#761 - Noah Kagan - What Are The Biggest Regrets Of The Super Rich?

23:21Maybe it's a lot of 100, so you do 100 episodes. But doing it, ideally finding something people want and then finding ways to stick with it. So 90 % of podcasts don't make it past episode three and of the 10 % that do, 90 % of those don't make it past episode 20. So by making 21 podcasts, you're in the top percentile of all podcasts as ever in history. And so you're doing your podcast and I think these are the kind of stories more people need to hear. Same with my YouTube channel. When I was doing my YouTube channel and I first put the first videos, 300 views, I was just shirtless in my room on my phone.

23:55The second video, same thing. I didn't think I put a shirt on. And then it was like a thousand views. And I just kept sticking with it. And I was like, I just like this. And I was playing around with things and I did three videos a week for every single week for a year And then finally at the end of the year I was like okay, I want to get more subs And I'm doing the same what everybody else is doing But I want to try different and so we did a 180 We were just like let's go crazy and knock on doors But I think the fact that we're like we're gonna do at least a hundred videos this whole year Definitely kept us going so I'm kept I'm curious for you besides we enjoyed it What were you telling yourself these first three years?

24:23And I think that's the part that people don't really want to hear but that's what they need to hear to be honest man I wasn't telling myself much. I was hungry to to establish myself in a world that I respected. So I respected a lot of the people that I was on, I was in the wake of. So I respected the Rogans and the Peterson's and the Joccos and the Sam Harris's and the Atlanta buttons and the School of Life's. I respected them and they gave me so much, they improved my life so much, they helped me to understand myself that I figured, well, look, if I can, even if I'm a thousand miles behind them.

24:59If I'm moving along that same sort of a track, it's definitely going to benefit me and if it's going to benefit me, it's almost certainly going to benefit some non -insignificant minority of other people as well. So let's just keep on doing this thing. And then, yeah, before you know it kind of, everything catches up, it's very strange and it must be the same with you too, like when all of the things that you wanted to have happen kind of occur and like you go, holy fuck, like, is this what arriving feels like? Have I arrived? How full of myself am I to think that I'm a writer. How, how, like, uncongradulatory am I to think the thought, am I the sort of person that has the thought, am I the sort of person that thinks have I arrived?

25:35Like, and it's just this infinite regress of, like, self -malestation. But yeah, it's like, it's very interesting. It's very, very interesting. I've been reflecting on this, like, the trajectory of journeys and stuff and where people stop and where people keep going and things, and awful lot. But, you know, the thing that you touched on at the end, which I was really fascinated to get into is billionaires and whether or not they say that wealth is worth it. You've sat down opposite these guys that are worth an awful lot of money. What do you see in their eyes when you talk to them? It's the things unsaid.

26:10And one that stood out was powerfully if I didn't kinkos, sold 2 .4 billion. What's kinkos? FedEx. FedEx has stores. Yes, the ones you go in. Every single one of those stores was a kinkos. Okay. So that was the brand before FedEx. Right, fine, okay. So back in the day, my father came to America and sold copiers. So I'm familiar with the copiers and facts businesses. And yeah, so all these stores that had copy machines around, because that was the way you printed things back in the day. And so one of the things he said, and that kind of saddened me a little bit, was he's like, I was stressed for every year of 34 years.

26:44I was like, oh, that doesn't sound really enjoyable. And is there other ways? And there are other ways. but that was definitely telling the other people out there. I would say John Paul Mitchell, John Paul DeGioria, you know, Paul Mitchell, haircare, Patron Tequila. He was one of the few where I really, I really idolize him. I love that guy. He doesn't have a computer. He doesn't have a computer, he doesn't ask nothing. And he seems very kind to himself and to others. And I felt really inspired by his story where his whole thing was, and he was homeless twice, the story is I felt like one, he didn't try to do a lot of stuff.

27:21He's like, let me find something I really believe in. Just one thing. If you think about it, he really has two products, hair care and tequila. That's it. That's it. Both billion dollar business. He sold the Trump for three and a half billion. The other thing he said that I thought was really telling or interesting was selling is the most important skill for him. Selling. And he says, I love to be in the reorder business. So I try to find a product that's the best. And at the time now it's obvious, but again we come back to non -obvious obvious things. There wasn't a $30 bottle of tequila. Now $100 bottle of tequila is like the norm.

27:57And he said people have to reorder it. And to your original point, to my experiences with Apsumo, I'm the customer, YouTube, I'm my watcher, my book, I'm the reader. He tried the tequila. He's like, holy shit, there's nothing else. Like I love it. And this is the part again that people never year these parts of the story. He spent two years without a lot of sales. He just believed it though. He's like, this is there's something here with it And I think you have been saying what I worked at Facebook. We saw the early date of people going insane on this Even though externally people didn't know how big we were gonna be and so I think you have to have some early Like success or win to feel like okay I like it and people seem to like it I'm gonna stick with that because I think what happens is people find something known once and he's ticked with that probably too long And so with him is after two years finally I don't know if it was the Oscars or some finally huge celebrity thing finally like okay Now people know about it and they're like, wow, Patrick Keeler.

28:46And I think seven years later, then it finally saw. I had a conversation with Dean Phillips, who is a democratic candidate for the presidency this year. He's also the guy who found Belvedere Vodka and Tlenty Gelato, both of them. Yeah. And with Belvedere Vodka, they were pretty flat, pretty flat, believed in it, believed in it, believed in it. And then one morning, he puts on MTV and JZ's there, with just bottles and bottles and bottles of Valvedere. And everything just goes completely berserk after that. Yeah, you can definitely increase your chances of luck. Right, but it's not sitting at home waiting for it or looking in the mirror, trying to manifest it.

29:23Like there was John Paul T 'Joria selling it and selling it and selling it. And so I love that he talked about the reorder business. Right, are you selling a one off or something that like a podcast, like maybe people want to keep listening to it. And then I would say last thing that I admired about him and I'll contrast it with another person as well. Well, the day he sold his company, he donated 50 million bucks. And I think a lot of people were like, ah, you know, I'm going to donate or I'm going to do these things and it's kind of bullshit. It's not authentic. And it reflected to me how genuine he is about being just a kind person.

29:53And I felt like he, to me, in my interview with him in the hour and a half, I got to spend with him at his house. It was just like, wow, what a person who seems to be content. He's got enough. And I think most of the other billionaires I've met, I don't know if it's ever enough. and it's like, well, you're just gonna never be fully content with life. And I don't know, I think that's something I've worked on in the past few years. Just like, is this enough money? Yeah. Do I have a great enough girlfriend? Not great enough. She's amazing. I have an amazing girlfriend. You know, like, do I have enough attention?

30:19Right? Otherwise, it's this external chase that just can never end or never satisfied. And definitely some of these other billionaires, I don't want to, I appreciate them sharing their stories. But they seem like it has never been enough. It seemed like they never spent enough time with their family. And I even got some, I get texts from them and I'm like, oh, I sent a show to my girlfriend. She's like, holy shit. What are the biggest regrets of rich people? And the family, it's almost always the family. It's like I just wasn't there with my family. So they got divorced, the kids don't really interact with them or maybe they ideally do.

30:53And I also see there's some level of specific billionaire. It's just like, it's never enough and you still out there chasing it. And I think that level of dissatisfaction, which is helpful in being an entrepreneur, as someone who says, hey, I have a problem. I can do something about it. Great. Eventually, though, you might need to be satisfied that the problem is solved or that you can be content with dissatisfaction and satisfaction. But this is an idea that I came up with that it turns out that was already a name for Jeff Focken, hey, when that happens. They're all thought of. I'm forging new cognitive ground here.

31:28let me explain the world of psychology. I called it the vestigial pattern bias, and it was already called the Einstein -stelling effect. Do you know why Quirty keyboards are Quirty? Why do they have those letters at the top? It's not the fastest. I don't recall. So when typewriters were first made, if you have letters next to each other that are commonly used, they can often stick. If you're trying to use one, then the other, they'll stick and both will fire when you're meant to hit one. So what they did was they tried to create a map of the keys were letters that were commonly used were not together so much and that would free this up.

32:04So this is called path dependency, right? It's the same reason why railway tracks are now just like locked in. Like at what point are we able to change the width of railway tracks from whatever they were originally? So there's actually a myth. This isn't true and I propagated some disinformation. There's a myth that the size of the space shuttle is the width of two horses, is arses. It's not true. It's not true. Everyone. Sorry, like I must apologize to the internet. My point being the path dependency is there is a pattern that existed before and you're kind of locked in as you move forward. I think that there's an equivalent here with people that want to improve and grow their business.

32:46That especially when you begin, you're the guy that puts a thousand people in a spreadsheet or you're the guy that splits up two and a half thousand people into 50 % broadcast less than cents stuff out individually to them. You're the person that follows up every other month for six months to some guest that doesn't know who the fuck you are. That is a very specific skill set, and it's very, very useful in the beginning. But it is a fuel that holds you back when you get later down the line, the tools that go you hear won't get you there. Yes, and letting go of that is particularly difficult because you think well you have proof Especially if you come from a working class background Especially if you come from that spit and sawdust and from the northeast of the UK, you know a 30 ,000 pound wage there is like a you've done a really fucking well So these are people that earn their stripes.

