How To Take Control Of Your Financial Health To Create Lasting Abundance

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If someone is financially sick and unwell and their financial health is unstable, what are a few strategies they can do to either increase their income or get back to financial wholeness?

I would say something that people struggle with realizing is that these changes you'll have to make, they're not permanent, they're only temporary. Yes, and you are going to be uncomfortable. It's not going to be fun. And I am Very anti. Cut out the avocado toast. Don't buy the coffee. Rah, rah. Okay, I am.

Yeah.

But if you are in a truly a dark, dark hole and there's no ladder to crawl out, cut it out. Like, you literally have to cut it out. You have to make some temporary changes that are very uncomfortable and to your point, like, we focus so much on cutting out every single little discretionary cost. Do you know how hard it is to cut out $5,000 worth of expenses? Do you know how easy it is to ask for a $5,000 raise? A $5,000 raise happens every single day. Like, that is par for the course. That's not anything special. Cutting out $5,000. Do you know how many coffees you have to cut out? You know how many meals you can't go out to? Do you know how many friends you might lose in that process? So, again, I think it's really, really important to be asking for that raise. And I mean, 10, 15% every single year. Are you going to get it every year? Probably not. But you get 7%, great. You get 8%. Great. You got to ask.

Yeah.

And you got to remind them pretty much for six months out of the year that you deserve that raise and that you want money, that you are money motivated. Because if you ask in December, when everybody else is asking for money.

Right.

You're at the back of the list.

Yeah. Yeah.

You want to be on top of the pile when your boss starts thinking about who's getting a raise this year.

What can someone do who's an employee to be really smart and intentional about getting a raise?

Yeah.

How can they show their value, their work ethic, that they're getting the results that's going to increase revenue in the business, as opposed to just saying, give me a 20% raise or a 10% raise because I deserve it.

Yeah.

How do they enroll? Through actual results, as opposed to I just want to raise.

Yeah.

Give it to me. Otherwise I'm not happy.

Yeah.

So you remember those two guys on Wall Street? You got the executioners and then you got the knife and fork guys. So on the execution side, make yourself a brag book. So it's a literal folder.

A brag book.

A brag book, razor seats, promo pitch, whatever you want to call it, just make one. It's a folder in your email. And every time something good happens to you, every time you get a pat on the back from another team member from your company, put it, forward it to that folder. A client says, wow, you know, you did Such a great job. Whatever, put it in that folder. Anything that good, good that happens to you, put in that folder. Because that way when you go and you have to write those really annoying self assessments, you can go back and literally look through those emails and be like, oh, remember that time I did that one thing and that thing and that thing. And now you have quantifiable results that you can point to. The second piece is the knife and fork piece. There's a study and it shows that the smartest person is not the one that gets paid the most.

Right.

They're like second most paid. Second or third most paid. Really? Yeah. You it being smart and being the best employee gets you to a certain point, but the person that is paid the most is the person that is essentially Mr. Or Mrs. Congeniality. You need to be liked. You need. And not so much like, you have to be agreeable and likable, but like, people have to think of you.

Like, you gotta be top of mind.

You gotta be top of mind. And you have to be, unfortunately popular around the office. So that happens by not skipping the company happy hour. That happens by joining your stupid rec pickleball league with your boss. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you have to do those things if you really want that. And I know people listening to this might think like, well, I have kids. I can't do the pickleball league. I can't go to the happy hour. Okay. Ask your boss to go to lunch once every three weeks. Make that time, force that time. Do the water cooler thing because it might cause you 15 minutes. It might cost you 15 minutes of your day, and it might cost you that 15 minutes of productivity. I guarantee you nobody is going to miss that 15 minutes of your work product. But they'll remember when you told that funny joke, they'll remember that story you told about, you know, the one, you know, funny thing that happened that weekend. Because that is how people remember you.

Yeah.

It's not about like, oh, do you remember who closed that amazing deal last quarter? Nobody says that.

Right.

You know what I think about is like, who is, who is able to show up with just consistent, good attitude, energy and effort consistently. Who creates the least amount of stress?

Yes.

You know that I don't want to think about the challenges and the stress that is being brought to the team or to myself, but that you're just consistent. Not that you can't have a challenging day or bad stuff happens, but just overall, you got pretty good attitude.

Yeah.

Pretty good energy.

You're willing to show up and work hard consistently.

It's like, all right, cool. You're going to get rewarded.

Yeah.

But go ahead.

No, I was going to say it's also like doing an elevator test or airport test. When you're looking at a resume, how many times has someone asked you about your past job experience in detail? Frankly, not that many times. You know what everybody beelines to on my resume?

What's that?

They look at the very bottom and they're like, interests, activities. And they're like, oh, that's weird. I see where it literally. That's weird. You were a cheerleader in college. And I'm like, yes. And they're like, really? And I'm like, yeah, why don't I seem so fun and bubbly and like, you know, it's the same day that I'm wearing all black and I look so, like, depressed. Or they'll look at the bottom of my resume and they're like, interest mob movies. What's your favorite one? And I'm like, Goodfellas, obviously. And then we get into a 20 minute debate and I waste 20 minutes in our interview. But you only now have 10 minutes to ask me technical questions. And if I aced those 10 minutes of questions instead of 30 minutes, I now look like a genius because every question you asked me, I got right. And then even better, like the fact that you and I now have something in common because you know that Goodfellas is my favorite movie. I know that the Godfather is your favorite movie. So now we're friends.

Yeah. You're more likable.

Yeah.

It sounds like people hire or they give raises or opportunities to people they like more. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Where was the study from? Do you remember this likability study?

I can't exactly remember.

We'll have to look it up.

But it'll literally be like the first Google search. Literally. Just be like, you know, smartest person doesn't get paid the most.

Right.

It's been shown time and time again.

It's not about being the smartest or the most technical. It's about you want to have technical skills and be smart.

You got to be a B plus student with an A plus personality. And that'll get you farther than being an A plus student with a B plus personality.

Interesting. It's more about personality than your technical skills. That's what it sounds like. Interesting.

Yeah.

But you got to be competent as well.

Yeah.

I mean, you completely.

You can't have an A plus personality and just be like, A D minus. Like, you're still bad at the job, they don't want you around.

Man, I don't know how I got here, though. I was like, barely past school, you know. But it's interesting. We were just talking about this event this last weekend, and one of the speakers, Vanessa Van Edwards, she's like, kind of like a behavioral scientist and studies people and soft skills and all these different things. And she was like being. If you want to be interesting as a human being, it's not about how much knowledge you know or how funny stories you tell or whatever your history. It's about how interested you are in other people. It's like your ability to listen and engage and ask more questions. And when people feel that you care about them and are interested in them, they're going to be more interested in you. And so it's, it's kind of turning the tables around where you don't need to be that smart, but you need to be present, you need to be engaging, you need to be able to have courage to ask those questions and look someone in the eyes and, you know, just have a good energy. And I think that's part of it as well. That'll take you a long way in a career. So that's what I'm hearing you say around if you're wanting to increase your income is some practical things. What about if you have a sick financial health and you're just, you're not sure where your money's at, you're not sure where you're spending your money, you're not sure how much debt you have, you're, you know, buying three lattes a day or whatever it is, and you're just like, huh, I really don't have an emergency fund. I really don't have much savings, I don't have any investments and I'm in debt. How can they get back to a healthy place? What are practical steps they can do?

Yeah, this is my you're rich BFF strip method.

Ooh, strip it up.

If you want to be good with money, you got a strip strip. So S stands for savings. It's so important to get that emergency fund. First you break your leg, some bad happens to you, you, you're going to need it.

Yeah.

And if you don't have it, you're going to get worse into debt.

Start with emergency fund.

Emergency fund.

What do you say, six months? Three months?

If you are a singleton who rents, three to six months is totally fine. If you got a family, you got a mortgage, are a little Higher, you probably want to be closer to nine to 12.

Okay, cool.

