Traveling to Save Money, Betting on Yourself, and Streamlining Life Decisions with Nuseir Yassin

Hello and welcome to another episode of All the Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm so excited for our guest today, Nuseir Yassin, better known online from his channel Nas Daily. Nuseir has traveled to dozens of countries that many of us have never been to or even heard of, and he's captivated millions of viewers worldwide with his daily 1-minute videos that bring to life the stories of people from every corner of the globe. He has over 60 million followers online, and his videos have had more than 20 billion views. Now, I've gotten to know him over the past few years after he made a pretty amazing video about me and credit card points that I'll link to in the show notes, and I'm quite confident will make you smile. We're going to talk about how travel can broaden our perspective on life and also help us save money along the way. And while our conversation touches a lot on travel-related topics like the best ways to engage with local communities, underrated countries to visit, or why he always stays in hostels when he's in a new country, we're also going to talk a little bit about personal development and self-discovery. Discovery.

I am really excited for this conversation, so let's jump in right after this.

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Nuseir, thanks for being here.

Chris, thank you for having me.

I think not that many people that I meet have a thing they really passionately believe in that needs to change about the world. What would you say is your kind of life mission for what you want to bring to this world? Oh, wow.

Damn, you're starting strong. So first of all, imagine if you're an alien and you come to planet Earth. Okay? You just come into planet Earth for the first time ever, and we introduce you to planet Earth, some of the things that we're doing for the last 30, 40, 50 years. I'm pretty damn sure the alien would be shocked by what we do and be like, there's no way you're doing this. So an example of that is We built a very tall building and then we put a desk and a chair and we forced somebody to sit in that desk and chair for 13 hours every day, like 500 meters above the ground in a suit and had a rope around their neck. And also we walk around with a rope around our neck, the tie. Really? Why do you have a rope around your neck? So that was fundamentally something's off with it. Or the idea that you can only do what you really like when you're 67. When you're like 70% done with your life or 80% done with your life, then you can get the freedom you want. That sounds like ridiculous, right? Or the idea that we're forcing high schoolers and middle school students to spend the first 18 years of their lives literally sitting in a classroom bored out of their mind. The first 18 years of your life, society literally imprisons you in a school system that is not the most efficient. That's crazy, don't you think? So anyway, oh, another thing that's crazy we do, we kill each other. Because we disagree on something that happened 2,000 years ago, the Crusaders and the Shia and the Muslims. And because of that, we kill each other. Oh, a piece of land. We also disagree on the name of a piece of land, and I'm willing to literally end your life because this land is mine and it's not yours. A lot of these things for an alien sound ridiculous, and for us, it's daily life. And I think my mission statement in life is to recognize what needs to change on planet Earth and spend the rest of my life contributing to that. And so that's why my mission statement is, you know, bring people together. I'm from Israel and Palestine, and that's a crazy thing. So I'd like to help in that regard. I'd like to help get people to spend less time wearing ropes around their neck. I'd like people to stop killing each other because they're a different color or shade or for an eye or whatever. That's my life statement.

And what do you think you can do or anyone listening can do to try to further that? Because I think it's a noble goal that I would hope that My audience is not like, "Oh, that guy, that horrible idea of bringing people together." I found, and please tell me what you think.

Actually, I want to get your opinion on this. I think most change starts with media. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but most real change in the world starts with just making better media information, better information. That's why whenever a dictator comes to a country, what is the first thing that they do? They stop the radio, they stop the TV, they take control of the newspapers. So the flow of information, if you change the flow of information, you change the flow of the way humans think. If you change the way humans think, you change the world. What would you do?

I think that it's very hard for people to see someone else's perspective without understanding it. The media is able to just show us the perspective that we believe in and we agree with and all that. And if people could just kind of go, spend some time with other people who live different lives, but you also have to get them to be a little bit more open-minded.

So it seems like it starts with media, but also ends with travel.

So I think that's why I love travel. That's why I encourage people to go places. I haven't thought about this problem as much as you have, but I just don't think people get to see that perspective enough. And traveling has helped me see it, which is why I love traveling, which is why I love encouraging travel, which is why I love talking about it. I love helping people save money so they can spend money on things they want to do.

Yeah, I think travel humanizes humans. And I think far too often we look at somebody in North Korea as a not human. You are just a North Korean. It's like you don't view them as human and you can kill what you don't humanize. And when you humanize somebody, you cannot kill them.

And not even kill. I mean, yes, physically, but also just like destroy their ideas, destroy their beliefs in all ways.

That's why people don't want to eat their dog. Because the dog is humanized to them. Oh, my dog has feelings. My dog loves me, right? But they're okay to kill a cow that they've never seen because it's not a human. So I guess the more we humanize everything in life, the kinder the world will become.

Now, you said kind.

I didn't say nice.

You did not say nice. Tell me about why.

You're like, you had like a light bulb. Would you say you're a nice guy?

Having seen a video of you talk about this, I will restrain myself from answering that question.

No, I think kindness is important. I don't think niceness is. And maybe this is because I was born and raised in Israel, which there's a term in Israel called chutzpah. You know what chutzpah means?

I know how to use it more than I know how to define it.

