Ep. 2999: Do It or Don't, and Stop Wanting It

You either do it or you don't. If you don't do it, stop wanting it, right? So if you want to become a VC, you want to become a C-level executive, well, guess what? C-level, you're going to own a P&L, you're going to be recruiting people, you're going to be hiring people. No, no, no, it's not just I'm going to hand it off to HR. No, no, no, you're going to be there recruiting. Like that means you're probably going to be talking to people on the street, you're going to be meeting with people, right? And a job basically at the end of the day is it's a list of responsibilities. And guess who has to clean up most of the work at the end of the day? It's the CEO, right? Or even you as co-founder, co-founder of the company, a lot of the stuff bubbles up to you that you don't want to deal with that you have to deal with, like random bank stuff or things like that, right? And so, but a lot of people, I think, you know, when you, when you go into the workforce, you're trained to think, oh, I want to be promoted, I want to become a VP, whatever. But that actually means more responsibilities. And I don't think people actually understand it. They just say that they want it. But when you say, okay, well, it's going to require you to do X, Y, and Z, it's like, oh, well, That's not what I thought it was. And I don't know, this has just been bothering me a lot because people, the level of entitlement, I just can't take it. Yeah.

So let's go back on this. If you want to be promoted, you're saying do it or don't, but what if you're in a corporation? Let's say I'm someone at Single Grain and account executive.

All right.

I'm working with clients. Eventually I want to be the VP of client services and manage a team. Eventually then I want to go from there to be a COO, and then I want to go to be the president and then maybe one day CEO if you'd be open to it. This is a hypothetical.

Yeah.

So what would I need to do in this scenario to get promoted?

You know what's interesting? Let me experience share. Let me, 'cause I can, I've lived this experience.

Okay.

Okay. I'll experience share and you tell me if this answers the question or not. And then if not, I can, I'm happy to answer more. So I've told you this story where when I've worked for startups before, when it was 4-day work weeks, I would work 7 days a week 'cause I cared so much about the company and I'd work like 80+ hours a week, but there was no incentive for me to work that hard. And I had to learn all these other things that my CEO never taught me to learn, but I went to do it and I, you have to figure it out. You have to MIH, you have to make it happen over time. And so that's how I continued to grow. And then eventually it led to this thing, right? Which was Single Grain. It's like, okay, well how do you operate this company that's a failing? And then like all these things, it's like, oh, how do you deal with these people problems? Oh, well SEO's not working anymore. Oh, what do you do? What do you do in that situation? Oh crap, a bunch of people are quitting at the same time. What do you do? Oh, we're not getting any leads anymore from Neil. What do you do, right? And everything's crumbling and guess what? Tough shit, figure it out. And most people just aren't willing to do that, right? And I'm not saying I'm the most amazing thing. It's just, you have to have a lot of resilience, a lot of grit, but don't expect these things to be handed to you if you're not willing to just—

that's what I'm saying.

Do it or don't. Yeah, just stop right there.

Look, I get what you mean. I agree with that.

Well, it's the same thing for you.

Like when you're in your teens or so, like you are working your ass off.

off and like you suffered and you paid the price for it and you got kicked in the nuts every day. And so like, do people think this is going to be easy?

I still get kicked in the nuts every day.

This is what business is. You get punched in the face every day. You're eating glass. You get kicked in the nuts every day. And sometimes it's not fun, but like suck it up.

And I want to share a little about the Single Grain story because at one point I was a 10% owner in Single Grain. So the way Eric came about with Single Grain is my cousin and one of our mutual friends, AJ, were owners in Single Grain.

And everyone's on good terms?

Everyone's on good terms.

Yep.

No one has issues with each other. And then one day Eric gets introduced to them somehow that he should work there. He starts working there and becomes a partner and he helps them in some of the areas that they're struggling with, like churn, growth, expansion. I think you even moved to San Francisco for the company, right?

I went to San Francisco and visited a couple times, and then I got Sujin to move down to Santa Monica.

Oh, okay. So then you didn't have to move up there.

Yeah.

And then one day there was financial issues with the companies, not necessarily that clients weren't paying or the company wasn't making revenue, just a misappropriation of funds. Would you probably say that's probably an accurate representation?

No, I mean, I think it was, I mean, it was Misuse of funds, I would say. I mean, I don't know if it's fair to say that.

You're trying to think about how to politely say it.

Yeah, I don't want to call anyone out.

