From High School Drop Out to $150 Million Net Worth with Matt Higgins

It is the single greatest, most important decision of my entire life. I went from being a high school dropout at 16 years old, scraping gum under tables at McDonald's, to by the time I was 26, the youngest press secretary to the mayor of New York and overseeing the rebuilding of the World Trade Center sites. By the way, that's a brilliant question that no one has ever asked me before. I want to appropriate this ancient phrase that goes back to the beginning of time that a lot of— some people don't know what it means. And I want to— I want to hijack it on behalf of the risk-averse, of the anxiety-laden, of the The trauma-driven. I want to appropriate, not for Mr. Wonderful, who is completely self-possessing and doesn't care what anybody thinks, but for the rest of us. Wait, are you ready for the reveal?

Matt Higgins, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We're so excited to get to know you and talk about your book, Burn the Boats. To say I'm excited actually would be a complete understatement. But before we get into any questions, I want to get vulnerable. And start off with an apology. There was a part of me that wanted to write you off. I wanted to write you off, your book off, because I saw all the success that you had. I saw that you were the youngest press secretary in New York City. I saw that you were a shark on Shark Tank. And then I heard you say, I'm not extraordinary. And you beyond beat the odds of 90% of high school dropouts, which made me see you as extraordinary. But then I dove deeper into your story. I read your book. And out of the 60+ books I've read this year, this has easily, easily been in my top 5 that has led to some crazy mindset shifts and just complete breakthroughs. So, I'm sorry that I had a closed mind when I first learned about you, but I'm glad I didn't let that stand in my way of learning more about you and getting to know your story and your message. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to write this book. And share all the lessons that you've learned through your life.

Wow, that was quite an intro. I don't know what to say. I mean, mic drop. Well, thank you. I, you know, it's funny, we can just dive right in. Part of the reason why I wrote the book is that I am largely uninterested with the track record, like, and because I had a vision in mind for everything I've done, which we can get into. And then when you achieve a certain wealth and station and credentials in life, those be— it's how you judge, it's how you show up in a world. And I would show up in a room and people would presume like you're born on third base, probably grew up in Connecticut, went to a private school, you know, all the things that are just very uninteresting to me. And I've become an amalgam of all the things I've done, you know, and they become little proxies for who I am and it's not who I am. And so, but the authority that I've accumulated by virtue of doing all these relatively crazy Forrest Gump-like things, has a broader point and a broader purpose and a broader plan. And I was like, if I could spend the time to dissect the codes that I think I hacked into when I was 16 years old, I could turn what people might dismiss like you or whatever, right? And say, no, no, no, it's actually possible. And there were a lot of alchemy went into how I wrote the book and how I talked about myself with an attempt to connect to the reader. The point is there's no higher compliment than you could give me starting off the show saying that you approached this. It's like, Dismissing me and then read it and connected with me without ever knowing me.

Yeah. And, you know, I hadn't, I've been kind of keeping it in. I read this book and I finished it about, I don't know, 3 or 4 weeks ago. And I haven't really talked too much about it internally because I'm like, I just want to save this. I want to save this for when we get them on our podcast. So I appreciate you taking the time. And when I say that this book has led to a lot of mindset shifts, it's, I can't even tell you like how much, how true that is. Because of that, there's a couple of things that I've been working kind of as side hustle, side gigs that I'm leaning into a little bit more, and I'm just super excited. So before we get into all the concepts from the books and all the other things that we want to talk about, I'd love to maybe for our audience, you can describe the difference between you and all the other high school dropouts in the 1990s.

Were there a lot?

You know, I looked up the stats and there it was. It was astounding how much there were.

That's interesting. So, I think for me, again, what's fun about writing a book, it also is my accountability partner because just because you have the answers to the test, you think, doesn't mean you're able to apply them. So, the book is my hypocrisy meter. Anytime I'm doing anything now, I'm like, oh man, you wrote the opposite. You better do it. So, the point of that, the point of starting there is I dropped out of high school, but it was on purpose. It was very intentional. And I wanted to make sure, even as part of this book or how I talk publicly, that one is like, oh, poor kid, he had to, he went down the wrong way and then he brought himself back. Like, that's not my story. So the, the, the difference is, is that my dropping out was a, was pursuant to a life hack born of necessity. I grew up in, to rewind, in abject poverty in Queens, New York, you know, on public assistance and hawking flowers on street corners. I was that annoying kid that would knock on your door and, you know, guilt you into buying flowers for your wife that you didn't need. You know, I was that kid. selling handbags on street corners. And so, so my, my, my, my, my whole prism of life growing up was watching my mother who was disabled get progressively worse, and sort of having this sense of we're running out of time. Resentment that any kid who's put in a position to take care of their parent also resents it while also accepting the responsibility. So you wear 2 hats, you're toggling between those 2 states. And then honestly, frustration and desperation at like, why doesn't anybody care? Why isn't anyone like stepping in to save my mother? Why doesn't anybody care about this little boy who at the same time is working really hard to cover up poverty? It's funny how my kids do everything they can to hide wealth. And back then you did everything you could to hide poverty. And so it's a long way of saying that I was, that I was really, really desperate. And when your back is against the wall, which is what I uncovered when I was a kid and the whole genesis of this book, right? When you really have nothing else to lose, all options are on the table. And I was given by God or the universe this inherent defiance and belligerence that I was like, I'm not meant to be here. Like, this is an accident of birth. And while I want to do everything I can to save my mother, I also want to ensure that my entire life isn't framed by this early experience. And so I found a hack. And the hack was if you dropped out of high school at 16 years old back then and you did well enough on your GED, which is an oxymoron, usually if you're taking the GED, you're probably not going to crush it. But, you know, if you did well enough, I could enroll into any college in America. and convert my GED score into a GPA. I actually got that hack from my mom who didn't drop out on purpose. She had a terribly abusive childhood and had no choice. And that was my epiphany. And so my burn the boats moment was in response to every guidance counselor. I tell a story in the book, it's a true story. My science teacher saying, you're gonna be a loser, you're gonna end up working at McDonald's. My burn the boats moment was if I didn't put myself in a position to have no other option to go through with this crazy plan to drop out, I never, as a 16-year-old kid, would've had this self-possession to resist all this conventional wisdom, and I would've retreated. And yet it is the single greatest, most important decision of my entire life. I went from being a high school dropout at 16 years old, scraping gum under tables at McDonald's, to by the time I was 26, the youngest press secretary to the mayor of New York and overseeing the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. That was a lot. Let me pause there for a second.

Take it all in.

Take it all in. Yeah.

So I'm curious, when you were younger, knocking on doors, making people feel guilty, selling them flowers, like where did that entrepreneurial spirit come from? Because there are a lot of people in poverty who feel defiant, rebellious, but they don't default to something which ultimately became productive for you, which was entrepreneurship, sales, communication. Like you were building a skill set that would serve you in life. Why do you think you you defaulted to that? Were your brothers doing something similar?

No, I, I think— and I, I would love to one day go deeper down the rabbit hole to sort of demonstrate this— but I think enhanced pattern recognition is the consolation prize of unrelenting trauma. So anyone there who's been subjected to unrelenting trauma and some kind of condition of desperation where you feel somewhat imprisoned, but more importantly, you are hyper-aroused all the time. You're constantly scanning the environment for threats. Your amygdala is flashing size of a grapefruit. All that stress and hyperarousal leads to the ability to discern certain patterns. And I really feel like I grew up under constant duress since I was a little child and exposed to adult themes prematurely, like a lot of people out there who are listening to this right now. But the end result of all that hypervigilance and being hyperaroused is that you start to see things and understand things. And I really do feel like that creativity and entrepreneurial vibe was born under duress. And I think a lot of people have it. And because we're not taught to validate or value our own intuition, we sort of dismiss it because the countervailing thought is like, I don't know which fork to use at a dinner table, right? Like, so my shame of poverty could have enabled me to dismiss these little insights I started having, including dropping out of high school, right? So I think it's a long way of saying, I think the pressure cooker that I was born into refine my pattern recognition skills. And I was like, well, why can't I work for that guy over there and sell flowers on street corners? You know what I mean? If I could hustle, I'll make, I'll make 2x what I'm making at McDonald's. And like those little insights. So I don't, I don't think it was I was following in anyone's footsteps other than it was a response to the, to the pressure.

So now as a parent, how do you recreate that without putting children in constant states of duress and bad stress?

