, So rhodiola— That's on par.

34:52On par. It's been shown in large-scale studies to be on par with low-dose pharmaceutical stimulants. Which means—I can say this, correct? You can say whatever you like. That rhodiola is supposed to be—and this is what a lot of people I know who are on Adderall or on all these ADHD medications, the natural occurring version of Adderall is supposed to be rhodiola. And so I know a lot of people— Rhodiola is so good for that. And then if you pair it with Bacopa Maneri, then that decreases impulsivity up to 40, 45%. Really? Yeah. So that you really feel locked in. Your energy is higher and you feel super locked in to the task you're working on.

35:32And no one knows these things. And in India and China, Bacopa is given to kids and adults way before they would give a pharmaceutical. That's incredible. This other one that you just mentioned, what's it called? Bacopa. Bacopa. Can you buy that on its own? You can. Tastes awful. That's where three different food science teams have helped us. Probably 700K, three years, three different food science teams to get it to taste good. Yeah, you guys spend a lot of money on the ingredient list. I mean, there's a reason why it's a very high-quality product. Yeah, I think three months ago it became the number one health shot in the country, in the entire country, in the natural grocery channel.

36:16Really? Yeah. I'm surprised. Whole Foods browsing. I feel like it's been on a rocket ship for the last couple of years. It's been fun to see it go from D to C in e-commerce. And biohackers and influencers in Silicon Valley loving it to now. Yeah, it's been cool to see it in grocery stores. Where's that? Arrow 1? Yeah, it's the number one shot at Arrow 1, by the way. I think, do not quote me on this. Ed, you can clip this out if I'm wrong. I'll look afterwards. But I believe last time I checked, it is the number two revenue beverage at all of Air One. And it is the number one shot in the natural channel, which means Whole Foods and Sprouts and Air One and natural grocers around the country.

36:58And now we just started to get into conventional grocery, which would be places like Kroger and Albertsons and Publix and, you know, the Southeast. So, yeah, now you'll start to see it in those kinds of, which is so fun. I love it. Most of my family and friends back in Texas, they're not going to Whole Foods for every grocery run. No, they're going to regular grocery stores. Right. So it's fun. That's amazing. Okay. So that's amazing. So tell me more about what your other rituals are daily to kind of keep on point. So we know that you do this. What else? Because I know you're very spiritual and you're into all sorts of like meditations and stuff.

37:35So we talked about looking. I love your shoes, by the way. Those are so cool. I've never seen shoes like that. You have it? You know what these are? They're called sneaks. Do you know Sarah Blakely who did Spanx? Yeah. So she sent me a couple. Those are so cool. For listeners that can't see, it's a high heel running shoe. They're basically a high heel running shoe. They're not the most beautiful to look at, but I will tell you, they're the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. I thought when I first saw them, I'm like, oh my God, they're so horribly ugly. And then Jesse, her husband, Itzler, who is a friend of mine, sent me a couple pairs and I've been wearing them ever since.

38:15I think they look cool. They are amazing. They are the most comfortable shoes ever. And people can make fun all they want, but listen, put your foot in there and you'll never not walk around with them again. And then do you end up talking about it a lot? All the time. Because people are like, that is so unique. Usually guys are like, oh yeah, those are so cool. Girls are like, they're so ugly. How are you wearing them? Really? Yes. Dude, Yeah. But they're selling, I think. I mean. Function over form for guys, I guess. I'm like, that looks so much more functional. It's a functional. For me, I mean, I don't know how to walk in real high heels because I'm such a, I'm like a gym bro, but with long hair, I guess.

38:52So for me, I have to, it's true. So I need to, I can't wear like stilettos. I will fall over and break my face. So I need to wear shoes that are very comfortable. So I wear these. And this is also not an ad. This is legit. This is something that I've been wearing and I really like them because I can wear them with jeans and not look like a boy. Sneaks. Dude, so I took an Enneagram test and said I was a seven, meaning an Epicurean, loves to go find things and tell the community. So I love, like just knowing someone's made a really high quality, cool looking product and now you attesting to the comfort.

39:26I'm like, I want people to know. Sneaks, sneaks, sneaks. Sneaks, sneaks, sneaks. I'm telling you, you're like the fifth guy on this podcast to mention them. They look like shoes from straight on. And then on the profile on the side, I was like, wait, what? Those are heels? I know. Very cool. So people stop making, girls stop making fun of me. They're all going to be, you're ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. Sarah Blakely's ahead of the curve. I'm just a follower apparently. But I mean, they're really great shoes. Well, you know, one of my favorite quotes I think of in entrepreneurship and in life, this is a Jeff Bezos quote.

40:02He said, innovators must be willing to be misunderstood. Yes, totally agree with that. I think about this all the time, where if you can cultivate a willingness, where it's not a bug, it's a feature if you can cultivate it. It's not like, oh, it's something you got to put up with. It's like, that's your edge. You are willing to be misunderstood. You don't really care. you can be you can go from being six months ahead to two years ahead to three years ahead and that can allow you all kinds of affordances in life you become the maven where everybody just starts you know what's next what should i be what i'm sure everybody in your network asks you it's like what do you think about this product what do you think about this supplement what do you think about this day cold plunging for women and you're like because i just didn't need to fit into i I wasn't striving to be understood.

