Kamal Ravikant - Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It

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Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am sitting down with Kamal Ravikant, an incredible author, founder, venture capitalist, and much more. Thanks so much for coming on, Kamal.

Thanks for having me.

Of course. So I've been looking forward to this. I know our good friend Dan Fleischman put us in touch and we're here in Vegas at the Blue Wire studio. I really appreciate you coming out to have a conversation with me.

Well, it was an easy uber ride, of course. Yeah. Actually, I'm a little nervous because it's my first podcast I'm doing in quite a while. So. Yeah, you know, go easy on me.

I know we'll do.

I actually don't. Don't go easy on me.

The hard stuff, I think, dude, like, just to kick off the conversation, as you said, you know, you've taken some time off social media, but to, to dive into, you know, your background and your story for, for those that are watching this, that may not have too much background on, you know, your background as an author and a venture capitalist, I'd love for you to give just a high level overview of your journey and how you got to where you are today.

High level. It's very random. It's only when you look back and you see the points connect. So immigrant child, grew up outside of New York City, single mom, two boys, grew up in nothing and then went to college for a year. Spoiled out of my mind. So instead I joined the army and I was a soldier in the 10th Mountain and then went to college after that and then kind of backpacked around the world on nothing and which was an incredible experience, you know, like being in countries where you don't speak the language and you're living on Two or three dollars a day. I'm not talking about Thailand, I'm talking about like Europe. You know, I was living in, I was back, back into Spain, I think my budget was like two or $3 a day. So all I could afford was a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread and cheese, you know, and I would just sleep in wheat fields and rune castles and things like that. Incredible experience. And then got into writing and moved out to Silicon Valley and started building companies and, and you know, we're talking about the story last night about how that happened. My brother was out there and he messaged me. He's like, look, you know, what are you doing out? And I was in upstate New York. He's like, what are you doing freezing your butt off? Come out here. We're creating the future. Yeah. And I remember I was really nervous and you know, it was, it was because I was like, I'm not qualified for this. Like, what? But at that point, no one was. You're just making it up. And I was at the gym, at Goals gym, and I was talking to a buddy of mine about this dilemma. Should I do it? And he said, kamal Leap and the net will appear. I thought about, I'm like, all right. So I sold everything I had, which wasn't much, and bought a one way ticket to California, went out and changed my life. I ended up joining startup and helped build that, that one became a public company. And then it was just, I got known in that company as the can do kid because it was never, we were doing everything. Like there was nothing set. It was like, oh, we got it, the market's crashing. We got, we're public now. We got to figure out how to monetize this thing. All right, come on, figure it out. You're in charge of monetizing, you know, like it was, it was incredible experience for someone who's very, who doesn't like doing one thing. Startups are the best thing. Yeah. You know, and I think I found my calling there.

Totally. When you first landed in Silicon Valley, like, what was your expectation when it comes to walking into this new tech ecosystem that you weren't familiar with?

Honestly, I was very intimidated. You know, there were all these people, everyone was flying quite high. It was like the dot com boom. Everyone, their secretary was getting really rich and it's like, well, why should we hire you? Like, I wasn't an engineer, you know, I, I mean, I learned some HTML and stuff. Basic, basic stuff, but not enough to be an engineer. And I did run into that, why should we hire you? Until eventually I convinced one company to hire me. And I think the person who hired me saw that. She's like, this guy will do anything. He'll learn it. Right. And often that's the best thing you can do when having. But now having hired people in my career, you don't necessarily. Look, the skill is not the most important thing. It's the most important thing that will. This is someone who's a doer and they'll figure it out.

A self starter. Yeah.

Or a doer. Yeah. They'll just take the ball and run with it. They don't have to start the game. Yeah. And turns out I really enjoyed it, you know, and I like the challenge of like figuring things out. And there was no right or wrong. It was just like trying out solutions, which is entrepreneurship in a nutshell. Yeah. Which is probably making more mistakes than not and then fixing them. Yeah. And. But it was very intimidating. It was very intimidated. And I almost quit, like right before I really got a job. And in a, in a company, I was like, okay, this is, I tried this. This is, you know, it's not for me. I'm going to move back. And, and, and right before I left, I got a job and it was great. And that allowed me to like, grow and yeah, I kind of had fun. My calling. One of my callings, Right?

