https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L2jYsL1UUY&ab_channel=TheIcedCoffeeHour

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00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:00.000
welcome back again to the iced coffee
hour with graham jack and alex where we
will talk about life liberty and the
pursuit of happiness and all things
awesome
i love that thank you so much for making
the time for us no are you bad thanks
for having me back again yeah so this is
unusual but we had you on what was it
two weeks ago yeah two weeks ago we've
never had a guest so requested before
ever everyone was asking me when are you
gonna get alex back on the podcast when
is he coming back on to the point where
you can't ignore it anymore we have to
get you back on this has never happened
this quickly i was wildly insecure about
making the second one because i was like
i will probably reel something up in
some way we did set expectations high oh
yeah i was like i want to reset the
expeditions for everybody who's watching
or who's watching you know who watched
the first one is now watching the second
one
it's got to be worse right some words
we're going to put set them all the way
down at the bottom so that we just have
room for a pleasant surprise there we go
that's good so for the so for those who
have not seen the first episode
give us a bit of a backstory on who you

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00:01:00.000 --> 00:02:00.000
are what you do and your 100 million
dollar business
so um i uh i started i was a major
consultant right out of college didn't
enjoy that questioned my life because i
was like i don't really think this is
enjoyable for me is this all there is i
had my like rock top moment um and so i
sold everything i had packed my car
drove to california because that was the
lane of opportunity as i saw it and i
was like i'm gonna do fitness which was
totally different than defense
contracting uh for the government um
talked to a bunch of people was able to
find somebody who could be like a mentor
for me um
stayed with him for three months working
every hour of the day uh to learn the
business started my own gym couldn't
afford two rents slept on the floor for
the first nine months built that one up
and then i opened up my second location
15 months in um just off the cash flow
from the first one and every six months
thereafter i opened a new location until
i had six i sold those and started doing
gym turnarounds um so we'd fly around to
gyms and just like
do all the stuff that i had learned at
my locations

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and we would fill them up in 30 days and
that was kind of our our big offers like
i'll fill your gym in 30 days and you
don't have to pay me anything which was
as you can imagine pretty compelling and
a lot of gyms took me up on it and i had
more demand than i had ability to
service it so we got up to doing eight
gym turnarounds a month um but
logistically it was very difficult and i
had a lot of risk that i was getting
exposed to for running all the cash for
all of these locations and then a couple
of i would say like bad eggs ended up
happening which it doesn't take a lot of
bad eggs to just ruin the margin in the
business and so it was just very
logistically difficult and so we almost
got out of the gym business altogether
but as a as a matter of chance i was
calling the eight gyms that were
supposed to launch the next month
and told them that i wasn't gonna be in
the business anymore and i was just
selling my secrets because we were just
gonna do weight loss direct to consumer
and um and it was working and so they
were like dude i need this like
if i don't have this my gym's going to
go under i just refinanced my house like
this this has to
this has to happen and so i said you
know what i will
tell you how to do everything but i'm

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00:03:00.000 --> 00:04:00.000
not flying out there to save you if you
can't sound they're like no that's fine
and so i picked the number um they're
like how much
so i picked the highest number i could
possibly think of at the time which was
six thousand dollars um and they said
sure and i just remember like looking at
the phone to be like holy sh
like did that just happen
and um i called the next guy same
conversation how much eight grand same
conversation next guy how much 10 grand
and i did like sixty thousand dollars in
sales in one day
in my mind like my entire world changed
and that's when we switched from doing a
done for you turn around model to a done
with you licensing model and that was
like it was this tiny little half step
and i as a corollary for the audience i
think it's kind of interesting because
if you think about the actual skill set
that that i had during the period of
time
i had the same skill set i knew how to
market i knew to sell i knew how to
build a team
and in opportunity vehicle number one i
was running and scaling gyms
and that was reasonably profitable uh
but it was not like i wasn't you know
hood rich
the the second version of that same

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00:04:00.000 --> 00:05:00.000
bucket of skills became
doing turnarounds for other people's gym
so flying out using those skills at
separate locations made more money doing
that a few hundred thousand dollars a
month at that point
and then
went from there to
packaging all of those system skills
processes etc for lots of gym owners so
my incremental cost per unit sold was
basically zero and so that and the value
of the thing that i was selling was
significantly higher and so i was going
up in leverage on the opportunities that
i was pursuing and with each of those
jumps i added a zero to my monthly
income
and so once we got into the licensing
business that's when we started taking
home a million a month plus every single
month uh for years
and so i always just think it's
interesting to look at like
the same skill set
by and large but just wrapped in a
different opportunity vehicle yields
outsized returns and that was i think
part of the conversation we're at in the
last call
our last podcast was just how can we

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00:05:00.000 --> 00:06:00.000
think of the highest leverage
opportunity vehicle with the skills and
the in the audience and the media that
you have
and so anyways
did the licensing business then we
started a supplement business to sell
through the distribution base
we ended up licensing about 4 500
facilities
licensed the model
and then in 2020 or 2019 we started our
software company and then in 2021 we
ended up selling a majority stake of the
supplement company and the licensing
company to apg which is private equity
group out of san francisco um
at 46.2 million dollar evaluation i
still two-thirds
and then for the software company i'm
under nda for the uh for the finances
around it but i can say that the
trailing 12 once was 12 million for that
business so
that's uh that leaves us just about
where we're at now which is now we run a
private equity
uh fund which is private equity on one
side venture capital on the third circle
and then start the second three circle
and the third circle would be management

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00:06:00.000 --> 00:07:00.000
consulting so it's kind of at the
intersection of those three things and
so we specialize in e-learning service
licensing coaching type businesses
because that's something that i'm just
particularly passionate about is that i
think that
education is the only way that
we can get out of
we can move forward and so i think that
the education system overall is becoming
increasingly fragmented just like media
has become fragmented into these these
silos these verticals um and it's much
less about the generalist education and
much more about the niche down education
and so we try i believe i want to find
the best you know mechanic
and how he teaches mechanics to run
better shops i want to find the best
salon owner so she can help salon owners
run better salon clinics i want to find
the best lawn care guy
and how he can package and sell his
ability to help other people who do lawn
care because it's so much more practical
if you know you're going to go to lawn
care there's no college for that and
there should be and so that's kind of
our investment thesis for
acquisition.com and that's what we do
now in the portfolio does right now over
100 million a year well education starts
really early yeah how would you change

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00:07:00.000 --> 00:08:00.000
that right now with let's say this the
current schooling system which seems to
teach you kind of how to stay in line
how to think like everybody else uh get
your homework done on time you got to
show up at it you know 8 a.m
school ends at 3. do you think that's a
good model
i mean obviously you're dating me no
but tell me your thoughts on that um
i think so i've two two broad broad
statements is
i think the purpose of education is
teach people how to think rather than
how to memorize and especially now with
technology that we have if if you can
pass a test with having an iphone with
you then in my opinion the test was
poorly designed because it's not going
to and then we have to rewind into like
what is the purpose of education right
education the education system overall
is the the product of that is people who
can add value to society right that's
the that's the product of the education
system the raw units are humans the out
the output of the system is people who
can add value to society okay cool so if
that's the if that's the system then
there's a lot of leeway there in terms

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00:08:00.000 --> 00:09:00.000
of how we can get there i think the the
system that we have set up does
is is inherited from the factory worker
you know when it was being designed
versus now
now i think we need a lot more problem
solving skills than we did back then
a lot more dynamic
thinking processes um or sorry divergent
thinking processes and if you're not
familiar this is a fun little exercise
so there's what school teaches right now
is convergent thinking and so that means
that there's uh
multiple variables and one correct
answer right
and so it's like 1 plus 1 equals 2.
there's only one correct answer and now
they're even telling you there's only
one way to find the answer and if you
don't find it the way they want you to
find it then it's also wrong which is
ridiculous but anyways
divergent thinking is when you have
multiple variables but multiple correct
answers which is like how many different
ways can you use a brick
and what's interesting about that is
that you can also have multiple right
answers and some answers that are more
right than others
which becomes very difficult to grade

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00:09:00.000 --> 00:10:00.000
but also how the real world works and
we're rewarded based on how right our
youtube video really is right or how
right our article is or how right our
product is and how we can solve problems
using
more creative methods than trying to
converge on a single answer because if
it's a convergent thinking process for
the most part it's already been kind of
automated and
everyone can do it right you get paid
for what you can think of
in the creative box of like what and
what are other people not thinking of um
and so i think that more of the
education system should be around
divergent thinking uh and divergent
problem solving but first we want to
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and back to the podcast you think that's
ever going to happen
no
mostly just because of the power
dynamics that exist and like if you've
ever saw the
the documentary waiting for superman i

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00:11:00.000 --> 00:12:00.000
haven't seen it it was one of the only
movies that i've cried during because it
was just the education system and it was
just showing how
there are so many impediments to it
getting fixed it's not just one party
like you've got the teachers unions
you've got the the funding for the
schools you've got like there's all of
these things that are almost all
diametrically opposed to one another and
then the only people really suffer the
kids and then ultimately the country
so anyways i do think that the the
solution is
i think the way that it'll have to get
solved is that people
there is an alternative schooling system
that gets developed that because of
technology
naval robocon said this but technology
democratizes consumption and
consolidates production which means the
if you're the best in the world you get
to do it for everyone right which a lot
of people don't like from a capitalist
perspective but that's also silly
because i feel like that's just pareto
um at work but
why would you not want the best math
teacher teaching everyone math like it
makes sense yeah and because there's
zero cost of of duplication and now
everyone's kind of understands how zoom

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00:12:00.000 --> 00:13:00.000
works and how like we can continue to
using life virtually like there's really
no reason to have now it gets scary
because teachers unions and what are all
these people going to do for work and
all that stuff but like the value just
like the switchboards for when there
used to be girls who would switch for
telephones they're like what are we
going to do and you know technology
automates that there will be other like
web 3 is just blowing up there will
there be jobs as we solve new problems
we'll create new ones yeah right and so
to say like we have to keep something
that doesn't make sense doesn't provide
value to the system for the sake of it
doesn't make sense to me and so i think
that it would probably have to be a new
architecture where the best people teach
and then
kids learn
probably at their own pace
and the the testing is would probably
have to change
in order for it to be more real world
and if we wanted it to be real world
then i think you need to match
conditions which is real world you have
your phone
like now take the test yeah don't you
think that like the the schooling system
would need to be somewhat localized

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00:13:00.000 --> 00:14:00.000
though like you can't have one person
teaching over too big of a
like a
imagine one person controlling
everyone's map like if you if you have
one math teacher you know that's
teaching everyone in in the country
don't you think that there's like an
advantage to having like because each
little part in each country has and it
doesn't have one person it's more like
it could be one system you mean like
that's that's more semantics you know
what i mean and if the best person is
more
localized by the way they speak or
whatever then sure but i mean we're
sitting next to graham who's got a
massive personal finance channel and so
if you're the best at personal finance
then more people will go to you so like
yeah that makes sense yeah it does your
schooling system does remind me uh i
completely forgot about jack i don't
think you know about this so in
kindergarten i had issues
and
in fact my parents explains a lot my
parents pulled me out of the school
because uh
after after recess they wanted all the
kids to line up in order on this yellow

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00:14:00.000 --> 00:15:00.000
line that led up to the front door and
so all the kids were supposed to line up
on that line the bell was ringing we all
had to walk in one by one and i didn't
want to stand on that line
and the teachers got really upset at me
because i didn't stand on the line or
why wouldn't you want to stand on it i i
don't remember i think at the point i
just didn't see i thought it was stupid
or like i just didn't get why i needed
to stand on the line i just i didn't
like standing on the line and my parents
pulled me out mid-year kindergarten to
go to uh an alternative school and yeah
that's the school that didn't have any
grades uh they had no assigned seating
it was basically a big room and then and
this continued by the way so this school
went until eighth grade but no grades it
was either you got a check a check plus
or a check minus on any assignments that
maybe and these assignments were kind of
like bs anyway they're like you know
draw something or like tell us to share
something that you're excited about but
i loved it and that was it's amazing
but but that's what that's what it
really helped me because i hated