40:49I got the answer for this three years ago. Also, it's so funny that you said that, James, because that does happen all the time. People send me stuff for my opinion or whatever. And many years ago, actually like 10 years ago, maybe eight, I was actually, was it like the LA Times or some magazine put me as in the top 10 tastemakers in the health and wellness space? Because I created this whole thing called No Gym Required before No Gym Required became a thing. I created weighted shoes before like, wait, you know what I mean? Like I was always doing these things, but I was always like, like, like five years before it became popular.

41:28And then it kind of exploded onto the scene. You know what I mean? So people who know me know it's like, kind of like, yeah, like, and people laugh at me in the interim. They're like, oh my gosh, what is she doing? That's what she's talking about. Like I was doing fitness stuff way before fitness and wellness and longevity became popular, you know? Have you started your own company? Yeah, I had. I started two. I had a, I had a shoe. My first one was a weighted shoe. That was basically the weight was like base. The, the sole was like a weight. So you can interchange. You can take out the weight and have a regular sole or have the weight.

42:04And the weight was evenly distributed. So it'd be easier on your knees and your ankles. and it was like, I sold, I don't know, like 100 ,000 pairs of these shoes on my own. What happened? Where did it go? So what happened was, oh my God, this is a podcast on its own. I got acquired by a big company. So what happened, I sold so many shoes on my own. I factored the money. I didn't raise any money. So I was like paying a ton of interest on the money and the shoes were coming from Korea and they were heavy. So because of that, like it was costing me a lot. But all these, like the top five, because in the business of shoes, there's not many, there's Reebok, Nike, you know, people were like, oh my God, how is this like girl selling all these shoes without a big$200 million a year marketing budget without all this?

42:53But I was giving out these shoes to every celebrity and they were wearing them around. And at the time, like those magazines, like, you know, Us Weekly and Life and Style were really popular. So everyone was capturing these shoes in these magazines. So like all these companies were going to incubate me. Do you wear them out and about and people wouldn't know that they have weights? I would wear them out and about. Like also like, yeah, like they were cute. Oh, that's awesome. But they would be in the shoes so you can't see it because ankle weights are really bad on your joints. And they look weird to where it's like you look like a prisoner.

43:21I look like it was, they were heavy, but they were cool looking. Yeah. And so like everyone was wearing them. Like Jennifer Gardner was wearing them. Jennifer Aniston, whoever, like everybody. And so people are like, who the hell is this chick? And so I was going to be, I was getting offers to be incubated by all of these companies. And then I ended up going with this second tier company because I really liked the man who owned it. And this guy, this company, owned a bunch of these tier two, tier three shoes that you'd find at TJ Maxx. It wasn't like a Reebok or a Nike. And I got the deal with him.

43:53And then once I did the deal with him, he wanted out of the deal. And he basically kind of screwed me. And so I, it was like, and the whole deal last took so long that like by the time I was like legally okay, I already lost momentum on the shoes for so long. And it's still one of those like bees in my bonnet. Like I still think about that. Let's bring them back. I want to, listen, I just had this conversation two weeks ago because I was like 10 years ahead of my time. And those shoes today in the wellness space would kill. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to show you a pair. that's the first thing because that one to this day i should have made i i was young and and naive i trusted this dude i tell young founders all the time if first time founders you might be 55 first time get your first startup out of the way it's a burner brand your first pancake is the messiest get it out of the way if you're successful great otherwise you've got a cheap mba oh you've no idea i learned so much i also have an mba but i learned so much but the truth of the matter is Like if you get into business with someone who wants to screw you, who has more power, money, money and power, it's really hard when you're like this young girl.

45:02Choosing your partners. Choosing your partner. That's the first lesson. So for him. In life. In everything in life. The second business I did, the second company was sold, got acquired by Weight Watchers. So I developed a fitness app. Wait, how has this not come up in our conversations before? But I don't talk about it. Because I, when I, with this podcast, I talk about the person who's here. I don't talk about myself. and weirdly enough, as extroverted as I am, I don't really talk about myself in that way. Like people always laugh at me, like my friends and family, like I'm super like low key and stuff like that.

45:34But people who know, know, there are people who only know me as the entrepreneur. There are people who only know me as a fitness person who like does squats and lunges on Instagram. People who only know me as like the bigger, better, bolder person who does the TED talks. I'm very segmented. I'm very, yeah, I'm similar in that, and I think that all of those different beautiful songs is made of three or four chords. And I think they'll come together so beautifully over time to where you're like, oh, that's why it just felt destined that I would invest in these different areas that come together.

