Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / How To Go All-In on Your Dreams: with Shark Tank's Matt Higgins

Transcript

How To Go All-In on Your Dreams: with Shark Tank's Matt Higgins · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Big things happened when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. Hello, Hello, Hello, I hope you're
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: having a beautiful week. I am coming off of All
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Star weekend in Salt Lake City, which is why my
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: voice is hoarse. I was at basketball games and bars
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and talking loudly and it was so much fun. But
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: here we are with my voice. I think two of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the highlights had nothing to do with basketball at all.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: The first was I gave Gail King my card game,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: which was really exciting because I think she asked such
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: great questions. And the second was I saw Thames rehearse
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: for the halftime show, so I got like my own
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: little concert and oh I loved him, so that was
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: really cool. And I just want to thank you guys
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so much for your reviews. I saw I read them
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: every week, and I saw a few more come in,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: so I just wanted to read one of them and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: thank you. I'm going to start doing shout outs of these.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: A Rollin said, one of my favorite podcasts to go
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: to when I need inspiration I love who she interviews.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Thankful to have found it. You know. That's so cool
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: because one of my favorite parts about all this is
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: that we all get to trade on some of our
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: favorite influencers, celebrities, therapists, like whoever we're interviewing. We get
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to find new great people through each other. So I
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: really appreciate that, and I appreciate the reviews because they
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: make the podcast world go around, and even more than that,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: when you send episodes that hit you to your friends,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that really makes a huge difference. So thank you all
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: so much. Separately, I just want to shout out a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: company I found. This is not an advertisement at all,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: but my friend Aaron Robinson, who was on the podcast
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: earlier on. She's been a friend of mine since I
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: moved to LA. She's an awesome host and influencer, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: her mom passed away really tragically, and I just felt
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: so sad for her, and I was really racking my brain,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: like what could I send her? Should I send her dinner?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Like it's so hard to show up for somebody in
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: grief because you really don't know what they need and
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: you don't want to be a burden an ass. So
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I was looking online and I found this company called
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Laurel Box, and they make these beautiful curated gift boxes
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: designed to nourish people's hearts after loss. And Aaron's mom
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: was Native American, and I saw this wind chime that
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: was made of feathers and it just felt like such
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: an ode to her mom, and so I got it
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: for her and it felt like really the perfect gift.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And then I messaged the company and I was telling
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: them how grateful I was because I'd been looking forever
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and nothing felt right, and I just I really loved
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: their story. I looked it up and of course it
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: was founded by two amazing women out of Cincinnati, Ohio
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and Tampa, Florida, Denise and Johanna. They just wanted to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: nourish people's hearts and everything's handmade. It was super cool.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So when I messaged them, they gave me a code
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and it's just pretty smart, really simple for fifteen percent off.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if you're in need of that
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: at all, but I wanted to share because I love
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: supporting cool women and I really loved their product. Okay, Well,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: without further ado, Today's guest is a bit of a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: departure from the usual pretty smart episode, and it's because
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: he's a friend of mine. He is somebody I admire.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: We met while I was interviewing a panel of business
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: experts during COVID and it was actually for a series
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: called She's Connected for the WNBA, and he was one
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of the only men that we interviewed, and we were
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: all it was virtual because it was COVID, and we
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: were all on Zoom or whatever program they were using.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And I saw everybody setting up and on his camera,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I saw his wife come help him set up the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: video and their audio was on and they were so
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: sweet together. I loved how they interacted. And so after
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: our interview, I messaged him. There was like five people
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: on the panel and I messaged only him, and I
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: thanked him for his time and I told them or
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I told him how cute his interaction with his wife was.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, I really love learning from successful people.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: But there are a lot of people that can be
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: successful at work. You show me a person who's also
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a great partner and a great parent, and that is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: somebody I want to learn from. And it was in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that moment that Matt Higgins, his wife Sarah, and I
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: became friends and my life has changed for the better
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: ever since then. Now, Matt's bio is pretty lengthy, but
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: let me tell you it has a twist at the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: end that you will not expect. So who is this
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: mystery man I'm talking about? Matt Higgins is a self
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: made entrepreneur who's reached the pin of five industries. You've
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: seen him as a guest shark on Shark Tank. He's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the co owner of vayner Media, which is the largest
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: social media first agency in the world, founded by Gary Vee.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: He's the co founder and CEO of RS Ventures, which
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: is a VC firm with a multi billion dollar investment portfolio.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: There's companies under it that you've heard, like Magnolia Bakery, Momofuku.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: He's an executive fellow at Harvard Business School. You know
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that photo Kim Kardashian recently posted from Harvard that was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Matt's class. Tracy Ellis Ross and Scarlett Johansson also spoke
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that weekend. Matt made his mark with two NFL franchises,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: overseeing the revenue functions of the New York Jets, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: he's also served as the vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: He was the youngest mayoral Press secretary in New York
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: City When he was just twenty six. He was the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: one that managed the global media response to the September
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: eleventh attacks. That was a mouthful, But after all that,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I bet it's pretty hard to believe that he dropped
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: out of high school. Matt was the youngest of five boys.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: They were raised by their single mom in a small
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: apartment in Queens. He grew up in poverty. He slept
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: on a mattress with cockroaches all over it, and he
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was taking care of his ailing mom. Around the time
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: he turned sixteen, Matt decided to drop out of high school. Instead,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: he got his ged and got into the workforce in
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: an effort to put himself and his family in a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: better financial situation. Later in his twenties, he was going
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: to law school at night, working during the day. His
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: mom died. He rushed to the hospital to see her,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and by the time he got there she had just passed.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: In his thirties, he beat testicular cancer and dealt with divorce.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: The man is no stranger to overcoming. What his Google
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: search or bio won't tell you is that Matt will
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes secretly pay for people's high school or college tuitions.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: He works closely with Autism Speaks. He bets big on
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: young entrepreneurs trying to follow their dreams. And when I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: ask him why he goes so out of his way
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: for people so often, he basically tells me this that
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: his life was so full of trauma and hardship that
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: if he can give people going through tough things an
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: ounce of relief or hope, it actually gives him relief too.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And Matt just came out with a book. It's titled
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Burn the Boats. It's already a number one bestseller. Matt
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: says he wouldn't have accomplished anything if he hadn't lived
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: his Burned the Boat's philosophy, which is, you don't win
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: when you give yourself the option to lose, he says.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And I believe him that success is waiting for everyone,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: it's within everyone's reach, but you gotta go all in. So, Matt,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: your story is quite nearly unbelievable. As I was reading
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: your book, I thought of two words. It's incredible, suffering
