156 – Sahil Bloom

What changed when Covid hit was I'm not traveling three days a week and I'm not commuting. And as a result, I'm not really working like 80 to 100 hour weeks like I was before. And when you're wired like I am, the first thought that went through my head wasn't like, oh, this is so nice. I have time to like sit back and do nothing. It was like, what am I gonna do with all this time that I now have in my life? I'm like gonna go crazy if I'm stuck at home and I don't have a social life. And I need to.

Sahil, great to see you, man. I'm so excited that you can join us today.

I'm excited to be here. I feel like this is a long time coming with all of the text and Twitter interactions that we've all had over the last couple of years. So I'm excited to get to do this live and share it.

Yeah, this will be so much fun. So, you know, Steve and I were huddling on a jumping off point because you are a jack of many trades and you do many trades well. But I want to rewind to 2012 and you're playing collegiate baseball and you're on ESPN and I believe you're a pitcher and you give up a grand slam. Can you walk us through some of the context around that moment?

Yes. So it's, you know, you're drawing on something that's in my Twitter bio, obviously. You know where I say that I gave up a grand slam on ESPN and have yet to it land. The context around that is it's my junior season at Stanford, so I was fortunate in the first place to be there and be playing. And I definitely don't take that for granted. It was a big stretch for me to go play there. Frankly, I didn't know that at the time. I was a cocky high school senior and thought that I was going to walk on and be a stud. It was a big stretch when I got there and realized how good everyone else was. But look, I mean, I really grinded away my freshman and sophomore year to kind of like earn a big key role. My junior year and my junior season was phenomenal. And, you know, it had been pitching really well the whole season and been in a key kind of like late relief role for much of that year. And we came down to the end of the year and the way college baseball works is 64 teams go into the playoffs. You play at 16 regional sites of four teams and one team comes out of each of those and goes to what's called super regionals, which is the best 16 teams in the country. So the week before that home run, we were hosting a regional at Stanford. And I came in and closed the regional championship game against Pepperdine. Almost gave up a game tying home run in the ninth inning that went foul, like questionably foul. It might have been a fair ball. Umps called it foul. And I remember like putting my glove over my face and laughing into my glove because I just remember feeling invincible of like, okay, if that is called a foul ball, like I'm getting out of this game. Like we're, we're winning this game. Like if the luck is just going my way in that way tonight. So anyway, I end up winning that game. I get to save highest high I can possibly imagine on a field, highest high of my life as an athlete for sure, and probably of my life to date as a human being. You know, like, dad is in the stands, you know, getting to like come off the field and hug him. It's like one of my best memories of my entire life. Fast forward one week later and I'm again on the mound in a big situation. We're playing Florida State in Tallahassee, you know, 10,000 fans that hate our guts, screaming. And I come into the game, bases are loaded, and you know, throw a, you know, in hindsight, a meatball and the guy hits a grand slam. And all I remember thinking is just like, what a high to low in a short period of time from like the highest high I could possibly imagine on a baseball field to the lowest low. Like, you can't get worse than what that moment feels and looks like. And again, my dad's in the stands, you know, my girlfriend, now wife, was in the stands and had to see that one. All my friends watching on tv, it's like the biggest moment of my baseball career. And so that's the context around it. I mean, it was like the highest high to the lowest low.

Do you still think about it? And the reason I ask is I, I never played sports at that level, but I was a good high school athlete. And you know, I feel like I'm a pretty well adjusted adult. I have two kids now. I'm happily married. But man, once a month I'll have a dream that like, puts me back in the state playoffs and high school football and like, you know, a route that I didn't run the right way or. Does that ever happen to you?

I don't have dreams or nightmares about like, this specific game. And part of that is because in hindsight, as I've reflected on it, I've actually pulled some, like, very positive threads out of it. The biggest one being I got the next guy out. So I gave up this grand slam. The whole crowd's going nuts, whatever, and made the next pitch and got the next guy to ground out to get out of the inning. Didn't help us. We were then blown out. I'd given up a grand slam. We lost the game. But there's something really important in that message of, like, you're not dead and so you're still in the fight. And I got back up and got the next guy out. I wasn't knocked out. And, like, as I think about lessons to teach my son and his life as he goes and pursues new things and has to experience failure, that's the one that I draw from that. So I don't really look back on that as some, like, horrible, you know, thing that I feel regret around that pitch. It was actually a really important, informative lesson in my life. What I do get is the, like, anxiety dream about baseball where I get called into a game and I stand on the mound and realize I forget how to throw. And, like, I'm holding the ball and going to throw and my arm just doesn't work. Like, I can't get it to move, or, like, I feel like I'm moving through mud, which I think is like a classic anxiety dream of athletes, that you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be so good at, and you literally just can't do it for whatever. For whatever reason. So I do still get that one, you know, alongside all the classics, like showing up to a math test and I haven't been to class all year. Whatever, you know, the ones everyone experiences, 100%.

I still get that in running. I feel like I'm stuck in mud. And it's like, you just see everyone going by and it's just like, what. What's going on? I can't do the thing I know how to do. It's just funny how those similar, like, experiences and dreams just, like, stick with you.

Yeah. I don't know what the seeds of it, like, would be either, because I, you know, I could kind of see it. Like, if you were in baseball, there was this thing called the yips, which is, like, an actual psychological thing that a lot of players face. And it's now common in other sports, or at least they talk about it in other sp, where, like, you literally lose the ability to do the thing that you've been doing your whole life. And it's an awful thing to watch happen to someone. Like, one of the most traumatizing things I've ever seen was this lefty pitcher who was on our team at Stanford who came in as a freshman and was, like, going to be a star. You saw him and you were just like, this guy's going to cruise through college, end up in the majors. Going to be unbelievable. And in the spring of our freshman year, right before the season started, he came out to pitch in one of our inter squad scrimmages, and he was going to be like, one of our top two or three pitchers as a freshman. And the first pitch in warmups that he threw, he threw like 10ft over the catcher's head to the backstop. And I remember seeing it out of the corner of my eye and being like, huh, that was weird. And I don't. I swear to God, I didn't see him throw another strike the rest of his life. Like something had just flipped. I don't know what it was. And it was terrifying to watch because I just remember thinking, like, man, you're that close. Like, just one little thing, and you're that close to not being able to do the thing that you've been doing your whole life. It's like a very, very scary thought.

Yeah. And, you know, there's actually a lot of research that ties in the yips and choking or whatever to almost like a trauma experience. So, like, going down that. That thing, it is, like, experience that trauma. I want to stay on baseball really quickly before we pivot off of that. Is you mentioned in there that coming from high school, cocky high school kid, really good at high school, like, struggling to kind of realize, hey, I'm not as good as I thought. What was that like? And how did you adjust? Because I've witnessed other athletes, other people go from that, like, big fish, small pond to that, you know, small fish, big pond, and just not be able to kind of do the work or get through it. So what was that experience like, and how do you think you got through that?

I think it's really important to get punched in the face in life, you know, And I say that metaphorically, but also literally sometimes. And coming into my freshman year at Stanford, I really hadn't been punched in the face in. In life. You know, I had had, you know, a lot of good fortune in terms of my, you know, academic ability as. As a high school. I went to a public high school, so it wasn't particularly difficult. Things had generally come pretty easy to me athletically. I went to a small high school in Massachusetts, public high school, and I was throwing, I don't know, 88, 90 miles an hour. And that was really, really hard there in Massachusetts. And so I might as well have been throwing 100, hadn't been, you know, encountering, like, a significant amount of struggle in those main endeavors that I've been going through. I got to Stanford, and that was the punch in the face. And it was day one. I mean, I got there, and I showed up to the locker room, and in the locker room, everyone's got a locker, right? There's, like, 35 guys on the team. There's like, 30, you know, 30 lockers, or, like, individual lockers with your number and your name on it, which is, like, a big deal. You've never had that your whole life. And then there was two lockers that were shared. And the shared lockers is, like, the sign that you're, like, at the bott of the. I mean, if you're sharing, you're, like, literally in the bottom couple guys. And I had a shared locker. And I remember coming into the locker room that day and seeing that and just having this, like, holy shit moment of like, oh, you're. You're really not the guy. Like, not only are you not the guy, but you're not the guy. Not the guy. Like, you're all the way on the bottom of this thing. And that was, like, a big reckoning for me. I mean, that. And then academically, I go to the classroom and realize I'm not that smart, and I'm going to really have to work hard to figure things out. And I remember calling my dad and being, like, pretty rattled about it, frankly. It wasn't an easy thing. It wasn't an easy one to experience. And he kind of just said to me, like, remember why you're there, and remember what you're actually made of from a character perspective. And that really stuck with me. It was like, baseball isn't the only thing that I can do, because a lot of the teammates I was around, they were really baseball first. And my parents were both academics. They were both academically oriented. My dad's a professor at Harvard. And so him reminding me that you're more than just that was really, really impactful in terms of my trajectory from there.

Yeah, that's. You know, I really resonate with that. I started my college career at Rice, so similarly, I got my ass kicked when I went to classes and had to actually, like, try for the first time. And grades were horrible. And then on the, on the track, I was the. In high school, I was the fastest miler in the country. And then getting my ass kicked in workouts, I'm like, what is going on? Like, I'm supposed to be the star. So it really is kind of, you know, it gives you a nice perspective on, okay, what really matters.

One, I think people go, you know, one way or another when they get their ass kicked, which is an important thing. You know, it's not like, oh, get your ass kicked, succeed. It's not like there's this direct correlation for everyone in the world. Right. A lot of people get their ass kicked and then never come back from it. Like, are just. You never see them again. They get their ass kicked on the field and never regain the confidence to kind of have that. Like, you need a little bit of the cockiness you almost need in order to succeed at a high level in anything. This, like, irrational wiring at some level where you're able to get your ass kicked and simultaneously absorb the learnings from that to get better, but also have this cockiness of like, ah, they. They ain't. That wasn't anything like that. Didn't say anything about who I am as a player, as a, you know, as a student, etc. I'm still the best. And the guys that were able to do that athletic, like, in baseball, the guys that were able to do that are the guys that are still playing. Like, you still see them playing on major league fields because they, they were able to absorb and get better as they went, but they never let those failures actually chip away at that, like, internal confidence that they somehow had.

Yeah, it's the great. Dan Kahneman's research on entrepreneurs shows that entrepreneurs that are successful score really highly on psychological measures of delusion. And it makes total sense. You have to be delusional to think that you're going to start a company and scale it because probabilistically the odds are that you're not. I don't know what it is. Less than 1% of companies really go big. So to think that you're going to beat those odds, you have to be a little delusional. And he talks about how we need delusional people like that, otherwise we wouldn't have innovation. I think what we're also seeing right now in tech is that sometimes that delusion can get the best of people and it can go in pretty.

Pretty perverse directions.

Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, it's a Fine line to where like hubris actually kills you, right? And it's survivorship bias too, right? Like, we will go and look at all these delusional entrepreneurs, like the crazy ones, and it's this marker of success and we all love it. But there's just as many crazy ones who have their ship at the bottom of the ocean, right? And they just died along the way for being crazy. The other thing about it is, it's, it's delusion. And the ones we really hear about, it's delusion on steroids because they actually had an idea that was so crazy to everyone at the time. Like, it's one thing for me come and tell you today, you know, hey, I'm going to go build a big newsletter. And you're sort of like, yeah, that's been done before. Or like, hey, I'm going to go write a best selling book. And you say to me, Brad, like, yeah, I think you could do that. That's been done before. Here are the things that would make it a best selling book. Here are the things you can do to make it more successful. Like that doesn't. That might be a little delusional, like maybe 2% delusional for me to say that to you when I haven't written one yet. But really delusional is me coming to you in 2005 and saying, hey, I'm going to start a rocket company that's going to like send things to space because no one has done that outside. And that's ridiculous. That sounds crazy. And so those are the ones it's like delusion on steroids that you actually end up hearing about that are like the world changing stories, which leads to more of that, you know, sort of survivorship bias of like, those are the stories we hear about is the delusion on steroids and not the delusion that ends up leading you into the bottom of the ocean.

Yeah, 100%. All right, so you, you finished playing at Stanford. Was there any thought of trying to get drafted or was that something that you considered?

Yeah, I mean, I thought I was going to play professionally. I would say so in high school. That was like, you know, my dream. I was going to go play professional baseball. I thought about trying to go play and foregoing college actually, but I wasn't good enough to like get a really big bonus that would have, you know, made that make sense. But I thought I would go play for three years and then get drafted and, and that would be that, you know, what happened I would say would be twofold One was my own mentality around it. I realized fairly early on that I wasn't going to make like a long career out of baseball. I realized that I didn't throw quite as hard as other people. I didn't have, like, the same general talent level that might be required to go make it and have a really long career. And I had other interests. I was starting to get excited about things academically, getting excited about investing about different things that were outside of the field that candidly, just make it a little hard. Like you have to be obsessed with that thing in order to really achieve at that point.01% level that's required in order to make it and make a long career. So by the time my junior year came around, I thought I would go give it a shot. And then unfortunately, I got hurt. So my. It's actually the summer before my junior year, I pulled. Pulled something in my shoulder and I basically slowly went. I didn't get surgery because I didn't want to do the, like, 18 months of recovery for shoulder surgery, especially coming into the year when I was going to be, like, have a chance at being one of the main guys. And so I kind of just grinded through pretty bad pain that whole junior season throwing. And I went from, like, you know, opening day throwing about 92 to by the end of that season, I was throwing like 84, 85. And you're not getting drafted throwing 84, 85. I was getting guys out because I was crafty as hell and just like, throwing strikes. And I was just going to come at you over and over and over again and just keep showing up. And you weren't going to, like. I wasn't going to walk guys. I think I might have walked like five guys in 50 innings or something. I just. I wasn't going to give you anything. And so it's hard to score runs. But I was no longer a pro prospect as a result of, you know, that kind of deterioration in velocity. And so it kind of got taken away from me in a certain way, which in hindsight I look back on as a blessing, because I think I probably could have gone and, like, toiled away in the minors for a few years only to not make it, which might have been a struggle for me starting my career, but that was kind of the story of what happened.

How did that impact you in that moment, though? Because presumably your identity is around the sport, like it's what you care about. And then because of an injury, like, you have to kind of quickly pivot.

Yeah, it was Easier. The junior year one was easier because it was that slow burn of like the slow deterioration velocity that allowed me to kind of like. I almost like got acclimated to the fact over time that I probably wasn't going to get drafted that year. It was really challenging that next year. So I came back my senior year. I tried to like rehab that summer and kind of get back to where I was healthy and feeling good. And you know, I basically, I came back my last year at Stanford with hopes of like, hey, maybe I'll be back. And my arm just wasn't having it. And I kind of had one day where I, I went to throw and basically I was like, the pain was so bad that I was trying to kind of change the way I threw to like protect your. I mean, your body just naturally tries to do that, right? It's like having a hamstring injury and you try to run like your body's going to run in a weird way to protect it. And I was trying to do that and I basically went to throw a ball and I just felt something and I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, it just physically I don't feel like I can do this anymore. And it was causing all this stress. Like I was broken out, you know, had all this like acne. Like all of these other areas of my life were being impacted by, by the stress that it was creating. And so I walked away from the field. I told the coaches, hey, can't do this anymore, I'm gonna hang it up. That was, you know, it was in my, my fifth year that I was back and I remember calling my dad and that was what I was most emotional about and nervous about. You know, my dad and I had had an amazing relationship built around baseball my whole life. He had always dropped everything to be there for my games, to coach my little league team. He was at every single high school game that I pitched in or that I played in. I mean, he must have come out to Stanford 20 times on weekends when I didn't play a single game. My freshman sophomore year, you know, I played a couple times. Like, you know, he was out there always supporting me. Junior year, I mean, they were literally out there every single weekend because I was pitching a lot. And so much of our relationship in my mind had been formed around this sport. And so calling him to tell him that I was no longer going to do this thing or that I was quitting felt like a betrayal. Like, in my mind I was like, oh my God, I'm going to be betraying my dad. And he's going to be so, you know, he's going to be so disappointed in me. Even now, like, talking about it, I feel emotional thinking about that conversation. And, you know, I called him and I said, like, look, I can't. I kind of was crying and I was like, I can't do it anymore. And he just, he literally, like, he paused and just, literally was like, I don't care. And I remember being like, what do you mean you don't care? This is our. And he was like, no, like, whatever's next, you're going to go and absolutely crush, like, you're going to channel that same energy and excitement and enthusiasm into whatever it is that comes up next. And, like, I'm super excited for that phase, for this next phase of who you are as a person and to be a part of that. And that was like this massive weight off my shoulders and this incredible feeling of warmth and love, of, like, that is what a father's love looks like to me and the type of love that I want to have now with my son of, like, whatever it is, I'm just there and I'm going to support you in whatever that next endeavor is.

Wow, what a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing that. And Sahil, is your dad still alive?

He is, yeah, he is. He's still around. And, you know, one of the big reasons we moved back to the east coast recently was to get closer to him and to my mom and to my wife's parents. They're like, they're getting to the age now where, you know, things happen and my dad's got some health things going on. And so, you know, it's just like being close and being able to see them and get. Have them get to spend so much time with their grandkids now. I mean, just, I can't imagine a better blessing.

Love it. So did you go directly into finance following school? And it's funny because I remember I spent some time at McKinsey and they used to say that super hardworking, driven, insecure people go work at McKinsey and super hardworking, driven, confident people going to finance. So you gave up that grand slam. You looked it in the eye. You said, screw it. I'm going to get the next guy out. That sounds like it's the right archetype. So walk us through in brief from there to phase two or your second big identity, which is in private equity.

So I'm going to throw a slight wrench into your identity thing because I turned down a job at McKinsey at the very last minute to take this job that I took in finance. So, you know, for context on that, basically, you know, baseball was gone about around, like the fall of my last year at school. I'm doing my master's, so I have a little more time. And I was trying to figure out, okay, what's next. I was fortunate to have a bunch of, like, mentors through my baseball days who were helpful in guiding me into what different paths look like. My entire focus was like, how can I make six figures? That was just for whatever reason, that was what was on my mind as, like, being a successful starting career coming out of Stanford. And so, you know, I went and talked to these guys, and most of those guys that I talked to were in some way, shape or form in investing. They were either in private equity or in the hedge fund world or investment funds, whatever it was. And what they all told me was like, you go do two years in banking or two years in consulting, and then you go to private equity or the hedge fund world, and that's how you're going to make bank. Like, that's how you're going to make so much money. You don't know what to do with it. In my mind, I was like, ooh, ooh, that sounds. That sounds great. So I went and started the, like, whole recruiting hustle. And it was tough because I didn't have any internship experience. I didn't have any real skills. I mean, I like, if they'd asked me to build a financial model, I would have stared at them blankly. I did go to an interview and they asked me what my weakness was, you know, for a finance job. And I said, I don't know accounting. And the person kind of laughed awkwardly. And I was like, no, seriously, I don't know accounting. And they were like, oh, that's a real weakness. You know, normally people say, like, I'm too detail oriented or something. And I was like, nope, I don't know accounting. I don't know what that is. So, you know, like, I went and interviewed at these places and ultimately I met this firm who was just starting out in the Bay Area, and they were pretty intimately involved. The founder was pretty intimately involved with Stanford athletics and was a big proponent of, like, hiring athletes. And I didn't know it at the time, but they were starting this analyst program. I went and met with them and they called me back for the final round interview and I said, no, thanks. You know, I said, hey, look, you're in the Bay Area. I've been away from home for a really long time. My girlfriend at the time, who I'd been dating since high school, I've been doing long distance with her for the last five years now and she's in New York. I'm going to move to New York, be closer to family, and we're finally going to be together. The partner called me back. I sent an email saying no. The partner called me and explained to me on like a 30 minute call why that might not be the best decision, why I should come in and at least meet them for a full day. And so I was like, okay, sure. So I go in for this, like full day of final round interviews and just fall in love with this group, the people, the entire energy of it and what I was going to be working on. And I left and I was like, oh my God. Holy. I blew it because I told them I didn't want to work here and now they're not going to give me the offer. They're just going to think that I'm not going to take it, so they're not going to give it to me. Fortunately, they did. And I ended up joining as one of the first group of analysts in that summer. Much to my, like, Indian mother who wanted the name brand firm that I wasn't going to like. She wanted me to go join McKinsey because it's the name brand, you know, that she can go tell my grandmother and that everyone will understand what I'm.

Doing to being a doctor. Right?

Yeah. I mean, it's like the fact that I'm not a doctor, Rhodes Scholar or McKinsey, you know, or Goldman Sachs is like a big, big knock on my, on my resume with my mom. The fact that I'm writing a book with Penguin Random House, huge deal. Like really, really impactful, you know, for like redeeming myself in her eyes. But you know, and much to my, you know, then girlfriend, now wife's chagrin as well, because we were going to have to do more long distance after five years of long distance, which is like ludicrous in hindsight to think about. So I took that job and ended up staying in the Bay Area and it ended up being amazing. I mean, it was a, it was a really impactful time because they were early and so there was a small group and I was getting to take on a lot of things. It was also really important that frankly, my girlfriend, now wife, and I were apart during those first two years of our career because we were really able to like focus on the one thing and go really, really deep. And for me, in terms of my trajectory, that was when I felt like I really accelerated into that new identity.