Totally. Yeah. When you, when you talk about like venture capital and, and being in tech, you've had an incredible career in that space on both sides. Where do you spend your time now? I know you've made some incredible investments over the years. Where do you spend your time investing? And when was that transitional period for you?

That transitional period was after I built my last company and exploded and I lost everything. And this is when I self funded and a mistake. I mean, I took money near the end, but by then I had spent every dime I'd saved in over a decade. Right. And I remember I was making payroll off credit cards and you know, I convinced all these people to give up other opportunities, enjoy my crazy journey, and it didn't work out. And that was really hard. But I was talking to my brother after that and we were driving to see our mom and I was like, look, I don't feel like starting the company because to start to, to start a company, you have to want to solve a problem. And I'm like, there's no problems I really feel like solving right now. So maybe I'll go like be VP of something somewhere, you know? You know, just like, you know I have the experience to go punch a clock somewhere and vest at a big company or whatever. And he's like, look, you're always getting your friends into deals in the, you know, from outside the Valley into deals. And you're always helping entrepreneurs. You're helping them connect with investors or connect with, like, people that could really help them and so forth. It's like you're basically a vc, but without making any money out of it. It's like, why don't you just formalize that? Go to your friends who want to get in a deal, say, great, you want to be in the deals, I'm going to get you in them. Officially, I'm going to start a fund. And, you know, now you can help the entrepreneurs. We also get a little small piece and, you know, so it can be really meaningful. So I thought about it. I realized there is a problem I wanted to solve. And it's less so now, but still pretty prevalent, which is, back in the day, VCs always used to say, oh, I'm going to be like, value add, value add. And value would be like a random call telling you, hey, have you thought about this idea I had last night in the shower? Yeah. You're like, yeah, my talented engineering team never would have thought of that. Thank you for your. You know. And I realized what I needed as a CEO, as a founder, was simple. Call me and ask me what my pain points are and solve them for me. Call me if I say I need 100 new customers. Get me those customers. You know, like, really, like, just measurable stuff. If I need to deal with Visa, go through a network and figure out who knows to see a Visa and get me in touch. So I very carefully selected, like, friends of mine who had the connections outside of myself, and they became LPs. And the whole thing was, the deal was, I'll get you in these deals, but if you get a call from me, you got to put everything down and get on the phone with the founder and help them. So I created a network of very friendly LPs who were really good at very different things and turns. That model worked really well. Y. You know, and. And it was the same thing, like entrepreneurship. I'd never been part of a fund. You know, one way you can do is go join a fund. And I'm not a. I'm not a worker. I'm. I'm like a terrible employee. Like, I'll probably get fired right away, which is why I start stuff. Yeah. Even in the army, I was the guy. I was Raising. But what if you do it this way to get in trouble all the time? So. So I slowly built it up. Slowly built it up. And next thing I knew, I was investing. And then just like an entrepreneur, you learn by doing, you know, And I was fortunate that I had a really good network in the Valley, which became better and better now that I had money to spend. Yeah, right.

And I want to dive into that. When you talk about building a network, you have a very vast, extensive network in the Valley, as you said. What would your like, looking back, how do you recommend someone build an incredible network? I know for me, as you know, we're sitting here in the podcast, this has been my gateway to build a network. But what's your advice to young founders that are looking to go build their network for, you know, potential deal, flow down the road, or just to bring more value to their business overall?

That's a great question. You know, I was reading a tweet, it was by my brother actually today, and he. He was saying, like, instead of. Instead of asking, how can I help, just help. He said, everyone reaches that, how can I help? Right. That's kind of lazy. The ones who stand out, who's like, hey, I did this for you. Yeah, no, I don't need anything here. You know, the best way you can stand out is by being a doer, by solving people's pain points and that's it. And not requiring things. I heard this for you. Have a nice life.

