Why Balance Is the Enemy of Greatness | David Senra

0:00 Sometimes I think I should shut up and not say the things I say on podcasts. David Senra. David Senra. The guy's name is David Senra. He's got a podcast called Founders. To even get on Founders podcasts, you have to be so good at your job. Somebody wrote a f book about it. That's an insanely high ball. It's almost like it's an obsession. It is, I'm addicted. I've known you now for I don't know four or five years. I think you are crazier now than you were. I'm not balanced. I don't think I can be balanced. I don't think I want to be balanced. I want to be the best in the world at what I do. People are like, oh, 10,000 hours. I'm way f<unk>ed past that. Like way past that.

0:35 So Of course I've changed. I'm not doing this to stay the same. The difference between the world's greatest and pretty good, it's not a little bit better. It's not 20% better. It's like thousand times better. And that is hard to grasp. Mediocrity is invisible until passion shows up and exposes it. I've become intolerable. For people that are casual and I don't even know why I'm like that. I think I was lying to myself.

0:58 For a while. That I don't need anybody else. I wanted professional success to say I was born in the wrong environment and I will prove to you So I am not like the rest of these people. It's almost like a revenge for being born. Are you a happy person?

1:12 I don't think you're happy. I I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to Okay, so you have to look this guy up. Elud Kapchoge. You have to see what he looks like. He looks more like a gazelle than a human being. 'Cause the thing about r uh world class athletes and runners is you see them like when they're uh

1:35 exerting themselves and like wearing their like running gear or whatever. And so they like, Yeah, he looks amazing, but then you see him in real clothes and you're like, Oh my God, that person is so much skinnier. has so much less body fat than the average show. How on earth are these two human beings both human beings? Like a normal person versus Elo. And so he he runs the marathon, I think at like two oh one. Just like four thirty six, I think, for the mile. Crazy fast. And What we were saying was the difference between the world's greatest or the best there ever was

2:00 And pretty good. You know? It's not A little bit better. It's not twenty percent better. It's like 10 times better, or a hundred times. Or a thousand times better. And that is hard to grasp. Do you agree?

2:12 Yeah, I mean you ask me like what am I I think we right before we start recording, you saw what I was doing, like What do you thinking about and I was like I'm thinking about how this looks. And he's like, But does that matter? I was like, Everything matters. Like we're trying to be the best in the world at what we're doing. So like we have to take everything very, very seriously. I think the only thing I'm obsessed with there's actually um

2:30 One of the best pieces of advice I ever got. uh that I won't shut up about and I think about literally probably every day now. is this idea of constant refinement of association. That my friend Kushner told me. And

2:41 Jared is unbelievably honest. There's a great line in um I just finished we were talking upstairs. I just finished reading Bruce Springsteen's autobiography. And There's a great line, he talks about his deep friendship that he has with Jimmy Ive and he's like, You want Jimmy in the room'cause he'll tell you the truth. Like Everybody around Bruce is kissing his ass and like Jimmy's just like this album sucks, or this is great. You like trust his judgment.

3:02 And Jared's like that too, where he's just like If he's your friend and he likes you He's very kind, but he will like hey that you're what you're doing is not good enough for you. This person is not good enough for you. Be careful with this. And so this constant front association is important because As you keep

3:16 Getting better at what you do. You get access to people that are great at what they do too. And there's a lot of commonalities between them. And then once you're exposed to that. I always have this line that mediocrity is invisible until passion shows up and exposes it. I've become intolerable. For Like

3:30 People that are casual with the way they push their work, or the the friends they choose to hang out with, or just anything that is not them striving for excellence. And I don't even know why I'm like that. It's just I have to be I want to be, I have to be the best in the world at what I'm doing. And so that's what I've done. Did you like that? Or did you become like that because you've studied Four hundred biographies of greatness. That's a great question. I don't know. Michael Dell has this great line in his autobiography. Where, you know, he at the time he's nineteen years old, he's in his dorm room at the University of Texas, he's got a thousand dollars, and he's like, I'm gonna compete with IBM.

4:01 That is delusional. IBM at the time is the most value, valuable company in the world. It was the first company I didn't even know. I had to go back and research this. The first company to get to a hundred billion dollar market cap in history. was IBM. And you have this kid. It's like I'm gonna compete head to head with them.

4:16 And the next line when he's talking about this is Was I a little full of myself at nineteen? Sure, I was. I think you have to be to do anything special. So I always had this like deep Uh just like delusional self confidence.

4:31 And like default optimism that like if I focus on something, I will figure it out. I will figure out how to do this. But I also think It's impossible. I've obviously changed. I've been doing the other I've been doing founders podcasts. For almost ten years.

4:44 It's like I think I've like I don't know, four hundred and seven of these books by far. That's hundreds of thousands of pages. That is People like, Oh, ten thousand hours. I'm way past that. So Of course I've changed. I'm not doing this to stay the same.

4:55 Well, I've known you now for I don't know, four or five years. And I've listened to you for longer than that. I think you are crazier now than you were. I think you are more obsessed now than you were. Sometimes I think I should shut up and not say the things I say on podcasts.

5:09 Because I like I don't like having a filter. I don't like having two different sides of me. It makes me fundamentally uncomfortable. And so I then I was like, you know what, I'm just not gonna hold back. I'm just gonna say this. I just did this when I went on Tim Ferris' podcast and I talked about Tim didn't tell me what we were gonna talk about. Other than he told my team, he's like, Please tell David not to curse so much. That's what I told you five years ago.

5:28 And I don't think they came from Tim, I think they came from Tim's team. And I think we did we we accomplished that goal. But he started asking questions and I like hesitated for a half a second in my mind or half a minute, I'm like Man, I should not sh say this stuff. I don't this is gonna be bad. And I just let it go. And since then I was just on the phone I I won't say who I was talking to, but it's a founder of a public company.

5:48 Uh, he's relatively young. Wildly successful. And he was just like, Hey, I listened to your Tim Ferris uh interview and he's like I know exactly what you're talking about because like I went through that too. And you hear that over and over again. So

6:01 Like Am I crazier? Is that the term that you use or like more intense? I think I was lying to myself. For a while.

6:12 And If you look at episode two twenty two of Founders Podcast, says Ed Thorpe, and in parentheses it says my personal blueprint. And Ed Thorpe's a legit genius. I am not a genius. Like the whatever he directed his talents to, he was gonna succeed because he's a legitimate, like I think fundamental like genius. And what I liked about him is like he was like a real balanced person. You would love him. Yeah,'cause you are like this. And I think you're truly like this. We a lot of our conversations are like this.

6:35 We're like Especially like bounded his professional life. He was very successful, uh I'll give like a quick TLDR of his life. Uh, he was the person that invented like how to count cards in blackjack. He was a mathematician mathematician and he was a professor uh for a long time. He wrote a book called Beat the Dealer, which tells you how to

6:53 Count cards like the nineteen sixties that sold millions of copies. He started the first quantitative hedge fund. of all time. He was like one of the first investors in Burshar Hathaway. He meets Warren Buffett when they're both in the thirties and he gets in the car and he's like, That guy's gonna be the richest person in the world one day. Uh so and he invented the world's first Uh handheld.

7:09 Wearable computer with Claude Shannon, who's the father of information theory, and another genius. It's just like how did one guy do all this shit? Yeah, like the force gump of like finance. That's a great way to think about it. And so But He was also like He came from real

7:23 Messed up family. Uh he got into like weightlifting and fit like taking care of his health. before there's anything like bodybuilding. And he said an hour the way he's figured this out and he was in college time. He's like, Well the way I think about this And a every hour

7:37 that I spend in the gym working on my health now is one less day in the hospital when I'm eighty or ninety. Uh, he went on Tim Ferris' show and you look at him and I'd show pictures of How old do you think this guy is? Oh, he's like six. He's like ninety two or ninety, or however old he is. So anyways, his whole thing was like I want a balanced life. He would work, you know

7:54 Nine to five. Thereabouts. Then he would spend time on his health. His work. His family

8:01 And then he'd like to have fun. And it was much more balanced life. And then he also did something which was fascinating where Once he made more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime. He also didn't like to travel like you. He has this beautiful house in Newport, uh, California and he's every time he's traveling he's good Just a downgrade, like why did I leave my house?

8:18 Once he started had enough money that he didn't need more money, he stopped trading time for money. And he had like you know, these are like layups. Oh I can make thirty million dollars on, you know, investing this oil thing or whatever the case is. It's just like what what's the point? And so for a long time,'cause I by that time I'd read, you know, two hundred of these books.

