SOLVED with Mark Manson - Founder of Eight Companies Explains: How to Take Massive Action (ft. Noah Kagan)

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Social media messes with our expectations because it convinces us that we should be doing everything, everywhere, all at once. But the reality is that we should focus on doing one or two things extremely well, in one place, consistently over a long period of time. Today on the pod, I talk to Noah Kagan, multi-millionaire and multi-business owner, about the type of consistency and habits that lead to wealth. Noah created his own wealth out of self-belief, learning from failing and being careful with what he gives a fuck about. Noah’s story is compelling as he shares how he found success over decades, by never ceasing to try. If you’re looking for some raw talk to get you motivated to go out and do cool shit, this is the episode to sink your energy into. Enjoy. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at: ⁠https://shopify.com/idgaf⁠ Get 15% off your first order of OneSkin by using checkout code IDGAF at ⁠oneskin.co⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, before we get into it, if you listen to the show, you probably consume a lot of personal growth content. The books, the podcasts, YouTube videos, all of it. And you've probably noticed the gap between knowing what to do and then actually going out and doing it. You've got the insights, but what you don't have is something that connects them to your actual life. That's why I built purpose. It's a personal development AI that learns you, your patterns, your blind spots, all the stuff that you keep circling back to over and over again. Instead of handing you another framework, it gives you specific personalized direction.

So check it out. You can try it for free for seven days. Go to purpose. That is purpose. dot app. Noah Kagan, founder of eight different companies, million dollar companies, one of the first employees at Facebook. I'm sure we'll get into that.

Author of Million Dollar Weekend, we're definitely going to get into that. My first question is, what do you not give a fuck about that most people do? Hmm. Hmm. I think I haven't given so many fucks about taking myself so seriously. I was going to say, because that's a little bit of a paradox. Like, you live in this risky world of entrepreneurship of, I mean, the whole book is just about taking chances, essentially. And yet you, when I talk to you, you know, it's like this kind of like constant self-consciousness. Like, oh, my God, what am I doing this wrong?

Is my leg weird? Should I be like this? Yeah. So there's got to be like a loophole in there somewhere. Yeah, because I think people that probably are portraying like, I don't care about what anyone thinks. It's like, well, you're probably putting that publicly. So you're clearly clearing about what people are thinking about you. You're hiding something. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, I think as I'm getting older, I'm definitely being more mindful.

Like, why do I care if I have more followers or not? Why do I care, literally? It's like 7 a.m. and I'm responding to a random guy on my Instagram DM that read my book. Instead of being in bed with my girlfriend. Right. And so as I'm getting older, I'm being more mindful about, like, what actually matters. Yeah. You seem to be almost impervious to rejection.

Would you say that's it? Like, that's the thing? Because most people are absolutely terrified of rejection. I mean, most people won't start anything. Like, forget a business. They won't even start a conversation because they're afraid of rejection. Yeah. Yet it seems like it doesn't bother you.

No, it hurts my feelings. Yeah. But it doesn't stop you. It doesn't stop me. That's the difference. Exactly. Like, I had a guy email me and he's like, every day for 30 days, I'm going to post something. And I was like, I'm going to follow up with you in 30 days.

Yeah. Just to see what happens. And I followed up with him as yesterday. How to go? I didn't post once. And I was like, and I think what I'm trying to do is just be more optimistic for myself and for others. So it's like, hey, what's going on? I was afraid.

Yeah. And then we're all afraid of something. Yeah. And I'm still afraid. But the more I practice the rejection, the more I practice these things, they realize it's never as bad as it seems. And I'm always better than I thought. So for this person that was afraid of posting on social media, he's afraid of his friends. He's afraid of what people are going to say.

I even had this about a decade ago. I was afraid of posting on Facebook because I saw some high school friends. And I was like, oh, what are they going to think of me? Yeah. And I did it anyways. And that's the only difference. And everyone can do that today. Right.

It's what's the thing you're afraid of? It's never as bad as it seems, and that's literally in the book where I talk about the coffee challenge. What is the coffee challenge for listeners? The coffee challenge is when you go to get your next coffee, and I encourage everyone to commit to doing it today. Just do it today. It's easy. You go anywhere to get a coffee. You place your order, orange mocha for Apecino, if you've seen Zoolander. You ask for 10% off, and you don't do anything.

And the point is not to get the discount. The point is to feel the fear, get the rejection, and realize, how great you are. Yeah. And everyone who does it has always, I literally got a message today. This guy was like, I was terrified. Yeah. I did it. And I realized like, huh, what else in life am I afraid of asking for? What else in life have I been holding myself back from? A job, a wife, a raise, an employee, a customer. I actually wanted to get into that because even though the book is framed around business and starting businesses, I very much read it as just a guide to taking action. And I think, as you know, I started my career as a dating coach. And it's actually

funny how much stuff in the book is similar to the stuff that I used to do with guys. You know, I take a guy to a bar and he's like standing in the corner petrified, like holding his beer. And I remember, like, you have this thing in here about rejection goals, like set a rejection goal and try to hit that many rejections. I used to do that with guys. I'd be like, your goal tonight is to be rejected five times. And they'd be like, oh. You know, like, oh, I can't do that. Dude, that's fucked up. And I'm like, that's what we're going to do.

And then what would happen? So what would always happen is the first one was always the hardest. Always. Like, it would take an hour to get him to talk to the first girl. And similar to you, you know, you start with the $1 thing. We'll talk about that in a second. But, you know, like, just ask for $1. Right.

It's like, you don't need to have this big business plan. Just go ask somebody for a dollar. Like, see if. they'll give it to you, right? I used to do that with, like, just go say hi. Just say, hi. My name's Noah. That's it.

That's it. You don't have to say, you could like turn around and run out the door afterwards. That's all you have to do is just say hi. And, you know, it would take maybe 30 minutes to an hour to get them to do the first one. But then as soon as they did the first one and they realized like, hey, that wasn't so bad. Or in some cases, they'd have like a really nice conversation with an attractive woman. They're like, oh my God, why have I been waiting so long? Yes.

And then it would just be like number two, number three, number four, number five. It's like water stuck behind a dam or something, you know? And it's like as soon as you open it, it just all rushes out. I think the question for everyone is what is the hard thing everyone's holding themselves back from? Yeah. And it's never as hard as it seems. And the reward is always greater than it seems. And your example is a silly one as well.

Like you literally are going to go to another human, probably an attractive one. And you're going to say hello. And that's it. And you could even run off. Yeah. And you start doing it, you start realizing, like, what other things do I want in life? And if I can start practicing asking for it, maybe I get a little rejection. But the upsides of these things are just unlimited. It's fucking crazy. Like, on the YouTube video, I asked someone to go on the private jet. I don't know if you've seen this video. And then he liked me on his private jet.

Superstar to trouble you, man. We're YouTubers that got a tour of a private jet. All right. Would you? Oh, okay. Thank you, brother. Next time maybe. Is there any way? Are you sure? Can we? Oh, dude. Yeah, yeah.

I actually have the opposite problem now where I'm asking all the time. Like, I have to literally control it. And I just want to start asking people for things, and they're not going to just come to your door. And so you have to put in those reps and they'll practice to get better at getting these things. And if you ask, you will get. And it's a big part of it, too, is that most people don't know what they want. You know? They think they want to start, like, a big startup or something.

But really, it's just like they don't like their job. There's something about getting clarity on what you actually want and what it's worth that then makes the sacrifice easier, right? It's like, if I, if this is a really important thing to me, then sure, I'll stomach a little bit of embarrassment. I think about, you know, the people who like stand on street corners and like hand out flyers. Yeah. Or like walk up to you and you're like, do you want to donate the Greenpeace today and you're just like, oh, get out of my face? Sorry, I lived in New York for a long time. So this was a big part.

When they had the clipboards in my office. Yeah, yeah. This was a big part of my life for many years. I actually had a friend who worked one of those jobs in college. And he said it was the most mortifying thing. Like you're literally just shut down by strangers 100 times a day, every day, for weeks and weeks and weeks. But I think it's interesting that they're willing to do that because they believe so much in the reason they're doing it. Which I love that.

like which then makes it worth it well I think in your book models is still like it's actually coming bringing back up thoughts where and I think this is important for everyone with this whole ask and life and what we want it's just how do you feel good about who you are yeah how do you find out who you can become and it's not so far away I think there's a lot of materials and courses and YouTube videos that create complications yes and it's like can I actually have this life yes you can yeah and it's not some elite thing that oh mark no can did it and I have to like buy these And no, you just start today. Maybe go ask someone for a raise.

