Genius Network Presents: Entrepreneurial Personality Type interview with Alex Charfen

Hello, this is Joe Polish and I'm here with my friend and Genius Network member Alex Charfen, who is an awesome guy. Great to be here.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

Finally doing this.

So awesome.

Doing an interview. So you wrote a book called Entrepreneurial Personality Type. We're going to talk about this. I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions. But for people that have no idea who you are, who are you? What do you do?

Yeah, thanks, Joe. Gosh, it's a tough question to answer because today I do something far different than what I used to do. I. It sounds like I'm the smartest guy in the world, but When I was 21 years old, I ended up being a Fortune 100 Global 100 consultant. It was all by luck. It was circumstance and luck. But once I got the opportunity, I took advantage of it. For the next 12 to 15 years, I had some contracts that lasted a little bit longer. I consulted with some of the most intelligent, most successful and wealthiest people in the world very quickly. The first client I had was Fuji Media. The second client was SanDisk and the third client was Fuji Digital. So when you have that, it was deep into the pool right away. And I spent that entire time focused on a quest that began in childhood. How do you make business grow? That's kind of been my whole life. Quest is how to help entrepreneurs and help businesses grow.

So what were some of your first jobs where you're actually making money, where you earn money?

How did you start? So it's a weird story for me, Joe. So when I was really young, I always knew I was different from everyone else and I didn't get along well like in school or what you would call social situations as a kid. But When I was 8 years old, my dad had a business that failed and he started working in a swap meet, like selling stuff in a swap meet. And I was working behind a table at 8 years old. So I started pitching, selling like pens with a clock in them. This was 1980, so it was very high tech. So pens with a clock in them and many calculators. And I'm selling over the table at a swap meet at 8. So that was my first job. And it was part because my family needed it. I think it was part because it gave me something to do. But I did that for a long time with my father. Then I started a business when I was 16, a window washing company. I know, you know, the service business. So I was cleaning herbs.

I used to clean lawns, all this totally.

And then and cleaning Carpets. Right. So I was doing this window washing thing, and when I was 17, I kind of got caught. I had signed a bunch of contracts and insurance and all kinds of stuff, but everybody assumed I was of legal age. And so when they found out I didn't have workers comp. I didn't have insurance, I'd be kind of like fraudulently doing stuff. I had to sell the company. So it was like I was angry with the man, I was angry with the world. I had a rough time. It made things harder. And then when I got to college, I started another business and sold that. That's how I ended up in Florida and became a consultant.

Gotcha. Well, so what I want to do with our conversation today is share some of your very unique insights on how to look at yourself, how to look at entrepreneurship, how to look at creativity. Use a lot of terminology in your book, such as momentum and hunters and pressure and noise and ways that you describe what you call the entrepreneurial personality type, which the subtitle is your guide to the most important and misunderstood people among us. And now this particular book, the second person that got this book, you only printed 500 of these. But what I do want to tell anyone that's listening or watching this, that you can download this book online for free. Yeah.

You just go to charfen.com genius and you can get it for free.

Perfect. Perfect. So what is the entrepreneurial personality type? What do you mean by that?

So, Joe, when I was younger, I thought I was so far from being successful that I would never actually achieve success. And as a kid, I read obsessively. I think you and I have something in common.

Yeah. In this room, they can't see on the video all the books, but there's approximately 2,400 books in this room.

Yeah. So this is like half the rooms in my house. And books were always my friend. And when I went to read, I started reading about successful people, and it took forever to develop. But if you start reading about successful people, here's what you see. There's this consistency. When you read 10, they look completely different. You read 100, they start looking like there's some similarities. You get to 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, you start really absorbing all the biographies. You can. You see that things are very similar. Entrepreneurs, people who do something different. And the reason I say entrepreneurial personality type is that I expand the term entrepreneur to undertake to people who are writing the script, getting on stage, who want to do something new, change the world. To me, they're all the Same, you know, you and I just chose business as our vehicle, but others choose the stage or the screen or something, or a book or something else, or if.

They'Re really self destructive prison, things like that.

Well, and that's the problem. You know, I think that we don't see this as a society, but there's as many entrepreneurial personality types in rehab or in prison or in an early grave as there are running successful businesses. Totally. It's our personality. You know, if you look at what an entrepreneur is, it's somebody who wakes up every morning and questions the status quo, challenges, what's going on, says can we do better, can we improve things, can we move things forward? We've found a place in our lives where we're supported in that way. But as kids, the kid who wants to drive like that at a 10 out of 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, doesn't get a lot of support. And as a result, a lot of us end up feeling suppressed and labeled and we don't feel like we can move forward. I know a lot of people who could have been wildly successful or should have been wildly successful given the skill sets, but there was so much heaped on top of them when they were growing up. It's hard to come out from under.

Yeah, totally. And I think that has so much to do with where someone takes their quote unquote weaknesses or relabeling them as strengths or their attributes, which we'll talk about that because you describe it in the book and how that affects their future progress. Some of it is their perception. Now, a lot of the challenges and adversities and hardship are what mold certain people to overcome. Whereas a different type of individual, depending on sensitivity level, depending on how it comes to them, it can cripple them. So I'd love to have you kind of break that apart. And one thing that I do want to say is that one thing that I really resonate with, you've given some great talks here at Genius Network. You've spoken at the annual event, and for people watching these on geniusx.com, we're going to put Alex's presentations where he's given rooms full of some of the most successful people on the planet. And so you'll be able to see that. The thing is, I think you give a lot of people liberation from these labels that they've been given from these challenges, and you want to really assure them that there's nothing wrong, wrong with them, which of course I question. Well, is there? Well, maybe there Is something wrong with them? So we'll talk about all of that stuff. So the person that is out there that is trying to make something happen feels like they can't connect, feels socially awkward, feels like maybe they're making financial success, but they're feeling like I'm so screwed up and I need to figure this out, and I don't have any peace of mind. And I want you to kind of talk about that, because you tend to put bombs in some of these concepts and blow them up and say, let's just look at it in a completely different way. So, that being said, the entrepreneur. The original definition of an entrepreneur was coined by John Baptiste in 1804. That said, an entrepreneur is an individual that takes resources from a lower level of productivity to a higher level. So I tend to think of entrepreneurs whenever they can make improvements. So even if someone is in prison, like a drug dealer, they're still thinking, oh, how can I be a better drug dealer? How can I finagle this sort of thing? It's weird.

I've spent time in prison. You know, I've volunteered at prisons. I was wondering if you were, like.

In prison or you just volunteered. Okay.

You know, and let's be honest, by the grace of God, I'm not.

Oh, same here.

You know, same here. I've been. I've talked to guys who are in, and I think, holy crap, like, I could have been there, too. Yeah. And actually, it's an interesting story. It's part of how I figured out this personality type. I went and I volunteered in a prison, and. Have you ever been in one?

Yes.

Okay. So, you know, most people don't understand when you go approaching the walls of a prison, the energy starts to drain out of your body. You don't even have to know it's a prison. Am I right? Like, you start getting. And you start feeling it, and when you walk in and you go through the process and it's not. You're not being processed as a prisoner, you're being processed as a visitor. It's still dehumanizing and terrifying, right? Yeah.

There's an energy in a prison. And. Yeah, I mean, right now I'm trying to even work with one of my friends who run some of the Arizona government. I actually, you know, talked with the. I was with the governor of Arizona over the weekend and talking about an idea I have for. With the stuff I'm doing with addicts to actually help provide programs before people end up in prison that are, you know, that are challenged with addiction and Drugs?

Good question. Because once you get there, you're in this place that's like, it takes your life away and it takes who you are away. And Joe, I don't know if you remember going in, but that room where you have to like, they close the door behind you and you're in that like airlock thing that is bigger than the cell or it was where I was and it was still terrifying. And then it opens on the other side of the door. And so I spent an hour with prisoners who had self selected and said they wanted to learn public speaking. That's what I volunteered to train. And I remember the whole time I was in prison, my energy level was so, like, awkward and so out of it that I didn't really have time to pay attention or understand or like, you know, comprehend what was happening. But I walked out and I remember thinking like, I turned around, I looked at these guys that were in the room with me, and There was about 14 out of a population, I don't know, like a thousand or something. And like three of them looked like business people in prison suits. Two had tattoos and they were all kind of scary. And I said something like, does anybody want to learn public speaking or are you guys going to hurt me? And they all started laughing. I'm like, okay, good. I remember leaving and I walked out to my car and I had like this really emotional response because I just spent an hour with prisoners and I had related to them better than I relate to most people in the real world. And I remember getting out to my car and sitting down and thinking, like, am I a criminal? Did I relate to him because I'm a criminal? Do I have criminal tendencies? I couldn't figure it out. It's part of what kind of led to continuing to study personalities, continuing to study people, trying to understand psychology. And how is it that someone you can sit across from a table from and want to invite them home to hang out with you is in prison?

