Latest / 1 to 100 / E22: How Do Founders Find Balance?

Transcript

E22: How Do Founders Find Balance? · 1 to 100

0:00
Let's just dive into what we were just talking about.
0:01
So before we hopped on here, I was, well, I guess Jack, you
0:06
want to kick it off because you were talking about, well, I
0:11
guess where we got to it. This is like this, this idea of
0:13
like, what? At what point in your life is
0:16
enough? Enough?
0:17
Like Jason Lemkin, what he's doing, it requires a massive
0:19
amount of sacrifice in order to be able to do that at a high
0:21
level. And that's somebody who's
0:24
clearly made it like, I mean, I guess that's the definition is
0:30
maybe subjective, but like for most of us, you would say like
0:32
that somebody who's made it in their industry, they know
0:34
they're doing, they're, they've achieved a lot of success, maybe
0:38
not the maximum possible success, but a lot of success.
0:41
But he's still out there grinding daily.
0:43
And then we got into Zach and you know, I, I was a, it's like,
0:48
hey, one thing I appreciate about you is you've got this
0:50
goal of $50 million. You know that that's your, your
0:52
outcome at that point. You've, you've made it.
0:56
But then, Zach, you had you were telling me about the new game
0:59
that you well. Not new game yet, but like I was
1:01
trying to think like what's if I, I mean, I got to 59 of the
1:06
very specific like calculation of like how much money I can
1:09
spend a year on like all the things that I want, but like I
1:13
really just like making things and stuff like that.
1:15
And so I was just trying to think like, oh, like if I could
1:17
just like play any game, what game would I want to play after
1:21
the money game? Because I think that's like the
1:24
main game that I'm playing right now is really just trying to get
1:27
the bag. But what's really interesting to
1:30
me is like, I think what I would want to do next is something
1:34
that's like super high status oriented with like the main
1:38
objective of like, how could I become like interesting enough
1:41
or like highly leveraged enough to where I would have access to
1:46
like the most to whoever is like interesting to me at that time
1:50
in my life. And then I narrowed it down to
1:55
like, if I wanted to do this through making things rather
1:57
than like political, like the one ways to do is like get into
2:00
politics and like, you have like a ton of leverage there like
2:03
that. I fucking hate politics.
2:04
I think politicians are nerds and so like the high the the
2:09
easiest way to do it is through art or fashion is like
2:12
essentially the way that you can like penetrate super highly
2:15
interesting and or like high status people and become high
2:19
status without having to like without doing politics.
2:25
Pretty much like those are the only two things you can do is
2:27
like art and fashion. And also potentially puts you in
2:31
a position where you're not like celebrity from like the general
2:35
population lies. Yeah, I don't want to be a
2:38
celebrity. Yeah.
2:38
So that'd be interesting. You know what, guys?
2:43
I think this podcast is eventually going to turn into
2:45
what is success, right? There's a bunch of different
2:48
people just come on here with different definitions, right?
2:51
Well, I mean, we were talking about Jason Lumpkin and I think
2:53
the truth in that is like, yeah, OK.
2:56
Like he's definitely like very post economic and he's still
2:58
kind of like playing this like same game.
2:59
There's like 2 potential options of why that exists.
3:02
And he like tried spending the money and he did it like the
3:05
dopamine hit of like spending the money.
3:07
And so he just like, oh, like I, I enjoy continuing to just like
3:10
make it. And it's like it's more of a
3:11
game aspect. And I think that with like most
3:15
people that end up figuring out how to get to that level, the
3:18
only reason they got to that level is because they fell in
3:21
love with like the game aspect of it.
3:24
And then like, I think the concept of a game is really
3:27
interesting because someone who like operates at like the
3:31
highest level, like let's just think like Elon.
3:33
And if we think about his like free time, he like talks about
3:36
games, you know what I'm saying? So like the idea of games, you
3:40
know, like the smartest people in the world can be like
3:42
enamored by chess, which has been around forever and it never
3:44
changes. And it's not that actually
3:45
interesting of a game at all. Or like even like the founder of
3:49
Uber, like recently I heard bought like the rights to the
3:53
like the scoring mechanism for backgammon.
3:56
And like so all of these people that are highly successful,
4:00
there is this like through line of just like games and like you
4:05
can apply games to anything. And that's probably why people
4:08
continue. I, I actually love this, this
4:11
idea of like, what are the games you can play?
4:13
Because I, I think I actually don't think of life through that
4:18
lens, but it is a real way of thinking about life and like how
4:24
and how you approach it. So I think that's really
4:26
interesting because you talked about the money game, I guess
4:29
the, would you call it aim game? It's the second game there.
4:33
Yeah. What other, what other games are
4:34
there? I just haven't thought about
4:36
those. That's why I'm asking this
4:36
question. For young men being promiscuous
4:40
love. Yeah, women love.
4:43
Yeah, love. But.
4:45
Apparently like love but like love isn't like really a game.
4:48
Like it's actually like a pretty monotonous like like actual real
4:51
love, but like. It's true.
4:52
Like, like, yeah, yeah. Like a monogamous relationship
4:56
versus like, chasing after partners, I guess.
5:01
Like those are different. Totally.
5:04
Totally. Yeah.
5:07
I just think there's like, different things that humans
5:10
desire, and each of those things is probably in some way
5:13
something you could gamify. And so it's like partnership,
5:17
love, money, status, you know, Like I would assume that just
5:23
like the things that we want are things that nominally are the
5:27
games we play. Brian Johnson gamified health.