So at what point did you feel like, and maybe it happened right in those two years that you're kind of hitting escape velocity in finance and your mindset is oh, six figures, like let's talk about seven. I want to be a partner at investment bank or at a PE firm. Was that ever like the end point or.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean I would like those careers, private equity, banking, all of those careers in the like finance track, have a like very tried and true trajectory that you can follow. There's sort of like the normal path and then there's the accelerated path. And you know, if you're on the accelerated path, like they're telling you early on, the first few years are always standard because they don't want to like piss people off by promoting other people early. But you know, if you're one of the people that's like, you know, two years analyst, you know, year and a half associate, maybe year and a half senior associate, and then you're a VP by like 27, 28, you're like on that accelerated path. And if you've made it to vp, like that's them telling you, hey, we view you as a future partner of this firm. And then it becomes about doing good deals and doing, you know, doing a good job on things. And for me it was like, this is kind of what I do. I didn't know anything about finance. What I knew about was showing up every single day with unbelievable intensity, energy, attitude, effort, et cetera. And I knew about building rapport with a lot of different types of people. And as it turned out, that's what the job was. I mean, I literally had to. We were investing in a lot of like family owned businesses across the country. I had to be able to go into a unique set of situations as a young person and interact and get along and develop a rapport with people. And that was what I was good at because I played sports my whole life with people from different backgrounds and different teams and different political affiliations and different ethnicities, races, religions, et cetera. That's literally what I had had to do. And that was the skill set that I had built without knowing it. And so I found that in that environment I thrived. And what I noticed early on was like, I'm going to be a good analyst. I think I'm going to be an excellent partner. Because the partner job, which is what I was looking at from the get go. I was like, I don't want to be a great analyst. I kind of just decided that early on, I was like, I don't want to be the best analyst in the world. I want to be the best partner. Like, if that's what I want to do really well, I got to be watching those people and seeing what the partners are doing. Well, I don't want to see what the great analysts are doing because I'm just going to. I want to just get by. I want to just be fine at this job and then really start to accelerate. And those jobs are all about selling. They're all about relationships. They're all about, you know, the actual, like, business skills. It's not Excel models or PowerPoint slides anymore at that point. They don't even have those on their computer. They have iPads or something. So, I mean, at an early stage, I. I kind of started to figure that out. And I felt like I kind of started to figure out the cheat codes to the system of how to get to the point B that I really, at the time at least thought I wanted.

All right, so one more question, then I'm going to turn it over to Steve. And we're kind of doing this chronologically. Excuse me, to get to the present. So there's like this myth, and maybe it's myth, maybe you'll tell us it's true, that you're on this skyrocketing trajectory in finance. You're well on your way to being a partner, and then Covid happens, and one morning you wake up and you're like, screw it. I don't think I really want to be doing this. I'm going to try to build a huge platform on the Internet and just follow my curiosities and see if I can monetize it and shit, two years later, you've basically done that. So, like, let's first kind of separate between fact and fiction here.

So that's mostly fiction. That sounds like mostly myth. And I'll reposition the actual truth that kind of does exist within that thread. So Covid happens. I am like, on the trajectory. Things are going great. I'm at the time considered to be one of the future partners of the firm. The fund is doing really well. Great group of people that I still to this day love very, very deeply. And what changed when Covid hit was I'm not traveling three days a week, which is what I was doing before flying all over the place, and I'm not commuting. And as A result, I'm not really working like 80 to 100 hour weeks like I was before. And when you're wired like I am, the first thought that went through my head wasn't like, oh, this is so nice. I have time to like sit back and do nothing. It was like, what am I going to do with all this time that I now have in my life? I'm like going to go crazy if I'm stuck at home and I don't have a social life and I need to do something. And so for me, that thing was a creative outlet which was writing. And I had always loved writing when I was a kid. At the time, I had this tiny little newsletter that I would send out once a month of things I was reading I would like send out a newsletter to. It had grown to maybe a thousand people. And it was the books that I had read that month with a little rating and a few pithy remarks on the book. And I was like, I really like writing. I want to figure out something to do with that. So I had a Twitter account from my baseball days. Few hundred followers. I was opening Twitter a lot because there was a lot happening in the economy and in the markets that I was interested in. And I just realized that no one was simplifying the stuff that was happening. There was a whole ton of jargon, complexity, etc. That was out there. And I had all these friends from my baseball days who were constantly hitting me up saying like, dude, what the hell is going on? Like, explain to me like, I'm five what is happening in the markets right now? And so that was what I started doing. I started just like writing these little tweet threads, really before threads existed and definitely before they were a meme that they are today. You know, I started just writing these little Twitter threads, and very quickly I found that there was like a clear product market fit to it. Like, there was demand. People were pulling it, you know, wanting more messaging, me, sharing it. And my platform started to grow. But there was never a point in 2020, you know, that all started May of 2020. There was never a point in 2020 when I thought, oh, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to be a Twitter, you know, writer. And like, this is. I'm going to monetize this and here's how I'm going to build the business. Never even remotely on my mind. By the end of that year, I'd probably grown it to like 75, 80,000 followers. Zero. I mean, there was no money in it. There was no newsletter. There was literally nothing. So it was just all of 2020 was just like, I was just interested and I had time on my hands.

Yeah. I want to. I want to say something that I think is really important. Well, two things. They're both important. One, for our listeners that follow Steve and I on Twitter and that are annoyed to death at our threads, you can think, Sahil, because I distinctly remember, like, two and a half years ago, calling Steve and being like, there's this guy that's, like, doing these string of tweets together, and they're great. And we can just take the highlights of our book and do this on Twitter. So you've had a big impact on us, for better and worse. And then the second thing, in all seriousness, that's really important, and it's something that we've alluded to in past episodes. It's a big part of our book. The passion paradox is this research that shows that there is this myth that says when you find something that you're passionate about, you should quit your day job and go all in. And the research is unequivocal that people that end up actually getting to do what they want to do, they do it very gradually. And the reason for this, at least researchers hypothesize, is that once you have a stable source of income and some stability, it allows you to worry about quality and take better risks. On the other end of the barbell, it's like Nassim Talib's barbell, right? You want to be an accountant and a rock star, because if you quit your job, well, then suddenly you need to monetize right away, and maybe some of your threads that you're writing are a little too deep, and you'd be better off doing kind of clickbait articles. Well, then, boom, that's what you're doing. And five years down the road, you're like, oh, why am I doing clickbait? So for people that are listening to this and saying, hey, I'm in a role that I don't really like, I think that I have creative talent, or I think that I want to build something. It certainly has been my experience.

Steve's.

It sounds like yours. And the research bears this out. Is that the best way to do it is really, really gradually. So that's a ton of sense.

I mean, it makes a ton of sense to me because, I mean. And I think you see that playing out in what has driven threads to become a meme, frankly, is, like, this growth at all costs. Mentality around the content people are putting out. And I think it's because a lot of these people are like, oh, I'm going to drop everything else and this is how I'm going to make my money. And I think what you find when you pursue that is it's not going to be a particularly smooth journey because the people that you're attracting, it's, you know, it's going to be lower quality, right? Like the people that you're attracting to your work aren't the people that you necessarily want to or that are going to be buying that first thing that you drop because they're so excited about you and who you are as a person. But, you know, to complete the thread and to complete the story, you know, thread, pun intended, I Suppose I. In 2021 and at the end of 2020, one of the partners kind of asked me, what are you doing? What is all this stuff that you're doing in private equity? In hedge funds too? Being public is not a thing. Posting, writing things, having a public face, it's not really a thing. Those industries have typically been more reserved and not out front. Not the VC world where people want to build a brand because it helps with deal flow. And so it was very weird what I was doing and I think, think, you know, people had started to ask, like, was I spending time that I should have been working on this other stuff? And so they, they asked me and at the, and that, that conversation when they asked me like, what are you doing? Was the first time I thought, like, huh, maybe this isn't the, the right thing for me to be doing long term, you know, balancing these two careers. I wonder if there's something else that, you know, would be a better mix and a better suit for my talents. And so heading into 2021, that was on my mind. What actually sparked the entire change was, you know, a combination of what I would call or characterize as a panic attack and a little bit of like a, you know, a breakdown. And that was precipitated by a conversation I had with a friend at around like May of 2021. Went out to dinner with, with an old friend and you know, we were talking about family stuff and he, you know, was talking about how life was. And I said, you know, things are, things are pretty good. I'm progressing, I'm making more money, you know, at my job and that, that means I'm successful, obviously. And you know, he asked like, what were challenges? And I said, well, I live really far from my parents and I See them maybe once a year right now. And he looked me straight in the face and said, okay, so you're going to see your parents 15 more times before they die. And I remember just feeling like I had just gotten punched in the gut. And we had a few more drinks and I went home that night. And the next morning I woke up on the floor like I had passed out. And I woke up on the floor and I felt like I couldn't get up. Like, I felt like I had this weight on my chest and I just couldn't get up. And it was that moment that I realized that something had to change. That, like, I had been pursuing this, you know, money and wealth and success at all costs life that was robbing me of so many other aspects of what I consider to be true wealth. And I told my wife that day that I wanted to move back to the East Coast. That's mid May of 2021. And within 45 days, we had sold our house in California, bought a house on the east coast and moved back across the country. And I had quit my job. And that was really the turning point of, like, I'm going to go, you know, all in on these things that I've been building.

Okay, that was really powerful. Thanks for sharing that. It just, you know, what I'm wrestling with is for so much of your early career, it seems like, how can I make six figures? How can I make money? But how do you have the ability in that moment to say my mindset on what success was, was this for most of my working career. And in this moment now I see that that was kind of BS and I need to shift and pivot over here.

I think there was a little bit of a gradual burn where, you know, from the time that I think I had that conversation with that partner, through that may conversation with the friend, I had started to think about these things and say, like, well, do I want that life? Like, do I? Am I just pursuing it because I think that's what I want? Or do I want, like, do I want to be the partner? Do I? Do I? Like, do I? If my life looked exactly the same as that ultra successful partner that's sitting there at the top, would I be happy? Like, would I be getting to coach my kids, little league team, something that I really want to do when I grow up, would I be getting to spend time with my family? Would I not have to be traveling all the time? There were a whole lot of things that I had just sort of never thought about, never questioned the Assumptions never peeled back at because it was all clouded in this thing that I thought of as success, which was money. And that had started to get chipped away at because I had started asking myself questions. I had started saying like, like, well, I'm not able to see my friends all that much because I'm traveling all the time and I'm a little overweight right now and out of shape and you know, broken out because I'm stressed all the time and I'm not present with my wife because I'm worried about getting emails and you know, we're struggling to have a child right now. Like, I wonder if that has anything to do with things that are going on and I'm not able to see my mom. And you know, and then I had that conversation with a friend and that was like, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. So it had kind of built up and then that moment was when I was like, oh my God, you know, this is punching me in the face and I have to do something about it now. Fortunately, I had built the business, you know, the side hustle stuff. Like the business side had at that point, you know, over the first several months of that year grown to the point where I was making more money from it than I was my day job. And so financially it felt like a hedged bet. It was risky because it was like the safe path from here to partner was very clear. It was like very clear what I have to do in order to get from point A to point B. And I was turning that down to go after this riskier thing. But my wife's support around it was really what told me that I could do it. Like I thought she, she's pretty risk averse in my mind or in my mind she was. And I like her saying, like, why don't you go do this thing? You love it and you're doing great at it and it's working and you're making money off of it. Like, why wouldn't you just do more of that and see what happens? It was almost like it was obvious in her mind. And to me it was like so scary and terrifying. Like she broke down the fear in my own mind with how obvious she made it seem. And that was what really unlocked it for me.