It's almost like bluntness or rudeness. Straightforwardness is like, I'm just going to say whatever I want to say. I'm going to be truthful and I'm going to say it even at the expense of you feeling uncomfortable. And I think Niceness means not doing what you really want to do because you are limited by the fear of offending someone else. So to be nice, you change who you are to suit somebody else, even if you're not being truthful to yourself. Does that make sense? So that's why I think this whole idea is like you have to be nice. I don't necessarily agree with it. I think you have to be yourself. I'll give you an example from like work. Okay. I have two types of people that I work with. A person that is not nice to me, but every time I talk to them, they report to me. Every time I talk to them, they tell me exactly how they feel. Right? When I look at their face, when they say you're a horrible CEO or you're a great CEO, I can pretty much guess that they mean what they say because they're not being nice. They're being upfront and kind, but they're being themselves. The other type of person would be like, I love this job. I love this company. I love you. Right? But behind your back, they're like really really not happy with you, but they're trying to be nice to you. I think that's the ultimate form of betrayal, is being nice to someone when you don't actually mean it, just because you want to be nice. So I have many problems with the word nice. I'd much rather have people be kind, but super upfront. Say what you want to say, and if it comes at the expense of somebody hating you, then so be it.

Have you found any tactics in a culture like America where this is not okay or it's less societally acceptable? An example I'll give where I've been not nice, but purely kind.

Yes.

Is I can't remember the circumstances.

By the way, you are too nice. I noticed.

I might be too nice, but there was a moment where my wife and I were talking to someone and they were like, we should get together sometime.

And you said yes?

No, no, no. And almost everyone listening, I'm sure if they met another couple or friends and they said, oh, we should get together sometime.

Yes.

You'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. See if it'll work. And I remember saying, look, things are really busy. We have a lot going on. I just don't think it makes sense to try to plan something. Like, let's not plan something. I didn't say like, I don't want to see you again. Like it was— I was not trying to be unkind.

That was another couple of friends.

This is just like people we met, like maybe it was at a park and some kids and the parents are like, oh, should we do— I don't remember the context. It was before kids, actually. It was years ago. There's only so many people you can have in your life and spend time with. And how do you want to prioritize? I was like, I just don't think this meets the bar for what I want to spend my time on. And at work, it's— I've gotten better at replying to people like, I don't have time for this meeting. Really appreciate it. I'm focused on other stuff. If it could be accomplished via email, send me an email. Otherwise, feel free to reach out down the road and we'll see if I have time.

Hey, Chris, you want to go to the Maldives? Me and you.

And I definitely don't want to go to the Maldives with you. Like, of all the things that I could do with the limited amount of time I have, and if it's without kids, it's too far. And if it's with kids, it's not going to be what I want.

It's not fun.

And so conceptually, I do want to go to the Maldives with you. Like, if you could create the— yeah, but practically, no, I do not want to go to the Maldives.

Well, thank you for being upfront.

But I don't think people like that. I love Israeli bluntness. Like, all my Israeli friends are like, you know, come over and they're like, oh, why did you do that thing? That was dumb. And I was like, oh yeah, you're right. It was dumb. But everyone else here is so nice. So how do you survive with Americans trying to be less nice and not coming across as unkind?

It's so funny that you think Americans are the nicest people on the planet. The other question is, how do you survive with other nationalities that are 10 times nicer than Americans? You know, like Japan. How do you survive in Japan, for example, where you literally have to be nice or else it's like, you know, society there's so many societal expectations. I found Americans to be not that nice. I don't know why. I mean, there's a bit of shallowness, which is like, hey, how are you? What's up? Let's hang out. And nobody actually means it. But if you look at the national discourse of Americans on Twitter and in the media, they're not nice to each other. They have a lot of freedom to be who they are and say what they want on a national level. Maybe on a personal level they're trying to be nice, But on a national— there's a lot of nice people, much nicer in Japan, and the national discourse is much nicer. So this is partly why I'm attracted to America, because I actually don't view people as nice. I view them as a bit like Israel sometimes.

My read is once you've humanized another person, Americans are nice. So amongst friends, you're like, "Hey, do you want to get together?" If someone doesn't want to get together with you, they're probably not going to say no. That level of nicety.

Nice to strangers.

Yeah. We're okay being not nice to strangers, but we are over-nice to colleagues and friends and family and stuff.

That makes sense.

So you said being nice can sometimes get in the way of acting what you truly are and putting on a facade. How do you think people could be, or do you think people should be more themselves, and how do they do that?

Well, it's just I found out that, you know how there's a sixth sense for humans? We can sense when somebody's being authentic and we can sense when somebody's not being authentic. And I think you just want to make sure everybody around you knows that you're authentic because people just love authenticity. This is why you guys voted for Trump, not to get political, but at least you can probably think that whatever Trump says, he actually believes, whether you like it or not. But the authenticity is so attractive about humans. And I think it's just such an underrated feature that many people don't seem to grasp is the more authentic you look, which means the more you say what you really want to say, it means you'll actually be loved. It's very counterintuitive. It's very counterintuitive because everybody is living in this act. We're all acting. You're smiling when you're supposed to smile. You're shaking hands when you're supposed to shake hands. You're putting a tie when you're supposed to wear a tie. We're all acting to each other until we die. But at some point, you have to stop acting and just be who you really are. I once went to this conference in Switzerland. I'm not going to say the name of the conference. But man, it was the most boring thing I've seen in my life where everybody pretended to be interested in everything everybody else was saying. But I know for a fact that deep down inside, everybody was bored. But during the conversations, they were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, great point, great point. I really love your suit. It was such an act that made me realize this is not it. This is not it.

Do you think people do that because they're afraid to be authentic? Not because they're afraid of who they are, but because they're afraid other people will judge them?

