My First Million - Top Marathoner, Ken Rideout, On Making Money, Dealing With Addiction, And Mental Toughness

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Episode 427: Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) speak to Ken Rideout (@KenRideout_), one of the world's best masters runners, successful businessmen and entrepreneur. Ken talks about how he overcame addiction, built a lucrative career, forged mental and physical toughness, and where that's going to take him in the years to come. Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here. SHAAN'S NEW DAILY NEWSLETTER --> shaanpuri.com ----- Links: * Teddy Atlas Podcast * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. ------ Show Notes: (00:23) - Why Ken is blowing up (12:25) - His finance background (23:45) - Ken's Struggles with Addiction (25:40) - How he got into running/media (31:25) - Who are the toughest people you have met? (38:20) - How to deal with adversity (41:50) - Story of Ken talking smack to Lance Armstrong (44:30) - How does he make money? (53:35) - Does this level of activity increase longevity? ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

back in the late 90s, trading desk was like a locker room. It was very, like, alpha-driven, a lot of hazing and shit. But, I mean, I was at the time boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I had played hockey. I mean, I worked in a prison for four years. So these nerds were hazing me,

and one day I just cuffed the guy. I just slapped them across the face and almost knocked them out of his seat. And needless to say, they fired me. But I was covering these young guys at Enron and they told the senior traders what had happened. And one of the senior traders who happened to be from Martha's Vineyard outside of Boston,

called me up, said, hey, I got a job. I didn't even know we had competitors. That's how naive I was. I didn't know the other brokerage shops. I was there like two months. And I mean, I barely knew what a bidden an offer were. And this other competitor offered me a job starting the next Monday. All right, we get right into this.

Ken, thanks for coming, man. Do you know at all what you're getting into or no? Yeah, yeah. I heard Andrew Huberman on the show, my friend Andrew. Good. Well, let me, I'll let you kind of do the intro, but I want to tell our audience what I know about you and why I think it's cool that we have you. Basically, I was telling Sean, you're, so we take pride in finding people a little bit before they explode. You're getting quite popular. You're in the Washington Journal the other day, so things are happening for you. But you're to me, like, you're like the next David Goggins in my mind. Like, you know, you're kind of a freak athletically, but you're also more so a freak mentally. And you talk about a lot of like just being tough. You got some crazy quotes that we'll talk about later. about how, you know, like you like running because it's all about suffering and things like that. And so you said a lot of really interesting things. Sean and I are also a huge combat sports fans.

So I listened to the pod with Teddy Atlas that you're on. And I know a bit about your background. And so I wanted to have you on to talk about that. Typically, we talk about business stuff. Heberman was a little bit of a, we had him on. That was a little non-business. You're a little bit non-business. But you had like a interesting background where you worked on Wall Street, worked at Enron, I think.

You did a bunch of interesting stuff. And so that's kind of why we had you. on what um well how do you give your introduction what do you what do you say you do yeah well thank you for that introduction uh when i hear people introduce me sometimes i almost don't feel like they're talking about me because i i think part of what makes me unique is i at times have don't have the highest opinion of myself and always feel like i i should be doing more but um i think that the comparison to david gorgans is somewhat accurate although it's accurate.

I can see why others would think that, but I don't think that it's a perfect analysis. And I take it as a compliment. No, I don't think he's soft at all. I think he's probably maybe more aggressive and alpha than I am, I would say. I tried to be, I don't know, I think that the way I come across, you know, when I was on Rich Roll,

he described me as being his initial impression of me prior to meeting me was that I was very aggressive and alpha and intimidating. and I don't see myself that way. I see why other people would see that, but I think of myself is that that alpha or aggressive exterior is almost like a defense mechanism because inside I think I'm very emotional and sensitive and so much so that my way of protecting that sensitivity

is to be so aggressive externally that it really takes someone unique and special to kind of see through it. At least that's my take from the psychotherapy I've been involved in, but the reason and the reason we had you on we typically so it's usually just sean and i or it's like we'll have like billionaires and stuff on so like these like a wonderful people but something that like i've been thinking a lot about lately and i've been talking to Sean about lately it's just like toughness and like how it feels like good to get out there and work hard physically

or to spar do things like that because even though we're doing cool shit behind the computer it's still behind the computer and it feels good to live and you say you're not an alpha but i think in the wall street journal article you said uh i'm the biggest male i'm the biggest alpha male on the starting line. I'm ready to die to thank you for pointing that out because there was context to that quote. I said my exact quote was when I'm on the start line, when it's

time to go, 100% I'm alpha. I will step on your neck to win. I want to kill you. I want to destroy everyone. But the minute that race is over, I'm everyone's best friend. If I see someone fall down in front of me, I will stop and help them. I've in triathlons.

I've asked people, yo man, you are right. I'll stop and help you. I'm not I say step on your neck and kill you to win, but not really. Like, this is, this is my mental process that I have to go through to get to the dark place that I need to get to to suffer to the extent that I need to suffer to get the most out of myself. Running, you know, I ran 36 hours ago. I ran the Tokyo Marathon in 22919. And the day before that, the day before that outside magazine wrote an article, how 51 year old Ken Riteout run sub two 30 marathons.

And I saw the headline. literally had an anxiety attack. I'm like, oh my God, the pressure is on. I mean, I've run some 230, three or four times, but it ain't easy. And I know that that last five or six miles, the suffering and the darkness that's coming with that, I can't, it's literally the physically the hardest things that I've ever done is like everything in your body, it'd be like, if you're driving your car and every single warning bell is going off, the radiator's overheating, the oil's low, you're going to run out of gas. And you literally are like, I can stop and no one would care or I can push myself and know that I didn't have another effing ounce to give. And that's, it sounds cliche or might sound

corny, but that's my process. That's where I have to go to get to where I've gone to is to the point where guys like you with this awesome park has want to talk to me. Like I'm a regular guy. I'm a dope. I don't see myself as special with the exception of being willing to die to get the most out of myself physically on these particular days at races. And so you said you just ran, you just ran the, a marathon in Tokyo 36 hours ago. You're here now.

And I didn't know much about you before Sam brought it up. Sam goes, oh, I really want to have this guy on. Are you down with it? And I thought, I've heard that name, but I don't know. Who is that? And I was like, oh, is that the Teddy Atlas podcast guy? Oh, wait, what's his story? And I, as I started looking into it, to me,

there was a few things that really stood out. There's the obvious headline that here's a guy who's over 50 years old and is basically flying through these marathons. They're running super fast speeds. I don't know the exact records or whatnot, but you're one of the fastest, if not the fastest, correct? And you're kind of in your bracket. Over 50. Yep. Yeah.

