My first million, let's go my first baby mama my first ketamine experience my
first addiction. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to welcome. Here's what I want to start with. I love some of the things that you say and one of the things you said is don't follow your passion people who are already rich.
Tell you to follow your passion. You should follow your talent. Can you unpack that? Can you explain what you mean? I wanted to be an athlete now was my passion and then I'm going to UCLA was a blessing because I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't in the point one percent. You need to be in to make your living as an athlete and there's a fair there's some pretty basic axioms. That should guide your career choices around where you invest your most precious Capital known as your time your human capital. The first is the sexier the business the lower return on.
You want to be in fashion the arts movies modeling Sports unless you get really, you know, incandescent green lights from a very early age that you're going to be the point one percent try and make a living somewhere else and then do that on the weekends. And that is if you the sag-aftra the most talented actors in the world, it's hard to get a sag after Union card. You have to actually ban something. These are the most talented actors in.
The world 182,000 of them 87 percent of them don't qualify for health insurance because they don't make more than 23,000 dollars in a given year. So the key is finding you're not finding your your passion but finding your talent and then committing to developing Mastery and if you can develop Mastery in anything that has a 90 plus percent employment rate which 98% of factors enjoy the economic accoutrements the camaraderie The Prestige the relevance just the sheer Joy of Mastery will make you passionate about
Whatever it is, and I'm passionate about taking care of my kids. I'm passionate about being able to step in and help my aging father. I'm passionate about I'd rather be Rafael Nadal or Federer but kind of I'd rather be me the number three or number four tennis player in the world because I have financed was cured I get to go to Wimbledon on my own terms and not be as nervous and not throw up or before a match. So yeah, I'd rather be in a doll but pretty much anyone else.
And Tennis, I'd rather be and I got there with boring companies. So the the less sexy a business the higher the return on investment. So I would suggest that we stopped, you know, think about well, what could I be good at I think that's what your 20s are for workshopping stuff, and also getting a wrong. I started an investment banking and I was terrible at it. I didn't like them. They didn't like me and I had to go back to business school and just start workshopping. Where could I be great. We're what industry could I be great in
So don't you know find what you're good at and then get great at it and then be a DJ on the weekends,
by the way. Congratulations today. The today is the release date of the book right algebra of wealth today was the day so that's that's going to be huge. I mean, I read the algebra of Happiness a while ago and I've been watching the videos forever. And so I kind of I didn't get an early copy of the book, but I will buy it and read it and so you'll get my
$23. I need you to round. We're by the way. We're number one on Amazon today. I
Thought I would drop that because I'm desperate. I'm desperate for affirmation
Sam. That's all right. I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you. I won't starve you from that. You've got it. I look up to I think you're the man. Thank you. Well, let me let me ask you about the number one on Amazon real quick. You you're pretty stoic guy. In fact, when you come with a pod, it's it's always surprising to me that you are so even Keel but it's the launch day of your book. You worked on this thing really hard. You're number one on Amazon. What? How does Scott Galloway celebrate?
Oh, you know, I'm not I'm pretty
I don't I'm congratulate the team. It feels great. It's very
gratifying. I love
benchmarks. I'm addicted to me everyone's addicted to something. I'm addicted to strangers affirmation which is kind of pathetic at my age and that's a form of affirmation but it's very rewarding because so many people work. So goddamn hard on this thing just not me but you know, my research is my analysts my PR people my social people my publisher my book agent, you know greatness is in the agency of others, which is very gratifying and
And plus my podcast co-host got to number three on the best sellers list. So God damn it. If I'm not going to get to number two. I must be to Kara Swisher. So Sam, if you could go by several thousand books, I'd appreciate it. And if you like it write a review and if you hate it, please buy more and send them to an anime. But yeah, I'm addicted to external affirmation. It's really pathetic. Well, so I mean the the book for my understanding is that
that it's basically talks about the people who have money in the people who don't and what are the commonalities between the winners and the losers and you have I've read this for years. There. Was this awesome Fast Company article about you and I've seen you say this in videos where you were shockingly calculating when starting your last company L2. I think you said something like Deloitte did a study they did a study that shows What's the difference between the people who sell their companies for 5 to 10 times Revenue versus those who just sell it for one or two times?
And you had these like four or five things and it was a they own a niche. They have recurring Revenue Tech is at their core and that their International and then finally they have defensive IP. Then you went on and said how like in your 40s when you're starting L to 40s and 50s. You were like only focused on money. You said I work my ass off. I was there at the office at 2:00 a.m. You said but I don't regret it. You said it was totally worth it and when you were starting L2, I don't really know too much about that industry or that business other than a handful of articles.
Were you that calculating with working backwards from an exit? And by the way the story ends with you selling it for 120 million
dollars 160 boss Jesus get your facts, right? And by the way, I'm number one on Amazon today. I don't know if I told you that. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of money and for me work was about getting Economic Security. I was very focused on money and I'm not saying that's the right way. It was just my way and I had done a lot of analysis and the study referring to
who said okay, there are companies that sell in any industry. They you know, the lowest 10 percentile the upper decile of the valuations they get taken out at and this study looked at the common features of the companies that got sold in the top decile and it was all the things you talked about and that's literally how I shape the business model opened a London office right away. I said it charging Consulting fees. I said pay me a quarter of a million bucks a year and I'll answer your toughest questions using data.
We focused on luxury and then consumer Brands we brought in our next a little bit. We've spent I raised 17 million dollars to create a series of technology and scraping tools switch that I could collect more data points than anyone in the world. So it's that when the inevitable guy from the analytics Department came in with his arms crossed to play gotcha. They just couldn't argue with our data. We just collected more data than anyone in the world on these issues and tried to distill it down to something actionable. So I was very focused.
Ston exit and we sold for eight times Revenue. So yeah, my basic pitch to people was you're going to work your ass off and I'm going to try and get you to you know X, I'm going to try and get you to where your parents were 20 years earlier. And if you're looking for balance, this isn't that place if you're really into management or other things tell me and I'll buy will try and like shape a roll around what's important to you.
