#199 - The Secret to Being Great

I had this thought, oh, this is what it would have been like to talk to Bill Gates at twenty one. Yeah. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my all in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back So this episode is gonna be it might be shorter than normal, right?

Yeah, I think so. Okay. I wanted I just drove Uh Like

thirty hours and I listened to a ton of content. I wanna tell you, Sean, about some of the stuff that I listen to and why it's interesting. Is that what you want to do for this entire episode? Yeah, let's do it. And I'm sure you'll have some stuff. Um Uh that you consume. Okay, the first one. I found this podcast that has like Actually let's see, how many reviews? I I think like no reviews. I think it

I emailed the guy. He's amazing. But uh it's called How to Take Over the World. We should just have this guy, we should just absorb this guy's uh podcast. We need to acquire this guy's podcast. This should just be on our feed. Wait, did you did you c listen to it? No, I'm just looking at the description of it and then the gems that you just told me and I'm like this should be part of MFM. This is great. It's amazing this guy. He uh

He it's like his his hobby and he really they're so in depth. So it's called How to Take Over the World. What I think he's doing is You know, a lot of biographies of great people like Napoleon uh Julius Caesar, the Rothschild. They're like eight hundred to a thousand pages. So it's like a real commitment to read it. So he just reads it and he takes notes. In one episode he did one on Napoleon. He goes, I have sixty page or Thomas Edison, he goes, I have sixty pages of notes. And he just reads the book and takes notes and then just explains and tells stories from the book and does it in chronological chronological order. And it's basically turns if you listen to a thousand page book.

On audio on Audible? It's something like forty or fifty hours. But with him, I just listened to this two hour podcast and I feel like I've just read most of the book. It's pretty amazing. But he also gives his analysis about it. And so I listened to a few of them. I listened to one on Edison. One on Napoleon and one on the Rothschild Rothschilds. And there's Three commonalities that I want to tell you about these guys.

So do you know who Rothschild is? Rothschild, am I saying it right? Yeah. So basically it was started by this guy named Anchel Rothschild in the seventeen hundreds. He basically built like the Amazon of Um

This his little ghetto in in in Germany. Where he would sell like He would mail you an item and if you wanted it, you would send him money. And it wasn't like that big, but eventually he started He grew that over fifty years and started investing in stuff, and then his kids started the Goldman Sachs of

of Europe. So it was like a long uh slow build up to building this family business. So I'm gonna tell you three things that I've noticed that these folks had in common. The first All of them enjoyed their work. So there's a story where Nat Nathan Rothschild This um This one woman was talking to him, he's like, Uh You know, I hope you better hope that your kids aren't addicted to work like you are, and he goes

Oh no, I hope they are because I love what I'm doing. And I don't ever want to stop. Uh same with Napoleon. Someone said Napoleon What What's your heritage? What race are you?

I'm of the race of men who found empires. Yeah. Uh like they're addicted to it. Like they love it. They they can't they can't not do it.

Same with Edison. Edison He was like nice to his kids and nice to his wife, but he was really never around and they called he called his um uh his studio which was in Menlo Park. I believe it's called Menla Park in New Jersey, and they said that it it it looked like a homeless uh encampment because there's these men in suits, but they were just like laying around on the floor and sleeping there because they would do their best work from midnight to six AM and they would just sleep below under their desk and they're like, Well why are you doing this? He's like

Because there's so much to do and we love it. Like we can't not do this. So they all enjoyed their work. The second thing Crazy, crazy high energy. So super high energy. So the Napoleon he went to Egypt to go conquer something, and on his way he stopped in like some island where he like reorganized the government in three weeks and he And he changed the currency just

They all have crazy high energy. And that's something that I didn't actually think was a big deal, but they all had crazy uh high energy. Now here's the third thing that I found to be kind of interesting. A lot of the successful people that I'm learning about on this podcast, they eat very, very, very little. So like Edison would only drink milk sometimes for months. Steve Jobs For months? For months. Milk. Steve dude, you remember Steve Jobs how he had a fruit?

Yeah, I I was gonna say he's a fruititarian or whatever. Uh it was the same thing. He used to only eat like Lunch. And it was just fruit. You know, or something like that for a period of time. Rockefeller or uh Rockefeller and Vanderbilt were this way too. Like in their first in like the it was it's all when they're all described of like look, he ate very little, typically didn't eat breakfast, ate very little, they're all like physically hungry, and that physical hungry hunger, some it does actually seem like it leads to some type of like success.