I'm curious, would you tell 22 year old Sahil, like, hey, don't chase the outcomes, the money. Or do you think going through that experience and realizing it yourself was vital for You?

Yeah, I don't believe in revisionist history. Like, I don't think I would end up where I am today without having to do all of those things. And I look, I mean, I had an amazing experience at that firm. Like the group of people, what I learned, the experiences I got at a young age, the hard work that I put in to earn those experiences, all of that was so formative in terms of getting to where I am today. And a lot of it, you know, has built the like, I don't know if I would call it wisdom, but at least the insights that I feel like I'm able to compile and share when I go and, you know, write or when I talk to people in my journey and my own experience with kind of understanding, you know, the different types of wealth is really what I'm writing, writing about. And it's what I'm kind of creating into this book now. And so I don't think I could go back and change all of it. I wouldn't change a thing if I had to.

You know, I'm glad you brought that up because it also ties into kind of what you said about the thread memes is like, I think one of the differentiators is the real earned experience versus this. I'm just doing this to grow. And one question I had on that. So you leave the kind of, okay, the money is the success, but you enter another field where the trap is just kind of as large, especially going from like a nobody online to like somebody where that trap can be, well, I'm going to get my success from status and notoriety and all that good stuff. So how do you deal with that?

Yeah, I mean, the Vanity Metric poll is very real within this world, as you guys know, right? Like the follower counts are visible, people can see them, you know, likes and engagement or, or whatever it is that you choose to measure your success by.

Just wait till you pour your heart and soul in a book and everyone talks about it for two years.

Yeah, well, hopefully everyone talks about it for two years, you guys.

It depends on what they're saying.

No, look, I mean, I think it's very clear that when you tie your definition of success to something extrinsic, you're setting yourself up for lower happiness and well being. I recently saw like a meta analysis of, of 100 plus studies across 70,000 people that looked at this and it was definitive that when you tie things to, when you tie your definition of success to things that are external, you have lower overall well being. And so what I'VE always tried to do, you know, like, since that pivot has been okay, well, how am I feeling? Like focus on the internal and focus on the intrinsic definitions of success. And for me, that's like writing things that I'm proud of and that I'm excited about writing about. I don't write anything in advance. Like, I don't have a content. There are people that do. Like, I, I, and I admire someone that can be that organized and that can be that, you know, like that much of, like a kind of, I don't know, executioner around content and like be able to just like, oh, I know what I'm posting for the next month and I have my tweets every single day. I cannot do that. I write purely from inspiration. And when you see me post something, it's, I literally wrote it that minute it and newsletters I write the week of. Like, I don't have anything written out in advance. And that is because I try to write from an intrinsic, like a place of intrinsic motivation that I get excited to write about something and I'm going to sit down and write it right then. And that's how I try to separate myself from it. I mean, we all get pulled by the, like the dopamine and how these platforms try to work. I try to like, not look at the counts on things, you know, after I post them because I find that like, it's, it's annoying when you get sucked in and you're refreshing things and you're like happy or sad based on how something's doing. Like I tried early on, I tried to separate myself from that. I also just don't really care about like having more than what I have today, to be totally honest. Like, I, for the first time in my life, don't have this like, deep urge to have more. I have a great house. I have, you know, a knock on wood, healthy child, a wife who I love deeply, family that cares about me and that I can spend time with now that I live closer. I don't, I feel just so extraordinarily fortunate that I don't sit around thinking about like, okay, how can I get a second house and how can I get a private jet? How can I get a yacht? I just, I don't, I don't really care. And I have tons of friends who really care about those things and they want them. And I think that's great if you want to strive for more and you want to do that. I'm just not really wired that way. And what I'VE found, paradoxically over the last year is that when I'm not focusing on those things, I get more of those things. Like, I'm making way more money than I made, you know, in my prior job and way more than I would have made in my prior job for the foreseeable future without caring about trying to make money. It's by, like, turning things down that I'm doing that. And so I. I'm pretty happy just trying to, like, continue on this path and pursue it this way. And that's how, I mean, that's how I measure myself. Today is like, man, I just have. I have time. Like, I have free time. We were scheduling this podcast and Brad was like, what's good for you? And I was like, I'll show you my schedule. I can do any day this entire week because I don't have a single call on there. It's pretty flexible. And that to me is like, oh, my God, I can go. You know, I went on four walks. I probably walked 12 miles with my son yesterday. Like, that, to me is that's being wealthy.

Yeah. You know, I think that a really important point that you're harping on is, and our listeners have heard this, you know, 15 times, but it's good to hear it for the 16th, is that there's conventional success and then there is knowing what your values are and trying to live in alignment with them, even if that looks very different than conventional success. And it can feel like a big leap to go from the former to the latter. But this is the heart of every perennial wisdom tradition. It is the big theme in modern behavioral science, in the religious and spiritual traditions, it's. There is that true fulfillment and happiness comes from being in alignment with your values. And that sounds super woo woo, but it's not. And what I'm hearing you say is that a big value of yours is family and relationships, autonomy, creativity. And it's not to say that there aren't people who have core values of intensity or competition that might be a perfect fit. It might be very fulfilled and happy in private equity. You are just realizing a mismatch at that point in your life. Now, I do want to push on one thing because I think that the blessing and the curse with a job like we do and like you do now is that you kind of become the job like your identity, your brain, your thoughts, your Persona is the thing. And you've mentioned trying to separate the outcome, the followers, the retweets, the likes from yourself, but that still doesn't get to, hey, I could always be doing more. Or how do you decide what parts of your life, if any, you're going to keep private versus what parts of your life you're going to share? And for those that don't know, I mean, I don't know what you're at right now, but you've got to have at least one and a half million followers across the three big platforms, if not more. And, like, go check out Saho on Social. These aren't bots. Like, these are real people that are following him. So how do you separate your marriage, your son, that walk with your kid, from being this, like, really prolific creative content creator? And that can be both what you share, but it can also be like, hey, I'm out for a walk with my kid, and holy crap, that's a great thought, I need to write it down. Or, hey, I'm out for a walk for my kid and freaking Brad is texting me again to share his damn thread. I need to get back to him. Like, that stuff's got to be pinging you all day. So I'm really curious what, if any, boundaries you have and how you work with that. Because it sounds great and, like, we have all this autonomy, but there can be a slow creep where that goes away way.

Yeah. So you hit on a handful of things there that I think are. That I think are important. You know, look, one. One of the big unlocks for me in life in general, and it applies to this, is this whole idea of, like, false urgency. In finance, everything is urgent, and you're taught everything is urgent. I swerved off a highway as an analyst to reply to an email that I thought was really urgent. Quite literally, like, swerved onto a, you know, grassy side bank to take out my laptop and reply to an email from a partner that I thought was really urgent. The things we do to fulfill fake urgency are pretty crazy, actually. Completely nuts. One of the things that has helped me a lot is realizing that things that are deemed urgent are very, very rarely actually urgent. And so texts, email, things that used to, like, command my life in a very, very deep way. I've now learned to, like, batch and process when I kind of get to them rather than when they ping me. Like, it's. It's no longer, hey, like, I have to get back to that thing. It's like, that's kind of a request for me to get back to it. And I'll get back to it when I'm going through these things. That has meant sacrificing certain Things I used to consider myself, like, very speedy on responding to texts and being, like, very with it with all of my friends. And, you know, like, I'm pretty bad at getting back to things very quickly now via text, via email, wherever it is. If it's not truly, truly urgent, I'm not getting back to it quickly.

You and Steve would be best friends. He's my freaking business partner. And if I don't call him 19 times to answer a truly urgent email, there will be no answer.

Well, you're a man after my heart, Steve.

You would never get anything done.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. We'd never get anything done. That's one on, like, you know, the question about avoiding it bleeding into the other points in time, that's a struggle, like, daily a struggle for me. I cannot say that I'm great about it. I'm getting better about it slowly. And the ways I'm getting better about it would be like a not bringing my phone certain places, just like, completely leaving it. The challenge with that, frankly, with a little kid is like, there's a safety thing for me of, like, I need to have a phone. What if something happens? What if he starts throwing up? Like, I don't know. There are things that happen. And so that is a struggle for me, just mentally. The other struggle is just, like, truly turning it off in your own mind when you're doing, like, when you're present with things. You know, Sundays, like, I will just. Sunday afternoon, evening, I will try to just, like, go put, like, literally lock my phone in a room so that I can't have it bleed into time that we're spending together. And, like, we make. We make chili on Sundays and sit and watch some football and hang out with our kid. And I don't want to be on my phone. I don't want to be looking at notifications or responding to things. And I know that if it's there in front of me, I will, like, I'll look at it because it grabs you and it's so, so powerful and so good at that, that. So creating, like, physical boundaries has been helpful for me, but it's not perfect. And, you know, the biggest challenge, candidly, for me, is, like, not letting it bleed into deep work time on important things. That has been the biggest struggle for me. And that's like, you know, I'm trying to write this book as an example, and, you know, like, that requires going to a deep, dark place at times to, like, really focus and really hammer out pieces, and that is really tough to do. Sometimes when you have the constant pings and the constant, you know, pull to like, you know, the biggest challenge with it, which I just said to my wife yesterday, is like, it's not actually a challenge of like physically sitting down and writing. It's the delayed dopamine that is coming from it that is so challenging because I can sit down and if I, if I have two options, like my two paths when I go and sit down to write, one would be to like write a chapter of the book book, and one would be to write like a really bomb tweet thread on that same topic. And one of those paths might have me get a dopamine hit in like 2025 when the book comes out or 20 mid 2024, one of them might get me a dopamine hit like in 20 minutes. Like right now I could get like a huge dopamine hit. And so intrinsically you're like, ooh, I'm gonna go run towards that path and do the really short term thing that's gonna get me the outcome right now. And that makes working on long term projects very, very hard. When you have this like, really quick, easy dopamine hit, like, you know, true drug that you can just hit right now.

Can I give you a quick hack that works for me there? I look at my son and Twitter is so ephemeral. And I'm not going to give my son my Twitter archive of tweets, but I'm going to hand him a book that's been really helpful for me.

I like that one. I mean, by the time my book comes out, my son might be able to read it. So.

There you go. So staying on that topic, I'm really curious. You know, as Brad said, you're very prolific. I mean, your output is, is crazy and it's high quality as well as prolific. But now that you're in the writing book mode or phase, do you see any difference between, you know, sitting down to write that Twitter thread or piffy tweet versus sitting down to write that chapter.

