We Got 100M Views In 12 Months, Here’s What We Learned

24:44She's like, it's financially irresponsible to not at least spend five to 10 % of your time on this. And then I did the math and I was like, 10 % of my time would be five full weeks of a year. I was like, there's no way I'm going to do that. But I was like, I should at least spend like two, one, you know, like something where I'm actually focused. So who did you hire? Did you like a tax strategist? I talked to a few, but, you know, the reality was it's not that hard. Like the real estate really is the best way to do this. Because what you do is you take, you know, you take income and you have taxable income coming from one place.

25:21You take that cash, you deploy that cash into real estate. and my wife is a real estate professional, so we can offset the active income. And so you put the cash there. Now that cash is going to grow in the property, but you got all this tax loss to wipe out your taxable income, if that makes sense. So you get cash on both sides, but the taxable income gets reduced by using real estate. So it doesn't really take... I don't need to do anything... By the way, it is hard. It's hard to find deals that are good. I mean, like I've bought... Well, that's the key. Like I knew this for a long time. I was like, great.

25:55What am I going to do? Go look for four plexes in Missouri. Like I don't have the time or energy or expertise to do this. Then you have a bunch of different, like, you know, fund manager type people. You're like, all right, I got to vet them and figure out if they're any good and, and, and do a couple of deals with them. And I could do that. In this case, I was lucky that I had a very longitudinal relationship with somebody that I had seen do this with their own money. They're not a money manager. and so um and they get you know a far above average returns because of what they do and so anyways that that became you know the thing i'm gonna do so anyways we should talk more later you should do this too i i'm like so convinced that this is a good idea for people in our position and i think most of our friends in our circle we're all like internet money people and we'd like kind of suck at the the real world money stuff yeah i suck at it um all right i've got another one.

26:46I've titled this Loose Cannon, Loose Results. So for the majority of my career, I've been a loose cannon. I would say silly stuff and it would get a reaction and I would get results sometimes. I got to put that asterisk sometimes. The result being a laugh. Or like I was in the media business. We are still in the media business, which is like, I can go the obnoxious or blunt or ridiculous route, and I can get clicks. And the problem with that is as you get more popular, you have to decide, are you going to go all in on that? Or are you going to not go all in on it? Or you want to be this medium ground.

27:27And the medium ground is bad. And so here's an example of someone who goes all in on it. Dave Portnoy. The guy's a missionary. But here's what that means. So he says ridiculous stuff. he had a sex scandal this year. Regardless of what the facts are, I'm not even debating what the facts of that, of his issues were. He was accused of being, it might've been like crazy, like assault, like some really bad shit. And he went all in on it and he came out with like, and he like, he kind of, I don't think he joked about it, but he like confronted it head on. But then there's other things that he's done where he's like, look, I'm so rich.

28:04I can do all this stuff. And, but there's a downside to that. The upside is he got lots of traffic he uh you know whenever he goes through any type of scandal he gets lots of views and somehow imagine he gets paid for those ads the downside is obvious which is you are now this guy where you've got to live this life where you're this loose cannon guy you say whatever you want and you're a huge target then we've gotten really close with andrew wilkinson who is not a loose cannon he says some stuff uh bluntly but inch and he's a very honest guy but he's reserved a bit More measured. Yeah. He's more measured.

28:38We had Syed on the... What's Syed's last name? Syed Balky. Balky. He's one of the best guests we've had. Very measured. The guy's only 32 or something, and he's in the ballpark of being a billionaire. He owns all these companies. And off air, when I've hung out with him, he's a little bit less measured. But on air, he was very like, look, my reputation matters. I need to have a good reputation. and he cared about that stuff. We also had Kevin Ryan. Kevin Ryan, probably the second or third most successful guy we've had in the podcast. Very measured, very honest, but very straightforward, but also calculating.

29:17Sarah Moore was another person. Sarah Moore, she explicitly said, I don't want to be famous. I'm only going to be here. And she still said good stories, but I'm sure that her reputation was in mind, things like that. And I think that I'm not willing to go the Dave Portnoy route. for sure. I don't want that flack. I've said very mild things and I'll get flack for it. And I'm like, yeah, I just don't want to live this life where I go hardcore. So anyway, a takeaway is I've actually wanted to pull back some public persona stuff, not reveal certain numbers. I don't want to be a target. I don't want to have to fight these battles.

