My job as a founder, it's to inject risk into the business.
You can get away with certain things that other people simply can't because you own the dangles.
Alright, today's episode, we're gonna talk about things that interest us.
One thing that I tweeted out the other day.
I wasn't surprised by this result, but it still made me sad.
I tweeted out, I said, if you could guarantee a 7.5% real return for the rest of your life every year, guaranteed.
But you can't invest in any individual stocks forever.
However, you can start your own business and I think I even said you can invest $10,000 into that business.
Or you can invest actively, you can't really buy the index, but you can invest actively and do whatever you want.
Some days, maybe, or some years, maybe you'll get plus 50%, some years you're gonna get minus 50%.
Which would you choose?
Option A or B? 40% of my 300,000 followers selected option B.
And you replied and you said option A all day easy.
What did you select that?
Well, to get 7.5% with no effort and you're guaranteed, it's a no-brainer.
It's an absolutely no-brainer for me.
Now, I've got a business, I have a lot of risk in my own business, so that might be part of it as well.
I have all the risk there.
So let me ask you this, were you intending this to be someone who's 21 years old, straight out of school, never invested before, has nothing else going on?
Or is it just like at any point in your life?
I think at any point in your life, that's still the right decision.
I still turn that switch on in a second.
Yeah. That's a ridiculous return in a good way.
And a consistent return.
I mean, the way that would compound over time would be fantastic.
And there's nothing boring about that.
That's an incredible, I mean, it's boring, actually, but also an incredible thing.
So yeah, would you think that the survey was going to produce?
Did you were you surprised by the ratio?
I'm surprised that the average Joe, I mean, in my followers, are probably above the average show in terms of income.
Maybe IQ, maybe not, I don't know, but they're typically a higher.
It looks for sure, they're up there.
They're very good. It's a very high, like I would imagine it's a high educated, colstal crowd.
And so anyway, I would have thought that they would have seen the fallacy that they probably can't beat all the others, particularly the other people who have a much better advantage.
And so the idea that although everyone else fails at getting this return, I in my little office in part time with just me can somehow beat all the others.
And I thought that that was shocking to me that they thought that they were exceptional at that.
That's what I was surprised at.
Yeah, well, that's pretty common.
I think everyone thinks they're exceptional in some way.
I mean, the thing people don't take into consideration is risk.
So like they, they might go off if I just buy in video or Apple or whatever or Shopify.
And the thing is in the short term, you almost certainly can't.
Over the next two or three years, you get lucky.
Pick one, pick a winner.
But the rest of your life, that's the question.
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So here's what I've done lately.
I've been spending time in New York because I've got family here.
And I call the email that did cold outreach.
And I randomly met a bunch of people who work at hedge funds.
And I'm like, hey, like, I'm not like a competitor.
You don't ever have to worry about me.
I'm just like a passionate, interesting, interested person.
Can I just like see your office?
And just like, can I just sit at your computer and you just show me your software?
And like, I just want to see like what you do all day.
And you go to some of these offices.
And, you know, I would have thought like they were like, wof a wall street where it's like buzzing and like the phones are ringing.
It's really just a bunch.
It's pretty quiet. And it's usually just like a bunch of nerds, like looking at a computer screen.
But they got like four screens.
And they've got like incredibly complicated software.
And the average show is getting paid hundreds of thousands, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, to be good at this one thing.
And then I think about like, how is like, Bobbi Lee in whatever Missouri where I'm from on his Robinhood app, possibly going to have like an edge on all these resources.
And these people with all these resources, they're still not that good.
You know, I talked to a guy who worked at Bridgewater recently.
And I was like Bridgewater.
I've read a radio radio.
So, are you guys like the best?
He's like, sometimes we're the best.
But the last 15 years, we've sucked.
We've underperformed the market.
And I'm like, that's insane.
That 1500 employees, tens of billions or hundreds of billions under assets.
You're all paid like the best there is.
You still can't beat it.
And so that kind of like, that's kind of where I'm coming from.
Yeah, it's also like Vegas.
You go to Vegas. And, you know, you're on a hot streak for 30 minutes.
And, you know, the longer you play, the less you're going to win.
You're going to lose. Like, you're going to lose.
The house is going to win over the long term.
So people, I think, have this idea of short term performance in the market feeling like, I can do this forever.
Just like in Vegas, you can't do that forever.
And you will begin to lose.
And the same thing is true in the market.
So yeah, lock it in. What's this thing about loosening the grip on the stick?
Oh, yeah. So, I got a drum set recently.
I used to kind of want to play drums.
I kind of did for a little bit.
I stopped for many years.
And I kind of just picked it up recently.
My office is a bit of a mess, so I got to find better place for it.