8:36 And I was like, Oh, he's like an outlier and an outlier. Like most of these people are like just singularly obsessed in their work. And so for a long time, like I think I was lying to myself, like, Yeah, I want to balance life. And it's just like, No, I'm not balanced. I don't think I can be balanced. I don't think I want to be balanced. I want to be the best in the world at what I do.

8:54 And Again, I narrowly define that. I'm not trying to You know, I think the the narrow definition is important. And that's kind of what I think about all day. That's what kind of drives me.

9:04 That is when I feel comfortable. And maybe I'll change. in the future, but like I'm Fundamentally uncomfortable. not working towards

9:14 Some kind of professional goal. All right, I read a ton. I would say almost a book a week. And the reason I read so much is because my philosophy towards reading is I want to see what worked for the winners that I love and what strategies they use. And then I wanna see What mistakes w uh did they all make? What were the common flaws that they all had, and I just want to avoid that. And so HubSpot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far in two thousand twenty five, and I did that. And so I listed out seven books that made a meaningful difference in my life and I explained

9:45 what the differences that they had on me or what actions I took because of the book. And then also I list it out my very particular ways of reading because I'm pretty strategic about how I read and how I read so much and how I remember what I read and things like that. And so I put this together in a very simple guide. It's seven books that had a huge impact on my life.

10:05 And you can scan the QR code below if you want to read it. Or there's a link. You guys know what to do. There's a link in the description. Just go ahead and click it. And you'll see the guide that I made. So it's the seven books that had a massive change in my life this year so far. And then also. how I'm able to read so much. So check it out below.

10:22 So I read a lot. I read one to Four books a month, mostly history. You do m the more or the same. How do you become sensitive enough when you read something to know that that is a point that is worth remembering? Because there's been so many times where I've read something.

10:38 And I will forget it, right? I'm reading a Like I've read a I love the American Revolution and then like I'll reread books and like I didn't even remember about this or that. You do a really good job at recall. You've done it many times here. And you do a really good job bringing the points of the story that actually matter. And I think this is an important

10:56 lesson to learn of how do you be sensitive enough to see what is important and what isn't, and then to use that to change your life. I was like a big believer in intuition. And Just like this like constant refinement of your own taste. Like I'm sure I w did not have that skill.

11:10 In September two thousand sixteen when I started. nearly to the degree that I have it now. Right before Kobe Bryant died. He was asked this question about like What what he had sees in like Steph Curry.

11:22 That It makes him such a like formidable competitor. And he's like there's like a calm this is Kobe describing Steph Curry, he's like there's like a calmness about him. And he's like and when you match this like calmness and belief in what his skill set is. With

11:37 His intense desire and work ethic to practice and to get back Better. Like that is a very dangerous combination. And what he was referring to was Stef says people always ask me.

11:49 what I think about when I'm shooting. And he goes Absolutely nothing. And so I don't overthink this. I read the book, if something it's all intuition. It's

12:00 Dislined is speaking to me. This is jumping out to me. I'm going to underline it and I'm going to jot down On notes. Exactly what came to my mind.

12:10 Right now. Do not overthink this. Just like you know this stuff over and over again, because like we see Steph. hitting a crazy three pointer in the Olympics, like to win. You know, I w I watched that clip the other day. We don't see

12:23 The Мільні адретамсь хивоз алон. Shooting. The three. I always say the public praises people for what they practice in private. The other thing about this taste, what I realized is when I talk to a lot of other people that are really great at what they do, other entrepreneurs, people that want to be great at what they do, but aren't yet.

12:38 They they're trying to figure out like why am I not breaking through? It's like'cause you don't you're not actually interested in this. Like you are lying to yourself. I am intensely interested in this. You can ask my partner Rob. We go through this all the time with the news show about like

12:51 Hey, let's get this person and like that person's like a big name. And I just don't give a shit. And I'm like, but This is the way I think about my work. Okay. The only way I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life

13:03 is if I'm doing it for the right reasons. And so I cannot overcomplicate things. Munger has this line where he says something about like The hardest thing to do. is to remember why you set out doing what you're doing and to keep things simple. And to do that for a very long time. So the way I think about it is like Founders is the books.

13:17 that I'm intensely interested in reading. Right. Not just a book that I think is gonna do a lot of downloads. There's been times where like I was like, read this book. I read it. I hate that guy and I throw the book across literally throw the book across the room. I was like, I'm not I don't want to spend a a week in that guy's mind. Founders is the the books I'm intensely interested.

13:34 In Wanting to read? And enjoy reading. And the new show David Suner. Is

13:40 The people I'm intensely interested in having conversations with. I was on the phone with somebody yesterday. And I text her. And I was like I want you

13:49 to fly to Balibu and I want to do uh a show with you. And she's like, Are you out of your mind? Are you crazy? Because she feels because of the guest list has been like Kind of. She's below. Yeah.

14:01 And she's I was like And she sent me this funny meme where it's like uh where like big birds is sitting at uh like a table. And like everybody else is like this just like normal office and you got Big Bird and she put like Daniel Eck and Michael Dell and all these other people I've had, and then her name. on this I'm like, that's not that's not what I'm interested in. I am intensely interested And people that have singular careers.

14:20 They are doing what they do in a way that is completely natural and authentic to them. And they can they kinda have like an inner scorecard. So like they're willing to make decisions that may not make sense to you, but make sense to them. Have you read The Inner Game of Tennis? No, but everybody tells me it should be. So listen to this. So it's I think it's a but I think a guy's name is Tim Galloway. The idea is that he wrote it in the nineteen sixties or maybe seventies. He was a tennis instructor. And so he was like trying to get his students to be better tennis players. And he developed this idea of self one and self two. Self one.

14:49 is a a critic. And so when you would hit a ball, you'd say, Shit, that was horrible. I gotta move my hand this way. I gotta do this. Self too is someone who doesn't listen to the brain but listens to the body. And you'd be like, Well, I practiced this a thousand times, just like Steph Curry, like I don't need to criticize myself and said I'm gonna be objective and I'm gonna be like, let's try moving our hand just a little bit this way and let's just see what happens. That one, that didn't uh that hit that we just did, that didn't achieve the desired outcome.

15:15 What would happen if I just do this? And you just kinda feel it. And so the idea here is that you listen to your um your body more than your brain. And it's very similar to what you're saying of like being simple and being um Following following intuition.

15:28 And in fact, this book, I think Bill Gates is the most recent person to write the foreword. uh of the book. It's it was launched in the seventies and they've republished it and it's now it's like A business call classic. And the idea here is exactly what you're describing, which is like you you keep things very simple, you practice a lot, and you don't criticize yourself and you don't like think too hard about what will do well. The criticism and me and you have talked about this a lot. Uh like in private. Like we both

15:52 we're maniacally driven to fix And to achieve Financial success. And A lot of times that doesn't come from a positive place.

16:02 Yeah. The way that I see it a lot of times is basically I build businesses because I feel like I have uh I'm not good enough. And also I try to fix myself because you have to fix your personality in order to build a great company. Mine is not That I don't think

16:18 I'm good enough. There is like I this is gonna be weird. One of my favorite um movies this movie called Tombstone. So one of my favorite things and I watched it when I was a kid over and over again. And there's like a line. Where

16:29 Doc Holiday and White Herb are legitimately true friends. And Wyatt Earp is about to go and have a A dual. Like a Life and death duel. He's gonna meet this guy named Johnny Ringo, and he's like, We both have guns, one of us is gonna survive and the other person is going to die. This is about to happen to me.

16:48 And he's talking to Doc Holiday about like what drives Johnny Ringo to do what he does. And The the the the performance by Valcomer is incredible and he's just like people like that have a giant hole in their heart. That no matter what they do.

17:04 They can't Fail. And So then why ask the follow up questions like What does he want?

17:11 And he goes. Revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge for being born. And I think

17:18 Mm, what drives me if you get into like How I think about it. Is like I wanted professional success to say I was born in the wrong environment and I will prove to you

17:29 So like I am not like the rest of these people. I know I knew I knew that since I was like Six. Like I felt very different for a long time and I was like And I'm going to I'm gonna do this for myself. But you're also going to see that I'm not going to wind up like these people. There is a it's almost like a revenge for being born.

17:45 in the environment that I was that like dri drives me. Now the self criticism You could be w my self criticism for a long time. And you see this with a lot of high performers. It's like constantly negative. Like overtly Overly negative.

17:58 And what I've now changed to is just like That drove me. Right. Uh Work all the time.

