The Pursuit of Wealth: Barista to Billionaire - Andrew Wilkinson

0:00 people just have all these weird ways of measuring your worth

0:03 and I just don't want to spend time around people

0:05 who measure worth and things like that because it's a path

0:07 to misery wearing a fancy watch does not help me

0:11 meet my goals it doesn't give me Freedom it doesn't help

0:13 me connect with others it doesn't help me be a good

0:16 dad and it doesn't help me give away money I'd

0:18 say spending money on material possessions is the height of misery

0:21 what you're about to hear is a conversation between me

0:23 and Andrew Wilkinson the first billionaire that we've ever had

0:27 on the podcast a billionaire with a b and he

0:29 has Rec written a book it's titled Never Enough from Barista

0:33 to billionaire it's really my midlife crisis honestly I wrote it

0:36 when I was 36 years old which is about the halfway

0:39 point of most people's lives and I was just feeling

0:42 kind of lost and needed to work it out and so

0:45 I worked it out via writing a big topic of conversation

0:48 in this podcast between me and Andrew is that we

0:49 are talking a lot about money but we start off

0:52 by talking about the downsides of being a billionaire it's not

0:55 great there's lots of really interesting downsides that nobody thinks

0:58 about having 25 million bucks or even 10 million bucks

1:02 or 5 million bucks is a lot better than being

1:04 a billionaire in my opinion I'm curious to ask why that is

1:07 so we talk about the power of Delegation and anti-g

1:09 goals we talk about what are the things you can spend

1:12 money on that actually do buy happiness we talk about

1:14 the different challenges associated with Fame and then towards the end

1:17 of the conversation we riff a little bit about business

1:19 ideas and the idea of building holding companies with small bets

1:22 run a profitable business pay yourself well and live a good

1:25 life the entire time instead of deferring gratification for 10 years

1:29 and then hoping you can sell it for some silly

1:31 number yeah I like cash flow I found that the best

1:35 way to feel rich is to have cash flow Andrew

1:39 Wilkinson welcome to the podcast how are you doing I'm doing

1:42 great how are you doing I'm doing really good uh

1:45 I am 75% of the way through the advanced reader copy

1:48 of your book so firstly thank you for sending it

1:50 over thank you for writing it I've actually I've actually been

1:52 following your journey oh thank you for freaking years now

1:55 I I don't remember when I first came across metalab

1:57 and started following you on Twitter um but when you announced

2:00 the tiny stuff and then the eror Press stuff just like

2:03 damn and and then like before I knew like

2:05 in in my mind when I when I was into in like

2:09 web dev Twitter like maybe 10 years ago or something I

2:11 was trying to build software stuff on the side in med

2:14 school you and metalab and like stuff always sort of kept

2:18 on coming up and then next thing I knew you're

2:21 like a freaking billionaire or something like that's it's pretty

2:26 insane it's pretty insane to me too I mean I I

2:29 started as a barista about 20 years ago and got

2:32 into web design kind of randomly and my goal was I

2:36 just want to uh wake up whenever I want

2:38 in the morning and make enough to pay my rent and uh

2:40 I somehow woke up here 20 years later so it's

2:43 a weird thing for me too and it's so it's so

2:46 bizarre how small the world is I feel like uh

2:48 it's all ships passing in the night the the tech world

2:51 is like everybody is two degrees of Kevin Bacon that's

2:54 fun that you uh were aware of us yeah so um

2:58 one of the things that really you know we were talking

3:00 just before this like I really want to make a kind

3:03 of main channel YouTube video about your book which is

3:08 it it's it's not the sort of book I would normally

3:11 make a video about because normally I make a video

3:13 about like uh an atomic habits or of clearly self-help how

3:17 to guide whereas your book it's not really a self-help

3:20 how to guide but it sort of is because I feel

3:24 like there was so much in it that really resonated

3:27 with me your your philosophy about money like even the title

3:31 Never Enough is like the the the question of when is

3:34 enough enough is a question I've been grappling with for years

3:37 now and it almost felt feels like one of those books

3:41 that I should just like study because you are

3:44 a few years ahead of me um in terms

3:46 of the career that you're on that that you're in in terms

3:51 of all of that sort of stuff and so I feel

3:53 just I just have so much to learn by just really

3:57 almost like studying the book and thinking okay I'm actually

4:00 a very good target audience for this book and I need

4:03 to take the lessons because you know one of the quotes

4:05 is you know wisdom is learning from other people's mistakes

4:08 that that General sort of idea have have you had

4:10 that sort of feedback from other people as well about the book

4:13 I have and uh it's funny people read the book

4:15 and then they go oh my God you figured it all

4:17 out and I can assure you I'm just as miserable

4:20 as you are still stressed out and just thinking about different

4:23 problems uh one of my my business partner Chris um

4:28 has a really funny sing he goes stress is like water

4:31 it will find a way and so if you eliminate

4:33 one stressor a new one will appear and so um you

4:37 know the book is really me working through a big exential

4:40 it's really my midlife crisis honestly um I wrote it when

4:43 I was 36 years old which is about half the halfway

4:46 point of most people's lives and I was just feeling

4:50 kind of lost and needed to work it out and so

4:53 I worked it out via writing um so I've I've

4:56 changed my path but uh yeah I mean I'm still

4:59 just as stressed out and miserable and anxious as I've ever

5:01 been interesting okay so normally on this podcast what I like

5:05 to do is just turn turn turn the interview into more

5:08 of like a personal coaching therapy session so I wonder

5:11 if I can just talk you through some of the things

5:12 I'm thinking about and I would just love for us

5:14 to of Riff Riff on those sorts of topics which very

5:17 much overlap with um the the stuff you talk about

5:20 in the book and yeah the stuff that I know I

5:22 know you write about how how does that sound that sounds

5:24 great nice okay so I'll give you a little bit

5:27 of context and you know you might be familiar with some

5:29 of this um but uh so I'm 29 years old I used to be a doctor and quit a few years

5:35 into working the day job to go full-time on my YouTube

5:38 channel and now I have a team of like 20

5:39 something people and uh we make YouTube videos and sell online

5:45 courses off the back of it and I'm at the point

5:48 where you know I read Tim Ferris when I was

5:51 18 decided to pursue uh the dream of Financial Freedom

5:55 and passive income and then I sort of got there

5:58 and if my at 18-year- old self could look at you

6:01 know we did 5 million in Revenue last year with 60%

6:03 margin so that's like you know a decent decent chunk

6:05 of profit and if my 18-year-old self could look at that it's

6:07 like obviously you've already made it and I speak to some

6:09 friends and they're like bro you never have to work

6:11 a day again in your life but I still feel

6:14 this somewhat of this sense of scarcity that it's it's not

6:18 enough and it's one of the things you say fairly

6:20 early on in your book is when you ask even extremely

6:23 rich people how much they need to feel safe the answer

6:25 is always double or triple what they already have why

6:29 why like I've I've heard this from so many people

6:32 but like why why do I still feel the sense of it's

6:34 it's not enough and I need to I need to strive

6:36 for more what's going on here Andre yeah I mean

6:40 it's bizarre so I I'll never forget I um when

6:44 I was uh you know pretty young I Wasa it was

6:46 probably 10 10 or 12 years ago I had this uh

6:50 client who is an Irish entrepreneur named Jerry Kennelly very

6:53 successful guy and I flew to Ireland in the the south

6:57 of Ireland um in C and I was walking through

7:01 town with this guy and he had sold a business

7:04 I think for hundreds of millions of dollars to gy images

7:06 or something and as we walk through town he's pointing

7:09 out all the buildings that he owns you know oh I

7:11 own that I own that I own that every single

7:14 person in town is tipping their hat to him they all

7:16 know who he is he's like the king of town

7:19 and we get to the pub and we get two pints

7:22 of Guinness and I say to him um you know

7:26 what is it like you know you you're where I want

7:28 to be what what does it feel like and he

7:30 just kind of looks a bit sad and he goes well

7:33 I'm drinking the same pint you are and I remember

7:37 in that moment just kind of like dismissing that offhand

7:40 but at the end of the day um these people that have

7:44 so much are still living their day-to-day lives they're still fighting

7:48 with their spouse they're still sleeping poorly uh they're still

7:52 getting irritated by people at work and having interpersonal problems

7:56 and so that that just doesn't change at the end

7:59 of the day it's kind of like travel people think that if

8:01 I travel to Bali I'm going to feel good

8:04 but the problem with traveling to Bali is that your brain comes

8:07 with you and your brain is anxious whatever chemical concoction

8:11 is happening that day will happen in Bali or it'll happen

8:13 in London um there's another story I met a guy

8:17 who was worth two or three billion dollar and we

8:21 were talking about Jeff basos and he goes oh my God

8:26 Jeff Bezos is just so[ __] rich and I said

8:30 to him I was like well you know you're worth

8:33 billions of dollars what can Jeff Bezos do that you can't

8:36 and he goes a bit glassy eyed and he's like super

8:40 yacht he can buy a super yacht and so it's just

8:43 this bizarre thing as I've continued to work my way

8:47 up the ranks and meet all these amazing people who have

8:50 been profoundly successful I just noticed that every single one

8:54 of them in some way is still striving or competing you

8:57 know you have billionaires competing for another zero on the end

9:02 or to be number 10 on the Forbes list instead

9:05 of number 100 and I think it's just kind of human

9:08 nature people are inherently competitive and miserable and uh it just

9:13 doesn't stop and so the book was really me pulling

9:16 that thread for myself because I grew up with two parents

9:19 who would fight about money and so I decided that money

9:22 was the bomb for all of my problems and then

9:24 I got money and it actually you know it has lots

9:27 of wonderful benefits but it adds tons of complexity and so

9:32 trying to determine for yourself when to stop playing the money

9:34 game is really hard um I read an incredible book

9:38 that you should read called um how to get rich

9:41 by Felix Dennis have you read that yeah I read that about

9:43 two months ago it was great yeah yeah and I

9:46 mean if you read it's funny like I read the book

9:49 about 15 years ago and in the book it's the story

9:52 of him building a publishing Empire he's the guy who

9:56 had um I believe a bunch of um technology magazines

9:59 and Maxim and a whole big publishing Empire and in it

10:05 he says I wish that I had stopped at age

10:08 35 when I had $50 million and become a poet because

10:12 his true passion was poetry but he was a money

10:15 monster he couldn't stop and he kept going and uh it

10:19 I mean that book is so poignant it's one

10:21 of the only books written uh with a very garish title how

10:25 to get rich but it's really a book about why

10:27 you don't want to get rich um and so you know

10:31 this is my own version of that I don't think

10:33 most people should want to be a billionaire it it's not

10:36 great there's lots of really interesting downsides that nobody thinks about

10:40 um I think you know having 25 million bucks or even

10:44 10 million bucks or five million bucks is a lot

10:47 better than being a billionaire in my opinion I'm curious

10:49 to ask why that is but I'm going to ask you

10:51 that in a moment because one of the things that I

10:54 cuz I I really enjoyed the book how to get

10:55 rich as well and I also so saw that line

11:00 in it which was like you know something like 40 50

11:01 million I wish I just quitted that number and then done

11:04 the thing that I really wanted to do I think

11:08 I couldn't quite take that at face value because what I

11:13 so thinking out loud what was going through my mind

11:15 as as I was reading that or rather I was listening

11:16 to on Audible it's really funny on Audible as well

11:18 then the the guy who's like reading it is like very

11:21 like dry humor Good Vibes but what was going through

11:25 my mind as I was as I was as I was

11:26 listening to that was okay so does that mean I I

11:30 should I should be aiming for 50 million as the goal

11:33 um and also like he this guy says that really

11:36 poetry is his passion but I think for me the passion

11:39 is Passion genuinely is reading and learning and teaching stuff

11:45 and I think you and I sort of have that in common

11:46 that you have a[ __] ton of money and yet

11:48 you still write books and write on Twitter I often

11:51 ask myself the question of if I had 100 million

11:53 in the bank what would I do and the answer is

11:54 I would still continue to make YouTube videos I still

11:56 do podcasts with cool people I can learn from and i'

11:59 still want want to write and that's sort of what

12:01 I'm doing but then there's all sorts of like these extra

12:05 well you could you know leverage your personal brand and build

12:09 a software business or buy a software business and then

12:11 seeing the stuff that you've done with tiny and seeing

12:13 the whole James CLA thing and speaking to James CLA where

12:16 he's like yeah I don't really want to do this but then

12:17 I thought the opportunity came by and then he going

12:19 working with Andrew is kind of cool they like cool

12:21 yeah why not and it's it's sort of I guess it's

12:24 sort of fomo I'm like you know I think I think

12:27 I have I have the money that I want to live

12:30 a fa comfortable life the stuff that I enjoy doing

12:32 is the stuff I would do anyway but there's all

12:34 these shiny things around like should I do software should we

12:38 do Hardware should we try and buy boring businesses Cody Sanchez

12:41 style should we try and acquire Tech productivity businesses Andrew Wilkinson