Yeah.

Or, you know, let's have coffee sometime. That's it. And people will notice because, you know, we all get a lot of inbound cold emails. Hey, I'm looking for a mentor. Or, hey, you know, I have this idea. Could you fund it while I figure it out? Like, no. Like, one only has so much attention and so much money. Right. So. And also the best thing is really you stand out by either creating something of value that the people on the other side want to be a part of. For example, you have a network now of as a podcaster, you have an audience. So people want to be a part of this. That's how you get guests. But you started off with no audience, right?

Absolutely.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she was talking about how very simple. She's a lash technician. Right. She's very good at doing women's lashes. She's very passionate about it. It's actually pretty, pretty involved. Once I asked her about it, and she's very, very good. And she moved here to Vegas and she's trying to start her business. And what she did was she got her business card. She had 300 business cards printed this went to a parking lot and just put them on the car. And I was like, that's not gonna work. That's not gonna work. And she didn't listen, right? Yeah. So next time we met up, I was like, how'd that go? She was like, well, I got one person, but they wanted a free. I was to do is you got to go to where your customers are. Same thing with. With this, right? Or give them something they need, right? So I told her, like, look, next time there's like. Like one of these big beach clubs here, these pool clubs are doing a audition for the. The women who work in the pool who get paid really well. There'll be like 500 or a thousand women out there waiting in line. And they all care about beauty, right? Just go there and talk to them and give them your card. Like, it's really you. You know, go to where your customers are and give them what they need, you know, like, and. And show your passion. So I don't think there's a. I mean, look, if there was a simple answer, everybody would be doing it. It's either create something that people want to be a part of, which is step by step by step, like starting a business. Like. Like she is right now. She's going to go and do. I'm very curious how. What her conversion rate will be, right? She'll be way better than before, right? And she also said, like, look, but I'm really scared. I'll choke. And I was like, look, she actually met her because she was a fan of my love yourself book. And I was like, look, you have no idea how much I choked putting it out. I was terrified, and I almost didn't put that book out to the world. And I met her because she's telling me it saved her life, right? So she reached out to me, and I'm like, look, it's okay to choke. It's okay, you know, especially if you're around people that you think are a different level than you, higher level than you. When you're younger, you tend to think that, you know, which is not the case, by the way. Like, everyone's a shit show in their mind, you know, it's just. It's okay to choke. It's okay to, like, be afraid. But you just go through it, and by the fifth or tenth time, even if you fail spectacularly, right? You'll learn, oh, I didn't die. Your Brain will learn. Oh, that wasn't horrible. And it'll adapt.

Yeah.

And you will fix those problems, and your sales pitch will get better and better. And that's the only way, right? Absolutely. So whether if you're cold calling or you're doing a podcast or whatever, it's. Create. Either give value, or rather than asking, how can I be of value to you? I hate that question. Random people ask, how can be a value to you? I'm like, I don't know, like, what do I need today? I need just be of value or create something where others will want to be part of that value.

Yeah, I love that answer. Speaking on loving yourself, I know your book Love Yourself is a. An international hit. Where did this concept come from? And a. Why that title and what does it mean to you?

