I chose to be broke for a year

22:52But in someone's like daily regular life, like what things can people do? What things did you do to sort of figure out how can I lean more into my inner nerd? Well, one thing is other people are very good at spotting it before you are. I remember Naval, who's like one of my favorite people to learn from, follow, whatever. He says a great story. He's like, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a physicist. I thought like in the apex of like awesome people, physicists were on top. physicists, scientists, inventors. And he's like, that's what I'm going to be. And he was telling everybody he's going to be that.

23:24And his mom was like, nah, you're going to be a business person. He's like, what are you talking about? Like business is cool, but like, I want to be a physicist. She's like, no, you're naturally a business guy. And he's like, what? I'd never talked about business. Like, I've never told you that. What do you mean? And she goes, well, you're always talking about it. You never say, I want to be a business guy, but you're always thinking about business. He's like, when we used to walk by that restaurant, you would always point out things that they're doing, that they should be doing to like make more revenue or be more profitable or like how they should change their menu.

23:54You're always doing that. You're always trying to figure out how to fix a business or how to improve a business. It like comes very naturally to you. And she's like, does physics come naturally to you? And he's like, no. He's like, it's like brutal. Like I want it because I think they're so cool. Yeah. But he wasn't naturally as inclined. And then when he, so he realized that and he's like leaned into business more. So I've seen this many, many times. where if you just talk to other people who know you well, you can ask them a couple of questions that I think are good at sussing this out. One such question is, what's my superpower?

24:29What do you see that comes easy to me, naturally to me, that is harder for other people? Is there anything like that that you've seen? Podcasting? Yeah, so like telling stories, podcasting, whatever it is. Another thing that you might do is you might say, where is it that you might ask yourself, where do I spend time doing things that for me feel fun, but to others would feel like a grind. So it's play to you, work to others. For me, it's like, I'll be up at 11, 12 at night and I'll be Google searching and randomly reading like today. I was literally, before we got here, I was reading the annual report from the state of Nevada about the revenues and expenses of the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip for 2024 compared to 2023.

25:12Yeah. Like who's doing that for fun? Yeah, nobody's doing that for fun. I was really curious. I was like, are we in a recession? I wonder, there's this thing where the Vegas strippers know first. Do they know first? Well, I should probably be able to check Vegas revenues last year versus this year. And that might be a leading indicator. Oh, wow, this is cool. This is a PDF. Download a PDF, searching through the things, making my notes. For what? Dude, nobody asked me the question. You know, like the teacher didn't call on me. This wasn't my project, my assigned assignment, but I'd always been like that.

25:40I've always been doing things like that. And before, I didn't really notice that that was a thing. I didn't really see how that could be special or useful. Just seemed like, I don't know, I just go on these random little business rabbit hole, these little detours. But then when I did the podcast and the podcast is us shooting the shit about business, suddenly I had this like giant library in my head of little factoids and stories and nuggets and this knowledge that was very, very useful in the podcast. So I found a fit for it later. And so I think other people are good mirrors. I think looking at what you do in your five to nine, like you have your nine to five that's your job what's your five to nine what do you do and specifically in your five to nine what do you do beyond what's rational right normal person it's got to either look like a work or grind to other people or it's got to look like oh like yeah i like video games too but you're like practicing your aim on this aim simulation for four hours a day yeah like that's different that's you know now you're in this other territory or like you're not just like, you know, for example, I used to play this game NBA 2K.

26:44You ever played 2K? Yeah, of course. I never played the, I never actually played the games. I just went into the franchise mode and I started simulating. I'm the GM and I'm scouting players and I'm building this franchise. And like, I was literally like, since I was a kid, sixth grade, fifth grade, I was doing this. And it's like, well, guess what that is? That's being a manager. Like I was literally like practicing being a CEO. It's like, I'm like upping the concessions prices and I'm scouting these like guys, I'm making these trades. and I got more joy out of the management of the franchise than playing the game.

27:14So like, you know, you start to notice these oddities about yourself, but instead of pointing at them or hiding them or trying to like fix them because they're broken, saying, oh, interesting. Like, what superpower does that give me? Where does that let me thrive? In what scenario would this be extremely useful or valuable? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, it turns out the one you're in right now. I'll give you another example. My wife. Yeah. My wife's kind of OCD and arts and crafts. Yeah. Since a kid, loved arts and crafts. Also, OCD drives me nuts. Like that wire is out and crooked. Like she needs to, she can't do this podcast.

27:45She has to get up and go fix that wire, right? So she, she started like for herself, she started like, I don't like as a, just like a boredom girly thing to do, like bedazzling her phone when she was in high school or whatever. And she, but she got really good at it, right? She like leaned in. She didn't like shy away from it. She got curious about it. She started buying Sarasi crystals. She started trying to arrange them perfectly. She started seeing if other people do this, how she can make a better design. Suddenly, celebrities started hitting her up when she's in college. She's a freshman in college.