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and really overcoming. I want to start from the beginning.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: You grew up in the Bayside area of Queen's In
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: your book, you say you slept on a chewed up
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: mattress on the floor in a roach infested apartment. That imagery, really,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I think, is point like it sticks out.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: I know, it's funny. Honestly, you're saying I had a
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: you know, a reflexive like ough. It stings even I
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: have trouble reading certain parts of the book.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Can you remember it? Like, can you remember that roach
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: infested apartment and mattress? Pretty well?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean so for those listening this is this
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: is sort of a little bit of a trojan horse
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: of a book. It's a business book theoretically, but the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: reality is everything is about psychology and people and feelings,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: and so I only have so much permission to talk
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: about these gut wrenching details. And it's not meant to
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: be about me. It's meant to be about you. But
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I offer up my journey as a case study, and
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: so I do remember that, And to be honest, anybody
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: who's had childhood trauma can relate to what I'm about
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: to say. There comes a certain point where you're subjected
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: to so much pressure that you decide you're going to
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: exit the environment mentally. And so there was a point
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: where there was a break in reality as a as
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a child growing up where was like, don't I don't
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: live here anymore.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I live in this like disassociated.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: I disassociated, and I said, I live in the future.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And so you know, I had enough money to buy
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: a new mattress. That's the point of that story, Like
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and the little we had a little rotten dog and
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: had eaten the corner of the mattress and part of
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: my just sort of like, Nope, I don't live here anymore.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I would. I slept on the floor on this mattress.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: I had an ashtray next to me full butts, wake
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: up in the morning, have a cigarette. Like it was
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: just a house of horror. To be honest with you,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I share that in a story. It's a little bit
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: of a bloodletting because I never let a single person
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: over my house my entire life, and then my mother
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: passed away. But so me putting that the beginning in
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: the first paragraph was a degree of let me, let
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: me truly tell you what happened.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Well, can you paint a picture for all of us
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in terms of what that house was like, what your
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: upbringing and your neighborhood was, Like.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So I grew up in in Queens
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and raised by a single mom who was fiercely intelligent,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: like incredible brain, but also born of poverty and dysfunction,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a really tortured life, and she tried to make something
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: of herself. And when I was nine years old, she decided,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to leave my dad and I'm going to
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: try to make something of myself. And she enrolled in
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Queen's College with a ged so that was sort of
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the context. But she had all these compounding health problems
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: from her life. Her weight was ballooning. She was almost
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: four hundred pounds, so she was struggling to take care
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: of these four rotten children, me the exception of course,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and try to make ends meet by cleaning up apartments
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: for senior citizens, working for Catholic charities who would pay
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: her nominal salary, and then going to college. And it
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: was the first time I had ever seen her have dignity.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Everything became about the book about college, like it was
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: almost like she even advocated being a parent, was like,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to go to college.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: So I'm sort of shocked to hear that. Actually, because
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you dropped out of high school.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Well that's where it came from So here's my mother
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: if she's trying to make something of herself. But life
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: is sort of slipping away, you know, you know when
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: you're in a car crash and it's unfolding its low motion,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: and the rest of the world can't see it, but
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: your intuition is telling you, like, this is going to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: end really poorly. So I was doing everything as a
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: little kid, ten years old. I used to sell flowers
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: on street corners and knock on people's windows. And then
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I started working at McDonald's when I was thirteen, scraping
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: gum under the table and I'm like three seventy five
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: an hours, not going to cut it. My mother is,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: you know, doing the best she can. But you could
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: see feel her sit coming slowly, and we didn't have
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: enough money. And then I had an epiphany. Once you
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: have enough frustration in life, when the cavalry never comes.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: You know, as a little kid, you have all these
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: hero fantasies, especially when you're raised by a single mom.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: You're like, maybe a man will come in and marry her,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: or maybe we'll win the lotto tickets. You know, used
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to sit with the scratch off tickets at the table
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: and then You're like, all right, fit, nobody's coming, So
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: what can I do? And I had an epiphany. If
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: I could drop out of high school at sixteen, I
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: could get a job working at a place that would
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: hire college students and go from making three seventy five
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: an hour to eight an hour. I actually saw an
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: ad and I got so excited, like, you know what,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: there's another way. And of course I tell my guidance
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: counselor when I arrive at Cardo's of high school, like, oh,
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: don't worry about me getting picked up by the truancy police,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Like I have a plan. You know, I would get
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: arrested quasi right, you know, like soft arrested based one
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: queen's version, like get taken away in the paddy wagon.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And I would say like, no, no, I have a plan.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I'm going to drop out of high school. N't sixteen.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: And then it was my second epiphany. I have so
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: much conventional thinking against me with this decision. Everybody trying
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: to talk me out of it, and who the guide's counselor,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: But everybody who's giving me their hackneyed advice has no
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: perspective in that dirty little apartment and that chewed on
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: mattress I'm sleeping on because I'm covering it up. And
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I realized, like you can't. You got to be careful
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: with whose advice you take, because if they don't have
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: full perspective because you're concealing it, or they haven't been
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: down your path before, you could easily get talked out
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: of your own instincts. And so second radical decision I've
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: made was to burn the boats. The only way I'm
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: going to go through with dropping out of high school
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: is if I fail every single class that it would
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: become obvious to anyone who in who cross my path.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: You're just the helpless cause so there was a degree
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: of like grinding me down for a bit. You're a
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: smart kid, young man. Let me talk him straight. Let
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: me take him to rikers and show them what prison
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: looks like. You know, it's like all these like interventions.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And then finally like, all right, let's get them off
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: our books. If we could transfer him to the auxiliary
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: program across the street, we don't have to register that
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: drop out. And that's what has such.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: A funny irony there though, because you had this like intellectual,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: thoughtful plan about how people would let you drop out
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of high school.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: I really did, and like no one could understand the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: intention of it, right, Like God, thank God the universe.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: That gave me a sense of intention and defiance. And
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I had to hold on to it because people try
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: to really mess your head up. I mean, it is
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: a logical intervention. When you have a kid you think
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: is pretty intelligent and you're like, let me scare him straight,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, no, no, I mean I have a plan.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And I even went to college night it's cool, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I talk about this in my book, and you know,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: all the schools are there, and I was like, excuse me, sir.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: If a student theoretically was intelligent and did really well