By the way, that's a brilliant question that no one has ever asked me before. Because I feel so strongly about this, and I have a lot of friends who kind of came from nothing. I remember Dave Chang, who's my partner. We were on a podcast, and he and I teach at Harvard Business School, and he's like, Matt, like when you see a resume for Harvard, do you just like throw that in the garbage because you're looking for the next Matt Higgins? I was like, absolutely not. Like I think to try to prosthetically install on my kids or project onto others the need to have you know, dysfunctional circumstances is ridiculous and actually not something I personally value because it's a lie to act like there wasn't a lot of damage done by my upbringing and a lot of fixing that I would rather have bypassed. And so it's a long way of saying that I don't do that to my kids. I don't think that you need to artificially, you know, create like crisis situations. I do think you could replicate crisis decision-making, which is a big part of the book. How do you harness crisis decision-making and put you in places where you allow yourself no retreat, which is similar to a crisis, but do it without the cortisol flowing through your stomach. So, and as pertains to my kids, like, they have great values, I think, one, because intrinsically they're good people, but also because there's nothing about my world that values wealth or, you know, or credentials. Like, I deliberately set fire to those too around the house. And so, you know, but again, a great question. I don't, Do anything I can to manufacture pain.

I'm curious too, though. Do you think that, you know, Matt Higgins, you as you stand today, would have still gotten to where you are today without all of the pain and stress from your trauma from your childhood?

No, because I'm always trying to separate nature from nurture, even in auditing myself, because I am kind of curious about the sliding doors moments. Like, what would I have been? I actually think that the empathy comes into factory settings, and the empathy can feel very crushing. I feel very crushed by people's pains, if I'm honest. I have a hard time regulating my emotions when I'm confronted with something that I'm like, oh, that's so sad. And I don't think that's because I witnessed something. I think I know how to do something about that because of what I witnessed. And so that's a long way of saying, I think without being subjected to unrelenting pressure and having the necessity to pull myself out of these circumstances, I actually think I would have been— I would have maybe succumbed more to the anxiety and succumbed more to the empathy and maybe being a little more tentative. So I like to say that I did everything I did in spite of, not because of. And I think most successful people get where we are in spite of and more than because of. And so for me, I got here in spite of a lot of those. Factors. So I don't think there's any chance in hell I've achieved even 1/10 of the success I've achieved if I wasn't born into those circumstances. Now, that's different than overvaluing them and wishing that somebody else would go through them too.

That's such an interesting perspective because that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about all these other people that have gone through trauma in their lives and, you know, they might not wish that they went through that, but it's a lot of times I, what I see is There's, there's 2 scenarios, right? What I've seen anyway, it's like you have one scenario where the person goes through that trauma and they just cannot cope with it. So they end up in the worst situation possible for a human being, or 2, they come out a super success like, like you. So for people listening that are maybe more bent towards that, I'm struggling side, what do you tell, what do you tell those people? Hmm.

I love that question too. I think that we do have a fundamental choice in how we respond to trauma or hardship. It's, and it's 2 different paths. One is I am bitter that what was given, what was denied me was denied, and I'm gonna deny it to others. And, or I am awakened by the impact of what was denied me. I can imagine the presence of it in my life, and I'm gonna try to give it to others, that which was denied me. And I made a choice. I made the latter choice that, wow, like, if somebody had only cared one bit about the situation my mother was in and that I was in, and they had intervened, they would have changed the trajectory of a human life. She wouldn't be dead. My life would have been a lot easier. Now I'm aware of that. And so what do I choose to do with that information? I choose to accumulate power and resources and influence so I could redistribute empathy on behalf of somebody out there so they could change the course of their lives rather than— and this is where I think a lot of people land. There's this self-aggrandizing narrative like, I did it, you can do it too. And I think that's a subconscious message that a lot of self-anointed gurus perpetuate on Instagram without realizing it. You, by not pulling back the curtain about how you remain screwed in the head in some ways, how things are still a challenge, how do you go on Shark Tank and you're an anxious mess and have imposter syndrome? Like, I don't want to share that stuff, but if I don't share it, then the takeaway from my life is what sort of similar what you said, which is like, you know, well, I'm human. All right. I'm like, I'm coping with my sadness by having a drink or I, you know, feel like I have imposter syndrome. I don't even belong in that room. So, you know what? I'm not even gonna try. If you don't pull back the curtain on the things that you have to manage even in real time now, people will draw the wrong conclusion from your life. So hopefully, while by writing this book and sharing some of those views of those issues, I have demonstrated that I'm here in spite of. So therefore, somebody who would like to self-select out of ambition because they feel encumbered would be like, oh, well, he got there in spite of, then I can get there in spite of too. It's such a nuanced point, but I love the question. I do think it comes down to a choice. So anyone out there listening and you're feeling the way you're feeling, I just would ask you to consider, have you chosen the victim narrative to define your life? The victim narrative is fool's gold. It looks tantalizing because it lets you off the hook. But in the end, you're left with a pile of nothing in your hand, right? Like you got nowhere. So I've never allowed myself to feel like a victim, nor do I ever feel like a victim because I always want to have the last word to my last breath. That was a rant.

I'm very impressed with your ability to articulate some of these things and to describe them. And not many of our guests, even though they're writing amazing books and they have big social followings and they're famous business people, they can't articulate what you're articulating about your emotional state and some of the circumstances that you've been through. So where do you think that ability to articulate comes from? Are you somebody who constantly analyzes your vocabulary and looks to improve it? Do you read a lot? Like, what credit do you give there?

It's really all I care about. Like, I think there's a whole layer of the universe that is a shared human experience that we just don't talk about. And I spend so much of my days like, Why are we not talking about this? Like, for example, I think about death all the time, because I think it's probably one of the biggest reasons why we are so confused. Like, we don't know why we're here. We don't know who put us here. And we don't necessarily know where we're going. And we don't know when. And yet, everything about society is designed to have us vested, vested in creating a future that we may not even occupy, right? Like, I'm doing all this work, we're creating this video together this morning, but we don't even know if we're even going to get to consume it. Because we may be dead tomorrow. And so my point is the things that I think about and the things that are really hard to put your finger on, those are everything. Like what we're talking about right now is everything. It's, and the Italians have this phrase and it mirrors, I'm not gonna say it in Italian, but it shapes everything I do in business, right? The fish rots from the head. Right. And in business, we attempt to sort of reduce everything to a bunch of automatons. Like we don't need how we could set aside psychology and humanity, but reality, that's everything. So The reason why I think I can articulate it is it's because it's the only thing I really care about. And my wife has to deal with all these little social tics as a result of it. Like, I'm the person who disappears into the bathroom for 10 minutes in the middle of an event because I need to think, you know what I mean? And I feel like a lot of times my thoughts are being interrupted by small talk. If I'm not talking to you guys right now about some degree of pain or the truth of the universe, I'm bored as hell. So I think that's where it comes from. It's like, I'm only interested in this.

I love that. I mean, you know, I know Nick wants to say some stuff about death too because it's something that as a company, BookThinkers, like we think about pretty often. Nick even has a tattoo of Memento Mori across his chest.

Oh, you do?

Yeah. And which is really neat.

Oh, I want to show you my tattoo, but I have my damn— I didn't wear the right shirt. Oh, I did. Wait, are you ready for the reveal?

Ready.

All right, here's the reveal real quick. I told you before, here's my book. My book is my accountability partner. I asterisk the shit out of this book because I can't follow everything I wrote and I try. So I was like, when I wrote this book, I was, I was realizing everybody in Western civilization thinks it's attributed to Cortés, right? And I kind of used the word burn the boats because I was hoping I'd get in a provocative conversation, but it didn't really happen. And in doing the research, I realized this phrase goes back to the beginning of recorded history, to Sun Tzu and The Art of War. But there's a battle in China that was the most like epic battle that led to the unification of China in 206 BC, and they actually Burn the boats. They sunk the boats. And there's a word in Chinese that means, you know, burn the boats, go all in, and no one ever talks about it. So I have tattooed it. It's got my first tattoo, which, I mean, how badass is that?

Yeah, it's awesome.

I love this thing.

That's amazing. Yes, I love it too.

I got it 2 weeks ago. And so it's my way now of looking in the mirror like, I really believe this. I need to be reminded of this every day. And so I'm gonna tattoo it. So that's my tattoo. But to your point about How do you say it again?

Memento mori.

Right. Memento mori. I mean, that is everything, right? Like being reminding and reminding yourself that you're gonna die brings you into the present.

Yeah, it's so interesting. So because of another thing, because of your book, I've been wanting to get a tattoo for a while and I just, I, my parents maybe will probably disown me after this, but I've been wanting to get a tattoo for a while and I haven't really, I don't know, I haven't found one that I really, really want. So Reading through your book, though, it unlocked something for me, which was the mindset of focusing on the positive, focusing on the wins. And I don't know what was happening in my brain at the time while I was reading through your book, but it just became so clear to me. So, for the next few days, actually, I don't have it written down, but I wrote down on my forearm, focus on the wins, focus on the wins. And I noticed within like 2 weeks, I stopped. I literally stopped.

Yeah.

