David Senra - Lessons from Napoleon, Steve Jobs, Joan of Arc & Other Leaders | Ben Wilson

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

Ben Wilson is the host of “How To Take Over The World,” which is one of my favorite podcasts. How To Take Over The World examines history’s greatest leaders and conquerors, and has benefited millions of people. In this episode, we talk about the common traits among the individuals he has studied such as Napoleon, Leonardo da Vinci, Joan of Arc, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and more. We also discuss the fact that Ben is battling advanced cancer.  He’s a good guy, a close friend, and one of my favorite podcasters. He has four young children. Please watch this episode and see if you can help with medicine, introductions, or donations. GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ben-fight-cancer-support-his-treatment (00:00:00) What Ben has learned from making How to Take Over the World and studying history’s greatest leaders. (00:55:51) Living like you're dying. Ben on facing cancer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Wilson has stage four cancer and four small kids. I wanted to have him on the podcast to talk about his work on the How to Take Over the World Podcast, which is, in my opinion, one of the best podcasts ever created and talk about what it's like dealing with terminal cancer at such a young age. I also want to ask you for help in any way that you can. Ben is a good man and he's been dealt a bad hand. Please watch this podcast and see if you can help with medicine, introductions or donations. It doesn't matter if you have $5 to spare or $5,000.

in any little bit can help Ben's family through this devastating time. He's a good guy and a close friend. Please help in any way that you can. All right, talk to me about zeal. Zeal is the word that we all use, right? So nowadays zeal means that you are... Of course all, we all use? No, I don't think it's in everybody's everyday vocabulary.

Well, it means you get excited about something, right? You're zealous for something. But it had a very specific definition to the ancient Greeks. So Aristotle defines zeal as a type of pain. It is felt by someone. when they see another who is like them in nature, who has accomplished good or admirable things that the other person is capable of but has not yet achieved.

You can see it in a lot of famous historical people. So one of my favorite stories of Zeal is Thomas Edison. He's 21 years old. He's a telegraph operator, young, smart guy. Those are kind of like the programmers, tech, you know, guys of their age. And he's reading this biography of Michael Faraday. who's an inventor from the generation before. And he's reading the biography of Faraday.

His roommate goes to bed. His roommate wakes up in the morning, and Edison is just finishing the biography. He stayed up all night reading this biography of Michael Faraday. Slam shut the biography, throws it on the table, and says, Faraday accomplished so much. I am already 21 years old. I might live to be 50.

Can I accomplish as much as he did? I am going to hustle. That's what he says. I'm going to hustle. I love that line. And so he really felt this pain because he recognized someone who was like him, Faraday, who had accomplished so much more than he had. And so he wanted to compete with him across the generations. And you see that same story play out with Julius Caesar, looking at Alexander the Great. You see it with Rockefeller and kind of the generation that came before. Amos Lawrence is the first person that he really aspires to be like. And so it's this, very unique source of inspiration, zeal, of seeing someone who came before you and wanting to compete with them because they accomplished so much, but it's very common among the great achievers across all domains. Yeah, I love the fact that anytime you read biographies of Edison, he's obsessed with the word hustle. When he invented the phonograph, he was talking to some guy and he's like, hey, if you could hear any historical figures voice, you know, that's long since dead,

who would you choose? And the guy asked the question, he's like, well, I would choose Jesus. And Edison's like, I would choose Napoleon. And he's like, why Napoleon? He goes, I like the hustler. I like a hustler. Yeah. So what are some other examples of Zeal? Like, how do you think about the work that you do personally?

Because you're studying people with Zeal. I guess we should back up and give some people's context. I've been telling people for years that I think you're one of the best podcasters in the world. How to Take Over the World is another solo history podcast. I think there's a lot of overlap between the work that you did with how to take over the world and the work that I did with founders. And so we wind up, you know, studying a lot of same people, reading a lot of same books. We've been texting back and forth for years about book recommendations.

But like, I understand the presence of zeal in these historical figures. I see it just like you do when I read these books. But like, how do you think about your own life then? Well, two things. I mean, I think I've made it sort of my life mission to help people with that, right? Because you need to find people who are like you in character in order to have that sort of connection. So, for example, if I read about Leonardo da Vinci, amazing story. I love it. I can learn a lot. But fundamentally, I don't feel that sense of zeal because

his brain is so different from mine. It's like studying an alien. I could just never do what he did. And so by presenting all these different stories to people that I do and how to take over the world, I'm hoping that, you know, you can listen to those. Some of those people, you think, okay, cool, interesting, but not really for me. But you find one of those stories that just resonates deep in your heart, and soul and gives you that moment of, no, that person is like me. I could accomplish what they did, but I haven't yet. And it gives you that pain and that sort of motivation to start on that journey. That's how I think about that process.

So wait, if you don't identify with Da Vinci, who do you identify with? So someone like Walt Disney, for example, I read that story and I think, ooh, I could accomplish something like that. Like, that's someone who is, maybe not exactly. He's obviously an enormously talented person. But that's someone who I feel like their personality is more similar to mine. And so it does give me a little bit more of that feeling. Tell me more about how you did the similarities and personality between you and Walt.

Walt was a very creative person, of course. So the first thing that anyone knows about Walt Disney. But this is someone who created empires of the mind, who was a creative leader who got people to buy into a certain aesthetic vision. And I think on some level, I have that ability to do that. of the most famous things about my podcast is the intro music that people know and get very excited about it and I was able to do that myself just messing around in a garage band I'm very anti-podcast intro I know you're always like I was just like it's always like the worst version of something like I think about what um back in the uh that when when Steve Jobs came back to Apple I know you've done a tonne episodes

on on Steve Jobs too and netbooks were really really popular and they were pressuring Steve and even like his friend Larry Ellis was like why aren't you building net He's netbooks. And he goes, because there's just shitty laptops. And so he said, instead of being, in his words, instead of taking resources and building a shitty laptop, a product shouldn't exist, he redirected them and they wind up inventing the iPad. And like, I thought that shift was like very interesting. So that's the way I feel about like intro music for podcast.

Yours is the lone example where I'm like, this is excellent. I didn't know till just now that you were the one that made that. Yeah, I, in a fit of inspiration. And it's funny because people early on tried to hire me to make and treat me to make and music for other podcasts, and I just couldn't do it. It was really just 60 minutes of magic. I mean, that's how long it took me. I kind of figured out the beat. I figured out the vocal tone that I liked. I grabbed a few quotes, and boom, it was done in a flash. It was just like one of those magical moments of inspiration. And anyway, so, so, yeah, Walt was a creative, someone who built empires

of the mind. When I think about someone like Da Vinci in that, like, actual artistic skill, because Walt was an okay artist. He was not a great animator, but he was not a great animator. But DaVinci was. He was exceptional. He just had that kind of eye hand-eye coordination that I guess I lack and just the ability to perceive things in a certain way that I just don't think I see the world the way that he does. And his curiosity goes in a different direction. Walt was also an extremely curious person, but he was curious about things that never were,

about things that could be created. Da Vinci was curious about things as they are in the world. And I think I lean more toward that Walt Disney model of things as they could be and never have been before. Yeah, I remember I was like poking a little fun of you a few months ago through text messages

because I was going to Tuscany I was like, I read Isaacson's biography of DaVinci, which is great, but it's like 800 pages. And I was like, give me the best Da Vinci book that you were read. And I'm in Tuscan. It was so bad. I literally left it.

at the hotel. It's like, he would have this. And I was like, Ben, what the hell was that? It was like pages and pages about just like the way that he would draw like a hand that was like bent. I'm like, why did you tell me to read this? Like, I really enjoyed that part. Well, because I think it's difficult to understand Da Vinci and what he did unless you do,

at least on some level, grasp the science of what he was doing and what had come before. So anyway, but it did get a little bit in the weeds. I'll give that to you. I think that's an interesting observation that, essentially. he had the most attention to detail of things that exist. Like, you know, his notebooks are famous. Like how, like, all a little detail in like a leaf, for example, where Walt was like, I want to invent things and bring things to life that don't exist.

