The #1 Personality Trait That Made These Business Moguls +$450M

Egan is great. He has a very aggressive bedside manner. An aggressive bedside manner is like the nicest way possible of calling the guy a dick. Uh this guy's definitely an asshole. And you know, they're like, Oh, you know, it's like he's just very direct. He's very he's very honest. He's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like this guy will trample. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like On the road

Traveling. Are you I don't know if you're ready. But I'm gonna ratchet up the intensity a little bit here. I'm gonna start High intensity on the podcast. I'm gonna talk about some high intensity individuals. Would you like to hear about some high intensity individuals? I wore my high school let letterman jacket.

If you're not if you haven't noticed, I'm shocked you haven't made fun of me. So I'm ready. For high intensity, if you can't tell. I look like a like the big man on campus for the three. You look like Al Bundy right now, like just dreaming about the good old days. So I I I don't know if you're ready for this. I want to be I I I wish I could have took state. That's the vibe I'm in. And so I'm ready for some intense stuff. I'm gonna tell you about some people that I think you know of. A couple of them I think you know a lot about.

But they're all tied together and they are all what I will call All in individuals. They're all insane. They're all kind of insane and they're insane in the same way, which is that they are All the way.

in on what they're doing. And I was reading their stories and I was kind of inspired. They're all very different stories. But then I realized, no, no, no, it's actually the same story. It's about being all in. Okay, so who are these people? First I wanna start with A guy named Egan Durbin.

I think you know who Egan Durbin is, but I don't know, do you know his full story? I don't know his full story. He kinda is shrouded in mystery a little bit. I know that he's been on top of the game since he was probably thirty or thirty five. And he kinda controls, it seems like, almost LA a little bit. Well a little bit. Yeah. So he is the managing director of Silver Lake. Silver Lake

Is a giant Private equity investor. that invest in technology. So they have Seventy two billion in assets under management, which is I'm pretty sure that's bigger than every venture fund.

Combined. Did you say seventy two? Yeah, seventy two. So if you take out the vision fund, I'm pretty sure this is bigger than like almost all VCs combined. Okay. So Who is this guy? And uh you know, he's got a crazy track record I wanna talk through, but like First, I just want to give you a few quotes.

Again. About these all in individuals. And I give you these quotes because Even though I don't do anything like this guy, I'm not fund manager. I'm not a managing director of a private equity fund. I have no desire to be so.

I do see some of these descriptions of him. And I'm like It'd be nice to be called that. It'd be nice to to have that be a true thing somebody could say about me. And sometimes you just gotta hear it. You just gotta hear that level twelve exists. For you to even like unlock that part of your brain. Okay, so let me tell you something. So he goes

goes to school, goes to Georgetown, he goes to Morgan Stanley, and then he is known immediately in the like banking world. Th they th they interviewed some people and they go He came in as an entry level junior guy, right, early twenties. And they go. Egan was immediately comfortable at the grown up's table.

And they go he just carried himself very differently. It's not that he had the experience. It's not even that he was smarter than anybody. But he carried himself like I belong in that conversation and I'm gonna show up that way. And I'm not gonna just like label myself as a as a junior here, and I'm just here to learn. I'm just happy to be here. Didn't ever have that energy. The next thing that I heard. Egan is great. He has a very aggressive bedside manner.

An aggressive bedside manner is like the nicest way possible of calling the guy a dick. This guy's definitely an asshole. And you know, they're like, Oh, you know, it's like he's just very direct. He's very he's very honest. He's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like This guy will trample you. Um, and aggressive bedside manner is the next thing I learned. So Nineteen ninety nine. He leaves uh his banking the banking world to join Silver Lake. And he's like, I think technology, the internet, this is nineteen ninety nine. Boom is happening. He's like, I think this is the next big thing, I'm gonna go here.

So he goes and he's like he does a very smart career move. And you if you see this career move, you know this person's a winner, which is They join a thing that's working. But instead of staying at the mothership, they're like, Hey, what's the next frontier? And they're like, Oh, we need to expand into Europe. He's like, Cool, you got like plans or like a person in charge of that? They're like

Uh, not yet. We wanna do that next year and we're gonna do a search to find somebody. He's like, Cool, I'll move there now and I'll do it. And so he moves to Europe and he builds out the whole European business. For investing in European tech companies. Exactly. And one of the big tech companies that he invests in in Europe. is

Skype. So Skype was a European company. Skype had already had its run up, but then it had um you know, kind of faltered. And so he partners with A A six A sixteen Z at one point and he buys Skype out for one one point nine billion dollars. And people were like, This is Like it's hard to turn a technology company around. It's kind of on the decline. It's riddled with lawsuits right now.

This is a messy buy. And he goes in and he basically is like all right, we're gonna do two things. We're gonna hire a great CEO. We're gonna settle all these lawsuits and we're gonna actually invest in making our product better because the product's just been atrophying for for whatever for so long. And so he immediately settles a lawsuit, hires a great CEO, starts investing in the product.

And in eighteen months He sells the thing all cash to Microsoft for eight and a half billion dollars. So one point nine to eight and a half billion. He basically triples their money, but on a like, billion dollar base. like uh principal amount. And so immediately makes a name for himself. Uh after doing the Europe thing with that.

And He's doing this at a time when there's like a bit of a power struggle at uh so for like And by the way, he's only like thirty five at this point. I don't know how old he is exactly yet. He's probably let's see Yeah, he's probably thirty uh

thirty or early thirties, uh my guess. So two thousand and eight, uh financial crisis happening, and the founder of Silver Lake, this guy Glenn Hutchins, one of the founders. And he's like this crazy guy. If you go watch interviews of him, he's like mustache, he comes into the office with like barefoot, he never wears shoes. He's kind of like one of those like you know, one with nature founder type guys, but he's in private equity, which is usually like suits and uh You know cut you know, cutthroat type of guys.

By the way, I think the other guy, I think all three of the founders are like hippies. The other one, Roger uh uh Macami, I think his name is. Do you know who he is? I didn't look him up too much, but yeah, I saw him. He's a little bit of a hippie. Like he's in like a Grateful Dead cover band. Like if you like m more people know him, I think as the as a musician than founding this multiple. Technology then you're early, right? And you're early because you're a believer in something and you're usually an early adopter. You're not U usually it's like the MBAs come later, right? The the the business school kids come later and once once the opportunity's already defined. Which is crazy because Silver Lake now is known as this like buttoned up place. Of course. As as as is Microsoft now and Facebook now and all the things that at one time was just like college kids just living in a hacker house type of thing. So

Thousand eight. Uh financial crisis happens, that guy Glenn, he's getting real stressed out. He's like, I just need to take a step back. Ean Durbin's like, I'm here. I've been here. I'm ready for this. And so he starts to step forward. He had just done the big he just does the big um Skype deal. So he's kind of riding the the wind of that.