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: on the GED, and I know you're an IVY League school,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: would you take him? And they're like, well yes, young man,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: we believe in second chances like whatever. So like I
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: had the validation that this plan could work, right, and
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: then the only way to do it was for me
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: to torpedo everything.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: So what happens after you drop out of high school?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: So now talking this fun story in a podcast decades later,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: it's like all sounds like almost like a movie, but
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: to actually execute it is really is really difficult. When
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I went through with it, and I sat on the
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: steps of Cardos in high school and opened, you know,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: lit a cigarette. Now I was like, well it sounded
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: good theoretically, but now I got to execute, you know,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: And I had that moment of like, may they're probably
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: they might be right, Like this is this is nuts.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I picked myself up, went to Springfield Gardens High School
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: on standby, took my gd and a year later I
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: went back to my high school prom at the end
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: of my first year three point five GPA and on
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the debate team, and I remember the look in my
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: guidance counselor's face, who was actually a sweetheart, but a
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: lot of the teachers it had win from pity to
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: admiration in one chess move like ugh, all right, which
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: is another learning by the way, they'll praise you when
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: you're on the other side, even if they undermine you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: when you're making your breakthrough moments like you cannot be
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: dependent upon that affirmation no matter how old you are.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the There's like a quote, you're crazy when
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you're doing it, and you're a genius if it works.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Or something right, it really is true. So a lot
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: of the book is about trying to like sharpen that
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: your your belief in your own intuition, and then you know,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: show you these these case studies. But I go to
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I go to college, and that next ten years of
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: my life going from sixteen year old hyper high school dropout,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: gone from McDonald's to sort of getting one of those
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: eight dollar hour jobs. In the span of a decade,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I went from that to becoming the youngest press secretary
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: of New York City history, all because you.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Give me like a quick sort of timeline of what
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: happens in those ten years.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I love the line in Hamilton where
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Eliza says to Hamilton, why do you write like you're
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: running out of time? Like I always felt like I
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: was running out of time because I was always racing
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to save somebody. Unfortunately, that attitude is probably a legacy
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: of that PCSD. Right, I could I could see my
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: mom just I could see us sitcombing so coming to
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the depression, the desperation, the lack of healthcare, the lack
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: of food. I would always eat these blocks of government
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: cheese like just it was like succumbing. She was losing
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: her ability to walk and then eventually breathe and so
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I was like, I got to get to a place
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: where I make like an unimaginable amount of money amount
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: of money as quickly as possible so that I can
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: honestly get the hell out of there. Like I didn't
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: want to be a hero. I didn't want to take
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: care of my parent. No, but nobody's taking care of
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: their parent really wants that. Even though sometimes parents will
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: reinforce it with the hero narrative you're an amazing child,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: you know it's actually doing a disservice to a child
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: because they don't want to be an amazing child. They
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: want to be a selfish child. So I wanted to
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: get out as soon as possible. So in between that time,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I go from a sixteen year old dropout, I get
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: a job in a newspaper called The Little Queen's Tribune.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I start my own I was a good writer. I
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: started a little muckraking column solving people's problems, and before
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: long I started winning all these journalism awards, first place
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: award for investigative journalism and whatnot. And then I got
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to the attention of the City of New York, the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Juliani administration. Giuliani one point zero just remember him in
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the nine to eleven version, not this current version. But
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: and I got a job working in the press office.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And then every time I had a moment when I
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: was trying to advocate moving up along the progression and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: somebody said wait your turn, I would quit, and so
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I quit twice in order to finally and then the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: second time like okay, you know, Junior, like thank you,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: but you're not going to come back this time. I
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, we'll see, and then I got invited
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: back as press secretary when I was That's.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Actually something you taught me when we met very early on.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: You said to me that everybody thinks that there's a
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: certain way to do things and you have to climb
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the ladder, and what if you just reimagined all of that,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: like who made the rules?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: I love those conversations because we have the society has
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: a bias towards incrementalism, and it's all around us. And
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: the reason why is it's efficient if you're an authority,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: like a corporation or you're the government, it's very efficient
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: to keep people in little bands, so we all move
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: along as organized little automatons. Right, And so if you're
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: a frene me or your spouse in an unhealthy relationship,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: It's very efficient to keep somebody destabilized and kind of
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: moving along in their place. There's a lot of gravitational
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: pull to tell you that wait your turn, that life
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: unfolds like layers of sedimentary rock where it's not true. So,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: like I loved our conversation, I love the conversation when
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I say to somebody like well, who says that? Who
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: says you need to open up the lemonade stand before
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: opening up the national lemonade chain. Now, this is not
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a screed against expertise. It's about knowing when you know
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: enough to make the moves you want to make, and
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: not deferring to this incremental, incrementalist mindset. I've just for
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: whatever reason that God never had it, just so.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: That everybody can catch up. You end up after being
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Press secretary, You end up working with two NFL teams
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: EVP of Business Operations. Then you co founded RSU Ventures
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. You end up being a guest shark
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: on Shark Tank, which I think everybody knows you from.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And you've had a lot of big moments along the way.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And as I was researching, I was looking up the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: American dream, and you epitomize it. But I remember in
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: college learning about how it's a bit of a myth actually.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And so the current stat is that eight percent of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: kids raised in the bottom twenty percent actually moved to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the top twenty percent. And the social mobility in our
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: country is actually very low. Denmark is double that your
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: philosophy of no excuses, burn the boats, no plan B
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is that what you attribute the mobility to.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I largely do. Actually, I think that there's an energy
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: leakage makes it really hard to do extraordinary things. And
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: so if you are constantly burned with doubt, constantly burden
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: with this internal voice in your head that says you're
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: not good enough, constantly burden with the external forces that
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: you can't put your finger on. For example, that boss
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: that's a withholder, as I call in the book, the
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: person who knows that you thrive on approval and is
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: deliberately withholding the praise you think you deserve to keep
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: you destabilized. There are all these forces at work that
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: collectively make it harder for you to commit to your
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: full potential. I'm using the word boat, which we can
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: get into the historical meeting. I'm appropriating the idea from
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: a military context to represent metaphorically all the things in
