Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Alex Tarnava - Inventor & Author | How to Think for Yourself in a World That Wants You to Conform

Transcript

Alex Tarnava - Inventor & Author | How to Think for Yourself in a World That Wants You to Conform · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  You said the idea for your company came from desperation.
• 0:03
  What were you desperate for?
• 0:04
  Identity.
• 0:05
  Salvaging my identity.
• 0:06
  People get stuck in asking, who am I?
• 0:09
  And the better question is, who am I becoming?
• 0:12
  We need to think about this and think about what we're doing today and how that leads us to become what we're going to be tomorrow and down the future.
• 0:20
  Today's guest is Alex Tarnava, an entrepreneur, inventor, researcher, and author known for his work in molecular hydrogen and health innovation.
• 0:28
  In this conversation, Alex shares his journey from personal health struggles to scientific research, entrepreneurship, and his philosophy on health, business, and thinking for yourself.
• 0:38
  What is your advice to that ambitious entrepreneur, that builder?
• 0:42
  Everything good in life is hard.
• 0:43
  You build your business by providing your value and service and showing you're better.
• 0:48
  So don't look for that big win.
• 0:49
  Look for a million small wins.
• 0:50
  I feel like you cannot do it by listening to existing knowledge.
• 0:54
  You can't build the biggest, most successful company just by copying what other people are doing.
• 0:58
  If you're a startup, don't hire someone with an MBA.
• 1:00
  They're trained to think like a multinational or the government.
• 1:03
  If every big competitor is doing something, don't do it.
• 1:07
  Do something completely different.
• 1:12
  MyFitnessPal is a success story partner.
• 1:14
  Now, everybody wants more energy.
• 1:17
  Everybody wants better sleep.
• 1:19
  Everybody wants to feel sharper during the day, to not hit that wall in the afternoon where your brain just checks out.
• 1:25
  And people try a lot of things to get there.
• 1:26
  So new routines, new supplements, better sleep habits, more coffee, less coffee, all of the above.
• 1:32
  And some of that stuff works, but the single biggest lever you have for how you feel on any given day is what you eat.
• 1:39
  It's not the most exciting answer,
• 1:40
  Nobody's making a viral reel about eating lunch, but food is the foundation, right?
• 1:44
  Your energy, your sleep, your weight, your recovery, how you perform at work, how you feel when you get home.
• 1:50
  It's the one input that touches everything else.
• 1:53
  Now, the problem is that most people have no idea what they're actually eating.
• 1:56
  They have a general sense.
• 1:57
  They can say, I eat pretty healthy, okay, but,
• 2:00
  How much protein are you getting?
• 2:02
  And how does that break down across your day?
• 2:04
  Are you eating enough in the morning?
• 2:05
  Are you stacking everything at night?
• 2:07
  Those details matter a lot.
• 2:09
  And you can't answer those questions without logging what you eat and looking at the data.
• 2:13
  And that's why I use the MyFitnessPal app, because you log what you eat,
• 2:17
  and it shows you exactly what's going on.
• 2:19
  Your macros, for example, that's just your proteins, your carbs, your fats, those are broken down by grams.
• 2:24
  And on premium, it breaks those numbers down by meals.
• 2:26
  So you're not just seeing one number for the day, you're seeing what breakfast looks like versus lunch versus dinner, and that changes things.
• 2:32
  Because your body doesn't run on daily averages, it runs on what you give it right now.
• 2:37
  The food analysis, another great feature, it shows you patterns across the week too.
• 2:41
  where things are consistent, where they start to drift, and you're gonna notice how what you eat impacts your energy and why you wanna stay consistent, and when you don't, why you start to feel like you're hitting walls in the afternoon.
• 2:53
  Now the food logging.
• 2:54
  This is where a lot of people think it's gonna be a whole thing, it's not.
• 2:57
  For example,
• 2:58
  I can say what I ate out loud.
• 3:00
  There's a voice logging feature and it's done.
• 3:02
  Or I can scan a barcode of something I ate, two seconds.
• 3:05
  There's also a meal scan where I just point my camera at a plate and the app captures exactly what I ate and all the macronutrients.
• 3:12
  And MyFitnessPal has the largest food database out there.
• 3:16
  So whatever I'm eating,
• 3:17
  is already in it and it remembers what i eat regularly also it connects with over 40 fitness apps and wearables so everything goes into one spot all of my health wellness and nutrition so if you've been trying to figure out why your energy dips in the afternoon or why you're not sleeping as well as you used to or why you just feel off and you can't put a finger on it look at your food first before you buy another supplement or you try some other hack
• 3:41
  The answer is usually in nutrition.
• 3:43
  And this is the easiest way that I found to actually see what's going into your body and track it and pay attention to it and improve it.
• 3:50
  So do yourself a favor.
• 3:52
  Go to podcast.myfitnesspal.com and use code Scott.
• 3:56
  That's S-C-O-T-T, all uppercase.
• 3:58
  That gives you 15% off MyFitnessPal Premium.
• 4:02
  One more time, that is podcast.myfitnesspal.com.
• 4:05
  Code Scott.
• 4:06
  That's giving you 15% off MyFitnessPal Premium.
• 4:15
  Alex, you said the idea for your company came from desperation.
• 4:19
  You were an athlete who couldn't train anymore.
• 4:22
  What were you desperate for?
• 4:25
  Identity.
• 4:27
  Salvaging my identity.
• 4:29
  Explain what happens when who you are no longer exists.
• 4:33
  So for you, it was an athlete that can no longer be athletic.
• 4:36
  And even though now you're healed and, but this was a journey you had to go on.
• 4:40
  A lot of people listen to this, our founders who
• 4:45
  their work is their identity.
• 4:47
  And when things don't go right, they feel like they've lost themselves.
• 4:50
  When things go perfect and they sell their company, they also feel like they've lost themselves.
• 4:56
  So it's interesting how identity is something that is so important.
• 4:59
  It gives us the power to do, but it's also the, it could be the Achilles heel can be the one thing that can destroy us.
• 5:06
  especially if we tie our identity to singular actions, right?
• 5:13
  Rather than a grander purpose, right?
• 5:16
  And I think people get stuck in asking, who am I?
• 5:21
  And the better question is, who am I becoming?
• 5:23
  Right.
• 5:24
  And we need to think about this and think about what we're doing today and how that leads us to become what we're going to be tomorrow and down the future.
• 5:37
  And so when I got a mystery virus, my brain was clouded.
• 5:42
  I couldn't read and write the way I wanted to.
• 5:45
  I couldn't compete in sports anymore.
• 5:47
  I lost my entire identity.
• 5:49
  And so I spiraled.
• 5:52
  And slowly when I worked my way out of that abyss,
• 5:55
  I started asking the different question, who am I trying to become?
• 5:59
  Because that person I was is gone.
• 6:02
  Who do I want to be next?
• 6:03
  How long did it take you to accept that though?
• 6:05
  A couple of years, a few years.
• 6:06
  That's a long time.
• 6:08
  I was working on my business, so I put everything into my business.
• 6:10
  So you were just sort of masking.
• 6:12
  Brought away from who I'd lost in my loss.
• 6:15
  People know you through Instagram, through your books.
• 6:19
  You have incredible content where you're teaching first principles, mental models, things that have sort of helped you on your journey.
• 6:26
  but I don't know if everybody knows your health story.
• 6:28
  And I was teeing up how we met because I do know your health story because we met at this event and we were chatting about it.
• 6:32
  But just for people to understand where you came from and how debilitating this was, maybe go a little bit into what happened to you.
• 6:39
  Yeah.
• 6:39
  So I had a totally different business.
• 6:41
  This was in my late 20s.
• 6:43
  It was making me enough money to live the lifestyle I wanted.
• 6:47
  I wasn't that passionate about it.
• 6:49
  There was issues with the business.
• 6:50
  I was passionate when I was starting it, but then I discovered the issues and some of the inextricable nature of humans that I hadn't considered in the business that were corrupting.
• 7:04
  my vision of what I wanted to do.
• 7:07
  And I was a little sour, but it was, again, giving the freedom.
• 7:10
  I was training four to six hours a day between CrossFit and martial arts.
• 7:14
  I was reading the rest of my time, reading science and philosophy.
• 7:17
  So I was living the life I wanted to live on
• 7:20
  And then I got hit with a mystery virus and there was a sequence of things that had happened.
• 7:24
  I competed in a CrossFit event a couple of days after having food poisoning, which was likely a mistake, led to like gastroenteritis happened right after that, then caught a virus that triggered an autoimmune response.
• 7:38
  I was absolutely wrecked.
• 7:41
  I had central nervous system fatigue, so I went from...
• 7:44
  you know, 54-inch plyometric box jump to unable to get airtime, you know, or 20 unbroken bar muscle ups so I couldn't do a chest bar.
• 7:52
  But my strength wasn't affected.
• 7:54
  I could still deadlift and squat and bench press like heavyweight.
• 7:59
  So it's very odd.
• 8:00
  And I felt the best when I was exercising, but it was like a chronic fatigue.
• 8:04
  I crash immediately after exercise.
• 8:07
  And so I was sleeping like some days, like 16, 18 hours, other days less, but I was sleeping like basically all the time that I wasn't active engaged.
• 8:16
  I actually had sudden onset narcolepsy.
• 8:18
  If I sat down and wasn't engaged for a minute or two, I'd just fall asleep.
• 8:23
  My C-reactive proteins, a marker of inflammation, were like 34 milligrams a liter.