That's that's like the big news basically in the in the industry. They're they're out to raise a fund and he's like I'll help you raise that fund. You can use this track record in my name and I'll I'll be one of the but I need to see it at the top. And so there's a bit of a power struggle. The other founders don't really want to step back. He wants a seat at the table. power struggle, there's sort of the coup and Egan and four new guys basically become the new

managing directors and the founders basically all end up stepping back. But a PE firm, there's not like one owner. It are PE firms a little bit like law firms where there isn't ever like an owner, but as you rise you get an equity stake and so it almost becomes a partnership, not like uh it's a partnership either way, but uh usually You raise a new fund and when you raise a new fund, you define who are gonna be the how how is the pie gonna get split up. And so as they raise fund after fund, the guys who were the main principals of the first might now have a smaller stake because the new people who are doing all the work. are gonna have the big stake in the new fund. So that's kinda what happened.

Um So, anyways, he gets it and then he starts doing just crazy aggressive stuff. So just if you hear this guy's strategy, here's what he says. So in sixteen years. They've basically grown the thing like crazy, uh, since since that all happened. Um

They've they've, you know, added like I don't know, twenty five, thirty billion of of assets under management during that time. And he says My goal is to be the best risk adjusted risk adjusted investor, tech investor in the world. What I'm trying to do is find one or two bets per year. I'm looking for all in bets, opportunities that I can't say no to. I have one or two bets per year, and that's it. I spend my whole year just trying to find

one deal that is worth doing. And then when he finds He just pushes all the chips in. So he did this like With Alibaba, they put in like a whole bunch of money at thirty five billion in market cap. And then they six X their money from there, because Alibaba became a multi hundred billion dollar market cap company.

And he was like Just at the time they're like we see this as a Google sized opportunity. And this is like this is the Google of China. We need to be in this. And p other people thought thirty five billion was pretty overvalued at the time. He didn't think so. Another example of this is he went to some conference and he spoke on stage And he's like, Yeah, I don't usually do this, but uh you know, whatever. It it'll be worth it, I'm sure.

So he gets off stage and he bumps into Michael Dell backstage. First time he meets the guy. About a year later. He does the biggest tech buyout. deal in the w ever, uh, which was taking Dell private, uh, where it's like a a multi-billion dollar buyout where they took it private and ended up, you know, re revamping it. It was the biggest deal.

Uh I think ever at the time. Um he's also made some pretty like crazy bets, so Some of the cr some of the some of the crazier things this guy's done. So first I'll give you some personality crazy things. So He sucked at golf. But he wanted to be good. He's like golf is like, you know, the businessman's sport.

And I wanna be good. So do you know what he did to get good at golf? Have you heard the story? So they have a gym for all the like employees or analysts at the company. And he just goes and he just locks the gym he shuts the gym down. He's like, There's no more gym. I'm gonna convert this into like kinda like over a weekend or whatever. He converts the gym into a golf practice like A practice facility, essentially.

And then the employer's like hey, where do we What happened to our gym? Like that was a key perk. Where where do we go now? He's like, I don't know, go across the street. Go ask BlackRock if you can use theirs. So for years, the analysts all went across the street to other firms, like, hey, can we User Jim, you can turn it into his own private golf simulator. We can't do it anymore. That's kind of an asshole move, right? I mean. Kind of an aggressive move.

I mean what it is I wonder what his employees said it like, hey, uh That's kind of lame, right? Like what about us? Now he's like eight handicapped golfer. He's got memberships at golf clubs around the world. That's the ending of that story. Another one. He's kind of like um he gets criticized because he kinda wants like power in uh Like c the Hollywood world, like you said, I think he's like a power player in LA. I don't know if that's true or not, but He became the biggest backer of WME. He also did a bunch of other things. Like the joke was You know, he's buying things so he can get, you know, access to the Oscars. Like this guy is just like a an absolute, you know, s uh sort of like savage individual. Um another thing that he said, so he goes

He goes, I'm not trying to take the most risk, but I am trying to be very concentrated in my bets. He says We get paid to hit singles and doubles. Then we steal third and we come in we we come into home on a pass ball.

And it's just a different mindset than I'm trying to hit home runs. He's like, no, no, we hit singles and doubles. Then through our kind of good operations, we steal third. And then we p we we get to school, we get to home. on a pass ball, but it's basically like, you know, the market kind of continues to grow and we benefit from that is is how I ran into that.

So I really like that. He was he did not like people were like, You haven't done any investments recently. Uh, this was back in like twenty twenty one and he was like, I think everything in tech is overvalued. All the unicorns, I think it's gonna be really rough for them. He goes, Every private technol company in the world right now If you combine them, is three hundred fifty billion dollars. If I could buy that whole asset class, I would t I would do it tomorrow. Because I'm pretty sure that that will two or three X.

But picking any individual company is really hard. Companies that are valued at a billion dollars. They might not go down just thirty percent on a correction. It'll go down to zero. There will be no bid for these companies, which is Kind of what what exactly played out. in the coming year.

Um Until he stayed away from late stage tech. So I just really thought this guy was great. Uh he's done a few other deals that are interesting. So in April of two thousand twenty. So two months into the pandemic, he invested a billion dollars into Airbnb. I don't remember the exact valuation, but my wife worked out that worked there at the time.

And at the time We were at home thinking Oh well, Airbnb's going out of business. They that that whole company is dead. And they and when they invested it was crazy. And I think it was an what was it an eighteen billion dollar valuation? Yeah, it was something like that. It was like somewhere between like 10 and 20. And it was also like he structured it intelligently, I think. I think there was like it was like

Dad they had like you know, like a warrant or something like that. It was like a good structure. I don't I don't know. They didn't release all the details, but The one interesting thing was he got criticized because he had never met Brian Chesky, the CEO. He made the investment sort of side unseen. and um injected a bunch of capital to the business when it needed it. People were like, that was a is that a rash move? People doubted it. But

Airbnb's done a fantastic has done fantastic since then. Um, you know, he owns, you know. He put you know they they own five hundred million dollars of Manchester City Soccer Club. Like they own a lot of different stuff. Um, which is kind of You know, I don't know, it's interesting to me.

Um Let me tell you one other thing about this guy. So He said something that I found interesting. They talked about the WME deal and he goes I love our Emanuel. He goes, I talk to Ari Manuel every single day.

Which is just crazy, like I don't even talk to my own business partner every single day, let alone some investment I made. And he goes, um And people were like, You talk to Ari every day about what? And he's like, What are you guys talking about? He goes.

Well, you know Ari. Ari averages a ninety second phone call. He's like, so we have a ninety second phone call. But we're texting and calling every day, and it's usually seconds, because sometimes it's a specific ask like, Hey, we need this introduction or we need this. This analysis or whatever. Um he's like, but I don't like to do formal board meetings every quarter too slow.