But we are a small business going all-in to try and create Economic Security for us and our families would prompt you media were about 14 people now, I purposely didn't take outside Capital. I'm not on that hamster wheel again. I'm not trying to Jones for an exit. I'm trying to build something interesting that has relevance that has a little bit more impact on the social issues. We think about and also pay our people really well. I used to pay people below market and give them equity and I was throwing Nichols around like they're manhole covers because I want to have a profitable.
Think I could sell now my priorities have changed and the people who joined the company. I tell them this isn't the kind of company that gets sold. But what I'll do is I'll share I'll give you Equity or participation in my book deals, you know, you are a junior analyst you get one or two percent of any book deal. I get you get, you know, try and create some economic upside for the my natural starting point.
Is that people come to work to develop Economic Security for them and their families to increase their currency their currency in the marketplace experience and also to develop relationships. The workplace is a great place to meet friends mentors additional, you know co-founders and we spend a lot of money on we saved with covid we gave up our office we save about eight hundred nine hundred thousand dollars a year on and office because of course is a narcissist. I had to have this amazing office and so stupid and I have this
rule would work or not this rule to get this benefit. If any four of them are together, they get my credit card. They can go to Broadway or they can go to Tulum and they've done those things without asking my permission as long as there's four of them. They got my credit card and the number one source of retention. I think the key to building a small businesses retention because we find good people you just don't want them to be the way they were a year or two years and go to Google because the switching costs are enormous and if you find someone good your job is an entrepreneur or the CEO is just
In an environment where they want to stick retention of employees it in my opinion is just huge and I find or I read a study another study on this and it's at the number one source of retention are the number one lever for retention people think it's compensation people think its culture its whether or not that person has a friend at work if they have a friend at work, they look forward to going to work and they are less likely to leave and so what I try and do everybody interviews everybody when we hire people, but these kids it's really inspiring.
They'll go they're like six of them will go on vacation together though. So Scott, you're speaking in Hamburg Germany all six of us are going to come and and they have a great time together. They like each other and it's really it's a powerful kind of business weapon. If you will now, I don't think you can do that with as a company scales Beyond 50 100 people, but I found for a small business. It's really
powerful and is the trick there that you don't try to be their friend because I've had that problem before where I wanted to be the friend and that made
The management a little bit messy. And I realize it is much better for me to not be the friend and not be included in the hangs the whole company functions better, even though even personally I was like man, they're all going out without me. But actually it was a far better that it went. That way.
I always had a healthy sense of what the Border was me and my kind of my president my committee and the partner at all to we're both about the same age and we have the same.
View we have parties all the time. We show up early as soon as shit starts getting a little like crazy we leave. Yeah, we need a we don't need to see them see them drunk. They don't they definitely don't need to see me drunk and my attitude is what you're interesting. We're what you're saying. Sean is really interesting in that is I'm just coming to the realization as a dad.
I'm not their friend. I'm their dad a because it was really upsetting to me that my kids didn't kind of I don't say it want to be my friend but I just naturally assumed that my kids would adore me and be really into World War Two history and Crossfit because that's what Dad isn't to guess what they're not. You know what I realize is I'm not I'm not their friend. I'm there to be their dad and it's kind of the same way. I think I work with such young people. I think the you know, the average age is probably 30 or 34 because I'm there, but the mean or the
Median is I-25. It's basically a bunch of kids over educated super ambitious kids and it's easy. They're doing dinner and drinks somewhere. I show up for dinner. I leave before dessert and then they can you know, they can enjoy each other without thinking they're being judged by by Scott. So yeah, I don't I don't I don't know I draw sharp relief between
you know work and fun with those guy. I love it I go out with them, but I go out for the first couple hours and I then I disappear so they can they can have their own son.
I love the four of you together. You get my card that's amazing little tidbit. I'm here to collect little lessons learned from you today. And that's that's one immediate one for me. Thanks, man. So like obviously you're kind of your I don't know if you're at the peak, but you're at you're killing it killing it right now in terms of your pod and kind of being a public figure.
Or the books and everything and then before that you had the company so you had a huge financial outcome. One of the things that I think it's kind of brushed over in your history is what you're doing with kind of being an activist investor. I know you were on the board of New York Times and you made a few other like pretty like substantial Investments. I know you're working with the hedge fund to do that. What were some of the deals that you were doing? What were some of the kind of the best deals were some of the worst deals what were some of the signals that you had where you were like, this is an interesting deal I should pounce on this sure.
There's a bit of a backstory there. I started coming go run envelope. It went public. I was on the board. I got into a fight with arguably the most successful Venture capitalists in the world
spoiler alert. He won the fight. I was
kicked off the board. So I was kicked out of the band that I started which was like emotionally and mentally very taxing for me and then I got angry. I was really weird time in my life. My mom was dying and I moved in with her and during the day.
I would take manager Healthcare at night. She was living in Vegas. I'd go dick downtown and get shitty drunk with strippers and quote-unquote friends and then go back and manage. My mom's health care and watch everyone loves Raymond and jeopardy with my mom. It was a strange time in my life, but also very angry because I just been kicked off the board of Red Envelope. So I took a half a million dollars of my money and I filed a proxy to replace the entire board.
And I learned everything about activist investing and shareholder governance and I tried to kick everyone off the board and I own 10% of the company and I think I got 12 percent of the vote in my proxy solicitor said the 2% was probably a mistake. So basically no one voted for my slate and that was kind of a low moment for me. Okay. Now the world is told me they don't want me involved in this Corporation or in public companies and then six months later. I got a call from a hedge fund that said you're crazy.