Maybe go ask someone for feedback. Maybe try something new out. And I think in the past I've tried extreme themes out. Like I tried naked yoga with guys, which is very strange. It's all gay, it's all gay men and you do partner yoga. And then I did like five senses dancing. And then I did, you know, I went and did ayahuasca. And then I walked around India for a month.

I did all these more extreme things. I don't know if we need that. Right. And I think it's like, well, what's something today that I can do that makes me feel good about who I am? It sounds like you've gone through quite a. internal journey over the last few years. It's been tremendous. I'm wondering if you think you could have written this, say, five years ago.

It's the same material I've been, I like figured out a decade ago. I don't think I liked who I was until the past few years and felt worthy of myself. And it's the irony in the situation is when I wanted to be famous and I wanted money and I wanted people to like me. And then now that I have those things, it's not what I want and not what I need. Right. Like my girlfriend who's going to become my wife, Friday. Hey. Thank you. She hopes you. This video's not coming out there. You know, she said something to me last week when, you know, I'm talking about book sales. And she's like, who fuck these people?

Like, who are these people? None of them matter. And she's right. And she's like, me and our baby. She's like, we love you no matter what. Whoa. And I'm like, and I joke. I joke. And there's always truth in jokes. I joke. But like, didn't I make all this money? so you didn't have to love me for me. Yeah, yeah, right. And I know that's not what people. People are like, what do you mean? But like that's, I think, the facade or these fronts that, yes, we do make money because

we want people to like because we make money to feel good about ourselves. And I think at the end of the day, if we can be with another person or be with ourselves, it's like, we just want you. And that was like, it's relieving. The weights off. Right. The pressure's off. I don't have to be anyone but no.

Yeah. And I think with this book, for me, it was my own hero's journey of avoiding hard work. It was avoiding, can I actually help other people? It was avoiding. am I worthy of putting myself publicly in a way that I think could help other people. And I used to even think that people that listen to me were really stupid. Right? Like if you're, you have an audience of like, I know, I know, I know.

It's like these people are idiots. Well, and you know what that is, though. It's because I think I'm an idiot. Right. Because I think I'm going to get fired. It's because I'm not a good CEO. It's because I'm not going to be a good partner. And these are all the negative self-talk that all of us experience.

I don't think there's like, it's just Noah. Yeah. One of the things I've been actively working on probably two to three years now is just positive self-talk. And so every time a negative thing comes up, like yesterday, I was literally emo all day. I woke up emo. I did all those morning routine videos you've seen. I did all of it. I literally did sauna cold plunge.

It didn't work. I did gooey, I think, uh, Chinese tea ceremony myself, you know, like it did that. I drill. I read the Bible, the picture Bible. Okay. You know, and like I did all this shit and I'm still angry all day. And, See, morning routines, man.

Yeah, this is the overrated. 100% overrated. 100% overrated. And then this morning I woke up, I looked at my girlfriend, took a breath. And I was like, I'm glad you didn't make a minor thing, a major thing. I'm glad I didn't let yesterday's minor that I didn't feel good about the day, which is human being experience, turning it into a major catastrophe. And so then I gave myself some positive self-talk in the drive here. Like, you know, it's good.

Good for you, man. Way to go. And I think that's something that all of us can do like every single day all day. Yeah. And that's tough. You know, with the book thing, I think by the time I did book number two or three or four, like I kind of learned what the game was. Yeah.

And you almost get this distance from your own emotions of like, ah, this is an up day. I'm like, don't believe it. You know, this is bullshit. You know, and then on a down day, you're like, ah, it's a down day. Yeah, no, don't believe it. It's also bullshit. So that's always true. Yes.

Right? You don't need to do this like really intense emotional thing to like for that to be true. It's we all have good days. We all have bad days. We all have good experiences. We all have bad experiences. We all react maturely. We all react immaturely.

And none of those things necessarily say anything about you as a person or your character. You can simply step back and say, oh, this is one of those days. This is one of those moments. And that's okay. It's okay. So I think the idea in life, what you're saying, which I think is really great, is that a lot of these experiences have been experienced. Yeah. And being mindful that there's probably a book or there's probably a walk or there's probably some good night's sleep that help you realize that it's not as bad as you think.

Yeah. There's a great David Foster Wallace quote where he says that everyone is exactly the same and that they walk around thinking that their experiences are completely unique. And no one can understand them. 100%. 100% One thing I was curious, because we were talking about earlier, I'd love to come back. It's your show. I'm just, I'm just curious.

But like how did you want? I don't give a fuck. Yeah. You feel like you have to not give extra fucks now? Because I told you, I was like, I can't have to give fuck. Mark's not giving a fuck, but now I did, I got into game theory. I was like, Mark's fucks are over here, but if I give two fucks, he's going to give two. So I need to get four, no, I'm going to come late to the show.

I'm not going to show up for the show because I don't give a fuck. Do you feel like you have to over no fucks? I probably wouldn't even think about it. You know, it's funny, I am naturally a low fuck resonant guy. But the only thing that bugs me is that when I actually do get upset about something, people are like, well, dude, I thought you didn't give a fuck. I'm like, shut up. Shut up.

This is not the time to make jokes about my books. What triggers your fuckery? Ironically, I am a stickler for being on time. and I hate being late. I hate being late. I was actually rushing up here because I was like, oh, shit,

it's three minutes before, you know? I hate, this is one thing I tell my team all the time. I'm like, it's okay to do something that doesn't work. It's always okay. It's always,

we can fail. It's okay. It's not okay to be lazy. It's not okay to turn in mediocre work, right? So if you're going to fail, fail spectacularly. And nothing drives me great. And especially with like AI now,

This is actually very recent. I actually need to post in our Slack an announcement about this. There have been a number of people on my team who have tried to slip some chat GBT in stuff to me. And it's so obvious because chat GPT is a terrible fucking writer. And everybody on my team is a good writer. So as soon as it's like I'll be like reading a research summary and it's like great. and then I hit page two, and it just goes to shit and says nothing. And then at the end, it gets great for like the last paragraph.

And I'm like, this is chat GPT. Like, come on, guys. Yeah. This is not, this will not stand. So I give a fuck about stuff like that. I guess those are the two things that like maybe aren't, obviously I give a fuck about like friends, family, career stuff. But, um.

Breathing. Yeah. Breathing. Big breathing this year. Yeah, yeah. 24. Going all in on breathing. And then with the, with the, with,

All these things, I am curious. How did you get to figuring out what you want? Because I think that, you know, in life, I do believe it's easy to get what you want when you know what you want. And what I've seen for a million dollar weekend is most people don't believe that it's available for them. They don't believe, which it is. It's 100 fucking percentage. No YouTube influencer person is going to convince you with like, oh, it's very complicated. No, it's not.

Yeah. But most people don't realize that they can actually get there. I've actually struggled with that over the years. Actually, subtle art, like, really kind of put me into a tailspin of, of, of what? what do I want? Like, I just got everything that I wanted for my entire adult life in like the last six months, you know, so shit, what do I do now? And it took me a long time to figure that out.

I think it's a combination of two things. I think one is you have to go through a period of experimentation, like allow yourself to try things and allow yourself to let those things not work or let yourself not enjoy them and just acknowledge that and be like, okay, well, I tried this thing and I didn't enjoy it. It's funny, when I moved to L.A., a bunch of producers were like, bro, you should write a screenplay. Like, we're going to do a TV show. It's going to be amazing.

And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. And then I started writing a screenplay. I got like a weekend. I'm like, this is terrible. I'm not going to do this. But I'm glad I tried, right? So I think a lot of it is just giving yourself the freedom to experiment, to try things and to understand that most of them aren't going to work out.

100% And I also think there's a lot of wisdom in knowing how much you value something through subtraction. So like taking something out of your life and seeing if you miss it. Because it's like when everything in our life, we think we need. We like convince ourselves like, no, no, I need this. This is really important. But then that was one thing that I thought the pandemic was useful for.

