The Confidence Hack of Celebrity Entrepreneurs. This hack can Help YOU Too! with Pedro Frias

But I would say is it comes back to the judgment and understanding that, you know, confidence is a mental— it's like having a bank account, right? There's either money going in the bank account or money going out. And the self-criticism and judgment is just taking money out of your bank account. And I feel like women in particular are very self-critical, very self-aware, and give and give and give into relationships. You communicate your needs, and guys don't always have the empathy gene. So sometimes they dismiss things that you communicate for years and years and years and years and years. And then surprise, you know, you lose your wife, you lose your girlfriend. This is the problem for most people. It's most people don't take time to be quiet, and most people don't have their voice in their head. They have other people's voices— society, husband, a wife, your coworkers, and it's very noisy and we never get a chance to get centered and to really listen. And I think that there's two voices that come in our head, a voice of fear that tells us we can't do it. That's kind of self-critical. You look in the mirror, you're like, oh, I don't look good today. Oh, I don't like that. And then there's the other voice that's in like the confidence, right? For me, I listen to the one over here telling me I can do it. And when I was in a meeting, I remember getting a text. It was like, hey, we got to meet with these people, da da da da da. And I was like, I don't want to do this. And I was getting a voice like, it's time to go. And something just told me it's time to go. And I was like, next thing you know, I sent the email and then I walked out and that was it. Everything comes down to confidence and what our inner voice is telling us. And if you are in a bad place, I can almost guarantee that you're not being your own best friend. You're eating at yourself, you're criticizing yourself, you're, you're in that negative zone. You have resentment towards people and you have to let that go. And the only way you're going to let that go— this is very deep shit now, but it's real. When you're making good money, you're successful, and you're doing what everybody around you says, this is what you're supposed to be doing. But you don't feel like you're winning. You don't feel alive on the inside. You lose yourself for years and years and years of suffering. This is the life of people in Silicon Valley. That's how I know this. I talked to all these— I talked to all these people. People are miserable and people lose themselves, and they lose themselves with an expensive lifestyle. They lose the ability to listen to themselves, and you get scared of being judged by other people. And so I say for people who are employees in this industry or any industry, because it's not just this industry, you have to have courage to go against the grain. And we're all going to die. I always go back to that.

I'm super excited to be here with you. I want to welcome you to my new podcast. I'm super excited because I started podcasting because of you. We met while I was at, well, we were both at Google and then I followed your journey. I started listening to your podcast. I was one of your guests. And for people who don't know, you should listen to the Pedro Frias Show. And I was super intrigued and curious and I started following you and asking you a lot of questions about podcasting. For those of you who don't know Pedro, Pedro is a, First, a tech entrepreneur, also a former tech executive at Google, also a life coach and 3 times author. So one of your books, I bought it for my son who's 4 years old. Couple of things you have in common with my son. My son, his name is Drake. He looks like Drake. You look like Drake. Go figure. That's for another episode. You also launched a new startup. I'm gonna let you talk about it a bit later if you want to. Which is in a different niche. And then your podcast has, um, multiple zeros in terms of downloads. I'm also gonna let you talk a bit more about it. And today I wanted to kick it off with a first question. That's a bit of an existential question is how in your journey have you been able to meet your higher self, which is the most elevated version most intuitive version, most connected, most conscious, most spiritual version of yourself that brought you to where you are today.

Oh, well, thank you so much for that introduction. You know, I've been watching you two from far, and it's been cool to see your journey. I mean, you obviously were a powerhouse at Google, and I'm a little annoyed we didn't get to connect while we were at Google, but I've heard so many good things about you from so many people, and I'm excited now to see your brand grow, your podcast grow. And, you know, for me, it's been an interesting transition. I think like a lot of people in this space and entrepreneurs, you don't really come from straightforward backgrounds. And Silicon Valley is full of people who have a very straight, linear background, you know, great students, good family, good mental health for the most part. And then you start getting in these environments and you start realizing things about yourself. And my story starts back, you know, I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I'm Dominican and Puerto Rican. And, you know, I think like a lot of people in the Bay who come from our background, you know, it wasn't straightforward. I was a horrible student. I got kicked out of 3 colleges. I was a club promoter for celebrities. So I threw parties for Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri in Atlanta.

This is way back. I didn't know that.

This is like 18 years. This is like half my life ago. So I'm 36. So this is when I was 18. And that was the first time in my life that I actually felt I was good at something because I was a horrible student. I can't focus. I can't concentrate for long periods of time unless I'm disciplined.

Mm-hmm.

And I didn't really know what my path was. You know, I was suspended from high school a lot. Sold drugs for a little bit. I never told anybody that.

Like soft drugs, hard drugs?

Um, a little bit everything. So it was a very different time of my life. I was very negative during that time. The energy from the cities and family dynamics and mental health, you start to learn and unlearn through different evolutions and different experiences. And for me, that first experience was I was in Atlanta at 18, even though I got kicked out of the college, I was with my best friend. We started a company and next you know, we're throwing parties for very big celebrities. We were on stage with Tyrese and I was this 18-year-old Dominicano on stage with these celebrities. And I was like, oh shoot, I'm kind of like a little bit of a celebrity myself.

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

It changed everything for me. It changed who I was on the inside. So I said, oh, okay, I can actually do business. I can actually communicate. I built an online following of hundreds of thousands of people on MySpace, and so did my best friend. And we understood a lot of the things that tech entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are doing today with media, with different platforms. We knew how to do this when there wasn't necessarily a playbook. We just took pictures with celebrities. Put everybody from campus to the colleges, um, from college campuses to the clubs. We charged them, and that was our first business, and we did that online. So that helped me a lot, and I eventually got kicked out of that college.

Yeah, I think it's amazing because you were very young and you got access to another scene, but also like flying in a higher altitude, because those celebrities, like promoting them and understanding how they think and and getting access to that lifestyle gives you an edge on how the other people live and how the other people think as well, especially if you're like 18 years old.