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00:15:00.000 --> 00:16:00.000
like i hated homework i hated tess i
didn't like any of it and i just wanted
to to do my thing but even being in
kindergarten yeah you were the same
person as you are today yeah it's like
you only do what you want to do when you
want to do it and that's incredible that
it's like traced all the way back yeah
yeah
yeah but had great parenting too because
like i would say that i was very
different when i was younger because it
was very much like if i wasn't on the
yellow line i'd be like why weren't you
on the yellow line like
right right right and then that would be
that that would be the end of that
conversation and i would be on the other
line the next morning and so
i you know it's it's great parenting too
that they that's true let you do your
thing that is very true
but yeah but i do think that really
helps to have something that's that's
different that's interesting to me
because because you were an academic
right and if you could go back in time
do you think you would have spent so
much time trying to do so well in school
yes
because i think if something's worth
doing it's worth doing well
um and that's more of like a personal

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belief was school worth doing though
i think that it depends on what age
because if you're learning to work hard
and if you're like learning what hard
work is then i think that is a valuable
lesson
um
if we're like the actual subject matter
you know more or less irrelevant i think
that once people understand math and
reading
then that's that's pretty much what you
need to go and learn the world so that's
you know i if i were to like make
recommendations to college students i
would say be a math and english double
major because that's everything you need
for life much more so than
the other stuff right but even with math
classes shouldn't they be teaching you
how to use the iphone app on like how to
do math and like here's an iphone we all
get iphones let's add subtract here's
how you could do this use a more
complicated calculator
i think that there's an element to it
that should be there um
having a baseline of intelligence for
math i think is useful i had to do
so i used to be really bad at math or at

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00:17:00.000 --> 00:18:00.000
least i identified with being bad at
math
and
it was until my mid-20s where i decided
i wasn't going to be bad at math anymore
and so i actually stopped using a
calculator which would make it seem like
i'm contradicting my point
and only did mental math for like a
number of years and like calculated the
tip you know on on the bill with mental
math and i would try and you know do all
the marketing metrics and all the sales
metrics just in my head and then i would
i would still use the calculator to
check myself and then you get better and
better and better at it and so i think
there's like there's an essence of
having like a semblance of like being
directionally correct so that you can
make kind of large quick decisions
uh
but in terms of like exact calculations
the calculator does make more sense also
just using excel for most people's life
is probably even better than learning a
calculator like i bought a book in excel
when i was in college and i was like why
are we not learning this like every
single job you need to learn how to use
excel i agree
it personally like there's so many uses
for it and i had to learn how to do all
the it was just a book of the equations
like you know equals some and i was like
oh that's how you do that like i had no

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00:18:00.000 --> 00:19:00.000
idea
and so i think those would be the more
useful things but i mean a lot of people
know that there's problems with the
education system but
um
you know they say you you
i i hear
i forget i see i remember i do and i
understand so that's confucius and so i
think if there were more like if i were
to create a school around a skill the
school would be doing the skill so if i
wanted to teach sales like they'd be
selling they wouldn't be learning sales
theory
and so i think that there needs to be
more application of the stuff to what
people are going to use in the real
world it's just so difficult to change
curriculum so it has i think it's going
to have to be an alternative path that's
really flexible that continues and they
can't do the same thing the old old one
did which is like this is now the way
things are because then it'll get
outdated too so there has to be a
built-in kind of innovation wheel for
not just adding but also subtracting
what things are no longer useful
because i think that's what people have
more fear of they just want to keep
adding and adding adding but they don't
also just like say this isn't really
high utility if we could start all over
again we include this course where we
include this method probably not so

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00:19:00.000 --> 00:20:00.000
let's just let it go yeah it's too bad
that you couldn't create some sort of
curriculum like that though like like a
practical just a two-year thing that uh
you know might be ten grand or something
like that i don't know how much you
would charge for that but for two years
just practical life skills selling excel
i think photoshop would be yeah would be
on that
uh social media how to how to make a
good tick tock how to keep retention you
know
yeah it's because fundamentally this is
just how to communicate how to human
right right right that's what it is
and yeah and we have to learn all these
things on our own and there is the
alternative education industry which you
know you're you have a course and like
there's there's
you could you depend on how you look at
it like a franchise is an education
system it's just packaged differently uh
and so like there's lots of different
ways of skinning the education game um
but i think alternative is the way that
is going to like is the only way that i
think it will it it'll emerge how would
you reach out to somebody because that's

21
00:20:00.000 --> 00:21:00.000
an interesting topic how do you get
someone else's attention like let's say
uh
jeff bezos elon musk like someone who's
like typically out of reach for most
people how would you go about teaching
somebody to to have access to that
person or even just get their attention
it would be hard uh i mean those are
really extreme examples because those
guys
have everything you know and they
probably have a lot of people reaching
out to them so
i think the way to get there would be to
have to go through like from the heart
so it's just continuing to network to to
try and find out information that are
that's not as public about the things
that they like because anything that is
publicly known that other people have
already like gotten him his favorite
jersey to his fa you know like those are
those are the obvious ones but it's the
less obvious ones and then trying to
figure out a way that that would get
just like you're just trying to get
noticed and they're like huh and to be
fair it would still be hard because i
mean they are the richest men in the
world like the amount of money they have
is is hard to comprehend right and so
like there's no there's no monetary
value that can be delivered to them

22
00:21:00.000 --> 00:22:00.000
right and there's really no status value
that can be delivered them so it's like
how do i add value to someone's life
and so i think that if i were this is me
just thinking a lot if i try to add
value or get gain access to somebody
like that it would have to be from the
personal side like those people
have everything material they could
possibly want and so it would have to be
something immaterial like not in
intangible that i think would would
would hit the radar but first we have to
thank our sponsor storyblocks jack where
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ich that's storyblocks.com ich or click
the link down below in the description
thank you so much storyblocks and back
to the podcast yeah with elon musk i
think it's privacy this reminds me of
the
the twitter the twitter yeah twitter who
is yeah tracking his jets got his
attention got him to dm
but now he's tracking the uh with the
yachts
yeah well i thought he was doing the the

24
00:23:00.000 --> 00:24:00.000
russia liking that yeah yeah yeah
i have no idea okay i try not to pay
attention to the news all right yeah i
know this is a kid how old was he 15 16.
he was like in high school yeah 16 years
old and he got elon musk's attention
because he was tracking his private jet
yeah and he would post the coordinates
on twitter be like his jet went from
this location to this location and then
people could speculate from there well
why is he going to this part in
texas a lot is there maybe something
there that they're building yeah uh so
then elon musk dm'd him and basically
just said like hey would you mind taking
us down like you know privacy is
important to me yeah and then the kid
said no and elon musk offered him five
thousand dollars and then the kid
countered back fifty thousand dollars
and then elon musk said you know what uh
like i'd rat you know i'd rather not pay
for something like this or
something like that or he just didn't
respond which at that point sets up then
the narrative with that people could
just track him and he'll pay them off
which i think is probably
better to not engage with them it's
blackmail it's a version of blackmail

25
00:24:00.000 --> 00:25:00.000
exactly so um but now that that same kid
is tracking uh russian yachts
weird yeah but he's getting a lot but
he's getting a lot of attention for it
well i think it's important to mention
that he's not just tracking them and
posting tweets i mean he's developing
software to do this automatically at 16
years old so he's a bright kid yeah
so he's getting a lot of attention from
that i see him every few days now on the
the headline of like cnbc cnn
you know what's the general idea of them
do people like them or they're not uh
with the elon musk it was 50 50. some
people were really for it and some
people were really against it and they
thought it was creepy and invasion of
privacy but look up to tracking russian
yachts it seems like everyone is
on not everyone but a lot of people are
on his side on that one
and they think that he's doing a service
yeah but
huh so you mentioned like during that
that you don't pay attention to news at
all no
why not

26
00:25:00.000 --> 00:26:00.000
i can't control anything
until like there's no to me there's no
added value like my life does not
improve as a result of news
at all
it does get worse though
and so for me like eliminating news is
just eliminating a negative it's like do
i want to have cortisol today sure let
me check the news like you know i could
go for more stress do you want some
stress let's go check the news because
like i think um i can't remember i heard
this quote but it was
uh the job of the news is to make
everyone's problem your problem and so
uh i have this that's on my phone but uh
a journalist made this thing of like
what makes something newsworthy and so
it's basically ways that they try and
manipulate news in order to make it more
interesting so it's like how do we make
something odd or unusual or bizarre how
do we make something more local to
people how do we make it more recent you
know like recency is a component of
newsworthiness and there was four other
ones i can't remember but it was just
like there's a formula for what creates
news and
i don't want to be the product for news
because news is

27
00:26:00.000 --> 00:27:00.000
what a lot of people don't know is like
news stations are private
so like they're just like hbo like think
like they're just like hbo they have
programming
and people show up for their shows
and they have commercials which is how
they make money and so like their
intention is to keep attention
not to you know
disseminate truth right that's not the
goal because the thing is is like
the really true stuff is not interesting
and this and will fail compared to a
sensationalized news like it's just
dollars dollars and cents so they have
to make it and that's just the nature of
the business and i understand that i'm
not poo pooing it but i don't
necessarily need to subscribe to it
you know i mean like people want to give
their attention to it so then
there will be somebody who will sell
those eyeballs to advertisers
but their intention is not to educate me
their intention is to make the world's
problems my problem and i have enough
problems and so i don't need to add more
that are irrelevant to me to my list
yeah so on the scale of understanding
what's going on in the world would you
say you're closer to like a one out of
ten like no nothing probably a two okay

28
00:27:00.000 --> 00:28:00.000
probably a two
what would you say you are graham
oh gosh probably an eight and a half to
a nine wow yeah
i'm probably a four you're a four yeah
i'm super out of touch as well yeah
really yeah see i spend all day reading
the news and i see everything that well
stock market or economy related news so
i see everything that goes on but also
worldwide events have a big impact on
that so i have to understand those
events to be able to
um summarize that information if i need
to so yeah so news is something for for
years now i've i've read everything i'd
like to be able to to read that so you
could uh sell the eyeballs because
that's exactly the news right yeah you
mentioned yeah
i get it like we try to make things
relevant you know recently stuff like
that
and i i've i've i'm continuing to move
in this direction of like an
anti-information diet um but like when i
work now i realize that i can just if i
just remove my phone altogether from the
room um my level of focus just just goes

29
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it feels like i'm on drugs uh because
and what's crazy though is that
especially if you have so now i just
take my phone when i leave
but like when i'm at home it's not with
me because
anything that's work related i have
slack
and anything and unfortunately i feel
like the vast majority of like the text
messages that i get um are usually
requests there are things that people
want from me uh i want me to meet want
me to talk want me to whatever and so it
ends i end up just getting stressed from
seeing all the messages
um and so i may end up just changing my
number again but like which i do every
so often
uh but but just putting it away um
when i go to sit down on my computer i
still feel like that ghost itch of like
i want to reach for my phone i like
there was a oh there's a pause point
here for like a split second let me grab
my phone just for that dopamine
and so like
i try to not do that and
media sources you know social media and
news in general
i don't consume any formal news the only
news i get is as i'm posting stuff on
social media so that i can get it out