But right now it's in the corner.
And as I've been playing, I learned this very quick lesson.
And actually it's true when I try to learn how to play guitar.
I say try again, because I'm not very good at these things.
But I enjoy them. Is when you're new at something, you tend to hold things too tightly.
Like, I hold the drum stick too tightly.
I hold the neck of the guitar too tightly.
Anyone who's played any instrument will understand kind of where I'm getting.
What are I'm coming from here?
I used to play drums. I know what you're talking about.
Okay, so you hold this stick really, really hard.
And then you fatigue faster.
You don't have as much articulation on the stick.
You can't get certain ghost notes and tones out of things, because you're always hitting too hard and too firmly.
And you just, there's no finesse.
And it kind of dawned on me recently that this is very, very true for most things in life.
I think, especially business, I kind of, some ways I feel silly always bringing this back to business.
Anyway, I realized that by simply loosening my grip a bit, by lightening up, you end up having better control.
You end up playing better.
You end up working better.
You can do it longer. And you allow other things to happen that weren't possible when you're gripping so tightly.
And I think this is true for business.
I think when you're starting a business, you have a really tight grip on things typically.
And it's best, at some point, to loosen up a little bit and let the rest of the organization expand into itself, versus you trying to control every last thing.
And I run into a lot of entrepreneurs who I think have not learned how to let go of the stick.
I think that that's also a young man's thing to do, right?
Like you learn this with age.
What are you saying? What are you trying to say?
Well, what I'm saying is you have a couple of decades of experience.
And so do I. And I think that as I'm getting older, which I'm not old, but neither are you.
I'm learning it is okay to loosen up.
That's what they say a lot about men.
They say, oh, well, she used to be intense.
But these mellowed out.
He's mellowed out. And that's usually what they're referring to.
Yes, that's a good point.
Yeah, the mellowing out.
It's nice though in a different realm of something to find a metaphor.
And in my head now, I am kind of thinking about this, like, loosen up your grip a little bit.
And what parts of life? Well, let's say business.
I would say also, like with my kids a little bit, I would say there's a way where I kind of work.
I kind of wanted them to do certain things a certain way.
And it just creates this conflict.
Like they're their own people.
I'm my own person. And, you know, I want to encourage them to do certain things in a certain way.
But I also got to loosen up a little bit around that and let them find their own way.
And that's something I kind of learned pretty early in parenting.
So there's a lot of things.
But I just, in general, I just feel better when I'm not gripping things so tightly.
And when I look out there, you know, on Twitter or anywhere linked in or whatever, and I'm looking at these like business stories, there's just, I'm reading a lot of grip.
I'm reading a lot of tension that, you know, people are trying to over optimize and paying attention to every last little thing in a way where I feel like, just loosen up a little bit.
And I pay attention to a few things that matter and let it, let things just be a little bit more.
The best example that I've experienced in my real life is arguing with people.
And so before it was like every word that I, like what I learned to talk, it was like, it was fight was the first, was the first thing that came out, you know, like my early words were, I wanted to fight.
And so if I met someone with a different political perspective, it was, you're wrong for these reasons.
I'm really stupid for that.
When I lived in San Francisco, I was, I was significantly more combative than I am nowadays.
As I, yeah, I've been lucky that I was raised in Missouri and that I lived in San Francisco, lived in New York, lived in Texas.
And that has shaped me a bit politically, but also that it bleeds to other points of life, which is like, instead of someone saying something, when someone says something that I disagree with, it's more so, instead of fighting, it's, why do you feel that way?
That's, that's a really interesting perspective.
Tell me more about why you feel that way.
And I think I don't know if this is just a clickbait thing, but Keanu Reeves had this quote where he was like, I used to argue with people.
Now I never argue. You could say one plus one equals five.
And I'll say, well, I hope you have a really good day.
And, and that's a little bit about how, how it's been where I just want to argue a bit less.
And I'll still catch myself arguing, but Dale Carnegie in this book, how to win influence, how to infringe, win friends and influence people.
He's got many famous lines, but one of the famous teachings is basically, just don't argue with people because you know party typically walks away happy or satisfied.
And so loosening the grip for me is arguing less words.
I'm not even going to judge you.
And I'm just going to, I can recognize that you think this way, and I think this way.
And it's cool. It's a great example, actually.
I hadn't thought about that, but that's another great example.
Just like holding on. It's not even holding on too tightly to a perspective, because you can have a perspective that you really believe in.
But it's, it's, you know, it's like don't clench, or you're not even able to listen.
Now, I think the point about like being too grippy is, is your, it's like you're spring under tension.
And if someone says something to you that you disagree with, like you're going to boom, expand and like explode, right?