Yeah, those are the biggest things I learned. I was with these guys and I saw how confident they were in business. And then growing up in Boston, you know, it's very corporate, it's very polished, and people doing business are normally supposed to look a certain way, act a certain way. And then I got to Atlanta I was like, man, everybody looks like me, but they're all millionaires. They're driving cars, they have companies, and they move different. They think different. They have confidence. And those things changed my brain because I was like, hey, maybe I'm not good at school, which eventually I did get my degree in finance, guys. And I went to— I worked in investment banking. I worked at Morgan Stanley, then transitioned to tech. But it was that transition point for me where I was like, hey, I don't necessarily need to stay in this crew. I can go and uplevel the game and learn from people at the top of their game. And that's what gave me the confidence to go from there and start learning and getting— I know that the concept of the show is our intuition and listening to our inner self. And I started understanding myself and hearing the voices in my head and listening to the voices of consciousness that direct you in a direction. And I learned that every time I'd go in opposite direction of that voice, I would suffer. I would get depressed. I would have mental health issues. And it was a lot of negative energy that drove me to do bad things. And then I was around positive people. And all of a sudden, I worked on myself and all these positive things started happening on the outside. So when I got to Google, everybody thought I was this kind of straight, square person. But people who know my story, they know that, yeah, I was kicked out of colleges. You know, we had people drinking under 21. Got in trouble for that. I defaulted on over $20,000 in student loans. And for a large period of my life, I thought that was it. And then I, you know, social media came, online businesses came, and I started to really understand myself.

I have so many questions for you, Pedro, because from my side at Google, I was a sales leader. I was a head of sales. I didn't know you. I remember I was heading for my mat leave and I was in LA. You were in the Bay Area. And I remember there was It was in December. I was like a couple of weeks. I was in offsite and I saw a whole new breed of Black and color, I think they call it colored people. And then I looked at you all and I was like, who are these people? Then I heard about you and what came up from you was like stoicism. You were very stoic. So I didn't know your story. I didn't know anything about you. And I, saw you had books. I want to understand, how did you— like, what changed in before— the Pedro before and the Pedro who completed his studies in finance? Because you said that you listen to your voice. And so what changed in terms of the pivot in, in listening to, to your voice, your internal voice?

Well, I, I don't want to necessarily want to make this into like a Stoic podcast. Maybe I will, you know, kind of transition there, but A lot of it comes from suffering. Wisdom comes from experience. And a lot of times, bad experiences, if you think about it the right way and you use it the right way, they can help you learn, they can help you evolve, and they can really help you get in touch with your intuition. And for me, throughout my life, I've had a, you know, I've lost a lot of family members. My mentor and my best friend was somebody who kind of groomed me. Passed away unexpectedly when I was 23, 24, and that crushed me. He was the only person that believed in me. And I would go with him to meetings, to real estate deals. He was CEO of the Better Business Bureau. He's this tall Black dude, confident. And I saw him do his thing and he kind of groomed me to be who I am today. And when he died, I went into depression. And, you know, I think for me, because I struggled so much with mental health early on, and also everybody around me, because I started noticing patterns on the way people think, the types of relationships we get into with different people.

Yeah.

How we talk to ourselves. So for me, I did a lot of work and I got rid of most of the negative voices in my head and the confidence and the self-belief and being okay to be misunderstood, being okay putting yourself out there, crashing and burning in front of people. It's all a skill. It was okay for me because I crashed and burned so early. I feel like I have nothing to lose. So I'm always out here hustling, trying different things. I'm like, well, I can always go back. I have nothing to lose. So that was a big transition point for me is a lot of the challenges that came earlier on, getting in touch with people who think different, people who move different, and people with a different level of confidence. And the confidence that I'm talking about is not like an exterior confidence where you think you're better than people. It's confidence enough to go after what you want, being okay to crash and burn and deal with the judgment around that. And then not judging yourself while you make mistakes and while you evolve and while you outgrow people, you're outgrowing relationships, you're outgrowing jobs, you're launching a podcast, right? I'm an introverted person naturally. Well, maybe not, but getting on the mic and public speaking and not judging yourself, being in the moment. These are things that you have to get real in tune with yourself and be confident. And that's what I learned from the club promoters and my friends, that very confident people get out there, put yourself out there and shoot your shot and being okay with whatever happens.

This is super interesting because I remember we were doing 75 Days Hard together and I was very self-critical. And I remember you were pinging me and you said, 'Why are you so hard on yourself, Kath, all the time?' And I was like, 'Yep, that's part of my motto.' I don't know why, but I'm always hard on myself. And that was a good pick-me-up. And I was like, 'Yeah, just let it go, girl. Just move forward.' And it's interesting because part of our audience, it's 80% of our audience is the ladies. Ladies, ladies, ladies. Just Destiny's Child. So there's a lot of ladies. Who want to know how to move on, how to move forward. And, and I know on your podcast we talked about it, is you talk about relationships, but a lot of it from a man's angle. And some of the ladies have asked me, I haven't talked about relationships just yet. So while you're on a podcast and you talk about the man's angle, they, they want to know, how do you move on from relationships a little bit faster? But also, how do you define— what do you have any guiding principles on? Like, how do you know what are the guiding principles for you on what is a good relationship or partner like for your life? Because the ladies are trying to figure out like what should be in their circle of relationships as they define what types of life partner they should have. It's a different scene than 10 years ago.