T stands for total debt. And I say total debt because people think about debt as this evil thing. Not all debt is created equal. And debt with higher interest rates, things like credit card debt, when you're looking at a 22 to 25% interest rate, is a lot dicier than something like federal student loan debt. You might have like a 3% interest rate on that. Like those two do not compound at the same rate. It's just math. So what you do is you rank your debt from highest to lowest interest rate and you pay it down in that order. You pay off the minimum balance of.

Every single account on the higher one first.

So you pay off the minimum balance on everything.

Okay, gotcha.

But any money you have left over to pay down debt, you put towards the highest interest rate.

The highest first.

Yes.

Even if it's got. Even if, I don't know, even if it's got the least amount or the most amount of debt. It doesn't matter.

Does not matter. Some people prefer the snowball, which is you ranking from smallest to largest balance. It's great positive reinforcement because you're starting, you're able to clear accounts faster, but you pay more interest.

Right.

And I'm an Aries. I'm like really impatient.

So psychologically you might be like, oh, I'm getting things done faster. You're not, but you might be still be paying more in interest later.

Correct. And we're talking about someone who does not have the money to afford that interest.

Right.

So we got to go fastest.

Got it. Okay, so total debt, that's the team.

Total debt. R stands for retirement. I know. You know, especially my audience. So many people are young and they're.

Like, they're not thinking about retirement.

It's like 40 years away. It's 30 years away.

It's like millennial Gen Z.

It will be here before you know it. And again, now I do know where the study come from. Credit Karma did a survey and over a quarter of people over the age of 59 have not a dollar save for retirement.

Come on. Not A dollar over 59. 25% don't have anything to say.

27% is the actual percent.

Wow.

Not a dollar.

Why is that? Why do people wait so long to have, you know, zero retirement?

I think on one hand, in part it's education. It's that thought of like, I'll be young forever. Two, I will say many, many of those people are likely in lower paying jobs. They are, you know, not offered employer sponsored retirement plans. They don't know to create their own individual one. And I think things happen throughout the years.

Yeah.

So like maybe you were really responsible about putting away money for retirement if you get sick.

Right.

What do you like? You can't not get treated like that's, you know, it's hard.

Sure.

Life happens.

Yeah.

But it is important to think about retirement now. And this is my favorite part because I love tax bennies.

Tax bennies.

Benny's being benefits.

Okay. You know, tax benefits.

Saving for retirement, investing for retirement. You can get tax benefits.

That's True.

In a 401K, a Roth 401K and an IRA. A Roth IRA. At one point, whether the money is going in or coming out, at one point you don't have to pay taxes.

Right.

And you can do that legally. The government wants you to do that. That's how it's written in the tax code to incentivize you to do it. So take advantage. Don't pay those taxes. Make sure you are saving for retirement and not paying your taxes because it's legal. And I think I. Moving on from retirement is the part that everybody misses. Everybody puts their cash into those retirement accounts, into their brokerage accounts and they're like doing a great job. I'm done. That's it. But no, no, no, investing is not putting cash into those accounts. It's actually buying stuff with that money. And people forget to do this all the time.

And buying stuff with the retirement money or with separate money?

No, with that money. So like say you have a Roth IRA and you put $5,000 into that Roth IRA. I know people who have put that money into their Roth IRA for years and they never allocated those dollars anywhere. That just sat in a cash fund and it didn't grow. And people will make comments when I make content about Roth IRAs or 401ks and they're like, well, I don't know what you're doing, but my money hasn't grown. I'm like, did you invest it? And they were like, yeah, I put it in the Roth ira. And I'm like, no, no. Did you go and buy index funds? Did you go and buy a mutual fund? Did you put your money into a Target day retirement fund?

Did you do anything with that money?

With that money? The metaphor I talk about in my book is going to the grocery store. So you go to the grocery store, which is the brokerage, and you have your cash in your purse and you walk in. Imagine just taking a lap around the Grocery store and then going home and being like, why is there no food in my fridge? That's what people do. You actually have to go and buy, you know, your fruits and your veggies and a couple snacks for yourself. You have to buy those things if you want them in your house.

But most people aren't aware of that, huh?

No. It's one of the biggest mistakes I see over and over again. So invest your money is the I and P stands for my favorite part. You got a plan? You do not get to have your happily ever after. You don't get to ride off into the sunset if you don't have a plan. You got a plan for your party?

What type of plan should they be making? What's a good idea of making a plan?

I think it's so important to sit down, whether it's by yourself or with your significant other, and talk about, what does our happily ever look like? Are you and I retired in Naples, Florida? Are we retired in Naples, Italy? Because the numbers for those two don't look the same. You know, do we help our kids pay for, you know, their private education at a college? Or are we saying take out loans? Do we want to have a pet? How many cars do we want to have? How many vacations a year are we taking? Are when we, you know, get married? Are your parents moving into our house? Do we have to build a separate little, you know, in law suite for them? That all costs money. And if you don't know what that looks like for you, how are you going to back your way into that number?

Interesting. Yeah. So creating that plan, speaking of that was great. I loved all this about getting clear on your financial health and making more. But I wanted to ask you about intimacy, relationships, money, and power.

Let's do it.

And you've been in a relationship for six, seven years, engaged for a year. But you also saw people probably go through different types of power dynamics and relationships in New York City, on Wall street and people with lots of money.

Yeah.

When you were either dating before this, the guys on the floor who had been married and divorced, I'm sure you heard some crazy stories of people. And I'm sure the divorce rate is higher on Wall street than just, like, middle America. I don't know. Suburbs.

I don't know.

I don't know if I would say that.

Really?

Yeah.

Maybe they just keep it together. But they have, like, separate wives.

Yeah. I don't know.

Who does.

Yeah. Three families, like on billions or something.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

I was just Going to say dollar bill.

Yeah, exactly. But how much does money affect intimacy and relationships? When one person has more than the other, when both have a lot, when both have a little. What have you witnessed? And personally, but also what have you experienced from your research?

Yeah. Anybody who says money does not impact your relationship is a liar. Okay? It is truly. Every year they do some. Somebody does a study. It's money and sex, Money and sex. One and two, one and two. They go back and forth between who's number one, who's number two. But like, those are the top two reasons always. And imagine if true, like, physical intimacy is up there and money's right next to it. Why don't we put just as much time into maintaining the money piece as we do the physical intimacy piece.

On making a relationship or marriage work, you mean? Yes.

And I think maybe this is just a phenomenon that I have witnessed, and I will say this from like a heteronormative relationship standpoint, but like, we have a lot of guy friends who make a lot of money and you are one of two dudes, okay? You either want a partner, truly. And like, I know some of these guys, like their wives, girlfriends, whatever, are like the coolest, most inspirational. Like, they just have the coolest job or they always have something really exciting to talk about, like a passion project they're working out. They're like, they're just like, so cool and they're so good human beings, like, really nice. They do something like they just have a lot to bring. They're always the person who's like, oh yeah, like, I brought a snack for you. I'm like, why do you have a snack for me? But it's like they're just cool, thoughtful partners. Then there are other people who want a more. I would say with wives, it's more of like a traditional marriage. Someone who stays at home, who takes care of the home, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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Quint.com Lewis when you choose these routes, I think it has a lot to do with having been conditioned into thinking that you need to be the provider. And I will say I think there are a lot of men out there that would not be able to handle having a significant other or a, you know, a woman's significant other who makes more money than them.

Really?

100%. Because I think it would be emasculating for some men who are not confident in their own masculinity.

Yeah.

And they're able their ability to provide in other ways that are not monetary.

So do you think when a woman makes more than a man in a relationship that it eventually will fail?

No.

It's possible that it works out?

Yes, I do. I really do. But you have to talk about that for sure. Like, I make more than my significant other. And I asked him, I was like, does it make you uncomfortable that, you know, I make more than you? Because for the first five years of our relationship, he made way more money than I did.

Really?