Yeah, well, funny, I never set out to write that book, you know, like. So I trained myself for, like, a decade to be a literary fiction writer. I want to write the kind of books that you read in, you know, like, oh, my God, this is like, I studied obsessively, studied the grace, like Hemingway and so forth. Yeah. And I got to be a very good writer, but I didn't, at that time have a story, the right story to tell. And the story to tell kind of happened as. Because when I lost everything and. And I was really at a severe low point and. And I lost everyone's money, I lost my. You know, I. You know, my employees had given up great careers, like, great offers from other companies to go for my crazy dream. You know, they'd given that up. I felt it was. It was a real low point, and I started to work on my inside. A friend of mine had given this one piece of advice. He said, look, life is from the inside out, and I've really come to believe it is. He said, whatever you are, you have to work on your inside. Your inside reflects on the outside however you believe the nature of reality is. I mean, that's a whole different podcast in itself, right? Maybe. But even if it's just to make yourself the kind of person that takes certain kind of actions. So when I was so miserable and feeling terrible about myself and hating myself and, like, being like, the absolute biggest failure in the world and all that, I just. One morning, one night, and one morning, I don't remember, I was, like, miserable, and I crawled over. Well, got over, walked over, but felt like a crawl to my desk, and I was, like, frustrated. I was like, I'm done. I cannot feel like this. You can't live feeling like this for long. It's just a sucky way to be. And I have a journal on my desk. And I wrote down a vow to myself. And I'm a big believer in the power of commitment to oneself. I believe if you make commitment to yourself, do your best to keep it, you'll fail. But then get at it. Get at it. None of us are perfect, right? And I wrote, and a vow is the ultimate commitment. You know, there's a marriage vow, I'll imagine a vow to yourself. And I made a vow, and I was going to write down something like, I don't know, to get better or to feel better, whatever. And what came out was a vow to love myself. I don't know where that came from. Loving yourself came out. Came out. It came from somewhere deep. And it was like, it's in the. I mean, the vow is more poetic than I'm describing it was really. And if I looked at it when I was done and stared at it for I don't know how long, like, what the hell did I just write? And. And how do I do this now? Me being me who's written a book on it, did not go try to find books on it or watch YouTube videos or whatever. I just sat around and try to figure out how to do it. And I had a background in clinical. Clinical trials. So I kind of like started running clinical trials in my head. Just started doing things inside because I remember that thing, life is from the inside out. Okay, let me really apply it. And I started doing things inside and I would notice how that would shift my state of being. And if it did, I went further, rabbit hole. If it stopped any point threw it away. I didn't care.

I had no of these experiments.

Well, they were everything random to walking around, saying some loudly to myself or saying things to myself or making myself feel a little way, certain way, feeling light come in, trying to do different meditations. I. My company had blown up. I had no money and nothing to do. I was.

When was this in terms of like, timeline?

A decade ago?

Okay.

Yeah, about a decade ago. And what I noticed was certain things started to work and I went deeper and deeper and so I just went deep and until like my. My internals had shifted, it became almost. It became a practice, like going to the gym. I was just doing it regularly and. And I noticed it started to do it on its own. I didn't have to work so hard at it. Which kind of makes sense. You know, neurons that fire together, wire together thing in neuroscience. And what really Blew my mind was. After a while I started to notice, like life started to get better on its own. You know, I wasn't really going out and racing with people, but things started to come to me and I was like, all right, well this is interesting. I don't know what it is, but I'll go with it. And it really changed everything around. And so I remember talking to an old co founder of mine who was going through a hard time. He's in England about a month, couple of months later. And he was telling me he was going through hard. I'm like, no, dude, I figured it out. Figured out I have the secret of reality. Like, look, look, I'll tell you. So I wrote up something, I sent it to him and he started applying it. It really helped him. And then I shared a couple other friends and helped them. At the end a friend of mine convinced me to write it because he knew I can write. He's like, write is a short book. Put it out. And I was terrified. I wrote it because it gave him my word once again, commitment. And I believe absolutely right. And then he said his name is James Altucher. You know, yeah, dear friend. Yeah, great guy. He said, you know, put it out. And. And I did. And then I hid underneath the, underneath the desk where like. Because I was terrified. That title was love yourself like your life depends on it came from a talk I gave. Wow. Where I was also very. Being very honest.

And I'm curious because I know like last night we were talking about internal fears. Whether that's like on the back of a motorcycle, like where did that internal fear come from when it comes to publishing your book?

Oh man, I was terrified I was going to destroy my career in Silicon Valley. I thought I was going to the biggest laughingstock, man. Here I'm complete failure in my mind at least thinking that way. And here I am writing this book, little book, you know, saying, hey, I'm cool now with this little love yourself thing. This is. No one was talking about inner work in Silicon Valley at the time, right. And so what was really interesting was within a month I had self published it, the original version. Harper Collins published a much more updated version in 2020. It was a number one self help book on Amazon. It was all of a sudden everywhere on Facebook, everyone sharing it. You know why? Because I was honest. And what I did was I didn't sit there and give someone my journal. I don't want to read someone doing terrible. That's great. What I did was I said very quickly, like, here's where I was. But here's what I did, and here's where I got, and here's what I did step by step. And because we all have the same human brain, just try it. And people didn't work for them. That's where it came from.