30
00:29:00.000 --> 00:30:00.000
but
i'm currently trying to figure out a
like a desktop version of that so i can
just plan it so i don't have to consume
it's just really hard you know what i
mean yeah at least for me and like i
notice if i start my day consuming some
social media like my
i'm just not as sharp you know what i
mean i feel like i'm a little bit
foggier
and i think it's like i'm like it's like
you get over stimulated and then
everything else seems less interesting
by comparing you know by contrast so
just eliminating it overall uh has been
very very helpful for would you start
doing that
um when my new executive assistant came
in that i was talking about last night
yeah so this is crazy jack okay so uh
alex is telling me if you want to
coordinate to go to dinner you just text
this number
and i'm like all right so i text the
number and she's like this time this
date does that work with you it's like
yeah that works and she's like all right
you're going to go to this place at this
time
i was like
okay and i asked alex i said hey do you
do you know where you're going he's like
no she just tells me where to show up
that's great i'm like how did you pick

31
00:30:00.000 --> 00:31:00.000
this place she knows my preferences
yeah
yes that's right so he doesn't know
where he's showing up but do you know
who you're who you're meeting most of
the time yeah she'll give you she'll
like brilliant so do you want to go to
dinner with graham and you're like no or
yeah um
and then she's like all right i'll pick
out a time schedule
how crazy is that that's he doesn't even
know where he's going like i would want
to know like this place or this place or
whatever what are the preferences no
it's just trouble those are all these
micro decisions that you have to make
that are like big picture or relevant
you know what i mean like what
restaurant we're going to go to well
what time are you like she knows that on
weeknights i want to be done by x type
so that i can get the sleep that i want
and so she just planned because like if
you think about all the micro decisions
you have and you think about them ahead
of time
you already have a decision-making
process you just haven't like spoken it
out loud like for layla and if we're
going on commercial flights here's a
hack um if you go two aisle seats that
are on either side you both get aisle
seats you get to be next to each other
but you rather than having that one
person who gets the middle seat that has
to like trade off two aisle seats works
great right and so she knows that that's
our preference and so she will always go

32
00:31:00.000 --> 00:32:00.000
and try and find two aisle seats that
are close to each other and if those
aren't available what's the backup
what's the decision-making process so
it's like you outline all of those
things but you do it for everything so
it's like if we're at an event what type
of you know food are you gonna request
i'm always gonna probably add the
chicken dish i want them to double the
chicken and i'd probably want some extra
carbs on the side cool so she knows that
so when i go to events there's like
here's your lunch and i'm like great i
don't have to ask for it she already
knows the preferences are and so the
idea um
and it took me a really long time to
understand this because i have i have
gone through
it's actually something that i was like
really insecure about um i've gone
through eight executive assistants wow
yeah
um why
uh
i mean there's two to tango right
partially me partially them just being
real um
but i think that a lot of i mean
fundamentally it's my fault because i
didn't know what i was looking for right
and so if you don't know what you're
looking for it's very hard to find it
and so that's why this time it's been so
great for me because she came in and she
was a you know 20-year veteran executive
assistant she's like this is how this is

33
00:32:00.000 --> 00:33:00.000
gonna go i was like yes this is what i
like i knew within a day i was like this
is gonna work and every other one was
like maybe it'll get better you know
like
maybe they'll come around like i was
like rooting for them but like it wasn't
you know great
but this one day one i knew and so the
difference is
a true executive assistant is almost
like a time coach it's almost like a
partner with you where you're both
working to optimize you
right so it's not like a administrative
assistant which is different which is
just like i will i will handle your
scheduling and you know answer the phone
and respond to emails and things like
that but like a true executive assistant
is somebody who's almost like a partner
at the executive level who understands
business at a very high level um can
make business decisions on your behalf
knows your like personal preferences
things like that but for me it's very
much like a time coach so when i wake up
every minute of my day is planned and if
i let's say i finish a task that's
supposed to take me you know 40 minutes
and it takes me 22. i'd be like melanie
i've got 18 minutes what do i do and
she's like oh i'll pull this from

34
00:33:00.000 --> 00:34:00.000
tomorrow and i'll slide this in and i'll
see if i can move this to that and so
that and like i had a handful of
preferences i was like no white space so
for me all my calendar i don't want any
white space because i just wanted like
from the time i start the time i end i
just want it to be going um
and so by doing it that way though it's
just like i am just working on
whatever's in front of me and she slides
things in and i just and i'm just in
communication with her of like and hey
this person wants to do something i just
send it to her and then she goes and
talks and says okay dude you know and i
get a lot of podcast requests and things
like that and so
you know rather than me having the
awkward like hey like i get 10 of these
a day like can you just give us some
stats and what's your audience and
things like that it's like that entire
process she can just handle and i don't
have to go like look at their profile
see what like she she knows what my
decision-making criteria is for all of
those things and what's a yes and what
to know and so it just allows me to
outsource more and more and more of the
decisions that are
lower value add to
portfolio company growth so that i can
just purely focus on the things that
have the highest leverage

35
00:34:00.000 --> 00:35:00.000
has she ever scheduled something that
you've disagreed with like let's say
let's say this podcast is an example
uh where she would schedule you on
something like that you're like you know
i don't want to do that though
um
she probably will she hasn't yet but i
mean if she did i would say like here
like we have to update some decision
criteria like in this instance this is
why i wouldn't and then i mean i
wouldn't be upset because if it i would
only be not upset but i would only be
maybe disappointed or whatever or
frustrated or annoyed if
the decision criteria that we had laid
out was somehow not followed
but if someone if if i had it i have to
if i have to add to it then that's just
like an opportunity to make the thing
better so like that's i wouldn't be
upset about something like got it how
did you find her
um is there an agency
we'd actually known each other for a
long time right um yeah we'd known each
other for a long time she was an
executive assistant of a really good
friend of mine for eight years um and
then as their company grew and like you
know organization shifted around um it
made more sense for her to pursue a
different opportunity and whatnot and so

36
00:35:00.000 --> 00:36:00.000
um we'd known each other already and so
like i was always like i need i need the
her for me
um
and and then it just so happened it
ended up being her
i'm
curious if you could say about how much
yeah you're gonna ask
to me that's what i was thinking yeah
yeah that's what we're all thinking
there's no way it's less than i'm
we should take a guess i'm gonna say
probably 100 you don't have to say
exactly but yeah i'll say 70.
no i'm 95 say 120. yeah you need to pay
someone well yeah like if you want
somebody who has business acumen right
and who can true like if i can say hey i
want you to you know i want to i want to
make some t-shirts for us and like can
you make some backpacks and by the way
can you figure out why the book is not
on amazon prime like why is it not why
don't i have the little prime thing can
you just figure that out you want
somebody who can like go and just take
that directive and just solve it like
sometimes that's
harder to find
and for me i also want to pay for
experience so even if there's two people

37
00:36:00.000 --> 00:37:00.000
that were
who might have equal ability i will
usually pay more for the experience
because i don't want to have to have
this person who's less experienced learn
those lessons on my clock i'd rather
come with the solutions pre-loaded
so that's why i'm willing to pay more do
you fly business or do you fly a couple
we fly private mostly
it's being real
economy
[Music]
yeah wow i have two people outside my
house they carry me everywhere
yeah
it's it's one of those like i it's
almost i'm embarrassed to say but it's
like it's there's a handful of things
that are really expensive and i feel
like they are worth it and
i try and spend the money that we have
because it's the only way that money has
utility for me rather than just making
more money which then like for what
point so if i have the opportunity to

38
00:37:00.000 --> 00:38:00.000
consume benefit for money i try and use
it and so the speed and convenience that
i get from private versus commercial is
pretty significant
and like short flights are like five
grand so it's not like you know what i
mean and if you're going with somebody
else it's not a huge deal um
you know the longer flights if you're
going cross-country it's like a 50 000
flight but
you know it just depends on on what
you're what you're looking for so i
would say shorter flights um we tend to
fly private um longer flights i'm also
like more weary of small planes so i
also i will just you know fly first
class on on the commercial
let's talk a little bit more about time
management
because it seems like you can get a lot
of stuff done in a very small frame of
time so like let's let's walk us through
your day you you mentioned on the last
podcast you wake up extremely early yeah
and just and just for the audience like
it's not because i have like some like
superhuman discipline i just think i
think i just fall i get tired early
so like
if you fall asleep at nine or ten like
you wake up at four or five like it's
not
it's not like a superhero thing you know

39
00:38:00.000 --> 00:39:00.000
it's been seven hours like i can wake up
now um so i don't so i'll tell you a
couple things so number one is i don't
have a
wake-up alarm i have a go to bed alarm
um which is like hey you should be
winding down by now i don't even really
need to do it anymore because i've just
been doing it for such a long time but
when i started it i wanted to set myself
a go to bed alarm um
so i got about around the same time um i
usually know what i'm going to do the
next day before i go to bed that's kind
of how i clear my mental plate and i do
think and i know this sounds kind of
weird in woo but like i think that
overnight
my subconscious works on some of the
problems because i feel like i always
wake up with like really interesting
solutions in the morning to some of the
problems i went to bed with and so it
just gives me like great momentum to
start my day um but when we when we wake
up my wife and i wake up about the same
time we usually have coffee in the
morning together that's kind of like our
30 minutes to just like hang out chill
watch the sun rise
it's usually between four and five wow
um so we hang out then watch the sun
if the if in that time right you know
time price and the sun is coming up if

40
00:39:00.000 --> 00:40:00.000
it's not then we don't watch it but
if we can we do um
and then uh and then from there uh i go
to my office and i start working
and uh she does her own thing and then
we meet again for lunch
and uh then i go back to work and then
that's my day and then you cut it off at
a at a specific hour like four-ish four
it's not a specific hour it's like you
know if i've got if i've got a call uh
you know usually my calls end around
four-ish do you work really hard at four
to basically switch off like from work
mode into like personal mode where it's
just like a light switch or still open
like if something comes up with work
wise you're going to handle it
yeah i don't have like
i so
it's
i'm just trying to say this the right
way
i don't get the same level of stress
that i used to from work and i feel like
i've worked i've worked a lot on that
side of like not being stressed by work
and i think a big part of that was

41
00:40:00.000 --> 00:41:00.000
realizing like last year
that i don't have to work like at all at
all and so kind of confronting that and
then realizing that i'm choosing to do
this kind of relieved me of the the
stress that was surrounding and i'm like
if you don't like this like basically
like stop complaining to yourself like
you're choosing to do this and you have
no reason like there's no point in you
doing this and so not having the stress
around it has decreased um like
a lot any kind of negative stuff
associated with it and so
you know i'll stop taking calls at four
but if someone slacks me i'll like but i
usually i don't i would say i delineate
that from like i'm not gonna sit down at
the computer
um but i don't have like hard and fast
rules if there's something that i want
to do i'll do it yeah but how do you
mentally switch off from work mode at
that hour because for me i find it very
difficult if i'm focusing i ca i can't
take a lunch let's just say i even when
i wake up i can't do just like a 30
minutes just kind of do nothing i have
to immediately start once i start i
continue that all day if i have a break
it throws me off but even when i stop

42
00:41:00.000 --> 00:42:00.000
sometimes i can't
that switch is still on so i'm always in
my head just like thinking you're like
eating and you're like don't talk to me
too much i really want to keep yeah and
sometimes it's like you know it's i
won't even have my phone i'll just be
thinking i'll just
just like that quiet space totally yeah
so i split my day so i actually could
probably give more detail so i split my
day between
kind of
high leverage work which is like me
doing stuff and then
me communicating with companies which is
usually the afternoon so until you know
noon so basically you know 4 5 until
noon is when i get all of my work done
so that's when i if i want to build
presentations or if i make content or if
i want to write the book or you know the
things that i do that are like
one of the companies wants to
whatever it doesn't matter i'll write
down my thoughts or review stuff in the
morning and then the afternoon is when i
do like my communication with people
because for me like i want to be for me
i like some people function really well
late at night i don't i'm much better
like super early in the morning
and that's where i get my highest
leverage on my time and so in the