Focusing on all the negative stuff. Like, I didn't even, I didn't even think about it. It's like, okay, the negative happened. Yep, done. Focus on the wins. What did you do today that you, that, that, that was a winning thing? So I'm excited to say that I'm gonna be getting my first tattoo here pretty soon. I'm not sure exactly.

Oh, I love hearing that, by the way.

Because of your book, which is crazy.

I love that. I mean, I, I waited till 48 years old until I finally realized, like, this is what I need to have on my arm, you know, and, and, and I wanna, I wanna carry it with me. And no, that is a big takeaway of the book. Can we talk about, I want to talk about one important point too for your readers when you hear this because the book is a little bit of a Trojan horse. Now you know that, right? Like the phrase is so bombastic. It's like crypto bro, you know, burn the boats and like it tends to be used by a certain type. My whole sort of like narrative within the narrative was I want to appropriate this ancient phrase that goes back to the beginning of time that a lot of, some people don't know what it means and I want to I want to hijack it on behalf of the risk-averse, of the anxiety-laden, of the trauma-driven. I want to appropriate not for Mr. Wonderful, who is completely self-possessed and could care what anybody thinks, but for the rest of us who, by the way, are all risk-wanters, even if we're not risk-takers, because everyone knows on the other side of risk is reward. I'm going to take this bombastic phrase with this pagan symbol of a boat burning And I wanna write a tender, empathetic book that pulls back the curtain on all the things we, we go through. And so my message to anybody hearing this is like, that's not for me. I'm not wired that way. It is written for you. And here's the simple premise of the book. Studies, science, history shows, but particularly let's just talk about science, that just contemplating Plan B while you're pursuing Plan A does 2 things. It was a great study I talk about in the book. Number 1, it reduces your intrinsic motivation to even want that thing. And number 2, it dramatically decreases the likelihood you'll be successful. They have done studies where they've allowed people to simply ruminate on another way to achieve it. And here's the reason why. We're taught since we're kids that having a backup plan is prudent. It's your downside protection. When in fact, the reason we really conjure a backup plan is the pain of wanting something so bad you could die. But the pain is the very thing that propels you to achieve breakout success. This is the anti-Atomic Habits book. This is for the type of achievements in the world that don't require repetition, that don't work with repetition. They require you to create a new template. So the way I reconcile burn the boats with risk mitigation is sequencing. When you contemplate your backup plan determines the outcome of everything. And I have a simple 4-step process. Number 1, I embrace my inner catastrophizer because he's very creative. I'm like, alright, Matt, Inner catastrophizer. Let's come up with all the wacky things that are gonna happen if I pursue this and it doesn't work out. Number 1. Number 2, I say, okay, let's admit it to evidence. Those things do happen. What would you do? What's your backup plan? And when we ask ourselves that question in a calm environment without the pressure of taking on incoming and doing something hard, we all have hardwired into our factory settings our backup plan within 1 nanosecond. It usually involves some soul-crushing, terrible job. Mine hangs on my wall. It's called being a lawyer. No disrespect, but it's my fancy wallpaper. That is my backup. backup plan, right? But we all know it, but we're afraid to ask the question before we start. Number 3, what's the probability that my inner catastrophizer is correct? We're very bad at anticipating the bad things that ultimately will happen. So the probability is low. It's usually about reputation management. No one's gonna want— care about— I'm gonna be embarrassed. I'll never get a job again. And then number 4 of my 4-stop— 4-step risk matrix, what's my why? What would I be willing to sacrifice and endure? What pain would I be willing to subject myself to teach at Harvard Business School, to be on the set of Shark Tank, to deliver to my little babies the life that I never had as a kid, to die and have my epitaph says, therein lies a dad who left it all on the field. Well, what did I do? I would come within an inch of my life. Like, and I think that's true for anybody out there who has a really passionate plan A. So when you hear the title of this book and you think this isn't for me, it is exactly for you. You just have been told you're not a risk taker or have allowed yourself to believe you're not a risk taker, and that is altering the entire trajectory of your life. And this comes from somebody who is so pathetic on the set of Shark Tank, I barely could function. And I talked about that story in a book in a very embarrassing way.

Well, you did great on Shark Tank. I watched, I watched you and I was like, this guy, this guy, come on. Like he's saying he's doing terrible.

But that, but that's why I did it. Because you would have the wrong takeaway, right? Like, seeing me perform on Shark Tank and concluding that I'm a natural on TV, which people will say, is A useless conclusion for the consumer. A better conclusion is like, that guy is so anxious that he didn't sleep for two days and even through two ambience and had to go on the set for ten hours and like almost caved on his moment, right? And then the one thing I share in the book that Damon John gave me, which was amazing when he pulled me inside the dressing room and I confided in him because I wasn't going to tell Mark Cuban I was a little anxious mess. David goes to me, Matt, after saying F everyone else because. You belong here because you are here. And it was almost like Socrates or something. It was like, I think before, therefore I am. I belong here because, right, there is no final arbiter of belonging. We get to decide. And the only way we get to decide is if we burn the boats and give ourselves no other option.

I think, you know, I was looking at the, thinking about the title of this book, and I think that's, you know, I forget the percentage rate, but you were talking about before we, I think it was before we hit record about Uh, 68%.

Oh yeah. The, the, the, the reviewers.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The reviews. And like, I think it's a lot of it is probably due to like the name and the nature of this book of what it looks like and what you think it's going to be. And then it's like so opposite of what you think it's going to be that it hits you like me. It smacks you across the face and then you're like, holy shit. And then you need to talk about it. Like, because it's just that good. So that's what I'm gonna be doing too.

So, well, I love you saying that. I do think if, if, look, if the book only achieved, you know, moderate success, and I think the book has done okay. But it's probably that I was too clever about it. You know, like I deliberately created a title that was meant to alienate a lot of people. So if it never gets to where it gets to, you know, that's fine. But the stat you were just talking about was the incredible response of people writing reviews. There was a simple stat and usually around 7 to 10% of anybody who rates a review on Amazon rates a book will then write a review, 7 to 10%. With Burn the Boats, it's almost 70%. And the reviews are all about how it's changed the trajectory of somebody's life. The most rewarding thing I've ever done on this earth and may ultimately end this way is creating a piece of work that leads to DMs from people who say, I didn't feel seen or supported and your book was like holding up a mirror to what I suspected about myself, but I had no— or what I suspected was being done to me, the shitty boss, you know, the naysayers. When I get those DMs, like, that's why I keep saying the greatest ROI of anything I've ever done is this book because what's it like? What's it worth to change the trajectory of a human being's life? I got a message from a woman named Isabella who I love and I love this story. She's like 24 years old. She sends me a DM on LinkedIn and she's like, hey, Matt, I just want you to know I read your book 3 weeks ago and I quit my job this morning as a banker. And I was like, at first it takes my breath away, like, yay, but like, wait, you know, like, just kidding. Like, I didn't want you to make such a radical change. But Isabella, so now I'm intrigued and she's like, look, I always wanted to create this startup and I kind of felt like everyone had been dismissing me. And then when I read your book, I was like, you know what, I'm on to something and this is what I need to do. And I made the move, right? 3 months later, she comes back to me and says, hey man, I just want you to let you know I'm launching my company. Would you like to see the deck? And I look at the deck and I'm like, oh wow, Isabella was meant to do this. And she, you look at the co-founder, she recruited a woman from Stanford, a woman from NYU, like all the signaling was there. And anyway, now I've become an advisor to Isabella. Now I'm investing in her company. We're out there raising $750,000. She is going to be the founder of a company because she read the book and I am never the genesis. I am the catalyst, which is all I wanted, right? This isn't about like me, instilling an idea in somebody because how could I do that remotely? It's about being a catalyst for somebody to believe in the idea they were already harboring. So anyway, there's a lot of Isabellas out there now, which is why I'm working so hard on marketing the book.

Well, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, I appreciate the work that you put into this book because it is that amazing. That reminds me of a quote that you, that you've said that I've heard you say, and it's external validation will always tell you it's not your time. And I think that's like, you know, Isabella's story is like she was waiting on the external validation, other people to say, yeah, go for it. But that just doesn't happen.