• 8:27
  You know, that's a hundred times abnormal what a healthy 29-year-old should be at.
• 8:35
  And I was just suddenly anemic despite being on like a paleo.
• 8:40
  diet with like a lot of green vegetables and a lot of red meat and so it was wild that lasted a couple months um and again like my brain was so clouded i wasn't reading i wasn't writing i wasn't able to exercise and then the dust settled and i had the inflammation that attacked my joints that was the autoimmune part i had osteoarthritis and 11 joints so this is my left shoulder now it doesn't move it's bone on bone right my left hip is similar you know my hands are wrecked
• 9:08
  Yeah, I'm 41 now, so it really messed me up.
• 9:13
  And the doctors at the time, I was in Canada, which made things a lot worse.
• 9:18
  And I'm also Canadian, so.
• 9:22
  I've dealt with it as well.
• 9:23
  I've exited now, but I'm permanently disabled because of Canada.
• 9:27
  I have colleagues that had similar levels of arthritis, tore labrums after car accidents and their insurance paid them to get rapid surgery and stem cells and they've regrown back their joints.
• 9:38
  I would have years for, you know, an MRI.
• 9:41
  I had to pay 10 grand out of pocket for a specialist that determined I had the torn labrum, you know, from the arthritis in a car accident.
• 9:48
  And by the time
• 9:50
  These years passed.
• 9:53
  Basically, the arthritis had advanced too much and the government wouldn't approve surgery.
• 9:58
  So just advanced more and more and more until it's irreversible, not even stem cells will fix it or anything.
• 10:05
  You know, rewinding back to when this started, my GP at the time basically told me I had to quit exercise, never work out again, right?
• 10:16
  Put me on a thousand milligrams of naproxen a day and quarterly cortisone injections.
• 10:21
  And I just knew that was not a forever solution.
• 10:23
  So all the time I'd spent training and reading, I was just reading PubMed, just looking for anything to modulate the inflammatory response.
• 10:30
  And there wasn't really a word biohacking back then 12 years ago.
• 10:35
  It wasn't really a thing, but I was doing a lot of biohacks.
• 10:38
  I was going to those barrel cryo saunas that killed some people, right?
• 10:44
  And that got discontinued from asphyxiation and, you know, going to saunas and, you know.
• 10:50
  found hydrogen and found all these other things.
• 10:52
  You were so ahead of your time, though, in this space.
• 10:55
  But you were an entrepreneur through and through.
• 10:58
  You're like, if I have anything wrong with me, I'm not...
• 11:00
  I'm going to take charge.
• 11:01
  I'm going to take charge, figure it out.
• 11:03
  When I dove in, you know, to all these biohacks, and I was just desperate.
• 11:07
  I just was trying to do it for myself.
• 11:10
  Nine months later, roughly nine months, I think, I fainted at the gym a few times in a couple weeks span.
• 11:16
  I developed multiple ulcers.
• 11:17
  I wasn't processing my nutrition.
• 11:18
  I went back to the drawing board, was reading PodMed again.
• 11:21
  I found more research on hydrogen water.
• 11:23
  Pissed me off.
• 11:24
  I had this $5,000 machine that was nothing for me because as soon as I stopped the Nuproxin, my joints froze like overnight.
• 11:32
  Couldn't put on socks, couldn't put on a jacket.
• 11:35
  I was, inflammation spiked back up.
• 11:38
  And it just dawned on me, how do I even know what dose I'm getting or that I'm getting hydrogen water?
• 11:43
  I just trust the salesman selling this.
• 11:45
  Why was that the thing that you thought was going to heal you?
• 11:49
  After all this reading and all the research, you thought hydrogen water was the solution to all of your problems?
• 11:54
  I didn't.
• 11:54
  I was just scouring more pod matter online.
• 11:57
  And I saw another article on hydrogen.
• 12:01
  saying it could do these things I was looking for.
• 12:04
  But I had this $5,000 machine and it was really just my contempt and spite that I spent $5,000 that I decided to buy the full paper to read the methodology because I'm like, what are these assholes doing?
• 12:16
  Yeah.
• 12:17
  Right?
• 12:17
  There's this fraudulent, like it was making me mad.
• 12:20
  But then like as reading them like it dawned, I'm like, wait, they're not making this in the same way.
• 12:25
  that this machine I bought is working.
• 12:28
  And then, okay, they're reporting concentrations and dosing.
• 12:32
  What concentration am I getting?
• 12:33
  You found the concept.
• 12:36
  You bought the one machine on the market that could actually do this, but you realized that the way they were doing it was not in line with the research.
• 12:41
  Nine months later after I spent the money.
• 12:43
  Understand, okay, gotcha.
• 12:44
  So then like I, you know,
• 12:47
  found a reagent to test for it, and it was undetectable.
• 12:50
  You know, didn't detect any hydrogen.
• 12:52
  I had to triple the input so far below what we know is a minimum, their physiological effect, which gave me a bit of hope.
• 12:58
  And that's what I was looking for.
• 12:59
  I was just looking for hope.
• 13:00
  Can something bring me back to who I was?
• 13:03
  But anyways, I started doing R&D, started trying to make the hydrogen water myself, going through this extensive process, getting an elemental magnesium from Eastern Europe and China that was mislabeled.
• 13:15
  And
• 13:15
  You know, ended up making a therapeutic dose and my joints loosened.
• 13:19
  I thought, holy shit, there's something there.
• 13:22
  But then I thought, I know enough about the chemistry to make this tablet, but I'm not a chemist.
• 13:30
  What if there's a side reaction that's creating...
• 13:33
  a poison that's going to kill me what if this material is contaminated with heavy metals and i'm slowly going to kill myself um you know again i knew the risks of the elemental magnesium and hydrogen gas and i'm like i can't really do the calculations to find out if making this in my kitchen is going to blow my house up right so i found my founding partner is a phd chemist from the pharmaceutical industry he called it the worst pseudoscience he'd ever heard in his life
• 13:59
  gave me a long list of reasons why it made no sense.
• 14:03
  I'd read every paper that was published at the time, because I'm an extremely obsessive person.
• 14:08
  And so I was able to rebut all his objections with peer-reviewed research.
• 14:12
  And he was shocked and said, you know, I'm stunned.
• 14:16
  I didn't think there'd be a single publication on this.
• 14:18
  It appears there's quite a bit.
• 14:20
  I still don't believe it, but I suppose there's enough evidence to pursue as a supplement.
• 14:25
  You know, it was a snide remark, right, that supplements have no evidence.
• 14:29
  And he continued like just tweaking my formulation, doing the due diligence.
• 14:34
  And I was just sending him a paper every day because I was really excited.
• 14:37
  I'm getting help now.
• 14:38
  Right.
• 14:38
  I really need external expert help here to keep going.
• 14:41
  And just serendipitously, I sent him a paper on a specific disease model at a phase two clinical trial at a higher dose of hydrogen water at the time that found very strong results.
• 14:52
  And he, you know, got reached out and said, hey, do you want to meet for lunch?
• 14:56
  I want to go over the work I've been doing.
• 14:59
  And we met for lunch and he had printed off that paper.
• 15:03
  And I was unaware, but he was the lead chemist developing small molecules for that disease model at his pharmaceutical company.
• 15:10
  And he said, the other papers, I just had to review the methodology, look at the conclusions and trust it wasn't fraudulent.
• 15:15
  This paper, I am a subject matter expert.
• 15:17
  This is my current work.
• 15:19
  And unless this is fraud, this stuff is working.
• 15:22
  I wish my molecules were working this well.
• 15:25
  And he said, are you sure you just want to do this?
• 15:27
  Yeah.
• 15:29
  for a do-it-yourself project to make sure it's safe like why don't you want to commercialize this and so i asked that question i'm like well i don't like the supplement industry i don't like the wellness industry i don't have funding to go down to pharma i don't want to collect funding you know for a lot of reasons and how can i make this work and
• 15:50
  I thought I'll cross that bridge when it comes to, I want to make sure that this does work.
• 15:54
  I want to do a test pilot batch.
• 15:56
  I had the cash for that.
• 15:57
  And, you know, something like 16 months, 3,000 editor of adjustments, 15 failed scale attempts.
• 16:03
  I finally got a first production ready tablet.
• 16:05
  But I hadn't resolved my question of how am I going to do supplements and wellness better than the industry I despise.
• 16:13
  And as I ordered the production, I had a panic attack that I don't want to just be another supplement, you know, company owner salesman.
• 16:21
  And so I emailed every first and corresponding author of every human paper on hydrogen therapy at the time and offered free product, free placebo, donations with no strings attached, publish the results, whatever the outcomes are.
• 16:34
  And I wanted to just have that peace of mind that what I am making is at least as effective as what the research on the market is.
• 16:42
  I got some bites, that's a decade ago.
• 16:45
  We now have 25 published clinical trials.
• 16:47
  We have 21 structure function claims to FTC and FDA standards.
• 16:51
  We have more clinical research underway than published, including like multicenter, multinational, phase three style clinical trials for obesity and metabolic syndrome underway.
• 17:03
  So, and this is primarily all publicly funded dollars because I've held through that.
• 17:08
  I don't have contracts.
• 17:10
  And in fact, my contracts that I have with universities for donating, I have a clause that if they don't publish, I am able to, so that the results are always published.
• 17:19
  So I decided if I'm going to do this, I have to stay true to my ethics and to scientific principles and...