Yeah. I mean, you don't want to rock the boat. I mean, if you're making millions of dollars in Switzerland, you don't want to rock the boat. I mean, I'll be the nicest guy ever if I have $1 million guaranteed out of it. So I think there's too much to lose, and that's why you have to be nice to each other. But when there's nothing to lose, then you become who you really are. And you see it when there is war. Oh, I have nothing to lose now. I'll just go be myself. I can go loot. I can go whatever I want. But when you have a lot to lose, that's why rich people's circles, Everybody's so nice to each other because one mistake, you lose millions of dollars. So I think maybe the reason why we're nice is because we're scared of losing what we have already achieved. And I see it myself. When I have something to lose, I'm actually a little bit nicer to others. I'm a little bit less myself. Now I've come to a point where if I lose everything, I still have some money in the bank, so I'm okay. And that's why I think you see Elon Musk to be so himself, so crazy. Because he has nothing to lose. He has the world's money. That's it. What's the worst thing? He's never going to be homeless. So in a way, if your livelihood is on the line with what you're about to say, you're going to say the nicest thing ever.

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I talked to the— I don't know if you know Bill Perkins. He wrote a book called Die With Zero. And as an experiment—

Die With Zero.

Die With Zero. As an experiment, He decided to go get some really old clothes and go panhandle for a few days in— I can't remember what city he was in. And what he did was he realized, wow, if I just sit on the street and beg for money, I can make— and I actually think it was a crazy amount of money. It was like $50,000 a year. And he was like, oh, so I'll never be homeless. I don't have anything to worry about. If everything gets taken away, I can go live on however much money I can make begging on the street. And mentally, Got rid of that. I'm curious, most people listening here are not at the kind of wealth that they're getting millions of dollars in conferences in Switzerland, but they're kind of in this middle ground where they're probably not being their authentic self. You've talked about having the courage to be disliked, and I think a lot of times in a conversation someone's not willing to say something because they're like, "Ooh, maybe someone won't like it. Oh, maybe I'll offend someone even though I really feel it." And I don't think that means intentionally trying to offend people. What would you tell someone who's like, Hey, Nuseir, how do I just be more me?

I think people should aim to be disliked. And this is really counterintuitive. Again, very counterintuitive.

Very.

You should aim to be disliked because the way I've seen the world work is for every one person that dislikes you, there's an equivalent person on the other side of the world that loves you. And so the more somebody dislikes you, the more another person loves you. So it's a very polarizing thing. But if somebody doesn't dislike you, you know what also means? Nobody actually loves you. And this is why most politicians in democracies end up with 50-50%. Why is that? Because politicians need security and everything, because there are people who really dislike them and want to kill them. That's why they need security. And there are people who really love them and want to vote for them forever. I think people should aim to live life like a politician, which is have some people that clearly dislike the way you live life, but also on the other side, you'll have your people. And people are just attracted to big ideas, big opinions. They're attracted to people who are authentic. And I hate Gary Vee, okay? Just to be very open about it. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of the Gary Vee style, but he's a genius for doing it because that same style is why he has a diehard fandom. And that's powerful. And I'm trying to emulate Gary Vee as much as I hate his style. I'm trying to emulate by being who I am and get my fair share of haters. I think I have 30 million haters or so, but on the other side I have, you know, 60, 70 million lovers. I love living like that.

And does it make you happy?

Very happy. That's probably the only thing that makes me happy is knowing how much I'm worth hating because it also means I'm worth loving by somebody else. It's because there's something to hate. Like, anybody who lives life without being hated on is not somebody who's done any meaningful change. Most change comes with resistance. And if you are not getting resistance for your ideas and what you believe in and what you like and what you want to do in your career, then you're not pushing the envelope enough. And if you're not pushing the envelope enough, your life is inconsequential. That's how I think about it. Of course, these are very extreme thoughts.

Yeah.

Now, Chris, how many haters do you have?

It's interesting. The thing that I think is both great and not great about podcasting is that there's no commenting. It takes someone hearing me say my email address or going to a website. So good and bad, I get very little feedback. But I would say in the entire time I've done this, well over 1,000 comments in the form of email or in social or anything. I think I've had one negative reaction by email and not a lot. So I think—

It's difficult with podcasts. If you were on TikTok, you'll get a lot more hate.

It's one thing that I think makes me not excited about trying to do more on social media. It seems like my perspective on podcasting is it's a very positive place. People are like, "Oh, I don't like what you have to say. I'll just go listen to something else." And there's no easy way for them to be like, "And I hate what you said." So they just don't.

So let's use this as an opportunity.

If anybody here listening to this has any issues with Chris, if you hate what I'm saying, just give me the, as you would say, the gratitude of knowing that people out there hate what I'm saying.

So you're calling your audience to send you hate mail right now and you're giving them permission?

Only if they believe that.

Yeah, only if they believe that.

But I guess you got to balance that with if you also love what I'm saying, you got to get both. But I imagine that by this many minutes in, if they haven't, they've already gone somewhere else. It's so easy to read a tweet before you tune it out. It's so easy to watch a 30-second video before you tune it out. I think it's really hard in a podcast to get to the point that something, the most controversial thing is said, and there's no inherent virality. It's not like if we say something that is crazy, Apple is not going to like promote the episode because lots of people listen to it. That's just not how it works.

Wow.

So it's very easy with YouTube, with social media to just something that's controversial blow up. With podcasting, it's not, which means slower growth, but it also means it's a much more positive experience. Like, I don't get the negativity.

Yeah, but I can also take you out of context. I can take like 10 seconds of this podcast and then put it on TikTok, and then I can show you like a bad guy.

Yeah, someone will hate me if you do that, but I just won't be there to listen. We've talked about authenticity. You've put so much out there. Is there any downside that's come from being so radically transparent?