33:39These are people that just you know roll the sleeves up and get back to work then realizing that But the skill set is now to relinquish all of that, to tell other people, to encourage other people, to teach other people, to be able to do that on your behalf, is it's a completely new skill set, completely new skill set. What happens when you arrive? I resonate that so much. In my 20s, I was really angry and bitter, like a fired Facebook, like a fired at Mint .com I'm like, holy shit, this is great motivation. Like that's great fuel. And at some point though, you know, all my content I say is for the underdog.

34:19And someone said to me, like, I don't think you're an underdog. You don't have the underdog anymore. No. No. Maybe I still like that message in some way, but then I also think it's from going to therapy, having relationship coaching, have a business coach, have a CEO coach, journaling, you know, whatever it is for each person, finding, readjusting maybe that vision, readjusting like, okay, maybe I don't need to stop proving them wrong. maybe I can start proving myself right. Maybe I don't need to prove anybody else anymore. And I can just think about what makes me proud. And then maybe a lot of it for all of us, which we can all do, it's probably something we're a little scared of.

34:51And then think about what that is and be like, okay, let me go into that a little bit and see what happens. And so you are right with these people who are, hey, we're dissatisfied, hate some daddy issue even. Whatever it is that leads them to the success of the answer beautiful how you put it, maybe reevaluating like, is this still serving you in this next phase? And you know, let's take Zuckerberg as an example. He didn't start Facebook to be like, I'm gonna create a takeover of the world. He's like, I'm just gonna build something in a weekend see if I can change my life and meet some girls. And then as it worked, he's like, oh shit, my vision changed.

35:17Now I'm gonna take over the world. And then now is vision's changed where I'm sure it's something else. It's interesting to think about the arriving part and about the, what does it mean to let go of what used to fuel you? Like that's very, I think a lot of people have this concern. And I hear this quite regularly. I did this live tour toward the back end of last year, which was fun. I did Dubai, the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US, we were everywhere. Like 17 shows in 28 days or something. It's really fun. And one of the most common questions that people asked, a couple of them, how do I know if the thing that I'm about to pursue or thinking about pursuing or pursuing is the right thing?

35:59So like optionality and multiplicity of options is a challenge and I get swamped with the paradox of choice, basically, is that one. And then another one that was really common was, I'm scared to congratulate myself too much, because if I do, I'm worried that I'm going to kill my drive and my motivation to keep going forward. And I used to have that in my experience, I'd be interested to know your thoughts, if you are the sort of person that's sufficiently driven, that also has the ability to do that level of introspection, your drive is like a nuclear reactor inside of you that just isn't going to stop.

36:44And by the time that you've got to the stage where you can ask that question because you've achieved maybe a bit of success or comfort or whatever, the habit and the consistency in the momentum is just, you're freewheeling downhill at 100 miles an hour now. You're like, I ain't trying to pump the brakes, but it doesn't really work. And if I take my phone off the accelerator, guess what, we still go quicker. So, yeah, those were two interesting things, but I think the fear of being thankful, being grateful, it's like, this is my edge. My edge is my bitterness, my resentment, my desire to prove people wrong, my underdog story that I continue to tell myself, this is where I get my fuel from, this is what pushes me forward.

37:22I don't think that it's true. It may be what gets people started, but it doesn't seem to be what keeps healthy people going. I would agree. I think you can end up in the same destination as just more, how do you want to feel along the way? And myself, I'm like the worst person in the world to myself. I think we all are actually for the most part. And one of the things I reflect on turning 40 recently was like, wow, I could have gotten here just in a lot of a friendlier of a way. Well, he didn't have to be literally, oh, you're gilting about, you drank too much or why is this business failure? Why is this girl suck?

37:57Or how come you're not doing better here? and it's like, who are you talking to? And so one of my buddies taught me this thing a few years ago where it's like, any time a negative thing you criticize yourself, just say a positive thing right afterwards. And it's silly. It's silly. A lot of stuff going on in a million dollar, it's like, kind of little silly things, but you start doing it. And I'll start doing it in the stupidest stuff. And then I've noticed now, I don't think about it anymore. But when I try to usually guilt myself, it doesn't come up. And I'll do silly, like mountain biking, and I remember I went over a rock.

38:25And I was like, good job. And I was like, who the fuck said that? Like where did that come from? Well, you had disapproving fucking like pee coach. Yeah, but it's it dude, this is for all of us, man. Like, oh, my dad or my person would be disappointed in me. Who? Who is there? Who is that voice? You know, like the surrender experiment. I don't know if you've read that. Yes, by Michael Shinga. Gang, gang, buster book. I love that one. And it's just noticing this, these negative things that were criticizing it. What does it mean? We can't acknowledge it. Like, hey, you did something wrong. Like, I wrote an article that I sent to Neary y 'all and he said, hey, it sucked.

38:57And I was like, yeah, he's right. But I didn't have to be mean and take myself down in that moment. It could be, yeah, he's right. I think I can get a bit better here. That was a great feedback. Thank you, Near. And then I went and made it better. And he's like, good article. And I was like, yeah, I know. It's good, because I just put more effort into it. I'm proud of it. And I think if we're all more mindful of that, and just even small moments like cookie, whereas we're talking to other people, or I was on a show yesterday. And I was like, I don't know if I did my best. And guess what? That's okay.

39:22I can get better. And I can ask them like, hey, did you like the show? What did you guys think? Give me a few back. Actually, I thought you were good. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So that's definitely something where years now, maybe past three years, it's just like any negative that you say about yourself, just at least try to say positive right after. It's okay to have a negative thought. You can't change that. That's not going to go away. But the more you recognize the positive in us, which we all have way more than we realize, then you just do that over and over and over and over and over and over again.

39:47And like, overall eventually, you're like, well, a pretty good person. There's a lesson that the internet seems determined to not learn, which is people with success aren't allowed to be unhappy with their lives. And it blows my mind because I completely understand and still me, you know, looking up at like you look at a rogue or whatever, who's a friend and you go, this guy's got But here's, fuck it, we're having a nice conversation. I can open the door. Spotify briefly, a couple of about a month and a half ago, added a new piece of functionality onto their platform. They added stories, which are these vertical scroll clips that people could swipe through when they landed on a channel's account on Spotify.

40:43So you'd have that little circle, kind of like you do on Instagram. And when you pressed it, AI would have gone into the episode and found maybe a 90 second salient section and you can swipe through and it would tell you stuff. What it also did was it was the first time ever that Spotify made follow accounts public. So for about two and a half to three weeks, you could click on this little circle and it would come up and it would show the follow accounts of all of the all of the like everybody on the planet. So I see this and immediately just light up every WhatsApp chat that I'm a part of with like can you see this on your account?

41:21And some people did so it'd been rolled out some people and not to others. So we paid some like Vietnamese VA to scrape the top 500 shows and put them all into a spreadsheet and then they removed the functionality, but Rogan is in a different universe to everybody else just for context. He shows 26 times bigger than mine just by followers alone. It's a complete other world. But you would look at somebody like Joe and he goes, he owns his own comedy club. And he's got this beautiful house, and he's got the biggest podcast in the world. And everybody knows his name and he moves culture. And he does it like whilst having fun, and he can take mushrooms and he can smoke weed, and he's got the, like, and if he was to complain about something that he was dealing with psychologically, or the side effects of some of the fame or the success So whatever, it's like champagne problems, right?

42:15All right, mate. Yeah, yeah, difficult for you. Like, such and such can't pay for bills this week. And you're totally right. Like, the material conditions of that person can be perfectly illustrious, right? And yet, their inner experience can be not only as bad as somebody who's down there, but they also have got the layered guilt on top that they don't even have any material concerns to users and ex -gives. And I've been fascinated by this, by this problem. Like, champagne problems or Titanic problems is another one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I regret that I was so unhappy all along the way to get here that I've made it so much harder on myself and so much more disappointed in myself and could you have done it without that?

43:00I don't think so. There it is. I don't know, man. I don't know. I definitely motivated me feeling that so many people doubted me, like I fired once and I fired twice and realized that unless I'm going to be an entrepreneur, then no one else is going to take my livelihood away again. You know, marked it at once and then Aaron did it at Mint. And I thanked them because it did leave me on a path. It's hard to replay the entire game, but I do recognize like, did I need to make it so hard on myself all along the way? And now in the 40s stage, which I remember being 20 thing in my 40s and I'm like, do shut up, old man.

43:32You know, let me just hustle my ass off and grind. It's like, okay, try it out, do it your way. I think what I'm noticing is I'm getting older is that my baseline is generally more content. And what's crazy is I'm having the exact same problems. Not, not I'm creating problems, but like someone quits, this person doesn't work out, this customer didn't happen, this partner's upset, whatever it is, but my understanding and way I'm responding to it has changed and evolved. And so my baseline overall of contentment is higher and then my swings of, oh my God, I'm doing partying and I'm whatever it's happening, go into the playboy mansion, which is crazy.

44:04You know, I run Germany was there. You know, we're on German. Yeah, yeah, I got kicked out of the party But I was like, Ron, German, you're my dad. What are you doing to go you kicked out as a play by party? Oh Okay, I'll tell this story, but the swings were just so much crazier It was like that is a high versus like you know, then I'm feeling bad at myself and going to India Right, like I don't know what's going on alive. I feel like India is the place you get answers from obviously Oh, that party. I started a business dude in payments for Facebook games Remember like Farmville, those annoying things?