Dating is hard today. Relationships are hard today. Comparison online, you know, the self-criticism, perfectionism, thinking everything has to be perfect when the world's not perfect. And it's hard in particular for women because women give a lot in relationships. Women are highly empathetic. Women today are focused on growing professionally and consuming information and are evolving a lot. And men are doing it too, but us men do it differently. So if I were to give advice to women, and I feel very— it's interesting I'm giving advice to women now. This is cool, you know, but a lot of women listen to the show too. So, but I would say is it comes back to the judgment and understanding that, you know, confidence is a mental— it's like having a bank account, right? There's either money going in the bank account or money going out. And the self-criticism and judgment is just taking money out of your bank account. And I feel like women in particular are very self-critical, very self-aware, and give and give and give into relationships. You communicate your needs, and guys don't always have the empathy gene, so sometimes they dismiss things that you communicate for years and years and years and years and years. And then surprise, you know, you lose your wife, you lose your girlfriend. I've done this many times, so that's why I'm telling you from experience too. I've I have to learn the hard way. So I think for a woman, it's picking a partner is you need to find someone who's on the same trajectory as you. And the way I would define that is find somebody who's open-minded, number one. Some find somebody who shares the same values of growth. And then find somebody who has positive energy and that's going to support your dreams and be in alignment of those dreams. And it's, it's hard today because You know, men in particular are suffering a lot. You know, men, the world is a lot very super competitive. Guys are having a ton of mental health issues. Guys don't know how to communicate. Guys don't go to therapy, right? We learn the hard way. We suffer in silence. So when we are having problems, we just kind of go to our corner and we don't talk about it. So you need to find someone who's open, who's open to growth. Find someone who speaks good things onto you and supportive to you and positivity. Because again, the mind is a computer and it's like reading a book. So when you're with someone who has bad energy, you're consuming that energy, especially women who are very empathetic.

Like, if you're a sponge, so you have to be very careful of what types of energies you surround yourself with.

Exactly.

I've noticed, and you and I talked about it a bit, As you were talking about men communities and how they react, cuz when I filed for divorce, I mean, I've been doing therapy for a very long time and even more since I've become a mom. And, and I love my therapist. And when I filed for divorce, I told my husband, just get a therapist. Why don't you do therapy? And I met my husband in San Francisco in a like communication program and whatnot. And he was like, no. I'm going in that men's circle to do some emotional work. And I'm like, okay, if you want to do that. But what you're saying, it really aligns with like, men don't want to do therapy. And I don't know if there's some kind of stigma around therapy. Me, I'm like, I like therapy. I have like, I could shout to the rooftop.

Like, I like therapy.

I don't mean, but I would love to be in a women's circle as well. But it's just like, my girlfriends are my circle. Like, my girlfriends are flying out of town and I'm like, mi casa es tu casa, because it's gonna be therapy because we're gonna hang out, we're gonna go out, we're gonna do things. But I just, I never thought about this circle idea. But it's like, it's a different world. What, like, what is there a stigma around therapy and men of like, why don't they want to?

Yeah, I think like us guys, we don't like to talk about our feelings. You know, we're not hyper emotional. And like, for myself, I do what I have to do no matter what. So I'm very disciplined. And we suppress the way we feel. We don't act on emotions. You're not really taught to. You're not supposed to technically as a guy. That's what the world says. And we, if we're struggling, we don't go to our friends and talk about it. A lot of guys, especially after 35, you start pulling away and you don't really have best friends. I think it's 40% of men don't even have a best friend today that they constantly talk to, something like that. And It's hard. There's a lot of stigma around that. And for men in particular, I think women keep their social circles or, you know, you go out with your girls and you have fun. For us guys, we don't do that and we don't like therapy. I don't personally don't like therapy. For me, I would have to crash. I have gone to therapy once. An ex wanted me to go to therapy and I went one time and then I never went back. It was awkward.

I feel like your podcast is therapeutic. When I listen to the therapeutic, you—

Well, yeah, I mean, I learn a lot from people on the show, and I'm very, I'm very open as a guy. So for me, I read, I study, I take care of my mental health. I'm very intuitive, and I listen to, quote unquote, I'm like a yoga per— I listen to my inner guru, like similar to what Mark Divine said on my show. He's a Navy SEAL commander. And for me, I listen to what my voice tells me, and then I do it. And I don't— there's no thinking around that. So I'm very in the moment. But for a lot of guys, you know, you struggle, you get beat up a lot in life, and you judge yourself, you get self-critical, and then you just go to your corner quietly and you deal with it. I think women, when you deal with challenges, you express yourselves. And this, I think, is why men die earlier too, because we just keep all this stuff in, and we have these health issues and these stresses. And it's very challenging today to be a guy. So yeah, I personally don't go, but I'm very like, I'm doing work every day. So I'm always doing work. I'm always doing. And I'm also, I think the thing for me is I don't take myself seriously either. So I don't really get stressed out a lot.

So what type of work do you do as a man to process your emotions if it's not, if you don't talk about it?

Well, I wouldn't say there's any like anything therapeutic that I personally do. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Maybe that's therapeutic.

Yeah.

I read a lot. I go to all these trips. So I've spent 3 months in Hawaii this year.

I follow you on IG in Hawaii. Hawaii is a healthy obsession. Hawaii, golf, and the gym. What's up with that?

I'm very disciplined. I go to the gym. I'm up at 4:45 every single day. I've done this for over 15 years. I've never missed even one workout.

Okay.

Not even one.

That was my next question.

Yeah. I'm in the gym every single day. And I mean, I'm in— I, I'm never really in a bad mood because of it, because I always feel good. I'm up 4:45 in the gym. I follow my diet. I read. I do everything I'm supposed to do. So by the time 7, 8 o'clock hits, I'm already good to go. I'm feeling like a million dollars. And that stays with me the entire day.

Yeah.

So, so I'm very disciplined. And discipline for men and women today is very important. And taking care of your body and your mind and doing it every single day. Because again, it's like a bank account and there's either money going out of the account or there's money— and I fill my bank account every single day.

So this is super important because I'm like, I love going to the gym. I don't go— I haven't gone for 15 years nonstop every day. So our audience of ladies and everybody who listens to the podcast, one of the questions they've asked is that they want to build the discipline. And what are the tips and tricks? You're a very different type of human being because you've been doing it for 15 years consistently. Some of the hacks that I had in my life when I was not consistent was like, I bought a bike and then during COVID I had a six-pack during COVID It's like, ooh. And I did like different things. And then I let my six-pack go when the city opened, because then I went crazy. But think about the ladies or the people who are in their lazy girl era that wake up and then become emotional and stay in bed and snooze. So some of the ladies have told me, well, how do you find the motivation to get out of bed? You might be a little depressed, you might be a little bit unmotivated. What would be your advice for people who need a little extra motivation to get out of bed and hit the gym? That's hard because you've been doing it for 15 years nonstop.