Which is kind of what an argument can be.
Versus just already taking some of the tension out of that spring and just like bouncing with it and listening versus exploding out of it.
I think that's a big difference.
Have you ever read? There's, there's this term.
I'll have to figure out what the term is.
But there's this term where astronauts go to space, and they see the earth from far away.
And many of them have reported to have a life changing perspective where they think to themselves.
The fact that we're fighting over religion is ridiculous.
The fact that we're fighting over borders is ridiculous.
Now, let's zoom down to the smaller things.
The fact that we're fighting over someone saying something rude to us is absolutely crazy, because we're all just a bunch of monkeys on this like floating thing.
And it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, yeah, and we see like this, this abyss.
And then we're just a silly blue thing in the middle of it.
And, and, and it's like a lot of astronauts say it changes their perspective and it melds them out.
And I think that when I read about that years ago, it kind of helped me calm down a little bit more.
So where you think not the stuff that I thought mattered doesn't matter.
For example, I remember when COVID happened, and I was like, we're never going to a concert ever again.
And then three years later, I'm like, fuck that.
I forgot all about that.
Do you know what I mean? Totally.
Have you, have you, to that point about astronauts, have you read that great passage from Carl Sagan, the pale blue dot?
What's he say? No, I mean, it's one of the most beautiful.
I'm not going to say it because I want you to read it.
I want you to have the experience of reading it.
Sure. It's a paragraph.
It is one of the most beautiful passages.
I've ever read, but it's exactly kind of what you were talking about with the astronauts like looking back at the earth.
It's all about all the things that have ever happened.
I'm going to really generalize here because I want you to read the words.
But all the things that have ever happened, every leader, every religion, every point of view, every argument, every whatever, right?
Beautifully, in beautiful prose, happened on this speck of dust, basically.
I think he calls it like a moat of dust.
It's such a beautiful passage.
And it brings tears to my eyes.
And I try to read it a few times a year because it's so right.
It's so spot on right. It's exactly what you're talking about in the most beautiful poetic way, which is all the stuff that we're worried about, all these things, like very few of those things matter.
Although, of course, they matter in your day to day life.
So they're real for you, but they really don't matter that much.
It's just a good reminder that all the things were just so fired up about.
Cares. Well, it's a paradox of caring by not caring.
Why do you not like comparing this stuff to business?
And afterwards, I'll tell you my reason why I think it's good.
Yes. So this is an undeveloped thought of mine that's been sort of on my mind.
I don't know if it's a good idea or not.
So just run with me here.
I'm going to kind of. This is undeveloped.
It seems like every great lesson is then applied to business by someone.
So for example, a Navy seal learns all the stuff in the military and they come and they like then consult for companies about how to run teams.
Or some great coach coaches a great team and then they come and they bring it to the business world.
It's always like bringing it to the business world.
And I'm like, what is the business world deserve?
The best lessons from things that are completely unrelated in the many ways to business.
But why does it always come to the business world?
And the main reason is why in my opinion is because the business world pays for that advice.
It's not that it deserves the advice.
It's not even that it's advice that's applicable, but that it pays for the advice.
And the way I've been thinking about it is not as this, this, this shining beacon on a hill that business deserves all the greatest things, but actually as the drain.
But all these ideas drain down through business because business sort of just is willing to pay for it and listen to it and sort of have this, this, this, this sort of insecure in a way.
So like it's, it wants to listen to the Navy seals it wants to listen to the great double or and see double a coach.
It wants to listen because it's insecure in its own way.
And also there's this, there's a sense of like these other places and people they know better than us.
So I were going to we're going to just, you know, bow down for their advice.
And I don't, again, this is a little bit unformed, but it's something that just bugs me a little bit.
I don't know. Does that make any sense?
Yeah. Is it just a weird idea?
No, it makes sense. But my argument would be instead of the image that you've had to say you just painted is you've painted a upside down triangle with all of this beautiful stuff draining down into this bad thing.
Thank you. I would turn that turn that upside down and say it all is going up to this amazing thing.
And here's why because I think that whether you like capitalism or don't like capitalism.
You cannot deny that it's here to stay at worst.
It's here to stay in the lifetime of everyone who's alive.
Maybe America will change maybe maybe the rest of the majority of the world will change.
But I I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon.
And therefore, I think that capitalism and thus business building is the most practical way to manifest a dream or a reality.
And oftentimes you could say, well, what about art?
And I would agree with that.
But at the end of the day, you're still making stuff that people want.
And you're still selling tickets.
You're still trying to make some type of money off of your art so you can continue doing it.
Or you're just going to have a rich person who funds you so you are are able to do it.
And so my opinion business is the most practical way to actually kick a dent in the world or to manifest a vision.