None. Zero. If there's one thing I want the audience to like really like understand is that so far in the last 7 years, I've had zero downsides of being public. Zero. This fear of exposing your privacy is an irrational fear. I've shared how much money I make, where I live, who I date, how I date, everything about my life to tens of millions of people. And every time I share more, I literally get rewarded more. I get rewarded more. It's crazy. People love you more. People want to help you more. I think we need to get into this culture of like oversharing, sharing what you really are going through because you never know who's listening on the other side that is dying for somebody else to relate with. So—

and this doesn't have to mean starting a YouTube channel. It could just be more open with your friends.

Yes. More. Yes. Or even with your LinkedIn feed. Say, hey, like, I hate my job. Sorry, boss, but like, I don't like my job and I feel like I'm not living the best of my life and this is what I'm going to do to change it. The outpouring of support is going to be insane. In my company, there's this culture. It's called Always Share Secrets. It's one of the values of the company. Always share secrets. The world is much better when every secret is known.

Okay. And one of those things has been your relationship. You recently made, I think, your longest video ever.

Yeah.

Which is probably shorter than every piece of content I've ever made about your relationship. And you put How many years into it?

6 years.

6 years it ended. And also, it sounds like you think that it wasn't a waste of time, which I think so many people often think about a failed relationship.

Really? Yeah, you're right, actually. They do think about that. I guess maybe I've been lucky in the last 6 years because in this relationship I learned. I felt like I was dating a professor. I was learning about things I was never exposed to, like vegetarianism. Like animal rights, women's rights movements. These are all things I have not been exposed to as a child from a village. And so in this last 6 years, and also I've become exposed to how to have sex and how to talk. And so I've learned a lot and I've been exposed to the Jewish culture because my girlfriend was Jewish as well. It's great. I'm so happy I was exposed to this stuff. So there's this line that says, no growth of the heart is ever a waste. and I just find that line to be so good. No growth of the heart is ever a waste. And so I guess a simple test is I look back at my 6-year relationship and the person listening can do the same. Did your heart grow even by 1%? If it did, it's worth it because growth of the heart is the hardest thing in the world. You can grow your muscles, you can grow your net worth, you can grow your company, but growing your heart is mission impossible sometimes, and you need somebody to force you to grow it. And my ex-girlfriend did that, and for that I'm forever thankful.

So traveling exposes you to a lot of things. And I want to go and pretend for a moment that you have no followers. No one knows who you are.

No one knows I am.

No one. And you're traveling.

Yes.

And I want to know, one of the things I think you're most well-known for is building community and meeting people and connecting the world. How would you go about doing that from scratch if you were in a new place, in a new culture, traveling?

I love traveling, and I happen to have been not famous for like 27 years of my life.

Okay.

So this is just a recent phenomenon, like 5 years old. World, right? So I know how it's like to travel to like 30, 40 countries without nobody knowing me. But I found out that the best way to travel is to go to hostels. And I like strategically now, when I didn't have money and when I had money, strategically would go to hostels and I would check in a hostel, ideally at a dorm, not at a private room, because you want to have like these random interactions with people that end up leading to friendships. Let's go explore together. And then I would spend like a crazy amount of time in the lobby of the hostel in the hopes of just like randomly meeting somebody. And then you just need that one person that's also in a very uncomfortable position just like you. And both of you decide, hey, let's go explore this country together. And when you have one person, it's easier to find the third. And when you have three, it's easy to find the fourth, right? So it's all about getting that one partner to want to explore the country with you. And so every country I went to, I would literally just go to the hostels to make the friends. Not to stay at the hostel. I don't care about staying at the hostel, just to make the friends.

So you'd go to a hostel, potentially even book a room and not stay in it?

Yes, I did that before.

Because I imagine sometimes if you were traveling with your partner, what would you do?

Oh, so the second tip is to not travel with your partner.

Okay.

Yeah. So when I started traveling, and I have never enjoyed traveling with a partner if you are trying to make friends. So the minute I became sort of self-sufficient in a way, I started traveling with a partner, but I find it actually really important to travel single.

Okay.

Is that— do you agree or disagree with that?

I think it depends. My wife and I love to explore places together, so I have that kind of player 2.

Yeah.

To go on these trips.

But you're never going to get player 3.

Sometimes it's going to be weird.

That's a third wheel.

Well, we went to South Africa and we wanted to explore by car and we were cheap and we were like, well, a car holds more than 2 people, so what do we do? And we met these 2 Swedish guys and the 4 of us together bought a tent, rented a car, bought 4 sleeping bags, and we drove around for 3 weeks through Namibia and Botswana and Zambia and South Africa as a team of 4. So it was 2 player 2s. We didn't find the 3, but we found the 3 and the 4 together. But they were both single guys. They were not in a relationship. So that's interesting. Third and fourth wheel.

Third and fourth wheel. But that is significantly harder than if you were by yourself, correct?

But your strategy seems to be trying to engage with and meet people who are also traveling. How do you try to engage and meet people local to the community and learn more about their culture?

Yeah, so I found that school networks were also very helpful. So the Harvard alumni network, I graduated from Harvard and the alumni network is really global and Harvard people tend to stick together because they think they're better than others. So I hope no one's listening to this, but I try to check like local Harvard clubs and if I know a friend that is from that country, like on Facebook, you know, remember the time of the social graph on Facebook where you could just search which one of my friends is now in Botswana or lives in Botswana and you'd get a couple of people in every one of these countries. And that's really all you need. It's all about getting the hook, the one person that will open the doors to you to meet the next 10 people. That's how I think about it. So I just find the hook in the first 2 days and then the hook takes care of everything else. They find me the next 10 people.