Right, right. Well, okay, so. Because the way that I. And you know this, because you write about this, you don't come across to some people that don't get you as like, you know, a normal person. I mean, you're intense, you're driven. You have this whole sort of way that you think about the world. Now in the book, you describe a hunter. And so I want you to describe, what do you mean by a hunter and what. You know, I remember having this conversation with Dan Sullivan and he said, you know what? Entrepreneurs are killers. And he didn't say it in A way to, like, they go out and kill people is like, they're. That's not what he meant. I mean, because frankly, most entrepreneurs that I know that I meet are incredibly good people.

I mean, and we don't really like. And not every one of us likes to go shoot stuff either.

Right. I mean, they just. But they want to get something. They're out there, they're on the hunt and back. So you talk about it back in, you know, prehistoric times, totally, where, you know, we had to survive. And those were the individuals that brought, you know, the resources and the food and everything that made the tribe work. So how would you describe the hunter? And then in modern life, entrepreneurs out there, how to think about themselves.

So, you know, in doing the research and reading and trying to figure out myself, I started looking at the fact that there's this set of behaviors that have been present throughout history. There's always been this subset of humanity that says, hey, we should do something different, we should do something more, we should do something better. We should press here, and there's something more that we can contribute, something more, we can give. And in studying, kind of, where does that come from? Like, why would there be people who are driven like that? You know, Joe, when you read the words of entrepreneurs, they're not talking about choices that they make in their pursuits. They're talking about drive that comes from within them, but from without of them as well, that they can't turn off. And when psychologists say things like human beings are motivated either internally, intrinsically, or externally, extrinsically, it's because they study us, like through a microscope or through a telescope. They never talk. If you talk to an entrepreneur and you say one question and I'll ask you, can you turn it off very hard? Can you, like, really?

No. I mean, I can maybe.

Well, I meditate.

I can numb it. I can escape it, you know, but it's. It's. Yeah, it's like telling a fish to quit, you know, swimming. I mean, you're in water, stop being wet.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we can't. And if you talk to psychologists, they're not going to tell you that. And it's that innate motivation that opens up for entrepreneurs. And that's one of the, you know, the three awakenings of an entrepreneur is that you can't turn it off anymore.

And when someone says, you know, calm down, you're like, it makes it worse. I don't want to fucking calm down.

And so here's how I look at our personality type. When you look at society as a whole or our species. I believe in intelligent design. And there's a lot of people in our world who are there to take care of the people in our world. And we know those people, they're doing the things that take care of people in our world. You and I have a hard time with those things. Really hard time. Right. And then there's another subset of people that carry the oral tradition and they talk and they carry the stories along. We do some of that. Right. But then there's another subset and they organize and they make sure things are in line and they, you know, these days, they love Excel and all that stuff. We have a hard time with that. Now you look at those three subsets, then there's this other smaller subset that kills shit. And that's what we do. And if you look at evolutionarily, there needed to be that subset in the tribe that went out and was willing to, with a lot less technology than we have today with some sticks and stones, had the chemical courage to get wound up enough to run out in the world and kill something and know that somebody's not coming back. Entrepreneurs have that chemical courage because every morning they get up and they expose themselves to the vulnerability of saying, I am an entrepreneur. I am a commodity that you can judge, and most of the world can't do that. We are driven from a force beyond what we need to conjure. And I think that's evolutionarily. We are hunters.

Interesting. That's an interesting term, chemical courage. Do you mean the. Because there's a question I have here. I've written some questions here. What is the one that has to do with science?

Don't we need science to back up and validate? Yeah.

Don't we need science to back up and validate what you're describing as the entrepreneur personality type? Well, first off, then I'll come back to it. How would you answer that question?

Do we need science?

Yeah, I mean, you have this thing called the entrepreneur personality type. You have all these descriptions and stuff. How do you know this is true?

Well, first, I'd like to just issue a challenge to anyone anywhere who disagrees with anything in this. Let's find the biggest stage we can, because I will take an MD, a PhD or whoever you want, and we can argue the concepts in this book. Because I think that today we need to have a suspicion of science overall. Because if most science, if you and I marketed the same way science did today, we'd be in jail. And long ago, the scientists in the world carried Forward a really bad hypothesis that we need to figure out. Everything wrong with you and the entire scientific community has a deficit based evaluation of human beings where the question they ask is, what's wrong with you? How do we diagnose this and how quickly can we either chemically or surgically fix it? And so do we need science to back up what I'm saying? I would encourage people to be very suspect of the science of what's called science today.

Or like academia.

Yeah. I mean, it all rolls into the same thing. Because if you start with the basic premise there's wrong with you with a human being, you'll find it the most vulnerable person in any room is the person in charge.

Well, you mentioned in the book, I'm not sure the exact area, but you'll know what I'm talking about since you wrote the book, that there is an entire industry that supports and literally makes people feel invalid, makes people feel lacking, that there's something wrong with you because there's books to sell, there's drugs to take, there's cars to drive, there's all of this. There's so much of the promotions around how you're inadequate and how if you buy this or link to this or join this, that you're going to be fulfilled. Now, many of these things are very helpful because as humans, we are inadequate in a lot of ways and we can buy things that will, you know, fulfill that. The thing though, is when it goes into your mental mindset of how you view yourself and the biggest pursuers of seminars in self help and personal development are people like us.

I mean, no joke, right? Well, everybody can't see it, but there's a wall over here with probably $200,000 worth of seminar stuff on it.

Easily.

Easily.

Maybe, yeah. I've spent over $2 million on my marketing and business education.

So I said something like that the other day and Katie said, if only it was that much, it was so.

Much more, then you'd be complete, right?

No, she's like, she's like, no, if only it was that much, we'd have a lot more in the bank.

Here's the thing though, because a lot of the, you know, out of all these books in here, as an example now, you know, these are all my books. I've read over a thousand books. And when you said three to 4,000, I'm going, how in the hell did you read three or four, 4,000 books? But a lot of people would say, how did you read a thousand books?

Well, you know, I have a Lot of friends, like, no joke. You know, when I was a kid I isolated a lot and I used to stack up books and when I was alone I can read relatively quickly. I have dyslexia, but situationally it gets much worse when there's a lot of noise. But when I'm alone I can read pretty quick. And so yeah, way more than three or 4,000.

And you're just trying to put in programming in order to how to think about things, operating in a world that in many ways you don't feel at all connected or supported. And I'm of course speaking for myself and certainly you have your own.

You know what, Joe, I think what you just brought up is interesting because today there's this new class of person that's being labeled in a very sinister way. And I think you would carry the label today. I would carry the label today and most people you and I respect would. They'd be called something like Asperger's, Autistic adhd, developmentally disordered, some bullshit like that. Some grouping of symptoms that every successful and brilliant person in history has had that's been labeled with another grouping of symptoms that we can now tell you there's something wrong with you. That labeling system is for people who are really logic based, who have trouble with the world, who are awkward, they don't understand everything, they have trouble with social situations, what really means. They have trouble creating a false veneer, they're exceedingly transparent, they're driven to move forward, they want to do something new, they're restless. I mean, tell me, is this the hunter personality or not? And they come like a blank slate. Like you and I we had. And when you say you had to load in programming, we even talk in equations of math like we talk in equations, we talk in moving forward, we talk in like organization because that's who we are. We actually had to load in our personalities so that we could understand the world. I mean, I knew I was different the first time I encountered people outside of my family because I felt terrified.

Yeah, no, I totally get it. So what I was going to say is that the vast majority of the self help world is. And it's gotten better over the last few years certainly because we keep discovering and learning more. And there's people I would like to think like us that really speak to people's strengths, not their weaknesses. Where so much of the self help world is, what's wrong with you, how to fix it versus what's right with you and how to enhance it, or amplify it. Right. And so that's kind of what your message is about. Like saying, okay, first off, if you think that you're fucked up, what do you think a person who constantly thinks they're fucked up is? How are they going to live into that? They're going to do, you know, they're going to feel that way. Whereas you say several times in there, there's nothing wrong with you.

Yeah.

So I'd like you. It sounds like a simple statement, but what do you mean? I mean, because there are people that are watching this going, trust me, there's something wrong with me. I'm addicted to Internet porn. I, like, have tendencies to go steal. I question my integrity. I don't feel like anyone understands me. I'm surrounded by yes people. I mean, there's all these things where they can feel like they're on the outside looking in, or that the world doesn't get them or that they're really ashamed or whatever. So what do you mean by there's nothing wrong with you?