I like the pace that Ari moves. These ninety second phone calls every day. Which takes me to the next one. All an individual. Ari Emmanuel. So

Uh you you know Rmanuel and a lot of people know him'cause he the the character entrage is based off of him. But There was some things that about him that I didn't didn't fully know that that was kind of interesting. Uh, did you know he's one of three brothers and all three brothers do really interesting stuff? So there's a book that I read years ago. It's called um

What's it called? Something America. The Brothers Emmanuel, I believe it's called. Brothers Emmanuel, a memoir of an American family. And I think it's in that book, Ari Emanuel. So Ari Emanuel's uh probably a billionaire. He uh he's one of probably the the shot caller in LA. His brother is Ra Emmanuel, who I think was the mayor of Chicago and on Obama's cabinet or something like that, a political power player. And in the book, Ari and R Ram, I think Ron is his name. They're um yeah.

They go P a lot of people know us. But they don't know that our third brother, Zeke, Ezekiel He's the smartest and the more successful brother. And his brother Ezekiel I believe I'm gonna screw up the titles.

He was head of what's the head of like health for the government under Obama. He basically made the the Obama Obama Care, right? Like he was the architect of the Affordable Care Act. I think he also has done some major things. I don't remember exactly, so don't quote me on this. Don't turn this into a shorts, but I think he helped pioneer. the heart transplant and things like that. Like he invented like things that save lives and he and the two brothers are like Zeke's the smart one. We're just more like

Stubborn and bullheaded a little bit. So that's hilarious. Um, they asked him, they were like, Hey, do you watch like Entourage? Like, what do you think of Ari Gold? Is that is that you? And he's like, Well, they got some things right. You know, I am Very aggressive. And there and there he's like, you know, I didn't go into an office with a PayPal gun and shoot everybody. So like, you know, I didn't do that, but you know, they they got a a lot of things right, unfortunately.

And he's like, um they're like, Yeah, how have you changed over the years? Are you still as aggressive? He goes Look. Here's what here's what I have to say. You need to know when you're on the field. When you're on the field You're there to compete, you're there to win, and you're you're there to kill.

But you g he's like the one thing I have learned is I've learned that I'm not always on the field, and sometimes I'm off the field, and I need to behave a little bit differently. Because that's the only change that's happened to me in like thirty years. Um I thought that was Also funny, as an aggressive person. We know somebody who worked with them and they told some pretty hilarious stories. Apparently this guy's day is like this. So Growing up he was like dyslexic, I think, so he He had to go to like a reading teacher for like three hours a day or something like that. And he's like, I hated it. I used to cry all the time. I used to feel so embarrassed by it.

He's like, then I just realized whatever, this is my superpower. I'm gonna win a different way. Okay, I can't read these contracts. I can't read this stuff. So I'm gonna surround myself with I'm gonna basically work differently and I'm gonna surround myself with people who could do those things for me. And I'm gonna do other things that only I could do well. And so his day is basically he's like walking on a treadmill. He's got the earpiece in his ear.

And his assistant is just call he just has like a call list. His assistant is just getting people on the phone that he wants to talk to. For like Thirty to ninety seconds at a time. And he just immediately hits someone up, calls him and in ninety seconds makes the point. Hangs up and then he's on to the and the next call is ready in his ear and he just goes to the next one, which is And I think it starts at like six AM. I think I read an article where he's famous for he would do something like two hundred calls a day and it starts at six AM

And he's talking to people all day, just making deals. Somebody told me he was like they're in his office and he just has a a bag of almonds. And he's just whenever he wants his assistants attention, he was throwing the almonds, bag of almonds at her. He just hit her in the head with an almond and she would turn around and he's like next call, I do the next call. What a dish. All these guys, all of them, all of them have the same trait. All three of the people I'm gonna talk about. Okay, so He also had the classic story, the same st but there's s it's like There's something about working in the mailroom. So like David Geffen Barry Dillard, Ari Manuel all have the same story, which is basically started off in the Hollywood mailroom.

and use that as their like feeding ground. And I I was thinking about this. I was like, what is it about the mailroom? And If you think about it, what is the mailroom? So the mailroom is basically It's the shit nobody else wants to do. So it's already a filter. It's gonna filter out anybody who doesn't really want it because it's so unglamorous. That's interesting thing number one.

Interesting thing number two is The way it works is you're basically making copies of scripts and stuff, then you gotta drive it around town, give it to clients, you deliver the paperwork, you get the you go fetch lunches, you hand off the lunches to somebody who's in a meeting. Um And if if you do good at that, then you can become an assistant, then you can become an agent, and then whatever, but you like you learn the town and you're working seven days a week. And so

The guys who ended up making it They basically use that as their opportunity to build Like an incredible network. Because The job is kind of networking.

And so they use that, the like used every rep of that instead of just being like, Oh, whatever, I'm gonna just mentally check out. to actually build their power network. And that's kind of like, you know, part of how all three of those guys um Yeah, rose to power. Can I tell you the last one now? The last all in individual. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm I'm I'm into this.

Okay. So you know this person well, but I don't know if you know the full story. I didn't know the full, full story till I researched this, but Dana White. Um so I want you to Tell me kind of like a little bit about what you know, and then I want to fill in some gaps of th new things I learned when I was looking at this. All right, so Dana White, I think he was a boxing instructor, but not like

coaching real boxers, like it was like a jazzer size class in Boston. It was in Boston. And he moves into this bad neighborhood and Whitey Bulger, who's a big gangster at the time. He comes to Dana's office or his his jazzer size gym or whatever, and he goes, Hey man, you're in my hood. You owe me a thousand a month. Or something like that.

And Dana White doesn't pay him'cause he's like, Oh, I'm a tough guy. I don't need to pay this guy. And then eventually he realizes that Whitey's the real deal and he owes him ten or twenty grand and Dana's like, dude, I have nothing. So he moves to Vegas to flee. He went to high school with these two rich brothers, the Fertita brothers. The Fertita brothers, um They uh they come from a wealthy family. So they owned Like

penny casinos, like where like people like at uh it was like a low class thing at first where it was like their parents own this this casino and it's almost at a gas station, I think. where like people would put in like penny slots. From there, they owned uh a few other casinos. I think the station casino or golden nugget, I forget what they're called. And uh so they get money. It starts working. And so the two sons, Lorenzo and Fertita They uh or no, Lorenzo and what's the other one? Frank.

Frank. They uh they they become kind of guys in Vegas. They actually start a few companies and they buy a few companies. One of them was Gordon Beers, which was a cider and beer company. They were one of our first advertisers at the hustle. And they so they start making deals. Dana comes to them and goes, Hey man This thing called the UFC.