They're what you called Empires of the Mind. Da Vinci and Isaac Newton, they both, they did it in different ways, which I thought was interesting. Da Vinci would write in his notebook, describe, and then he would write something. Whereas Isaac Newton would write out actual questions of things that. that he wanted to answer. The thing that I love about Isaac Newton with his notebooks, which are similar to DaVinci's in some ways, but he called it his waste book.

In other words, like his trash book, like his book of scraps and notes. And I think everyone should have a waste book because it really takes off the pressure of what you're thinking about, right? Of I don't have to come up with anything refined, I don't have to come up with anything insightful. This is just where I'm gonna dump my wasteful thoughts.

And I think it's in those moments of, of unimpeded creativity that you have some of your most insightful realizations. Do you have notebooks? Do you have journals? Do you do this? Tons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's in them? Waste. Like, a lot of trash, you know, a lot of trash. Or personal? What is this, though? I have one for each. So I do keep a journal, and I started keeping, like, a very detailed journal since I got diagnosed with cancer. But then I also have a lot of creative notebooks where I will draw very poorly. I will. I will. will plan out episodes. I'll just kind of start writing kind of thoughts on historical figures

and their place in history and how they might relate to my own life. Just kind of little essays, mini essays, just paragraph long. And I get some of my best insights that I end up pulling out of there and putting into scripts for episodes from that. Talk to Rick Rubin about this because he said, you know, he's worked with all the, probably some of the most talented artists that have ever existed in music. And he said something was interesting one time where he said that Eminem might be the most obsessive artist he's ever worked with. And I asked him to elaborate on that. And he was just like, well, he's just constantly writing.

And if you look, he's like, nobody's got, not millions, but, you know, hundreds of notebooks. And Rick asked him one day, he's like, well, how much of what you're writing do you actually use? He's like almost none of it. Again, it gives you that feeling of openness, which I think is really essential in any creative pursuit. Of course, there's a time that comes for refining and for polishing. But if you try and start there, you know, I think everyone's had that feeling.

at least in like high school, you're trying to write an essay, you get that blank page, and you just have no idea where to start. For me, the introductions to my episodes are the hardest part. And so if I let myself get stuck there, then nothing good ever happens. And so I will just write the most garbage, you know, Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, you know, like just terrible, terrible introductions so that I can just get into the meat of the episode and I can just get the juices flowing and then I can return to that intro and work on it later. Why did you start how to take over the world to begin this? Well, because I wanted it to exist in the world.

Essentially, I was reading this biography of Napoleon and I found myself extremely inspired. And at the time, I was listening to the Tim Ferriss podcast. Love Tim. And he had done three or four interviews in a row that I just wasn't interested in. And so I started thinking to myself, who do I wish Tim Ferriss would interview? And I realized I wished Tim Ferriss could interview Napoleon. Obviously, that was impossible, but I immediately had the realization, well, I could do that. I could be Tim Ferriss for dead people, was the idea that popped into my mind.

And so I immediately went and searched for it. Who's already doing this? And I really would have been content just to find a podcast and start listening to it. But I couldn't find it. And so I thought, oh, okay, there's no way that I'm the only person who's interested in this. so I'll make it. And so that's where the idea came from. What year is this?

2018. Okay. Was Napoleon your first episode? Napoleon was my first episode. Which biography? Andrew Roberts. Of course. Yeah.

Create biography. Napoleon was the first one. I decided to call it how to take over the world. But I didn't want people to get the idea that it was just conquerors. So from there, so it was Napoleon, and then it was Steve Jobs. And then kind of the formula was set for the next eight years in my life. So what do you think are some more of the ideas that you learned from studying these people and from reading these books that you applied to your own? life, whether it's work or personal.

Well, it's a big question, right? Because I do think that, like, there's so much. And as life goes on, certain lessons stand out to you more at certain times than others, right? I know you do a lot of the same biographies, right? Because reading it with a fresh set of eyes, it's just like an entire new experience. You mean rereading the books? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rereading the books.

It's a new experience. But, like, some of the things I've been thinking about recently, for example, is, I think you'd actually do an exceptional job of this with founders, which is the most important realizations are negative realizations, are things that you should not do or things that you should not focus on. So one of the great examples, Steve Jobs, he's at Next, right? He leaves Apple, he founds Next. And they go to this retreat in Carmel, and he's got his founding team there.

And they lay out their five top priorities for a next machine. And it has to be under $10,000. It has to come out by such and such a date. It has to have this computing capabilities. It's got to have, you know, certain other capabilities, five things. Okay. And so we ask the sounding team of these, which is the highest priority? What is the most important?

And so they go around and they discuss that everyone makes the case for the thing that they're working on. Their CMO is advocating for something. their head of software is advocating for something else, head of hardware is advocating for something else. And they get to the end, and he says, okay, well, the answer is all of the priorities. We have to have all of these things. As a result, it comes out late,

it comes out over-budget, it comes out over-engineered. The next machine is a terrible machine. It was so bad. It almost put them in a business, and then he had to sell off his hardware division. Do people don't know. There's a time in Steve Jobs' life where he was a software entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah. Against his own wishes. Yes, and even the software itself should have been really successful, and he almost submarines that as well. He manages to get an okay exit out of next, but I mean, he tanks it. 13 years are terrible. Me and you just read the book. I think it's called like Steve Jobs in Exile, which I'd highly recommend. Really good book.

Okay. And so then you fast forward 10 years. So he is a, at this point in time, he is a terrible executive. That's, I mean, objectively, both in the way he's leading and in the results that he gets when it comes to the market. Flash forward 10 years, he has returned to Apple, and his mindset has totally changed, where now he's able to make tradeoffs. And so he looks at the iPod,

and he says, okay, this is a device that is under-engineered in a lot of ways. There are already other MP3 players on the market that have more storage capacity, can read more file formats, can do more, just more robust MP3 players. And he says, you know, I don't think, any of that matters. I think the only thing that matters is getting a great user experience that makes it easy for people to quickly get to their music. And so they go to market with this

iPod, this mp3 player that is deficient in all these ways. And then it's one of the most successful products of all time because he is able to make that tradeoff, right, of saying this, all these things don't matter. And I think every great product, every great leader, every great decision comes from understanding that trade-off and realizing what does not matter. And I think, like I said at the beginning, you do a great job with us because founders, you said it doesn't have intro music. There's so much that it lacks that especially 10 years ago, people would have told you is necessary to a successful podcast.