• 17:28
  do the best I'm able to do and always seek improvement.
• 17:31
  And it brings us back full circle to talking about how these algorithms work in social media and why people get pushed in.
• 17:41
  And I think this happens for two reasons.
• 17:43
  A lot of them have great intentions, but then they end up doing exactly what they don't want to do.
• 17:50
  One, because they aren't continuously asking the question of who am I becoming, you know, and am I acting in a way that becomes who I want to become?
• 17:57
  But two, they're taking advice of siloed experts.
• 18:03
  They're telling them how to optimize in one facet of what they're doing without the total picture.
• 18:09
  And often, you know, whether it's us as a person or a CEO of a company, you have to know when being inefficient or illogical in an isolated domain is logical and efficient for the totality of the enterprise.
• 18:26
  So, for instance, your marketing team is going to tell you, do this and that, because this is how Meta's algorithm works.
• 18:32
  And it changes with every update every month.
• 18:35
  But what...
• 18:37
  does that advice do to your mission, who you are as a person?
• 18:41
  How do you come off to your audience?
• 18:43
  Sure, it may get you views and likes and follows.
• 18:45
  Those are cheap, right?
• 18:47
  Are those people loyal to you?
• 18:48
  Are you fighting every single month to keep those people's attention, right?
• 18:54
  Or do you have them long-term?
• 18:55
  It's the same kind of idea.
• 18:56
  Like a lot of really successful companies
• 18:59
  will ignore the best media buyers and saying, I don't care about your ROAS on this month's ad spent.
• 19:08
  And I'm not going to cheapen my deal to, you know, a one month supply of this.
• 19:14
  to get you a better row ass.
• 19:16
  I care about like the lifetime value of the customers, giving them good deal, giving them good value to have that customer for years to come.
• 19:25
  You know, the payoff comes in the future, but we we've turned into this like instant gratification where, you know, everyone loves metrics in the marketing world, right?
• 19:34
  But do they know how to actually analyze those metrics and understand what it's doing?
• 19:41
  in a long-term sense.
• 19:43
  So, you know, I fired multiple marketing teams, multiple, you know, CMOs and directors of marketing and just told them all, you're doing it my way.
• 19:51
  I am not going to make my content how Meta wants it.
• 19:55
  In fact, my content just gets squashed.
• 19:57
  My own followers don't see it.
• 19:59
  And I said, I will boost my posts and override their algorithm.
• 20:05
  And if my content is such that people resonate with, they will opt to follow.
• 20:12
  And so we look at it and, you know, my best posts I've gotten, you know, as low as like 25 cents a follow.
• 20:19
  right on my reels you know some of them like hitting like 60 70 000 follows off a single reel 90 seconds long in-depth subjects that i'm talking about clips from my book readings lots of context and nuance which meta doesn't actually like they hate it you know um so it's actually turning in it's i'm getting down they've made an update and they're overriding because
• 20:42
  I go against the wisdom of using, like, Advantage Plus, which I think is insanely stupid, right?
• 20:47
  And their algorithm is so dumb, it looks at a snapshot of your audience.
• 20:52
  But I'm talking about 20 different subjects to different audiences, right?
• 20:56
  Just one thought.
• 20:57
  I want to just, like...
• 20:59
  drive this idea home.
• 21:00
  And then I want you to talk about, after we talk about, we can talk about marketing, but the thought of having this beautiful goal when you start out as a creator, as an entrepreneur, and then you realize that once you're part of the system, well, actually you don't even realize it.
• 21:14
  Once you start posting content,
• 21:16
  And it lacks nuance, but it goes viral.
• 21:18
  It achieves a business objective.
• 21:19
  Then all of a sudden you get that dopamine hit.
• 21:21
  You get the dopamine hit and you are one of many content creators who really are not doing a service to their audience because you're ignoring context and nuance required to give the person the right information.
• 21:33
  Same with entrepreneurs.
• 21:35
  They start a company.
• 21:36
  We're talking about Eric Ries, who just wrote a book about the fact that entrepreneurs start a company, they raise money, and they lose control.
• 21:42
  And there's all these other stakeholders and shareholders now.
• 21:45
  And now the mission- Legal precedent that prevents them.
• 21:49
  Exactly.
• 21:49
  They started on this mission, and they lost their own company in the process of pursuit of this mission by playing into the machine and the infrastructure that's supposedly supposed to support them.
• 22:01
  And this is something that I think that people that are just starting out as entrepreneurs, as anybody, if you have this great mission, I don't know the best advice for you because it's difficult.
• 22:14
  to not take part in the machine.
• 22:18
  It's very difficult.
• 22:19
  And people get confused, and it's an ironic tragedy.
• 22:23
  And people have a mission, and then they look at how do I achieve my mission, they see the tools.
• 22:29
  Yes.
• 22:29
  But then they start serving the tools which prevent them from achieving their mission.
• 22:35
  Yes.
• 22:35
  So sorry, you can go back to with your content and then you so you've pushed back against this with your content on purpose.
• 22:41
  I'm not going to play the algorithm game.
• 22:42
  I'm not going to do the clickbait.
• 22:43
  I'm not going to do that.
• 22:44
  And now that that Instagram that is overriding, you know, and so like in these follow costs, I'm not getting followers from like.
• 22:53
  you know, third world countries and Indian stuff like that.
• 22:56
  I'm like geolocating to the U S Canada, UK, Australia, you know, I'm parking specific age ranges, specific likes.
• 23:03
  What I do is I listen to a clip over and over again before I post it.
• 23:09
  And I think, who am I talking to?
• 23:12
  What people do I know that need to hear this?
• 23:15
  And so then I visualize people that I know that I think that
• 23:24
  What are they interested in?
• 23:25
  Right?
• 23:26
  And so I map real people and their interests.
• 23:30
  And then I select this narrow audience structured around real people I know that I'm talking to.
• 23:35
  And then I push that content out to those people.
• 23:38
  And it's incredibly successful.
• 23:40
  Destroys what any agency has tried to do for me.
• 23:43
  This is how you build your audience as a content creator without playing the game that everybody falls victim to.
• 23:47
  But I'm boosting, not going through the platform because you can't do this through the platform properly.
• 23:54
  and I'm not playing their game, but now they're overriding it, and they're pushing it to advantage plus.
• 23:59
  They're overriding me.
• 24:00
  I'm starting off first few hundred bucks in a post.
• 24:03
  I'm getting great results.
• 24:04
  Then all of a sudden, we're going into the back end and looking and seeing there's an override, and they're no longer pushing it to, say, this middle-aged female audience, and it's all young 18 to 24 men seeing it.
• 24:18
  And so now I'm switching gears and hired more people on the team, and I'll be pulling everyone off meta,
• 24:24
  you know, to get the free downloads on my books to my website, to go to my sub stack, go to YouTube.
• 24:29
  And that way, you know, we're going to create like, um, like community forums on Facebook where my editors are discussing a lot of the ideas in the book and engaging.
• 24:37
  So doing all these ways, because just asking the question, what is the purpose?
• 24:41
  Why do I want these followers?
• 24:44
  Well, the reason I want these followers is to expand the vote, like my voice so that more people hear my message.
• 24:50
  But if I'm going to compromise my message to get the followers.
• 24:53
  Yeah.
• 24:54
  then I've defeated myself in the goal.
• 24:57
  And this is the same way, you know, we're talking about this book and quite a few people have said I should read it or talk to them because I have the same ideas.
• 25:04
  Like it's, I say no to at least one venture capitalist a week.
• 25:11
  pursuing me.
• 25:12
  I cannot count how many people have told me that within three months I'm going to have a private jet and a yacht and a penthouse if I just take their money, you know, let them buy into my group of companies.
• 25:23
  And I just say no, because I know what the legal precedent is.
• 25:28
  In 1919, a legal precedent was set on shareholder primacy.
• 25:33
  It was a Ford, Dodge v. Ford, right?
• 25:36
  The Dodge brothers sued the Ford Motor Company.
• 25:38
  And,
• 25:39
  And Henry Ford had sent out a letter basically stating, we are lowering the price of our cars.
• 25:47
  We are raising employee wages and improving their benefits because he wanted to, in his words, he wanted to live in a country where everyone could afford a Ford.
• 25:54
  Right?
• 25:55
  And...
• 25:56
  And the Dodge brothers fought back and they said, we didn't invest in you for your moral mission.
• 26:02
  We invested in you to return profits to us and went to the Supreme Court of Michigan and the Dodge brothers won.
• 26:09
  And so that set the prevailing precedent of shareholder primacy, which has guided contract law in the Western world ever since then has not been challenged.
• 26:18
  which means that the responsibility, the fiduciary duty of any director, executive, you know, in a company is to return profits for the stakeholder.
• 26:29
  Now, it can get nuanced in public benefit corporations, but those aren't clearly defined.
• 26:35
  And you look at OpenAI, our business.
• 26:37
  mission is to benefit humanity.
• 26:39
  What does that even mean?
• 26:40
  Right?
• 26:41
  So it creates these problems.
• 26:43
  And by the way, just so you know, you would love this.
• 26:44
  So I'm going to tell you this book, it's called incorruptible.
• 26:47
  It's why good companies go bad and how great companies stay great.
• 26:50
  And all about everything he speaks about is, uh, creating incorruptible governance structures in the company for this exact reason, for this exact reason.
• 26:59
  So I actually ask myself, I am who I am today.
• 27:03
  And I took on a few shareholders.