28:15Celebrities are hitting her up, asking for them to make custom things for their parties in Hollywood and whatever. And she's making thousands of dollars a month as a college student. That wasn't an option if you had asked people. Right? That's her pushed out. Yeah. Right? So that is, it didn't even seem like a thing. In fact, it seemed like this like kind of useless waste of time. But for her, it wasn't. It looked like a grind to others, but it was fun for her. So she found a way to make that useful over time. That's an amazing story. I love that so much. I think that kind of goes back to what you mentioned earlier on in terms of just leaning into your own curiosities.

28:49And I think you said this somewhere where the only voice that actually matters is the one inside your head. And talk to me a little bit about how do you block that out when you're going through life, you have this sushi restaurant, you're picking things up, you're working at this job in Australia before that. How do you pick things up as you're going along when you're super unclear on that aspect? And, you know, how do you sort of focus on that inner voice and really be true to yourself? I think that takes time. I don't think most people are, at least it took me time. I don't think most people could do that right away.

29:19You know, you got to ask yourself a question. Who's the most important voice in my life? Is it my mom? Is it my teachers? Is it my boss? Is it society? Is it the media? Whose voice do I care about? Who's number one? and in reality, the voice that is most shaping you is the little voice in your head, the one nobody else can hear. It is the director of your life's movie. It's the one that tells you where to stand, what to say, what to do next, how to react in this situation. That's what the director does and you have a little director in your head right now and so once you realize that, you say, okay, I want to, like I want Spielberg up there, right?

30:01Like I want Scorsese, I want Tarantino, know, like I want, I want this to be a great movie. Yeah. Um, you know, like, and what type of movie is this going to be like a tragedy? Is it going to be a thriller? Is this going to be like a romantic comedy? Like what, what kind of movie am I trying to have right now? And how do I tune that voice in my head? So that's what I meant by that, that comment. And that's, I think what, what works when you go internal is like you, you decide that, look, my opinion of myself matters more than anyone else's opinion of me. Easier said than done for sure. But if it's true, that's something that's worth, that's a weak muscle that's worth working on, you know?

30:36Do I believe that the most valuable opinion of my life is my own opinion? All right. Well, what is my opinion on? What do I admire? What do I think is not cool? You know, how do I develop that taste for how I want to be and then practice doing it and like, notice those moments where other voices say X, but my voice says Y, I'm going to go with Y. I'm going to do it here. It might be uncomfortable, but I'm going to do it. And that's me getting stronger. That's me becoming that dude for whom that is the default. Right. And like, you know, you just do that over a number of years. Did you remember anything specifically like any moments in time there was a lot of resistance in what that inner voice was saying and what the outside voices were telling you?

31:13Definitely quitting to go to a sushi restaurant thing. I remember that was... Were your parents not on board with that or was, I mean, all your friends are getting high paying jobs? Like... I mean, everybody thought it was like a little bit silly, but you know, they don't really care. It's not their life. So they're like, whatever. Right. Yeah, do it, huh? It's like a friend at a party. Yeah, put your foot in there. Like, you know, whatever. You just want to see somebody like, you know, wreck themselves. You want their own entertainment. Of the people who cared, like my parents. My dad, to his credit, was very, it was a great dad moment.

31:44He was like, I think you should do it. I'm like, you think the sushi thing's a good idea? He's like, I think it's a terrible idea. Why do you think I should do it? He goes, because look at you. Like, you're so switched on now. He's like, you know, I've seen you your whole life. You never used to be this way. You never used to just wake up. You never used to just like have this, like this drive, this motivation, this like burst of energy. Like, look at you. You're like working all the time now. You used to be lazy. You know, you're really excited about this. I could see you developing your speaking skills.

32:12Like I could see you developing skills. I can see you like really switched on. You seem energized. Like, and he had this great phrase. He goes, um, a lot of times in life, we want to have the right direction first. Wouldn't it be nice if we knew exactly which way to go? but life is not like that. It's like you're standing on a beach. It's foggy outside. You want to get to paradise, but you don't know where it is. You can't see, you can't see through the fog. So he's like, you have two options. Either you just stand there and wait for the fog to magically clear. And then suddenly you could see is paradise that way or that way.

32:46Or you take your little crappy boat and you start paddling. And as you get out there, you might see it. You might see it's over. Oh, it's not this way. It's actually that way. He's like, and guess what? Once you're in motion, it's a lot easier to change direction. Yeah. Like people think it's really hard to change direction. No, you have momentum. You can actually shift course very easily if you see a better place to go. So he said, you know, sometimes life is about motion, not direction. And he goes, I don't think this is the right direction per se. Like, I don't think you're going to create the next Chipotle.

33:15I don't think you should be going into the restaurant industry. But I can see so much motion that I'm sure you'll figure out the direction. Like at some point. At some point. It's better off than standing on the beach. And he was totally right. That was like a really wise thing for him to do. Yeah, that's a beautiful phrase. I think most people probably, I think actually in life, the scariest thing is standing there and then realizing like 80, 90 years later, like shit, I didn't move at all. Yeah, I just sat down actually and like, you know, I just stayed here. Yeah, enjoyed the sand. Yeah. Yeah.

33:45All right, let's take a quick break because I got to tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form. And it was open only during business hours. And I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction. They locked my account. They put me on hold for 45 minutes. And then they told me I got to visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury.