43
00:42:00.000 --> 00:43:00.000
afternoons when i don't need that
creative juice i can still be super
effective on meetings i just i'm not
thinking like how do i
say this framework differently like
which is a kind of abstract concept and
more difficult so i understand what
you're saying but my cutoff my cutoff
for like when i stop quote working is at
noon it's actually when i have lunch is
usually when i'm done with my my what i
would consider deep work for the day
and this probably just gives a
difference in the nature of the work
okay
and then after 4 5 pm once you shut
everything off work wise or try to uh
like how do you spend your time do you
just like relax with them
so we actually do an hour yeah we do go
out to dinner a lot a lot a lot every
night actually every time yeah the guy
at mastros like welcome back we see you
all the time like joking around yeah wow
what's your favorite what are your
favorite restaurants and what's your
food budget like i mean maybe you have
no idea
so we i mean it's it's aggressive um
it's a lot
what a

44
00:43:00.000 --> 00:44:00.000
realistically um we probably spend
between 12 and 15 000 a month on going
out to eat
would you say that there's like a return
on that because you can relax so much
that you can like cycle that back into
i'm like somewhat embarrassed by this um
but it's
so it was i think we talked about this
last time is that like again like if you
could pay a dollar to go out would you
go out right so yeah i would pay a
dollar to go to masters every night
rather than staying in um and so for us
because we work all day at home like
going out to get dinner is like the only
real time i leave besides going to the
gym and so like that's kind of why like
going out to eat has serves multiple
purposes not just the food it's much
more so like
we sit down we get to connect we you
know we're served which is nice um it
doesn't have to be five-star i would say
like two-thirds of the time it's
five-star restaurants and i think a big
portion of that is because of the
convenience of where i live so currently
i'm running a place that's literally on
the strip and so like i have 45 star

45
00:44:00.000 --> 00:45:00.000
restaurants like connected to the
building so it's just it's like if there
were chipotle downstairs i'd probably
eat more chipotle but it just so happens
that it's masters is the closest
restaurant to me so i go there a lot
so like massive difference in price but
relative price not so much um and so
yeah so we go out to dinner i mean
pretty much since we got to vegas we've
gone out to dinner not pretty much we've
gone out every single night we've never
cooked once um
so
that's so in terms of best places i
think delilah is really good i think
they have the best dessert uh in vegas
everyone's curious uh delilah's
exceptional um
so many of them are really good because
they're just they're all
the best places in vegas and vegas has
some of the best dining in the world
it's like it's just it's crazy but i
will tell you this
the uh the marginal utility of five-star
dining decreases very quickly like at
the same like you open the menu and it's
the same stuff it's like you've got a
carpaccio you've got a you know steak
tartare you've got a tuna tartare you've
got
you know some shrimp cocktail of some
sort there's some fancier bread
selection that you can opt for for five

46
00:45:00.000 --> 00:46:00.000
dollars
and you've got a couple salads and then
you know they've got their really
expensive steaks they're medium
expensive steaks and then they've got
the seafood selection they have a
chilean sea bass like it's they're all
the same but you don't look at prices at
all no
no i don't and you seem like you'd be a
big tipper you're a big tipper yeah
because it's interesting after our
podcast last time unfortunately we
talked about this off camera but you
mentioned that you want to get rid of
all of your money like when you die
you're not going to pass it on to your
kids or anything yeah
there's a pledge or something for that
well i mean there's the giving pledge
but um you know we already
donated earth like our states have
already been set up to get be given away
i haven't signed any pledges for it but
yeah and it's i mean
well i guess i guess we're gonna get
into it so
so um
it's just that like whenever i so i'll
tell you a really interesting example
that i'll drive this home this is like
this is recent
so my uh
my my great great

47
00:46:00.000 --> 00:47:00.000
grandfather
was
uh he was the he was a ruler in iran
prior to
uh
the shah
and so we were like
i'm directly descendant from him now
that sounds fancy it doesn't mean
anything which is going to prove my
point he had 400 children
from those 400 children was my um was my
great-grandfather he was one of 19.
then there was my grandfather
then there's my dad and then there's me
right
and so
he was a ruler of a country so you talk
about like wealth and status and
everything right
i actually can't even remember his name
and so that's just five generations
and so the idea that we have of like i
want to like create a legacy it's like
dude you're not making a legacy
he was ruler of a country
i can't even remember anyone related to
him
right
and so
you know if you if you do that enough
times it just becomes humans right like

48
00:47:00.000 --> 00:48:00.000
the difference and that's and that that
becomes a very like humanitarian
perspective too because
if you if you mix bloodlines enough
times it's just people right you take
your genes split them split them split
them slowly you do it 10 times you know
half to the 10th power is very very
small number right in terms of what
percentage of it is still you if you
still have like pride in your biology
being passed on which also gets into
like having children versus not having
children um because then that's a whole
nother like interesting can of worms but
as a result of that kind of thought
process the point of leaving a legacy
in like capital l legacy of like this is
going to last past me doesn't really
make sense because
the people who i'm leaving it to will
never know who i am and it will get
divided so many times as well between
all of those people would have to be
such an insane amount of money which
then would become a marginal amount of
money once it's divided enough times so
for both of those reasons wouldn't work
but then on the on the close-knit basis
of like well i want to pass it on to my
direct descendants

49
00:48:00.000 --> 00:49:00.000
i just don't know many people who have
been given lots of money who
are better for it
and so for that reason it doesn't really
it doesn't seem very beneficial to
anything
to give it to
anyone besides just giving it back to
everybody else and it's also kind of
nice because it kind of relieves you of
this pressure because then it's just
realizing it for what it is which is
it's just a game
right like what we're playing right now
is just a made up game to keep us
occupied
and so
these are just the i mean i gave the the
casino analogy at the end of the last
podcast but that is how i see it it's
like we're just accumulating chips
they're fake
and i can't take them with me so i'm
just pushing them back to the middle of
the table which is what they're going to
be done anyways it's just whether you
say like
they're only going to these players
rather than all the players but like
fast forward three more generations it
is all the players and you don't know
the people anyways
yeah so like what does it really matter
do you want kids
you mentioned you mentioned uh you know

50
00:49:00.000 --> 00:50:00.000
the time commitment of a dog yeah yeah
like well you know it's too much
i can't imagine a a child
yeah yeah i think i would probably have
different feelings about a child than i
would about a dog
um and just so the audience can dislike
me so this is my gift for everybody um
we had a dog uh and um
it just it just went to the bathroom
like eight or ten times a day and
i just
it was it was too much
it's like it's like it was too much
source that couldn't i could have
somebody
i actually really like animals and
actually animals really like me um it's
kind of weird bailey goes crazy when you
get in the house but like it's it's like
layla's like you have calming energy or
whatever you know i mean um i don't know
but like animals do like me and i like
them back like we're cool like we get we
get along but um maybe it's because they
know that i'm like i don't i don't need
them
you know like i was like we just you're
not i'm an animal we're both just like
doing our own thing like i don't need to
take care of you you can take care of
yourself
though i loved the cat i had we had a

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cat that died after two years um but
cats were way easier so uh so dogs
versus cats like i like the cat goldfish
would work you know whatever um but
anyways back to the kid thing um
it's something i give a ton of i've
given a ton of thought to um the pros
for me of having a child are the human
experience which is just like this is a
part of the human experience that is
unique and i think that would be
interesting to go through
that being said going to prison is also
part of the human experience it doesn't
necessarily mean that i should do it
um you know i get sometimes people are
like
i think you and leila would make great
parents um
and i'll say this and i say this not as
a pejorative statement to parenting in
general but i'm using an extreme example
to illustrate a point which is like i
could be and this is not disrespectful
to people who may have this job
man culture these days
uh so if you know if i i could also
probably be a really good gas station
attendant right i could probably be
really exceptional with that it doesn't
mean that i should do it and so just

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because i might be an exceptional pair
doesn't mean i should and i think that
there's a and like in in the cons column
there's a tremendous amount of risk of
risk personally that the person doesn't
want
to do what i want them to do right and
so the fact that i still have this
desire that i'm projecting on an unborn
child is something that i'm not very
comfortable with because like if i had
one i would have a hard time saying that
i want them to be their own person i'd
want them to be who i want them to be
and so maybe that is the learning of
becoming a parent is that you unlearn
the the expectations and projections
that you have on the child but in terms
of like my personal like fulfillment
component
i would rather like there's i mean i'm
very obviously very torn about it um
but there's so many guys that i've that
i've like mentored that have taken steps
toward me like please help me with
business please help me in these ways
and
i'm happy to and you know if i had to
trade off i think we're talking about
dinners last night but like
the amount of time that a child takes
right let's say it's i don't know
four hours a day

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roughly in terms like headspace and time
spent with laura yeah
i was actually trying to be really
aggressive with four i'm being really
honest i was being i was genuinely being
like really aggressive with four
um i would i would imagine a child would
be like well i mean you're i'm gonna pay
you that's that's like
so eight hours a day so full-time job
right for the next 20 years
if i had a full-time job in the next 20
years i could help a hundred thousand or
a million
people more than i could just too that
just so happened to share my genetics
that eventually would get diluted out to
nothing is that how you base your
decisions i mean off how many people you
can get
based on yeah really yeah i mean that's
what like where like
a lot of people want to have kids to
give meaning to their lives right and as
a as a corollary to this whenever i see
a lot of people doing something i don't
think oh that's a great idea i think oh

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that's a great path to mediocrity and
again that's going to insult most people
because most people do it so this again
it doesn't have to just apply to
children you can think about it for
everything which is like if you're
trying to not be
in the majority because you don't want
to be average then it means that you
have to by definition not do what
everyone else is doing and so when
people are like
i'm taking this action to have children
i would assume that it's probably
selfish because you can always
count on people to be selfish it's not
like humans only in this one instance
are selfless right they're selfish
because they want to look at it and be
like it looks just like me that's why i
love it you're just like me right i love
you i love you right like
like and i know like i'm aware of that
right and so that's why i'm like i try
and audit do i want to have kids just
because i want to look at a version of
myself you know what i mean but then i'm
also going to project on this kid's life
when he might want to be a ballet dancer
or whatever and if there's anything
wrong with being a ballet answer but
if i'm going to spend eight hours it's
just like i don't feel like i'm
providing a lot of value you know what i
mean and like in terms of but it sounds
like you're thinking of it from an roi

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perspective i'm gonna invest all this
and i might not get a good roi compared
to the guaranteed roi i could get eight
hours a day over here of helping other
people yeah yeah and it's really roi of
like the world yeah more so than me
particularly there was a brief moment
where i um i like had an injury where i
thought i was gonna be able to have kids
um
might not turn blacked and i was like oh
it's fine but i was like very worried
and so it was really interesting is that
during that period of time before i got
it looked at i just was like i'm not
gonna be able to have kids like that's
it right i'm screwed
and
what was weird is that i ended up
becoming almost i became so humanitarian
in general like during that like it was
like all of my
legacy have kit like the the desire to
pro generate
went from being specific to a child to
general to everyone because like when
you realize you can't have a child then
you want to still
pass it on and i think that's just like
a human desire right of benefiting the
tribe whatever but like you still had
this desire and rather than being able

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to get my fulfillment out of out of one
child doing that for me it's like i was
forced to just be like well i have to
just give to everybody
and so i think that was that was
actually a really transformative
experience for me um
and i think it's part of what has shaped
a lot of like
the thoughts around giving today in
general
i'm i'm
a little confused and curious not saying
this is wrong or anything and in fact i
admire this but why is the
like the thing that you hold to the most
weight when you're making decisions how
many people you can help
that could be selfish in and of itself
probably
wow do you think being selfish is bad
i i like to believe that most people
generally want things that are good for
everyone so if they pander to what they
want themselves they're generally
helping other people
i'd agree with that
but do you think being selfish is bad
sometimes i think i think if it hurts
somebody else then
yes i i think if if if being selfish is