And so I think a business as a very pat like I'm very passionate about it being a little bit of a spiritual journey of like turning dreams into reality.
That's an optimistic point of view which which I do understand.
Here's my question. If this thing called business is absorbing all of these lessons from all of these other realms, right?
And they're all like either filtering down or filtering up with their filtering to.
And maybe I'm wrong about this.
But why aren't the Navy seals asking CEOs for advice?
Why sometimes they are if you look at like I don't maybe they are like Jack Walsh's book six sigma like a lot of different types of organizations outside of business like view that book.
I don't really like that book, but they view it as like the rules of the game.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I might be uninformed in a sense of like what who the military is listening to and who you know, worst teams are.
But there's something it's like you would imagine this this entity this business thing that is absorbed everything would then be the definitive source of this wisdom.
But I wonder is it one way street or is it a two way street.
And I think you're more right than you are wrong.
That's for sure. It's definitely more one way.
Yeah, no, I just wanted to give I just wanted to give one example.
But I was yeah, frankly, that's a nitpick example.
Totally. I don't I don't know.
Again, I don't know if this is a good idea or not.
It's just it's been sort of floating in my head for a bit.
So it's fun to air these things out.
What was more fun early days or late days of the company?
Oh, man. That's a really good question.
Um, they're very fun in very different ways.
So I mean, it's a bit of a cop out, but it's it's true.
But they're fun in different ways.
What's exciting about the early days is there's a certain energy that you can never capture again, which is the the there's so much more unknown.
Like you're you're you're you're starting from zero and you're building something and you don't know where it's going to be in words going to go.
And what's possible and what isn't and how long it's going to last and all those things now you don't know how long it's ever going to last in a sense.
But there's this there's this hope there's this possibility there's this birth and you know, it's like, boom, we're out in the world and here we are.
And this is an incredible thing.
And that's super fun. And then you get a lot of new attention and you're kind of burst on the scene.
And that's exciting, really exciting.
I think what's what's hard actually is the middle.
We've gotten to a place now having done this for 25 years.
It's become really fun again in a different way.
But I would say like 15 years in is a different story because that at that point it's like we've been doing this for a while.
I don't know how much longer it's going to last like you're kind of in this sort of maintenance thing.
Were you big enough at at 15 years where you're like like payroll is not an issue like were you out of like any type of outside pressure where it was like things are fine.
So it's like I feel weird that I'm complaining, but this feels weird.
Yeah, and I'm not really complaining about it.
Yeah, yeah, it's more like you know, Scott Scott Belski wrote a book called the messy middle.
Yeah, I have not read the book actually, but I understand the idea of it.
And it's kind of what I'm trying to get at, which is like the middle of it is.
It's like what do we want to be now and where do we want to go now and are we going to be a big company?
Are we going to stay a small company?
There's all these opportunities that are surrounding us now and swirling around us versus when you're starting you're just like you're just going you're just moving.
Then you just play it place where you're like kind of evaluating.
And now we're in this place where we're just sort of mellowed in a sense to your point, although we're actually getting very ambitious again because we have this sense of like we've been doing this so long now that like if we took some crazy bets, we're made place some crazy bets and it just totally all fell apart like I don't want that to happen, but I'd be okay with that too like we're the place where it's like we've done plenty and we've had an incredible run.
And if it all ended with a bang because we tried some crazy stuff that didn't work like I'd be okay with that too.
So I feel like I'm at that place now what I wouldn't have been at 15 years.
That makes any sense. So what you said, I mean you started a bunch of stuff.
My sense is that so none of my things have had been as big as yours, but they've been big enough where we've had dozens or you know 50, 60 employees and we got outside of the like existential crisis moment where it's like things are working.
And everyone talks about focus.
Focus is a very common thing and it's something I firmly believe in, but as someone who likes to make things for my skill set, a company outside like maybe let's say three million in revenue or maybe maybe five million in revenue.
I've noticed consistently a five million in revenue and like 15 employees something like that.
I'm like I don't know what to do with my hands like I'm just sitting here like what what do I do I feel useless and I feel like sometimes a general behind the scenes just pointing and I've noticed something that I I really dislike, but I think it's normal is a company ebbs and flows.
And I've noticed that this ebb and flow carries over to the rest of my life where I just had a child and I'm like I'm in this quiet time for a moment where I have to be present, whereas there's other times where you're dating or something like that and you're like I'm in I'm in more mode a little bit where it's like there's it's action constantly or like I'm on top of my game and I gotta be a top my game.
Same with business where it's like we're launching this new thing where we're out fighting with the troops were in the trenches and then there's other times sometimes is I think can last for years maybe where it's just like it's we're just doing the same thing over and over and over again and that period can be a little depressing even though everything is going well it's a very saddening period because you lack action.