5:32
Yeah, health. Exactly.
5:34
Like, you know, metric on like longevity is like the main
5:37
whatever, like scoreboard, things like that.
5:40
That's true. And then I guess there's like
5:43
subsets of those. So like within the health game
5:44
you might have diet, exercise, multitude of different things
5:48
that are like sub games of the main game.
5:51
Yeah, I think there's something important about these games as
5:53
well as that None of these people want to lose.
5:56
They all want to win, right? They're setting up games, but
5:58
then they want to win those games.
6:00
And maybe your ability to win those games is your ability to
6:05
want to win the game in the long run as opposed to right now,
6:08
right? So we were talking about like
6:09
romantic relationships not being a game, right?
6:12
If it's a if it's love, but maybe that is a game, right?
6:17
If you are able to enjoy the relationship, you're able to
6:19
have a good relationship. It's not a quick dopamine hit,
6:23
as you know, lots of different partners, but it's it's a game
6:26
of sorts, right? Building something meaningful?
6:29
Yeah. Dude, I'm 100% confident that
6:32
Jeremiah has to consistently invest because I know for sure I
6:35
have to consistently invest in my relationship with my wife.
6:38
Like you're not doing that for no reason, you know that.
6:43
Was like my wife and I got married really young.
6:46
We were 21 when I was probably like 2223, something like that.
6:53
I, I did this, there was like this church group thing that
6:59
that was like multi generational and I had these, this group that
7:02
I was on and there were three dudes who were in their 80s
7:04
who'd all been married 60 plus years.
7:07
And I was like, that is wild. Like if you think about that,
7:12
like that is like that is when you talk about the long game,
7:15
Jack, like that is the ultimate long game.
7:17
Like, and there is there's like a massive accomplishment that a
7:20
very small percentage of the population will ever achieve to
7:23
be married for 60 plus years anyway.
7:25
Yeah, just going back to that example of like a long term
7:30
monogamous relationship, like you could almost see that as a
7:33
game in terms of like, I'm going to, I'm in this for the long
7:36
haul, I'm going to win it. And then the time horizon ends
7:38
up being the objective of that, not the only objective, but like
7:41
in an objective or a like way of scoring that game potentially.
7:45
I was just going to say, I think if you play this out long
7:47
enough, you end up at a place of sacrifice, right?
7:52
I was walking down the beach and I saw this guy getting his head
7:55
massaged by his wife. He looked very happy, you know,
7:59
getting his head massage. The little girl was playing in
8:01
the water on her own. And then further down on the
8:04
beach, there was another guy who was just holding flip flops.
8:06
I was like, well, he's just holding flip flops in front of
8:08
him looking, looking really stern.
8:10
And his wife and his daughter were playing in the water
8:13
together. I thought that was really sweet.
8:14
He obviously had this like servant mindset.
8:17
I'm going to take care of my family as opposed to the other
8:20
one. Maybe he gets head massages at
8:21
another time. But yeah, I think if you play
8:24
that through long enough, even with Jason Lemkin, it's
8:27
sacrifice for other people, right?
8:29
For the for the rest of the world, right?
8:30
Doing something that's worthwhile and then just
8:32
enjoying the fruits as a byproduct.
8:36
All right. Can I say something a little
8:38
less philosophical just to bring us back to E Com SAS?
8:43
I'm I'm like almost 100% sure that 100% of people in E Com are
8:48
doing it just to get the bag. Like I don't think there's any
8:51
philosophy anywhere or so. That's interesting.
8:57
Why do people retire? I, I, I, I mean, I'm being a
9:00
little bit exaggerated and yeah, I'm sure this clip will get me
9:03
in trouble, but the, yeah, like I, I, I feel like making money
9:08
on the Internet. How can you not view it as a
9:10
game? You know what I mean?
9:12
Well, everyone starts with the bags and then what happens is
9:15
when you have maybe like small version of the bag, you then
9:21
realize that you just need to change the game board in some
9:23
certain ways that you can get a bigger bag.
9:26
And like, so like realistically, it's just like you're kind of
9:28
just most of life is lying to yourself and realizing when
9:32
you're lying to yourself and realizing when it's useful to
9:34
lie to yourself and when it's realized when it's useful to
9:36
like be super self aware. And so like realistically, no
9:40
one started their fucking e-commerce brand because they
9:42
had a wife that was diagnosed with some fucking thing.
9:45
And like potentially that's a story that they told themselves
9:47
over a long enough time horizon to make them still sell some
9:50
sort of pill or something. But like if you started selling
9:55
something online, you probably were trying to make money, which
10:01
I think is also like awesome. I got into such.
10:04
I'm kind of part of these like, hippie communities in Toronto.
10:08
How? I, I mean, I do like over
10:12
indexing, like self development type stuff.
10:14
And so there's a lot of crossover with just like fucking
10:16
hippies. And I get into like a lot of
10:18
these, but like they're also like dear friends or whatever.
10:21
And they get into these like really heated debates.
10:24
Because I think that hippies are almost at the highest threshold
10:28
of lying to themselves while being self aware.
10:30
Like, they just oscillate so drastically between
10:33
self-awareness and lying to themselves.