29:53I don't get joy from that. I used to get joy from that. And I would respond to haters constantly online just to prove like, so you can't talk shit to me. I'm a real guy. I read all the comments. That's stupid. I don't want to be that person. That's a pretty big takeaway. You've done a good job of like, you've not, you've actually had a few fires this year where you said some stuff that you got called out on and you didn't back down from it, but you also didn't engage in it. I don't even remember. There was a time where you criticized someone who worked for you and it caused a little bit of a spat on the internet.

30:28And I don't remember another time, but I think that's what I'm referring to. And in my head, when I'm hearing you say that, and when I'm seeing that, I'm like, I want to stay out of this. I don't want any of this drama. I don't want this stress. We've seen it with Chamath a bit, where he put himself out there, and he's done some contradictory things, and he's taken a lot of flack. And I respect that he's owned up to it, and he faces it head on. I don't want to live that life. I thought I did, I don't. As we've gotten more popular, I for sure do not want to live that life. And I prefer to be more private now than I was in the past.

31:04That's a good one. I have kind of a related one. So one of the best meetings I had this year was with James Courier. James Courier, for those who don't know, he is the founder of something called NFX, which stands for Network FX. They have like, I don't know, a billion dollars of assets under manager. They invest in tech startups, He's a Silicon Valley OG, so he's been building successful tech companies for 20 years or something like that. Yeah, he's had, I think, multiple$100 million plus exits. Correct. Super fun guy. So I go to his office. So I drive down to Palo Alto. I don't usually leave the house, but for James, I'm there.

31:41And literally, it's just me and him in the office. I was like, where's everybody else? He's like, yeah, we don't really even have that many people. But also, yeah, nobody's coming to work anymore. Everyone works from home. So it's just me and him in his office for a couple hours. and he shared with me a piece of advice that really stuck with me and I started seeing everywhere. Something I hadn't really thought about. So he goes, he goes, can I give you some unsolicited advice? I was like, please. And he goes, you know, today he drew this like line on the whiteboard. He's like, he goes, I really like what you guys are doing with your show, but I don't know like where you go from here.

32:17He's like, you're kind of in the middle. He's like, meaning if I think about really upmarket. He's like, you know, when we make content, we're not making content that we don't want a million views. If we did a million views on a piece of content, we probably made the wrong piece of content. He goes, because what I'm doing, and in fact, he's like, I'm trying to invest in, you know, whatever. It's the next Airbnb, the next Twitter, the next whatever. So he's like, I need the most ambitious founders in the world who are building, you know, like venture-backed tech companies to read our stuff, really care about it and think when I'm going to raise money, I'm going to go to NFX.

32:52And he's like, so you have us and A16Z and others that are trying to be really up market because we're trying to attract a certain quality founder of which there's only, you know, a smaller pool, but they also care about different things. They're only going to, you know, they don't want to hear about the vending machine side hustle. Like we'll be like, oh, dude, this guy's got 18 vending machines. He's making 22K a month. Isn't that sick? And like, he doesn't care about that. They're trying to get, you know, only people who are going to like disrupt the healthcare system or some shit like that.

33:19I don't know. So it's such a big idea who even knows what it means by the way i would disagree with him i i think that the i i think they care enough to listen but not enough to actually do anything about it you know what i mean oh yeah and the vending machine thing actually you're right because i meet a lot of these people and they're like pretty fascinated by like uh the economics of stuff that's outside of their world because there's yeah business nerds i think they actually care enough to be entertained by it but that's but that's about it but like then you have on the other end of the spectrum you have you know, let's say, and I love Gary Vee, but you know, Gary Vee is basically like motivation, grind, like, Hey, you got to like, his content will be literally, he's like, I'm going to pull up to this garage sale and I'm going to flip this VHS for, you know, on eBay.