Sure our kind of crazy. We have some stakes in companies and we need someone to kind of go in and rattle the cage and it just struck me to your lowest moment. You really don't know where that might lead and I got back. I went into a company called. I bought 10 percent of a company called United retail, which was a plus-size clothing brand. I basically showed up and said, let me build your website. You don't have a website. This was a while ago where I'm going to try and replace the board. They said fine stock went from 2 to 8.
I'm like, wow, this is easy and I did it at Sharper Image bought a big stake there when in there the company seem like a mess stock has gone up a little bit. I got out. I did it Gateway computer went on the board there. That was more difficult. We made a small amount of money, but I never lost money doing it. So then I went and raised seven hundred million dollars and became the largest shareholder in the New York Times and went on the board there and timing is everything and in this case. I want on the board in March of 2008.
And the stock went from 16 to 3 and about 5 months at one point. I think I was losing 10 or 12 million dollars of other people's money every day.
And we almost lost the business the company almost went bankrupt. I don't know if you guys remember that but in the world of media people just stopped advertising. They just stopped. It was like our Tapper Revenue just got turned off and it was sort of the great financial recession. It kind of ended my career as an activism because one I don't think I was very good at it into I was getting to a stage in my life where I just didn't want to be combative anymore. I didn't want to go to war with CEOs. I didn't want to
I was just exhausted by being an antagonist. I thought I'm never going to go on a board again. Unless the CEO wants me there. So but I did that for a while. I learned a lot. I made a little bit of money. But you know, I was I was in my early 40s and quite frankly. Just trying to figure out a way to make a living so I could stay in New York which isn't easy and I think I was flailing a little bit but it was it was a great experience. I learned a lot about human nature about shareholders about governance. I get called a lot.
Boards when they're being challenged by an activist because I was one and I think I have some insight into how these people think. Yeah. I was just a strange time in my life, but it was you know, it was interesting. It was it was fun. I just wasn't very good at
it. Yeah, that's cool. You've had a bunch of different careers and I like that. I like variety. I like people who have different chapters or the sagas of their life and you mentioned like your twenties are for figuring out what you actually like to do or what you're actually good at.
Or the intersection between those two sounds like yours went past your 20s and you just kept experimenting, you know along the way is that is that a fair fair
assessment for you? Yeah, Investment Banking, no good at it business school started a brand strategy firm called profit grew at a couple hundred people sold it for 33 million. What do I want to do? I know I want to teach the.com implosion took me to you know, from what I thought was being wealthy to not being
Healthy teaching wasn't going to help me help me maintain the lifestyle I needed or wanted to maintain with two young kids in New York. So I needed to find other ways to make money and I did the headphone thing for a while did boards and then saw an opportunity and analytics and benchmarking and started that company. I think 09 or 010 and that was my kind of my big win. And the timing is everything I got swept up into what is the greatest bull market economy and history 08 to present is probably going to go down as the greatest.
It has extended bull market run in history. People don't understand. Just what an anomaly the last 16 years have been relative to the history of the market and just as I was coming into my Prime income earning years, you know, the winds just just just filled up my sales and I caught. You know, I finally got all the moon stored a lined up if you will, but I've always said, you know, you got to be humble when things work because
Of your successes and your fall at the same time. I wish I had been more forgiving of myself when things didn't work because I have trouble forgiving myself. I struggle with anger and I the person I get most angry out as myself and I have trouble getting past shit. You know, I was Hannah I was at a book thing last night and I said something and it just came out wrong and I like sitting in bed and I can't get past that one thing. They went really well, but I can't think that way I focus on what's wrong.
And that would be my advice to people is be humble when you have wins because a lot of it is in you but also forgive yourself because you know, again a lot of it isn't you my roommate in college had the
poem If on the bike, I think Richard Kipling on his wall and one of the great lines of that poem is, you know, if you can meet Triumph and disaster and treat those two Impostors just the same and that's always stuck with me. That's kind of what you're talking about like your greatest triumphs maintaining the humility and then in your
His failures not beating yourself up too much. You're a big proponent of stoicism. And that seems like a pretty stoic way to be give us the like, you know, there's a lot of people listen to this right now that may be familiar with stoicism. Don't practice don't don't kind of know what how it applies to your life. Like make your pitch. What's y esto es y stoicism matters to somebody will just
your own mental and emotional health and Ryan holiday is kind of my yoda on stoicism any distills it this way life is not about what
happens to you can't control that but you can't control how you respond to what happens to you. And I've tried to do is remember that and I have trouble practicing it but can't you know, the the ultimate stoicism piece of art and modern history or modern media is Brokeback Mountain if he can't fix it, you gotta stand it and that is try and focus on the things you can control and you can control your emotions. It's very difficult to control. What happens to you.
And you know just for also recognize and this is more atheism than stoicism everyone on this podcast everyone. We know everyone we care about what they think of us. They're going to be dead in 100 years in a blink of the history nothing you say or do or what anyone else thinks of you is going to matter for very long and something that really has helped me when I was embarrassed. I thought I didn't equip myself very well.
Is what you realize is just imagine yourself when someone says or does something stupid you said you think to yourself? Oh that was stupid and then you go back to thinking about yourself.
And you know people are thinking about you your wealth your failures or successes as much as you are and so the key is just trying to be comfortable with yourself and comfortable in your own skin. And not only that really kind of focus on what your spouse thinks of you is your spouse happy. Do you have a good relationship with your kids? Because what Twitter thinks of you really isn't that important and because I had so much trouble actually footing my emotions to that logical notion. I know it doesn't matter what people
Well on Twitter the Twitter mob think of me, but I couldn't emotionally separate myself from it. I don't have those skills. So a role model of mine is a guy named Sam Harris. He's like I got off Twitter. I can't handle that. He's like why don't get off of Twitter and my yeah I can so I stopped I'm off of Twitter for the last nine months and it's been one of the most creative things to my mental health and I didn't like to admit this but I would say five or six weekends where I just got really bummed out by something probably two or three of them started on Twitter.
Now that why am I on something that's making me on a regular basis upset?