46:10Because they certainly are coming together. But also add that I'm wired very similarly from building companies to investing in companies to making a lot of music, make a lot of music just for fun. I love that. And magic. Yep. And I love magic. As I was telling my wife two nights ago, I was like, yeah, I stopped doing magic because my friends made fun of me in eighth grade. But I'm going to start bringing that back. You should. Yeah, especially the little kids. They love it. You should bring it back. And by the way, that's the willingness to be misunderstood. That was the beginning of me being like, oh, I want to be understood.

46:46So I'm going to get rid of these things that I naturally love. But everybody listening, if you can lean into things that you loved when you're six, seven, eight years old, you will uniquely be preternaturally wired for that thing. Maybe it took 30 years off, but finding a rediscovery of that, playing music was one of those things. There was no commercial reason. It was just, if I do this, you know, told me this, that got me thinking in this direction. It was two experiences. One, I saw our six-month-old daughter dancing to music. She didn't even understand what music was. Six months old. Her face, it would, her face didn't even, there was no smile.

47:24She would hear music and within half a second, her body would start moving. She was moving. But her first daughter didn't have that response. And I was like, I'm wired that I always start tapping on everything. And I've kind of been like repressing music. Yeah. And when I told my dad I was making more music lately, he goes, oh, this is his response. maybe two years ago, he goes, hmm, does that make any money? And I was like, oh, God bless you. That's been the influence in my life. Totally. For different pursuits. Like it doesn't make money, so I shouldn't do it. But man, Jen, when I started to make more music and when I leaned back into making music, all of these other things started to flourish because one, 70 % of our brain is wired for movement.

48:07So you're lighting up the idea that you're going to sit at your desk in front of a computer screen and become creative and find creative solutions for things is so laughable when you look at the science. That you want to be walking around the proverbial, like throwing the ball against the wall. That's way better. Go out and play basketball, not because you're going to play basketball, but the randomness of where the ball is going to go, where you're going to have to dribble it around is so great for lighting up the brain or music. And Einstein was actually like famous for leaving his office, playing a couple notes to the piano or on his violin, going back with some insight.

48:44Also, think about it. People who are not talented like that, even just going for a walk, lights up your brain. The cognitive power that you get just from moving your body in a walk. Like, again, you get way better ideas. That's probably why you get great ideas at the gym. I do. That's like, I, to me, I think there's a lack of the ability of people just to be with themselves and their thoughts because that's where like brilliance happens or that's where like ideas happen to me. You know what I mean? I really believe that's like a very important piece of it.

49:18I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their tri-light panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for.

50:00I personally use Therasage Trilite everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code BEBOLD for 15 % off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to Therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code BEBOLD for 15 % off any of their products.

50:40Also, I wanted to say something, I think you said something that was very true, which is being okay with being misunderstood. The other thing that I think is really valuable is that being under, I think being underestimated is also very valuable. Tell me more. Because people don't even know what they're getting. Well, because you were saying to me earlier about like this whole, when I was in the bathroom, I was just thinking about this. Some of my secret powers have been being misunderstood, right? Because like people don't really know where to fit you, right? Like you can't pigeonhole me. I'm a podcaster, but I'm also an investor.

51:18I'm a fitness person, but I'm also had two successful exits. I'm a this person, but, and people don't know. So it's like constantly this ball. They're like, what do you do? I don't know who you are. What do you do? I hear that all the time. But that ability to be underestimated all the time, right? And then people get to know me in one lane and they're like, holy shit, how do you know all that? Or how do you do this? And that underestimation or being underestimated has served me so well in life because you shock and awe and surprise people constantly. And they don't see you coming. Well, you know, what's so great is that I think it's in building any identity, you can catalyze an identity by focusing on something early.

51:59You can catalyze an identity by getting tattoos, dying your hair purple. You can do expedient things to catalyze an identity. And it doesn't usually last that long. Like you could be the eccentric friend that has purple hair and a face tattoo. And it's like, yeah, you know, Christine's really like, you know, really creative. And then they look at the output and they're like, I don't know. And not very reliable. And your identity, you can really undo your identity on the other side of whatever shortcut you took. But the long-term investment into a unique singular identity, then it's like, and this is how I already talk about you with, with other people that where we're mutual friends.

52:42I'm like, we already know it's Jen Cohen. Like there's no other way of describing Janice, Jen Cohen. That is the, that's the paydirt. Like that is, that is the golden territory to where it's like, oh, you don't know, oh, you just, I don't even, I'm not even gonna try to explain it. Go look her up and you need to know her. And I would hope that for my daughters, I would hope that for the founders that I work with, where if it's just like, he's the founder of Instacart. I know that he also feels like that's limited identification. Maybe he did that for 10 years. A friend of mine, Corvus and Max, the two founders of Instacart.

53:20I know damn well that that would suck if seven years later, that's just how they're described. That's how they're known. 15 years later, it's how they're known. But that might be the way that they're known because it was so burning hot so quickly early in their life. But I think if you invest in these other areas, like the last area that I am somewhat followed for and known for is on philosophy. In Venice, every month, every first Friday, do this thing called Philosophy Fridays. And it's this thing that started in our backyard with five people, and now it's 200 people, and it's 110 people that meet up every first Friday because the room capacity is 110 people, standing room only, and it's around the 5 ,000-year-old philosophy of Vedanta comes from India, but it's really a perfect container for any philosophy.