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at the detriment of of
somebody else or if the net is bad for
more people if it hurts more people then
it serves you you also have to define
but you know yeah i know
of it's not about being selfish it's
just hurting people is bad yes which is
the thing which is irrelevant from the
selfless action right right so then sure
i think everyone you know many people
would and that's bad in the little b
sense rather than the big b sense if
like the universe
so anyways um but
all that to say um i think people act in
their own self-interest and that is and
comma that's fine
and we can expect them to do that and i
act in my own self-interest as well
and you're just naturally interested in
helping people
um i think i get some level of like
fulfillment from it
i do i mean that's why i like the books
99 cents the courses are free like
you know and i plan on writing a bunch
more books um
i think i mean self it's selfish like i

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think i i think i feel good when i do it
and so i do more of it
i have an interesting question for you
um so in the last podcast you mentioned
that at one point in your life you were
um religious
um so what
made you make that switch in your head
from like going from religion because i
think you said you were on like a
one of those trips i'm sorry i forget
what they're called um
what made you switch that in your head
to go from you know this very very
spiritual belief to like almost the
complete opposite of like
life is life we die we die you know a
fact is fact nihilism as a whole what
made that switch in your head or was it
like a long process i mean it was a very
long process it was five years
um it was very very hard for me um and i
think
i
yeah i will say this the amount of
messages i got from people who are
christian and muslim and other crit you
know faith thinking that i attacked them
on the last podcast like i don't know
how i can make the

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00:58:00.000 --> 00:59:00.000
messages yeah i mean
yeah yeah just like yeah and i will say
this again
my statements are not an attack on your
religion they are simply an expression
of what conclusions i have come to and
i'll say right now i'm wrong
i'm wrong you're right everyone
listening to you what you believe you're
right
that being said
um for me
i i was even going to at the time a
christian therapist because i was like i
wanted somebody who
understood therapy but also like
understood uh you know christianity so
they could kind of like work with me on
these things and after like a handful of
sessions
she just looked at me and she was like
alex i think you just need to make a
decision
she's like you just she's like you've
gathered all the data you've gone you've
gone to the courses you did you did a
college course on on the the formation
of the canon which is like how the bible
was actually put together why things
were put in why things were not put in
you know like you've investigated all
this stuff
and you're and i was obsessing about it

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because i just like because i think
for me until i understood like why i was
here like nothing else mattered to me so
it's like and and some people they can
just like walk through life without
really thinking about it
in some ways i'm jealous you know that
they can just they can just do that i i
couldn't like i was like why why am i
working why why do i care about money
what's the point of all this like that
was always my my first and
most important thought is like once we
answer that box then everything else
kind of falls underneath of it
and so um i think it's safe to say
that there are very exceptional
people who can make arguments on both
sides in terms of like there's nothing
it doesn't matter and then there's
really amazing um
apologists like ravi zacharias who's an
amazing apologist uh who's a christian
there's just there's just a ton of guys
right and they're brilliant people and
you can listen to both sides of the
arguments but i think what ends up
happening is that
on some level you have a belief and i'll

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01:00:00.000 --> 01:01:00.000
rename that as an assumption because all
beliefs are assumptions but everyone has
these assumptions and
at some point you just have to say like
okay
there's stuff on both sides the jury has
to pass a verdict right
and
to say that like
we have cracked it or like alex has
cracked it or like to try like the
deeper you go in these arguments the
more there are just other arguments that
just continue to get pulled and that's
why i just fell into this rabbit hole
where i was like i need to start
becoming a productive member of society
because like this is just going on
forever and that's when she was just
like
i think you just need to decide
and for me the thing that felt
more true to what what i actually
believed was that i didn't think any of
it was real
and i think it was because that
initially saddened me
and i didn't want that to be that's why
i put spent so much time trying to like
logic my way in
to believing because i do think it's a
better
life
perspective to believe that there's
capital m meaning that there's somebody

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01:01:00.000 --> 01:02:00.000
behind the scenes who's directing our
lives so we can accomplish
some greater goal right beyond ourselves
i just don't believe that i wish i did i
spent five years trying to i just don't
believe it and for everybody who
messaged me and said i really just need
to talk to you for five minutes please
don't
i'm good i'm very content with my belief
um
and so
for me now i had to learn how to
live with that belief um
and then kind of go from there which is
like i don't believe that anything
happens after we die and my evidence for
that is that i have been dead
because i have not been alive and i know
what it was like before i was live which
was there was nothing and i think that
that's exactly what it'll be when i am
not alive again
so to me i'm okay with it and that's
fine
um
dogs keep taping breaths uh but that's
that's like and i know it's
i'm not right
you know what i mean it doesn't like
that's just my two cents alex's two

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01:02:00.000 --> 01:03:00.000
cents on the world and i think that
people just need to
figure out a belief like
whenever someone states a belief and
they're like well i don't think that i'm
like cool like awesome
as long as like your beliefs serve you
great like i'm i'm pro-you
it's interesting once you uh i guess got
rid of the idea or you didn't get rid of
the idea of religion but you just deemed
it wasn't true for you
you
described in the last episode that we
did with you that you became nihilist
uh could you define nihilism for those
watching and also once you did become a
nihilist how did that change your life
did it change anything on the day to day
or did it just like basically reaffirm
kind of what you already believed deep
down i think it it formal it
crystallized thoughts that i already had
so it's like you know how you have these
thoughts that are ill-defined or more
amorphous and like once you put words to
them you're like that's what i believe
right and so i think that once i
understood like i didn't even know
nihilism was this thing when someone was
like oh
you sound like you believe in those like
oh but again that's just a label so like

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01:03:00.000 --> 01:04:00.000
people want to lock labels on things
because it's easier for us to organize
in our minds but like
i just inherently believe that there is
no capital m meaning
that's it that's all i believe it's just
that there's no capital m meaning to
what we're doing there's little m
meaning as in like i find this
meaningful i find this stimulating i do
things that i enjoy like those are
things that i find meaningful little lab
but is me doing this podcast big m
universe meaningful no i don't think so
some people disagree with me that's okay
i just that's just my perspective and so
um in terms of how it shifted my life
it actually
in a lot of ways dramatically improved
my life what was the worst thing for me
was the indecision that five years was
really hard for me because i just i felt
like i couldn't make progress either way
like i feel like i needed to either say
like i'm all in
i'm going you know all down the
religious path that's my that's the game
or
i um i actually don't believe this and
people could make the argument well
there's probably a million shades in
between sure but for me there wasn't

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01:04:00.000 --> 01:05:00.000
this is this is where i it was either
this or this for me
and so
um
believing that there was no inherent
meaning freed me from a lot of stuff
so this belief that i had to
do what my parents said or or you know
listen to the opinions of others or and
like be weighed down by
judgments that i perceived to be there
which arguably probably weren't right um
those were the things that that i had
that it gave me relief from and then the
day-to-day anxieties of like running a
business and like this person stole
clients from you and i'm like let me die
it won't matter it's okay
like we'll move on
like it's just not gonna matter
and and you know and for some people
and and that's why i share it because
there are probably other people who were
in the same boat as me and so like i'm
just sharing it for those people and if
you're not one of those people i i love
you and that's awesome like i'm so
stoked for you that you believe what you
believe
um but if you're not one of those people
i do think that um

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01:05:00.000 --> 01:06:00.000
giving yourself the freedom to have
whatever little m meaning you want out
of the activities that you do is
incredibly freeing because you you get
to you get to do what you define as as
meaningful which is great
i like that
who do you look up to
warren buffett and charlie munger are
probably my two like heroes
why um
they've lived a life that i admire in a
lot of ways i think that like
and like
my
my life goal
was to be like king solomon just a wise
man
and i feel like they are like modern day
you know king solomon king solomon's
in that they are wise they accumulated a
lot of wealth and they did it
living what i would consider you know
aristotle's like good life
uh they you know they
they
they did they did life their way
and i just have a tremendous amount of
respect for that and i have a lot of

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01:06:00.000 --> 01:07:00.000
respect for uh elon you know
it's i think it's more like the people
that i look up to are people who are
just authentically them and just do
things their way
and so that is what i try to do and i
think nihilism actually helped me do
that a lot because i wasn't trying to
get fit and fit into a cookie cutter of
like you have to do these things this
way
just much more like
i'm gonna do this my way you know and
that comma and that's okay
period
and that was very freeing for me and so
i think those guys embody a lot of those
traits a really interesting thing that i
um that i read was a lot of us make
heroes out of our own deficiencies and
so like the people that we look up to
are the people that embody things that
we wish we had and so it's like be
careful like be being mindful of who you
look up to is a great exercise in
self-reflection it's like why do i look
up to these people and it's probably
because on some level like i feel the
most pressure of
not being me right and so like the
pressure's around like i mean i almost
was in a hardcore religious person like
i am very you know honestly susceptible
like i am swayed by those things and so

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01:07:00.000 --> 01:08:00.000
making the decision to choose not to do
that despite basically walking away from
a community and all that stuff was very
hard um but it felt right and so to me
and so i feel confident in the decision
who do you look up to jack yeah
you graham
i i would say probably mainly just my
parents
big idols of mine
uh
interesting is it yeah i mean i think
that's interesting i think a lot of
people don't look at their parents
because i think they live a perfect life
wow
uh you know i don't know i just i really
really admire them they're great people
i i love their philosophies and i think
they're super nice
they're charitable they're respectful
good people it's great they got a nice
house too
that's what it really was yeah oh yeah
overlooks the beach
jack's trying to get on the wheel right
now

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01:08:00.000 --> 01:09:00.000
i love you mom and dad you guys are the
best seriously just make sure to put me
on title though i love you way more than
my brother yeah
yeah so was the view
[Laughter]
uh if we're going to talk i guess like
a great driveway nice good job yeah
we're talking like big figures break
bones yeah the house the house is good
i would say
i i guess like
i really look i like elon musk
i don't want to be one of those people
that's just like the classic person that
just like uh idolizes elon musk but he's
pretty awesome it's like saying you know
like something that's awesome is like i
don't want to say it's awesome it's like
saying lebron's not a good basketball
player because everyone says lebron's
about like it doesn't like that's why i
had no problem admitting that i liked
him
admirable that more people admit it has
nothing to do with his excellence yeah
right it's hard for me to to look up to
people that i don't know super well fair
i suppose like it's easier if i know
someone through and through like
anytime i picture people i admire it's

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01:09:00.000 --> 01:10:00.000
mostly
the first things that come to mind are
people that i'm familiar with
you know um that's really interesting
because i think as it's like for me like
the entrepreneurial career path that i
went on it went from having mentors to
heroes and so mentors are people who
like at least decide to find that you
have close proximity to kind of speaking
to your life and i think as you continue
to like
i'll say level up and i say that loosely
um just on the within the material
success world that's all i'm saying um
there were there were fewer fewer people
in my close proximity that i was like i
look up to you because i feel like i've
already kind of hit some of the these
check marks
and so
i think that you end up moving up to
like finding your heroes and then that's
like charlie munger talks about this
where he has all these p all his best
friends are dead because it's like
benjamin franklin and the people that he
consumed all their stuff because
he they became his mentors right it's
like and so i think that that at least
for me was a shift that i feel like has
continued to
reinforce itself over time is like the

