Why Balance Is the Enemy of Greatness | David Senra | My First Million

Sometimes i think i should shut up and not say the things i say on podcasts david senra david senra the guy's name is david senra.

He's got a podcast called founders.

To even get on founders podcasts you have to be so good at your job.

Somebody wrote a book about it.

That's an insanely high bar.

It's almost like it's an obsession.

It is.

I'm addicted.

I've known you now for i don't know, four or five years.

I think you are crazier now than you were.

I'm not balanced.

I don't think i can be balanced.

I don't think i want to be balanced.

I want to be the best in the world at what I do.

People are like, oh, 10,000 hours.

I'm way past that.

Like way past that.

So of course I've changed.

I'm not doing this to stay the same.

The difference between the world's greatest and pretty good, it's not a little bit better.

It's not 20% better.

It's like thousand times better.

And that is hard to grasp.

Mediocrity is invisible until passion shows up and exposes it.

I've become intolerable for people that are casual.

And I don't even know why I'm like that.

I think I was lying to myself for a while that I don't need anybody else.

I wanted professional success to say I was born in the wrong environment.

And I will prove to you that I am not like the rest of these people.

It's almost like a revenge for being born.

Are you a happy person?

I don't think you're happy.

I... I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I can be what I want to. okay so you have to look this guy up elude kipchoge you have to see what he looks like he looks more like a gazelle than a human being because the thing about uh world-class athletes and runners is you see them like when they're uh exerting themselves and like wearing their like running gear or whatever and so they like yeah he looks amazing but then you see him in real clothes and you're like oh my god that person is so much skinnier has so much less body fat than the average show how on earth are these two human beings both human beings like a normal person versus elude and so he runs the marathon i think of like 201 which is like 436, I think, for the mile.

Crazy fast.

And what we were saying was the difference between the world's greatest or the best there ever was, and pretty good, you know, it's not a little bit better.

It's not 20 better, it's like 10 times better or a hundred thousand or a thousand times better, and that is hard to grasp, do you agree?

Yeah, i mean you asked me like what am i think?

Right before we started recording, you saw what i was doing, like what are you thinking about?

And i was like i'm thinking about how this looks and he's like but does that matter?

I was like everything matters, like we're trying to be the best in the world at what we're doing, so like we have to take everything very, very seriously.

I think the only thing i'm obsessed with there's actually um, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got uh, that I won't shut up about.

And I think about literally probably every day now is this idea of constant refinement of association that my friend Jared Kushner told me.

And Jared is unbelievably honest.

There's a great line in, um, I just finished, we were talking upstairs.

I just finished reading Bruce Springsteen's autobiography and there's a great line.

He talks about his deep friendship that he has with Jimmy Iovine.

And he's like, you want Jimmy in the room?

Cause he'll tell you the truth.

Like everybody around Bruce is kissing his ass.

And like, Jimmy's just like this album sucks.

So this is great.

You like trust his judgment.

And Jared's like that too, where he's just like if he's your friend and he likes you, He's very kind.

But he was like hey, what you're doing is not good enough for you.

This person is not good enough for you.

Be careful with this.

And so this constant refinement association is important because, as you keep getting better at what you do, you get access to people that are great at what they do too.

And there's a lot of commonalities between them.

And then, once you're exposed to that, I always have this line that mediocrity is invisible until passion shows up and exposes it.

I've become intolerable for like, People that are casual the way they push their work or the friends they choose to hang out with are just anything that is not them striving for excellence.

And I don't even know why I'm like that.

It's just I have to be, I want to be, I have to be the best in the world at what I'm doing.

Or did you become like that because you've studied 400 biographies of greatness?

That's a great question.

I don't know.

Michael Dell has this great line in his autobiography where, at the time he's 19 years old, he's in his dorm room at the University of Texas, he's got 1000 and he's like I'm going to compete with IBM.

That is delusional.

IBM at the time is the most valuable company in the world.

It was the first company, I didn't even know, I had to go back and research this.

The first company to get to $100 billion market cap in history was IBM.

And you have this kid that's like, I'm going to compete head to head with them.

And the next line when he's talking about this is, Was I a little full of myself at 19?

Sure I was.

I think you have to be to do anything special.

So I always had this deep, just delusional self-confidence.

And like default optimism that like I focus on something, I will figure it out.

I will figure out how to do this.

But I also think it's impossible.

Like I've obviously changed.

I've been doing the other, I've been doing Founders Podcast for almost 10 years.

It's like, I think I'm like, I don't know, 407 of these books by far.

That's hundreds of thousands of pages.

That is people like, oh, 10,000 hours.

I'm way past that.

So of course I've changed.

I'm not doing this to stay the same.

Well, I've known you now for I don't know four or five years, and I've listened to you for longer than that.

I think you are crazier now than you were.

I think you are more obsessed now than you were.

Sometimes I think I should shut up and not say the things I say on podcasts, because I don't like having a filter.

I don't like having two different sides of me.

It makes me fundamentally uncomfortable.

And so then I'm like, you know what?

I'm just not going to hold back.

I'm just going to say this.

I just did this when I went on Tim Ferriss' podcast.

And I talked about.

Tim didn't tell me what we were going to talk about, other than he told my team.

He's like please tell David not to curse so much.

That's what I told you five years ago.

And I don't think that came from Tim.

I think they came from Tim's team.

And I think we did.

We accomplished that goal.

But he started asking questions and I like, hesitated for a half a second in my mind, or half a minute.

I'm like, man, I should not say this stuff.

I don't, this is going to be bad.

And I just let it go.

And since then I was just on the phone.

I won't say who I was talking to, but it's a founder of a public company.

Uh, he's relatively young, wildly successful.

And he was just like Hey, I listened to your Tim Ferriss interview and he's like I know exactly what you're talking about because like, I went through that too.

And you hear that over and over again.

So to answer your question, like, am I crazier?

Is that the term that you use or like more intense?

I think I was lying to myself for a while.

And if you look at episode 222 of Founders Podcast, it says Ed Thorpe.

And in parentheses, it says my personal blueprint.

And Ed Thorpe's a legit genius.

I am not a genius.

Whatever he directed his talents to, he was going to succeed, because he's a legitimate, I think, fundamental genius.

And what I liked about him is he was a real balanced person.

You would love him.

Yeah.

Because you are like this.

And I think you're truly like this.

A lot of our conversations are like this, where like, Essentially bounded his professional life.

He was very successful.

I'll give a quick TLDR of his life.

He was the person that invented how to count cards in blackjack.

He was a mathematician and he was a professor for a long time.

He wrote a book called Beat the Dealer, which tells you how to count cards.

The 1960s sold millions of copies.

He started the first quantitative hedge fund.

All time he was like one of the first investors in berkshire hathaway.

He meets warren buffett when they're both in the 30s and he gets in the car.

He's like that guy's gonna be the richest person in the world one day.

Uh so, and he invented the world's first uh, handheld wearable computer with claude shannon, who's the father of information theory and another genius.

It's just like how did one guy do all this like the forrest gump of like finance?

That's a great way to think about it and so.

But he was also like he came from a real messed up family.

Uh, he got into like weightlifting and fit, like taking care of his health, before there was anything like bodybuilding.

And he said an hour, the way he's figured this out, he was in college time.

He's like.

Well, the way I think about this, and every hour that I spend in the gym working on my health now is one less day in the hospital when I'm 80 or 90.

Uh, he went on Tim Ferriss' show and you look at him and I'd show pictures.

I'm like, how old do you think this guy is?

Like, oh, he's like 60.

It's like 92 or 90 or however old he is.

So anyways, his whole thing was like, I want a balanced life.

He would work, you know, nine to five, thereabouts.

Then he would spend time on his health, his work, his family, and then he'd like to have fun.

And it was a much more balanced life.

And then he also did something which was fascinating, where once he made more money than he could ever spend in his lifetime.

He also didn't like to travel, like you,

He has this beautiful house in Newport California, and every time he travels he goes.

This is a downgrade.

Like why did I leave my house once he started had enough money that he didn't need more money, he stopped trading time for money.

And he had like, you know, these are like layups.

Oh, I can make $30 million on, you know, investing in this oil thing or whatever the case is.

It's just like, whoa, what's the point?

And so for a long time, because by that time I'd read, you know, 200 of these books and I was like oh, he's like an outlier and outlier.