18:04 to try to find a craft that you can be really good at. That has already happened. So that was useful for back then. Is it still useful to this day? And this is where Brad Jacobs, like who was I think the third person on the new show. I I've thought I've talked to him about this a lot. You know, the guy's

18:19 This is the the benefit of meeting these people now. He has more years of experience as an entrepreneur than I've been alive. The amount of information they can transfer to you in a Hour long conversation.

18:32 fifteen minute conversation in a sentence is not you don't You're not capable of doing that unless you have this like hard earned wisdom from experience. And I'm reading his second book right now, which I don't even think is out. Um

18:45 And so much of it is about him reframing negative thoughts into positive ways and the way he does this. Because his he realized that When I was just negative beating myself up, I was not as effective. I thought that was a tool and it wasn't a tool. And so what I'm basically what I've been thinking about a lot lately is just like

19:02 Man, that served me back then, that negative inner monologue. It doesn't serve me now. I always say like learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior. Yeah. So but that's the the hard part because In general, people don't change. You know, Robert Green has this great book called Human Nature and he was like, In general, assume most people won't change. Yeah, most people I'm not trying to be most people. Yeah, but you but we still have that in us where like you have to fight inertia and that's and that's quite so we we were talking upstairs, this Bruce because you're a Bruce Greenstein fan and his autobiography, I would h highly recommend people go watch this movie called Deliver Me From Nowhere, I think it is. I thought it was gonna be a biopic of Bruce Greenstein. That's not what it was.

19:36 It was about a guy that had an unbelievably tumultuous childhood that funneled that pain into an unbelievable work ethic. To get him what he thought he wanted most in the world. Which is Being a rock star. And then right after he hits that after, you know

19:49 years and years of struggle, he f plunges himself into deep depression. And what he realizes is like He can't form. He's so His childhood was so messed up. Did not give him the ability to form

20:02 Stable loving relationships. With women. And what he desperately wanted Was I he wanted

20:09 A stable relationship, he wanted to have kids because he wanted to raise his kids and break the chain. that his parents did to him. And yet what he would do, he would freak out. He'd like he'd fall in love with a woman or whatever the case was. And then he like something's wrong with her.

20:24 She can't if she loves me. I am unlovable. So therefore I'm going to hurt this person, he would run away. And then he start dating somebody else. And he would go through this over and over and over again.

20:36 Right. Until the point where like he he has to go wind up seeing a therapist. He finds he basically is like, hey, my life is going to be miserable. I'm going to be World famous, I'm going to be wealthy. I'm gonna have a job I love and I'm going to be depressed and miserable.

20:50 And If The crazy thing about the book, the book is six hundred pages No. Half the time you're like this guy, it's the first half of the book is about his love for his work and his work ethic. And so you s you think you see where it's going.

21:01 And then this curveball happens in his life where he's like Life. is more important than work. What Bruce was figuring out. is that every human wants

21:12 like relationships, whether it's a romantic relationship or a true friend or something, somebody understands you You feel like Like You can like do life together. And

21:22 I now have Like my friend group is Crazy. Because of like how high quality they are in all the domains. Like all areas of their life.

21:31 And that was like oh my God, it's not that I was like didn't like that I didn't want to let people in or I didn't like H other humans. It's like I didn't Have access to this before. And so like almost every single one of my new friends

21:44 uh have come from the podcast. And in some cases they become like best friends, people that I've spent years getting to know and like spend hours and hours talking to. And so that's where it's like, Oh, like This is actually really important to me. Relationships are really important to me in a way that I didn't understand. And maybe I was like lying to myself about this.

22:03 And so that was like a a huge learning for me. And then the reason I bring this up for the Bruce Feasting thing is because He's messing up at something he deeply desires, yet he's smart enough to realise, hey, what are the tools That I need? To fix this. Because if I don't fix this.

22:17 I'm gonna have another thirty years, or in his case, forty years of my life. Where I'm going to be miserable. So it's like changed his behavior. That means he learned. You're not learning if you didn't change your behavior. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book but then tearing out four fifths of the pages.

22:37 Point is you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business, the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book instead of just reading part of it, visit hubspot.com. You know what's crazy? I think when I every time I listen to your podcast, I have envy of the people not because of their success. But because Like

23:02 Bruce, but there's a lot of people who found their passion very early on in life. And I don't know if that's luck what it is.

23:11 But I think that that's like the all whenever I listen to founders And I and now that David Hitter show, I think like How crazy is it? Like we were talking about music. I I whenever I go to concerts and like if it's a band that I've loved for years, I love Green Day for years Billy Joe will play a song that he wrote when he was fifteen.

23:27 And I'm like, how fortunate are you that you cr were able to create stuff at the age of fifteen that's still relevant to you in your fifties or sixties? And so I get like Like the one of the my favorite one of my favorite ones you've done. I didn't like this guy, but what's the Lizonica's guy's name? Oh Dovecchio. So basically for for the listener, this guy like started like a sunglass conglomerate that's a a monopoly and it's a

23:49 eighty or a hundred billion dollar company and each try to pass it on to his sons and try to make it a family dynasty, but there's a ton of like bad shit that he's done in his life with family and and he seems like a pretty like angry generally angry guys. Yeah, like this is what I mean. He had a lot of darkness. But he never dealt with it. Where I just gave you an example where Bruce is like no, I'm not going to double that at the end. I think at the end of the episode you're like he was like the thing that I wish I did differently was how I treated my children. Yeah, but on the episode I said I don't believe him.

24:16 Right. That's what you said. But what I do envy of him and many of the people is that they found their passion early. I I could see that, but like I was thirty two. When I found like what to do. Really?

24:28 Yes. Bruce Speci was fifteen, Kobe Brown was like eleven. But you the Leonardo Dove I think it's Leonardo. Del Vecchio was what, seventeen? Yeah, yeah. But on the fact that you find it in the first place. This is why I you ask like What are you doing? Why are you taking like you didn't say like why are you taking everything so seriously. It's like That is what I'm I understand how rare it is. For somebody to be able to make a living doing something that they love to do. This is why I hate like

24:55 Uh we talked about the fact that we don't really read Twitter that much, you and I. Um, I hate like when I see people just like uh engagement farming and they're like The worst piece of advice you could ever have is like Work on what you're passionate about. And they're like instead like start a trash hauling business and I'm just like No, man. Like it's the best thing in the world and it's excessively rare. And if you find it, you should do everything in your possible impossible to like hold on to it and to not mess it up. This is a piece of advice I got from from Michael Dell.

25:21 And He told me he was like telling me crazy stories. This is before we recorded the podcast together. We spent five hours talking. And He told me he's just like most entrepreneurs.

25:32 Sabotage themselves. Right. You're not taken out by like a competitor. Uh like you Yeah. You do something where like you're having success and then like you I always say like you the worst thing you could do is like you go to sleep on a win, you wake up with a loss. Right.

25:46 Um Jimmy Ivine. One of the things I learned from Jimmy He he's in this documentary that the uh it's one of my favorite documentaries called The Defiant Ones. He also had this like crazy fifty year career.

25:56 is like the importance of actually having a full life with crazy experiences. And so like he did this episode of Rick Rubin two years ago. He just did another episode of Rick Rubin's podcast. I think it was two thousand twenty three. It was the best single podcast episode I listened to. in two thousand twenty three. And it's just like I want that.

26:11 I I not only want to be really great at what I do, but I'll just like I want to have a a f very full life. So Jimmy was kind enough when I did a founders episode on it on him, he said like a thousand people texted to him. And he invited me to his house.

26:24 And one of the pieces of ice, again, seventy two, maybe seventy five, something it's probably seventy two. Uh Guy Has more knowledge. you know, practical knowledge is as pinky than I have in my entire body.

26:36 And he's like most people cannot handle success. And the advice that he he's been around super talented people and these are some people who are legit geniuses and they destroy their lives. I'm not interested in being successful for a year, for five years, for ten years. I wanna I don't want to I wanna be this till I decide I'm gonna stop doing this.

26:53 And so his whole thing was There's like basically four things that he sees for the ways that people do this the most. Ruin their success. They they are successful. They're talented and they destroy themselves. So the first one was Drugs. Pills, all hair hair and all that stuff.

27:09 I don't do any drugs. That's not gonna happen to me. Did you see the Eddie Murphy documentary? No, but he keeps telling me that about it. Oh, it was so good, dude. And one of the main things was You know he was famous since he was Sixteen. He was on S and L I think when he was eighteen. And you know, did all these movies when he was twenty one. He was like, I've never done drugs.