10:35
And like, I truly believe that, like, if you don't have money,
10:38
the pursuit of money is probably the most noble thing that you
10:40
can do. And like, I got into like, a
10:42
really deep debate. And like the debate you're
10:44
getting into the debate, I've solidified my position so
10:48
strongly that I do believe that money is a complete noble
10:52
pursuit. Whether you do noble things
10:54
along the way can be left up to judgment.
10:56
But like, generally acquiring resources, like if you think
11:00
you're a good person, acquiring resources is the most noble
11:03
thing you can do. If you think you're a bad
11:05
person, then it's bad, right? If you're an evil person, then
11:07
their acquisition of resources is bad.
11:09
If you believe yourself to be good, then why would you want
11:12
potentially a bad person to have the resources instead of you?
11:15
So I think it's the most noble thing.
11:16
And I'm like solidifying that based on a hippie conversation I
11:19
had this weekend. But does that know what you do
11:21
with it? Like I'm curious where like how,
11:24
how, how does that play out in your mind?
11:26
Like does it depend do with those resources like the?
11:28
Resources give you optionality to do something in the future.
11:32
If you believe yourself to be a good person, you would assume
11:34
that you are going to do something good or at least
11:37
better than someone that's bad. And so like, if you believe
11:42
yourself to be a good person and you believe that your decision
11:45
making abilities in the future are going to be aligned with
11:49
good, or at least not evil, then I can't think of anything better
11:54
that you could do with your time.
11:56
Well, it doesn't even matter yeah, steal stealing has like
11:58
this like 0 sum assumption, but like I also think it's true that
12:03
as long as you assume that you can actually produce value and
12:06
that world, the world is not 0 sum that not only should you
12:09
make money, but you should want for every other good person to
12:12
make money. Yeah right.
12:14
And and so like you can actually hold all of these thoughts to be
12:17
true because it only comes into conflict if you if you assume
12:24
one of those things is not true, right?
12:25
So but what's the number that would make you never see your
12:33
family again because. If make me never see my family
12:38
again. Never see what do you mean
12:39
again? Because you know, if you think
12:42
about the resources that you acquire through your productive
12:46
endeavour, all of that time spent on that productive
12:49
endeavor takes away from your time with your family,
12:51
potentially some time that you would spend with your family.
12:55
And then you got to think about the incremental value of let's
12:58
say another $1,000,000 or another $10 million, right?
13:01
To you and your family. At a certain point, the
13:04
incremental value just drops off and you get most of the benefit.
13:06
So what is the number? Yeah, I'll tell you something.
13:10
This is like not answering your question exactly but I think
13:13
it's close enough. I was telling this, I can't
13:16
remember who I was saying this to, but I was telling someone
13:19
like, there's a reason why most founders friends are other
13:23
founders. And it's because first of all,
13:26
like I have like, probably like my, the relationships that I
13:32
have sacrificed are basically my friendships.
13:35
And what has happened is in exchange of my pre-existing
13:39
friendships, I've just gotten closer to other founders now
13:44
like this, This ends up becoming self fulfilling in some ways
13:48
because it's like you want to talk to your friends about like
13:50
what's going on. And it turns out like what goes
13:54
on in a founder's life is like quite unrelatable to yeah, to
14:00
people who are not going through the same thing.
14:02
And so I, I like again, so I'm not exactly asking, answering
14:06
your question about family, but I am directly telling you that I
14:11
can like easily say that the impact to my friendships has
14:16
been dramatic, right? Or like pre-existing friendships
14:20
has been dramatic. I, I, I also think that it is
14:25
the case that you, you most people don't operate on like AI
14:31
need to spend 100% of my time doing one thing in order to be
14:34
exceptional at that one thing. And in fact, when you, like,
14:38
look at any of these people who we were talking about earlier,
14:41
they like have ways in which they spend their time that
14:44
allows them to become exceptional at that one thing
14:48
and that like, balance of things.
14:50
Like, you know, Brian Chesky was like a bodybuilder, right?
14:54
Like the dude is jacked or like, yeah, Elon weirdly good at video
14:59
games or Travis Kalanick, like weirdly good at Wii tennis or,
15:04
you know, like you'll is. It is actually very unusual that
15:08
any of these people who who achieve extreme exceptionalism
15:13
don't have other things that they are also doing.
15:15
And I think that actually compounds.
15:16
I don't think I don't even think it's possible to do only one
15:20
thing. And in fact, we have no evidence
15:23
of there being people who have only done one thing and have
15:25
been exceptional like that. That human doesn't exist yet.
15:30
Yeah, I, I, yeah, I don't think it, I don't think it is about
15:33
doing one thing. There's, you know, everyone has
15:35
some form of balance in their life of the things that.
15:38
Yeah. So the family thing is a hard
15:40
question for that reason, right? Because like different people
15:43
are going to sacrifice different things and get energy from
15:49
different things. And so that that's why it's like
15:51
a hard question. Yeah.
15:53
Yeah. Like.
15:53
The family thing in terms of like like having a strong
15:58
family, taking care of my family and why is it taking care of my
16:01
family? I don't even mean like from a
16:02
money standpoint like more of like an emotional availability
16:06
like being present for my family like that's a high that's a high
16:11
value to me. That's something that I value a
16:13
lot and so I, I do invest a lot into that.
16:17
So that's like, that's one thing.
16:19
I also believe that like being excellent in my work and doing a
16:22
lot like there, there is a financial outcome that is going
16:25
to benefit my family. So I think about that a little
16:27
bit too. But then there's also a
16:29
component of my work where like let's say I had $100 million in
16:33
the bank. There are parts of my work I
16:35
don't know if I would do exactly what I'm doing today, to be
16:37
honest. So it's very stressful.