And there's an addictive nature to it. I think it must be just and that's what freaks me out. I can modulate it, you know can my 13 year old son and I thought do I even know that he's upset when he goes we have a rule in my house bar boys aren't allowed to go into their rooms for their phones alone. Because I think this thing will can literally take a teenager especially a teenager girl down a rabbit hole and kind of zero to 60 really fast and then start serving her content. Oh, you're worried about dieting. Well, here's extreme dieting tips. Despite the fact
we know you're 510 95 pounds. Oh you're depressed. Well, here are some videos of people considering suicide. We're going to normalize it for you. And I don't think parents are really in touch with just how ugly and how fast it gets really ugly. So, you know, I'm trying to be very thoughtful about what it is, as you know stoicism controlling what I can control
And then trying to be in better touch with my emotions and recognize that when you're down it's more about the chemistry in your head then any legitimate reason to be down. Its you're going to look at the end of life. The biggest regrets my colleague at NYU Adam alter did great research on people who are very near death and palliative care and their biggest regrets are one. They wish they'd stayed in better touch with friends. They wish they'd live the life. They wanted to lead not the life Society or their parents wanted them to lead.
But their biggest regret is they wish they'd been less hard on themselves. They wish they'd forgive in themselves. They wish they'd allowed themselves to be happy. And that's kind of been that's something I've been very very focused on is like, okay, stop beating yourself up. You're going to be dead soon. Why wouldn't you squeeze as much juice out of this lemon is is conceivable and like afford yourself the opportunity to be happy and be sad if you need to be but I think of stoicism is again life isn't about what
Happens to you. It's how you respond to what happens to you and decide what is in your control and you know, trying trying to be good to yourself try and forgive yourself. And also just try and be humble you are never more prone to a really big mistake then right after a big win because here's the thing you start thinking you're good at picking stocks. You start thinking you're so skilled at work it wasn't it. Someone senior you took an interest in you and championed you you start thinking I'm great at real estate. I just didn't get lucky.
A home at the right time. So do try and just try and ignore the market when the market tells you you're a failure and this is personal to you know, there's been moments in my life where I thought I don't think I'm ever going to be able to work again. I think I've ruined everything. I don't think I'm ever going to make a very very good living. I remember thinking saying to my partner the time let's move to a low-cost neighborhood a Charlottesville or a Raleigh-Durham. I'm going to teach try and write, you know, maybe
Decent living and just have a really nice life and my partner's like that's giving up. I'm on side giving up but I thought this is it. I just need to substantially downgrade my expectations and I don't mean to say that that's not a great life. I remember thinking after my divorce. Like I don't think I'm ever going to have someone who I can share my life with again. I'm like this just is never going to happen to me. I'm an unattractive broken man. Who's never going to find like a partner again. I believe that for a short time.
And I think that it's important that everybody recognize that you know, you are the answer to a firm's problem. You can find someone who you can love and it's going to help you a great deal. The key is getting a putting yourself in a place to success getting out of the house being friendly being risk aggressive surrounding yourself with people and exercise nutrition that makes you feel good about yourself such that when the winds kick up again your sales.
Up, and I've always tried to do that. I'm I've had a lot of failure but I was always had my sales up such that when the winds kicked up again. I was in a position to to rumble so to speak because I have a lot. I know a lot of people who are very successful and then they hit some failure a personal failure a death of a parent that can't quite get over a divorce a company that fails and they get stuck. They can't forgive themselves. They can't forgive others. They can't figure
of the market or they don't they lose their Mojo whatever it is and to 35 years seven years goes on and they just haven't progressed and they started their skill start at refining their confidence starts out your thing. So what I say is put a Statue of Liberty whenever anything happened bad happens to you, you got to put a statue of limitations on it a parent dies, you know within 12 weeks. You should still be sad and thinking about your parents, but you should be able to you should be able to function.
You know you go through a real emotional trauma or break up. Well, how serious was it? How much time What's the statute of limitations a business goes out of business? Okay mourn for a little while. What is that two months three months, but if you aren't better, if you aren't back sending out emails trying to raise money going out trying to meet new people, whatever it might be within that timeline. You need to reach out for help and get unstuck because time goes really fast and your skills atrophy.
In a sort of a downward spiral and something I've always been able to do was mourn and move on Churchill said the key to success is the ability to move through failure without losing your sense of enthusiasm. And I've tried I've been pretty good at not losing my sense of
enthusiasm your your you know, you've got brilliant ideas. I think you're a good business person, but you talk about not just following your passion, but your talent and I think that what your most talented at is communication. I've seen you speak live. I've seen you I listen to the
And I've seen your videos you do such a good job at picking really sharp words and sharp phrases and just small examples like accoutrement. I've noticed that you love that word and I've never heard anyone use it as much as you and I'm like, I love that word that he uses that word. It's a beautiful word or you sign your emails with life is Rich. Like you've got beautiful phrases. I think that I even by the way, I even had a chat jbt right uploaded like 150 of your blog's I would ask it questions to like help give me like ideas for phrase.
As because you're really good at that. Who do you steal from when it comes to who you inspired from when it comes to language? I mean you seem like someone if I had to guess like you're a George Carlin guy something like that. Who do you steal like some of your delivery from or inspired by for writing because you're really good and do have like a bank of like when you see a phrase you're like, oh I'm gonna take that phrase in use that somewhere.
If you don't have a kitchen cabinet of people that you learn enough about the you can mimic them you're trying to play a team sport. So low, you're on the field alone, and I didn't figure that.
That out till I was older so I absolutely when I see something inspiring I breed maybe one book a year people think I'm well-read. I'm not but I'll find a book that's really meaningful and I'll try and read it two or three times so I can adopt it into my gray matter like Daniel kahneman's thinking slow and fast, I've read that book a few times and I know everything about loss aversion Theory. I know a lot about the relationship between money and happiness. I read observations of a bystander by Peter Drucker. I read save sapiens several times.