34:02And imagine if I did that every day, you could, you, you, that could be your hustle. And it's like, so I could make, you know, a hundred grand a year. It's like, a job can do that. But this is, I guess the, the entry level of entrepreneurship. And it's like, and he has a huge audience. which I respect by the way but if you said hey Gary you know like what's the deal for like the best investments Gary's made I think came from his peers like his friends he hung out with not like his listeners in that way right not his fans right um and he probably like I shouldn't speak for him but I guess like it's very easy if you're in that position to be like it's great because I get huge numbers but I'm not necessarily it's not like a two-way thing I'm not learning back from my audience as much.

34:44Maybe I'm, you know, I'm happy to sign autographs and take selfies, but I'm not trying. I'm not excited to go have dinner with five people in this group because I don't feel like it's going to, you know, iron's not sharpening iron there, right? Like I'm a black belt. I'm more hanging out with white belts. And so I kind of want to, when I'm trying to spar, I want to spar with black belts anyways. So he's like, you have a decision to make. You're in the middle right now with my first million. You kind of have a foot in both camps. And he's like, it's going to be very tempting for you to go down market.

35:10And he's like, don't do it. He's like, go, if anything, go up market. And he's like, in the long run, you're going to be more interested in the topics that those people are interested in. You're going to not want to keep saying the same like beginner level, here's how you, you know, literally here's how you make your first million. Here's how you get, here's how you should quit your job. And here's how you get a startup idea. And here's how you incorporate an LLC. Like, you're not going to want to make that content as you grow. And he's like, you should steer up market. He's like, my only advice to you is that.

35:45I think that was so smart. And so I don't even know why he said that to me because who's even thinking about that? I wasn't even thinking about it. But now, I'm just going to give you an example. Alex Hormozu, I think is, in one hand, absolutely killing the content game. I think Alex is awesome. I think he's super, super talented. But I think he's making a mistake in that he goes very down market. I'm just going to read you some titles of his last videos he's posted in the last two months. Okay. How to make so much money. It makes you sick. Um,

36:16how to get rich this black Friday. Watch this. If you're tired of being broke, uh, the real reason your business isn't growing, um, a bunch of these, right. So like, I don't want to pick on these, but these are more down market video concepts and they'll get views for sure. And like the comments will kind of show you, people like, oh my God, you changed my life. You're my hero, blah, blah, blah. And it's not that he's not doing a service for those people. However, I look at that. I think for me, the game I want to play is definitely going to be not to go down market, to resist the temptation, to try to create that content and to focus on creating upmarket content, which is going to have a lower view count number, but it's going to have a higher value per viewer and more of the audience.

37:04And it's like, I'm creating a magnet. I'm not creating an audience. I'm creating a magnet with my content and I want to attract the right people. And so, uh, anyways, that was a big lesson or takeaway for me that I wouldn't have otherwise thought about. Yeah. I think so. Like sometimes some of the contractors who work on this podcast will suggest ideas because they're just looking at like YouTube analytics. And I'm like, no, I, I, I ate a eight out of the 10 things I don't think would, would work. Apple sold iPhones for$5. They'd sell more units too. Right. Like if you're building an upmarket brand or if you're Louis Vuitton, you don't want to go down market.

37:40There's another guy we met. And we fall victim to it as well. I don't want to act like our shit don't stink, but even though you and I will fight it, sometimes we will give it. Correct. The only reason this lesson resonates is because it's something I'm wrestling with. If I have a solved problem, I don't really care about it. It doesn't stand out as a big takeaway because I didn't have the problem in the first place. This is a problem I have, so I'm trying to figure out where to go, and this advice was very helpful. There's another guy who does this. Have you seen this guy on Instagram? The Genius CEO?

38:07Yeah. He's in Austin right now. I think he's so funny. He's so funny. So I find him hilarious. And when I met him... I can't tell if his Instagram's a joke. There's a lot of nuggets in there, but he'll be like, Bad Bunny is only making$30 million a year. What a bitch move. We're going to teach this guy how to make a billion... He'll insult these people. And it's pretty funny. He'll be like, he goes, this product is going to bust faster than a bunch of you chumps out there. So let me tell you how I would do it. I was like, whoa, what a hook. So we met this guy in real life. In real life, total sweetheart and very smart guy.