Yeah. Well, that's just so sad. Well, this is so— I mean, if we did nothing else but talk about this simple sentence for the rest of the podcast and for the rest of time, this simple sentence can unlock so much and be like, oh, of course, opportunity arrives before the tipping point of evidence. In that sentence is just common sense. Opportunity only exists because not everybody's acting upon something. That's where the delta, the arbitrage, the alpha comes from, right? So now, now let's talk about what's, what is evidence like? Evidence is factual support for the insight that you have, but it's also validation of other humans. And the first thing we reflexively do when we have an epiphany at 3 o'clock in the morning, like, I'm gonna call Bob. Or I'm gonna tell my girlfriend, you know, Mary, right? The problem is you're seeking validation from somebody who hasn't had the insight. And because it is an opportunity, it's arriving before the tipping point of evidence. Whoever you're asking doesn't have the same data set because it came from somewhere within your cortex, right? And I think the mistake people make, they don't surround themselves with what I call agendaless supporters, people who— and pragmatic optimists. It's not enough to have an agendaless supporter who's Pollyannish. You're gonna be like, ah, what you say doesn't matter. You're always optimistic, you know, whatever, block you out. But you also need pragmatic optimists that you respect, people who are like, okay, all right, Isabella, like, that's a really good idea. But what about— that's been my process with her. I'm a pragmatic optimist because pessimistic people never achieve wild success. So I'm giving her the advice. So the point of that sentence, opportunity arrives before the tipping point of evidence, to steel yourself from the fact that you're going to be met with resistance and you shouldn't judge the fact that people don't support you. You should take pleasure from the support. I put out something the other day. This is so kind of convoluted, but I have been long this whole new class of weight drugs, Mounjaro, Ozempic, all these different ones for well over a year, right? And I always get nervous that when I think I'm late, I'm actually early and I've been on it, right? But every once in a while I use Twitter to find out, have I crossed the tipping point of evidence? And I tweeted about this weight class of drugs, how it's going to change everybody's life. And a bunch of people were like, just another stupid fad, another fen-phen. You're— I'm like, oh cool, you don't agree with me yet. I have more time. To press this insight. And so I would say to anybody out there listening who sees valid lack of validation as something that weighs on you, be excited about it because that means that you're still early. And again, if you're just outright long and delusional, you, you know that too. That's where you have to cultivate self-awareness so you can pressure test your insights. But let's presume that you're pretty self-aware and self-possessed. The absence of validation is evidence that you're onto something, not evidence that you're going down the wrong path.

This is already turning into one of my favorite podcast conversations, Matt. And we've—

what's it going to take to get it to be your favorite? Let's like—

well, we need to talk a little bit more about—

I already showed my tattoo. We need to talk about it.

It's one of my favorite subjects. Well, let's talk about it.

So let's go into depth.

What, what you just brought up is really interesting. It makes me think of, uh, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. Have you read that?

Of course. Amazing. I mean, I cite it all the time.

And that's why I think about it so often because I don't want to end up regretting not having taken that chance, that risk starting this business. Like for me, I always knew I was a little rebellious and that I didn't fit into society's sort of box and that I didn't fit into a company where somebody else was making decisions for me. I needed to start my own business. And so that's what I did and I'm so happy. I would, like you were talking about, you'd get within an inch of death. Like I would never go back. To the traditional 9 to 5. And so having Memento Mori tattooed on my chest is that constant reminder, prioritize your time, take action, like this is your only chance. So there are probably a lot of people in the audience today who have had that insight, but the evidence hasn't stacked up yet. Do you go through that risk matrix? Like what other tools do you have to evaluate if right now is the time to take that leap?

Oh, great question. So like whether you're— it's— and I always say this too, like burn the boats in order for you to burn the boats and to fully commit and surrender to the mission. You also have to have set yourself up to do that, right? And I think there are practical considerations. I mean, do I have enough cash, you know, to be all in? Because if you haven't set yourself up, then no amount of catchphrase, you know, tattoo on your chest is gonna enable you to overcome the awareness of like, I'm not gonna be able to eat, you know, in a month. So number one, I do think set the parameters for what you need in order to, you know, fully commit in terms of whether it's, it's, it's, this is, this is the thing to sort of go after. Let's just use it in the case of a new business to make it, you know, easier. I think one of the problems that people have, and I see this over and over again, when I look at a failed business, it's usually not because of the answers that were applied to the problem. It's because they failed to ask the right question and the right questions at the inception of the journey. It's usually not the— it was usually doomed from inception, to be perfectly honest, right? There was some something fundamentally wrong. And so what I advise everyone, when you have an epiphany at 3 in the morning, don't be afraid to pressure test it because the reason you're afraid to look at it is usually one of two reasons. One, you're running from something that is so bad right now that you just are so desperate to get out of it that you are— you don't wanna scrutinize the insight you have. You just wanna hit go. because it's your escape valve. The problem with that is once you're on the other side of whatever bad thing you're dealing with, you realize like, oh, this was a mistake or this is not, this is not, you know, gonna sustain me. And then the second part is it's because they don't believe they'll never have a good idea again. They're afraid that like, this is it and I gotta like, I gotta do it because I can't imagine what would be better than this. You have to look at your own ideas, your own, what I call proprietary insights, like a real estate broker looks at houses. There's always another one coming out on the market next week. It'll be better than this one. Like, so you have to trust it. So let's assume you've gone through that and you're like, no, I wanna do it. You have to ask yourself a few simple questions. Is this a solution in search of a problem? Is this something that's clever and it's a problem that you have? But at the end of the day, it's not really a big enough problem to solve. The biggest business mistakes I've made are going ahead and turning a solution in search of a problem into a business and then waking up like, this is really a feature that belonged into somebody else's thing, right? Number 2, is it gonna generate— do enough people have this problem? and are willing to pay for a solution that it's gonna generate enough revenue for you to be able to provide the life that you want. And so when you break that down, enough people willing to pay for it generate enough for you. And there's a degree of rigor I go into the book, but those are like 2 examples and there's a few more of questions that I wanna ask. And lastly, I'll end on this. When you don't have sufficient amount of self-respect, self-worth, self-esteem, you tend to have a hard time projecting a future version of yourself and the opportunity cost you're gonna pay for what you're about to do. It's a long way of saying like this little maybe bullshit business you're about to launch might be a reflection of the fact that you don't think very highly of yourself and you're like, all right, I'm content just to have this. But as you work on your self-esteem, future you may be like, this was such a waste of time, a waste of energy. So you really have to work on trying to forecast the future version of yourself and the opportunity cost you're gonna pay. Because when you wake up 3 years from now, you'd be like, this isn't worth my time anymore. And now you just wasted 3 years of your life. So I find a lot of people listening right now, um, have a hard time focusing on opportunity cost and they put all the energy on opportunity. And opportunity cost always has to be looked side by side. You always have to believe something better is in store for you.

That reminds me of a quote from your book. And you talk about how, and I'm gonna butcher this a little bit, but how opportunity is an inexhaustible resource. And when you see an open, you have to take advantage of it. So can you maybe explain a little bit about what you mean by that and maybe the difference between idea and opportunity?

Yeah, that's a great question. So this just happened to me the other day. Very, very high-profile people were pitching me on a TV show if I wanted to be in on this TV show. And it had a— it doesn't really matter what it is. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But, and then I was like, but wait a second, I was just pitched on this idea 4 weeks ago from another very high-profile producer. And the idea was exactly the same. So I call my friend, I'm like, hey, buddy, I just got picked. Like, this is the name of the show. And he's like, no, that's, that's something different. I'm like, no, no, like, it has to be. And he's like, no, I'm telling you, it has nothing to do— our show is going here, that show. And I was like, Wow, this exactly illustrates the following sentence that the decision to defer an idea and an opportunity is really a decision to relinquish its pursuit to another because we are all operating on the same data set. All 8 billion people are being subjected in some way to the same data set. So if you had an idea, an opportunity, right? Someone else somewhere did too. So when you go ahead and you say, like, it's not the right time, it's, you know, it's just, I'm not sure I'm gonna wait till I do XYZ. Understand that you have deferred. Your decision to defer is actually a decision to relinquish. And I think people don't process that. We just think I'm gonna perfectly sequence my life. I'm gonna finish this and do this. And the reason we do this is because we have a bias towards incrementalism that is operating all upon us, right? We are conditioned to believe I must do A before B before C. We're never mentored to be like, why don't we consider a step change? Like, who said that I have to create the lemonade stand before I have the global lemonade business? So long way of saying to anyone out there, when you're trying to assess whether or not, like, you have time, admit into evidence, accept what I'm telling you, that someone somewhere has invented the exact same idea you just have, which I find people get very demoralized by that. Like, oh, I wanted it all to myself. And I'm like, well, that doesn't really make any sense because your idea came from exposure to a dataset because there is no spontaneous birth of an idea. An idea is always an amalgam of that which came before. So long way of answering you, the reason why I wrote that sentence in the book that it's not is so that people would treasure these insights. And because what I find happens, it's happened to me too. I'll get demoralized that I didn't act on someone, on an idea, and then I have to see somebody else who did. And I didn't realize a competition was launched. the moment that I had that spontaneous insight at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I didn't realize I was in a race. Emerson writes about— anyone out there listening, my favorite piece of art in the world and favorite piece of writing that I return to all the time is Self-Reliance by Emerson, because he talks in the book about this very idea, about the indignity of having to be forced to accept your own ideas from another, from the other who had the confidence and self-possession to actually implemented. And anyone here who's ever watched an infomercial knows exactly what I'm saying. You're like, oh, I had the idea for the Squatty Potty. Shit. I mean, you know, to extend the metaphor, like, why did I act on it? I could have been rich with Lori Greiner. Anyway, long way of saying what I mean by that sentence.