34:10And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money. I can pay invoices. I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do 200 ,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column 8, and Evolve Bank & Trust members FDIC. When you were selling your company, when you were selling Bebo, was that a, like, you know, when you, that was sort of a little bit of a change, or not a big change in direction, right?

34:44How did you go about in that process? I imagine that would be quite hard. You know, you're making a pretty big decision to try and sell this company. you know, maybe you realize you don't want to be doing this specific project anymore. Sort of when you're working on a project and you're starting to feel like, okay, it's time to change direction to get to that path. Like, what was that process like for you? And what sort of things happened to make you come to that realization? Well, I was lucky. I have a very good friend, my buddy Suli. He, we were out at a casino down here in South South Africa.

35:13So you go to like Chinese casino, basically. It's like a bunch of like degenerate Asian playing like Pi Gao or something. And then there was us. And we're playing and then you're like, whatever, this is, we're done. We go to the like buffet area or whatever. We're just sitting at the buffet at like 1am. And he'd said to me something. He was like, um, he just said like, I forgot how we got there, but he goes, I don't get what you're doing. And I was like, what do you mean? It's pretty clear. He's my very good friend. Like he knows, you know exactly what I'm doing. I talk to you about this all the time.

35:44He's like, nah, I just, I just don't get it. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, no, I still get the whole thing. I was like, what? not just like at one part of our strategy, like the whole thing. And on the surface, what I had looked really great, which is kind of like one of those like inner voice versus external perception. We had probably the nicest office in San Francisco because my main funder, like the guy who basically was funding the lab was like a billionaire. So you had like the nicest office in San Francisco. We had a private chef. We had a masseuse on Fridays. We had a bar built into the office.

36:15We had everything that you would want. It was designed by this guy, Ken Folk, who's like this fancy guy. So if you walked in, you'd be like, wow, these guys are super successful. This is going great. Who wouldn't want to work here? It's paradise. All my coworkers were super smart. So I had a great team, great office, great team. Well, you must be constrained or not letting your wings fly. No, no, total freedom. Well, you must not have the resources, the funding, your strap, right? No, no, no. Blank check. Fund as much as you want. What's the problem? And so I'm like, what do you mean you don't get it?

36:45I have paradise. What don't you get? And he's like, well, like you've been there for six years and the project you're working on right now, it just seems like it's not like gonna hit in the way you want it to hit. It's also not gonna fail where you'd be like, this is an obvious failure. It's like, okay. And he's like, I just don't get why you're working on something that's okay. And so we, as we started talking, he was basically just like, you know, I think you came into this wanting one thing and now you're so far in, you're doing this other thing. And I don't think you would be doing that thing had you not already be doing it.

37:18so what do you mean he said uh in physics is this concept of inertia like the object in motion will stay in motion unless there's a force to resist it he was that force that night and i had just been this object in motion staying in motion and he goes inertia is a bitch dude like you know you will keep doing it because you're already doing it thought experiment if the lab closed tomorrow would you is this business operator idea so good that you would tomorrow pick up the phone call these same people you're working with and say, let's do this same thing. Yeah, of course, we're going to keep doing this.

37:52This is the best thing we could be doing. It's perfect for us. It's the juiciest opportunity. I don't want to be doing anything else. Yeah. And I was like, no way. Right. I would call the same people. Like I like the people, but we would definitely not work on this. Yeah. So then why are you doing it? Because you're already doing it. It's like, oh, this is silly. Right. And so, um, and you know, this is not a perfect test. Like, you know, you might always be like, this is, it's not saying this is the best opportunity out of all the trillions of possible things I could be doing in my life. That's a little overwhelming.

38:22But if you know, like, nah, I would probably say no and I'd probably try to find something else. Then you know you're doing the wrong thing. Right. And so I realized I was doing the wrong thing. So how did we get to sell the company? So the next day, I told you, I'm quick at cutting things off. Next day I go and I talk to my co-founder. I say, I think we should call it. I was like, I think we should try to sell the company and if we can't sell it, I think we should end the company. He's like, end the company? What are you talking about? I'm like, I just think we should be doing something else.

38:46What? I don't know. Something else. I need to shake it up. I was like, I didn't know anything more. I just knew I needed to shake it up. Long time had gone by. Six years. I gave it like a long run. We'd done 10 different products. Some of them were doing good. Some of them were doing bad. But like, I had like a lot of time trying this model with these people in this space. And I told him, I said, this idea that we're doing, we're only here because we just pivoted, pivoted, pivoted. I don't think this is the idea I would do tomorrow if I wasn't already doing it. Right. So I don't feel right about it.

39:13And I don't want to just pivot again for the 11th time. Like I'd rather just get a clean slate. I went to the investor and I said, hey, give me 45 days to try to sell this company. I'm sorry. I said, give me 30 days to try to sell this company. Or you could just like have it. I'll walk away. You can take all my equity. You can decide what you want to do with it. It's like, okay. And then we ended up selling the company 45 days later, which was like absurd. Like you don't sell. Well, there was still diligence afterwards, but 45 days to a signed definitive agreement is pretty fast. But kind of once I had that intention, you know, I really went for it.