27:25 He's like that's one of the main one of the main reasons why I am what I am. So his he's gonna be number three on this list, which we'll get to in a minute. About what could destroy you. And he he wasn't destroyed by it, but he has a he's addicted to something else, which we'll get to. Number two, alcohol. Like just like can destroy your life. You know, I had uh went to dinner last night

27:45 uh with a friend and like I had a glass of sake. Like, but I didn't get drunk. It was like fine, right? Three. Women. They just like they attract the wrong kind of women.

27:56 uh they fall in love with the wrong kind of woman. they let the wrong women in around them, like the what's the uh pet Patriots coach? Bill Veltry? Yes. You see what it's he's doing now? He's saying like a twenty year old or something? Oh yeah, man. She just calls the shots.

28:10 Okay. It's exactly what you're describing. No, in in case it it gets a lot darker. There's like just it can distract you. Friends, high quality people. People we work with high quality people. The people you date, you want high quality people. Like you just want high quality people. It's like what's the most important decision you make in your life is the people that you let around you. Which I see people are way too casual about this.

28:32 And I could be really, really ruthless in this domain. Um and then the fourth one is Meglomania. And the reason I say Eddie Murphy'cause like He's like dated every single person. He's got like ten kids. I think he's got a bunch of different baby mamas. Again he's

28:45 st still living his life he wants to do, but he clearly likes that that uh Uh number three. So number four is just megalomania. Um you start to think that You're successful because of you. and not the work that you put in. And you start to believe you you have like you're like a god and like everybody should

29:02 you know praise you and you just completely become disassociated from reality. And this is why I say like it's very dangerous especially to like Do numbers driven thing. Like, I talk to founders all the time. I'm like, Oh, like tell me about your company. Like I just want to be the first You know, I want to build a trillion dollar company. I want to be the first

29:18 the fastest company to a hundred million ARR. I'm like You know like no of none of history's grace. I'm calling you out on that. That's bullshit because when I talk to ramp the Ramp founders are amazing. They're like the best of the best. They said Our goal is to get to a billion dollar in Uh valuation in eighteen months. That was not their primary goal their primary. But they said that's but their goal. I mean he was like, I think it'd be cool if we could do that. Oh that's different. No, it is different.

29:45 I'm saying you the reason for your existence, the reason what you're doing. These people are telling me I'm only starting this company so I can hit a certain financial number. That's completely different. No, that's not what he said. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what they I was wasn't I there with you in the live. I recorded with him and and I he he repeats this all the time. I thought it'd be cool if we get to a billion in the valuation AT. No, no, I don't I don't know if I heard that episode, but like there's He said it a bunch. Okay, their experience with uh Parabus beforehand. was giving the insight into the founding story of Ramp. So that's a l a longer story. But my point being is like I'm h hugely skeptical if if you're there's some kind of external metric

30:23 that I will only be happy if I hit that uh metric or that is the reason that I'm doing this. Where Mine is just like I want to make things that are proud of that I think are good in like I could put out in there like good into the world. And

30:37 I don't confuse like when we were just upstairs and you're like that guy Sitting next to us. It's like I don't confuse with somebody saying, Hey, I like what you do. Like

30:46 That's the perfect way to say it. You like what I do. You might like me as a person. If we knew each other, we'd probably get along. We probably have the same interests, but never confuse that they don't like you. It's the work. And if once you stop putting in the work. Everything else goes away. That is how the Megalomaniacs They just think like I'm so talented, I just show up, I just

31:04 Everything I touch turn turns to gold. I don't have to practice, I don't have to put any effort. And everything's gonna work out. And then they also s you know, treat people essentially not as people. If you had to teach someone who is nineteen how to find their life's work.

31:17 Based off of talking of Reading about four people and not talking to dozens of six hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, what would you say is the the exercises that they should do? My problem is I think at that age I wouldn't take in anybody's advice. And I think I'm only now

31:36 The last few years like been open to Letting other people like mold my mind. Well what would you say? The fact that they're asking the question Like there's this great line where it's like

31:46 A twenty one year old kid. Uh comes up to Mozart and it's like I want to know how to write a symphony. And she says, You're too young. And the guy the um

31:55 It's just like Yeah, but you wrote symphonies when you were fourteen. He's like, Yeah, but I didn't go around asking people how to do it. There's something in there where you feel somebody else has the answer. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for advice, be very clear here. I don't think I there's anything magical I would have to say that would put them on the other path.

32:14 You you need to spend a lot of time thinking about what you actually believe. A lot of people just lie to themselves. Say it over and over and over again. And it's a long conversation last night. And the conversation started was like, What's the lie that you're telling yourself? And we went back and forth, me and this other person. Uh for a while about this. Uh my lie, I'll just tell you right now, which uh again I'm probably sharing too much publicly is this like That I don't need anybody else.

32:35 That's a lie. You think that. That's a lie I've been telling myself for a very long time. Which again has happened And I learned that because of the experience I'm having, the the relationships I have. Realizing that like you're you're doing that because it's a defense mechanism, not because it's actually true. And so

32:50 For this I'd be like Okay. Take the time like what do you actually want. And that's very hard to to Be truthful about. And the one way that I found it is just like I just follow like I have ungovernable curiosity about things.

33:02 I cannot tell you why I like to read. And so like the when I first started my first podcast, I was like, Oh, like it'd be cool if I could like build a business and a life. Where I just get to read all the time, which sounds ridiculous. But it actually worked. And then you just follow this.

33:15 And then now to the point where like We recorded this conversation with Todd Graves, who's one of the one of the people I wanted to meet the most, which people sounds crazy, but I'm like He's like, what does he do? He's like he sells chicken fingers. And they're like, What? What you want to meet and I was like Because

33:27 He grinded himself First of all, he's been doing his business for thirty years. started out built the first door by hand. He had no money. Венчу кразі риск.

33:37 Two find the financing'cause there's no venture capital, n no one would give him money. He had to like risk his life on a on a boat. uh sailing off uh fishing off Alaska. He worked as a boilermaker. He was like highly leveraged and almost went out of business. He did all these crazy things because he just found he had this chicken finger dream, that's what he calls it, and is like have to do the chicken finger dream. I can't explain why. it again, he's not external looking for external validation. I'm going to do this. Everybody's like you're an idiot. You can't do that.

34:01 hasn't changed his menu in um thirty years. So we fight about enouge. The conversation's incredible. We record for two hour two two hours, two and a half hours, two hours. And then we spent another two and a half hours one on one together after. Was he any different? No,'cause these people and he also listens to the podcast.

34:16 So he understands who I am. Like it's just very this is what I meant. I was like I don't I don't make media. I'm building relationships. He might be a top ten person I've listened to. On your part. Yeah, he he's incredible. And so This is the point. About following the curiosity going back to the nineteen year old. I go back to the airport.

34:32 And I call Sam Hinky. And he picks up and I go, I'm in big trouble. And he goes, What's going on? I go, I am Already.

34:41 Wildly addicted. to having these conversations. He goes, I go, I've never done ecstasy. But this is how I feel right now. I am like high I am wired. I am like high as a kite. Because I had this guy again, he's got three decades of experience.

34:56 He had nine hundred and fifteen stores. the company's worth over twenty billion dollars. He owns ninety percent of it. He's growing faster in year thirty than it ever has in his history. He still has trouble sleeping because he can't wait to wake up and get back to work the next day. And so you just get like you get this download of information and energy from him. that like just made me your fork. Who would be on your board of advisors? Would he be on a one of them?

35:16 How many people do I get? Six. I have to name them. Yeah. Living or dead? Either.

35:21 Let me do dead just because that'll give me some time to think about living and I think like I I don't know if I want to answer that question honestly, but I I would have to. Dead. Yeah, Rockefeller. Bill's the greatest company uh ever created. I wish I'd Rockefeller I think is one of the few tycoons of r in terms of like unpeachable character and like amazing success, I think he's The best.

35:41 Debatable and unpeachable can't be. No, okay. Unpeachable's not the right word because he screwed up a he did lie on the record a bunch of times. But In general, I think he was a he's a ethical honest person. Got a little handsy towards the end of his life. Let's just put it that way. I remember I collect obscure He was a hundred. I collect obscure Rockefeller biographies. I have made my own. There's I have one at my house I haven't done an episode on. It's seventeen hundred pages long. It's in a big binder. He was a weirdo when he was like ninety and he was like giving people nickels and shit. That's fine. Great B undeniable, one of the best businesses ever created. Charlie Murger told me to my face that he thinks Rockefeller created the best uh business in history. Yeah. Munger would have to be on it'cause he's dead, unfortunately now.