16:41
There's there's probably like a low stress way of doing what I
16:44
do today that I would probably pursue if I didn't need money.
16:47
But there's a, there's A and I'm like, I would not optimize my
16:51
life to spend 100% of my time with my family.
16:54
I would not like that. Like it's not that I don't, I
16:56
love my family a lot, but like I need to do things that energize
17:01
me in a different way that my family can't provide.
17:04
Just like my work can't give me all the things that I need in a
17:08
way that like my family can give me some of those things.
17:11
Friendships obviously come into that too, right?
17:12
So there's like, I feel like I'm at a spot in my life where I
17:15
have a pretty good sense of like the minimums I need on each of
17:20
these things in order to feel good.
17:21
Like I know I need a minimum of a certain amount of time with my
17:25
family on a weekly basis. In order to feel good about
17:27
that, I need a minimum of a certain amount of time in my
17:29
work. I need a minimum of not much
17:33
else, to be honest. But like there's a little bit
17:35
there of like I need something that's not those two things on a
17:37
weekly basis as well. And then there's like the
17:40
maximum to me doesn't really matter as long as I can meet all
17:43
those minimums and kind of prioritize things, however falls
17:48
out of that. So that's that's not like a
17:51
really clean answer. That's kind of how I think about
17:53
it in terms of my life. Right.
17:55
And I guess that minimum is going to be different for
17:58
different people, right? For, you know, a woman who's at
18:02
the peak of her career, that minimum might be, you know,
18:05
actually I want to have a child now.
18:06
I'm going to put this on pause for a bit, right?
18:09
And I think women do that every day.
18:11
And then for a man who's a founder, who's building a
18:14
company, who's ambitious, that minimum might shrink, right, in
18:18
the prioritization of allocating as many of as much of their
18:21
resources and their time to the business, right?
18:25
I think like the other thing that people don't talk enough
18:27
about is that the number one thing you could do with the
18:30
people you love is to be happy. If you're miserable with the
18:33
amount of time you spend with your family and because you're
18:35
not fulfilling your expectations, like that just
18:37
needs to tons of regret in the future.
18:41
And so just like, you know, choose the game you want to play
18:46
and the people that don't respect the game will fall out
18:49
of your life and you don't need to mourn it.
18:52
And like there's going to be times when people aren't happy
18:54
with you and that's fine. And this is like, well, how much
18:56
conviction do you have? And like the game that you're
18:58
playing and the conviction is super, super high, then if
19:01
anybody really likes you, then you should probably respect it
19:04
at some level. And if they don't, then like,
19:05
they can be you. You know, like these are all
19:08
like your people are very important, but they're also just
19:10
like characters that like can come in and out at different
19:14
chapters. And like if you even relate it
19:19
to, I don't know, like the arc of like a superhero.
19:22
It's like superheroes aren't regarded for being there like
19:27
all of the time. They're there for like being
19:29
there at the right times and then they over achieve in those
19:33
like moments of time. And so like, I don't think it's
19:37
like super important to always be available or like a resource,
19:42
but like when you are needed, if you like over achieve in those
19:46
like specific moments of time, I think over the course of your
19:49
life, you have like AI don't know more one more impactful 2,
19:53
like more memorable, sort of like lifestyle.
19:55
In business too, the one thing that I am starting to appreciate
20:01
more is having more time away from the company makes you
20:05
better at thinking about what is important in the company like.
20:10
I will admit that I have been very in the company for the past
20:14
few months and like there have been things that I'm like
20:18
realizing I'm micro optimizing things instead of worrying about
20:22
the things that are actually the most important.
20:26
And there's that is like the trap that you end up in
20:30
basically is you just like get so into the details that you,
20:34
yeah, you shoot yourself in the foot.
20:38
You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's like it
20:41
doesn't help anybody. Yeah, when you're like overly
20:44
indexed on, on one thing. So like Zach, yes, like, like,
20:49
yes. And not only do you need to be
20:51
happy in order to show up well in your relationships, in order
20:55
to show up well at work, you need to be able to detach from
20:58
work. You know, like all all of these
21:00
things, kind of like, you know, like the the time away in order
21:04
to reset your head is like important everywhere.
21:08
So. Well, what you just said, you
21:11
said the last few months have been like that.
21:12
I think that's a cyclical thing as well, right?
21:14
You have moments where it's like you need to step out and re
21:17
evaluate essentially or like properly evaluate what's going
21:20
on. You have other moments where you
21:21
have to dive deep and be just like grinding, for lack of a
21:26
better term on the details and making sure that that stuff gets
21:29
done. So it's like it just, it just
21:33
depends on this, the season and business and or in terms of like
21:38
what things are actually focused.
21:39
On there, you guys sound way too balanced, Way too balanced.
21:43
Let's talk about this. Have you guys seen this?
21:47
No, I haven't seen this. You haven't seen this it's I
21:52
mean as new as this can if it always posting it.
21:55
He's always posted. Have you?
21:56
Have you just muted it? Say, I know I've just yeah, a
22:01
few times. I'm actually very it I mean I
22:05
never followed or anything like that.
22:08
I'm like very disconnected from Twitter and LinkedIn right now.
22:13
I have been for probably like 8 months.
22:15
Yeah, wow. It was part of it was it was how
22:19
I just don't click on the button.