Have you studied Steven Pressfield's work at all?

No, but go on. I want to hear.

We've had him on the podcast a couple of times and he talks about this concept of the muse. So he talks about ideas. They sort of have their own consciousness. And they're projecting down onto this planet using this metaphor, and somebody will snatch it up, right? But like, if you don't take action, that idea will transfer itself to another. And so it's a really interesting way to talk about the same idea that you just said, but you're saying we're all experiencing the same data and some of us will take action. And so just an interesting—

I love that. And it actually makes sense if you think about evolution, the idea of evolution broadly. that every new thing is an evolution of that which came before, right? There's nothing spontaneous. So therefore, any of your ideas, even if you don't credit it, your ideas are just an amalgam of the data synthesis, not an amalgam, a synthesis of all the data you've been subjected to. And obviously someone's been subjected to that too. So I love that idea that there's a muse and they're all being, you know, dangled in front of us and who's gonna grab it and who's gonna not, because that is completely true. It happens to me all the time and I'm like, this has to be plagiarism. And I'm like, this idea is not even that good. Like, so where did it come from? And it's just like, if I showed you what I'm talking about, it was so explicit and so specific that I was like, this has gotta be. And then you realize, no, whoever decided to birth that idea, these 2 different disparate, whoever they are out in the world, were operating on the same evolution of like Shark Tank, right? They watched a million episodes of Shark Tank and something in their idea made them birth this new show. And, and it kind of makes sense when you look at it that way.

Yeah, it's fascinating how the human brain works. I know we're over our time already, but you're a lot of fun to talk to.

No, this is a fun conversation. I mean, for, especially for a Saturday morning, it got me all fired up.

It really is.

I'm fired up too.

So why are you— can I ask you a question? Why are you— where did your focus on death come from? Did anything happen in your life? Like, what was your epiphany?

I grew up in a very traditional white picket fence household. And so I think I had to, as I started to consume personal development information, read biographies about famous entrepreneurs, I realized they all had quite a bit of friction. They all had to overcome something. They had a chip and I didn't have a chip. And so I feel like I had to almost artificially create a little bit of speed, a little bit of, I don't know, urgency in my life. And then when I read The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, I started to think about regret and I wanted to make sure I didn't regret. I think Regret is my biggest fear. I want to make sure that I live a life well lived.

I love it. It is the worst emotion in the universe because it's entirely self-inflicted and completely could be avoided, right? Like we all can avoid regret just by being intentional.

Yeah. And action has become my favorite word. So intention is one of my favorite words as well. But action, I think every single day I want to wake up and take action, get closer to the person that I know I'm capable of becoming. And by reading and implementing books like this, I'm literally condensing decades of your lived experience and your success and best life lessons and realizations into days of consumption. I mean, there's no better life hack in the world.

I love that. And it's funny you said that because I always say, I really believe I did not write a book. I engineered an outcome, right? Which is, again, I think the best books are those where the reader is at the center of the journey and you're trying to engineer an outcome or else what's the point? Unless, again, it's meant to be consumed for different reasons. So, I love hearing you say that. That's what I tried to do, right? I wanted to put these words on paper and hopefully trigger some synapses in you that makes you go in a different direction or reconsider something.

Yeah. And I think like on this subject, my idea right now is that life doesn't have to be so hard. Other people have already figured it out. About 100 billion people have lived on this planet. Millions of them have faced the same problems that we're currently facing and thinking about, and thousands of them have solved those same problems. And they've written about it and you have access for $20 and a few hours of your time to solve the problem. So that's why I read.

And that's how I feel about Buddhism, by the way. I read, you know, there's one book that I return to over and over again, Buddhism Plain and Simple, because of the articulation. But when I read Buddhism, I'm like, wow, somebody already had it figured out a couple of thousand years ago. Why are we still so distressed? Because to me, this is personal. It just resonates as truth. like it is the most true thing I've ever read, the Eightfold Path. And, you know, just generally, I can't implement it. But, you know, I read that, I'm like, wow, we have been laboring a long time retreading ground that has already been covered thousands of years ago. So I love your approach. I find the challenge is not information accumulation, it's assimilation and turning it into action. That is where we struggle in the deployment, not in the access to the information, right?

I want to give a little plug to Nick up here. He actually just released his book or it's about to come out on November 11th, I believe.

Is that amazing?

November 1st.

1st, 1st.

Yeah, about exactly that. So, yeah.

So, Matt, I'll give the—

I'll give that kind of high level. Oh, give it to me. I want it.

High level.

Yeah. So, it's called Rise of the Reader. And so, over the last 5 or 6 years building our community, we've had thousands of people ask the same question, how do I take better action on the books I'm reading? Because most people, they read, they get excited, they're inspired, and they fail to take action. So what's the missing piece? And so I've been able to, you know, Luke and I were both still in our, well, Luke's birthday is tomorrow, right? But we're still both in our 20s and I feel like I've created my dream life by reading and implementing what other people have figured out. And so that's the problem that I want to solve for people and for my community specifically. And so That's the purpose of this.

I love it. Congrats. So, what do you want? What do you want the yield to be when somebody reads your book?

I want them to get more from the other books they're reading and take better action. And here's— you shared the story. What was her name? The person that you've invested in?

Isabella.

Isabella. So, I had a moment very similar to that recently. This podcast is not about me, but let's run with it. You have a few more minutes?

No, I'm having fun. No, no, I want to hear about it. I'm bored of me now.

So impact is only felt through feedback, right? You put the book out there, people implement something, it improves their lives, and then they tell you about it. So recently I was on my honeymoon with my wife. We were in Croatia and we were outside of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a very small city by itself, but we were in an even smaller sort of area outside of Dubrovnik and we were going to a bar to grab a couple of drinks and we walked past a great looking restaurant right on the water. And so my wife said to me, hey, let's, on the way back from the bar, we'll make reservation for tomorrow night. Okay, great. Well, we stayed a little bit too long at the bar and as we're walking back, the restaurant is closing. And she said, ah, don't worry about it. Like, we'll just come back tomorrow and try to figure it out. And I said, no, like, let me walk inside and see if there's somebody that could take a reservation for us. So I walked in and I found a guy who was cleaning and I got his attention and I said, hey, I'd like to make a reservation for tomorrow. Can you help me? And he looked up mopping or whatever he was doing and he said, Yeah, of course. By the way, I'm a huge fan. And I said, no, fan of what? And he said, your book recommendations. I'm getting goosebumps again.

Oh, that's amazing.

And he went into such intricate detail talking about the books I've recommended on Instagram, how he's implemented them, how he's in a much better headspace. And that's the outcome that I want. I want people to implement the books they're reading effectively and create positive change. That's why I'm here.

That's a moment you're in Dubrovnik, beautiful city, by the way. And that is amazing, right? Like, that's incredible. Doesn't that sustain you?

It does. And so that's like, people ask, like, did you have a big aha moment when you finished the book? No, I'm waiting for somebody to say, hey, I read it, I implemented it, I used it on other books. I use those books to solve problems and I'm better now.

Well, let's talk about book marketing for a second since you're about to launch this journey. Can you give me a Can you give me the strategy and the goal?

Yeah, of course. So I decided to self-publish because 50% of our clients are self-published and it's harder to sell and promote a book when it's self-published. So that's—

Really? Why is that? Because I have come around entirely and think that somebody's base case should be to self-publish and should be talked into using a publisher.

Well, I believe that too, but it is nice to leverage the relationships that a publisher has as far as book distribution. So to self-publish, especially to launch a preorder campaign, it's hard to sort of connect with IngramSpark and all these other sort of behind-the-scenes platforms. But I agree, I think self-publish should be the base case. You own your IP, you have more control over the process, and you do have to spend a little bit more money upfront, which I think is difficult for some people. But in the right case, I think it's better.

Why do you have to spend more upfront? Yeah, like where is the spending happening upfront?

If a publisher pays for your editing, for your cover design.