It was like it showed me how many activities I didn't miss. when they were gone. And then it showed me some activities, like I really missed that I didn't expect, right? So it realigns like, oh, this is where I should be putting my focus and effort. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one.

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I'm actually in a really good spot right now. Dude, fuck yeah. Yeah, man. Honestly, I think this is the most excited I've been like 10 years maybe. Like just about everything, just about work, life. you know the stuff I'm doing it's yeah I feel really good I'm in a really dude yeah it's it's interesting because even hearing that I'm I'm looking for society because I when we talk about that publicly what does everyone do well yeah but but yeah why couldn't it be great and one of my best

friends tight and it's like it's great and it can get better yeah I'm like come on he's like no and better yeah yeah and that's like I think that is an optimistic shift that we have to practice I get a lot of those comments on on on my stuff I'm sure you do too. You know, it's like, oh, easy for you to say you're like rich and famous and blah, blah, blah. But it's like, the irony is, is that actually like one of the most depressed periods of my life, I was rich and famous. So it's, and I imagine you probably have, could have a similar narrative of like, you achieved all these things. You made a shitload of money. You built a reputation for yourself and it didn't fix anything. But I think the question is how do we inspire help the people that are in that phase? Yeah. Right. And so I think what you said, I think is the cool part is how do people have more daily, weekly, monthly lives that they're excited about. Yeah. And like, one of my favorite phrases that, that I think everyone can copy is like, put it on the calendar. Yeah. Put on the fucking calendar. Like, what are you looking forward to in your week even? Yeah. Right? Like, you were, I, every Monday I journal and I'm like,

what am I looking forward to this week? Like, and I just write things out. And guess what? If there's nothing, make up some shit. Yeah. Like, it's like, I get a hang out with Mark Manson. I'm going to married on Friday Saturday I'm going to the rodeo you know like like that's like that's the thing that's that's the trifecta right that dude Mark marriage rodeo rodeo but I do think we we assume conditionally when we get there we're gonna be happy and it just doesn't it's not the case you can actually create the happiness now and then grow with that yeah but it is interesting because what I heard you say is that over time you're like okay how am I spending my work who am my friends who are who is my significant other and then you've

made these changes so that yeah now you yes you have the money in this attention, but also the life is the way you want. Yeah. I think you nailed it with the being excited for something, having something to look forward to. It's funny. My follow-up book, Everything is fucked, is really just about that. And it was part, that book was part therapy for me because what I realized is that the velocity

of my success kind of rob me of looking forward to things. like I didn't know what to look forward to. I didn't have anything in my life to that was on the horizon to chase, to be excited about, to work towards. Instead, I was like, had this scarcity mentality of like, okay, you got all of it. Like, don't fuck it up, right? Like, now just keep it. And that's a horrible place to be.

And I agree, like, you can find that excitement and that optimism for what's next. regardless of where you are in your career and your life, what age you are, how much money you have, et cetera. But it's so crucial, it's so important. Next question.

What do you give a fuck about that most people don't? I think I'd give a fuck to like a non-normal degree about just the people I have in my life. Okay. Just like, that was the first thing in mind. Just how much I'm like obsessed with like having really high quality, mostly men that we have it's like a tribe naked yoga naked yoga dude these guys I mean

no I mean I think most people care about their friends I just think like I've been very intentional about who I've surrounded myself with and it's not not they're all like multi-millioner people but they're all just such weirdos like I have this guy Eric he's like you got to buy bong coin I was like sure I'll buy bunk coin you know like I just like love this fucking guy and he's like all right we're gonna go spearfishing I'm like dude let's go fucking spearfishing yeah or you know Ian, I was feeling sad last night. He shows up. He's like, let's go take a fireball shot and let's go for a mountain bike ride.

Yeah. And so I don't know if people are putting the right optimistic people around themselves as much as I care about that. And I think that's really saved me through a lot of the darker or harder times in my life. How are you intentional about that? I think right now I'm capped. I cap it around 18. And so you've got like a quota.

You want to get off. You're going to be off. Yeah, there's like a waiting list. No, I think I say it, I get there's irony that everyone has friends. I just think that in terms of get fucks, like, Like, I give a lot of fucks about who I'm around. You give a lot of fucks about the caliber of the people you're around. And then the quality of the friendship.

Yeah. In terms of just like talking to them, seeing them, emailing with them, texting with them. Do you think your tolerance for drama, bullshit, toxicity is very low? Within my friend's stuff, yeah, but then I think it spells over to other things. And so the people I've run, it's not just about success. It's just people that inspire me. Yeah. And I'd say one of the commonalities is optimism.

And that they're just optimistic people in different areas. So like my buddy Tynan, we're like really big sauna guys now, sauna and pinball. And so we're just like, you know, I'm 42 with earrings driving me out of here. That's what I did today, just to give you heads. Just to give you the picture. But it's just having these people that are doing interesting things in life that inspire me or as I'm doing these things, like my buddy, Adam Gilbert, he was just like, man, dude, I'm so proud of you for this book. I know you said you wanted to do it and you did it. Yeah.

And I think more people, it's like, who's around you? you, right? And that's definitely something I've been hyper selective on and it's really carried me. Yeah. And you could find him in a lot of ways and it takes time, but just being mindful of like, who is around you is going to inspire you to do those kind of things. Meaning, if you're around how much people who have kids, you're probably going to be, I should maybe have kids. The other thing I'd say, I don't give as much fucks about it. I just, I love being, I like attention. I think more than most. I've been really happy about, that was the two, friends then, I'm happy being public. Yeah. I love it. When someone comes up to me and they're like,

Dude, I think I know you, but I don't, I don't, you know what? I'm like, yeah, let's do selfie. They're like, really? I'm like, yeah, I like, I like attention. And I get it. It's because of my ego. And I'm okay with that. I think other people are maybe like, oh, you know, I want to help people.

It's like, I like how people, I just like also be in public. I'm happy with that. I mean, I think some of it is ego. I've definitely come to a conclusion that it's very personality driven. I particularly learned this hanging around Will, Will Smith. That was such a flex right there. That no one can fucking relate to. Yeah, I was thinking about Will.

Prince William, okay. But no, but like him and his family and his friends, it was interesting because everybody around him is also ridiculously famous. Well, not everybody, but like a lot of the people that he runs with. And it's interesting because he genuinely loves being famous. Like he fucking loves it. Like he loves going into a grocery store. Like, his security flips the fuck out.

But he's like, he's like, oh, Whole Foods. Let's go buy something. And he just, like, beelines and, like, gets out of the car and goes in. And his security's like, oh, God. Oh, shit. Fuck. All right. Here we go.

You know, and he'll, like, go into Whole Foods and get mobbed by 20 people. And he's, like, so happy. He's like, he's having a ball. He loves people. He loves taking photos. He loves joking with them. He loves smiling with them. He loves hugging them.

And I was like, damn, the people around him. told me, they said, you know, that's actually really rare. Like most celebrities are like a little bit paranoid. They kind of resent the public. They, you know, they're scared to go out and public. Like, he fucking loves it. He loves it. And I've thought about that recently, you know, there are some people in our space that I know really resent that aspect, you know, being recognized in public.

People coming up to you in a restaurant. Yeah. I think the two parts for everyone out there is, number one. It's just accepting who you are. I think that's what's taking me till 40 almost. Like, okay, I like starting businesses. I'm going to teach other people to do it. I like, I like being some attention.

It's okay. Yeah. And I found a partner who was like, great, go make some videos. Yeah. My ex was always like, don't make any videos. Why do you want attention? And I was like kind of the negative reinforcement. Did you have weird things with Will post the whole stuff happened?

Because your association and how you, you know. So I got a lot of dumb emails being like, I can't believe you, you know, like this guy. or spent two, three years with this guy, whatever. I ended up writing a big piece on my website and sending it out on my newsletter, not defending the slap per se, but just being like, dude, he's human. And just like us, he has insecurities and flaws

and issues in his life. And like, I never pretended. Like, if you actually go read the book, it's all there. Like, it's all in that book. Like, he has a long history of, insecurity around the women in his life. He has a long history of violent outbursts at inappropriate times. Given the nature of that book, like, I'm just forced to see him as a normal human being. I would tell people, I'm like, okay, imagine a good friend of yours that you've been hanging out

with a lot, got drunk in a bar and hit somebody. And it was completely inappropriate, and they were totally in the wrong, and they got thrown out of the bar. Would you stop being friends with them? no you just be like dude what were you thinking like come on get your shit together and you know take them home and hang out with them the next weekend right like it's it doesn't it's not like a thing but it's weird given the nature of the fame the fame the setting it's funny i was thinking about my book and the the story for all of us is that we're all going to make fuck-ups yeah business and relationships, maybe not at the Oscars in front of the whole world. Yeah, yeah, right.