Yeah, I would say what I'm trying to do and what I hope will play out is probably similar to what James Clear experienced in the sense of my writing on Twitter and in my newsletter and stuff I post on Instagram, everywhere is all pretty directly tied to what I'm writing about in the book. And Twitter and all of these platforms are actually a great testing ground for ideas to kind of like, see, oh, is something shareable, is that likely to elicit a response that's emotional or feel novel to people. You know, I talked to James about it once, and I was asking him, like, did you test ideas on Twitter in your newsletter? He was like, I had written about the British cycling idea several times before. It was like the big hook thing at the beginning of my book that everyone shares and talks about. And so that was a real spark of insight for me of. Of, you know, as I'm doing research and things for the book, there might be near term pieces of content and things I can write about and share that are just like, a great testing ground for ideas there. I also find that, like, the distillation required for a great piece of content on Twitter in a newsletter is helpful for thinking through my writing of how I want to build it out from the book. Like, I personally write from, like, the atomic unit on up, Up. I know some people write from, like, the big Blast and then need to narrow it down. I struggle with that. I have a really tough time writing the, like, 5,000 words and then distilling it down to something short. I'm very good at the, like, outline, bare bones version. Build it up. And, you know, the book kind of just feels like a natural progression for me from, like, I was writing on Twitter. I kind of built that out and then I launched the newsletter and that was like, slightly longer form. And now the book is going to be, you know, know, longer, longer form of. Of all of that. So I'm hopeful that it's not too big of a leap. But it's very early days. Right. So I'm sure it'll be challenging and a struggle at times.

Okay, so one more question on that creative process. And this could be book, Twitter, whatever it is. But as you know, when you get into the social media world and trying to get followers, all that stuff is like, there's a. There's a fine line where you can go from, like, giving value on stuff that you know and resonate with versus going into what I'll just call as, like, marketing mode, where you're like, oh, if I push these buttons, like, people will like it. Even if it's a little bit like, you know, outside of my area or feels a little bit cringy or what have you. How do you define that line for yourself and stay on the right side of it?

I usually use, like a per. Like, you know what, what. I find this interesting. Like, if. If I were to just be a reader on the other side of this, would I find this interesting? I don't really believe in lanes and like, the whole idea of staying in your lane has always pissed me off a little bit because, like, who are you to tell me what my lane is? Like, if someone to say, like, I don't. I don't know what my lane is, I still haven't figured it out, so I don't know how you can tell me what my lane is. And so, like, if I'm learning something interesting and. And I am sharing it, and, like, if it's reasonably, you know, accurate and well researched, I have. I've never, you know, held back from sharing something like that. And, like, will that every now and then draw the ire of people that are like, oh, stay in your lane? Yeah, sure. But, like, that's not the person that should follow me then if they want. If they want someone that stays in their lane, I'm not the guy that you should follow because, like, I have not stayed in my lane once in my entire damn life, and I don't really intend to start now, now, you know, and, like, that's okay. Like, I. I kind of know that I'm not ever gonna be, you know, everything to everybody, and I don't really care. And so if I'm not your shtick, like, if you're not into every now and then hearing some, like, inspirational thing that you kind of roll your eyes at, or you don't like that kind of stuff, like, if you don't like Gary Vee firing people up, you probably won't like me from time to time, because I'm gonna share stuff like that. If you don't like someone like Huberman with some random distillations of science every now and then, you probably won't like me. And that's okay to me. I'm not trying to impress constantly or be loved by everybody. I want to share things that I would find interesting. And I have a fundamental belief that if I would find it interesting, there are millions of people out there that would find that thing interesting.

Yeah, that reminds me of one of my and Steve's best friends, Dave Epstein, who wrote the book Range, who basically wrote that book about himself. But Dave is a geologist by training, and then he has stories that we're not at liberty to share publicly about after the Sports Gene came out and just the headaches that he went through to not become a sports writer and be pigeonholed as a sports writer and write the sports gene 2.0. And he was told by a lot of people that, hey, if you kind of take this leap and write about a different topic, your career is going to be over. And then he wrote Range, which is one of the best selling books of the last decade. So I think there's a lot of bullshit to that.

Yeah, I mean I encountered it during the publishing selection process and figuring out the book there was a lot of questions of like, well, you're talking about a pretty wide ranging book. Why are you credible? How are you going to establish your credibility? And I was always just sort of like, well, how have I established my credibility to build what I've built today? Why are there millions of people that read what I'm writing and that listen to it and that care what I have to say or that reply to my email newsletter? Like why do I have 150,000 people that read my newsletter and that reply and find value in it? I don't know, like I've never written a thing to them being like, well, I'm a Stanford educated this and you know, I've gotten this degree or I have this, I haven't done that. I just am genuinely sharing things I find interesting and you know, people can generally count on the fact that I would have done the work behind them. And so I also think that like this whole mindset of like, well, you have to be a doctor to share things that are about science or you have to be a lawyer. You know, it's like yes and no. Because if that was the thing that was going to hold, if like credentials are the thing that's going to hold back people from genuinely sharing value with the world, that's a terrible thing and we shouldn't want that. I think there should be some thresholds of like, you know, quality and things like that that are put out. But I think the market will decide that, like if someone's putting out a bunch of low quality garbage or false stuff, the market will tell you that it's false stuff that, you know, they're not going to continue to resonate with. So. So I mean that's my general opinion on it.

I mean it's kind of like our story too. Brad and I sold peak performance, I think half on the back of my running expertise. And I'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, there'll be lots of running in this book. And then went wide and far away from it. And I think that's, as you said, that's okay. I think the one maybe pushback I'd give is like, this is where I think self awareness is really important when you're out there because as your following grows, it's really easy to convince yourself you can be an expert of everything. And it's really important you understand. Well, you know. Well, I've done. Like you said, I've done the work. I've researched this enough to outline it in the way that, like, makes sense and is, you know, as accurate as it can be given the circumstances and can help, I think, where we just.

Do a better job distilling the insights of the actual experts who have done the work. Because, I mean, one of the things I've found, you know, in building my platform is, like, most of the people that are doing unbelievably exceptional work out there are freaking terrible at marketing it. Like, so, so bad at marketing it. And there's a huge opportunity. I mean, like, Huberman is a perfect example of that. Like, he's an amazing marketer, and he's done an incredible job of making science accessible. I don't think he's particularly novel in that. Like, he's not sharing. I mean, you and I have talked about this, Brad. Like, sunlight in your eyes in the morning is not a new thing. Like, that's been a thing since ancient Greece.

Right?

Like, everyone has known that that's been a thing, but somehow now, in the last year, everyone talks about it, and it's a massive thing on Twitter, and everyone's like, oh, get my son in my eyes. Because of him, because he's a great marketer, and he's put it out in a way that people understand and digest. And so I think. I mean, like, I also just think there's a big opportunity in doing that. Like, in distilling the insights of expertise in a more logical, digestible, and shareable way.

Yeah, I think not to make this a conversation around, like, the role of expertise, but something that I think about often and Steve and I talk about is I do think that unfortunately, there tends to be, like, two extremes and not a lot of people in the middle. So having now written books and written essays for the New York Times and been a part of that world. It's true, and people are going to hate that I say this. There is, like, a real elitism to a lot of those places. And a lot of the people that work at those places and that are the gatekeepers, many of them are very good, but a lot of them aren't so great. And they don't necessarily know what they're talking about. And it's kind of like a clown show at times. However, I think what happens is then people get frustrated, and then it opens up the other extreme, which is, you know, Joe Schmo that got a C in organic chemistry is now the world's expert on MRNA vaccine vaccines. And I wish that there was some kind of middle ground. And there are people that do this really well. And it's almost like those two things hold each other in tension. Like, I'm really glad that someone can just hit publish on a newsletter or a blog post, but I'm also really glad that we still have genuine experts because I don't want a random person doing my liver transplant. I want a transplant surgeon during my liver transplant. But I do think, like, there's this big chasm and it's just, it's worth giving language to. I don't have any solutions, but it's an interesting thing that I think about often with, with expertise. So I wanted to. To ping pong a bit and ask you a question and, and we can, we don't have to run this. We can edit it out. It's pretty intimate and personal and it's kind of like therapy session. Certainly for me. Maybe it will be for you. So something that I've noticed is you post a fair amount of images, you have a beautiful family of your wife and your son on. And that is something that I have decided explicitly against. And the reason for that is I do still care about how things perform. And for me, and I don't know if this is right or wrong, it's just how I've been going about it so far. I've basically said that, hey, there's a couple parts of my life that I don't want to ride any roller coaster of. What's the reaction to, to. And it's my family, so my wife, my kid, my dog. And then it's my strength training practice because these are areas of my life where I feel like regardless of what the hell else is happening anywhere else, I can go to the gym and find peace there, and I can be with my family and find peace there. And if I'm on a beautiful walk with my dog, believe you me, I have the urge to snap a picture and post it, but then I'm like, why? Why can't this walk be enough? So that's my own strategy for dealing with it. I've talked to different people. There's a million different ways to go about it. None are right or wrong. But I'm curious. Curious like what, what. How you came to that decision and will it stay as you grow? And then there's also just like the creeper that like people are gonna see at a restaurant and like Go up to your kid by his name. I've actually heard stories of that. It's never happened to me, but, yeah.

Walk me through that at the grocery store. That's happened to me. So my general view. And, like, look, a lot of this relates to what I'm trying to build. I want to inspire millions and millions of people around the world, and I would say a billion if it didn't make me sound completely nuts.

It's that kind of delusion, man. Can work in your favor, though.

I firmly believe that in order to do that, you need to show your full self and be true to who you are as a comprehensive human being, if that's what I want to accomplish. And part of. Of my desire to inspire is around living a full life. It's around becoming a father and wrestling with new, entirely new things in my life over the last six months than what I had had to deal with before. It's the, you know, challenges of wife going back to work and seeing her, you know, struggle with, you know, how to manage being a mom, with wanting to be, you know, really successful in her career and the things that she's working on and her passion showing that entire side of me and wrestling with those things as I progress in my own life and as I figure things out and, you know, as I screw them up, as I get them right, whatever, that's a big part of it for me. That's a big part of being able to connect with people and being able to inspire people. I get. I mean, I don't know if I'm going to say thousands, hundreds, for sure. Probably in the thousands now of messages about how things I've shared about becoming a dad and about my relationship with my wife have inspired them to take those things more seriously. Like, I'll get replies to my email all the time or to tweets that I put out of just, like, little notes saying, like, hey, you know, I never really wanted to be a dad because I always thought it seemed like it would be tough. But you seem like, you know, it's. It seems like it's pretty fun and that you're. It's. It could be cool and like, that type of thing. To me, the fact that I can, you know, with simple actions, impact people in what I view to be a positive way is absolutely unbelievable to me and amazing. And so I sort of feel like this is a small thing that I can continue to do and continue to reach people in a very personal and very human way through talking about my life and through sharing it in a real organic way. I think there's a fine line to it of, like, I'm not going to become the Kardashians and have cameras in my home at all times and, you know, sharing every intimate detail of the different fights and, you know, different things that are happening in our lives. But if I can share in a little way and continue to inspire people positively and continue to show people that, like, having kids and having a wife and not having this, like, you know, single bachelor life, it's actually not so bad. It's actually an amazing thing that has created a ton of fulfillment and joy and happiness for me. That, to me, is, like, a great calling, and I'm excited to do that. The flip side of it, which is what you said, is there's risk, you know, and. And I think in particular, as Roman gets older. Roman is our son. I'll have to think about whether I continue to share, you know, pictures and. And videos, because right now, he's sort of like, ambiguous baby, right? Like, every baby sort of looks alike, but as they start to actually have, like, a real face. And if my platform continues to grow at the trajectory it's growing now, now it could be, you know, a real thing. There's crazy people out there, right? And I. I already, you know, have had a few times where people have stopped and said, oh, is that Roman? You know, whatever, In. In public. And I always have, like, a little thing in the back of my mind of, like, I wonder, you know, if this isn't such a good idea, you know, for me. Look, like, everything I share is positive. You'll never see something from me on any of my platforms that's, like, calling people out, talking shit, you know, controversial, negative. Like, it's just not, A, it's not really who I am, and B, I'm a big believer that whatever you put out, you're getting, you know, magnified and reflected back at you with these platforms. And so I just have a hard line of, like, I'm just never going to do anything negative. And I get random people, like, messaging me, replying to me with, like, hateful stuff, like, I will never reply negatively. And do I want to, like, go back and just dunk on people now and then? Absolutely. Like, I grew up in locker rooms, man. I can dunk with the best of them. And just, like, I. And I could just, just absolutely destroy some people, but it's just not what I do. And it's never my, like, vibe to want to do that as much as it would feel great. Because I just don't want that magnified and reflected back in me.