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm not saying who or anything like that. Okay. So, and because of the misuse of funds, let's just call it that because it is somewhat accurate. Eric shaking his head.

Nodding my head, you mean.

Nodding his head. I was like, cool. Me and my co-founder, me and my brother-in-law, Hiten, we each own 10%. We didn't care. We're just like, cool, you guys can have the company, whatever, do whatever you want with it. Because when it comes to friends and family, you know, money isn't everything. And sometimes people make mistakes and they don't— nothing was ill-willed. No one did any of this kind of stuff intentionally. It was just an accident.

And like, if there was ill will, like we wouldn't be talking to some of these people.

No. Yeah. Yeah.

And so everyone still talks to each other.

Everyone still talks. It was just, yeah. So a mistake was happened by someone on an accident, but it was a big mistake. Yeah. And Ethan and I just bowed down.

Bowed out, you mean?

Bowed out, yeah. AJ, I think bowed out.

He bowed out earlier already.

He already bowed out earlier.

Yeah.

Eric said, actually, no, I want to keep going. And keep in mind, no one was going to leave the clients drying anyway or hanging. That was going to be taken care of, but it was like, who wants to end up running it? Eric's like, I'll take over the company. I'll run it and I'll spend the— I think you bought out the co-founders, right?

Yep.

So he gave some money and he took the fee upfront.

The structure was $1 for your shares, $1 for Hiten shares, and the rest was seller finance. And the contingency was if the company failed, I would owe nothing.

Yes, but I don't think Hiten and I ever wanted anything, right? I think we had to do a dollar.

You had to do a dollar for legal, legal purposes. Legal purposes.

So we took our dollar. I don't know if we did, but if I did, I should get it back.

Well, you sent me a dollar back because I gave you a knife once. And your wife was like, you got to send a dollar. So you sent me a dollar on PayPal.

Yeah, because it cuts friendships or something like that.

Anyway, continue your story.

So Eric took it over. The first year was hell. The second year was hell too, right?

First year and a half, 2 years was absolute hell.

How many times did you almost go bankrupt in that time?

I was perpetually almost bankrupt. Yeah.

And then you eventually got it to work and then you started making millions in revenue. Then it started to grow into tens of millions. And even through those periods after the first 2 years, you had some scary moments in between too. Even though you're growing, the bad economy, things going down.

Oh my God, getting attacked everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, but now things are looking better.

Yeah.

Uh, you bought some companies that didn't work out, which cost you an arm and a leg and set you back because it was a ton of cash, but it just goes to show that It's not easy. And if you're either willing to do it or you're not, and I think that's what really separates the winners from the losers. You know, like I was talking to Steve earlier from My Wife Quit Her Job. He went to Stanford and we were talking about education and college. And I was just like, yeah, by the time my kids have to go to college, I don't think college will be necessary. His kids are on the borderline where they're applying to go to college.

Yeah.

So it's like a little bit different now, but Call it 10, 15 years from now. I don't think there's a point to go to college unless you are in a profession like a doctor that requires that.

Engineer, architect.

Those, I don't think you need to go to college.

Oh yeah, probably not given all the AI stuff.

Yeah. Engineer, I don't think so.

You mean a software engineer? I'm talking about like a structural engineer.

Yeah, structural engineer and all that. I don't think you need to, because every city code's different. I don't think you're going to learn that kind of stuff from going to school. I think you'll just learn from using the software.

Key point, you could be right there, but key point is doctors, maybe nurse, you probably still need to go to school.

Lawyers, I think you still to go to school, right?

Yeah.

But yeah, either you're going to do it or not. And I don't think it's if you could get into Stanford or Harvard. No, no hate on anyone who actually went to Stanford or Harvard. I think it's just more so, are you going to do crap or are you not? Yeah, just people are lazy.