It's kind of a sport. I know you guys, you brothers are somewhat into jujitsu. I went to one of these events. They're pretty amazing. The guy selling the brand. In reality, what we're gonna get is a crappy little octagon and just the name UFC. It's two million dollars. Let's buy it. They get committed to doing to do it. Dana gets four percent of the equity. The other guys get the rest. But they fail for four or five years. So they're in the hole like thirty five million dollars. They come up with this brilliant idea to have a TV show called The Ultimate Fighter in order to promote the events. The events are kind of popular, but like

That's not really making money. They create this event called the all uh this TV show called The Ultimate Fighter. They convince Spike TV to air. At the time, Spike TV was a pretty big deal, but not that big of a deal. And they do the series and they're like, dude, we're gonna run out of money. We can't afford this series anymore. Then Force Griffin and Stefan Bonner have their famous fight. And at the time it was a huge deal. I was a kid. I remember watching this fight. I get a phone call from a friend being like

Dude, you gotta turn this fight on. This is so amazing. At the end of that fight, they're the winner is supposed to get a thousand dollar contract. At the time it was or a hundred thousand. They called it a six figure contract. Back then that was a big deal to get a six figure contract. The fight is so good, even though one guy won, but it was so great. They give both of them six figure contracts. From there the UFC kind of took off. That was like the turning moment and so Dana and these two brothers two brothers are kinda the business

like brains behind it, and they're really low key behind the scenes, but they run this business and eventually it sells for four billion dollars to Ari Emanuel's company. And uh now it's like the hottest thing going. Is that Very good. Very good off the cuff. I like it. I wanna fill in a couple of Little details here that I thought were interesting.

Stuff I didn't know. So You're right. Dana grows up in Boston. But he and he goes to college twice. drops out twice in the first semester. He's like, this shit just ain't for me. And so he goes to college wise, drops out twice. He ends up as a bellhop.

So he's a He's a bell he's a bouncer, he's a bellhop. He's like doing asphalt laying, like you know, he that's what he's that's what he's doing with his life. He wants to be a boxer. But he sees a guy come in who he knew.

as a boxer and he looked up to and that guy was just totally punch drunk and he's like oh shit, I can't do this. So he's like, maybe I should teach like boxing classes like boxer size instead of uh instead of actually trying to be a boxer. So that's kinda like the the opening now. He's doing all that and he describes that he wants to He's like, I wanna maybe get into boxing promotion.

And he's like, I'm not sure exactly, maybe I could be a boxing promoter. But he's a bellhop at the at the what of the hotel and he describes the day that he quit. And he's like, I was just sitting there and he's like actually we used to get paid pretty well for being a bellhop. I forgot what it was. It's like, you know. twenty two bucks an hour or something back then. He's like it's not that the money was so bad. He's like and I like the guys that I worked with.

But he's like, Am I just gonna do this shit forever? And he's like, I had the realization that every day that I do this, I'm not doing it's another day that I'm not doing the thing I want. He's like,'Cause before I used to feel like, you know, I can always someday go do something. And he's like, You know what? Screw it. He go he says uh

So here's what he says about it. He goes Um He goes, if I had to tell you one thing and he's given a talk later, he goes It would be to take the risk. He's like because When I quit and I actually went for my thing.

Guess what? I realized I can always come back and be a bellhop. Like This life I have is always here. Because it's the bottom. It's not where I wanna be anyways. What do I have to lose? I uh worst case scenario, I could just come back and to

Get another job like this. He goes, but I will never get back this window of time I have right now in my twenties that like I can go and take a shot at something. So that was kinda like His mindset and his mentality.

So he quits and he's like I wanna start so he starts trying to he's doing the boxing thing, he's trying to try to be a put become a promoter. And then you're right, the the mob thing happens. Here's what he said about it. He goes Um, these guys show up and they're like, Hey, you owe us twenty five hundred dollars. And he's like uh he's like in the movies. It's cool.

When you see like mobsters and mafia. If it's real life and they want you, shit's super scary. He's like, That is not cool. And he's like, So I He's like, I was like, I have no way of paying this. He's like, so I'm just gonna He goes, I go home that night, I just go to Delta.com and I bought a one way ticket to Vegas. He goes, I left all my shit there. My dresser, like I just left her there. I had no I couldn't do anything. I just ran away basically from these guys. Once I realized that they're pretty serious, I bought a one way ticket to Vegas.

And the guys who were behind it, it was it was Whitey Bulger who's like the real deal. He's uh from the movie Black Mass with and he's the the character behind the the departed. Yeah, exactly. It like when he first when they first came in, they were like, Hey, you owe us twenty five hundred dollars. He's like I don't owe you that. I for what? I don't have it. Like what do you want me to do? And then Couple of weeks go by and then they called them and they're like You owe this money by tomorrow, one PM or else. And he was like, Oh shit, okay, I gotta get out of here. So he left basically that night.

Um Couple other things. I thought he was friends with the Fertitas. They actually didn't know each other, or like they they only knew of each other in high school, but they weren't friends. And what he said was Basically they they knew of each other. And then you they they liked Dana because Dana was kind of like Like

Basically what he tells a story, he's like, We had this class that we all hated. And he's like Dana realized that the teacher was like really like uptight. And so it was kinda sucked to be in that class. But because the teacher was uptight, like one little thing could distract the teacher and throw them off. So he's like Dana would go to the restroom.

And it would kick this door really hard. And he kicked the door really hard, make this huge sound, the teacher would go like become irate, like who the what is that? Who's doing that? And it would go try to find the person. Dana would run away. But the class would basically half of the class would go by with no teacher because like teacher would be looking for somebody. So we used to do that like every week. And then one day he did it. But his shoe like flew off.

And he was like, Oh shit. Uh I don't know like he's like, You just had a jet? So the teacher found the shoe and realized it was Dana and Dana got in trouble, but the Frutinos always like logged that in their mind. They're like, Man. So years later they're at a wedding and they meet up meet up and they're like Dude, I haven't talked to you in so long. You know, how what what do you do? And he like learns what the fratitas do, he learns what he does. One of the things Dana says he's like

Yeah, I teach this like boxer size class. I'm doing jujitsu. And I think Lorenzo was like, You know what? I'm doing good in business but like I'm not really doing anything fitness wise. Like I want to train jujitsu. And Dana's like, All right, sure, I've heard that a million times. Nobody actually shows up. Lorenzo the next morning is there ready to do jujitsu. That's how they actually got to know each other. That's how the Fertita started to fall in love with like, you know, fighting her MMA.

So What happens is while he's doing that He becomes an agent. Same thing as Ari Emanuel, becomes an agent first because before he becomes a business owner. He starts representing Tito and Chuck Liddell, but the UFC is like so small back then, even though these guys are the big stars. They're so small, but that In doing that, he's negotiating a contract with the owner of the UFC. He's like, You gotta pay Tito more. Look at how much money this guy's bringing in. He's the face of this. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta step up.

And the guy's like You guys negotiate, negotiate and he's like finally just like Look, Dana, there's no money. Alright, this whole thing's gonna fall over like You're not wrong, but I have nothing to give.