39:52I think that's, you know, I think Steve Jobs famously asks himself every day, like looks himself in the mirror and says, do I want to, this is my last day, would I still be doing? And if there's enough days in a row where he said no, like he'd make a change. It's sort of similar to the question Sully asked you, like what, you know, what are you doing? Yeah, yeah. Would you be doing this if you weren't already doing this? I think that's just like a very simple way of looking at it. Yeah. You know, and I think if that answer is not a, I think it should be a hell yes as the ideal. And maybe you say, maybe you're just a couple tweaks away.

40:20Like, yeah, it would be a hell yes, but I hate my commute. Or it would be a hell yes, but I want to stretch my wings and start growing this other way too. Right. That's fine. Those are tweaks. Whatever the answer is, it's the answer. But, you know, I think asking the question is the more important thing. And, you know, Elon has this thing about like, how do you do it? Dude, what's your engineering process? How do you build such rockets and electric cars and giant super GPU clusters, blah, blah, blah. And one of his core principles is the biggest waste of time is doing something well that needn't have been done at all.

40:52And I think that's true for everybody's life. Like the biggest risk you have is spending your life trying to do a really good job at the wrong thing. Yeah. Thing you don't even want to be doing or you shouldn't be doing in the first place. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of bringing me to this thing where, you know, being okay or having this place in life, right? Where you've got this business where it's okay. It's kind of like not where you'd want it to be, but it's not the end of the world. Like that's potentially more dangerous than anything else. Like I talked to Ben Wilson about this. You know, you'd rather blame out than burn out.

41:20You would rather go all in, go for the thing you really want to do than burning out. How did you, you know, you've talked a little bit about it. Mediocrity is the real risk. Yeah, yeah. For any person with high potential, failure is not the risk. The risk is you get stuck in something that's just okay for too long because it'll sap you, sap your will, sap your time, sap your resources, slap your energy, sap your belief in yourself over time. Failing, it's a bit of a quick and painful thing, but it's over and you bounce back and it keeps your most precious asset, your time, still at your disposal.

41:52It's the thing that's just okay that is going to take all your time away. Yeah. You don't want that. Yeah, no, it's again to your point, like for inertia, like, you know, usually the thing that is mediocre, or you're in it just because you're doing it. Yeah, or put differently, I forgot who said this, whatever, someone said, for anybody who's sufficiently smart, the biggest cost is opportunity cost. So once you know that, that your biggest cost is not your taxes or your expenses, it's your opportunity cost, then you got to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. When you're choosing to do a project now, you're optimizing it for a lot more different things than earlier on.

42:29What sort of trade-offs to your point, like opportunity cost, Like, what do you look at now? And yeah. I have a very simple rule now. Am I doing this for a result? Or am I doing this because I like doing it? So I no longer will do something for some future payoff. Not saying I don't want to make money in the future or that those things can't happen. It's that, am I doing it? Am I suffering today for some better future? Or am I doing today where the reward is doing it? Reward is doing the thing, right? The work has to be the win. The win can't be some future hypothetical payoff of some work that I wouldn't have otherwise wanted to do.

43:08Because if you do it that way, then you win-win, right? You for sure win by doing it. And you might win double, triple, 10x from some result. But if you do it the other way, where you're just doing things opportunistically, and I know this because I spent 10 years doing things only for like, ooh, if this worked, it'd be amazing. But then when it doesn't work, which most of the time things don't work, it's like, damn, that's kind of a, not a waste totally, but like... But it feels like that. I wasn't, you know, I was basically not enjoying myself to the extent that I could have been. Again, the opportunity cost.

43:40The opportunity cost, I could have just been working on something that the work itself was super rewarding. The act of doing it was the reward and not the future payoff. Do you think if you had to focus on that earlier on, you still would have gotten to the point where you are now? Where like say you're doing the sushi restaurant and it ends up not working out, but then you pick something else consistently each time where like I don't care what anyone else thinks like this is just a project I'm doing because it seems curious but it might not make any money or things like that. Do you still think you'd be in this position or?

44:08Yeah, I think I'd be further ahead. Yeah? Yeah. That's awesome. Just because you would have figured out. I never know, right? It's impossible to say. You don't have the you can't run the A-B test on Mike. Maybe for a good maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, I just I mean I think I still would be the guy I am today. I think I would just be I think I would have found the things that are more enjoyable to me. Earlier. Which would have made... It's a flywheel, right? Because you enjoy it, you do it all the time. Because you do it all the time, you get really good at it. Because you get really good at it, you do get the results.

44:38Right. That's the flywheel. So, you know, but if you don't really enjoy the thing, then you only work on it to the extent that you have the motivation or willpower to do it or energy that you force yourself to do it. Then you only get so good at it. And because you're only so, so good at it, you know, you get a so, so result. Yeah. There's no flywheel. There's no flywheel. No, it's a drizzle. I'm a believer in that flywheel. And I think if I just started doing that when I was, you know, I did it at points in time. Not like I did it none. I didn't do it zero. But if I had been all in on that, I think it would have been, yeah, further ahead.