That's incredible.

It changed my life. Yeah. You know, all this time I was trying to put myself on the map as a writer. I was building companies on nights and weekends. I was writing and studying and going to workshops and becoming better, better writers. And then life gave me an incident that I had to share with the world. I was actually kind of drag kicking and screaming to the world. And that put me on the map as a writer. It's kind of funny how it works.

That is so cool when you look back on publishing that book and what has come from that. I know you were telling me stories last night just about the impact you've felt and the people that have came up to you and told you how it's changed your life. What does that mean to you? And what. What does the purpose. How does it feel knowing that you're impacting so many lives out there?

Honestly, I don't sit around thinking about it. It's kind of strange. I do respond to my readers when they email me. I always put my email address in my books. Sometimes they may get an email a couple of months from that. Just because I have a life and I get caught up and stuff. What's really interesting is there's a part of me that stays detached from it. But every once in a while, I let myself feel it. Because you can't just sit there. And at least I don't sit there. Oh, my God. Pat myself on the back all day long. Because I want to work on the next thing. What else have I learned? What else can I put out, you know? Or what do I want to do for my life? I don't really sit around, pat myself on the back for the past. Yeah, that makes any sense. So it's strange, but when I meet people in person and they tell me that, that's very humbling. And it's just like I feel so grateful to them. Like I've had people burst in tears. Tell me about it. That story I told you yesterday. We'll keep the name confidential, but it's like CEO and the founder and CEO who built this company from nothing, one of the largest public companies in the world coming to me at a private party, and everybody's trying to talk to him. He comes up to me and Tells me your book helped me at a time when I needed it. I mean, that just leaves me speechless. I'm like, can I have some shares? It's incredible. It's as, you know, like, look, you put in content. Let's call it content.

Right.

But it's very from the heart. It's very real. It's you content out to the world, the way the world responds. What I found is when you're doing it, real is way more than you gave. Like this last version, I spent a year working on it. I was very obsessed in getting it all out and. Right. But the emails I get are like, incredible and heartwarming and heartbreaking and tells me like, look. And from all over the world. Yeah, right. That's. You can't. You can't engineer that. You can't viral loop that or whatever from that heartfelt stuff. You know, you just got to do the real stuff and put it out. Put it out.

Totally.

Yeah.

I want to switch gears a little bit and talking about the future and, you know, you're a venture capitalist, you're investing in different companies. Where, like, where do you. What excites you the most? Moving into the future and where you're investing. Right. Like, a lot of people Talk about crypto web 3. Are you looking in that direction or.

Very much.

What do you think about where the future's at?

You know, I'm a huge fan of tech. Obviously, tech is what changed, you know, tech and writing changed my life. And tech is. Tech is, you know, it's not going away. It's just taking more and more of the world. You know, software's eating the world, like Marcus Dreesen said. So for me, when I got into crypto, it was just an evolution in tech. Yeah. That's why I got into it. Right. And then I think crypto is the evolution, the tech. And I think it's as big, if not bigger than the Internet, which I found, you know, like having been lucky enough to be. I wasn't super early, but latter part of the dot com boom. Right. And see what we were trying to create then versus what exists now. Yeah. That's the same thing I see happening with crypto, but much faster and global and also because there's so much money, people can make so much money, there's no better incentive. Yeah, Right. There's all these Ponzi schemes and garbage and like terrible projects, but amongst there, there are shining diamonds that will last through and will be the next. And I think it's actually Crypto and Web3, however one wants to define Web3, and we're very early, is actually fulfilling the promise of the Internet. But you don't have just like four gatekeepers, Google, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, controlling you and your identity. It's going to be like the whole. It wasn't supposed to be that way. Yeah. Right. That was web 2.0. Yeah. I mean, literally, that's what the Internet's become. And so that's the exciting part is I think it's going to help fulfill the dream of the original Internet.