54:13You could bring up Socrates, you could bring up St. Augustine. It's the perfect container for anything philosophical. Kant, you could bring up Hegel, Nietzsche, and anyone and everything in between because this is a great little container for, like we were talking about before, roots instead of the fruits. The stuff that I think about, you asked about my morning routine, it starts by waking up at 4.30 and it's an hour and a half of philosophy and spiritual just stillness. So it's about a 45 minute lecture of some kind or reading. and then it's 45 minutes of journaling, reflecting this ancient, it's all in terms of continuous studies, oldest philosophy on the planet.

54:55It's called Advaita Vedanta. And I have a daily podcast on this that like 11 people listen to, but I'm like, man, no one is, people would really benefit from an accessible approach to this very ancient cryptic philosophy. And it's the source of nearly all Eastern philosophy. Buddhism comes from, as it's described, the goes, Buddhism is Hinduism made for export as it leaves India and enters China. You have Zen as a derivation as it leaves China and enters Japan. But if you follow it all back, they all go back to these four philosophical textbooks called the Vedas that a thousand years later, Hinduism and all the rituals and things get built on top of it, really kind of distractingly get built on top of it.

55:36Hence, Buddhism strips a lot of that away to get back to this simple philosophy. But this philosophy, these philosophical principles, things like one principle is love is seeing no otherness in the world. Another one is wisdom is the capacity to see the end in the beginning. Another, which I've never heard definitions on these things. Another is reflection is a hundred thousand times more powerful than listening. The reason I mentioned that one is not only is that morning ritual, just it's all reflection time. I'm not reading anything new. There's a three-year course on this philosophy that I've done now.

56:14I've done it four times on the fifth cycle through. It's nothing new. It's just reflecting on these things because, like I mentioned, one of the principles is reflection is a hundred thousand times more powerful than listening. If there is a listener to this episode, this conversation that got anything that resonated with them out of the conversation. If you don't reflect on it, maybe it was the Jeff Bezos quote of innovators must be willing to be misunderstood. If you hear that and you're like driving your car, like that was really cool. And maybe you tell a significant other spouse that night over dinner, this cool phrase, but you never think about it again.

56:48If you're not spending seven, 10, 14 days, just reflecting on that for five, 10, 15 minutes with your morning coffee, with your magic mind for 10, 15 minutes before you get started with your day, it is like it never even happened. Because you know this, when you click on something so inspiring on Instagram, you like it, maybe you even send it to a friend. But if you don't reflect on it, two days later, it's like it's in one ear, out the other, it's like it never happened. It's like it never happened. The reflection in this philosophy so brilliantly and precisely, the words around this philosophy, they're so precise, but it so precisely enforces this, reinforces this beautiful notion that reflection isn't just like twice as powerful.

57:36It's a hundred thousand times more powerful than listening or reading. So I, every morning, 90 minutes of just reflecting on these things that now it's a decade into this philosophical pursuit, these studies, but that will serve the conversation that I'm having, like the conversation, what I'm coming to with this, the investor meeting or a podcast conversation is seeing no otherness in the world. What is Jen interested in? What would make this a fun conversation for listeners? That kind of, even asking Ed during the quick bathroom break, what are the things that, what are the things that we said that were interesting to you?

58:16And that's, so ingrained in how I operate. So someone might see multiple nine-figure businesses. By the way, the first one didn't stay there. It was valued at$400 million before a fire sale to Airbnb and total PhD and triple PhD and what not to do. But there was so much reflection on what not to do, what mistakes did I make? So much reflection on that, that then it allows for this beautiful clarity to where magic mind has been like a five-year journey where every night I'm going to bed just being like, how did this all happen? I've never gone to bed feeling like stressed about it. Not a single time.

58:56No, not a single night. I've never had, I've had maybe stressful hour of how do we figure this out? A stressful three hours of like, oh my God, our financial model is wrong. We're going to run out of money and have to solve for that in like three days, but there was like two hours and then it was clarity. Literally go for a walk. And then I'm like, oh, we could, well, this investor loves us. This customer loves us so much. He's been a subscriber for three years and he loves investing in companies. Maybe he would want to invest. Maybe she would want to invest. And yeah, it's maybe max three hours of stress, but I've never had a stressful day.

59:34Never woken up in the middle of the night thinking about some existential thing or some made up pretend thing. Oh, you're lucky. And I, my previous lives in my 20s, it was failure after failure after failure. And every night stress waking up in the middle of the night about this, that, or the other kind of stress. Well, how did it tilt? Like you just said it yourself. It was evaluated at$400 million and then it was a fire sale at the Airbnb. What the hell went wrong? Oh my God. Besides everything. What is, part two of the episode is. I know, right? It's kind of like when you get a PhD, D, asking somebody who gets a PhD, what'd you learn?