I could learn a lot from you there. I mean, it's something that I've struggled with, particularly with, like, the Elon Musk takeover. And just some of the things that I, at least in my own values, that he's tweeting and amplifying is just nonsense. And I take the bait, man. I'll go in and comment, and then someone else will comment, and I'll comment. And all that happens three hours later is I've blocked 30 people, 30 people have blocked me. And I call Steve and I'm like, fuck, man. I'm so angry. And, like, now it's dinner time.

Yeah, it's just. I mean, it's like, is it ever worth. My whole realization is, like, it's never worth it. Like, especially arguing on the Internet, like, you know, get, like, debating on the Internet, like, or on Twitter, you. You're never going to change someone's mind. There's not a single time where you have said something like, as intellectual and intelligent as you are, Brad, there's not a single time where you've written something in response to someone and they've read it and been like, oh, yeah, you know, he just. He really changed the way that I was thinking about that. He was right, I was wrong. What a lovely interaction I just had with that. I think I'm going to go buy his book. Like, that interaction right there has never happened, nor will it ever happen in your entire life. Life. And so when you realize that, it's kind of like, okay, so I can reply to this on Twitter right now, or I can go do literally anything else. Literally anything else. Like, I can go staple gun my stomach, and it'll be more productive than having that interaction. And that kind of has a way of, like, just cutting through it, and you just. You just stop and like, I don't know. I'm a big believer in the free market, just figuring these things out. And I. As frustrating as it is to see, you know, things happen societally, you know, and as much as I do lend some credence to the idea that people have a plat, who have a platform, have a responsibility to, like, talk about these things, weigh in and try to move, for me, I'm just like, that's just not who I am. That's not. Like, I get messages from people being like, why haven't you commented on Donald Trump? Or, why haven't you commented on, you know, Roe versus Wade or whatever it is, like, things that happen in culture and in society. Like, that's just not what I do. Like, that's not what I do. That's not what I write about. And the second I comment on one of those things, I'm going to be expected to comment on all of them. And that's not what I'm here for. Like, that's not what I'm doing. And, you know, if it was, then I would have. But that's just been my perspective on it and what I'm going to. What at least I'm planning on sticking to as I continue to build.

And often, like, either responding the tweet or sending out the tweet of support or like, hate or whatever is like, all that does is, like, give you that dopamine hit or make you feel relieved or like you did something when actuality, like 99% of the time it does nothing. Right. You're much better if you, if you care so much about it to, like, I don't know, go volunteer at the soup kitchen or whatever it is in real life versus, like, the, the Twitter life.

Yeah. I mean, I've also just seen, like, how bad a single negative interaction can impact the rest of my day, and I hate it. Like, it makes me so mad that, like, I'll put something out on Twitter and one person will like, DM me or send a reply with something being like, oh, you're an idiot, or, you know, whatever the, whatever the snarky reply is. And the rest of my day, like, that'll just be eating away at me. And it could have 10,000 likes. People like praising it, doing all the things, but the one person that said, like, oh, you know, this isn't an original thought or whatever, one thing that's just eating at me for the rest of the day, and that bothers me so much that I'm just like, I'm never going to try to invite those things into my life because I know how much they eat at me.

So here's a tip. Once your book comes out, never read the reviews on Amazon. Just, just don't do it. You'll. You'll, you'll drive yourself nuts because you'll have the one person who picks out, like, the one sentence and you're like, this is why you gave me a one star review. Like, you didn't really it.

Also, I learned that with the podcast, by the way. I mean, you guys have a podcast. I learned that with the podcast when I was doing it last year of, like, you know, this. The person being like, these two Guys sound like pompous and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, dude, you know nothing about me. Like, you don't know anything. You know, I. I had one, one instance in my entire time on all of these platforms when, you know, the mob came for me and I kind of got semi cancelled. And that to me was like. Like that was the time when I was just like, huh. I'm never. Like, this is just not something that's particularly fun and I don't want to read any of these things and I don't want to be engaged and involved in any of this and I'm just going to avoid it. I just don't want to be associated with this stuff anymore.

I think I'm going to have to try your hard and fast rules because anytime you give yourself an out, you justify it. It just does not go well. So let me pivot real quick. Before we went down the social media negativity rabbit hole, you talked a lot about the importance of your family and how much you're sharing and all that. How has fatherhood changed your perspective on what you do?

Oh, man. In so many ways that it's hard to capture. I mean, I said the biggest one earlier, which is it was the first time in my life when I held. Actually, it was probably a couple days after he was born. We brought him home from the hospital. I had been so. I had had so much energy just pent up inside me for the time when my wife was pregnant. I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but it was like, God, it was so long waiting. I was just so excited to meet this kid and like, get to be a dad that the nine months, it was like excruciating. Like the last few months. I can't imagine what it's like for a woman, by the way. It's like rich for a guy to say that they're not the one growing, growing. But I was just so excited. I was like, man, I just want to meet this kid. I. I was praying every day, like, and I'm not a particularly religious person, but like, man, I was so scared about something being wrong or like, like having any issues along the way and like all of the, you know, ultrasounds and everything, like, it was just so much energy built up. So then when he was born, I just, like that night, you know, just passed out. I was like, so happy. You know, at the hospital, everything was fine. And we got home and I think it was like the second day we were home, you know, we woke up in the morning and kind of, like, picked him up and brought him into bed with us, and it was like a Sunday morning, and he was, like, asleep and sitting there, and I was lying in bed, and I was just like. Like, it was the first time in my entire life when I had literally just felt like, this moment is perfect, and if I don't have a single moment like this the rest of my life, like, if I have nothing more than this one moment, life would have been good and things would have been fine. And that feeling was so profound, I went out on a run later that day, and I was reflecting on it, like, I was just kind of running in silence and reflecting on that. Of, like, what an amazing experience and feeling to feel that once in your entire life. Life. And if I can figure out a way to capture that feeling and feel that more often, this would be a life well lived. Like, I no longer feel like I need a million other things in my world if this is here and if, like, if I can just capture that and continue to feel it. And I've had so many mornings since that morning when I've felt that way, and I can't imagine anything better in life than just, like, then feeling that. I mean, like, I wake up in the morning and. And my son's crawling all over me now and, like, you know, smacking me to wake me up in the morning when my wife's brought him into bed and, like, you know, starts smiling at me and waking me up like, I don't need anything else in my. In. In the world quite literally than those moments. And that has just. That's changed everything for me. I mean, I'm like, I'm. No. I no longer feel some desire to take on, you know, a million different things. I no longer feel some desire to try to make, like. Like $100 million and sound super, you know, rich and famous. I want to do things that impact people and hopefully impact people in a way where they can experience that same feeling of enough. And that same feeling of. Of, you know, truly present in the moment, happiness that you're able to kind of, like, embrace all 360 degrees of. And if I can impact people in that way in some tiny way to experience that, that. That, to me, would be a life well lived.

So. Oh, this. This is so juicy. Go ahead, Steve. And then I want to dig in.

You're good. Go for it.

Yeah.

Well, the first thing I was gonna say is gonna make a joke. Just wait till your kid's four and a half. My. My son Theo, has trained our 90 pound German shepherd to ambush me with him in the morning. So I get woken up by the two of them cannonballing on me. So, like, if people are on the video and you see bruises. Yeah, that's from yesterday morning.

Note to self, do not get a German shepherd.

Oh, no, they're the best. They're almost as good as the kid. All right, so here. So I'm with you 100% on all of that. And for me, those moments can be in the evening. We now have a baby girl named Lila. She'll fall asleep.

Congratulations.

Thank you, man. Ananda, our dog will be like, nuzzled up next to her. Theo will be lying on me and I'll just make eye contact with Caitlin. Just be like, man, this is it. Yeah, we're super fortunate. Steve and I's books have done well. If I wanted to, I could do a lot less work and have a lot more time like that. I still push pretty hard. I sense that you are probably in a somewhat similar situation. You still push, so maybe the striving feels more wholesome now because you're not just chasing a buck. But how do you think about that? And again, let me give you the perfect kind of longer term analogy that I play with. So I'm of two minds. I'm not super close with my father. I don't have that luxury, or that I shouldn't even say luxury, just like that beauty that you have. So I often find role models that are in older, wiser men, and I look at them and they've taught me so much, and that's so great, and I'm so glad to have had them in my life. But on the other hand, I'm like, shit. Like, when I'm 60, I don't want to be recording podcasts and writing books. I just want to be, like, hanging out with my dogs and my family. But there's also a part of me that's like. Or do I. I don't know if I'm wired to be able to turn it off. And I don't know if it's an insecurity, an ego and a need for validation. I don't know if it's a need to do the work. I don't know if it's this fear of death and, like, wanting to be remembered. It's probably some combination of all those things. I also genuinely want to help people, but, like, there's this ultimate tension. And then sometimes I share this with my wife and she's like, we don't have to wait till you're 60. Like, you've done really well right now, you know, but yet you still push because that's just who you are. I'm curious if you've ever thought through this about yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. And for me, it comes down to what are the actions daily that I'm actually feeling in flow and finding fulfillment from. So I don't really. I mean, it sounds like you're in a similar spot. I'm probably somewhat post economic in the sense that I haven't really thought about it, but if I don't really want to do much in terms of generating income on a daily basis anymore, we'd be fine and would be able to figure it out. That means that what I'm able to do is prioritize spending time on things that I get true energy from and actually have energy created for me. And that for me is like things like writing or things like sharing. I really enjoy interacting with people and enjoy having conversations like this. I get a lot of energy from doing things like this. I would never stop doing those things because they create energy for me in my life. I don't do them because I think that they're making me money in some way. I don't write my newsletter because I think it's making me money and that I need money to make to, you know, pay the bills necessarily. It's something that I would probably just do. Maybe I would only do it once a week instead of twice a week. I'm not really sure. But like, those actions that you take that are still creating energy for you, you're probably not just going to stop. I mean, like parent, you know, people that are successful typically don't just retire. They've made so much money that they don't know what to do with. It's very rare that you see one of those people just not do anything because not using your brain, not feeling that feeling of fulfillment that comes from being, you know, working on challenging problems and like challenging yourself intellectually, physically, mentally, et cetera, is, you know, where like, you go to die, sort of. Right. Like, I never want to feel that way. I want to feel like I'm being pushed and pushing myself in some way, shape or form. And I think you're probably wired in a similar way in that regard.