22:20
But like the reason why is, I think I've said this when we
22:26
started the podcast was like one of my main objectives this year
22:28
was to pivot outside of just like the D to C bubble.
22:33
And so like restructuring the Twitter algorithm.
22:37
Like that's not even like a thing.
22:39
So it's like I was just like, yeah, I don't know, I don't, I
22:44
sometimes miss it, right? Like it is like a bit of like
22:47
fun, like the I mean, I love the e-commerce community, right.
22:52
And so I missed like some of that aspect, but like, I've been
22:54
kind of like out a little bit, like not soup.
22:57
Yeah. But anyway, I didn't, I mean, I
22:59
saw a budget post like this where he was just like, he's a
23:02
meme Lord. He's like really good at it.
23:05
Yeah, Jacket, is that new or is that one of the older ones?
23:08
Yeah, that seems old, but I mean, I it also could just be
23:12
the case that they're recycling old posts because like basically
23:15
nothing that is posted by them is real.
23:22
This I'm totally fine if people like roast before, but did you
23:26
want to hear the funniest thing that I observed on their sign up
23:30
page? If you like were to go to sign
23:35
up, the number of reviews had like it was always it was either
23:40
4224 and then it was like 4224 for like a week and then it
23:45
became 8448 and I was just like, this is like, I mean like.
23:52
Maybe he's like super into numerology or something.
23:54
The audacity, like, just like the blatant falsehood is like
23:59
astonishing. You know what?
24:00
You know what? I mean, dude, he's amazing at
24:03
this because we're fucking talking about it right now and
24:05
like even when. They no.
24:07
I'd forgotten about it. For what it's worth, I'd
24:10
forgotten about it until Jack brought it back into my, into
24:14
my, into my world. Like I, I just can't.
24:17
Like I, I, yeah, look, I am all for, like you say whatever you
24:24
want to say and then like you try to achieve whatever you want
24:28
to try to achieve. Like, dude, I'm all for it.
24:30
I'm all for it. I just think there's like some
24:33
amount of humor in the way in which he's doing it, so.
24:36
No, I think, I think it's incredibly funny and incredibly
24:39
interesting. I guess my hot take is like, for
24:43
the talent that exists right now.
24:45
And I might eat my word so hard with this.
24:49
Potentially he's not playing the right game.
24:52
Like if you think about the amount of attention and the
24:58
capture of value that is possible with the amount of
25:02
attention and like the truth is with software is like the thing
25:08
that matters most is your net dollar retention and your
25:10
growth. And like maybe they had growth a
25:12
little bit, but they were definitely not performing on the
25:13
net dollar retention piece. There's like a world in which
25:16
like this guy should be just like, maybe this guy should have
25:18
like a fucking marketing agency that starts at $1,000,000 a
25:21
month retainer or something, right?
25:23
Or selling courses. So rude dude.
25:34
Not I think he's. I think his talent level is
25:36
above courses. But Oh yeah, yeah.
25:37
Well, that's not what I I don't mean in a disparaging way.
25:40
I'm just saying like you need a you need like a one time thing
25:42
that's worth a lot of money. Like that's that is like.
25:45
What? Yeah, I I think being a
25:50
marketing agency for SAS companies is probably Yeah, I
25:56
think I it could be his highest use.
26:00
What? What do we know?
26:01
Yeah, or they're going to come back with a, with a vengeance.
26:05
I mean, I, I was talking about this, I talked about this a lot.
26:08
It's like I'm a big believer and not believing a competitor is
26:12
dead until they're not breathing like fully, you know?
26:17
And so it's just like, yeah, they could still come back.
26:19
And like, who knows what happens with the models, Like, you know,
26:24
until they're $12 million domain has been put up for sale.
26:28
Like, you know, they still have like a shot, right?
26:32
Like it's like there's, I think like Hail Mary passes still
26:36
always exist And like, yeah, you never know.
26:41
One thing I've always felt is that for better or for worse
26:48
ability, and I know this doesn't really apply to the way you guys
26:51
run your business, but ability to accrue capital can
26:56
meaningfully change your likelihood of success.
27:00
And I think as long as he can parlay this in a way in which he
27:04
accrues more capital again to drive more resource in order to
27:08
because like look, ultimately in principle he doesn't the current
27:13
version of the product or him or whatever it is doesn't need, it
27:17
doesn't need to work if as long as some as long as something
27:21
works, yeah. As long as something works, I
27:23
agree with that. Like I was, I was even talking
27:26
with someone recently just about I have a bunch of friends that
27:28
are going through like acquisition and stuff like that.
27:31
And people are asking me like, oh, like, what do you want?
27:32
And it's like German instead of like, I have like a number and
27:34
like, but like, what are the things that would cause that
27:37
number to go down? And like one of the number one
27:40
things for me is like if the company was acquired by a
27:45
company, which I could say it on a street corner and someone
27:49
knows the name of that company, that number goes down like
27:52
drastically. And like the number one reason
27:54
is that I think that increases my likelihood and leverage of
27:58
raising capital in the future by like an order of magnitude.
28:02
That's just like so much more than like a few blips on like a
28:06
multiple, right? Like if I can say, for example,
28:09
acquired by Adobe and I can say that to my mother, who knows
28:14
what Adobe is like, my ability to raise capital in the future
28:17
is like a 10X. And so like I've, I mean, again,
28:20
not what I'm optimizing for now, but like long term it's like,
28:23
yeah, like the ability to get capital at like a 0% interest
28:28
rate. Essentially.