I want to like really really, you know, embed stuff lately. I'd write down things in my phone that I just think are fucking hilarious like jokes, you know, when I wrote down something today as a prank when my doctor walks in I put on gloves. I'm going to try that. I love my doctor. I love the idea of him walking in and me snapping on gloves just to see his reaction. We were talking about Trump today and I saw this great quote that said consequences rarely show up lubed. I love that.
I just whenever I see something that really I just think you know, I love going out in the public except for that the fact that the public is there you see these things every day and I will write them down and incorporate them into my rap and especially great phrases, you know greatness is in the agency of others. I remember my VC said that I'm like that just makes so much goddamn stands. I'm going to use that over and over and over so I have a lot of inspiration I surround myself.
Really intelligent young people. I know that's Aegis, but I think young people have a different frame on things that helped me. So but to not to not sort of if you're just reading something and not you don't take away stuff. You're going to remember you haven't really read it. Um, really absorbed it but it's all all manner of stuff. I think I'm your you're right. I'm totally inspired by George Carlin. I think he's fantastic on society. I'm inspired by Ricky Gervais some expired by this comedian and Michelle wolf. I think she's fantastic.
But yeah, my bread a lot about Muhammad Ali. I think he's you know be courageous be poetic. But yeah, he absolutely every young person should find a couple people they find really inspiring and try and learn everything about them and what they said such that you can kind of turn on your Muhammad Ali and you know Madeline Albright Secretary of State for foot 10. I find her inspiring around public policy or so it g on geopolitics. So I read a lot about her are you know, our memory is long and our reach
Far I love that. She used to say that about America to its enemies, right basically a really eloquent way of saying don't fuck with us boys. And I just love that this for ten woman only in America can wield, you know the most powerful nation in the world in terms of our foreign policy abroad and I found her and she was an immigrant. I just found her inspiring. So I wanted to learn more about her so I could be her on occasion. Anyways, if you build a kitchen cabinet of people, it's
got I got a my notes app here if my it's
all funny phrases and I just I collect these I'll give you I'll give you three of my funny phrases on here because they're completely out of context so you won't get it but you'll get it is you do something to do this to when somebody's thick you could say that they're built like a baguette. I like that. Somebody's got the body of a baguette. Okay, next one. If you want to talk about something that other people are avoiding. You say look I'm going to address this like an envelope right now. That's a dad
joke.
However, the other one would be
For CEOs who have bad, you know a terrible sense of vision of the future if this CEO was the shooter at JFK he would have died of natural causes. I love these little little isms little phrases little sentences. I you're going to lose this game. Okay, so he looks like a suicide bomber that's having second thoughts.
This is more serious. I absolutely I absolutely love this one. This is more true life advice. Your goal isn't to get the
apology but to forgive the perceived debt. I love that. I
love that
just thing down. This is really bad teaching my son about sex ed. So I walked into his room with a banana and a condom and he said what's the banana for and I said, I can't get hard on an empty stomach. I literally think that's the funniest
fucking that just hits and that literally just
hit send. I just think that's so inappropriate. And so anyways, sorry guys.
I'm not good at this like getting into a rap battle with Tupac. I'm not gonna I'm gonna put away my swipe file right here, even though I just had a good one. Are you gonna give up you you and what are you excited about right now? Like what are some things that are going on in the world or products or ideas trends? Like, you know, I think you talked a lot about likes to do stuff that's wrong with America with the world culture with Society, but I want to know the opposite. What do you what do you pumped about? That's
not easier for me. I'm and I'm to be blonde. I'm a I'm a glass half empty kind of guy I think a lot about
Loneliness I think a lot about struggling young man. I think about the threats of AI. What am I excited about? I have a work with a really talented group of people that are really inspiring. I love the work. We're doing Matt. I'm just really enjoy
it. I get to travel a lot with my kids. I got kids at a great
age and I get to do a ton of fun stuff with them. That's really intoxicating. You know, I'm just get to have a really nice life at this point, and I'm just enjoying it with a
Partner just really leaning into my kids, you know, just the Hallmark should I'm just really having a nice time with the people closest to me and I'm healthy. I got good healthy kids, you know, I the boring stuff man. It's not anything kind of I mean, I'm going on my book tour this week. I go to La for Bill Maher and then I'm eating a bunch of college buddies and I'm going to Stagecoach and then I go to Miami for a bunch of speaking gigs and
When I go home to London, I mean I just have a I have a really nice life right now. And everyone I care about is healthy. I feel relevant. So I just have such a wonderful life and I'm trying to slow time down so I can really appreciate it because
you know, there's no getting around it. I had lunch with Ted's around us which I realized as a name drop but I'm desperate for your guys affirmation. But his wife wrote a book on Grief and there's this great line. She has this great line and that is grief is loves receipts and I just love that. I just if you really care about but I didn't have a lot of grief until the age of 40 and I realized it was because I there was one of my wife that I really love to really love me other than my mom.
And so, you know what, I would bless or wish for anybody is they have a lot of grief in their life because what it means is they have loss and when you have loss it's because he had something wonderful in your life and you miss it. So I'm just trying to appreciate how just nice things are in a really, you know, I don't you know, I'm not really excited about you know, the Euro finals in Germany, although I am excited about the European finals in Germany, and I'm just I'm just enjoying myself. This is I'm rounding third. I have a really nice.
Life right now. I'm just trying to enjoy it because I know everything everywhere
ends. You you say for people who are not rounding third, like people who are you know, just just batting leadoff right now. So you talked a lot to young people one of the phrases I really liked or one of the
quotes I really liked was that
opportunity is a function of density. He said get to a place that is crowded with success. What do you mean by that? Because that seems like really good advice for people well in sort of the motivation
For the book was you know, that study that you are kind of the average of your five closest friends. The there's this weird study that Care Group the five people you hang out with you end up being the same body mass index. You same end up with similar political values. Same job. Same neighborhood. Mrs. Weird. You become the same person what's different though? There's greater variance, is that of those five people even though they make kind of similar incomes one will end up poor 3 will be okay and one will end up quite wealthy now try to understand the behaviors.