1:00:09I know. So it was so many things, but I'd say the number one thing that I crystallized it down to where it's helpful for, there are a lot of things I learned where I utilize it every day and utilize that reflective learning for anything, even how I run a meeting or how I elicit feedback from somebody. Like I'll ask people, what is your brutal, honest feedback on that product? That is a total learning where I was so scared of the truth. My twenties, I never asked people, I wouldn't, and when I do, what do you think? But I'd be like, how do I couch this into something that's going to be pleasant to hear?

1:00:46Like non-confrontational. Yeah, exactly. Where it's like, no, gin, be as brutal as, as you possibly can, because it doesn't help the company if, and then for two years, it was iterating on the product before we ever launched magic mind. And it was two years of me wanting that versus my twenties was something like tilt, a payment platform that we're in through our skin of our teeth. We were able to sell to Airbnb, but certainly not at the heights of our valuation that we achieved. How much did you sell it for? Are you allowed to say? It was about, uh, the cash in stock is about 55 million, 55 million, but we had raised our previous round of funding at 385.

1:01:21You guys raised$385 million. No, we raised a total of 70 at the last valuation. So you raised 70 million. Yeah. We raised 70 and sold for 55. which ain't a good, that ain't a good equation. No, it is not that good. So do your investors talk to you still? Every meaningful investor has invested in me multiple times. In fact, so I was thinking about this on a run yesterday. Justin Kahn, the co-founder of Twitch, I'm sure you've seen this in your entrepreneurial journey too. You think they won't talk to you. I thought I was like, I'm a failure. Yeah, I was teasing you. No, but I bet you've seen this.

1:02:00You're like the best investors. they're like you just got a phd on what not to do i want to invest in you again and again justin con the co-founder of twitch he's invested me four times mike maples maybe the og seed investor of all time the best seed investor the first investor in twitter and lyft and a bunch of companies he's invested me four times because it's you that people invest in the person so many variables make a company break right make or break it like it could have like you said it was like on the skin of your teeth, you sold it for 55. But like the line between X, like, like excellence and just like unicorn to like a complete failure is like this, this thin, you know what I mean?

1:02:42Crazy, crazy margin. Airbnb had to launch three times and still had like the year that they were going to go public. And where I was like, all the stock is going to finally be worth it 10 years to doing things. And the year they go public, the first global pandemic in 100 years that shuts down travel, the year that they're going public, and I'm like, why does everything I work on just fail? It's just like once in 100 years, the biggest travel company is going public, and then this happens. Yeah. And then luckily, they ended up having one of the best IPOs of all time. But that, and it's every company has these near-death experiences.

1:03:22Facebook, Uber famously just dragged in the mud for three years. Uber, like that. You didn't think they were going to survive? They came back like they came back on a rocket ship. Right. Because they're a CEO. He's a really good CEO, right? Yeah, Dora. Dora, did he really kind of take that company? He made some amazing moves. And honestly, just a lot of these companies, Apple famously almost died a couple times when Steve was there. Multiple times, for sure. When he came back, they had six weeks of cash when he came back. Tesla famously almost at death's door. And, and I, you know, that's another learning that I had was I just was so scared of it failing that I thought, well, it's going in the wrong direction.

1:04:04We should find a place that we should sell not realizing no, every company, if you're lucky, you get a third act where up to the right, then it comes down. And then the third act, you rise again, and like a Phoenix, and then you're unstoppable. And until the, so that I was mentioning that there's so many things that I use each day, like how I elicit product feedback. But the thing that I tell early, maybe the first or second time founder, the thing that I say most often is, wait until your product is loved before you try to scale out your business. an obsessively, myopically tunnel vision focus on getting to that point and nothing else.

1:04:49With Tilt, it was a payments technology that was lukewarm light. People kind of liked it. It was good. But as soon as they liked doing it as free, as soon as we tried to charge for it, it's kind of like Venmo. As soon as you try to charge for it, people are like, well, PayPal's free or Zelle's free. People bounce and you could have a good product, but a terrible business. And we had a good product, but it wasn't loved enough to where anytime we tried to charge people 2%, 5%, they would bounce. And we realized way too late, we're scaling a product that people like, lukewarm like, but they don't love.

1:05:21Like your shoes. How do you try to sell shoes where it's kind of a derivation of what's out there? People don't really love them. You're such a charismatic, persuasive person. You could force 10 ,000 pairs to be sold, but you get to 32 ,000 and you're like, this is just getting harder and harder. And it's because the product isn't loved yet. And with Magic Mind, I literally was like, I will put my own capital into this. And I want to be told in the first two years that people don't want this because these journeys are so brutal that I want to find out in two years and not six or seven, like I'd found out before that people don't want this so that I can go on to the next thing.