And you just stripped all that away. And you said, I actually don't think any of that matters. The only thing that matters is connecting people to these stories and the insights. Me and you had a conversation about this like probably three years. go. And, you know, because you used script way more than I do. Like, I have my notes and highlights, but I, I could literally record an episode of founders today on the same book, do it again tomorrow. It's going to be a different episode. It's just like, whatever happens to be on top of mind at that time as I'm, like, reacting live to what's going on. And your whole thing was

just like, yeah, but what, like some kind of like cohesive story. I was like, that's not what I do. That's why I think our podcast are different in a sort of way, and that's fine, right? So it's going to be a different thing because you can think about, okay, the iPod was sort of under-engineered from a hardware standpoint, but had this really elegant software that connect to people. For other people, it's going to be the opposite trade-off, right? It's going to be something, you can look at Elon Musk with the original Tesla with the Roadster.

And people said it needs great range. It needs to be affordable because people who go for electric cars are very cost-conscious. They do it because they don't want to spend money on gas and that sort of thing. And he had sort of the opposite realization, which is, no, actually, we can go way up market, people don't care about any of that stuff

as long as it goes fast and it is cool and it's beautiful. I think he said sexy. Sexy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you can go, I mean, multiple examples from history that I can think of. This idea of breaking tradeoffs

that you and I've talked about in the past I think is really interesting. Your example for the Wright brothers, I think is really another great way to describe the idea that you're talking about. Do you want to tell you that? So that's where I had this original realization is reading about the Wright brothers

because at the time that they're trying to solve flight, there are dozens of other people trying to solve flight. It's popular at the time. It's like the AI of the moment, right? A lot of different people are working on it. Everyone realizes it's the future. So why do they succeed? Well, because everyone is doing the obvious thing,

and what's the obvious thing? You're trying to get something in the air. So you're focusing on propulsion and lift. You're focused on trying to make something fly. And Wilbur Wright realizes that's actually an easy problem to solve. The hard problem to solve is control, is once you're in the air, can you stay in the air? Because he actually realizes this from looking at birds. He's looking at birds and he realizes, wow, if you look at them, they're making microadjustments,

you know, multiple micro adjustments every second. They're shifting their wings. They're moving up and down. They're moving all the time. And so he realizes we actually don't need to focus on lift or on getting into the air at all. we need to focus on once we're in the air, how do we stay in the air? And so he goes to North Carolina,

he builds these gliders, and for multiple years, they are just working on control, on once we're in the air, how do we stay there? And a glider, really, it's like a big kite. It's the way to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And they go to North Carolina

because there's wind coming off the ocean all the time. And so they just have someone on the ground holding rope while he's in this giant kite, figuring out, all right, how do I steer, how do we change this thing to make it? so that we can stay in the air. At the end, he basically slaps an engine on it and it's done. He was right. Once you figure out how to stay in the air, the problem of lift was trivial. And so it was that realization that actually lift is not an important problem to solve that

allows them to focus on the more important thing. So why do you think breaking tradeoffs is such a profound idea? Because especially today, there are all sorts of ideas about things that matter. So, for example, your daily routine, I could tell you that yoga is important for your daily routine. I could tell you that lifting weights is important. I could tell you that journaling is important. I could tell you that meditating is important. And you'll find people that tell you all these things. So you have all these ideas of all these routines that you should be doing for your wellness, for your health, to be successful in life.

If you took all that advice, your day, your morning routine would go until like one in the afternoon. and you would never get anything accomplished, right? It's your ability to say, okay, one of these things actually is so important that you can take it to the negative, that you can say it's worth cutting out this and this and this and this in order to do. So until you are able to actually make a tradeoff, until you are able to say this is more valuable than that, things don't really matter. Like there's so many priorities competing for your time and attention. You have to be able to make tradeoffs if you're going to be successful.

How have you done that? You know, as Steve Jobs said, focus means saying no. So it's about all of the things that I don't do. All of the opportunities that you get as a podcaster that people bring to you that I'm sure you experience as well, that you just say, no, I'm not going to do that. So for example, I told you early on, people came to me and said, we want you to design our intro music. And so at the beginning, I was trying to do a lot of that work because it was money. And early on, I just needed money so that I could keep podcasting. But as time goes on, I just realized, no, I need to stop producing other people's podcasts.

You were producing my first million. Yeah. And eventually I just told them. That's how I found you. Yeah. I was like, I just need to get out of here. I need to focus on my own thing. I have to stop producing for other people. I have to stop launching these side businesses. I have to stop my agency, which I ended up shutting down and just focus on this one thing so that it can be as successful as it can be. Hey, real quick, instead of having ads in today's episode, my partners ramp, app-loving, and deal are donating to Ben Wilson's GoFundMe. If you are in the position to do so, please consider donating as well. The link to do so is in our show notes. I would greatly appreciate it. Okay, so we have a handful of ideas that you picked up from the eight years that you've been doing this project.

Zeal was one. The importance of breaking trade office is another. What else do you have? What makes someone a great leader? I mean, in many ways, that's like the question. That you're trying to answer. that I'm trying to answer. Through telling the life stories of these people.

That's right. Yeah. And in some ways it's different, right? Because I study conquerors and artists and entrepreneurs. But the thing I've been looking for is the through lines that connect all of those people. And actually, there's not that many, right? Because, again, people are very different. There's different archetypes of different types of leaders.

But there are a couple. And one of those things, and I think probably the most important, is number one, they have vision. Actually, one of my favorite quotes about vision comes from Genghis Khan. And I love it because it's from Genghis Khan, right? It's from like, and it sounds like Silicon Valley guru advice from like 2010, right? But his quote is, without the vision of a goal, a man cannot hope to manage his own life, let alone the life of others. And when I saw that, I thought, wow, it really is true that the same thing that makes Genghis Khan a great leader is the same thing. that makes Edwin Land or Steve Jobs a great leader.

They have vision. They have a goal. And then the second thing is that they're able to express or communicate that goal. So across any domain, these people are excellent communicators. That changes, the medium changes. Some of them are great writers. Some of them are great at writing essays. Some of them are better at long form.

some of them are great at 101, some masking you feet, but in any way, in any situation, in some way they are a great communicators. So they have a vision, and they're able to communicate it to a lot of people. And the third thing I would say is they are able to focus, so they're able to shut out everything else. And to me, those are like the three great through lines

of great leaders across industries, domains, conquerors, artists, entrepreneurs. That's what links them. But do you find as like you're selling these people, like you notice where you might be deficient in these traits? And are you able to like change your behavior once you have access to new information? I hope so. You know, it's not, I am trying to communicate it to other people and I'm trying to be helpful as a Sherpa to connect other people to great leaders. But I hope that I'm able to internalize those.

I try to. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that I'm doing it as well. I'm sure you do as well, right? Like you're trying to implement the stuff that you're learning into Founders podcast. The whole activity is just completely selfish. It's just like I didn't have positive examples in childhood. I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have anything.

The whole founders is just going to be 10 years old this month in like 10 days for now or something. And the whole idea came from this random interview with Elon Moss. I saw him in 2012. And he was asked, like, you come to his country, no money. You didn't know anybody. Did you have mentors? Like, who helped you? And he's like, no, I didn't have mentors.

I look for mentors in a historical context. And he says, I thought reading biographies and autobiographies were helpful. And the time it was like huge Matt. This is like huge Tesla fan. And they only had like the model last time. And he mentioned like Henry Ford and Nicola Tesla. And now I can't even remember the other people in there. I've probably seen it's putting.