Yeah, okay. So let me give you my take on all three of these. So you said Uh they really enjoy their work. Like their work feels like play is the way I would describe it where they didn't feel like they were f forcing themselves to do something. They just couldn't wait to go keep doing it. I would also say there's an obsession there. Now like is like I'm obsessed with stuff. Like is that do I enjoy it? I don't know if I enjoy it, but like I it the O C D forces you it there's an obsession.

So there's a Conor McGregor fight this Saturday and he has this great kind of like monologue from back When he was a nobody, but he was talking about it, he goes. He goes, I've lost my mind to this game. He goes I think you must do that. I think you must become obsessed. You want to lose your mind to your craft.

And uh I've seen that as like a common thing for a lot of people and and that actually relates to the eight very little. A lot of time you get so engrossed. And what you're doing. You just forget to eat, you forget to go to the rest restroom, you f you forget what time it is, you forget the c you know, w you should sleep, or you forget to pay that bill.

Because you become completely obsessed and en engross in what you're doing and you get in in a flow state, really. And in a flow state. You um you sort of block out a lot of the other stuff that's going on. And so I think that's that's those two sort of go hand in hand. Um and then the high energy I'm curious what that means to you. So that's like

It doesn't mean like you're bouncing off the walls. Right. Yeah, that's what I imagined. What did you mean? No, it doesn't mean that you're bouncing off the walls, but for example When I go And w when I'm at a conference Um, like let's say it's my conference, or let's say it's uh at our at our talk that we did the other day. How did you feel at the end of that?

The live shows? Yeah. Uh I thought Kinda drained. I felt drained, I felt exhausted.

Yeah. But what I think What I think high energy means is I felt just so worn out then. But

I think that some people they would feel good and they'd be like, All right, let's go like get some more deals done. Let's go invest like like like I invest a little bit of money, but if I was a full time investor, you're doing deals all day and For me, by like four or five o'clock, I'm like oh I can't talk to another person, I'm exhausted, I can't think about this anymore. But I've seen some people that can do it all day and they just aren't worn out. They just keep going and going and going and going. Right. That's what I mean. Yeah, I I'm with you on that. Um

Yeah, I can I think this is cool and I like the um the study of of the sort of Study of greatness. And what I've also found is that like We've talked about this before. It's like would you want to be Elon Musk? Would you want to be like basically this stuff comes at a at a pretty big sacrifice um for other things in life. Family

Often. Um you know. relationships, you know, it's hard to relate to people or spend time with friends or anything like that if you're doing this. So When you uh so I'm like you, I like digesting these, I like Knowing it?

But then over time I've learned that like the goal is not to be Steve Jobs or act like Steve Jobs or anything. I just kind of am fascinated by it. In the same way that like I'm fascinated about how you know a r rhinoceros moves and eats and I don't necessarily want to be a rhinoceros. I just find it interesting that it's extreme creature. I love freaks.

I like the freak show. And these guys are freak shows. I also love bold people. I admire anyone who's bold. So, for example, uh I was reading a book about Steve McQueen, he was just an actor. like he didn't change the world. He probably didn't work that hard, but he was like known for like saying his opinion and he like lived a very like free life. that and it's like in the same field. I like these people. I like men who'll who'll do what they say and they say like things that are different than other people. But then also I love these freak shows like Napoleon. Now let's actually talk about each of these. Thomas Edison Like Elon, a bunch of divorces. One of his wives died from a morphine overdose. His kids didn't really like him or get to know him that well, even though he was like a kind guy, but he was never around. Napoleon died on an island because they kicked him out and he died basically with nothing alone in an island off the coast of Africa. Rothschild

Um He he the the the I mean they were okay. The they actually had good ideals, but Um W with a lot of successful people like this, yeah, you don't actually wanna be them necessarily. Yeah. Um okay, so what else uh what else you got? So you consume that, what else do you consume?

Okay, have you read uh Naval's Almanac? Yeah, shout out to um Jack Butcher. No no s uh E Eric, right? Eric Jorg I think Jorgensen's the last name. Yeah, he was the main guy and Jack uh animated it or whatever. Yeah. Oh there it is. So

Naval has uh so it's a two part I actually don't know how it came to be. Did Naval just do a bunch of podcasts and interviews and he summarized Naval's feelings? Yeah, basically. So Naval had been putting out his content for years. different podcasts and stuff like that. And Lot people like me and Eric and others were

Big fans of it. And what he did was he said, All right. Uh you I don't know if you've ever bought the book or have the book Poor Char Poor Charlie's Almanac. I think that's what this rift off of, which is Charlie Munger. Who's Warren Buffett's business partner. It was like about Charlie Munker.