44:33Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were building the games and my dream was to move to Argentina and build those games. So it all funded me. Went to Argentina, realized I hated making games. Then Tim Ferriss came and hang out. I mean, that was just a story. And then I moved back to America to hear because my partners were going to quit. And we're like, let's just build something that we need. So we built payments for games. And one of the payments was signing up for like affiliate offers. Like sign up for Netflix subscription. Like all these different affiliate leads. And so if you were in the top three affiliate sales with one of the ad networks that you got to go to the playboy mansion And so we worked our asses off to go to the playboy mansion It was there was just three of us in our intern.

45:10You imagine an intern shout out song hoe he had a great year that year and Yeah, we got a bus ride and I had section the grotto. I was like I was you gotta just do it take all the boxes, man Yeah, and then Ron Jeremy was there and I was so drunk. I'm the fool man. You he would definitely pump a pump I grew up on him, so I go off to him and I'm so blasted. Oh man, and I'm like, Ron Jeremy, you're my dad. You're my dad, man, you raised me. And he's like, what the fuck are you? And I was just like, I was like, oh, sorry, I'm going crazy. And he's like, yeah, yeah, he's like, get the fuck out. He's like trying to talk to the chicks.

45:43And then I got into a argument with the Playboy bunny. I don't even remember what it's about, but I got kicked out. I still had a great time. Still had a great time. I still got to say I got to play with a mansion. Still got to see the zoo they have there. and all that, I haven't told the story ever. That was an experience. And so that's like a high that I'm ever going back to the hotel room and having a really bad argument with my girlfriend. I can imagine that that would have been an issue. Yeah. So the looking back and it's that insight that the resentment, the pain, the bitterness is really, really potent fuel to get you started, but it's pretty toxic to keep you going.

46:22But I really don't know how you have proof that this is an effective strategy and letting go of something that you know works to be like, oh yeah, like, you know, I did the, I covered every email, I ensured the all of the stuff. I was every single Slack message. I made sure that I was on top. Whatever it is, like the level of attention to detail or the level of bitterness or whatever it is that you do. And then to go, and now it's time for me to transcend, you know, grow out of that somehow. That's really hard, but Aubrey Marcus, when he released his book, and this is at the announcement, I think, for hitting the New York Times list, maybe like four or five years ago, and he gives this speech, and it sounds very similar to something you were talking about.

47:12He said, I spent so much of my life terrified of what I was going to become and whether I was going to be right here right now. God, how much time did I waste, afraid I wasn't going to be right here right now? If I could change the only thing I'd change about my whole life would be fearless that I wouldn't get right here, the place that I was going anyway. I wouldn't change all the mistakes and mishaps I needed those, but all the constant worry that I wasn't going to make it, that took me out of enjoying the moment, it took me out of enjoying these experiences, smiling or eating my lunch or doing whatever I was doing.

47:43Know your mission, have faith you're going to get there, wherever you go, it's going to be alright. Just find ways to get out of your head. Holy fuck balls, that was great. Shout out Aubrey. Thank you, I'm phenomenal. Yeah, it's thinking that the failures aren't so bad. We ourselves are not so bad. One of my best friends, Tynen. And here's a hack in life. Just be around positive people. I know it sounds silly, but in your town, if you around people are like, hey, you can leave here. Hey, you can do anything you want. Maybe it's online. I don't know if that was the case, but I know for Tainin he's always saying, no, your life is awesome.

48:14And it can get better. And he's telling it all the time and it's like, that's a great person to be around. And so noticing. George Mack has this idea of sofa friends and treadmill friends. So some friends have to spend time with him. You need to go online and sofa and other friends have to spend time with him. You want to go and run on a treadmill. And you should aspire to have as many treadmill friends. Headwalls good. Tainin, the Titan in your life. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing I'd done, I mean, I record my conversations with him. So I'll listen to him back. And that's, you know, whether you put it out publicly or just for yourself, it's been helpful.

48:44I think one of the transformative, because I'm trying to, I loved your post about success because it's easy when people are successful, but they don't have a lot of podcasts of all the people who failed. But like those don't, it's not, it's okay. What are you going to, maybe you'll learn from that too. And so I'm trying to reflect like, where was this transformative moment? And I don't think there was one definitive like, okay, it changed everything. But if I had to summarize and try to boil it down, it's when I stopped avoiding, when When I stopped, my old therapist would say, the only way in is through.

49:12And so I quit his therapy and I found a new one. But afterwards, I didn't like the only way through is around. I was like, what's the shortcut? Is there a long cut? No one ever talks about the long cuts. The long cut, which is the, I would say the right cut for me as I transformed my life to feeling more content. And that piece with inside was one of the hard things I'm really avoiding in life. And I was avoiding, I was avoiding work. I was avoiding what's the work thing I really want to do and work that I can do but I'm scared of and that was being back at app sumo Because I was basically took three years off and I was just making all this money not doing really anything And then got the guy who was running a quit so that was kind of a forced thing where I was like oh, I have to face this So that was then getting back to being a CEO and ruining and messing up the company for two years and finally last year It's like oh shit.

49:58Okay. Maybe I can the thing I was most afraid of and I thought was scary I can overcome and this is true for everyone like what's the hard thing we're avoiding next is relationships Okay, I would like to have a partner. I'd like someone to like me. I'd like to like myself. But then my behavior was partying. And my behavior was like going on trying to hookups. It's like, all right, well, that's not what you say you want to do. Your behavior is not aligned to it. What's the hard thing? Hard thing is taking yourself seriously. Not to say, can it fun? But okay, you want to have a partner with a partner?

50:25Let's take that seriously. Let's get a coach. This woman's Stephanie Rigg. She's amazing. She's on Instagram. She's great stuff. Really practical. Working with her, feeling more worthy through that practice of just talking with her about it. doing things that made me feel good about myself. Like, there's a simple question. Does this make me feel proud of myself? Doing drugs or not doing drugs? Sometimes, yeah. But no, mostly it was not doing it. And I'm like, wow, I'm feeling better and better. And then, you know, two months later, I found a partner. It's like, oh, is that a coincidence? But no, it's like, because the discomfort in a moment of not doing the thing that was easier led me then to find the thing that was better.

50:57And I think it was just like this, and you know, the work, myself, the relationship, and all these things, like even a million dollar weekend, It was like, I can't write a book that's gonna help people. You know, I've done it time and time and I've helped all these people. And then finally facing it and doing it, I was like, ah, and I think that's kind of a message of myself, the book. We all can do it. Whether you're from a small town in New England, in North England, right, or wherever, we all can face these hard things, and we can all live these great lives. They're just, are we willing to face it?

51:23And I think most people can. It's just like, okay, what can you do today to face it? And how do you start that right now? The magic you are looking for is in the work you're avoiding. Hmm. I know, but I just want to get around it. Yeah. And eventually you can, you can, but I think when people, I think the question you said earlier, so interesting, because I don't think about am I reaching my potential anymore. I don't, doesn't even cross my mind. I don't wonder if I'm am or not. I could you, so this is a really good question. I'm glad that I get to talk to you about it. Can you transcend that concern about whether or not I'm reaching my potential?

51:59Can you move it to one side and dispense with it? if you haven't done something that gives you a sufficient amount of validation externally from the world. What I've noticed is that there's never enough, you know, I was in therapy with a new therapist, and he's like, when is it enough? And if you had all that fame, what's going to change? Nothing. So we have to change something else. And so what I've recognized for everyone out there is, what's the thing that matters to you? Maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's a relationship, Maybe it's writing a book, maybe it's being a good father. And the part one is something you want.

52:33Whatever everyone's got their own desires. And part two is putting the work on it. And when people say put the work out, I'm like, it's the work. Can you tell me what the work is like doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it. And all the things we're most proud of ourselves in are always the hardest. Like what's stuff you're proud of? I would bet a lot of money you're proud of the show. And why? Because you did it when no one was watching. You stuck your ass with it and you kept going and going. And yeah, now there's some results for it, but I think even if it wasn't as big, I think you'd still feel proud Because you did things that was something that was challenging.

53:01Yeah, and I think that's true for most of the things that all of us recognize that We'd ever said that's our potential or not. We're just we're proud. And so how do we build up more of an internal validation? Mostly again, it's things you want and things that you've worked hard on. But this again, this comes back to that question Can you take pride in internal validation without external validation? So it's the Navale quote where he says it is easy to achieve our material desires than to announce them and And to say, I don't care about driving beat up Toyota Corolla, because my last car was a Ferrari.

53:34It's way easier to do that. It's way easier to say, you know, I'm really happy to settle down with my girlfriend and do this thing after you've been pumping at the Playboy Mansion. You know, I have a friend who was a pick -up artist for a long time. and I remember asking him a question about, dude, you're really into this pick -up artistry thing. It's just a revolving door of chicks, right? And you're really, really passionate about this thing. He's like, yeah, yeah. I am, my future wife better be thankful for all of this. I'm like, please explain to me how you have somehow laid at the feet of your future wife, all of the efforts for you to spray it across the North of England at the moment.

54:15He's like, well, when I'm with my future wife, I've been walking down the street with our two and a half kids and a golden retriever. I don't ever want to look at two Brazilian chicks and think, I want to know what it's like to fuck two Brazilian chicks. I want to have ticked off all of the different things that I've got to do all the way down. And although that I think was quite largely just cope, reverse engineered cope, there's something true in it, which is we need to prove a lot of the time we need the world to tell us that we are enough before we can say to ourselves. And maybe some of the billionaires that you spoke to are really far down that spectrum where there is basically no amount of world saying yes, well done that they can get to before or maybe it would be a trillion or a hundred trillion or whatever you're pointing at yourself.