Like most of these people are like just singularly obsessed in their work.

And so for a long time, like I think I was lying to myself like, yeah, I want to balance life.

And it's just like, no, I'm not balanced.

I don't think I can be balanced.

I don't think I want to be balanced.

I want to be the best in the world at what I do.

And again, I narrowly define that.

I'm not trying to, you know, I think that the narrow definition is important.

And that's kind of what I think about all day.

That's what kind of drives me.

That is when I feel comfortable.

And maybe I'll change my in the future.

But like, I'm fundamentally uncomfortable not working towards some kind of professional goal.

All right, I read a ton, I would say almost a book a week.

And the reason I read so much is because my philosophy towards reading is I want to see what worked for the winners that I love and what strategies they use.

And then I want to see what mistakes did they all make?

What were the common flaws that they all had?

And I just want to avoid that.

And so HubSpot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far in 2025.

And I did that.

So I listed out seven books that made a meaningful difference in my life.

And I explained what the differences that they had on me or what actions I took because of the book.

And then also I listed out my very particular ways of reading, because I'm pretty strategic about how I read and how I read so much and how I remember what I read and things like that.

And so I put this together in a very simple guide.

It's seven books that had a huge impact on my life.

And you can scan the QR code below if you want to read it, or there's a link.

You guys know what to do.

There's a link in the description.

Just go ahead and click it and you'll see the guide that I made.

So it's the seven books that had a massive change in my life this year so far.

And then also how I'm able to read so much.

So check it out below.

So I read a lot.

I read one to four books a month, mostly history.

You do more or the same.

How do you become sensitive enough when you read something to know that?

That is a point that is worth remembering.

Because there's been so many times where I've read something and I will forget it.

I love the American Revolution, and then I'll reread books.

I'm like, I didn't even remember about this or that.

You do a really good job at recall.

You've done it many times here.

And you do a really good job bringing the points of the story that actually matter.

And I think this is an important lesson to learn of how do you be sensitive enough to see what is important and what isn't, and then use that to change your life.

I was a big believer in intuition.

And Just, like, this, like, constant refinement of your own taste.

Like I'm sure I did not have that skill in September 2016, when I started nearly to the degree that I have it now.

Right before Kobe Bryant died, he was asked this question about like what he sees in like Steph Curry that makes him such a like formidable competitor.

And he's like, there's, like, a calmness.

This is Kobe describing Steph Curry.

He's like, there's, like, a calmness about him.

And he's like and when you match this like calmness and belief in what his skill set is with his intense desire and work ethic to practice and to get better like, that is a very dangerous combination.

And what he was referring to was.

Steph says people always ask me what I think about when I'm shooting.

And he goes, absolutely nothing.

And so I don't overthink this.

I read the book.

It's all intuition.

This line is speaking to me.

This is jumping out to me.

I'm going to underline it and I'm going to jot down on notes exactly what came to my mind right now.

Do not overthink this.

You know this stuff over and over again.

We see Steph hitting a crazy three-pointer in the Olympics to win.

I watched that clip the other day.

We don't see The million other times he was alone shooting the three.

I always say the public praises people for what they practice in private.

The other thing about this taste I realized when I talked to a lot of other people that are really great at what they do, other entrepreneurs, people that want to be great at what they do but aren't yet.

I was like, they're trying to figure out like, why am I not breaking through?

It's like, cause you don't, you're not actually interested in this.

Like you are lying to yourself.

I am intensely interested in this.

You can ask my partner, Rob.

We go through this all the time with the new show about like, hey, let's get this person.

And like that person's like a big name.

And I'm like, I just don't give a shit.

And I'm like, but this is the way I think about my work.

Okay.

Like the only way I'm going to do this for the rest of my life is if I'm doing it for the right reasons.

And so I cannot overcomplicate things.

Munger has this line where he says something about like the hardest thing to do is to remember why you set out doing what you're doing, and to keep things simple, right.

And to do that for a very long time.

So the way I think about it it's like founders is the books that I'm intensely interested in reading right.

Not just a book that I think is going to be a lot of downloads.

There's been times where like, I was like, read this book.

I read it.

I hate that guy.

And I throw the book across, literally throw the book across the room.

I was like, I'm not, I don't want to spend a week in that guy's mind.

Founders is the books I'm intensely interested in wanting to read. and enjoy reading.

And the new show, David Center is the people I'm intensely interested in having conversations with.

I was on the phone with somebody yesterday and I text her and I was like I want you to fly to Balibu and I want to do a show with you.

And she's like, are you out of your mind?

Are you crazy?

Because she feels because of the guest list has been like kind of.

She's below.

Yeah.

And she, I was like, and she sent me this funny meme where it's like uh, where like big birds is sitting at a like a table?

And like everybody else is like, it's just like a normal office.

You got Big Bird.

And she put, like Daniel Ek and Michael Dell and all these other people have had, and then her name on this.

I'm like, that's not that's not what I'm interested in.

I am intensely interested in people that have singular careers.

They are doing what they do in a way that is completely natural and authentic to them.

And they kind of have like an inner scorecard.

So like they're willing to make decisions that may not make sense to you, but make sense to them.

Have you read the inner game of tennis?

No, but everybody tells me.

So listen to this.

So I think it's I think the guy's name is Tim Galloway.

The idea is that he wrote it in the 1960s or maybe 70s.

He was a tennis instructor.

And so he was like trying to get his students to be better tennis players.

And he developed this idea of self one and self two.

Self one is a critic.

And so when you would hit a ball, you'd say, shit, that was horrible.

I got to move my hand this way.

I got to do this.

Self two is someone who doesn't listen to the brain, but listens to the body.

And you'd be like, well, I practiced this a thousand times, just like Steph Curry.

Like, I don't need to criticize myself.

Instead, I'm going to be objective.

And I'm gonna be like, let's try moving our hand just a little bit this way.

And let's just see what happens.

That one that didn't that hit that we just did that didn't achieve the desired outcome.

What would happen if I just do this?

And you just kind of feel it.

And so the idea here is that you listen to your your body more than your brain.

And it's very similar to what you're saying of like being simple and being following, following intuition.

And, in fact, this book.

I think Bill Gates is the most recent person to write the foreword of the book.

It was launched in the 70s and they've republished it.

And it's now it's like a business cult classic.

And the idea here is exactly what you're describing, which is like you keep things very simple.

You practice a lot and you don't criticize yourself and you don't like think too hard about what will do well.

The criticism.

I mean you have talked about this a lot like in private, like we both were maniacally driven to fix and to achieve success, financial success

And a lot of times that doesn't come from a positive place.

Yeah.

The way that I see it a lot of times is basically, I build businesses because I feel like I'm not good enough.

And also I try to fix myself, because you have to fix your personality in order to build a great company.

Mine is not that I don't think I'm good enough.

There is like, this is going to be weird.

One of my favorite movies is a movie called Tombstone.

It's like one of my favorite things.

And I watched it when I was a kid over and over again.

And there's like a line where Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp are legitimately true friends.

And Wyatt Earp is about to go and have a duel, like a life and death duel.

He's gonna meet this guy named johnny ringo and he's like we both have guns.

One of us is gonna survive and the other person is going to die.

This is about to happen to me and he's talking to doc holiday about, like what drives johnny ringo to do what he does?

And the the the performance by val kilmer is incredible and he's just like people like that have a giant hole in their heart that, no matter what they do, they can't fill.

And so then why ask the follow up questions like what does he want?

And he goes revenge.

Revenge for what?

Revenge for being born.

And I think what drives me if you get into like how I think about it is like I wanted professional success, to say I was born in the wrong environment.

And I will prove to you that I am not like the rest of these people.

I knew that since I was like six.

I felt very different for a long time.

And I was like and I'm going to do this for myself, but you're also going to see that I'm not going to wind up like these people.

There is a.

It's almost like a revenge for being born In the environment that I was.

That like drives me.

Now the self-criticism you could be my self-criticism for a long time and you see this with a lot of high performers is like constantly negative, like overtly overly negative.

And what I've now changed to is just like that drove me right to work all the time to try to find a craft that you can be really good at.

That has already happened.

So that was useful for back then.

Is it still useful to this day?

And this is where Brad Jacobs, like who was, I think the third person on the new show.

I I've thought I've talked to him about this a lot.