And so uh he tried to make you know, if Naval is one of the good great thinkers of our time. Then he tried to make The compilation of all the shit Naval said. He took it from All the times Naval talked about wealth. And it

pulled it all together and put it all in one place and distilled it down. And this book uh is broken into two parts. The first is wealth, the second is happiness. I found the wealth stuff to be a little bit boring. Um I don't even remember I I actually skipped over a lot of it. I I don't even remember what he said about wealth. Do you? Yeah, I mean I think it's it's the same thing that that we've talked about on here, but he has this Tweet storm that went ultra, ultra viral, like maybe I don't know. fifty to a hundred million people have seen it by now.

And it's called How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky and he talks about These four things. I I I can go into it or I can skip it if you want to talk about that. Yeah, basically his summary is like, you know Here's some of the principles that over you know, Naval's become very wealthy and over time he sort of learned for himself. He wanted to be wealthy as a kid'cause he grew up pretty poor.

And he wanted to be wealthy. And he wanted to be wealthy Not in a way that required outlier luck. And he says this great thing, which is like, you know, I wanna if I lived life a hundred times, I wanna end up wealthy, you know, ninety eight. Uh ninety nine times or like If you took away all my wealth now and you drop me, you know, butt naked in in the streets of of Bangalore

Um I wanna be able to again in five, ten years end up rich again. And so that means I actually understand the principles of how this is done and I'm not relying on Un luck. And so he talks about those principles and he basically says

You know, you want to have These like three or four things. So well first. Stop renting out your time. You'll never get rich renting out your time, which is You know Ninety something percent of people are employees somewhere.

You are basically renting your time to an employer. And um you'll never become wealthy, or you rarely will become wealthy. With that path. uh you you become wealthy by owning a piece of a business. Either as an investor or as a business owner.

Or as an employee who has shares, like Employees at Google or Facebook who have seen Yeah, a gr got a lot of wealth by the appreciation of those shares. And so um Then he talks about, you know, how do you how do you get to that point? Well you need

A few things you want. Um you know, you s what he calls specific knowledge, which is basically like Like Sam, you know how to grow a newsletter. You know how to write content, you know copywriting, right? You know certain things.

And so you need specific knowledge. Then you pair that with accountability. So you want to Do it in the name of the hustle or Sam. or some brand

that uh accrues that reputation. So you wanna Put your name on the line. and say I'm gonna do this thing and so that when you do it, you get paid for it. You know, the people at the hustle who write your daily newsletter Um but are less n well known.

They actually have certain skills, they have certain unique knowledge, specific knowledge, but they don't have the account, they're not putting up the accountability. They're not living and dying by the sword of this. News that are working or not. Um, maybe inside the company they are, but not externally. And then you have leverage, so You know, back in the day, if you wrote something, you would maybe distribute it locally on your newspaper or on a flyer or something like that.

Um, but with the internet you have leverage where you can put this in on email and you can send it you can put the same amount of work in to write the email once. You could send it to a hundred thousand people, a million people, or ten million people. It's the same amount of work because you have tremendous leverage through technology. And so basically he talks about like a Use these three things.

Get specific knowledge. be accountable, put your name on the line. That way you get the risk and the reward. And lastly, apply leverage to maximize the the value that you get out of the thing. That's kind of the the basic formula. And the whole book basically Um

It's broken down to this idea of Um life is about Health, wealth. And happiness or sorry. Wealth.

Health. happiness. And he says we actually pursue it. We go we pursue wealth, then we do health, then we do happiness. And he's like That's actually a fine way to pursue it. It's

That's a very practical and fine way to pursue it. The reality is is that the it's the reverse is true, like the in terms of importance. So it's happiness. Yeah. Happiness, health, wealth. But it's whatever, it's fine. I pursue that way. And He has this beautiful line in the book where he says something like Of course.