Yeah, Edison. Yeah, Edison. They're basically the same person, by the way. Ben Franklin, uh, was another one. I wanted you to say more about that in one second. And I was like, oh, I should just like read more biographies and autobiographies. And you start doing that. And you're like, oh, this is super valuable because this person lives an entire life.

And then somebody, essentially the way I think about it was like, somebody had a 40-year career. Somebody spent multiple years writing about that, documenting all the less that person learned. I can read it in 40 hours and then turn into a podcast that you can listen to in 45 minutes. That compression is insanely valuable for people that, you know, where their time is excessively, you know, valuable and scarce. Yeah. Why do you think Edison and Musk or Edison and Elon are similar? Well, their lives are just linked in really remarkable ways.

Musk himself has pointed this out. He said the car company is called Tesla, but in many ways, I'm more similar to Thomas Edison than I am to Nikola Tesla. Because he is a great inventor, but more than that, he's also like a great industrialist. He's great at bringing products to market and making them successful. Their personalities are extremely similar. Their backgrounds are extremely similar. Their physiognomy, like they look very similar. They both have these massive heads that people would comment on.

like they there's even this one their fathers are very similar that they're both these kind of like entrepreneurial but kind of crazy and like they don't have a great relationship with them there's there's some wild stories in edison's biographies because you remember he was the most famous person when he was alive was the most famous person in america right and so like Walt Disney said edison versus hero jeff basil said edison was his hero like you hear this over and over again but i remember reading this book uh by edison i think was published in like 1957 and when he was like five or six years old, he, like, misbehaved, and they lived in, like, this little town or a little village. They literally put up a note saying that, come to the town square a Saturday morning and watch

me beat the shit out of my kid. That literally happened to him. And then you hear Elon tells these crazy stories. I think Eric Jorgensen was on this podcast earlier about his book of Elon, where I think Elon relates to a story one time where his dad gets in his face. I think Elon's like 10 or something. And he's just screaming for hours about how stupid and useless. and then he'll never be successful.

Well, and both of them were considered, like, actually kind of dumb as kids. So in Elon's case, it's probably because he's, like, a little autistic and has trouble communicating with people and emoting with them. In Edison's case, it was because he was mostly deaf, and so had trouble communicating with people for that reason. And so, yeah, they were not, like, shepherded towards greatness as children. They kind of had to fight for it because people didn't think they were right initially. there's even one weird biographical element where, you know, Ewan is from South Africa,

but his mother's family actually transplants. He has deep roots in America and Canada. So Ewan's family was in Canada, and he had like a great grandfather who was a, like a politically minded preacher who got in trouble with the government and so fled over the border from Canada to the U.S. and ended up living in like Minnesota or Iowa. Edison has his grandfather on his maternal side is like the exact same person,

but he was in the U.S., was kind of a preacher, kind of got in trouble with the government. People ran him out of town. They had to move to Canada across the border. So it's like weird biographical things between the two of them that make you wonder if it's like the same person reborn. It makes you believe in reincarnation.

You collect these things even more than I do where you pick up on these weird things. Like you just said a lot of these people have giant heads. People talk about how big their head is. Yeah. Oprah is one of those, by the way. Who? Oprah.

Yeah. So when she was an actress, like, they couldn't find hats for her that weren't big enough to fit over her. I have something. It was, like, tormented when I was a kid because my head, like, basically is this size, but I kind of grew into it. But, like, my brother, my friends were over when I was, like, an elementary school. And he's like, shut up, basketball head. I'm like, oh, no, he said the nickname. And then they brought it back to school.

And then they'd call me lollipop because I was super skinny and I had this giant round head. Yeah, yeah. But no, so you mentioned the big-headed thing. You mentioned that they had weird diets, which I think, didn't Edison, like, just drink milk or something? Milk. He was very in milk for a while. Yeah, I would only drink milk. They had weird diets.

And then insane levels of energy, though, is another thing that you would pick up on. Again, it's just, like, mentioned, sometimes it's not even a main part of a book. You're just like, oh, that's weird. It's, like, mentioned a few times about this guy has unusual, Napoleon's same thing, unusual levels of energy. Yeah, I mean, that was one of those things. I felt like I was going crazy, like a person with a cork board who's connecting all the strings. But like the first five biographies I did, Napoleon has a quote, if you want to dine well, dine with Campasaurus.

That's one of those two down. I was right. If you want to dine poorly, dine with LeBron. He's kind of making fun of him because he's German. If you want to dine quickly, dine with me. Because he would eat dinner in like 15 minutes, right, and get back to work. But his dinner was like a whole chicken. Yeah, well, well, no, because he ate, well, as he got older, he got kind of portly.

But when he was young, he was known for being a peccas eater. not only would eat quickly, but he would eat light. He would not eat very much at all. And it was commented on how little he ate. And then you read about Steve Jobs, and he has all these weird diets. He eats almost nothing. He'll go on diets where he only eats apples for months at a time, right?

And he eats very little. And then you read about Vladimir Putin. And this is someone who would eat like a boiled egg in a day, you know, as this entire diet. And then you read about Joan of Arc. And she fasts all the time, and she barely eats anything. And before I realized that I've got. like 20 stories of all these people who are all extremely light eaters. And it's like, wow,

something weird is going on here. And, you know, the realization I've come to is it's obviously not about the food, right? It's not about the food. But what it is, I think food is a good test for if you're obsessed with something. Do you find yourself skipping meals? Do you find yourself forgetting to eat? That is a really good litmus test for whether you are truly obsessed with something or not. And all these people are obsessives. And so, yes, they eat very pettishly because are so obsessed with something else. I think when you had these three ideas that you were connecting, I think the fourth one, you said focus, focusing maybe obsession could be interchangeable, but like I think you would have

to add, like the fourth like leg of that would have to be obsession. Obsession. Like they just don't write about books about normal, well-adjusted people. Like they're all obsessive. I mean, if you look back, even on that counter, it's probably, I don't know, 25 books. I see John D. Rogafel looking at me right now. It's just like every single person they wrote a book about it. It's just obsessive about weird shit.

I think for me, I would love to know what book you think best communicates that obsession. For me, there's one book I, well, there are a few books I reread, but there's one I reread every year. And it is Arnold's education of a bodybuilder. It's literally right back. It's on the right shelf. One, two, three, five books up. Yeah. I can see from here.

And it's because a lot of these biographies or autobiographies are written retrospectively. And education of a bodybuilder is written right in the middle of it. And you can just feel the obsession, right? This is someone who not was obsessed in the past and now has gotten to a better place. This is someone who is obsessed right now who can't stop thinking about bodybuilding and his craft. And so I just, even though I'm not... No, you were jacked. Yeah, I was more jacked.

Yeah. But anyway, but like that level of obsession comes through. I don't think I've found anyone who's better able to communicate what it feels like to be in that in the moment than education of bodybuilder. I think he just, he also does in that book because it's the first like 120 pages. You don't only have to read the first 120 pages because the second half of the book is literally his workouts. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember you that. I think it's 30 when the book is published. And, you know, I figure it's an autobiography of the first, you know, there's 30 years of his life.