38:47Super nice dude. Humble, whatever. And then I'm like, why do you have this ridiculous mustache? Your fingernails are painted. You got this crazy chain and a Gucci purse. Well, he looks like a celebrity. He's like a tall, good-looking guy. He looks like an IG, like a male IG thought but you're in person you're a totally respectable, humble, nice guy dad and he was like oh yeah, I created this character I realized what hits on IG is going to be fancy cars, fancy shit six pack abs, hot girls and so he's like, I just do that it's my character and I built a following so he's got 200 ,000 followers on here his content is hilarious it's so funny but he's selling a, you know, FBA, you know, uh, you know, basically like I made my millions selling dropshipping.

39:35Basically, I, you know, I was doing FBA brands. Uh, you know, you're, if you want to stay being a broke idiot, don't listen to this video. And then he'll be like, here's the first lesson for you do this. And I know what you're going to say, blah, blah, blah. Well, here's what I say about that. And then he'll like flashes like fancy shit. He's like, this is a video of me buying this Von Cleef, uh, you know, necklace. It's so funny. I love it. And I'm like, wow, what is happening with this guy? But I think he's also going to be trapped in the down market thing, right? He's selling a mastermind. You got to go pay to get into.

40:06He's going to make millions of dollars doing this. But I don't think he's got any like, you know, I don't think he's got any way out. You know, that is a he's cornered himself in that way. Sure. Sure. Yeah, he's a good follow. He's very funny. Well, guys, when it comes to banking, the only time I feel truly happy is when I'm using Mercury. And that's today's sponsor for the show. That is the banking product I use for not one, not two, but actually eight of my businesses. I have eight Mercury accounts. I just went and counted. I use it for every one of my companies. It's an absolute no-brainer.

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41:11So if you need a banking product for your startup, use Mercury. You will not regret it. It's amazing. For more information, check out Mercury.com. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Check show notes for details. All right. Let me give you another one. So the biggest takeaway that I want people to have from this podcast, we've done it now for three or four years. And at first, I'll go get a haircut. And they'll be like, So what do you do for work? And I was like, Oh, I do this. I do that. I work on this podcast. And they're like, What's the podcast about? And I'm like, Well, it's called My First Million.

41:42But it's not like the title isn't accurate. And I'll explain what it's about. And what I tell people is that, look, we've had multi-billionaires on this show. we've had employees at companies on this show I think what we care about is people who create a path and they do it I don't necessarily think just because you are a billionaire you are particularly better than anyone else what I care about is someone who says I'm going to be great at this weird type of art intentionally choose a game so they choose a game with intention and then they play the shit out of their game is that the description?

42:21because that's what it is for me that's exactly it. And so, for example, the guy I talk about all the time, Brett Adcock, he's not like me. He's like, well, I'm going to raise billions of dollars and try to create a$500 billion company. I'm inspired by that, but I will never, I don't want to do that. Or even this example we just gave, the Genius CEO. He chose to play that game. He's playing the shit out of it. I respect that. I don't want to do that, but I kind of admire people who intentionally choose their game and then play the shit out of it. I admire the hell lot of it. Or we've had John Coogan.

42:51John Coogan started Soylent, which scaled to be a fairly large business. He's got another company. And now he's like a full-time content creator. He has a YouTube channel. And it's beautifully done. He's doing it wonderfully. And then we've had Rob Dyrdek on. We've had Laird Hamilton on. Guys who aren't the Silicon Valley's type of lifestyle, but they kill it in whatever they do. And I admire all of them equally. And so the takeaway that I've had, which is there's a million ways to get to where you want to go, or there's a million ways to get to a certain place. And for a lot of these people, it's money.

43:23But there's still a million ways to get there. And you shouldn't just... For example, when I moved to San Francisco, I was like, you have to raise VC. You have to do this. You have to do this. But then we meet Syed, who... Breaks all the issues. Yeah, I imagine he's worth$500 to$1 billion. He started a WordPress blog, which sounds crazy stupid if you don't know what you're talking about, which I didn't. Turns out that killed it. Then he bought tons of gas stations. Now he owns 50 different WordPress plugins. Collectively, that does over$100 million in revenue. He's a young guy in Florida. Not even a cool part of Florida.