It's basically like what they say with a lot of great investors I think a manish at this on our.
If you can watch paint dry you're going to be a good investor the problem with that for a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs or a lot of like go getters is that's a really sad place to be and even though everything is going well it's really uncomfortable to be in that feeling and so have have you guys had a lot of have you had a lot where you're like man I just kind of kind of unfortunately have to do nothing.
Maybe years. Yeah I can totally identify with that and I think I think what you're getting is with entrepreneurs is that what you're describing is in the early days.
You are very important as a founder yeah then there's a point where you build an organization and then the organization is able to in some ways in a good way run without you to some degree and at that point you kind of feel a little bit less valuable yeah to your own thing that you made it's a good thing.
But for you it's a good thing because it means there's some stability and you're not the bottleneck and you're not the only person that matters here anymore obviously.
But for you personally it feels a little bit like you've become detached from this thing that you made and you you're now further away typically from like the the creation phase and now you're more the maintenance phase of something and and you're dealing with internal politics and personality is hiring and you've got some great.
People who just left and I got to find new people in the cultures changing and like that's a pretty tumultuous turbulent time for a founder and I've gone through that many times and it comes comes in it goes.
What I've found is that what I kind of discovered actually recently is that my job as the founder I'm still founder I still started this company I'm still in it 25 years.
My job as a founder what I've realized is it's to inject risk into the business.
Most people everyone pretty much at your company job is to manage risk to some degree to keep their job to not push too hard or too far ultimately.
You can get away with certain things that other people simply can't because you own the damn place you are the original person.
So what I've found a lot more joy and and and excitement in is is revisiting this idea of injecting risk and for us that means for the way I don't think you could change that.
I think like for a long time I was like why aren't these people taking risks I got a force and I'm like there you go it's impossible that's impossible to change.
Even if you hire great great CEO to replace you with CEO there they just don't have that there they might be incredible CEO great executive executing things trains run time incredible but there's that thing that's.
Present in a founder simply because they were there from the beginning that they they have an extra ounce of it's not even that they're they're not better than they just have an extra ounce of latitude that allows them to take risks that nobody's going to say no to maybe if you have a board maybe summer's going to say no but they'll still give you more latitude than a hired hand basically in a sense so my my sense is the way I found to return to this sort of flow versus the the app is like.
Is to inject more risk which for us means we're going to build a lot more products like this year we're going to do for products we're going to begin we were about to start working in two products simultaneously which we've never done before.
We never built two things at the same time and like this there's a lot of stuff going on we got different models we got once we got sass we got all these things we're going to do multiple versions of multiple things in different different business models and we're going to we're really off balance in a really healthy way at the moment.
Because like we're doing a bunch of new stuff and that gets me excited now it makes some people internally nervous understandably so it's like well this is different now we're kind of a little bit trying new things but that's how I have to run the business otherwise I will become board and at that point it won't serve me or the business well if I'm in charge and board that's not a good.
For my professional life or for my main company that's like the main nine to five thing for Hampton I've not I do inject risk but I have a CEO and so I try to I have to like respect I got to respect that relationship and so yes my nights and weekends I created a new website for fun I created this website called samslist it's samslist dot co nice and the reason I did it was I tweeted out like who's got an account and I'm going to do that.
Like who's got an account that they love because I just needed an account for something got like 300 replies and I was like wait something's interesting here because this tweet got so many bookmarks like a lot of people book market someone's like I'm saving this for later to find in the account.