12:44 style and use our audience to direct traffic to the tech

12:47 productivity businesses but then I don't really want to be

12:49 the ones running them but then there's the whole well

12:51 well you could hire a CEO and it becomes this whole

12:53 like fomo game or I'm just like not sure so

12:56 how how would you go about approaching that how would

12:58 you go about like disentangling that so we've had a lot

13:02 of different offices so I've done everything from working

13:05 in cafes to having really corporate fancy beautiful offices to Chris

13:12 and I um bought a house and we worked out

13:14 of it we've worked out of it for years and no matter

13:17 where you go work will follow and I think that um

13:23 whatever you do the stress will come right and so

13:28 if you look at it you know making YouTube videos

13:30 you probably think about your houseon days when you first started

13:33 and how fun and Scrappy it was and you're doing

13:36 it all yourself and now you Pro probably go man I

13:39 have to manage I don't know how many direct reports

13:41 you have how many how many do you have uh I

13:44 just have one I have a GM who then manages

13:45 everyone else which is super nice that's pretty good that's pretty

13:48 good if that works but um but you know that GM

13:51 needs to be managed and fed and you need to negotiate

13:55 contracts and over time I think the more stuff you

13:58 do everything has a cost and I guess the question is

14:01 what is that taking from and I've always struggled

14:05 with this because um like for example I just bought a building

14:08 I was there's this wonderful Corner Spot that I've had

14:12 my eye on for for years near my neighborhood and I'm

14:15 so excited about the idea of red developing this building

14:19 and making it somewhere that's vibrant for the community but when I

14:23 now that the initial excitement of buying the building is

14:25 worn off I'm realizing that I'm going to have to hire

14:29 an architect and I'm navre designers and I'm going to have

14:33 to go Source businesses to rent space in it and every

14:37 single one of those represents a person who can be

14:40 let down who I have to have meetings with uh you

14:44 know who cannot pay their rent suddenly my life has

14:47 all these additional complexities and so I kind of go through

14:51 these periods of expansion and contraction so I'll expand and do

14:55 a lot of generative activities I'll get really stressed out

14:58 and then I'll Del it all to CEOs um and delegating

15:01 to CEOs is amazing I mean it's the abstraction of business

15:05 and it sounds like you've done that in a really

15:07 really smart way if you have a great GM who runs

15:10 all that and that's invisible to you and what you're

15:12 really doing is I always joke like you're building a machine

15:16 and then you're putting the raw uh materials into the machine

15:20 and something's coming at the end so if your raw

15:21 material is sitting in front of your camera and talking

15:25 to me and they'll go edit it they'll do everything you

15:28 don't have to have that much uh involvement that's a pretty

15:31 magical thing and that's hard to reproduce so I'd be

15:34 very very cautious about expanding unless you have great Partners

15:38 like you seem to have to do this stuff but I

15:40 mean I don't know I think I always really respect

15:44 people like James um so James Clear I've known him

15:47 for probably five years and we've talked about doing a h

15:51 a habits app for some time now and he basically called

15:53 me up a year ago and he said look we're

15:55 going to build um an atomic habits app I'm not going

16:00 to put a scent into it you're going to fund everything

16:02 you're going to build the team I only want to do

16:04 a few meetings with the team and oversee it

16:07 and approve it and then I'll just promote it and you

16:09 can use my ideas and we'll work together on the content

16:12 and so for him it's been this relatively seamless process

16:16 but that's only worked because he's working with us and we've

16:18 done that a million times and we can abstract it

16:20 away and we'll see how it goes I mean we

16:23 just launched it um but even that I mean James has

16:26 to now think about this his reputation is on the line

16:29 you know there there's a lot that can go wrong

16:31 so I think the fundamental question to ask yourself is

16:35 are you jro from Jiro Dreams of Sushi or are you

16:39 the guy who created Chipotle you know jro is a Master

16:43 Chef who hones his craft he does one thing incredibly

16:46 well and he does it in a very narrow band

16:49 or the guy who created Chipotle they have you know he created

16:52 the concept and scaled it to 10,000 restaurants which do

16:55 you want to be and one has a financial payout

16:59 but the other one has a really intrinsic payout and like

17:06 I wrestle with this all the time so I've I've abstracted

17:09 business away right so what I've done in my business

17:12 was I started a web design agency I delegated the operations

17:17 of it to somebody else and it was a huge relief

17:20 and then I just started starting and acquiring more and more

17:24 businesses and hiring CEOs and what I found over time

17:28 was that I really missed having my hands on the tools

17:31 I missed a flow State my life became Zoom meetings

17:36 and contracts and Deals and I didn't produce anything I wasn't

17:41 generative and so that's partly why I started writing the book

17:44 that's why what why I write on Twitter that's why

17:46 I do live events uh that's where I get my flow

17:50 state but ultimately the fundamental question as well is you know

17:54 what what's your ideal Flow State and how do you

17:56 design your life around that because I do think that is

17:59 pure happiness like for me a good day is a day

18:03 where I lose myself in thought Reading Writing something where

18:08 I'm focused one of the things I think you mentioned

18:11 in the book is this idea of anti goals um

18:14 and I thought that was in in interesting in the sense

18:18 of you know what whenever I whenever I speak to whenever

18:24 I speak to rich people uh I I always like

18:27 to ask what are the characteristics that make someone rich and happy

18:35 as distinct from Rich and unhappy because it seems to be

18:38 like 50/50 from the people I spoken to of like

18:41 you're rich and you're happy or or you're rich and you're

18:43 and you're unhappy maybe even skewing towards unhappy rather than

18:45 happy and I thought the concept of anti-g goals was

18:48 interesting in that sense um yeah so what what are anti-

18:51 goals and broadly as a sort of sort of two-prong

18:54 question what are in in your view the things that make

18:57 someone both rich and happy rather than rich and unhappy

19:00 well I guess the question is is it are they happy

19:03 in an Adaptive way or a maladaptive way and I

19:06 think there's a lot of rich people who live an unexamined

19:09 life who are not self-aware who ultimately are constantly just

19:15 moving forward towards the goal and they don't think about why

19:19 they don't think about the broader context of you know

19:22 what they're going to do with the money this is just

19:24 what they do they're like an automaton and they're designed

19:27 to make money um um and and I think that's fine

19:31 what makes me sad I think is that some

19:32 of those people don't allocate that Capital to anything interesting so they're