But in these different things, and I think that, you come back to the coffee challenge, you do it and you're like, okay, this wasn't, this didn't feel good, but I can do it again. And eventually, yeah, things will work out. Yeah. And things will get better. And I think that's nice not to drop him and I appreciate him your perspective on that. I'm a big fan of being non-judgmental as much as possible. And especially these days, right?

Like it's, I think we're a little bit too judgmental as a culture. We write people off too easily. You know, it's like even a simple tweet that we don't like or a political view we don't agree with. You know, it's just like, oh my God, I can't be around this person. This person's horrible. It's like, no, are they really? Like, no, they're not. They're just human.

Maybe they're misinformed. Maybe you're misinformed. Like, who knows? Yeah. It was the early days of e-sports. I was like really big into the early days of esports back in like the early 2000s. I played a lot, Quake and Unreal. And I used to go to these tournaments and actually won a little bit of money playing them.

And it was funny because, you know, all the guys competing in these tournaments were like 18, 20, 21, 16. So you'd be online with them, playing against them. And people just talk so much shit, so much shit to each other. And they get really worked up and like really upset. And so every single tournament, there was always some beef going on between this guy and that guy or this team and that team. And people are like, we're going to kick your ass at the tournament in August. Like, no, like physically. Like, you know, we're going to find you in the lobby and beat the fuck out of you.

And so there was always this like drama and beef. And it's like, oh, man, the tournament's coming up. And like so-and-so is like going to fight this guy in the parking lot and all this stuff. And then the tournament shows up. And first of all, it's a bunch of fat nerds who like haven't left their basement in like six months. And second of all, by like within six hours, everybody's hanging out at McDonald's together, like laughing. You know, like getting along, being friends, having a great time. There's something about being behind a screen that just it makes it easy to dehumanize people.

100%. And take the single worst aspect about them and assume that is their entire. identity. It's definitely the judgmental part. And I think a lot of times what I'm reflecting on for myself in terms of giving fucks or not is what am I lacking or feeling in myself? What's really going on with me? Like I see this person who's got more fame and I'm like, what is really going on with you know? Like is there ever an amount that you're going to feel good? It's like, no. Okay. So let's work through that. Yeah. And let's be understanding of that. And then once you have that for yourself, you're like, have more fame. You go, you become billionaire. Get more subs. Get 10 wives.

Whatever it is, you know, that you want. And I think that's true for all of us. Like it's accepting, okay, what is this really teaching me for myself? It's the variation in human value systems and beliefs. I mean, humans are so adaptable. They're just so insanely adaptable. It's crazy. And especially as someone who has spent a lot of his adult life, like researching human behavior and human nature and relationships and psychology.

Like, it's the older I get, the more I'm just like, dude, just do whatever works for you. It's none of my fucking business. Like, I don't, I'm not going to pretend to know, like, what's right for you. And I, but I think that's a, particularly if we judge ourselves harshly, we have a tendency to want to fit everybody else into our particular box. And there's like a one-to-one relationship with, like, how hard we are on ourself versus how hard we are on others. And I think if we can, like, ease off ourselves. Big time. I mean, I see it with a million dollar weekend.

seeing people literally like, ah, I made, I made one sale. Like someone literally emailed me this morning, $15. Yeah. I'm like, fuck yes. That's awesome. Like, let's go celebrate. And they're like, ah, you know, I'm like, that's it. That's it.

And you know what you do tomorrow? You do another one. And then you do it over enough time. You're like, holy shit, it's actually working. I'm like, yes, that's it. But I think we have this really intense criticism if it's like not all or nothing right away. And like that's been my own experience.

And what I see now, it's like positive self-talk, give yourself props and just stick with these things over some period of time. Yeah. Simple but difficult. Right? It's like it really is just making a $15 sale over and over and over again year after year after year scaling like five to 10% a year over 10, 20 years. You know, that right there is like a $10 million business, right? So like, yeah, I think you're actually a great example of business success that people don't think of it in a process, which I do think there is a process, which is you started blogging. I think you had an e-course or digital book earlier. Yeah, I had a couple e-books and then I launched my first course in 2009. Yeah, and I think that's the whole thing people are missing.

They're not starting. Yeah. They're thinking they're not ready and they're ready today. They can literally do it right now, just like you did. You post a blog. Post another blog. Post another blog. Post another blog. Launch a course.

One course doesn't work. Eventually, a course works. Yeah. Then you write a book models, which I've read. I've also read Wilson's book. I didn't read the second. Your fuck book. The second fucks.

I gave a fuck about that one. But I think the thing that people are missing out on is that like, By taking action, you're having courage, you're getting confidence, and that's leading you to these places, but you'll never get there sitting on the sideline. Yes. And people don't see that slow ramp up, right? So it's like there's hundreds of blog posts over five, six, seven years, right? Like it was funny actually when subtle art came out because in the publishing world, I was

a debut author. This was like the first thing I ever did, right? And so I go to the, I would go to these like literary festivals and publishing events and all, you know, cocktail parties. hosted by Penguin or whatever. And all the people in the industry are like, you know, how does it feel? How does it feel to be an overnight success? And I'm like, dude, I've been grinding on the internet for eight years.

Like, there's nothing overnight about this. Exactly. Yeah. What did that ramp up look like for you? So you, fuck, man. The ramp's been long, dude. So you famously got fired from fake. Yeah, 2004?

2005. 2006. I joined Facebook 2005, fired 2006. Okay. Join Mint 2007, fired 2008. Are you just unemployable? I'd like to be employable. I'm actually impressed when the people, we have job applications at Absumo, and I was like,

there's no fucking way they'd ever hire me here. I'm like, there's no way these people would ever hire me. I think my journey felt frustrating. It felt very depressing. It felt lonely. It felt I wanted to prove. I wanted to prove, I was still so angry. And I think I'm still angry, which is sounded weird to put out loud.

I'm trying to move into the love phase where I'm not so trying to prove people wrong. I'm just trying to prove myself right. And so for the 20s, it was like, you know, living at my mom's house for a few years, living my aunt's basement for a year, living on floors for a year. And I was just trying to like find a way to feel worthy. Yeah. To find a way to prove that like these people that fired me like, I can do it. I can be it.

And it wasn't happening. It was like it was happening or it'd get taken away or it happened and I would sabotage it. It would happen or I'd start drinking. It would happen. And I think at 30, I moved here to Austin. I left the bay. And I think that was a geographical nice shift of who, what do I really care about? I was like, I want to be where it's cheap, good looking people, friendly people, better weather.

So that then I think that shifted me to start moving into the life of like, okay, this is how I want to be living. This is what I actually, this is cool for me, like what matters to me. I think probably where I felt like the success maybe started aligning to how I felt about my insides is probably around 40. Wow. But around 30, I was like, the free line of promotion is my jam. Yeah. I've always been doing it, but like is there a way to make it a business? And then it actually started working.

And I think at that point, you create your own jail. So one of the lines that my buddy said, I really love is you don't trade your nine to five for a five to nine. Right. Kind of like you. You created this book because you wanted a book. and then you created this own like, oh, fuck. Like, I have my own prison of it. And I, in my observation from you externally, it feels like you're releasing yourself.

Yes. Well, that's a good description of it, yeah. Where it's like, I watch your content. There's no one making you do it. And it's like, why is Mark doing it? Because he fucking wants to. Right. People like, why do you do?

Because I fucking like it. Yeah. Like, I get to meet my idols and I get to learn from people and learn marketing and have fun and connect with people. Like, what else am I supposed to do here in this planet? And then I ended up being afraid of Absumo. Hmm. So it started doing really well.

It's kind of same with the book. Like, as I was putting Absumo together, started making millions. I didn't pay myself a lot. I was scared I was going to ruin it like my dad did with his businesses. So I left and I hired someone else to run it. He quit one day. He just calls me and quit.