1:06:01Luckily, that, by the way, is another really good piece of advice. You've given a couple of really good, like good solid, like more than a couple, like probably four or five solid gems here. That's another one, which is if a product's just liked, it doesn't have the threshold to make it. The gravity that pulls it. The gravity. Yeah. It has to be loved. You're a hundred percent right. And this does. So that's interesting. You're right. Cause tilt like, yeah, whatever. They liked it. It's kind of like Venmo, but it's also, you can do it with 12 people, it was, it was a real learning of do not rest on your superpowers.

1:06:35Reserve those superpowers. So true. How do you get a product to be massively loved? Because like, that's okay. Super simple. Time, time and a obsession with the truth, brutal, honest feedback from people. First time founders, there's we, we, myself included my twenties. I just wanted to be, not only did I think it was like, this is a shortcut to ego engineering. This is a shortcut to the career that I really want. This is a shortcut to financial milestones. Yeah. And, and it was like, I'm doing this selfishly because I would have some cool articulated mission, but it was really just selfish on three different channels.

1:07:17And I, and I was so, I was so impatient to get there on those that I was like, I'm going to brute force this, like my, One of my superpowers was being persuasive or being really persistent. And with Magic Mind, it was a beautiful thing to reserve those cards and say, yeah, I have these cards, but I only want to apply them. It's like a surfer. You could surf multiple waves. Wait for the wave of the day. Wait for, and surf some great waves leading up to that. That's how you find the wave of the day is you surf a few. but wave selection, that is an art form all in its own, whether you're a surfer or whether you're an entrepreneur where you could do anything.

1:08:01We can't do everything. And if you are really good at, let's say, three paddles popping up on a wave and you can ride it for 300 yards, 300 meters, this set's coming. Choose the best wave, obviously. But if you're so eager to just prove that you could ride a wave, then the other people are looking, they doubt you and you're gonna prove it to them. You're gonna jump on a shit wave If you get detonated and not only not get the validation, but also you're going to be hesitant to ride the next set that's coming. Great analogy. And I think if you can have time, recognize that so much of it is, like you said, you can have the same founder that chooses the wrong wave in a dog market.

1:08:39And that market is going to destroy them. Same founder that waits for the right wave. maybe is really patient with magic when I was two years of like, universe, show me that you don't want this to exist because the last go around was so fricking painful, nearly killed me. I want to be shown early. This is a bad wave. And luckily that patience allowed us to iterate. I was iterating on the product to make it better and better and better before it even had like a name to it. I just called James's magic potion. James magic potion. James's magic potion. Yeah. little crappy name. That sounds like a horrible name.

1:09:17That's brutal honesty. Yeah. And Jen, you know what was funny is I was like, this tastes awful, doesn't have a name. And I'm shipping people these little bottles with powder that you have to add your own water to. And I was like, luckily with investing or someone that has other jobs, if you have another day job, then you don't have this undue, unnecessary financial pressure. What was so fun about those two years, or what was helpful about it, I should say, is I was like, if people want this when it has a dumb name, basically no name, tastes awful, and they've got to add the water themselves, that's when I'll know that I have something that's worth it.

1:09:59And I say this in product building to founders all the time, if they'll buy it when it's ugly, they will pay a shit ton when it's pretty. Wow. So that's what you did. And that's exactly what we did for, it's what I was doing out of my kitchen for two years. And so you're constantly iterating the product. So it was William's job to like run the operations? Yeah. So like once I knew we had something, I was like, I got to get a co-founder that's really great on all the things I'm not great at. And this is part of the PhD too, of my 20s, triple PhD, because there's three failures at my 20s, just failure to failure.

1:10:34How old are you now? At this point, I was 32. Okay. How old are you now though? 40? Just turned 40. So I guess it was 32. Seven and a half years ago was the beginning of the two-year journey. Is there something here? And we launched about five and a half years ago. And so I brought him on about five years ago. And I was like, all right, I know what I'm great at, which is I know this world of products like the back of my hand. I know e-commerce like the back of my hand and brand building. But I do not know supply chain management, logistics of these things, cash flow. you mentioned with the shoes being so expensive coming from Korea.

1:11:11It's a whole art form in its own right of cash flow management. I was crushed. Yeah. And then retail, I know nothing about expanding into grocery and retail. And he knew all there was is to know about that with brands that he had built before. He's a brilliant Princeton grad and just like one of my smartest friends. He was building a brand called Brahmi. If you've ever seen Brahmi in Air One, it's a protein pasta. Yeah, I have seen it. He was a co-founder of Brahmi. Yeah, co-founder of Brahmi and was on the operations side. So he just knew his superpower is all of these things that managing a retail sales team, looking at a spreadsheet for financial modeling.

1:11:47He understands this all really well. It is a really powerful one plus one equals three. But this gets to also one of the PhDs is knowing what you're not good at, knowing what you're good at, and then also knowing what makes a great partner, what makes a bad partner. The only way to learn these things, it's like surfing. I can't tell you, you can't read a book and know how to do these things. That's why I tell everybody, get your first business. If you have inclinations, want to start something, get it out of the way. Which was more valuable for you, the businesses you started or the MBA you got?