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: our lives, internal and external that prevent us from fully committing.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I constantly audit myself and say, that's just a waste
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: of time. Why are you worried about that risk that
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you already synthesize at the beginning of this journey. You
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: already contemplated the worst thing it could possibly happen. Let
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: it go and be all in. So now I got here.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: If I'm being honest out of a fear, out of
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: a fear and flight flight or fight or flight response
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: to my situation, right, that is not the best way
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: to achieve a happy, peaceful life. Right. So somewhere along
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the way, if that's what sets you in motion, you
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: need to pivot to a new system of motivation around
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: commitment to excellence, because if you stay hyper vigilant forever,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: you'll know you'll burn out.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Sorry, I mean to no, did you find self compassion
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: at any point along the way, because to me, that's
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: almost the opposite or other end of the stick of this.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it took me a bit, because remember, my whole
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: foundation of my life was concealment. Of the origin story. Right,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: not a single person comes over until by the day
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: my mother dies and the ambulance removes her body from
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: my apartment. You know what I mean? Like, think about
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: that statement, right, So I have this whole foundation of excellence.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: The same day that I become Press Secretary of the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Mayor of New York, she dies at ten am. Right,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Like at the moment I even start making a one
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars a year, which is extraordinary even now,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: right for twenty six year old's pretty good. It's twenty
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: years ago. She dies, and so I was built on
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: a construct of shame and concealment, but also never succumbing
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: to my circumstances. Well, that doesn't make for the best
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: boss at the end of the day, right if you're mean,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Because if you're somebody who denies yourself compassion and charity
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: when times are tough, you're going to deny that to others.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: So I talk in the story about this this little start.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Actually do I have it on? I have my dog
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: tags on. I'll tell you the dog tech story, which
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: is a little crazy. But I had testicular cancer when
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I was when I was thirty two, and I just
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: had my little baby boy three months old. This was
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: finally the moment I had a big contract to the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: New York Jets, like everything was gonna be okay. And
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: then I get a pain in my right testicle, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: which I try to ignore like every guy would. And
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: then you know, you finally used to come and You're like,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: it's nothing, right, and they're like, not only is it nothing,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: not nothing, You're gonna have to have a removed within
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: twenty four hours because we think it's spread to the
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: rest of your body. You're like, what. First of all,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I get like, I'm pretty used to that part of
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: my anatomy, Like it's a pretty big decision to make overnight.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Like that, you know, that's number one, But then number two,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: My whole identity is about being tough. I have the
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: surgery the next day to prove to all the Jets
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: coaches that I have not been defeated. I show up
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: to a dinner with all the coaches with a bag
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: of ice and my groin and then I, you know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I take out a glass of wine and I say, hey,
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I want to tell you a toast to my new motto,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: which I'm gonna put on dog tags half the balls
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: twice demand cover years with the kids out there, right,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I think it's okay to say balls. So I actually
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I actually still have these dog tags on which it's
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: not ready for prime. But but my point is I
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: share the story in the book not because oh wow,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: that's so tough, that's bravado. I cringe at that story
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: in retrospect because as a leader, if you're telling everyone
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: around you, I don't even take a day off when
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I get effectively amputated for the really important part of
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: my body. What do you think they're going to do
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: when they have a struggle at home or they're going
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: through a divorce, Right, It's really important I think as
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: a leader that you extend to yourself the same charity
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: or the same understanding that you're going to need to
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: extend to people around you. And that awakening didn't happen
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: until much later post cancer, when I went through my
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: own divorce and I went through something that I really
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: couldn't handle and navigate.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite stories that you share in the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: book is towards the beginning, and you're kind of explaining
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: what burned the boats means, and you share something from
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament that Israelite armies would besiege enemy cities
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: from three sides instead of four, because if the enemy
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: saw that they had an escape route, they wouldn't fight
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: with the same energy.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I gotta love that story.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I love that story. I think it drives the point home.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I honestly, I read the book a few months ago
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and I haven't stopped thinking about that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: So funny you said that. I was just researching that
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: last night, reaching about reading back to the Old Testament,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: understanding like that particular story because it's not well known, right,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: This mentality of giving your enemy an escape route too.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: No, And I think like army or army military strategy
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in general is just fascinating, like there's so much we
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: can learn from it. But the idea of feeling desperate.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Almost when I interview entrepreneurs, there usually comes a moment
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: in time where they feel that desperation and it's either
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: sink or swim.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Funny, I tried. I can't let go of the desperate feeling.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: I'm desperate today, I'm desperate every day. I'm desperate to
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: just leave it all on the field now right. I'm
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: desperate to come within an inch of my life trying
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: to pursue you know, something great. And I used to
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: be desperate to escape my terrible circumstances. Now I'm desperate
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: to embrace whatever has life in store for me. So
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: it's the same overarching feeling, though it's full of anguish.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Like somebody asked me, are you happy? I'm like, define happy, like.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure happy and fulfillment necessarily go together.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm okay with that. By the way, Yeah, it's
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a decision you make, right. I was going to say,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the closest approximation to the word happy that I could
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: find is intentional. Am I being intentional today? That feels
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: like a version of happy. But I'm constantly toggling, balancing
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: between sort of the pure wonder of the world like that, Wow,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I get to do that, Like I get to write
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: this book, and then the anguish to do it well right,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to like to do everything I could have done to
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: do it well. That's the new version of desperation I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: have in an older version of myself.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: You also write that there's a formula for every dream,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and I think everybody who is going to read this
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: book is like, what's the formula?
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the formula Number one That's why I
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: started with the burn the boat's premise. I think people,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: a significant percentage of people will reflexively reject that headline
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and it's delivered. They will say, well, but what about
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: the fact I have to pay the rent? What about
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: you don't understand?
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Or I'm not you the reason I start with these
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: gut wrenching details. Let's just take that you're not me
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: off the table. I'm not the forty something guy on
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Shark Tank who teaches at Harvard Business School, who you
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: presume all sorts of things about. I'm the guy who
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: grew up in that roach hotel, right, because I want
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: to lessen the gap between you and I out there.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Right, so hopefull right, and you do address the whole
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: privileged stance, which I like because what you shouldn't easily say,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: like is this applicable to me?