Yeah. A decentralized landscape. Everyone owns it.

I mean, it's not all roses. Yeah. You know, it's not going to be all positive, but I think it's got just like the Internet, what you use it for, people use it for. But I'd rather give the individual the power over their choices of what to use it for than have a large entity with shareholders who care about profit only to decide for them.

Totally. What's your thoughts on VR specifically? What Meta is doing with Oculus and everything in that ballpark?

Look, it's going to be the future. I think they haven't hit it yet. I have an Oculus, which I loved when I tried it, but never use it again.

Very similar to me. I got it, used it a couple of times and I mixed it up.

It's not there yet. The tech's not there yet. It will be. Yeah. You know, I mean, look at the progress they've made. I think the, the, the next breakthrough is going to be when Apple comes out with, I think the AR glasses. You know, like, I think AR argumented reality is much bigger. VR needs to get to a point where your brain doesn't rebel against it. Like AR is just a layer on top of what you see.

Yep.

That's going to be huge. That's going to be massive. And I think Apple, given their dominance with the iPhone, when they come out with something and they usually wait till they get it right.

Yeah.

They never first to market. Right. Or maybe the. Sometimes they iPhone they were, but when they come, they've like really done a lot of work and what they have is polished enough that the masses will adopt it. We'll all run out to Apple.

Yeah. The Apple glasses or whatever.

Yeah. Here's my money. Please take it. Yeah. So that's where I think the next it's going to be. Not VR.

Got it. No. That's very insightful and interesting when you think about early tech days versus the. Where the, you know, world is today.com boom to comparing it to web three. What are some of the things you would recommend people like younger that didn't live in that dot com boom to look out for if they're looking to make investments and to get into different companies or just look at the landscape.

You know, like what I, I'll tell you what I do. I never invest in what I don't know. If I'm going to invest in a certain space that I know it, I learn it. Because otherwise you're gambling. Either you're investing or you're gambling. Don't kid yourself. If you want to make money regularly and you want to make a lot of it, invest gambling. Most of you will lose. Like, I turn out deals all the time because I'll be like, sorry, I'm not qualified for this deal. Yeah. Like I just, unless I have other investors in that deal who I, I know their true records, not what's on LinkedIn or whatever. Right. And I know the way they are, the way they think and I can call them and they can do the due diligence, I'll go on their diligence. But if it's just something I don't know because it looks hot and cool or whatever, I don't do it. So I would, I would recommend if you want to invest in a certain space, you know, in the modern day, you have YouTube, you have, literally just with YouTube, you can learn anything you want to learn, you know, and I've done that for myself. You know, like I'll get passionate about something. All I'll do is just watch YouTube videos and next, within a week or two, I know more than probably 80% of people in this and thanks. It's just people, YouTube and Reddit. I love Reddit.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, no matter what coaching you have, you can find a subreddit somewhere and some dude in his, yeah, some dude, his mom's basement will give you the exact answer. I love Reddit for that. Yeah. You know, just, just educate yourself and know. Because if you don't know the space, you don't know the right questions to ask. You know what to look out for, you know, and in any space there's a lot of people and who don't know what they're doing. So you want to invest in people who know what they're doing and actually you believe in what they're going to do and also maybe you can help. Yeah. So if you get investing, know the space and the fact that, oh, I don't know anyone tech, I'm not, I'm not you know, I don't understand. Is not an excuse anymore. It used to be at one point, and then there's platforms like Republic where you can go as. You don't need to be a credit.

Yeah, I know Kendrick Nugent.

Yeah, Kendrick's right. He's a dear friend.

He's awesome.

I'm actually an advisor. I'm a big Republic. Yeah, I'm a big fan.

I love. Yeah, I. He's an investor in media kits as well.

No kidding.

Yeah. No, Kendrick's awesome. I. I love Republic and what they're doing. I recommend it to a lot of founders out there.