45:11Yeah. You've written a blog about not working hard. Like that's actually working hard is overrated. Do you think applying that principle back? I know we can't A-B test life. Like just looking back, do you think if you had applied that principle, you would have found those things quicker? like the things that where you pushed out I think there's a few different ideas yeah working hard is overrated that doesn't mean it's useless right all right okay it's a big difference so overrated means when successful people talk and like what's the key like hard work why do they say that sounds good sounds good it also sounds like we all had an equal shot I just worked harder right it's a decision that you made yeah my dad was a billionaire but like it was hard work that got me there right like you can you can use hard work gives you a lot of air cover.

45:55Yeah. It's the can't disagree. Who can disagree with that? Yeah. Me, basically. I'm the only guy who disagrees with that. So I think hard work is overrated. It's probably maybe the fourth or fifth most important variable. You know, I think the very first one is project selection and choosing what you, what you work on is far more important than how hard you work. I know this because I've worked in the restaurant industry. And picking the restaurant industry, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you're quite limited in like, you know, your results, your outcomes and what your life is going to be like.

46:23Right. So what you work on matters a lot. Who you work with matters a ton. Then I would say there's like, you know, sort of the third, fourth, fifth, right? Timing, luck. There's other variables of which hard work is one of those. So maybe it's three, maybe it's four, maybe it's five. That's what I've seen. Yeah, that's awesome. I do think, by the way, the one thing hard work's good at is it's good at developing skill. Right. And it's good about being serious. So like when you're in your 20s, it's easy to throw hours at the problem. you don't have good judgment so whatever spend more time yeah as you get as you have less time because you get older you have more you have kids you have less energy whatever your judgment's got to make up for your lack of time that you're willing to throw at the problem now so i think early on like i wouldn't have it's not like i would have just like done nothing that's not what i would that's not what i mean by like you know hard work is overrated i would have just been really intentional about project selection about people selection who i work with and then lastly like, you know, I would work hard and I'd focus on the skill building part of working hard because most projects fail, but the skills stick with you.

47:26Right. Like my sushi thing failed, but randomly while we were doing that, we were blogging and making like video content. Like I learned, I learned After Effects, I learned iMovie, I learned Photoshop, just enough to be dangerous. I'm not great at it. But those served me really well when I went to Silicon Valley and I could actually like mock things up myself, send it to the designer. Like the skill stuck with me. The project had left me behind, right? So I think skill building is really important. And also in that case, you can apply the skills to things that you would have been more naturally interested in doing anyway, right?

47:55Like I think, you know, you mentioned those skills you built up. Once I pick a better project, I still got that skill. Exactly. And you did this exact same thing when you applied to Monkey Inferno. Like you probably applied a lot of those skills in the way you actually got that job. Totally, totally. And like, you know, I think, so I think that's the, I forgot somebody said this. I think it was, who was it that said the skill, oh, Derek Sivers said this. He goes, I think skills are the most valuable thing because they can't be inherited. They can't be bought. They can't be taken away from you.

48:24It can only be earned. And Seinfeld kind of says the same thing. Basically, skill is really the thing worth having. All the things. The skill is the thing. Like what could you choose? You want the skills. Yeah, what could you choose? You can choose more resources. You can choose whatever. You can choose achievements. But skill is the thing. It's the mastery of a thing. It's the thing you really want. It's the key that unlocks infinite number of doors. Right, right. I think there's also something to be said for going that extra mile and trying to acquire the skills. Like there's such a service area of luck that increases when you do that.

48:56Like, you know, you can open up an ability to do something else you didn't even know was an option just because you've unlocked this skill and interest. Totally. We have this company we invested in. I don't know if I should say the name. Maybe I won't say the name. Yeah. The founder used to work in like an e-commerce. DTC brands, small DTC brands you've never heard of. Just kind of like, there's like two worlds, like tech Silicon Valley, where you raise millions in venture capital and you hire the best people and you go for a billion dollar outcome. And then there's like e-commerce dudes who like basically you're on Alibaba and then you have like your mom is your warehouse at the beginning and you're like drop shipping and you're trying to figure out like Google ads and Facebook ads and TikTok.

49:37So usually those two worlds are very separate. This guy hopped from one to the other, like, you know, like this is how COVID started. like from the bat to like humans or whatever. That's what, that's what he did. So what he did was he developed in e-com this like marketing skill around paid ads. When he went to, when he started this venture backed company, that's a B2B software company. Most of the guys in there are like a, somewhere between a zero out of 10 to a six out of 10 at paid ads. Right. Like, you know, like people who are great at paid ads, they're people who are like, you know, affiliate marketers and e-com people.

50:10They are dialed in. They know how to do that. Yep. So he took that and he did it there. He took that skill and he transferred it. Like just today, they raised basically like 300, $400 million valuation within two years. And the reason why they're growing so fast is because he cut his teeth doing e-com, you know, like digital ads, Google, Facebook ads. And he took that over here and he's like, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Like now I have the super sticky product with a high price point, you know, instead of selling a widget for 20 bucks in e-com, I'm selling a$20 ,000 recurring revenue contract.