So I was like this is interesting so I spent a few months calling every account on the list finding out how much they charged what services they provide what services they don't provide who the ideal client is who isn't the ideal client whatever and then I created a website called samslist where I reviewed or I like put all the information from all my research for all these accounts created this website I think I got 8,000 people to come in the first week and then I started figuring out how to monetize it and so this month the first month that's been live it's made 22nd when we're filming this I think it's done 20,000 this month and the 20,000 dollars that I've made from that is more dopamine than let's say a million dollars a month or two million dollars a month that I've gotten from other things it's a total rush and I love it why is it why do you think that why do you think that's so exciting for you it's a total rush because what started it's so fun it's so fun for things that start as silly jokes like like just stupid like the calculator like the logo that we have is a calculator that has three numbers and a queue and it looks like clippy it looks like clippy from Microsoft like waving at you it looks like Mickey Mouse and I just use chat Gbt said make a logo that looks like clippy but it's a calculator and it's so fun to take silly joky stuff and turn it into real things that actually solve problems and I find that to be almost like part trolling part like shit eating grin like scheming like I love that like isn't it would be hilarious if we made this a thing and then actually seeing it become a thing I find to be so exciting I also think that when you're when you have a silly idea even if it's like a serious idea and you start seeing customers truly like it that's a very invigorating feeling it's the best and we we have this internal say we don't say it that much we've I've set it before and we kind of try to feel it which is that cool wears off but useful never does and what you've made is something that's useful and that is one of the most beautiful things I think you can do for humanity is to make something useful and to have fun with it and to screw around and not like take it so seriously this is going back to the thing your grip is loose on this you know you're having fun with it yes chat Gbt to make a logo and you're goofing around the name is just your name it's like it's just have some fun and it's a reminder that that's what this should always feel like as much as possible it is totally valuable to do hard things absolutely but not everything should be hard but should be plenty of easy things in your life to things that flow things that you have fun doing things that don't feel hard you don't need to pile up and collect only hard things and so while some of your business ideas might be harder to pull off for other reasons this one is so lighthearted and easy it's healthy it's good for you and you rediscover like why you do this sort of stuff and it's also fun I think there's something probably I'm guessing there's something probably in this that like you're like I did this by myself yeah that's like the feeling of accomplishment and I can still do something by myself like really by myself and that's useful is very rewarding and hard to come by sometimes when we all think we need to have partners and co-founders and teams and stuff to pull things off do you and your partner get along like beautifully we get along really well we're not like work or friends but we don't see each other very often we live in the same town and we don't see each other I see them once every I don't know a couple months we're very good partners and we're friendly but we just don't we don't hang out like our families don't hang out it's not that we wouldn't enjoy it we just like we just don't there was a there was a study where they looked at the most common reasons why couples get divorced the most common reason was contempt and the most common the most common reason for divorce was contempt the most common reason for staying together was you admired the other person I hadn't heard that but it resonates like resentment is just bad and I think a lot of business partners resent each other actually I think you've been in business with others I'm assuming yeah I've got the most I've had bad relationships I'm currently in a very harmonious relationship with my co-founder Joe that I could see lasting a lifetime what feels different about it so when we first started together we we we invested in startups together and we had a great time and he previously helped me with my old company the hustle I cold email them and he was like hey if you're in New York tomorrow just stop by the office and we could talk and I was like yeah I'll be there I like flew out there and like hung out with him and that's how we became friends and then we invested in startups together and then I was like I took like a really formal conversation with them I was like Joe I love working with you something I did with my wife early in our relationship when we were like thinking like hey is this something that we want to like make real and like get married and have a family and I sat down with my wife and I was like let's just like walk through our life values and like what type of life do we want to have and let's see if like they kind of align and that's okay if things change eventually but let's just say let's just see if the direction is is is similar and so I sat down with Joe and we said hey let's just outline like what sacrifices are you willing to make what sacrifices are you not willing to make what's a perfect day look like for you what are you driven by and like for example for me I was like you know I'm driven by ego like I it bothers me that people think I'm not good enough so like I always want to prove that I'm as good as I think I am or I'm driven by money I was like I work only 40 hours a week I don't really want to work more than that I'm not willing to sacrifice traveling I'm not I'm not going to like get out of my house often if I have a family and he like named all of his things and we looked at the all the things and we're like how much money do you want to have how much money do I want to have we looked at all of the things it were like for everything that was agreed upon awesome for everything that's not agreed upon do we think that that's like a deal breaker and we they weren't and we're like cool we like did a really good job being very honest upfront about our wishes and now it's a much easier to address like any issues we have because it's like hey you he'll be like hey we got to get this done and I was like yeah but I but he'll be like but you told me that you don't want to like grind on a Saturday so I'm not I'm going to ask you it's all good we agreed to this things like that and that makes the relationship really nice is that we respect one another and we had those conversations super early on do you feel like the list or the conversations you had about that turn out to be true like are those really the things that that you guys share together or was that sort of what you imagined you would