36:19 I think he's the wisest person I've ever studied. If I could only like Emulate learn from one person to be him. Edwin Land. Founder of the founder of Polaroid, patron saint of founders podcast. He was Steve Jobs hero.

36:31 His whole thing, he's got a lot of things that Uh a lot of personal motto. He he invented the In some photography the entire industry, then monopolize the industry. It's like one of the last great American technology companies that were never like His patterns were never What did he die? I've I've never heard of him. In the nineties?

36:48 He met p when he was in his seventies, Steve Jobs met um Edwin Lan when he Steve was like twenty five, Edwin Lane was like seventy two, I think. And he said, Steve Jobs said that spending time with him was like visiting a shrine. This is how a lot I get to meet like crazy people in the world.

37:04 Right. I actually had lunch with a friend yesterday. Um, and sh she told me something fascinating. She just was like You need to like Take a minute.

37:13 So Think about what's going on in your life and the fact that that you have this ridiculously sick life. because of the people you have like access to you ever write this stuff down, like a journal? No. This is like I think I would the I I think one of the reasons I wanted to do the Bruce Rinstein episode is because I think I'm also I like run from my path. I don't like thinking about it. Like there's just all kinds of other stuff going on.

37:33 And so I spent time yesterday. With a seventy one year old guy. It looks like he's gonna do his first ever podcast interview with me. He just sold his company for sixty billion dollars and in an hour he transferred like more knowledge to me.

37:47 Then I would weeks speaking to like a young startup founder. It's just like it's just unbelievable that so Edwin Land, I felt, did the exact same thing for Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs like would You such a copied he patterned Apple off off off of Polarite and a lot of people don't understand that. Like to the point where like you can go and w back and watch Steve's

38:05 Product demonstrations. And the table and chairs that are on that are the exact same ones that Edwin Land used for Polarite. You're not you this is people don't actually see if you don't have If you're if you're not studying history, you don't have this like basis of historical knowledge in your head, you actually don't know what you're looking at. Like I saw something different. When I saw that video, then somebody that didn't study history does.

38:25 It's like very, very valuable. And this is like we're wasting time doing dumb shit like watching short form uh videos all day. Uh you being obsessed with the news. Following X. Like this stuff is Garbage. It was just like read books and talk to really amazing people.

38:39 And try to like apply what you're learning from both those experiences to be a better human. And then the better hum human you're, other better humans will then open up to you and then there's like this virtuous cycle. You have three more. So Rockefeller. Munger, Land, obviously Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs built, you know, the most successful consumer product of all time. I will say about Edwin Land, I took two ideas from him. He he had a per his personal motto was Don't do anything someone else can do.

39:04 I think that's different demands differentiation. When you listen to my podcast, they are very weird. Founder, there's not like you can read books and have a solo podcast. You're not gonna make it like that. It's a very weird thing. Even the way I'm doing the new show, everybody's like this guy interviews weird. I'm not interviewing

39:19 A goddamn person. I am having conversations. What you're hearing on the show is exactly what you would hear if we weren't recording this. This is the stuff I have. The idea these all these guys Everybody that's been on the show besides James Isaac so far has listened to the podcast. You think First of all

39:34 A lot of the early listeners for the new show come from founders. Right. And some of the mess I get, they're like Yeah, but like You're like talking too much and like

39:42 You interrupt and you do all this other stuff. Like you should do it the way this guy does. We just did four hundred episodes of people that build lives and phenomenal careers by being differentiated. And now you're like, No, no, don't be differentiated. Go do it like this other guy. The differentiation I have compared to other podcasters I wanna talk to Ex excessively s successful people in business is they have a red four hundred Biographies about history's greatest entrepreneurs like I have.

40:06 I spend time with Daniel Eck all the time. I just saw Michael Dow again last week. I promise you, they don't want me to not talk. That is not what they want. They listen to the show. And so

40:17 This idea from every land is like don't do anything someone else could do. That is a very very simple sentence and a very profound. Insight if you actually apply it. Most people are so scared to be different. 'Cause your recall is so good. I wasn't born with that. It's Work. It's

40:32 Ten years of reading and then rereading and then like building my own database and then like I've done all kinds of crazy shit that no other podcasters do. Cause you know, like I talk to other podcasters and I ask all kinds of questions. It's like Everybody's like you are f blessed with a phenomenal memory. No, I forget everything all the time. But I don't forget something if I've read it fifteen times. I was up in your room and I took a photo of your book. You had the uh Brad Jacobs book. Yeah. I was like, I just wanna see what he's underlining. I was like, I just want to see like His thinking. You underlined so much stuff.

40:59 Yeah, so many notes in there. Yeah. Um So th but this is because again, like I also love what I do. And if you love what you do, you're going to do things There for not for financial reasons. You do it because you want it to be great.

41:11 Like I'm killing myself over this edit right now. The the the episode that I'm working on right now. It's probably four days late and it's I still don't have it. And like I feel uncomfortable right now.

41:21 But I know that's a good feeling because like when I get on the other side that th this happened, I did this episode called How Elon Works. I think it's the most downloaded episode of Founders by far. And I remember Talking to a friend'cause I was working in Malibu.

41:34 And I was like, it's just not ready. Like I can't Like I am struggling like I it was supposed to be out on Sunday. It's not coming out.

41:42 But the the thing that I realized like no one's gonna remember if it came out four or five days late. They're gonna remember if it was great or not. And spending that extra time and being confused. Is like a good signal. It means that I care and then I'm trying and I will find my path.

41:56 Like my way there. Um so I think that's really important. So let's go back to the other thing about Evelyn Line real quick. He also has this great line that says, This is where I said I was lying to myself about wanting a balanced life. Uh, he says there's a rule they don't teach you at Harvard, which he knows'cause he dropped out of Harvard twice. He goes the rules they don't teach you at Harvard that anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

42:16 I can't hold myself. Like I have to take things as far as they can go. That's why I can't do many things. I essentially can just do podcasts. I could take care of my health, I could do podcasts, and I could build relationships. That is essentially All my twenty four hours a day. That's all I have. I can't do anything else. So uh Edmund Lan.

42:31 Steve Jobs, Rockefeller. Mm-hmm. Two other dead people. I don't think I need the other two. I like fewer deeper.

42:40 Fewer, deeper relationships. I kinda I tend to talk to like the same people over and over again. You know, being public figures, you could talk to a thousand people a year if you wanted to. I find that like I want people I want genuinely know people who they authentically are. I want them to know who I authentically am and then like I want to skip all the bullshit and I wanna get right to like The actual stuff that we're gonna talk about. I wanna talk about the your relationships you have with women. I wanna talk about like the guilt that you have uh being on the road all the time and the fact that you're a dad.

43:06 I wanna talk about the stuff that you lied to everybody else about. Like this is the stuff the only stuff I'm interested in. I cannot have like superficial conversations. Like I remember one time This guy reached out, he was a billionaire. And He's like, I'd love to talk to you. I was like, Sure, and then he's like assist and I got like looped in with his assistant.

43:21 I don't even have an assistance. I do everything myself. So like besides I guess the new show now I have a whole squad that you see. Um But I remember getting the calendar invite. And it was like thirty minutes. And I'm like

43:33 We're not even gonna get started in thirty minutes. Like and so I was like this this isn't gonna work. Like tell me when you have like more time. Like, but I'm not gonna talk to you for thirty minutes. All right, let's take a quick break because I gotta tell you a story. Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and you know the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form, and it was open only during business hours. And I hit send. And it froze. They flagged the transaction, they locked my account, they put me on hold for 45 minutes, and then they told me I gotta visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. Uh after asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury.

44:06 And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money, I can pay invoices, I can reimburse the team. All from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do two hundred thousand other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes.

44:22 Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, call them NA, and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC. The biggest regret of the of all the people that you've talked to, what would be the top three biggest regrets that they've had? I uh I this is where it's like With these kind of people I don't

44:41 necessarily believe them, that their regrets. Like So Sam Walton He's writing his autobiography as he's He knows he's dying, he's got cancer all of his body's in immense pain. He took out some of the took some of the last time that he ever had in life and he essentially distilled what he learned from his like fifty, sixty year career. And I think it's one of the best books, easily top five, you know

44:59 Entrepreneur book of all time. And it's like such a gift to future generations of entrepreneurs that he did that with his last time. And he he said that, you know, he missed out a lot of stuff. Like he was working all the time. He's like a fairly he calls himself a fairly overactive fellow. Yeah. Well that's a that's that's one way to put it, Sam, but like That you're you're just a conqueror. You're you're an insane person in a good way. He's trying to do something, you know, that he thought was was good. And he's like, you know, if I have to be honest though

45:24 Like yeah, I missed out on seeing You know, parts of my kids' lives. Like I was working a lot. But he's like if I did it all again. I would

45:32 Do it the exact same way. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And they get to the end of their life. And then they're like Th they're I I think it's just natural natural to be nostalgic and to think, Oh w what I would what I would change.