You know, Joe, I think that. So when I really started reading and I got into biographies, I didn't stop. And when you start looking at the people who have achieved. If you go back in history and you look at anyone that matters, anyone that you remember, anyone that matters to be remembered, they were just like us. And the stories where you can find them of adolescence are stories of children who struggled and who did not fit in and who didn't understand society. And it looked like things would not work out. And oftentimes, not only did they not have the resources, but maybe even physically, they weren't capable. There was handicaps, there was deficits you could see. But in all of the cases, it didn't matter what was quote, unquote, wrong with those people when they were able to hook into momentum, find the greater contribution they wanted to make, and lean on their strengths. Literally, someone who is deaf, dumb and blind changes the world for handicapped people like Helen Keller shouldn't have been able to do anything. And so we live in a world where when you say things like every. The preamble, you said, I'm addicted to porn. I do this, I do that. You know, we have been convinced since childhood that there's something wrong with us. Every evaluation we've ever had has said, what did you get wrong? What class did you ever have in school? What evaluation have you ever had? Where they said, joe, let's figure out what's good about you. Like, how do we amplify what you do? Right? And the problem Is that today the world wants you to say there's something wrong with me and release the rest of the world to fix it. Take a pill, go to somebody to fix it for you. Change who you are, change how you look at things. Here's what I want anyone who's like us to know, is that if you look throughout history, any disease, any disorder, any issue you have, you know, I very openly share with people. I've been diagnosed with Asperger's, adhd, autism, bipolar, depression, manic depression, megalomaniaca. It just depended on what day I went to see somebody, what showed up. And, you know, the fact is that throughout history, anyone who did anything significant today is a 50, 50 chance they get medicated.

Right?

And so what I want everyone to think about is, look, if you want to sit down and list all the things that are wrong with you, that is the easiest thing in the world to do. But whatever is happening, whatever diagnosis, whatever disease, whatever you're struggling with, someone has had the same thing, has overcome it, and has changed the world. So where the rest of the world says, figure out what's wrong with you and change it, I want you to figure out what's right with you and pay attention to only that and understand that there is nothing wrong with you and you are not alone.

Yeah, awesome. So you talk about pressure and noise, you talk about momentum, you talk about support for that, because if you don't have that support, you can go off the rails or. I'm not sure how you would describe it, but let's kind of describe the entrepreneurial personality type. Who are these people? What are the things that show up and how do you harness it? So you're operating from a flow state. I always remember this thing from Mahali Csiksim. He wrote the book Flow.

Yeah, it's a great book.

Yeah, he said, and he's written many books, but he said that the same neural pathways that a person in a flow state, athlete, performer, entrepreneur, artist, uses to be an optimal performance, being very productive, is the same neural pathways that can lead to self destruction, addiction, anxiety. So it's like we're using the same robes. It's done in one way. It's awesome and high achieving and performance and feeling connected with your art, your world, your business, your partnership in the wrong way. It's just a tormented, painful sort of life. So go through the entrepreneur personality type and let's teach the people that are watching this how to take the gifts that they have and who they are and be the best version they can be because at the end of the day, take Genius Network. I mean, people ask me, what do you guys do? Well, it's hard to describe. We do a lot of things. We talk about a lot of stuff. I just want to build a better entrepreneur. I want to reduce suffering for the people that are suffering. I want to help them create more value from people that are already creating value. So let's kind of explore.

I think this is like the master support group for the highest level entrepreneurial personality types on the planet.

Yeah. Thank you.

That's what it really is. And it's growing even more in that direction. If we're going to describe the personality type, the easiest thing to do, Joe, is to kind of take a step back. And when we look at what I've said so far, kind of logic based, driven to move forward, somebody who's. Higher sensitivities, higher perceptions. I think that for you and I, people like you and I, we don't really understand happy or sad. And play with me here. I know you've read the book, but when I first say that, a lot of people kind of look at me funny. And here's why.

You have even little smiley faces in here.

We show it. Yeah.

Like, I know the book pretty well.

They charge the charts right here.

Yeah.

So what? You know, I don't think that we understand those concepts. And here's what I know. I know from talking to entrepreneurs. And like you said, you load the data in and we understand these things. But when somebody says happy or sad, what's happened is we've created a translation like happy is kind of good and sad is bad. But if I ask somebody like us, so now tell me the difference between sad, upset, frustrated, pissed off, ticked off, confused, and just plain not going to talk to you, they sit back and they kind of go, yeah, I don't know. Do you know?

No. I mean, you know, it's like I feel pieces of all those things, but not at all. Yeah, I mean, it's hard.

It's hard and it's hard to describe the difference. And so the issue for us is I don't think we live in this world of feelings like everyone else. And I want to make something clear. I mean, I think that world exists. Maybe it's one of the other segments of the population, maybe it's everyone else, but it's not us. Like, I can't get together with someone and have small talk and talk about my feelings. I don't understand a lot of human feelings. In fact, I used to get put in front of that chart a lot. And maybe you did too. It's the one that says, how are you feeling today? And the guidance counselor, parole officer, disciplinary officer, vice principal, principal, probation officer. I'm telling you, where I've seen it, One of them says, how are you feeling? And it has all the smile faces. And Joe, every time I was asked that, it was like a pop quiz I hadn't been prepared for. And as a kid, I finally figured out that if you looked at happy, sad, frustrated, confused, all those things, and you said sleepy, they would leave you alone. And so for us, I don't think we live in that world. And when I ask entrepreneurs about it, they all laugh too. They don't understand it. I think we exist in three states. I think we're momentum based beings. I think that's all we've pursued our whole lives, is the feeling of momentum. And we've been taught or sold or convinced that it's a fleeting, temporary feeling. And I don't believe that because I think if we move emotions aside and we stop chasing things we can't even see, feel or understand, when we just focus in on momentum and we understand there's three states, the first one's in momentum. Flow is one of the descriptions. But what does being in momentum feel like for you, Joe?

Forward motion, it feels like the pursuit of progress. It feels like like shit's getting done. Things are growing. Things are growing.

Does it feel like being alive?

Oh, totally.

It's like it's fully connected. Being alive.

Oh yeah. And speaking from a guy who's had many struggles with addiction and stuff, when I wasn't feeling alive, the jumping out of my skin needed to be medicated. And it wasn't even about addiction because addiction is a symptom of a far deeper problem, which is pain. It's just a way to scratch the itch. So if the itch ain't getting scratched and the drive isn't being driven, you feel restrained and you're either going to get sick or you're going to develop an addiction as a coping mechanism.

So the first step is being in momentum, and that's where you feel like you're alive. The second step is when you're facing resistance. Now this is weird because if an ept someone like us faces resistance, but they can see a light at the end of the tunnel, we also create momentum. Like, this is really weird, right?

So, heck, we even create resistance in.

Those in order to create momentum sometimes, right? And see, the rest of the population doesn't do that you can just watch the effects. Most people face resistance, they lay down and die or they give up or they just accept the status quo. We can't. When we see that light at the end of the tunnel, we'll pursue it. In fact, most epts if you ask them, isn't it in fact when you had no resources, you were facing resistance, you couldn't actually succeed, that you changed your life and made it happen. And wouldn't you say the same thing? Totally, 100%.

Because you even say in the book there was a time when you actually were in that driven state where you just knew. And I mean when I read that in your book, the thing like right when I first discovered marketing, here I was this dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards, trying to run a business. I didn't want to work for anyone. So certainly I was going to figure out how to make this thing work, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I always remember that quote from Anthony Greenback out of the Book of Survival that says to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules or the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do. And I just didn't know what to do. Right. Like what the hell do I do? And then when I learned marketing, I was like, oh my God, this is actually. And that's when the momentum, that's when you motivation kicked in and I started studying and reading everything I could about marketing because it wasn't like marketing, it was like a key to open up doors to get clients to figure out. It was like now you've given the hunters something to hunt with.

It was a way to hunt. Yeah, it was a way to hunt.

And before that I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

That's why so many marketers, that's why so many apts, go, go straight into marketing and then ascend like crazy because we're literally on the hunt every single day. So the third state, and this is the one that really screws us up, the third state is when we're in constraint. So Joe, you tell me, when you're in momentum, would you say there's a physical charge? Like you have more physical stamina, you can go longer, you're stronger?

Absolutely. I'm engaged. Perfect.

So second one is cognitively, do you think better? You can, you can respond to things quicker, you have more awareness.

Yes. More confidence, more aspirations, more desire, all of it.

And now the Third one, when you're in momentum, do you feel the chemical high, the chemical charge? Yeah, it's clearly there. Right. So it's interesting.

Which going back to sorry to interrupt, because you'll say things and if I don't say them, I'm afraid I'll lose them.

No, that's good.