• 27:06
  arm's length, like friends, you know, of mine that believes in my mission, but I still had them sign ethics and morality clauses, you know, that I have ultimate rights.
• 27:16
  But now I'm thinking, how do I create these businesses in a way, who do I, how do I know who I'm going to be in 10 years?
• 27:23
  What if I get corrupted somehow?
• 27:25
  How do I make my businesses and my concepts last beyond myself, right?
• 27:31
  Because we're not the same person today that we were yesterday, and we're going to be someone different tomorrow.
• 27:36
  You know, and I've done this in a lot of, say, contracts I'm dealing with.
• 27:40
  I really don't like contracts.
• 27:43
  Contracts and things like prenups, too, is assuming failure before it happens.
• 27:53
  What if I die and someone takes control and they don't have the same relationship?
• 27:57
  Or what if they die?
• 27:58
  So we've been building a lot of contracts with my executives, with good partners of mine that are very loose and tie back to arbitration and mediation and talking through problems, but then default to standard clauses in the event of a leadership change or a death or anything like that to protect from...
• 28:20
  these occurrences that could happen, right, while not betraying the relationships we're trying to form right now.
• 28:30
  Everything in your life, like the contracts, the way you raise, the way you build, the way you create, it's all like you take all these precautions so that your vision doesn't get corrupted.
• 28:37
  I always get back to the first principle, what am I trying to do?
• 28:40
  And how will saying this or accepting this change, alter my ability to pursue what I'm trying to pursue, right?
• 28:51
  So that's what I always think about with money is we think, oh, if we had this money,
• 28:56
  this funding that came in, we'd be able to finally achieve what we set out to achieve.
• 29:02
  But it's just not the reality.
• 29:03
  Because the second we take that money from VCs, we aren't bound to our purpose anymore.
• 29:08
  We're bound to returning profit.
• 29:11
  And we will be forced...
• 29:14
  into doing, making all these compromises to increase profit.
• 29:19
  And if we push back and say, no, no, no, no.
• 29:22
  By doing that, increasing that profit, it betrays my purpose.
• 29:25
  Well, the stakeholders say, well, that's over.
• 29:29
  Yeah.
• 29:30
  Right?
• 29:30
  Your purpose is to return money for me.
• 29:32
  And so entrepreneurs find themselves trapped in a prison of their own making.
• 29:37
  They were so excited to take on this money to finally achieve their goals.
• 29:40
  But then the second they take it,
• 29:42
  they're now impotent and completely incapable from pursuing what they set out to pursue.
• 29:48
  And, uh, you were saying before about like the, the funeral founder of funeral, right?
• 29:53
  Almost every founder I've ever talked to has regretted taking money.
• 29:57
  Um, some of them end up in a trap where they've launched multiple businesses and, uh,
• 30:03
  They take money and they're like, I've regretted every time, but they don't know any other way.
• 30:07
  They get trapped in this cycle.
• 30:09
  Yeah.
• 30:10
  I mean, like Silicon Valley and VCs have the best marketing ever.
• 30:15
  Like I was speaking, I invested in a founder.
• 30:18
  She's from SF, incredible founder.
• 30:22
  she's building a company, she raised a little bit, not a lot, seed round.
• 30:27
  And we were just chatting and I was, I didn't think it was a novel idea.
• 30:31
  I just said, instead of raising another round, which is super time consuming and you're going to dilute yourself, why not just grow through revenue and customers?
• 30:42
  And she said,
• 30:44
  Like, it seems like such a simple concept.
• 30:47
  Like, money can come from anywhere.
• 30:49
  Money can come from VCs, money can come from customers.
• 30:51
  Like, I would rather not dilute.
• 30:52
  Money can come from debt, money can come from anywhere.
• 30:54
  But the best money is from customers.
• 30:56
  Like, then you don't have to dilute yourself.
• 30:57
  You don't have to take, you don't have to give up equity.
• 30:59
  You don't have to, you know, pay interest on your debt.
• 31:01
  So just sell more.
• 31:03
  Like, let's focus on, like, a marketing strategy to attract and convert customers.
• 31:06
  And in her mind, she looked at me and she's like, do you think that's going to work?
• 31:11
  And I'm like, of course, it's going to work.
• 31:14
  People are brainwashed to think that they have to do things a certain way.
• 31:19
  And she would say, I would speak to 10 of my peers in SF, and they would look at me like I'm crazy if I said I'm not going to raise another round.
• 31:26
  Of course.
• 31:27
  That's so sad.
• 31:28
  It is.
• 31:29
  And it's horrific in my view.
• 31:31
  Life at the Speed of Play is a success story partner.
• 31:34
  Now, this is a book by Mark Pincus, the guy who founded Zynga.
• 31:37
  I've actually had him on the show.
• 31:38
  I met him in person.
• 31:39
  And Reid Hoffman wrote the foreword, calling him one of the best idea people in Silicon Valley.
• 31:44
  The book is Life at the Speed of Play, Launch Products People Love.
• 31:48
  About 170 pages.
• 31:50
  It's already a national bestseller.
• 31:51
  It's his framework.
• 31:52
  or figuring out whether an idea is actually worth going after before you put serious time and money into it.
• 31:58
  Not theory, the way he actually does it, and he's repeatedly built successful businesses.
• 32:02
  On top of that, you can read it in a weekend.
• 32:04
  It can change your entire life and give you the right direction if you're an entrepreneur.
• 32:07
  So right now, if you go to getmarksbook.com slash success, you get two copies for $32.
• 32:11
  That's $16 each.
• 32:14
  Mark is paying for the second copy himself because he wants you to give it to somebody, a friend who's been sitting on an idea, someone who needs to push, whoever.
• 32:20
  That's getmarksbook.com slash success.
• 32:23
  Mark with a K. Buy one.
• 32:25
  Second one's free.
• 32:26
  My fitness pal is a success story partner.
• 32:28
  People always ask me how I have time to track what I eat, pay attention to my nutrition.
• 32:32
  When I have a daily podcast, I have a weekly podcast.
• 32:34
  I have a newsletter.
• 32:35
  I run a marketing agency.
• 32:36
  My days are super full.
• 32:37
  But honestly, that's exactly why I have to do it.
• 32:40
  See, when you're running that many things, when you are a high-performing person, you cannot afford to have your energy be inconsistent.
• 32:46
  Food is a foundation for everything, for energy, for sleep, for weight, for recovery, for performance.
• 32:51
  And the days when I'm not paying attention to what I'm eating,
• 32:53
  I feel it.
• 32:54
  The MyFitnessPal app makes tracking a non-issue.
• 32:57
  I can say what I ate, it has voice logging, or I can point my camera at a plate with meal scan and it figures out what's there.
• 33:03
  See, I'm not sitting around entering all my ingredients.
• 33:06
  The app does the work for me.
• 33:08
  It also connects to over 40 fitness apps and wearables, so my training, my steps, my nutrition, it all goes to one place.
• 33:15
  One picture of what's happening instead of having to piece everything together myself.
• 33:18
  The whole thing is frictionless.
• 33:19
  It takes seconds, not minutes.
• 33:21
  So do yourself a favor, start tracking what you eat.
• 33:23
  You are going to feel way better.
• 33:25
  Go to podcast.myfitnesspal.com and use code SCOTT, all uppercase for 15% off MyFitnessPal premium.
• 33:31
  That's podcast.myfitnesspal.com, code SCOTT.
• 33:35
  HubSpot is a success story partner.
• 33:37
  every entrepreneur, founder, CEOs listening right now needs to pay attention.
• 33:42
  I have a question for you.
• 33:43
  When a buyer asks AI for a solution or a product that your business sells, does your business come up?
• 33:51
  The answer is that most companies have no idea.
• 33:54
  They don't know if their name shows up in any of the AI tools, chat, perplexity, Claude, and by the time they find out, they have lost tons of traffic and tons of deals to someone who did show up.
• 34:08
  HubSpot AEO.
• 34:10
  It helps you show up in those moments with the right answers that your customers and your buyers are looking for when they go type in a question.
• 34:18
  It's before the first click, it's before they fill out some form on your website.
• 34:22
  That is the moment that HubSpot AEO is built for.
• 34:27
  So if you want your company to show up in AI searches when your customer is looking, check out hubspot.com.
• 34:33
  They are the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
• 34:37
  So I'm curious because the way that you think is very counter to how most people look at whatever problem they're trying to solve.
• 34:46
  I'm curious, was there a moment in your life that prompted you to sort of color outside the lines and look at things differently?
• 34:56
  Was there a traumatic event that you said, I'm never going to go through this again?
• 35:01
  Like, why do you look at things in a contrarian way?
• 35:04
  Oh, man, that's difficult.
• 35:06
  One, I mean, I am on the spectrum.
• 35:09
  Two, I had a contrast in my life.
• 35:13
  We grew up below the poverty line, mostly with my mom, single mom.
• 35:18
  My dad was in the picture, but he has borderline personality disorder, and he's a lunatic.
• 35:23
  There's good times and bad times.
• 35:26
  His mom was quite wealthy, ended up getting written under the will.
• 35:30
  So there's a lot of...
• 35:32
  chaos that occurred in my youth, but it just always was gnawing at me.
• 35:36
  Even going into business was when I was 17 and I got a job in door-to-door sales and I got this job out of spite, right?
• 35:45
  Because some friends of mine got a job going door-to-door for commission and I was considering it, but I was really socially awkward, you know, that, you know, autism and my dad just basically laughed and said, you're a loser.