That are different in the strategies between the person that ends up to actually secure and the others that are less financially secure and there's some general best practices around youth you absolutely want to get to a city if you're ambitious. I'm not suggesting. This is the right way. It's just my way if you're ambitious and you want to have influence our Economic Security before you collect dogs and kids you got to get to a city two-thirds of economic growth is going to happen in just 20 cities. And so if you're really ambitious
Get to the biggest city in your nation then get to London if you're in Europe or New York in the US or if you're in Tech San Francisco because those cities are really competitive and you're going to be playing. You know, how when you play tennis against players better than you your game elevates when you're in this big city, you're playing against the best players in the world. It's hard to it's hard to live in Brooklyn. It's expensive which means you got to be really good at what you do and you're surrounded by people who are going to inspire you and who were really will elevate your game and at some point you'll probably
To move out of the city because it's difficult with kids. But while you're young get to a big city try and try and find really High character successful people to hang out with just find people you want to be like or that you admire professionally and personally and trying to establish those friendships and try and hang out with them because you rise or fall to the level of your peer group and the thing about cities is you just bumping off opportunities, and I've moved to
In in my reductive analysis of the u.s. Versus Europe is the u.s. Is still the best place to make money Europe's best place to spend it. So if you're in the making money part of your life, it's hard to beat the u.s. I didn't appreciate the American economy until I left it people start from yes here. How can we work together? How can we build something together? How can we make money together London? It's sort of like a very slight indefinite. Maybe there's very little actual organic value Creation in London. Its people servicing other people's wealth that they
they made elsewhere. There's nothing like there's nothing like America that says to a young person if you work your ass off and you're really good and you get a little bit lucky.
You know, your things can happen for you here
all my British friends. They say that they grew up with being afraid of tall poppy syndrome. Meaning they didn't want to stick out because their teachers would tell them shut the hell out of it online. Whereas in America, it's if you do something interesting, even if you fail you're rewarded as being a hero of like, well, that's awesome. And you got after it. Even if you even if it sucked the outcome wasn't good you we praise you for getting after it and I think that's a very unique American thing compared to Europe and Europe if
You stick out your chastised.
Well, not only that but people say in America we Embrace failure. That's not true. But we do tolerate it. And so only one out of seven businesses succeed. So my strategy has been to start nine businesses and I got 22 wins and all you need is one and if you aren't trying really hard and taking risks and failing and then knowing going to pull the plug and move on you're not taking advantage of the American Embrace of risk and failure. I've never had trouble.
Raising money because of past failures people in mind that as long as you treated your investors. Well, as long as you as long as you were a decent person you didn't do anything stupid or unethical people don't have a problem finding you again. I'm you know, I'm not you know, I've had a lot of failure professionally, but I've never had you know, let me first when I couldn't raise money it wasn't because I had failed before and that's true in relationships. So yeah, the Embrace or the acceptance of failure in America is
Is it singular? I'm just a wonderful thing. And if you aren't trying and taking a lot of risk here, you aren't taking advantage of an economy. That's one of the few in the world one of the few societies. I mean if I was born in China probably be in jail because I'm outspoken and say stupid things if I was born in Europe, you know, I think I'd be a talented business person, but I wouldn't be an entrepreneur that had recognized this success because they don't Embrace failure or that's wrong if they don't tolerate it the way we do
can I ask you a question about hard work and the
being is her found. I found some what read as contrary things in your work or at least in your story and what you write and so Sean and I have talked a lot about this about hard work and I think people who say they work 80 hours a week for a really long time. I think they're either lying or they did a lot of bullshit work. I think it's to work 80 hours a week for an extended period of time. It's incredibly challenging and you talked about and in this book as well as some of the other blog post you're saying
My 40s I grinded my ass off. All I was focused about all I was focused on was money and it worked out and but that's all I did and I'm happy I did it but it was really hard work. But then I read about how you delegate a ton. I think you said something even as crazy as like you have someone pick out your clothes and you wear mostly the same thing. You have your workout outfit and then your work outfit and how you at property media. You said something like you only meet with their executive producer twice a month. You only have one hour meeting once a week.
The editorial team you haven't planned vacations in 20 years and all you do is focus on a handful of things but it's even though you're crazy productive. Now it I don't know does it do are you still grinding and looking back knowing what you know now could you have gotten to where you've gotten without that 80 hour a week for multiple years work ethic? Well
things have changed dramatically for me now. I'm not working nearly as hard and I hire a lot of people and all over not over higher but everyone.
Hard bed I don't I mean when you have a small business and you don't have a lot of money, you know, you just you gotta get everyone needs you you need to work hard you need to set an example and you need to create an environment where everyone's working hard. I'm not sure I was ever working 80 hours a week consistently. I definitely had weeks like that. But when I look back on it kind of I don't know ten twenty ten fifteen years. I don't remember much else other than work. I mean I worked out when I had kids I tried.
To spend some time with my kids. I still found time for fun vacations, but
You know, I would vacation two weeks a year. Now, I vacation a lot more than that and but I don't see any way around it. It's really into my kids when I say my kids my students. I'll ask them how much money they expect to be making by the time they're 35 in about 90% of them expect to be in the top 1% which is seven hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in America and then they'll talk about that. Like that's what I expect. But also what's most important to you in your life and moving forward and a lot of the time they say balance.
Yes.
And I'm like so you expect to be in the top 1% by the time you're 35, but you also believe you're going to have balance in your life.