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01:10:00.000 --> 01:11:00.000
people i look up to are not in my life
at all but i still consume like like
i've been tremendously impacted by
warren and charlie even though i don't
know them but you're saying like once
you check those boxes of the reasons why
you looked up to these people then you
could no longer look up to them not look
up to them but like
i'm trying to be mindful about how i say
this but like i'll give a very
quantitative example
um
if i if i'm looking up to somebody for
you know their physique or something
right and then i achieve the physique
that i want
then it's not that i don't look up to
them but like i don't i don't need more
like i have i have understood the
lessons i don't need more lessons on
this path
like i get it
but what if it's not something like uh
like it's more like of a mental thing
like you look up to them for their life
philosophies
or just their overall he understands the
philosophies you just checked that off
and
really
yeah

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01:11:00.000 --> 01:12:00.000
well so there's like that i mean richard
feynman talks about this where the point
is not to memorize the point is to
understand it's like once you understand
something it becomes a part of you and
you take it with you and you can apply
in a number of scenarios and so if
someone has something or a perspective
that you don't have the goal should just
be to understand it so that you can take
it with you i i actually really like
that answer because i can relate a lot
to that because when i look at people
like when i watched people for example
on youtube when i was learning let's say
photography
i didn't want to keep them as my mentor
forever because then if i look up to
somebody and i don't learn and i don't
understand
myself then there will always be a
deficit between my knowledge and their
knowledge um if that makes sense so i i
think it's always good to
to kind of want to understand things
fully for yourself for you know
and i think there's also a sequence to
knowledge so this is this is actually
kind of interesting so
if you think about when you learned math
because it's a simple example right like

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01:12:00.000 --> 01:13:00.000
first you learned like simple addition
and then you learned multiplication and
then when you went from your addition
teacher your
arithmetic teacher to your
multiplication teacher you weren't like
screw my arithmetic teacher there was so
much better stuff out there like they
were teaching me basics it's like well
you had to learn that to learn the next
thing right so it's not like i poo poo
them it's just that like i no longer
need that i need some i need the next
building block
and so i think that if you look at your
life and those components of like maybe
health and wealth and relationships and
maybe spirituality etc like you can look
up to people who
have an understanding of the topic that
is more in depth in your current
understanding or has an understanding
that you prefer to your understanding
and then learn of them in that and if
someone just continues to have a more
and more in-depth understanding of it
which is why i think
like the higher up you go in terms of
like the people that you're looking at
the more the deeper their knowledge is
on the subject which gives you a longer
period of time to continue to look up
them right and so um which is why it's
natural that a lot of
many people share the big public heroes

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01:13:00.000 --> 01:14:00.000
because those big public heroes have
such a depth of knowledge compared to
everyone else that they can stay public
heroes because a lot of people never
never surpass them or never fully
understand what those people understand
but like if you're close proximity
you assimilate the lessons and
knowledges and knowledge and perspective
from them then like you expand your
circle
it seems from the the outside that
you've already kind of like optimized
everything
you've you've i don't want to say you're
set in your ways but you you
you're confident in what you believe
and what's optimal at this point
and what can you work on and what's your
biggest insecurity ooh it's a good one
certainly not your hairline
certainly not
oh
oh man my biggest insecurity um
it's probably
um
the dual sided coin of ego and
validation from others

75
01:14:00.000 --> 01:15:00.000
um i still am sensitive to the fact that
like
i know that it still drives me and i
don't like that it does
and so it's just like you know just
consistently trying to just peel back
the amount that it influences my
decision making processes
you know like
the simple example is the content
example it's like you make a video you
think it's awesome people think it sucks
and there's like two sides to that one
is like you want to serve a marketplace
so you have to understand that part of
it but the other part of it is like do i
now suck right which is like am i taking
the performance of the thing and then
you know projecting it on myself and i
think that i still have a tendency to do
that more than i would that i'd be happy
you know
about
like i would prefer to not do that
i prefer to
take the feedback
objectively as it is and have zero
percent reflect back on me
but i don't i'm not at zero percent and
so i think that's probably my my biggest
insecurity is is the the validation for
mother's piece i think i think i'm
significantly better at it than i was
but i think it's still something that i

76
01:15:00.000 --> 01:16:00.000
want to work on
who do you seek validation from
oh it's just like the unwashed you know
just the masses overall yeah and as a
quick rewind on the point that you were
making earlier like
i think i've inherited a lot of the
character traits not inherited but like
actively tried to ascribe to a lot of
the character traits of like charlie
munger and and warren buffett and i
think a lot of that is because like when
i look at old people they have really
good perspectives on things and most of
them don't care about most things
because they realize that life is short
and so i'm trying to live my life as an
old man
for a longer period of time rather than
waiting until i'm 70 to realize that it
doesn't matter and i'm going to die
it's just that i think once people get
older and their death is looming that
they they like their priorities become
much clearer
and the
the
i think inanity is the right word and
entities of life become irrelevant right
it's just like who cares like that
doesn't matter i like because life is
literally too short for them
like they literally don't have time for
that
and so trying to kind of project that
into the present and trying to use an

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old man's wisdom in a young man's life
is kind of
my my goal
but then what about a skill or something
that you want to work on that you don't
yet have
i feel like
so i talk about this on my channel a lot
but there's there's there's three things
that limit limit an entrepreneur right
there's skills there's character traits
and there's beliefs
and so the beliefs are some of the
hardest ones uh because you're not aware
of them because you believe them right
we question all of our beliefs except
for those that we truly believe and
those are everything to question right
and so
are the three things in terms of
improvement so it's not necessarily just
skills it's also like traits and beliefs
i think that from a skill perspective um
when i look at
like leverage a vehicle i don't i don't
do i don't feel comfortable raising
funds from other people
but i think that would be
that would probably be
the next natural pa the next natural
piece to
my business career would be having some
sort of fun structure for like the

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investments that we're doing because
we're obviously getting very good
returns on them um i just there's part
of me that i can see
the value in the fund structure and
having you know helping other people um
participate in us you know allowing us
to do more deals bigger deals etc but
there is a certain amount of autonomy
that i that i enjoy having not reporting
to anyone yeah and so i wouldn't want
the investors to become a new boss
because that i know i would not like
and so i'd have to structure the right
but anyways i think that is that is
probably a skill deficiency that i
currently have at least a in-depth
understanding of capital markets from
like the fundraising side
um
that's that's probably the skill that i
i need to work on the most in the
probably three to five year horizon
alex you should ask some questions yeah
tell me what you disagree with about
what i said alex yeah you want me to
disagree with more of your points oh my
god yeah sure i
i don't know because i don't think about
this give us give us some some either
issues problems or things in your life
alex that you want to work on or that
you want to improve

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01:18:00.000 --> 01:19:00.000
my whole life we didn't fitness stuff we
didn't do any of that oh let's talk
about that you know what graham that is
a problem in my life let's talk about
that so
as you guys can tell by looking at me
you know i'm not the uh the peak of uh
physical fitness okay um but that is
definitely a problem in my life that i
think that i've neglected
um and i think that i could definitely
use like a lot of work on um and and
there's a lot of aspects to it but alex
how do you do it
you know to
to just conquer because i mean look at
you man
it's true
i noticed to say that jack wong is like
is that a tighter shirt
no i just worked out this morning and
i'm thinking the same thing
it's incredible thanks man i appreciate
it yeah that's what i do it for
um for that
validation rip it yeah it's stretchy
that's the key right that's the key
um
so this is this is a good question
because i mean i did this i dedicated

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the first half of my professional career
to this and i would say that
the nice thing is that the fitness
weight loss thing is a is a question
that
that has a lot of roots
that that can apply to other things it
can apply to personal finance it can
apply to fitness and apply to marriage
like the the concepts of how you fix it
are the same and so
i would say i would ask you a question
back which is alex
what do you think you should do
if you wanted to be it better than you
are right now what would you do
with regards to fitness sure
um i already know what to do i guess
right yeah and so so the real question
is now
what do i need to do because you already
know what to do the question is why
aren't you doing it
yeah so how do i answer that question
because i i mean like i i was talking to
graham about this the other day and i'm
going to get a really personal here guys
you know i told graham that at the
weight that i met
um and luckily i'm comfortable to talk
about this so please don't hold back um

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i feel like and and i might be putting
myself in a box here and i hate to do
this but i'm speaking openly i feel like
at my weight you don't get to my weight
by having like a small problem right i
think there's some sort of like
um emotional problem whether it's like
like something like a
either another addiction to food or like
some sort of like how much how much how
much do you weigh right now if you're
comfortable saying it um i can tell you
guys but i don't if it's okay we can
remove it from that i'll ask you a
better question okay why aren't you 200
pounds heavier
uh
probably because i can't eat that much
so you do know how to stop
yes i believe right so
here's what's interesting you do know
how to stop
it's just that you're stopping you don't
have an issue you just stop at the wrong
point
so it's not like i can't stop it you can
stop because otherwise you'd be 200
pounds heavier
can you explain that a little more

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01:21:00.000 --> 01:22:00.000
so
a lot of people were like i have an
issue you know binge eating i can't stop
eating once i start etc it's like okay
well then why aren't you twice as big
well i can't i can't eat that much cool
okay so you do know how to stop we just
need to shift when you stop right but
that's like again that's only to break
that belief the real real is
is
is becoming rather than thinking about
the doing right so you've probably heard
the be do half right like you have to be
a certain type like habits and how we
create our identities
are
are self-reinforcing right we do certain
things and because we do those things we
believe certain things about ourselves
right and because we believe certain
things about ourselves we do certain
things right so it's a it's a constant
reinforcement loop and so like one of
the telltale signs of somebody who's not
going to be successful is like oh i'm
trying to lose weight it's like no
that's not because like they've already
identified themselves as somebody who's
not going to lose weight and so they're
we just need to wait for them to fail
right because they're already they
already are saying this is outside of
myself i have to push myself to get
there rather than thinking like

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01:22:00.000 --> 01:23:00.000
i'm i want to become a healthy person
and so when you are confronting the many
hundreds of decisions that you have
every day
rather than trying to zone in on the
super tactical of like i have to weigh
this and i have to count this and
whatever it's just simply like
what would a healthy person do in the
scenario like at every point just like
what would a healthy person do it's like
they would do this like okay and the
thing is it's like you're not trying to
be necessarily right you just want to be
less wrong than you are right now
yeah that makes sense i think maybe
that's where i kind of had a a downfall
because um there was a point where i i
did
commit to to weight loss
and i made i i in my head i guess i
wasn't right but in my head um i
committed that you know this is a
lifestyle change right it's with me for
the whole life and i lost um 45 pounds
which you know for me that was a lot
but for some reason and
it was all that was in my head like
every day when i would wake up you know

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01:23:00.000 --> 01:24:00.000
i would be it would be like a conscious
like choice of like what i was eating
blah blah blah you know and but but the
thing is it became
so
i don't want to say i don't know if it
was toxic but it became so i'm going to
use the word toxic that like that's all
i thought about in my head and i don't
know
how to go back there without
doing that again because it was so that
part was so detrimental to my health but
obviously so is eating so
yeah
they're both bad
but the thing is is like
i think you can take us
a season and not project it for ever
right so it's just for now you will have
this kind of obsession around eating
food and that's okay because you're
making a behavior change right like it's
good that it's at the front of your mind
like that is what is creating the change
after you do that for a year or two
years or three years it will stop being
as important because you'll do it
without thinking about it
and then it's not going to be a thing

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but most people who have like really
exceptional physiques were obsessed with
it for a period of time
most people have exceptional marriages
we're obsessed with the for a period of
time people have really good personal
finances we're obsessed with it for a
period of time and then there's just so
many things that like you don't even
think about they're like well of course
i use whatever you know apps use like of
course i don't go out to i don't get
appetizers when we go out of course i
don't buy name brands like it's just
obviously but when in the beginning you
have to put active attention because
it's not normal
what the goal is just to get the
activities that you're doing to become
kind of unconscious competence which is
like you're doing them without thinking
about them so they don't actually take
willpower because this is how you've
always done it but you have to get
through the part where uh it's not it's
not how you've always done it and so you
have to allocate more attention to it i
don't like judging yourself on the fact
that it was quote obsessive is like
so what
but i think it's the toxic med it's the
mentality alex right so why was that why
was that toxic for you
like what made that that
impactful like it was literally