And Dana's like In that moment, like basically Should have been a disadvantage like shit. My main business is gonna go down the drain. uh you know the owner can't pay him can't pay my fighters like this is over.

But he turned that disadvantage to an advantage. He's like then he that's when he approached the fratidas to be like, Hey Let's buy this thing. And the one funny thing is that owner had mismanaged the business so bad that they didn't even own UFC dot com He had sold it.

to just get a little bit of cash to user friendly computers and then Dana had to go buy it back from user friendlycomputers.com and like get back UFC.com's domain, which I thought was amazing. And I think when they bought it, Dana was like What did someone asked Dan, they go, What did you get when you bought it? He goes, Well, he had this like octagon, which is basically just like Like cage and like mats, which is not very expensive. But it was really just that name. I love that name UFC so much. We had to have the name.

Exactly. And then he's like, you know, they had put forty million more dollars into it. He felt so bad. He's losing his friends' money And they were trying to make it work, but it just wasn't working yet. And Lavrenzo calls me like, dude, I can't do this anymore. Like I I can't keep bleeding money like this. If you could like can you try to sell this thing? And Dana's like, Okay, my buddy needs me to sell this. And so he's like He calls everybody and he calls back Lorenzo the next day. He's like

There's not a lot of appetite for this thing. I think the best we could do is get six or seven million bucks for this. And Lorenzo's like Okay. We'll be uh let me call you tomorrow. Next day he calls him. Who knows what he had for morning that break that morning for breakfast, but he's like Fuck it. Let's keep going. Uh like, you know, let's put in another 10 million, one last chance to turn this business around. And then that's what they used.

to create the ultimate fighter that last 10 million. So he's in fifty? They're fifty in? They were fifty million in Well, it was all funded by the family's casino and previous successes, which I think they were really rich, but I think they were not rich enough that fifty was I mean fifty a significant sum. And when it sold for four billion, those guys, the brothers each owned forty, forty percent of the the business, basically at that time. Dana made three hundred sixty million on the sale and like had a Yeah, ten percent kicker. Some other crazy things about Dana. So

It takes a pretty rough dude to like build the UFC, and I think this guy's kind of like a no holds barred kind of guy. Well, have you ever met any of the UFC fighters? I think you and I have been around'em because we have a friend that has been around'em. They're they're They're all insane.'Cause if you think about what it takes, so what what's it take to Get in your underwear. and fight to the death in front of a million people. You have to be an animal.

You don't have all your screws. And and so Data has talked about he goes, I don't think you guys understand. Like someone will say something homophobic or racist and he's like, dude That's like not even close to as bad as it gets when when you're working with these guys. They're they're insane and the drama happens every single day, you only hear about a small portion of it. But i UFC would not be

It would not exist. It would not be what it is if it wasn't data like force of will. Some other ways that he's just all in. Do you know he's like a band blackjack player from multiple casinos? And which is funny'cause it's like You can't really have an edge playing blackjack.

The only edge he has is that he's willing to bet absurd amounts of money and then he wants to walk away. There's well there's there there's stories about him like before that was hugely, hugely successful where he's like, I made a million dollars last night at a casino. Yeah, exactly. Uh of course, as anybody who's ever gambled knows You never tell the stories about losing the million dollars. You only tell the ones where you m made the million. But his strategy he'll one things he'll do, he goes and he bets seventy five to a hundred thousand dollars per hand. And if he just wins the first two hands, he'll walk away. Which is just like infuriates the casino'cause they you know, they're

They need the the large law of large numbers to catch up. And he's like, if he makes two hundred grand, he'll just immediately bounce and like ha, I got him. But when he starts to get in the hole, that's when they you know, that's when they get him. So you know it it's he Just a kind of a impulsive individual.

A couple of other things that that I thought were kind of interesting. So he's like growing up, his dad was alcoholic, and here's what he said. He goes My dad was never around. And if he was around, you didn't want him to be around. He goes, he was not a good guy. He goes, but I wouldn't change anything. If I didn't grow up like that. I would not be me, right? I the toughness that that built in me would not I wouldn't have that if if I had just had like a nice

In a safe upbringing. The other thing he says, he's like, I didn't have a car. So he's like I just biked everywhere I went in Boston. He's like so I bought a Walkman and I would put on Tony Robbins and I would listen to you know the giant within. He's like an every day.

I would just ride around on my bike, kind of like working myself into a frenzy, listening to that thing, just getting anywhere I needed to go. And he's like, It was my kind of escape from like the shittiness of my life. He's like and then I started buying those tapes for anybody as gifts because it was like so impactful to me, which I thought was interesting. Dude, isn't that funny though? So Dana Dana White is is a tough guy, right? Like I think that He's the type of guy who you don't want to mess with physically or in business. Like he's he's he's a he's a legit tough guy. And even he listens to self-help stuff. I always thought it was funny. I was I used to be ashamed of like listening to a Tony Robbins or something. I was like, I don't want to talk about it. And then you realize that like even the bad the badasses like consume a lot of this stuff in order to get pumped. Yeah, the people who've improved themselves seem to have Done something to improve themselves. It's insane. Um, one other thing. He had the same thing like the mailroom thing. So he said, I didn't know this part of the story, but for three years.

He doesn't really talk too much about it. I worked under a guy. He's like I basically did an apprenticeship. And he's like, I told myself, I'm gonna spend three years with this guy'cause I know If I spend three years with this guy, I will know everything there is to know about the fight business. He's like today, I'm not the guy who can go be the next Don King or go become the next big promoter of the fight business. I know that's where I want to go.

But I got to learn. I gotta earn my stripes. And so he did his version of the mailroom. He's like, he worked for this guy. He's like, for three years, I worked harder. He's like, you know, the Whatever my actual wage m was like per hour must have been just ridiculously low with the number of hours I put in he's like, but I did every job there is. He's like I was a cut man, I was a cornerman, I was a referee, I managed the talent. I would look read all the contracts, even though he never even asked me to. He's like, I put in three years so I could know the ins and outs of the entire business.

So that that prepared me to do what I wanted to do. And he's like, I I knew that's what I needed. You haven't actually Explain how they're all the same. They're all just maniac all in individuals, right? They're people who basically Ari is a good example of this. So Ari kind of had already made it. WME was the biggest agency, one of the big one of the top two agencies in Hollywood, right?

And it already made it. And I talked to somebody who knew him. I'm like, why did he buy the UFC? Like, and to buy the UFC He raised like he tapped his network, he raised every dollar he could. But then he basically had to like leverage and mortgage W M E. So he kinda put Everything he had worked for at risk.

to buy a very high risk asset. At a very high price. Uh, which Silver Lake was the to title in, I think Silver Lake was the funder or one of the bigger funders. Exactly. So Silver Lake sees what Ari's doing and they're like If Ari Emanuel's going all in on something, he will not lose. He will not let this fail.