And while he was, this is the craziest part, while he was running Absumo, his name is Amin Al Abdullah, I was making $2 to $3 million a year. And I was feeling so, which sounds like such a bitch thing. And I'll just clarify.

It sounds like such a bitch thing. I was probably the most unsatisfied I've ever been with life. Wow. And it's not the, The money is nice. I wasn't really spending it, but I just wasn't being challenged in a way that I felt proud of myself.

Right. And that's the whole secret for everyone out there. That is the secret. Yeah. Find the things you're proud of for yourself. Not for Mark, not for Noah, not for your parents,

just for yourself. Well, it's funny because I think money can be a vehicle to do something that makes you proud for yourself, but people mistake the vehicle for the thing, right? So they think that it's like,

oh, if I just make a million dollars, then I'll feel good. And it's like, well, no, no, you need to make a million dollars doing something that makes you feel good. Yes. That's the key. I teach the freedom number, which is like, how do you make the least amount of money possible to do the thing you actually want? Yeah.

And then guess what? By doing that, you'll make the most money possible. I like that. And as you talk about, it's way lower than people think. It's way more achievable. Mine's $3,000. I mean, now my lifestyle is crazier. I think it's like $25,000 a month. For me, it seems crazy. Yeah. I think that's a lot. But coming back to the experience, and I think the point for others out there is that aim and quit. And I think there's these moments where how do you either have someone quit on you or force yourself into the thing that you know in your head? I think we all know this voice. Do you know what I'm talking about? There's a voice in our head that's like, I probably should do this thing, but I just don't want to because I'm scared. Yeah. I probably should do this thing,

but what's going to happen if it doesn't work out? And that's the thing to do. Yeah. For everyone. And the rewards on the other side of it are always better. And so aim and quit. I came back And then I, this was around, I was 38, 39. And I was like, I'm going to totally fuck all this up. I'm going to totally fuck all these people up. Yeah. I'm going to ruin all this business. Yeah, and I definitely started fucking everything up.

I know you want a happy story. But I came back and I like changed everything. I fired people. I was like super egotistical around these things. And I think you said something earlier, which is true, which is humans and life is more resilient and it's never as dramatically bad as we think. Right. But over the past three years, I think in terms of making it, I feel like I made it.

Where as a CEO, if you would, we did, I do CEO surveys for my leadership team every quarter. And it's basically like, do you trust a team? Do you trust a vision? Do you trust Noah? And it was like red, red, which is amazing, right? Because it can only get better. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, every quarter I have the same survey. And I say, give me feedback. What's going on? And so in the past three years, I was in a meeting with a loan. who's our CEO on Monday and she was like yeah how are you doing a CEO and I was like I'm a fucking CEO here yeah she's like fuck yeah you are and she's she says the phrase I always speak I love that for you which I kind of hate that phrase but it's been it's been my own journey and this is everyone this is the point I teach and what I encourage is that we all have a

journey and you got to be the star you got to be the Will Smith the Mark Manson the no kick and the you and these journeys and I think business is the coolest one and so in terms of making it for myself and feeling all this stuff I think I've just embraced The things that are going and accepted, the things that are going and accepted myself with it. Like that I'm not always going to be great. That I'm going to be in a meeting and be emo. That I'm going to maybe say the wrong thing. And it's okay.

I can fix it the next day. I can keep practicing and getting better and better. I definitely feel like a lot of leadership is understanding your own weaknesses so that you can build your team around compensating for them. Right. Like knowing where you're really strong and where you can kind of carry your weight, with the organization and then where you're weak and it's like, I need, I need to make everybody else, like everybody already knows, I need them to know that I know

so that we can like build systems to kind of compensate for whatever our weird tick is. Yeah. Let's go back to the Facebook and mint jobs. I'm curious, how did you get hired at those companies so early? And then what caused the firing in each case? So I think the technique that I would recommend for everyone out there,

is how do you know hiring is all about probability it's probability it's what is the likelihood you will succeed at this job and so what you want to do is increase your probability to 100% that you will succeed in what they're doing and so with facebook and mint i was always building my own things didn't mean it did well but i built college up dot org no one's ever heard of these businesses college up dot org it was craigslist for college students okay ninja card dot com discount cards for college students hfg consulting was a marketing thing for college students and then i put on conference So one, I was just active, and I think it's good to show that you're in take initiative. Second thing, when I applied for Facebook, I didn't have any connections.

I had a day job at Intel. I didn't have like middle class family. Like I had two parents or three with the stepdad, but I didn't have any other advantage. So what my did, what my two advantages were in this, so I would recommend people's one, just be active doing things, right? And apply for jobs of things you like. I was using Facebook all the time. I was using it in my marketing.

The second thing is when I went in for my job, I brought a lot of mockups. So I showed them. This is one thing I think about in business and sales and marketing. Show people don't tell people. Yes. Show them. So I brought mock-ups. I like Facebook needs to do events.

Facebook needs to do maps. And I brought mock-ups. And to be clear, I'm not a designer. It's like pen. Yeah. Right? Or I think I might have used Microsoft Paint at the time. So when I'm in there, they're like,

this person's taking initiative. This person understands their customer. This person can do the work. So that's what happened at Facebook for me to get the job. And it was, there was nothing else. Otherwise, I mean, I was just a desk job at Intel. I want to add, too, that, you know, we've been talking about kind of these small business ideas, ask for a dollar, sell cookies for 15 bucks or whatever.

And it sounds so small and pedestrian, you know, like when we talk about it. But, like, as somebody who hires, that stuff stands out. Like, if somebody puts on their application, like, I have a side hustle selling cookies to my neighbors and it makes $1,000 a month or whatever, I'm like, okay, damn, that's worth more than like a Harvard MBA in my opinion. They taken it. Well, someone applied for a job with Absuma. There's no shade on this person, but he was here and the skill was here.

And that's fine. We all have gaps. What are you doing about it? Are you reading a book? Are you taking a course? You're doing meetings? How can you show that you're taking that initiative to close that gap in your skill level? And yeah, at Facebook, it was just my own interest in getting that job.

And the same thing with Mint. And this is for everyone out there. When I applied for the job at Mint, I didn't even apply. I just was doing event. I was doing these conferences. And so I met Dave McClure. He's like, check out this mint thing. And I truly think, go work on problems and businesses that solve problems you're excited about.

Find things you're excited to have a solution for. And so I saw Mint. It was called my Mint. And I was like, this is fucking sick. This is just so sick. And they were hiring a director of marketing. And I was like, yeah, let me do it. And Aaron's like, you've never even done marketing.

And so this is, by the way, I'm going to share a thing. There's been studies that when men and women apply for jobs, women only apply for things they're all qualified for, while men are just like, yeah, I'll figure it out. And I'm encouraging both sexes to go and apply. Like, don't limit yourself because you're not fully qualified. And with Mint, I went to Aaron. I was like, can I have the job? He's like, dude, you don't even know how to do marketing.

I was like, you're so right. Let me do this, Min. Let me do this, Aaron. And again, in business, I always think the phrase no-brainer. How do I make it a no-brainer for Aaron to just hire me? I said, let me put together a marketing plan for free. I'll spend all the time on it. You don't have to do anything.

I'll show it to you. If you like it, you can pay me to execute it. And that's it. And there's no risk for you. You get a free marketing plan either way. I think I probably put in around 70 hours, give or take, I had a minute. And that plan is still online. And I went back to Aaron.

I said, hey, here's your goal, 100,000 users within six months. Here's the customers. Here's the exact marketing techniques I'm going to execute on. You can pay me to do it. What do you think? He's like, yeah, I'll pay. So this comes back to the, that, the probability that you're going to be able to do the job.

The best way to show an employer that there's 100% probability that you can do the job is to go fucking do the job before you're hired. If you wanna be in sales, bring them a customer. You wanna bring a marketing, bring them a plan. The other thing I wanna highlight that you commented on is people trivialize or they reduce, marginalize things that can be significant.

Right? So when you think about, when I talk about getting a dollar, which is what I encourage you, I literally in the book give everyone a dollar myself. Yeah, it's me. You gave me a dollar. And in the book, I- Thank you, by the way. You're welcome.