Once you get the wealth. you're gonna see that it's actually not nearly as important as you thought but You're not gonna listen to me and you have to pretty much discover it on your own. Yeah, you're not gonna listen to me. I wouldn't have listened to me. Um yeah.

the type of person who's attracted to this content, you know, they're they're gonna go through the same thing. You have to learn that the hard way. And so that was pretty interesting. So I liked that, but the second half is all about happiness. And there was a few things that kinda stuck out stuck out to me. The first is that um he basically acknowledged he w he was like Look. Don't worry it well then let me preface this by saying Naval interests me because

He's like I mean, he's probably a billionaire, I'd have to imagine. He started Angelus, which is a multi billion dollar company. He's an investor, like he's in the game. And he acknowledges that I'm in the game and so like this is a little bit hypocritical. But basically he was like what I have found is that a happiness must be a choice. Like I've been unhappy for decades. And then I decided, you know, I'm going to be happy. And he steals a lot of ph uh philosophy from stoicism and he steals a lot of it from Buddha uh Buddhism.

And the idea here is that like your past is unimportant and the future is unimportant and To say that you wanna do X, Y, and Z for legacy, that's bullshit because what's gonna happen is when you die, it's gonna be as if you're You know, if it's the same. Feeling that you had before you were born, which is like nothing. So like who cares about some bullshit legacy? Which is like hard to fight against, right? Uh

But And he he's like it only matters about the about the present and where you are now. And that gets a little bit fluffy, but I still thought it was really useful. And Oddly, did you if you read the book He talks about not working hard. He was like you actually should only do work that feels like play.

And I thought that was kinda cool. And he's like Life's too short, by the way, just to grind and work your ass off. Which again, I'm like, But Naval, you're like a billionaire, like there is this like well you know, how do you uh I have to like kinda come to grasp with with us a little bit. But

I thought it was cool. He also talks about um very oddly gives diet advice. He's like just don't eat sugar. Stay away from sugar. Do high intensity interval training.

And stretch a lot. Yeah. And he he even says, he goes, uh I try not to tell he's like, you know I don't talk too much about health because I'm Pretty good at health, I'm okay.

But I'm not self actualizing that, meaning like In wealth, he's done better than ninety nine point nine percent of people. Uh so you know for him to talk about it, well he's self actualized it. He has actually done it. uh for himself and seeing it done by many other people and so he feels comfortable putting out his whole philosophy on it. He's like in terms of health, like

I'll say some general things that you you you know, it's hard to argue against. But I try not to talk too much about it, even though it's very important because I myself you know for many years didn't have an exercise routine or wasn't you know the best eater. And now I'm better, but I'm still not the best. I'm not world class at that. I'm not ninety-nine point nine percent at at that one. I I'll I could tell one story. So

I called a friend and and This is almost like stuff I've read or listened to in the last like Four days, which is a lot. But I want I uh I I had a friend and this is all related to what we're this is related to what we were talking about earlier about crazy people. I love freaks.

And I had a friend call and tell me about their best friend. And let me tell you this story. So there's this guy I'm gonna change some details'cause I don't he w wanna reveal it. He was an accountant. And on some large deals that he was working on. At the age of like thirty, he was able to

save up one to two million dollars. I think it was two million dollars at the age of thirty. He was single He lived relatively frugaly, but he worked on some he worked at a big company, he was just an employee, but he worked on such a deal that he was able to capture like some of the commissions and he made like two million bucks. With that two million dollars, he Angel invested a little bit. And one of his angel investments made like half a million dollars. And so here he is sitting with like two and a half to three million dollars at the age of mid thirties. Okay.

About last Twenty months ago, when was Bitcoin six thousand dollars? Yeah. year and a half, two years ago. Or no, sorry, when it was three thousand uh whatever it was, he put three million dollars

Into Bitcoin. Everything you had. Everything one hundred percent of everything he had, to the point of like I think he like saved like ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars for living expenses. He put most everything he had. And also he borrowed money. I don't I'm not uh he was able to borrow money.

Uh somehow like through like like as simple as like Robin Hood gives you a little bit of margin, but he was able to borrow money. to the point of like he was in debt a significant amount of money. And he bought A ton of bitcoin.

Well Last December when it hit sixty five or sixty three thousand dollars. His Three million dollars.

Turned into a round. A hundred million dollars. And he sold About half of it. So he's got like this cushion. And then he up and left and moved to another country. And

he lives there because he's like, you know, I I'm just I believe that like this country is the future. And the point of the story is I'm not like this crazy person. I don't think you are either. You have a family, you're not gonna up and move them. Although you will take Interesting bats.