Yeah. It reminds me of another mentor, a guy named Mike Joyner. And I think that a lot of this is. Is we think about contentment as being. And he talks about the yoga of do. And he's 65 and he's pushing harder than any of us on this conversation right now. And he's been the most prestigious researcher at the Mayo Clinic. He's quoted in every single article about human performance. He runs a department. He's also an anesthesiologist on the side. It's nuts. And sometimes when I talk to him about it, he's like, yeah, like, it's the yoga of do. And like, you can. You can find contentment in being on the couch with your family. Like that. And there's so much value in that. But for some people, you also find that contentment when you're doing.

Yeah, I. It's an interesting framing. I've never thought about it that way. I need to look. I need. His name is Mike Joyner. I need to look him up.

Oh, he's great. He's a.

He's a.

He's a hoot.

It also reminds me of, like, you know, the mythologist Joseph Campbell's.

Like, his.

His thing is, like, we need things that make us feel alive, which is kind of like that do. Like, contentment is great, but also if, like, writing, like, exercising, whatever it is, like, makes you feel alive, then it brings that value to you, and you're probably going to do it even if, you know, you had, you know, a billion dollars and we're sitting around.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. I mean, I. There are just certain things that are, like who you are, and it's the way that you approach life, and it's your identity and approach. And, Brad, you and I have talked about this around, like, some of the stupid that I do on a day.

We're gonna get into that. Don't worry. I'm keeping an eye on the clock.

You know, and it's like, when you have an identity that you've built around whatever it is, you're likely to want to preserve that identity. That's just kind of the way we operate. So when your identity is conn. Sharing and creating things and, you know, working or, you know, whatever it is, coaching in your case, Brad, you know, like, those things are not likely to be things that are easy to stop doing because you want to preserve that identity.

So let's. Let's dive into some of the. In your own words, not mine, because I don't think it's stupid, but some of the stupid shit that you do. So I'll admit, man, when I first started following you, I'm like, this guy is so great on mental models and that sort of stuff, but, man, he's like a walking huberman podcast Cold Plunge. This deadlift that, you know, on my weighted walk, should I carry £30 or £25? And as we've gotten to know each other and developed this little virtual.

I've never asked that because I'm carrying 50s.

There you go. That's exactly what I'm saying, is we've developed this little virtual friendship. At one point though, you did say to me that, hey man, I was super into optimization. I think you might have been reading Groundedness or we were talking about something similar and you said I was super into optimization and that like you feel that changing. And maybe I even asked you, like, what's changed since Roman was born. But can you walk us through kind of how you got into that and where you currently stand? Because you still do stuff that I would think is ridiculous, but that's just me. So walk us through that.

Yeah, I mean, my history with training and with performance stuff all started when I was 16 or 17 years old and I was like a, you know, 6 foot 1, 165 pound, right in a pitcher in Massachusetts throwing 80 miles an hour. I went to this training facility that was just getting started by this guy, Eric Cressy. I was his first client. At the time he was kind of a no name. He has now become a very big name. He was the performance coach for the Yankees. He's very famous within the baseball world. And I started training then and basically I went from throwing, you know, I was 165 pounds. I showed up the next season at 205 pounds and was throwing 90. And it completely changed my life. And that hobby, that training became like my number one hobby, something that I was so passionate about and excited about, has stuck with me throughout my life. And I think the reason it has stuck with me is because it was all part of doing what I said I was going to do. And that has become like a core, core part of what I believe as a life value, which is like, when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to show up and I'm going to do it. It. And training for me was always that. It was like, I have a program, I'm going to show up and I'm going to do it. If I feel good, if I feel bad, I'm just going to show up and I'm going to do it. And in the early days when I was like training for baseball and when I first got done with baseball, that was like to a fault, like, I would show and I would almost like I Would create these mental games where, you know, I was going to show I like when I was sick I'd be like, well, now I really got to show up up because, you know, because these are the days when it's hard. And so I'm going to do more on the day when I'm sick. And I was being an idiot, right? Like I was not being smart about those kind of things. And I was not sleeping, you know, like in my first year working, first few years working, like I took pride in like I'm going to stay up until 10:30 working and then I'm going to wake up at 2:30 because like, you know, hard workers are waking up at 6:30. And I'm going to wake up at 2:30 because I watched a video of Kobe or I watched a video of the Rock saying that he wakes up, takes up four hours before the movie starts to, you know, film on set. And you know, I was doing those things because I was like, well, if I want to make it, I gotta outwork. Like that's how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna work harder. And I didn't care about sleep and I didn't care about recovery. I cared about grinding harder than anybody. And that was like, you know, from the time I was 16 until the time I was probably like, till I had that sort of like breakdown, right? Was like, that was my mentality. It was like, like, I'm not gonna sleep. Like sleep when you're dead. So I was like, you know, sleep is for people. There's this 50 cent line when he's like, sleep is for people who are broke. And I remember taking that to heart. And I would say that to my friends and repeat it and parrot it. Like that's who I was. I was like, man. And honestly, I was a psycho. Like I'm a. I still have that psycho wiring. Like I could out grind people, man. Like the Will Smith thing of like, if you better not get on a treadmill next to me because either you're going to quit or I'm going to die. Like that was me. And I still have that wiring in me. But I've started to learn how important recovery is and how important balance is to actually performing well. And I realized that actually when I sleep eight hours, I'm much clearer. Like my two hours of work is worth the eight hours that I was doing before because I'm able to actually focus and my thoughts are clear and I'm creative. And that started to change in me around that time. Having A kid has made that, you know, probably 10x in terms of how I think about it. Part of that is a time thing because every second that I'm doing some dumb training thing is a second that I'm not spending with him. And that has been like a very important mindset shift in my mind around work and also around my own training and physical regimen, which is like leverage, you know, Anything I'm taking on now I have to think about as a trade off of time with my son and with my wife life. And I didn't have that before. It used to be like I could just go work out for three hours on a Saturday and like, hang out and deadlift for like 40 sets, you know, do whatever, like, dumb stuff, gym guy stuff. But I can't do that anymore because I'm like, man, that's an hour and a half or two hours that I could have been spending on a walk with him or with my wife or cooking or helping her so that she can work out or like doing all these different things. And that has been a really important shift for me. And it's also, also, again, paradoxically led to me making more gains in all of these areas because I've started to focus on the like 5% of stuff that creates the biggest impact and really doubling down on those. And that's been an important shift in my life in general.

Okay, I gotta dive in first on this psycho part because I, I, I resonate with this because my short background is I got really good in high school because I was the idiot who was running like 17 miles a day because, like, I could when I was a high school kid. So train yourself into the ground to get really good. Right? And what I found, and Brad and I have had these conversations ad nauseam, is that if you're wired that way, it's almost like you've got to keep it a little bit in this, like, little cage and, and, and stuff to make sure it doesn't, like, come back and take over. Do you feel that same experience sometimes?

I kind of like letting it out of the cage. I, I don't, I try to, like, like, we can talk about it. I kind of like, strategically letting it out of the cage just to know that I still have it. Because I don't, I don't worry about it taking over my whole life. I like, I don't feel like it's a, this like, force that will like, all of a sudden, like, suck me back in because of the fact that I have my son and because I'm so, like, my number one value in life is being a great father. I tie being a great husband to being a great father. And I think that, like, being like, the two kind of go hand in hand, but that's my number one value in life. I want to be an amazing father. And I know that I'm not going to let these things, like, encapsulate my entire life because it would conflict with that number one core value.

Okay, and then the other part you mentioned there, you said, okay, I'm really focused now. I had to learn on the 5% that creates most of the change. Okay, I'm going to give you the behind the scenes. When you first popped up on Twitter, Brad and I have these conversations way too much on people who pop up in our kind of area. And we're like, oh, look at this person. What are they doing? And then we always try to decide, like, is this person like someone who's, like, real and gets it and we should pay attention to, or is this like some, I don't know, we'll just call them extreme, bro. That's out the window. And at the very, at the very beginning, right, you're. You're gaining notoriety, at least in our field, you know, you had this kind of balance between. You're doing a lot of good stuff and then you, you know, I don't know, do something cr. You know, try the latest fitness trend and put it on. And we, Brad and I would have this debate and be like, hey, did you see Sahil? He did like, X, Y and Z. I'm like, I don't know about the leg pump things.

Those, like those leg pump up air things.

Those Normatex.

Yeah, those things. I haven't used those, those for orthopedic surgery, though.

They're great. They got me through my fasciotomy. But anyways, I digress.

So, so, so anyways, I'd love to understand your process between, you know, nailing what I'll call the basics. Rest, recover, working out in your time versus, like, hey, let's dabble and try the latest thing that is popular.

The short answer is I'm both. Right? Like, I am a walking ball of tension across these different things. Like, I'm both recovering hustle culture, bro, and, you know, like, I don't know, like, high leverage, focused father figure. Right? And balancing those two and what you're seeing live when you guys are interacting around this stuff and seeing me post things that you're like, oh, this is stupid that he's doing this or whatever.

Is never stupid, interesting. We're mature, we don't see stupid. This is interesting.

But that's like me sharing my own journey and struggle around all this stuff. Right. Is like, like, here are some of the things. You know, it's sort of like my live diary. Like, I use Twitter now as like a live journal of things that I'm doing and experimenting with. And like, I find it fun to do that because it's like people are able to kind of go on that journey with me in a certain way around, like figuring this stuff out, figuring out what's useful, what's not. Like, what hasn't improved my life, what has become a random big part of my life for no apparent reason, like the cold plunge, which we can get into. And like, that's what you're seeing and experiencing. And so I'm never, I mean, I'm never going to fall into a clean bucket because I just, I don't think I'm the type of person that's ever going to be bucketable because I do this like, weird combination of things where like, you know, Brad and I will agree on a lot of things about, you know, high leverage focus from a working out standpoint and spending time with our families. But then I'll go jump in the cold plunge in the snow this morning.