55:00For themselves. They never get to a point where they can say for themselves. It's like I'm with my partner now and she's amazing. I don't question having more because I have enough? And I do think, yeah, try think you have to try things out. It's like, yes, you can marry your first boyfriend. Yes, you can do those thing. I think it worked too. But try things out in life, experiment, find the job that I'd try to day job. That sucked. Try to work for the people. Got fired. It's like, I got to find another way. And so at this point, I don't, yeah, it's weird. I don't think about finding another person or that, oh, man, I'd love to have sex with more people.

55:31I'm like, I'm really getting deeper with this one person. There's a, I don't know if it's Esther Pearl or Bernabé Brown. It's like, if you want variety and relationships, you hear this quote? You want a variety relationship date one person. That's good. I know what I was single. I was like, well, that's good. And there's shith in that, right? We think we need more of these experiences. And I think it's good to get them. But sometimes you find something and you have to, like, if you hire someone but you've never interviewed other people, it's hard to know how good they are. And I think with the lot of these experiences we talk about, let's take ayahuasca or doing anything, like I did ayahuasca a few times years ago, influenced by Aubrey, talk with him about it.

56:07And I think the point of ayahuasca that I learned afterwards, it's not even but that I was going to cry and the puke didn't suffocate. It was like, wow, that was kind of hard and I could do it. That was the takeaway. Not whether, yes, I recognize things about my stepfather and things about my biological father and other areas. But ultimately, I was like, wow, I could face something. And we all can. And then we can overcome it. It doesn't matter whether you're already a millionaire or whether you're a zero -near, right? But it's that you can do these things. And I don't think people, I don't know, I don't know if people recognize that they have more ability than they can do.

56:34And that's why when they ask that question, and I think they know the answer. When they ask, do you ask yourself, do you're reaching your potential? Yeah, pretty regularly. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm still pretty rough with myself about falling short of some arbitrary rule that I've met, like some bar that I should have got over, some something that I should have done. It's better than it was, but there's still a lot of that to be deprogrammed. But I'm also in therapy, so, you know, that's helping. I mean, that's another interesting thing that people just... there is a lot of fear around uncertainty and we don't know what's coming next and we don't know if we can deal with it and we don't know if we're going to be good enough, we don't know if we're worthy of love and acceptance and we use observable metrics in place of hidden metrics.

57:24So the best observable metric in the world is money. Single numerical which can be translated across the entire world almost instantly. Oh, you've got $5 million. I know what that is in yen. I know that is in pounds. I know that isn't euros. Best is the best game in the world. But people will often trade observable metrics for hidden metrics. And a hidden metric would be something like peace of mind, quality of relationships, amount of sleep. That's a big one. Like, all of these things bringing the hidden into the observable is something that I'm trying to do an awful lot now. Like, am I trading my sanity for accolade?

57:59Am I trading my peace of mind for status? Am I trading my... But the thing that you're saying, especially from your old clip, which I love about success, that also helped to get you where you are. Of course. And so how do you continue? Maybe you don't continue that. And that's okay too. Do you know Joe Hudson? No. I love Joe Hudson. He has a course called Connection Course Phenomenal. He's got a great show too. Art of accomplishment. And one of the things that I've taken this course with my girlfriend is that and that's okay. That's just that phrase. And I say this phrase all the time. Hey, I don't know this answer.

58:32That's okay. Hey, what helped you do what you're doing? Maybe isn't how you're gonna do the future. That's okay. And so I wonder for you, it doesn't have to also be, you're gonna solve it immediately. That was one thing I was thinking about this morning, about a lot of successes, patience. And not just patience in time, it's patience with ourself. Like what Aubrey said, like, hey, probably gonna work out, let's be a little patient and not make it so hard along the way. So I wonder, I'm curious how you're going to evolve. Yeah, me too. It's, it has been significantly better, which I guess speaks to just how like unrequited I was for a very long time.

59:08I felt like I wasn't, I was built for more. I felt like I was built for more and I hadn't fulfilled my potential. And that I should, if only I had worked hard taken that chance, done the thing, been less afraid, been more brave, been more courageous, but whatever it is that I needed to do, if only I'd done that thing, I would have got the outcome that I wanted. And that was like a very powerful, you're not doing enough, good enough, whatever it might be, really, really strong motivation for a long time. And then And it's interesting when you get to the stage where you go, okay, well, how much is enough?

59:53Because that's a question. And this sort of comes back to the people that have achieved success or accumulated wealth or whatever. They can suffer with all of the same mental maladies that the person at the bottom wrong of the latter kind as well. But the difference is they look up and there's only two more rungs. So they're like, hey, if the answer isn't there or there, where the fuck is it? And that's something that again, this sort of champagne problems idea is why I'm kind of obsessed with it at the moment that The lack of sympathy that everybody myself included gives to oh, you know Such in such a rich person complained about the fact that the food was cold in first class on the way from Dubai to To Houston or whatever, you know, what was it called?

1:00:39But it's like I Understand I understand why that's such a like ludicrous position to be in But if we assume that people who have money and status aren't necessarily always happier than the average person, in fact, what got them there might be exactly the reason that they aren't happier than the average person, if people took more of a balanced view about how they perceived the downstream effects of wealth and of status and of attention, I think that it would disabuse a lot of people who think that they want that of presuming that the answer is on the other side of it. They're presuming that once they get there it's solved.

1:01:25That's what I thought. Like once I get rich I'll be happy and that's not the case. And what I've noticed is someone like yourself where you start the show because you love it and you create this prison that you may maybe don't love and then you end up revisiting the reason you started it and you're like, oh I love it again. It's so funny man. Right and that part of the journey and there's nothing wrong with that. There's not a right or wrong way to do it. I would say it's nice to be rich and have problems and poor and have problems. Right. Because at least there's a little bit more options. If you have some money or you have your own business, which everyone can do, at least you can maybe hire someone to talk to you about it.

1:01:56Or maybe you can not do meetings for weeks or months or years. And you've spent an awful lot of money on coaching. You mentioned that earlier on. Yeah. How much money do you spend on coaching? Um, collectively with myself and the team at least a million, at least a million dollars in coaches. And what things have you worked on? So, an hour before this meeting, I was with our CFO coach. So she's the former CFO and the coaches I hire, they've done, they're looking ahead and they've been ahead. I like people who've been in the game that I want to, that I would like to be at. So she was a CFO at MailChimp.

1:02:35I think everyone's pretty familiar with MailChimp. You know, they sell for 12 billion. And so she's advising us on our VP of finance quit. Again, problems still happen no matter what. How are you gonna respond to them? I think my 20 year old self was very emotional and reactive. Now the only difference, I'm still can be reactive, but I pause and then I respond. So she's a coach that we hire. I have a therapist and that's what we've worked on really about pausing. And I write myself every single week. Last week was a four. I got a little triggered. So I ran myself on my consistency and my emotional behavior one through five every week and why and just having that every single Friday Is helped for a five seems good for was not bad But someone in my I do YouTube office hours for the book launch and this this guy was complaining about absumas rev share And I'm like, you don't even know where rev share and I was just like and then I paused after I Triggered and I was like, oh, I don't want to behave like that And that's okay means I did that but that means that next week I can improve it before it's not bad.

1:03:31That's pretty much better than the past So that's therapy. So therapy I've worked on pausing and responding. I've worked on being alone. I just don't like being alone. I like being active. And so, you know, it's not to say I should go force myself to live in a cabin in a woods, but on a Saturday afternoon, it's noon, how can I just be happy with Noah? How can I just be okay? I'm gonna read the Wall Street Journal Atlas. Or just go for a bike ride or just be at home and it's okay not to have to distract myself. And that led me then to feel more happy just being with myself. I have a CEO coach, Aiman Al -Abdulla.

1:04:04He's the former CEO of Apsumo. And so a lot of my strengths historically has been like zero to one. Like I love starting. That's only $1 million, like how do you start to do a quick time? Aiman's superpower is consistency. Aiman's like what's working? Okay, make it work better. Like even a month ago, I went to Aiman. I said, Aiman, we've got this tidy cow product. I don't know if you tidy cow. It's a cow -domly alternative. So it's $29 for life instead of $20 a month. I'm like, amen, this thing is doing super great. It's blowing up, David and the team that are running it is doing awesome. We're gonna do something new.

1:04:34He's like, all right, so you have the thing that's working really great and you wanna do a new thing. Do you think you wanna do a new thing or maybe just keep doing the thing that's great and make that work better? That's like, there's your money. I'll send you your, pay your invoice real it right away. So he's a lot of, I think higher to your weaknesses. And so he's a lot of the consistency. I have a business coach then. So he's more strategic. I have a business coach. So that's Dan Putt from reboot .io. Anyone you have a great podcast great book and Dan's it's annoying He's always asking about my feelings.

1:05:06I'm like dude stop talking about feelings. I'm talking about the business It's like I know but I know how your feelings are impacting the business. It's like shut up So a lot of it you know for instance I was feeling very disconnected from the leadership team of ab sumo where I'm like what the hell are we doing this quarter? And he's like well if you don't know do you think the rest leadership knows and I was like no and so then literally the next day this was two weeks ago. Next day we put together one pager, which is like, what's the one, what's the exact thing we're doing in Q1? So that we know the leadership he knows and the rest of the team knows.