Like the chemical courage that you talked about, this literally is biochemical. It's absolutely biochemical. I mean, looking at addiction, serotonin, dopamine, no question. I mean, in the good ways and bad, like humans are out there trying to get a buzz.

No question.

People talk about social drinking. I mean, like what they want is a buzz. Call it whatever the hell you want to call it. And so looking at the Internet, like all these things that we do, the question is how you go about doing it. Because some things are really not. They have consequences that are bad, and those have consequences that are good. But it is biochemical.

No question. No question. I mean, when you ask an entrepreneur, do you feel the chemical high? They will all say yes. And so what's interesting is we are now marketed pills that purport to give us something that we know really isn't possible. Because you have to be in momentum to feel these things. You can't pop a pill and have your life changed, so you don't replicate those feelings. Now the challenge is this, in constraint. So the third state of momentum. You tell me, Joe, have you faced that place where you feel like you can't move forward, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel? I know I have. How fast did your body break down?

Pretty damn fast.

Almost immediately.

Yeah. And not only does my body break down, my behavior breaks down cognitively.

You start making challenging decisions, and this.

Is for me, I'll start fucking shit up.

Do you become more aggressive?

Yeah.

Can you a little bit more on.

A hair trigger moody and likelier to.

Pounce, jump on someone, like maybe an agitated hunter?

Yeah. Like crawl into a hole or just fight back.

So you just described fight or flight. Right. Which is so hardwired in us. But when you said crawl into a hole or fight back, you tell me that even looks like you're a hunter. Right. We can't help but kind of show this up. And here's the third thing that happens. So it's first physical, second cognitive, third chemical. Because when you lose momentum, when you're in constraint, when you're held in place, the chemical feeling is so terrible. I've watched people put needles in their arms over and over again to Replace that feeling. Because there was such a void in their lives.

Right, right.

And it's that dramatic.

When I look, I think there are industries of back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, injections, drugs like fast food, I mean, you name it, that are.

It's a whole complex.

People are just trying to treat this unrest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It's, you know, for people like us, when you get into momentum and you start moving forward and all. Everything aligns, you feel alive and anything else, you just want to get back into momentum. And that's where it becomes biochemical. That's where we start setting up loops and spirals in our lives. A lot of people would call them addiction, but I choose to look at it differently because I believe we can purposefully addict ourselves to success. I think we can purposely addict ourselves to the right behaviors in our lives. The challenge is that the more unintentional we are with how we behave, the more we set up these biochemical patterns without wanting to. And sometimes by accident.

Well, yeah. When it becomes. I'd like to hear your view on conditioning, because when something becomes a ritual. When something becomes. You know. Because, like, with all the work I do in addiction. There's Pat Carnes, who. I did this great interview with him years ago on sex addiction. People can find it on YouTube. Pat Carnes. And he talks about the addictive cycle, where it starts with preoccupation. You're thinking about it, then ritualization, where your life is built around rituals to support this addictive lifestyle. Then there's the compulsive act, which, if you're a drug addict, it could be drinking or doing drugs. If you're a behavior addict, it could be gambling, Internet, workaholism, sex addiction, overeating. So that takes up some time, but it's usually not what takes up most time. Then after that, you go into despair, where you feel shame and guilt. And when you're in that state, the addictive cycle starts all over again. And if you keep doing that, you keep doing that. What started out as like a little dirt trail becomes a superhighway. And that becomes the way that your brain and your body, on a cellular level, you have. Literally, this is how you respond to life. So how much of this do you believe has to do with your ability to think your way out of it or relabel yourself versus you are. Because I think I have a massage therapist who's amazing, that says the issues are in the tissues, no question. You know, where it literally becomes a cellular thing. So I just want to get your viewpoint on that.

So I believe that the body carries trauma. I see a massage therapist. I do EMDR therapy. I do a really high tech, direct current therapy. I do everything I can to release trauma in the body because I want all of it to go away, and I don't want to repeat those addictive patterns. And I think when you look at the research that's been done on addiction, I look at it differently. I think that backing up to a hunter. You and I are hunters. We have a pharmacy in our bodies that gives us the chemicals we need to do something crazy enough. Like, honey, we have the chemicals in our body that will let us do something crazy enough, like getting up in front of hundreds of people and declaring that we have a better way. I know you've done it, and I know I've done it. That is hunting at a grand scheme scale. And it is a place you and I purposely put ourselves in, a place where the majority of the population would rather burn than stand on stage in front of people. Right. They really do. They say it's worse than burning alive is being on stage. And so what does that. What makes us do that? What gives us that chemical motivation? So when I look at being a hunter, if you and I were thousands of years ago and we didn't have the clothes and we didn't have everything around us and we had to go get food, grabbing a rock, grabbing a stone, there would have to be one hell of a lot of chemicals to make us feel like we should do this together at all. And so our bodies are chemically predispositioned to conditioning. And so when we don't purposely do things and when we allow ourselves to kind of drift and unintentionally consistently consume, like you said, a pebble can very quickly become a stone, can very quickly become out of control. And so I think that for us, we have to be diligent, if not paranoid, in what we do not allow in our lives. So I watch very little commercial advertising. I eat no processed foods. I'm very careful with allowing any pressure and noise into my life because it confuses everything and it makes it hard for me to find the way to move forward.

So describe pressure and noise.

What do you mean by that? So, Joe, I think that we're confused these days. For people like you and I, we are encouraged to compartmentalize everything that's wrong in our lives. Oh, well, there's something wrong in your health, but your business is going well, or we'll treat your head. But we're not going to treat your body. You go to the doctor and you get something that makes you feel better mentally, but nothing about the environment gets changed. And so when I look at entrepreneurial personality types, I think we come into this world with more pressure and noise than most. It's just resonant. It's everything we feel. We look at the people around us, we feel pressure, we hear more noise. We're overwhelmed by a lot of the world. And when we allow the cumulative pressure and noise in our lives to go up, it affects everything. And I think far too many people like you and I say things like, well, I'll put time into the business and the life falls apart, or I'll put time into the life and the business falls apart, or I'll stop taking care of my health and really double down here. And the reality is that for people like us, the less pressure and noise we experience of the right kind, right? And we can get all the bad stuff out of our lives. We can keep only the right things in. We create that much more momentum. We think clearer, we get into that place a lot faster. And in my experience, what can always derail even the most successful among us is when they let life get overwhelming, pressure, noise gets too high, and then things start to fall apart.

Right? Right. So how does one deal with pressure noise? Now we've got your lovely wife Katie, who's sitting over here to the side, who you can't see in the video unless she wants to, like, walk back. She can probably wave, however, so she probably helps you a lot with you guys work together, so she kind of gets it. And you guys pretty much beat to the same drummer, I believe. So how does one get supported and how does one reduce pressure noise?

I think that as entrepreneurial personality types, the first thing to do is admit that you have it positive thinking. And there's a whole industry that's been set up around positive thinking and affirmations and all these other things. And Joe, I have all hard time has seen most of it is anything other than denial. Right? Because fake it until you make it is bullshit. Like, really don't do that anymore. Tell people what's really going on. And so the way that, what if.

You don't know what the hell you're doing?

Well, that's exactly what you're talking about. You say that it's like all progress.

Starts by telling the truth, no question.

And the more transparent that you're willing to be, the more real you're willing to be with people, the faster the world open, Joe. I became an incredibly successful, very wealthy consultant. And I did it by telling people what I didn't know. I remember the first time I was in a meeting, and I didn't know what to say. And I thought, gosh, this is going to be one of those times where you don't know what to say. You're going to admit it. Everyone's going to think there's something wrong with you. It was just like school. I was totally overwhelmed. I was in a huge boardroom at a big company. And I said, guys, I need to stop you. The conversation's gotten a little far. I got lost about five minutes ago. I don't understand where we are. I'm really sorry. And I remember thinking, they're going to fire me as a consultant. And the guy who was running the meeting stopped, and he looked at me and said, alex, God, I'm glad you said it. This has been so hard for everyone to understand. Let's sit down and really get to it. And I thought, holy shit. Like, that made me look good. It was the opposite of school. It wasn't like all the systems I had ever been in where being honest equaled you were screwed. And so as soon as I figured that out and started dropping the veneer, that's when pressure and noise went away for me. And I take it to the extreme. I only wear clothes that are comfortable. I only have people around me that I like. I go to the events that I want to be in. I'm very particular about my cars, about all those things, because I want life to be set up for me. I even have my lights on timers so I don't have to mess with light switches. It's really important to me to eliminate all the noise I can. The two of us have spent time around billionaires, people who move the world around like puzzle pieces. And they're extraordinary in their simplicity. That's what shocked me, like, when I first got around people who operate at this level, I thought, man, it's going to be like. It's so complex and what. And they're so simple and so quiet. And you get to that level, and they demand to be comfortable. They don't tolerate shit. And it's a totally different way of looking at the world. Like, I will be comfortable for the next hour because it means something.