Do you ever find the hook just at a bar, at a restaurant? Because I think that's what people assume. They assume I'm going to go to a bar and I'm going to randomly talk to a stranger and now I'm going to go on a—

That's how you find the hook up, not the hook. So I found it very difficult to meet people at a restaurant because you're sitting down the whole time. How do you meet people at a restaurant?

Or a bar or like an event like that. Maybe not a restaurant.

Yeah. No, I had no success in this.

Okay. Is there something every time you go to a new country that you try to make sure you do?

Yeah. Well, it was by nature of my job, but I try to make videos as much as possible of every place I go to because I found that when you travel, like you're making so many memories, but you'll forget these memories if you don't take videos of them. For me, travel is a form of archiving. Like, literally, I feel like I have my camera with me at all times. Like, you know, like, memorize, memorize, memorize, memorize, because you want to not forget this experience. That's how I became a videomaker and traveling videomaker.

How do you make sure you're not just living behind the camera when you're traveling?

I am living behind the camera when I'm traveling. Who said I'm not? Do you make content when you travel?

Almost never.

Almost never?

I make content about the travels. So I'll go to a country, come back, and talk about the experience.

You're kidding.

I mean, I made a video once in a country talking about how I got there, but I don't know, I want to like be there and I don't want to be distracted from wandering around and seeing things thinking about, oh, what, I got to go record this thing. For me, that seems like it would be overwhelming.

Wow. That's interesting. Well, I guess you and I travel differently. We should try to travel together one day.

I would like to see what that goes. So I don't know how many countries you've been to, but it's a lot. You've hit off countries that many people have never been to. What are some places that you think people are just sleeping on that are really underrated?

So 5 days ago I was in Greenland and I think it's a really place that a lot of people are sleeping on. Nobody lives in Greenland, only 57,000 people live in Greenland and very few people visit it. And the people that visit it are usually like the older population. But I would say Greenland is hard to get to and that's why a lot of people are sleeping on it. But generally, I found that Asia is full of surprises, probably more than Europe and Africa and Latin America. I found Asia to be much more full of energy, and it has 60% of the world's humans, so it is the majority of the world. So I become a big fan of Asia after traveling there. I'd say Maldives, not a whole lot of Americans went to the Maldives. It's the only country I went to 5 times. That go back to 5 times. Most countries I try not to go back to, but the Maldives just has a special aura that I just feel like it's missing in American zeitgeist. It's not there. Why?

So the feedback I've heard from everyone that's been to Maldives, so I'm wondering if you did it differently, was like you basically land at a resort and you stay at the resort the whole time and then you leave.

And what's better than that?

Is that the experience? I think you love connecting with locals and having these like amazing experiences. I look at all your videos. And the Maldives, I think it's like you just stay at an expensive hotel. That's it. It seems like antithetical to the thing you would normally love doing.

That's why when I go to countries with big populations, it's work. You're making videos, it's work. But when I go to the Maldives, it's actual travel for me because there's no people to make videos about. There's no videos to make. You're just actually relaxing. So maybe that's why I like— actually, I never thought about that. That's why I like the Maldives. It is where I relax.

So that's how I travel. I'm not making the videos. You just need to go somewhere and not make a video.

What's your goal when you travel?

Learning and eating new things.

Learning and eating.

So like meeting interesting people, hearing different perspectives, seeing different things, thinking about how those things came to be, why things happened in a certain way.

Have you been to Easter Island?

No.

Okay. You should check it out. It's close. Easter Island is like— you can learn things. There's people there and it's like really remote, like the Maldives.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, our version of the Maldives, because I think you live in Dubai and I live in the Bay Area. Is Bora Bora. It's like 8-hour flight, super easy compared to the Maldives, which is like, yeah, maybe halfway around the world.

And how often do you go to Bora Bora?

We went twice and it was super relaxing, but it didn't really feel like travel in that there are some like local things that the hotel makes. Yeah, but when we go to Thailand, it's like, let's go to some back alley. Yeah, night market. Let's sit down on a stool and eat something delicious and meet random people. And talk about what they're doing and then find out where that leads us and wander and explore. That doesn't happen. Those are the most memorable experiences for me. Yeah, I love relaxing on a beach also.

Yes.

To me, they're two totally different things.

I guess it depends on how much you travel per year, because if you travel for 3, 4, 5 months a year, which is how much I travel for work and for fun, sometimes I want to relax by doing that, the 2 weeks thing. But most people have 2 weeks to travel, so you want to do as much crazy things as possible, drink at a bar in Thailand and go hopping Taiwan or Japan. So I understand why that is appealing as well.

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So let's rewind.

Yes.

I think one of the interesting things for people who don't know your story, there's a million podcasts they can go listen to, to hear your story. But the one aspect of it I want to focus on that I think is relevant to a lot of people is taking a big bet on yourself.

Yes.

You quit a job that was, for many people, a dream job, and you bet on yourself. And a lot of people do that by saying, I'm going to start a little side hustle. I sometimes think in order to make something work, you kind of have to go all in on it and commit. You could tell about the experience, but how did you build up that conviction and how did you find a way to make it even more affordable. You stretched your dollars way more than most people do when they quit.

Yeah. And that's what people don't realize is that living in New York or SF is actually really dangerous because now you are really enslaved to the daily life costs of living here. And you know, you were just talking about this, like you need a lot of money every month just to survive. Can we talk about it? How much do you need per month to survive?

Me particularly?

You particularly.