43:56He's not in Miami. I think he's in like Tallahassee or I forget where. Like somewhere in Florida. Yeah, no disrespect, Tallahassee. I see Ari. There's just people listening to this pod. It's like, oh man, their hometown where they grew up. Dude, Jort, Lauderdale, I don't care. I'm from St. Louis, all right? I can say these things. I'm not from a cool place. So all the Baltimore's out there, you know like i feel love for you to the tears tears cities out there it's it's it's objectively not like the place to be and but what i'm saying is i appreciate the hell out of people like that and learning about all of these different ways and my biggest takeaway from this year and doing the podcast which is there's a lot of different ways to do it you just have to choose where you want to go and you got to choose what rules you're willing to play by but there's not one way to do it and i wouldn't even i wouldn't even go as far as to say there's one that's likely.

44:48In fact, if I had to say that, I would say the one that's likely to get there is starting a small services business and just growing it over 50 years and paying yourself a good salary after year 10 and doing that for decades, which is not at all what I would have expected. It's just a normal small business owner that does it for a long time is significantly more likely to have a higher income and die rich than any other way. But there's a lot of different ways to do it. And that's one of the things I appreciate by doing this podcast. That's a great one. And I do think that that's the, if you zoom out, that is kind of the point of the pod.

45:26The point of the pod isn't saying do X or do Y. It's check this out. You can do X. Here's how that works. You could do Y. Here's how that works. You could do Z. Here's how that works. And by the end of it, you're either going to be in one of two positions. Some people hear all that and get overwhelmed. They don't know where to go. There's too many, too many paths, too many possibilities. Um, they, it sort of paralyzes them, but I hope that's not most people. I think for most people, the net reaction is kind of like, wow, winning and being successful is this thing that feels scarce if you're not around it, right?

46:00Like where I grew up, I didn't know any business people. Nobody in my family was a business purple person. Nobody, none of my cousins, none of my aunts, none of my uncle, none of them did businesses. You're raised in Tallahassee, born in Oklahoma. And, uh, and so, you know, I wasn't around. Ari just flicked me off or make it fun of Tallahassee, by the way. And so, so, you know, I, I wasn't around it. It seemed like this far away thing that I didn't really even understand. There was no map. And I thought maybe there's one path, but I don't know it. And I'm not invited to that, to that party. And then my hope is that if you listen to this podcast, you're going to hear over the course of a year, a hundred different examples of ways to win and how they work.

46:43And at that point, it's just a matter of choosing. And all of a sudden winning and success becomes this thing that instead of being scarce and difficult is abundant. It's everywhere. And it's right at your fingertips. If you just start doing whatever sounds most intriguing to you, and then you just keep playing the game, it will work out for you. I think that's what the pod ultimately does for people. Good. I hope it does. I have one more. Do you have one more? You go. All right. My last one. So we had Scott Galloway on. Scott Galloway is a guy who he said on the pod, he goes, I'm worth over$100 million.

47:22And he also said in that same sentence, I'm deeply afraid of running out of money. We had Morgan Housel on most recently. And he said something like, he knows that you shouldn't necessarily set goals for money. And he knows objectively, he's got enough that he likely won't ever run out. And he knows that he shouldn't check his net worth. But then also, we pressed him on it. And he was like, but of course, if I'm laying at bed at night, just because I know what I'm supposed to do, I still wonder what it would be like to have more. And I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast. Maybe Jack Jack Smith, maybe Jack Smith, but Jack Smith's like a freak.

47:59But I don't think we've ever had anyone on the podcast, regardless of what they have, they don't want more. And that sounds like a really negative thing of like, what? You have enough. Why do you need more? Why do you need to achieve this and that? I think it should be the opposite. And I think the takeaway is no matter what you have, you're always going to feel that there's another level and that you should one up. And I don't think that's a depressing takeaway. I think the takeaway should be you will always want more accomplishments, more achievements. And that is okay. That is totally okay.

48:28And that is normal. And just expect that wherever your goal is, once you achieve it, you're going to feel satisfied only for a short amount of time. And then you're going to want to achieve more. And that's basically 95... Or no, I would say 99 % of the time, that's true. And that's okay. It's okay to want more. I think there's a healthy way to go about it. And there's an unhealthy way to go about it. I would say Scott probably has unhealthy ways. I would say I have unhealthy ways. And I think you can change those unhealthy ways to healthy ways, but no matter what you have, you will accomplish whatever your goal is and you'll get there.

