Nvidia CEO's urinal story, and Why people hate course creators

0:00Have you heard of the NVIDIA CEO urinal story? I have not. Okay. So the urinal meme is where one guy's peeing and there's like 20 urinals and then it's like empty, right? And then another guy walks in and he goes all the way to stand next to the other guy to pee next to him and starts talking to him. Now here's what happened. Here's a guy working at NVIDIA, literally the same scene. He's like peeing, minding his own business. And then Jensen Huang walks in, right? Jensen Huang walks in and he doesn't just pee in another random urinal. He goes all the way to stand next to the guy that's peeing and starts peeing next to him.

0:32And then as he's peeing, he stands over and he's like, so how's it going? And then the other guy's like, uh, it's going all right. And then Jensen's like, he side eyes him. He's like, and then the other guy's like, starts panicking. He's like, oh, well, you know, he starts telling him everything he does. He's like, yeah, you know, I started selling my products to, you know, other vendors. I'm teaching them. I'm educating them how to use the products, blah, blah, blah. And then Jensen like looks back at the wall and he like pulls up his, like, basically he finishes peeing, like, you know, zips off his pants and all that and just walks away.

1:01Right. he's satisfied. So that is the intensity of NVIDIA. Like, you want to talk about Elon saying, what did you get done this week, right, with Twitter? It's the same deal with Jensen. That's the level of intensity that I guess he has. I don't know if you need to be a urinal CEO, but that's a great story. So he's straight up asking his coworker, while he's pissing, how things are going and what are you doing? Well, it's just how things are going. And if you answer in a poor way, then he looks at you all weird. And then you have to tell him basically everything you're doing. And then he gets a satisfying answer and he leaves.

1:39So the guy's first response, based on what you said, he wasn't satisfied. Hence, he gave him the look. So then the guy knew he had a problem. Because the thing, also, keep in mind, I don't like talking to someone in the restroom. This guy doesn't like talking to someone in the restroom. And he shared this story later. And he's just like, that's the kind of person he is. And well, it's no surprise why they're so successful. I did not know it was that intense and I'm assuming based on what you're saying he's like this all the time not just in the restroom I'm sure he's like that all the time I mean you know who's kind of like that too you're not exactly a urinal founder but you are someone that checks in quite a bit yeah not when people are peeing no but you do check in quite a bit you also have to be a little unreasonable sometimes with your check-ins you're not annoying about it but I would say observing you as a friend I think sometimes you might overcheck it a little too much.

2:32It depends which department. Sales will definitely say. Finance, sales, management, different leaders, even though they don't report under me, I'll talk to them and I'll be like, so how's it going? Do you think you can clean things up? Yeah, I'm pretty confident. Pretty confident or confident? No, I'm confident. How are you actually going to achieve the result? You're saying we have too much SMB and too much churn. So how are you going to do this? well i'm gonna hire two sales people already did they're gonna start february but wait we get all least percentage wise call it six seven percent in that region or enterprise leads how are they gonna do it oh they're gonna leverage our contacts their contacts okay they're gonna leverage have you actually worked with them what's a sales cycle like okay so then why don't you just scale up to six or eight if you know that they're gonna work and you're already telling me that they've done it oh i want to test out them before i just go and onboard in case it doesn't work out but you said you work with them and it's going to work out.

3:28So what's wrong here? And then I keep going and then until I'm satisfied, I pretty much lay off. And then I usually call in a few days later. And ask them the same question. You call it a day later. You call it a day later sometimes. Just see if they change a story. And I'm like, okay, so how do we get the results faster and why aren't we getting the revenue now? But it works. It legit works. I think if there's anything that we've learned from this is that when you're running a company, there has to be a pusher in the company. And usually it's one of the co-founders. If not both. Yeah, I push a lot.

3:59You know, I don't think I'm the urinal type of founder, but I definitely probably over push. Yep. So, okay. We have one over here. I mean, okay. So my title was, this is why people hate course creators, but yours was on, um, no matter how clever you're more. Wait, which one is it from your side? Mine is your business is what you sell, not what you claim to be. Okay. Well, I like my title more. Why do people hate course creators, Neil? People hate course creators because they claim they have all these businesses and the success in the background and they made so much money from all these other things.