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: You could and I'll never know what it meant to
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: be a white man and not be a white man, right,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Like I'll never know the advantages that were built into society,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: they clearly were there. Right, the idea that you know
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: I'm a high school dropout when you wouldn't necessarily expect it,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, I've gone through right, or I
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: look a certain way at the end of the journey
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: gives me advantages. So I can't do anything about that.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: But what I can pot, what I can do, hopefully
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: is pull back the curtain on the formula as I
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: think it is. So the first thing is to accept
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: that the energy you're expending on doubt and plan B
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: and looking backwards is dramatically reducing the likelihood you're ever
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: going to get what you want. So let me prove
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: it to you multiple ways. There's something to be said
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: for wisdom that gets passed on over thousands of years.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: The idea that this word, this concept burn the boat
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: shows up in almost every cultural context. It's in China
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: in two hundred and seven BC and an incredible story,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: you know, It's in art of war with Sun Zoo.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It's the ancient Israelites. It's Caesar, it's Alexander the Great,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: it's Cortez, who I don't invoke, is a very bad man.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: But point being, throughout history, when armies needed to perform
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: and they were outnumbered, they went an all in. So
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: why is that?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I said, well, let me bring that forward. Let me
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: see if psychology and science bears that out. There's an
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: incredible story out of Wharton right that showed that just
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: by giving people an opportunity to think about Plan B,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: not even doing anything about it, it did two things. One,
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: it's lessen the likelihood they would ever achieve Plan A,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: but more importantly, it made them not as interested anymore
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: in plant. It made them content and complacent. So the
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: formula one is to accept that going all in is
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: the answer, and then the second part is, Okay, let's
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: identify what are the internal and what are the external
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: obstacles your metaphorical boats that are preventing you from embracing
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: your full potential. In my case, it was my legacy
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: of shame. It's why on the on the cover of
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: the book is a little boat. It's actually meant to
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: be a paper boat floating in the kids to burning
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: on fire. And it's because so many of the issues
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: we have, our metaphorical boats go back to childhood. But
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: for you, whoever you are, could be imposter cyentrome. It
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: could be I'm not good enough, or it could be
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: that corporate sabage who's undermining you, or the relationship you
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be in. So the key is to audit, and
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: that begins by embracing self awareness. And if you under
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: index for it, it's probably because something's blocking you from
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: having the courage to look within.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that your blockage was internal. It wasn't because
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of people would expect it was poverty, it
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: was cancer, it was not having parents like you had
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: so many obstacles externally.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: It's such a great point. I hadn't even thought about that.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: You're right, I wouldn't even think to mention poverty as
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: an obstacle, to be honest, I feel almost bad that
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: my origin story is so profound. I think there's so
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: much shaming happened now for people who are supposedly born
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: on third base. Everyone has to have a narrative of
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: redemption overcoming some vulnerability or terrible circumstances. Mine is not
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: a hard luck story. Mine is not a hard luck story.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Mine is the story of somebody who had to overcome
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the trauma from that experience. But in terms of you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: growing up poor and all the things I did, like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: those things didn't really hold me back. Honestly, I leveraged them.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: There's no way in hell I was going to drop
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: out at sixteen if I didn't need to write. So
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that's why I tell everyone the story that it was
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: a very intentional decision, because I don't want to like
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: airbrush it and make it sound like, oh wow, tough luck.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: You were such a bad kid, you dropped out and
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: you put it all together. It was very intention The
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: issues I needed to overcome and still need to overcome, frankly,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: are the legacy issues of growing up in the dysfunction
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: of a one parent household and extreme and extreme poverty
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: and taking care of my mom, not the barriers because
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: of that upbringing.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So this is going off of what we just talked about.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: But there was a study I read a few years
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: ago that talked about how entrepreneurs, many of them, I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: think it was eighty percent, grew up with sort of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: unstable childhood, unstable households, and it was because they assess
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: risks differently, which I thought was fascinating. But you talk
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: about in the book, Like in the book, you talk
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: about actually being risk averse growing up, so I want
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to better understand that. And then hear about how you
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: evaluate risk.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I guess if it's risk averse more than vulnerable,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: creates paranoia, right, Like when you grew up in a
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: situation where everything is so fragile and you never you're
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: never standing on solid ground. It's very, very hard to
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: leave that mentality behind. And so I think that comes
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: to a point in life. I would say for everyone
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: out there, it gives them a heart. It gives themselves
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: a hard time for not overcoming some of these legacy issues.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: There comes a point where I think it's actually healthy
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: to accept that maybe a degree of not damage, but
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: maybe the degree of rewiring has happened. And constantly trying
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: to undo that wiring is not a good use of
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: time when you should be working on buttressing and mitigating. Right,
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: how do I take me as I come and sort
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: of mitigate whatever happen to me or however I feel,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: and work around it. And so to make that a
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: little more concrete for me to feel safe, I need
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: a few things to be in place. And it's not
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: relevant what they are, but I now know what they are.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Rather than try to talk myself out of needing those
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: things through endless hours of therapy, it's like, all right,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: let's just be let's just accept that and let's deal
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: with it. One of those things is is, of course
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: you know you have a lingering sense of fear it's
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: all going to be taken away from you, or like
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: you're going to go back in time. Right. Making sure
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: my kids never end up where I am it's a
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: huge issue, right, So it doesn't take much to trigger
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: me into worrying that I can't provide for them. Right.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Even health is a big issue. So my only point
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: about risk is I am the most paranoid risk taker
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: you have. And I put that in the boat and
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: I put that in the book because a lot of
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: people will read that and be like I hear this
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: all time, Like, oh, I mean I just am really
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: risk adverse. I'm like, what do you think? I'm like,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: it's like I want to sabotage everything. No, I have
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: a process for processing risk, is what I am. So
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: you can be risk adverse and be a huge risk taker.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: You just need to understand what do you need to
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: feel safe?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: So I actually put myself in that category too. I
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: think I take big swings, and I'm also like always
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: terrified and thinking about what's the worst case scenario before
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I do it. When you're evaluating risk, Now, what's your
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: self talk process?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great question because that is really my Burn
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: the Boat's philosophy I'm putting forward. Burn the Boats doesn't
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: say ignore the risk. Burn the Boat says, process the
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: risk as best as you can at the beginning of
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: the journey. When I meet entrepreneurs or somebody who's failed
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: or finds himself in a life they didn't want to
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: live and they don't know how they got there, or
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: doubting whether they should be all in anymore, it's because
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: when they take on incoming, they're not strengthened by the
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: fact that they already processed this scenario long before it
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: ever happened to them. We are so good at anticipating
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: ninety eight percent of the things that actually never happened
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: to us. We're pretty good at figuring out the bad
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: things that might happen on any remote journey. I don't
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: care who you are, right, you know, when Elon Musk
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: found a tessela, he had a pretty good sense of
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: how this thing might run astray, right like we all
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: have a general sense. But I find the people that
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: are not built to go the distance. We're afraid to
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: look at the worst case scenario before they started, because
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: they didn't want rejection, They didn't want the answer to
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: be something that they didn't think they could tolerate when