So that's kind of remarkable. And I think that's, you know, that's the key thing I want to get to is like, that's an extraordinary thing. And that doesn't just come out of nowhere. And so you talk about being able to go to that place at the last five. miles. What happens pre-race? How do you flip that switch? What is your sort of like a mental state of mind or your psyche? What do you do mentally to prep yourself before these races? That's a great question. And thank you for the opportunity to explain this because I think that it's important for people to understand when they look at this just on the surface like you just described like, wow, it's extraordinary. And by the way,

When I hear it, it doesn't even seem like you're talking about me. So I don't at times have the highest opinion of myself because of the struggles I've gone through with addiction. So as I'm telling you this, I'm super cautious about coming across like a narcissist. I don't want to come across like that. I want to be very humble in how I describe this, but I'm going to be honest with the process prior to the race. I've spent before a race and this one in particular, no different than any other. I spent 10 or 12 weeks like devoting all my physical energy or at least 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day

of preparing for this for, let's say, 12 weeks. When I get to Tokyo the week before, I always go by myself, my wife, I have four young children, even some of the local races they don't come to, even when I think, oh, I'm going to win and you can see me win a race. Like they've come to a few of them and it's kind of uneventful for them. They come to expect me to win. And I, in my mind, think they're going to be so psyched when they see me win.

And then they're like, okay, dad, can we get out of here now and get a donut? So anyway, long-winded way to say, I have a very specific process that I have to go through in the days leading up. And again, I don't want to sound like I'm like some elite professional runner. But this is what I do. This is the process. I have to get there. In the case of Tokyo, with a 14, 15-hour time change, I need to get there at least seven days early to get my body and my circadian rhythm on track with what I'm about to do. because again, I've spent 12 weeks devoting so much energy to this.

I don't want to mess around when I get there. It's very specific. I don't make plans to go to dinner with people or very rarely, mainly because I'm a jerk. I know it. I'm very selfish. To me, again, I'm not a pro runner. But to me, this is my version of the Olympics. And I am not there to mess around and have fun.

It's like I'm on a work trip. So I get there and I just need to be alone by myself, think about what I want to do, try to stay positive. I'm a big believer in mindset and what you tell yourself is the truth. Reality doesn't matter. Like what other people think about you doesn't matter. It's the only thing that matters

what you think of yourself. And that goes into the same thought process goes into preparing for this race. In my mind, I am a professional runner and I'm going to win the Olympic gold medal on Sunday. So I get there early, I go through my process. And on race day, I've said this before in interviews. It's like, I'm not, I'm nothing nice.

On race day, I don't want to make friends. I don't want to chit-chat. I don't. I'm a jerk. I know it. So I try to stay completely by myself. I don't put my shit on other people, but I don't want them putting theirs on me either. So I stay by myself.

The race goes off. I know what's coming. Some people are like, how are the sites in Tokyo? What were the people like in the race? I said, I couldn't tell you if we ran through the frigging imperial palace or not. All I know is the road in front of me. And I get into like a tunnel vision where I can't see any. I mean, obviously, if I look around, I could.

But I don't waste an ounce. of energy. I don't even try to look at my watch. I don't want to move any movement that isn't completely necessary to get from A to B as quickly as possible. I'm trying to run the straightest line. I'm focusing. If people get too close to me, I'll like kind of give them an arm. I'm like, dude, you're getting too close. Like, I don't want to trip someone at the start of the race in Tokyo. I was right on the start line and two or three people right in front of me toppled. And it was like they were caught in the whitewashers, surfers, just arms and legs flailing elbows and knees smashing on the ground as people just trampled them at the front.

front of a major marathon. It was crazy. So I don't want them doing that to me. So I'm like, that's what I meant about being a bit alpha at the start. But I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to affect anyone. But I don't want to be effed with either. Did I see a picture of you and Jason Calcanus over there? Yeah, I mean, Jake, J-Cal, yeah. How do you know him? My friend Casey Nystatt, who is, you know, he is YouTube.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I trained Casey last year for the New York Marathon. my friend Neve Shulman, who's the host of Catfish on MTV, he connected us. So I trained Jason and, not Jason, Casey and Neve for a New York City marathon. And then I heard Jason mentioning running a marathon on All In and I just mentioned it in passing to Casey. Casey connected me. I saw Jason was in, we connected via text. I saw Jason was in Tokyo.

I sent him a text. And then we ended up going to dinner one night and then a Tokyo food tour the next day. We went to like some super high end sushi place and then a bakery. J Cal is like, he's dialed. He knows where he wants to go. I know nothing. I was just like, just tell me where we're going and I'll be there.

Just text me the address. That's what I mean about the week. You're in the in crowd. You're hanging out with all the cool guys. Brother, again, when I think about my friends like Andrew Huberman and David Sinclair and Joe Rogan, I think I can't believe these guys are my friends. I feel like the luckiest person in the,

world. And I'm so humbled and honored that guys like you want to talk to me. It's just mind blowing. But it comes back to this point of, I don't have anything that anyone listening to this show doesn't have. I promise you, I'm not a good athlete. I played Division III sports. I was just a hustler. And when I found running as a way of getting over an addiction issue with opioids, I just decided I was done being mediocre and we'll get into the career stuff. And I'll tell you how I did apply the same practice to my career in finance. But at the end of the day, you know, not, again, not to sound cliche, but if you're not all in, there's just too many competitors out there that are going to eat your lunch if you don't bring your A game every day. But when you do dedicate your 100% effort to one particular goal,

it's very hard to beat the guy who wants to die to win. And that's kind of what I applied to running. And it's attracted, these other kind of people that recognize that I am like serious about the things that I get involved in. Well, the thing that you're interesting is You just have an interesting life. Did I read? Did you used to work at Enron? No, good question. I was working in finance. My very first job, if you want me to kind of walk through my career, I don't want to jump around. I started in, I moved to New York right after I graduated college. I had a pharmaceutical sales job for a few months. But when I moved to New York, I saw all these younger guys my age working in finance and making a ton of money. And I was like, I was making like $36,000. And my like rent and student loans came to more

than my take home pay, I was basically like living on borrowed time in New York, living in a shitty walk-up. And long story short, I was playing pickup ice hockey at Chelsea Pyrrhus and a French Canadian kid who played minor league hockey asked me if I wanted a job as a like a trading assistant on an interdealer brokerage desk, brokering electricity trades between the utilities. And Enron was one of those clients. And the way it worked was the junior guy. that Enron would trade like next day power, which was like the commission was like literally like $5. But if you didn't do that as a service for these accounts, they weren't going to trade the like big ticket items with you. So long story short, I was doing that.

The guys on the trading desk, you know, back in like the late 90s, trading desk was like a locker room. It was very like alpha driven, a lot of hazing and shit. But I mean, I was at the time boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I had played hockey. I mean, I was, I worked in a prison for four years. So these nerds were hazing me, and one day I just cuffed the guy. I just slapped them across the face and almost knocked them out of his seat. And needless to say, they fired me.