Yeah. I mean, one perfect, simple example, just to see that would be Steve Jobs with his uniform. Totally. The guy could afford any clothes he wanted, but he just had his black shirts and his jeans, and that's what his. He didn't even want to think about what was he going to wear today.

So Jobs, Einstein, Zuckerberg. There's a long list of entrepreneurs who, throughout the course of their lives, finally just settled on clothes and said, screw it, I can't do this anymore. Because here's what happens to us over time. And this is the gift of entrepreneurship. If you're willing to take the considerable risk of transparency. Because it's terrifying to really be honest with people. It's terrifying to tell people who you really are because you feel exposed and you've been faking it for so long. But if you're willing to be transparent, it will lower pressure and noise. It will increase protection, support. People who are honest and transparent are difficult not to help.

Yeah, and here's a good point. Since we're talking about clothes, there's a lot of people that will be like, you have to dress for success. Now, granted, if what you're wearing makes you feel good and feel comfortable, like, you love wearing ties, it gives you a certain level of, of confidence. I mean, it just, you know, resonates with you, great. But if you're someone's telling you you should always wear a tie because you're going to feel great, but you feel like shit in a tie and you're uncomfortable, like, that's increasing pressure, noise, it's not lowering it. Some people wearing a tie would decrease pressure, noise, no question. But again, so that's where you have to just simply say, this is my life. I'm going to develop the operating system that works for me. And not, you know, because here's something.

I always say, Joe, you can't judge someone else's pressure and noise, right? Because if someone else says, hey, man, that chair is driving me crazy. You look at the chair and you think, there's nothing like, what's wrong? You got to just understand that, hey, the map is not the territory. They're seeing it different than you are.

Well, so I have friends that will, like, ride motorcycles and do extreme sports and they are just loving life. They feel freedom. They're in a joy state. Other people, they're scared shitless. Their cortisol is through the roof. I mean, it's the same thing.

They want to take a nap afterwards.

Yeah, it's like, it's the same sort of thing, but different reactions to the way their brain and bodies react to it.

It's just like you can't judge someone else's contribution. It's odd. In the world today, and I talk a lot about contribution. And for me, contribution is a shortcut to capital. And I'm a capitalist. When people say, what religion are you? What political party are you? I always answer capitalist. I don't even laugh anymore because I'm serious now. And I really think that it's the purest system there is. And if you look at capitalist systems, I'm going to make some people upset here. But I don't think that money is the root of all evil. I think that's ridiculous. That was written by man. If you look at the fact today, I can write you a check for $25,000 to be ingenious, I can exchange my cash with you for value. Capital allowed us to connect. We wouldn't know each other otherwise. In the past, when we didn't have that, I would have had to have taken it from you. So capitalism saved us. Capitalist society, though capitalism in its purest form allows human beings to interact and evolve. It creates evolution. And so for me, you lower pressure and noise, you create a greater contribution. That's all the influence and affluence that you would ever want.

Well, you know, it's kind of funny because you guys are outside of like Austin, Texas, right? Or are you in Austin?

We're right outside of Austin. Like Austin's here, like right across the street. And then we're in Bee Cave.

Gotcha. So my friend John Mackey, who is the founder of Whole Foods, he's in Austin and he's gonna be at this year's annual Genius Network annual event. And I'm gonna do an interview with him, literally on capitalism.

Conscious Capitalism.

Yeah, it's one of his books, Conscious Capitalism. And part of it is like, because we live in a very anti capitalistic society.

Yeah, no question.

And I talked to some people where, you know, even the movie Capitalism by Michael Moore, when I watched that movie, I was like, this has nothing to do with the way that I think of capitalism. This has to do with corporatism. Okay? It's nothing to do with capitalism. And I think it was Hayek that said, the only problem with capitalism is that it was named by its enemies. And Dan Sullivan is the one that has talked to me a lot about this and that capitalism in its purest form is just individuals, hunters, entrepreneurs exchanging money or barter for value. I mean, it's not about exploiting people, it's not about hurting people. It's not about destroying the environment. Now, do certain things get done in the course of whatever people want to label business? Yeah, I mean, I guess you can point out negative things. But for all the contributions, innovations, comforts of life, increased lifespan, you know, humanity dealing in advancing itself, no other system has done that except capitalism.

And really, if you look at it, anything you touch, anything I touch has been created by, imagined by. It is a future that was made real by an entrepreneur. And so for me, capitalism is the most important system in the world, and the most important people in the world are entrepreneurs. I think that we are the only consistent source of positive human evolution, and we always will be. When you look at how the world has evolved for so long, you know, the first person thousands of years ago, and I don't want to get into an evolutionary debate with anyone, so just fast forward to where people were, right in your story. And those first people, the first guy who got up one morning and said, hey, let's go over there, was just like us, because he had to say, let's go over there, away from here, change things, be different. And when you look at the stories of the earliest entrepreneurs, Joe, it's inspirational because it's guys who got their stuff together, put it on the back of an animal and walked, not knowing what would happen. Like they had a lot harder than we did.

Well, you know, I can't remember the damn book, but it's like someone made this case in the book. I can't remember the book where, like, one of the reasons we have so much entrepreneurism in America as an example is it is they did some sort of survey. I'm going to totally mess this up.

Somebody had the symptoms.

Yeah. So according, like in Europe versus America, something like 4% of people have some sort of crazy brain sort of chemistry, versus in Europe, it's like half a percent or whatever, and said, well, it's the crazy bastard that needed to get in a little boat and try to go across the ocean and found a new country. I mean, you needed those sorts of.

For what reason? To escape constraint.

Right.

So, yeah, okay, so let's talk about constraint.

So people have constraints. People have all kinds of shit that's in their way. How do they deal with it? And then I want to go through like the, you know, in the back you have these great advanced questions like mastery and overwhelms. We'll end with talking about mastery and overwhelm. Cool. But constraints, I mean, how do you deal with constraints?

So I think that for the entrepreneurial personality type, the thing we have to be most sensitive to is being in constraint, being held back. And we have an equation. We call it the contribution equation. And I think for people like you and I, it's the meaning of life. It's four steps. The first one is anyone like us. And this is where I start with consulting clients or when I'm working with someone, it's, let's lower pressure and noise. Look at your life. If you're not treating yourself like a professional athlete, I question why every client I have has the earning potential and the influence potential of a professional athlete. Why don't they look like them? You should. Because this is the instrument through which we feel the world and react. It's not just your brain, it's the entire organism. The second step is ask for protection and support. So lower pressure and noise and transparently ask for protection and support, which means you start telling the people around you what's really going on for you. And Joe, I believe that if EPTs are willing to do this, you lower pressure and noise, ask for protection and support, Strengths and abilities will start to do develop like the rest of the world says, go learn a whole bunch of stuff. And there's a lot of things out there. But so much of what happens to me, I don't know where it came from. How many times have you been in front of a room, in a conversation, gotten a question, answered it, and then thought to yourself, where did that come from? Right? It just shows up. You do those three things. You lower pressure and noise religiously, daily. Make your life have more momentum, increase protection and support, join a team or build a team. People like us learn very little standing still and almost nothing alone. The third step, strengths and abilities will show. And then the fourth step is you make your greatest contribution. And for that equation to work, you start with lowering pressure and noise, and you find a group, something, people, what is it you want to contribute to the world? I look at the people I know who. No one's perfect and no one I know is always in momentum. And no one I know doesn't struggle. In fact, all of my friends are EPTs. They struggle more than most. But the people that I know who are in life, who are feeling the energy, who are in momentum, are those who have found the contribution they want to make.

So when you are feeling overwhelmed or you're feeling like you're making bad decisions or you're not, you're just not okay with how the day's going, your expectations are not being met, shit's not working, things are breaking down. How do you get yourself back to center? How do you do you think about? What is the contribution? I mean, for me, yeah, I'm trying to figure out.

So, Joe, that has to.

How do you go about doing it?

And I'll be really candid. I want to be careful with how I ever present myself because I don't want anyone to think that I have it all figured out and it works for me. I mean, I think I have a lot of things that we have solutions for. But at least one day a week, I'll be walking to my car, getting out of the shower, totally thinking about something else, and I'll be hit with panic. I'll have that feeling of like, oh, man, are we gonna end up on the streets? What's wrong? What's happening? Totally unhinged panic feeling. Does that ever happen to you? Quite a bit for no reason, right?

Unhinged, yes.