Our email mortgages everything he's worked for to go all in on this bet. Dana has options to sell the business and actually had an option to sell for almost a billion dollars more, he said. But he turned it down because he wanted to work with Ari because he knew. Ari is the guy who's all in.

And the future upside of this thing is gonna be bigger with Ari, even if today's payout is a billion dollars less. And so they all shared that trait of why they all wanted to be in business with each other and why they all wanted to back each other. And the Fertina brothers no different. Same reason they wanted to back Dana. and do this deal was they're also wired like this. So to me that was the commonality. Amongst all these people.

And if you watch a U a big UFC fight, you're gonna see Ari Emanuel You're gonna see his girlfriend to his left, and then to his right, you're gonna see Egon. And then a few seats down is gonna be Dana. They're always they always sit in the exact same spots for all the big fights and you see'em. And I remember seeing Egon. There. And I'm like, who's that guy that's always there? And that's how I learned about him. And Dana said when he sold the UFC, he's like, it kind of fucked with my head. He's like, I spent two days. I just like I just had like a bender in my hotel room because I was like,

What do I do? I have three hundred million dollars in my bank account. My best friends who have been doing this with me are gone now. I'm doing this on my own. And We kinda made it.

But I'm used to being the guy who is fighting for fighting to make it. What happens when you make it? He's like It really screwed my head for two days and then I was like Well I guess I'm just

I just Go back to doing exactly what I what I know how to do. Don't change anything. Just keep operating the same way. And so how what do you know about the Fertitas? The Fertitas, I didn't look up their history too much, but I thought I wanted to know their personality a little bit. A couple of little b bullet points I have here. They work out every day together, the brothers, at seven AM. I like that. I just like that as a brotherly thing to do. The second thing. They attend all meetings together. So they're not like delegate, divide and conquer. They're like

No, bro. We're going to all the meetings together. They both sit there, they drink a diet, Dr. Pepper, and they attend almost every meeting together as well. And then they like ball out. They got yachts and planes and art, and their cousin Tillman Fadiva also is a baller. And so like They're just kind of a crazy family that made it in this uh Wild Wild West Time of Vegas. I was gonna say, do you know who their cousin is? Their cousin cousin is Tillman. Tillman got famous because he I think he bought into Landry's

Which is a I think w is it a steak? Steak restaurant in Texas. From there he bought many, many other things, including like bubblegum shrimp and like a ton of like those Not fast casual, but like Applebee's like

Not nice, but like kinda nice if you're broke and you want to go out to eat type of situation. And then eventually he bought out the whole company after taking it public. And I believe now it's one of the most profitable privately held companies where he owns one hundred percent of it. So there's a lot of a lot of privately held companies that are quite huge. His company is one hundred percent owned by him. I think it I read his biography, I think it does something like three million dollars a year in Ebida and he bought the Houston Rockets as well. So he's like but he's He's known as being

A real asshole. The other Fatida guys all the interviews I've seen with them, they seem shockingly They're still sharks, but they seem shockingly well well mannered. And calm. And and and they they they seem like really easy going, if that is such a word that could be described.

These types of sharks. Yeah, they they are incredibly respected. Um I'll leave you one last little quote I liked from Dana. So he said, uh He goes, You know, uh about the risk taking thing. He's like you know he's like

You can always go back to your job, but here's what you can't do. You can't go back and get this opportunity again. You can't rewind time. You can't make get back your youth to take risks. He's like, I realized that I didn't want to be on my deathbed with a bunch of I shouldas. He goes, and no he goes not everything I've done has worked. And what I've learned is that even if it turns out shitty, it's not just that you learn how to win. Sometimes the most important learning is I thought I wanted to do this, but it turns out that's not what I want to do.

And I thought that was a really wise thing that M most people don't say. What's he referring to, walking away from the UFC? It might have been like it well, it could have been anything. Could have been like when he wanted thought he wanted to be a boxer. Then he goes in and he realizes, Oh, actually like Only through trying this did I learn that that's not actually the thing I want to do. Oh, this is Dana.

This is Dana talking. And so I thought that was good because everybody talks about Oh, it's okay. If you fail, you'll still learn. But

One of the most important things in general in life is just figure out what is the thing you actually wanna be doing. Most people go their whole life never f never finding that. And then they're in their thirties or forties or fifties and they feel like it's too late to even try a new thing. They're so far down one path. They don't want to go back to the bottom of the mountain and try a new path. And so I thought this is so important to know is like

early on when you're not that far up the mountain. Use that to your advantage because you can go back to the beginning and choose a new path. And that sometimes going down the path, it's not just about becoming a better hiker, it's about learning. This isn't a path I like. And the only way I could have known that. was by trying.

My biggest takeaway from these stories is loyalty. So I've heard Dana and the Lorenzo brothers talk about their little trio, their their three person team. They're crazy loyal to one another. And I was always envious that I didn't have like a brother that was about my age who I wanted to uh partner with or work with. And so I read about the R Lorenzo brothers a lot and I'm very envious of that relationship that they've had. They seem like they've had a healthy relationship with their parents who are business people.

And then when they brought in Dana, they are all crazy loyal to one another and they never disrespect one another publicly. uh it's all it seems like a great partnership. And that's been my biggest takeaway from from these guys is loyalty. Even Dana, I don't like many of the things that he's done. And I'm actually not a Trump supporter, but he was like Trump was nice to me in two thousand and eight or something like that when nobody else was. He's like no one would no one would help us.

Trump helped us. I remembered that. Therefore I w I'm gonna repay him. Now I don't think Dana is a straight up guy all the time. Like I said, I think he's done a lot of messed up stuff, but his value of loyal his his how he looked at loyalty, I appreciate at least in when it comes to those three those two brothers. Yeah, you're kinda like that too, where like

Loyalty is a um Deep rooted. Value. I feel like If someone's loyal to you or disloyal to you, even in a small way I feel like that goes really deep in your core, is that right?

I don't forget. So someone will do something. Do you remember that story? That um I explained about how I asked a reporter if she wanted to freelance for the hustle and she said

That's cute. And I like have always held a grudge and I want to destroy her. I went and re re read the email. She didn't say that's cute. She said, That's so sweet. I appreciate you so much, but I'm not interested.

But for some reason at the time. I read it and I I went and re read it the other day when I was talking to Sarah and I was like Maybe she actually wasn't being rude. But for the last year. Ten years.

I've been waiting for this woman to make a mistake and I wanted to pounce on it just to get revenge because she dismissed me. I've been wanting to do that so bad and I'm so thankful that that hasn't happened yet because she actually wasn't rude to me. Uh I re read it. But The point being is if someone's disloyal to me, I wanna destroy them. And the people who are loyal to me.

Yes, I I go all in on them. Because If you don't look I moved to San Francisco with n not knowing anyone The way that you get ahead is you have to have a a group of people who you do everything for and you expect them to do everything in return. And once you find that group of people, It helped you so much, not just in life, but or not just in business, but for everything else. It helps so much.