1:12:16The MBA you got, for sure. Really? Tell me more. Oh, the MBA I got from school? No. Yeah, which was more valuable? Okay, this proves you have no clue who I am. I just did an entire TED Talk called... I'm not on socials. No, no, no. My assistant does nearly all of my social media. By the way, it hasn't been released yet, technically. But I just did a whole TED Talk on why your barbell is more important than your MBA. Because I have both. And I learned almost nothing from my MBA. I mean, except like how to memorize and to, you know, spend a lot of the amount of money it costs to get the MBA. But everything I've learned that has been valuable to me has been way more valuable in being like practical experience.

1:13:00And doing it, right. And fitness stuff. Like fitness has actually taught me way more, gave me, gave me the best MBA I could have ever had because it taught me discipline. It taught me, it taught me a ton of things, but like patience, discipline, hard work, perseverance, persistence, doing something even when you don't want to over and over and over and over and over again. To me, that's the best, best training ground. So like I learned more on the, on the, like at the squat rack than I did in my, in my MBA program. And I tell everybody that and people like a lot of people like poo poo me who have like Princeton degrees and Harvard degrees.

1:13:37Honest to God, does it teach you? Does it give you some type of status? Yeah, it can give you some status to get you in the door, but it will not make you successful. It will not teach you the fundamentals and the foundation of what real success is in life. I don't think so. I, it's, you know, we can, we mentioned that the Warren Buffett quote before on better business person makes them a better investor, being an investor makes them a better business person. And it actually ties closely to his longtime partner, Charlie Munger, who is one of the best, both of them, two best investors of all time.

1:14:16And they're talking about having multiple perspectives and multiple pursuits and how they help each other. Charlie Munger had his own version of this where he said, everybody should have a cross lattice work of mental models, that you should take how you play bridge or poker into how you run a business, how you run a business into how you parent your children, how you parent your children into how you, maybe it's play tennis on the weekends, but the cross lattice work is so different than our academic notion of mastery where we think it's go deep into just playing the piano 24 7 for 30 years and then you'll be a uh an amazing aficionado or whatever yeah and and it's like well that's the most boring person at the freaking dinner party because they can't apply it elsewhere they make for great employees they make for great uh playing and replaying but they're not a chopin they're not Um, Isaac Newton, Isaac Newton, perfect example study.

1:15:20We know him for physics, maybe the greatest scientific mind of all time. He spent a third of his time on theology, trying to prove that God exists. A third of his time on alchemy, trying to turn lead into gold. And a third of his time in math and physics. There's no like removing those other two. They all fed into each other in the same way that, yeah, working out. I, when I'm, when you, when you're saying that, I think about me playing music and writing a song. That is one of the biggest, I said one of the biggest things that I'm doing that then informs how we're working on the, let's say, Sleep 2.0 launch is it's a story arc and every song is a story.

1:16:00And if you, I don't know, mismanage that story for a song and the different characters of instruments that come in, you're going to mismanage the listener's perception in the same way you mismanage a press release around a new product. It's interesting you say that. I think fitness personally is like a microcosm of life. I really do. And I, and I use it as that. So like people think when like I talk about fitness being so important, they think because it's for your abs and for your glutes and for, I think the fitness element for me anyway, and what I've seen from a lot of people is that it's the mental that it builds.

1:16:32It builds, it makes you more mentally strong. It shows you that you can kind of go beyond your limit and surpass your limit and with your goals. And I think that like, if you can take that same, those same, those, those same principles and apply it to everything in life that you want to be good at, you will thrive. And so to me, that's why fitness has been such an important piece of my life and why I tell people early on, like young people who, who contact me, if you want to be successful, start working out now, start exercising right now. Amen. I'd say, uh, I think about in the same way I think about these kinds of things with surfing, where it is such a beautiful, I mean, the truth rhymes everywhere.

1:17:17You see it everywhere. If it's the truth, it's going to show up everywhere. And it rhymes in the way that you learn to surf. It's going to rhyme in the way that you run a meeting. It's going to rhyme in the way that you build a company or build a relationship. Talk about choosing the right waves. The relationships you're building, like send a great human into a really toxic relationship. They're not going to come out too great on the other side. Totally true. But if they chose a different wave, a different partner, a different friend, a different business partner, then it can be the most beautiful ride of their lives.

1:17:51And it's a true. And I, with the, the, the working out and the fitness approach of fitness, you know, one of the things that, uh, that I think about so often, And this comes from Tim Ferriss, where he said, just one pushup. He said this randomly in a podcast episode where he's like, if you are wondering where to start, right before bed, right when you wake up, right after lunch, close the office door, right when you get home from work, just do one pushup. And that was an entry point into now everything that I'm doing and working out. started with, God, that's such an easy entry point. Because once you get down on the ground and do one, you're like, I'm going to do 10.