Yeah. He's always made more money than I did until I started your rich bff. And he answered in a really, really thoughtful way. And he was like, no, why wouldn't I want you to make more money so that we can do the things we want to do faster and I can retire earlier. And I'm like, okay, sick, easy. And he's like, but on top of that, like, you can't make your partner feel bad. That's the part that's really messed up. I think, like, regardless of if, you know, the guy makes more or the girl makes more, the where you'll see issues is where the partner who makes more leans on that money to replace actual emotional investment in the relationship. So, like, venmoing your partner $200 because you can't make that date that's trying to buy affection instead of being like, I am so sorry. And then the next day, sending roses. You're still spending money. You're still getting a gift. You're saying, sorry, but it's not so transactional and gross. And then on the women's side, it's like making your partner feel bad that, like, well, I earned this money. It's like, you know, why are you going out golfing? Like, I don't think money should be, like, held over anybody's head. Regardless of who you are in a relationship or if just, you know, between Friends, because that's going to negatively impact relationships no matter what.

Right. I've heard this. You tell me if I'm off on this, but I've heard that extremely successful, let's call them boss girls or whatever, boss women who are running their own business, CEOs, making money, leading the way, building, inspiring things, and also extremely attractive women don't get approached by men as much for some reason.

That's what I've heard.

I don't know if that's accurate or not, but that's what I've heard. It's like, if you're making a lot of money as a woman or if you're extremely attractive physically, guys are intimidated. This is what I've heard. Why do you think men are intimidated by extremely successful financial success within women or physically attractive women?

A fear of inadequacy, obviously. I mean, I don't mean to say, like, obviously you didn't think about that. But, like, I think when you see someone that you think is too good for you, whether it be through looks, through money, through anything, you would say, I'd rather quit before I try.

Wow.

For that fear of rejection. Like, it's such a fact. Because we have a friend who is just 10 out of 10. Smoke Show. She's never the one that people want to talk to at the bar.

Really?

She's. Oh, my God, never. Nobody ever talks to her. She's like, in the corner. Because everybody thinks that she will be mean to them. In fact, this.

Reject them or be mean.

Yeah. This girl is like a plus personality. Just, like, so beautiful. Like, I can only say good things. But no one ever approaches her because they think that she will instantaneously think she's too good for them. Whereas, like, if we're keeping it real, there are certainly girls who are not as conventionally attractive as this one friend. But guys feel very compelled. They're like, well, this girl and I are probably in the same league and she seems fun. I'll give this one a go. And that is just so much more approachable because they think that it's essentially like saying no to yourself or like applying for a job that you think you're unqualified for. Like, people are quitting before they try.

Wow, interesting. Do you think it's harder for men to approach, you know, a smoke show of a woman, I guess, aesthetically versus someone who's making more money than to them? Or is it harder to approach someone making more money than them?

I think it's harder to approach someone who's visually Attractive because it's hard to, to instantaneously judge being like, that woman makes more money than me. Right. I think there's also a lot of mental gymnastics that can go into it. I, I know what people say about me on the Internet. I see the comments. People are like, so statty's money. Like it's not like I made it.

Right.

Like, it's my money, I invested it. Or she's a trust fund baby or you know, did she win the lotto? Or like, what Ha. Like no one ever just wants to believe that you earned your money.

Wow.

Or that you deserve it. They always want to make some excuse for themselves so that they can sleep at night. Because if they look at someone like me who has made it themselves with certain privileges that I will not deny, but who was able to do it and they in their 29 year old life have not been able to do it. Yeah, they feel shortcomings and it's okay to want to work for more and strive for more, but don't ruin a good thing just because you're always trying to like hit the next milestone. Yeah, they'll come. But you could, you know, completely lose this entire journey if you don't take a second to stop them roses and stop and smell the roses.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love them. Those are probably the most unique three truths I've heard. I like that. Before I ask the final question, Vivian, I want to acknowledge you for your realness. I love this conversation. I love connecting.

Was that too honest? I hope.

I love it.

I think it's amazing. So I'm excited to connect with you and to share this message and hopefully connect more and have you back on and learn more about your stuff. So I acknowledge you for sharing this in your authentic way.

Foreign.

I'm curious, what is the difference between millionaires and billionaires and everyone else?

Every billionaire has a few different things, but I'd say the two most common things between a, a millionaire and a billionaire. Most billionaires picked one thing, just one thing. Let's just go. I mean, Bob McAfee, ethernet, created the ethernet. Pretty big deal. John Paul Dejorie, he created $2 billion companies, hair care and Patron Tequila. Michael Hudner did ships. And all of them just have one thing that they focused on. And most of us are like, well, I'm going to do real estate and I'm going to do a little content and then I'm going to try an E commerce business.

I'm going to have seven passive income streams.

Yeah, I don't and so for me, as I've gotten older, I'm only doing appsumo. It's like I have a book. Well, my girlfriend and our baby. That's number one. And then it's like AppSumo number two, my business. And then yes, I get to do YouTube, which I love making content similar to you. I have a book where I'm teaching other people how I did what I did. And I love that they did one thing. I think the second thing that's probably not recognized is they're in billion dollar markets. They're in billion dollar opportunities. So what's a billion dollar opportunity? Honestly, this is going to sound silly, but like lawn care. How many lawns are out there? You have a lawn.

I have like a fake yard. Yeah. It's a lot of water here in California, so. Yeah.

True. Do you have a pool?

I do, yeah.

And then you pool care. And how much do you pay your pool care person?

100 bucks a.

It's a weekly.

Yeah. Yeah.

So 400 bucks a month.

Yeah.

So that's $5,000 a year.

You get 50 pools.

It's like, hey, that's a million dollar opportunity. And then so you realize like pools and certain things like can be billion dollar markets. And most people. And this is something I had to.

Recognize through boring businesses.

Boring businesses is not. And it's not just boring. It's just billion dollar opportunities. Like, and John Paul dejoyer was a great one that I sound fascinating because he's like, find something that's in the reorder business too. So not just a billion dollar market, like shampoo billion dollar market, but people need to buy your product over and over and over again. And so I think there's something fascinating. Is it a billion dollar market is a product that people need. Like pool care doesn't have to just be tech. I come from tech world. But there's a lot of different businesses out there to creating. Like you can make money in a lot of different ways. And that's been also fascinating with talking to all these people.

Yeah.

From ships to basements, like there's just so many different ways.

Right. A lot of ways. I'm curious. I think it was one of the interviews I saw from you where you're interviewing some guy, maybe you'll remember who this is. And you ask him, like, what's your definition of success? And he said something like, as an adult, my adult kids still want to hang out with me on their own. Not because I have money, because they just like me.

Yeah.

And I was like, man, that really hit me. And I don't know, was that from your. One of your.

The founder of FedEx? The founder of Kinkos. Kinko Kinkos, yeah.

So do you remember what that. What that was or what that question was? I don't know if that was the exact question or what he said, but do you remember that?

Yeah, I remember him. The other person I think of when I think of success, I asked the founder, Strava. You know Strava? It's a cycling tracking app. It's like social network for cyclists. And this is the most unique one. I don't know. I don't think he's a billionaire, which is totally great. Right, Right. Still doing really well. It's an amazing app, big business. And I asked him, I was like, what's success? He's like, not waking up to an alarm. That one's I never forgot because it's such a. It means you have freedom of your time. You're a time millionaire. And the fact that you're like, I can wake up whenever I want and do the things I really want in my day, that is, to me, like, okay, I like that level of success.

Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. And the other guy was the founder.

Of Kinko's or his founder of Kinko's. And, yeah. I mean, what was shocking about his story? He sold his company 2.4 billion, became a billionaire. And the disappointing part, he was awesome. I really admire him, Mr. Ophelia. But he said he was stressed for 34 years. He's like, every day.

I'm stressed building that business.

Yeah.

He's like, is it going to work? I have a payroll. Do I have to do this thing? I have to fly that stuff. And I remember just being like, I don't want that. And that's the coolest part about life. I can look at Louis, I can look at Noah. I can check him out. I can be like, whose haircut do I want to try? And guess what? You create your own. You take all these different ones and you get a piece together. The haircut you want to actually wear.

Yeah.

So I like seeing that. I was like, I don't want to live that life. I'm happy making less money, but doing it the way I want.

Yeah. But for 20 years, you lived a certain level of life, building your business, making money, and there was anxiety and stress around that for a long time.

Right.

When did you realize, like, okay, this level of stress and, you know, emotional overwhelm and just, like, always needing to get bigger and bigger and bigger. When did you realize that no longer works for you and that you wanted to shift it?