You're welcome. Because it starts with a dollar. And the reason we do that is people don't realize the power of starting. And they trivialize that success. Oh, to start a million-dollar business, you start with a million customers. No, you just start with one. Yeah. Like Airbnb, one of my favorite examples is $100 billion business.

They started with an email to a conference. Hey, we have a couch. Has anyone won it? One sale, I think it was $150. Wow. That's $100 billion company day. But people are thinking, oh, no, no, there's all this other stuff. No, no, it literally just starts with one customer.

with $1 today. And then that over time can build up to billion, trillion, you know, different-sized companies. It's the power of compound, not compound interest, but just compounding. Compound time. I'm trying to think more through this, and I don't have a great phrase,

but it's compound success. Yeah. So it's finding something people are excited about. Right. And then how do I just find ways either myself or paying another person to stick with it? And you take that first dollar, reinvest it, improve.

Then you go get $5, take that, reinvest, improve. And it's like you just run that a thousand times and you end up with Airbnb or whatever. I mean, you end up with the subtle art. I'm not giving a fuck. Or absumo.com, which is, it's still unbelievable to me where we're at.

Like I think yesterday's revenue was like quarter million. Which is, yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. But then, oh, I can't do that. I literally started with a PayPal button and a $12 sale. Yeah. It was PayPal and my whole back end was Gmail. All right.

You were back at my tech stack was Gmail. My developer was this guy G, you know. And I think people don't realize it can be that simple. Like I was on CNBC yesterday, which is okay. Yeah. And they're like, how long does it take for a business? Like how long should it take for you to know if a business works? I'm like, a day.

He's like, oh, no, no, but how long? I'm like, a day. Yeah. And I've done so many things where people did not want it. But there's something there about your writing. And I'm sharing both stories. your writing or my business, you just, you start it, that they don't want it.

Okay, I'm going to start again. I'm going to start again. I'm going to start again. I'm going to start again. And that keeps leading you up to the point when you launch a book eight years later. Yeah. It's one of the things I, the pieces of advice that I give a lot of people who are blogging or these days starting substacks or newsletters is I say,

look, your first audience is going to be friends and family. And if they don't read it, you're fucked. You're completely fucked. So that's your first test is like, will my friends and family actually read this? And will they come back and read it again? Yeah. If they come back and read it again,

because everybody's going to read it once to be nice, the question is, you know, post number four, five, six, seven, do they come back and read it again? Second test is, do they show it to other people? I would even add a third is that do you like it? That's part of it too. I'm my biggest fan lately.

Probably in the past more as my positivity and I've worked on it. I watch my content all the time. I like read this tweet. I'm like, did I really write that? Not like to jerk off to myself in the mirror, but like literally, I'm like, wow, it's not a bad thing to be proud of ourselves. Totally.

It's a bad thing to be like arrogant and cocking rude. I don't think that's appropriate. But to be proud of yourself is great. I think with any content, you have to like it first. If you don't like it, the audience feels. They know. They can tell. And they won't like it either.

Like, it will feel off. It will feel inauthentic. Well, in relating this to the business experience, so we launched a thing from the book called law of 100.com. And the idea is like just do 100 pieces of content. Yeah. Because it's so easy to like, ah, this sucks, but just do 100. And then over time, if you get a little better at 100, you can make a good decision to quit. Because so many times in our life, I know I have, and I'm guessing others have too,

we've quit before we wanted to or quit, oh, if I just would have stuck with it. So finding a framework to say I'll quit at 100. But here's what's interesting about it. So some guy read the book, David Kennedy, he bought the domain. He built the site in a very quick amount of time. And then I bought it off him for $2,500. And then we, now we have a free site, law of 100.com. I cannot beg people to use this site.

I'm like, hey, with Law 100, go check it out. You can do 100 things, do 100. And people are like, nobody wants to do it. No one wants it. Yeah. Great. Because now I'm not going to spend the next six years kissing people's ass, begging to convince them to use them they don't even want. Yeah.

But it got me practicing. Okay, they, I built, David built it. We worked in it a bit. No one's really using it. Okay, cool. So last Friday, I did a, I do free office hours once a month on YouTube. Just hang out. the audience. I was like, none of you guys are using this. Yeah, which is okay. Great. Tell me why.

I don't know. We're not, I don't have a thing for a hundred. I don't have anything I'm trying to do. Okay. Guys, here's another problem I'm noticing. If I wanted to sell like liquid death or if I want to sell app sumo, if I want to sell something in under a minute, what's the, how can I sell something super quickly besides Venmo or PayPal? It's just, I don't know. There's nothing. Yeah. For free. Like, there's nothing for free if you want to sell something in under a minute. And I was like, does anyone else have that problem? They're like, oh my God, yes, I'd love to test and validate seeing if I could sell something really quickly, not Shopify, not gumroad, nothing. Just like, under 60 seconds, I can sell, get a customer.

I'm like, and people are like, oh my God, I have this fucking problem. And I was like, pay me. It's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I, my friend jokes. He's like, dude, no, a baller's got a ball. And I love balling. Not bawling in richness, but I like starting. I like hustling.

So I said, everyone who wants this product, send me $10 right now. I got $500. Wow. And David, instead of building something for the next six months that no one's using, people were begging to have that product right away. So this week, David is delivering on what we told them, what they wanted and what we told them we would do. And so that's what people are doing backwards a lot of times in these businesses. They're not recognizing even a dollar is great. And they're not finding problems that people are excited to read about from a content perspective or purchase from another business perspective.

You know, I get emails all the time, less these days. But back in the day, I used to get them all the time of like, hey, I'm starting a blog or I'm a new writer. Can you give me feedback? Can you read my stuff? Can you mentor me? And my response was always the same. It was write 50 articles and then come back and ask again. And nobody ever came back. And it was, I like to think, I mean, the cynical way of looking at it is just that nobody did it. But I like to think that there are some that did do it. But then after 50 articles, they realized there's nothing Mark can tell me. I don't need it. I've already found this other thing. I've worked my way to the. this other topic that's working for me. I like to hope that, at least. It's good to get people the benefit of the doubt. I do think people are going to be shocked with consistency. Yes. I noticed, and this is a thing I'm trying to encourage people the opposite of, because I think it's a big mistake, is these big ambitious goals. I think people need to be less ambitious

for longer periods of time. Interesting. And that's something that I've really embraced where, like, when I was starting absumo, I was like, billion dollars, 100 million emails, trillions, And then what happens, it's like you're sprinting and you're just always fucking sprinting. Yeah. And then it's like, yeah, it's going to be hard to sustain a sprint unless you're one of those guys from Nike. Those guys are really impressive. But it's hard to do that. And then success happens in decades.

And so when we're not an overnight book success in year one, but great, did you just write one article this year? Then next year get two. And so with Absumo, our growth goals are 7%. Nice. 7%. Like if in Silicon Valley, we have a. advisors and I think it's good to get coaches. I'm a huge fan. They're like, dude, if you're not billing, you're totally failing. I'm like, bro, we make $100 million. I make $3 million.

This is insane. Yeah. Like, we're all very fucking happy over here. Yeah. Customer happy. Our partner's happy. And, you know, we can do this until I die. And so with other people out there, I'm seeing them with a million dollar weekend where they're like, I'm going to post every day this whole year. It's like, why don't you just post once this month. And the next one, just do another one and just to keep doing that over a time period. Eventually, these things will work out. Yeah. My goal for the book was 1,000 Amazon reviews. That was my whole goal.

And I failed. I don't know if I failed because it was... I mean, it's only been out for like two weeks or something. And I think that was what I learned from that. It was like, hey, I want to get 1,000 people to leave a review within 30 days of launch. And after 30 days launch, it's 798. Okay. And so it wasn't some like, I need to sell 100,000 books to feel worthy.

It was like, can I just help 1,000 people? Right. And I didn't hit in 30 days last week. That was when the deadline was. And I was like, you know what? It's okay. I mean, it's still 789 people. And I think that's the whole point, right?

Like when you have these crazy ass goals, you're like, I didn't hit a thousand. This fuck it sucks. Trash. It's like some 98 people are excited about what just happened. And then there's more people and just day by day, let's just keep helping more people. Yeah. What do you give too few fucks about? Oof.