Yeah. Like, you know, otherwise, to get the kind of deals I do, you have to be a credit investor. Right. And a lot of young people aren't. And so. But Republic. Kendrick set out to create the platform that his mom and dad could invest in, you know, so they could have the opportunities that only, like the Silicon Valley elites had. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the Mission.

Yeah, I love their. I had Janine Yorio on the show as well. She was the head of Republic. I think she is the head of Republic Real Estate now. Like the, The. The Web three side as well. But, yeah, their whole team is incredible. Yeah, Shout out to Republic.

Very passionate, very mission driven. And that's actually rare. You know, I've been to the offices many times in New York, and you walk in and you say, you feel the buzz, you feel the excitement. And they all. When you talk to them, they're. They care about the mission of just bringing this to the masses. And also they care a lot about minorities and women getting involved and so forth. It's really, really special.

Totally. I love that. Speaking of that, from your experience of investing in companies and being a part of very successful organizations, what do you think creates great culture inside of an organization? And how can founders utilize that if they're starting today?

You know, honestly, I think the cultures are cultures often a reflection of the founders. So it's up to the founders. You got to step up. And there's a lesson I learned when I was 18. I think it's one of the best business lessons I ever learned. Okay. So I was. When I joined the army and I went to Fort. They took me to Fort Benning, Georgia, and shaved my head. And I said, welcome, you're ours now. We own you now. Right. And you're going in. And there's a statue, a very famous statue, because Fort Benning is the home of the infantry. That's where you train for infantry and airborne And Special forces for army Special Forces. And there's a very famous statue of an infantryman in World War II. He's carrying his rifle and he's going this way, right? He's just going on a charge. And it just says follow me. It doesn't say go ahead and I'll follow. And I realized that is a secret to leadership and the secret to creating a culture, the secret to team building anything is follow me. You're the example, you're the grown up. One thing you learn having employees is that you're the dad, you're the priest, you're the mom, you're the grown up yet. And also you're the captain of the ship. It's so. But you got to step up to it. That means you got to be better than you ever were before and constantly work on it. You want to create a great culture, you can't expect your team to do it for you. People won't. You know, this is the principal agent problem. It's always like. But people will look up to you and they will follow that. So very often you'll see the culture is a reflection of the founders and especially long term founders who stay.

Yeah, absolutely. Very cool thinking. You've had an incredible, let's say the last 10 plus years and you talk about loving yourself now. How do you take those principles and apply them to your day to day life now and what fulfills you in your life today?

Well, look, I live, I eat my own dog food, I do the practice, all the inner work, you know, very big on that. I was talking to a friend of mine today, I was telling him like, like I don't even rec. If my mind inside I don't recognize. If I ran into myself two years ago, I wouldn't recognize my inside. I'm always working to be better on the inside. So that's, that's one big thing in loving myself, you know, because I'm always working to be better no matter what. But then also the choices I make. So right now at a place in life where the choices I may I've made are, I'm just going to have experiences. I'm going to spend money on experiences. So like right now, if anyone comes to Las Vegas, you got to try this though, you know, it's pretty selective. I'm training with a former Navy seal. Team six. Team six, guy named Steve Sanders. Incredible. Like six bronze stars for valor, one silver star for valor in combat, I guess high value targets. I think he spent like 20 something years in the teams like 10 years of the SEAL Team 6. Yeah. Like, he's been in hundreds of firefights. Very humble, very. No nonsense. And I'm studying combat shooting with him. And it's like learning martial arts from a true master. And I love doing things like that. That's a, you know, for. Everyone's got their own definition of what will fulfill them. And for me, it's learning from masters. I love it. And if you ever come to Vegas, look him up. I think his site is Six Shooters.com and he doesn't take, like, the average person. He's like, you have to be committed. And he really likes me because I'm very committed. I'm like, you're sensei. I'm just here to learn. I'm the student. But that's the kind of stuff I'm doing right now. The experiences where I'm learning, I love doing. Yeah, yeah.

Love that. Couple more questions before we wrap up here. Kamal, what would be if you were to go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice? In business or in just life overall, what would that advice be and why?