Yeah.

Maybe you knew from the beginning it doesn't work, but you were still doing it. But when did you realize, okay, this is not how I want to live the rest of my life?

Yeah. What I. For me, I'm 41, and I think you have to be stressed in your 20s.

If you.

There. There's a part of stress that's good. It's not always a bad thing. I think you have the book out there Upset of stress. So I think 20s, you're figuring out your life and you're just working your stuff. You don't know really what's happening. And then in your 30s, you're kind of a little more clear. Like, okay, I like maybe YouTube. I like promoting products. And then your 40s, for me, I find it calm. And that just takes time to find out who we really are and be patient with some process that eventually we will figure it out. And for me, Covid, I would say, is when I finally found more peace.

Really?

Yeah.

When most people found more stress. You found peace? Why did Covid bring you peace?

Because I recognized that how I was approaching business. I had a plan. I was like, here's what we're going to be doing. Here's our budget, here's our business, and I have a plan that I can follow. So that was part one and part two is I didn't really like how I was living. I was engaged and it didn't work out.

Really?

Yeah.

You know, I had. My business partner had a. A line he was recommending. He said to me, he's like, are you getting what you're getting? Are you getting what you want from the relationship? Yeah. Not. Not from his business partner.

Right, right, right.

Shout out Chad.

He's.

He's amazing. He's from the.

So you were engaged. Maybe there were some ups and downs. You weren't like, fully clear. Yeah.

Yeah.

And he asked you that question.

Yeah.

Are you getting what you're getting?

Are you getting what you want?

What was the answer?

I'm not getting what I want. And that's hard. Right. I think most of us. This is the thing I've noticed about advice, especially watching interviews and interviewing people. Most of us know the truth, they know we know our truth. It's just hard, and we don't want to accept it.

Yeah.

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Like I did this ayahuasca thing, which I know is more common now, but I did it years ago and courage to me was I was afraid of it, but I did it anyways. And then I was still scared. And there's a whole crazy story about this, but coming out of it. I was like, oh, I realize I can do hard things and all of us can do hard things, but we have to face the hard thing.

Yes.

And we all have it in us. And so for me, with breaking up with the fiance, which was tough, and I do.

What was that like?

That was probably one of the more bigger regrets in my life that I didn't do it sooner because I wasted her time. Wasted my time.

Yeah. That's tricky.

It was two years of just, like, back, and everyone's gone through this. It's not unique for me, but it was two years of, okay, let's try to make it work. But I know I'm not really good for you, and I don't feel good about myself. And so it was like, eventually when Covid happened, that was. That was kind of our. We had some. Some issues that went down, and I was just like, I can't do this. Like, I. I can't spend. It was the specific thing I thought was like, do I want 40 more years of this? Oh, man.

Yeah, that's.

That was. It was tough. And I.

It's interesting, I asked myself a question in the. In. In a previous relationship before, I think Esther Perel said something like, can you see yourself having 10,000 meals with this person? Like, if you're gonna have 10,000 meals with a person, do you see yourself enjoying those meals, having fun, or is it more stressful?

Yeah. And added up, I mean, even doing, like, this book, Million dollar weekend, or YouTube and stuff, that nothing was wrong. But she is not with our relationship. She did not get excited. Like, I want to go to YouTube. I like attention. And my partner now with Mafa, she's like, go on YouTube. Have fun with Lewis. Like, she's. And for me, that worked. And my ex will find a partner that's better. And so with COVID it was like having a plan in business, breaking up with the fiance. And then I think the other part that was kind of interesting is experimenting with life. This is the same with business. It's an experiment. It's all an experiment. It's a game.

Yeah.

And I experimented just different ways of living. I experimented finally living kind of rich. Like, I had money, but I never enjoyed it.

Really?

Yeah.

I think we're all taught that money can't buy happiness and that you're like, if, you know, you shouldn't be buying these things and don't live this way. And most of the ones who are showing that stuff are actually probably not that don't have the money for it. I'm poor, but like, they probably don't have the money.

Right.

Most of people don't. Most rich people don't even be posting about it.

Right.

And so I started. I rented a Malibu beach house. I rented a lake house in Austin. I started doing these things. I got like an RV for a month and I just kind of like drove around and like hung out in the rv and I was like, wow. Having some. A nicer space to live makes me feel a lot better. And so those kind of things led me in a direction where single for a while, started doing dating coaches, had a business plan that was executing for Appsumo. So I felt in control of the business. And then I felt like I'm actually going to start taking care of myself. And then I also felt like I could take care of others then too, as I was feeling better about myself and that thing the past three years, I felt much. Just been much calmer.

What, what is money and relationships taught you about when you've been in a relationship that you weren't fully sure of was going to work out? What was your views around money during that time? Were you more anxious and stress? Were you more abundant thinking, like, where were you at with money?

It's easy to be abundant when you have money, I'll tell you that. It's hard when you. And that's what most people, they're struggling with money. That's why I'm like, let's talk about entrepreneurship, because that's a way of you can changing your situation, which everyone can do. And I had a friend who said, no, you're here and you're here where you want to be, and it's actually closer than you think. I was like, really? He's like, yeah, it's much closer than you think.

You thought it was a bigger gap?

I thought it's a gap. I thought there's something. I don't know. I thought there's something outside. And this is something. I think we're both, as we've gotten older, it's all inside.

Yeah.

Just being kind of like, hey, it's okay.

Yeah, of course.

Okay now with my ex, it was not that there was a good or bad thing about money. It was just how we treated each other with it. Like, I didn't really spend a lot of money on myself.

What did you do with your money? Because you were making money every year. Was it just compounding in a bank account? Was it in stocks? What were you doing?

Yeah, my father built his own business and then lost it to Drugs and alcohol. And it was. It was a sad. Like, that's definitely. For me, I think a lot of. A lot of men, we want our fathers to recognize us, and I was fortunate. I have a great mom and a great stepfather. But for me, that. That father attach. And I think with growing up with Jewish parents, candidly, like, we're taught to be very frugal. We're taught to be very practical, and it's just like, go make money. And that. That's a thing. Versus, like, all right, how do you enjoy life? And I think with my ex kind of made me feel bad about it. Like, why don't you spend money? Or we go to the airports? Like, $5 for a bottle of water. I'm like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom and drink from the faucet. Like, right, right. Or like, I'm just like, five bucks.

It's fine.

I don't care. And there's still times, but over time, you start spending in different things. Like, I bought a fancy Jaguar. I had so much regret on it.

Yes, you did.

Oh, yeah. I hated it. I hated it. I. Dude, I. Oh, man, it was the worst. Because I don't care about nice cars. I have a 2004 Miata. I just got a new Vespa.

There you go.

That's a second. I do. I do have a. I have a model Y, but it was not important to me. And I think that was interesting where she wasn't. And for both of us, she wasn't like, hey. She was like, you're being cheap. I was like, okay. You know, it kind of, like, felt deflated versus. And I was like, hey, why don't we, you know, do you want to try spending these things? Can we rent it for a day?

Right, right, right.

So I think there's ways of actually being more positive to each other with money.

Right.

Wow. Do you believe in practicing gratitude and manifesting and the law of attraction? And if. If so, has that. Has that helped you attract more of the life you want?

I'll tell you the part that's counterintuitive for me. So every day I write down something. I'm grateful, and almost everything I'm grateful for is silly. Like, to me, it's like, I'm grateful for electricity. I'm grateful for water.

Yeah.

Hot water.

I think that's silly, man.

Yeah. Those are the ones. Those are the ones I. I really love because it's. It's available, and it's not realizing how great life really is for all of us.

It Really?

I mean, if you're able to watch this, life's probably pretty good.

Yes.

Doesn't maybe feel good in this moment or maybe not in the money. But that's also something you could change in terms of having. Candidly, I. I don't think I always felt worthy.

Of what?

Of, like, having certain things, like having a wife or having a partner or having a kid. And even with Facebook and stuff like that, I felt like, well, Zuck fired me. I'm not worthy of having a business.

Really?