Yeah.

You're 45.

You have to do it. I mean, it's not an option. You have to get up and do it because we're dying. We're going to die. And if you're not working out, you're going to die sooner. I hate to put it that way, but it's kind of true. We need to move our bodies. It's not just for the way you look, but it's also for your mind, your body, and your health. And you have to be constantly— it's the same thing with relationships. You cannot stay stagnant in your rela— you have to invest in your relationship, just like a business. Every day you need to be moving that ball forward. And it's the same thing with your health. Because you're either getting healthier or you're getting unhealthier.

Yeah.

And the relationship's either getting better or it's getting worse. And it all ties to the same thing, is you have to constantly be investing in the key areas that are important. It's harder for women because, you know, a lot of times you have a family, you have a husband, you're very empathetic, you're giving, giving, giving, giving. I always tell my mom this. I'm like, you have to take care of yourself. You have to make the time. And you have to be a little bit more selfish with yourself, especially as time goes on. Because as time goes on, your responsibilities grow. Women today are working, you're kicking ass at work, and you're also being a wife, then you have your kids, and then you don't get time for yourself. And I'm always telling all the women around me, you take the time.

Yeah.

You know, is that stupid quote? Self-care isn't selfish. And self-care health-wise is going to change everything. For me, my workouts are not optional because I can't function without them.

Yeah.

I'm a better person when I work out and I'm in the gym and my blood's flowing. The podcasts are better. I can execute better. So it's become part of my daily routine that I cannot give up. And I also just feel better. You know, when my uncle died, the only thing I had was the gym. I went to the gym, I worked out, and I just like, oh shit, I feel good. That just kept going and going and going for years. I never stopped it.

That's it. That's it.

It's a good mental health hack. It's good for your body, your mind. So I would say for women, make the time, take care of yourself. You're not gonna regret it in 20 years.

It's an investment. It's also, you produce with oxytocin, so it changes. It's a mood booster. I feel like if I go to the gym in the morning and I mean, for me it's music, it motivates me. I put some good music And then you build a community. Like, I always go to the same gym and figure out what motivates you and it just becomes a ritual and then makes me happy. Then drama from work can come in and I'm ready. Just bring the tornado. I'm like, yeah, it doesn't matter. I've been to the gym. So yeah, I hope it helps motivate. The other hack I found is if you pay for it, then you're not gonna miss it. If you pay for it, you're not gonna miss it. And at the gym also, like if you check in, if you miss 3 sessions, then they block you. So.

Ooh, that's good. The block one is good. Yeah, I noticed that too. When I pay for it, like if I pay for co— I've always paid for coaching. I paid $15,000 for coaches just to force myself to do what I need to do.

Yeah.

So when you pay for it, you do it. And I, I think it's a good sign of commitment.

It hurts. It, it hurts. Another question from our, our group is around financial freedom. So, and I know you, you graduated in finance, which is not a small feat, and you also wrote a book about it. And some of our community wants to know how to become financially free, either by becoming an entrepreneur. So I wanted to ask you, Pedro, what are the guiding principles of financial freedom for people who aspire to break free from the 9 to 5? Really, like, how realistic is it?

It's very realistic with discipline, and it all comes back to discipline, and almost all everything does. And I think especially for a lot of people who have 9-to-5s, especially in Silicon Valley or wherever you are, but let's just say in Silicon Valley, for example, you start making a ton of money and then your lifestyle goes up with that money. And there's a temptation to do the trips and to do the bags and to do the cars and You know, all these things that everybody does that keeps them trapped in these jobs forever. What's worked for me is as I started making more, I kept everything flat and everything extra in terms of lifestyle expenses, I put them into projects, I put into businesses and I saved and I saved and I invested. And then when it was time for me to go, I had plenty of years of runway and I just said, yeah, like I really don't, I kept my burn low. So it all starts with discipline. Anybody can leave a 9-to-5. Anybody can start a business. It's hard because as your money is leaving and you start investing, and most people don't track what they're spending, so you're estimating, and I almost guarantee it that you're spending 2 to 3 times more than what you think. So it's being able to resist the temptation of increasing your lifestyle expenses as your income increases. So if you can keep your expenses flat and start earning, you know, if you keep, if you're spending $100,000 a year to survive and you start making $250,000, you can put $150,000 away every year. And that's plenty. And that's what I did for me. I didn't buy the cars. I didn't do everything everybody else was doing. I just kept putting it into different stuff, into stocks, into projects, into myself. And I always looked at myself like a company and I've looked at my balance sheet. I'm like, okay, what am I spending here? What am I doing there? So it's, it all ties into discipline and it's hard once you start cashing in. I think if you're in the very beginning and you're trying to get into a career or you're trying to launch something and you don't have the income, then you have to be even more disciplined and still take that extra money and invest in yourself. For me, it's starting off. I even maxed out credit cards to figure out how to play the game. I bought my first suits with credit cards. I just maxed them out. I bought $2,000 worth of custom suits. I put them on cards, but I looked at it as an investment because that'll make me look good, then I can perform good.

So like, let's go in the nitty-gritty because that's going to be important for everybody to understand. What are the best systems to track your expenses? So I personally, I was obsessed with Mint, and, and then they shut it down, and then I was like I don't like QuickBooks, like, just because Mint was automated, it was very easy. So what is your system? Like, you're going to tell me that you use QuickBooks?

No, no, I use Chase. I just see money going out, money going in.

Okay.

I track— I look at my bank account every single day.

Every single day?

Every morning I wake up and I look at my bank account and I see what's going out, what's going in. And maybe this comes from, like, survival skills because I grew up kind of poor. So I check everything. I cover every little basis of everything, especially too, because I've invested a lot into trying to do different companies and it's been very expensive experiments.