19:37 like somebody who's baking chocolate chip cookies and they have

19:41 a warehouse full of them and they're not feeding them to anybody

19:45 they're you know yes their their money is in a stock

19:48 or a business or something but there's no purpose

19:50 to their existence um so I think that's one is people

19:54 who lived un live unexamined lives um the other is is

19:59 people who do exactly what they want um I know

20:02 a few rich people like this uh one is Jason freed

20:06 from Bas Camp do you know him I've been reading

20:09 his Jason Jason's my hero yeah J J Jason's incredible for if

20:14 your audience doesn't know so Jason started um a company

20:17 called base camp uh used to be called 37 signals about

20:21 20 years ago and they make SAS software project management

20:25 software email software they make hey.com J as a business I

20:29 would guess I don't know but I think it does

20:32 probably over $100 million of Revenue and tens of millions

20:36 of dollars of profit all recurring revenue and he owns it

20:40 50/50 with his business partner and more than any other person

20:44 I know Jason just doesn't do anything he doesn't want

20:47 to do so I remember we were negotiating a deal

20:50 with Jason and uh he just didn't want to sign

20:53 a contract I said I'll give you free stock in my company

20:58 I just want you to advise me I just need

21:00 you to do this docy sign and he just goes I

21:02 don't like doing contracts I'm not doing it I'll talk

21:05 to you on the phone once in a while but I

21:06 don't want the equity so he was willing to sacrifice

21:09 an opportunity and equity and upside just because he doesn't like

21:13 contracts he doesn't like doing that kind of thing and there's

21:16 a cost to that right you miss to your point

21:19 earlier there's a fomo you you've got a bit of opportunity

21:22 cost you're missing out on things but Jason just doesn't

21:26 do anything he doesn't want to and there's such a power

21:28 to that to being a contrarian I mean they've by all

21:31 logic if you're going to run a software company

21:33 that big you should have hundreds of employees you should be

21:36 a public company there's all these things that come with profound

21:40 cost but are logical and him and David his business partner

21:43 haven't done any of those things um so I think

21:46 that that's incredible and I'm I really admire people like

21:49 that um the third are people who have profound meaning so

21:55 um someone like Elon Musk or um you know James Dyson

21:59 where they believe that what they're doing makes the world

22:02 better and is making an impact and they're innovating and doing

22:05 great science and engineering I think that those people have

22:08 a lot of meaning I don't know that they're happy I

22:10 do think there's examples of those people being happy but I

22:13 think in the same way that having children is suffering

22:16 in many different ways I think it gives you a lot

22:19 of meaning and I think they have a lot of meaning

22:21 and I would assume if not happy that creates a lot

22:24 of purpose in their life and I think that is

22:26 probably really meaningful and then the fourth and last would

22:29 be um rich and Anonymous people so people who are incredibly

22:35 successful and famous in a very very narrow band

22:39 and their day-to-day life is completely unaffected by wealth so I think

22:43 of someone like Mark Leonard from constellation software uh he's

22:46 a Toronto based multi-billionaire he started

22:49 a company called constellation and all

22:51 they do is they buy SAS software companies they've been

22:54 doing it for something like 30 years and he looks like

22:57 Gandalf he's got a massive Gray beard uh he is completely

23:02 Anonymous outside of the nerdy little world of investing that he

23:05 inhabits so if Mark goes to a conference for investors

23:09 he's famous and everyone wants to talk to him but if

23:12 he's in Toronto walking around I don't think anyone ever

23:14 recognizes him he doesn't have a public presence he doesn't post

23:17 on social media um and I think that's probably ideal

23:21 um you know if you were to be a celebrity just

23:23 as an analog you don't want to be a lead

23:25 lead DiCaprio you want to be Joel and Ethan Cohen top

23:30 you're the absolute best of what you do you're highly

23:33 admired but outside of a narrow Circle no one recognizes you

23:36 or cares man what's your purpose and stuff these days

23:42 like what what was the conclusion of your soul searching around

23:45 this well I would say that ultimately I realized

23:50 that a few things make me happy one is a flow state

23:54 which we talked about before which I was really missing

23:57 based on the way I was structuring my work and how

23:59 I was running my life two is uh children family

24:04 friends connection and things that Foster that um three is meeting

24:10 interesting people so I would say that those things really drive

24:13 me and I want to optimize for those um that's what

24:17 I like in my day-to-day life and then in terms

24:20 of meaning what I was struggling with was that chocolate chip

24:24 cookie problem so I remember about 3 or 4 years

24:28 ago took a company public and I'd always own private companies

24:32 and so all I ever knew was what was

24:33 in my bank account and how much cash flow was coming

24:35 in and when you go public suddenly someone values your stock

24:39 they say oh you know Andrew has 100 million shares and they're

24:43 worth x amount and when you look at what that uh

24:47 you know what that appears as in your bank account

24:49 for me it was I remember I looked and it

24:51 was like $270 million and that was just a small part

24:55 of what I own that was that was one

24:57 of my companies one of my 40 businesses and so I remember

25:01 in that moment it would slap me in the face

25:04 I was like what am I doing like what am I

25:06 going to do with all this money for the first

25:08 time ever I felt guilty that I needed to figure

25:11 that out and so um you know if you read

25:14 the book um ultimately what I decided was that I was going

25:18 to give it all away that you know Felix Dennis

25:21 is right you really don't want more than 2550 million

25:25 at most um ultimately it's really messed up to have all

25:29 these chocolate cookies and not do anything with them and so

25:32 I'm still sorting out how to do good with that money

25:36 um but my plan is to give away almost everything

25:38 over the course of my life uh my kids are

25:41 going to be told that they're not going to receive uh

25:43 much more than you know they'll be fine they'll they'll

25:46 you know be able to go to college and they'll um

25:49 have enough money to maybe buy a house at some point

25:51 but that's it I I want all the money gone I

25:54 don't want uh to be funding you know third generation

25:57 Polo players or something like that yeah when when Morgan hell

26:01 released his new book and was doing the rounds on podcasts

26:04 um you know people would ask him the question of how

26:06 do you not spoil your kids and his conclusion seemed

26:09 to be that you basically just give them less money it's

26:14 it sounds like that's the conclusion you've landed on as well

26:17 yeah I think um I think money is a really

26:20 toxic Force for families and friends and everything and you

26:24 know I read about this in the book but I It

26:26 For Me growing up I was always not the poor

26:29 kid I really don't want to you know I was I

26:32 was middle class but I went to school I went

26:36 to a public school but in a in a nice neighborhood

26:39 and all the kids around me were children of wealthy real

26:43 estate developers and bankers and stuff and I felt um hard

26:48 done by and so I put this chip on my shoulder

26:51 and then I always thought I so I was always

26:55 the guy who was like um buming money off people

26:58 i' be like hey can I you know borrow two bucks

27:00 and I'll go buy a bag of chips in the vending

27:02 machine I'll pay you back in a week and so

27:04 when I finally had money I wanted to share it

27:07 and um you know spend it with my friends and I

27:10 started doing that and it had all these weird unintended

27:14 consequences of making people feel less than or I'm being flashy

27:18 and showing off or I'm saying they can't afford it

27:22 and so and and that's a microcosm of a much broader

27:26 thing that happens inside when you have money people want

27:30 things from you people expect things from you uh you know

27:34 you don't know who your friends are there's a lot

27:35 of really bizarre problems and when it comes to families and money

27:40 um don't get me wrong there's lots of Wonder I

27:42 know lots of wonderful second and third generation um people

27:47 but I I think it creates a lot of politics suddenly

27:50 your family is a it's like Game of Thrones or something

27:54 who's going to take over the business who's going

27:56 to how much are we going to inherit um they're tied

27:59 to their name meaning something you know being a WTH means

28:03 something I don't want being a Wilkinson to mean something I

28:06 want everyone to do what they want to do um

28:09 so I am yeah I just I don't want to have

28:12 it in my life um long-term and I mean I'll

28:15 have it in my life but I don't I don't want

28:17 my kid staff to Grapple with that I think it

28:19 just creates um a lot of really negative things in families

28:24 so okay so on the concept of then anti- goals um

28:28 of what I'm hearing is that uh something that I should

28:31 be mindful of and I guess by extension anyone listening

28:34 to this is that chasing success generally monetary success but also

28:39 like you know I know a bunch of academics who

28:42 just live for the academic publishing cycle and all that like

28:44 the there's always a game that we're playing in the work

28:47 domain to some degree but chasing that at the detriment

28:51 to at the detriment of other things that are more

28:54 important like time and Flow State and not having too much[

28:57 __] in the calendar and being able to spend time

28:59 with your family and friends and stuff is is is

29:02 that where this idea of anti- goals comes in like figuring

29:04 out what are the things you want to avoid yeah um

29:07 so Charlie Munger Warren Buffett's longtime business partner he has

29:11 this great saying he says um uh I think it's it's

29:15 someone else but it's show me where I'm going to die

29:19 so I don't go there so the idea would be you

29:21 want to instruct yourself of all the bad things that can

29:24 happen and then you can avoid it and you can

29:26 invert and he says it's much easier to think in Reverse

29:30 it's hard for us to know what will make us

29:33 happy you know I might imagine that owning a bigger

29:35 house will make me happy or uh buying a big screen

29:40 TV will make me happy but what I do know

29:42 for a fact to everyone fundamentally knows what makes them unhappy um

29:46 you know for me personally I don't like um I

29:49 don't like owing things to people I like to be able

29:52 to dictate my own day I don't like um being

29:55 over scheduled and having a busy calendar um I don't want

29:59 to feel guilty and feel like I'm being a bad

30:01 dad um I don't like email I hate being trapped

30:04 in my email all day and so about five or six

30:07 years ago Chris and I sat down and we made a list

30:10 of what are all of our fears what are what

30:12 are all the things we want to avoid how how if

30:14 we were to design a most miserable life for us

30:18 what would that be and then how do we avoid it

30:20 and so I've always found that has been a much

30:22 easier way to um to do almost everything so when we

30:27 hire a CEO my favorite question is I say what

30:30 are your fears how does this go wrong let's list them

30:33 all out well one would be um you know we

30:36 don't structure your pay properly another one would be we don't

30:39 you don't hit your bonus another one is we have mismatched

30:42 expect expectations for the business or we're not aligned on strategy

30:47 uh maybe we just don't get along personally and then

30:50 we'll mitigate each of those we'll sit down and we'll say

30:52 okay how do we mitigate all of those things now

30:55 instead of later and I find it's an incredibly valuable way

30:59 to think uh and it's it's so simple right it's

31:02 so freaking simple what do you not like everybody knows

31:06 that to what extent do you think that there's this you

31:10 know it's it's easy to say this when you're already rich

31:12 but like if you're hustling to try and make it

31:15 or you're you know a lot of people listening to this podcast

31:18 and watching my channel are in their like 20s early

31:21 30s um some very optimizing productivity focused teenagers as well

31:27 and a lot of people that I interview are all

31:31 about like the work life balance and stuff but when you

31:34 look at their own past they were often very very hustle

31:37 and sacrificed their work life balance to get to a certain

31:41 point and then once they get to that certain point

31:43 they start saying hey it's okay to say no to money

31:45 and and all that sort of stuff so I guess

31:48 do you feel like this is a privilege reserved for once

31:51 you've already made it by whatever definition that is or do

31:53 you think actually this idea of anti-g goals we can

31:56 be like someone who's fresh out of college who's

31:59 in their first job and maybe wants to start their first business

32:01 Is it feasible for someone to someone like that to to employ

32:04 this particular strategy no I think if you're aware

32:07 of it so so for example when I was running

32:09 metalab the design agency that I started about 20 years ago

32:13 um I realized that I did not like traveling and so

32:19 um I knew that and I did travel I had to I had to run the business but once I

32:23 identified that I didn't like it I tried to design around

32:26 that and the way that I designed around that was

32:28 realizing that well hey there's all these people I know who

32:32 are wonderful you know uh my my college roommate Mark

32:36 for example is a wonderful guy and everyone always likes him he's

32:40 just uh you know super super friendly and I said

32:43 I wonder if I could teach Mark to have these meetings

32:47 for me and so and and Mark had never really

32:51 traveled and so he was super excited to travel he was

32:54 getting paid a ton and he was incredibly excited

32:57 to to do the thing that I hated so what I've tried

33:00 to do always is just design in reverse and say okay

33:03 I hate this thing how can I delegate it to someone

33:05 who loves it the same is true often of accounting

33:08 legal work administrative work there's peoples who whose brains just work

33:13 in a different way and so I think that ultimately

33:17 your job as an entrepreneur is to be Teflon for tasks

33:22 you want to avoid all tasks that don't bring you

33:25 Joy um and if you do that well you'll be incredibly

33:28 successful as a byproduct so I think people should embrace

33:31 this early I think a lot of people get into this hustle

33:34 culture and they think that they need to be sleeping

33:37 under their desk and you know working weekends I'll I'll confess

33:42 I have never worked more than a 6h hour day

33:47 probably at Absolute most often I work a 2 to 4

33:51 hour day and I I've been doing that for my entire

33:54 20-year career right I've just delegated really really well I've

33:58 always known that if I take my foot off the gas

34:01 there's other people that are picking up the slack that I've

34:04 delegated to and that doesn't mean I'm not working hard

34:07 it means that I'm I'm working the way I want

34:10 to and the only reason I was able to do

34:12 that was because I didn't read all the business books and I

34:14 read Jason Fred's books and Jason advocates for doing what

34:18 you want and I really tried to embrace that and it

34:23 worked that's fun um one of the one of the things

34:28 you talk about uh in in the book is how

34:31 you suddenly started like once once you made some money

34:34 started looking at watches and you know like mechanical watches

34:38 and all this sort of stuff like well yeah this is

34:41 a a question that's always intrigued me because people sometimes ask

34:46 me that like oh why do you just have a basic

34:47 apple watch and I'm like I mean I I have

34:50 never even tried to get into the World of Watches

34:52 I know that lots of rich people collect watches for some

34:55 reason I know nothing about it and I almost don't

34:57 want to know anything about it because I know that like

35:01 if I get into that world it's it's just a dangerous

35:03 a dangerous place to be yes what's what's your relationship

35:06 with like fancy watches and I guess other forms of luxury

35:09 so I think that um think about when you meet

35:13 so so you know you and I are both productivity nerds

35:17 and I'm assuming we like great gear I've seen your videos

35:20 on gear I know you like it I'm the same

35:22 way that's my favorite part of tech um when you meet

35:27 somebody and they're wearing an Android a really shitty Android

35:31 watch or they're you know a Chinese knockoff Apple watch do

35:35 you have a bit of judgment no no not ready

35:39 yeah I think I think it's like um there's there's

35:42 a unspoken status in every group right and so if you're

35:47 let's say let's let's put it let's give a really simple

35:49 example when I text with someone and they have green

35:52 bubbles I'm like oh you know oh my God this is

35:55 so annoying I can't believe that they you know I

35:58 have to use WhatsApp now I can't believe they use Android

36:01 you know I'm a snob right I'm an apple apple

36:03 person the same is true of different circles and so

36:07 as your circle changes let's say that your circle right now

36:10 is all productivity nerds but let's say that you uh it sounds

36:14 like you're you're really struggling with this question of do

36:16 you expand your business do you get bigger do you go

36:19 for wealth and let's imagine that you do let's say

36:22 that your friends start changing suddenly you're hanging out with people

36:25 that are in finance in London or they're in business

36:27 in London and let's say that um they're all wearing really

36:31 beautiful watches you know PCH phips and nice omegas and Rolexes

36:36 and stuff they will judge you which is ridiculous just like

36:41 me judging the person for having the green bubbles

36:43 or the ugly Android watch silly they'll judge you a tiny bit

36:48 and you'll notice all these beautiful watches and what I've

36:51 always found is that something called mimetic desire kicks in so

36:56 if all of your five best friends get into cars

36:59 and they all start driving new Teslas you're going to suddenly

37:02 have a desire to buy an electric car or a Tesla

37:05 it's just this natural thing that happens in groups and tribes

37:09 people start doing similar things and so I think

37:11 that if you join a tribe you have to be very

37:13 careful what tribe you join if you join a tribe

37:16 where status comes from fancy things and going to St Tropez

37:21 in a yacht or wearing a fancy watch or what cool

37:25 conference you're invited to or what clothes you wear um then

37:30 you know you get yourself into trouble and I think

37:32 the the important thing is to keep your distance from those kind

37:38 of people I think that if you surround yourself with people

37:40 who don't care about those things then you'll be fine

37:44 and so I've gone down a variety of different routes

37:47 like this I mean one has been buying nice clothes other

37:50 is buying fancy watches uh you know buying sports cars

37:55 I've bought a bunch of really ridiculous sports cars um people

37:59 I I find billionaires talk about what jet they have

38:02 and they'll they'll you know I remember um I was talking

38:05 to this billionaire I won't I won't say who and uh

38:10 he he kind of was ignoring me not very interested

38:13 in talking to me and then I said uh oh

38:16 I you know I flew I flew down here blah blah

38:18 blah and he goes oh what what plane do you

38:21 have and I said oh I just chartered um like

38:24 an old citation Sovereign which was like a you know 20

38:27 year old plane and he immediately lost interest right to him

38:31 if I'd said golf stream he'd suddenly have this reverence

38:34 for me and be excited and so which is absurd right

38:38 so people just get they have all these weird ways

38:40 of measuring your worth and I I just don't want to spend

38:43 time around people who measure worth and things like that because

38:47 it's a path to misery it's not made me happy

38:50 in any way wearing a fancy watch does not help

38:53 me meet my goals it doesn't give me Freedom it doesn't

38:56 help me connect with others doesn't help me be a good

38:58 dad and it doesn't help me give away money right

39:01 so I really try and only spend money on things

39:04 that actually deliver that uh so an example of how I

39:08 would use money in a positive way is I bought

39:11 a cabin for our family and every summer I go up

39:15 to the cabin and I just check out of work

39:17 and it's this special place where it's like bait for family

39:21 and friends everybody wants to go to this wonderful place

39:24 and we just get lost there in the summer I think

39:27 think that's a wonderful use of money I think that um

39:30 caring about your time is a great way to spend

39:33 money I think that you know having somebody who can clean

39:36 your house uh if you don't want to do that is

39:38 wonderful having somebody go shopping for you do those things

39:41 are great um but I'd say spending money on material possessions

39:46 is the height of misery okay so spending money

39:50 to save time very much agree s spending money to create

39:55 connection definitely what other categories are there in which you

39:59 found or your friends have found that spending money actually leads

40:02 to more happiness so I would say that spending money

40:08 on um the only the only rich person thing in my opinion

40:12 uh that's worth it um is one having a house

40:16 with a view so it could be a tiny little house

40:19 but having a view is one thing that psychologically uh there's

40:23 a bunch of studies around this I think that at least

40:25 my friend told me there are I'll I'll try

40:27 and find one but apparently there's studies that show that you

40:29 never get sick of a view and I have this I

40:33 have a house on the water and I love looking

40:35 out I see Eagles and uh seals every single day that's

40:39 special to me that that's worth investing in and I absolutely

40:43 love that so that that's one nice perk of wealth is

40:47 being able to have a beautiful space and a a calm

40:51 environment and a view um the other one is um

40:55 I got to say like the only rich person thing

40:57 that's worth it private jets that's one thing that is

41:00 it sounds so ridiculous I'm sure lots of people are laughing

41:02 right now but the idea that I can go to Los

41:07 Angeles and have dinner with someone really interesting and be

41:12 home to put my kids to bed is incredible and it's

41:16 the most absurd thing from a climate perspective it's incredibly

41:19 expensive but that is the only thing that I've been

41:22 able to identify that is worth it and I've tried you

41:25 know yacht multiple houses fancy clothes watches cars all that stuff

41:33 nothing um but I would say that is very much

41:35 worth it and then the other is um you know getting

41:39 to meet interesting people um so you know that could be

41:42 traveling to them the other would be uh I've flown

41:46 people up to come and speak in Victoria uh and gotten

41:49 to connect with them that's how I met Shane Parish

41:52 that's how I met Andrew huberman um just I love doing

41:56 that I love bringing in interesting people to my hometown

41:59 exposing them to interesting people and spending time with them um

42:03 and then the other one is hosting events so every

42:05 year I host an event called interesting people and it's uh

42:08 about a 100 people that I invite friends and new

42:11 people that I just find interesting uh and it you know

42:14 it costs a lot of money it's a pain in the butt to put on um but I love doing it