Well, that and that I think is the difference between us and I know, listen for listeners. We'll cut right to it because I've talked to Silo about this. You're not doing it because you want to optimize your brown fat or you think it's going to change your gut microbiome and you're going to live an extra 10 years, you're doing it because if you, it's fucking hard. And if you do a hard thing and you get it out of the way, you prove to yourself you can do hard things. Steve wrote a book called Do Hard Things. We'll let him chime in. But I'm like, life is hard enough, man. And I used to be more like that and I can't. It's not even an excuse, it's just something that happened. And then I went through a really dark depression. And for me, just getting through that and knowing that I could get through that now every day that I don't have to do something super hard, I'm like super grateful for.

Yeah, I mean, I would say I originally got it because it was like, oh, all these health, whatever, all the stuff that people were talking about. And these guys sent it to me and I was like, I'll use it and share pictures and my experience with it. What it became for me was this unbelievable kind of twofold benefit. One being this daily hard thing to start every single day with something hard that has really had market improvements on my stress response. My ability to actually handle and manage stress and slow myself down in stressful situations has really improved from having to do that every morning. The biggest thing that I notice as a benefit of it every single day is the following. I feel extraordinarily lucky and fortunate in life, more so than anyone should ever be. I feel like I have been just too, like, too lucky in too many areas in my life to this point. And when I get in there every single morning, part of me feels like I am doing this thing that is like, intentionally bringing suffering and pain into my life so that I can feel this gratitude for all the great things I've been given. And that's what I do when I get into it every morning. Morning, I dunk my head underwater and I say in my. In my head or out loud things that I'm feeling particularly grateful for on that morning. And for me, it's like this really. This really powerful ritual that I get to experience every single morning completely alone and completely in my own thoughts in the dark outside, where I just, like. I just am able to kind of like open up to the world in a certain way that I. That I otherwise would never be able to do, do. And that has just been a huge, huge positive for my life of just taking that five minutes every single day to do that. I don't know if it has any health benefits. I'm sure there's research and it'll show you one way or another on all this stuff, but that has been the biggest thing for me.

Okay, so I'm actually glad you said that because I've kind of gone on rants on ice baths and cold plunges in the past and stuff, but the fact that it's around something. And I think this is what differentiates from what Brad said. As Brad said, life is already hard. But there is value. And if you look at the research, there's lots behind it. There is value between doing something hard that is in your control and that you are choosing to do. And I think that is also why I once a week still go out and run some interval or hill workout or something for the same reason. Because, like, it's something, I'm choosing to do it. I'm pushing myself to limit. And it's me alone in my head and no one else is around. And there's value to that. Coming back to that, you know, Joseph Campbell idea, like, feeling alive. Well, when. When Bill Moyers, in an interview, asked Campbell when his experience of feeling alive was, he said, well, the best example I can give you is when I was in college and I was running a track race at Penn Realis.

Why?

Because it's hard. It's in control. You get that flood of emotions and feelings, and you really do, like, feel alive. So I think, you know, where I come down on it, having written a book called Do Hard Things, is there's value in that. Where I hate sometimes is when we, instead of taking that value of, like, hey, this is really hard, we apply all these, like, magical, like, you know, sciency stuff to it and say, like, look at all this. When the reality is most likely there's benefit because it brings this rush of emotions and feelings and makes you feel alive. And if you want to do that through cold, plunge, sprinting up a hill, or like, getting on stage and talking to people, you know, regularly, like, it's up to you. Just find something in your life that makes you feel that way.

Yeah, for me, it's like, it's this one moment of the day of proving to myself that I am in control and that I can control my mind. Because the hardest part of it every single morning for me, full stop, is opening the door to go out onto the deck where it is. Because it's like five in the morning, because I do it right after my son wakes me up. So it's like five in the morning. It's now pitch black out, and now there's snow. Like, there's ice. It's 30 degrees out, and the water's 39. And the hardest part is just opening the door, because I know that as soon as I open the door, I have to get in because it's freaking freezing standing in the air. It's better getting into the water. Actually, that is the hardest part. And so every morning when I choose to be in control to do that, I'm like, proving to myself. And it's a. It's like an. It's a check in the. In the box of, like, proving my identity to myself, that I'm someone that has control in order to be able to do this. It's also my. My big opinion on all this stuff to both of you guys is like, if something makes people happy and they like doing it, who cares? Like, there's all these tweets that people put out when they're like, the optimizers are the ones who are least happy. Or, like, the people who obsess over optimizing their lives are the ones that. That you know are the least happy or whatever. Like, people are always tweeting about what the other side's doing. Like, the people criticizing optimizers, other people criticizing the people that aren't optimizing. And my whole thing is, like, just do what makes you feel good. Like, do what makes you happy. If it makes you happy to go get into the freaking cold every single morning and be miserable. And, like, because it's a check in your box of discipline. And that bleeds over into other areas of your life where you feel more disciplined and feel tougher or feel like the rest of your day is on easy mode. Do it if you don't want to, and you want to just wake up and have a nice breakfast in the warm with your wife and with your son, do that. Like, do. Do the thing that you feel creates value in your life. Like, I'm not ever sharing things on Twitter or on Instagram or wherever, saying, like, if you don't do this, you suck. And you're never going to be successful in life, by the way. Like, if you don't go and get into the ice like I do, you're not going to be successful. Like, I'm not liver king. That's not, you know, I'm not telling people to, like, go eat liver, do the crazy things I'm doing. I'm just sharing what I'm doing. And if people feel motivated by that, inspired by that, to do one thing that they feel is positive from what they've learned from me, great. If not, if you see it and you're like, I never want to do that. That guy's crazy. That's great, too. Like, whatever makes you happy. My biggest realization over the last year is not everyone wants to try to go after some weird.01% outcome or top 1% outcome. Like, that, in my mind, was always something that was, like, a prerequisite. I was always like, man, I want to go and achieve something exceptional and go and do these unbelievable things. But that's not, like, a goal for a lot of people, and that's totally fine. I have so many friends that want to be able to take care of their family and have a great, like, rich life with their family, spend tons of time with their kids, coach Little League, be, you know, spend tons of time with their parents, like, be incredible fathers. Then I have some friends, friends who, like, they want to make a hundred million dollars. And that's really what they want. They want to change the freaking world. Like, I have a friend who's like, I want to change the way that, you know, humans operate in the world and how society operates. And that's what's going to make me feel like I was successful in what I'm doing. And that's fine, too. And so I, like, my biggest realization is just, there's not one way to go about this whole life and fulfillment thing. I used to think there was. I used to think it was like, you have to go and achieve something amazing and leave a legacy, otherwise you're not going to feel fulfilled. But it's just not reality. And it's especially not reality for most people. I mean, most people just want to live a good life, take care of their family and be happy and feel like they're doing things that are contributing on a positive basis. And that, to me is like, that is the ultimate change in myself that I would say I've found over the last few years.

Love it. I absolutely love it. The Zen student in me, when you were talking about the two different people, thinks the person that gets in the cold plunge every morning should, like, twice a week, not get in the cold plunge and deal with the difficulty of that. And then the person that does the warm breakfast should get in because you're constantly wanting to teach yourself that you're in control regardless of what the situation is. But maybe that's next level. I haven't even done the cold.

It's a good question.

So who am I to talk?

I still find it. People ask, oh, as long as it's.

Brutal and you don't look forward to it.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, people are like, oh, it must get easier. I'm like, man, man, it does not get easy. Like today, honestly, this morning was the worst it's ever been for me. The least I wanted to get out there. And when I was in it, I was like, holy, this is painful and really, really bad. It was the worst it had been, and I've had it. I mean, it's been 100 plus straight days now of doing it. So I don't know.

I don't think you haven't done it. You haven't done it in January or February, so it's only going to get.

Worse when you're colder. That's true.

All right, so we didn't really have time to go into this book deal that you just signed, but broadly speaking, you're writing a book on wealth, as you define wealth, which you've been listening to this conversation. Y' all have a pretty good sense of that. Do you have a publication date or do you know when that book is scheduled to be released?

Likely mid 2024. Early mid 2024. You guys know how the publishing timelines work. I owe the manuscript at the end of September of 2023, hopefully a bit before that is, you know, when I'll be able to. And then, you know, have it out before the full political cycle starts in. In mid 2024. If not, you know, and if I can't, like, I don't want to put it out into the noise of the political cycle around fall. So I think it would probably be January 2025 if it slipped.

Love it. Well, we'll definitely have you back on, if not before then, but. But most definitely when the book comes out. I know I can't to wait. Wait to read it. I'm really, really excited for it. Before we wrap up, some quick questions, please. Three books, two TV shows or documentaries, and then just one other interesting thing that you think listeners might dig.

Ooh, okay. Three books. When Breath Becomes Air is like, the number one book that I recommend to everyone I encounter. Just like, if there's one book that has changed my life, that would be it. The Alchemist, which is like a more of an oddball take because it's fiction, but absolutely loved it and read it once a year. And then I'm going to throw in one from a different category. Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Historical fiction, one of the most incredible. It's based on a true story. It's just historical fiction because he had to fill in details and dramatize things, but unbelievable. Mark Sullivan is the author of that one incredible historical fiction book. What was the second one?

Two TV shows or documentaries.

Ooh, TV shows or documentaries. I mean, free solo, if people haven't seen it at this point is just like, I still kind of have, like, chills when I. When I watch that and see some of the footage that they got.

Have you seen Meru yet?

No.

Oh, watch Meru. I think Meru's even better.

Where is it on Netflix and stuff?

Meru is probably on Netflix or hbo. It's another Jimmy Chan movie. It's Jimmy Chan, Conrad Anker and Renan Oestruck. And I mean, I know Alex. Steve knows Alex a little bit. We love Alex, and he's wired differently. And that's a great movie about obsession. I think Meru is maybe even more like Crazy about obsession in the climbing world. And climbers are the best, man. Because you have to be both an insane athlete and a philosopher to want to put yourself in those situations.

Did you guys see. What was the one called, like, the Alpinist. Was that.

Yeah, the Alpinist.

And he died.

Super sad.

That was super sad. It was a great movie, though.

Anyway, sorry, I interjected. So we're gonna do free solo and all the mountain movies.

Yeah, all the mountain movies. And then what was the final category that I needed to give you?

You need two TV shows or documentaries?

I need another TV show. I'm not a huge TV watcher. I mean, I like. This is a stupid one. I love Family Guy. I want Family Guy almost every single day. Just like I only like season 10 and before, because I think it was so funny in the early days.

And then just one other. One other interesting thing that we didn't touch on or that you want to share at the end.

I don't know. I feel like we've touched on a lot. What's another interest? I don't know. I don't. I don't.

That's a.

That's a broad prompt. I don't know. I don't have anything else.

All right.

That means every single thing in my life.

We've done our job, man. This is the longest that we've ever gone on the Growth Equation podcast. I'm honored, and for good reason. I mean, I know I certainly enjoyed this. I speak for Steve. I know Steve did, too. We will be sure to put your information in the show notes, so Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and. And we'll continue to keep in touch with you, Sahil. We're really stoked for what's to come and to watch your path evolve.

Yeah. I'm thrilled to be connected with you guys and excited to learn from you as we continue to build here.