Yeah.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings that I've experimented with. Right. And I have to track and measure. So I think using some app, you can use Mint, you can use NerdWallet, you can use Chase, you can just, but really know what you're spending. Look at the breakdown. How— I guarantee most people who are listening to the show maybe don't look and review their finances weekly. I think that's very important.

Look at your finances every single day, to the dot, to the penny. And then what?

And then I make adjustments in real time. So if I see for one week I overspent somewhere, I don't necessarily cut it because, you know, like, you have to live, but I just know what I'm spending every single day. And if for one, like, you know, back in 2021, one month I spent way more than I thought. I had no idea. And for that month, I went way over on doing trips and I just made the cuts immediately. Next month I'm like, okay, I'm going to cut here. So you have to constantly, you have to look at what gets measured and recorded we can improve upon. So you have to track and measure, really look at it. Don't be scared to look. And I think a lot of people have fear to look and see what they're really spending.

Yeah, they don't want to.

For me, that's what helped me out.

They don't want to face it. What else? What are the other principles of like, think about your finances in the nitty-gritty? Because I think that's what the real principles of the nitty-gritty is going to help the audience be surgical about their finance.

Automate savings. So every month, take money and put into investment account. You have to define if you're going to be an active investor or you're going to be a passive investor. Those are two different types of people.

—can you tell us?

If you're active, you're an entrepreneur, right? You're an entrepreneur. You're trying different projects and you're willing to take more risks. So meaning you're willing to take a bigger chance to lose your money than you would be to gain. And then if you're a passive investor, you take your money and you give it to Vanguard or 401(k) company or Morgan Stanley, let them invest the money for you, but take a percentage and put that percentage in there every single month so you don't have to think about it. Mm-hmm. So I think that's number one, is define who you are. Once you understand who you are, put a plan together, a financial plan together. You can do that with the financial planner. If you're an entrepreneur, this may not apply to you. You may have your business plan and you may be willing to crash and burn, but most people don't have a plan and they don't know.

You might want to automate it. If you work for a company, you might want to work— yeah, apply to that plan with the company. What other principle or what other category would you look at?

For me, the main things are discipline. Understand, are you passive? Are you a passive or active type of investor? Automate savings. And then once you have that tracked and measured, everything kind of starts from there. And then you track every single week using these applications. But a lot of it comes down to the basics. It's you need to be financially disciplined. You need to know what you're spending and you need to be able to make adjustments in real time. And you have to have a plan in place for 5 to 10 years out. And then you automate that either with an application savings, you automate it at work with the 401(k), or you can do it yourself. And I just do it myself.

Yeah. And you studied in finance as well. But like the people that I know, we have a lot of friends.

I mean, Angela, you don't know what I'm talking about.

No, but I want to, like, I'm very aware of who I'm talking about. I know where they live. I know what they do. It's a good group of people and I want to make sure that I—

Well, start easy. I think the main thing for people is I would start off and make it as simple as possible. So look at the applications, like look in your bank account and see what you're spending over the last 6 months. You can do this with almost any bank account with any bank today. So you can use Chase, go in and, okay, look at the last 90 days spending and then break it down by category. And how much am I spending on food? How much am I spending on entertainment? How much I spend? And then start going in travel, shopping. Yeah. All these things. And then understand that every dollar that you spend on that, you're losing a lot of money by not investing it.

Yeah. No, I love that. And then another portion that people are very interested in. So a lot of people are working corporate and then they want to make the jump. And they want to figure out, launch their business, but they want to figure out how can they move into this lifestyle and where they're going to work on their side business, but they want to know how much money they need to put aside to move towards that side business. Some of them want to launch books, some of them want to launch podcasts, but they want to have enough of a nest egg and they want to know what is their magic ratio. I know I'm asking you a lot, but you're somebody also who made that jump. You left. Google, which was a very lucrative job. And then you made that jump as a notter, as a tech entrepreneur, as a podcaster. So people have asked me, can you ask him that? I think they're just sending all the questions.

No, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to do, right? I would say save at least a year, knowing what I know now. Not more than a year? If you can do more, I think at minimum a year, because 6 months, 3 months is not going to do it. Because when you start as an entrepreneur, you're going to crash, you're going to burn, you're going to make mistakes. And it gets stressful when you're seeing a lot of money leave your bank account and there's no money coming in, especially in the first 3 to 6 months. So I think people underestimate how hard it is to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Yeah. And not everybody. And if you're going to take the jump, it's okay. And then you can always go back to your job and take the jump again. But I think a minimum to a year. Also getting mentors before you make the jump. So people who have been there and done that, that can help you. For me, I've always been, all my friends are entrepreneurs and made the jump. So it wasn't hard for me 'cause everybody I know is doing it and I've done it before and I had at least 2 years worth of savings. So I left in September 2022 and we're already over 2 years. Oh wow. Yeah. And I still can last another maybe, you know, but I also bring in money now. So, but at the same time, If I crash and burn, I go back and get another job. It's not a big deal. You know, I don't judge myself.

Such a great audience. You have such a big audience.

Well, I've worked on it for 6 years, you know, like, I— and people have been following me from the Bay now for a while. I go out to the Bay, everybody knows me now. They said they've been following me on Instagram. I go to LA, they know me now. In Boston, I— the head of Morgan Stanley reaches out to me because, man, like, you, you're crushing it on everything, but I don't, like, I forget. I don't even really, I'm just in the game. I'm just hustling. So I don't even know. I don't listen to anything. But I think for people, it's, you know, it takes, these things take time. I think social media has made it where we think it's gonna happen fast. To build an audience in brands can take years and years of trust, of experimenting, of putting podcasts out there, of doing books, of trying different businesses and being okay with it crashing and burning and then making adjustments. Yeah. The corporate world, you're kind of punished for mistakes. And entrepreneurship, you need to take action. You got to move fast and take every day. This is why I'm a psycho with everything. I look at everything and I move fast. So when I left Google, I had a voice in my head say, get out. And I didn't even think about it. I said, just okay, I quit. And they're like, you're going to leave? I'm like, yeah. Like, you don't want your bonus? I'm like, nope, I'm out. And I just left. You have 2 weeks. They were like, what the hell was that? They were like, who is this guy? He's fucking crazy. And I just, I move like that. And you know, it could be that I have to go get another job at some point. I'm willing to do that, but I'm going to keep experimenting.