49:01It'll take six months and you'll say, what's next? How do I do it again? How do I do more? And just expect that that's going to happen. Yeah. I think when people hear that, it sounds wrong or sad or bad or something like that. But another way of looking at that same thing is the concept of infinite and finite games. And so the, my, my understanding of it, I haven't spent a ton of time on this, but my understanding of it is a very simple understanding is a finite game is one where you play for the result. So you play in order to achieve an outcome and you're hoping to get to that outcome. That's the purpose of it.

49:43And then an infinite game is one where you play for the sake of playing. And so you play because you want to play. now if you look at that in practice so for example for me basketball is something i consider like an infinite game right like i i play because it's so fun to play and i want to play and my goal is not to like win and stop my goal is to win but i wouldn't stop if i won because but not because it's like greed it's like well winning is a is baked the scoreboard makes the game more interesting and in a small burst, yes, of course, we're trying to win the fourth, you know, by the end of the fourth quarter, I want to have the higher score, but ultimately like, you know, Hey, all right, let's run it back.

50:27Let's play again. Let's play again. Let's play till our legs fall off is basically how it's always felt for me. And that's the closest thing I felt to an infinite game until kind of business came in. And it's actually very, very similar. It's like, I like having a scoreboard. It makes it more fun to play when you do keep score, but I'm not trying to get to a result. I'm not doing work to get to a result and then I'm going to stop working. It's I like playing. I plan to keep playing. I'm playing for the sake of playing. And but the scoreboard makes playing a lot more interesting and fun and intense.

50:55And that should be the takeaway that way. The takeaway is that because I had the I previously had the if I get to this, I will not feel stressed and I won't work anymore. The reality is I still felt stress. I felt less stress, though. There's no doubt. No doubt about that. I felt a lot less stress. and six months later I was like, but I have to go and do something. I feel like a piece of shit just sitting here and I feel good contributing. By the way, why do you think you, if I just said, why do you still feel stressed? Why do you think you feel stressed even after the event? Because I think that the stress, I think that, well, to get therapeutic, it's all baked into some type of childhood trauma and that just takes years to unwind.

51:37But why does it, part of the stress is comparing yourself to others. And so you want to achieve more and also wanting more stuff, which is, what do they say? Desire is hell or desire is pain. Yeah. Or desire is suffering. So wanting more stuff, which I try to combat by just, I'm like, no, that won't. I try to like say this won't make me happy. Comparing myself to others, wanting more stuff and also just wanting to get rid of a chip on my shoulder. Right. I'll offer you a different answer that might be true for you. I don't know if it is or not, but I think I believe this is more true because I hear a lot of people talk about it and it's like childhood trauma.

52:18It's like, all right, well, nothing I can do about that. That's literally the past. It's written and it sounds like it's a long unpacking process. I don't want to do that. I still got suitcases over here. I haven't unpacked from vacations I've been on. I'm not trying to unpack years of childhood trauma. similarly, it's like, oh, I have to like stop the feeling of envy or desire. Oh my God, that sounds like a game I'm never going to win. So I actually think there's a different answer, which is emotion. The emotions you feel are much like muscles. It's basically, you've had a lot of practice at stressing.

52:54So what happens is people practice feeling a certain way and they don't think about it as practice. But what does it mean when you do something all the time or regularly. You are habituating yourself or practicing doing that. You're getting reps at doing it. And then one day, suddenly, they change the environment and they think that all that practice and that muscle that they've basically developed and practiced and repped daily will just go away. And this new muscle called contentness and happiness will appear because the bank balance in your Bank of America account has changed. No way, right?

53:30And so I would actually say it's the opposite. If you want to change that feeling, it's not the money. It's you have to find a way on a daily basis to practice having that feeling. You want to feel happy? You got to practice happy. You want to feel content and peaceful? You got to practice content and peaceful. You got to practice that more than you're practicing anxiety and fear and stress and all these other things. And so for anybody out there who's listening, Sam is absolutely right. Your feeling is not going to change, but I don't think it's because of these deeply rooted psychological and historical reasons.