Yeah. It's funny cuz my wife and I had this conversation cuz now I'm a creator and the income of a creator is more variable, right? It could be very high, but also if the economy collapses and brands stop wanting to advertise, it could go to zero. Yes. There's an amount of money in my mind that's like we could live on somewhere, and then there's an amount of money that it's like we could keep living our current lifestyle. And I think that number is like almost maybe 2x. Wow. I think that if you didn't need to live in the Bay Area, first off—

But it's in the tens of thousands.

Yeah.

It's not like $3,000.

No.

Which is crazy talk if you think about this. Like, if anybody listening to this, you need tens of thousands of dollars to maintain a lifestyle here in San Francisco, right? Which means you will always need—

I wouldn't say that. I'd say it's maybe me, but I would say when we were living in San Francisco before we had children, I think our annual burn was under $10,000 a month for sure.

But that's still high too for 2 people.

For 2 people. Definitely under $10,000.

So my burn in New York, and this is why I decided to bet on myself, my burn in New York was roughly $3,500 per month. And my salary was probably $7,000, but that still was a little bit too high for my own comfort. And I realized that if I just leave my job and use my savings and burn $1,000 in India or Ethiopia and learn and work on self-improving myself, I could extend my runway by 2 years, 3 years, 4 years. And so that's what I did. I just left my life in New York and I went to Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya, and I started learning how to make videos and traveling by making videos. Ideas and connecting with locals. And the first 2 years, of course, it was self-sustained. I was losing money using my own savings, but I was still saving money from, you know, without— if I stayed living in New York, I would have spent more money. So it made sense to travel. Traveling for me was a way to save money. And that's what people don't realize, is that traveling should be expensive. Actually, no, it's— if you leave America, the world is shockingly cheap.

If you leave your life for 2 weeks, you don't save any money. But if you leave your life for 6 months or 12 months, you save a lot of money. You can save money. In fact, when we left our life for 8 months, we traveled around the world. We subletted our apartment, right? Because we couldn't get out of our lease, but we had all this furniture and we thought, oh, well, we could probably rent it for more than we're paying because it has furniture.

Yeah.

And we almost broke even on the cost to travel. Wow. So it's just traveling for free because we actually made that. Kind of major change.

And you had all these point hacks and whatnot.

Yeah, back then I didn't have as many, but the number one way to burn money traveling is to fly on an airplane. The marginal cost to add an extra week to a trip to Thailand is very low relative to the marginal cost to come back for another week later.

Yeah.

So the cost of a one-week trip versus a five-week trip—

I wish I had a rule of thumb, but I would say a five-week trip is probably cheaper than two one-week trips. Is my guess, just because at least for us it's hard to find an international flight for less than $1,000. The way we were traveling at the time, it's very easy to find a place to stay for $10 a night. You know, our budget was like under $30 a day. Yes, points and miles make the flights cheaper, but there's no way if you don't have points to make the flight.

Yeah, this is also an American problem because you're really surrounded by nothing. Like San Francisco, if you want to get to the next country, if it's not Mexico or Canada, you're looking at like 7 hours.

Yeah.

That's like very far.

Yeah.

And if you live in, let's say, Dubai, you can reach, I think, 60% of the world within 7 hours. Did you know that? So like a flight from Dubai to Pakistan is like cheap. Pakistan to like, say, Thailand, cheap. Thailand to Laos, cheap. Right. So it's all these flights are so interconnected. The world is much more closer to each other outside of the American continent.

Yeah.

It's just the North America and South America continents are just way too stretched vertically. That it becomes really difficult to travel. And that's why I find it hard to live here because you cannot travel in an efficient manner financially and timewise.

Well, I think you could play the points game and make that work.

Yes, that I don't know how to do.

We got to work on that.

Just for context, I'm the kind of guy who has 20 t-shirts that look identical to each other in his entire wardrobe. So I'm also scared of buying a different t-shirt because I don't want to make the decision of which t-shirt to where today I'm on a mission to streamline my life in a way that allows me to not think.

Let's talk about that.

Yes.

What are other ways you do that?

So it's same shoes, two pants, all the same color, 20 t-shirts, all the same designs, same everything, identical. I have no material object that I have any emotional attachment to in my life other than my laptop. And my laptop is replaceable because it's locked and it's all in the cloud. So even if I lose my laptop, it's fine. So if anybody gets into my house, they can steal anything they want and I don't care. I've never locked my house in 3 years. My phone, I guess I have an emotional attachment to my phone. So I'm only emotionally attached to my phone and my laptop and that's it.

And some servers in the cloud that are holding all of your important data.

All my important—

Yeah.

But nothing else in my life is important.

Okay. What about decisions around what to eat?

Oh, that I also streamlined. So I'm vegetarian, which basically means 90% of food menus are not relevant to me because they're full of dead animals. And I also try to eat like the same thing. So I try to eat the same thing for breakfast, the same thing for dinner, same thing for lunch. So eggs, it has like a lot of proteins and, you know, a salad. Egg salad, egg salad, egg salad every single day. So now I don't have to think about food. What else?

Health, like exercise.

Oh, health. Yeah. 1 hour per day. That's it. Same exercise.

What kind of exercise?

Oh, and also don't have to think about what I exercise because I have a personal trainer.

Okay.

So he comes and tells me, move your hand left, move your hand right. And I say, okay. And so now I've been able to save my brain capacity to focus on what really matters, right? Building a company, making videos, furthering my career. And I don't do laundry. I'm very, very lucky to not have to do laundry. I never clean after myself. I never cook. I just don't want to do things that are like maintenance jobs. So maintenance job is eating is a maintenance job, but cooking is a maintenance job. You eat today, you poop it in the next 5 hours, right? And then you have to do it again next 5 hours and again and again and again for the rest of your life. So unless you derive joy from cooking, which I don't, there's no point to cook and there's no point to clean because it's going to get dirty the next day. So you need to be able to like find somebody to help you clean. And this way I just don't do any maintenance work and also focus on just building, growing on top of what I built yesterday. Does that make sense? Does it sound conceited or rich people stuff?