But how you were just connecting all of these traits that appear across, whether they're a conqueror and artists, they were living in different parts of history, different parts of the country. or the world, rather, like, there's like through line there. He identified the same way that I got to the top of this weird, obscure profession because at the time being a bodybuilder

was, it was like a freak. Like, you're a weirdo. There was almost no money in it. It's like, what are you doing? I think when he started in Austria, he said there's like five bodybuilders in an entire country. Right.

It's like, his parents literally thought something was wrong with him. Yeah. And he's like, well, actually, if you like break down where I started and where I'm at, and where I'm at, and then look at all the things I used to get there.

He's like, I'm going to use the same exact playbook that I got to the top of bodybuilding, to build a business empire he talks about, to get to the top of movies. He didn't mention politics, I don't think. But he's like, no, I'm just going to take that same playbook, and he's calling a shot before he does it. He's only 30. He's like, I'm just going to run the same playbook and these same traits. And if I apply this discipline and obsession to whatever I aim it at, I will be successful.

It's incredible. Yeah. Well, and to the point about politics, you know, as a foreign-born person, he cannot be president of the United States. governor of California is basically the highest office that you can achieve for someone from his background and he achieved it right so yes like across four domains um he does it and he says that he is obsessed with the stories of Alexander the Great and Napoleon and people like that charlemagne yeah he he he loves that stuff and it's interesting because it was you talked about it was kind of looked down on and so like his parents are concerned like people it was viewed as shady and weird

But having said that, he talks about how once he is locked into a vision, a goal for himself, everyone starts helping him, right? People at lunch at his middle school, or I guess at this point he's in high school, are like, hey, Arnold, you need to get bigger. Have my milk. You know? Oh, like, you need to rest up for your competition. Let me carry that for you.

People are doing stuff. There's this good quote by Gerta, the author. He says, at the moment of commitment, the entire year. universe conspires to assist you. I love that. It's such a good quote. And you see that in the life of Arnold. Like when he commits and he has that vision and he articulates it to everyone, he's like, I know you guys think this is freakish, but I'm going to achieve this. Everyone is like, okay, what can I do to help? And all these strangers are helping it. I'm so glad you said that. I think that's such an important point. My friend Daniel Ak, the founder of Spotify, said this about me.

He's just like, you're very easy to understand, so therefore you're very easy to help. He's like, all you care about is podcasting. That's it. So it's like if somebody and you have this passionate, you try to preach to other people, and so therefore, if somebody wants to help you, you're very legible. Like, it's very, it's not like, oh, how can I help this guy? It's like, well, he's just a subset of podcasts. So there's a million different ways that you could help him in that domain. And I feel the great founders do this too. They're able to explain in just a handful of words, what's important to them. And the example I always use, like, if you went to the studio back there in the other house and you see on the desk where I record founders, they, there's just one sticky

note that's right in front of me. I don't even think you could see it on camera. And it says three words, insanely great products. And like Steve Jobs was able to describe what was important to him when he was 19 to when he was 55, insanely great products. Do you want to make insanely great products? Then come with me. If you're not interested in this, remove yourself from my life. He's very easy to understand. Yeah. I love that idea. That's a great framework. Make yourself easy to help. Yeah. Because that's connected, of course, to having a very clear vision. And once you do have a clear vision, once you make yourself easy to help, it really does. It feels like people are conspiring to assist you. That's what it's like it's something. It's

stuff just starts popping out of the woodwork to get you where you want to go. Tell me, you've studied way more, like, religious figures than I have. You've done more episodes on them. Tell me what you've learned about reading about these kind of people. Yeah, I've done a few religious figures, Jesus, Brigham Young, Joan of Arc. I mean, in some ways, actually, even though I'm a Latter-Dic Saint, so Brigham Young is the one most connected, and Jesus, are the most connected to my faith tradition.

Joan of Arc, even though she was Catholic, is maybe the one that has captured my attention the most. How much do you know about Joan of Arc? Almost nothing. Really interesting. I listened to that episode, but it was like three years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a long time ago.

I mean, really interesting, a really interesting person. I mean, she's a great example of what we're talking about, right? Because she comes onto a scene. She's like 15 years old. She's a girl. It's the middle ages. People are literally like swinging swords and throwing spears, right? She's no place on a battlefield.

She's so young. And besides being young, she fasts a lot. She's like malnour. She's this thin, right? She's little. And the French have been trying to kick the English out of France for years, for years and years of years, and making no progress. And she shows up and immediately, once the French start following her, they have success. And it's impossible to explain. It is actually one of those things that makes you start to believe in the divine because you're like, think what is going on here. But if you want to explain it, in a material sense. It just is there's only one thing that's different about her and everyone else, which is before her, the King of France and these dukes that are assisting him and all these field marshals, they all have these competing priorities

and all this stuff they're trying to do. And then here comes along this young girl who says, I have one priority. That one priority is winning this war against the English. God is on our side, follow me, we will be victorious. So she has just that clarity of vision. Then everyone lines up behind her, and they immediately start having success

because of that clarity. And so it's just this remarkable example of she lacks literally everything else except for focus and clarity of vision and only having that is enough to be victorious. I don't know why, but there's this great essay by Paul that comes to mind when I hear you speak about this.

It's just like, he was like, well, what's more predictive of success? Intelligence or determination. And he has this like thought experiment in there. He's like, well, let's say you started out with one person that's 100 out of 100 with intelligence and a hundred out of 100 with determination. He's like, it doesn't take long if you just keep the intelligence and you just take away determination. You have this brilliant yet ineffectual person. And he's writing to entrepreneurs and he goes, if you do the reverse where you keep determination

at 100 out of 100, but you take away intelligence. He's like, you have someone that winds up rich, but they have like trash hauling businesses or something. Right, right, right. They just won't stop. So they eventually stumble into something a way to serve other people, and they just keep doing

because their determinations at a maximum level. Well, you look at these people. I don't think Elon Musk is the smartest person at any of his companies. He's very, very smart. Don't get me wrong. He's extremely smart. But you could probably find an engineer

with a higher IQ at Tesla. Definitely at SpaceX. You could with a higher IQ than Elon. The same thing with Steve Jobs. He was not the smartest person at his company, but they are the most determined. Like you just, you don't find people like that. They are insane people in how determined they are.

Elon has a great quote. Someone asks him, how do you stay an optimist about, because he's trying to accomplish these big things. He's trying to go to Mars. He's trying to save the world in terms of, save our climate with electric cars, save the world from AI with GROC. And so they say, how do you keep your optimism?

And he says, optimism, pessimism, screw that. I'm going to get it done. And that's it. That's the level of determination. Like he doesn't think about optimism, whether he can do it or he can't do it. It's just, I have to do it. It has to be done. And so that feeling, that level of determination is what separates these people from everyone else.

I pleasure Brume Young episodes. You did two or three? Yeah. Multiple parts. Yeah. We're excellent. If that was your main takeaway from Jonah Bark, what would your main takeaway from Brigham be? Aren't you related to him? Yeah, he is my great-great-grandfather. From Brigham, I think it is my main takeaway was, A, again, finding something you believe in. This is someone who was a true believer. Number two, unceasing action. Again, this is someone who is not It's not that smart. Like a lot of the people who followed him

were a lot smarter than him. But this is someone who was unbelievably determined and was just relentless, just would not stop. You know, there's a good quote about another Latter-Dadee saint, Brandon Flowers, okay, lead singer of the Killers.