• 35:58
  You'll never sell to a single person.
• 36:00
  add, if anything defines me, it is
• 36:05
  such a fierce oppositional defiance and contempt for being told I can't do things that I got that job going door to door.
• 36:16
  And I just, I studied everything, you know, and I watched the best sales reps.
• 36:22
  I watched their mannerisms.
• 36:24
  I watched when they'd lean in at the right time.
• 36:27
  And I just memorized it.
• 36:28
  And I always hated wrote memorization.
• 36:30
  I hate it in school.
• 36:31
  I didn't understand it.
• 36:32
  But with human skills,
• 36:34
  I turned to rote memorization to just study everything and practice it in the mirror for days, months, then into years, and then develop different characters for different situations, whether I was talking to a girl, whether I was trying to sell a deal.
• 36:48
  But then over like about a decade, they all just emerged and became who I am.
• 36:52
  But so there was that that led there.
• 36:54
  But in the questioning side, throughout all of this, I was just always struck and people would
• 37:01
  Basically, you say, what are you talking about?
• 37:02
  You're insane.
• 37:03
  When I comment on the societal insanity across all political sides, spectrums, debates in every field, everyone seems to agree all the systems are broken.
• 37:17
  But yet no one questions the actual systems, right?
• 37:20
  They have different solutions on how to reform the systems.
• 37:25
  It's like, well, maybe the systems are broken to their core.
• 37:28
  And so I just started thinking about these first principle concepts.
• 37:33
  And it led me to kind of think that we have a number of concepts.
• 37:39
  modern religions that we're actually not aware are religions, one being finance, another being public education as universal good, right?
• 37:50
  Where's the evidence for it, right?
• 37:51
  In fact, the evidence suggests that it's diminishing us with each passing generation, and that democracy is the best form of government.
• 37:58
  Where's the evidence?
• 37:59
  In fact, the evidence is contrary to that.
• 38:03
  And so we have all of these
• 38:06
  assumed beliefs that we build everything off of.
• 38:11
  And that's ideology, right?
• 38:13
  And so it made me question, why are we involved in all these religions?
• 38:17
  But these religions aren't a god, they're a religion to an idea, how to function in society.
• 38:22
  So I started questioning
• 38:24
  Well, these normative behaviors are within these systems that everyone agrees fails.
• 38:31
  Why should I assume that they're intelligible?
• 38:35
  And so I go to every new field I'm in and I just ask the questions, what is this system trying to accomplish?
• 38:42
  Right.
• 38:43
  And I break it down and go, okay, this has some merit or...
• 38:47
  That is not doing what it was intended to do.
• 38:51
  And so I go in with this radical deconstruction to reconstruct in every idea I have.
• 38:59
  Is this a similar idea?
• 39:00
  Like the deconstructing an institution or an ideology to reconstruct it?
• 39:08
  Is that coming from the mental model that
• 39:12
  If you go through life with a healthy amount of pessimism and just assuming that things are broken and won't work the way that they should work.
• 39:21
  Then you find solutions on getting them done.
• 39:24
  I call it strategic pessimism.
• 39:25
  That's the word.
• 39:26
  Yes.
• 39:26
  Okay.
• 39:27
  You know, we get caught in these binary debates.
• 39:29
  And we go, well, being optimistic is better than being pessimistic because we assume pessimism is, you know, like a prison, right?
• 39:38
  People, you know, become paralyzed with their pessimism or become suicidal.
• 39:43
  But optimism is delusion.
• 39:45
  Optimism is assuming everything will go right, but we know it's not going to go right.
• 39:49
  It never goes right.
• 39:50
  Reality is chaotic.
• 39:51
  And so...
• 39:53
  I would say our systems in society are based on a mix of delusional optimism and the belief that we can control reality, neither of which are true.
• 40:04
  Right.
• 40:05
  And so my teachings teach you, you cannot control what is going to happen.
• 40:09
  You cannot account for everything.
• 40:11
  Something will occur.
• 40:13
  Right.
• 40:14
  The most unimaginable stress is going to hit you.
• 40:18
  And the question isn't, have you built enough rigid protocols to protect you?
• 40:24
  What is your capacity to deal with this change?
• 40:28
  right?
• 40:29
  How many situations have you done?
• 40:31
  How can you adopt them in the moment to make sure that you survive the chaos, right?
• 40:37
  And that you help those around you survive the chaos.
• 40:40
  So I believe very much in red teaming everything.
• 40:45
  When I go into anything, I deconstruct everything and think of every single failure point and every redundancy that I can put in place to ensure that I will
• 40:59
  randomness.
• 40:59
  I mean, I can't account for an asteroid hitting Earth and causing extinction.
• 41:02
  So within my reason, and I argue that this type of strategic pessimism that drives you to move forward to build capacity, build new systems, you know, build these understandings and skill sets is the greatest form of optimism.
• 41:17
  Because you are under the presumption that the more you do, the bigger you build yourself, the more likely you're going to succeed.
• 41:25
  Whereas traditional optimism is just assuming I need to lie to myself and keep this mindset that everything is going to be peachy and then ignore the negatives when they occur because it might negatively affect your mindset.
• 41:42
  I agree with you.
• 41:44
  The issue that many people would have with this idea is that if from the onset they default to a certain amount of pessimism, they actually don't take the action.
• 41:58
  It only works with action.
• 42:00
  That's the issue.
• 42:01
  And the same with hope, whether it's hope or pessimism.
• 42:05
  They only work with strategy and action.
• 42:07
  Nothing works if you don't.
• 42:08
  You need to always ask the question, how am I serving others?
• 42:12
  What value am I creating?
• 42:14
  If you're asking, how do I make money?
• 42:16
  How do I raise money?
• 42:18
  Then you're just going to be empty, right?
• 42:20
  It's never enough, right?
• 42:22
  It's never enough.
• 42:23
  But if you're asking, what am I doing?
• 42:26
  the benefits me and then what i'm doing is making me happy make giving me a better life would that be a value to other people and if you say yes just start moving right don't worry about putting a prospectus together and putting together books and projections just start working on that mission right
• 42:49
  And people will notice.
• 42:51
  That's the question the founders should ask themselves.
• 42:53
  What value am I providing?
• 42:55
  That's it.
• 42:55
  That's the most important.
• 42:57
  Yeah.
• 42:58
  And every day you have to ask that question.
• 43:01
  For somebody who is, again, you're speaking to very ambitious people.
• 43:06
  There's about 50-50.
• 43:07
  I'd say 50% loose numbers, but 50% are entrepreneurs that are building.
• 43:12
  The other 50% are ambitious, but they're working 9 to 5 W-2s.
• 43:16
  But I think that the human default, I'd say entrepreneurs maybe a little bit less so than like a 9 to 5 W-2, but humans do default to obedience of systems because it's comfortable.
• 43:25
  And I think that most people don't want to.
• 43:27
  Slowly, slowly in the West, not historically.
• 43:31
  But I also want you to teach how to think about the systems and obedience and where it serves you and where it doesn't.
• 43:35
  I want people to consider a thought experiment.
• 43:38
  Say you're a good moral person.
• 43:40
  Why does someone become a doctor or a scientist?
• 43:43
  You know, especially in the health issues.
• 43:46
  Usually it's because a family member is dying or died.
• 43:49
  And it gives them a mission.
• 43:50
  It gives them a mission and a purpose.
• 43:52
  Say you're the best MD, PhD in the world.
• 43:54
  You are obsessed.
• 43:55
  You're working 100 hours a week.
• 43:56
  You discover a cure for something.
• 43:58
  right you think you're going to change the world you build this company you take on money or maybe you just rise to the top you know of a pharmaceutical company and now you're in the c-suite and you think i've done it i'm finally here i am going to change the world well now you're hammered with another layer of contracts you know anti-disparagement clauses non-disclosures and then they open the closet and show you the skeletons and now you're stuck with a moral dilemma
• 44:28
  Do I act on this knowledge I now have, which would be violating all your agreements, or do I engage in the cover-up?
• 44:36
  Now, if you act, what is the outcome going to be?
• 44:39
  You're going to be sued.
• 44:39
  You're going to lose your job.
• 44:41
  You'll be disparaged.
• 44:43
  Probably nothing will happen from it.
• 44:47
  You won't make an impact, but you'll never work again, right?
• 44:51
  You and your spouse won't be able to retire.
• 44:52
  Your kids won't be able to continue attending private school and university.
• 44:55
  You'll lose everything, right?
• 44:57
  And probably nothing will happen.
• 45:00
  Now, say you can make a big enough of a splash so something does happen.
• 45:05
  Well, they're still going to go after you.
• 45:07
  If they don't kill you, they're going to ruin you completely.
• 45:09
  But you've made friends over all these years in the company.
• 45:13
  You know other execs that have stock options and are counting on that for their retirement.
• 45:18
  And you know their families.
• 45:20
  And so if you make a splash, you're hurting your friends.
• 45:24
  You're hurting your friends, yourself, and your family.
• 45:26
  And when met with this moral dilemma, what do people do?
• 45:30
  They choose themselves and those they care about.
• 45:33
  It is the natural thing to do.
• 45:36
  And then they're called psychopaths, but they're going through this internal battle.
• 45:40
  right, of, I don't want to do this.
• 45:43
  I am imprisoned.
• 45:44
  My hands are tied.
• 45:44
  I have to do this.