But I was covering these young guys at Enron and they told the senior traders what had happened. And one of the senior traders who happened to be from Martha's Vineyard outside of Boston called me up, said, hey, I got a job. I didn't even know we had competitors. That's how naive I was. I didn't know there were other brokerage shops. I was there like two months. And I mean, I barely knew what a bidden an offer were. and this other competitor offered me a job starting the next Monday.

I was making $40,000. They offered me a job at $80 grand. I mean, to me, that was more money than anyone I knew made. So I was like, and the other thing is this guy's hazing me. I had a huge black guy from a fight at the New York Athletic Club. Like, I was not like a punk that you could just like, like, I didn't strike you come across as like, hey, bully me. I'm a big sissy.

Like I was a guy, you know? So when he did it, I was like, you got the wrong guy, dude. And I cracked him. And needless to say, he almost started crying. because I was like, when you leave this office, I'm going to beat that crap out of you. And he's like, I'm not going to leave. I go, you're going to have to sleep here because when you come outside, you're getting a beating.

And they were like, okay, Ken, you got to go before we call the cops. And again, I had no safety net. I couldn't call home and ask for money. It was like, I work in the prison. My stepdad and brother were inmates in the prison. No one was looking to help me in my finance career in New York. To them, I was like an anomaly. You know, I was already like the richest person they knew just by having a job in New York City.

So yeah, it was nerve wracking. So that's how my career started. And the guys at Enron were just like good customers of my clients that like literally changed my life. But it worked out all right. I mean, I think at the end of your career, I mean, you're killing it. Yeah. So when that happened, I mean, from the minute that happened within two years, I was making

like, I mean, again, not sound like a narcissist and I don't have a lot of money. I don't know a rich guy. But within two years, I was making like $2 million a year doing things that to me were like I didn't even know what we were trading. I just knew people and I had relationships and they were just doing trades with me. I was living in London. I was running, I ran sales and trading, commodity sales and trading at Kenner Fitzgerald out of London in Hong Kong and I was flying on the Concord back and forth from New York

to London on a regular basis. Every single time the novelty like just never wore off every time it happened. I was like, I can't believe that this is my life, much like I feel today. I can't believe I've done this. How were you making that much money? That's just commissions or? What goes into that? How do you jump from like 80K to 2 million?

What happened? Yeah, good question. So I was brokering electricity trades and electricity deregulation had just taken place. So you're putting together trades for like commodities trade on monthly contracts. So we were doing that. And when Enron went bust, I got basically sent from New York from London back to New York because the business had dried up. But I was like one of the biggest producers of commissions at the time. again, like I was so unqualified.

I didn't know anything about the technicalities of what we were doing. I just knew how to find buyers and sellers. It could have been houses. It could have been baseball cards. I just had a knack for it. Is that like a lot of networking? Is it cold calling? What were you doing to actually be great?

What did it take to be great there? Yeah, good question. I hate the word networking. I feel like when you're trying to network, you're already like us behind the curve. Like if you're trying to make friends, people ask me frequently now, like, How are you friends with Rich Roll and Andrew Huberman?

I'm like, I don't know. I must have something that they like and they have something I like. We just find each other. But I certainly didn't make a conscious effort ever to be friends with anyone. It's just a natural process. So to answer your question, I just had an ability to connect with people. And I tried to live a life of honesty and integrity. And if I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it.

And I like to tell the people that I'm close with or when I have a close friend, someone's like, oh, are you friends with that guy? I'm like, oh, I help that guy bury a dead body. I like him so much. Like, that's my guy, you know? And I think that people know, people that are my friends know that that's the truth. If you need me, someone's coming to over to your house. They want to fight with you.

I'll come and help you. Like, and I think, like I said, I think the people who are tight with me, they know that that's a character trait that I have. And I think it's what's helped me build the rapport with the people that I've built rapport with. But to your question, so I had this ability to connect with people. So when Enron went bust, they sent me back to New York. And again, talking about reinventing yourself, Enron goes down, I'm making a ton of money.

And these businesses like Canter Fitzgerald, investment banks, et cetera, they're ruthless. So the minute shit went sideways with electricity trading, they were like, okay, we'll send you back to New York. And this was, I lived in London during 9-11, and Canner was on the top floor of the World Trade Center. So when we lost 3,000 people, they sent me back to New York and said, hey, can you take over our credit derivatives business, which happened to be the most lucrative business in the institution at the time. Now, if I didn't know anything about electricity, you can imagine how little I knew about credit derivatives.

I knew less than nothing. I knew as much as a plumber would know. But I knew people and I knew the lingo, and I just, I picked up the phone and just, in hindsight, I don't even know. I developed a relationship with a guy who's still one of my really good friends called Colin Stewart who worked at Morgan Stanley, who happened to be a huge trader of these things.

And the market was so new, credit derivatives. And we just hit it off again, just became friendly. We went skiing a couple times. And he started to just do a ton of business with me. And at the time, when a product is new, the commissions tend to be big until people realize how much they're paying on an annual monthly or annual basis. But I can remember one time for context.

And again, I'm only sharing these numbers because of the, for context of the podcast, I don't want to come across like, hey, look at me. How much money I'm making because. Hey, our podcast is called my first million. You're all right.

All right. So I'm on a trade industry as a group of credit derivative brokers, just generic credit derivatives. I was trading credit derivative, like correlation products, like super sophisticated, high-end bespoke. one-off trades. So the credit derivative desk has like 12 guys and that was like the product du jour. Everyone wanted to be in credit derivatives. It was jamming. Credit derivative

basically think of it as an option on a bond. So these guys were jamming and we had a super busy day one day. Everyone did. And the kid who ran the CDS credit default swap desk says to me, do we had a huge day. We made 250,000 in commissions between like 10, 15 guys. So I said, hold on, let me see. and I start telling up thing, I go, oh, dude, I was a one-man show. I said, I did 262,000 in total commissions. And I think I was keeping like either 50 or 60% of that in one day. Amazing. It was insane.

And so how did you leave that? How do you let that go or what happens? Yeah. Take a, continue the story. All right. So when I went to London, I was in charge of like a bunch of grown men. And I was like 27 years old, but I was very immature. Like when I went to college, I've said in previous interviews, like, I wasn't prepared for

adulthood. I just, I grew up around junkies and degenerates and like it was a very hectic childhood. And my brother was in and out. My brother never went to school past the ninth grade. He's only 11 months younger than me. So it was just total chaos where I was. And I just knew I had to get out of this. So I applied to college.

Like I literally went to the school I went to because, on the application, you could fill in the little dots with the pencil next to the letters, and it was like path of least resistance in terms of applications. And I could work and I had a job offer to work as a guard in the prison full time in the summer and then a few days a week during the school year, which I did through college. I started at the prison like when I was one week out of high school. So if you can imagine being in a men's maximum security prison, I mean, I was 18, but I probably looked like I was 15.