50:44Yeah. But it's the same thing. And nobody here knows how to do paid ads at the level I do. Right. So this is great. Right. And so, you know, that skill can like, once you apply it to a better project can be a huge multiplier. Right. Do you think project selection as a skill is also something that builds over time? If you're intentional about it, yeah, like, of course. Most people don't, right? Most, like, I don't think most people really even know the word project selection, to be honest. Like, how many times have you even said that to yourself? Yeah. probably zero. People think about industries.

51:13They think about careers. They're like, just the atomic unit is a project. That's the thing you're going to do. And I think picking projects and picking partners both have this huge, like, change in like your outcome. And very few people know anything about how to pick good partners. Very few people know anything about how to pick good projects. But you can, of course, do those well. Those are skills. And pay attention to it and learn. If you're intentional about it. Yeah. I want to talk about two things that are really interesting. One, Well, interesting to me. I hope they're interesting. On the project selection side of things, you once called me when I went to go work with you again, instead of taking a sales job to go help you guys with clips for MFM and things like that.

51:52And it didn't end up panning out. But the decision I had at the time was like, hey, go do this sales job, earn like 12 grand a month, which I'm like 22, I'm 21. I'm like, that's insane amount of money, but I don't need that money. And you said something to me that I still remember to this day. I was outside because I'm eight, nine hours ahead and it was dark. And you said, you know, do you just want to be another sales guy? And I heard that I was like, no, you know, like I don't want to be that. Just spitting on you. Yeah. It's like, how dare you? I spit on you through Slack. Yeah. I felt it. I felt it.

52:25You know, because of that, like, I don't know if we'd ever even be here now because of that decision, right? So there's so many things downstream of that project selection that I think are so important. How do you lean? Was I right, by the way? Did that work out for you? Yeah, dude, I'm… Are you happy with that? I'm loving it. Like, you know, I still don't know exactly where I'm going, but like I'm in such a better spot. Your gut tells you I've moved in the right direction. Yeah, 100%. It doesn't mean it has to have played out yet. Right. But this is right. You're still rowing. Right? You know, like your gut is very strong at telling you that.

52:52Yeah. I feel like I would have been at that beach had I said no and like stayed in that job. And now I'm like, you know, out here doing things. I'm blessed enough to be able to talk to you guys here, right? So that's not something that would have happened otherwise. That's cool. Yeah. So I appreciate that. Yeah.

53:08you know, project selection is really important. But the other most important thing is who you're doing things with. Yeah. Right? That was the mistake you made. I offered you a role. Yeah. I was like, you should come work with me. You're going to learn a lot more. You're going to do full of shit. Yeah. You went on your own, which is always good for skill building. You'd probably, I would say, built a wider set of skills. Right. Because when you're on your own, you got to do everything. Right. But you didn't opt into a network. Right. This is the other thing I've been learning a lot. Yeah. Not to hijack your question.

53:33No, it's great. We just did a podcast with James Currier. Do you know him? Yeah. Network of NFX? Maybe explain to... Sure. James is like a Silicon Valley OG. He runs this fund called NFX, like a$1.2 billion fund. Has sold, has built multiple companies, sold them. Basically, like never lost a dollar for investors like in 30 years. Yep. So it's like, all right, great. He's somebody I learned a lot from. And he's like somebody I consider like a mentor to me. And he's big on networks. Everything he talks about is networks, networks. It's like a annoying. He's like, dude, James, I get it. Like, you know, hey, can you pass the cheese?

54:08He's like, is it part of the network? It's like, all right, dude, just give me the cheese. So he talks about this like with, very simple example is like, you know, where you choose to go to college, that's a network you're joining. You're not just joining a college, you're joining the - The alumni. Harvard alumni network. And some networks are really powerful and some networks are pretty weak. When you move to San Francisco, you're joining the San Francisco network and you'll start to network in there and you'll connect with a bunch of nodes. Right. And some of those nodes will lead to more opportunities.

54:34And so you might say, I don't want to move in San Francisco. The rent is$2 ,000 more. But being in that network is worth much more than that rent, right? Or the taxes, right? He talks about how like moving away just for taxes is the coolest decision. Because yeah, you saved 10%. Well, you lost out on a 10x more money you would have made just by staying in the white hot center of the tech and AI network is so much more valuable. If you're good. If you're bad, you're not going to get any value out of it. But if you're good, you should be in good networks. Yeah. And so I think this is something that people, I did wrong.

55:10I think other people do it wrong, which I think you did it wrong in this situation, which is if you have a chance to opt into a better network, it's almost always worth more than the incremental dollar, especially the earlier in your career, because you're going to have more time for that to compound. Right. Right. Like the actual network value to compound. And so I think that that's a mistake that I probably made early on that I didn't really recognize. And as I've talked to James, I've recognized that more and more, how valuable that is. Yeah. I mean, that's why early conversation is probably a mistake I'm making now, even just being in Europe still.