I happen to know that you live in a country where having someone help you do laundry and cook or clean is significantly less expensive than it is in the States.

Yeah, I still pay quite a lot. I'm paying double the market rate. I do believe in fair wage. That's important. But even here, you can get a helper in America for 2 hours. You can get food food delivery. Everybody gets food delivery. I get food delivery. I don't need somebody to cook for me. It's something I did before I got rich as well. And I never cleaned my room when I was poor. When I was 20, I never did it. Are you kidding? Why would I? So yeah.

Are there maintenance jobs that do bring you joy that you like to do? No. How do you like to spend your time for fun?

What is fun? I'm joking. Do you do maintenance? I'm actually more interested in you. Do you do maintenance stuff?

Some things I, for weird reasons, enjoy.

Like what?

We have a hot tub. You got to balance the chemicals on the hot tub. And like, it's kind of fun. I take my 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, we go scoop up a little water, we put it in the thing and we see the chemicals and we measure it.

But that's a 5-minute job.

Yeah, it's not that long, but it's something that, oh, we got to do that this week. Like we could hire someone to come to the house and do it. I really struggle, and it sounds like you don't, with things where the mental burden or the overhead of thinking about it doesn't quite equate to the cost. And so you don't factor it in as well. So for someone to come to the house and put some chemicals bottles in the hot tub, it takes 5 minutes.

Yeah, right.

I'm sure the cost for that is going to be more than like an average hourly wage times 5 over 60, you know, like it's just going to be much more expensive than that, I assume. I've looked a little bit, and so it's just hard for me to be like, I'm gonna pay someone $200 a month to come to my house for 5 minutes 3 times.

But you're not factoring your like brain cost.

No, no, I think it's very hard for many people, myself included, to factor in that kind of like cost of doing all of these other things in life.

Yeah, exactly. So if we add that hidden cost to what we do, I think many people will not do what they do today. Many people will stop cooking if they factor in the value of 1 hour of freedom outside of work in your 20s when you could be building a startup or building a career or building a whatever or building a family, right? Now, again, big disclaimer is if you enjoy cooking, like, it's amazing. And if you don't enjoy cooking, then that's where the problem is.

What do you encourage someone to do with that? Extra time. Not everyone knows I want to start a company. Are there things you think people should be spending more of their time on if it's not maintenance work?

So what's not maintenance work? I think that's a really important question. What is not maintenance? So in life, maintenance is cleaning your car is maintenance. Doing your bed is maintenance. Cooking food is maintenance, right? To maintain your thing. What I think is not maintenance is building relationships, building family, right? Because if I invest today in my wife or my husband or whatever, in the future it results in a nice family. So I don't view that as maintenance. I view that as building for the future, building a company, building a career, and building your body, right? Like focusing on your like fitness and physique, right? I think those are the 4 things I've identified as non-maintenance things, and I'm happy to invest in them and invest a lot. And because I'm single now, unfortunately, I invest a lot of my time into fitness and building my business. I have 2 companies, so I'm building those. So that's the only thing I view as non-maintenance work. Work. Everything else is maintenance.

So there is one thing about travel that I noticed that's interesting about you. I have seen you travel to places like the Maldives. You post all your travels online. Anyone listening can see them. And you would think someone successful like you, someone with money like you, would travel in a certain way. And even when you're traveling for work, you're still not staying at the Four Seasons. And I'm curious, what is it about your style of travel, your belief about money, It seems like you don't think you have enough money and you're still in this, like, scarcity mindset.

Yeah, man, it's just listening to this, I get a little bit sad because I am mentally poor. There is a thing called mental poverty, and I feel mentally poor even though my bank account has millions of dollars. But mentally I feel poor and I don't know why. Maybe because my formative childhood years I spent obsessing over $2 here, $3 there, saving $2 there. That I just don't see why I would want to spend $200 extra for the same bed and the same roof just because it's a Four Seasons. So now I'm staying at a place called Axiom, which is like 100 meters away from the Four Seasons. But it's like $250 in San Francisco, not bad, as opposed to $500. So I'm saving a lot of money. But I don't know, what do you do? Because we have similar net worth. People don't know this, Chris, but you and I have the same amount of money. Which is crazy because I have 60 million more followers than you and I don't know why I couldn't monetize. But how do you spend money at the Four Seasons?

So this is why I like points, by the way.

Oh my God.

I'm just saying I enjoy nice hotels.

It's so funny.

I talk to people all the time. They tell me how much they spend on vacation and I'm like, wow, I could never spend that much money. Like, you're going to spend $1,000 a night on a hotel? That seems wild. Like, why would you do that? I don't get a ton of value out of some aspects of travel, and I do on others. So if I was going to try to have some experience, I'd rather hire the right person to take me through the market to show me all the interesting things, who's a local who's been there and support that community, than to pay for a hotel that has nicer furnishings.

Yes, because you like experiences.

Yeah.

But staying at a hotel can be an experience.