28:29
It is like as high leverage as you could possibly like activity
28:34
you could possibly do. Yeah, are.
28:37
We talking about marketing? Do you guys watch like Alex
28:39
Shamosi's fucking thing? I I saw it was happening.
28:43
I was too busy with kids. I mean, if we were talking, if
28:47
we're talking about like master class, yeah, right.
28:50
Can't think, can't think of something better in terms of
28:54
master class. Like, I mean, yeah, like
28:58
essentially printed $100 million in the day with like, obviously
29:02
a lot of back end work and like years of trust built up, but
29:05
like, wow, that's incredible. Broke the Guinness Book of World
29:08
Records for the number of books sold in a day.
29:11
It's like, OK, that's very interesting.
29:15
Yeah. Anyway, you guys didn't watch
29:17
it. We have nothing to talk about.
29:18
But if you haven't seen it, go watch it with a notebook.
29:21
It's fucking incredible. Really.
29:23
Yeah, I have not watched it. Watch all 2 days.
29:27
No, no, no, no, like Truex be like go to like the like skip
29:31
over all the customer reviews, all that kind of stuff, but
29:33
understand the cadence of customer reviews and like it.
29:36
It's very similar to like, I don't know if you guys ever
29:38
watched like Russell Brunson's like $3,000,000 pitch or
29:42
something like hour long pitch and like the way that he stacked
29:46
like all of these like tried and true methods of like driving
29:49
conversion. What Alex did last week was like
29:54
that times 100. Dude, you want to know one thing
29:59
that I find crazy is this is I'm going to sound so stupid for
30:05
saying this, but for how he looks, what he says does not
30:11
match up. Like he is like so deeply
30:15
intellectual in what he says in so many places.
30:19
And he has this like total Jim bro look.
30:23
And it is, it throws you off big time.
30:26
Like I like there's a bunch of that.
30:29
He was on this podcast with like Sean Puri on my first million
30:33
and he'd give a bunch of like highly tactical advice on like
30:36
sales. And I was just like, dude, this
30:40
is brilliant. Also, by the way, the way he
30:43
talks about all those tactics is he makes it sound super
30:47
approachable because he like says like, Oh yeah, I just like
30:50
tried it. And like, you know, it was after
30:51
trying it a bunch and this and so, like, it makes me feel
30:54
approachable, but I was just like, dude, this guy is a genius
30:58
like. He knows how.
31:00
To sell everything. Yeah, his, his ability to also
31:03
oscillate between philosophical ideas and actual, real tactical
31:08
advice, which like, I don't think many people can do, you
31:10
know, like a really good philosopher.
31:11
And you can like distill ideas down into like allegories and
31:16
like things like that really well, or you just like, you're
31:18
like a, you're a laser pointer and you'd like to do this, this
31:21
and this and this. His ability to oscillate between
31:23
those two sort of like skill sets is just like incredible.
31:28
And like, I think his look, there's an old video clip of him
31:31
talking about his physical appearance.
31:34
And like, some of it is like by design and some of it is like,
31:37
by utility. Like he talked like a long time
31:41
ago about how like the only reason he got a mustache during
31:44
the gym launch days because like it was more memorable than not
31:48
having mustache. And so it's like, and I'm
31:51
assuming that the way in which he carries himself now, it's
31:53
like a mixture between those between that and then utility.
31:56
Because he also has videos of him talking about like his
31:59
artistic obsession with just like the over shirt that he
32:01
wears and like the shorts that he wears and like the stupid
32:03
sandals and like the wife beater.
32:05
And it's like, oh, if I'm too hot, I take off the over shirt
32:08
and now I'm in a wife beater, I can be on the beach.
32:09
So like, so it's like he's thought about a lot of things
32:13
from a bunch of different aspects.
32:14
So it's like, and I think that exists in his business and the
32:16
way he talks about everything, right?
32:18
He's ultimate guy. It's sort of consistent with
32:20
what you were saying earlier, Rashad.
32:22
He's a high achiever, right? He just gets it done.
32:24
And it's the same thing in his physique, right?
32:26
Everything is optimized towards the outcomes that he wants.
32:30
I would talk about games that people play.
32:32
Like, obviously he's playing a different game than most of us
32:35
are in that context. Yeah, totally.
32:39
Also, by the way, just speaking about like hitting a certain
32:42
number. He has hit whatever number.
32:46
So, so, so at this point he's doing it for the love of the
32:50
sport and I think he's very open about the fact that he loves the
32:54
sport so. He's like potentially the most
32:58
vocal, actually loves the sport guy in the world right now.
33:02
I can't think of anybody. Else right it's like.
33:06
Totally, Yeah, Yeah. I mean, he said this one thing
33:09
that I can't get out of my head. He was like, yeah, the way I
33:12
work is I just work. And then when I need a day off,
33:15
I take a day off. And the idea that he does not
33:20
have to follow, like the calendar that the rest of us
33:24
follow, like, broke my brain. I was like, Oh my God, that's so
33:32
obvious. Funny though, it's like that's
33:35
how everybody would have worked prior to the industrial
33:37
revolution, right? You just work and you take a day
33:40
off when you take a day off. Like that's, that's your life
33:42
through calendars. I mean you had seasons but like
33:46
outside of seasons it doesn't matter too much.