4:29But when you look at everything they do, they just sell courses. Yeah. And so I think there's nothing wrong with courses. I think what is wrong is when you make these outsized claims and the reality is when you start to peel the onion, there isn't much there. Right. And so I mentioned to you, we're not going to name names here, but you know, for example, if, um, there's a, there's a multi-billion dollar company out there, right? And I think, you know, if you're, no, I think that reveals people. So I'm not going to reveal anything. No, I got a great example. Okay, go for it. There was this social channel where this guy goes, I'm not going to mention the name of the guy, but he asked people how much money they make.

5:06So this guy goes on social media. He says he made, you know, best year he made$100 million. Oh, yes. Or more than$100 million. No comment. Okay. and then i know the guys past companies and i know there's no way they sold for that much and i know what they did and then you look at their youtube channel and just like okay you're telling me you deal with founders of tech companies but yet everything you're doing is selling courses and if you look at all your content it's all motivational you may be getting millions of views a month yeah it's all motivational you may have pictures on your social media of you going into a jet dude your last startups did not do well you made all your money selling courses and to be clear on this i actually have no issue i like the person i've hung out with them and done multiple dinners i consider them a colleague not a colleague i call i consider my acquaintance uh called they don't work with me at all and the reason i point this out is like they're chill i can hang out with them and drink a beer even though i don't drink um but the issue that you end up having is like cool, you provide courses or mastermind or mentorship and people get value from that.

6:18That's what you are. Don't tell people you make a hundred million dollars or you've made more than a hundred million dollars in a year. And you run all these kinds of businesses and you're super successful. And I'm not saying you're not successful, but not a hundred million dollars successful. And this is like, there's no point in trying to paint a different picture than what's reality, like showcasing jets and freedom and all this kind of stuff. It's like, no, dude, this was all generated. I just think the problem with this stuff too, is when you're showing off the people that really have money, the moment they see it, they get a sense for your jet.

6:51They know how much your jet is worth. Okay. And the other thing too, is they know how hard it is to build a company, much less two, three, four, or if you save a portfolio of 50, a hundred businesses or whatever, the more you embellish it, the more you're actually showing to people that actually have money that you one care a lot about what people think about you. And two, you actually don't have much, relatively speaking, compared to them, right? Like the person that you're trying to portray yourself, you're actually not at that level. And it shows a high level of insecurity at the end of the day.

7:18So again, I don't have a problem with courses. I bought a lot of courses in my lifetime. I love courses, right? You've taught courses. I've taught courses too. Like we're teaching right now. I love education, right? But this is why people hate course creators, because what happens is what they represent themselves to be is actually not true. and so what happens is people feel like they were lied to, right? I get it. This is why courses get a bad rap. As long as people are more genuine with how they represent themselves, good. Dude, you and I are on the same page and it's like we don't have issues with these people.

7:49It's more so what they pitch and what they do is totally different. There are some people that go out there and talk about look at all these holding companies and look at all these companies that we buy. I'm like, but if you look at all your ads and all your content it's about how to make money and become rich. This has nothing to do with buying businesses. And you don't talk about buying businesses really online. You talk about selling people on whatever course you have. Dude. And by the way, I had a friend today, so I was hanging out, he came over and so he has a new, he, he started like a new supplement line.

8:21Right. And he talked to a health influence. I was like, Oh, you should go to this health influence over here. Maybe partner up with this guy. Right. I'll maybe ask him a couple of questions. And this guy is his friend, right? So, okay, if I go to you and I ask you for advice, you're going to give me your thoughts, right? Yeah. And so here's the thing. That guy, the influencer, was like, oh, this is part of my consulting arm. I charge$5 ,000 for it, right? It's no different than the guy you were talking about, but we can't give this story because it reveals who this person is. But if you're a friend and you pull out all of a sudden, oh, this is my consulting arm and you're going to pay$5 ,000, what are you doing?

8:56What kind of friend are you? Yeah, you're not a real friend. And so this is why people hate coercive people. Yep. And going back to the Jets, one thing is, is most rich people don't want to showcase how much money they have or pictures of Jets or anything like that. They don't want to draw attention and they don't want to get sued. It's not that they're doing anything sketchy. It's just people tend to sue rich people. And the bigger your company is, you'll always be in some sort of lawsuit. If you don't believe me, you'll be in an employment lawsuit or something silly and frivolous that you can probably beat, but a lot of times it's just easier paying someone three to five grand than it is to pay the legal fees.

9:33Even when you have internal legal counsel like we do. And then the second thing is when these people talk about how much cashflow that they generated on an annual basis and how much money they're spitting off and the freedom and flexibility, most wealthy people I know, they take that money and they reinvest it. They don't talk about all this cash that they're spitting off. And instead they just try to reinvest everything and make more and more money. I just, like, when you show off things, you're attracting the wrong audience anyway. You're attracting like 20-year-old version of me or 15-year-old version of me that just wants all these things.