But And I recognize I'm not this human being. I am Сонкфо. that crazy people like this exist. For our amusement. Not for our amusement necessarily, but like the world need like his boldness was like rooted in some type of selfishness. He wants to get risk, uh ri get rich. But that type of boldness, even though this may not be the best example, but that

personality type is what pushes society forward. And actually does weird crazy stuff that ends up becoming normal and common for us. Right. Dude, I don't know if I I don't think this is uncommon. But I feel special the way I feel special that I'm this way, but I know.

This is actually Most people, I think. But I Fucking love uh greatness in any field. Like you could just be like, hey

Um You play billiards? I'm like nah. Check this out. This person's the best in the world of billiards. Tell me more. I saw watching them. I'll watch them for eight hours straight. I'll then go watch the documentary about them. And then I'll go find the like, you know, the book about them, and I'll just keep going deep because. There's something about greatness.

That um is just so like attractive to me. And so recently, uh do you watch the T V show Dave? Yeah. Of course. I like uh what's the guy's name? The Ril Dicky. Yeah, Lil Dicky.

So Dave is a show that I started watching And I love Dave. Dave is like a hilarious show to me. And it's like a very unique show, right? Uh and and It's not like most TV shows, not made like most T V shows. It uses like everybody's real names. It's like kind of set in Hollywood, it's this guy's story of trying to be a big rapper, which is his real story. And then it's kinda like He's not like it's not entourage where he's just like cool and cool shit keeps happening, models keep throwing themselves at him. It's like

The opposite. Uh He's kind of like a nerdy Jewish guy who happens to Be an aspiring rapper and You know, things happen to him that are not so great all the time. And so um

I just love this dude. This dude is like he's so talented. He's very talented as a rapper. If you've if you haven't listened to the uh little Dicky Sway freestyle. We should put that whole freestyle at the end of this episode. Dan do that. Just grab the whole audio for that freestyle and put it at the end of this episode. One where he gives the girl flowers. That freestyle is amazing. Although I mean, obviously it's not an actual freestyle. And then um you know to be to then go into like How he marketed himself. So he's a former ad agency guy. Who

got his job at an agency but and was like writing a rap song for like Doritos to like win the client, win the gig win the account. Then leaves to go become an actual rapper. He his story is kinda like he Uh W he works for a long time on his album, doesn't show anyone, has no results to show for it.

kinda like runs out of time and money doing this. And then like launches his first music video and it like goes viral and because he had put so much work into his craft. of like making this work. And he's completely authentic, right? So like back to a Navalism. Escape competition through authenticity.

Uh, most of the things you want occur in very competitive spaces, and the answer is not to try to out compete everybody. Like being better, because everybody's trying to be better. The way to do it is to be different. The way to be different, the easiest way to be different is to be completely you because nobody can be better at you than you. You've been you your whole life. You have a lifetime of experience at it. And so similarly for Dave. Uh he his niche in rapping is like

Being you know, an awkward white guy rapper just kind of growing through life. Um trying to get with women and failing sometimes and sometimes succeeding and Et cetera, et cetera. Um

And so I think the he this guy is so impressive to me. And so I love finding these like, you know Whether it's in in the UFC, that's why I love Conor McGregor and his rise, because Early on I was like this guy seems like he's full of greatness and then you see it play out and you're like wow that was amazing.

uh Dave in the rap scene. So this look and you're talking about this with Edison And some of the books that you're con Naval, like some of the the content you're consuming. Um I don't know, like what do you think? Are we kind of like Are we unique in this or is this does I feel like everybody loves greatness, right? But is there something different about the way we approach it? I I I think that uh I think it's because a We have a privil we've been privileged in that

You and I have seen people who have a We have seen like dozens of people accomplish things that A, most people like like hear rumors about or movies about, like like no, I know this person. They And a lot of them it's financial, but you know, they sold their company, they made five hundred million dollars. Like we know many people have done that, and so we like we firsthand know like, man, greatness is real and you could self actualize. We know it's real. The second thing is we know people that have it created or invented or worked on things that everyone else takes for granted and you're like, dude, you have no idea what it takes to

Like uh to have like made that a reality. It just it's so impressive. And I think that Um because of that. Yeah, we like

u appreciate bold people who are also capable. Right. So I I think a lot of people are like that, but not that many people. For example, when I go to a convenience store and there's like a sign taped to the door, I'm like Do you have any fucking pride? Fix that shit. Like put a proper frame. Like do this the right way. It like be the best. That's why you detest you detest lack of I can't stand that.