Unhinged panic feeling. And it's overwhelming and it's breathtaking. And when I was a kid, it could last for a long time. And over time, what I found is that for people like us, the more of a routine conditioning we get into, the more anchors we put into our lives that make it so that we know what's coming. We predicted where we're going to go. We've got contrast to show us what's happening. We have the proper scoreboards to show us we're actually moving forward. Those are the things that calm that down, that remove overwhelm for me. So when I know where I'm going, I have contrast telling me I'm getting there. And I have people that I'm doing it with. That's what makes things better for me.

So for people that have husbands, wives, partners, children, friends, family members that they don't feel in sync with, they don't feel supported, they don't feel aligned, they feel misunderstood, they don't know how to manage, communicate, talk to. What suggestions do you have for them to work with in EPT in the most effective ways?

You know, I would encourage them to download our book and have them read it. Also maybe starting a dialogue and being transparent, because I think one of the things that people like us rarely do is let people know, hey, I feel awkward or I feel confused sometimes when we communicate or I feel uncomfortable. And it's interesting. Where do you feel uncomfortable? Is one of the hardest questions for people like you and I. I have every coaching client that I have, every morning they answer two questions. What's my intention for the day? And where was I uncomfortable yesterday? Because the more we uncover that, the more we discover that's how we really figure out how to move forward. Yeah, great.

So here's what I'd like to do on this. On this page here. Let me find it. Entrepreneurial personality type, attribute spectrum. And so you. I won't read all of them, but it's this chart here and it's on page 45 and it says strengths under high pressure noise is the top. Then attributes and strengths under low pressure noise. So the first one, Strengths under high pressure noise, Edgy, distracted, anxious. The attribute, highly sensitive. High sensitivity and awareness. And then strengths under low pressure noise, Perceptive and intuitive.

So let me help you with that. So, Joe, I think you have this one. I think you and I both do.

High sensitivity and awareness. Yeah, I would say so.

Right. And so like, if something in the room moves, you notice it. If someone in the room shuffles, even if you don't turn your head, you know they did. And then there's other times in your life where if there's the right type of pressure and noise, do you go into hyper awareness?

Yes.

When you feel and hear everything.

Yep.

And it hurts.

Yes, it does.

Okay, so you and I are very similar. So with low pressure noise, that hyper awareness, that high sensitivity, when you're speaking to a room, can you feel the people that are off?

Yes.

Do you know which side of the room to walk to to bring them back?

Most of the time, yes.

Do you know the person that's having issues? Can you pinpoint them? You walk right up to them, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so that's.

I make fun of them sarcastically if I can.

Often. In fact, that's how I know you do it, because you've done that to me almost every meeting I've been in. But that is a superpower, Right. Under high pressure and noise, how painful is high sensitivity and awareness?

Very painful.

So for me, we look at these attributes as having two sides of the coin. You know, it's funny how a lot of us are put on spectrums these days. I'm on the ADHD spectrum, the Asperger's spectrum, the autism spectrum. A lot of your kids are too. You know, a lot of people's kids are.

Is there a bat shit crazy spectrum?

No shit. They should have one for all the people who made up those damn spectrums, because this one makes sense. See, when we look at an attribute like high sensitivity and awareness, inherently an attribute is not a strength or a weakness. It just is. And then what is it that modulates it into either one or the other? Well, for me, it's pressure and noise, because that high sensitivity is the same thing that you and I have. That Creates businesses. But we know people that, that creates movies and songs and paintings and all kinds of creation in the world.

Right, right. So like the other ones, if there's any other ones, like, you know, here's one like this is excessive antisocial is high pressure noise.

The attributes, intense focus on a result or single outcome.

Yeah. And then the strength is determined and committed.

So this one I like the most to explain because I think there's a really good example of it. 10,000 tries. What did it take that 10,000 tries to do? Edison to make the light bulb.

Yes.

Right. So 10,000 tries. Like you history is so weird because we kind of gloss over things. But here's what that really was. If we slow it down a little bit. That was a guy in a big warehouse with glass tubes with this thing called electricity that most people had no clue what it really was. And he was blowing tubes, filling them with metal and exploding them every single day, all day to make the night turn into day.

Yeah. And you even say, you write about the book. He was even using the hair of the beard of one of his employees to actually try as a filament and all this stuff. Let me. Yeah, yeah.

Like you tell me today, wouldn't Edison be medicated?

Probably.

The 911 call would be like, hey, I need you to come pick up my neighbor. He's been blowing shit up for three months. Right. And he would.

You know what's interesting about this too, because if you look at some of these individuals like Edison and Tesla, who originally worked together and then became archenemies, Right. And depending on what you read in what you watch, in what context, there's a lot of people that are like, Edison was a total asshole to Tesla and totally really just screwed the guy up. Interesting individuals. I believe Tesla died a virgin. So the ability to be able to connect. Then you look at modern day people like, you know, Bill Gates and Steve.

Jobs or Elon Musk or a lot of people. Yeah, right.

And you see the competitive nature of these individuals. Just, I mean, you know, the ones that don't get medicated, why is that? Do they somehow harness their stuff and rise above it or what do you think it is?

I don't know, Joe. I think I got lucky. My mom was told me to put on, told to put me on Ritalin since I was 4. And I know a lot of other guys who had that and girls who had that same thing. I actually was unfortunate. I did get medicated when I was in my 20s. I didn't understand all of This, I had a car accident. I went into a doctor and I told him I totaled nine cars. I'm a slow learner now I can drive on a track.

I'm sitting there going, how do I even respond to this?

Now I'm an expert driver, I can out drive just about anyone. But it took me a long time. I totaled nine cars and I had a point where I was having trouble getting back in a car. And I mentioned it to the neurologist that I was seeing for the car accident I had been in and he said, oh well here, let me give you some pills. And so I was taking an anti inflammatory, a pain pill and then this other pill because I was having trouble getting back in a car. And within four days I had suicidal thoughts. But like aggressive suicidal thoughts. Not normal shit, Joe. Like driving down the street and thinking if I just turned here, I would hit the front of that truck. And I remembered thinking like, what is going on? And panicking and crying like at stoplights and stuff. And then I looked up what were the side effects of Wellbutrin, which he had put me on and I was blown away. I mean, at first I didn't know I was on a mind altering chemical. Like it happened that fast in the doctor's office. He never said, hey, by the way, if you take this for six to eight weeks you can end up with brain zaps and with withdrawals and with all kinds of other stuff. And he gave me a long term depressant in a five minute appointment. So I don't know how many of us are really that lucky because sooner or later you get looped into something and I don't know what could have happened during that period. I'm glad I figured it out so quickly. But it was aggressive and it was fast and it was overwhelming.

Yeah. I think currently 10% of America is on an antidepressant. I think 20% of women in America.

Yeah, 52% of American adults will be diagnosed with a mental disorder. We're just diagnosing people.

Yeah, yeah. It's pretty crazy. So here's one thing I'd like to. You have some great charts in here. Mastery and overwhelm. So that is something that I think most entrepreneurs or hunters, especially in modern life. My friend Ned Hallowell says if you don't manage modern life, it will manage you.

I love his work.

Yeah. And he's a great guy that speaks to add in terms of speaking in terms of strengths, not weaknesses.

No question.

So how do we master overwhelm? How do we approach this?

So, Joe, 100% of my clients, 100% of my friends and myself, I get overwhelmed. And like, we've already kind of discussed it. It can happen multiple times a day. What I found is overwhelm is approached in a very complicated way, but it's actually very simple. It happens because there's two conditions present. One is you have high pressure and noise because it triggers it. And the second one is an unknown outcome. You don't know where you're going. You don't know what's going to happen next. You don't have clarity as to where you really want to go. Because here's what I know about EPTs. When we have clarity as to where we want to go, when we have clarity as to to today, we don't get overwhelmed. And it's interesting because I ask people all the time to write down a period of momentum in their lives. Like, write down a period where you remember being in momentum, and they'll write down a period. And then I ask them, now tell me what was your day to day life like during that period? And they look at it and they're like, holy crap, it was terrible. I was overwhelmed. There was so much going on, I couldn't handle everything. But how did they make it through? It's because they knew where they were going. When you write down a period of momentum, you always have a clear destination, a clear scoreboard, and mutual contribution that creates momentum. So to get over overwhelm or to get past it, you really have to know where you're headed. And so if you clarify today, understand where you are and where you're headed, and you reduce pressure and noise, it'll create confidence. The flip side of overwhelm is confidence. There's a tremendous amount of energy and overwhelm, if you can turn it in the right direction, it will create confidence.

Yeah, there's this. Even the way you wrote the equation, you said unknown outcome plus pressure and noise equals overwhelm. And then you explained it. Then clarify today, partially clarify outcome and confidence. So what do you mean by partially clarify outcome? Meaning you don't have to have it. Exactly. Right. You just need to give yourself some direction.