I need to think more about my fuckery. What do I give two little fucks about? Organic food. All these fucking people. organic food, overpaying for goddamn meals. I don't know how you go to a meal here. I don't how people without entrepreneurship afford life out here. They don't.

They don't. I went to get passport photos because we're getting married. You have to do for residency. Because she's not America. Dude, they charged me $84 for, it was like four, no, eight photos for $84 for passport photos. I give a fuck about overpaying. That, yeah.

Okay, we found it. You give too many fucks for overpins. I give lots of fucks. I'd love a good price. I give few fucks about fancy cars Any fucks about that Too few So too little

Too few It implies that it's something that you should give a fuck about more But you don't And we'll get to the too much Yeah, no you got me excited on this over I was like, fucking triggered right there We can start there What do you give too many fucks about

What do you think you should give fewer fucks about But you just like, you're like Yeah definitely overpaying Yeah You've got the right business then Yeah we have a deal site. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, our whole thing is about good value. Yeah. It does bother me when I see people giving advice and I'm like, get advice from people that have done the thing you want,

not people that will tell you the things you want to hear. Yeah. So that I think that still bothers me. Let's take a little diversion into YouTube because you and I are both, we're both like old school content people and both of us have really gotten into YouTube lately. Yeah. Just because we love it. It's fun. It's exciting. What is, your experience been like? Our audience is business underdogs and it helps them. Yeah. I was doing all these videos where I'm like asking people on the streets and going up to houses and going up to boats. Those videos are just fucking tremendously anxiety driven. Yeah. Like I have like it's basically a month every time before I do. I was going to ask like, first of all, how many people do you have to

approach a lot and add? Yeah. That does not sound fun. And yeah, what is that process like? Like how in those videos? Yeah. Like is it I think it's how everyone is feeling in their lives, but maybe in just different scales. Like, I basically spend the whole month, aren't you rich? Like, why are you doing this? Like, who are you proving to it? A lot of it's also judgmental, by the way. I'm going into people who look rich. Most of the richest people, like the guy who had a private jet that's, he's worth nine to ten figures, was in a Miller High Life sweater. That's awesome. Miller High Life, and he's got a dirty car. And it was an M3, but it was like, it's interesting how much we're judging that this person on Instagram or in person must be successful when most of the

flashiest people, most of the richest people are not flashing. Yeah, they don't want to. But yeah, it was a lot of realizing, I think the empowerment of that is that the power of asking, you literally can go up to a restaurant owner or you can go to someone who you rent your apartment from. How'd you buy this apartment? And start realizing, like, there's so much that they'll be excited to share and teach you. Yeah. And I think that was probably the underlying thing I think most people can take away, which is go ask people. Like, I live in a multi-million dollar house. People come to my house. I don't know how they don't fucking ask me. Like, dude, what'd you do? There's weird propriety around money. Like, it's not polite to ask. Because a lot of

people get uncomfortable with stuff like that. Asking is a skill. Yeah. And it's a skill you can practice and get better. So, for instance, when I, the whole reason is I did 100 videos that no one watched. So we had to do something different. And that's how we started knocking on doors. Right. So if you go to someone's house and when I started doing it, I'd be like, hey, how much do you make? What do you do for living to afford this house. They're like, who are you? Fuck you. And I keep, I keep waiting. I'm waiting for the day someone does it to me. Yeah. I'm kind of waiting that there'll be someone's going to do it at my house. Come to my house. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll be like, go fuck yourself.

But, yeah. Oh, dude, yeah, with my girlfriend and, you know, our child and everything, I'm like, don't you open door to no one? Like, I'm like, I'm like, unaculars on. I got my gun, you know, Texas AR 15 outside the door. Yeah, you're in the right state for, we are, that sort of thing. On average, how many doors do you have to knock on before you get somebody who will, like, actually sit and talk with you. It depends in the neighborhood. Okay. So Newport Beach, California, eight out of ten.

Wow. It's getting so many yeses, we pushed it. So we're like, let's get a house tour. Okay. So not only we're going to find out what they do, we're going to see if they'll let us in their house with me, a film guy and a producer, and just walk around. That's sick.

So two things that were crazy about it, specifically these videos, people are getting rich in so many cool ways. Yeah. And I do these rejection goals. I'm going to like, all right, let's get at least 10 nos. Mm-hmm. And then they kept saying yes, it was problematic. But we go to this lady Jan's house.

It's on the cliff. It's probably a $15 million house. And it's just a power of asking. I knock on the door. I was like, hey, I love you. And so how I ask, I shifted. I love your house. The houses on this street are just unbelievable.

So we just want to come compliment you and say hello. Yeah, we're doing a documentary for YouTube about Newport Beach. And your house is just so amazing. Like, how awesome is this to live in it? And she's proud of herself. She's like, and not in a room. She's like, my family comes over. This is such a nice house.

Like, look at this view. I was like, Jan. Yeah, we love it. We were just, we were admiring it from before. Can you, what did you guys do? Because it's so expensive here. Yeah. To be able to afford a house.

Oh, actually, my husband sold strawberries. We were in the strawberry business. No way, really? Strawberries. What? No, come on. Like, strawberry. She said, yeah, when he was in high school, he had a fruit stand.

And that fruit stand by him staying with it over a long period of time, he was able to sell it. And now we were able to buy this house for our family. A lot of our audience is trying to just learn what to do with their career. So, you know what's really important. life, your core values. You know, if you're successful, you've got to get back. But I think the thing I encourage is asking is a skill you get better at. Yeah. So as you shift it, it's different. People are more likely to answer things than you realize. We create these narratives that they don't want to help us, that this girl will say no to us, that I can't get that raise.

That they won't be like, that's our own story. It's not theirs. And I do think it's so cool how people are getting rich in all these different ways. In New Perbache, it was veterinarians, doctor clinics, architecture. But what's crazy about that, and that, And the content I've created, you have to find things that are repeatable. I think that's the whole, like, a holy grail of content. It's like, what do I like that people want? And I can do it over and over. When I go on shows and talk about things, almost everyone's interested in the billionaires.

No one cares that I stood outside an airport for 48 hours. Like, they're like, okay, cool. But like, tell me about that rich billionaire and what about them? Dude, I tried to do a man on the street video last year. And we went out to the Venice Boardwalk. And first of all, I just got shot down over and over. Like, people, it was the sort of thing like I'd walk up. I had a mic and I'd like start walking towards a person and they would just like literally

turn around walk the other direction. I was like, oh my God. What was the video about? I wanted to do a video around like what's something that you've always wanted to do but never had the courage to. And then you would help them do it? Yeah. Oh, dude, if they would have just gone up to the mic.

Yeah. Well, it was first of all, nobody wanted to talk to me. And then the few people that did talk to me, they just kind of like froze and stuttered and said like, oh, I don't know. And it was absolutely exhausting. And over two hours, I've probably tried to talk to like 15, 20 people. Maybe, I think two stopped and talked to me. And neither of them, like, had a clear answer.

Yeah. You can have a great concept on paper. Like, just the way you, like, lit up and you're like, oh, that sounds awesome. I thought you're going to take that transition moment. Yeah. And it's like, that's how internally, that's how the team was to it. Like, this is a bangor idea. Like, this is so sick.

Then once you get out there and start doing it, it didn't translate totally to real life for the camera. And also after about two or three hours, I just looked at my producer. I was like, I fucking hate this. This is absolutely awful. I'm so, I'm like, talking about, yeah, anxiety, just dejection. I'm friends with some of the guys in Yes Theory and I, like, texted one of them. And I was, because they did a bunch of man on the street videos. And I texted him, I was like, how do you do this shit?

He's like, oh, bro, it takes days. Like, days to find the right person. Days for a 10 minute video. Yeah. What video on the other side of that? that are you most proud of? There are two. So we've done, we did like five,

internally we call them coaching videos. So we did five coaching videos with five fans or six fans actually, where basically I took fans who have some sort of problem in their life and kind of coached them through the problem. They were very hard. Like logistically, they were expensive,

emotionally difficult, just tons of energy, tons of shooting. But one of them that did well, we worked with this guy out in Atlanta, just really shy dude, like never kind of gets out of his shell, never gets out of his comfort zone. And we just put him through the most ridiculous social situations over and over again. And we had like, his best friend was with us who was a blast. And we were like, put this guy in a chicken costume.