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: they didn't realize if you had just gone through the
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: exercise of saying, what's the worst gonn happen? I'm gonna fail,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go get a job. Okay, I'll
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: get a job or whatever. I'm gonna have to get
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: a smaller house. Like we are able to withstand percent
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: of all risks we could possibly imagine, but it's because
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: we refuse to ask the question. So the burn the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: boat's mentality, in my mind is if you've done the
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: risk synthesis exercise at the beginning of the journey, when
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: you take on water, you will remember, way, wait, wait,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: why am I revisiting that I already processed what's the
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: worst case can have? It's so relieving, And that is
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: the one thing I do pretty religiously because I'm human.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Every day I start to revisit, should I have done
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: the book, should I've done the TV show? Should it?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is? And then I'm like non no, Matt,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: like in the third person self talk, like you already
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: process this scenario and you know that you're going to
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: be okay, stop thinking about it and that's what enables
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: me to go all And that's the version of all
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: in on Plan B I'm talking about, And.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: That's sort of the first step to of the following
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: your dream plan. Is like you're wasting all this time
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about the what ifs as opposed to just doing.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It's energy leakage. Yeah, like no one can find a
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: two front war, especially if the war was within right,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Like the amount of energy that we devote to sort
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: of having that internal dialogue can really disrupt your day.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Anybody listening right now? I always say this, who gives
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: you a harder time? Your boss or you anticipate's going
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: to judge you, or you who've created this proxy for
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: your boss or your spouse or or whatever in your brain.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It's always the internal representation and usually not the external one.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: So you and I have had a lot of phone
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: conversations in which you give me really really great advice.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I love talking to you about it,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and I love the questions you ask. By the way,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: plug for questions.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you. One of the many things that you have
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: said that sticks with me is that when you meet
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: somebody and you're looking to invest in them, you assess
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: their confidence versus humility ratio. And you talk a lot
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: about self awareness, can you share what you've shared with
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: me about confidence and humility as it plays into success.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: So in a business context, if you look at a
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: business in year five, it doesn't resemble anything like that
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: original PowerPoint we were pitched on. And that's big because
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: successful people just iterate through the challenges and no one
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: can fully anticipate what the end result is going to
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: look like. So what am I looking for when I'm
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: assessing somebody. I'm looking for their capacity to iterate at
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: the moments they need to iterate. So when do winners
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: have to iterate? The most successful people in life are
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: able to make course corrections and avoid danger without needing
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: direct evidence with their own eyes that danger is coming. Right.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: You don't need to see the iceberg to have a
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: general sense about where to steer to avoid it. So
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I find I could predict somebody's success by the amount
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: of time it takes for them to implement an objectively
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: inevitable decision right as fast as possible. So what are
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: the predictors of that fact pattern? It's confidence in humility.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: When you have a blend of confidence in humility, you
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: have the confidence to ask yourself, Am I going in
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: the right direction? Right? Is this working? Asking other people?
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Is this working? You're not afraid of scrutiny. You're not
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: afraid of self scrutiny or external scrutiny. Now, the answer
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: to that is you're not. That's where comes in place.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: If you're about concealment, you're gonna be afraid to acknowledge it,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: or if you could tastriphize because you have unreconciled trauma,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I'm going to lose it all, you know, whatever the issue,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: or mom's gonna judge me, you have to you have
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: to have the humility, humility now to acknowledge it publicly
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: or else we can't all make progress if you're not
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: willing to say to your investors or to your partners
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: or your employees. Man, I got that wrong, Like we
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: got to change direction of this product sucks, Then it's
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: not gonna work out. So all those things I'm talking about,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: all that complicated. You know, fact pattern boils down to
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: self awareness. Do you have the self awareness to make
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: your own interventions before other people have to come and
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: tell you what to do? And self aware people tend
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: to do the exercise I just talked about. They do
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: it all the time, and they're not afraid to get
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: the answers and they're not afraid to acknowledge what they find. Now,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: for those of you who listen and feel like, how
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: do I know if I'm self aware? Do I have
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: enough self awareness?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: At least's going to ask?
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: So self awareness? Can one thousand be cultivated? It's actually
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: I think the single greatest source of arbitrage in personal
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: and professional life is self awareness, because it's something you
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: can teach yourself.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't have it growing up.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: You really don't think so. I can't imagine you seem
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: so in touch and you're so inquisitive and elect.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Tally to my adult life I had. I had none
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: of it, and I think it was a little bit
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: of a gift as a kid because I'd constantly, like
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: run for school president, put myself out there because I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: had no self awareness. But I do. I to your point,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it totally can be cultivated.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Well, how'd you cultivate?
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I went to therapy, But even before that, I actually
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: had like a relationship a boyfriend who was pretty critical
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: of me and pointed things out maybe to the other extreme,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and I think I watched friends, like I would see
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: people I was very observe, and I would watch people
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: that I admired and kind of look at what I
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: liked that they did, and I would try and implement
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it in my own way, and all of a sudden,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: it all kind of started adding up.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: But you didn't have something you had to unlock or
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: get unstuck or something unreconciled. It was just really a
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: maturation for you.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying. It's sometimes it's just
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: a maturation and an evolution, and sometimes it's because something's
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: preventing you from mine to look within.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, like the shame you were talking about.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I'm going to contradict myself. Interestingly, I think
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: one version of one version of success, which is the
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: you know, average extraordinary level of success, you know, reaching
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: great heights. But there's another level of extraordinary extraordinary sense
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that I see common among billionaires or like people who
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: do like run four companies at the same time, which basically,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: when they have a win, they absorb the win and
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: the wind makes them bigger. It inflates their self esteem
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: and their self worth. It it becomes part of them
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: but yeah, when they have a loss, they repel the loss.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: It's almost like it's an incredible detachment, as if the
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: loss had nothing to do with them. They actually don't
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: spend any time processing the failure. They simply expand the
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: definition of what winning looks like to incorporate that failure.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Like they'll use language like I'm so glad that didn't
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: work out because of it didn't, I wouldn't have found
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: this new company, like so long way of saying it
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: seems delusional, but I do notice among a certain subset
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: now I am intellectually curious, too intellectually curious to sort
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: of ignore my failures and why they happened. I like,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: so I can't.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's the goal.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: No, I was gonna say, But to anybody out there
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: who has a sad goal of wanting to be a
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: billionaire or like wanting to be Elon Musk and like
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: you know, never see your children and run nine companies
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and seem like you're half out of your mind, even
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: though I admire them. But when the world, if you
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: wish to be that, you need to have that mentality.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: But for the rest of us, who would just like
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: to have a pretty good life and be exceptional confidence
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: in humility and cultivate your self.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Awareness confidence in humility. I love it. So there was
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: something in the book that I'd never heard you say
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: before that really intrigued me. You write the law of
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: compound interest applies as much to ideas and achievements as
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: it does to money.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that point.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? And why do you
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: think that mindset is so important?