45:44 But like even Buffett says in in Snowball Whatever he did to draw to to like Push his wife away. His first wife? Uh

45:53 I would go back. He says I would go back and like Do it differently. Maybe, I don't know. Like

46:00 I think he did exactly what he wanted to do. Maybe in that case he's he's right. He's like I was like truly in love with this woman. And I messed that up. Um, I could see that being like a true regret.

46:13 Uh I think a lot of these people have a hard time. assessing like their own Regrets. Accurately. There's this great book called How to Get Rich. Have you read that one?

46:24 Felix Dennis, episode one twenty nine yes. One of my favorite uh books of all time because his writing is really good. Uh it's the best. He's I Compare him to I he's like a If Mick Jagger and Richard Branson had a baby.

46:36 His writing is the best. And it's one of the very few books that's tactical. And written by A billionaire? And so he he the reason it's a good book is he was dying. He was um dying of cancer. I think he died when he was sixty or something. And he said, uh, if I could live life all over again.

46:51 I would accumulate fifty million dollars as fast as I can, hopefully by the age of thirty five, and then I would spend the rest of my life writing poetry. Yes. And The reason I believe him is he spent the last ten years of his life retired writing books on poetry and his philanthropic issue or thing was uh Planting forests. He loved trees. Very strange. He also likes that in the book, he's like, I've spent a hundred million dollars on whores and crack.

47:13 Cocaine cocaine over a decade. I was gonna bring that up. Where like this is the this is he he's he was a crackhead. He was a legitimate. No crackhead. Right around here, actually, in this neighborhood. I believe him,'cause he got to like five hundred to eight hundred million, like he got way Yeah, but this was like in the year

47:31 Two thousand and two. So like that book, and again, this is why Like I spend so much time with these older people. Because There's like a certain like You don't know yourself as well when you're younger, you're still on the rise, and so you're incentivized to like put on a show.

47:47 Essentially like you're not being truthful. And you can't let the world Actually see how you like what you believe about certain things, and especially in like this entrepreneurial ecosystem that you're in, like most of these certified are just straight up lying so they can raise more money. Like it's really gross and disgusting. This is my whole thing. I am fundamentally if I am like

48:05 Being If I'm being dishonest about something. Or if I or if I have like different sides of me, I don't like that. I need to reconcile that right away. So much more value out of listening from old people than I have Ring Twitter or whatever. It might be because they're willing to tell you the truth. Well, and it's also because once you get past a certain level

48:21 And that level honestly is pretty small. But like once you get past a certain level, the analogy that I heard recently was really good. It was like I'm no I'm I'm I'm the captain of a boat. And I'm not trying to fix the engine, but steer the ship. And so I don't want I don't necessarily need tactics right now. I just need tell me how to live like a good life. And a good life is a variety of things, but like I need to know

48:40 About what the definition of a life worth living is. Not how to make money or whatever. I don't know, whatever the tactics are. And so I've gotten so much more value. So my friend Noah Kagan's got this channel. on YouTube where he interviews like eight year olds and uh mostly like entrepreneurs. I've gotten so much more value out of that. You see this if you can't interview them, you at least you can pick up like Felix Dennis's book.

49:02 Where how many people are gonna be honest about that is a crazy thing to admit to That I spent ten million a year. For ten years. A hundred million dollars on prostitutes and coke for dude when he died he uh his prostitute girlfriend was living with him. This again, like I'm sure I can't imagine the v the S C Ds this guy has or had

49:21 And doing coke and drinking and nightclubs,'cause there are like nightclubs, I think if I remember correctly. Yeah, like in the eighties. Like you don't want to do that. Like what are you doing? Um like it's going to shorten your life. And some people want to like there's a great line in uh Bush Visi's Autobiography where he's like One pro some people's five years is w worth more than other people's fifty. Yeah, so like

49:40 Some people just have to burn bright and like they're going to that that is like their destiny. That's what they're going to do. I want to like have a very interesting life and I want to succeed decade after decade after decade. Were you making any money in the first five years? Back then so th there's a long story, but like there was the podcast advertising is not like how it is now, which is like way more advanced and like you can sell your own deals independently. So at that time there was Like these they call'em podcast networks, but they're not even I guess.

50:05 They're not there wasn't a network podcast. They were just still ads for you. And so I just remember reaching out to one of them. And They're like We would love to to like sell ads for years. Like you need uh fifty thousand downloads per episode. And what did you have? Fifteen hundred? The number they they said I was like fifty thousand.

50:22 Oh, like it w it seemed like such a it's like I will never have that. Like I just didn't I couldn't compute to I don't even know what it had. A couple of thousand or whatever the the number was back then. Um and so then you would like Try to do like You could do like affiliate deals. Like remember Audible scaled on podcasts. People don't understand the the size of businesses you can build on the back of podcasts to this day.

50:41 And now I don't even talk about this public anymore'cause like I think this is the secret of mine. Like my business has made a lot of money via podcasting. because I promoted my company Hampton on there. And there's just a million examples that people don't even know. Like I've collect all these cases. The hard part is that it like podcasts are like the most challenging to grow. But they're the most sticky, I think, of all the media. Oprah understood the the the the intensity of a pair of a legitimate parasocial relationship back in the eighties, way before like nothing we're doing is nearly. I did an episode on that. That might be three thirty two. I might be wrong on that episode, but The the key there, and uh like let me just tell you her insight and I'll tell you what she figured out how to monetize in such a a huge way. Her key insight was

51:22 you know, she would have like Brad Pitt on her show or like these eight list celebrities and she's like, Oh I have something different because the way my audience responds to like a movie star. is not the way they respond to me. And so like they're like Brad, oh my God, you're handsome, I love your Movie writing. Come over for lunch.

51:39 Come over dinner. When people walk up to me on the street, they like get right into it. Like as I think they know you. And in many cases they do. They know like what I'm into. Uh and like what I'm p you know, intensely uh interested in. And then Oprah's thing, just to close that real quick. Well, first also I think people vastly underestimate the importance of frequency. Which is like another thesis I'm about to try to prove here.

51:59 Where she's in your House one hour a day, five days a week. her the intensity of the success of her business and the intensity of the the parasocial relationship modes be much more diminished if she was doing it once a week. think that's very important. Second thing she realize is that the mo at the time this is all Uh you know, television. The most

52:17 The most profitable show on T V at this time was local news. Right?'Cause it's like Cost nothing to make. And you could sell advertisers like

52:26 I wanna sell my car in Charlotte, North Carolina. More targeted that's huge targeted, you know. And what she realized is like If you have Oprah. coming into being the lead in from four to five to your five o'clock news, right? She's gonna bump up. Your rating, your Nielsen rating by like I I forgot what the number is. Let's say three.

52:43 And for every one Nielsen reading, your local news would make like another five million a year. So let's say You don't have Oprah? You just lost that on fifteen million dollars. So if you s if Oprah says, Oh, I'll sign with you, you have to pay me five of that fi I'm making up the numbers. You have to pay me five of that fifteen.

52:59 You're gonna say Yeah. So When I I couldn't figure out how to sell enough ads, I'll close this real quick because I've talked about this on other podcasts too. I had found this socialist podcast called Chapo Trap House.

53:08 That was selling uh that did not run ads because they were not capitalists. Right. So they thought it was you know immoral. And they were using Patreon at the time to sell Subscriptions to podcasts. And

53:19 Patreon API is public. And there is a website called Graftreon. And they were at the top of the list and I found this. And they had twenty five thousand people or twenty let's call twenty thousand people paying them at least five dollars a month. And I'm like, Oh, there's a business model right there, and their business model was simple.

53:33 You can listen to every other episode for free if you want. The other episodes you're not getting, you have to pay five bucks a month. And so I was like, well, for this is like information for business. People for business, but of course. Pay for this.