42:19 and so those are great uses of money in my opinion

42:22 okay that's awesome that very much Vibes with um what

42:26 I've what I've heard from others as well um one

42:29 of the just like what just sticking on this point just briefly

42:34 one of the one of the one of the things

42:36 I high one of the lines I highlighted from your book

42:37 is the you know you're telling the story of where

42:40 you and Chris are going out to meet a bunch

42:41 of billionaires and stuff and you say we had set

42:45 out to glean some wisdom from these business Titans which

42:48 we had but had come away feeling they lived

42:50 in a bottomless pit of Envy I wonder if you can expand

42:53 on that a little bit like what what is it

42:56 like inside minds or well seemingly like inside the minds

43:00 of a lot of these billionaires that you that you met

43:03 I said it earlier but they're all in competition and it's kind

43:09 of like I think if you own the most beautiful

43:13 house on the Block let's say all the other houses are

43:16 run down and you own the most beautiful house I think

43:19 that you have a bit of a sense of where you're

43:22 at right you have context you go okay I'm

43:25 at I'm at I've got the nicest house the problem is

43:29 that what these billionaires do is they do the equivalent

43:33 of always upgrading neighborhoods and um and then seeing all these other

43:40 beautiful houses and so it's kind of like the the 2%

43:44 competing with the 0.1% and they lose context of where

43:47 they're at they don't realize how incredible their lives are

43:50 and so you'll hear people say things like um oh well you

43:54 know his yacht has a helicopter pad his yacht has

43:58 a tennis court um you know that guy's got a a global

44:03 Bombardier Global jet or whatever it is and I I

44:07 don't I don't see a lot of people looking down

44:10 uh I see them looking up at others and competing

44:12 with one another and don't get me wrong I mean I

44:16 have so many wonderful friends who are you know billionaires multi-billionaires

44:20 they are amazing people and there's some lovely happy calm people

44:25 that are doing wonderful things for the world but I

44:28 still think there's just this um this natural thing that happens

44:32 where when they all congregate in one place and they

44:36 don't have context they compete to the same degree what

44:39 I was saying about watches is true with the Hamptons

44:42 um you know if you go to The Hamptons it's every

44:46 house is worth a hundred million or more and in in certain

44:50 areas obviously and they're all competing for who has

44:53 the most toys and who has the fanciest house I'll never

44:55 forget um I was I was in the Hamptons and there's

44:59 this famous house that some guy spent like $300 million

45:03 building in the'80s and one of the one of the guys

45:07 in in his like $300 million house or sorry $100

45:10 million house was like can you believe it like that's crazy

45:14 and I was like oh my God like dude you

45:16 you know people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones you have

45:19 a $100 million house but he doesn't have context

45:22 to him it's this ridiculous thing um so yeah it's just

45:26 this bizarre world and uh I think it's human nature I

45:31 I don't I don't judge them to be honest I really

45:34 don't I understand how it happens uh and this is

45:37 why it's important to stay out of places like that it's

45:40 an echo chamber okay so what I'm taking away from this is

45:45 in my pursuit of growing my business which you know

45:49 sometimes there are Mo I think most of the time

45:53 I view it as I I have a fairly healthy relationship

45:56 with it which is of viewing it kind of like kind

45:58 kind of like playing a video game it's sort of just

46:01 like you know going from 5 million to 10 million

46:02 in Revenue yeah it's not really going to change anything

46:04 in my life but you know what it's kind of fun

46:07 it's fun to play the video game at a different level

46:09 as long as I as long as doing so does

46:11 not lead to me having to do things that I actually

46:14 don't want to do and as long as I'm you

46:16 know just chilling and reading stuff and speaking to cool people

46:19 and reading books and making videos every now and then

46:21 and doing talks because that's fun that I'm in my I'm

46:24 in my happy place and great if someone on our team

46:27 wants to whip up a product or if I happen

46:29 to want to work with a friend to build some software

46:31 fantastic like just Good Vibes Good Vibes all around but it

46:35 sounds like kind of the trying trying to chase the 10

46:40 million the 25 the 50 whatever that is for the sake

46:44 of the money itself is probably a pretty terrible idea

46:49 well I think you're already rich and you don't realize it

46:52 I think you already have 25 million in a net

46:54 worth statement you do right so say your business does 5

46:57 million of Revenue $2 million of profit um if you

47:02 value it let's say it's growing at 20 30% a year

47:05 I think that business would be worth between 20 and 30

47:07 million uh now add on all the optionality of all

47:10 the other things you can do maybe more and now

47:13 I know that's made up but most things are made up

47:16 even the stock market is made up in terms of valuation

47:19 it's just people kind of guessing what it's worth and unless

47:22 you sell it it's not worth that um and so

47:26 I I think you're probably already there and that's something I

47:28 didn't really get um you know I I think I

47:31 would have relaxed a little bit more I think that people

47:34 like you and me who run cash flow businesses uh

47:38 as I said earlier they only know what's in the bank

47:40 and so they think well that's that's my net worth

47:43 but you're you're equivalent to somebody who has a 25 or even

47:46 a $50 million business may maybe even more so I wouldn't

47:50 I wouldn't feel like you're a slouch and in in fact

47:54 I'm very jealous of what you have you have

47:57 a business where you're doing what you want to do when

48:00 you want to do it it sounds like and you

48:02 don't really have any direct reports the business is abstracted away

48:06 um and and it's funny like I think the grass

48:09 is always greener maybe you look at me and you say

48:11 well Andrew is involved in Aeropress and you know he's

48:15 got his yamate company and he's doing the James clear stuff

48:20 but I all I would give almost anything just to focus

48:23 on one thing every day you know and trying to go

48:27 your direction I'm actually trying to focus more on writing

48:31 and speaking and interviewing people and events that that's where I'm

48:36 finding I'm getting the most satisfaction out of my life

48:39 um so be careful what you wish for because I mean

48:42 you read my book you're almost done it sounds like

48:44 I mean there's a lot of weird downsides interesting yeah

48:48 so um I did a I had a really fun

48:50 interview with uh Ryan holiday a few years ago I think

48:54 this was when our business had just broken about like 1

48:57 million in in Revenue in in in annual revenue and you

49:01 know I was as as the business is grown because

49:04 I'm in this personal development space and been following Jason Freds

49:07 and dhh stuff for like a decade and all all

49:09 that stuff it's like I've sort of drunk the Kool-Aid

49:12 of there is such a thing as enough and so I

49:14 asked Ryan holiday this question and he said he said something

49:17 interesting he said that um you know every now and then

49:20 he gets the desire when he hangs out with his real

49:22 estate friends to get into real estate he thinks oh

49:25 you know they're making all this money real estate and then

49:28 after a while he realizes that all of his real

49:29 estate friends would just love to sit in a library

49:32 and write self-help books and he's like H I've got

49:35 that life that these guys kind of want so let's just let's

49:39 just keep that in mind because it's it's so easy

49:41 to forget right it's so easy to you know I look

49:43 at what you've done and I'm like oh man tiny.com

49:46 that must have been an expensive freaking domain name nice so

49:48 that's cool it's got you've got these like 40 companies

49:50 onnet that's like really cool and you can do whatever you

49:52 want and like but I guess you know Tim has

49:56 that blog post which is you know life is a picture

49:58 but you live in a pixel and the happiness comes

50:00 from what you're actually doing in the day-to-day and if the day

50:03 to-day is good it's like drinking the same Guinness reading

50:07 some ofar book there's a pascal quote I love which is

50:09 all of man's miseries arise from an inability to sit

50:13 quietly in a room by oneself and I think it's so

50:16 true I think that um if you can sit quietly

50:20 in a room by yourself and be content that's a good

50:23 life at the end of the day what's fascinating about

50:26 wealth too is that it has a cost so think about

50:31 um I I'll never forget I worked with somebody I

50:35 won't say who but I worked with somebody who is one

50:37 of the wealthiest people in the world about 10 years

50:40 ago while I was still at metalab and we were working

50:43 on a project with them and there was a school shooting

50:48 a really bad school shooting in the United States and I

50:51 read it and I I felt bad and it struck me and then I moved on with my day and I

50:57 met with this person and they were incredibly upset they

51:01 were much more upset than anyone else that I had spoken

51:03 to about it and the reason that they were upset

51:06 was because they were working on gun policy that was one

51:10 of their passions and their foundation and what happens when you

51:15 have a lot of money is that you feel that you

51:17 can impact the world right right now if you have

51:21 just enough for yourself and your family and maybe you take

51:24 care of your couple friends or something like that you

51:27 don't feel a responsibility when something bad happens in the world

51:30 you you think it's terrible when you're you know a multi-billionaire

51:33 when you're one of the wealthiest people in the world

51:35 and you actually do have the power to talk to World

51:38 governments to fund projects to make things happen and a bad

51:42 thing happens you I think you feel it in a very

51:45 different way and I think there's a lot of responsibility

51:48 that comes along with it and I certainly feel

51:50 that I'm I'm nowhere I'm nowhere near as wealthy as some

51:53 of these people I'm talking about um but I feel

51:56 this burden of the money of giving it away so think

52:00 about you know I run my business and then I

52:04 also have to figure out how to give the money away

52:06 in my Foundation that's a whole second job that I've

52:09 now got to do and again so it's the money has

52:12 a weight I've got to figure out how to manage it

52:14 I've got to figure out how to um how to give

52:17 it away I've got to deal with my children there's

52:19 all these legal structures there's liabilities uh it it's it's

52:23 like it's a burden and again I don't want to like

52:27 cry no tears for me uh it's not not it's

52:30 a the ultimate first world problem but it it you

52:33 know you got to ask yourself a fundamental question of is

52:36 it better to be you or me and I think it's

52:38 probably better to be you the only thing I don't like

52:41 about um what you've got is that you are tied

52:45 to it so let's say that you wake up one day

52:48 and you decide you want to go and play violin

52:51 and you don't want to do YouTube anymore well there goes

52:54 your business um one and two if you keep getting

52:58 famous I think your life can get bad so I'm I

53:00 don't know I'm curious to ask you actually what how

53:03 often do you get recognized on average like once or twice

53:05 a day if I'm walking around London if I don't

53:07 have my glasses on it's less but if I have

53:09 my glasses so it's almost like a disguise where I try

53:11 not to wear my glasses in public um but I I

53:17 feel like it's a good level of Fame but then

53:20 you know I read Tim Ferris is blog posts and um

53:23 you know speak to other friends who are at similar kind

53:26 of follower accounts who have experienced like stalkers and people coming

53:31 after them and the Press going after them because like

53:34 I'm not main like like the Press doesn't care about me

53:37 I'm like nich famous you're not you're not political in anyway

53:41 either exactly so it's it's it seems like a good

53:44 level but this is something that I've been talking about

53:46 with um yeah with my partner quite a lot in terms

53:51 of when we have kids what like you know I'm fairly

53:57 open about the fact that our business does 5 million Revenue

53:59 a year it's like it's nothing compared to compared to what

54:02 you guys do but like I'm fairly open about it

54:04 and that is still a big number for potentially that potentially

54:07 paint a Target on my back I'm fairly open about

54:10 my personal life people know I live in London uh

54:15 there's this sense of if I continue on this current career

54:21 trajectory it will res and it goes well it will result

54:25 in me getting more famous and I feel like I'm already

54:27 at like a very strong Sweet Spot Of Fame

54:31 and so there's a sense of like my personal mission is

54:33 to just continuing to continue to do the content thing

54:35 and to write more books and give talks and stuff but then

54:39 the fame is going to Trend into sort of downside

54:42 territory and I'm not I'm actually not sure how to how

54:45 to navigate that any any tips well Tim Ferris has

54:49 that that post I think you're alluding to where he talks

54:52 about somebody um was having a psychotic break and was

54:57 obsessed with him and sent him a video of them killing

55:02 themselves I believe um and he's had stalkers and all

55:05 sorts of other stuff so you're right and you think about

55:08 it as Tim Ferris is a pretty harmless guy I

55:12 mean he's doing productivity and life and philosophy best practices um

55:17 he's not controversial and he's experiencing that and I think when

55:20 I speak to people like Tim they often say I just

55:23 wish my face wasn't recognizable you know it's one thing

55:26 to have your voice recognizable but your face and I think

55:28 being on YouTube is interesting um I in the book

55:32 I share an anecdote where so I I was really Anonymous

55:37 until about 2020 you know I was known kind

55:40 of in the design world but I started posting on Twitter more

55:43 over covid I was kind of bored and then I

55:46 started going on my first million which when I started going

55:49 on it was a tiny little podcast I just was

55:51 friends with Sam and Sean and then it blew up

55:54 and all of the sudden I started getting Rec recognized I'd

55:56 be in a cafe and someone would walk up to me

55:59 and say I loved your podcast can we have coffee

56:02 and I'm very extroverted so I I really love that it

56:05 was one of my I it's still one of my favorite

56:07 things when people come say hello to me because I get

56:09 to meet interesting people I wouldn't meet otherwise um but there's

56:13 a story I share in the book where um one day I I live on the water um like I