Yeah. I felt like, oh, this guy knows something better than I don't. And I think a lot of us feel that way. Like, oh, these other people have these things. Am I actually worthy of this stuff? And how do we. You know, you talk about gratitude and vision. I think everyone can spend more time just being grateful for themselves. And how do we just actually give more kindness to ourselves? So one thing that I work on is anytime I'm kind of criticizing myself, it's like, all right, let's say one nice thing, and it kind of. What's crazy is you do that enough times, like, criticize, nice thing, criticize. And we are literally the meanest people in the world to ourselves. Like, you know, your worst friend is yourself. And so how do you change that relationship over time? And now it's just kind of like throughout my day, I'm like, dude, good job. Like, hey, you, you hung out with Lewis. Great job. And the more that we start doing those things, I think that's a way that, yes, you can manifest other things, but it's just really, how do we work on being nice to ourselves? And that that's really helped over time.

So it sounds like you were pretty self critical and you didn't feel like you had self worth or feel like you were worthy for a long time building appsumo.

Yeah.

But you still built an $85 million business feeling unworthy, feeling under qualified, and not fully loving and accepting yourself. Is that right?

Yeah.

On a scale of 1 to 10 of self worth, where would you say you were for most of those years? The first 10 years of building AppSumo?

Yeah.

One being you have very little self worth and don't believe you're deserving of any of it. The money, the success, the love, and 10 being you're deserving of all that, where were you for most of those years?

Literally until probably the past year is just very low. Like, it's still.

Let's talk about the book.

No, no, no, this is good, man. Probably until literally like two years Ago. Many fours.

Threes.

Fours. Threes and fours.

Yeah. Like, I was getting partners that would. That liked me just because that's what I got. And then with AppSumo, I think I had this fear, I'm going to ruin this business. So I try to pass it off and not do it. And even with this book, I had to go through my own journey of, okay, I'm going to hire Tell Raw as one of the best business writers in the world, and I don't have to face myself. And when all of us face these hard things in life, whether it's writing a book, whether it's relationship, whether it's starting putting yourself out there a little bit and you face some of the fears and you start just even small, the smallest thing, you're like, maybe I am worthy. Maybe I can do these things. And with AppSumo, when the previous CEO quit and I came back to work, I definitely was like, I'm ruining this business. I'm messing. And I did make a lot of mistakes, but I just stayed with it. And I had great people around me. And so over time, now I'm like, and I get feedback. One of the easiest things anyone can do to improve right now, really, literally right now, is text someone, how can I get better? Whether it's in your relationship, just ask your partner, whether it's at work as an employee or as a founder. And so it was just through working with people, getting feedback over time. Now I'm like, pretty good at this. I used to always, this is. I haven't really talked to this. It sounds small. I used to always call myself Chief Sumo because I never wanted to be a CEO. I never thought I was the right leader. And in the past 18 months, two years now, I'm the CEO. And so maybe for others out there, how are we labeling ourselves?

Yes.

And what are maybe small steps? Not that I've been big, Like, I have to go some dramatic thing that I can just do that makes me feel good about myself, that moves me in that direction. Same with the relationship where I didn't. I went. I worked with Stephanie Rigg. She's a woman out of Australia. Great on Instagram, really great content. And a lot of what we talked about was like, what are you doing that makes you feel good about yourself? Like, you drank last night. How did that make you feel? Like you're doing this type of activity. Like you're going on this date with a girl you don't want. How'd that make you feel? Like you're showing now With. With my partner, Mafe. It's like, how am I showing up for her? Am I actually aligning my priority to my behavior? And every time I do that, I'm like. Like, I cooked her some food two weeks ago. I was like, I'm proud of myself. I'm glad I could take care of you. Yeah, I'm really proud of myself. And all of us feel these different ways.

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It's not like some exclusive club where everyone's always feeling happy.

Yeah, right.

But it's doing things that make us feel good about ourselves. That frankly, it's all within our control. I think over years, you realize it's not external validation. It's like, how do we get more of the internal validation and that internal person that's like, hey, I'm doing pretty damn good myself, and that's okay.

Man, this is beautiful. I'm so glad you're talking about this. Have you seen the movie Creed 3?

I've seen one or two. I don't know if I've seen three.

Creed 3 was the most recent one. Anyway, long story short about it, the Adonis Creed, he's now world champion in all these things, has all the money, he's in the Hollywood Hills, like, living the dream, you know, most famous guy in sports or whatever it is. And he's kind of depressed. He's, like, not boxing anymore. He's not like, just kind of sitting around depressed. And someone from his past comes into his life out of prison, right? Someone from his past comes, and there was some darkness that they both went through, which caused this person to go to prison. That Adonis, the main character, never faced, and he was kind of always running from his pain. His past. You talked about facing yourself. I'm curious. What was the thing that you had to face that was the hardest thing in the last couple Years that allowed you to have more peace and more freedom in yourself and around money, love, and relationships.

Different things, man. It doesn't happen all at once. Like, even taking Million Dollar Weekend as an example, you know, I've worked for Zuckerberg. I helped start Mint.com like, I've started so many different businesses that have made millions of dollars, and I still felt afraid. Like, can I put a book out there that people actually want and can I actually even help them? And so I thought by hiring someone who's like, the best friend in the world, I cold emailed him, like, can you work on me with this book? He's like, sure. And so paid him money. And I was like, okay, good. At least I don't have to do it. I don't have to face myself to see if I can actually write a book. And then as the book got closer to having to submit the manuscript, as you know, it goes, I was. I was like, this is not. I have to face myself with this book. I have to see if I can really do it.

What did you not face actually writing a lot.

We wrote the book together, but it was like, is this the book that I want to put my name on? Is this a book that I can say, hey, if you're trying to start a business, there's some things about starting, building, and growing that I can help you with. And so I had to face the book. I had to face myself and actually writing the book. And yes, I worked on it, you know, lightly, but at a distance. And I think a lot of us do that. It's like, okay, well, let me avoid that thing. Let me avoid the relationship. Let me maybe avoid the work. And so then I basically, like. I don't know if I call it hermit mode, but basically, like, sat in my room and more or less for about a month, just like, heads down, worked with beta readers. And then I was, like, working on the scripts and all these things, and I was like, slowly. And then I was going with people. So every week we have five people going through the book at a guy living at my house about a month ago. And through doing it, I was like, oh, I can do this. I can do this. This works. And that's.

We all. We all feel that.

We all feel that in a lot of different ways. Maybe in a relationship, maybe it's with work, maybe it's with ourselves. And so kind of this. This concept lately I've been really, really embracing is like, what's the hard thing I'm avoiding? And how do I go into that. So I voted the book for a while of it, and then I was like, now I'm gonna go full in. Same with AppSumo CEO. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. I wanted someone else to do it. And same thing when he quit. When I was on a bike ride, I was biking across America and he quit and I didn't want to come back. And one of my best friends was like, well, who's paying for the bike trip? I was like, appsumo. He's like, well, you should probably. And the guy who's running it doesn't want to be there. So I came back and had to face that and, you know, the same experience. Like, it's surprising how much we're afraid of things. And when you finally do it, you're like, it wasn't as hard as I thought.

Right.

And I'm much more capable than I realized. And that's true for everyone.

Right.

And it's just thinking about what these things are.

Wow. What's. What's been scarier, Recommitting to owning your CEO role in the business that you helped build, coming back to that and taking ownership or getting out of a relationship that wasn't working, to enter a new relationship and now have a baby on the way.

They're both insanely hard. Both insanely hard. Yeah. AppSumo is definitely some of the hardest work I've ever done. And I'd say by being an entrepreneur, though, I feel lucky. I feel like it's the hardest thing, but this is the part that I think I'm assuming you can resonate with. The things that are the hardest for us are also on the other side of that. The things we're most proud of. We're never not proud of ourselves when we do something hard for ourselves. And I'm really proud of my work at AppSumo, where I'm like, I. I'm showing up. And so for everyone out there, Whether you're doing YouTube, whether it's religion, whether it's sports, whether it's a business, like, how are you showing up? Or if in your partner. And the same thing with my partner, where it's been a challenge, you know, I'm flying to Spain. I'm staying up till 10, 11pm to work Spain hours so that I can be with her. And now that she's pregnant, it's like, okay, am I really showing up in the relationship for what she needs? And that's. Lately, it's been awesome. It's been. I'm happy to show up for those things, but it's been. It's been a journey to get to that point.