• 45:46
  But people are talking about how they're a psychopath, right, how they're hurting humanity, where their whole goal in life has been to help humanity.
• 45:54
  And so through this method, through these layers of regulations that most people don't understand,
• 46:01
  Society has effectively taken, you know, what we could call the shepherds, the people who are trying to protect others, and forced them at gunpoint to become the wolves.
• 46:12
  What is the solution to this?
• 46:16
  I would say we need to wake up and realize that one money is fake, right?
• 46:20
  If everyone just sold their stock and took their money out of the banks today...
• 46:26
  The Fortune 500 all collapses, they all go out of business.
• 46:29
  The banks go out of business and we're left with all the same resources and we stop losing our physical assets, right?
• 46:35
  That's one.
• 46:36
  But people won't do that because they're afraid.
• 46:38
  We've attached our trust into these concepts, these institutions.
• 46:43
  In society, we need these new structures to take place.
• 46:48
  We need people bold enough to say, I'm not going to play that game.
• 46:52
  I'm going to start a new game.
• 46:53
  And I'm going to start building over here.
• 46:55
  Will you come and build with me over here?
• 46:58
  And you're not doing it for yourself.
• 47:00
  You would get much more going and playing their game today.
• 47:05
  But do you want to be immortal?
• 47:07
  Do you want a world where your children have the chance to do what you're doing?
• 47:11
  And so we need to ask ourselves these questions.
• 47:13
  Are you going to play their game because it's easier right now?
• 47:19
  Are you going to start a new game so that your children can play?
• 47:22
  What is your advice to that ambitious entrepreneur, that builder?
• 47:27
  Because it's already hard enough even when playing the existing game.
• 47:33
  Everything good in life is hard.
• 47:36
  Right.
• 47:37
  So like most people I get asked, I got asked by a neighbor kid two days ago, driving to the airport, you know, and he's got a startup business and his parents are very successful.
• 47:49
  And he said, what can I do to land a big account?
• 47:53
  I said, that's not the way to think about it.
• 47:55
  Right.
• 47:55
  Right.
• 47:56
  What do you offer to a big account that's going to make your business?
• 47:59
  You can get lucky, sure, right?
• 48:01
  But without nepotism, it's very unlikely to happen.
• 48:04
  You build your business by providing your value and service and showing you're better to the point where when you get that big account, it doesn't make you.
• 48:14
  You deserve it, right?
• 48:16
  But if you got that big account today, they own you.
• 48:19
  They're your entire business.
• 48:20
  You'll never become something bigger.
• 48:23
  You are just servicing them.
• 48:25
  But if you build yourself and your business and your capacity to where they recognize you and give you the business in that regard, you have the power.
• 48:35
  Because their competitors are going to recognize you also.
• 48:38
  So don't look for that big win.
• 48:40
  Look for a million small wins.
• 48:41
  Look for a million small wins.
• 48:43
  Provide an immense amount of value, regardless of whether or not you do something that plays into...
• 48:52
  So it's like if you're building this thing and you're providing enough value, even if you don't take part in traditional institution, it's going to be hard anyways, but at least it's going to be progressing you and your company
• 49:08
  on how to do it in the right direction.
• 49:10
  Yeah, and it's helping build a path for others to do the same.
• 49:15
  And ask yourself, like a lot of the founders ask yourself, are you happy, you know, scrounging for capital and money, having to keep up with the Joneses and pretend you can afford to stay in that suite at the Four Seasons or, you know, so on when you should really be putting that in your business?
• 49:33
  Yeah.
• 49:34
  Do simpler things make you happy?
• 49:36
  And does pouring it back into your business to provide value to others make you happy?
• 49:41
  And we think that we need to mimic these signs of success.
• 49:46
  But then you look to the very top, the most successful people don't do any of that.
• 49:50
  Right?
• 49:50
  They return back to the basics.
• 49:51
  Right?
• 49:52
  Into what really provides a more like...
• 49:55
  spiritual value and value of like worth to themselves and others.
• 50:18
  Systems beat motivation and weight loss is no different.
• 50:21
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• 50:25
  And that's exactly what Noom is built for.
• 50:27
  Noom is a health and wellness app that combines GLP-1 medication.
• 50:30
  That's the weight loss medication that everyone's talking about with behavioral support.
• 50:34
  So the medication kickstarts the weight loss and then the psychology side, the daily lessons, the food logging, the real coaching, that builds the habits that make it stick.
• 50:43
  Even if you stop the medication.
• 50:45
  And it works.
• 50:46
  People lose 37% more weight with Noom than with GLP-1 alone.
• 50:49
  Noom helps you lose weight and keep it off.
• 50:51
  And that's the difference.
• 50:52
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• 50:55
  It's delivered to your door in as little as seven days.
• 50:57
  So start your GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com.
• 51:00
  That's N-O-O-M.com.
• 51:02
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• 51:03
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• 51:04
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• 51:10
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• 51:12
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• 51:14
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• 51:25
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• 51:29
  NetSuite is a success story partner.
• 51:30
  Now you probably know NetSuite already.
• 51:32
  It's a software that a ton of companies use to basically manage everything.
• 51:36
  Their finances, their inventory, their HR, it's just all in one place.
• 51:40
  Now they just came out with NetSuite Next.
• 51:42
  This is the AI version of all of that.
• 51:44
  So now you can ask it a question the way you'd ask someone on your team who just knows everything about your business.
• 51:49
  It gives you the answer.
• 51:51
  It keeps you up to date on all the things you need to know about your company and your business without you having to go digging for them.
• 51:57
  And it has these AI agents that take care of all the routine work in your business that eats up everybody's day.
• 52:02
  Now, the bigger picture here is that AI is starting to change how teams actually work together.
• 52:08
  It's happening incredibly fast and most companies don't have a plan for it.
• 52:12
  NetSuite does.
• 52:13
  They have a free guide called Aligning for the Agentic Era, how AI is changing everyday work.
• 52:18
  It breaks down how AI could reshape the way your whole organization works and what your business should be doing to get ahead of it.
• 52:23
  If I needed a tool like NetSuite, it's what I'd use and you should too.
• 52:26
  So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era, How AI is Changing Everyday Work at netsuite.com slash Scott Clary.
• 52:36
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• 52:40
  That's netsuite.com slash Scott Clary.
• 52:42
  Monarch is a success story partner.
• 52:43
  Now, quick question.
• 52:44
  Do you know where your money went last month?
• 52:46
  Not roughly, but exactly.
• 52:48
  And most people don't.
• 52:49
  And I didn't for years.
• 52:50
  And that is most of our money stories, right?
• 52:52
  When we first start our career, we have one income and one account, and you can kind of wing it.
• 52:56
  But once you're running businesses, once you're investing, once you're carrying 50 different subscriptions that you stop paying attention to, winging it gets super expensive.
• 53:04
  Monarch fixed that for me.
• 53:06
  It is the personal finance app that tracks
• 53:08
  Everything.
• 53:08
  So that means accounts, investments, savings goals, spending all on one screen.
• 53:12
  The first week I had it, it fired recurring charges I'd been paying for months without realizing.
• 53:16
  And every single week, the AI recap tells me if spending spiked, if my net worth moved, and what bills are coming.
• 53:22
  And I can just ask it, hey,
• 53:23
  Can I afford this trip without touching my savings?
• 53:25
  And I can get a real answer based on my actual numbers.
• 53:29
  It is a financial advisor in your pocket.
• 53:31
  It costs less than an hour with a real one.
• 53:33
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• 53:35
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• 53:40
  That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code success.
• 53:44
  What is the most important mental model that has helped you as a founder, as an entrepreneur, as an author?
• 53:52
  And maybe one that is not so common.
• 53:55
  Well, I think this is more of an innate one.
• 53:57
  I have crippling existential angst.
• 54:00
  If I'm not moving forward, I get this extreme fear that I will never accomplish anything again in my life.
• 54:08
  It's not paralyzing to you?
• 54:11
  Obviously.
• 54:12
  I mean, if I let it go too long, it is, and I start drinking, right, to drown it out.
• 54:17
  But I've learned strategies over my life that if I just keep moving forward, you know, and if I lose my ability to do something physical, just start moving forward mental in some way.
• 54:30
  And if I'm stuck on writer's block, pick up another project.
• 54:33
  So, again, I look at myself as...
• 54:39
  a chaotic force just like the universe.
• 54:42
  But then there's a layer to me that builds these systems and structures to direct my own chaos.
• 54:47
  So if I don't know how to finish a chapter in my book, I don't sit and stare at the screen.
• 54:54
  I let my energy take me to be productive somewhere else that my mind is dragging me.
• 54:59
  Because sitting and staring at the screen will break me.
• 55:02
  I actually feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are like that.
• 55:05
  I think that, you know, it's like a cliche term, but shiny object syndrome.
• 55:09
  I think that's what it is.
• 55:10
  You, you, you feel friction in one thing and you start something else that has less friction in it because it makes you feel good.
• 55:19
  Now, now.
• 55:20
  So I start things that have more friction that are harder thing, right?
• 55:25
  You know, well, how do you complete a project then when you have, when you have, I have a million uncompleted projects, but I'll complete them eventually.
• 55:32
  Like my books.
• 55:34
  I have eight books that are at least on one draft.
• 55:37
  My final, what'll be my eighth, I started when I was 17.
• 55:40
  It's still not complete.
• 55:41
  So this advice you're giving is contrarian to what most people, because, for example, Hermosi would say, just kill everything that's not the main thing and just put all your energy towards that thing.