You know, that guy's, this is the benefit of meeting these people.

Now he has more years of experience as an entrepreneur than I've been alive.

The amount of information they can transfer to you in a hour long conversation.

A 15 minute conversation in a sentence is not.

You don't, You're not capable of doing that unless you have this like hard earned wisdom from experience.

And I'm reading his second book right now, which I don't even think is out.

And so much of it is about him reframing negative thoughts into positive ways and the way he does this, because he realized that when I was just negative and beating myself up, I was not as effective.

I thought that was a tool and it wasn't a tool.

And so basically what I've been thinking about a lot lately is, just like man that served me back then, that negative inner monologue.

It doesn't serve me now.

I always say learning is not memorizing information.

Learning is changing your behavior.

Yeah, but that's the hard part because...

In general, people don't change.

Robert Greene has this great book called Human Nature and he was like in general.

Assume most people won't change.

Yeah, most people.

I'm not trying to be most people.

Yeah, but we still have that in us where you have to fight inertia, and that's quite hard.

Yeah, so we were talking upstairs.

Because you're a Bruce Springsteen fan and his autobiography, I would highly recommend people go watch this movie called Deliver Me From Nowhere.

I think it is.

I thought it was going to be a biopic of Bruce Springsteen.

That's not what it was.

It was about a guy that had an unbelievably tumultuous childhood that funneled that pain into an unbelievable work ethic to get him what he thought he wanted most in the world, which is being a rock star.

And then, right after he hits that, after you know years and years of struggle, he plunges himself into deep depression and what he realizes is like he can't form.

He's so.

His childhood was so messed up it did not give him the ability to form stable, loving relationships with women, and what he desperately wanted was i.

He wanted a stable relationship.

He wanted to have kids because he wanted to raise his kids and break the chain that his parents did to him.

And yet what he would do?

He would freak out, he'd like he'd fall in love with a woman, or whatever the case was, and then he'd like something's wrong with her.

She can't.

If she loves me, i am unlovable yeah, so therefore I'm going to hurt this person.

He would run away and then he'd start dating somebody else.

And he would go through this over and over and over again.

Right.

Until the point where like he, he has to go run up seeing a therapist.

He finds, he basically is like, Hey, my life is going to be miserable.

I'm going to be world famous.

I'm going to be wealthy.

I'm going to have a job I love, and I'm going to be depressed and miserable.

And the crazy thing about the book the book is 600 pages long.

Half the time you're like this guy it's.

The first half of the book is about his love for his work and his work ethic, and so you think you see where it's going.

And then this curveball happens in his life, where he's like life is more important than work.

What bruce was figuring out is that every human wants like relationships, whether it's a romantic relationship or a true friend or something.

Somebody understands you, that you feel like you can like do life together and i now have My friend group is crazy because of how high quality they are in all the domains, all areas of their life.

And that was like, oh, my God.

It's not that I didn't want to let people in or I didn't like other humans.

It's like I didn't have access to this before.

And so almost every single one of my new friends have come from the podcast.

And in some cases they've become best friends, people that I've spent years getting to know and spend hours and hours talking to.

And so that's where it's like, oh, this is actually really important to me.

Relationships are really important to me in a way that I didn't understand.

And maybe I was lying to myself about this.

And so that was a huge learning for me.

And then the reason I bring this up for the Bruce Fienstein thing is because He's messing up at something he deeply desires, yet he's smart enough to realize hey, what are the tools that I need to fix this?

Because if I don't fix this, I'm going to have another 30 years or, in his case, 40 years of my life where I'm going to be miserable.

So he's like, change his behavior.

That means he learned.

You're not learning if you didn't change your behavior.

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You know, it's crazy.

Every time I listen to your podcast, I have envy of the people, not because of their success but because like, particularly like bruce but there's a lot of people who found their passion very early on in life and i don't know if that's luck, what it is, but i think that that's like the all.

Whenever i listen to founders and i and now the david center show, i think like, how crazy is it?

Like we were talking about music i, i whenever i go to concerts and like, if it's a band that i've loved for years i loved green day for years billy joe will play a song that he wrote when he was 15.

And I'm like, how fortunate are you that you were able to create stuff at the age of 15.

That's still relevant to you in your fifties or sixties.

And so I get like, like one of the, my favorite, one of my favorite ones you've done.

I didn't like this guy, but what's the Liz Zonica's guy's name?

Oh yeah.

So basically for the listener, this guy like started like a sunglass conglomerate.

That's a monopoly.

And it's a 80 or 100 billion dollar company and he tried to pass it on to his sons and try to make it a family dynasty.

But there's a ton of like bad shit that he's done in his life with family and and he seems like a pretty like angry, generally angry guy.

He's like an orphan.

Yeah, like this is what i mean.

He had a lot of darkness but he never dealt with it.

Where i just give you an example, bruce is like no, i'm not going.

Well, he dealt with it at the end.

I think at the end of the episode you're like he was like the thing that i wish i did differently was how i treated my children.

Yeah, but on the episode i said i don't believe him Right, and that's what you've said.

But what I do envy of him and many of the people is that they found their passion early.

I could see that, but I was 32 when I found what I was supposed to do.

Really?

Yes.

Bruce Springsteen was 15.

Kobe Bryant was like 11.

Leonardo, I think it's Leonardo.

Dovecchio was what, 17?

Yes, he was young.

32 was young.

But the fact that you find it in the first place.

This is why you ask like, what are you doing?

Why are you taking like, you didn't say like, why are you taking everything so seriously?

It's like that is what I'm.

I understand how rare it is for somebody to be able to make a living doing something that they love to do.

This is why I hate, like we talked about the fact that we don't really read Twitter that much.

You and I um, I hate like when I see people just like uh, engagement farming, and they're like the worst piece of advice you could ever have is like work on what you're passionate about.

And they're like, instead like start a trash hauling business.

And I'm just like, No, man, like it's the best thing in the world and it's excessively rare.

And if you find it, you should do everything in your possible impossible to like hold on to it and to not mess it up.

This is a piece of advice I got from from Michael Dell.

And he told me he was like, tell me crazy stories.

This is before we recorded the podcast together.

We spent five hours talking and he told me he's just like most entrepreneurs are sabotage themselves right, you're not taken out by like a competitor uh, like you you, you do something where, like you're having success, and then, like you, i always say, like you, the worst thing you could do is like you go to sleep on a win.

You wake up with a loss right um, jimmy ivine.

One of the things i learned from jimmy he's in this documentary that it's one of my favorite documentaries, called the defiant ones.

He also had this like crazy 50-year career is like the importance of actually having a full life with crazy experiences, And so, like he did this episode of Rick Rubin two years ago.

He just did another episode of Rick Rubin's podcast.

I think it was in 2023.

It was the best single podcast episode I listened to in 2023.

And it's just like, I want that.

I not only want to be really great at what I do, but I was like, I want to have a very full life.

So Jimmy was kind enough when I did a founder's episode on him.

He said like a thousand people texted to him and he invited me to his house.

And one of the pieces of advice again 72, maybe 75, it's probably 72.

Guy has more knowledge, you know practical knowledge in his pinky than I have in my entire body.

And he's like, most people cannot handle success.

And the advice that he's been around super talented people.

And these are some people who are legit geniuses and they destroy their lives.

I'm not interested in being successful for a year, for five years, for 10 years.

I want to, I don't want to, I want to be this till I decide I'm going to stop doing this.

And so his whole thing was there's like basically four things that he sees for ways that people do this the most.

Ruin their success.

They are successful.

They're talented and they destroy themselves.

Yeah.

What are the four?

The first one was drugs. pills, heroin, all this stuff.

I don't do any drugs.

That's not going to happen to me.

Did you see the Eddie Murphy documentary?

No.

Everybody keeps telling me about it.

Oh, it was so good, dude.

And one of the main things was, you know, he was famous since he was 16.

He was on SNL, I think, when he was 18.

And, you know, did all these movies when he was 21.

He was like, I've never done drugs.

He's like, that's one of the main reasons why I am what I am.

So he's going to be number three on this list, which we'll get to in a minute, about what could destroy you.

And he wasn't destroyed by it, but he has a.

He's addicted to something else, which we'll get to.

Number two alcohol like, just like could destroy your life.

You know, i had, uh went to dinner last night uh, with a friend and like i had a glass of sake like, but i didn't get drunk.