33:50
This is just one of the most high performing people in this
33:53
space right now. I mean, one of the number one
33:55
things people deprioritize, they sacrifice in the pursuit of
33:59
growing their businesses, their health, right?
34:01
They put on a little bit more weight.
34:02
They stop doing exercise. The morning isn't for, I don't
34:05
know, the morning run. It's for checking the emails,
34:08
right? You look at it's just it's got
34:10
to be one of the number one things that people just leave to
34:14
the wayside and deprior, right? Yeah, but he talks pretty
34:17
candidly about this, right? Like maintaining muscle is a lot
34:20
easier than gaining muscle. And like when he gained like a
34:24
majority of his mass, it was like the main objective of his
34:27
life. And he also like talked pretty
34:30
candidly about like his genetic potential, which is like the
34:33
number one indicator for like the way that you look,
34:36
especially when it comes to like size and stuff like that.
34:38
So like he like, I probably work up more than he does right now,
34:44
right? I almost guarantee it because I
34:47
think he's like, Oh yeah, I do like a 45 minutes like thing at
34:49
his like gym or whatever. And so it's like, I don't think
34:53
when I look at Alex Mosey, I'm like, this guy's got everything
34:55
in his life dialed. I think it's like, oh, he had a
34:57
season of obsession and now the maintenance is much easier.
35:00
And it's the same thing with the maintenance of capital versus
35:02
the acquisition of capital and the growing of capital versus
35:05
the acquisition of capital are like 2 very different modes that
35:08
you like should be in. And so like, I don't think
35:11
anybody should look at Alex Tremozzy and be like, if I'm in
35:14
acquisition of capital mode, I can also have the ambitions of
35:18
his physical appearance because that's not even the way that he
35:21
did. And so like, probably get a
35:25
little bit fat and get some cash or get super fucking jacked and
35:31
you know, like, right. Right.
35:33
I might go ahead. I will say I do think that
35:38
again, I I could be wrong, but I feel quite confident that most
35:44
of the high achieving people I know actually invest in all of
35:49
these things because they know that it enables them to achieve
35:53
at work. Like, again, I just don't know
35:55
that many highly successful startup founders who are not
35:59
also paying attention to their physical health, not trying to
36:02
look like Alex or Mosey, but like they have, they have like a
36:06
like, I'm literally going to leave in 7 minutes to go work
36:09
out. Like that's going to happen.
36:11
And it's like, and then I like cancel meetings around it, in
36:15
fact, right. And so like that, I actually
36:19
find that is more normal than the other way around that like,
36:23
you know what is needed in order to be your best self when you're
36:27
working and you work super hard too.
36:33
Yeah, I, I, I do think that this like the drivers of energy
36:40
because let me actually, maybe this is what it is.
36:44
Maybe it's the case that the people who achieve the most are
36:48
the most self aware of what they actually need in order to be
36:53
happy and in order to be productive.
36:55
And that what that self-awareness does is it just
36:59
makes you be pretty brutal about how you prioritize your time.
37:02
And it's like, I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do
37:05
this. And it's kind of that simple.
37:08
And you actually unusually are able to make those trade-offs in
37:12
a way in which is pretty unemotional usually.
37:14
Like, at least again, most of the people I know are pretty
37:18
unemotional about the fact that that's how they're making
37:20
trade-offs. Yeah.
37:21
I think part of it also could just be like usually the desire
37:25
for success is like some sort of like who you're trying to fill
37:27
and like the way that you look in the mirrors, like potentially
37:29
still like trying to fill and like, I don't know, like I don't
37:32
necessarily work out because I think it makes me good at work.
37:34
Like I actually think I've done like my best work When I let my
37:36
health go as poorly as possible is probably when I've had like
37:41
the most like 6 like momentum and success.
37:45
Obviously it's like drops off because if you hit like some
37:47
kind of breaking point or you don't feel good anymore or
37:49
whatever. Like for me, it's like I work
37:51
out because I like to look good because like it makes me feel
37:54
better about like my meat sack and like if I have a six pack,
37:59
my potential partners for mating are like probably like 10X.
38:04
So it's like I'm a bit more like it's definitely not because I
38:08
think it makes me build better SAS.
38:10
I really don't think that me go to the gym make me build better
38:12
SAS. Like I think if I went and read
38:13
through intercom tickets tonight instead of running, I would
38:16
build better SAS. I'm not going to do that because
38:21
I care about having a six pack. My my workout at this point in
38:27
time I got I have de prioritized working out in terms of like
38:34
allocating time on my calendar to go to the gym, go run,
38:37
whatever that is. I don't do that that currently.
38:41
What I do instead is I spend one to two hours a day on meetings,
38:45
walking. And that's like my, that's my
38:48
version of trying to maximize all the things that I am doing
38:51
at this point in my life, which I would say is like something a
38:55
muscle, especially upper body muscle mass standpoint, not that
38:58
helpful. But in terms of like overall
39:00
health and feeling good and all of that, I actually feel great.
39:03
Like probably the best I've felt like I don't know about ever in
39:06
my life from a definitely not ever.
39:08
But like in the last 10 years, I feel better from a physical
39:11
health standpoint than I've felt anytime in the last 10 years by
39:14
doing that. And so it's like, I think it is
39:18
doing it is to rush up to your point, like it is understanding
39:22
what I need in order to feel good and doing that thing.