share yeah for example for for the money let's just do the money one that's a really easy one we actually shared each other's personal finances with each other and interesting yeah we were like super transparent we're like here's all of our finances what matter like I would like to go here one day where would you like to go it's like all right well to go there we're going to be like let's say that my goal is less than your goal let's hit your goal then and if we need to hit your goal here's maybe what the numbers would need to look like and here's what we'd have to make so like that you know is that like something we both agree upon do you want to be like we were very transparent with each other that's wild I mean this is I know we you and I were talking in Twitter a little bit about like how I'm super uncomfortable talking about money and you're like sharing your personal finances with your founder and kind of it's interesting well you don't do that with your partner you don't do that with your partner like well you guys as finances are probably so tied together but you know they are tied together I mean yeah basically all of our you essentially the vast majority of our net worth is tied in our business so we know what our distributions are and all that stuff but yeah we don't I mean we don't talk about that ever but it's interesting like I also like your Midwestern or I'm a Midwestern or like I feel like my my thing is like don't talk about it I don't know why like it's ingrained in me were you were you like that at one point or did you change or I was always open about it because I saw my family like that and I was like that's so unhelpful for me because you're not telling me you're not giving me a road map you're not I don't have anything to strive for because I don't even know what's possible my father owned a produce brokerage company which like it's like a small business but they sell like let's just say over the course of his 30 year 20 year career he sold like 150 million dollars worth of onions but like I'm like how much is a lot of money is a lot of money like 50 grand a year or like 300 thousand dollars a year like I have no I have no clue about this and so I and I always regretted that that they weren't open with me so I was like I'm just going to be open about it switching my my folks never talked about money I don't still to this day don't know if they're middle class wealthy I don't I don't really know you're kidding me do you really you have no idea that's weird do you support them I have support of them I gave them a big chunk of money at one point but they like regretfully took it they didn't really want it then I don't think they needed and I think I'm going to get it back when they pass like I they're not going to use it you know they've always been very frugal we don't talk about it my dad was entrepreneur work for himself like a small business owner he was a trader so he's traded stocks on his own he wasn't a broke I think he started out as a broker for a little bit but then he was on his own individual investor basically I think he did well for a while I think you didn't do well for a while I think you know that's that's a tough road in a lot of ways he was an a day trader but there wasn't anything we couldn't have but we also didn't strive for anything that we couldn't afford it just I don't really know I guess I was always been careful with this so I kind of absorb that like just don't really talk about it and it didn't limit me though it's not like I just felt like we were everything was sort of fine as how it felt to me what are you going to do it you're what are you going to do your kids I struggle with this like my parents never really talked about it we don't talk about it we certainly act differently than I then my parents are growing up you know we own a few homes you know we've a couple nice things so it's like it's it's it's kind of obvious that like we can afford things and do things but we just don't we haven't talked about it I think that's that's an incredibly midwestern and incredibly more traditional older set of values my family had very midwestern values and I think a lot of those values are great hard work don't complain don't don't make people work for like I remember going to like a restaurant and like we ordered a pizza and they brought us like a chicken salad and I'm like we're not gonna deal we're not gonna inconvenience you whatever just giving it like I'll eat that yeah yeah that's like the attitude I've never sent a dish back in my life not a million years never ever ever steal whatever yeah and so like I actually think some of those values are great I think there's many other values that are like I don't like using this word because it's too loaded but toxic bad there are a lot of values that are bad for example I think the stoicism that Midwesterners tend to have that you definitely have I think that it's gotten you to where you wanted to go in a traditional success perspective but also like not being transparent with certain people I think I just don't want my family to be left wanting more when I'm gone in the sense of like I wish that they were more open with me for example I've not seen photos of my family really when they were younger or like I don't have any your parents mean yeah my parents yeah my parents yeah I'm like I don't even know their grandparents name I don't know I had to do 23 me because I'm like I want to ask them what my heritage was they was go we're white I'm like yeah yeah okay but what flavor like come on I do some more and so or or I had to do ancestry dot com in order to understand like who my grandparents were like what are you guys hiding and I turns out I find out that and uncle is actually my grandmother was married previously and I'm like why don't you guys tell me this and they're like oh we didn't want to bring it up you know like little things like little things like that I'm like that's weird just like just discuss it just just tell me yeah that's weird so anyway I think that is actually bad though and I pray that I don't fall into that into that trap and so that's why with my family I've been overly transparent with a lot of things and I just think that that like lightens lightens things up a little bit I admire that actually and this is something I actually also admire about David I'm sure you wouldn't mind me telling you this David used to when we were in Chicago when we had an office he used to drive to work and like incredibly fancy cars yeah and my midwestern sensibilities like dude don't do that he's like why not like my sense was like it just it sends a weird message right what's the message I mean everyone knows like everyone here who works like they know we're doing well like why would I hide that I agree with you in that one of the way and I it's so funny because he's right I think have you seen the big Lebowski he goes you're not wrong dude you're just an asshole so in my mind I'm like I but I still struggle with it just because of how I was raised and how I was raised and how was brought up and and and and the imagined messages like the whole point is like I'm imagining that