Oh yeah, all that stuff for sure. The formation is definitely more expensive. You're gonna spend, you know, $500 on cover art, you know, blah, blah, blah. But can I tell you my thinking on this? And I, again, I don't, I haven't self-published. I don't know. But when I'm using Amazon backend as an example, right? So I teach at Harvard Business School, I teach direct-to-consumer, right? The idea that you as an owner of a product can't control the backend on your own and you have to go through an intermediary, is so offensive to my DNA. So that's number one. As an author, you don't control the Amazon backend when you're going through a publisher. And so you can't use the review suggestion function, like all this stuff that I would want. That's number one. Number 2, if you just look at LTV, long-term value, you're able because you have a community here and every author should be thinking they are the epicenter of a community, not epicenter, but the convener of a community. Right? And when you, when you're doing that and, you know, you're building a community, if you control the entire margin of a book, well, I don't know what you're charging. I'm gonna assume $25 or I don't know what your first, you know, your hardcover is, right? You have that full amount of revenue to justify acquisition cost, right? And because you're ahead of a community, you can think about customer in terms of long-term value. What else are we gonna work on together? What else can I sell? When you are working through a publisher and you're only pocketing $4 of every plug, There's nobody has enough revenue to justify marketing spend. That is the part that drives me nuts, right? So you can justify marketing spend on your book because you have all the margin, right? What are you gonna launch it at for hardcover?

Hardcover is $19.99 and paperback is $15.

And what does it cost you per book? A dollar?

Yeah, it's—

Right.

So you have all that margin to spend and because you're building a community and you'll sell other products presumably and you'll have a newsletter, you know, like you can justify, whereas if you rely on a publisher, they're only making $5, you know, no one's making enough to care enough to spend to market your book. And that part is the part that I find so, like, sad if you write something you really care about.

Yeah. Well, hey, I would second everything that you've just said. So yeah, 1000%. And so we only work on the book marketing side of things. I think as our business continues to grow, we'll get earlier in the process because helping people self-publish, Like, we, most of our clients are time-pressured entrepreneurial types. And so they're paying, you know, a publisher approaches them, they're offering some money, they write the book, they don't have to do anything, it doesn't sell, then they come to us. So we need to get earlier in that process, I think, and encourage more people to self-publish. But—

I think you got, I honestly get earlier, early, early. And, you know, the biggest mistake I made, which I knew I was making, but the biggest mistake was me not having an email database. Yeah.

And that's admittedly a mistake that we still have over here.

Yeah, right. But I think if you're getting involved in advising authors, getting earlier in the process to help them build a community with content before they launch, like when you look at the common thread of anybody who writes a nonfiction book and has managed to create like a perpetual machine, always with the exception of like maybe one, it's because they already had a community. and they already had a database that converted. That full stop because you cannot spend your way to success with a book. Like, I mean, I have the means and so I do. And but like, it's not a rational act. I justify it. If you looked at my house, I have thousands of books right now. My wife's like, we're sending a book for free to Saudi Arabia. I'm like, well, they had a need, you know, like somebody sent me a DM. Like, I'm lucky, I'm lucky. But I look at the ROI of my book as if I change someone's life, that's worth, that supports a pretty high CAC, you know, but that's the one downside without it. I would say to anybody out there who's thinking about being an author and listening to this, you must create a newsletter and be long before you ever launch your book, probably 2 years before you need to develop a database of at least 10,000 people, then your life will get infinitely easier. I'm picking that number arbitrarily, but it feels right.

Well, I love that you're recommending that and, you know, most of our revenue comes from short-form video content for our agency. So we're helping people build their social media database, their social media following by providing value, really useful content. And then we go out there within their accounts and attract more like-minded followers. It's all 100% organic, 100% legitimate. And that is the way to do it. It's community. And so that's why I've had an easy time so far self-publishing and selling books. But back to your book, there's something else that I wanted to mention earlier in the conversation. I've noticed a lot of people that spend money to sell books and have thousands of books in their basement, they're not writing a good book and that's the issue. So when most people, let's just say, pay for 10,000 of their own books, it stops there because the book itself doesn't sell more books once it's in somebody's hands. The difference with your book, this perpetual machine, is that it creates its own word-of-mouth viral potential. Because every book that's read and consumed, like Luke is going to be tattooed and then he's going to tell everybody in his life for the next 10 years that asks about the tattoo.

Oh, thank you.

He got it because of your book, right? So that's word of mouth virality and that only is baked into a good book.

So, you know, I— I love that you said that. That is true, by the way. Word of mouth is everything on the book. But if you look at the, at your book campaigns, let's say you did write a good book, and I wrote a good book, you wrote a good book, right? Like we put our heart and soul into it. You got the— build a wider base, you end up with a taller mountain. So like you do need to get it distributed and that's where the money I'm spending now knowing that if I look at the process of writing a review as a proxy for evangelism, which it is, right? If one writes a review, I'm making this up, but they're 5 times more likely to probably tell somebody because they made an emotional investment in it. So the more you generate, but if you don't have that nucleus, of people so that compounding, then you don't kind of get anywhere, right? So I agree with you. I, let's like, let's be slightly judgmental. I think writing a book for the, just the sake of a, of the credential, I don't really understand that. That's a lot of damn effort to go ahead and like just saying you had a book. A lot of people have a book, so I wouldn't do that. Writing a book to change people's lives or influence or express your art seems to be the right way to do it. And 2, getting your book out and in front of people, it is so worthy because of the compounding of the word of mouth. But simply buying a bunch of your books so you can make a list, like, isn't really gonna achieve anything long term. I guess the credential is kind of nice. Me, I have, I have the books here for 2 reasons. One, that I, I really wanna get my book in libraries. As a little kid, I spent so much hours in libraries that I, I really love the idea. The problem is very hard to get a book to a library. If you just mail it to a library, they'll sell it on eBay. And so I tell people out there, if you have a library, go to library and get the name of the person and then I will send it because I don't want to just send it, you know, en masse. But anyway, I think number one advice that you and I are focusing on, like social is great, but social doesn't actually specifically convert. It's not bottom of the funnel. And so you must be using social to ultimately drive to email collection. And so you've got to look at your book marketing as a progression to get people to ultimately full stop. The goal is to get your email because email will convert at about 5%. So, you know, do the math. You got 10,000 people, you got 5%. Yeah. And that number might get better over time. So I'm not saying anything you don't know, but I just don't think we talk enough tactically around for authors.

Yeah. And then I think to take it one step further, social converts to email, email converts to a book sold. The book should convert to action that other people ask about.

Right.

Yeah.

That's the end piece. So that's what I optimized for, for my book. I want people to take better action from the books they're reading and I provide over 100 examples of of actions that I've taken from the books that I've read and that other people can implement with the hopes that, or with the intention that people ask about it. And then the book itself becomes a marketing mechanism.

Isn't it amazing how few people do this though? Like what you're saying, like they don't realize that, like, why do you buy a book, right? You buy a book, a nonfiction book because you wanna be taught and you wanna then be motivated to take an action to solve a problem. Right? And why is Atomic Habits the number one book on planet Earth? It's because the— it's so elegantly constructed to identify a problem we all have, which is I wanna do better on my habits. That's what I beat myself up on. And the book is perfectly engineered. It is like a work of art, right? Like, to me, if anyone out there writing a book in our genre, dissect what happened with that book. And I think what— where people go wrong, especially people like me, wealthy or successful, they write a book that's like a victory lap. And it's like nobody gives a shit. Like, it's not— and also, why is that interesting? So I do think owning a patch of dirt, a simple premise like you did, you now, your premise is you want to be able to take more away from these books because you have all this accumulated wisdom and you want to act on them. Here's how. My book is you want to fully commit, you don't know how, let me show you how and let me prove it through this ancient doctrine.

Right.

Own a patch of dirt that is very ownable and authentic to you that the reader can feel like, I believe you are the right transmitter of this. and then engineer an outcome that the reader will take, not something that you will get, right? Not the praise. I hate when the worst criticism somebody can say about my book is that it's an autobiography. I'm like, oh no, it's not. I only shared enough to credentialize myself so that you wouldn't think, you know, I'm some random rich guy, right? Like, I don't want this. First of all, it's an autobiography, you'd be crying. Like, it's not. But you get it. Anyway, we're going on and on. But I love this advice because I've seen some people write very good But like they missed a little bit of mentoring and it became an exercise in either self-ego gratification or the payoff wasn't very clear enough. They're just like little things are enough to tank a book.

Yeah, I agree 1,000%. Unfortunately for most people in your position that already have a platform and are credible and have the money to spend, the book influences the author the most and never the reader, right? It's like this process of, okay, now I'm going through all of this and it's self-therapy and And I love it so much and then it doesn't impact anybody.

Yeah. Whereas I mean, the one thing I haven't been able to figure out is I am so hard on myself about like, could have been better, could have been this, could have been that. Why? Like, I don't, I experience joy for like a minute when I get one of those DMs and then I go back to the grind. So like, there's nothing about this book. I'm very happy about the impact, but otherwise the credential doesn't matter. The Wall Street Journal doesn't matter to me. It really is. You know, how do I reach more people? Why am I not more effective? Why is it not taking off more? Not because I need the accolade. I already got that. It's because I did it for a purpose. And once you figure out what you're— what's the greatest use of your life, you like then are desperate about it, right? Like I wanted to work more. I wanna reach more people because then I'm gonna get more of those DMs and that's the most meaningful thing I could do with my money. Anyway, that was a lot. That was maybe a bit of self-therapy.