55:39No offense to Europe, but you know, it is much worse. Let's stay on this a little bit, actually, before going into to find like co-founders and things like that, because that's like a little bit more. By the way, we should say one thing. Yeah. You can win anywhere. Right. You can win on your own. You can win in any industry. You can win in the restaurant industry. You can win it. Anytime we're knocking these, it's not because that thing is so fatally flawed. It's just you want to make things easier, not harder. you want to increase your probabilities of success, not decrease them. That's what we mean with one, it's better or worse.

56:06It's generally just like either it's more fun, it's easier, or it increases your probability. Of course, there's always outliers and exceptions and you can be one of them and more power to you. But it's trade-offs, right? And it's to your point earlier where like if you're surrounded by five people who go to the gym, chances are you're going to get ripped. Increase your odds. It's not a guarantee. And you could have, of course, done it surrounded by other people. But why not increase your odds? Why not make things easier on yourself? There's no bonus points for doing everything the hard way for making your odds worse.

56:34You know, like why? Good for you, bud. Yeah, what's the point? Yeah. What other things being in a network and just in general, like I think being in a network as well and self-selecting for that, it's like a function where, you know, if you're even a small bad example, maybe like if there's a subreddit for a specific basketball team and you join that and you're very active in that, you're self-selecting for a community, sort of the same thing on Twitter or, you know, what content you're listening to and following. as well as which city you go to. What are some like other examples of that outside of like moving proximity-wise like that you can self-select to?

57:10I mean, you just named it. Your info diet. Right. I know a lot of people that aren't on Twitter. You opt out of that network or they're not on TikTok, whatever. These are networks you're opting into. Within them, there's sub-networks, right? Sub-clusters. So your info diet, right? Like the same way, you know, there's these economic studies, right? Your income will end up being roughly the average of the five people you hang out with the most. Well, it's the same thing for ideas or thoughts, right? Like you're going to average in, you're going to dollar cost average into the thoughts of that network that you're in.

57:41So whether it's the content you consume, if you consume the same content as everybody else, you're probably gonna have the same thoughts as everybody else. If you hang out with the same people, you're going to end up with the same people, right? Like you want to make some changes or you want to have differentiation of some kind, probably differentiate your info diet. You should probably differentiate, you know, the people you hang out with or what you do with your free time. Like those are the simplest, you know, those are the things that are upstream of a bunch of the results people want downstream.

58:08Right. Just the network selection. Yeah. Yeah. That's, yeah. That's a tough one. Why is that? I feel like there's, back to your point earlier of like what your role, like you're going in this direction, inertia, you know, you're only doing it because you're doing it. Like if you're really honest with yourself, like which networks do you want to select into? And I think probably, you know, if you stop, bad example, right? You stop listening to TikTok, you stop watching TikTok, right? And everyone you know is telling you like, hey, Sean, I just saw this new TikTok. You're like, oh, I don't watch TikTok, man.

58:40I don't know about that. Like, I think that plays into lots of other aspects of your life where you have to be very intentional about it because otherwise you're going to get overwhelmed and sort of not make that decision. So I think it's, it plays into your life more in more ways than one might think, like even your info diet. Yeah. Yeah, true. I mean, and look, if you love the thing, do it great. But it's like, if you don't, or you're just like, you're open-minded. Yeah. Maybe you like reading books more, right? Maybe you like doing certain other things, right? Like maybe you just pick up a different hobby that opts you into a different network.

59:11Yeah. Right. Like I know a lot of people that do jujitsu. And jujitsu is exercise, but it's different than the elliptical. You're going to work out a different way. You're going to develop a skill. You're going to be in a part of a community. You're going to build your toughness. Right. You're going to learn the mental resilience. You're going to learn about like leverage. You can learn so many things out of that same hour of exercise. Yeah. Like, so some people will try that because it's going to get you a different result than maybe, you know, that hour on the elliptical at, you know, level seven.

59:37In yourself. Just you and yourself. Yeah, you just you and yourself. Exactly. Yeah. Let's talk about the final thing in terms of network. You've mentioned, you know, project selection we've talked about is very important, but also people selection and partner selection. you've often talked about Warren Buffett's sort of framework for it and you've got a good one for it as well in terms of choosing who to work with and potentially even just doing project with, right? Like, so if you've got company A and B that are the exact same, but they've got different people working there, like how do you figure out what types of people you want to be around?

1:00:07Talk to me about, you know, your selection framework for that. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, Buffett has a great one on this, which is, you know, you select for energy, intelligence, and integrity, right? Those are the three legs of the stool. Right. If they have the energy and intelligence, but no integrity, great. They're a smart crook and the stool falls over, right? If you have the energy and the integrity, but no intelligence, you're not going to really get anywhere, right? So you get the idea. I learned for myself, there's a fourth thing that really, really mattered, which is that having somebody who's down, and I don't know a better word for this.

1:00:41I just called it down because that's the way I would describe them. Like, it's great. He's down. And down meant a couple of different things. They're down to try it. So they'll take a half-baked idea and be like, yeah, let's give it a shot. I need that. And I think great things come from being around people who are down. Right. I think they're down for adventure. So like when we could choose a safe path or a more interesting story path, they're down for that and they'll lean that way with me. Yeah. I think they're down to like buckle down and just grind and just do something that's hard for a while.