Yeah, tell me about that voice, because we're talking about like your higher self. And so how do you know which voice to listen to?

This is the problem for most people. It's most people are— don't take time to be quiet, and most people don't have their voice in their head. They have other people's voices. Society, a husband, a wife, your coworkers. And it's very noisy and we never get a chance to get centered and to really listen. And I think that there's two voices that come in our head. A voice of fear that tells us we can't do it. That's kind of self-critical. You look in the mirror, you're like, oh, I don't look good today. Oh, I don't like that. And then there's the other voice that's in like the confidence, right? For me, I listened to the one over here telling me I can do it. And when I was in a meeting, I remember getting a text. It was like, "Hey, we got to meet with these people, da da da da da." And I was like, "I don't want to do this." And that was Case getting a voice like, "It's time to go." And something just told me it's time to go. And I was like, next thing you know, I sent the email and then I walked out and that was it. Did you give your 2 weeks notice?

Yeah, I gave my notice.

And I love the team. I'm still cool with them. I'm still cool with them. But I knew I can always go back to get another job. So it's, for me, it's not as risky. I think I was more worried in the beginning when I was starting my career. Now I'm like, well, I can go get a job. You know, I can go make good money and work a tech job again. So there's not really, I'm chilling. It's just me too. So I can travel around. I'm, you know, I got people reaching out and stuff. So I have no pressure, but if I crash and burn, it's on me. So I'm willing to go bankrupt and I'm willing people laugh at me. I'm willing people to talk trash about me. I don't care. And I don't have all that pressure 'cause I came from the bottom bottom. To me, it's surprising I'm even here. Sometimes I wake up, I was in Hawaii, I was meeting with the Hawaiian government and all these power players. I'm like, I just laugh. I go, holy shit, how'd I pull this off? You know what I'm saying? That's what I always laugh. I'm like, damn. So for me, it's different than everybody here 'cause I'm chilling and I'm about the people. I like the people. I'm not corporate. I don't, when in my free time, I'm not hanging out with people from the industry. I'm hanging out with the people people. And that's what my, like my mission is to connect and work and do stuff in the community. So I take all my extra money and I go to the community. So I'm not even thinking about me so much at this point. 'Cause I'm like, I don't really need anything else.

I'm chilling. [Speaker] It feels like you're busy connecting with people with similar vibrations. I'm like, when you connected, I saw your Hawaiian shirt. I'm feeling the vibration. I'm feeling the vibe. And I'm like, is he in Hawaii? I don't know. I'm like on IG and I'm not sure if I'm sleeping, if I'm awake. So I'm like, maybe he's joining from Hawaii. I'm not sure where he's at, but that's the vibe. So basically you're just following the flow. You're following the vibe. And so I think, what are your tips for people? Because you're, Following your vibration feels like you've been— like, I've hit multiple rock bottoms in my life. Like, you know, I've been a rapper, I've had multiple careers, right? I was a writer, I published a trilogy of poems in French. I was an actress, product manager in tech. I was a consultant, sales leader for the longest. What would you say to people who want to listen to their intuition? Because intuition fluctuates. Depending on the mask. You and I talked about the masks, right? So you gotta peel the onion of like being masked and unmasked. So for people who've like built a shell of masks and sometimes they remove them, what would you say to someone who wanna follow their real self? They wanna meet their higher self every day. Do you have tips for people who wanna like, I wanna find myself again?

Confidence is number one. And you have to be okay with going against the grain, taking time alone and listening to yourself. And it takes a lot of confidence to do that today, especially— is your audience mostly these entrepreneurial tech people? Are they— because I think there's two different types of people. There's people who are doing what their friends and family, what they've been supposed to do forever. You get a high-paying job, You get married, you're in a relationship, you have the perfect person, and you can feel trapped and suffocated in a world that this is like— you look like you feel like you're winning on the outside, but you don't feel like you're winning on the inside. And if you're gonna go somewhere, everything that we want, we have to give something up to get it. Yeah. So sometimes it's a thought, sometimes it's a relationship, sometimes it's a belief pattern, or it's a group of people, but You have to give something up. And it takes confidence to do that in social media world. When you're making good money, you're successful, and you're doing what everybody around you says, this is what you're supposed to be doing. But you don't feel like you're winning. Yeah. You don't feel alive on the inside. Yeah. You lose yourself for years and years and years of suffering. This is the life of people in Silicon Valley. That's how I know this. I talked to all these— I talked to all these people. People are miserable. People are miserable. And people lose themselves, and they lose themselves with an expensive lifestyle. They lose the ability to listen to themselves, and you get scared of being judged by other people. And so I say, for people who are employees in this industry, or any industry, because it's not just this industry, You have to have courage to go against the grain. And we're all going to die. I always go back to that. So live, you have to live every day being grateful and doing what you are in alignment with what you're supposed to be doing. And if you don't have energy, you don't have the drive, you're not in alignment. And you're not going to get in alignment unless you take the time to get away and listen to that voice. Not the scared voice, not the voice telling me, what if this? It's like, what am I supposed to do? And that is hard. So it takes a lot of courage. I think if you're starting off, then you need confidence. You have to take the confidence to meet new people. Yeah. Leave bad relationships. Cleanse your mind of all these years and years and years and years of programming from family. From friends, from church, from everybody in your head telling you you're not good enough, then you go through life and you tell yourself you're not good enough. So it's important for people to take time. If you're busy, take time to go quiet. Yeah. And get in alignment. If you're starting off, then you need to work on your confidence. You need to work on your self-belief. If you look at, this is what I learned in Atlanta. When I got around people in Atlanta, I saw, man, these guys, they think they can do anything. They got swag. They move with certainty. They go fast. They're not overthinking stuff. They're just moving. They're in the moment. They're just going. And I remember seeing all these people. I just saw the way they move. I was like, sure, I'm gonna move like that too, right? And you go to the entrepreneur, you go to the big companies and you're thinking about everything. You're thinking about other people. What is this other person gonna think about me? You're managing, you're playing the game, but life is an internal game. So what heats you up? Does this person heat you up? Is this person making me feel— I always tell, this is how I tell my sister, I tell people, start to look and understand how you feel. Like, how does your body respond to people? That's something I'm always aware of. So if I'm around somebody or I'm in an environment where I'm tense, where my lower back is getting tight, and I just don't feel good, I leave that person, even if it's a friend. I just don't want to get around them. It's a street smart, right? I can feel it. So for people today in a social media world, in these environments, corporate environments, where you will lose yourself in these environments. Yeah. Especially once you start making good money. Because once you start making money, if you're in survival mode and you're making money, you're finally free. So you're like, shoot, I was running away from something. Once you finish running away, it's time to run to. So what are you going to run to? And this is why I always tell everybody is in the beginning for me, I was running away. I was like, I just want to make money. I want to be financially free. Okay, cool. Once I got to a point, I'm like, okay, what do I actually want? I don't even know if I want this fucking job. I don't want to be around these people. So I'm like, okay, where do I want to go? And those things can only come from the inside. Yeah, not the outside.