Do you, You know, I'm not trying to get emotional here. Wow. Your book is you actually. Let's just, you're, you obviously care about people very, very much, right? And something that I have beat myself up a lot about over the years is that I'm a very naturally empathetic person. I see somebody struggling and I'm like, man, I just want to fix it. I want to help you.

I can see it in your eyes. Your soft eyes.

I have just— thank you, because I have, I have been through a lot myself. You know, I've been, um, sorry.

You can share. I talked about my ball getting cut off.

I've been, uh, suicidal several times in my life. I've struggled with anxiety in such a big way, and I see others out there. You know, something I, I do like weekly is I get on Reddit and, um, I go to a couple of the different subreddits— depression, suicide, like people thinking about that— and I just It is a dark place, so I don't recommend people go there, but there are people struggling everywhere. And I just go on there because I don't feel like I have— I don't have a lot of credentials or I can't really help people that much. But I go on there and I'll just leave a kind comment or just be like, man, I'm so sorry you're struggling with this. If you need an ear, I'm not a professional, but I can listen. And the amount of messages I've gotten on there that— the amount of people that have come to me and be like, man, that's what I needed. I just needed that someone. I just needed someone to say something to me because I've— man, sorry.

Amazing. No, it's amazing. I get why you're getting— you should get emotional. I mean, nothing's more important. It's a human life. Why would that not make—

of course.

Yeah. So, I just like, I appreciate you so much because I looked at the struggle that you went through and the things that you went through with your mom and the things that you went through with your childhood. And I know, like, you shared just glimpses of it through the book. But even the glimpses that you showed us, it was like, wow, this guy gets it. Like, he gets it. And there are so many of these super successful people that you see that, you know, it's hard to relate to their story because it's like they were successful right from the start. You know, they're 19 years old and they have $100 grand in their account already. They're selling their— they have a unicorn business, they're selling it for millions of dollars. So anyway, that's just a long-winded way to say I really appreciate what you've done. And what you've put out there and like putting your heart and soul on paper. And I don't know, but I think like going back to the title of your book, I feel like if you changed the title to something else, like it may have been a little bit more approachable, but at the same time, I'm so happy that you kept, like, I'm so happy with that title because it's just, it's so good and it's so right. I'm rambling, but—

No, no, I appreciate you saying that because first of all, you should be emotional for doing that. And it's amazing that you do do that. It's you. You have experienced something. You feel something, and you know the impact if you do something right. That's kind of the point. I'm trying to live my truth that I believe every crisis really does birth an opportunity even greater. You have a chance to take back more than was taken from you. You have struggled with depression or sadness and felt suicidal at times. So how do you turn that into something even more powerful than what was taken from you, which was having these feelings? And it's going ahead and doing something about it. It's how I I feel with the book, the part, what makes me hard about this book is I don't feel like I wrote the book. I feel like I'm representing the book. And when I fall short, I feel like I'm failing on behalf of it because I know the impact it could have. To your point about the title, no, there is an alternative universe where it had a very literal title, How to Fully Commit and Stop Hedging, you know, like 3 easy steps. And I was like, you know, I know I should do that and I could do that. And it's more likely to be Atomic Habits if I do do that. But if I could take this phrase that is already imbued with authority that goes back to the beginning of recorded history and I can appropriate it on behalf of the, the, the, the risk averse, the angst laden, I will have made a service because it's easily rememberable. But that requires me successfully building a brand and that would require a degree of determination that I have had to dig deeper before than ever before. And so I love you acknowledging like probably would have been easier, better with a different title. But here, can I, can I tell you one great thing? I love this. If you go on Google right now and you Google Burn the Boats. Cortés has been erased from the first half of Google. Like, this homicidal guy, you know, genocidal maniac, like, he has been erased. And now I have reclaimed it. And the only mentions of Burn the Boats are these tender, empathetic discussions with Ed Mylett about, you know, dying, and that our conversation will be on there and not about some guy who burned the boats and just basically decimated the Aztecs. So, you know, anyway, we're both rambling, but I appreciate you sharing that. And hopefully one day you'll write your own book where you talk about that.

Well, we'll certainly see. But yeah, I mean, that's actually such a cool thing that I didn't think about. But you do, you Google burn the boats now, what comes up is your book and you and the conversations and everything else. So I think that that's actually just that, that's really cool. Like taking a phrase back.

That's crazy, right? Like, that's like great.

Like, I'm even thinking like future, like history, like if people, you know, 200 years from now, Google or whatever the equivalent is to that, like, and they're researching the phrase burn the boats, and This comes up.

Well, right, that's what I'm saying. I know it's a little like Jedi and meta, but I really was like, I'm gonna appropriate this idea because there's so many people out there like Isabella who have something great to give the world, but they either feel unsupported or they feel dirty or they feel shameful. I was like, I am the messenger of that. I can deliver that message credibly. You can't read my story, if nothing else, you can hate me, you could discount it, whatever you want, but you can't say it's not authentic. like, they can't say it didn't happen. And that's very, very valuable use of my story, right? Like, the valuable use of my story is not the credentials, it's the ability to transmit this simple idea. So I love that. And it's not like Cortez is running an ongoing marketing campaign, so I'm likely to stay there. So, and but now one last point, then I felt bad for the Chinese though. I'm like, well, this isn't fair, it's an Asian doctrine. Cortez, he didn't even have an Instagram account, but he was able to eclipse them all these years. I was like, I'm gonna reappropriate I'm gonna get the book published in China, which I just got a deal done. It's now published throughout China and Taiwan and Hong Kong. And then I'm gonna tattoo this on me and then take it one step further. I go to meet the tattoo artist. I'm like, obviously I have to have an Asian tattoo artist. And I meet this guy, his name is Lo. And I come in and he's Korean and he's emotional. And I'm like, oh, why are you so emotional? He's like, I have been repeating this phrase my entire life, the Korean version. I'm like, Like, get it? Why? Because my art is to be a tattoo artist, but in Korea it's illegal. And I struggle with this. And my parents were like, you can't be a tattoo artist. It's embarrassing. It's not— in Korea you have to be a doctor, right? So, but I was in college and then he's like, I dropped out and I told my parents I have burned the boats. I must fully commit and I'm gonna move to the United States and I'm gonna be a tattoo artist. And he came here And then eventually his beautiful art became very successful. Obviously, his parents are proud of him. And I'm like, this is amazing. I was like, the guy who embraced the doctrine and actually burned the boats is the one who's gonna go ahead and do a tattoo. And then I was like, okay, now I'm being called. I was like, I need to rewrite the book and make the intro no longer about me, but I need to make it about him. So I rewrote the book and I made the intro of the book now about Dr. Lowe. I call him Dr. Lowe because it's funny. And so it's about This guy who burned the boats from Korea is now the beginning of the book, you know, throughout Asia. So it's like I've been doing that more. I've been morphing the book and rewriting it for every country based upon stories that— so somebody in that country would feel seen, I guess, is the long way of saying that. But isn't that amazing?

Dr. Love literally gave me chills.

Like, wow. And now I got this badass tattoo.

Luke, now we know where you're going to get tattooed.

I was literally thinking that the whole time. I was like, man, I guess this is where I need— I need to fly out and get a tattoo there.

Wait, do you know what the words you're doing or you don't know?

So I literally wanna do, I wanna do focus on the wins.

I love it. And be reminded of.

Yeah. Because I just need, I need that reminder every day. Like I've literally written it on, today was the first day I didn't because I actually had a, um, this morning went to a float tank, but I've been writing that on my forearm every single day and just literally for the last like 2 or 3 weeks. And it's helped me so, so much. Like almost, it's weird how much it's helped me. It's like anytime I'm feeling a little down, I just look down, focus on the wins. It's like, okay dude, you've, look at what you've accomplished. Look at the things you've done today. say, you're doing good. It's okay. Keep going.