I could imagine spending more money for a hotel that gives you the experience that you describe in the Maldives where you're over the water and you have a bunch of extra things. But if I'm in San Francisco, I don't even know if I'd want to spend— I was in New York and I was like, what is the absolute cheapest hotel I can stay at that isn't like 2 stars, just like horrible reviews? So I stayed at the Yotel. I don't recommend it. I wouldn't ever tell anyone you should stay there. It was an amazing experience. I checked in at 11:00 PM and they're like, your room's not ready. And I'm like, how is it not ready until 11:00 And then I go, it might be a clerical error. And then 20 minutes later, it was magically ready. It looked like a room that they designed 10 years ago and then have not repainted any of the things that have chipped off.

That's crazy.

And it was also $250 a night.

Which is crazy expensive.

Crazy expensive. I've talked to a lot of people on this topic of mental poverty and the idea that you ask anyone how much money they want to get to, and once they get there, they're never done. They always want more. They always want more. They always want more. And then I've talked to a few people that have just completely disconnected from the concept and they're like, I just don't care. And I think in the last couple of years, I've kind of stopped caring about growing net worth. Doesn't matter.

Really?

Yeah. And I had this conversation with my wife where we were talking about what our goals were, and she was like, I want to get to this net worth target. And I was like, I don't. She's like, really? You don't want to get there? I was like, why do we want to have more money saved? Now, if we have more money, would we rather spend it? Would you rather give it away? Like, what things would we want to do with our money than just build up this, like, Scrooge McDuck pile of money, and I don't feel like I care about flying in a private jet. If you think of like, if you could have unlimited money, what would you do? There's not that many different things. I realize I speak from a place of privilege right now, but there's not that many more things that I think my money is worth doing anything that I don't enjoy doing to get. And so if I didn't like doing this job, should I keep doing it? No, I should stop doing it. Should my wife do her job if she doesn't like it?

No.

Like we should stop doing the things because because we're in a place that we can. And I think I've been able to not care as much about money as I did.

That actually means you're mentally rich. That's what I'm hearing.

Yeah. I used to feel mentally poor and I don't feel that way anymore.

Congratulations. You have defeated the poverty in your brain because the minute you stop caring about money or fearing about money, then you are mentally rich and you're living life the way life is supposed to be lived without worrying or thinking about money. I'm still in the mental poverty side because I have a fear of losing it. I have a fear that the next month it's going to dry up. I have a fear that I don't have enough, and I have a fear that I'm still enslaved to it.

Even though more than me and more than almost anyone listening knows how inexpensively you could live somewhere.

Yes.

And you probably have enough that you could live in a place for the rest of your life and never think about it.

So it depends what you want to do with life, right? So one of my dreams is to start an airline. I'd like to start a fucking airline. Why not? You know? And I want to be able to come up with ideas and see them happen in real life. For me, that's the ultimate freedom. It's not to stay at the Four Seasons and it's not to like buy a Gucci bag and it's not to like fly in a private jet. It's come up with ideas for projects and have enough money to see them happen. So I'd like to put $10 million into funding a startup that does fake meat, you know, like cell-based meat. I would like to try to buy one plane and see if we can come up with a different airline that's more fun and more human and more social, compete with Virgin Atlantic or whatever. These are ideas I kind of don't want to die without trying them. I want to try a hotel. I want to build a hotel. Can I build a better hotel than the Four Seasons? That's like really cool. So the reason I like money is it enables you to think crazy and do crazy and be crazy. And I just love crazy. So yes, I could live in a house for the rest of my life and not worry about money and just live on top of a mountain. But then I'll have so many ideas that I cannot execute on. And that for me is sadness. That is sadness. So I still can't execute many of the ideas that I'd like to do because they're simply too expensive.

So your relationship is out there, your life's out there. What's the end goal for you? Is it fame? Is it money? Is it building something?

So fame and money is not an end goal because people that look like me do not become famous. So it's not something I think about. But the end goal is to build something out of nothing. I think that is probably the sexiest thing in the world. Create something of value out of nothing, out of thin air. The United States government creates money out of thin air. Amazing, right? But what can you create out of thin air, right? You created kids. That's amazing. That's so magical. You've created a company, a podcast. I just feel like the act of going from zero to one It's just better than sex. And I wish everybody can experience that at some point in their life, the act of creation, of creating either a human or a project or a startup or a company or a piece of content. And if somebody is not creating enough, maybe I'll end with that message is like, try to do something from 0 to 1. It'll probably be the most satisfying thing you do in your life.

Do you have any advice for someone who's like, I want to be creative, but I don't know? How do they find the thing that they could go try to create?

Creative doesn't mean make videos and be artistic and make a song, right? Creative can be build an amazing family. Creative can be build a company, build a house, a side hobby, build an ebook, whatever. I think the word creator should not be just limited to you and me. A creator is also a father and a mother. And so—

and it doesn't have to be public, does it? Right? Like, no, write a book, keep it for yourself. It doesn't have to be something you publish. Yes. Seeing something go from nothing to something.

Yes, from nothing to something. And this thing exists purely because of you and your efforts and your sheer determination and will. And I just, I find that to be so sexy. I don't know if other people relate to this message. If they do, please message me. Let me know at yassin@nasse.io. Y-A-S-S-I-N@nasse.io. Nasse.io. But yeah, that's just a feeling that I've— over the last 31 years, it's the only feeling that's worth pursuing every single day for the rest of my life.

I love it. Well, we're here creating Hopefully people enjoy it. I want to hear stories. If people are finding new things to create, send them in.

And also, I did ask people to send you hate messages, right?

Yes. You got hate mail coming in.

Yes.

And whatever they're creating.

Yes.

Perfect.

Let me know how it goes.

Nuseir, thanks for coming by.

Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

I really hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I would really appreciate it. And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say hi, I'm Chris at allthehacks.com or @hutchins on Twitter. That's it for this week. I'll see you next week.

Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.