It was like fine right, three women they just like they attract the wrong kind of women.

Uh, they fall in love with the wrong kind of women.

They let the wrong women in around them like they're like what's the what's the uh?

Patriots coach bill veltrick yes, you see what he's doing now.

He's dating like a 20 year old or something.

Oh yeah man, she calls the shots.

Okay, that well, it's exactly what you're describing.

No, in cases it gets a lot darker.

There's like just it can distract you.

It's just you have to.

You want high quality people around you in every single domain friends, high quality people, people who work with high quality people, the people you date.

You want high quality people, like you just want high quality people.

It's like it's the most important decision you make in your life is the people that you let around you, which i see people are way too casual about this and i could be really really ruthless in this domain.

Um, and then the fourth one is megalomania, and the reason i say eddie murphy because like, he's like dated every single person.

He's got like 10 kids.

I think he's got a bunch of different baby mamas.

Uh again, he's still living his life.

He wants to do, but he clearly likes that.

That uh, uh.

Number three

So number four is just megalomania.

Um, you start to think that you're successful because of you and not the work that you put in, and you start to believe you.

You have like you're like a God and like everybody should you know, praise you, and you just completely become disassociated from reality.

And this is why I say like, it's very dangerous, especially to like do numbers driven thing.

Like I talk to founders all the time.

I'm like, Oh, like tell me about your company.

Like I just want to be the first you know, I want to build a trillion dollar company.

I want to be the first fastest company to a hundred million ARR.

I'm like, You know, like none of History's Great Entrepreneurs thought like that.

I'm calling you out on that.

That's bullshit.

Because when I talk to Ramp, the Ramp founders are amazing.

They're like the best of the best.

They said, our goal is to get to a billion dollar in valuation in 18 months.

That was not their primary goal.

Their primary goal.

But they said that's what their goal.

I mean, he was like, I think it'd be cool if we could do that.

Oh, that's different.

Oh, come on.

No, that is different.

100%.

I'm saying the reason for your existence, the reason what you're doing.

These people are telling me I'm only starting this company so I can hit a certain financial number.

That's completely different.

No, that's not what he said.

Yeah, that's not what they... Wasn't I there with you in the office?

I recorded with him, and he repeats this all the time.

It's like a cool thing.

He was like, I thought it'd be cool if we could get to a billion in valuation in 18 months.

I don't know if I heard that episode, but like... He said it a bunch.

Okay, their experience with Paribus beforehand was giving me insight into the founding story of RAMP, So that's a longer story.

But my point being is like I'm hugely skeptical if you're there's some kind of external metric that I will only be happy if I hit that metric or that is the reason that I'm doing this.

Where mine is.

Just like I want to make things that are proud of, that I think are good and like I could put out there like good into the world.

And I don't confuse like when we were just upstairs and like that guy sitting next to us.

It's like I don't confuse with somebody saying, hey, I like what you do.

Like, that's the perfect way to say it.

You like what I do.

You might like me as a person.

If we knew each other, we'd probably get along.

We probably have the same interests.

But never confuse that they don't like you.

It's the work.

And if once you stop putting in the work, everything else goes away.

That is how the megalomaniacs, they just think, like, I'm so talented, I just show up.

Everything I touch turns to gold.

I don't have to practice.

I don't have to put in any effort.

And everything's going to work out.

And then they also, you know, treat people essentially not as people.

If you had to teach someone who is 19 how to find their life's work based off of reading about 400 people and not talking to dozens of hundreds of successful entrepreneurs, what would you say is the exercises that they should do?

My problem is, I think at that age, I wouldn't have taken anybody's advice.

And I think I'm only now the last few years like been open to letting other people like mold my mind.

What would you say?

The fact that they're asking the question like there's this great line where it's like a 21 year old kid comes up to Mozart and it's like I want to know how to write a symphony.

And she says, you're too young.

And the guy that is asking most of the questions is just like yeah, but you wrote symphonies when you were 14.

He's like, yeah, but I didn't go around asking people how to do it.

There's something in there where you feel somebody else has the answer.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for advice.

Be very clear here.

I don't think there's anything magical I would have to say that would put them on the other path.

You need to spend a lot of time thinking about what you actually believe.

A lot of people just lie to themselves over and over and over again.

And this long conversation last night and the conversation started was like what's the lie that you're telling yourself?

And we went back and forth, me and this other person, for a while about this.

My lie i'll just tell you right now which uh again, i'm probably sharing too much publicly is this is like that, i don't need anybody else.

That's a lie.

You think that that's a lie?

I've been telling myself for a very long time, which again has happened, and i learned that because of the experience i'm having, the relationships i have, like realizing that, like you're, you're doing that because it's a defense mechanism, not because it's actually true.

And so for this i'll be like, Take the time, like what do you actually want?

And that's very hard to be truthful about.

And the one way that I found it is just like I just follow, like I have ungovernable curiosity about things.

I cannot tell you why I like to read.

And so, like when I first started my first podcast, I was like oh, like it'd be cool if I could like build a business and a life where I just get to read all the time, which sounds ridiculous.

But it actually worked.

And then you just follow this.

And then now to the point where we recorded this conversation with Todd Graves, who's one of the people I wanted to meet the most which people sounds crazy, but I'm like.

He's like, what does he do?

He's like, he sells chicken fingers.

And they're like, what?

Why do you want to meet him?

I was like, because he grinded himself.

First of all, he's been doing his business for 30 years, started out, built the first store by hand.

He had no money, went to crazy risk.

To find the financing because there's no venture capital.

No one would give him money.

He had to risk his life on a boat, fishing off Alaska.

He worked as a boiler maker.

He was highly leveraged and almost went out of business.

He did all these crazy things because he just found he had this chicken finger dream.

That's what he calls it.

And he's like, I have to do the chicken finger dream.

I can't explain why.

Again, he's not looking for external validation.

I'm going to do this.

Everybody's like, you're an idiot.

You can't do that.

It hasn't changed his menu in 30 years.

So we fly to Baton Rouge.

Conversation is incredible.

We record for two hours two, two hours, two and a half hours, two hours and then we spend another two and a half hours one-on-one together after.

Was he any different?

No, because he's people and he also listens to the podcast, so he understands who i am like.

It's just very.

This is what i meant.

It's like i don't make media, i'm building relationships.

He might be a top 10 person i've listened to on your pod.

Yeah, he's incredible.

And so this is the point about following the curiosity going back to the 19 year old.

I go back to the airport and i call Sam Hinckley and he picks up and I go.

I'm in big trouble.

And he goes, what's going on?

I go, I am already wildly addicted to having these conversations.

He goes, I go, I've never done ecstasy, but this is how I feel right now.

I am like high.

I am wired.

I am like high as a kite because I had this guy again, he's got three decades of experience.

He had 915 stores.

The company's worth over $20 billion.

He owns 90% of it.

He's growing faster in year 30 than it ever has in his history.

He still has trouble sleeping because he can't wait to wake up and get back to work the next day.

And so you just get, like you get, this download of information and energy from him.

That like, just made me euphoric.

Who would be on your board of advisors?

Would he be on one of them?

How many people do I get?

Six.

I have to name them?

Yeah.

Living or dead?

Either. let me do dead just because that'll give me some time to think about living.

And I think like I don't know if I want to answer that question honestly, but I would have to dead.

You know, Rockefeller built the greatest company ever created.

Rockefeller, I think, is one of the few tycoons of in terms of like unpeachable character and like amazing success.

I think he's the best debatable on unpeachable.

No.

Okay.

Unpeachable is not the right word because he screwed up.

He did lie on the record a bunch of times, but he In general I think he's an ethical, honest person.

Got a little handsy towards the end of his life.

Let's just put it that way.

He was 100.

I collect obscure Rockefeller biographies.

I have made my own.

I have one at my house I haven't done an episode on.

It's 1,700 pages long.

It's in a big binder.

He was a weirdo when he was 90 and he was giving people nickels and shit.

That's fine.

Great, undeniable, one of the best businesses ever created.

Charlie Munger told me to my face that he thinks...

Rockefeller created the best business in history.

Munger would have to be on it because he's dead, unfortunately, now.

I think he's the wisest person I've ever studied.

If I could only emulate and learn from one person, it'd be him.

Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, patron saint of Founders Podcast.

He was Steve Jobs' hero.

His whole thing, he's got a lot of personal mottos.

He invented the instant photography, the entire industry, then monopolized the industry.

It's like one of the last great American technology companies that were never like.

His patents were never.

What did he die?

I've never heard of him.

In the 90s.

He met when he was in his 70s.

Steve Jobs met Edwin Land when Steve was like 25.

Edwin Land was like 72, I think.

And he said Steve Jobs said that spending time with him was like visiting a shrine.

This is how a lot.

I get to meet crazy people in the world.

I actually had lunch with a friend yesterday, and she told me something fascinating.

She was just like.

You need to take a minute to think about what's going on in your life and the fact that you have this ridiculously sick life because of the people you have access to.

You ever write this stuff down in your journal?

No.

I think one of the reasons I wanted to do the Bruce Springsteen episode is because I think I'm also

I run from my past.

I don't like thinking about it.

There's just all kinds of other stuff going on.

And so I spent time yesterday with a 71-year-old guy.

It looks like he's going to do his first ever podcast interview with me.

He just sold his company for $60 billion.

And in an hour he transferred more knowledge to me than I would weeks speaking to a young startup founder.

It's just unbelievable that.

So Edwin Land, I felt, did the exact same thing for Steep Jobs.

Steve Jobs essentially copied.

He patterned Apple off of Polaroid and a lot of people don't understand that.

To the point where you can go back and watch Steve's product demonstrations, and the table and chairs that are on that are the exact same ones that Edwin Landy did for Polaroid.

People don't actually see.

If you're not studying history, you don't have this basis of historical knowledge in your head.

You actually don't know what you're looking at.

Like I saw something different when I saw that video than somebody that didn't study history does.

It's like very, very valuable.

And this is like we're wasting time doing dumb shit, like watching short form videos all day, being obsessed with the news following X Like this stuff is garbage.

This is like read books and talk to really amazing people and try to like apply what you're learning from both of those experiences to be a better human.

And then the better human you are, other better humans will then open up to you.

And then there's like this virtuous cycle.

You have three more.

So Rockefeller, Munger, Land, obviously Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs built the most successful consumer product of all time.

I will say about Ivan Land, I took two ideas from him.

His personal motto was don't do anything someone else can do.

I think that demands differentiation.

When you listen to my podcast, they are very weird.

Founder, there's not like, you can read books and have a solo podcast.

You're not going to make it like that.

It's a very weird thing.

Even the way I'm doing the new show, it was like, this guy interviews weird.

I'm not interviewing a goddamn person.

I am having conversations.

What you're hearing on the show is exactly what you would hear if we weren't recording this.

This is the stuff I have.

The idea of these, all these guys.

Everybody that's been on the show besides James Dyson so far has listened to the podcast.

You think, first of all, a lot of the early listeners for the new show come from founders, right?

And some of the mess I get.

They're like yeah, but like you're like talking too much and like you interrupt and you do all this other stuff.

Like you should do it the way this guy does.

We just did 400 episodes of people that build lives and phenomenal careers by being differentiated.

And now you're like, no, no, don't be differentiated.

Go do it like this other guy.

The differentiation I have compared to other podcasters that want to talk to excessively successful people in business is they haven't read 400 biographies about history's greatest entrepreneurs, like I have.

I spend time with Daniel Ek all the time.

I just saw Michael Doe again last week.

I promise you, they don't want me to not talk.

That is not what they want.

They listen to the show.

And so this idea from Edward Landis, like don't do anything someone else could do.

That is a very Very simple sentence and a very profound insight if you actually apply it.

Most people are so scared to be different.

Because your reading hall is so good.

I wasn't born with that.

It's work.

It's 10 years of reading and then rereading and then like building my own database.

And then like I've done all kinds of crazy shit that no other podcasters do.

Because, you know, like I talk to other podcasters and I ask all kinds of questions.

It's like everybody's.

Like you are blessed with phenomenal memory.

No, i forget everything all the time, but i don't forget something if i've read it 15 times.

I was up in your room and i took a photo of your book.

You had the uh, brad jacobs book.

Yeah, i was like i just want to see what he's underlining.

I was like i just want to see like his thinking you underlined so much stuff.

It's so many notes in there.

Yeah, um so, but this is because again, like i also love what i do and if you love what you do, you're going to do things.

They're for not for financial reasons.

You do it because you want it to be great.

Like I am killing myself over this edit right now.

The the episode that I'm working on right now is probably four days late and it's I still don't have it and like I feel uncomfortable right now.

But I know that's a good feeling because, like when I get on the other side that this happened, I did this episode called how Elon works.

I think it's the most downloaded episode of founders by far, and I remember talking to a friend because I was working in Malibu and And I was like it's just not ready.

Like I can't, like I am struggling.

Like I, it was supposed to be out on Sunday.

It's not coming out.

But the the thing that I realized is like no one's going to remember if it came out four or five days late.

They're going to remember if it was great or not.

And spending that extra time and being confused is like a good signal.

It means that I care.

And then I'm trying and I will find my path, like my way there.

So I think that's really important.

So let's go back to the other thing about Edwin Land real quick.

He also has this great line that he says this is where I said I was lying to myself about wanting a balanced life.

He says there's a rule they don't teach you at Harvard, which he knows because he dropped out of Harvard twice.

He goes there's a rule they don't teach you at Harvard that anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.

I can't hold myself.

I have to take things as far as they can go.

That's why I can't do many things.

I essentially can just do podcasts.

I could take care of my health, I could do podcasts, and I could build relationships.

That is essentially...

All my 24 hours a day.

That's all I have.

I can't do anything else.

So Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, Rockefeller, Munger, two other dead people.

I don't think I need the other two.

I like Fewer Deeper. fewer, deeper relationships.

I kind of I tend to talk to like the same people over and over again.

You know, being public figures, you could talk to a thousand people a year if you wanted to.

I find that like, I want people, I want to genuinely know people who they authentically are.

I want them to know who I authentically am.

And then like I want to skip all the bullshit and I want to get right to like the actual stuff that we want to talk about.

I want to talk about the relationships you have with women.

I want to talk about like the guilt that you have, uh, being on the road all the time.

And the fact that you're a dad.

I want to talk about the stuff that you lied to everybody else about.

Like, this is the stuff, the only stuff I'm interested in.

I cannot have like superficial conversations.

Like I remember one time this guy reached out.

He was a billionaire and he's like I'd love to talk to you.

I was like, sure.

And then he's like a sit down.

I got like looped in with his assistant.

I don't even have an assistant.

I do everything myself.

So like besides, I guess, the new show, and I have a whole squad that you see um, But I remember getting the calendar invite and it was like 30 minutes.

I'm like, we're not even going to get started in 30 minutes.

And so I was like, this isn't going to work.

Tell me when you have more time, but I'm not going to talk to you for 30 minutes.

All right, let's take a quick break because I got to tell you a story.

Let me tell you about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team.

I was using a traditional bank and you know the type.

It's got a janky interface.

It's built like a 2002 tax form and it was open only during business hours.

And I hit send and it froze.

They flagged the transaction.

They locked my account.

They put me on hold for 45 minutes and then they told me I got to visit my local branch.

And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution.

After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury.

And so now my payroll is two clicks.

I can wire money.

I can pay invoices.

I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard.

That's why I use it for all of my companies.

And so do 200,000 other startup founders.

And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to Mercury.com and apply in minutes.

Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column A, and Evolve Bank & Trust, members FDIC.

What do you think would be the the biggest regret of all the people that you've talked to, what would be the top three biggest regrets that they've had?

This is where it's like with these kind of people.

I don't necessarily believe them that they're regrets.

So Sam Walton...

He's writing his autobiography as he knows he's dying.

He's got cancer all over his body.

He's in immense pain.

He took some of the last time that he ever had in life and he essentially distilled what he learned from his 50 60-year career.

And I think it's one of the best books, easily top five entrepreneur book of all time.

And it's such a gift to future generations of entrepreneurs that he did that with his last time.

And he said that, you know, he missed out a lot of stuff like he was working all the time.

He's like a fairly he calls himself a fairly overactive fellow.

Yeah.

Well, that's that's that's one way to put it, Sam.

But like that, you're you're just a conqueror.

You're you're an insane person in a good way.