But I also knew prison is very segregated, right? Blacks and whites don't necessarily mingle with each other freely. It's like it's like a different world. But I knew most of the white guys because I grew up in like white Irish Catholic, almost like not in housing projects my whole life, but in that sphere. So when I got there, I knew some of those guys. So I wasn't as scared as I might be if I didn't know anyone going in there, which I know sounds crazy in hindsight.

Now people know me, I like, you knew people in prison? I'm like, the difference between guards and inmates is like the inmates have been caught. The guards are just as bad. It's like that was a big part of my motivation to get out of college. It's like looking at what my prospects of life looked like if I didn't go to college and working at that prison, I was like, I'd rather be dead. It was the worst, worst.

To this day, it's the worst experience of my life, just in the thought of having to do that every day for 20 years. So I'm working there paying through college. I go to London. I'm now in charge of basically on a brokerage desk, whoever makes the most commissions, they're the manager, regardless of. having management skills. So I guess what I was saying in a long-winded way of saying, like, I had no experience or no, I didn't have the maturity to be a manager. So I really didn't know

what I was doing, but I knew I was good at brokering trades. And I was suffering massively like from a fraud complex imposter syndrome. And I had a minor surgery on my ankle. And I was introduced to percocet. And the minute I took those percocets and the opioids, I was like, oh, I have all the confidence in the world. No one can stop me. And thus, began like a 10-year odyssey of being high 24-7, save for like a week or two here, a month here and there. Like I'd get sober on my own, just white-knuckle it, like go through the physical withdrawals of, you know, basically opioids, it's just like heroin.

I was, I was a mess. Like, in hindsight, I tell people now when I speak to, like, junkies at, like, NA meetings or AA meetings or I speak at prisons, I say, like, I was a good drug addict. I could get away with it. I had resources. I was resourceful. I could find drugs anywhere. I could get people to give me prescriptions all over the country.

I just, I'm embarrassed to say I was really good at it. And I was a functioning addict for a good 10 years. And I'm sure people that worked with me during those, during that period, just think I was fucking crazy, not necessarily whacked on drugs, but it is what it is.

It's embarrassing. Like, I get choked up thinking about it. Because I just can't believe I behave like such a loser. But I did it. And once I finally got sober, when I started having children with my wife, I have an adopted daughter who's 12 years old from, we adopted her from Ethiopia as a newborn. And right before we adopted her, I just went through like an outpatient detox, got clean and have been sober since. I mean, I haven't been without slip ups over the last several years. Like I might, you know, slip up hair in there.

But, I mean, for the most part, I've been sober longer than I've ever been in my. life and it's um you know it's like of all the things i've ever done it's the one of the things that i'm most proud of the fact that i was able to um kind of i don't say get over because it's a constant struggle to stay sober when you've been addicted to those kind of drugs they're so physically and and um mentally addictive um but nevertheless it's that that's kind of my journey but um where the transition go from just being a normal guy to this kind of i don't know personality or whatever you want to call what you are now. Yep, that's what I was going to get to.

So in 2010, when I got sober, I started doing triathlons. I did the Iron Man in Hawaii three times. What was your first time? Or what time did you finish in your first triathlon? Probably 11 hours. Oh, you broke 12 hours your first time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's like that's, again, that goes back to mentality.

Like, oh my God, 12 hours. By the way, Sean, that's like pretty good. I mean, 12 hours. Sounds like a very long time. No, breaking 12 hours for your first time, that's a great accomplishment, right? Pretty good. In like three years, I got down to a 9-36, basically, without even knowing how to swim. And I went to Hawaii three times. But again, part of that journey was like learning about myself and figuring out how to suffer and learning that quitting is much harder than suffering. Because the first time I went to Hawaii, to me, it was like I had made it to the Olympics.

and I was so happy just to be there that when I got off the bike, you know, it's two and a half mile swim in the ocean, 112 mile bike ride in the Hawaii sun, in the heat, and you start a marathon around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, which would be crazy even to do as a training run. And the run got hard and I just quit. I just stopped.

I was like, I'm dying. This isn't my day. I just told myself every story that I needed to tell myself to justify quitting. It's been a long year of training. You made it here. That's the big thing. And as I walked back to transition,

literally like crying to myself, like crying like real tears. Like it just so shameful because I know I didn't have to quit. I had a lot more to get, even if I walked. And I went back the next year and finished in like nine hours and 39 minutes, which was, you know, I don't know where I finished overall, but that that was, I was very satisfied with that. And that process of so I used the endurance sports to deal with my addiction. And then through endurance sports, I discovered my ability to suffer.

through adversity and I also learned the pain of quitting and the emptiness that I felt when I didn't give 100% to something that I had committed to. And that really began the journey. So that was like in 2012 or 13 where I was like, you know what, I'm done being mediocre at anything in life. Whatever I do, I'm going to do with 100% conviction, including work. And if you're like, I'm happy to come back to like my career and how it transitioned into what it was, into what it is, because this is all part of the same story. Well, let's stay with the mind shift. I want to talk about two of them.

So you had said kind of like, we adopted my daughter and I decided to get sober and, you know, made a decision. But what was the thought? Because, you know, after 10 years of addiction, I can't imagine that that was just so easy. That's the worst addiction. Opio, I mean, they're the worst.

And so I can't imagine that that was just as simple as saying, okay, well, now I'm, this time I'm going to do it. So what was the thought? And do you, can you take us back to that moment where you kind of realized, okay, I'm going to do this? Or was it many false starts before it finally happened? How did it happen? Yeah. No, that's an excellent point. There were many false thoughts. No one who's suffering with addiction wants to continue to wallow in that because they call those medication perkinset, like pain killers. But they're really joy killers. So what happens is you initially take them, you feel great and you can maybe do that for like a week and every single time you take a dose,

you get a euphoric feeling maybe the first time for an hour or two. By the end of the first week, it might be a half an hour. By the time you're in the throes of addiction, you're only taking them so you're not sick. And I mean, anyone who knows anything about withdrawals from opioids knows like, I'm talking, imagine having the worst flu of your life for seven freaking days and it can stop whenever you're ready to start taking them again. Or are you strong? enough to get through this week to 10 days. So then, again, just like quitting at anything, you're sick. Oh, something came up. Any justification where you're like, I can't afford to show up here in like the throws of withdrawals. I like can't go two feet from the toilet because I might

have to use the bathroom. I'm sweating. Then I'm freezing cold. Everything hurts. I'm an emotional mess. I could cry at like a drop of a dime. And so there had been many, I had gotten sober for weeks and months at a time and then you know found excuses to go back to using but when we were adopting my children i was like i cannot live like this with children i have to be in my right mind i and yeah it wasn't as so to your point it's not just like i just switched the uh i split flip the switch but i will say in terms of being hard finding someone that's been able to get sober from opioids is like finding someone like with a story like from the biggest loser where you see someone who weighs like 350, 400 pounds. Then the next time you see them, they're ripped to shreds and they're living