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: It's actually one of the greatest revelations I had in retrospect,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: you know, when you sort of package something. So I'm
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: not going to say that I had the foresight to
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: really tap into this, but I did it subconsciously. I
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: think Warren Buffett talks about the single greatest financial principle
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: anyone will ever discover in our life is compound interest.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: About your money, you simply stay the chorus and you
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: allow time to do its work. And he's one hundred
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: percent right. But what no one ever talks about is
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: that same principle of compounding applies to professional achievement. So
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: the sooner you accomplish things, the more disciplined you are
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: about ensuring that you're staying in a perpetual growth mindset.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: So you're always building on the last thing you did
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: to do the next thing you want to do. Right,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: It's why elizas as to Hamilton, why do you write
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: like you're running out of time? Right? The more you
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: stay intentional and act with urgency, the longer you have
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: to compound the exponential returns of that action. So let
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: me make that less abstract. Right, When I dropped out
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: of high school, I ended up been rolling college. Now
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: two years earlier, I flipped the switch. By virtue of
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: being a college student, I was able to walk into
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: the Queen's Tribune at age I think seventeen, and they
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: were to give the college student kid a job as
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: a writer, which they wouldn't have given to a seventeen
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: year old junior. By virtue of getting that job, within
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: probably I think two and a half years, Bob Woodward
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: had taken an interest in the newspaper. I won first
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: place Journalism Awards for investigative journalism, and by the time
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: I was nineteen or twenty, I had been nominated for
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: a Pulitzer Prize. Anybody could be nominated, right, but Bob Woodward.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: So my point is that act of pulling forward my
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: entire college by two years basically compounded throughout the course
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: of my entire life. And once you're on that train,
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: once you tap into this law of the universe, you
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: can't stop. So how do you maintain this mindset? I
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: asked myself a question every single day, roughly, what is
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: the highest and best use of my time, energy, and resources? Now?
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Why is it important saying now? Because every time we
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: do something great and we break through, you get permission
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: to go a little bit further, to to sort of
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: get closer to the ceiling on your ambition. Right when
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: I finished Shark Tank, I was like, oh wow, that
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: was the hardest thing I ever did. At first, like
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: that was the hardest thing I ever did. Then I
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: was like, well, that was the hardest thing I ever did.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: That's kind of sad. What if I can't come up
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: with a harder thing?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Then you always do?
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: I know that I always do it. I went to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: a period of melancholy for a couple of weeks. I
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: kept being like, that was really uncomfortable, at least for
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: me it was. And then I was like, what would
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: be more uncomfortable? And then I was walking through the
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: around the campus of Harvard checking on some of our restaurants,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: and I had an epiphany, like, you know, I never
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: got to be at the best educational institution. I went
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: to Queen's College for seven years a night, and I'm
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: grateful for the college, but I never got to prove
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: myself academically. And I was like, what would be better
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: than going to Harvard? I was like, what if I
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: could teach at Harvard? And for a year of my
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: life I had no business doing it. I worked on
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: creating a new program at Harvard Business School and now
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most popular programs four years later.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: So Kim Karashian was just there.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Kim Kardashian, Scarlett Johansson zoomed in from her trailer, and
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Bobby Brown was there. The point of that story is
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: not like yay, Matt, it's I'm trying to illustrate the formula.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to move the otherness of my life and that, well,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: you could, but I couldn't to say that's not true.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: What are the ingredients? I acted with urgency, and I
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: stayed mindful of what am I capable of doing today?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: And I asked, what do I want to do if
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't have all those three components? Urgency, being intentional
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: and having a sense of what I want, nothing would happen.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: But I knew I always wanted to teach, and I
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: knew that I could do something I couldn't do before
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: because now maybe some people would take my phone call
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: that wouldn't because I was on chartdank. So I wrote
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: the book because I do think there's a formula for
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: a life of perpetual growth that starts with going all
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: in on your planet and then but I needed to
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: give practical guidance on how to do it right. There's
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: too many sunny platitudes on Instagram that are not actionable.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I wanted to make this actionable.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this. One of the things I love
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: about the book is that you are a person who
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: found success and then wrote about how you did it,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: versus I think a lot of people on social media
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: that just talk about success, but really it's just winning
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Instagram or winning social media. So the platitudes in your
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: book are backed up by real life experience. And there's
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a quote towards the middle that you say, each of
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: us is more than the worst thing we've done. Why
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: include that?
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Ah? I love that quote. What's his name? I'm bad blanking.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: It's an incredible, incredible quot as an advocate against the
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: death penalty, that each of us is better than the
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: worst thing we've ever done, because I think one of
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: the biggest things that holds us back is this idea
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: that the die is cast back to this corrosive idea
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: of incrementalism. Right, if you have an incrementalist mindset, well,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: then you naturally believe if you've made a terrible decision
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: or dropped out of high school, or you know, had
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: a bad relationship, you can never have love again, you
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: can never great a great job, you can never earn
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: people your colleagues respects. Whatever it is, and it's just
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: not true. But it begins with you believing it's not
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: true more than anything else. And so I include those details,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: and I include the tortures, details of what I've gone
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: through to represent what it looks like to do it
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: in spite of my book. If it was called something else,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: that would be in spite of right. And it's meant
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: to say it's not that I'm special, it's not an autobiography.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: I'm disinterested in my own journey. To be honest with you,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I share these things to make the point that you
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: can do it in spite of too if you follow
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: this formula. But that's why I included it. I love
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: that quote, by the way, it's so.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: True it is. I think it's really touching. Honestly, I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: think you could have written a lot of books after
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: having read it. It's interesting to me that you decided
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to write Burn the Boats because I felt like it
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: was almost like a first album. You know how musicians
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: come out and their first albums are so beautiful because
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: it was everything leading up to that. It was their life, experience,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: their heart, their vulnerability. Burn the Boats, to me, is
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: all of the shit true.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad you're saying that I really killed myself
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: to do this book because I didn't write a book.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: I engineered an outcome. Yeah, I engineered an outcome that
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: I could reach across the divide to somebody who feels
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: either marginalized, left behind, left out and would say like oof, okay.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: And this was a little bit hard for me to
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: write because remember, I have part of my brain who's
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: reading studies all the time, and I teach at HBS.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: I do exist and lost in my own mad scientists
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: had too, But like what good is it to write
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: a book for myself, right to please myself or show
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: off to friends about the elevated studies that I've engineered.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Like it's authoritative enough. I hope to be credible, right,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: but by very vulnerable and backed up by fifty different
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: case studies. Scarlett Johansson is sharing in this book, and
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: billionaires are sharing. But like at the end of the day,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: I do, I wanted it to be a story because
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: that's how people assimilate information. I see a lot of
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: these business books. Frankly, they strike me. Sometimes it's lazy
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: and redundant, sometimes exploitative, like let me just repeat the
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: same thing. And it's hard to write a book that
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: hopefully you can read in one setting when it's meant
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, at least a quasi business book.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: But I put my heart and soul into it for
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: three years to pull it off.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, what's the best thing that has come with age?
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: An incredible partner who has been the greatest force multiplier.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just honest, speaking of what is the best piece
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: of love advice that.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: You have that we tend where you are a condition?