1:05:34And a lot of that is just him exploring how I'm feeling about the business like how things are going my personal life. A lot of businesses are projectors who you are direct like you with the lighting for the show got on right? It's projection of Chris's preferences about how things go. And your business is going to reflect good or bad who you really are. Not good or bad, but just reflects who you are. Yeah, there's a that trickles down from whoever's at the top of a business down. So we, it's so funny running nightlife stuff because the organizations tend to be very flat. So the owners are still very close to the ground floor of whatever's going on.

1:06:10And we would be able to walk down the street and without looking at the company on the back of the hoodie that the person was wearing, just by the way that they were dressed, we would be able to work out, oh, they're from Jellumonati, there from Voodoo, which was our company, there from like the Posh Kids one, there from this one, there from that. And we would just be able to tell because there was this signature that kind of came from the top down and it was the same in the marketing copy. It was the same in the way that the events were run. It was the same in the way that the DJs were booked.

1:06:41It was the same in the way that the entry pricing was done. There was some companies like us that would be over complicated in some ways. We'd have tiered pricing and we'd have all of this extra stuff that would be put in than there'd be others that wouldn't even remember to increase their pricing, then there'd be some that were cheap and there was some that were expensive and so on and so forth. So this just, it really is, is it James Cleared that says running a business is a vehicle for personal growth disguised as a wealth -making enterprise? I think it's the best way to learn about yourself is starting a business.

1:07:10And I always think of, you got me thinking about toilets. Obviously, yeah. I have a super nice toilet by the way. Like Rich Life, Japanese. Yeah, the Toto, it's like a $6 ,000 toilet. like, best, everyone should go. Get rich at least so you can get it just toilet. Point being though is that like, I like going to bathrooms or restaurants and businesses and then you're kind of like, oh, how much attention do they pay to? I don't think it has to be all the details of a screw necessarily. That's not me, but like, huh, this is what they think about their business. And so I'm always fasting when people meet people from AppSumo.

1:07:35And they're like, hey, I met some guy today. I was like, I met Mitchell from AppSumo. He's great. I was like, I know. I love Mitchell too. He's like my little optimism angel. And it's interesting about the people around and the way we represent business represents us. I think business is a great way to learn about ourselves. For the coaches, I guess if I had the theory and the way that I've approached it is, what are the areas for myself and really anyone that I like to improve? And just go pay someone for their 10 ,000 hours. You could pay someone $500, $250, a thousand bucks an hour for literally 10 ,000 hours of experience.

1:08:08So I have a marketing advisor, Moody Glasgow, CMO Glastor and Zapier. And a lot of the times it's, and I thought about this, because it's a lot of the stuff I don't want to hear. Because if you thought you could do everything, you wouldn't need an advisor. You wouldn't need a coach. And I think there's some people who are like, ah, don't do any coaching. It's like, all right, every sports team ever in the world has a coach. And we have teachers all through school, but when we get out, we're like, nah, I'll figure it out. Okay, how does that make sense? Well, this is difficult. A couple of the reasons why I think coaching is sometimes hard for people.

1:08:39The cost is upfront, but the returns are down the line. It's very difficult to verify. It's very difficult to verify whether or not this person actually is going to give you the sort of returns that you want out of something. There's no coach .me, you know, yellow pages, yeah, rating for this stuff. It's always by word of mouth and referral and bits and pieces. And if you do end up getting burned or disappointed perhaps by one, that then starts to sort of smear the rest of the coaching world. So I understand why people are reticent about doing it. I should be better at it. I should be better at leaning in.

1:09:21What would you hire? So by the way, I think no matter what, we just we self -preservation hire, we self -reserve no matter what coach we hire. I had a business coach. I won't shut him out, because it was horrible. But it was $10 ,000 a day. And this guy, like, I don't know, He's polyamorous and just saw this woo woo weird shit, you know, slips with all the people. And I remember afterwards, because I was so lost, and I just wanted someone to tell me what to do. Yep. And the main thing I took away from him, he's like, no, you know this, this $23 ,000, because I hired him for two and a half days.

1:09:52He's like that $23 ,000 you gave me could have been in your pocket. And that was his, that was my takeaway, where I wanted something and meaning that, the money in my business is mine, right? So I need to be mindful of how we're using it. Maybe I'm giving it to him, maybe I'm giving it to others. but I think in almost every single time, whether you have a coach you like or don't like, you're learning something. Ideally, you're doing it with someone who's done the thing and they're like, yeah, I've done it. I can ideally share you how you do it and you're getting it through referral too. Yeah, I think one of the areas that people get into, again, something else I'm kind of obsessed by at the moment is believing the situation is unique, particularly unique.

1:10:31No, no, no, no, you don't need to sign. Because there's me, the way that it's everyone together for me, that you would not do it. It would take 10 ,000 hours just to begin to understand this. And it's because I had this idea on the live talk where if there was a cookie here on the edge of this couch and I decided I was about to make the decision whether or not to eat it. inside of my mind, when I look toward that cookie, this unholy war begins between two different versions of myself, and there's battle plans and platoons, and someone's got to drag in, and there's a catapult and stuff. And then the better version of myself succeeds, and I don't eat it to live another day.

1:11:17If you'd seen me do that, what you would have seen is some bloke stare at a cookie for a while, and then turn away, looking hungry and sad. Our inner experience of ourselves and our external observation of other people are so asymmetric that everyone else looks like a rational agent and we look like a wavering idiot permanently. You vacillate 10 ,000 times a second, but that person just seems like they go about their day from thing to thing and even if they trip over, they kind of to do that too. And because of that, it's obvious why it feels like our issues are so personally cursed to us. It feels like a designer disease meant just for us.

1:12:06It's only me that has this very specific way of lambasting myself or speaking to myself. It's only me that has this very specific fear about relationships or about changing or about moving or about leaving or about disappointing my parents or about whatever it is, because nobody else could. And it's like, it's because you are only ever going to experience your unconsciousness. It also gives them an excuse if they're unique. It gives them a reason to say, well, if I'm unique and it's so hard, then it's obviously not solved. But if you know, like my book starts with frequently made excuses. Why?

1:12:36Because when you realize that most of the things that you've avoided are actually very solvable, like, oh, shit, it actually can be solved. I can stop having to be a victim in the situation. What are the frequently made excuses? I don't have any business ideas. I have too many business ideas, which isn't totally number one. I don't have a technical co -founder. I don't know how to do marketing. I don't have money. How do I use AI? Those are definitely, I think that's top seven. I'd have to look through the book for the other three. And these are ones that are super common. By the way, quick shout out.

1:13:05I've also hired a health coach. You know, there's little coaches for everything and figuring out which coaches you need. And, you know, I've had a squash coach, boxing coach, but I use to get any better at squash. Oh, sure, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, shut up. You squashed in Barcelona. But my body teacher dot com. And so I worked with him for years. And now how I interact with food, how I interact with myself feeling about food has been changed permanently from that experience. It's fun. It's fun to think that there are people out there who have answers to the questions that you think are an answerable.

1:13:38Well, I remember with Ab sumo. So one of my best friends is Andrew Chen. He's like a superman. He's been on the show. Oh, Andrew, yeah, Andrew's one of my best friends. things that you know. Yeah. And so I love Andrew and he's very strategic and he's always been helpful. And I remember with AppSumo, I'm trying to innovate our HR stuff. And I was trying to innovate our sales stuff and I was trying to innovate and our programming. I'm trying to innovate in our marketing. And he's like, why don't you try to innovate just one thing? Most of that shit is figured out and find one thing to innovate on.

1:14:03And the other nine could probably just copy other people who've solved it. For instance, even in a silly example, Jenny, who's our CFO advisor, she's like, I've already got job racks. You don't have to write your whole brand new job right. You can use chat to your BT for it. But she's like, here's the criteria that I look for when I'm hiring a VP of finance. I was like, hmm, it's a lot better than trying to be innovative from scratch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What coach would you hire today? Ah, someone for the business, I think. I need to build out the, I hesitate even calling it an organization because it's not.

1:14:37It was just supposed to be me talking on the internet. And you start talking to people and then it accidentally becomes a job. And then before you know it, you're like, oh, I've got like 16 fucking reports. I have 16 direct reports. So like our organization is this very, very flat, two -dimensional octopus with 16 fucking legs on it. And then a couple more to trickle off some of those legs. So for me, I'm like, I can't, we can't keep, we can't keep doing this. And there's only one person that's the hub in the middle of all of the rest of it. And I'm like, all right, so what do I need? Don't need a CMO, don't need a CEO, don't need a chief staff, don't need a CEO, don't need a right hand, don't need an enforcer, don't need someone that's, and don't need a second YouTube strategist, don't need a third YouTube strategist, don't need someone that does copy.

1:15:18What about somebody that helps to sit on top of, you know what I mean? And again, it's the belief that your situation is sufficiently unique, that nobody else could would be able to understand. There are no, of course not. And in some regards, the world of, you know, like independent creators, relatively new, but there are also going to be an awful lot of rules and procedures that you can just be like, yeah, but I mean, it's very similar to X established business that's been around 50 years and there's the playbook from that and we just chink turn this thing slightly and it slots in straight away.

1:15:51What's the voices in your head like?