56:19 said and I have a private beach and no one can

56:22 get to the private beach other than by boat and I

56:26 open my back door and have a coffee and I'm

56:28 walking out onto my patio and there's a guy standing

56:32 there with a sign on the beach and it says 15

56:35 minutes of your time and so I I yell

56:38 to the guy I'm kind of nervous and I say hey um

56:40 can I help you and he says I want to pitch

56:42 you my business um and I said oh okay like

56:47 I really appreciate the Hustle but you know just send

56:49 me an email don't come to my house that makes me

56:52 a bit uncomfortable and so um I gave him my email

56:56 mail and I promptly go and lock the door and get

56:58 my dog spray and nervously wait for the guy to leave

57:03 and uh I get an email from him and I

57:06 look at the email and it looks innocuous and I

57:08 think okay this guy is just um an entrepreneur who

57:12 took hustle too far right you know he just miscalibrated

57:15 a little bit that's okay um and I don't respond

57:18 to his email the next morning I get in my car

57:21 and I drive down my driveway and I open my gate

57:24 and at the end right at the end of my gate

57:26 is that guy and he's standing there with his fist bared

57:30 and he looks angry and I say what what are you

57:33 doing here and he goes you didn't respond to my email

57:36 and he's angry and I just I mean I bolted

57:40 my car um you know was totally freaked out and so

57:45 that's a very that's an example of the sorts of weird

57:48 things that can start to happen as you get more

57:51 exposure and I have way less exposure than you I

57:54 have way less exposure than Tim Ferris and so it is

57:57 one of those things like you know Bill Murray's got

57:59 this great quote if you think you ought to be famous

58:02 try being rich first right I I don't I'm struggling

58:06 with this too because I wrote this book because it's meaningful

58:09 to me and I wanted to share my story and I

58:11 wanted to write and I love being known by people I

58:14 love meeting new people and using that to meet interesting

58:17 people um but it has a lot of downside as well

58:21 I think it's a really interesting question yeah when I

58:23 read that in the book I was like H holy[ __]

58:26 yeah it was really freaky you've hit the nail

58:29 on the head in that I have a a great thing going

58:33 in that I can do what I want and make content

58:36 about things I care about but have also hit the nail

58:38 on the head on I am tied to this right

58:40 now the business has no Enterprise Value distinct from my own

58:44 but me showing up and sitting in the seat and I

58:47 shouting to you know Chris Williamson who you might also

58:50 know he's he's kind of going through the same thing

58:52 of recognizing that yeah you know the podcast is big but it

58:56 it requires him to sit in the seat three times

58:58 a week and do the interviews which is fine for now

59:00 while it's fun but like we can both foresee

59:03 a world in which like 10 years from now 20 years

59:06 from now maybe it's going to be less fun doing videos

59:09 or doing podcasts with the same frequency that we're currently doing

59:12 and so that's partly where you know my goal

59:14 for the ne my kind of work themed goal is yeah you

59:18 know grow the business from 5 to 10 mil but also

59:21 kind of try and dissociate the business as a entity

59:29 and it sort of the Reliance of the business

59:31 on me showing up and continuing to turn out YouTube videos

59:33 and podcasts well I think that's the best argument for acquiring

59:37 or starting businesses that benefit from your brand right like what's

59:41 something that people look to you for and then how

59:44 can you sell them a product that has high integrity there

59:48 I mean again it'll come with cost it'll have Financial

59:51 cost to do so it'll have management cost there's there's stress

59:55 that'll come from it but I do think having a backup

59:58 plan I mean I my goal is to be unbreakable

1:00:02 financially so my goal is that um every single business

1:00:06 I own could fail and I would still have enough money

1:00:09 outside of that in conservative Investments that I'd be okay

1:00:13 and then in a worst case scenario I even want to have

1:00:16 like a second passport in New Zealand with $500,000 sitting

1:00:21 in New Zealand right like I I am there's a great

1:00:24 quote by Andy Grove only the paranoid survive I have

1:00:28 that in me and so I'm like a prepper but not in like the you know I want a gun

1:00:32 and a backpack kind of way I want uh I'm a financial

1:00:36 prepper and that's how I I got here and I

1:00:39 think you would be wise to have either a business

1:00:43 or I mean an easier option would literally just be

1:00:45 that you say you're going to take a million dollars a year

1:00:49 and you're going to keep putting it into a bunch

1:00:51 of dividend stocks and those div you know it'll dividend 6%

1:00:55 and once you get to a point where you pay

1:00:56 for your lifestyle well then you have that freedom the problem

1:00:59 is you might get attached to your lifestyle you might say

1:01:03 well I'm going to have kids and I bought a you

1:01:06 know a beautiful flat in London uh because I wanted

1:01:09 to I wanted to do something with the money I've worked

1:01:11 so hard I want to do something with the money

1:01:13 so I bought a town home and uh suddenly your monthly

1:01:16 expenses go from 10,000 to 40,000 a month now your old

1:01:20 dividend portfolio isn't enough Never Enough right and you know

1:01:25 ad nod repeat yeah mate let's do it's literally the struggle

1:01:31 right now it's such a it's such a first problem

1:01:33 but it's hilarious yeah but it's but it's applicable to everybody

1:01:37 I mean it's I I talk to people where they're

1:01:40 you know they're making 30k a year and they say

1:01:42 if I could just make 60k a year um you know

1:01:45 it's just so Universal The Human Condition is is to be

1:01:49 ungrateful yeah there always always more and you know just

1:01:55 a few years years ago I would I would get

1:01:59 on a plane and I would scoff at the people who

1:02:01 were who are flying business class thinking oh these people they're

1:02:06 so unenlightened they don't they don't know that it's the same

1:02:09 it's the same airplane clearly they they don't realize it's

1:02:12 getting to the same destination they've just been you know swindled

1:02:15 by the marketing and now I get on a plane

1:02:18 and I turn left and I'm like H this is nice

1:02:22 totally like there's there's a I love um Tim Ferris

1:02:28 about five years ago produced a um audio book called I

1:02:33 think it's letters to ukus I forget who the the philosopher

1:02:37 is but there is this whole section about practicing poverty so

1:02:42 Tim Ferris talked about you know um once every couple

1:02:45 months sleep on the floor for a night and eat Bean

1:02:48 eat rice and beans and dress shaby and I I

1:02:52 do find I don't do that exactly but I do find

1:02:55 roughing it or just you know having having experiences where

1:03:00 you you know you go traveling you stay in a horrible

1:03:02 Hotel you fly economy like I do that I do

1:03:05 that a couple times a year and it always is a nice

1:03:07 reminder of okay I'm fine right we get so attached

1:03:10 to these silly little luxuries like that um but yeah it

1:03:15 is it is ridiculous it's it's ridiculous I'm sure people listening

1:03:18 to this will be will be chuckling in to the comments

1:03:22 yeah the the other one I realized recently so um

1:03:26 I I have a a Tesla Model 3 and I've

1:03:28 been thinking oh you know at some point be night

1:03:32 I went to LA and I was in my friend's Porsche

1:03:34 tan and I was like oh this is a nice

1:03:36 little Porsche tan at some point maybe I'd like to get

1:03:38 a Porsche tan and then I moved back to London

1:03:41 for a bit cuz my mom was having work done

1:03:42 in the bathroom and she needed someone to supervise the builders

1:03:45 so it's like cool I'm chilling in my mom's house

1:03:47 in a tiny ass bedroom where I sleep and make videos

1:03:49 from the same like from the same desk and I'm like

1:03:52 this is not so bad it's actually actually kind

1:03:53 of nice except the drilling in the background kind of going

1:03:56 and then you know I I accidentally like crashed my car

1:03:58 or something like in a parking lot so it was it

1:04:01 was out of action and we got this Courtesy car

1:04:03 which is some tiny ass like pojo 5,000 car and driving

1:04:08 that car was an amazing experience because I realized after

1:04:12 like 30 seconds driving a 5,000 car feels exactly the same

1:04:16 as driving a 50,000 lb car and I'm pretty sure

1:04:19 that will be true for a 500,000 lb car as well

1:04:21 I was like oh you know that thing of is

1:04:24 this the condition I so feared like like actually totally yeah it's

1:04:27 great no I I have the exact same experience and I

1:04:30 would say that um upgrades I mean there's there's there's

1:04:35 intrinsic upgrades so for example when you upgrade um software right

1:04:39 let's say you go from a you you have a tool

1:04:42 you use and it gets way better uh I love

1:04:44 that that's a really exciting thing and I think it's legitimately

1:04:47 useful and I'd argue that with a car unless it's

1:04:50 giving you additional utility or something that you really desire you're

1:04:53 just going to get accustomed to it it's just onc

1:04:56 adaption so don't get me wrong I'm the same way I

1:04:59 I um you know I bought a Porsche Turbo uh

1:05:03 what was it two years ago and I I sold it

1:05:06 I was like this is only negative right when people

1:05:10 see me they think I'm an[ __] it's loud it's uncomfortable

1:05:14 uh it is not within my values right and I

1:05:18 ended up just going back to a Tesla and I feel

1:05:20 very comfortable in the Tesla and I blend in and for me

1:05:23 what I actually like about it is I like

1:05:25 the software I I like the design of it and I

1:05:28 can actually I feel like that's something that I intrinsically appreciate