We made him go talk to people in the mall. We like made him pretend like he was a flat earther and was like handing out flyers to people. Yeah, the poor guy. I can't imagine how torturous it was for him. But it was funny because after, by the end of three days, he was like impervious. You know, like, we got to the end of three days, and he was cool. Like, he didn't give a shit. Like, did not give a single fuck.

And so the last part of the video is that he had to put on a chicken suit and go convince a stranger to go skydiving with him. It was amazing. And that video, it's a really fun video. So much work went into it, so much like getting the narrative right. And then we had to add kind of like some educational moments and then like shooting those educational. Like, it is a totally zany. crazy video, but I'm really proud of that one. And then the other one that I'm really proud of, we kind of did on a lark. Like one of the people we were coaching, she was a Korean-American woman,

she was trying to start a business. And it involved going to Korea and like buying a bunch of ceramics there and bringing them back to the U.S. And so it kind of became clear at a certain point that to make it a good video, like fill out the story, we probably needed to go to Korea. I was like, God damn it, dude. This is not what I thought I signed up for. Like Korea is going through a pretty severe mental health crisis. And if you look at the data, the mental health stuff is very different than the U.S. mental health stuff. You know, U.S. has its own mental health crisis, but they look completely different. And the cultures are completely different. So I was really curious, like, why is that? So we went over there. We did kind of this Anthony Bourdain

style, me and Seoul, like going and talking to people. I interviewed a couple of psychiatrists, an expat there, and just like really dove deep into the culture and like why this was going on. And turned it into this really beautiful 25-minute documentary type thing. And the audience loved it. Everybody was like, do more of these. That's rad. Yeah. I got to go to Bill Gates' house when I worked at Microsoft as an intern.

And I remember asking him, like, did you think that you were going to get here? Yeah. And I don't think anyone can think that. I don't think they can picture. And like, I'm in my house, and it's nowhere near as nice as Marks. Let's just be clear. You don't know that. You don't know that.

No. But I go in my house and I'm like, this is so fucking cool. I can't believe. I can't believe, they let me stay here. But the reality is that. Who's they? I know. The landlord.

The landlord. But the reality, though, and this is the important part for everyone, is that that started with Mark 15 years ago. Right. That started with Noah 15, 20 years ago that you can get to this place. But you're never going to get there if you don't get started. Yeah. When subtle art was number one everywhere, for some reason, a really common interview question

that I got was, did you expect this? And my reaction was always, does anybody expect? Like, if I expected this, I would be the hugest asshole. I would be so fucking narcissistic. Like, nobody expects this. It's, it's, you just hope the next thing is going to be slightly better than the current thing. And you just repeat that a hundred times. I like thinking to myself, like, what am I going to thank myself for today in the future?

Like, what am I going to today? Today, now, today, date. In five years, whatever, like, dude, I'm so glad I'm having a kid, like that I'm going to stay healthy. Yeah. And maybe drink a little less. Yeah. Maybe a little bit more. It's like, okay, cool, do it now.

And I'll be thanking myself in five years. Liz Gilbert has this awesome framework where she doesn't see herself as like a single person through time. She sees herself as like every moment in time is a separate Liz. And so she will like thank her past Liz's for doing things for her. And then she will like whenever there's something she doesn't want to do, she's like, well, future Liz is going to thank me for this. Yeah, maybe I should do it. Have you not grappled, but how have you processed the, notoriety and the change of your attention over time.

That was something we were trying about. You mean the attention I receive? Yeah, just like, how have you experienced all that? And how do you, like, you have insecurities about it? I guess I was curious how you're processing all of it. There's definitely a, like a hedonic adaptation effect that happens where, like, a video that got 100K views 10 years ago, I'd be like, oh, my God, 100K views. You know, now it's like, oh, that's a poorly performing video, you know? So it's, your brain adapts very quickly.

launching everything is fucked was very difficult, even though it was number one on the New York Times, is about to hit a million copies, like all this crazy, like had a massive pre-order, did all these. I remember my agent telling me, she said, if this book came out in a vacuum, like just a random author put out this book, it would be one of the biggest successes of the entire year in the publishing industry. But because it came after subtle art, everybody was kind of like, oh, you know. So there's a brutal adaptation that happens very quickly. It's like whatever big number you hit, that becomes the new normal. And anything below that feels like a loss. I think that's the hardest thing to deal with mentally with this industry, with being a creator. You love the growth.

You want the same in business, right? It's like... You want to ever hear to get better? Yeah. If you have one year where you're down 7%, that feels like you took an L, right? You know, even though you're still up 300% than five years ago or 10 years ago, whatever it is. I think over time, I have gotten better at accepting that and processing it. You know, you can't win everything.

You still like, you still have to love it and stand by it. In terms of attention, I don't know. I think I've just gotten better, again, to bring up Will, like one of the biggest lessons I took from him was that fame and attention. is it just another system to be managed? So, like, he is so famous that he has people on his team whose sole responsibility is managing his exposure to the outside world. They, like, plan schedules and days around managing that. His hotels are booked based on that.

His restaurants are booked based on. Like, dude, there's secret backdoors fucking everywhere, by the way, that celebrities and, like, statesmen and politicians and stuff use. Like, you can pull up. They're like most big, famous restaurants and hotels have some secret backdoor entrance that nobody knows about. Just a quick little factoid there. That's cool.

Yeah, it's really cool. But I learned that. I was like that it's just you can manage it, but you have to manage it. It's a system, like any other system in your business, you have to plan for it, you have to create contingencies, train up a team to be responsible for it. And so I see very much see it that way as like understanding when I'm going to be in a place where I can probably be recognized, being mentally prepared for that. And then also just getting really good about saying no to things I don't want to do.

You know, it's like it's some speaking gig or an interview or media, you know, go on some TV show. And it's just like default is no unless there's some special reason to do it. Hmm. Yeah. Did you have like an ego death? Do you mean ego death in like a kind of like a spiritual sense of experiencing no self? or do you mean ego death is just like a humble, like a deep humbling? Not even a humbling, but necessarily maybe a boasting, right?

Okay, maybe I am the king of all fucks. I've had a, I've actually had a very tenuous relationship with the giving a fuck and the whole concept and everything. It's funny. Like, I think I'm so naturally contrarian. And I think, too, that the book blew up. I was still so young. I remember having this conversation. with my editor, I was like, I don't want to be known as the fuck guy for the rest of my life.

Like, I have so many other things to say. And it really weighed a lot on me. And so I think there were a number of years where I really resisted it. And I tried to kind of push in the new territory or try out different ideas or talk about different things. And most of that kind of backfired, both in terms of audience response, but also just in terms of like, I didn't really enjoy it or it felt stressful. It wasn't fun. Yeah. You know, I took, I took, I took, most of 2022 off. I was extremely burnt out. And since coming back, one of the things, you know, I decided is I'm only going to do things that are fun, which is why I'm not doing Man on the street videos. It's funny. I went back and I read 22 immutable laws of marketing, like classic

business book. I went back and reread it. I read it when I started my business in like 08. I was like, you know, I'm going to go review it. Like, just give myself a refresher. And like, one of the first things, one of the first laws, it says one of the best things that can ever happen to a business is that it owns a word or phrase. And it was like, if you are ever fortunate enough to be in a situation where you own a word or phrase, ride that shit until the day you die. And I was like, reading this. And I'm like, man, I'm an idiot. So here we are on the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast. And I'm asking you what you give a fuck about, what you don't give a fuck about because it is it's such a useful lens I think that that is the process of me putting

my ego aside of like look dude you don't get to be this this uber genius who just comes up with a new brilliant concept every other year you know it's like this is your hit it's a beautiful lens to help people analyze their values their personality their belief systems where they're putting their energy in focus it's an extremely useful lens for so many people just write it. Just enjoy it. So that's what I'm here doing. I love that.

Thanks for coming on, dude. Yeah. It was a blast. Thank you. And the book is great, man. And it's like, honestly, if you do want to start a business, it's a must read. And even if you don't, it is a great primer on just taking action. Yeah.

Like, just do the fucking thing. Thanks, man. It is funny because you do these shows and it's fun to talk about all stuff. And then I go home and like, Am I giving it too many fucks? Did I give too many fucks in that show?