like an athletic lifestyle. That's, I think, how rare it is to find someone who was heavily addicted to opioids and is now living a clean and prosperous, emotionally prosperous life. That's how I feel. It's so hard. And only other junkies who've been through this can recognize the struggle that went into it and the strength that it took to get out of it. Like I said, I've not always been perfect, but I'm so grateful and thankful to be where I am versus where I was with regards to the addiction, but yeah, it was not, it, it, I know I'm different. I know when it comes to mindset, I know that I have some mental strength that other people don't have. I say that with humility, but it's the truth. I, I, I just decided I'd rather

die than live like this and I don't want to die. I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot. Grow better. You have an interesting perspective because you grew up with a bunch of people that are now in prison and you worked into prison. Then you worked in New York on Wall Street. But now you know a lot of these like, you know, these celebrity fitness folks. So you have like a, you know a bunch of interesting people.

And you also work with Teddy Atlas, which I imagine through that you've been able to meet Tyson. And it looks like you have Dustin Poitier on the on your. behind your shoulder on a picture of him. So you've met a lot of like traditionally tough people or at least people who from an outsider's perspective, from my perspective, are like these tough guys. Who are some of the toughest people that you've met

and you admire when you think about how would this person behave in this situation when I'm struggling? Physically or mentally? I would think one of the toughest people I know, I don't want to get emotional. One of the toughest people I know is my wife. The fact that she was able to like stick with me

through all this bullshit for the sake of my children has been incredible. It's easy to be physically tough because like I said, I mean, catching a beat and is like, okay, I got beat up. Like, okay, not the end of the world. We've all been falling down on a bike crash, car accident, whatever. Like physical pain is just momentary. Emotional pain lasts forever.

Someone that's able to withstand emotional pain and show toughness and perseverance through emotional pain is a special person. because like I said with like using addiction as an example, there's a lot of ways to escape emotional pain, drugs, alcohol. Ultimately, they're all shortcuts and, you know, like a finger in the dike of the problem. Like the only way through it,

the only way to deal with adversity is to go through it and go through the fire. You know, like the expression when you're going through hell, keep going or you're in a hole, stop digging. So to that extent, in terms of emotional toughness, And my wife showed incredible conviction and perseverance to stick with me when I was just a mediocre finance clown addicted to drugs behaving like an asshole, worrying about materialistic possessions and worrying about keeping up with the Joneses versus worry about just living for myself and trying to be the best person that I could be, which in my heart is like who I really

am. And so to that extent, my wife is tough. But, you know, in terms of traditional toughness. I'd say any of the fighters we've had on the podcast, that's Dustin over one shoulder and Regis over this Regis Pro Gray, who's a 140-pound world champ. Those are two incredibly tough guys. But anyone who has the courage to get into the ring or the octagon and have a fist fight for money in front of other people, can you imagine anything physically tougher than that? I just, I have such admiration. How do those guys describe that? I mean, like, this weekend, I don't know how many people bought the John Jones fight, but I imagine he had millions of eyeballs on him. He's like, well, I'm going to get in my underwear. I'm going to basically, I'm basically naked,

and I'm, like, going to fight to the death in front of all these people. That's right. And, like, I've read some, like, Chale Sunnin and Cowboy Soroni. They're, like, backstage. They, they're these tough guys, and they, like, at the way ends, they're puffing their chest, and they're flexing their muscles. And they're like, I'm going to eff and kill you, yada, yada, but then they'll tell stories once they're retired. They're like, I had to throw up in the backstage ahead of that fight because I was so afraid. And at the beginning of every fight, it's just like a race. You have these feelings of like, what am I doing? I don't want to do this. Why do I keep doing this? What am I? Like, this is the worst feeling. And so they're kind of human.

But what do you think or what of some of those people said right before they're about to get in the arena and just fight to the death? What's that? What did they go through? You just hit the nail on the head. I've had some fights myself boxing matches. And it's whether you're in the UFC or fighting in a VFW or a convention hall, every single person that I've ever met and spoken to, and I've been in the locker room of fighters before fights, many world champions, UFC, boxers, Teddy and I trained the light heavyweight champion of the world. I was basically Teddy's assistant, Teddy trained him.

But we were in the locker room for a pay-per-view main event fight. And I can tell you, every single person feels the same things that you and I would feel or that average person would feel. They're not different. They're not special. They're not unique. The coward and the hero, as Teddy Alice would say, they feel the same exact thing.

The only thing that they do differently is how they behave. Some people let that fear overwhelm them and they cower. And I compare it to like surfing. The waves are crashing down. And there's that like break zone where you either have to get out of the water or get through the break. And the coward either gets washed out the sea or goes back to the shore. and the hero goes through the break and knows that on the other side is calm waters and is the place where you want to be with other heroes.

So I think to answer your question is they don't feel any different. Everyone feels the same thing. They're not immune to the fact that there's millions of people watching. No one is. It's just exactly as you would imagine. The only difference is how they behave. And you just forget that the reason they train you train as hard as you do or they do is because at the end of the day, you've got to block.

out all the bullshit because all of that fear that we've just described is all noise and the amount of things. And again, this is all knowledge I've gleaned from working with Teddy Atlas, all of the scenarios and potential nightmares that could happen, Teddy calls them like the ninjas of your mind. The ninjas start coming over the wall as you're getting ready to go into the ring or the octagon. And all of the possible scenario, there's endless scenarios of things that could go horribly wrong. You could die. You could get an octagon. you could get your arm broken. But at the end of the day, what are the odds of any of those things happening?

Because you know you've trained like a dog. You've been in fires with these kind of sparring sessions. You've done the running. You've done the training. And at the end of the day, you have to block out the fact that everyone's watching. This is now simply a more aggressive sparring session. And you've just got to focus on the task at hand. And once, at least in my own experience, whether it's a fight or a race,

once the gun goes off or the bell rings and you start jabbing or running, you have to get your mind into that place of like, hey, I've been here before, I know what's coming, I know what to do, even if it's not going right, I know how I'm supposed to behave. And Teddy would say, you know, the difference, what makes a fighter a fighter or what makes a fight a fight is when there's something to overcome. You're not really a fighter if you're just in there beating the brakes out of shit competition. You become a fighter when there's something to overcome. When you dealt some cards that you weren't expecting, when you get punched in the most

in a shot that you didn't see coming, and now you're tested. That's when you see who's really a fighter, who can come back, who can get off the canvas. We measure a man much more by how they get off the canvas versus how many times they knock someone else to the canvas. So when you have losses and setbacks and you've experienced that feeling of having quit or not given 100%,

that's when you find out who you really are. And that's at least that's what's worked for me. And again, a lot of reality, the reality of situation isn't nearly as important as the narrative that you have in your head because the narrative in your head is going to control how you behave and control your mindset.