1:15:56Frantic sometimes, but I meditate a lot as well so it goes away.

1:16:04Excited? Encouraging.

1:16:12Like, there's a degree of trepidation, which is another thing that's kind of interesting. Before you've got to any...

1:16:25Until you kind of raised yourself up out of some mid quadrant of like where almost everybody is, maybe beyond where most people quit, but still where most people end up, the pressure is still like in some ways a little bit lower because you go, well, you know, if this thing doesn't work or if you don't really sort of fulfill stuff, nah, what does it matter? But when you go like, oh, this could really be a serious shot at something very special here. I genuinely believe that we make the most beautiful podcasts on the planet. We've made the most beautiful podcasts that have ever been recorded. And I want to keep doing that.

1:16:58I want to keep being world class at the things that we do. But that comes with it, its own degree of pressure. This is no longer little leagues. This is now, oh, you said that you wanted to become one of the best in the world at doing this thing. Do you realize the price that you need to pay to be able to do that? Do you realize how hard you're going to have to work? Do you realize how much attention to detail you're going to have to pay? And all the rest of it. So one of my end of your reviews or one of the questions that I've got asked for myself for this year is, can you be well class and have fun at the same time?

1:17:27I love that. That's something that I'm thinking about an awful lot. Like I want to still dot every eye across every tea, but I want to have fun along the way. because, you know, and this is one of the beautiful things about people reflecting like yourself opening up about anger in your 20s or orbre opening up about fear during the process of writing his book, that you get to see, you get to see the pitfalls that other people nearly tumbled into and by looking at that, you go, hmm, that kind of sounds a lot like how I feel. And maybe if That's how this person that's five or ten years along the road from me says, and if I can kind of imagine me as them, well, maybe I can find a way to bring some of that learning and wisdom down into the present and then maybe even avoid, maybe I can mitigate what they did.

1:18:25And, you know, their insights can help me to expedite my growth and my progress. So yeah, that's, that's what I'm thinking about this year. It can be world class and have fun at the same time. You got me reflecting, thanks for sharing. You know, I think sometimes people think the kitchen's clean and a lot of times the kitchen's messy. What they see is the kitchen. They see the dish, but they don't see what's really going on. Oh, dude. Yeah, I mean, it's like couples. I can't tell you. There's couples that I'm like, I want to be like them, divorced. They're horrible together. Maybe it's bad, but you don't really know what's going on in these different experiences.

1:19:00And one of the things that every person can do is get out your phone, watching YouTube or podcast, just scroll up on your photos. Go back up or down. And almost everybody, I think if they do it, at least how I felt, was like, wow, I'm proud of myself. I think if you actually just scroll back and like, look at all the cool shit that I did. Yeah, and just look at where you are today. And I think if we can give ourselves a little bit of kindness and grace in that, and you would just see even the photos, you know, just go back and be like, I went and looked looked at my old house and I think this house represents me.

1:19:30Reparance where I was, where it's 800 square feet. It's literally falling down. It just got flooded a few days ago from the dust freeze and I was like, I don't care. And I went back and I've seen it in the photos and stuff and I was like, oh wow, I'm proud of how far I'm come. I'm proud of the house I'm in now and who I think I am today, not necessarily what others think, but what I think. And that does take time. And I think we also just can, if you see your old photos, you're like, wow, I'm already making progress even if it doesn't feel like it. Yeah, I always said, and Elon Musk with Neuralink may make this happen, but I'd love for that to be a way for you to go back in time in your own mind not to go back in time to a different place, but to be able to revisit the texture of your own existence from 10 years ago or 20 years ago and think what were the sort of things that captured my attention?

1:20:17What was the normal rhythm and cadence of my daily existence like? What did I think about? I think it's also crazy because it is that the stories change over time. We change the narrative by the day of it or when you ask me or a year. I'm like, well, the story was actually this. It's like, was it? Or am I shifting it to create the narrative that's working best for me in my life? Oh, dude. I mean, that's, you know who Sam Evans is? He must do. Sounds familiar. He had consulting .com, so that's a reandoris. He now does school .com. S -K -O -O -L. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Big online market to go.

1:20:52Anyway, I was at some like neurodivergent degenerate retreat in the middle of the desert. What does that mean? Neurodivergent. Like a drug autistic group of degenerate people. And we were all just catching up and it's some creators, some business people. It was really cool to be honest. And I'd known about Sam for a long time and I knew what he did. And we got a chance to have a catch up. And I asked him about why he'd stop making content. And he'd been pretty prolific at... He had, he's got this like, 40th floor penthouse apartment with a motorcycle in it, overlooking floor to ceiling glass. Maybe it was in New York at some big city like that.

1:21:37And he said he'd found that the story he was putting out publicly was one that he'd begun to feel the need to live up to privately. that he created this narrative about being the guy with the motorcycle in the window and about this is what I do and whatever, whatever. Alex Becker as a good example, you know who Alex is? Yeah, so Alex who just high -ros, high -ros. He's been the sell -all of my possessions and go live in an apartment with like just a mattress on the floor guy. He's now even got rid of that, he's sleeping on the floor and now he's the like fitness guy and now whatever, whatever guy.

1:22:13And I do think a lot about, because everyone's doing this. Everybody has a public facing persona. You know, everyone's got a social media account. My mum has one, my dad has one of some regard. And I'm feeling the need to live up to the public persona that you are putting out there in private. First time I'd ever heard anyone say, I'm still thinking about what that means to me now. And like, you know, fucking in this really interesting reflection on it for six months. But yeah, that was very very, very unique insight. I thought it was very useful. Yeah, it's, maybe my girlfriend, I remember the first time she came, I met her in Barcelona and we spent half the year there.

1:22:54And I remember I have like a multi -million dollar house. And I've got to share it because I've lived so cheap and so crappy for 20 years that finally I got a sick house. Then I keep, I can't believe it every day. I'm like, this is so cool. And I remember bringing her to the house and I was like, oh yeah, she's gonna fall. Oh me, baby. Look at this. You don't have to worry about who I am inside. Look at my external avoidance. like my name, fame, motorcycle in the window. Scooter. I've seen you on that, going around the, the, the Vespa. The Vespa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, have a white Vespa. My other one got stolen from my friend yard.

1:23:25Oh, the fuck is it? That was dude from my friend yard, Jesus. Um, remember she came in the house and I was just like,

1:23:34nothing, she didn't say shit. And I remember, you know, this is the, the point is just sort of dating. And a few months later I was like, like you're the first person ever to come into the house and was not impressed. And she's like, I wasn't. It's a nice house. And I like all the stuff. It's cool, like it's nice. But I just care who you are. The best part about the house is you. I was like, that sucks. You know, we're so hard to avoid that. And now I'd say in these past few years, I think that's finding a partner who's also just looking for me. She's not looking for me to be anybody else. So interesting.

1:24:05And that's been a, you know, in terms of a game changer from a baseline level, it's being with hers a game changer. Yeah, because you don't have this sort of if I lose it, what if anxiety that's sat behind you and if you'd gone like Dan Bilzerian root and everyone was kind of just there for the experience. She just cares who I am and that enables me to feel like I can just be myself. Do you ever feel resentful that the efforts and fruits of your labor the monetarily isn't more sort of like wide -eyed, so sorry. Do you know what I mean? Because I think there's a part, I sometimes think about me and some of my other friends as well.

1:24:43And I think that there's a part in men that wants that look at my resources I've acquired. Like you kind of want that to be a bit of like, you know, panty -dropping results from that. Yeah. I mean, I think we won our father's acknowledge us a lot of the time. And I remember I went to my dad and he was kind of dying. He was dying. He was just drinking beer and I was like, hey, I made a million dollars. He's like, okay, cool, man. Good job. I was like, that's it. And then, you know, I think over time, I was thinking about my YouTube videos where, you know, we get videos get a million views, but my favorite video is still, I don't even know, I think it has like 10 ,000 views and it's about a fisherman.

1:25:22This guy named Nick from Florida and he's a millionaire fisherman. And I just loved that he makes money for fishing. I wanted to make a story about him. And I think that's kind of the lesson where you get going and you find the thing you enjoy. And yeah, there's a balance of what the world wants. Because if you only do what you want and no one wants it, like you're not kind of a business, you're not kind of any audience, but I was proud of that. And I think with Maffe, this is my partner, as I am more with her, I'm just being more okay with myself. And yeah, I think I would have liked to have money.

1:25:49And I thought, wouldn't you get money straight up? This is real talk. I thought, wouldn't you get money? Like all these people come and all the girls come and all this stuff come. And it just didn't. It's still just you alone in a house. And yeah, you can have partying and you can have distractions, but it's still just you by yourself. And that's amazing. Lucky that I had that chance, or I thought it was how about great. It didn't. And then it's like, all right, well, I'm still myself. I have to find a way to enjoy this life on this planet. By the way, no one knows what the fuck we're doing here.

1:26:16No one. And anyone who tells you otherwise full of shit. And yeah, the money didn't fix who I was. It definitely now is easier because I'm feeling good about myself. And the journey was, yeah, I think all these cliches shit, as the more I get older, more I'm like, yeah, the cliches shit is all true. Bill O 'Reilly's got this quote where he says, money is like gasoline on a road trip. You need enough to keep going, but you're not doing a tour of gas stations either. Bill O 'Reilly said that. Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. Yeah, no. Yeah, nothing ever came. There's no party, no one ever cares. Everyone cares about themselves.