And we have a friend who is So incredibly loyal. That it like sets a standard. It's almost annoying. You know who It's almost

He buys the best gifts and I feel like I've got to go. I know that if I was in trouble. This guy would drop everything. He would drop everything more than my dad would drop everything to come To come help.

They would say send location. Send me location. Exactly. He said send location, I'm there. This guy His loyalty his level of loyalty is like next level. And I don't even know why. It's not like it's ever even been tested in that way. I've never had to send me location, but why do I feel that way? I have no idea. But the fa but I do. You can't convince me otherwise.

Uh,'cause he has shown it in a bunch of like small ways that you know that the big way would always be there. And It's paid off wonderfully for him. He was successful on his own, but he's been he's definitely gotten ahead. But then there's been times I was with him one time. And he wanted to write a skateboard. I go, Ramon, don't ride the skateboard, dude. You're forty years old. You're about to hit your head. Do not do this.

He does it anyway. He gets a concussion. I we gotta take him to the hospital. We have to m we take care of his kid while he's in the hospital for two or three days. And so he's been repaid a little bit in his loyalty, but it's paid off and I and I've seen I'm like

I feel like I owe you so much that I will do anything in return to to get you back. And so it's helped him so much. Uh, and so anyway, I respect that about these guys, is that how loyal they are. I was thinking about here's a little philosophical thought experiment for you. You know you know the phrase F you money. Like oh he's got F your money.

And I think a lot of people aspire to have that. But an interesting question is What are the other F Us like You know, maybe um Uh you know, Sam, you could be like I have F U health.

Right,'cause if you're if you're in absolute pristine health, you have physical fitness, you're you're you're extremely athletic, you're mobile, you're whatever, right? You can have F U health. Like what else could you have? And I think Ramon has He has FU loyalty. Right. We're like

It is he is just full, a fully abundant in the loyalty that he has for others and that others will have for him. Cause me and you and m everyone I'm sure that he's friends with, we would all go to bat for him. Completely. And I just as a thought experiment, it's like What are the other versions of F U That actually are more valuable than having FU money. Have you ever thought about something like this?

That's a great question. So what else what are the other options besides loyalty? Like my trainer, uh my personal trainer, he's got like F you happiness. We're like The guy's happy no matter what's going on. Which is kinda the way that F your money works, it's like

Dude, he'll do whatever because he like he just doesn't give a shit. He just doesn't care. My trainers like that with he just doesn't give a shit. There's traffic. Oh, I'm having a party in my car. Oh, this person cut me off. Well, oh I'm you know, whatever. He just makes his own version of it of like he's always in a good mood, no matter what is going on. He's completely unconditional. He's completely Invincible. I think you have it. I think you have that. I aspire to have that.

N well, in my opinion, from my perspective, you have that. I was thinking the other day, I'm like When does Sean ever get rattled? Uh, or does he ever get like stressed and unhappy? And there's been stories And I've seen it firsthand where someone has said something to you rude or You've had

something didn't break your way and it and it it was a tough break. And You're you're hard to like get down. I mean, I've been with you when you've lost a bunch. I've been I've seen you loop make a bunch, but I've seen you lose in a variety of bets that you've taken. You don't get rattled. You tweeted out something the other day. You said um

You're Yeah. Tucker. Butthole. What was it? I was like, everybody's got a butt clench number. It's a it's an amount of money where it makes your butthole pucker up a little bit. It's good to know where your pucker number is right now. And just keep note of that. And I was like,'cause I had just wired a bunch of money. And like it's not even that I was like wor it's not even that I was like worried, oh I'm gonna lose it. But I was literally like, let me just double check the routing number. Let me just make sure I got that right, which I don't usually

Like I don't usually bother to be like, Okay, uh palms are a little sweaty, let's go ahead and hit the button. Like if you're gonna do it, I do that with a thousand dollars. I don't know if you've got like animation when you're gonna send an email, you know you know the one I'm talking about, where it's the monkey's finger about to push the sand and it's sweating and it's trembling. 'Cause it's like you're about to email your whole list. Let's just are you sure you got all the details right? That's like That's the pucker number for for some people with their email list. And so I think everybody's gotta know it. Your number was high. I I I'm like that with a thousand. And so when I think about like

Why am I stressed about certain things? I definitely try to think You know, um There was uh, who was it? I think it was JFK. He had a photo of Abe Lincoln on his desk and he goes, I just always try to ask myself, what what would Abe do? Sometimes when I get stressed, I think, what would Neville Medora do? And what would Sean Purry do? Like how would they handle this? Neville Medora is another person who has no stress. There was one time when he was trying to he had never owned a house and he was thinking about buying a house and

He had never thought about finances'cause he's been making a great living for years and years and years. And he never thought about money. Buy whatever he wants. And he was thinking about what house he wanted and he was just gonna pay cash, like or something like that, where it was like a big investment, his first big investment. And he was talking to my wife and I and he goes I couldn't go to bed last night. I be'cause I was thinking about buying this house and I can't buy exactly everything I want and I actually have to like

Second guess some of the things. And then he we were just sitting there, we didn't say a word, and he looked at Sarah and he goes Is that stress? And we were like, Yeah, dude, that's what stress is. Like finally you experienced it at the age of thirty eight years old. And uh you go to a doctor. He's like I have a ticking sensation. What is this thing where I stay up Like for an hour last night just thinking about this, and you and Neville have that same thing where you have a very high tolerance. It's crazy when you see it, because people take pride.

They're like Man, I don't tolerate no disrespect. And it's like what are you really saying there? What you're really saying is like what do you say? You t you tolerate it? You can't disrespect me. If you say something, that says something about you, not me. What you can't bother me. Like you know, uh there's a great way Tony Robbins said this. He goes Um, how cheap is your happiness?

Meaning if all it takes is somebody doing something really little to take your happiness away. Your happiness is cheap. You you got the TJ Maxx of happiness, right? You are the low you are the dollar store of your of your m your mood is in the dollar store, right? Anybody can go get it for so little. Someone could just take the grocery cart in front of you that you want it and now you're a little bit ped, right? Right? Like Don't be cheap with your happiness. Be expensive. Be luxury. I heard a very funny story about you. And if this violates anything, we'll delete it.

So I was with Ben last night for at Ramon's birthday. We did a little birthday thing for Ramon. Ben told me this funny story about how you were thinking about writing a book. And you meet with this amazing author. And the author asks you something. Or maybe he was like, Why do you need my help? And you were like, Well, I think I can do it. I think I'm I'm talented enough to do it.

I just don't have the time right now and I just would rather you do it. And you said something. That I guess this guy thought that you were being rude. And the guy in the middle of the meeting goes, Well

Stop the conversation. I'm out of here. This is not a good fit. And instead of being insulted, your your takeaway was Wow, I I really respect that about you.