But like e but you know, there's a reason why, like we're not the only ones. There's a reason why Jiro what's that Jiro loves sushi or Jiro Sushi, yeah. Yeah, like Nike. Nike's whole marketing is not about the rubber and their shoes. It's about like great athletes. Cause everybody loves great athletes. Uh that's an easy one that everybody loves. No, I I but I like it. Like when I look at like I'm I don't care about weightlifting, but I'm looking at weightlifter I'm like dude the gay look how this guy's like weighing his food every single day and getting up at five thirty, like just for the like I just I I I love that. Um So we'll um

Let me move on to one more thing, but uh yeah, I do. I love greatness. And I'll tell you these last two things that I've read. Can I can leave one point on that? I would say Definitely a lot of good has come it has come from being a fan of greatness. Um But I would say try to be a fan of greatness, not a fan of the people.

Um, and the reason I say that is because what often happens is when people get really into greatness, they go study these people and then they their and their net conclusion is wow, they're great. And they're different than me and I they sort of like separate it's almost like oh that's a different species. Um And there's a s there's a way to do this that's better, which is basically You take you get entertainment and inspiration from them.

An education from them of the things that they do. But like Don't Count yourself as something different. Treat yourself like that's that's you. You're them. You're you are no different than them. They are just like you. They're just, you know, made of the same things as you, had the same doubts as you, had the same insecurities as you, had the same struggles as you.

And uh and so like don't like create this divide of the great people and then you because then it's counterproductive. Then every time you you learn about their greatness, it reinforces this kind of like negative perception of yourself. Instead. If you think about yourself just like them, it then every time you learn about them.

It creates a positive reinforcement about what you can also do. And I'll tell you just the last few things that I consumed this week that made a difference. The first is not or the the last couple, nonviolent communication. It's real touchy feely. You know what nonviolent communication is? I've never read it, but I've heard about it. Yeah. It's a way to speak, uh, in a way, I guess, I don't know, how would you explain it? Basically I have a problem. Like I suck at dealing with people. Like my emotions get the best of me. I get angry at people and I communicate stuff and I'm like, Why am I getting angry? Like this is so counterproductive. I do this with Sarah, I've done it with you before, I've done it with all my co workers. I just communicate horribly. So I'm actually trying to learn a better way to communicate, a more effective way to communicate. And this is like giving you a toolkit. So it's basically like it just gives you like a better way to talk to people. So you give us uh one nugget from it. So what's what's one tweak.

Dude, it's really hard. It's like like it's so opposite of how I do things. So it for example, like Like there's like a like a okay, so the I th there's a lot someone who's an expert on this is gonna like criticize me on how I'm explaining it, but it's quite complicated for me because it's so not normal. But basically the idea here is like look, I'm not gonna judge you for you telling me this. I'm not gonna get angry, I'm not gonna judge you, but I actually just wanna clarify. Like so you feel like this, correct? Okay.

Well what I need from you is X, Y, and Z. Are you able to like Are we able to can I get that from you or no? And then It's like that type of like very like crystal clear. And then like you'll say things like, Look, can you repeat back what you thought I said? So for example, Um

I'll tell you to do something and I'll say And you'll say, Okay, fine, I'll be like, Can you repeat back? Well, you said if you you don't do this you're gonna yell at you Let me find a better example. Okay. Uh my wife and I we got into like an argument over uh I forget what we got into an argument over, but I said, um, can you repeat back to me what you thought I said? Well, you said it's g it's gonna piss you off if you if I do this again. And I was like

No. I actually didn't mean to express the idea of I'm gonna be angry at you. It was just like it hurts my feelings when this happens. You know what I mean? So it's a different it's a different way to communicate. I'm not good at it. This is why I'm reading this fucking book. Clearly I can barely describe the the damn thing. The last thing Or the second to last thing.

The courage to be disliked. Great book. I started getting into it. Um Because after Naval, and it's just like there's a few takeaways here. I'll read the f the my four takeaways. The first is it's dangerous to believe that your past determines your future. I know it's fluffy. If you focus on what's wrong with you, you might be looking for reasons to hate yourself on purpose. Again, fluffy. Third, most of what we think is competition is just made up and is hurting your happiness. And four, This is like

Crazy woo woo. Basically life is just a bunch of like sounds and lights and like the emotion we assign emotion to it. And so you don't actually like you can assign a happy emotion or not. So that's the last one. And then the last article I read that made a big difference. There's this New Yorker article written in two thousand and fourteen about Sam Altman. Have you ever read this? Mm, maybe. I I like to study Sam Baltman, but I haven't I don't remember this one.