He's trying to do something, you know, that he thought was was good.

And he's like you know.

If I had to be honest though, like yeah, I missed out on seeing you know parts of my kids lives like I was working a lot.

But he's like, if I did it all again.

I would do it the exact same way.

And I think a lot of people feel that way and it gets into their life.

And then they're like I think it's just natural to be nostalgic and to think oh, what I would change.

But like even Buffett says in Snowball, whatever he did to draw to like push his wife away, his first wife, I would go back.

He says I would go back and like do it differently.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I think he did exactly what he wanted to do.

Maybe in that case, he's right.

He's like, I was truly in love with this woman, and I messed that up.

I could see that being a true regret.

I think a lot of these people have a hard time assessing their own regrets accurately.

There's this great book called How to Get Rich.

Have you read that one?

Felix Dennis, episode 129.

Yes.

One of my favorite books of all time because his writing is really good.

It's the best.

I compare him to... He's like if Mick Jagger and Richard Branson had a baby.

His writing is the best.

And it's one of the very few books that's tactical and written by a billionaire.

And so the reason it's a good book is he was dying.

He was dying of cancer.

I think he died when he was 60 or something.

And he said, if I could live life all over again...

I would accumulate 50 million as fast as I can, hopefully by the age of 35, and then I would spend the rest of my life writing poetry.

And the reason I believe him is he spent the last 10 years of his life retired, writing books and poetry, and his philanthropic issue or thing was planting forests.

He loved trees.

It was very strange.

He also said in the book, he's like, I've spent $100 million on horrors and crack.

A cocaine, cocaine over a decade.

I was going to bring that up where like, this is, this is, he, he, he was a crackhead.

He was a legit crack.

No, it was crack.

He was like a crackhead right around here, actually in this neighborhood.

I believe him.

Cause he got to like 500 to 800 million.

Like he got way.

Yeah.

But this was like in the year 2002.

So like even more.

Yeah.

And so you read that book.

And again, this is why, like I spent so much time with these older people, because they There's like a certain, like you don't know yourself as well when you're younger, you're still on the rise.

And so you're incentivized to like put on a show.

Essentially, like you're not being truthful.

And you can't let the world actually see how you like what you believe about certain things.

And especially in like this entrepreneur ecosystem you're in, like most of these startup founders are just straight up lying so they can raise more money.

Like it's really gross and disgusting.

This is my whole thing.

I am fundamentally if I am like, being if i'm being dishonest about something or if i have like different sides of me i don't like that i need to reconcile that right away so much more value out of listening from old people than i have reading twitter or whatever it might be because they're willing to tell you the truth well and it's also because once you get past a certain level and that level honestly is pretty small but like once you get past a certain level the analogy that i heard recently was really good it was like i'm no i'm i'm i'm the captain of a boat and i'm not trying to fix the engine but steer the ship And so I don't necessarily need tactics right now.

I just need, tell me how to live a good life.

And a good life is a variety of things.

But I need to know about what the definition of a life worth living is, not how to make money or whatever.

I don't know, whatever the tactics are.

And so I've gotten so much more value.

So my friend Noah Kagan's got this channel on YouTube where he interviews 80-year-olds and mostly entrepreneurs.

I've gotten so much more value out of that.

You see this, if you can't interview them, you at least you can pick up, like Felix Dennis's book, where how many people are going to be honest about that is a crazy thing to admit to that.

I spent 10 million a year for 10 years.

100 million dollars on prostitutes and coke or dude.

When he died he uh his prostitute girlfriend was living with him again.

Like i'm sure i can't imagine the the stds this guy has or had and doing coke and drinking in nightclubs because they're like nightclubs, i think i remember correctly.

Yeah, like in the 80s.

She's like you don't want to do that.

Like what are you doing?

Um, like it's going to shorten your life.

And some people want to like there's a great line in uh bruce bc's autobiography where he's like one some people's five years is worth more than other people's 50, you know.

So like some people just have to burn bright and like they're going to that.

That is like their destiny.

That's what they're going to do.

I want to like have a very interesting life and i want to succeed decade after decade after decade.

Were you making any money in the first five years back then?

So there's a long story.

But like there was the podcast.

Advertising is not like how it is now, which is like way more advanced, and like you can sell your own deals independently.

So at that time there was They call them podcast networks, but I guess there wasn't a network of podcasts.

They would just sell ads for you.

And so I just remember reaching out to one of them.

And they're like, we would love to sell ads for you.

It's like, you need 50,000 downloads per episode.

And what did you have, 1,500?

The number they said, I was like, 50,000?

It seemed like such a, I was like, I will never have that.

I couldn't compute.

I don't even know what I had.

A couple thousand or whatever the number was back then.

Um, and so then you would like try to do like, you could do like affiliate deals.

Like remember audible scaled on podcasts.

People don't understand the size of businesses you can build on the back of podcasts to this day.

And now I don't even talk about this publicly anymore.

Cause, like I think this is like my business has made a lot of money via podcasting because I promoted my company Hampton on there.

And there's just a million examples that people don't even know.

I've collected all these cases.

The hard part is that podcasts are the most challenging to grow but they're the most sticky, I think, of all the mediums.

Oprah understood the intensity of a legitimate parasocial relationship back in the 80s, way before.

Nothing we're doing is new.

She had built-in distribution, right?

She hooked up with the network, and there was only 60 channels.

I did an episode on that.

That might be 332.

I might be wrong on that episode, but The key there, like let me just tell you her insight and I'll tell you what she figured out how to monetize in such a huge way.

Her key insight was you know, she would have like Brad Pitt on her show or like these A-list celebrities.

And she's like oh, I have something different, because the way my audience responds to like a movie star is not the way they respond to me.

And so like they're like, Brad, oh, my God, you're handsome.

I love your movie.

They're like, Oprah, it's nice to see you.

How are you?

Oprah, come over for lunch.

Come over for dinner.

When people walk up to me on the street, they get right into it.

Yeah, because they think they know you.

In many cases, they do.

They know what I'm into and what I'm intensely interested in.

And then Oprah's thing, just to close that real quick.

First also, I think people vastly underestimate the importance of frequency, which is another thesis I'm about to try to prove here where she's in your house one hour a day, five days a week.

The success of her business and the intensity of the parasocial relationship would be much more diminished if she was doing it once a week.

I think that's very important.

Secondly, she realized is that at the time, this is all, you know, television.

The most profitable show on TV at this time was local news, right?

Because it's like, cost nothing to make.

And you could sell advertisers like, I want to sell my car in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It's a huge target, you know.

And what she realized is like, if you have Oprah coming into being the lead in from four to five to your five o'clock news right, she's going to bump up your rating, your Nielsen rating, by like I forgot what the number is.

Let's say three.

And for every one Nielsen reading, your local news would make like another $5 million a year.

So let's say you don't have Oprah.

You just lost out on $15 million.

So if Oprah says, oh, I'll sign with you, you have to pay me five of that.

I'm making up the numbers.

You have to pay me five of that 15.

You're going to say, yeah.

So I couldn't figure out how to sell enough ads.

I'll close this real quick because I've talked about this on other podcasts too.

I had found this socialist podcast called Chapo Trap House that was selling, that did not run ads because they were not capitalists.

So they thought it was immoral.

And they were using Patreon at the time to sell subscriptions to podcasts.

And the Patreon API is public.

And there is a website called Graftreon.

And they were at the top of the list.

And I found this.

And they had 25000 people, or let's call it 20000 people, paying them at least 5 a month, And I'm like oh, there's a business model right there.

And their business model is simple.

You can listen to every other episode for free.

If you want the other episodes you're not getting, you have to pay five bucks a month.

And so I was like, well, this is like information for business.

People for business would of course pay for this.

And there's actually a story here.

And so, but I sold it too cheap.

It was like a hundred dollars a year or $10 a month.

And then I ground like a grind into like a couple thousand.

So it's like you're making like dentist money or something like that is the way i would think about it.

But then 24 grand a year any dentist money?

No, you're making hundreds of thousands a year.

I thought you said two thousand a month.

You got it.

No no, annual subscribers had like a couple thousand, like okay, three thousand, four thousand, something like that, so that'd be like 400 grand or whatever the number.

The number is right.

But then let me, then i also rob was like you idiot, I'm trying to send this.

He's like your biggest asset you have is your back catalog and you have a big giant.