No question. And so here's how it works for you ampts. If you don't have enough clarity around where you're going, you will get overwhelmed. In fact, there's a psychological trick that you can use that people use with people where they cause them to question where they're going and they create overwhelm. It's actually A sales tactic. It's a manipulative one. It's not one I would ever recommend using. And usually you don't have a long term customer, but you can create overwhelm that way.

What about in dating situations?

Well, it's usually not a long term customer in that situation either. So it depends on what your goals are. But. So here's why it only needs to be a partially clarified outcome, Joe. Because for us, we are really unique entrepreneurial personality types are the ones who jump out of a plane with a bag of silkworms and say, let's get at it and build the parachute on the way down. And so we don't have to have everything perfectly clarified, we don't have to have all the steps. But here's what you need to get out of overwhelm is where am I going next? And I find that today EPTs entrepreneurs are asking primarily two questions. It's funny because a lot of us get diagnosed with bipolar and I think we look at the two questions that we're asking and this is what I hear in people's dialogues. I'm asking, what do I want my life to end up as? Not like, what do I want to do, but what do I want it to end up? What do I want that final picture to look like? And then what do I do today to get there? If you wanted to be bipolar, I would tell you to think that way. Like, try and create perfection out here and then try and make it happen today. So what I tell EPTS is instead, find that next destination, something you're confident with, something you're going to go at hard. And that creates momentum, that creates everything for us. It doesn't have to be the whole end of life story. It's where are you going next? Get it clear enough that you get excited about it.

Yeah. So if someone has trouble just saying, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. How do you help get them just a little bit more clarity? I mean, you already just described it, but I've obviously taken this from different angles because I know that is a real stuck point for a lot of people because I know I've been in that position myself in my own life now certainly I've gotten way better at it. And I have a lot of people that surround me that I can go to. So I'm a big believer in having sounding boards. Hell, it's the same reason I have Genius Network. I tell people all the time is one of the hardest things about being your own boss is your own boss. It's one of the best things about being your own boss, too. But, you know, you don't tell. You don't have anyone telling you when to go to bed, when to wake up, when to have lunch. And so if you don't set up mechanisms and people in your life to do that, I think you're just missing out on one of the greatest advantages you could ever give yourself. So, again, so for the person that's kind of like, well, how to. You know, maybe another example or any.

Like, they can't figure out.

Yeah, they're just, like, lost.

So, you know, I think that people like us, we're hunters. And hunting is not a solo sport, you know, especially when you're a human being. Because look at us, we suck. And look at most of what we hunt. It's much better equipped than we are, Right? Yeah. And so we have to be together. And I think entrepreneurs get out in the wilderness when they're not with other eaters, when they isolate themselves, when they isolate, you know, And I think that we isolate on purpose. There's a chemical to isolation for a hunter. I think we go out, we kill shit, and then we need time alone to regroup. Don't you need that time? Yeah, but if we aren't out with our people, if we aren't together, like, that's why I come to genius. I come here because when I feel out in the wilderness, when I feel overwhelmed, when I can't figure out my next step, I get into a room of people just like me who think just like I do. And I swear, Joe, I'm smarter in this room. And so for anyone who feels like they can't move forward, they don't know where to go, I would encourage them to reach out to other people like them and talk to them and see what they're doing. Because the one place we rarely go is community. And I don't know that I would have ever given this advice when I was younger, because I've isolated forever. But it's over time that I've realized that the more I'm willing to say I need help, and the more I'm willing to admit where I really am in life, transparently, and show someone what's really going on for me, the more help I get to find that destination. And, Joe, it's crazy. These days, most of the people I get help from, I used to give away their books. I still give away their books. But now I get help from them. And the people who I used to read blogs, and I used to think like, wow, that must be an incredible person. They're my friends on speed dial. And that's a community that I purposely created because I wanted another level of success. I came here to genius and figured that out. And I know that everyone watching might not have the means to come here, but find a community somewhere and then get here as fast as you can. Because for me, in 2013 in New York, I remember the morning that I first attended the first annual that I went to. I was sitting in my room and I tried to talk myself out of going down. In fact, I looked at your return policy, and it said something like, you had to attend the event to get your money back. And I'm like, shit, I wasn't going to go. I almost chickened out. And it was because I felt that risk that people like us always feel, that it was going to be awkward, that I wasn't going to fit in, that I wasn't going to belong, that I didn't belong in the room. And I remember going down, and one of the first people that I ran into was Peter Diamandis. And I was like, holy cow, Peter Diamandis. And he turned and he, like, slapped me on the back. And he said, hey, it's really great to have you here. What are you doing? He talked to me for, like, three minutes. And I walked away thinking, man, maybe I should be in this room. It's okay. And then I saw Dean Graziosi. And Dean doesn't know this. He doesn't. I mean, maybe he does, but I knew Dean from before when I was a consultant. I did a lot of work on tv. I bought a ton of infomercial time. We to used to compete with Graziosi. I watch all of his stuff. He and I had met a couple times, and when we ran into each other in that room, there was a familiarity there. Like he knew we had met before. And he was so nice and congratulated me on joining, told me it was the best thing I'd ever done. And then that was my initial introduction. And I sat down and I thought, God, I almost gave this up. And then Ned Halliwell spoke, and he talked about ADHD and how so many people have been labeled and. And like, it related directly to me. And I'm telling you, Joe, Since 2013, our lives have changed just from finding this community. And I think that for anyone listening, find the place that's right for you. Find the people you Relate to and find the place that every time you go, you feel a little uncomfortable walking in, but every time you leave, you feel a little smarter.

That's a key point, and that has nothing to do. It could be Genius Network. It could be another group. The point is, you want to walk into a room where, like Dan Sullivan says, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

No question.

You don't want to be in the room where you're the smartest person. You want to be in a room where everyone's getting smart.

I've never felt like the smartest guy at Genius.

And what's funny, even though I run it, I certainly am not the smartest guy. Like, I tell people all the time, I want Genius Network to be known. Not for me. I wanted to be known for the people in the group, because the people in the group are amazing. And they're all out there, you know, making shit happen and working, you know, working on important stuff and, you know, moving the world forward. That was interesting, too. In 2013, that was Robin Sharma, the guy who's the monk that sold his Ferrari. That was his very first meeting.

That was my very first meeting.

Yeah. That was a good.

It's funny that you bring up Robin. Robin and I become really close friends, really great guy. There is nothing in the world but Genius Network that would have done this. Dan Cushnell asked me to do my A Year in Genius video, and I owe you guys that. But it's going to have to be, like, my three years in genius, because when I was 26 years old, I read Monk who Sold His Ferrari, and it changed my life. Up until that point, I had been this consultant where the goal was make more money, and the goal was make the accounts bigger. And the goal was buy bigger cars, bigger suits, bigger houses, and, you know, faster women and all that stuff. It was all the wrong things. And I read Robin's book, and I related to it in a way that, like, was shocking. I remember I bought a whole bunch of copies, and I started giving it to people who I worked with, and they thought I was crazy because I was in an industry where that book was kind of contrary to how everything was done. And then I went to that annual. Robin was there. We ran into each other a couple times. He ended up inviting me to speak at his event in Canada. I never would have gotten on that stage had I not been at the annual. And now he and I are friends. And, Joe, there's. It's overwhelming to even say that for me, because I remember the boxes of Monk, who sold this Ferrari, coming to my house. And the world is so circular that, you know, 10 years later, Robin and I are on the phone and, like, coaching each other. It's insane.

Well, you know what? It's because you put yourself out there and you do it. And the fact is, people, you have choices every moment. You know, Remember that crazy movie Vanilla Sky?

Yeah.

Well, there's this one line in that movie, which I've always loved. This is a great line. It says, every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around. And you can like that movie or hate it, is irrelevant.

That's a great line.

The line is great. And it's like the certain. The momentum, the things that you do, the little constant decisions day in, day out to either increase your level of consciousness. Take that chance. I mean, we can talk about the Wayne Gretzky quote that everyone's heard a million times is you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And there are shots to take. And the more that you can put yourself into lower pressure noise, surround yourself with amazing people, get the support, you're just going to take not only more shots, you're going to take better shots instead. Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes you're not going to do more shots. You're just going to say, I'm going to take a shot. Because I just have learned how I function, and I know what's going to be the goose that lays the golden egg. I know how I'm going to put. Produced like they're. The very first personal development album, the LP that ever went platinum was the Strangest Secret by Earl Nightgown years ago. I have a framed copy that Joel Weldon gave me of the original record.

That is really cool. Yeah.