• 55:53
  I let my goals change every day.
• 55:56
  The goals you had yesterday might not exist anymore.
• 56:01
  And this is what I tell, like when my executives say, what's our goals?
• 56:04
  What are quarterly goals, annual goals, five-year goals?
• 56:07
  I tell them I don't believe in goal setting.
• 56:10
  I believe in a loose idea of where I want to get to and who I want to become.
• 56:15
  And I allow...
• 56:17
  the chaos of existence to reveal itself to me, to alter my trajectory towards that idea on a day-to-day basis.
• 56:29
  And you never feel like you losing control or you never feel like you're losing control.
• 56:37
  No, because I recognize that I'm not in control, right?
• 56:42
  I'm not in control of the world and others.
• 56:46
  And I have a tenuous grasp on myself.
• 56:50
  Most people think they're in control of themselves, but they actually have not even a finger on themselves.
• 56:56
  So because I realized I cannot control this.
• 57:00
  I let the wind blow me and I've just built some rudders to try and direct so I'm not going too far off course.
• 57:08
  This brings it back to that, you were speaking with this idea before, if something doesn't go right, which it will inevitably not go right at some point.
• 57:17
  Because you're very, I don't know a better word than fluid, malleable in how you pursue or how you sort of conduct yourself every day.
• 57:30
  When things don't go right, it doesn't destroy you.
• 57:32
  Because if you're rigid, like the business I described, if we rigidly had the structure that we had originally developed, business is dead.
• 57:43
  But why do we have to have that rigid goal and structure?
• 57:47
  Right?
• 57:48
  We have all these components, right?
• 57:51
  And we have this goal.
• 57:53
  What new structure can we build with components to reach the same goal?
• 57:59
  And so when I have this idea of what I want to achieve and who I want to become, when an opportunity presents itself chaotically in my day, I think, does this take me closer to my eventual goal and who I want to become than the project I'm working on right now?
• 58:19
  And in that way, I'm not turning down opportunities because I'm stuck in that.
• 58:24
  on a singular focus.
• 58:25
  How do you make that judgment call on which projects to let into your life without complete information?
• 58:31
  Well, we're never going to have a complete information.
• 58:33
  I know, that's why.
• 58:34
  So I'm asking for me because I don't think I'm so rigid that I avoid opportunities.
• 58:40
  But my issue...
• 58:43
  is that I am malleable to a degree, but I sometimes have made bad judgment calls on what I should take on.
• 58:49
  You always will.
• 58:51
  But every time you made a bad judgment call, if you learn from it, you'll probably make a better one next time.
• 58:56
  I like failing at things repeatedly.
• 59:00
  You know, for instance, there are a couple things on my property, one really to the pond, one to the dam, one to the retaining wall, where I just sit and stare at it and think, what?
• 59:11
  how would I do this?
• 59:13
  And I don't read anything online, don't ask any advice, and I build something or do something and then scratch my head that didn't work.
• 59:21
  And sure, maybe I spent eight hours doing it in a few hundred bucks.
• 59:24
  Who cares?
• 59:25
  I went through that mental exercise of trying to figure it out.
• 59:28
  Then I do it again and maybe I get it a little better.
• 59:32
  Huh?
• 59:32
  That doesn't work.
• 59:33
  Now, after I've failed a couple of times and I've looked at it through a lot of
• 59:37
  novel ways, uncorrupted by the knowledge of today, then I go online.
• 59:42
  And then I call friends who are experts and say, what did I get wrong?
• 59:47
  They're like, oh, you did something really interesting there.
• 59:49
  Yeah, because there's no weight of this is the way it's always been done.
• 59:56
  But I am a believer that
• 59:59
  most successful people and successful lives and when i say successful lives i just mean like you know you you have built a company that's incredible you have a a career that is paying you in an exceptional amount of money you you are more fulfilled you found a way to make the money but also have balance and you can spend so much time with your like any you
• 1:00:22
  life that where it seems like all these different parts of your life you are in the top percentile I feel like you cannot do it by listening to existing knowledge you can't build the biggest most successful company just by copying what other people are doing you can even like in your career if you want to be a ceo of a fortune 500 while simultaneously not having your marriage fall apart and having a relationship with your kids and not traveling 365 days a year
• 1:00:50
  Like you have, there's a way to do that job that is different than the way it's always been done.
• 1:00:56
  This is a big piece of advice I give all entrepreneurs.
• 1:01:00
  One, do not hire people to run.
• 1:01:02
  If you're a startup, don't hire someone with an MBA.
• 1:01:05
  They're trained to think like a multinational or the government, right?
• 1:01:09
  This is why we always make fun of consulting, huh?
• 1:01:11
  Yeah, they will destroy your business, exactly.
• 1:01:14
  Two, if every big competitor is doing something,
• 1:01:19
  Don't do it.
• 1:01:21
  Do something completely different.
• 1:01:24
  Because just ask yourself this question.
• 1:01:26
  If all of your competitors are doing X, but they're worth 9, 10, 11, 12 figures and have decades of experience on you, what do you offer?
• 1:01:40
  You are trying to copy them, a worse version, without the inertia.
• 1:01:45
  You need to find a new way to do this, right?
• 1:01:51
  And when you find a new way, you open up new doors.
• 1:01:55
  So the more people argue that everyone else is doing it a certain way, don't go, okay, I'm going to do that the same way.
• 1:02:03
  That is a stronger signal to say, I have to do it a different way.
• 1:02:08
  So many of the principles that you, that you speak about have built like massively successful companies and people.
• 1:02:14
  Ronan Harari is another Canadian.
• 1:02:16
  He's a co-founder of Spin Master.
• 1:02:18
  And he built, he built, he brought all these toys to market like Bakugan and, and,
• 1:02:24
  Paw Patrol, the point is, at this point, I think he's on the billionaire list, a very successful dude.
• 1:02:32
  But his main thesis is, if you are an entrepreneur, the easiest way to be successful is to start with no experience.
• 1:02:43
  Like start when you're young, start when you don't have all these ideas, preconceptions.
• 1:02:48
  That is what creates...
• 1:02:51
  like this world that you can just do anything in that's what excited me about the hydrogen tablet business yeah it didn't exist exactly so there's no right way to do it there was no regulations there was no industry it was a blank slate yeah where i could just let my imagination take me where it took me and and he he equates a lot of his success to just not knowing how things were done and doing them anyways like crazy stories like
• 1:03:17
  He just walked into the buyer's office at, I think it was Walmart, and basically just sat outside her office until she took a meeting.
• 1:03:25
  That's not how you're supposed to do it, but he was a kid, and she took pity on him, and then she took the meeting.
• 1:03:31
  It's so funny how we get in our head about how the way things are supposed to be done, and then we deliver this mediocre subpar copy of what's already out there.
• 1:03:44
  There's something, and I'll probably avoid naming the businesses, but as my business became successful...
• 1:03:54
  There's a few companies, one that was doing it to try and harm one of my biggest customers, right, that they were in a lawsuit with them, tried to send me a PO, another 12-figure business, that I had a broker that was trying to get in that, you know, was going to launch and they pulled when COVID happened, and then another, you know, approaching 10-figure business owned by a multinational.
• 1:04:17
  Over the last year, year and a half, I'd say,
• 1:04:20
  All three of them tried to pursue licensing my technology, and I told all of them to go fuck themselves.
• 1:04:26
  Right?
• 1:04:27
  And everyone thinks I'm insane.
• 1:04:29
  And I say, well, what will I be giving up and what signal will I be sending to everyone else if I take their POs now?
• 1:04:37
  Now that the customers who have been with me for years have built...
• 1:04:43
  this market, if I just go and sell out to the multinationals, for what?
• 1:04:49
  Right?
• 1:04:50
  I've betrayed them, right?
• 1:04:52
  So I tell all new customers that...
• 1:04:57
  I don't care if you sell a thousand units a month or a million units a month.
• 1:05:03
  What I care about is, are you contributing to a rising tide?
• 1:05:08
  Are you educating people and are you building the market?
• 1:05:11
  Because most, a lot of businesses, a lot of ankle biters, but all the multinationals don't do that.
• 1:05:17
  They're parasites.
• 1:05:18
  They're pirates that look for a market that already exists and go to steal other people's ships.
• 1:05:23
  Right.
• 1:05:24
  And this has enraged the multinational strength to pursue me.
• 1:05:29
  I said, good, fuck you.
• 1:05:31
  I hope you go under.
• 1:05:32
  You should not exist in society.
• 1:05:34
  But what it did do, I went 100% on my meetings at the biggest trade show of the year back in March.
• 1:05:41
  When I ask them, okay, apply, why should I sell to you?
• 1:05:45
  And these business owners, these entrepreneurs, these founders, they get offended.
• 1:05:49
  I'm like, no, no, tell me.
• 1:05:50
  I want to know how you're going to help build this market because I told so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so, I'm not going to sell to you because you're a parasite, right?
• 1:05:59
  I will only sell to people that are contributing to build for everyone.
• 1:06:04
  And they all look at me at first like you're insane, but then sigh in relief and say, okay,
• 1:06:10
  you just relieved our biggest fear.
• 1:06:13
  And now there's a partnership occurring.
• 1:06:15
  Now, all of them fast-tracked, launching my product, sent over, this is our marketing plan to help build this because they know that they're being protected.
• 1:06:23
  They know that they're not going to go out and educate and build something to have it stolen.
• 1:06:28
  by someone else.