I would say you're way better than you think. Like, just because that keeps. I look back and that held me back from doing things. Not always, but held me back. And it took more for me to do things, you know? Like, it's so interesting how a simple thing in mindset can change your life. Like, literally make you a lot of money. I'll give you a very simple example. I used to do these private dinners in San Francisco, which was for entrepreneurs, right? And it was just like, get together, share journeys, whatever. The last one I did, one of the last ones I did, there was a guy there who ended up raising the round for his first seed round for his company in Angelus a month later. And a few guys at that table put in a 25k check. I didn't at the time, even though I talked to him later, showing me how great they were doing. And I was like, I use your service. I love it. I'm such a fan. So. Because at that time, in my mind, I was like, well, I'm just an entrepreneur. I'm not an investor. I don't know enough. Right. Even though all my, like, I know very smart people who are in it. Well, that 25k made those people probably like 16 to 25 million. That company is called Uber.

Oh, my goodness.

Right?

No way.

So the one thing I would tell myself is you're. You're better. You're better than you think.

Wow.

You don't have to. Like, I always thought I'll be an investor when I reach a certain point, when I know enough. Well. Or this, that I knew enough at that point. When he told me, I remember going into First Run Capital's offices and it was just maybe a couple of people in the. In the company. He was showing me his first week's revenue. He was so excited. He was like, look, I think they had like $70,000 that week. And I was like, dude, this is great. The hockey stick up into the right. I'm like, congratulations. What I should have been doing is if I just shift my mindset, like, hey, I could put money in my friend's company. Like, so I think just something along the lines of, you're better than you think. And you learn that as you get older, you're like, shit. I just wish I'd known there earlier. Yeah. You know, it's. Yeah. Nothing. I mean, I don't know if it's profound or not, but it's just.

Yeah, no, it's great. I love that answer. Last question. We wrap up here. Kamal, you know, you talk about loving yourself, and of course I'm going to make sure people can click the link down below to grab your book.

Thank you.

But what's a tactical piece of advice, you know, before they pick up the book, before they dive into it, that someone can apply today to love themselves more?

I mean, look, there's a question I often ask myself, and I found this. I made this part of the practice, which was if I was ever at a crossroads or if I was making decisions, and I would. And this takes practice because if you're just used to automatically making bad choices, you know, I don't know why we do that, but we did. It was if I love myself. And the if is very important because it doesn't. The brain can't go, well, I don't. But if I love myself, what would I do? A very simple question. You could use it in any situation in your entire life. There's not a situation doesn't apply to. Yeah. And then you answer that. Then it's up to you to follow it. But then you can't lie to yourself. I'm a big believer. Don't lie to yourself. Be honest with yourself. Even if you make the poor choice, make it with open eyes. Because when you take responsibility to your to for your actions, but then something special happens. You become a special kind of person. People feel that.

Yeah.

So that's a very practical, very simple. Anyone can do and it was just I came up with this whole practice and basically, in the larger version, decided to sit down and write the manual for loving yourself. Right. And this is part of that. I love this. It's very simple. You know, you can use it for. Yeah, I can't think of a situation that wouldn't apply.

No, I love that. Well, I know you haven't been on social media for a little over a year now, but this is going to be on social.

Okay.

And if people are watching or. And for people that are. That have watched this far, where's the best place that people can stay in touch with you? Buy your book and just stay connected with you.

I'm going to go back on Instagram and Twitter and all the usual.

Welcome back.

Well, thank you. Actually, today. Yeah, today I was on Twitter because of what's happening in Ukraine. I wanted to see what was happening. But I'll go back, you know, because a lot of my readers reach out to me over there and my email address is in the book, you know, and just email me. I'll respond.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, I'm friendly.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, everyone watching or listening, and of course, Kamal, thank you so much for coming on today. And if you're still watching this far, make sure you subscribe to the Casey Adams Show. And of course, thank you so much to the Blue Wire Studios for having us here in Vegas. I'll talk to you guys soon.

You're awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

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