And the Killers were a part of all these group of bands that got big in the early 2000s. So you had The Killers, and you had Franz Ferdinand, and whatever. the Strokes. And they all have albums that hit it big around the same time.

Brand Flowers is Mormon, doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, doesn't smoke, doesn't really party. And so they were interviewing, I think he was the lead singer of The Strokes. And he was saying, we all had these hit albums at the same time. And like, we have a hit album

and we're touring and we're partying or having a good time. And like, I'm in the middle of this and all of a sudden I read, The Killers have put out another album. And I'm like, will you please calm down? We're trying to enjoy the fruits of our labor here.

And it's that feeling of relentlessness. That's what you get when when competitors talk about these people who succeed. It's always like, will you please slow down? Will you please act like a normal person? Because the level of determination, relentless action that they take is not normal. And you saw that in Brigham Young. I mean, he had more of that relentlessness than almost anyone I've ever read about. What about Jesus?

Jesus, of course, is, depending on your belief, like part God, it's difficult to square with everyone else. But Jesus, the thing that separates him is, well, one of the things you see in early Christianity is something that's similar to Nike. I remember reading about Nike, reading the biography of Phil Knight, you're kind of waiting for this moment of like, all right, when does stuff really, what changes? and soon you realize nothing changes.

The company grows 50% every year for like 20 years. And it's just this idea of compounding. And it's the same thing with Jesus. You're waiting for like kind of the big break of Christianity. And it never really happens. It's just Christianity grows like 50% per year every year for centuries until it becomes the dominant ideology in the entire world. Jesus is his ability to persuade, I think, is a number one thing that I took away from him.

There was something about him, and we can get into some of it. The Paul Johnson biography, I think, does a really good job. That's the one I read, because it's a biography of Jesus written by a believer. And my point was, like, my mom was, like, a Fundmental Christian, you know? Unfortunately, she, like, she took it to very extreme, like, she got diagnosed with cancer, and to the point where, like, she tried to pray her cancer way, you know? took me like two years to convince her to go to an oncologist. And then at that point, I'm living in Miami. She's in Orlando. And like, if I literally, I had to drive up there

to go to every appointment with her, because if I didn't go, she would just skip the appointments. So it's like, I have like a hard time reconciling this even to this day because like, you know, I went to church every single Sunday against my will, many cases like Wednesday night. But my point was it's like, I wanted to make an episode. Not, I wanted to make an episode as like if you believe that Jesus is, you know, Christ and God that you would get something out of it. And if you don't believe that, what are the facts that we don't, like, nothing supernatural. Just like, what do we actually know about the person that we know existed?

Right. And that I think Paul Johnson's biography is like the best, if you want that story, I think Paul Johnson's biography is the best book to read on that. Well, because Paul Johnson talks about how often the eyes Jesus are described. all the time in the New Testament. It's talking about, and Jesus looked, and Jesus beheld. It's always talking about

where he's looking in his eyes. And it's one of these things. This is another one that's, it's kind of like the light eater thing, but you're like, oh, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. So many of these people are light eaters. So many of them, people talk about their eyes. They have these intense stairs.

They have these intense eyes, these intense stairs. Whether that is Steve Jobs or Alexander Hamilton or Jesus, like all these people have these remarkable stairs. Out of the conquerors, the dictators, the religious figures, the artists, the entrepreneurs, if you could only study one category of these people personally,

what do you find most fascinating? Probably the conquerors. I just think that life is made of hierarchies. We're all competing in these different hierarchies, whether that is social, whether that is career, economic, athletic, artistic. People compete. That's what people do. And it forms these hierarchies. But the highest hierarchy, the one that kind of is at the top of everything else, is the hierarchy of violence.

The people who can most effectively channel violence, and that's conquerors. And so they are the ones who sit atop, like the artists, they commission all the great art. And the great merchants, the great entrepreneurs, the great founders, like, ultimately kind of have to be responsive to politics at the end of the day. So I think those are the most interesting stories because that is the pinnacle of human achievement, is conquest. Are there any other books that you reread every year? Like you said, do you reread the education of a bodybuilder by Amish Ristner? Well, when I read for fun every year is Ender's Game. I do read. Have you read Ender's Game? I don't think so. That's fiction that you would love.

Yeah. I listened to the audiobook. Okay. Yeah, because I think I was really interested in Sean Parker for a while. This is probably like 10 years ago. Whenever he popped up on Twitter one time and just had this epic run and it kind of disappeared. I was like, what is going on here? And I remember hearing him in an interview talk about Ender's Game.

I think I listened to the audiobook probably like a decade ago. Yeah, yeah. And then Mind of Napoleon, since I discovered it. I have reread that every year. I just did another episode on here. Again. Same thing. 300 pages of just Napoleon's own words, published in, again, 1956, 1957, like,

it's one of the best books you could ever read. One of the things that I think you highlighted well that I've been thinking about recently is Napoleon was an unbelievably religious person. And that's obviously not true in a traditional sense. He was not very Catholic. He was not like a believing Christian by any stretch of the imagination. But the way he talks about destiny, destiny was clearly his God. He says destiny must be fulfilled.

That is my chief doctrine. Yes. And he treated it destiny like God. He had this unbelievable faith in it. And I actually think that Steve Jobs was an incredibly religious person, too. He was a believer. Even though it's not a traditional, it was kind of this California, atheistic, agnostic, Buddhism, right?

But he really, really believed in it. And I think that sincerity of belief is part of what allowed them to be successful. I think people who are like kind of double-minded are always unstable and unable to make. What do you mean by double-minded? People who espouse things that they don't really believe in, who maybe believe only lukewarmly in what they're actually trying to pursue. Like, you are a great example of a real belief, like you believe in founders, in the mission of founders and what it's trying to accomplish. And you can tell there are certain podcasters you listen to. they mostly believe, but they don't totally believe in what they're doing.

We had a podcaster dinner last night, and you should see the text, my partner and co-founder Rob Moore sitting behind you. The text I sent him at like six this morning about, it's just like, oh boy. So, for example, Napoleon, true believer. Like, he kind of was able to cast aside Christianity because he didn't really believe in it and have this other religion that he very sincerely believed in. There's another, I can't remember which king it was of France, but he was a Protestant. He had grown up a Protestant, and they wouldn't accept him as king as a Protestant.

So he had to convert to Catholicism. So he said, Paris is worth a mass, and he converted to Catholicism. That king, of course, was not a great conqueror. You are never going to be someone who accomplishes great things in life if you don't have a genuine, sincere belief at the heart of what you do. I love the summary of that idea as double-minded. That is really great. That's a phrase from the Bible. I didn't come up with that.

I think that's in the Old Testament. A double-minded man is unstable in all ways. Yeah, the way I think about this is like we talked about a couple of traits that we've now. We've now added obsession as the fourth one. And maybe a fifth one would be like the ability to evangelize. And it doesn't matter like what it happened to be. Like I'm thinking of Rockefeller because I see him, you know, his face right now. And I'm like, what does he evangelize?

He wanted to impose order on what he saw is chaos. And the fact is, like, he, like, controlled not just a commodity, but an entire industry. There was brand new that he got in on, essentially from day one. And he was able to evangelize highly successful other founders in that same industry, to, like, sell their businesses and to come with me on this mission of imposing, you know, order into this chaos. Because Rockefeller has these two influences in life, his father, who has, who has, has a mania for money. His father is obsessed with money and he is... And having multiple families.