Here's my key point. So like, I know with you, for example, if you needed to go through a lot of like you've been through a lot of pain, right? And so and also like, let's look at my, my CTO, for example. I know he can take a lot of pain, right? And so the phrase from the Four Seasons founder is Excellence is the capacity to take pain. And that's all it is at the end of the day. And if you can develop that resilience, not even gene, but that resilience within you, you will become unstoppable. And here's where I want to leave it off, and this will be the last topic here. So if you want to get rich, here's how hard you need to work. And so I talked to some people recently. The question I always ask them when I interview them is like, tell me about a time where you worked your absolute hardest. Like, oh man, yeah, yeah. I remember one time I was working like day and night. It was crazy. I was like, so how many hours were you working per week? Like, you know, 40 hours. I'm like, all right. So, but then you talk to some people, like they're serious. Yeah. I'm like, oh, all right. And I'm like, yeah, this interview's done, right? But you'll talk to some people who train for like Navy SEALs, for example, they'll wake up 5 in the morning and they'll train till like 12:00 AM, right? Or someone that worked for Goldman Sachs, like 100 hours a week sometimes, right? And like, that's not my expectation, but Bare minimum, like you think about your 20s or even your teens, for example, how hard, how many hours were you working per week, you think?

I don't know.

80 plus, right?

Teens?

Maybe early 20s.

Yeah, teens, 'cause I still had school at the time. I know I was working more than 40, but school took up a good chunk of my time.

So that's still, you had a full-time job while you had school, right? But then you got into your 20s, 80 plus hours, right?

Easily.

Yeah. That's my point.

'Cause I was working more than 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. I think I was working probably close to 14-hour days. 7 days a week.

But work was kind of, at least for me, work is play. I don't know how you felt about it, but my point of saying this is that here's, you actually need to work 70, 80+ hours a week in your 20s if you want to get ahead. And that's your time to, because you're rich in time, so you might as well use that time and not get distracted. And I think, you know, you start to get into your 30s, I guess we're basically 40 now.

I'm 40.

You're 40 now. I'm 39, basically 40, right? We don't work 70, 80 hours a week anymore, but there's a, you got to suffer at some point, right?

Yeah. I'm laughing because I'm like, I don't even know how many hours I work, but it's definitely not 70, 80 hours. I'm not saying it's more. I'm saying it's a lot less.

Yeah.

I don't think I work less than 40 hours a week. I don't count my hours. I know there are some weeks I work less than 40, like next week I go to Disneyland for a few days straight. So, you know, that'll take a lot of the time away from working and I prefer to just work than go to Disneyland in the hot heat walking around. But dude, let me ask you a question. Would you go back working 70, 80 hours a week right now?

No.

Even if it would make you double the money?

No.

Yeah, same here. Someone asked me that the other day because they were touring my house that I'm building and I'm like, I'd rather sell the house than go back to working 70, 80 hours. They're like, really? I'm like, life is chill. If I just cash out on a lot of the stuff I have and liquidate some assets, I'm like, life is chill. I'm not willing to go back to work now.

Well, your desires change over time, because when I first met you, it was more, you know, money was more of a desire, like a higher desire, right? That now family time is more of a higher desire for you. So like things, desires change over time. And for me, I like playing the game, but I also like playing the high leverage game. So I'm not doing low leverage things, right? So with ChatGPT all the time, I'm like, hey, how high leverage was my day today on a scale of 1 to 10? If it gives me an 8, I get really pissed and I try to drive it to a 9. But that's a separate thing. If you're in B2B, here's the deal. LinkedIn account-based marketing sucks, but it doesn't have to. With Karrot, it allows you to create personalized ads towards your customers and also personalized landing pages that align with the ads. You're going to have higher conversions and influence pipeline reporting to prove that your ABM works. So if you want to learn more, just go to karrot.ai and you can join the waitlist. Again, it's karrot.ai and we'll see you on the other side. But point is, We're not trying to work that amount of time, but if you do want to, and we're not saying we're the richest people or wealthiest people in the world, we're just saying that from what we've seen from either ourselves or our friends, their 20s, you're working 70, 80 hours a week, if not more.

My daughter last night was crying in bed, so I go in and I'm like, Emma, why are you crying? And I'm like, what's wrong? And she's like, nothing. I'm like, did you pee or anything like that? Every once in a while she'll have an accident, but very rarely. And like, call it 2 times a year, right?

Yeah.