And that's something that's well within your control and you can learn how to harness that ability over time and through practice. And that's why we train the way we do. So I wanted to ask you about that exact thing because, you know, not, you've run and you run these crazy marathons and these crazy times.

I think basically have just been getting faster and faster every year since you were 35 years old. which is kind of amazing. I'm not going to run. I'm not a runner. It's not something that's of interest to me, but everybody hits adversity. And so I think this is probably the most important thing

that I want to learn from you, which is whether you're in a fight or you're in a race, and adversity strikes, what is the self-talk that you have developed that gets you through that? Because you said the difference between like a coward and the hero is the behavior, but I think the behavior, I would guess, comes from a conversation that happens in your head, deciding which way are we going to go? Are we going to walk off the field or are we going to continue on, right?

And so what is that self-talk and how do you train that? Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that at the end of the day, we all know what the answer is. I like try to use a professional analogy, like a business analogy, if you're a research analyst, right, and you're covering a particular story. And you know that there's like, let's say, realistically, 15 other guys covering that stock is like, who's going to go the extra mile to get it done, right? We've all, just like at the start of race, everyone shows up. Everyone there is good.

Everyone there is fit. Who's the healthiest? That's a big difference. Who's done all the little things? So if you're doing research, have you uncovered every stone? Have you turned over every stone? Like Warren Buffett talks about that he would pour through company reports. I don't even think he uses a computer.

He's just old school. He's just reading, reading company reports, reading balance sheets. And I think that we all know, whatever our professions, we all know what we could do better. And I think when you sit with yourself and you ask yourself, have I done everything? Think about how much free time we waste in the day. And if you need an example, every single time you open your phone and look at it for anything, Instagram, Twitter. I do it myself.

It pisses me off because it's such a waste. the time. I've contemplated getting rid of social media every day for like the last two years, but I would be lying if I didn't say it's been helpful to me in terms of getting my message out there and kind of sharing some of the knowledge I have in terms of what I've been able to do with running. But I would say that to simplify as like, we all know what needs to be done. You just have to do the little extra things that you know that other people aren't. Is someone else leaving early to go have drinks with their friend? The people who are great, that's their priority.

And again, back to the concept of all in. If you're all in on one thing and you decide, there's one thing that no one's going to beat me at, no one has to tell you what you need to do. You know everyone, you know, spend more time doing the thing that you love doing. If you do something more than anyone else, I'm pretty sure you'll become the best in the world that if you want to be the best piano player, there's going to be people that are just virtuosos.

So let's take out the outliers. But if you want to be a piano player and there's 20 other people in your class, I promise you that if you train more than them and practice more than them, you'll be the best. And unfortunately, the only example I have for me is running. I've just run more than other people and I've been able to stay healthy, which is, you know, I get maybe part of it is luck. I just have the physiology that absorbs the miles, but I do a lot of other things to maintain my overall health in addition to running.

You keep saying that you're like this. You're like, I'm a humble guy, you know, and it feels crazy. Well, you don't say I'm a humble. I think you said, I don't want to be a narcissist and talk about this and that. but you kind of are like this alpha cocky guy in a good way. That's a compliment. Because I read this story and you just, you're a funny guy. You're like, you're like the character,

you're like the real life version of Mark Wahlberg character in a movie because you say these, these funny wisecracks because I read this story that's like 10 years old. Apparently Lance Armstrong was hosting like a man camp or some type of like, you know, like tough guide camp. And I think the story is, is that like you were kind of chirping at him. You're like, I came this close, you told the reporter, I came this close to beating Lance Armstrong in the first race. I tacked him like a rabbit dog. I had a gap on him.

And then on the ride, apparently a rock hit Lance or something from someone's tires. And you said, I hurt Lance Armstrong. I broke them. I made them bleed. And then you actually, you got close to beating him or maybe even he did beat him. And you said, I'm the winner of Man Camp. Lance, I need you to clean my bike and hose it off for me. Yes.

The initial quotes are slightly out of context. because it sounds a bit like a dork. Like I would never be like, I came this close to beat him. I just would never talk like that. There was more to the quote where I was, and I did beat him in a couple of those clients, but he probably hadn't ridden a bike in like six months before we did this together.

So like there's a lot of context that's missing there. But Lance is a good friend of mine. A rock did bounce up and hit his finger. And I said, yep, I made you bleed. Now clean all the bikes. We kicked your ass.

And then I probably said to him, make sure that no one gets a blood sample of that. Make sure no one gets a drop of that blood and runs a, sample on it. I don't want to find out that you're still doing any kind of performance enhancers, but it was obviously said in jest, but you're, you're chirping at him in a fun way, but even, like, even that you had the confidence to chirp at him a little bit, I think it's hilarious and awesome. Why wouldn't I? He's a bike rider. Have you ever met a bike rider that was going to physically, like, do anything to anyone? I was like, I think at some point I said to him, like, you're used to

dealing with, like, 115 pound European cyclists. Now you're dealing with real men. Like, this is, We're peers. There's no like, you know what I mean? I can't imagine a less intimidating group of guys than professional cyclists. Sounds like you might have took Lance to bandcamp actually. Instead of him.

Yeah, classes in session that day. That's the thing is if someone heard all the conversations out of context. Number one, they wouldn't be fit to be published. They were like very much like a locker room. But Lance is my buddy. And all of that stuff was just said in jest and teasing each other. that probably wouldn't all be for public consumption.

But, you know, anytime you see quotes where it's like that, like I came this close to be Lance, it makes me sound like a fucking dork. And like, I wouldn't talk like that. I would have said, I'm going to kick your ass. And when we get out there tomorrow, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. But again, I would say that to, I'd tell Dustin Poirier the same thing if we were going to have a sparring session.

I just, that's, but that's all. And I don't want to sound. And I don't at all, I don't feel cocky or arrogant whatsoever. I know that there's some things I'm good at. And I know that there's a lot more things that I'm bad at. So if I've come across as cocky, I apologize, it's certainly not the message I want to send. I think I tried to be as humble as I can and know that there's a lot of things that I'm not good at. But suffering is one thing that I know how to do.

Are you making most of your income right now from your main? I think you have like a small advisory, right? Are you making most of your income now from that? Or are you, are you going to try and go full transition? to become like this. I don't know what the right word is, but we call these Gagons, but whatever that is,

a personality, that sounds like lamer than it actually is, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I know. This is a great question. So I've made most of my income through finance and what I've done, so in 2015,

I left New York and went to California with a fintech startup called Electronify. We were brokering trades between institutions for corporate bonds. So right now when you trade a corporate bond, you have to call like Goldman Morgan Stanley and you have to find they, you tell them I want to sell these bonds. They find a buyer.