And having multiple families, right? He's a bigamist. He's a bigamist. He is a huckster. He's always selling these fake cures, whatever. He's mania for money. And his mother is incredibly religious, right? She's old Puritan stock, like real, real Christian woman. And he discovers this biography of Amos Lawrence, who gives away crisp dollar bills, is what he says. And he gives away $100,000 in his lifetime. And he's like 10 years old and he tells his his childhood friend i'm going to be worth a hundred thousand dollars someday i'm going to do it too and he like you know because amos lawrence is the guy who

gave away a hundred thousand dollars and he found in that the ability to bring together his two passions which were money and christianity and so he was able to to justify those two things and then have this like very sincere belief i think my favorite quote about belief comes from Phil Knight. And he talks about in Shoe Dog trying to sell encyclopedias and then trying to sell... Mutual funds. Yep, mutual funds.

He's not that great of a salesman. And then he starts trying to sell Tiger's Shoes. And he's an exceptional salesman. He'd sell like crazy. Can't keep them in stock. Yes. And he says, what is the difference between the first two things and the third? And he says, belief I decided.

Belief is irresistible. I love that quote. belief is irresistible. And it's so true. When you find someone who really believes, it's irresistible. Yeah, passion is infectious. Yeah. Like there's people, I always talk about this guy named Steve Ronella. You know, he's a podcaster, a writer, he makes this show on Netflix. He does a bunch of things, right? I think primarily he might describe himself as a writer and his writing is incredible. But he has a passion for the life of outdoors, hunting, fishing, camping. These are things I don't even do. but the guy is so, first of all, so intelligent and is mission-driven, right?

And so passionate. I said one time, I was like, this guy could read, he can make a podcast of reading the phone book and I would just listen to him. He's just like, I'm not even interested in the same subject he is, but his passion has infected me.

And then he's also taught me a ton of, a ton about like the natural world and history and all these other people that played a role and like the frontier and all this, all the crazy stuff. A lot of it being American history. Yeah, it's just like, got completely wrapped up in this guy's passion.

And he made me part of his mission. That's irresistible about it, right? It's like it's not even something you care about. And yet for that moment, you kind of get sucked into this vortex of passion. Yeah. And then he pulls like very similar to the work that you and I do. He pulls like these ideas or these principles out that he might have learned from on a very grueling 11-day hunt in Alaska. But they're applicable to whether you're building a company or conquering nation or, or, you know, creating a sculpture. It's like that these principles you can adapt.

you know, across these different domains, these different professions. Is there anything that you feel, because our work overlaps a lot, that, like, you have discovered that I'm missing? You really believe in the insights, and I really believe in the power of the story. And I don't think either of those approaches are wrong.

So I don't think there's anything missing. Like, I don't think there's anything I have found that you haven't found. There's at least nothing that comes to mind. Because, honestly, like, a lot of the lessons are, the lessons, you know, you learn them pretty quick. For me, that's why I like to focus on the stories, is because sometimes when it's framed in a slightly different way

with a slightly different problem or a slightly different setting, all of a sudden, it clicks for you. You know, Brigham Young, I learn the same things that I learned from Edwin Land or I learn from Joan of Arc. But just that slightly different setting, that different personality, the way the challenge is framed,

will make it click differently for you at a different time. So that's why I get very intrigued by the stories. And that's just why we have different approaches, I think. So that, I think, is the perfect time or spot to transition into, like, the second thing I want to talk to you about, which is, I've said, I think, a few times in this episode, like, you're one of my favorite podcasters. My life has greatly benefited from your work.

And I think you're world-class of what you do. And I think I've told you this even before you thought there was a business here. I remember these conversations we were having about like, hey, ditch the agency, stop producing, like doing all other stuff, right? I remember that one night when we were in Austin. It was me, you, and Cliff Weitzman. Do you remember this conversation? Yeah. And essentially, me, you and Cliff talked about your business and your podcast for like probably 90 minutes because both Cliff and I were like super fans of your work. And we're just like, man, if you just focus, like you have the thing, you've already done the difficult thing. And so, you know, obviously called you, I'll give some background.

here. I was about to record with Mickey Melka. I was in the Bay Area. And, you know, I try to sell ads for you all the time. I don't get any money off it. Just do it because I love you and I want you to succeed. And I remember like, hey, Ben, I only got like 60 seconds about to record. But do you have any, I have a good partner for you, I think. Do you have any ad inventory? And you're like, oh, well, something's going on with the podcast. I should, you know, I need to tell you about. And then I was like, all right, just tell me now. He's like, you know, I don't want to like ruin your recording. And I was like, Ben, what the fuck is going on? and you're like, I have cancer. And I was like, oh, shit.

And then I was like, I'm going to call you back and call you back when I'm done. And then we obviously talked about it. And then you did what I think is one of the most profound episodes I've ever heard, which is on how to take over the world feed, and it's called the cancer episode. And you lay out, like, what you're going through right now,

and then your perspective on this. It's just like, I don't know a word to say. It's remarkable. So can you just tell us like what's going on right now in your life and then what's going on in your mind as you go through this experience? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I was feeling terrible. I was feeling really bad. And I went in and saw a doctor and there's just this primary care doctor. I didn't even have a doctor because I don't like to go see the doctor. So I've met this woman for the first time. And I say, you know, I got all this stuff going on. I'm losing weight. I can't really explain it. And she starts poking around. around in my body and she pokes me and says, what's that? I said, I don't know. Where did she poke you up?

Right here, right, my liver. And she said, you need to go get scanned right away. And so I got scanned and I had a lot of cancer, like a lot of cancer. The point of some of these oncologists were like, how did you just keep functioning normally? How did you not come see a doctor earlier? What was your answer to that question? everything in my life, you get aches and pains, and they all go away. I had always gotten better. You know what I mean? My back hurts, okay. Rest a little bit. It'll get better. And so, yeah, stuff had started hurting, but I was getting older. And I just thought stuff would get better. And it was really only after months that I thought, this is really not normal. And so that's why. That's why I hadn't gone in earlier. I think that's true of a lot of men, by the way. So, you know, go get checked out if something feels off.

Didn't you say that you were initially reluctant to go the doctor and then you were putting your symptoms into Claude? Yes. Yeah, I still, like, I still was putting it off, even as things were getting worse. And I put my symptoms into Claude, and Claude sort of said, this isn't the kind of thing like going next week when you have a chance.

is the kind of thing like going right now, if you can't be seen right now, go to an emergency room. And glob was right. So if I had been untreated, if I lived in a world where there are no cancer treatments, I probably would have been dead within a few months. It was really really bad. I lost 40 pounds. So things were very bad. And the initial prognosis was one year. And if you go and look up the survival statistics for the type of cancer I had and the amount of spread that I had, the five-year survival rate is 0%. So this is all stuff I'm reading and it's very sobering. Having said that, the amount of new treatments that are coming out for all sorts of different types of cancers is remarkable. I mean, we live in a really remarkable age. And so I hope not to die in the next five years.

I have to like kind of live in two different worlds. One being I have to prepare. I have to prepare my family that I might not be here. But at the same time, I've also got to live like I've got my entire life in front of me because that also might be the case. And so that's where I've been. It's trying to like live two lives at once, one in which I die sometime in the next year and one in which I've got 20 years.