• 1:06:29
  There's a lot of animosity for the biggest players.
• 1:06:32
  Yeah, and again, it's not the people within them.
• 1:06:35
  They get caught in the structure.
• 1:06:37
  You know, so I don't want to say, hey, if you're an executive at a multinational, like...
• 1:06:43
  you're a bad person.
• 1:06:44
  In fact, there's a friend of mine who's a professor who was an executive at Nestle and, you know, he left and, you know, he's joined, you know, this nonprofit I'm the director of called the Wellness Science Initiative where we're teaching free critical thinking and analytical thinking.
• 1:07:00
  And, you know, there are tons of good people
• 1:07:03
  in these corporations.
• 1:07:04
  To your point, there's tons of good people in the corporations.
• 1:07:07
  There's tons of entrepreneurs that raised money that lost control of their businesses.
• 1:07:10
  There's tons of great content creators that put content out that are victims of the algorithm.
• 1:07:15
  They become corrupted.
• 1:07:16
  Now, when we first started this, you were speaking about your own health journey and how you went sort of through this identity shift and that's what got you sort of
• 1:07:26
  building the companies that you've been building, they're all focused around health and wellness.
• 1:07:32
  For now.
• 1:07:33
  I've got some others that I don't know.
• 1:07:35
  Where does health and wellness, because we've spoken about like the mindset of the entrepreneur, but you also focus on fixing the body of the entrepreneur.
• 1:07:44
  My first book, because I believe we can't tackle any of this unless we have the capacity we're stronger.
• 1:07:49
  So it's called Stress Hacked, How to Get Stronger in a Civilization Deciding to Break You.
• 1:07:53
  There's the mind.
• 1:07:54
  Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  But then on the other side is the body.
• 1:07:56
  And that's the piece that I think, I think that most people don't understand the importance of clarity of thought, of not having that brain fog that you mentioned.
• 1:08:06
  If our body is drowned in inflammation, we're not thinking clearly.
• 1:08:10
  And then we can't.
• 1:08:11
  We can't even process these ideas.
• 1:08:12
  We can't.
• 1:08:13
  Exactly.
• 1:08:13
  So this book is about understanding the science of stress and struggle and appropriate recovery to build our capacity.
• 1:08:25
  Now, again, we talk about like the...
• 1:08:28
  polarization of society we have one half with the safe spaces that all stress is bad right so they're weaker and weaker weaker then we have the hardcore half that you just need to pile on more and more stress well that's fundamentally misunderstanding how hormesis works right you you need the right amount of stress for you as an individual at the right time followed by adequate recovery and then you grow and get stronger
• 1:08:51
  So I taught this, and then the interlude chapters are all about directing your increased strength and capacity at a purpose.
• 1:08:59
  Because if you don't have a purpose to direct your strength, that strength becomes a weapon, both internally and externally on those around you.
• 1:09:08
  So we need to make good use of it.
• 1:09:10
  For somebody...
• 1:09:12
  that's just getting introduced to your work.
• 1:09:16
  You speak on so many different topics and you have all these different ideas that they can use to improve their life.
• 1:09:23
  But...
• 1:09:25
  What is the main message that you want to leave people with?
• 1:09:29
  The main message is the truth is uncomfortable, but we need to pursue it.
• 1:09:36
  And I use the word pursue because we will never arrive there, right?
• 1:09:42
  And this is something people don't like hearing.
• 1:09:45
  And I talk about this dance with the truth in The Stonewall.
• 1:09:49
  The closer we get to truth, the more we need to be skeptical and ask questions to pull us away from arriving.
• 1:09:59
  Because the second we arrive, we're no longer using, you know, philosophical and scientific thinking.
• 1:10:06
  We've arrived at dogma, at ideology, and we might be wrong.
• 1:10:10
  So we need to do this eternal dance, circling around the truth but never arriving.
• 1:10:20
  Kind of like an Argentinian tango where the lead is fluid and changing back and forth, circling around this destination.
• 1:10:33
  We often think that by hiding and obfuscating the truth, we're improving things.
• 1:10:40
  And in reality, that's almost never the case, basically never the case, because the truth eventually emerges, and what we're trying to protect ends up being destroyed in the lie.
• 1:10:52
  So we just always have to be pursuing this, asking about ourselves, asking about those we care deepest about, our deepest ideologies, everything, question everything, always.
• 1:11:03
  of becoming who you want to be so that you can help lift others up with you.
• 1:11:08
  Have you thought about, you know, I started this conversation off speaking about how you lost your identity and what you were seeking.
• 1:11:15
  Have you decided on what the new identity is or is there ever a firm identity?
• 1:11:21
  Is it fluid as well?
• 1:11:22
  It's fluid.
• 1:11:23
  I talk about, I've been working a lot in trying to come to a cohesive understanding of what the self is.
• 1:11:31
  You know, as my cat is on his last days of life, you know, with stomach cancer.
• 1:11:37
  I've been thinking a lot about why we feel so strongly to our pets and because they're anchors of the self.
• 1:11:43
  They are consistent, static, much more consistent than the people in our lives or even ourselves and our own behaviors.
• 1:11:49
  So we attach so much of ourselves and our identity to our pets.
• 1:11:53
  Right.
• 1:11:54
  Now, when we're attaching everything to the external, that asks the question of, is there a self?
• 1:11:59
  And I think the answer is no.
• 1:12:01
  Right.
• 1:12:02
  The self is.
• 1:12:03
  is an ever-expanding collection of scripts that we run based on our hardware and software, software that we learn to deal with certain situations.
• 1:12:14
  And the situations change all the time, and our physiology, our hardware is changing all the time.
• 1:12:19
  So we don't have a self.
• 1:12:21
  The self is fluid, right?
• 1:12:24
  And this is why, if you think to...
• 1:12:27
  You might have this view of yourself and you behave like this most of the time.
• 1:12:31
  But say you go to your hometown and see a bunch of friends from your childhood or your family.
• 1:12:35
  All of a sudden, you're a 15-year-old again, right?
• 1:12:38
  Because your brain has pulled up that script that you learned, that pattern that you learned back then.
• 1:12:45
  But your physiology is different, so it's a little bit different, right?
• 1:12:49
  That's why you're like, they'll say you haven't changed a bit.
• 1:12:52
  You're like, I've changed so much.
• 1:12:54
  And it's very hard to come to terms with that.
• 1:12:57
  And because we want to think of ourselves as a unified individual, but we're not.
• 1:13:03
  We're an almost infinite collection of scripts, of code.
• 1:13:09
  And so as you're creating these new behaviors, that's why I don't think, who am I?
• 1:13:14
  I think, who am I becoming?
• 1:13:16
  When I'm starting this new code, this new script that I'm doing, how is it going to build off of the old ones to direct me into the person I want to be?
• 1:13:26
  Where can people find your work?
• 1:13:28
  All the books that you've published, obviously, are on Amazon and anywhere you can get books.
• 1:13:32
  But where can they connect with you?
• 1:13:33
  And we'll put everything in the show notes.
• 1:13:35
  I'm in my social medias.
• 1:13:36
  I'd say I've got a sub stack where I write with one of my editors on all of these thoughts.
• 1:13:40
  Most weeks, some weeks, I get too slammed.
• 1:13:42
  Like, I think we didn't release something this week because I was just too busy.
• 1:13:45
  But my books, yeah, you can buy them on Amazon for sure.
• 1:13:49
  You can buy them on my website for a hard copy also.
• 1:13:52
  And all profits are going to a nonprofit I have.
• 1:13:56
  Or you can download them for free.
• 1:13:57
  I just care that people read them.
• 1:13:59
  So the PDF and the audio are free.
• 1:14:04
  I am not writing my books or disseminating my message to make money.
• 1:14:10
  I'm losing tremendous amounts of money doing it.
• 1:14:14
  But for me, I didn't go into business for money.
• 1:14:18
  I went into it for autonomy and freedom because my interests were philosophy and science.
• 1:14:23
  But when I was younger in my teens, I thought to myself,
• 1:14:26
  How can you truly be a scientist or a philosopher if you are begging a person or an institution for funding?
• 1:14:33
  That means you're overseer and you're beholden to their interest.
• 1:14:37
  And what they permit you to do is corrupted by their goals and intentions.
• 1:14:41
  So that's why I went into business and learning how to make the tool of money.
• 1:14:47
  That's why I've been so resistant to accepting funding, because at the end of the day, I'm using it as a tool to do the things I want to do in life.
• 1:14:57
  which is pursuing truth and philosophy and science.
• 1:15:00
  Alex, ask every guest this.
• 1:15:03
  If you could go back and tell your 20-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be and why?
• 1:15:10
  Don't ever ask that question again, is what I'd say to my 20-year-old self.
• 1:15:13
  Yes.
• 1:15:14
  I spent a lot of my 20s ruminating on who I could have been until I accepted who I was.
• 1:15:19
  And I often tell people I don't believe in regret, right?
• 1:15:25
  At least not anymore.
• 1:15:26
  Because I asked, do I like who I am?
• 1:15:30
  right?
• 1:15:30
  And so long as the answer is yes, that means I'm a culmination of all my failures and successes.
• 1:15:38
  So I wouldn't want to change anything because who knows who I'd be if I didn't have that.
• 1:15:43
  Now, if you answer, no, I don't like who I am, then you ask the next question.
• 1:15:48
  Well, you can't regret, you can't know anything 20 years ago, but what can you do today to become someone who you like?