Sometimes they'll buy them from you, which was the old traditional investment bank model. They'd, hey, I got 20 million of these bonds to go, okay, we'll take them there and then they try to sell them at a slight markup. Now they're basically just matching buyers and sellers for all tens of purposes. So we created an electronic marketplace that could let these like fidelity and PIMCO

trade directly with each other. So I went out to New, I went out to L.A. to cover the West Coast knowing that there was a good chance that this startup wasn't going to work. It didn't. We sold it to a competitor. But I, by moving to L.A., I basically forced myself into an uncomfortable position because there aren't sales and trading jobs in L.A. like there are in New York. So I knew I'd have to figure something else out. And you know that expression of like, hey, if you're waiting for everything to be perfect to make a move, it ain't ever going to

happen. You have to make the move and make it perfect. And long story short, I was riding my bike. Everything good in my life that's happened has been through endurance sports. I was riding my bike with a guy in my neighborhood and we were um he ran an asset management firm called the palisades group and they had maybe two billion in assets under management uh they were running money for all big household managers like all the household names like apollo for instance and and they had separately managed accounts so the fees weren't huge like a traditional hedge fund or asset manager and i said to him he didn't have any business development he wasn't actively out there trying to raise more capital which is what he would need to do to really grow his business. So I said, let me run business development for you.

And he said, you know, accurately, you don't have any experience and we're friends. I don't want to put you in a losing position. And I said, okay, I'll work for free for three months just to see if it works. And again, every time I've been willing to take a bet on myself, it's worked out. In that, in that brokerage commission rule that we discussed earlier, I was paid just straight commission. So when I was making all that money, if I didn't do any trades, I don't make any money. But because, because I was willing to do that, I got to keep more of the commissions. So anytime I've bet on myself, it's worked, thankfully. So he gave me an opportunity. And I came in and in two years, we grew that from $2 billion to $5 billion. I raised two discretionary funds, which is basically

like raising a hedge fund, first time manager managing discretionary capital. We couldn't even hire banks to help us raise the money. They basically laughed us out of the room. And they said to me, you think, why do you think, and they said, why do you think you can raise this fund? Like it doesn't seem like you'll be able to just based on the track record, experienced asset class. And I said, why do you think you can't? Like, until someone beats me at the New York Marathon, like, I'll convince myself that I can win this whole race. And long story show, we raised the money.

We raised a $35 million fund and $150 million fund. And once I did that and kind of started to believe in myself that I could raise money, my boss at the time who was like one of my best friends, Jack McDowell, who's like, Like just go off and go off and do this on your own. He said, dude, you're wasting your time. Go do your own thing. And the first mandate that I worked on was with David Sinclair at Life Biosciences. I helped them raise $50 million.

At one point, David and I were raising capital in New York. And we had dinner with Wendy Murdoch and Tony Blair and Bennett Miller at Wendy's like New York City Triplex apartment on Fifth Avenue. It was literally like I was watching someone else's life unfold. as I was sitting there having a conversation with Tony Blair over dinner. And so once I had raised money for a few different independent private placement mandates, I just started doing that full time and have since worked on a bunch of mandates in the health and wellness space.

And now I'm back raising a, on a consultant basis, raising a third discretionary fund for the Palisades group. And so that's kind of one way that I make money. I also have some invest. I've invested in a lot of these deals. I have some advisory roles. I mean, I guess for a lack of better terms, some influencer deals with some big brands that have been, you know,

I just feel so incredibly lucky that brands want to affiliate with me. It's like a dream come true. And then I also have a TV project I'm working on. What's the next like five years going to be? How's this transition going to look like? And what do you want it to look like? Well, in a perfect world, I just filmed pilot with a big production company for a network. that's confidential right now

but if the network likes what we recorded and I think they will, it's unbelievable. I think a lot of people will like it. It's a non-scripted kind of show where I'm the whole main host and in a perfect world, the network will like the show, pick it up and I will do that and see where that takes me

but I like the idea. I always tell people like when you work for someone else when you're employed, you're kind of a slate. Like they own you. You can't just do whatever you want to do. You get to have a couple days off a week. They provide a little bit of safety for you. And in turn, you give them like X amount of your time. But the main thing that you miss out on by being an employee is you miss out on the opportunity to pursue interesting opportunities when they are presented like this media project I'm working on. If I had a job, there's no way I'd be able to do it because they were like, hey, we're going to record for a week and, you know, out of town. I would never. have been able to do this, but because I was willing to bet on myself and, you know, take the risk of having to get my own health insurance, not being sure if, like, you know, something happens to me and people don't want to be affiliated with me anymore. I get injured. I can't run. Like, okay, now what do I do?

I guess I could always fall back on a finance gig, but I don't want to do that. I wasn't happy doing that. And to that point, I've said this before, and I think it's relevant for this podcast is that I've said to people, look, like, money doesn't make you happy. And people are always like, oh, bullshit, you have money. And I'm like, no, I've had money and lost money multiple times. When Enron went bust, you know, when you're making a lot of money, you spend a lot of money. And when that ends abruptly, you're very quickly out of money, especially if you have a $10,000, $12,000 mortgage. And now you get paid, getting paid 10 grand a month, which is what happened to me when Enron went bust, things can change quickly. And the reason I say, the example I give you is

I was making a ton of money and I became a drug addict. So it didn't make me happier. It caused me different anxiety. So money can alleviate a lot of stress, but it can also add stress that you didn't know, stressors that you didn't even know existed. And yes, it's easier to have money than to not have money. But if your only goal in life is to make money, I would say, be careful what you wish for because I was making money and I could have comfortably continued to do what I was doing, but I'm so much happier now wearing the risk of not knowing where the next deal or paycheck is going to come from. But I've never been happier in my life. And this didn't, this transformation didn't happen until my late 40s.

And when I finally had the courage to bet on myself all in, in my late 40s, it's been the greatest gift I've ever given myself is to like, bet on myself and live and die with my own results. So in five years, I hope that this media stuff becomes more of a reality. And I can continue to kind of share my experiences and, you know, knowledge of, you know, knowing how to suffer and deal with adversity. I like sharing that message.

I've done some speaking recently. That's also contributed to my financial well-being. And that's something that I actually really enjoy, which is crazy, right? Because every time I do speak to people, I go, hey, is anyone here getting nervous about speaking in front of an audience? And every single person raises their hand. And I go, guess what? I do too. But I'm dealing with it.

And like I tell my kids, it's okay to be scared. Like when my youngest son's playing baseball, he's like, dad, I get so nervous when I get up to batty seven. I said, buddy, everybody does. But sometimes we just have to learn how to do things while we're scared. Once you get comfortable operating while you're scared, you can't lose. It's just it has to do with repetitions and experience. How are you, so I'm a former competitive runner. Now I'm pretty into fitness, but all types of well-rounded fitness stuff.