You did a great job of like standing up for yourself. Uh where I don't know what happened to here's the very sensitively. Here's the story of what happened. Um We agree with this guy. He's a book development guy. So basically there's there's somebody in between an editor A publisher, a writer, and a book development guy's just the guy who's gonna help you think through the concept and flesh it out, right?

So I'm like, who's the best in the world at this, right? And a question I will always ask, Who's the best in the world at doing this? I want to talk to them. So I've meet this guy who's the best in the world at doing this. And what he asked me was not why do you want to write this? I didn't say I don't have time. What he said was, What do you want to write about? And I go, Oh I go, I think I could write about anything. I was like, I could write a book about storytelling, I could write a book about marketing. I was like, I feel like that's actually the the problem. And maybe I'll write multiple books. I don't know, but I want to I was like, I have so many ideas. I want you to help me think through which of those ideas. And he goes, That's a nightmare.

He goes, That's probably the worst answer you could give to somebody like me. He goes, I want somebody Who spent ten years, twenty years of their life only thinking about one thing. And that's the thing that they need to pour into a book. The guy who's like, Oh, I can write about any anything and everything, oh God, that's gonna be miserable for me to figure out. And he like ended the meeting like He didn't end the meeting. No. He did but he goes, That would not he's like he's like that I don't want to do that. That's not a fit for me. So he didn't end the meeting, but he's just he's just was like I'm gonna be honest with you.

And I go. I t I was like, All you did was make me want you more. I was like, That's exactly what I want out of my development guy. Yeah. Push back because the the speech I had given about What are the things I could write about and why? It was a good speech. It was an A plus speech. It was only sixty seconds long, but I was like I made a strong point there. And whenever s ever sene ever somebody can say the truth in the face of my persuasion

I have an extreme amount of respect for them. It's not about generic pushback. It's about truth. The guy said the true thing, which was That's not what you want when you're writing a book. What you want is I have my whole life has been building up to this one book and this one moment and this one thing that I can't wait to pour out of me because I've I've refined it in my head for 10 years. And I was like

That's actually right. And I want to work with you even more now. But I also agree with you and that you're completely right. Thank you. And I was like I th I like thanked him profusely for that. The same thing happened the other day on a tax call. Well, by the way, my my point being is I think that's a really healthy way that you approached it.

Let me tell you about a more offensive thing uh that happened that was uh also not offensive to me. I have been looking for a a tax person and I was like, um so I created this whole like tax data room and I sent it to a couple of people. I was like, hey I heard you're good. Take a look at my situation and tell me what you think. And most of them they're like, Hey, took a look at this. I did three calls. First call, door number one.

Guy goes. Um Hey, took a look at everything, looks really good. I have two suggestions of maybe if you did this instead, you could save some money. So okay, thank you for your suggestion. Person number two says

Hey, this looks uh this looks great. Uh you know, congratulations on all your success. Um You know, I definitely think we can handle this for you. We have other clients that are similar and I feel really confident about it. I said, Okay, thank you for that. Uh See?

Not quite what I'm looking for, but but okay, thank you. Third third door. I get on the call and this guy goes Alright, I took a look at everything and um I'll be honest with you.

You have way too much complexity for how much money you make. I was like Thank you. I feel the same way. But a part of me, my ego was like Uh did you look at the numbers? They're going up. That's actually twenty twenty two. Twenty twenty three is better better, and twenty twenty four is gonna be great. Like my ego wanted to be like, Are you saying

I'm a broke little bitch.'Cause like that's what I heard. Well, you heard that lady that that writer say That's cute. And she didn't actually say that. In my head, what I heard was You're too poor for me. Thank you. Like you know, I I don't really want to do this. And I felt that for like fifteen seconds. But then

More than that, you know, I and I let myself have the feeling for fifteen seconds of like my ego like being deflated like a you know, uh a pin pricking my balloon there. But I was like, what do I actually want? Let me remember what I actually want. And I hired the third guy, of course. I was like, I totally agree. Can you help me fix this up? And he's like, and then as we were talking, he's like, Actually, now that you've told me more A lot of this does make sense'cause the trajectory trajectory but like You know, I still think we need to simplify

And I still think that like, you know, you really gotta ask yourself Do I really want to optimize all this for taxes or would I rather just spend my time making, you know, actually growing the business and making more money? And I'm like, You sir are exactly what I've been looking for. And even though that first punch Hit me right in the gut. And I wanted to get defensive.

I have learned that that gets me no absolutely nowhere. And I just let that feeling go in fifteen seconds. And that's actually the tip, by the way. Everybody has the same feelings. It's just that some people hold that for like Ten years. Some people get mad for three days. And then the goal is like, can you just have the feeling for thirty seconds and move on? And like I don't think that should be the goal, dude. Rage is an amazing motivator. I have achieved a whole lot.

Remembering being dumped by a high school girlfriend. You've had great accomplishments. But You should probably remember that like you want all those accomplishments'cause that you think they're gonna make you feel better. And feeling rage is not the better you seek.

So you can deal with that. We can deal with that way, right? Just remember the thing. You want the feeling you think the thing is gonna give you. And using rage to get there's not the way. Abs aren't built in the kitchen. They're built by an eighth grade girlfriend telling you that you're not good enough. Just remember that. Abs are built by a crumbled up Valentine car. Yeah. Yeah. Bro, can I tell you a funny story? I was in seventh sixth or seventh grade. And I really like this girl, Rachel.

And I was like, uh, I wrote this like poem Valentine thing, like basically like folded it up, I cut it out. I write this thing. And I uh show it to her and she I I show it I I don't I don't know what I did, but like I basically gave it to her. I think I was so nervous that I didn't even Say anything.

I just like handed her a note and I'm standing there and she opens it up. And she reads it and she's like, Oh my God, Sean, this is so sweet and I'm like Worked. And she's like, This is amazing. Um

Who's this for? And I'm like, I'm like And in my head I was like I could sh just be courageous and be like, this is for you. R I love you. Actually turns out that I seventh grade love you.

But it said I was like It's for Chelsea. I just made up a name and she's like, Who's Chelsea? I was like, She doesn't go here. And I was like And I was like And she's like, What? And I'm like, Yeah, you know that, um

That improv content. She was at that. I met her. She goes to another school. She's like Did she just made the most elaborate line? And for three months I kept up this charade that there's some girl that I met that likes me and I like her and that note I showed you well that was for her. That's what that's where I was. That's where I was. I don't know how I don't have abs by now. That was pretty devastating. Somehow that didn't even work for me. So you gotta use that rage to get those abs. Although that's it. I hope she listens to this Rachel. I hope you're listening to this.

There was no Chelsea. There was you were Chelsea. There was no Chelsea. Now she knows. That's awesome. Um That's it. That's the episode. That's the part. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to

I put my law in it like my day song On the roadless travel never looking back

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