It's so deep and it's so, it's so true. It's how, how can you live a life that's true to yourself?

Alignment is hard, and social media has made it harder. You know, getting into careers just to make money makes it harder. Yeah, getting with people for, you know, you get in a marriage or relationship and it's a lot of the external things. Oh, they look good, they can talk good, they make good money, right? And then it's the person you're supposed to be with, but they don't make you feel good on the inside. Yeah. And you have to find people you're in alignment with, find your tribe. And it's very hard to do that today with social media expectation people. It's a lot of negativity. So alignment. Yeah, it's alignment.

And also, like, there's something that— a couple of things, right? I've been reflecting a lot on my life, and I, I wouldn't say, like, my parents were great, but they were, like, coming from Haiti. Like, they were surviving, right? Like, you're hustling or trying to figure it out. Kids— like, my mom came, she was 18. She was a kid. Her parents were trying to— she was a kid. They were trying to survive. There was no logic. They're like, I'm going to work. I'm going to— okay, I'm going to work in a kitchen, make some food, and then I want to become a nurse. And I mean, this guy, the guy is good looking. He's coming from a good family and stuff. There's no logic. She's like, oh, he's good looking and my daughters are going to be— and he's smart. They're going to be smart and they're going to be good looking. Are we really compatible? Uh-uh. Not compatible. But the outcome is, the outcome is gonna work, but the chemistry doesn't work. And then that's life of misery because you got the outcome on paper, but they never really vibed. And then my mom is alone. Right. So I think when you think about your spirit and something for me that came out about your spiritual tribe is who are the souls, what is the experience, how do you want to feel with your tribe and the people you want to surround yourself with. And I think like, that's not something we learn at school, and I'm not like putting the responsibility on anybody else, but where I am in my life, and I think that's what also the audience has been asking, And I really liked this question and it was from a lovely girl that I met when I went to Bali and a Haitian girl. I mean, I've been living, I've been living. We met her because we were taking some pictures, we were in bikini and stuff. It was my girlfriend's birthday. It was my girlfriend's 35th birthday and we're doing, there was some, a pool, an infinity pool, and it was so beautiful. And then we were taking some, some pictures and this girl, she started talking. She's like, can you take a picture of me? I'm like, definitely. I'm like, where are you from? She's like, I'm Haitian. I'm like, me too. Anyway, long story short, uh, we started talking and then we stayed connected. And then I post something on IG and I was doing some research and then we talked and she's like, I want to know, how do you decide who should be in your friend circle? How do— and then I thought a lot about it. Right. And she's one of the audience of the podcast. And then I reflected, because it's the same for a relationship with like a man or a partner, like whatever your sexual orientation is, is how do you feel when you're with that person, right? And for me, it's a non-negotiable. And when you look at if you're in a relationship with a partner, love partners, how do they make you feel? Because I remember doing a vision board and I had all these crazy attributes, but then I realized, I reflected back and it's like all the attributes with that, I used to have a checklist when I was in the Bay Area. I was like, I cannot date You, because this, you're not healthy, you smoke cigarettes, or you don't do that, you drink too much. And, but I felt great when I was with that person, right? And, but they were not healthy. Like it was somebody who drank a bottle of vodka a day. Not great. That checklist was valid. But what I'm saying is that, what is the, how do you feel when you're with that person? Right. And for friends as well, right? What are the energies? Do you feel elevated? Do you feel inspired? So I think this is something that's very important, right? And it's even with a career, like, I feel great when I'm talking to you or when I'm doing a podcast, like the activities that I'm engaging in. I feel great when I'm like, and that's what's important when you think about your higher self, your higher consciousness, or, and those are the types of things I want to do and I want to engage in while I'm on this planet. Because we talk about the fact that we are incarnated on this planet to come. We're just an incarnation, right? Like, oh, this is my physical incarnation, but I could be like, I don't know, looking like somebody else. But I think that's where I think we're heading. And, and that's the message that we're spreading. And I feel like, thank you so much for sharing what you shared about, because I want people to be financially free. I want people to be able to find their soul tribe. I want people to to find the freedom that it seems that you're finding, because you're able to pivot between corporate to podcasting to, to, to everything that we talked about. I think one of the last, because we don't have a lot of extra time, but I want to be able to tap into all of your, your wisdom. I think just as we're parting, do you have like simple ways and tips and tricks? Let's say somebody that's listening to us right now is going through a dark night of the soul, because those people are in different phases in their life. How do you snap out of it? Like, for me, like, it's weird. I'm going to share. I could have different ways. I could pull like tarot or just meditate with crystals. Do you have ways to get back and connect with your higher self quickly if you're in a, in a weird kind of place in the moment? Pedro?