And I get hurt. You seem like you do not get hurt. Is that, and part of that I think is like just biology. I think some people are just built where they can absorb miles, like you said. But what are you doing to stay healthy? I try to sleep eight hours a day. I eat a very healthy diet. I do a lot of strength training that I think a lot of runners don't do.

And I do a lot of recently. I hadn't done a lot of stretching and stuff in the past. But lately I've been doing a lot more stretching. And I feel like it's especially in the last like six to 12 months, tons of preventative care, electrical musculos. I've got every like device under the sun. Electrical muscular stimulation, theragon, et cetera, et cetera. It's been, I spend a lot of time trying to keep myself healthy, but it gets getting harder over the years. Do you think that, you know, running 70 and 80 miles a week, do you think that that's going to be, that's going to make you a live a longer

or healthier life? Or are you just happy to, do you just like how it makes you feel? Because when I, you know, think about like some of these, I did a half Iron Man, nothing like you did. And I didn't even do it fast. But I remember doing all these miles and I'm like, man, I don't know if this is going to, if this is going to make me live to be 120. It might not. Like, or maybe just like lifting weights and going for walks might be a little bit better. But how do you think about that? I agree with you 100. 100%. I always tell anyone who's interested, I don't know that this is the answer for me, but you're talking to someone who is living the life of a drug addict. To me, okay, if it makes my life a little bit shorter, but it's adding the quality of life that I'm experiencing right,

now, that's a bet I'm willing to make. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I wish I had an answer for you. I don't know what's going to add to my overall longevity in terms of my mental and physical well-being. But I know that right now, this is the best way for me to live my life. Look at what it's given me has been immeasurable. But I think that there are a lot of things that contribute to longevity. I mean, obviously there's the famous longevity study out of Harvard that suggests that the most important element to live in a healthy, fruitful life is relationships. And to that extent, the one thing that this lifestyle and my kind of newfound station in life has provided me is the quality of relationships. When I worked in finance, this doesn't apply to everyone in

finance, but a lot of the people I worked with were real assholes and I didn't like them and it was keeping up with the Joneses and I if I never had to sit on a trading desk for the rest of my life I'd be perfectly fine with that. Again, not everyone. I met some people there that I genuinely love, but there's also some people there that if I saw them, I wouldn't mind giving them a smack in the mouth. There's been some real idiots I've worked with and I could go on forever. But my life now, if there's someone in my life that I don't appreciate or don't respect, I can just cut them out and move on to the next thing. I don't need.

The thing that I have that some billionaires don't have is enough. I have enough. I have everything I need. And I'd love to have more money. And I'd love to put in a pool and renovate my house and splurge on a lot of bullshit. But at the end of the day, I have the one thing that I need. And that's enough. And I have my family.

And so, you know, finding what you're finding something in life that you're passionate about and that you genuinely enjoy. And joy is the key. And to me, and people say all the time, find something you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life. There isn't a single week that goes by that I don't say to my wife, can you believe I don't have an effing job? Am I the luckiest person we know? And she always laughs and goes, you're definitely the luckiest person I know.

But it's interesting that the harder I work, the luckier I seem to get. You're an interesting guy and we appreciate you coming on. I've been following you now, I think since 2020 whenever you joined Teddy Atlas. Yeah. Because I listen to that a ton. and I don't know Sean knows too. And so we appreciate you coming on. You're different.

You're built different. You're a different guy. And we appreciate that. We like those types of people. Well, I want to say again, thank you so much. I really hope that I didn't come across as too alpha or cocky. I just tried to be more than anything. I tried to just be honest, man.

It's like the world and the internet is so big. If you embellish or bullshit about something, there'll be someone coming out of the bushes. Like, that didn't happen. And this didn't happen. Because I know a lot of my stuff sounds sensational and crazy, but I'm like, I think if anything, at times I'm downplaying some of the stuff because I know it's how crazy it sounds. But yeah, anyway, I do feel a very humbled and honored to be here. This is a place where cockiness and alfanness is actually appreciated.

So even if you did, that would be, you know, right at home here. We just like when people are the way they are and not trying to manage. It's at home because, by the way, we don't get a lot of cockiness or alpha, Sean. That's why we like it. Yeah, we enjoy it. It's a good change. You know, we're a business podcast for the most part, entrepreneurship. And, you know, we're a bunch of people with carpal tunnel syndrome.

You know, it's not a bunch of alpha males coming on the pod typically. So, so, you know, I think there was some good stuff here for mental strength, toughness, adversity, you know, basically what I think is the most important thing, which is managing the little voice in your head. And that little voice in your head, you know, that's who you go through life with. and I think that you're a great example of what happens when you really like, you know, work on that. And so, so thanks for coming on, Ken. I really appreciate it.

I would say this before I leave, like that voice in your head is not little. That voice in your head is all powerful, the most powerful, right? It's the voice in my head is the one that tells me to get high when I know I shouldn't. The voice in the head, the little voice tells me to go run when it's pissing rain or freezing cold and snowing. So that voice in your head shouldn't be little. It should be big. And it should be like screaming from a megaphone that you're the best and you can do anything you want to do.

And to your point, if you have a bunch of carpal tunnel guys here that might consider themselves nerds and like intellects, good because the one thing that you can control is your physical actions. Anyone can do what I've done. I promise you, I'm not special. I wish I had the intellect as some of these carpal tunnel guys because that's the one thing I don't have. And that's where I'm trying to overcompensate by being so physical

that maybe my intellectual shortcomings can be overcome through physical intimidation and alphaness. But anyway, I say that in just. But honestly, everything that I have is available to anyone. I'm just literally, the only thing I'm doing different than most people is physically is trying harder. Well, Sam, I don't know about you, but in 10 minutes, I'm going to do my workout. And I think it's going to be a good one today. I think I got a little extra juice for my workout today. You not think.

You know what it is. But you got to follow him on Instagram. There's videos of him shadow boxing. And right before he's about to go running or right after he got running and got done running. And he, I always feel foolish posting that shit. I really do. And then I'm like,

no, I like it. I watch it because I like running a lot. But I don't want a runner's body. And you're, you're cool because you don't have a runner's body. That's my mission in life is to not look like a runner. You're well-rounded.

You're well-rounded. It doesn't matter if you're 53 or you're 23 or you're 23. you look, you look, you look good. You know, I always, I joke. I'm like, the point of working out for me is to be able to kill or outrun everyone in a room. You know, you want to be able to kill it, eat them, or outrun them. And we'll add a third thing, which is you also want to look good naked. And so in your, and your, and your, and your, and your checklist, it's check, check, check, all right, all right.

If you're not going to look good for yourself, think about your spouse. So that's kind of my closing salvo. You're the man. Thank you very much. I appreciate this. I appreciate you guys. Thank you for having me.