1:05:32 um but yeah I mean it's just a it's a slippery

1:05:35 slope now the interesting my my business partner Chris talks

1:05:38 about this idea of grandiose humility so that's when you

1:05:41 see someone who's a billionaire and they wear a Casio watch

1:05:44 and they drive a Honda Odyssey you got to be

1:05:46 really careful not to become one of those people because

1:05:49 and not say it's negative to do so but if you've

1:05:52 if you are grandiose about your humility where you say well

1:05:57 I'm a billionaire but I wear a Casio and you

1:06:00 say that to people or you you um judge others based

1:06:04 on that or whatever that can also be a very toxic

1:06:07 trait in my opinion so it's it's kind of an interesting

1:06:10 delicate balance how do you be authentic to your true

1:06:13 wants without being flashy and ridiculous and how do you also

1:06:16 remind yourself you don't need those things yeah I really

1:06:19 like the stoic um idea I think I'm sure the stoics

1:06:24 themselves didn't didn't come up with this but in William

1:06:26 iovine's book the guide to the good life and I think

1:06:27 also in Darren Brown's book happy they talk about the idea

1:06:30 of preferred indifference like yeah flying business class you know

1:06:35 I prefer it but ultimately business or economy it's like

1:06:38 like ultimately I'm indifferent to it at least that's what I

1:06:41 try and tell myself being in a Tesla versus being

1:06:43 in a cheaper car H preferred but indifferent at the end

1:06:46 of the day I try and have that sort of arms

1:06:48 length relationship with like fancy things one of the notes

1:06:53 that I like from our little like podcast prep sheet

1:06:56 is this idea of the personal Monopoly and like okay so

1:06:59 if you were if you were my business Mentor Andrew

1:07:02 and I had to sign outside of your house even though

1:07:04 would do that I was like Andrew help me help help

1:07:06 me build a help me like have a build a durable

1:07:10 business that is not relying on me continuing to sh

1:07:12 out videos where would your mind go would it be software

1:07:16 would it be DTC would it be like physical Goods

1:07:18 like an eror press for productivity like what are the sorts

1:07:21 of things someone in my position should be considering when

1:07:24 it comes to trying to risk the business from the personal

1:07:27 brand stuff yeah so um one of the most important things

1:07:33 is learning to discern what a good business is and what

1:07:35 a bad business is what's easy and what's hard

1:07:39 and the way I learned this was by starting a lot

1:07:42 of really bad businesses so what I did is I

1:07:45 got lucky I went I started a web design agency metalab

1:07:49 and I got so lucky I had the right skill

1:07:52 set um there was no operating startup cost I could just

1:07:56 get moving was me and an internet connection uh and I

1:07:59 happened to stumble into all these great people that I worked

1:08:01 with um and before I knew it I was making

1:08:04 a ton of money so I thought I was a genius

1:08:06 I thought I was a business genius and I started

1:08:09 making um profit and I said okay well I don't understand

1:08:13 stocks in real estate or investing so what I'm going

1:08:16 to do instead is I'm going to start more businesses

1:08:19 and since I'm such a great entrepreneur I'm sure I'll be

1:08:22 successful and so I started a skincare company I lost all

1:08:26 my money I started a pizzeria I lost all my money

1:08:29 I started a cat furniture company I lost every cent

1:08:34 uh I I have I could name like 10 or 15

1:08:36 different businesses where I failed and with each of those I

1:08:40 learned something about a different business model and why it's

1:08:43 hard and I Charlie Munger has that quote that you referenced

1:08:47 earlier about it's much better to learn from other people's

1:08:50 mistakes much less costly to read about their mistakes and avoid

1:08:53 those it's really hard to do that I think that everybody

1:08:57 has hubris and everybody says well I'll be different you

1:09:00 know it's like 80% of people think they're better than

1:09:03 average driver uh obviously that can't be the case and basically

1:09:08 what you end up having to do is stick Forks

1:09:11 into electrical sockets and try a lot of different things and I

1:09:16 think what you have to be careful about is not

1:09:18 walking into the gym and being the guy who says I'm

1:09:21 going to deadlift 300 lb on day one right you're

1:09:23 going to hurt your back and so so ultimately um what

1:09:28 what that resulted in was me um trying to understand

1:09:32 okay what worked about metalab why was that a good business

1:09:35 um and how can I recreate that and as I

1:09:37 began to um as I learn more and more I realized

1:09:40 that ultimately there's only a few things that make a business

1:09:44 exceptional um two specifically on the internet generally work one is

1:09:48 a network effect and so that means um you know

1:09:52 if you're using a social network you want to be

1:09:54 on the one where everyone's at you don't want to be

1:09:56 on a social network if your friends aren't there and so

1:09:59 Facebook you know the more people that join Facebook the stronger

1:10:02 the network gets the the more people join because that's

1:10:04 where their friends are that's very hard to compete with so

1:10:07 we own two businesses that have that we have dribble which

1:10:10 is the largest social network for designers and then we

1:10:14 also have letter booxed which is the largest social network

1:10:16 for film Buffs um now those are really hard to compete

1:10:20 with if you took $100 million and I said go recreate

1:10:23 letter boox and compete with us it would be really

1:10:26 hard for you to get going because everyone would say well

1:10:28 you know your seem really it seems really cool it might

1:10:30 be better designed or faster or have more features but all

1:10:34 my friends are on letter boxed and all my reviews

1:10:35 are onl boxed I'm not coming over so that's one

1:10:39 the other is a brand mode and what I mean

1:10:41 by that is let's say that you walk into a restaurant

1:10:45 and you say I'll have a Coke and they say

1:10:48 uh we don't have Coke we don't have Pepsi we have

1:10:51 uh Acme Cola you're not going to want to pay

1:10:54 for that you you want Coke right people expect Coke and they're

1:10:59 willing to pay a premium even though you can create

1:11:01 Acme Cola and a tastes great and everyone agrees they've

1:11:05 done studies and they show that it tastes it's preferred

1:11:07 to Coke people want Coke and that is a brand mode

1:11:11 and that same thing can be true um with you know

1:11:14 business like Aeropress where um you know there can be infinite

1:11:18 coffee makers people can copy it at the end of the day

1:11:21 there's something to that name an example of that would

1:11:23 be Kleenex so Kleenex is a facial tissue but it's

1:11:28 the it's the verb it's it's the it's the word um

1:11:31 it's a category defining brand so something like that and I

1:11:33 think that what's wonderful about influencers is that people have

1:11:38 parasocial relationships with you that can't be recreated a parasocial

1:11:42 relationship is a relationship that's one way where they feel they

1:11:45 have a relationship they know you but you don't know

1:11:47 them you've never spoken to them and so if you think

1:11:51 about it let's say that um I like and Trust

1:11:54 Andrew huberman and I listen to hubman lab and that's

1:11:56 where I get my health information that can't be competed

1:11:59 with he is unique his personality is unique he looks unique

1:12:03 and until AI can create virtual people that are far

1:12:07 more engaging than normal people which might happen I don't know

1:12:11 um you have what I would call a personal Monopoly you

1:12:14 have a monopoly over you and your personal brand and I

1:12:17 think that's really really interesting you know the downside is

1:12:21 like we talked about you have to get on camera

1:12:23 to operate your business but at the end of the day

1:12:26 um no one can compete with you other than just trying

1:12:30 to create other productivity content but if I've if I

1:12:33 have a three-year parasocial relationship with you uh that's pretty incredible

1:12:37 as a moe like I think um I I met

1:12:39 Tim Ferris about two years ago and I felt like I'd

1:12:43 known him for decades because I did I'd read

1:12:45 his books I'd listen to hundreds of hours of interviews him

1:12:49 and Kevin Rose have all these inside jokes that I knew

1:12:52 very weird right it must be bizarre for him to meet

1:12:54 me and then I'm I I'm I'm like Hey we're friends

1:12:58 and he doesn't know me uh you've got that with hundreds

1:13:01 of thousands or millions of people yeah it's very true

1:13:06 it's just like the question of how to kind of convert

1:13:09 that into I guess the thing that I defaulted

1:13:15 to In This World Was oh let's just make an online course

1:13:18 and sell the online course and great it's taken our business

1:13:20 to like 5 million a year um but then I met s Bloom about a two a year ago two

1:13:26 years ago for the first time and he came in he

1:13:28 came to London we did a pod we had dinner

1:13:30 and I realized his monetization strategy was recognizing he had all

1:13:34 this social proof and personal Monopoly and instead of thinking

1:13:38 let me sell an online course he said let me build

1:13:40 or buy an agency cuz people were asking me how do

1:13:43 you grow on YouTube and I thought let's make a course

1:13:46 people were asking him how do you grow in email

1:13:48 and he decided let me buy or build an agency

1:13:51 and charge High ticket prices and it's just my courses business

1:13:56 is I sure I've got I've got a bigger audience than

1:13:58 him but he's making way more money than I am

1:14:00 and in seemingly a more durable way because the agencies are

1:14:03 not relying relying on him to be Legion he post

1:14:06 posts one tweet and then they've got like the weight list

1:14:08 sorted for the next like three years and that's just

1:14:10 like a different vehicle and I'm just like bloody hell I've

1:14:13 been on this courses vehicle but actually there's this whole freaking

1:14:15 agency vehicle and so I've been I've been on a bit

1:14:18 of a mission to see like okay what else am I

1:14:19 missing like what are the vehicles out there and in like

1:14:22 in your view what are the sensible vehicles that someone

1:14:25 like me should be thinking about well this is um

1:14:28 so my friend Sean Pur from my first million um

1:14:32 you know they were they were selling ads they were making

1:14:34 quite a bit of money from ads um and he was

1:14:38 doing some Venture investing and some other stuff but ultimately I

1:14:42 think he just wanted cash flow he wanted to be

1:14:44 making real money every year and Venture doesn't really achieve

1:14:47 that and ads are good but they can only give you

1:14:49 so much and it's non-recurring you're not building Enterprise Value there's

1:14:52 nothing you can sell in the future and so so

1:14:55 he went he did something really smart um he bought I

1:14:59 believe 10% of a company called shepher and what they

1:15:02 do is they recruit people in the Philippines and Latin America

1:15:05 to work as assistants and salespeople and all sorts of other

1:15:08 stuff in um in North for North American companies mostly

1:15:12 and he has the perfect audience for that he's got

1:15:14 all these Scrappy entrepreneurs who want to Outsource and so he

1:15:18 was able to connect what's a thing that people ask him

1:15:21 for um and he's going to own part of that business

1:15:24 and just recommend it and all he did was buy

1:15:27 10% and then start dropping it on my first million talking

1:15:31 about his investment why he made it why he loves

1:15:33 the business plugging it and I believe because we are familiar

1:15:37 with some of the numbers he has grown that business

1:15:40 in a stagger to a staggering degree and he hasn't had

1:15:43 to deal with any of the operating complexity so he

1:15:46 bought 10% you know he tripled or quadrupled the value

1:15:49 of the business and then I don't know what his plans

1:15:52 are now but he's getting dividends and he can sell something

1:15:55 the future and I think that's um if all the influencers

1:15:58 only knew how much value they were adding to all

1:16:01 the brands they're advertising they would realize they're in the wrong

1:16:04 business I mean someone like Squarespace has paid a lot

1:16:08 of money for advertisement on podcasts over the last 10

1:16:12 years but the founder uh Anthony has made hundreds of millions

1:16:17 or billions of dollars from those podcast ads and he probably

1:16:21 only paid $20 million total um for all the fees so

1:16:25 I think that um ultimately I think it's really smart

1:16:28 for influencers to start building businesses that are durable and separate