1:01:12Like they're not going to run away from pain or difficulty. So down means a bunch of different things to me. And that's the best way I can explain it is having somebody who's down. For me, that's almost the sort of the highest priority bit. Everything else is sort of secondary to that. Yeah. You've talked about when you met Ben, you know, your ultimate partner right now, where he had a SaaS that was doing, I think, a million dollars a year in profit. He had, you know, objectively great position. And he sort of took, he was down enough to go on this random side project with you. Is there anything you can tell, you know, talk to us about Ben and sort of bring those three aspects you just mentioned to life?

1:01:47yeah Ben's the most down right like he's uh you said it perfectly he had a business doing a million dollars a year of profit at the time and I was like hey you want to spend your time doing like this random unknown thing with me that I think I think it'd be pretty fun I think it could be interesting yeah yeah I'm down all right okay cool I don't really know exactly what it is I have this rough idea you down with that yeah I'm down like I'm down to not I don't need it all figured out right okay cool we ended up doing this thing that for 90 days was like really intense like this is full on. I'm down, right?

1:02:18And he just carried on. Then we switched. We did the next thing, the next thing. And we've done probably five or six different things together, maybe more, seven at this point. Every single one of them has been super fun. Every one of them has worked. It's been a pleasure to work with them. And that's a big reason why. Yeah, that's so amazing. Let's go and start wrapping this up a little bit in terms of your story. Let's talk about 2025. On the podcast, you guys have talked about this thing called Misogi. Can you explain what that is? And then tell me, do you have one for 2025? Yeah, sure. Misogi, I think, is this concept.

1:02:49Jesse Itzer came on the podcast and talked about it. It's every year, be intentional with your time. So it's very easy for one year to blend into the next. Time flies. Time flies because you're in a routine. And that routine is often filled with... Inertia. Yeah, inertia. It's filled with Zoom calls and errands and weekly stand-ups with random people. So that's going to happen by default. If you want anything else to happen, you got to do something about it. I agree with him. And he has this like intense, like way of planning out your year. We did a podcast with him. You can go see it on YouTube.

1:03:22Jesse Itzler. I'd have a big 2025. And one of the central things, this idea of a misogy, one grand challenge for the year, a year defining thing that you will do. Yeah. That is both hard and rewarding and memorable for you and meaningful to you. And so for some people, that's like do an Ironman or climb Everest or whatever their thing is. So that's the idea. That's the concept. Mine this year is too. It doesn't sound like Everest, but it is important to me. I wanted to learn how to jam out on the piano. So I was like, I want to learn a new skill. I want to learn the piano. More specifically, I want to be able to jam out, meaning I want to be able to play the songs I want.

1:04:04I want to be able to play in like a dad band with other people. I just think that would be a really fun aspect of my life to work in. And I want my life to be fun. And I want it to be interesting. and I thought, look, I'm never going to just have the time magically to do this. But I was like, yeah, well, yeah, that was the year that I learned how to play the piano. And I could do that for the rest of my life. I could be 80 years old. I could be playing the piano. And so I thought, oh, yeah, that'll be year defined. That'll be the year I decided to do that. And I made it happen. Yeah. Is it going well?

1:04:32Yeah, it's going great so far. I'm doing my thing. That's amazing. I think I want to wrap it up by saying there's, I recently reread Paul Graham's How to Do Great Work. and he says, you know, it's similar to his phrasing for finding startup ideas. Like, don't look for it. Just do things you're naturally interested in and, you know, do something where at the end of it, you'd say, that was pretty cool. I did that. Right. I think that's a great way to choose your misogi as well. Like, you know. I think he says like, let interestingness be the filter. Yes. So is it interesting to you? And if it's interesting to you, then it's worth doing.

1:05:01You'll be excited while you're doing it. It'll be worth doing just because it was interesting. Yeah. But also interestingness, like what's interesting to you is not interesting universally. Right. So he talks about like, it's also a good strategy because nobody can copy your taste profile. So if it's interesting to you, that's not going to be interesting to everybody. So it's already going to self-select out a bunch of other people, filter out a bunch of other people. And secondly, if it's interesting to you, you're going to do it all the time. Same, same, that fly we all talked about. You're going to do it all the time.

1:05:28Rule of 100. Therefore, you're going to get good at it. When you're good at it, you're going to get a good result. Yep. So it's like, that's why he says, let that be the guide. Yeah. Because that will lead you to the most interesting place you can. And if the first one doesn't work, it doesn't matter. You'll have so much fun doing it. You'll just keep doing that. It'll eventually land in a good spot. Yeah. In and of itself, it'll still be fun. Right. Yeah. I love it. I think that's it. I had a couple of hot fire ones, but I think, honestly, like, leaving it on this such a high note. I think this, if I were to listen to this, I'm going to keep listening to this on repeat.

1:05:57I think people are going to be jacked up and, you know, ready to change their life after hearing that. All right. Let's do it. Awesome. All right. Thanks, Sean. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me, dude.

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