I was like, do you want anything? I'm like, why are you sad? And she was like crying. And like, it was sad crying, not like upset or whining. So as a parent, you don't want to see your kids cry. It's a shitty feeling. Like, and I asked her, I'm like, did you do anything? Did I do anything? Did mom do anything? And she goes back and says, she's like, I don't know. I'm like, are you sick? She's like, well, my stomach's grumbling a little. I'm like, what is it? You can tell me. And she's like, no, there's no point in telling you. telling you 'cause you're not gonna change. And I'm like, I'm like, well, I couldn't just leave her because I can't have on my conscience that my kid's crying because of something that she believes I won't change. So then she tells me, you know, when are you gonna spend more time with me? And I spent time with her yesterday, like her doll. She has hangers for all the doll clothes and we were going over her dolls and dressing 'em and then playing some Legos. I ate dinner with her, you know. Played with her after, read some books. I took her to school this morning, right? I take her to school or pick her up. They go to summer camp right now. And she kept crying. She's just like, when are you gonna stop traveling? And I'm like, I'm home for the next 10 days. Next week I'm going to Disneyland with you, 2 straight days. We're gonna do some cool activities. I'm not gonna always be on my phone. And she's like, I get that. She's like, I don't mind you traveling. But when am I just going to get my dad? And I was like, you know, I'll stop working when you have kids and I'll spend way more time. And she says, why do I have to wait to have kids? And I'm like, well, one day you'll appreciate how hard dad worked to make your life easier than my life was. Because my parents worked hard like yours, but they didn't have money when they came here, right? Your parents struggled. Eric's mom was very generous. She would sell homes for commission because she was a realtor and they weren't the lowest income, but they weren't rich. She would give back some of her commission to help people fix their house or pay for their washer and dryer or their fridge, just because she knew what it was like to struggle. And, you know, this is like, it's the right thing to do. And she did that and she worked hard, but Eric has a much better life now. My parents, similar things, they struggled. I had a tough life growing up, but it wasn't that bad compared to my parents. And then my kids have a much easier life. So I was like trying to explain to my daughter how she'll appreciate it. And she was just like, but I don't need much. I just need you. And I was like, okay. I'm like, I won't wait for you to have kids. I'm like, I'm 40. Give me till I'm 45 and I promise I'll slow down.

Wow.

And it doesn't mean I'll stop. But I'll figure out how to be half of the time of what I am today. Because my kids don't care for the money. They want me.

Realistically, you have everything you need.

Yes. Financially and everything like that. I think I'm okay.

I just think it's, you enjoy playing the game and that's the thing. It's if, if you can make work play, you've already won many times over.

Sure. Like if I sell all businesses, homes and everything, I don't—

You'd be bored out of your mind.

I would be bored out of my mind, but then my kids would be good.

Yeah. Well, trade-offs.

Yeah. But it's not even about the money. It's more of, I think you nailed it. I don't have purpose in life other than working. And family is a purpose and I love my kids and I love my family and wife, but it's, I don't know how to explain it. Work gives a different purpose and I can't give up that purpose because that purpose was my first child.

You know what's interesting? So my mom was useful. So Noah here and Neil were at the funeral. Thank you guys for coming last Saturday. She was useful to the very end and she struggled in the very beginning, but she got to upper middle class, right? Which is pretty damn good being an independent woman, right? Like that.

And so— Wait, she was a breadwinner too for everyone listening, right?

She was a breadwinner and like—

In a male-dominated society back then.

Yeah, breadwinner, tiger mom. And it's interesting 'cause my grandfather was a very powerful Taiwanese senator. I realized how powerful he is like recently. The grandfather told my mom, he's like, yeah, He should have been a man 'cause it was a very male-dominated society. But all that to say is that even till the very end, it's— dude, I think even— so 4 weeks until her body started getting really weak again, she was still driving things, working. Even when she was really sick, she was still driving things, right? And so to your point, if anybody's read Man's Search for Meaning, it is purpose at the end of the day. And your purpose could be your kids and it also could be work at the same time. So I think if you communicate that, this is my thought, I'm like, just communicate to Emma, Emma, you're my purpose. You're a big piece of it, but work is also a big piece of my purpose. And for her right now, her purpose is you, like the family.

Yes.

And so it's like, you know, for you, you've kind of divided it a little bit. So anyway, let me know how that goes. No.

Well, I didn't try that yesterday. She was crying and I'm like, would it make it better if you're sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed? And she's like, uh-huh. She had a big smile. She's like, will mommy be okay with this? Like, yeah, mommy's chill with whatever. Technically mommy's the more strict one than me, but I put her in the bed. I told her, I texted my wife because she was on the phone dealing with some other school stuff for the kids. And you're saying, okay, sounds good. She's like, I hope she's not sad because none of us want our kids to be sad. Even Eric, he doesn't have kids. He wouldn't want my kids to be sad or any other random person's kids. But then it all worked out and she was happy.

Yeah. All right, guys. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.

Bye.