No, but that's the idea for me. Why? So why this phrase? And again, this is, this is the bombastic proxy. But the real meaning of those words to me are really commit. You committed. It's decided. Stop. And so that is for me to be my— that's my biggest struggle. And that does come from childhood being evicted. And like, I like going— I mean, you were sharing before, going to bed at night is Vietnam for me. I have to always— I'm entering war. And like, it is the worst part of my day. I get up multiple times and look for the sun. I like— the sun relieves me of the horror of reliving everything. And so my problem is that nighttime horror of reliving everything I've been through is in the background during the day, and it undermines the commitment because then I imagine what might happen, what might, you know. So when I wrote my book as my accountability part, I really mean it. Like, and the reason I shared you know, sanitized versions of what we're talking about now is because it's a business book, right? But like, that is why I got it tattooed. It's the one thing I need to be like, Matt, you committed already, you did it. And then I'm like, okay, right. I don't need— so for you, it's focus on the wins, right? Like, so, and for you, I love, Nick, the idea of like, hey, I'm gonna die, right? Let me, let me be urgent. And I love the idea that you said you needed to prosthetically install into your life a degree of urgency and friction. Without manufacturing a bullshit hard hardscrabble narrative. I hate when I hear people coming up with all— everyone is being pressured into having a narrative like, well, I was an athlete, you know, like, it's like, I don't know. I'm like, don't do that. It's cringy. You don't need to manufacture some type of hardscrabble background. Everybody's life sucks. You're fine. There's probably— you probably were unloved. Your dad never said I love you. That sucks. You don't need to make something grand, you know, grandiose. We all have something bad. You know, anyway, yeah, this is great.

Just like, well, it's probably not gonna focus actually.

No, no, do it. Move it back. What does it say?

I have, uh, well, it's funny because I have like a separate camera, but I have the victim to hero piece here. I don't know if it's gonna focus because of the camera.

Let's just— Wait, the victim to hero upgrade, is that what it says?

Yes. Yeah, so I have same thing because I hate when people artificially manufacture woe is me because And then they just turn up the sadness on something that wasn't even sad, right?

They certainly— and then, but the worst is they turn up the sadness on a manufactured, you know, period of trial and trial. It's usually— it's, it falls in these buckets: ego— I became so egotistical and I lived a big life and then it was all taken from me— or just simply like went through something horrible that was like a pimple on your ass, but you turned it into this big thing. And then, but now I got over it. it and I'm great now. Let me share you what I've learned. And I always say like, I'm not here to lecture, I'm here to commiserate in perpetuity. And so when I read those things, I'm like, you're actually doing violence to the reader because you are making them feel less than because they know that the human condition is actually 2 steps forward, one step back. Your packaging implies that everything's in the rearview mirror. And I actually think that's, of course, it's a lie. It's not true for anybody. But 2, it doesn't really help anybody, right? So, I have another—

well, all of my tattoos, by the way, are tattooed with some type of intention to reinforce some type of thinking. These are accountability partners just like your book. So, I have Reality Is Negotiable tattooed on this wrist because I needed to break the idea of that traditional 9 to 5, like shed society's expectations. Oh my God. It was very overwhelming for me. Again, not something that I need to amplify, but just something I need to be reminded.

Right. Like, you're not saying like, what was you? You're like, I need to work through that, right?

Yeah. And like every time I feel friction, I reread the tattoo 1,000 times and I'm like, okay, no, like I'm on the right path. I'm good. I'm committed. Just like—

By the way, if I did another one, but I have to find some nice Latin way to say it. But like for me, it would be, this is what I did this morning when I was going through a degree of like, I don't know, just like longing and like of life, wanted to hug my kid again when he was 12 on a hill in Ireland. Like I was having a lot of like, oh, that's past, that's beyond me. And I was like, the present is the gift. The present is the gift. This is it. It's happening now. That's the meaning of life is right here. Zoom in, you know, and I was like enjoying the colors of the leaves and the, you know, just like everything, the taste of the coffee. Like, so if I were to tattoo again, an accountability move. The present is the gift, you know, and stop searching for something else. Yeah. So we're all gonna be tatted up. My sleeve.

All right.

Well, we'll each finish today's show with, we each have a last question that we ask.

And what's your question?

All right.

So my question is, over the last couple of years, other than your book, what book have you gifted Such a good question.

The answer is probably The Road. It's actually not a nonfiction book. I love The Road. It's a father story, father-son story, won the Pulitzer Prize. You know, it's very sad. I just love that book. And if it were in the nonfiction genre, it's probably, it is probably Buddhism Plain and Simple. When anyone's ever struggling, I said, this is a book I return to all the time over and over again. It's the number one book I read over and over again. It would be that book. And then lastly, Atomic Habits, because I want to plug that because that's the best book ever written in the genre.

Yeah, 10 million copies over the last couple of years. It's a good one.

Deservedly so.

Right.

Every time I post about it on our, or we post about it on our book review page, it's like an automatic 4x in engagement.

Isn't it amazing? I want to spend time with James Clear just to understand, like how much of this was intentional and engineered versus how much of it is just, it worked out, an expression of your capability. Like, because there are a lot of people, I have the books on my phone right now. There was a ton of books that were before him with the exact same premise. Obviously, he's not a scientist, right? So he's a reporter and yet his book was the one. So I wanna, I'm curious how much he studied the craft to write the book, right? Like I studied this, you know, ownable patch of dirt, even the color choice was deliberate. I got to know Adam Grant. Like, like, I tried. So any degree to which I fall short is not somebody pretending that they didn't try. Like, I tried, so you can blame me for everything. But with him, did he try or did it just happen? I'm curious.

Yeah, he has a great conversation with Tim Ferriss on Tim's podcast about some of the things that he did with intention. Yeah, I'll let you listen. We won't ramble too much.

Oh no, people have said that. Wait, I want to tell you one more book, uh, because this is fun that I get to give you book. There's a book that I think is so good. It was a New York Times bestseller, but I think it deserves to like be one of the perennial ones that we talk about. And I don't quite feel like it is. It's called Made to Stick and it's why some ideas survive and some don't, all about the psychology of what it takes for an idea to stick. And it's a fantastic book. I like when I read a book that humbles me. I'm like, ooh, that's better than my book. I wish I had like, or I wish I had kind of done that. And that's, lastly, people keep asking me when I'm gonna do my next book and I, and I'm like, I don't wanna do my next book, but what I do wanna do is continue my book. And so I've done 2 things which are kind of cool. I, I'm pretty sure I was the first author anywhere who basically took everything about his book and then created a chatbot around it and created my own little LLM. And it's called, I did it through Dante and his name is Triton. Triton is Poseidon's son who has the ability to calm the waters. So if you go to my burntheboatsbook.com, you can at any moment ask Triton a question and on any topic. And I uploaded all the science, all the history, all the psychology, every podcast into there. So it'll give you a pretty good answer about imposter syndrome or life. My son tried it out and he was like, damn, Dad, that's like pretty much what you would've said. I'm like, well, it's based upon me. So you can go ahead and, and then second thing, I really wanna add another chapter and then maybe just give it away. Like, I want to address the deficiencies in a book that become clear after you talk about it a lot. So anyway, long way of saying I don't have another book. I want to extend my book and make it look better for the reader.

As you should, as you should.

Right, as you should. It's like honorable. People give you their money, they give you more importantly than the money, imagine whatever the average human being in America makes per hour, they're giving you 7 of those hours. It's like, so anything I could do to increase the yield on that time, I feel obligated before I move on to a I love it.

Well, I'll ask my final question, even though I want to keep going for another 2 hours here, which is this. You pass away and all the information that you've put out, the books, the courses, Triton, like goes away and you can leave the world with a single piece of advice. What would it be?

Oh man. I'm just going to do the thing that popped into my head. Nobody cares. The greatest regret that I have are the times I self-centered my own ambition in anticipation and preemption of how that ambition would be greeted. And I put myself in my own box. When I look back on my life, nobody put me in a box. I did. And it's because I thought they cared. And the reality is nobody cares because they're preoccupied with their own problems and they're not judging you nearly as much. And it goes back to the book you mentioned in the beginning, 5 regrets at dying. One of them at the top is this idea of living someone else's life. And that comes because you think people care when they don't. And young people struggle with this a lot. And I think it's sad that you have to wait till you're 48 to realize like nobody cared. And if you can learn that earlier, you can play a little more effortlessly and stop self-censoring your own ambition and anticipation of how you're gonna be judged. I'm only, I don't know if that's the most important thing I have to say in the world, but it's the thing that popped in my head.

You're probably most people.

Yeah. I love it. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Nobody cares. It's so true. And I love what you say, you put yourself in your own box. We do that every single day. We wake up and put ourselves in our own box. It's all up to the choices you make. All right, Matt. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. The one final thing is just let people know where they can find you and how they can find out more about your book and everything else.

Yeah. I mean, if you let me know what you think about my book, I always respond. I am on LinkedIn a lot and I'm on Instagram. Those are Probably the 2 places. Obviously, the book is available everywhere, but if you read it, one, thank you, 2, DM me because it sustains this crazy effort, makes me do more podcasts. So that's it.

Love it. All right. Well, thank you so much, Matt. Appreciate your time. This was an amazing conversation. It is definitely one for the record books. Can't wait to talk to you again.

All right. Thanks, everybody. Can't wait to see your tattoo. Let me know.

Yes. All right. I will.

All right, everybody. Take care.