1:26:51Right? And it's been nice. I think part of this book tour stuff even, this has been special how it's created and kind of an excuse to go hang out with people and excuse to connect with people and talk about different ideas, whether it's self -worth, whether it's started business, which really is what you said about from Aubrey. It's a great way to learn about yourself. And all the business has been that. Like how am I interacting with other people? How is it when someone leaves me? Like my dad left me or that's a teammate leaves me and just chances to prove to ourselves who we can be. And I think that's not talked about where people it's like people can be a lot more than they realize But they have to realize that it's even possible and then they have to get started on it You've said Starting a business isn't risky working a day job that sucks is risky.

1:27:33Well, why is that the case? You know when you your original thing the number one question you said you got from people is how do I know I'm realizing my potential? If you ask that question, you're not realizing your potential Do you ask the question? And so for me, being at Intel in a cubicle with gray walls, having to be dressed up, going at 8 a .m. felt risky that this is the next 40 years of my life, knowing that there's probably something else I could be doing that I really want to do. And it's listening to that voice, or that is my Avalotina girlfriend, listening to that feeling and acknowledging it, and then maybe embracing a little bit of that fear leaning into it.

1:28:09And doesn't mean you have to quit the job, but I never quit jobs to go start a business. I thought that was risky. It's starting at night, weekends, whenever, to get it going and then when it works, then quit it. But I've seen this guy. There's a guy named Rick. And this is the thing I think is not recognized. There's so many ordinary people getting rich. I think people think it's like some special ability and you have to be tall or you have to be in. No, ordinary people get rich. But they start. And most people just don't. And there's a guy Rick. And I remember we'd be in these meetings at Intel.

1:28:35All we do is meetings with them. I'm just shit at this job. I don't know how they're still in business. And Rick always was like, man, you are so much smarter than me. He's more impressive to me. But he was afraid of finding out who he could become. And all he could do at night, and I, he talked to him. He's like, yeah, there's other things I probably want to do, but I've got soccer practice at five. And I want to be there for my kids, which is great. But that means you spend a third of your life doing what you didn't want to do. And so how do you start planting seeds? Like I planted seeds 14 years ago that I'm finally, I am really truly enjoying today.

1:29:06And it felt risky to really spend that 10, 20, 30, 40 years in an area where it's like, I don't want to be here. What's crazy though is on the other side, there are engineers that until fucking love it. They're like, I'm building chips. Which is great. And so it's finding that thing for yourself. So you're not feeling like, hey, I'm going to spend 10 years and then finally enjoy life at 60. That didn't seem fun crazy. Which is what my, you know, kind of what we tell most people to do. James Smith, my business partner in the drink, says, if you're succeeding at a job that you you hate, imagine how good you'd be at one that you love.

1:29:38And that's, you know, so many people, especially where I went to university, there's a lot of sort of recruitment, you know, these guys who are on a 20 grand, 25 grand base salary with pretty good bonuses and it's sales. It's like hardcore sales. They're doing recruitment for IT or construction or whatever it is. You know, they're not placing super high net worth individuals here, but they're like grinding. They're doing the thing. and they're fucking destroying it, mostly because they were trained by me and my business partner in nightlife, but also because they're very, very talented and we found these kids that are just driven and they want to do things.

1:30:16But lots of them, like love the money, hate the job. I'm like, dude, like the money is the easy thing. Like you can replace that skill set with something that's so much more enjoyable. Like think about how you hate the thing you do and you're driven by the thing you get. You still get the thing you get, but the thing you do would be something that you loved as well. Imagine if you had double drive, like Nitro Boost in too fast to furious. Well, it sounds like with you in your pockets, there's no reason for you ever quit because you enjoy it. And then doing that on a business, I think one of the things from the YouTube channel and in a million dollar weekend was how many different ways you can get rich.

1:30:57And I think people think there's like some secret door, there's some secret cores, it's just not. but it's about getting started on the podcast, putting out the episode. It's about asking someone to be a customer, finding something people actually want. And then guess what? If you do what you enjoy too, you can do this as your career. I don't know if people realize that it's possible. I see these people on like, no, it doesn't have to be this way. And you could change it today. Yeah, it's hard to think because so much of my life has been around people that are self -employed, that have been online fitness coaching, or then business coaching for online coaches or selling courses or doing whatever, right?

1:31:38So many people were failure, renegade, self -employed people, over and over and over again until they found something that worked and sometimes some people didn't. But it was so obvious to me that that was just a route that was available. I never really questioned it as something. And yeah, if the... I didn't think about that. I didn't think that some people believe that there is a secret doorway in between them and being their own boss. Yes. In between them and starting their own business. Yes. Like there's nothing. Like, hey, guess what? If you fucking love dogs, if you absolutely love dogs, there is a dog walking business that you will adore every single second dog.

1:32:25And you'll crush. And you'll care more about the dogs than the competitor who's just doing it for the money. And all that you'll do all day is spend time with awesome animals that you love. And you'll make great money on your own terms, doing something that you get to choose. And then maybe you'll hire some staff and then they'll love the dogs as well. And then maybe you set up a sanctuary in them. Maybe you get to be able to contribute to a charity as well. And maybe you can take in dogs and maybe it becomes a kennel. Maybe you even roll this out and it becomes the premier dogcare franchise in England or something.

1:32:56That sounds exciting. And even if you don't want to make it bit, like the Michael Gober's the Emeth Revisited, even if you don't want to go full, I don't know how to bake cake anymore as the lady that started a bakery thing. You get to spend every day with dogs. And a question would be, if it's so easy, why isn't everybody else doing it? And that question is both the question and the answer to the question. You know what I mean? Like that is the selection effect that's stopping most people from doing it. Because most people think if it was that easy everybody would be doing it, but you don't realize that the fear that you feel is precisely the selection criteria that's stopping everybody else from doing it as well.

1:33:41Yeah. One of my favorite quotes in my buddy Adam is like, you know, discomfort is your compass. So maybe noticing where there's a little fear. And then thinking about, well, if I went into that fear, what would happen? And where would I be on the other side of that fear? And I love doing a fantasy year. It sounds like something you're doing on a review, but if you had to end this year, where would you like to be? And then you could literally create, a few years ago, I wrote like Beyond Dr. Rogan Show. And you read all these crazy fantasies, and you're like, I think when you realize that it could be true, at least gives you the belief that you could be in these different levels.

1:34:09It sounds like you and myself were both born pretty middle class. Is that, no, no, no, very, very walking class? Working class, okay. I was going middle class and so you kind of think, well, I guess I'm stuck here. And then you start seeing other people, maybe listen to your show, maybe you realize other things, they're like, huh, maybe there's some other levels of what I can do. And what I've noticed from so many people who aspire to be millionaires, and for me, I aspire to never have someone control my livelihood and take away that, which is you can when you have a job, in that if you want to be there, what's the thing you can do to data actually make that happen?

1:34:40They don't ever make a million because they're like, how do I just get $1? They're like, what about this? What about this? Don't worry about any of that. What can you do today? Can you help one person today on a service? Can you post one podcast? Can you post one video? And I've even done it myself just to show it. Like the best way to sell anything is to get happy customers or prove it. So two weeks ago, I let people, I didn't use any social media, which by the way, you can cheat, use social media, use your email, use your contacts on your phone. And I let, I said, give me some business ideas from the audience and I'll go do them.

1:35:11I'll prove it. So I tried knocking on doors and just asked me if I could mow their lawn. I just went door to door in Austin, Texas. Can I mow your lawn? No. Who are you? No. This is hard. Is there an easier way? Yeah. That's the whole point. If it's not working great, let's find some people who are excited for you to service them on. Because just because you want to do it doesn't mean people want to pay you for it. That's a big misconception. But it finds some people who are excited to pay you for it. So then it was like, well, what's another problem I have? paying for software. I hate, I don't like subscriptions.

1:35:42That's what AppSumma was. So, I started contacting people that anybody who emailed me a DocuSignal, you know, DocuSign. I looked through my Gmail and I was like, well, I hate DocuSign, I hate subscriptions and I hate using it. Let me look at anyone who's ever emailed me a DocuSign and contact them. So, I just called people. I called my accountant. I called people who used to work at AppSumma, called people I used to pay for, called, being friends with you must be a fucking nightmare. Don't ever answer my call. It's like, no is outside. What's He's doing this time. Dude, he's got a bucket in his sponge.

1:36:11Pretend he's not, oh, he's seen us. He's seen us. F**k sight. And, you know, to be clear, you know, my neighbor, I asked him, oh, is long, he said no. And then I went to him and I pitched this idea and he said no. And you asked like, what's holding people back? It's fear. And it's the fear of failure. It's the fear of rejection. It's the fear of who they can become. And we make these things so fucking scary. Oh my God, dude. Oh my God, they say no. It's over. Like, I'm worthless. I'm not good enough. I'm not having my potential. Or if you practice it and they say, no, you're like, that's it. There's so many gurus like out of skill, but there's so many business book out there.

1:36:45Why aren't people, everyone getting it? And because these fears have stopped them. And when you practice it, so I always talk coffee challenge, you heard my coffee challenge stuff. That's ask for a free coffee. Ask for a discount. Oh, discount. So, will you do anything to do with the 100 Days of Rejection thing? Uh, we, it was the Asian guy. There's a bunch of people who've talked about rejection therapy. This is the one that's, but I use to talk about in the book that I found the most life -changing. Because it's universal. What is it? And so we talk about the fear of starting, we talk about the fear of success, talk about the fear of asking.