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know why to look for somebody that completes
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: us as opposed to somebody that multiplies us. You should
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: be shopping for a force multiplier, and the way to
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: do that is to find complimentary values overlap, not like
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: opposites attract. I think that's a lie. By the way,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that's an explanation for a chemical reaction. How excited we
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: get when somebody gets us a little worked up. But
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: it's not true, it's not sustainable.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: You also said something to me one time that I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: love that people are like I love when someone keeps
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: me grounded or puts me in my place. And you
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: were looking for the exact opposite, because the whole world
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: tells you you can't and you want someone to tell
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: you you can fly.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: Well, the hardest part about really love and relationships we
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: have no context. So two things. One we don't always
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: believe we deserve better. Two, we don't know that better exists,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: and we don't have faith that better exists. So there's
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: a degree of desperation around love where you really want
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: to make it work because you're not sure what's around
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: the corner. So to some extent, it has to be
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: a little bit like real estate. If you put an
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: off run in a house and it doesn't work out,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: your real estate agent, like, there's always a better one
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: around the corner. There are like eight billion people in
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: the world. There are probably a good one hundred million
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: you could have married, So like, you have to have
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: a little bit of confidence that there's always better out there.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Love is like real estate. I've never heard that one.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, I probably I'm commoditizing it a bit, but
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to give you confidence that it does exist
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: out there, and you have to know, and I think
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the bar should be, is your partner a force multiplier?
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Like people insecure people do really bad things and they
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: can destabilize the hell out of your life. So if
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: you at least look for a force multiplier, So is
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: this person a force multiplier? That means you have to
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: know your vision right, You have to take custody of
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: what you want out of life, so they can multiply it.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: But if you have a sense of what you want,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: you can ask that simple question. These are so fun,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: By the way, I could just do this all day.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, Well, so many people look up to you,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: including me. Who do you look up to I'm going.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: To say my wife really quick, I'm going to move
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: on for that, so we don't only only do only
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: do Sarah. I really like Atomic Habits as a book.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I think, in an extraordinary book, it's fun when you
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: see somebody. What I like about books is that, at
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, like they don't sustain themselves
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: unless they're really exceptional. James Clearer wrote an incredible book
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: in Atomic Habits. That's the first thing I came to mind.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: I really look up the people who do exceptional work
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: and that sustains over time.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Finish this sentence. If I had more time in the.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Day, I would meditate.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say, play pickleball.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: No, no, meditate, which is totally a contradiction, right, But
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: then I would be like, I don't have to give
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: up those twenty minutes, Like, yeah, I know that meditation
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: is the greatest gift I could give myself. But if
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: God could just layer on twenty four hours and twenty minutes,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I promised I would use the last twenty to meditate.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: What is a book that you think everybody should read,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: something that changed your life.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: It's not so much a book. It's it is a book,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: but it's an essay Emerson's self reliance. If I was
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: stuck on an island. I only have one thing to read.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I probably would read that on a loop. It's an
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: extraordinary piece of writing that will do what my book
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: does for you using less words.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: We're virtual, so you have to just tell me when
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to stop.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Part question, Oh my god, distressful. Yeah, what do I get?
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: If I'm right?
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: There's no writer wrong. That's the best part of the way.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Everybody buy these cards. Danielle is amazing. Two things I
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: need you to give Danielle a couple of pep talks. One,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: she has to do a book. She has amazing energy,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: and too, we got to scale this business around the
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: questions what do you got? What are you looking for?
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: You have to tell me when to stop stop? Okay,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: oh this is perfect for you. Which historical event would
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: you like to witness?
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: It's not so much witness, but I do spend a
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: lot of emotional energy around the Holocaust, and I want
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: to go back in time. I don't want to change
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: the outcome somehow, So I'm obsessed with Oscar Schindler. Would
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: love to have known what that was like. So something
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: to do with World War two and maybe assassinate Hitler.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Probably, I love it my ancestors would thank you.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: No, I know it's very heavy. It's not a fun answer.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: So I might have been in Amsterdam, we might have
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: never met, you know, you know me every time I
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: go to Europe.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was at the house where the final
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: solution was crafted. I just you know why I stay
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: close to the Holocaust because this is not this is
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: not an ancient event, right. There is hate coursing through
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: our DNA, and you have to remain hyper vigilant on
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: the lookout for it, and it manifests with anti Semitism,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: but many other things. So I constantly want to stay
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: close to human subjugation so that I'm on the lookout
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: for it and I could contribute to fighting back. So anyway,
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: I'm always randomly finding a way to reconnect with the Holocaust.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I think anti Semitism, over the course of history
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: has always been the beginning of a lot of other hatred,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: and so it's scary when it bubbles up because it
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: means other things are coming.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Great point and interesting when you go. I was just
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: at the Jewish Museum in Berlin a couple of months ago,
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: and they were showing the as the law is accumulated right,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: the persecution right. For whatever reason, anti Semitism, like you see,
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: it becomes mildly acceptable. It starts by not you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: it doesn't trigger the same outrage. And so, I mean,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: what happened in the Holocaust is so insane and it's
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: not chient history. So but I think you're right. It
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: usually is a harbinger for other things to come. And politically,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: I won't get into how this happened, but everybody knows
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: how I feel about politics. At the end of the day,
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of hate and cruelty has been normalized. A
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: lack of integrity has been normalized and compromised too, as
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: a result of the last you know, seven years. So
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: now more than ever, we have to remain hyper vigilant
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: for cruel conduct being normalized, anti Semitism, and everything else
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: that manifests.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I have a feeling. I asked this question at the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: end of every interview. I have a feeling I know
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: your answer, But what is the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Well, since you know the answer, I'm going to give
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: you a different answer.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Can I guess what the answer was?
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, what's the answer?
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Marrying my wife Sarah?
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: That would have been the smartest to say that actually
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: finding her would be even smartest decision because how I
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: went about it. But I'd say this, the smartest decision
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: I ever made was dropping out of high school. Most
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: important decision. Everything I ever learned and everything it all
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: began from that moment of conviction, because you know, when
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: I tell the story, I feel sometimes like I'm making
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: it up. What fourteen year old kid or thirteen years
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: like has that clarity of that vision? And again, wouldn't
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: have had it if I didn't have my backup against
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: the wall. But that single decision gave me the confidence
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: to make endless series of radical decisions and to always
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: bet on myself.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: I want to thank the people that make the show possible.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neill, Jill Salama, Karrie O'Keefe, and Phil speed Tech. Okay,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: To have a good day.
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: I'll see you next week.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Function of the FAM.