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01:25:00.000 --> 01:26:00.000
distracting me from my work like i would
sit there and i would be working and all
i can think about was like
okay like at 5 00 p.m i'm like i obsess
with the numbers like um
i knew like and and this is good i think
it's important to know this um like i
knew how many meals or how much how many
calories the next meal i was eating at
what time like how many calories i have
left for the day uh because i was so
focused on trying to be in a caloric
deficit which is obviously like the key
to losing weight um but
like i would be working and i would just
think about it and then it would like
pull me out of my work and
you know like like alex said i mean
maybe it was a good thing but
um and then eventually it just you know
i i stopped following what i was doing
which i i
in hindsight obviously i wish i didn't
but um it that's why it became uh i
think a problem for me graham but yeah
alex wouldn't you say it's it's better

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01:26:00.000 --> 01:27:00.000
and this alex uh to find the root cause
of the issue like to go deeper and say
this is why i uh you know i'm eating a
certain way
this is what maybe caused it and and
solving that underlying issue would kind
of help everything else rather than just
focus on the surface level calories in
calories out yeah i i hear i hear what
you're saying with the question
um
i think that
i think a lot of us because if we have a
big problem
we want to find a big root cause and
sometimes it's not
and i think that we have to give
ourselves permission for like maybe just
food tastes good and like we're
evolutionarily designed to like have a
super stimuli when something is salty
and fatty and sweet at the same time
it's like we've gotten very good at
pushing our own buttons
and so like just saying like yeah this
is not because like in some ways it
becomes this like huge beast that i have
to defeat when we said like this this
huge emotional issue and i had my kid my
parents and when i was a kid i would eat
ice cream and that's how i felt good
well like you tell herself these stories

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01:27:00.000 --> 01:28:00.000
but i don't know
how useful it is because then it just it
just exaggerates the
the size of the problem
um rather than just saying like i am
going to be a healthy person and make
decisions that are in accordance with
that and a healthy person if they ate
out once wouldn't be like oh i guess i'm
not a healthy person anymore they would
just
do better you know they would just go
back to normal the next day
and so like
you can start whenever as long as you
start changing how you identify yourself
um i think that's just like that's the
root of this stuff is like how do you
identify yourself and then you act in
accordance with that identity like if
you are always like i've just always
struggled with my weight well that's
what you identify with and so you're
just gonna reinforce that identity so we
have to switch that um there's a great
book on this uh james clear talk it's
atomic habits really good
but you're going to live in accordance
with that and so you have to stop say
like you have to stop identifying with
the things that are not serving you
i i mean i agree i just
i don't know i've

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01:28:00.000 --> 01:29:00.000
i don't know what to say what's holding
you back alex
gosh we're going deep um
i i really don't know to be honest with
you why wouldn't you start today
there's no reason so we could do that i
mean there's nothing
but there there was nothing holding me
back yesterday or the day before just a
decision yeah yeah exactly so you can
make the decision whenever you want
yes but it's a i think it's it's a it's
a hard decision i guess why wouldn't you
do it today
there's literally no reason well there
is a reason because you're not doing it
so why wouldn't you do it why are you
not doing this right now
we could i there's
there's literally no reason well that
maybe there is like you said but i
there's none that i can think of
yeah i think the reason would be that
that alex feels like he could do it at
any time so why start today because it's
i think it's easier to start next week
or the week after and i know this
because i'm very much the same you know
what it's like i
yeah i agree with that because i feel
like it's my choice but then that's so

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01:29:00.000 --> 01:30:00.000
stupid because
when i now sitting here i'm like well i
also had the choice to start it a year
ago
right
so isn't it doesn't it get to the point
where all of a sudden the pain exceeds
the the pleasure and i don't think alex
has gotten to a point yet where it's
it's painful it's maybe uncomfortable
but
i think starting now is more
uncomfortable than just
you might have to get bigger
what yeah you might have to get bigger
god
to get there
like because i mean at the end of the
day like you just have to hit your your
version of rock bottom you know i mean
for me like my version of rock bottom is
like 15 body fat
and so like for me i'm like
like what am i doing like i look at
myself and i'm like oh just do piece of
 come on don't eat like an
you know and then i got my together
and so like the only difference like
between how people look is just where
they draw the line of where they feel
like an i could say like all
you're doing is just like saying you
know
like i feel like an if i have
above you know 10 body fat there's tons

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01:30:00.000 --> 01:31:00.000
of people who live there there's some
people who are like that line is 20 that
line is 30 but what's crazy is that like
once you find maintenance you just
maintain the same weight so it's like
for me i'd think like why would you not
maintain it
good rather than maintaining it at
normal because like all you have to do
is get there once and then you just
maintain it
so anyways that's you know alex's
perspective but that's also because i
came from somebody who really wanted
outside validation and so the easiest
and first place to start for me was my
body so i started lifting when i was 13
years old so i'm like almost 20 years in
this game in terms of like the lifting
and and health and stuff and so for me
this is not like we had we talked about
at dinner last night it's like this is
not in any way time consuming for me
mentally because like i am a healthy
person and i do these things because
that is who i am and so it is not very
difficult for me it's just difficult for
people to make the change um and and i
know the quote you were saying which is
you know change occurs when the pain is
staying the same um sorry the pain
change
pain is staying the same exceeds the
pain of change correct right and so it's
like if your current existence hurts
more than the discomfort that you will

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01:31:00.000 --> 01:32:00.000
go through then you will go through the
new discomfort to get out of the current
pain right
you know
and so
for me i i would like you to be like
there's a there's a million ways you can
do it and that's why when you say like
the root issue it's like there's lots of
tiny cues in alex's environment that
reinforces current behavior it's not one
thing it's like what's in the pantry as
soon as he walks in the door like just
like all of these tiny little things so
like you can change someone's
environment and i'll tell you an
interesting one that i actually read in
james claire's book
but
so heroin is very hard to get off of and
that's a statement of belief but i'll
just just bear with me
in vietnam
i think it was
15 and then later they thought it was 20
of of guys who went there tried heroin
insane like that's an insane statistic
and what was interesting about that is
that when those vietnamese now became
veterans and came back
90 of them never did it again
and the reverse statistic is true of

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01:32:00.000 --> 01:33:00.000
like
u.s based
addiction programs right
ninety percent of people do heroin again
after they leave the program so how can
you have the most addictive substance
right and you've got a 90 success rate
in one
incident and then you've got like a 90
failure rate in the other
and this one this wasn't even a program
and this one was right and so what
happens is people if you can if you can
pull someone out of the environment
entirely
it's actually much easier to do because
it's like you hang out with certain
people right and they reinforce those
behaviors you you have cues in your
environment that you've associated with
which reinforce the behaviors and so
like if you really went all in on
something like this and you could apply
this to any type of behavior whether it
was drugs or food or whatever it's like
honestly just changing everything about
your life and then starting from scratch
is like i'm making these big changes i'm
burning the boats i'm being this person
and i will make these choices as a
result of this in accordance with that
is is sometimes the the best way to do
it is like clean slate but that might
sound like a lot of change and so you

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01:33:00.000 --> 01:34:00.000
can also just not do any of that stuff
and just eat less
but it's just tackling the big issue
which is like why you don't care
i'd say one of the the biggest things
like you guys are saying where the
what is it the discomfort of the
environment is so bad that it forces
change
um
and the discomfort of going through it
is easier um i will say i mean i've i've
had situations where
um like i go like
going on a plane for me terrible
experience right i mean
um
you know like uh
you know just stuff like like my my wife
probably wants to go parasailing if we
go on vacation i i probably can't do
that you know yeah and and
it's just like i feel like there's a lot
of like life that i'm missing out on and
i've thought about it so deeply that i
mean i've cried about it before yeah um
but if apparently like it's not hard
enough to change me but i don't know if

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01:34:00.000 --> 01:35:00.000
i need to hit rock bottom for like me to
make a change that's great that's a
great statement because it is a good
statement of belief to say i don't need
to hit rock bottom to make a change i
agree with that i think that is a belief
that serves you
yeah and so
i just i don't know
how to just click it like i i really
don't well you just start that's all
there's no like there's nothing complex
about it you just start
you go home you take away the stuff that
you eat that's not good
that's it
at the end of the day you've got to be
ready and we're not going to talk you
into it right like
if if if if you not being able to live
half of the life
um is not sufficient
then you got to find something that is
you know um a good friend of mine ran a
super marathon and it was like extremely
difficult for him and
um
he he said i think on social media he
was like i had a big bag of wise so he
didn't have one y he had to have a huge
bag of just like you just pull out y
after y after y after y to keep them

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01:35:00.000 --> 01:36:00.000
going through this thing
um
and so like maybe you don't need one y
maybe you need a lot of y's you know
maybe you don't have enough y's
do you need enough y's i mean at the end
of the day like this this changes yours
you know you've got to make it and it's
it's when
it's when the reality of the condition
is is real for you like it breaks my
heart it really does i mean that like in
the most sincere way um
my mother was super overweight my whole
life
and she just recently last two years
she's now in her 60s like my whole life
super overweight like morbidly obese
in the last
two years and for me that might be my
you know an easy wife for me is like i
don't want to live that easy boom i
don't need like not even a thought to me
right
but when her physician and mind you my
mother is a physician
so like
crazy right
it was only when her physician after
trying you know she tried all these
diets for whatever it was when she was
like you're not going to see your
grandkids like zero percent chance it's

97
01:36:00.000 --> 01:37:00.000
not gonna happen you're not gonna see
them you're gonna die before that like
there's no question
and it was only in that moment that she
decided to really do it and she always
knew what to do eat less walk more like
it's not like it's not rocket science
right um but for her that was enough
that whenever she was confronted with
decision because you have a hundred
micro decisions that happen every day am
i going to take the stairs am i not
going to take this am i going to walk am
i out to it am i going to am i going to
grab this extra bag or not right or
whatever it is and so
i think it's like if you have that at
the root you'll be able to make the
change and then that will that will get
you through the the discomfort phase so
that you can change your identity
um and i love this again i read this in
the atomic house book which is really
good but if you look at identity it's
the root of two words you've got entity
um there's the latin version of it but
basically being and then you've
identified identical right which is
repeated and so like identity is
literally repeated being is what we
repeatedly do is who we are
and like when you describe somebody
you're like he's type person who x y and
z's right like that's their that's how

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01:37:00.000 --> 01:38:00.000
we even describe identity is what people
do and so the nice thing is that you
don't win the vote of identity
all at once it's just one vote at a time
and the beautiful thing is that you can
just be like 51
just like a vote like if you just do a
little more you win you don't have to be
perfect you have to do more
than you do bad and if you do that for a
long enough period of time
like it will continue to reinforce
itself and so a lot of people have a
binary vision of like what quote perfect
health style them looks like and that's
silly and it's a farce and it'd be like
trying to pretend like you're gonna be a
perfect human it's not gonna happen
right but like you could also read
redefine
uh healthy as just somebody who like
just doesn't binge you know what i mean
or like just like you already know the
stuff so like there's no point in
getting in the tactics of this because
it's just behavior change um and so i
probably went to too deep on that but um
it breaks my heart but it has to break
your heart
yeah i think for me okay so i yeah some
people have different reasons for why
they're not currently doing it right for
me i have the knowledge right i i