1:16:33 from them whether that's as a minority shareholder

1:16:36 or as a an you know a whole majority owned business I just

1:16:41 had a bit of a sort of bit of a a dopamine

1:16:45 Spike as you were saying that because one thing

1:16:48 I've always been thinking it's like you know a company

1:16:50 might pay us 20K to advertise in a YouTube video that's

1:16:53 like cool I've always been saying to my team that like

1:16:56 if they're paying us 20K they're definitely getting more than

1:16:58 20K of value so surely if we just plugged our own

1:17:01 product we could make that we could make more than

1:17:03 20K of value but then we tried this and we

1:17:06 generate less than 20K of sales for an online course if

1:17:08 we plug it in a video unless it's a very very

1:17:10 salesy plug and but I don't like doing that I like

1:17:12 to do a casual mention but what I haven't been

1:17:15 taking into account is that it's not actually 20K of cash

1:17:19 flow that they're they're thinking about what they care about

1:17:22 is Enterprise Value which is a massive multiply multiple and so

1:17:26 I'm just I've just been playing playing the wrong game

1:17:28 yeah it's not only that but it's they they make

1:17:31 the money back let's let's say that they're selling SAS software

1:17:34 so um when I was running flow we had we had

1:17:37 a productivity tool years ago I might buy an ad

1:17:40 and I'd pay 20K and then I'd get maybe 15K back

1:17:43 in the first six months but what you forget is

1:17:46 that that customer stays with me for 5 years you know

1:17:50 some of them do at least and so the actual

1:17:52 lifetime value of a customer is very very significant ific so

1:17:55 let's say that you're selling um Insurance let's say it's monthly

1:17:59 insurance for your computer what whatever I'm just making stuff up

1:18:03 and they pay 10 bucks a month well if I

1:18:05 pay 20 you know 30 40 bucks for that customer that's

1:18:10 okay because they'll probably keep coming for years and then

1:18:13 like you said the Enterprise value of the business is so

1:18:16 much bigger so I think like with huberman we you

1:18:19 know we had advertised on hubman and we realized there was

1:18:21 a lot of value and we went to them we

1:18:23 said look we're happy to keep advertising but at the end

1:18:26 of the day you should really own some of these Brands

1:18:28 that's why we partnered with him to um to buy

1:18:31 matina the Y bate business um and I think I

1:18:34 think that's that's just an incredible deal when you one

1:18:38 of the biggest costs in a business is customer acquisition

1:18:41 and you solve that right like you are the dream business partner

1:18:45 to somebody because their p&l is like for every $100 they

1:18:50 make they spend $30 or $40 on customer acquisition and marketing

1:18:54 so by partnering with you suddenly their p&l goes down

1:18:58 very their expenses go down significantly they don't have to raise

1:19:01 money uh and the Enterprise value of the business is

1:19:04 significantly larger it's What I Call 1 plus one equals 100

1:19:09 okay what while I have you here I'm going to mine

1:19:12 you for some more advice so um I was very

1:19:15 intrigued when James put out his tweet oh was it

1:19:18 you was it James I follow you both I can't tell

1:19:20 about about the atoms app and it was it was

1:19:21 interesting that the ownership split was 6040 in his favor so

1:19:26 I have a business partner on software and we're doing two

1:19:28 software Ventures and the deal that we decided based on various

1:19:33 factors before I heard about this James Clear thing was

1:19:36 20% me 20% him and then like you know early employees

1:19:41 he he's bullish on really incentivizing them with lots of equity

1:19:44 so he can get like really Pro people he's like

1:19:45 a third time founder so he kind of gets it

1:19:47 I was like yeah that seemed seemed reasonable but then I

1:19:49 at the James CL thing I was like whoa that's

1:19:51 60% 6040 uh what's your sense of what should how should

1:19:56 a like let's say a software deal be structured if

1:19:59 for example I was partnering with a business partner and we

1:20:02 were building productivity software which is I guess is what you

1:20:05 guys you guys have done with James well I think um

1:20:08 It ultimately comes down to who can add the most

1:20:11 value and in what way can they do that and I

1:20:14 think that um if if a smaller influencer came to me

1:20:18 and said they wanted to do it you know maybe

1:20:20 I would have struck a different deal I had so

1:20:22 much faith in James abil his ability to promote it via

1:20:26 his massive audience that I was happy to ride shotgun

1:20:29 and I had enough people vouch for him in my network who

1:20:33 knew him and said he was a good guy and straightforward

1:20:35 and we' known each other for a while so I

1:20:37 was willing in that instance to to take 40% which

1:20:41 for me is usually low I I like to own 60

1:20:43 to 100% of most things because I'm a bit of a control

1:20:46 freak and I like to actually be able to implement

1:20:49 what I want um so I would say there's no

1:20:52 rules I mean if you guys made the decision to give

1:20:55 a bunch of equity up to employees I think that's

1:20:57 wonderful my only concern would be those employees can out vote

1:21:00 you and take over the company if they own 60% um

1:21:03 so you might might be in a bit of a weird

1:21:05 position the other risk there is that a lot

1:21:07 of those early employees might be really valuable in the beginning

1:21:11 and not in year three or year five and and so

1:21:15 it sucks imagine if you started a restaurant and you gave

1:21:21 Equity to um The General manager that was there

1:21:25 for the first 2 years but then he leaves and the restaurant

1:21:29 goes on for 30 years and forever he gets 10%

1:21:33 of the profits of the restaurant does that make sense no

1:21:37 and so I think Equity is thing that has to be

1:21:39 thought about incredibly carefully um and I like to give

1:21:43 Equity to people who risk things so I I'll say

1:21:46 like look I'm risking things because I'm starting the business I'm

1:21:49 putting in all the money I'm signing all the credit

1:21:52 agreements blah blah blah and if you're willing to take

1:21:55 a risk as well then I'll give you Equity so if

1:21:58 somebody's um salary is 200,000 usually I'll say okay would you

1:22:02 be willing to take 140 and then I'll give you

1:22:05 5% of the company or whatever it is um so I

1:22:09 there's no there's no rules you can do it a million

1:22:11 different ways if you talk to 10 different people you'll hear

1:22:14 10 different ways of doing it um but I I

1:22:16 like to be thoughtful about control and you got to remember

1:22:19 how much value you're bringing you are bringing a profound

1:22:22 amount of value because forever as long as your name is

1:22:25 attached to it and you're marketing it you are giving

1:22:28 them a insane amount of value because they don't have spend

1:22:32 money on marketing if I was you I'd try and do

1:22:34 something where you're you're owning a lot of it because

1:22:39 it unless that business gets to a big scale

1:22:41 the 20% won't deliver that much cash flow to you yeah

1:22:46 and I'm I and I should care about cash flow rather

1:22:48 than potential uh exit value for now I think um I

1:22:54 don't really think about exit personally um because exit usually

1:22:58 comes along with lots of golden handcuffs and complexities and I

1:23:02 prefer just to own a great business forever but the only

1:23:05 re in my opinion the only reason to sell a business

1:23:07 is there's two reasons one is you think that that business

1:23:10 is going to uh be disrupted or something or get

1:23:13 worse over the long term um so that's like if

1:23:17 you own a newspaper in 1999 you might want to sell

1:23:20 um and then two is that there's someone who's irrational

1:23:23 who's willing to pay too much for it if someone comes

1:23:26 along and says you know you you you look

1:23:28 at this and you go wow over the next 10 or 20

1:23:30 years I can Harvest x amount let's say $10 million

1:23:33 out of this business and someone comes along and offers you

1:23:36 30 well it's probably pretty logical to sell interesting because

1:23:43 I guess a lot of people play the game of Entrepreneurship

1:23:46 with this whole like build it and then sell it

1:23:48 model and I hadn't really questioned that when it came

1:23:51 to the software stuff yeah it's the dumbest in my opinion

1:23:55 it's a horrible way to live I I know so many

1:23:56 of these people who they're rich on paper there's these founders

1:24:00 of like unicorn companies and they've been living like poppers

1:24:03 for 10 years and they're desperate to sell their business because

1:24:06 then they can live a good life I took a different

1:24:09 approach I took the Jas freed freed approach of run

1:24:12 a profitable business pay yourself well and live a good life

1:24:16 the entire time instead of deferring gratification for 10 years

1:24:20 and then hoping you can sell it for some silly number

1:24:23 yeah um I like I cash flow I found

1:24:25 that the best way to feel rich is to have cash flow

1:24:29 um the people who feel poor you know it's there's

1:24:32 no point in having a big net worth number on paper

1:24:36 if it doesn't actually equal money in the bank at some

1:24:39 point BL in so the businesses these 40 businesses that you

1:24:44 got 40 plus businesses that you guys own these are

1:24:45 all cash flow businesses you're not trying to go for valuation

1:24:49 and Enterprise Value and all that[ __] no no we

1:24:52 we're simply when we buy a business business we're asking ourselves

1:24:55 one question we say how do we pay ourselves back

1:24:58 in 5 years only using the cash flow of that business

1:25:02 so uh ultimately we're we're betting if we buy your bus

1:25:06 let's say you owned a business that's doing a million

1:25:08 dollars a year um if if it's not really growing I

1:25:11 might pay 5x so I'll pay 5 million bucks and I'll

1:25:15 pay myself back a million dollars a year if

1:25:17 it's growing really fast I might pay 10 or 15

1:25:20 but the business needs to double or triple in order

1:25:22 for me to get my money back in five years but that's

1:25:24 the simplest way I can put investing just try to make

1:25:27 your money back in five years via cash flow and you'll

1:25:30 do very very well okay so I'm in I'm

1:25:34 in the productivity space it would make sense to buy or build

1:25:38 a to-do list a calendar uh not taking app you

1:25:40 know the the stack that a productivity bro or gal might

1:25:44 want to use now initially what I was thinking was

1:25:48 okay I've got this business partner he and I great are

1:25:50 great friends he knows how to build software I know

1:25:52 how to Market it fantastic we'll do one to one

1:25:56 to three different products each year and turn them into nice

1:25:59 easy cash flow businesses if we can get them to like

1:26:02 a million or two ARR great fantastic life is good

1:26:05 but then I was speaking to another friend and this friend

1:26:06 was like why bother with 10 small B bits of software

1:26:09 when you could go for one Mega hit like why not

1:26:12 put all of your all of your eggs in like

1:26:14 the the ultimate productivity app what if you could build the next

1:26:16 notion rather than building a handful of like small to-do

1:26:20 list apps or calendar apps you that that sort of thing

1:26:24 what do you reckon multiple portfolio of small smallish cash

1:26:28 flowing apps or and double down on what works or go

1:26:31 for a big ultimate productivity up to rule the all kind

1:26:34 of vibe so I don't remember if it's in the book

1:26:37 but I started a company called flow uh is

1:26:41 that in the book do you know that story I I

1:26:43 haven't come across it in the 229 Pages I've read

1:26:46 so far so I don't think I put it in there

1:26:49 um so I like I mentioned I started this design

1:26:53 agency and and I love Jason freed and what Jason freed

1:26:58 did was he started his own design agency got sick

1:27:02 of doing client work and then um they started pro project

1:27:06 management SAS software to help them manage the business and eventually

1:27:10 that got so big that they just shut down the agency

1:27:12 and they started doing base camp full-time and so I

1:27:16 wanted to do the same thing and I was a productivity

1:27:19 nerd I still am and I found that there was

1:27:22 no good way for me to do GTD getting things done

1:27:26 with uh my team and so I started uh you

1:27:30 know I took one of my developers and I said hey

1:27:32 let's let's build our own productivity software we're going to call

1:27:35 it flow and it's going to be GTD for teams

1:27:38 and we had this big splashy launch and announced it

1:27:43 and and it just blew up all of a sudden I

1:27:45 had you know $40,000 a month of mrr and uh

1:27:49 people are talking about it it's in Tech Crunch and just

1:27:52 like Jason freed I decided I wasn't going to raise

1:27:55 any money I was going to bootstrap this and about 6

1:27:58 months after we launched there was an announcement that the co-founder

1:28:03 of Facebook had left Facebook and was building a product

1:28:06 called a sauna and I looked at it and I dismissed

1:28:10 it I said oh this is very you know this is

1:28:13 ugly and it's done by developers and their mobile app

1:28:17 sucks and you know we're just so much better than them

1:28:20 we're we're going to win on Merit well I underestimated

1:28:23 that he was a billionaire and he'd raised hundreds of millions

1:28:26 of dollars of venture capital and before I knew it

1:28:29 they were just outspending us in every way first it was

1:28:32 just marketing so I got annoyed because you know everyone

1:28:35 was using their product because they didn't know about our product

1:28:37 because we weren't marketing it and then very quickly they

1:28:40 started out outflanking Us in terms of features and even design

1:28:44 they figured that out eventually and in the end I realized

1:28:48 it was like I was Fiji and he was the United

1:28:51 States and I was trying to invade him and that's

1:28:54 really really stupid you we all know how that ends

1:28:57 and so this is a the problem with productivity and I

1:29:02 just I ended up losing about $10 million and because I

1:29:04 bootstrapped it it was all my own money so that was

1:29:07 $10 million that today would probably be $30 million if

1:29:11 I just invested in an Apple stock or something and um

1:29:16 so the problem with productivity is that every day someone

1:29:21 like you or me or a designer or developer wakes

1:29:23 up and go I don't like notion I want to make

1:29:26 a better one I don't like calendars I want to make

1:29:28 a better one and so there's infinite competition and it's

1:29:32 a terrible business because people are not loyal you and I

1:29:36 are not loyal we try new productivity software all the time

1:29:38 we're always looking for the new hotness and so it's

1:29:41 not something where you build a a a loyal user base

1:29:45 unless you get very very lucky like notion or something like

1:29:48 that where people base their life around it and the analog

1:29:51 the analogy I always use is imagine if you were

1:29:54 starting a pizza restaurant uh let's say a pizzeria a bucka

1:29:57 Slice Pizzeria and every day a new Pizzeria open next

1:30:02 to you that was funded by venture capital and gave out

1:30:05 their pizza for free that's that's productivity as far as I'm

1:30:08 concerned um getting into productivity is crazy now you have

1:30:13 something very unique you have a very loyal following and you

1:30:16 will be able to promote this and it will be

1:30:18 successful I promise you you can start a software business

1:30:21 that will be successful but to it well it usually requires

1:30:26 building quite a large team to maintain that software and build

1:30:29 the software the R&D cost of building something on you

1:30:32 know iOS Android web making it good it's probably going

1:30:36 to be two years and it's probably going to be between

1:30:40 $2 and $10 million to build so when you compare

1:30:44 that to a course or something simple a digital good

1:30:47 that you know you can sell infinitely like that it's kind

1:30:50 of a brutal business the only good part about it is

1:30:54 that has recurring Revenue so what I would recommend is

1:30:57 actually finding more of a niche you know what is something

1:31:01 that all of your let's say that a lot

1:31:04 of your audience are Freelancers and they run their own businesses well

1:31:09 one of the fears that Freelancers have at least in the states

1:31:12 is that they're not going to be able to have

1:31:15 medical care if they need it right and so you

1:31:18 know for example you could find an insurance provider that's cute

1:31:22 and welld designed and awesome awesome and you go and you

1:31:25 just buy a little stake in it or you get equity in it or you even buy it and you

1:31:30 just say hey friends if you need insurance there's a lot

1:31:33 of Freelancers you should use this insurance product that's what

1:31:36 Shawn did that's really smart I think if Shawn had tried

1:31:39 to build uh you know a recruiting business even that would

1:31:43 be hard it' be okay um but yeah you don't want

1:31:47 to get into productivity software in my opinion now be

1:31:50 careful not to listen to over listen to my opinion cuz

1:31:53 I'm someone who lost money there maybe if i' done

1:31:56 well I would be saying a different thing okay that's very

1:32:00 interesting if if if we abstract productivity away from it

1:32:03 um what's your take on the build one piece of software

1:32:07 rather than build you know there's all these like little

1:32:10 cute um uh software design firms that will spin up like

1:32:14 an a very simple Pomodoro app for the App Store

1:32:18 and sell it for $2.99 and that's a nice product

1:32:20 or very simple FTP client or a very simple something

1:32:23 that does a very specific thing it's cute it's viby it doesn't

1:32:26 take it's not too hard to build maybe iOS only

1:32:30 that kind of idea software as sort of these multiple bets

1:32:33 almost like the Nick Huber holding holding company kind of model

1:32:37 but for a cute little software versus you know what let's

1:32:41 let's try and build something big I like that a lot

1:32:44 more I think um you know if you if you

1:32:46 did something like um you know bartender Right cleaning up

1:32:49 your menu bar in Mac OS or a simple a very

1:32:52 very simple piece of softare Ware this is the thing

1:32:55 simple boring software is phenomenal it's the best business model ever

1:32:59 complex multiplatform software with a lot of Demands is really

1:33:05 really hard uh I love that idea I love the idea

1:33:07 of a utility so one really simple utility the only

1:33:11 downside is the recurring revenue is small and the lifetime value

1:33:15 is small so you're going to be chipping away and you

1:33:18 know you might be able to do one YouTube video

1:33:20 and you talk about this cool thing you built and hey

1:33:22 if you want it go go buy it for $2.99

1:33:25 but it might not be logical to replace all your ads

1:33:28 with ads for that what I would try and find though

1:33:30 is like that insurance idea or you know something that's

1:33:35 high value High profit like I always say you're you

1:33:41 really want to be selling to a a you want

1:33:44 to sell something boring to a rich person you don't want

1:33:47 to be selling to people who are um you don't

1:33:50 want to be selling a complex product to cheap people H

1:33:56 yeah yeah cuz my instinct was that trying to build something

1:33:58 like notion is really freaking hard and I I really want

1:34:04 to build a utility for the Mac menu bar that tracks

1:34:07 your word count across different apps so whether I'm writing

1:34:09 in Google Docs or in notion or in ulyses it

1:34:12 can tell me how many words I've written and that's it

1:34:15 totally totally something like that would be great okay interesting

1:34:22 um question on recurring Revenue um so a lot of people

1:34:27 in the crater world had seem you know the whole

1:34:30 the whole shtick these days seems to be launch a membership Community

1:34:34 paid membership Community type thing use School hos is going

1:34:38 all in on school all that stuff there's Circle there's

1:34:40 a bunch of Mighty networks all these different things

1:34:42 and the idea is like well you basically get a SAS uh

1:34:46 in the sense that you get a recurring Revenue product so

1:34:48 we've just as of like last week launched a thing called

1:34:50 productivity lab which is a $100 a month me membership thing

1:34:54 that gives you it's sort of like peleton for productivity you

1:34:57 know that's that that general idea but then this is

1:35:02 sort of theoretical recurring Revenue but every person I know who

1:35:05 actually has a paid membership their average customer length is

1:35:09 about 3 months and if they can do longer than three

1:35:11 months you're like whoa you're you're wow that's a really

1:35:14 really sticky membership and so in the past my theory was

1:35:18 always like well if the average LTV is 3 months worth

1:35:23 why why don't I just sell a $300 course and just

1:35:26 get that in one one Fell Swoop rather than thinking

1:35:29 I can theoretically create a recurring Revenue product but where

1:35:32 the average customer is only staying for three months am I

1:35:35 missing something like is there value in recurring recurring Revenue even

1:35:38 if the average customer timeline or whatever the word is

1:35:42 is is actually just three months yes I would say

1:35:45 that um recurring revenue is incredibly valuable especially if you're selling