1:37:16And so you can go out today and anytime you buy a coffee or, you know, new tonic or whatever, don't do it for your brand. But other businesses in person, you ask for 10 % off. That's it. You just go up and you have to commit before you go in. And anyone who's watching, if you want to change your life today, commit to this. Just one thing. It's simple. It's silly. It's easy. And either people will say, well, I'm experienced in sales. Great. That'll be easy for you. Or I'm really afraid. Great. That'll empower you to feel good about yourself. And when you go and ask for the discount, you say, I want 10 % off.

1:37:44They'll say, why? You can say, oh, no, a Kagan million dollar weekend. Or you can say nothing. Make it harder in yourself. And the beauty of it is they'll reject you. And you realize the fear that we created about these things, about what they thought, about these strangers, about this doesn't matter. and the reality about our ego and separating it out from this horrible experiences that, wow, it wasn't so bad. Huh, what else can I ask for? What else have I been afraid of that maybe it's not so scary? And you do it in small silly ways. Even today I was driving home. You can even do it in a very easy way.

1:38:17Complement the compliment challenge. Ask someone, hey, where'd you buy that shirt? Complement them? Hey, I like the sky in the car next to me. I said, hey, I like your shirt. Where'd you get it? And he's like, he smiles. He's so happy and he goes, oh, I got it from Goodwill. He's like $7. He was so excited about it. Again, it's putting yourself out there in a way where you maybe get rejected. Realize it's not so bad, and then you can move forward. And the more that people build up this confidence thing, it's the same thing that we're talking about. Like starting the business is the best way to feel more confident about yourself.

1:38:45You're helping other people. So with this docuSign business, my neighbor, he rejected me, and I asked him again, he rejected me, and I asked him a third time. He still rejected me, but I didn't take it as him rejecting me. It's just, this is not helping him right now. And out of the 27 people I contacted that day, I didn't make them by anything. I didn't say, hey, I'm doing a video. I need you to do this. I said, hey, here's something I'm excited about. I think it's a million dollar opportunity or beyond. Docsend's $11 billion business, which is crazy. I didn't realize it's so big. Tell me about your problems.

1:39:12I listened to them. They told me their problems. Interesting. I'm creating an alternative. What do you think about that? Oh my God. Yes. Great. Would you be willing to put down a deposit today? It'll be ready in 30 days. I mean, $3 ,000 and 24 hours. It's coming out February 19th. So, I'm coming back to your original question, why aren't people doing, because I think it's harder than it is. And they're afraid of themselves. And so, how do we do it in stupid silly ways? Maybe it's getting a dollar. Maybe it's complimenting someone. Maybe it's asking for a discount of coffee. Doing it, and it doesn't mean you're ever, I don't get afraid.

1:39:44But it doesn't mean that it gets easier and easier and easier and you get more confident and confident and confident. And then you realize, well, you should all this is just me putting myself in a little bit of discomfort, which ultimately becomes fun at some point. It doesn't become rejection such a bad thing, it becomes a good thing. Yeah, it's overcoming the fear of rejection or of asking for anything. It's kind of like a superpower. It probably is. I've got the 100 days of rejection therapy website open here. Borrow $100 from a stranger, request a burger refill, ask for Olympic symbol donuts, deliver pizza for dominoes, have a tour in a grocery store warehouse, play soccer and someone else's backyard.

1:40:27Speak over Costco's Intercom, get the number one spot in Best Buies Thanksgiving line, send stuff to Santa Claus through FedEx, take an unregistered exam, give $5 to five random people, be alive, mannequin at Abercrombie, borrow a dog from the Humane Society, give of a weather forecast on live TV. It's gonna be difficult to do. See, I feel like these are all extremism. Like, I thought I had to do this extreme, like go do this tons of things. And again, I think it can work. But I think for business, there's like a few you can just do over and over and over. Like I was telling someone a few weeks ago, I wanted to do all these rejection and like discomfort challenges.

1:41:04So I did naked yoga. And it's just like, okay, yeah, I just don't wanna be naked with a bunch of other guys. Like, where we push each other. I'm not sure if this is me over coming. It's uncomfortable, I don't want to do it. But I think the bigger concept for most people out there is how can you get started right now and stop avoiding the self, stop avoiding who you can become. And the second part I would say is how do you practice asking in a controlled way that you can repeat over and over again and get more comfortable with it and realize this whole thing. There's a guy Stetson. He was watching, I was talking with him and he did it and I always asked him question, would you learn about yourself?

1:41:41He's like, I made it so much scarier than I was. And I realized now that there's so many more things that I can get what I want instead of get what I'm getting because I'm asking for it. Whether it's you want your, you want cheese off your pizza or you want a wife or you want a raise or you just want someone to be your first customer or be your first podcast guest. Have you read No Mo Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover? A while ago, yeah. He was on the show a couple of weeks ago, so I'm still kind of digesting everything that he, he taught that and a lot of this stuff is in that as well. and there's a lot of guys who have listened to this, a lot of girls as well, but especially for the guys, I think there's a degree of like extra embarrassment around being a man who doesn't have the bravery to maybe go out and do this sort of a thing.

1:42:25So it's like emasculating, right? It's like, oh, like I should be. Not only am I not doing this thing, but also there's something weak or fragile around being the sort of man who doesn't. There's an extra layer of expectation, perhaps, wherever that comes from, you know, childhood or society. Oh, quite rightly, yes, I'm surprised. Transervation, I mean, you're afraid because you're scared. Yeah. Right, and maybe that could protect you in the past, but now if you could face that, if you're wicking it, it also gets you. And again, I don't think it has to be such an all -or -nothing mentality, not saying that's what you're saying.

1:42:55And you don't have to do it in this big, dramatic way. Correct. But practice it in simple ways, like compliment, and ask where they got it from. Or ask for just a little coffee. And then you realize you could go up to another person and say, hey, I think you're really interesting, like tell me who you are. And then, wow, that's an ask that eventually maybe you'll get. And so same with dating, same with customers, all these things. And I think when people realize it's not as scary as it's seen, they realize there's much more out there for themselves than they expected. Oh yeah. No, a Kagan, ladies and gentlemen, million dollar weekend, the surprisingly simple way to launch a seven figure business in 48 hours.

1:43:28Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do? This is a million dollar weekend .com at No, a Kagan everywhere. where it's funny, I've been telling people it's a business book wrapped in personal development. Alia. So it's like, you know, and I dedicated the book to everyone willing to take a chance on themselves. And I think everyone can do it. That one can be an entrepreneur. Everyone can not be an employer, have a risky day job in realizing that there's just more out there, man. And you can live whatever kind of life you want to live. But you do have to start.

1:43:57And then you have to stick with it just like your show. And then eventually those compounded returns pay off. And then five years later, they'll reply to your email and Kewaniya Pudtah. Yeah, man, I think that's, you know, you never know who, you know, one of the things I love about being public is you never know who you're gonna run into. So think about how you're interacting with other people and, you know, with this book, and in general, it's like one, thank God I wasn't super rude to you back in the day. I don't think I read my responses. I was just saying, hey, I have a priority, and my priority was absumo.

1:44:24And that's great, I'm okay with that, but being nice to other people and then also noticing who can you text when you need help? Who can you call when you need help? and most of the time it's because you've helped them. Yeah. So I think about it, especially now a lot, like, you know, how am I being mindful to help the other people out there? Because we're in a selfish world. Couple of my friends that have been canceled said to me, you know who your real friends are because they're the ones who pick up the phone before you ring them. When the cancellation hammer comes down, they're the ones that ring you and are like, what can I do?

1:44:52How can I help? How can we make this better? As opposed to you being like, dude, I'm struggling. Oh, yeah, man, I saw that. I'm so sorry. What can we? It's like, very interesting. Dude, I appreciate you. I think this is really, really great. I'm glad that it's taken five years, but I'm really glad that we managed to get this done. I love the embodied vibe that you've got going on. You've genuinely obviously done a ton of inner work and I hope that you continue to be a good role model. There should be more integrated, successful business people. People, they couldn't be both. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

1:45:23It doesn't have to be flowery, psychedelics and wishing for your money to come to you and it it doesn't have to be hot nose, like, nose to the grindstone stuff. Yeah, I think one of the things I reflect on is I've done so much to get to this point, like, with the therapy, with the coaching, with being alone, that's been something to work through. And I think we also remember to keep doing the work, keep doing those things, like, keep showing up for therapy, keep showing up for your coaching, keep showing up for whatever it is that's helping you get to these places. And being mindful, like, is this still serving you?

1:45:53If not, okay, you can change it. But I think it's very easy to be like, I'm feeling great this time. See you at therapist. Don't need to go to the gym anymore. Don't need to do that therapy. Yes, right. We all are coast now. And, uh, you know, I think it's still showing up in these things and still keep reinforcing the self, the positive self -talk. And just being okay with it. Like, hey, if it's not great right now, guess what? You can improve it. It's okay. Hell yeah. No, I appreciate you. Thank you, man. Good to see you. And, Doug, here we have the Lemo Emo in its natural habitat, helping people customize They're customized their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

1:46:30Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally Doug. Uh, Lemoo? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual .com. Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.