What kind of cancer do you have? It's called neuroendocrine. primary, neuroendocrine carcinoma, stage four, metastatic. So that just means neuroendocrine means the cells that form your endocrine system. So that's kind of your hormones, as well as your neurological system. So it's like your nerves. So it's those types of cells. It's very similar.

It's related to small cell, like smokers cancer, small cell lung cancer. but mine it started in the lungs as like a sort of very not-aggressive cancer and then at some point it spread to my liver and at that point it became metastatic and it transformed to mutated and became very aggressive where has it spread to the liver is the main thing and then the lungs and the spine and my brain the brain is maybe the biggest issue right now that we're trying to work with and on the episode you were talking to work with and on the episode you were talking about some kind of therapies and drugs that you were trying to do. What have you done so far? So far, I've just done chemo and I've finished chemotherapy for now, which is excellent. It feels great to be done. And now I'm starting on a drug called tarlatomab, which is, we call our second line. So the chemo did a good job of pushing back some of my cancer. I feel way better than I did at the beginning of this. And now we're just going to see if we can keep that going. And if tarlatomab works for me, then I've got great prospects.

And if it doesn't, then we've got to try and figure out something else in a hurry. I don't want to poke and prod you and make you uncomfortable, but you have four small kids. If there's anything that anybody in the audience can do to help you, we just don't want to give them as much detail as possible in surface area to hopefully find some lucky thing for us,

for you and your wife and your kids. So if you can describe, like, the drug that you're on, we are on the phone two days ago about this. Like, what is some of the process? What are the good news? Because essentially, like, you're just, we just need to buy you more time. Yeah.

Because there's just way more, whether it's AI, whether it's just immunotherapy, whether it's just new drugs. Like, we just need to buy more years, is what we're trying to do. So explain what's going on with this new drug. Yeah. So Tarlatomab is,

it's technically not an immunotherapy, but it's very similar to an immunotherapy. And, you know, the encouraging, What encouraging news is, Tarleinamam was initially approved for people with small cell lung cancer, and there helped extend life expectancies

by like six months to a year, which is still a good time that you would take. But there is a certain subset of people who have my type of cancer, who have only been on the drug for two years, and they've been on it for two years, and it's working. And that's all we know.

been two years, so maybe it's going to stop working any moment now, but maybe not. So that's the hope that we have right now. But the assumption that I'm trying to make is that this will last for a certain amount of time, this drug, tarlatamount. And so then we've got to find something else. Every cancer is unique. It's his own special snowflake, and it's got these different receptors, you know, different markers. And so one that I have is called Smarka or SmarkA4. And so that's one where there's not a lot of great therapies yet, but there are a lot of clinical trials. And so that's maybe the next thing that we're looking at is if tarlatomab stops working for me, then we go in some of these trials.

That's like the next thing that we can attack with this cancer. So I'm just about to start this new drug and hopefully can continue to keep things at bay. Is that covered under insurance? How does this work? Is it in short supply? So it initially was not covered under my insurance, but they just have. a new study that they got a positive indication for, like, just this month. And so now it is going to be covered, which is great news.

And so now the next thing that we're looking at is, can we enhance this with a custom mRNA vaccine to make it more effective? That's sort of right now the cutting edge of cancer treatment. And that's what we're looking at that spending money on right now. Do you want to talk about some of the same stuff you shared in terms of like your outlook? Like, you're a man of faith. Yeah. I don't have the same faith that you have.

I have no idea what happens after, you know, somebody dies. But I was just, again, I think that one of that episode you made is one of the most profound podcast episodes ever created. I can't imagine what you're going through. because your kids are all five under, right? You said in that episode where it's like, I think it was the quote maybe by Nietzsche, it's like, if I could live my life over again, the same exact way, I would like pick the same life.

So like, you're a good man. I've been telling you with this, like much better person than I am, for sure. You found, I think, something you love to do. You have this beautiful family. You have this faith. You have all these friends. You have everything that you wanted in life.

And that might be that, that, that future, like, deprive from you. And yet you're not like, the message you're putting out there is not like, oh, pity or woe is me or I'm all sad. It's like almost unbelievably positive for lack of a better description. I really, I just, I really believe that. Especially when you study history.

And you study, you know, I think about Napoleon, he's fighting in France in the war of the third or fourth coalition or whatever and his men he his armies keep getting wiped out and so by the end they are just new conscripts as soon as they can get them they put them on a horse and they send them out to the battlefield and uh they've got they call them like um children running around on chickens because it's like baby kids it's like 16 and 15 year olds riding around on these like new horses that aren't even trained for combat. And so you have all these like 16 and 15-year-olds dying in war.

You read about the amount of disease. It's like, look, if I go next year, you can't study history for long and just not realize I've had an amazing life. I really have. I would choose this life over again. It's been great. I have a wife who I love.

I have great kids, four kids who I really love. I found my vocation, my calling in life. Like, I wake up every day excited about what I get to do. That was not the beginning of my career. You know, I've worked, you know, working consulting is not exactly the coal mines, but like, I didn't love it, you know? And I love, and so I've got to spend years doing the thing that I love. So, wife ends a little bit early, maybe.

If it does, that doesn't mean I have this, like, very unfortunate life. still feel like I've had a very fortunate life. And so, you know, context. When I'm going through pain, like, it's not always easy. And I have bad moments. Like, I think people can get the wrong impression from reading or from watching that podcast. Like, for other people who are going through cancer or going through disease, like, you guys know. You have moments, okay? But that's okay. I just try and remember that, like, for the most part, I've had a very charmed life. And I I really believe that to be the case. This man, I admire you.

I'm glad we're friends. I really love your work. I'm really glad you chose to do this with me. I know we were thinking about timing and like, you know, I didn't want you to be like reluctant of it because I do think like there's a bunch of positive externalities and like unpredictable externalities that are going to come out of this conversation.

I would just say like in closing, like if anybody's hearing this and we could do anything, whether you have resources, drugs. Anything that could help Ben and his family, please get in touch. We'll leave contact information in the show notes. We'll leave Ben's email address if you're cool with that in the show notes as well. But like you're a good dude. You got a bad hand and like I want to do anything I can to help you.

Thanks, take a time. Well, I can end with one more thing, which is to say, you know, I am alive in, you know, at least in some part due to the influence of a man named John Huntsman, who was a billionaire from Utah, who decided the thing that he wanted to do with his money was found a world-class cancer institute in Utah. And I tried going through the medical system outside of that, and then I got put in this world-class cancer institute,

and I've had remarkable care since then. People know me and feel like they know me because of the podcast, and people have been remarkably generous. But when you're in this situation, you just can't help but think of all the people who are probably just as good of people as I do who don't have,

the type of resources, don't have the type of audience that I have. And so, um, I guess I would also just like to put in a plug for like everyone else. Like, I do have a lot of resources. And so if you would know someone else in your life who could maybe use it more than me, like also be thinking about them, think about donating to Huntsman Cancer Institute or other, you know, cancer research and stuff like that. So other people can be helped out as well. I like, I would really appreciate it. This is not an act. This is how he's been to send on him. Thanks, Ben. All right. Thanks, thanks, David. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review.

And make sure you listen to my other podcast founders for almost a decade. I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through founders.