If someone only has a few thousand dollars a year extra to spend on something, what's more important for them to invest it in the stock market or real estate or to invest in themselves?

You know where I'm going with this one? So my favorite ism that I like is don't invest in the s and P500. It's invest in the S&ME 500. Because you will get so much more on active income by investing the small amount you have into increasing your earning capacity than you ever will. Like, just think about the dollars here. So let's say that you had $1,000, all right, saved up. If you invest in Apple, whatever, or you've, like, you'll have a 20% gain this year, a 30% gain this year. Okay, great. So now you have $1,300. But $1,000 can teach you a new lesson or a new skill that can take your earning capacity. Because if you only have $1,000 saved up, you either make very little money or you're not following the first rule, which is you got to spend way less than you make, right? And so if you're on the I don't make a lot of money part, by the way, you can still definitely save more. But if you're on the I don't make a lot of money part, then doubling your earning capacity would. By the end of the year, you might have $30,000 saved up, rather than 1 or 1300. In the alternative scenario, it's not even close. It's an order of magnitude it's not close. But everyone's afraid of work and everyone wants to get rich quick, which is why lotteries continue to make money. And so if you can just get out of that basic fallacy that you're somehow going to get lucky. I would rather get rich for sure and be willing to. Like, that's for me, like, success insurance is extending the time horizon and being willing to learn skills along the way. That's success insurance. Because play out the other scenario. If you actually do hit the lottery, you also lose it because you don't have the skills to keep it.

It's true.

So the other path is pure fallacious thinking. It's false. It's a false dream. It's never going to result in wealth. If you get rich quick, you get poor even faster.

Say it again.

If you get rich quick, you get poor even faster.

Why?

Because you don't. So my favorite magic card. Hold on, I'm gonna bring it back. My favorite magic card was this card called Burning Wish in Magic the Gathering. And the flavor text on the card said she wished for a weapon, but not the skill to wield it. And I always loved that text because I thought about that as business as money. It's like we wish for money, but not the skill to wield it. Because money is just potential for exchange. And so if you don't know how to make it, then everything you have is just enough that's going to go down because you also don't know how to multiply it if you got lucky. Because anybody who wants to get rich quick only is relying on luck. You're relying on chance. You're gambling, you're not investing. And so if you want to play the game and the thing, and unfortunately, the tweets, the Instagram posts or whatever, we see someone screenshot when they get go from a $10,000 to 1.5 million. You just don't see the other hundred people or thousand people who put 10,000 and went to a dollar. And so the idea is, I want to get rich for sure. And the surefire way to get rich and the reason all these billionaires get up there and they say, hey, just invest in skills. And it was like, sure. It's because that's the only thing that protects you. And I come from a country, or my father comes from a country rather, where my family, everything we had was taken from us by the government. And so it's very real that you may have to start over halfway through your life at zero. And if you do lose it all, the only thing you have is what you can do with your brains and your hands. And so my grandfather, who I was very, very close with, used to always say, you have two hands and one brain. Use them. And my father came here with $1,000, and he built the life that he has now he's a doctor. But that was only possible because he had skills. And even though everything was taken, land, houses, everything was taken, you can't take no divorce, no tax, no government can confiscate who you are and what you can do. And I see that as the ultimate freedom and independence of excellence and representation of excellence.

If someone has skills but they have a bad relationship with money, or they have money wounds, or they have money beliefs that they live in fear around, whenever they receive money, are they able to earn and make a lot with those money wounds?

Yeah. And so I Will, first off, I don't know what money wounds are, but if I can define it, the way I would define what you're saying is. So it's like bad money believes money wounds, money, trauma, bad energy, all of that. I bucket into bad behaviors under specific conditions, which is that you don't know how to behave with money. That's all it is.

How do people learn how to behave with money?

Well, you just follow very simple rules. The first rule is that you spend less than you make, period. No questions asked. That's it.

What if people have never had money and then all of a sudden, oh, I got a thousand dollars. And they get excited or they get scared or they get worried. How do you manage the energy that money brings to you?

So I think it's thinking in ratios. So it's like, I will save this percentage. I will spend this percent. This percent goes to my house or my lodging. This goes to food, and you just have to stick with it. Now, I think that process is good to go through, but I agree that when you don't make a lot of money, what feels like a lot of sacrifice results in very low payoff. And that's why I'm bullish on. Put as much as you can in increasing your earning capacity skills. Yeah. And the thing is, you don't have to bot. So you really only have to have one skill, and then you can get every other skill you need in your life. And so when I got into the business game, the only real skill I developed quickly was sales. And I even have that skill. But I had to for the gym. So I learned how to sell, and I got pretty good at it. And so I would go to these networking things, I would meet other business owners, and I felt like I was a collector of fine skills skills. I would find people, and I'd be like, hey, how do you get customers? And somebody would be like, oh, I'm really good at Google ppc. And I'd be like, ooh, I don't know how to do that. That sounds interesting. And so what I would do is I'd go and say, hey, what's your sales process look like? And they'd be like, oh, you know, it's okay. I'd be like, hey, do you mind if I just. Like, I'm pretty good at it, and I can walk you through what we do. Cause I might help you out. And so then this is the key part. If they said yes, which plenty of people take free work, I would then treat it as though they had paid Me for, like, a $10,000 consulting gig. I would do tons of research. I would talk to a team, I would rescript what they had, and then I would train their team on. I would tell them how to manage it. And. And this is when, you know you did it. Right. I would present it to them as though I was, like, making a presentation. And they'd be like, dude, this is too much, man. Like, whoa. And then the magic thing comes out. They say, what can I do for you? I'd be like, it's funny. Ask. Can you show me your PPC stuff? Right. And the thing is, is that they would give me less than I gave them, but it was more than I had. And so it was a net positive game. And so you only need to develop one skill, and then you can barter for everything else. So, like, in the networking groups that I joined, I got voted the best, you know, the member of the year in the first year they ever had it. When I was in my fraternity back in the day, I became voted president. Like, I always try. Like, when I was in high school, I was editor in chief of the literary magazine and vice editor of the newspaper. Like, I always tried to, like, how can I trade what I know? How can I just keep trading up? And that's fundamentally what I've done my whole life, is just trade up. And the risk here is that let's say you do all this work and the guy says thanks, and then just gets off the call. Well, there's two possible scenarios. One is you're not as good as you think you are, or they don't function with reciprocity. And that's okay because again, volatility only appears volatile with low volume.

Yeah, you got to do it a lot of times.

If you do it 100 people, you'll get what you want. And if there's three guys who know PPC, you give to all three, and maybe one of them helps you out.

Absolutely.

But you're still better off than you were before. And so this is the part. Like this. This was how I. This is how I leapfrogged in my earning capacity. Really? Oh, 100%. And then for the people I couldn't, I would do a favor and ask to pay them, you know, like, I would do whatever I could, and I would encourage people to. I spend so much money for one on one time. And I also think there's something very powerful about being in person and not zoom. Yeah, I think there's something. I think that you can observe far more behaviors in person, there's so many things that are lost on Zoom.

What's the most you spent on one?

On one time, I spent $350,000 for an hour.

An hour?

Yeah.

With who?

Guy was worth 7 billion.

What was the biggest lesson he taught you in that one hour?

He said, protect your reputation with your life.

Did you spend 350 grand for that?

I think that there's something powerful about knowing that someone who is much further ahead says it to you. And it's not that that advice is something you haven't heard before, but it's the advice that you needed to hear right now. And that was what I needed to hear.

Wow. Protect your reputation with your life. What does that look like? And how does one do that when anyone can speak about them negatively online and say what they want and make.