I mean, for me, it's nature. I'll go to Tahoe, you know, I go to Tahoe a lot. I'll go to Hawaii, you know. But for me, normally when that's happening, it's normally somebody around me, right? And for most people, I notice that it's— let's just be honest, the, the only people that can affect us are people that we care about a lot, right? And on that deep level, it's family, It's friends or it's a partner. And normally if you're not feeling good about yourself, there's somebody who put something in your head and it could be corporate, right? You're in a job and just somebody's just always like, they just, you can feel that they don't like you for some reason. They're insecure because whatever. And they use other things to put you down and try to manage you. So you kind of stay in this cap and all of a sudden you hate the job. You're in a relationship, you want to move somewhere, and this person doesn't want to move, doesn't want to grow. You start feeling out of alignment, right? Because you're stuck. You're just stuck because there's this block and it's this other person. For a lot of people, it's family. It's their mom and dad has put poison in their head. I think step one is trying to understand where is this coming from? Because most of the time, these things that we get us out of alignment are not coming from ourselves. We think it is because it's our voices telling us this. But if you really take a look, there's someone, somebody along the line that's put this in your head. And it could have been from upbringing. For a lot of people I talk to now, it's their parents. For a lot of people, it's they're in a relationship where they're looking to grow. I think this is for a lot of women, right? They want to grow and they're with somebody who doesn't want to grow. They're comfortable where they're at. And that becomes a turnoff because I'm trying to grow and change. I'm trying to elevate. And that's an energy. And then you're with your person and they're kind of just chilling. And then you're going home and they're just chilling. And you're in that mode where you're like, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. There's going to be a conflict. So most of the time, I think step one is like, okay, is there anybody or anything around me that's getting me off alignment? Yeah. And then if it's a somebody, try to have that conversation. If you can't fix that conversation, if it's somebody at work, then for me, that means I won't stay there that long. If it's a partner and I'm communicating, communicating, communicating, and things aren't hitting and I communicate for years. But for me, if I'm like, I can't be with somebody who doesn't allow me to grow. Because when I grow, I become better and everything around me, I start manifesting stuff. For me, a lot of things that happened to me now, I visualized 20 years ago. Yeah. And these things, even Hawaii, like all these little opportunities that come in, I can see them and then they pop up and they happen. Wow. And I told everybody, everything that I'm doing now, I told people I was going to do 15, 20 years when I thought it was crazy. But it's the same thing as you have to make room for good energy. Yeah. And most of the time that it's thoughts, people or an environment. And if it's a negative environment, you need to cut it. Yeah. If it's a negative person and you're not able to fix it, if it's family, you don't necessarily need to cut them out, but maybe you talk to them once every other week. I have a lot of people, this is what I do. I don't completely cut them out, but I just, I'm not picking up their call all the time. I'm busy. Hey, I'm busy. Right? I just get really busy. And for me it's— Hey, I'm busy. Yeah, I just don't pick up the call. Hey, I'm busy. I'll hit you up in 2 weeks or whatever. And you have to do that. I like that. Because again, to me, everything comes down to confidence. Yeah. And what our inner voice is telling us. And if you are in a bad place, I can almost guarantee that you're not being your own best friend. You're eating at yourself. You're criticizing yourself. You're in that negative zone. You have resentment towards people and you have to let that go. And the only way you're going to let that go— this is very deep shit now, but it's real.

100%. Listen, I spent a lot of time listening and engaging in spiritual coaching, and some of the spiritual teachers— I have a session on Sunday— and it's like, listen, sometimes you go in depressed mode, but it's not you. Because like my mom, I was— there's an interview that I haven't released that I'm going to release very soon on the other podcast. And my mom was like, you were always a happy baby. So I was a happy baby. So that's my natural state. So if there's any depression, sadness and stuff, it's not my energies. So it's exactly what you're saying is whose energies are these and whose energies am I letting impact me? And then like inquire. And I can go in different, like my grandfather was a spiritualist. Nice way of saying voodoo priest. And I'm Haitian. And there's a lot of conversations right now about Haitian people. Uh, my parents were trying to hide it because they were like, oh, we don't want our kids to be aware of that. But I embrace it now. I'm like remerging different identities that sometimes can be perceived a certain way. But I think for me, what's important is that if you can connect with spirit and that many people in my family have this gift, that I just want to remerge those identities instead of like burying it and feeling bad about it. I have this, like, people have it. So just embracing the fact that I'm very connected with that side of myself instead of feeling weird about it. So it's just knowing that those energies don't belong to me, and then I have to follow the path that has been divinely guided and embrace that instead of just being tech, tech, tech, which is not, which I can do, which I've done for a very long time, but might not be the true self-expression. And music was maybe a little bit closer to that guidance because I got all the spiritual downloads. I wrote some songs that about the story of my family that I didn't even know. And then my parents were like, how does she know that? I don't know. My grandfather just wrote the songs for me and I just sang them. So those are all the things that there's— what, like, you— I see you physically through a computer, and that's the reality in 3D. But there's all those realities that we're not necessarily aware of, that we don't necessarily accept, because that's not what has been shown in the textbook. But anyway, thank you so much, Pedro. I think you're amazing. You have so much depth. I think you have like this whole vibe. No, it's true. I think you have like so much depth and it's like you, you walk on your own drum. You have your own like life principles and like, I'm just so impressed by your life story and how you've created yourself and from nothing, from your background, you've embraced your, you create your own vibe and As I'm saying that, there's a butterfly that's flying outside. It's renaissance and renouveau. But I think I'm so inspired by the journey. Thank you for being a guide as well as I was creating my first podcast. And thank you for spreading the word as well through your podcast for supporting men's mental health. And I encourage everybody who wants to know a little bit more about Pedro and his vibe to listen to the Pedro Frias Show. So I'm super excited. I don't know when I'm going to see you next. Did I ever see you in person?

I don't think we met in person yet, but when you— next time you come to the Bay, if I'm here, let's, let's link up. I'm excited to see, you know, your, your, your stuff is blowing up. So I'm excited. I'm happy for you. I feel good vibes too. I feel the energy. This is going to be a big hit. So I'm excited you had me on. Thank you so much.