Writ it's written in two thousand sixteen on the New Yorker. It's called Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny. And I was re reading this and I want to tell you a few reasons. First, in two thousand and sixteen, he talks about this. they ask him what his hobbies are and what he does when he's not working. He goes uh uh I like racing cars, I like renting planes and flying them. Oh, and I've got one odd thing that I like. I like to prep for prep for survival. Seeing their b bewilderment, he explained. My problem

Uh sorry. I'm butchering this. The problem is when my friends get drunk, they talk about ways the world will end. After a Dutch lab modified H five N1 bird flu viruses five years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of lethal virus being released in the next twenty years will become Well, non zero.

So I have A Plot of land. In Big Sur that I can fly to I have

Antibiotics. Batteries, water, gas masks made by Israel Defense Force. All ready to go. This was in two thousand sixteen. That's kinda cool, right? He also talks about basically he sold his company

And he uh he goes. He profited five million and he invested all of it in startups, which I thought was pretty crazy because we're talking about like crazy freaks. Um It's just a really good article. I think people should read this because Sam Altman is like a a freak weirdo, and that's like a compliment. Um,'cause we're talking about extreme personalities and I think it's like a really cool insight and it's one of the only artic long form articles I've ever seen written about'em. So I I've been rereading that uh this week. That's a cool one. I'm gonna check that out. I I remember Paul Graham had once said something, uh and Paul Graham's obviously a fam fan Sam Albin because he

program started Y Combinator and then he put Same Altman in charge of it. Um and Sam Altman was by no means the most successful Y C alumni at the time, I think. His company sold for thirty million, but it was kind of like Many ways a failure. It didn't succeed.

full for thirty. Yeah, exactly. Um and so I think he got some out of it, but you know, whatever. But Uh Paul Graham once said like He's like when I was talking to Sam Altman, I think maybe for the first time or second time, he's like I had this thought, Oh, this is what it would have been like to talk to Bill Gates at twenty one.

And uh like that's like pretty high praise for somebody, so I th I thought that was like pretty cool um Yeah, and there's the there's a lot of weird things about Altman that I love. I should come up with a better word than weird, but peculiar things. So for example, listen to this sentence. In a class that Altman taught at Stanford in 2014, so which by the way, in 2014, he must have been like twenty-eight. He remarked that the formula for estimating a startup's chance of success is something like idea, times, product. times execution, times team, times luck, where luck is a random number between zero and ten thousand. And like Like little lines like that, I just think it's crazy that someone thinks like that. And it just

It's peculiar, it's exciting, it's really neat. There's another story where he um He's working with the Wrian Chusky, the CEO of Airbnb, and they're about to pitch in front of everyone at uh Y C and there's this great line Where he says

Brian Chester goes, I attribute a lot of our success uh to Sam Altman and Y C. And they're like, Well, why? He was like, Well Right before our deck. Uh they We had a limited project we had our deck, it was all built out. We had limited our projected revenue on the deck to thirty million dollars, Chesky said. Sam stopped us and looked at us and goes

Do me a favor, take all those M's. You know, the thirty million And change them to bees. Altman recalls telling them, Either you don't believe everything you said in the rest of the deck about how how big this is gonna be, or you're ashamed, or I just can't do math. Yeah. And he just said, Change all the M to Bs. And I think like that weird type of thinking is actually pretty interesting.

Yeah, people who can cut through the noise and just like get get straight to the heart of it. Um all right. This is cool. This is kind of like stuff that Sam's been reading and listening to Stuff we've been consuming. I enjoy the conversation. I don't know. Dan, what do you think? Is this gonna be a good pod? Yeah, I think it's cool.

I think it'd be a fun thing to check in every couple of weeks or a month. Alright, well let's see. But that's the episode. Little dicky. Your turn to rock. Wonder, drop a beat on him.

Uh. Way in the morning, Shame 45. Turn the beat up your headphones. Get that headphones okay. Turn it up. Turn it up OQ Alright. So you know, there we go. Right. Lil' old dick and I'm backin' this bitch, I know y'all know when I rap what it is, all facts don't fib. Got a gang full of hits in touch with the kids like a beato. Uh I'ma jam like Shaq, I'ma bang when I wish. Up in this bitch like a feed us. Ain't no timelines when you time list. Hold up, MJ 96, meaning I'm back on my bullshit. You know I come hard like a full dick. Suburban and white.