I mean, I don't I've never seen that I don't you can have it all you just can't have it all at once and and by the way, that's that may not be the way to go. You may sacrifice. You may say I want to live a nice kind of balanced life. I'm going to move to a suburb of st. Louis coach little league work 40 hours a week be a good citizen find a good partner, you know, coach little we'd have a nice life nothing wrong with that but the majority of the people I know the young people think they're going to be in the top 1% and also have balance in their life and I just think it's ridiculous. Am I? Okay the
Only way to get there to achieve that is if you have one thing and that's rich parents, otherwise expect to go all in on your career or scale back your expectations around your economics and your influence because it's a competitive market and one of the things people can control is how hard they work. I don't think you want to I don't think you want to work so much that you sacrifice your health or your relationships there is going to be some trade-off with your relationships. I didn't see my kids a lot when they were little I was divorced.
Something was contributor to that. I was always working in services companies and never saying no to any opportunity the CMO of Samsung. Can you be in Seoul tomorrow for a board meeting? Sure I can yeah, I mean I just said yes to everything to try and move the company forward but I I for a long period worked very very hard and sacrificed a lot and it takes a toll and I did it such that I could have a lot more balanced now, but yeah, I don't
I this notion the myth of balance get over it. If you expect to be influential or economic is secure, you're not gonna have a lot of balance for a long period of time. Some people are such Geniuses that they can work a modest amount of time make a lot of money work out have a great relationship with their parents befit donate time at the SPCA and have a food blog assume you are not that person. So just have a sober conversation and also have a sober conversation with your partner how much money do we expect to happen?
These are responsible for making it. What's your approach to spending where we going to live? You know, the number one source of divorce is not infidelity or lack of shared values. It's usually got something to do with money and also 70% of divorce filings are filed by women who still and we don't like to say this because we like to pretend women have no agency in that. They're just do a little foes is the man loses a business becomes broke or has a mental breakdown when a
man loses his status as a provider. He's very inclined to be on the wrong end of divorce. So I think a lot about young man. I think a lot about Financial Security. I think every man should start with the notion that he's going to be responsible for the economic well-being of his household. And by the way it sometimes that means getting out of the way and being more supportive of your partner who happens to be better at that money thing than you
and that's a wonderful thing but start from a position of this is my responsibility and make sure you're aligned with your partner around this stuff because I think we don't talk about is it your kids are going to higher blood pressure if your economically strain kids and kids in low-income households have greater systolic resting blood pressure than kids in middle and upper income homes. You're much more likely to get divorced. You're much more likely to have a stroke. You're much more likely to be the victim or the perpetrator of domestic.
Violence when you don't have money in America becomes more like itself every day and that is it's a loving generous place for people with money. It's a rapacious violent place for people who don't have money. So all this bullshit the money doesn't buy you happiness. Oh my God, is that a myth? I'm not saying you need to be incredibly wealthy but middle-income people are happier than poor people and wealthy people are happier than middle-income people. That's the bad news. The good news. Is that tops out you get diminishing.
Returns and you have to be cognizant of when you do get to some level of Economic Security. That's the means the ends is such that you can have an exhale release the anxiety that you feel and then use the opportunity to really spend a lot of time with your your loved ones and cement those relationships. And the problem is you get on the sardonic treadmill and you g so absorbed in your own success and your professional identity and money and making more money the
We get to the ends you wake up a wealthy person or someone who's financially secure as always thought about their economic well-being and you don't really have a great relationship with your kids, but you never really leaned into your partnership and thought okay, let's take time to really enjoy each other's company. Let's do nice
things your parents
died before you have a chance to really spend time with them as adults. I think that happens to a lot of people they just get so caught up and I need the next promotion. I need the next amount of money and
once I get here, I have someone very close to my life. It's a family member and I'm taking them to Africa and they're like making excuses, but our kids in the choir. They were making excuses. I'm like you realize this is your last chance to go to Africa before you're dead. Right? You're 50 fucking years old when you go when you're 70, but you got to get back to work an extra debt. And what do you thinking we're going to be dead soon and I just think so many people don't realize how fast it's going to go by
And never really never really like soup not only super lean into the relationships, but just allow themselves just to have a great time. I'm going to stagecoaches. We are going to go see Country Music Festival. I Can't Stand country, but I'm going I'm going to buy a pair of boots. I'm going I'm gonna have a great time and I'm going to do an edible and I'm going to drink a shit ton, and I'm gonna have arrested adolescence with my friends and I'm going to look ridiculous and it's like yeah, why why not? Why the fuck not
What am I going to do? Watch C-SPAN all weekend. I mean anyway, I can't stand it when people who are blessed with being in this country have some level of Economic Security of people in their life that love them and they love and they don't like crazy lean into it because you guys are younger than I can it just go so goddamn fast. It's just crazy. It is just crazy how fast it goes. Anyways,
well, I don't know how to respond to that Scott. Here's what I do.
Feel like I learned something and I feel a little bit bad inside at the same time. I feel a little bit good and you made me feel a little bit bad and I need to go and I need to like burp or something. I need to get a little bit out of my system. I just need to unwind from that do they not have Zoloft in London?
You know, I haven't hit the antidepressant. I just had ketamine therapy though. That was a trip. No, I'm trying to I'm trying to just you know it like the good news is I hate my life less and less every day so
I'm sort of getting there. I'm sorry kid.
You're like if Mitch Hedberg had a podcast and open an LLC. Are we gonna talk about we're gonna talk about my book. Do you think I got to number one
talking about like doing therapy with you guys on these Joey bag of doughnuts podcasts. Are you gonna bring up my
book? Yeah. Tell us the tell us about the book. Okay, we're even talk a little bit about the book. But tell us the floor is yours make your case as to what I'm going to get out of this book because I'm gonna buy it and I'm gonna
No, really nice for that, but I'll read it with a different level of enthusiasm. If you give me a little teaser of what I'm going to get out of it. Okay. So the algebra of wealth is the
following find your talent Focus Workshop your 20s in an industry that will pay you once you have a certain amount of momentum professionally really trying develop a savings muscle wealth isn't about how much make it's about how much you spend trying just get to the point at a fairly early stage where you spend less than you make that is very difficult the brightest companies and Minds in the world.