53:45 And there's actually a story here. And so I I but I sold it too cheap. It was like a hundred dollars a year or ten dollars a month. And then I ground to like a grinded to like a couple of thousand. So it's like you're making like Dentist money or something like that is the way I would think about it. But then twenty four grand a year ain't dentist money. No, y you're making hundreds of thousands of year. You you I thought you said two thousand a month, you got it. No, no, annual subscribers had like a couple thousand like three thousand, four thousand, something like that. So that'd be like four hundred grand or whatever the number the number is, right?

54:11 But then let me th then I also R Rob was like, You idiot. I'm trying to send this he's like your biggest asset you have is your back catalogue. And you have a big giant.

54:21 Do not enter sign in front of your biggest asset. He's like, I've been trying to send it to people and it's so good that I had you had to buy gift subscriptions. And so he's like, I spent like$900 this week sending your episode to my nine friends. I have to pay$100 every time I'm gonna send somebody's uh So friend, my friend Sam Hinke, who he was spending like two to three thousand or four thousand a year. 'Cause like this is too good. He was just buying it for everybody. He's the one that told Patrick about it, which has obviously changed my life from there.

54:47 Um and so Then here's another thing which I didn't understand that podcasts are not all is not that it appears from the outside. This is a a a lesson from Rockefeller, where he realizes that One of his advantages was that Not everybody there's posting rates on how much it's gonna cost to to ship a barrel of oil over the railroad.

55:06 That post it rate is a lie. Yeah, so he gets rebates. Yes. F the foundation of his empire. And so what I realized and I remember uh Hinky calls me one day. And um

55:17 He goes, Hey, where are you? Uh, I go, I'm in the Hamptons. He's like What are you doing there? I go, This guy DM me. And we talked on the phone, I really liked him, and he has this giant house in the Hamptons and he's like, Will you come speak

55:29 to my company off site. And Sam's like he's paying you for that? And I go, Yeah, of course. He goes, How much? And I go X amount. And he goes. And I go, He's paying me X amount.

55:39 And then you put me in this crazy house or this crazy hotel where like The room service is like a three star Michelin. The r restaurant downstairs, there's only one restaurant. It's like I'm ordering room service from like a Michelin star restaurant. And then I go to check in even though I'm not paying for it and I see what he's paying a night. It's like three thousand dollars a night or something like that. And

55:55 So I was like, Yeah, this place is uh incredible, it's beautiful. And uh you know, and We just went over like basic numbers. And Sam goes. You have got to stop selling things.

56:07 He goes, you have one of the most price insensitive audiences in the world. You cannot sell something for a hundred dollars a year. They would have paid Ten thousand. Because like it's relative to their Wealth. And so like th this just happened um when you you said the book that you saw upstairs. In that book, Brad Jacobs, who has now become a friend of mine, sent me an early copy of that book. He did not tell me I'm in that book.

56:29 He just said, Here's the book, tell me if you like it. I'm reading the book. And it says at the end for his new uh company and not even the end, I think it's on page seventy six, if I remember correctly. He's like most of the investors in my new company, which is now a multi multi billion dollar company, are repeat.

56:45 Investors. However, two of my top twenty shareholders Did not know who I was. They discovered me because I was profiled on David Sunrose Founders podcast. And I'm like, that's crazy. And I knew I know the two people, because those two people also told me and they just told Brad. That means Brad raised

57:03 Seven hundred and fifty million dollars from my audience. from people that didn't know he existed before I did the episode on his book. So that was Sam's point. He's like, you have the most one of the most priceless sensitive audiences in the world. You cannot sell things. hundred dollars. This guy and the speech wasn't even a speech. We go.

57:19 His whole team's at his Hampton's house. It was like thirty of us and he just wanted to like shoot the shit in front of them for like thirty minutes and pay me unbelievable amount of money. Dude, this is like that I told uh Ben Wilson I so I I found I I'm in the history buffer. twenty years. And I love Ben. And I was from Ben's podcast, How to Take Over the World, and I was he sent me the graph, I think

57:38 When I found him he was doing a hundred downloads an episode. And I was like, Ben, what's gonna happen in the future is you're gonna become Sort of like a guru, but not in that type of way. Where because you've consumed all the this is before AI, because you've consumed all this history knowledge. billionaire is gonna pay you money to help

57:55 then predict the future by not repeating the past. I was like that could be like the business model. And it was like hard to understand at the time. But And telling your time kinda sucks.

58:05 But that's like the joy of reading history. It's basically It's like sort of education that's wrapped in entertainment. That's why I love it so much. Do you ever use newspapers.com? I bought a scripture, I don't think I've ever gone off. Dude, you have to use it. It's so fun. Because the problem with biographies and like listening to your podcast is you're telling me these stories when I already know the ending.

58:24 And it's so much better to go back. So for example, you could read about like Dan Gilbert. And he's just like one of the greatest when it comes to being an entrepreneur. And you can read about him and watch interviews, but you know that he was successful. You already know the outcome of the story. And so it's really fun to go back. I use new newspapers that come all the time because I go and find articles in the eighties when they when and I'll find his first profile. like the very first time a newspaper about him. I'm like, what were they saying about him right then and there?

58:50 Or how are they disrespecting them? Or did they like Could they spot it or like'cause the there's revisionist history, like What Were people saying about him? Then and there. Because because I was in San Francisco starting at I moved to San Francisco when I was twenty one. And there's a bunch of like people that are ballers now, and I'm like, I knew that guy when we were nothing.

59:06 I did not see that. I did not know that he had that in him, or this person I thought was gonna be the shit. They were nothing. And so it kinda becomes hard to like predict who's gonna be I mean, obviously angel investing would be a lot easier if this were the case. This is why I would say like the only filter I trust, like time is the best filter. And so that's why I kinda gravitate towards people that were successful over many decades. We didn't finish the uh w so like If you think you asked me uh the living board of directors. Yeah. I think this is a good segue into like what you were just talking about. Where it's like it would probably be a lot of the people that I've had on the new David Sunder show so far. So

59:37 Dell. No, the first the first spot would go to Daniel Eck for sure. For sure. There's a He was cool because he Everyone's a shark who's that successful, but he had a soft side that I liked. He is Like

59:48 Swedish Buddha. I don't know how to describe him. He is unbelievably philosophical. And He's changed my life in so many different ways. I can't believe he's that way at such a young age, too. And that's the we like we're close in age, but he is like so much wiser than I am. And I've spent a bunch of time with him and I I would say it's the the He's taught me a lot. Like he he he's another guy that will call you on your shit. In a very polite way, though. Yeah, he's he's great. So like he the reason I started doing video

1:00:13 The reason I'm doing the new show too is because of him. And His whole thing was just like we were having a this crazy dinner, this four hour dinner in Uh New York.

1:00:23 Why aren't you doing video? And I was like, I'm not doing this for like fame. I'm a very private person. I don't want to ever be recognized in public. And he's just like, A lot more people know

1:00:33 what I look like than what you look like. He goes, I got recognized in the gym this morning. You know what they do? They come over and say Hey, I love Spotify. Thanks for building it. And then they go about their ways. And he's just like you I'm paraphrasing what you said. She's like he knew I was like obsessed with podcasting. He gave me great advice. He's like

1:00:48 You're easy to understand, so therefore you're easy to help. Because all you care about is podcasting. And so it's very easy for me to help you because I you're easy to do. He's This is what I mean. If I only had one board of directors It's probably him.

1:01:00 He in the beginning of the podcast he tells story about how he advised Dara to take the job of Uber. And And he was like, he tells this amazing story. He was like, um Dara, you know, I think you should take this job and Dara is saying like, you know, somebody nominated me to like uh run Uber and Dana was like, Yeah, you seem like you've been complacent, this and that.

1:01:17 Uh and then he'd like talks about how he convinced him basically to take the shabby over and then he later tells the story he's like I was the one that nominated you. Th this is the important part. For somebody to say that to you, you you seem complacent. That looks like You're criticizing. That looks like you're attacking. This is why you have to get over

1:01:35 Don't listen to random people. But if that person genuinely cares about you. You have to be able this is something I struggle with. Like you're this is he he didn't curse, he's just like essentially my paraphrase is like you're lying. This is bullshit. Like get over like he said something about like getting on like I'm

1:01:50 I'm straddling the fence. I can't remember the exact words. But essentially just like this is the business you've chosen. And the fact of the matter is Podcasts that have video grow a lot faster than podcasts that don't. He he go he gives interviews multiple times. People ask him what his favorite podcast is. He says founders. Like

1:02:06 He genuinely believes it's good for the world. Me not doing video means less people see it. Yeah, sort of like uh less impact. A horse dealer fighting the fact that Ford is around now. Yeah, and it's just like what are you doing? Like so get off the fence. And then then me and Patricia's at the center too and we get in the car. after that I'm like, we're gonna do video. I know. Neither of us want to do it. But that's why my point is, like you have to be smart enough to change your behavior when you're reacting to new information. And so this also leads us to really well like my obsession now. Found always always being obsession'cause I'm gonna get reading, but like Like I'm spending a lot of time, most of my time will be on David Zenrah.