Do not enter, sign in front of your biggest asset.

He's like I've been trying to send it to people and it's so good that you had to buy gift subscriptions.

And so he's like, I spent like $900 this week sending your episode to my nine friends.

I have to pay 100 every time I want to send somebody's.

So a friend, my friend Sam Hickey, he was spending like two to 3000 or 4000 a year because he's like this is too good.

He was just buying it for everybody. he's the one that told patrick about it which has obviously changed my life from there um and so then here's another thing which i didn't understand that podcasts are not all all is not that it appears from the outside this is a lesson from rockefeller where he realizes that one of his advantages was that not everybody there's posted rates on how much it's going to cost to ship a barrel oil over the railroad that posted rate is a lie yeah so he gets rebates yes the foundation of his empire And so what I realized, and I remember Hinky calls me one day and he goes, hey, where are you?

I go, I'm in the Hamptons.

He's like, what are you doing there?

I go, this guy DM me.

And we talked on the phone.

I really liked him.

And he has this giant house in the Hamptons.

He's like, will you come speak to my company offsite?

And Sam's like, he's paying you for that?

I go, yeah, of course.

He goes, how much?

And I go, X amount.

And he goes, and I go, he's paying me X amount.

And then he put me in this crazy house or this crazy hotel where, like the room service is like a three-star Michelin.

The restaurant downstairs, there's only one restaurant.

It's like I'm ordering room service from like a Michelin star restaurant.

And then I go to check in, even though I'm not paying for it.

And I see what he's paying a night.

It's like $3,000 a night or something like that.

And so I was like, yeah, this place is incredible.

It's beautiful.

And you know, and we just went over like basic numbers, and Sam goes You have got to stop selling things.

He goes, you have one of the most price insensitive audiences in the world.

You cannot sell something for $100 a year.

They would have paid $10,000 because it's relative to their wealth.

And so this just happened when you said the book that you saw upstairs.

In that book, Brad Jacobs, who has now become a friend of mine, sent me an early copy of that book.

He did not tell me I'm in that book.

He just said, here's the book, tell me if you like it.

I'm reading the book and it says at the end for his new company.

Not even the end.

I think it's on page 76, if I remember correctly.

He's like most of the investors in my new company, which is now a multi, multi-billion dollar company, are repeat investors.

However, two of my top 20 shareholders, Did not know who I was.

They discovered me because I was profiled on David Sunrose Founders Podcast.

And I'm like, that's crazy.

And I knew I know the two people because those two people also told me and I told Brad.

That means Brad raised 750 million from my audience, from people that didn't know he existed before I did the episode on his book.

So that was Sam's point.

He's like, you have the most one of the most price insensitive audiences in the world.

You cannot sell things for a hundred dollars.

This guy and the speech wasn't even a speech.

We go, his whole team's at his Hamptons house.

It was like 30 of us.

And he just wanted to like shoot the shit in front of them for like 30 minutes and pay me unbelievable amount of money.

Dude, this is like that.

I told Ben Wilson, so I found, I've been the history buff for 20 years.

I love Ben.

And I saw Ben's podcast, How to Take Over the World.

And I was, he sent me the graph.

I think when I found him, he was doing a hundred downloads an episode.

And I was like Ben.

What's going to happen in the future is you're going to become sort of like a guru, but not in that type of way where, because you've consumed all that this was before AI because you've consumed all this history knowledge, billionaires are going to pay you money to help them predict the future by not repeating the past.

I was like, that could be like the business model.

And it was like hard to understand at the time, but it's not your time kind of sucks.

But that's like the joy of reading history.

It's basically, it's like sort of education that's wrapped in entertainment.

That's why I love it so much.

Do you ever use newspapers.com?

I bought a subscription.

I don't think I've ever gone.

You have to use it.

It's so fun, because the problem with biographies and like listening to your podcast is you're telling me these stories when I already know the ending, and it's so much better to go back.

So, for example, you could read about like Dan Gilbert, and he's just one of the greats when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

And you can read about him and watch interviews, but you know that he was successful.

You already know the outcome of the story.

And so it's really fun to go back.

I use newspapers all the time because I go and find articles in the 80s and I'll find his first profile.

Like the very first time a newspaper wrote about him.

And like, what were they saying about him right then and there?

Or how are they disrespecting them?

Or did they like, could they spot it?

Or like, because there's revisionist history.

Like what were people saying about him then and there?

Because I was in San Francisco starting, I moved to San Francisco when I was 21.

And there's a bunch of like people that are ballers now.

And I'm like, I knew that guy when we were nothing.

I did not see that.

I did not know that he had that in him or this person I thought was going to be the shit.

They were nothing.

And so it kind of becomes hard to predict who's going to be.

I mean, obviously, angel investing would be a lot easier if this were the case.

This is why I say like the only filter I trust, like time is the best filter.

And so that's why I can gravitate towards people that were successful for many decades.

We didn't finish the.

So like you think you asked me the living board of directors.

Yeah, I think this is a good segue into like what you were just talking about.

Where it's like it would probably be a lot of the people that I've had on the new David Sander show so far.

So like- Ovitz, Dell.

No, the first spot would go to Daniel Ek for sure.

For sure.

He was cool because he everyone's a shark who's that successful.

But he had a soft side that I liked.

He is like- swedish buddha i don't know how to describe him he is unbelievably philosophical and he's changed my life in so many different ways i can't believe he's that way at such a young age too and that's the way like we're close in age but he is like so much wiser than i am and i've spent a bunch of time with him and i would say the he's taught me a lot like he he's another guy that will call you on your shit in a very polite way though yeah he's he's great so like he the reason i started doing video the reason i'm doing the new show too is because of him And his whole thing was just like, we were having this crazy dinner, this four hour dinner in New York.

He's just like, why aren't you doing video?

And I was like, I'm not doing this for like fame.

I'm a very private person.

I don't want to ever be recognized in public.

And he's just like, a lot more people know what I look like than what you look like.

He goes, I got recognized in the gym this morning.

You know what they do?

They come over and say, hey, I love Spotify.

Thanks for building it.

And then they go about their ways.

And he's just like you, I'm paraphrasing what he said.

He's just like, he knew I was like obsessed with podcasting.

He gave me great advice.

He's like, you're easy to understand.

So therefore you're easy to help because all you care about is podcasting.

And so it's very easy for me to help you because I, you're, that's a wise line.

He's, this is what I mean.

If I only had one board of directors, it's probably him.

In the beginning of the podcast, he tells a story about how he advised Dara to take the job at Uber.

And he tells this amazing story.

He was like, Dara, I think you should take this job.

And Dara is saying, somebody nominated me to run Uber.

And Daniel was like, yeah, you seem like you've been complacent, this and that.

And then he talks about how he convinced him basically to take this job at Uber.

And then he later tells the story.

He's like, I was the one that nominated you.

He didn't even tell him.

He was like, I nominated you.

This is the important part for somebody to say that to you.

You seem complacent.

That looks like you're criticizing.

That looks like you're attacking.

This is why you have to get over.

Don't listen to random people.

But if that person genuinely cares about you, you have to be able to.

This is something I struggle with.

Like this is, he didn't curse.

He was just like, essentially my paraphrase is like, you're lying.

This is bullshit.

Like, get over, like, he said something about, like, getting on, like, I'm straddling the fence.

I can't remember the exact words.

But essentially, just like, this is the business you've chosen.

And the fact of the matter is, podcasts that have video grow a lot faster than podcasts that don't.

He gives interviews multiple times.

People ask him what his favorite podcast is.

He says Founders.

The he's like, you genuinely believes it's good for the world.

So me not doing video means less people see it.

Yeah.

Sort of like a horse dealer fighting the fact that Ford is around now.

Yeah.

And it's just like, what are you doing?

Like, so get off the fence.

And then, then me and Patrick's at this dinner too.

We get in the car after that.

I'm like, we're going to do video.

I didn't want to do it either.

I know neither of us want to do it, but that's why my point is like you have to be smart enough to change your behavior when you're reacting to new information.

And so this also leads us to really like my obsession now.

Founders will always, always be my obsession, because i'm never gonna stop reading.

But like like, i'm spending a lot of time.

Most of my time will be on david's enra.

Is we get in the car?