99
01:38:00.000 --> 01:39:00.000
research into what i need to do blah
blah blah um i
i'm like in my head to be honest i'm
ready to make the change but the one
thing i think that is holding me back
the more i think about it is
like the
the the feeling of like i don't know how
to describe it other than like imposter
syndrome right like what
really and maybe this is just stemming
from like confidence issues what really
makes me think that i can do this like
and i think that that that is what like
is my biggest hurdle probably and i
don't know how to overcome that here's
something cool you don't need to be
confident to do this because your
calories don't care if you're confident
yeah but for you no calories don't care
if i'm confident or you're confident or
anyone's confident calories do not care
no i understand no i understand that but
like i mean in my head i need to be like
confident about it to follow that's what
it means

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01:39:00.000 --> 01:40:00.000
but it's one of those things where you
can't let the past burn you twice right
which is like if you failed in the past
if you project that failure into the
present then that that past failure
continues to to repeat itself by you
don't even trying it's like if we're
looking at a kid who's who's walking
right and they fall
we're not like
i think it's just going to be a crawler
you know like we don't say that right
but like right now you're applying that
same like you say so much worse things
to yourself
when it's like if you fail so what it's
like it's a it's a process you're going
to learn to walk and you'll learn to
walk eventually as long as you don't
stop
that's true so
basically what you're saying is
if i'm not trying and fit like like if i
even if i'm like trying and failing
it basically it's better than just
sitting here and being like well i'm not
going to start because i'm going to fail
and just like
why don't we say this when we say yes
you're going to fail expect failure it's
like starting a business of course
you're going to fail that is part of the
game

101
01:40:00.000 --> 01:41:00.000
but saying that that you fall like that
you that you stop doing something versus
failing are very two very different
things you're defining failure as you
if you eat a pizza one day right
but then the other rest of the week
you're fine
did you fail
no right so it's like we just need to
read like it's we just need to strip
away the perfection and get to the like
if i directionally move in this way over
a long enough period of time i will get
there
as long as i don't stop
that was great yeah that was not a good
point yeah you're
everything that you're saying is
is great i mean i it's for some reason
it's just stuff that like
i don't it's not think about i don't i
don't think about it i to be frank you'd
have to pull this thread
um and i don't necessarily know that we
have the time to do it on this podcast
but like you have to figure out why your
your gut instinct was to say

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01:41:00.000 --> 01:42:00.000
eating healthy was bad
like that's basically like if i were to
make this
boil this down into simple terms you're
like i started eating healthy and i
decided it was bad
so it's figuring out why you you made
that experience
bad in your head and figuring out like
because there's probably other things
that eating does for you it probably
relieves stress
right so it's like great
and the nice thing is that there's lots
of cues for stress in our lives so you
have a number of cues that trigger the
behavior so it's not just one it's like
you can get stressed for a zillion
things and then have a really easy
because like like habits are created for
like mental shortcuts so we don't have
to make decisions and so it's like i
feel stressed i can resolve this
immediately with this thing i don't even
think about it you're just starting to
walk towards the fridge
when you feel stressed right
and so um to break this like man we're
gonna get way too deep into behavior
stuff so i'll just i'll cut it at this
which is you gotta figure out why you're
not why you didn't start yesterday
and there's a reason that you have and
you need to name the reason and it may
be ridiculous but like some people are

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like it's just not convenient cool then
make it convenient and then all of a
sudden like it's sometimes it's the
tiniest thing like i'll tell you this
tiny example which is i try and put face
cream on every night before i go to bed
it's like one of the habits that i
really was like i'm gonna try and do
this right
and
when our the maids come
sounds ridiculous when the maids come to
clean our place um i have like my
bedside set up and then they they take
all my stuff that's like right next to
me and then they like move it along the
back line of the bedside table so like
the cream's like over a box and like
it's hard to reach
and when i'm in bed i can't reach it
and after that and i had to realize it
because i was like i'd get on a good
routine and then like two or three days
in i would stop doing it and then i i
realized the only reason i stopped doing
it was because i didn't see the cream
and if i did remember the cream it was
like i would have to get out of bed to
go grab it and then put it back and so i
had to tell the maids
leave them along the side and don't move
them it's the tiny like these tiny
things just like i had a visual cue and
it made it more difficult so i removed

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the visual cue because it was further
away and then it got harder rather than
making it easier and making it obvious i
think i have an answer for you actually
okay so
the only reason that i thought about
food all day
in my quote-unquote toxic vehicle is
because i was hungry
yeah this sounds stupid no you're not
you're not you're bored
if you could eat a chicken breast
like if like if you're like oh man i
could go for a chicken breast you're
hungry if you're like oh i could like go
for a snack you're bored
i don't know it felt like hunger but
yeah of course you don't know the
difference yeah i don't know the
difference i don't know the difference
you learn the difference when you're
really hungry you're like chicken sounds
great
like an apple sounds delicious you know
what i mean but like when you're when
you're bored you're like i could go for
some chips you know i mean like if you
could go for a chicken breast that's dry
with no sauce that's when you're hungry
i think i think you're 100

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you probably haven't
you know what thinking about it guys i
know this sounds so you're right it
sounds stupid it sounds so
stupid but like in my head right yeah
until you said that
i was convinced that i was hungry all
the time
but now that you said that i don't think
i was hungry and i know that sounds
stupid you guys are like probably from
you guys are probably laughing
everything i swear to i swear to
whatever you believe in
yeah oh yeah a lot of the times where i
was like little snack it's uh you know
that dead space where you would normally
reach for your phone yeah it's like well
i may as well just eat a quick snack
alex you haven't been hungry in years
but you don't know what hungry you're
trying to say about that
i'm saying that you've been over feeding
for a very long period of time and so
yeah you were there you're you have such
a surplus that and and and stores that
your body can take from for a very long
period of time
yeah i agree with you i i think i
i just had like an epiphany i think i

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don't know this is so crazy i think i
don't know the difference between
being hungry
and being bored bored
i know that sounds stupid no it's fine i
think very few people know the
difference between just even me i don't
know yeah
if you don't know the difference then
why don't you look like me
uh you're pretty physically active yeah
i've been going to the gym quite a lot
but i but i always my default is
probably eating healthy but until i've
started tracking calories i've realized
that i've
eaten more than i've expected but my
default is still eat healthy eat small
portions but without tracking it i eat
more than i think i do
i just want to thank you for your time i
didn't mean to bring you on the podcast
and like bombard you with my physical
physique questions or anything but
i'm sure there are other people who are
listening who are you could replace this
with alcohol you could replace this with
you know whatever it's the same thing

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my mind is just blown right now like i i
feel like now i feel like i could do it
and i just want to just reinforce this
one point which is just because you are
hungry does not mean you
need to eat so you used being hungry as
a justification for eating
you can be hungry and not eat you can be
horny and not have sex somebody's not
your wife so just because you have a
feeling doesn't mean you need to take
action on it
right so first we had to delineate
between the fact that most of the time
you're bored or not actually hungry but
even if you are hungry
that doesn't give you permission to then
go eat
because if you diet you will be hungry
actually
and a chicken breast will sound good so
it doesn't necessarily mean that you
have permission to eat outside of what
you think you need to hit for your for
your calorie intake is it just like a
mental thing at that point like i
you already know the calorie stuff
there's no point in getting into that
like you're like if you really want to
do it you already know like you google
it you know you need less than you are
right now and you would just do that is
it just reminding yourself that like
like you you know how much you're
supposed to eat and just saying i have

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enough to live it's just my body telling
me you could you could right now
literally drink water and take a
multivitamin for a year
they've already done studies on this you
can absolutely do it i mean i'm not
going to but that's fine yeah yeah but
i'm saying like you have more than
enough stores to last you for a very
long time so like
the only thing you're doing to eat is
just like you're just moving things
through your system but like that's it
like they've done starvation studies and
like your
your base metabolic rate goes down but
not by i mean it goes down by 30 which
is something but it's not massive and
you're still going to have a high
bismetabolic rate overall because you
have more of you to feed and maintain
like fat takes calories to keep alive
like you have fat on you but it still
requires blood and nutrients to stay
alive
right
to like not you know become dead tissue
so like in a lot of ways it's easiest to
lose weight when you are bigger so you
can keep saying that as your as your
refrain it's like i am bigger which

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means it should be easier for me to lose
weight because it is
yeah i don't want to lean around this
too you're good too long because uh i
think we've gone long enough but i i i
seriously
i i will thank you
today the day alex
i i i think so but i know he kind of
yeah
yes it is he kind of scared me
he kind of scared me with the like
you're gonna be
real hungry and i'm just like oh but you
know what i'm
i think i've just been eating as i'm
bored and i i know people are gonna
think this is stupid like alex of course
you're eating when you were bored but to
me i'm telling you guys like i truly
felt hungry like in my head that was
hunger and i
thinking back i i don't think that was
yeah i don't distract yourself and that
was kind of stupid so yeah
uh you shouldn't be bored at work
that's the real issue but we'll we'll
talk about that after the podcast
oh no i'm kidding no we're good thank
you no you bet

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01:49:00.000 --> 01:50:00.000
it's a blast to have you on man i really
appreciate it i was really looking
forward to this yeah yeah even even
going out to dinner last night uh and i
like i genuinely enjoy hanging out but
it's it's listening to you talk
it's i learned so much
and more than just like like just like a
friendship but also just the fact that
like
i feel like
i i am like the
the student of so many things and like
just being exposed to
different thoughts and a different way
of thinking and a different structure
is uh
very few podcasts afterwards do i just
like just want to be alone and this is
always one of them because i had so much
to think about
after we after we end this
i appreciate it um and thank you guys
for having me on i think
i think it's um it's chunking chunking
down and chunking up um in terms of like
thought process which is like why are we
doing this and i think that's just been
the the core of it it's just like why am

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i bothering to do this why does this
matter
and so you know it does go back to my
world view um because it does shape it
is the it is the
the seed that kind of like has brought
all the fruit of the other things that i
have it's just like why am i choosing to
like because it is an active choice
and um and so you know i'm glad that the
the thoughts that i've had have been at
least thought provoking because they
they took me a long period of time to
figure out on my own and i think they're
you know they can be unique to different
people but for me that
this set of beliefs has served me well
yeah and so
i continue to believe them
how about this um usually at this point
i'll ask the audience hey make sure to
subscribe and hit the like button but
how about this instead instead of
subscribing here and maybe
let me speak first jack and then you
could you could ask somebody subscribe
you're almost at 200 000 subscribers
i'll link to the channel down below in
the description uh if you've enjoyed
listening to two hours of alex talk
your channel is in the description if we
could get you past 200 000 subscribers

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01:51:00.000 --> 01:52:00.000
so like if you're watching this
basically and you have a spare three
seconds to go in the description it'll
be one of the top links and just
not the top left one of the topics it'll
be the third link over the top maybe
third maybe third
fifth it's in the description yeah it
takes you a quick second just find that
link hit it and subscribe to alex's
channel
and that's it and that would mean a lot
to me as just a thank you for coming on
and if you enjoy if you haven't enjoyed
this you don't have to do that but if
you've enjoyed it and it's free we mean
a lot that's a great call to action that
was good all right my turn
so guys
make sure you know if you've made it
this far in the episode you guys have
enjoyed it
send a text to your parents or your
guardian or someone you care about that
you care about them oh and you love them
how about this uh we set up a submission
form now so we're gonna have a
submission form in the description um
right
below where you could get a free stock
all the way up to a thousand dollars but
now you can submit because we never had

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a good submittal form yeah you could go
through that form if you want to be on
the iced coffee hour and you feel like
you have an interesting story to tell um
or something unique you could bring to
the table uh the link is down below in
the description so
thank you guys so much for watching
thank you for coming on and next time
appreciate it thank you guys
thank you