1:02:41 Is We get in the car. I'm going back to Patrick's house to to spend the night as uh at his house. And He's been pushing me to to to record podcasts and do more what he called interviews at the time than he did for years and I was like No no no Whose house do you say Tacher.

1:02:57 And We get in the car with the driver. And He's like You absolutely have to start recording these conversations that you're having. He goes, I just spoke

1:03:05 He goes, I spoke two percent of the time. Daniel spoke forty nine percent of the time. You spoke the other forty nine percent of the time. He goes, I've known him for four years. You got more out of him in four hours than I have in four years. Nobody can speak to the soul of the founder like you can in the world. You have to start recording these conversations.

1:03:20 And that Oh. That's conversation's different. Like I can't interview anybody. Like I like That might be interesting. It might there could be a differentiation there. Are you ever gonna uh monetize this in a different way than normal media ways, ads and subscription?

1:03:35 No, I don't think I'll ever do subscription again because I think that you're only gonna monetize the ads. Yeah, I think the power of media is like it's free and readily accessible and therefore It can compound through word or mouth. Well, we'll see. I have some other thoughts on there that I will keep to myself. I think I have an earned secret. So there's one of my favorite tweets. This is what I will say. Like You you mentioned like taking out interesting ideas of the books and how do you do that or whatever the case is, and maybe sometimes my interpretation may be different than other people's. I remember reading Cable Cowboy, which is supposed to be a biography of John Malone.

1:04:06 Right. And you know, it was like oh he like he he uh is the person that invented the word Ebda and he has all this w ways to finance and he's focused on cash flow and there's all these other thing takeaways that I've heard other people describe that book. That's not the main takeaway for me. Fact is like most industries

1:04:21 default into like some kind of like oli oligarch oligarchy. And yeah, in the cable industry, I think there's like eight Like main players and you know the top two are bigger and number six is a little smaller where the case was. And what's fascinating is like he's one of the eight.

1:04:35 Yeah all the other players. That Or essentially c competitors like go to him to like learn about like their industry. This in this brand new industry that they are the ones Essentially building the foundation, the one that has now grown crazy in the last like fifty, sixty years or whatever the case is.

1:04:51 And so one of the important parts for me where I would like disagree but some of the stuff I can't say publicly, is like I saw this tweet one time. It says I think one of the most interesting ways to or one of one of the ways to have the most interesting careers

1:05:05 Is Earned secret. And exploit the hell out of it. For decades.

1:05:12 And this tweet was talking about Mark Leonard, who used to work in V C. from Constitution Software saying, Hey, these vertical market software businesses, they are shitty for VC. But if I They're great if I put it in a conglomerate and then everything that he did. So I think he started I don't I don't remember Say fifty million, eighty million, and then grind it to like eighty billion, whatever the number is. And so he had that earned secret.

1:05:32 VMS Bad for V C good for this other way. Let me just do that and he exploded the hell out of it for three decades. I think Біз австрий. to collect more information about podcasting than almost anybody else. I think

1:05:45 I have earned secrets that There I don't think there is any limit. the size or the the performance of the business. No, and all the great ones that

1:05:54 Like Yeah, we were talking about Oprah the other day. Like there there there is The breakthroughs don't particularly have like a blueprint where you're like And we were also talking about how like the people who are number one in certain things are Literally a hundred times better than number two. So

1:06:07 I buy into that. I'm Jay Z has a line. If I'm gonna make it to a Billy I can't take the same path. And so I'll be very eager to see what you what you're gonna do. I hate advertising. In most cases I ran an advertising business. When you rely solely on advertising, I I hated it.

1:06:21 But if you can make money in ways where I own bits of companies that I love to promote, or if you do it in some interesting way, then it becomes good. But the traditional form of advertising, I think, is a pain in the ass business model. that only captures a fraction of the value that you create. Yeah, very eager to see How you will change that.

1:06:39 The and here's the thing, I'm very comfortable. Like putting out a lot more value into the world that that than I capture. And I just think I'm gonna capture more than like if you go back, somebody asked me uh my friend at lunch yesterday. Uh asked me is like what would like the twenty five year old version of you

1:06:55 think of this. And I was like, I don't even know if I can think in those terms. It's like already uh wildly Like exceeded. I'm just very happy, like w where I'm at and like what I'm doing and I know that I have Are you a happy person? I would just remember that. No, no. Happy with

1:07:10 The way my work has gone. Are you a happy person? I don't think you're happy. I think this is d again, why why is Daniel Ack the number one on my um On my board of directors. I I already mentioned one of'em. Like he's pushed me in a certain direction. Another thing that he's taught me is like You get around them and you realize like you don't have any ceilings. Dude, those people are really rare. I've been around a handful of them. It it is contagious and I'm always curious. I'm like, who gave you that?

1:07:32 This is the key. This is where constant refinement of association people hear that. They're like great advice. They don't actually do it. So few people will do it. This is I'm very interested in being one of those very few. I think about this a lot. I take this very seriously. So I don't think I'm apt to answer your question, another idea that I got from Daniel, which is on the first episode of Davis on Earth, people should listen to if they haven't and they've have listened to it, they should watch it again.

1:07:54 I'm going to do a founders episode based on the transcript of the conversation that I had with him. Cause there's so many good ideas in there. And I'm like, it's I we put it out as like I don't know, 60 pages, 70 pages, something like that. Like it's crazy. It's like a little it's like a miniature book. So Impact over in his whole thing, he's just like You don't optimize for happiness, you optimize for impact, which is exactly the advice he gave Dara.

1:08:14 For Uber, the advice that he takes for himself. And like I am very happy, if you saw This goes back to like I don't need to capture, I don't need to be

1:08:27 And I only capture one percent of it or two percent of it. It's like man. There's other things that are so like if you go and Like you can go to the website right now and send me a message, which I might have to stop reading because it's just like all these messages come in all day. Most of them are positive. But if you were just go through like my emails.

1:08:41 My DMs uh the the contact form It's just like These people are like you changed my life. And it's not me changing their life. They're like basically you have all these people like, hey, I really appreciate what you're doing. I want you to know that it has an impact on my life. This guy

1:08:53 Chased me down at the airport the other day. And he's just like you don't understand like the the difference of my life Pre and post. Like discovering your work. And so it's like, okay, that's not a m I can't take it to the bank and and, you know, deposit that.

1:09:07 But that's not the there there's a very real tangible benefit. From N This is the crazy thing, so The James Dyson episode we just did. Right.

1:09:16 God bless Rob Moore, took forty five emails back and forth to to get that scheduled. It's just like this relentlessness. But everybody knew Like he was my number one guy. that b his first book is episode twenty five. Exactly. There you go. Twenty five, two hundred, three hundred, episode four hundred. It's all about the same book. The book that changed my life. The book that encouraged me to persevere when I had no

1:09:38 Reason to persevere. There was nothing that I was seeing that's like this is gonna be a success, other than just relentless self belief that I'm going to Figure this out. If I focus on it. And I want it to happen. I will make it happened.

1:09:50 Like I feel like I have a very intense will to change like what I want in to happen in life to happen. And so The crazy thing is I've been talking about this guy for seven years. It was seven years in the making. That ep when we start doing the previews for the episodes, so showing the pictures, some of the trailers. Some of the clips, then the episode comes out.

1:10:07 Strangers I've never met. are like I'm unbelievably happy for you. I cannot I never saw how crazy I was already invested into it. So like What is that? That is me capturing value.

1:10:19 And this idea where like oh I have to hit a certain number or I'm not gonna be happy. That's not wise. I'm try I'm not trying to be smart. I'm trying to be consistently not stupid. And if I can be consistently not stupid over a long period of time, I think that's gonna result in me being wise. And that's what I'm after.

1:10:34 That was a good ending. All right, that's it. That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world of nowhere To be what I want to I'm putting my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel never looking back

1:10:49 All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis Enfonzi Cameo. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonzi are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue. In each episode, you're gonna hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're gonna hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. So you can check out content is profit wherever you get your podcasts.

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