I'm going back to patrick's house to to spend the night at his house and he's been pushing me to to record podcasts and do more what he called interviews at the time and he did for years and i was like no no no, whose house do you say patrick?

And we get in the car with the driver and he's like you absolutely have to start recording these conversations that you're having.

He goes, I just spoke.

He goes, I spoke 2% of time.

Daniel spoke 49% of time.

You spoke the other 49% of time.

He goes, I've known him for four years.

You got more out of him in four hours than I have in four years.

Nobody can speak to the soul of the founder like you can in the world.

You have to start recording these conversations.

And that is the push.

I was like, oh.

That conversation's different.

I can't interview anybody.

That might be interesting.

There could be a differentiation there.

Are you ever going to monetize this in a different way than normal media ways, ads and subscription?

No, I don't think I'll ever do subscription again, because I think that- So you're only going to monetize with ads.

Yeah.

I think the power of media is it's free and readily accessible and therefore it can compound through word of mouth.

It's such a shitty business model for how much influence you have.

Well, we'll see.

I have some other thoughts on there that I will keep to myself.

I think I have an earned secret.

So there's one of my favorite tweets.

This is what I will say.

Like you.

You mentioned like taking out interesting ideas of the books, and how do you do that?

Or whatever the case is,

And maybe sometimes my interpretation may be different than other people's.

I remember reading cable cowboy, which is supposed to be a biography of John Malone.

Right.

And you know it was like Oh he like, he is the person that invented the word EBITDA and he has all this ways to finance and he's focused on cashflow and there's all these other takeaways that I've heard other people describe that book.

That's not the main takeaway for me.

Fact is, like most industries default into like some kind of like oligarchy, and the cable industry I think there's like eight like main players and you know the top two are bigger and number six is a little smaller where the case was, and what's fascinating is like he's one of the eight, yet all the other players that are essentially competitors like go to him to like learn about, like their industry, this in this brand new industry that they are the ones essentially building the foundation, the one that has now grown crazy in the last like 50, 60 years or other cases.

And so one of the important parts for me where i would like disagree but some of the stuff i can't say publicly is like i saw this tweet one time and it says i think one of the most interesting ways to are one of the ways to have the most interesting careers is to find an earned secret and exploit the hell out of it for decades.

And this tweet was talking about Mark Leonard, who used to work in VC from Constellation Software saying hey, these vertical market software businesses, they are shitty for VC.

But they're great if I put it in a conglomerate and then everything that he did.

So I think he started I don't remember the number say 50 million, 80 million and grind it to like 80 billion, whatever the number is.

And so he had that earned secret.

VMS, bad for VC, good for this other way.

Let me just do that.

And he exploited the hell out of it for three decades.

I think, because i've strived to collect more information about podcasting almost anybody else, i think i have earned secrets that there i don't think there is any limit to what the, the size or the performance of the business.

No, and all the great ones like you're talking about oprah the other day, like there there is the breakthroughs don't particularly have like a blueprint where you're like and we were also talking about how like the people who are number one in certain things are literally 100 times better than number two.

So I buy into that.

Jay-Z has a line.

If I'm going to make it to a Billy, I can't take the same path.

And so I'll be very eager to see what you're going to do.

I hate advertising.

In most cases, I ran an advertising business.

When you rely solely on advertising, I hated it.

But if you can make money in ways where I own bits of companies that I love to promote, or if you do it in some interesting way, then it becomes good.

But the traditional form of advertising, I think is a pain in the ass business model that only captures a fraction of the value that you create.

And so I'll be very eager to see how you will change that.

And here's the thing.

I'm very comfortable like putting a lot more value into the world than I capture.

And I just think I'm going to capture more than like, if you go back, somebody asked me.

My friend at lunch yesterday asked me he's like what would like the 25 year old version of you?

Think of this.

And I was like, I don't even know if I can think in those terms.

It's already wildly exceeded.

I'm just very happy where I'm at and what I'm doing.

Are you a happy person?

I wouldn't describe you as a happy person.

No, no, no.

Happy with the way my work is going.

Are you a happy person?

I don't think you're happy.

Again, why is Daniel Ek the number one on my board of directors?

I already mentioned one of them.

He's pushed me in a certain direction.

Another thing that he's taught me is you get around them and you realize you don't have any ceilings.

Dude, those people are really rare.

I've been around a handful of them.

It is contagious, and I'm always curious.

I'm like, who gave you that?

This is the key.

This is where constant refinement of association.

People hear that.

They're like, great advice.

They don't actually do it.

So few people will do it.

I'm very interested in being one of those very few.

I think about this a lot.

I take this very seriously.

So, I don't think I'm apt to answer your question.

Another idea that I got from Daniel, which is on the first episode of David Center, which people should listen to.

If they haven't and they have listened to it they should watch it again.

I'm going to do a Founders episode based on the transcript of the conversation that I had with him.

Because there's so many good ideas in there.

And I'm like, we printed out, I was like, I don't know, 60 pages, 70 pages, something like that.

Like, it's crazy.

It's like a little, it's like a miniature book.

So impact over in his whole thing.

He's like you don't optimize for happiness, you optimize for impact, which is exactly the advice he gave dara for uber, the advice that he takes for himself and like i am very happy if you saw this goes back to like i don't need to capture, i don't need to be.

Let's say I've hit I don't know whatever the number of value out into the world.

And I only capture 1% of it or 2% of it.

It's like man, there's other things that are so like if you go and like.

You can go to the website right now and send me a message which I might have to stop reading.

Cause it's just like all these messages coming all day.

Most of them are positive.

But if you would just go through, like my emails, my DMS uh, the contact form, it's just like These people are like you changed my life.

And it's not me changing their life.

They're like basically, you have all these people are like hey, I really appreciate what you're doing.

I want you to know that it has an impact on my life.

This guy chased me down at the airport the other day.

And he's just like you, don't understand the difference of my life pre and post, like discovering your work.

And so it's like, okay, that's not a... I can't take it to the bank and deposit that.

But there's a very real tangible benefit from... And then this is the crazy thing.

So The James Dyson episode, we just did, right?

God bless Rob Moore, took 45 emails back and forth to get that scheduled.

It's just like this relentlessness.

But everybody knew...

He was my number one guy.

His first book is episode 25.

Dude, I bought a Dyson because of you.

Exactly.

There you go.

25, 200, 300, episode 400.

It's all about the same book.

The book that changed my life.

The book that encouraged me to persevere when I had no reason to persevere.

There was nothing that I was saying that this is going to be a success, other than just relentless self-belief that I'm going to figure this out.

If i focus on it and i want it to happen, i will make it happen.

Like i feel, like i have a very intense will to change, like what i want and to happen in life to happen.

And so the crazy thing is i've been talking about this guy for seven years.

It was seven years in the making that when we started doing the previews for the episodes.

So i'm showing the pictures, some of the trailers, some of the clips.

Then the episode comes out.

Strangers i've never met are like.

I'm unbelievably happy for you.

Yeah, I saw that.

That was cool.

Like, how crazy is that?

I was pretty invested into it.

So, like, what is that?

That is me capturing value.

And this idea where like oh, I have to hit a certain number or I'm not going to be happy, that's not wise.

I'm not trying to be smart.

I'm trying to be consistently not stupid.

And if I can be consistently not stupid over a long period of time, I think that's going to result in me being wise.

And that's what I'm after.

That was a good ending.

All right, that's it.

That's the pod on the road.

Let's travel, never looking back.

All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out.

It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo.

After years of building content, teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Luis and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and revenue.

In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit.

So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts.

[The Obsessive Pursuit of Excellence: Insights from David Senra]-[Why Balance Is the Enemy of Greatness | David Senra]

📋 Summary

The Obsessive Pursuit of Excellence: Insights from David Senra

The Philosophy of Constant Refinement

Delusional Self-Confidence and the Inner Scorecard

The Role of Intuition and Simplicity

Reframing Negative Monologues

The Future of Media and Value

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[The Obsessive Pursuit of Excellence: Insights from David Senra]-[Why Balance Is the Enemy of Greatness | David Senra]

📋 Summary

The Obsessive Pursuit of Excellence: Insights from David Senra

The Philosophy of Constant Refinement

Delusional Self-Confidence and the Inner Scorecard

The Role of Intuition and Simplicity

Reframing Negative Monologues

The Future of Media and Value

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🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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