Stuff up, or you can only control what you do? And so the Stoke approach to this is that you know the truth and, you know, there's the whole, like, you know, bad, bad news. Lies get around the world before you know the truth gets out of bed. But I see lies a lot like. So Warren Buffett says this about the stock market. He says, in the short term, it's a. It's a popularity contest. In the long term, it's a weighing system. And I see reputation the same way, which is, in the short term, somebody could make some viral thing about you, or they make some piece of content, some hit piece, whatever it is. But if you do right by the values that you have on a long enough time horizon, you touch enough people, the surface area of your reputation compounds. Because it's not just that you do business with one person, but as soon as. Because if you do grow in your reputation, then more people will ask about you to the people who have met you, and then they will give you. They will give their opinion. Just kind of like the movie before or the. Or the restaurant or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And so if every person who has done business with you is, like, he's tough but fair, or like, he's very ethical, or like, you know what? I would trust him with money. You know what I mean? If you have that core set of beliefs and you behave consistent with that, those bundled terms, I want people to think these things about me. What are the behaviors I have to do in order to get them to think that. I'll give you a story about this. So when I was in college, I had a bad reputation with women. In my freshman year, I went from high school where it was small, you know, small pond And I kind of ruined my reputation there. And so I went to, like, a new area where, like, no one knew me. And I was like, oh, this is like, it's like virgin land, right? Not with the pun intended, but I went to college and I very quickly got the same reputation in weeks. Yeah.

Oh, wow.

And so I went home depressed and I went to my dad and I was like, man, I was like, how do I get all these people to stop saying that I'm, you know, a man whore or whatever and like, that I'm just like this guy who just goes around, sleeps with girls because it's preventing me from sleeping with. And he said, and I had all these ideas of like, maybe I, maybe I could do this or I could, like, I had all these, like, strategies. And he said, have you considered not.

Acting like a whore, not sleeping with women? Yeah.

And I was like, no, no, it can't be that. And so. But it's like, as a kid, like you, you know, for the parents, they are listening. Right. I just, I dismissed it immediately. But, you know, on the, on the flight back and in thinking when I'm, you know, sitting there alone in my dorm, I was like, maybe I do need to just stop acting this way. And so what ended up happening is I decided I was like, I'm going to be someone, someone that I want to be proud of.

I would want to.

I want to be proud to associate me with me because I want a different caliber of girls. And that caliber of girl is not going to go for this, you know, this guy who's always chatting up like, I want a good quality girl, not just hop. A good character. And it took basically two full semesters of me acting like a priest, basically, and just like doing well in school, studying hard, just, you know, being a contributing member of society, that all of a sudden, like, the reputation started to change. But like, the new balance reputation, it took time.

It did.

Yeah. And so it's like there's this period of time that you have to go through and be willing because right now you are living through consequences of actions you took last year, five years ago. And so you have to be able to split it without getting the reward for it. And that's the hard part and that's the part that no one's willing to go through.

And the longer people know you for one set of characteristics, the longer it's going to take for them to. To unlearn that.

This is a really good point. So the reason I think it's so hard for people Back home. Right. So for anybody who's ever left home and you go back and people treat you a certain way because they knew.

You for 20 years.

Exactly. And what's interesting is imagine over. Imagine you went to high school with somebody in middle school. All right? So it's like they had eight years with you, and they had every single day. They had hours and hours of exposure. You go back and they have two days a year during the holidays to see you. Well, it's like, okay, well, two days out of 10,000 were this way.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's almost never going to outweigh it. I've given a lot of thought to this because I was like, why can't I change everyone's mind? Because I have changed so much. But the reality was that the exposure required to change their perception of me was greater than the time that I was willing to dedicate to it.

You need to spend two or three years with them now to show up as you are. Not two days.

Exactly. And then the trade off is, is it worth it?

No, it's not.

Which I don't have any childhood friends anymore, of course. And then. And so. And I also. I'll make this point to anybody who's in that situation where you're like, man, I don't want to be like these people. I don't want to be like my friends that I have right now is that you have to be willing to accept that you may lose those friends, or you probably will lose those friends, but you will gain many more with the caliber of person that you want to become. And you'll get caliber friends that match it. But there is a transition period. Well, you'll have neither.

It's tough, man. For about a decade, I felt like I didn't have many friends. I felt like all my childhood high school, college friends, they didn't want to hang out or when we hung out, they didn't really understand me, and they were kind of judging me. And it felt like, why are they always talking weird about me behind my back? Why am I not invited anymore to stuff all these? It's kind of hurtful, right?

Totally.

But at the same time, those, I guess, childhood friends that I maybe do have or I talk to once in a blue moon, they've chosen to accept the person I've become and appreciate who I still am, not expect me to be who they once knew. And I can respect them for that and not judge them on their journey and just accept them for being a friend.

Yeah. And I think, well, two parts. One is the people who hate it or the people who don't accept the new version of you. They downplay your success for being willing to take a risk that they were unwilling to take because your success makes them feel bad. Whether they say it or not. It does. Because humans are comparative creatures. We look at one another. We learn through modeling. We see what someone else does, and if they did something that we aren't willing to do and they have something that we don't have, we start not liking them. Because what does that mean about me? What does that mean about me? It's much easier to say he's changed and he sucks now, rather than saying, I didn't and I suck so hard. Because the people who don't know how to say you've grown say you've changed. And they say it like it's a bad thing. And I think the simple response to that is, and you have it. And I think it's being willing to sit in that and be like, I'm okay with this, and I have lost almost every friend. Or rather, I could say I have actively cut off every friend that I've had, you know, from the beginning. I have one friend that I still have from middle school. One friend, but basically no one else. And that one friend is, because he is a. Is a champion. Like, he's a cheerleader. He has a different life, but he's just like, dude, go.

He's not criticizing you. He's not judging you. He's like, you're amazing.

Yeah.

And you keep him in his life, in your life.

And he's also not a. Not a money guy. He's an FBI agent. And so he's exceptional at what he does. It's just not money related. So we have this perfect thing where neither of us. We have no competitive overlap. So I'm like, how many. How many drug rings did you bust this month? Oh, dude, let me tell you, these Syrians, I was. This whole gang I took down, you know, like. And so I get to hear this whole thing. He's like, what deals have you done? Because he, you know, we get to kind of live vicariously, but those relationships are rare. And if you find somebody who speaks well of you behind your back and talks to you to your face, those are the friends that are worth keeping.

Amen.

And if you can find somebody who can do all both of those without flipping every conversation and making it about themselves, I think you have somebody who's worth keeping. But most people don't even meet one of those criteria. Let Alone. All three.

Yeah. Speaking of young men and ourselves when we were younger, what would you say are three brutal truths that young men need to hear in order to become more successful in life?

You have to be willing to trade the things you love right now for the things you want. And you may not like the price of what you want, but you can't change the price. And so there's all this groveling that goes back and forth for younger men of, like, basically wishing it didn't cost this much time or cost as much failure or cost as much risk in order to get to where they want to go. And so they basically stomp their heels and then, you know, retreat inwards into their basement in video games and whatever else, rather than confronting their own inadequacy. Because the first thing you have to do is say, it's my fault. Everything that I have in my life is my fault. But if it's your fault, it's also under your control to change, because you cannot change what you do not control. And so to me, it's taking full accountability. So that's number one. The second thing is if you want to change your behavior, change your conditions. And so one of the most powerful things that you can do is change who you surround yourself with and where you live. And so if you have an environment of people around you who speak ill of you or like, basically reinforce the wrong traits or the wrong actions, There's a reason I left Baltimore, and there's a reason you left. As I went to where I thought I was like, I want to get into fitness. And so I was between Miami and Southern California. I was like, those are kind of the fitness capitals. I'm going to go to one of those places because I want to do fitness and I want to be around the best. And so Baltimore is not the capital fitness. And so me changing my environment allowed me basically a blank slate to start behaving the way that I wanted without interference. Because a lot of people have interference in their surroundings. And so I think it's a lot of times you have to. Well, I think this leads to the third thing. So you change your environment. That's number two. The third is delete everything that is not getting you closer to your goals. And so I have used that. This razor has not changed in my life. Which is my probably the two most often asked questions that I have that I like, mentally think. I probably think it 10 times, 20 times a day is number one, does this action, this person, this decision increase or decrease the likelihood that I Achieve.