1:18:36That's why it's a gateway drug for everything. The hardest thing is the beginning, is the start, right? So a good mind trick that I tell people all the time is you don't like to work up. That's okay. Do one minute. Go outside and jump around for one minute. Just jump. Yeah. You know, or just walk around your block once. Right. Or do one squat. I don't say one push-up. I say one squat because squatting can be easier. The point is, once you start, then chances are you're going to keep on going. You know, once around the block will turn into like two or three. Totally. You know what I mean? Because it's about getting your shoes on and starting the process.

1:19:11The procrastination is what stops the start, you know? Totally. Once you're in there, you're like, well, I'm already here. I'm on the floor anyway. I might as well do another five push-ups. And you're not working against your other goals. No. It's so beautifully harmonious when you recognize your fitness is going to feed your other goals, like you getting the best ideas you get when you're at the gym or move it. 70 % of your brain's wired for movement. Get out and move. That'll help you. Not only will it help you problem solve the thing that you're working on, but so beautifully might help you avoid the mistake that you're this close from making with some suboptimal decision.

1:19:46It also makes you so much more resilient. There's been a study that shows that people who are like fit or like work out regularly, they are much better at like dealing with struggle and with of course like uh like setbacks and all those things like they're able to bounce back is it like 80 quicker than people who are more sedentary because they've they've they've primed their brain pathways yeah go further go further they've primed their brain for like for like for failure because every day you're going in the gym and you're the The purpose of the gym is to like get to failure, right? So that is like you're already primed for that feeling.

1:20:27So when you can take that and transfer it into anything else in life that may not go your way, you can bounce back much quicker. Yeah, there's a great investor that he was a board observer for our previous company, Mark Andreessen. And one of the conversations we had one time was around this idea of to avoid terminal failure. Like, let's say, losing and being the last on the PGA Tour. To avoid being last on the PGA Tour, you want to consume like crazy non-terminal failure. You want to go and hit as many balls as you can. You want to miss the cup over and over again from 5, 10, 15, 25 feet. You want to hit that failure point at the gym as often as possible.

1:21:15It's not about avoiding failure at all. If anything, it's the exact opposite of exactly what you're saying. It is not the exact opposite of what you're saying, but it's the exact opposite of avoiding failure. It's running towards failure so frequently in the non-terminal sense where it's like, who cares if you miss a three-pointer in practice? If you miss the free throws in practice, eat that up like a bit of poison to where you're completely immune to it. Immune to failure. To failure. By the time you get to the free throw line with 11 seconds left in the fourth game of the game seven finals, you're like, dude, I'm not only I know I'm going to make these, but I'm immune to.

1:21:54Desensitize if you don't make it. Exactly. Desensitize to it. And getting to that place where you are avoiding terminal failure. Paradoxically, it's through chewing it up every day at every chance you can. And the non-terminal sense. You know, it's really, well, I'll tell you, yeah, my first TED Talk was on this idea. It was called a 10%. I've seen that. I've seen your TED Talks, but I was maybe, I saw one maybe two years ago. Was that on parents and resilience for kids? I didn't reflect on it. So I, it was a new idea. I should have, I should have reflected more on it, but it was, it was beautifully articulate.

1:22:29But I don't remember. I just know the setting. I know the setting. The first one went crazy viral and it was about this idea of asking for what you want in life. Yes, I do remember this one. Yes. And so, and the whole idea and basically being bold and going out loud. Yeah. And like the 10 % target is based around this, which is the idea that you become immune to failure because if you make 10, my whole thing is 10 % target because you make 10 attempts at whatever you want most in life. and either two things happen. Either you get that thing or another opportunity presents itself that you didn't know existed because you went and did it over and over and over again.

1:23:06But the secondary thing that happens is you become immune to the feeling of failure because now you're used to it. You're doing it so much. I mean, it's a perfect example was I wanted to know, and I still do all the time, people's brutal, honest feedback on anything I'm creating as soon and as early as possible and as frequently as possible because that's the way to avoid. Well, I know the alternative in my 20s. Avoiding that leads to terminal failure and a whole lot more pain. A hundred percent. My gosh, this has been a really good podcast. Thank you, Jen. Thank you for the conversation. No, this was really good.

1:23:40Well, you're a great host. Thank you. You're a great guest. You actually gave some, I shouldn't sound surprised. I'm not surprised. You have some very valuable information for people on every level. You gave some really great wisdom, great gems. I'm really happy that you came on. Well, for a simple Texan with a little drink company, I aim to serve, especially on a podcast. You serve beautifully. Well, you're a great host, and you are interested in these topics in a different gear because you apply them instead of just a podcast host that's kind of a journalist that doesn't really know where they apply.

1:24:17So thank you for being such a great share of this wisdom. No, no. I really have loved this conversation. You were such a good, thank you, James. We have to do this again. Let's do it. We'll do it on your podcast. Whenever, whenever you want. That's right. Yeah. If people want to find out on anything of my projects from Magic Mind to the philosophy podcast, just James J. Beshara on Instagram is the best, best place for all of it. And try a Magic Mind. You guys will not be disappointed, as you know. We've worked hard to make sure that people get to say that all the time. Absolutely. Thank you. Bye-bye.