1:35:49 advertising primarily I don't know how much of your Revenue comes

1:35:52 from advertising but it Smooths things out right it it

1:35:55 allows you to have a really weak quarter and not lose

1:35:58 sleep because you know there's a certain amount coming

1:36:00 in the kind of recurring Revenue that I like is where you

1:36:04 do something you're already doing anyway so um you know

1:36:09 I always say like if you own a sawmill you should

1:36:12 sell the sawdust that comes out right you know you

1:36:14 make a saw you have a sawmill all that you create

1:36:17 this these big piles of sawdust well it turns out

1:36:19 you can take sawdust and you can convert it into wood

1:36:22 pellets and you can sell those wood pellets so an example

1:36:26 of how you might do that would be every every

1:36:29 podcast episode like this at the end of it you

1:36:33 do a rapid fire one minute or two minute with me

1:36:37 and you say who is the most insightful impactful person

1:36:41 that you've learned about in the last year what is One supplement

1:36:45 that you take or health ritual that you do

1:36:47 that keeps you Saye what are the three most impactful books

1:36:50 that you've ever read you know what's one teex tool

1:36:54 that you can't live without and what you do is you cut

1:36:56 that off so on the podcast you say Andrew you

1:37:00 start it you tease it and then you say to keep

1:37:03 listening uh click the link in in the show notes

1:37:06 and you can keep listening to the premium feed and you'll get

1:37:09 this extended thing and you do that with every single

1:37:11 guest and what I find is with productivity with so

1:37:16 with two things with health and productivity people will pay

1:37:18 a lot of money for something like that so when I listen

1:37:21 to Tim Ferris I hear you know all these amazing

1:37:24 people and their strategies and stuff but what I really want

1:37:27 are tactics I want them to tell me the cheat

1:37:29 codes tell me what to do tell me what to say

1:37:32 tell me what to take what do I buy and I

1:37:35 think that I was encouraging Tim to do this he

1:37:37 still hasn't done it um but I really think that uh

1:37:40 having that kind of actionable um cheat code list is

1:37:46 very valuable and it's incredibly easy to add and it costs

1:37:49 you nothing it adds 2 to 5 minutes to the interview

1:37:52 and I think that could probably equ um you know

1:37:55 between 500k and $2 million or more of recurring Revenue we

1:37:59 have a business called supercast that I started I helped

1:38:02 um Sam Harris monetize monetize his podcast and then worked

1:38:06 with Dr Anda Patrick Peter AA huberman and we do we

1:38:11 do the same thing um to a varying degree so if

1:38:14 you can have exclusive episodes where you give away half

1:38:18 the interview for free and then it cuts off or you

1:38:21 just have the tail end be exclusive I think you can

1:38:24 do very well yeah this is why I'm a paid subscriber

1:38:27 to Sam Harris because it's like ah I only get

1:38:29 to see the first hour Oh Come exact fine exactly yeah

1:38:32 and I mean the challenge might be that you're you

1:38:34 know most of your traffic might be on YouTube so you

1:38:36 got to figure out how to do that elegantly

1:38:38 but in the podcast player it's very elegant like I've had it

1:38:41 where I'm listening to an interview on um the knowledge project

1:38:45 and it's fascinating and then it cuts off and I actually

1:38:48 pull over pulled my car over and I subscribe

1:38:52 to keep listening uh getting people at the moment of conversion

1:38:56 where they want to keep listening I think is really

1:38:59 powerful okay that's a very good idea um general question so

1:39:05 with this new productivity Community membership thing that we've launched

1:39:09 we launched it with annual billing only for now and I

1:39:13 spoke to a couple of people who were like well

1:39:16 an like you why not offer monthly billing as well and I

1:39:19 was like well if I know that the average turn

1:39:22 on these sorts things is three months why would I offer

1:39:25 monthly billing why I just offer annual billing um

1:39:29 and the response was something like well if you offer monthly billing

1:39:33 it keeps you honest it means you actually get a real

1:39:35 sense of what your what Your churn is going to be

1:39:38 because people will vote with their wallet whereas if you

1:39:40 do annual really you're just fundamentally you're selling a one-off product

1:39:44 because you actually have no idea what the conver what

1:39:46 the sort of uh how many people will continue their subscription

1:39:49 a year from now and now you get back

1:39:52 into this problem of very Revenue where you can't really make predictions

1:39:55 and stuff what's your view on if you can sell

1:39:59 annual should you or should you offer monthly or quarterly you

1:40:01 know for this for this sort of thing I think

1:40:03 it's like saying what what should the cost of an apple

1:40:05 be at the market right I mean there's there's a pricing

1:40:08 demand curve there's math you can do around this and you're

1:40:12 really not going to know without a lot quite

1:40:14 a bit of data and experimentation first of all I wouldn't

1:40:17 do you charge 100 or 99 oh and well we charge

1:40:21 $19 a week which is like9 84 build annually but it

1:40:24 would be like to s a month kind of thing

1:40:26 right right okay I mean I I'm really unopinionated because I

1:40:29 don't know what your data is uh I like I

1:40:32 like if you have the the coonies to do it

1:40:36 and just say look I know I'm providing a lot

1:40:38 of value it's you know it's $2.99 a year whatever whatever

1:40:42 the flat rate is if you want to be a part

1:40:44 of it that's what it costs I'm a big fan

1:40:46 of that but other people would think differently and would want

1:40:49 to do cohort analysis and try different things and stuff ultimately

1:40:54 I'd say that's a question for your business folks um

1:40:57 but no I don't have a I don't have a great

1:40:59 opinion there and you can get pretty tricky in terms

1:41:02 of psychology with um you know saying it's it's $8.99 a month

1:41:09 if you subscribe annually and some of that stuff I'm

1:41:11 not a huge fan of that but you can you know

1:41:13 there's a lot of stuff you can do yeah sure

1:41:16 okay nice I mean I like I like the kone's attitude

1:41:18 of just like it's either anual or nothing cuz it's

1:41:20 like it's a productivity Community we don't want what are you

1:41:23 giving them you're giving them like a slack or what

1:41:26 what are you providing them oh so it's a circal community

1:41:28 but basically three times a day there's Zoom co-working sessions

1:41:32 every week There's a facilitated weekly review every month there's monthly

1:41:36 goal setting every month we're going to do a book

1:41:37 club and try and get the author of the book potentially

1:41:39 to come on the thing if some you do you

1:41:41 get involved in this uh I will be facilitating quarterly planning

1:41:45 sessions because I like like doing those but we've got

1:41:48 coaches who are facilitating everything else and I'll just rock up

1:41:50 as and when I feel like it what I don't like

1:41:52 about that is this linear so you know if you you

1:41:55 can't scale from a th000 to 10,000 members because you'll have

1:41:58 to hire coaches I would try and do something that's nonlinear

1:42:02 and I would price it lower like I I would

1:42:04 rather you charge $30 instead of $100 but there's no coaching

1:42:09 and there's no people all they're getting is something exclusive

1:42:13 um or or that quarterly time with you so what I

1:42:15 do um people people are like oh my God why

1:42:19 you know so I do um I do Twitter subscriptions I

1:42:23 charge $29 a month to be to subscribe to my Twitter

1:42:27 and the reason I do that is cuz I get

1:42:28 so many emails from people saying hey would you Mentor

1:42:31 me can I can I pay you for your time like

1:42:34 you know can I pick your brain and so what

1:42:36 I do is I root out all those people and I

1:42:38 say well if you're not willing to spend $29 which

1:42:40 is the cost of uh taking me out for lunch I'm

1:42:43 not going to engage with you and if you are I'm

1:42:46 going to do a zoom once a month for one hour

1:42:49 and anyone who wants can ask me anything uh

1:42:51 on this zoom and so for one hour a month I think

1:42:54 I make1 or $15,000 a month or something from Twitter

1:42:59 but I only do that one thing and that can scale

1:43:02 pretty big before it becomes a problem right all I'm

1:43:05 offering is that one thing I'm not going to do any

1:43:07 more any less hire anyone else you know I don't even

1:43:10 do like a slack or anything like that because I don't

1:43:12 want to administer it so that's been my Approach um

1:43:17 okay interesting so so so in our case I thought

1:43:19 my model was somewhat scalable because whether it's a th people

1:43:22 in a zoom call or 10,000 people on a zoom call

1:43:26 it's a co-working session and as it just it just

1:43:28 means we pay more money to zoom webinar uh well I

1:43:31 think if when you say coach if it's not cohort based

1:43:35 based coaching like if there's one coach for a thousand people

1:43:38 I think that's fine one coach for every 20 people

1:43:42 I don't like that oh yeah no I agree yeah we

1:43:44 we're thinking potentially down the line like you know kind

1:43:47 of like uh nerd Fitness does have maybe offering a one-on-one

1:43:50 coaching service where one coach manages like 80 people

1:43:52 and it's like accountability coach thing but that's a further down

1:43:55 the line type I would you know the one thing I

1:43:58 don't like about that I don't I don't know how you're

1:44:01 what your conversion funnel looks like but I think that um

1:44:05 you know if I was to go I've watched all

1:44:07 your videos and I'm not aware of this right so

1:44:09 it's like where how do I get converted and I think

1:44:11 your conversion funnel has to be your videos right

1:44:15 or your or your podcast and that's why I love like the podcast

1:44:18 cutting off or click here at this you know for example

1:44:22 if you were to say um in order to listen

1:44:26 to the rest of my interview with Andrew Click here

1:44:29 and join my learning community you get exclusive access to the podcast

1:44:34 and this other thing or whatever but I love like

1:44:37 digital delivery where there I can't I can't be upset

1:44:41 for getting 30 minutes of a podcast but I can

1:44:44 be upset if I join a zoom and there's 10,000 people

1:44:48 there and it's like a cacophony of people talking and I

1:44:51 can't really connect with anyone and it's not well facilitated

1:44:54 and stuff right it's easier to let your customer down

1:44:57 the more you provide them the more Hands-On it is the more

1:45:00 you're letting them down um so I don't know i'

1:45:02 I'd be thoughtful okay yeah the other one is AMA you

1:45:07 are perfect for AMA so hubman does an AMA every

1:45:10 month and if you want to ask him questions which everybody

1:45:13 does because everyone wants to ask him weird health questions um

1:45:17 they pay to access the AMA and listen to the AMA

1:45:20 uh that would do very well with your community nice

1:45:23 thank you that's very helpful to get you to get

1:45:27 your take on this um so let's say someone's listened

1:45:31 to this last hour and a half or hour and 50 minutes

1:45:34 then that we've been that we've been recording um what

1:45:37 what would be your pitch for why they should buy

1:45:40 and read the book well I think we talked about

1:45:45 the importance of learning from other people's mistakes and what I've done

1:45:48 is basically taken all of my mistakes from my life

1:45:50 and there's some I've omitted more person mistakes um but it's

1:45:55 really watching me fail upwards I mean I I made

1:46:00 a million different errors throughout my career and I've put it

1:46:04 into a book and I hope that people will read

1:46:05 it and learn something from it and you know ironically we

1:46:09 mentioned how to get rich you know that's a book like

1:46:11 I said about how you really shouldn't try and get super

1:46:16 rich and how you should kind of stop at a certain

1:46:18 point I read that book I didn't take the advice

1:46:22 um and maybe my book will be the same

1:46:24 for a lot of people but I think it peels back

1:46:26 the curtain on something that not many people have talked

1:46:30 about which is what does it actually feel like to get

1:46:34 super rich and uh you know I don't think it's

1:46:38 that great uh you know there's lots of things that are wonderful

1:46:41 about it flexibility and comfort obviously but at the end

1:46:46 of the day um I hope that it encourages people to focus

1:46:50 more on their intrinsic values and what actually makes them

1:46:54 happy and gets them out of bed versus trying to be

1:46:57 uh you know a billionaire which is kind of an absurd

1:47:01 uh goal if you think about it being a billionaire

1:47:05 that is saying I need you know $10 million or more

1:47:10 a month some crazy number to be happy most people

1:47:14 need I don't know 20 grand a month to be

1:47:17 happy and then if you amp that up and give them

1:47:19 a crazy lifestyle hundreds of thousands of dollars a month

1:47:22 and I I think not enough people work backwards from that you

1:47:25 know what do I actually need in cash flow

1:47:28 and cash in the bank to live the life that I

1:47:30 want to lead and I think they'll find that being

1:47:33 a billionaire is really irrelevant Andrew thank you so much that's

1:47:38 a great place to leave this thank you so much

1:47:39 for taking the time uh I am 75% of the way

1:47:41 through the book it's going to be my bedtime reading

1:47:43 for tonight and I can't wait to reread it multiple times

1:47:46 uh to figure out my exact thoughts about it uh

1:47:49 for for a book club video on on the YouTube channel

1:47:51 so thank you so much for taking the time really appreciate

1:47:52 it thanks dude this was really fun all right so that's

1:47:55 it for this week's episode of Deep dive thank you

1:47:57 so much for watching or listening all the links and resources

1:47:59 that we mentioned in the podcast are going to be

1:48:00 linked down in the video description or in the show

1:48:02 notes depending on where you're watching or listening to this if

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1:48:14 or any insights or any thoughts about the episode that would

1:48:16 be awesome and if you enjoyed this episode you might like

1:48:18 to check out this episode here as well which links

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1:48:23 if you aren't already and I'll see you next time bye-bye