My goals, yes or no? Yeah.

Does it increase or decrease? Does this friend who always wants to go out, does you playing fantasy football increase or decrease the likelihood that you hear goals? And that is just. It's black and white. It's pretty like, you know. It's pretty like, you know. Now you can make the whole like, but shouldn't I have a. I'm talking about winning. If you want to talk about. Talk about, you know, fulfillment and all the joy and all that stuff. Like, I'm not the guy for that.

Yeah, yeah. Because fulfillment is winning for you.

For me.

That's your hobby. Your hobby is winning. Where some people have hobbies for joy and fulfillment, you have hobbies which are to win.

I like looking back, Enjoy. Because memories pay dividends in the future. And so suffering lasts only for a moment, but the memory of the achievement lasts forever. And for me, I love looking back on what I've done only insofar as it excites me about what's to come. So delete everything using that question. And the second question, which is my. It might be my favorite question. It might be my favorite question in general, which is, what would it take? And the reason I love that question is because it assumes success. So if you go up to some girl who's way out of your league and you're like, what would it take? It assumes that she's going to go out with you, or she's going to.

Say, you need to make this much. You need to do this. You need this. She's going to give you the answer.

Right.

And then, do you want to pay that price?

Exactly. Either you don't like the shoes or you don't like the price. You got to pay it if you want it. And so what would it take? And it's like, hey, if we have a deal that we're working on, what would it take? Now, you can make the decision whether the price tag's worth it, but at least you learn the price. And what I have found in my life is that when I try to answer those questions, like, what would it take for me to be number one in this field? What would it take for us to lead this market? What would it take for me to be the best salesman in this company? The answers are not as crazy as you'd think. And so a lot of people spend most of their time answering questions not worth answering. It's playing games that are worth playing. It's like, if you play stupid, stupid games, you win stupid prizes. And so no one asks the Question before they play the game. Is this game worth it? And so when you ask the question of, like, what. What is the big goal? And what would it take? Then you just get to solve for it. And to me, it's just great. If I know what it is, then either I have those resources or. Or I have to use my resourcefulness to get them.

Yes.

But it's under my control, and these are how the big leaps in my life have occurred. When I wanted to get in the gym business, I was like, okay, what would make it the highest likelihood that I hit my goals? So what I did was I joined. I said I'd say $50,000. 23 years old. I lived on nothing. I said, $50,000. And I traveled to California because I was like, all the best fitness people are here. Then I joined a gym mastermind of all gym owners. I didn't own a gym. I joined a gym mastermind without owning a gym. And he was like, you sure? And I was like, yeah. He's like, why? I was like, well, I figure I'll learn from everyone else's mistakes before I start. Smart, right? So the first thing I said is, like, where do you guys open? One guy's, oh, I have a terrible location. I wouldn't done this. Another guy's like, oh, I might. And then the guys who had the best locations, like, what was it? Okay, well, how many square feet should I have? Oh, how should I organize the gym? What equipment should I buy or lease? My. I thought I was gonna. They're like, oh, don't buy those. They're really expensive. I thought I was gonna use them. No one uses them. Oh, yeah, girls trip on those. Don't use it. And so I was like, huh? Huh? I was just taking all these notes. And so then I was like, okay, if I'm around the best gym owners and I'm learning from them, then I can be at year 10 in my career on my first year. Because if I do what the best people did, I will get with the best people got. And so I've always just focused on what did they do. Forget the energy. Forget the manifestation. Forget the, you know, the vibrations and the frequency. Like, what did they do? I will do that. And not only will I do that, I'll do way more of it. Because I don't want to just pace them. I want to beat them. Yes. And so, like, Kobe, it's like, if he's. If he's working out, if the best guys working out twice a day, he's like, well, I got to work out three times a day because they're already ahead of me. So if I'm working out twice a day and they're working out twice a day, then we're going to advance at the same pace. But I got to work out three times a day. If this guy's doing $100 a day ad spend, I got to spend $500 a day. If this guy's Doing one piece of content, I can make 10 because he's better at it than I am. So I have to make 10 just to make up for my skill deficiency. And so again, this volatility is a consequence of volume is that you're typically just not doing enough. And the people who outwork you, they out output you. And I'll give you a really simple example that will demonstrate this, that it's very real. So in a company. So I just took over operating one of the divisions on the media side. And the first day I came in I was like, okay, so you know, what are we going to do? And so they're like this. I was like, okay, what are we going to get done by? And they're like, you know, next meeting, which is like the next Monday is a weekly meeting. I was like, okay, how many hours does that take? They were like, I don't know, probably four hours to do this thing.

Can we do it today?

Exactly. And then I was like, okay, well it's, you know, noon, let's meet at 4. I'll give you an extra hour and show me what you did. And then we met. Four hours later, it was done. And then I was like, okay, well what can you do tonight so that we can do tomorrow morning? And he said this thing. So we just moved the buck along. And in three days we did three months of work. Because if you think there was 12 actions that had happened and you had a one week cadence, in a very real way, we moved forward at 20 times the pace. And so a lot of people think that like it's not speed of activity, it's elimination of waste. There's all these other things that people are distracting, they're distracting themselves with. And so if you were that young man, you have to recognize the trade offs that you have to be willing to make. You have to change your environment so you can change your behavior and you have to delete everything. That's not the thing that you want most. And if you can't decide what you want most, then that's what you need to do first. But once you know what you Want, then go get it.

Yeah. Then what do you think are the most toxic traits that young men have today that are holding them back?

So if we define traits as bundled terms, right? Which means that there's just series of behaviors that bundle into one word, convenient for communication, hard for training is that, you know, there's actually just a hundred small skills that you need. And I think demystifying this makes it easier. So it's like, I want to be confident. Well, confident is an approximation of how statistically likely something is to occur. So in statistics, you have a confidence metric. How likely is this thing to occur? And so if. If you want to be more confident, it means you need to do enough repetitions that you can make a statistical prediction that it's likely. If I go up on stage 100 times in a row, I do the same presentation, and I get up there like, how are you so confident? I'm like, because I've done this a hundred times and I know how this is going to go because I've done it before. And so people want the confidence before the reps. But especially in confidence, the proof comes before the pudding. You have to do the reps before people are like, wow. Because you can't fake. I mean, you can. You can fake confidence.

People don't know.

You'll know. And as far as I'm concerned, in life, I'm the only one I'm trying to impress. And so if I know I'm fake, I'm the one who in the middle of the night is looking up, being like, I can't believe I'm so full. I would hate that. It's an empty life. It's also living for other people. And so if the toxic trait is people wanting the outcome without the repetition rights, without the price, that's how I say that's number one. The. Let me see. I'm trying to think of a really specific thing. Well, the second one has everything to do. It's offshoot, but is entitlement. Right? Is fundamentally believing you deserve things and that the world must accommodate you.

Why do so many people have that belief?

I think parenting in the school system has made it so that you can have a safe room and you can. You can have a cry corner. And if you think that one plus one is five, this is emotionally safe for you. I don't want you to feel. It's like, but you're gonna. The thing is, you can't change reality. And so you can believe whatever you want, but if your actions aren't aligned with how the world works. You're not gonna get what you want and you're gonna be very upset for a long time until you figure out that the universe doesn't bend to your will.

Does it bend to your will though?

No.

But if you do a set sort of actions, it starts to bend.

I play within, I play within. I play within the realm of reality.

But it bends to your will once you do the actions that it wants you to create for you to get the results you want.

I think that the universe is. I don't anthropomorphize it, so I don't humanize it and say anything.

But because of the actions you took over the last 20 years, you were able to create extraordinary results.

Yes. Based on reality. If I had said I want to become the best business guy and then sung songs every day, that's not going to be a line. Now I can manifest all I want, but that's not going to be the thing that makes me the best businessman. And so I don't get to set those rules, but I can play by them. And I think a lot of people, a lot of men specifically, waste a tremendous amount of time stomping their feet demanding that the world be different than it is. And so to me, that's a loser's mentality. And they then spend more time defending their excuses than defending their ambitions.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode, this episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out to how how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that.

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And now it's time to go out.

There and do something great.

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