Are all
here to convince you that an upgrade from economy to economy Comfort to economy plastic business classes and investment in yourself. No, it's not. It's a it's consumption. Don't try and impress other people with your shit. No one's is concerned with your shit. As you are. You don't need to order a bottle of vodka to club for 450 bucks. Get a Hyundai for god sakes travel coach save money start saving money early lean and if your Yung lean into your advantage and that is you have a lot of time develop that savings muscle diversify the moment you have
Any real Capital start diversifying that way no matter what happens you have Kevlar. You can have a stock or 20 in a bullet hits you in the chest. It doesn't kill you because you're Diversified and then take advantage of flow of flow on the species and that's time and recognize that time will go faster than you think and if you're just a little show a little bit of discipline a little bit more maturity a little bit of that savings muscle early that the S&P is up 11% a year since 2008. Well, that sounds boring now, that means every 21 years your
Or update acts and that 21 years will go really fast. So hope you sell a best-selling book. Hope your company goes public. Hope you you know, your album goes double platinum or some rich Uncle dies and leaves you everything but just in case make sure you're financially secure and I can get you there. If you follow these principles show a little bit of discipline a little bit of maturity because the good news is I can get you rich the bad news is the answer is slowly we can get you there.
So the algebra of
wealth equals Focus plus stoicism times time times diversification. That's the form. That's the the formula is the formula your the formula guy like you you've a lot of your talks you use formulas to explain stuff. You've had the algebra of Happiness. Now the algebra of wealth are is this going to be a whole algebra of blank series because anytime I see that I'm into it if it's an equation. I'm into it. Yeah, so
humans need constructs to remember things. You can read a book and if it doesn't have constructs or
Realizations it's pretty easy to forget about it. So I really like constructs equations. I wrote the algebra of Happiness algebra wealth about to die and I just I'm about to sign a three-book deal. I'm riding the algebra masculinity the algebra of work and the algebra of mating. Those are three topics. I'm super interested in and I want to try and do enough research. I can distill it down to some best practices that people can hold on
to. Well. I want to talk about the first variable in this you said Focus because we talked about stoicism. I know about time I know about differs.
Education, but teach me about Focus. I'm pretty bad at Focus trying to get better. Give me a couple words on Focus as part of this this equation. If you have a side hustle, you need to find a different main hustle. You're better off with the time you spend on a side hustle investing that incremental effort in your main hustle. And if you constantly find it aside house was fine. If you're investigating a new main Hustle, but the way you get wealthy is not a variety of things. It's being really great at one thing. So, that's the
Focus and the term we use is Mastery or ninja like capability, but try and find something you could become great at and that is you know, that's not that's not easy. But also fine again we talked about this before find it in an industry. That's not very sexy because if you're in the top 10% of tax law or of installing HVAC or energy-efficient HVAC or you're in the top 10% of people who no doubt how to install soapstone kitchen.
Ders, you're going to make a really good living and taking care of your kids is just so much fun being able to be there for your parents is economically is just is just really exciting and a really a lot of fun and I think young people mistake passion for their Hobbies not recognizing when they get older to be able to give money away to be able to do nice things to be able to relax with your partner. You know, it's just super enjoyable. It's almost as fun as you know.
Spinning turn. I mean that shit is Fawn that is really enjoyable. And so put yourself in a position when you're a little bit older because it'll go really fast to just do wonderful things with people you care about and the way you get there is by making more than you spend saving. But the first thing you got to do is find the focus. You'll find something we are living we live in a specialist economy find something like that's your try and just think
Could I be great at this? Could I be great at this? That's not the question because if you become great at it, trust me, you'll become passionate about it. And you can't become great at everything you hate. That's not that's just going to be automatically be screened out. I'm not suggesting drudgery is the way if you find something drudgery us or whatever the term is you just not going to be great at it. But I found Consulting I never I didn't know what Consulting was when I was in college even business school. I figured out Wade people will pay you to rent your
brain.
Wow, and I was
Is really good at establishing these proxy father-son relationships with powerful men. And then basically Mike or deal with them is I understand brand better than you. You're the CMO. I'm going to make you to see you in three years in exchange for that. You're going to pay my company million dollars a year to answer very deep hard questions and I figured that out it kind of my late twenties, which was a blessing in the when I sold the company. I'm like, I don't want to be in Services anymore. It's a Young Person's business. I'm sick of being on planes. So I had to Workshop my life again.
And then I figured out okay. I'm a good teacher. What does it mean to be a good teacher means you have to be a good Storyteller, but what if I story told in different mediums going to make money and books going to make money speaking? Could I make money in podcasts and I figured out yeah, I'm good at this. I could even be great someday and that Mastery has led to a really nice nice live, but I've always tried to I've always tried to spend reasonably spend less than I was making sometimes more than others.
I finally learned to diversify the hard way. I lost everything twice in 2000 and again in 2008 because I thought I would so awesome that whatever is my focus is just naturally going to be successful through my sheer force of character. That's not true. So I started diversifying and you know, just kind of follow these basic principles and let time take over and really started saving a lot of money in my 40s. I deployed an army of capital to start fighting and killing for me and my family in my sleep.
And that Army just grew in a bull market and you know came home with just immense spoils for me because I deployed this Army early and often and I kept adding to it. I feel like here's a tank. All right. Okay, I'm saving money. I'm not going to have the fat apartment Ryan. Okay, here's some more artillery go kill more people and come home with money. That's a little bit much.
Anyways, we're still work it off of that one. Yeah. I'm still working through that one wrong choice.
Sighs wrong choice of words accoutrements the achievements of my Army. It's got thanks for coming on man and everybody go by the book The algebra of wealth. He has to be number one on the charts because he needs our affirmation and let's give it to him.
Thanks guys. Thanks for Success. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Sean, and thanks. Sorry and thank you.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to travel never looking back.