54:01A simpler example, a simpler explanation might be that I've really just gotten a lot of reps practicing one thing and therefore that's easy and familiar and habitual for me. And I got to start practicing the other. The same thing happened when we sold the Milk Road. I talked to Ben and I was like, Ben, how does it feel for your first kind of big exit for you? And he's like, honestly, it doesn't feel like I'm kind of disappointed. It doesn't feel like very much. I don't feel that much. And I go, he's like, maybe it's because maybe if the number was bigger, maybe this, right. He started going down that path.

54:31And I was like, no, dude, it's because you're trying to feel like this kind of victorious joy. How many days out of the year, the last 365 days, did you feel that? Like zero. Did you let yourself feel that? Zero. And so what do you think? All of a sudden today, you're going to turn on and be really good at feeling that? Like, no, dude, it's practice. If you want to feel that, we got to do that regularly so that that muscle's there. And do you did you come up with this theory on your own or did you steal Tony Robbins? When I was at that event, he has a similar thing. He calls it your emotional home.

55:04He goes, everybody's got an emotional home. He's like, because he's like, he's like, look, watch, watch this. Raise your hand. If you're somebody who, you know, sometimes gets a little pissed off. Everybody raise their hand. He's like, raise your hand. If sometimes you are just super silly, having fun, being playful, everybody raises their hand. He's like, okay, so we're capable of both. You are not like just an asshole or just a super nice, easygoing guy. We all fluctuate. And he's like, but it is true that we have an emotional home. It's the place like your home. It's the place you spend the most time.

55:35And he's like, if your emotional home is that you are stressed out, it doesn't matter if you sell your company for a billion dollars. If you did, if you grinded for seven years, you were stressed all the time. You're not just going to become a different guy all of a sudden, right? Because that's your emotional home. But he's like, good news is you can move it. He's like, you can move it if you basically practice it, right? And he's like, so we want to basically, you know, you don't want to wait for things to happen to feel a certain way. He's like, you want to have it on call that you can change the way you feel like that fast.

56:07Can you do that? Can you change the way you feel that fast? And a lot of the events of Tony Robbins and the reason why people feel like almost like he's manipulative is because he literally is manipulating the way you feel. he's showing you that like you can change the way you can go from focused to jubilant to um zen and calm and reflective to motivated and inspired in like a 30 minute span just by the way he's kind of prompting you and uh the trick obviously is to learn to do that yourself so that you now are in control of your own mood you're the master of your own mood and that's that was big that became a big focus for me after that event that was my big takeaway from the event was that and then i started practicing that for the last six or seven years.

56:47I wish you had come up with that on your own because you don't realize it. But one of the big three, there's Sigmund Freud and then there's two other guys who are considered the godfathers of 19th century psychoanalytics and all this stuff. And one of the guys is Alfred Adler. And there's a book called The Courage Should Be Disliked. That's quite good. And what you're saying is exactly in parallel with what he has said about happiness and like it's like well you're anxious because you're choosing to be anxious and you don't you're not choosing to do this other thing and he's got this whole book on it but you didn't realize it but you've just discovered relative you know the theory of relativity just like albert einstein you didn't even know about it so you're kind of like uh one of the big three sounds like a smart guy yeah like yeah i like the sound of this i'm gonna go check yeah so so that's you um all right where do we go from here is that it that's it i think we wrap it up uh thank you for everybody for listening.

57:45Those views ain't going to view themselves. It's because of you guys. But you know, we just talked about wanting more. Sam, are you satisfied? Do we have enough subscribers, would you say? We only have 360. Mr. Beast has 100 million. We're nothing. We're losers. I'm anxious about this. And so if you've enjoyed this episode, if you've enjoyed any of our episodes, subscribe on YouTube, but also go to Spotify, go to podcast, the Apple version and subscribe on all those. We could go to therapy and stop wanting this or you could just click the button and make us feel happy. Which one? Save us years of therapy and just click subscribe and just say you're welcome in the comments.

58:28And we know when you say you're welcome, it's because you saved us years of therapy. You just gave us what we wanted instead. All right, that's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off. Let's travel never looking back.

58:50Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love. I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s, you're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

59:20If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit Mercury.com and give it a test drive. 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.