everyone's looking at that and going what an asshole what it's like most people probably don't care they don't care they know this they know the score they're fine with it and if they're not that's their problem like David's point is like if they have a problem with me driving a nice car that's their promise on my problem like I've earned this I enjoy this car I buy this car because I like the car I'm not going to hide the car and he's he's right but I just have a hard time with it still not anymore with it with him this is like way back in the early early years but but it still is something that's in there there's a residual like struggle with that degree of honesty around money in a similar way that people like you know in a very like who do you vote for like I don't talk about what I voted same Chris Rock has a great bit on that it's it's so funny like when I see someone with a with a political bumper sticker I'm like you're insane you're you're a crazy person yeah and they're probably like why I like this guy or like that guy or like her is like what why am I have to watch a high my point of view and they're right too you know so deep down your point of view is healthier I still have a hard time with it not and that's probably my problem or maybe it's not I don't really know I don't really know it's very interesting do you want to change or do not care well I think the truth is my kids have at least my son who's older my daughter's five she doesn't recognize any of the stuff yet but my son does and my son's really into like it seems to be into expensive things he like has this craving for expensive things so I mean he's got to know what's going on to some degrees not an idiot so I want to sit him down and go hey son we've got this and we've got that and like that isn't how I would handle it it be more like I've worked hard here's what we have we have some things we're going to enjoy these things we share these things with friends this is not just our stuff and that's kind of how I treat for example the house thing when I renovate a nice old house and I make it better like it's our house but it's also all of our friends house the free people are free to stay there as much as they want visit as much as the one I have this property with sconson it's old farm house 160 acres it's beautiful piece of land I've been working on for years my friends use it more than I use it I don't use it anymore I'm not even around there my friends can just go up there whenever they want and use it so it's about like we're fortunate clearly fortunate and lucky and a big part of this is you want to share these things this that there's there's you're not fortunate if you heard the things then there's something I think kind of wrong about it in my point of view so share as much as you can share these experience with other people and and we're fortunate you know that's kind of how I sort of left it at this point I don't know we'll see the thing that I tell my friends and family is I try to let them know I don't I and this is something that I couldn't grasp earlier on in my career I refused to admit this one thing which was luck is real and it has played such an important part of any type of financial like just meeting the woman who you spend your life with like just the fact that we are in the same place at the same time luck is such a bigger component than I ever would have been willing to admit years ago and I think and I think that what I'll explain to my children is like look I worked hard but I frankly didn't work harder than many other people right I'm smart but I'm not that much smarter if at all than the average person the truth is is that I worked hard I had a skill but I got like 50% of luck was like was like part of that or maybe even more than 50% luck is such a huge huge component and I hope that I can put that on my family to realize that luck was real it just happened to work out because some timing thing worked out like let's say you started a business and you surged during COVID you're like dude I just kicked ass because something I had nothing which I did our business killed it during COVID I'm like I didn't know that was going to happen that was just total luck or you know what I mean like things like that it's absolutely real and I need and I hope my family will understand that 100% with you and I think it's way more than 50% I mean all the way back to you didn't choose your parents you didn't choose anything right you didn't choose your mind how do you become the kind of person who is the way you are like there's a million inputs a billion inputs that you don't know about all the things what is it I don't regrets too strong word but one of the things I regret most in my career is getting on stage at startup school so this is like Y-combinators startup school years ago I forget when I was invited to speak I was only invited once because I was pretty anti raising money yeah I was saying I thought you're like the opposite of their ethos I was but Paul was kind enough to ask me to come up on stage and give a talk but you and Paul seem quite similar to be honest well I appreciate that I mean I have a lot of admiration for his ability to put ideas together and think things through what he's built but he invited me and there was a question from the audience about luck someone was like do you believe in luck I'm like hell no I don't believe in luck wow like and I was such a prick I was early at mid 20s mid 20s I think it was and I was just such a prick but a young prick you know kind of like and it's so embarrassing but you know like a lot of things are you look back on like poetry you wrote in college like oh my god I wrote that or whatever like whatever it is you know and you know it's like you just realized that's part of growing up is is is totally misunderstanding the world and your position in it and then hopefully you get to the place in your in your in your world where you develop a bit more and you have some self reflection and you can call yourself out of the bullshit that you that you thought but also like that's who you were at the time and that's that's that.
All right look the question that Sean and I get asked constantly is what skill set did we develop early on in a career is that kind of changed our business career and that's an easy answer it's copywriting we've talked about copywriting and how it's changed our life's constantly on this podcast and we give a ton of tips a ton of techniques a ton of frameworks and throughout all the podcast well we decided to aggregate all of that into one simple documents you can read all of it you can see how we've learned copywriting but you can see the resources that we turned to on a daily basis you can see the frameworks the techniques we use it's in a simple document you can check it out in the link below all right back to the show.
Last thing I wanted to ask you about was this staying off versus staying up you said imagine all the things you felt you were falling behind on if you didn't learn about them last year what it really have mattered if you started today instead watch out for the trap of must know now what's that mean.