39:26
It just looks different than like at a different point in my
39:28
life. Like I, I hope this is not
39:30
totally rest of my life. Like I, I hope three years from
39:33
now, my kids are sleeping through the night and I'm
39:35
starting my days by going and playing basketball and doing
39:39
some fun things like that as opposed to like spending 2 1/2
39:43
hours in the morning getting my kids ready and dropping them off
39:45
at school. But this is how I'm balancing
39:47
everything right now and and feeling like I am doing what I
39:51
need to be to be good. Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to say
39:55
that. I think that the outcome is that
39:58
everybody should work out in order to work.
40:01
I, I, yeah, I exactly mean that. You're sufficiently self aware
40:05
that you know exactly what you need and then you just do those
40:08
things and then you just don't do the other things.
40:11
Yeah. I didn't interpret it that way,
40:14
just so you know. I I was interpreting it the
40:17
positive version of that. Totally right, 100% because it's
40:22
adaptive to your short term, mid term, long term goals, right?
40:26
You don't sleep well, you know, you perform quite as well the
40:28
next day. If you're not healthy, then how
40:31
can you show up, let's say, in a month's time, right, when your
40:35
health has deteriorated so much that you can't turn up the same
40:38
way, whether it's for your business or it's for your
40:41
family, right? What What are your guys like
40:44
vices for stress? Dude, I have, I have like the
40:49
stupidest vice. It's specialty lattes.
40:55
And I put on weight super fast. I love coffee and these fucking
41:02
third wave coffee joints where they're serving these like honey
41:06
rose lavender, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
41:08
Latte, dude. Like when I was fundraising, I
41:11
put on like 10 lbs in five weeks because I was doubling up on the
41:16
specialty lattes. Yeah.
41:18
The real thing, I lost 8 lbs in a month by just not drinking
41:24
mochas and lattes and stuff anymore.
41:28
Yeah. Like if you have like a really
41:30
bad day and you're like, I'm going to like, I'm going to like
41:34
gluttonously make myself feel better for a moment.
41:36
It would be a latte. Yeah, literally, yeah.
41:40
It would be a specialty latte. I did.
41:42
I did. I literally did that yesterday.
41:44
Yeah, yeah. And this morning, because I had
41:46
like a pretty stressful morning yesterday.
41:48
And so I in the last 24 hours I've consumed 2 specialty
41:52
lattes. Yeah, it's on the scheme of
41:55
things. It's like an incredibly stupid
41:57
vice and thankfully not that unhealthy or bad for me.
42:01
For me it's like a pint of Ben and Jerry's.
42:03
I'll like go and walk while while eating a pint, which is
42:07
like I whenever I see people walk past me in the street, it's
42:10
just like it's like, oh man, what a what a like a look, but
42:14
I'll just be like fuck this, fuck everything and I just like
42:16
walk and eat ice cream out like from a grocery store as I'm
42:20
blocking. Dude, that, that used to be mine
42:22
too actually. But I, I don't feel like I can
42:26
like I don't feel good if I have dairy anymore.
42:30
I would say like for a little while alcohol was one like if I
42:33
had a hard day, I'd have like a glass of whiskey or something at
42:35
the end of the day. But I basically stopped doing
42:37
that too. I will like still very
42:39
occasionally do that. So I don't know, maybe I need a
42:43
new vice. I don't have anything at the
42:44
bubble. I just go to sleep.
42:48
I'm just like, I can't handle this anymore.
42:50
I'm going to bed. Actually, one of my vices is
42:54
that I won't go to bed like that.
42:58
That's probably the most detrimental thing that I do is
43:00
I'll just like stay up and not go to bed when I know I need to
43:04
go up to bed. I know I have to wake up in like
43:05
4 hours and be like I'm just going to fucking keep doing
43:08
something or like reading or like watching bullshit.
43:12
Like I'll just like stay up. Like, I think that's like my
43:13
biggest self-destructive behavior.
43:17
I actually will do a little bit of that too, to like there's,
43:20
there's two versions of what I just described, right?
43:22
The one is like, I just literally can't do anything else
43:24
today. I'm just going to sleep.
43:25
And the other is that where it's like, OK, I'm going to sit down.
43:28
Maybe it's like my wife and I watch a show and then the next
43:31
thing I know it's midnight and I have to get up in five hours or
43:35
whatever it is. And I just, yeah, made things
43:38
worse for the next day. So I will do some of that as
43:40
well. I don't know if you guys have
43:41
seen this, but all these like studies coming out about
43:45
creatine now too or like hyper dosing creatine with sleep
43:48
deprivation. It like really works like really
43:52
well. Like I've been like taking
43:53
creatine since I was like 16 like every day, but at like
43:56
whatever, the five grand or five grand dose per day.
44:00
And then I started seeing all these like Rhonda Patrick
44:01
interviews being like, oh, like it's actually like a really good
44:03
cognitive performance enhancer. And it's like really good if you
44:05
like super dose it on days where you're sleep deprived and
44:08
suddenly like doing 25 to 30 grams on days I don't sleep
44:10
well. But I maybe it's placebo, but
44:12
even if it is, it works, why not?
44:15
I feel better. Like it's like that's crazy on
44:18
days that I'm sleep deprived. I love that I'm going to try it.
44:25
Yeah, definitely. Like it's like it's worst case
44:28
you're like maybe have a bit more water retention.
44:30
Like that would be like the only side effect.
44:32
Yeah, exactly. All right, dude, I got to go to
44:35
the gym. All right, enjoy.
44:39
All right. Here you go, guys.
44:40
See ya.