10:06It's not exactly the right audience anyway. And the other thing is, the bigger trade-off here is you're exposing yourself to your point. And there's little to no need to expose yourself in that way. Like, if you look at the content we put out, what is it? It's mostly educational stuff. I might have some philosophical stuff. and I don't think I ever post anything about cars or eating nice food or whatever, right? You never post because you just don't post that stuff. But like, it's just mostly educational and then otherwise we just try to keep to ourselves. That is how you want to be. Ideally, you become successful and anonymous.

10:39Yes, like Eric has an amazing view of, I won't say what your view is of, actually I will, I don't think you care. Sure, I don't care. It's of one of the fanciest golf courses in all of Los Angeles, if not the fanciest golf course. Is it? Yeah. Oh. And he has an amazing view of it. It's actually one of the hardest country clubs to ever get in, period. Yeah. In the United States. So he has an amazing view of it and he has an extremely nice car. Doesn't care to talk about any of that. At the end of the day, it's just like you focus on your business, you focus on improving and all that's better. All the other stuff is just a bunch of bull.

11:11Yeah. And by the way, like when you focus on your business, I would hope that you're having fun. And when I work every day, I'm just excited. And I feel great. It's fun. And there's no need to draw. By the way, that other attention, here's the other problem with this, and then we can move on from this topic. When you become famous, oh my god, the thing I've heard about this is when you become top famous, the thing that you don't want to lose is your fame. And then it becomes a cycle where it becomes painful. You're agonizing over losing that fame. You're trying to think about how you can get it back.

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13:58All right. So the first is someone hit me up this morning to be the face of their info product. One of the most radically online personalities, extremely popular, womanizer. And I won't tell you who it is, but they don't make a million dollars a month or two or three million a month. I'm talking about they make much more than that in cash flow. And they've had legal issues and they're just like, oh, want to be more neutral? How can I get you involved? I'm like, no, thank you. And they're like, why not? And they reached out through a mutual friend that we both knew. and I was like, if I ever become the face of your brand, there goes my whole business.

14:40I'm like, it's not worth it. I don't want to deal with the legal troubles. I don't care if they're real or not. I don't want to deal with any of this. I just like running my own boring company that no one wants to talk about. And people don't think long-term and I was like, why do you want to do this? Oh, I want to clean things up. And the reason I want to clean things up because every time I post, people just hate. And I was like, well, if I became the face hypothetically, which I wouldn't and you're giving me a cut or I was investing money, your sales wouldn't do as well because I'm not as radical with my views.

15:11So I was like, the business model wouldn't work in general. And the second thing that I want to end up bringing up when it comes to these course people, they use different firms to get popular on the internet. One of them I've hired recently and they mentioned my name to already another potential customer. And that customer emailed me saying like, hey, how are the results? They tell you we're working with Neil now. And they're talking about how they're getting people like 10 million views, 15 million views and all this kind of stuff. And yeah, they are. And I told him before I hired him and there's a 30 day out.

15:53I'm not saying I'll use the 30 day out. I was very clear. I was like, hey, I'm down to do this. I'm down to sign an annual contract. You know, I'm happy with the 30 day out clause. And my team produces and does a lot of content. And I was like, you know, I just look at this as a fun experiment to see your guys's process. But I was like, all the examples that you've done that just do really well, it's too generic content. I can't post on any of this because it won't drive any results for customers. And like, yeah, cool. We'll work with you. I was like, let's see what they produce in the first 30 days as in content ideas, because I bet you they're going to be more motivational, aspirational.

16:29And when that person emailed me, who was another agency owner being like, yeah, they told me how they're working with you. And I was just like, yes, they seem to have great results, but it's all for generic content. When you look at every single creator and I don't know what they're going to do for me because I told them I can't create that kind of content. It just doesn't drive any revenue. Yeah. It's also not your style. Yes. And they're like, totally agree. Right. And is it worth testing? Hey, do I produce more generic entrepreneurship type of content? And then hopefully they see some of my other content to convert, but I still don't think it's going to do as well.

17:05And what I want to do is produce very specific marketing related content. And if they can't do that, I'm not saying I wouldn't go a little bit more generic, but it has to be related to business and marketing instead of just motivating someone and talking about how they're going to become rich. Anyway, that's it for today and we'll catch you tomorrow.