Downstairs, it's amazing. And he says in there, he has this. I'm not going to say it right, but basically he talks about how people say, I want to make money. And he said, you know, people that make money work at the Mint. It's like, you know, making money is not the same as earning money. You know, earning money is having a skill. It's literally understanding that what you get in life is based on your ability to earn it. And I left a message for a friend today who's doing something that she absolutely cannot stand doing, and she can't get herself out of the trap. And she's like, but I got to make money. I'm like, you know what? Here's the deal. You may make money and you may pay rent, but you're. What are you doing to your soul? What are you doing to your skill set? I mean, earning money is develop a lifelong skill. Because wealth isn't capital, isn't just money. It's relationship capital, spiritual capital, it's mental capital, it's physical capital. And when you build your life around that, you're actually earning it. So I think what you have here is a blueprint and a roadmap and recipes for people to literally think differently, operate differently. That is not really talked about in any other way than the way that I've actually seen you talk about. I think it's pretty spectacular. And what I want to do to kind of wrap up here, you have EPT's fundamental life questions. And what's interesting is these questions are. The first one, how do I stop pressure and noise? Then talk about these? Because if I just read them, I don't know if I understand it, but I'm not sure people would get it in the context if I just read them. But it's almost like how to evolve yourself. It is, you know, so how.

So here's how these came about, Joe. So I. I read as much as I could. And when you look at people's lives, here's what.

I don't know if you did.

I mean, you only read more.

I mean, come on.

So that was. In my team was three or four thousand. Really. I'm a little obsessive.

I never would have picked up on that.

Yeah. And I read and I wrote, like, what are the transitions in people's lives? And I started seeing that there's these similarities. So first, people like us are different than the rest of the world in that we're driven by questions. We're driven by this higher sense of curiosity. We can't turn it off. And when I look at entrepreneurs throughout history, every one of them, their lives have been driven by the same root questions. And as we evolve, they change. So the first one is, how do I stop pressure and noise? I think all of us were born with more pressure and noise than most, or we experience it differently, so we want to stop it. The second question that evolves out of that is, what is wrong with me? I've had a lot of people say, hey, Alex, as a motivational speaker, you shouldn't put stuff like what is wrong with me up on a big slide. And at first I tell them, look, I'm out of motivation. Motivational speaker. I don't ever want to be known that way. I want to help people change. Motivation is bullshit. When I put what is wrong with me up there, it's for this reason. Entrepreneurial personality types under high pressure and noise will have every symptom in the book, up to and including suicidal ideation, thought and action. And you and I both know that. And I think it's important that we admit the fact that we all feel there's something wrong with us because that puts it out on the table and we can deal with it. And we evolve from what is wrong with me as kids to how do I get ahead? Do you remember that feeling like, man, I'm screwed. How do I get ahead? And we usually start scraping somewhere and like, what do we do? And I remember in school trying to get ahead and then you finally find something that works a little bit. I remember that. And then how do I get further ahead? The next question is where innate motivation usually kicks in. That's when you found market and the light turns off. You can't turn off.

Yeah, how do I get ahead? Might start my own business, but then how do I get further? Now that I got this, how do I make it even better?

Marketing. And that innate motivation kicks in. And here's what's great about how do I get further ahead? Entrepreneurs throughout history have overwhelmed themselves with this. And then the next question, they have to start building a team. And most of us go through this really awkward period. The next question is, how does my team get me ahead? And that's when we're managing people like process. Do you remember that period?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Very uncomfortable because never done it before. But you know, two ways you leverage yourself in business. You know, through marketing or through hiring other people. Talents and capabilities.

You gotta get people. And the challenge with that period, how does my team get me ahead? Is it's a selfish management period. We're not good at it. We usually don't do well. And hopefully you evolve to how do I help my team get ahead? And Joe, I've watched you for years now. And the people around you grow as human beings, as your company grows. And the way that you evolve organizations is to help the individuals. And when a CEO transitions from how does my team get me ahead? To how do I help my team get ahead? Their lives change. You can watch it. You can watch really aggressive CEOs become mentors. You can watch people who are public enemy and number one, become respected. And I'll give you a couple examples. The next transition is how do I help my team get further ahead? When a CEO leans in and really focuses on team, that's when things usually explode. And then every entrepreneur finishes his life asking two questions. How do we help others get ahead? Is where it starts. And then how do we help everyone? I make the argument that if there's ever a class of person that should not be taxed, it's entrepreneurs. Because we make as much money as we can until we give it all away. And when you drive around the world and you see buildings with people's names on them, it's not because they were just great people. It's because they wrote checks.

They did.

The fact is entrepreneurs make a ton of cash and then go try and change things. And if you look at those questions, you take someone like Bill Gates through it. Like, did Bill Gates, what is wrong with me? And how do I stop pressure and noise? He looked like himself as a kid. You know, he had the same stuff we did. How do I get ahead? Well, when Gates was a kid, he stole a little bit. He broke into some buildings. He stole some computer time. Heck, he even stole some of the stuff for basic programming. Then how do I get further ahead? He started Microsoft. How does my team get me ahead? Gates has one of the most epic periods in entrepreneurial history. He sued half the states in the country. Do you remember this? Gates was public enemy number one. Sued all the states in the country, sued half the countries around the world, Sat in front of Congress, told them to piss off. But then this thing happened. He transitioned to, how do I help my team get ahead? Microsoft almost went out of business. He started using it as a battering ram. That got dull. And then he started mentoring people. And what's so crazy is Gates goes from this guy who's literally fighting with the entire world, you ask anybody 20 years or younger, who's Bill Gates? And they'll tell you, the guy saving the world with mosquito nets and vaccines. So he went from public enemy number one and to now he's at that, how do we help everyone? The evolution's crazy.

Yeah. And that's interesting, too, because some people, because of, as you would describe, I would imagine, pressure, noise, they don't get to that level. But if you can actually transition it, then you do. I mean, hell, even doing this interview and putting it out for free. Yeah, we're going to talk about your book. Yeah. We both have things to sell. I have Genius Network. However, most people that are going to listen and watch this will never give me and you money at all. But if it can give them perspective, if it can give them direction, if they can read your book, if this will help them. If it will lead them to things. It's helping everybody. And that's how my whole thing is not just try to increase my slice of the pie, try to increase the pie. Because if we do that, everyone gets better. And it frankly makes me feel good.

And I think that over time I've watched you and I've listened to you pretty closely. I think that you've realized, like me, that the more energy you put out there, it comes back somewhere. Oh, yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, don't look for the direct exchange. That's the biggest mistake human beings make. Just keep giving it out there and it will come back. Especially if you give it without expectation.

Totally. Totally. Yeah, I would agree. Is there any question that I should have asked you that? I did not.

Oh, man. I was going to say something really sarcastic, Joe, but I decided not to.

You could.

No, I decided not.

Look who you're talking to.

Yeah, no kidding. I don't know, Joe. I don't think so. I mean, I think the one thing that I always want every entrepreneur to think about is this. I think that every one of us has felt isolated and alone, like a party of one. And at some time in your life, at some point, maybe it's now where you're feeling like you are the only person like you. Like you're totally isolated, like, it's hard to figure out how to move forward. We've all been there and we can all get there. And I want everyone who's ever felt that way, anyone who's ever thought that way, even if you're feeling that way now, to know something that everyone in history who's ever mattered has been just like you. And if you look back in history, society has this weird way of looking at things. Today we say, doesn't look like everyone else, doesn't read like everyone else, doesn't write like everyone else. That's a broken person. We need to medicate. And the history shows without a doubt that doesn't write like everyone, doesn't look like everyone else, doesn't read like everyone else equals a brilliant person who will change the world. And so, for anyone listening, I just want you to know that if you have that feeling, like you can make a greater contribution if you have that drive somewhere in your mind and your body that's saying there's something more here for you. Lean in. Because throughout history, the world has been changed by the people who did not have the resources or the ability, who did not think that they could, felt completely isolated and had most of the world pushing against them. So if that's who you are, it is your birthright to go out, build a team or join a team and create the greatest contribution you can.

I love it. That's awesome. And that was not sarcastic.

Thank you.

So your book, people can download it, give the website out again.

We made a special one for Genius. So my last name, charfen.com genius.

Yeah, charfen is c H-A-R f e n charfen.com genius.

I like that. Thank you.

And like I'd mentioned at the time of watching this, if you are watching the video version of it or you're listening to the audio version of it, I'm going to put the amazing presentations that Alex has given at Genius Network up on the geniusx.com platform. So if you happen to go up there and it's not up there yet, just be aware that it will be up there soon. And thank you very much, Joe.

This was amazing.

We'll keep doing a follow up and I'd love to get your comments on this and what you put in action. After you read his book. Please let us know what you thought about it and what sort of impact it's had in your life and what you're going to do with it. So thanks, sir.

Thank you, Joe. Thanks for Genius, Matt. I appreciate.