Stay with the bread like some cool wig though Look how it spreads Cool Wip flow I can make him right with an IG live And my girl got bombs and a baj And between her legs is looking right hypot and loose Uh Bring it all down Hold up sway Let me bring it all down Been out here citizenship Look at how I got everybody tuned in right now They would probably watch this for an hour Tracy, I brought you flour. Gas out the ass like flatulence. I was slept on like mattresses. I got my hair right aspirin. I'm cashing in, I'm cashing in, I'm not about to hold a paper and display it like a thumbtack. No touchback, they about to run us back. And if you ever met me, you're root for me, sharp shit. Come on, I'm a dome, I'm a unicorn. Part of my breath, only perky said I fuck with his breast Elevator kissing hose of Durin's Freaky Friday I get in I'm like Chris wait sway pass me the rod get it post jab up fake

Huh, jumping at him. Two shots at the line. I got him like a mime, O do Back I might cut on a dime, blow in the dark, see me anytime. Used to put the Xbox controller on my dick and let it vibrate How I jerk off as a child Came a long way. Now I'm like, hey, girl, you, me, fuck, and the shit work. Hey, her brother looking at me like hey, fuck it, bro. This way, her brother looking at me like, hey, fuck it, bro. I'm like Kareem Abdul, Kareem Abdul Jabbar. These hooks got me scoring. See me coming from afar, rapping in France, I never need an advance. I'm switching it up like I'm trans. Although I'm the Trojan man, I'm eating the pussy like cervical cancer. I know where I'm going, but shit, if my GPS died, I sleep in my sedan, I can't do the schmurter dance.

Sometimes I'll catch it for a minute. OJ with it, y'all wonder how I did it My mom hit me once she lugged in suit but I'll stomp y'all out like a Dominican suit All the shoe brands wanted me to sign I remember they thought I was lonely I'll and there will not be another like me I could go viral if I put out a snippet I'm sick like a coder you really could get it I'll always be playing just like I'm embedded I got a leg up like Ottomans, though, and my television show is coming, but that is irrelevant. Right now I'm rapping like presence skips. How did I get here? I got big, rapping like Diddy, I'm prevalent. Hold up, let me find the melody. All my fans are getting mad at me. They just wanna hear me spazzing out, but I just had to put a couple smashers out. How is this shit a pop star? Rap name is a dick joke, how did he make it that far? Good pussy at the crib like a house cat. They waiting on my buzz like the outbag. In and out with the bag like I make tea When I do shop and squeeze, eyebrows long like AD, Girls get wet like Navy, color like I'm Steph and shoot cream. Players in the NBA text me If I want a diet coke, someone brings me diet coke All my live shows nuts like our expos Testoco. Hold up wait, let me outlive my shit. Look at my penmanship.

I'm a Carl Junior model. Just on the side like soccer mom, I could've sold you stockin' bonds. Happen so fast like Rama dine, the autobine, the shaman running down the bond, from Parsons arm, I'm off the farm, I'm on the court, the jumbo tron is on the boy, they're playing my song, LeBron is not him. Am I James Worthy? Look at my bars, I'm made up like Bernie. Oh, we having fun. Girls see me and start blushing just because I'm around. I used to always get a boner at my physical sway. If this is cultural appropriation, what can I say? What would you have me do? You know I gotta rap. But the times now are scary. Hold up, wait, take a step back, Dave. Think about the shit. Internet is a permanent place. This is gonna live forever. Read, analyze, think about everything. I'm such an idiot. I used to cover R. Kelly songs at my shows without even knowing it was problematic. I feel the pressure, under more scrutiny.

What I do, act more Jewishly. Come on, Sway, write my eulogy. Am I living like I need to get a job or living like I need a bodyguard? I play tennis with Leonardo, how y'all train on track like cargo. I go dumb, don't dumb it up. Don't fuck on planes, but I'm coming up. Add up my views to sum it up. I was just on sports center, dun dun dun. I think this is good, I've done enough. My hair is look mad like Son of a now let me go and finish on my album Jesse Smollett. You know I'm gonna fuck it up.

Catch a flight. Thank you. One gun and out, Kel. You see how that man did that right? That last line. He always does a line that gets to me, man. Oh my God. The one and only Lil Dickey, ladies and gentlemen.

You're a man of your words. Mm-hmm. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my all in it like my days off On a road less travel never looking back

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