The Ryan Hanley Show - Why Most People Are Cowards (And How to Not Be One) | Zuby

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyMost people are cowards. They talk a big game at the bar but stay silent when it matters. They signal virtues they don't believe in to protect their paychecks. They're terrified of saying the wrong thing, so they say nothing at all.But what if that fear is costing you more than just your integrity? What if it's costing you money, influence, and the life you were meant to live?In this episode, I sit down with Zuby—a rapper, author, podcaster, and one of the most independent thinkers on the planet. He's a man who has built an empire by refusing to bend the knee to groupthink.Zuby breaks down the uncomfortable truth about why so many people choose cowardice over courage, and provides a playbook for how to think for yourself in a world that demands conformity. This isn't feel-good motivation. It's a tactical guide for leaders who want to operate with conviction.Stop hiding. Stop complaining. It's time to build.Connect with ZubyX (twitter): @ZubyMusicSubstack: realtalkwithzuby.comWebsite: zubymusic.comThis show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

There are people where they just hear the word Trump and it triggers them. You could probably measure that their body temperature increases and their heart rate increases just by the mention of the word, Trump. If someone gets triggered by that, then whatever comes next, their emotions are clouding their judgment. It doesn't even matter. If there's someone who hates Trump to that degree, you could probably completely make up something that he claimed he did or said something that's completely crazy. And they won't bother to look it up. They won't bother to fact check it.

will just 100% be like, oh my gosh, that's crazy. I can't believe he did it. He's blah, blah, blah, right? Because it affirms what they already believe. That's Zubi, our guest on the show today. And this conversation will challenge everything you think about courage, conformity, and what it actually takes to speak the truth in a world that punishes it. This is the way.

So you knew Scott Adams. Scott Adams just passed. I was enormous Scott Adams fan. You know, pre him going. political during the way, during his time, kind of starting to commentate in 2016 and and really focus on the way he focused on more cultural and political topics I thought was, you know, based in kind of real deep thought and reality. And he was just an interesting and an original thinker. He really, and he seemingly stuck to the, to his thought process.

What was he like as a person, as a man in the time that you got to spend with him just being that he just passed? Yeah, sure thing, man. Well, first thing, rest in peace, Scott, I knew the day was coming. I thought it was going to come sometime this month, if I'm being honest, based on the things that he was saying and just from what I knew. But still, nonetheless, of course, you know, it's shocking and it's sad, no matter how much warning you get. when someone passes, it's just sad. But, you know, in his case, man, he was like a champion all the way up until the end. I've never seen someone just kind of keep going in the public eye in the way that he did and just continuing to do his live streams and continue to put his message out there and encouraging people.

And I definitely took something from that. It's not something I've really seen before. And I think there's something to, I think there's something for people. learn there. But in terms of Scott's character, I mean, I've only met him in person twice. I've interviewed him three times. The first time was remote like we're doing now. The second two times were at his house in California, once in 2024, and then again in September 2025, so just a few months ago. So when I saw him then and I met him and we were chatting, I was very conscious of the idea that there was a good chance. It was going to be the last time I'd see.

him in person. And so there was a certain weight to it. But at the same time, you know, he was still his usual friendly self. He was very, you know, with me, he's always been very kind and polite, very encouraging. I know he actually talks about me quite a lot on his live streams and likes to use me as an example of his sort of talent stack ideas, someone who does multiple things and makes them work together. obviously a great sense of humor. I mean, anyone who's followed his work at all over the decades would already know that. Yeah, man, he was a good guy.

And I know that there are people who want to sort of tarnish his reputation due to that little rant he had. I don't know, was it 2023, I think, when he sort of made those comments that people were like, you know, hey, he's a racist. He's a Nazi. He's a white supremacist. He's all these kind of things. And, you know, just kind of take. the punchlight of it and completely strip it out of context. Now, are those statements that I would have personally said, no, do I think he could have worded it better and explained things better?

Sure. But at the same time, having spoken to him about it and seeing him talk about on multiple things, I think, you know, I understand what he was getting at and the wider point that he was trying to make. And we live in this world where it's kind of strange where someone can live for 68 years and for decades and decades, be in the public, guy and put out thousands of pieces of work, multiple books out there, I don't know how many live streams, you know, thousands of hours of quote unquote content. And there are people who want to take one thing that you've said in your entire lifetime, take the very, you know, suppose, the worst thing that you've said in your entire life and they want to kind of make that your legacy and use it as a, as a reason to kind of dismiss or to denigrate the, you know,

man himself, and I think that's just lame. But on the flip side of that, I mean, it's just been massive outpourings of love and support. I actually said to my wife yesterday that I hope when I die, I get that much love and support. I hope that many people are sad when I die. You know, he impact millions of people. I've known of Scott Adams, literally since I was a child growing up in Saudi Arabia. I remember seeing all the different cartoons in the Arab news newspaper, it was called. And, you know, Dilbert was one of the ones that I'd regularly see. And, you know, I just remember, I didn't think, oh, decades later, this guy's going to be like any type of peer or he's going to be someone who respects me like I respect him or, you know, I'm going to be sitting down having conversations with him and putting them out there to thousands of people across the internet. You know, I never thought that would be.

But, yeah, rest in peace to Scott. I hope that his confession of faith towards the end was, was. true that's between him and God. But yeah, that's what I have to say on that one, man. Yeah, I'm glad that you talked about the one moment in a lifetime of content and value. And, you know, one of the things that I was so interested in having this discussion with you about is a couple different things. I mean, you seem very much like a polymath, like a Renaissance man yourself. Scott was also someone who played in multiple different dimensions with multiple different formats. And to me, you know, there's seemingly, when I hear discourse, right, that you see on X or

any of the platforms or, you know, any type of media, you know, I look at the bifurcation in the world and I hate looking at it as right and left or conservative and liberal. You know, I don't, it can sometimes fall in those buckets, but those, in my opinion, aren't the actual buckets. Those are just categories or tags that can occasionally be put on the two different conversations. And I find myself gravitating to individuals like yourself, like Scott, like a James Altuscher, like individuals who seemingly, you can't guess their opinion on a topic, right? You can't just automatically assume, well, hey, you know, X happened. Scott Adams is going to agree with that or he's going to be in this path or same with yourself, right?

Like seemingly you ingest the topic. You think through your set of morals, your set of personal filters, frameworks, etc. And then you take an opinion. And then we have other individuals on seemingly both sides of what we'll call, I guess, the aisle who just face value, rip out all nuance and however they can use that topic to play to their biased opinion, right? They'll present it. And to me, we need to highlight more individuals like yourself and your thought process. One, I guess, do you agree that that seems to be more the bifurcation than just a straight, kind of like right-left, conservative, liberal type thing?

And two, how do we start to cultivate more of these voices who are seemingly deeper or more independent or original thinkers. Yeah, well, it's a difficult one, Ryan, because first of all, in the USA, which is the country that drives the majority of social media discourse, and it's the biggest English-speaking country. So, I mean, you guys only have two real, like, proper political parties. So the false binary is. sort of forced upon this giant population of hundreds and millions of people. And then people are just so amped up and jacked up about politics in the U.S. that you almost have to choose aside to some degree, right? This doesn't mean that you have to be a binary thinker, but even if you're someone who is a

little bit more nuanced and like there's only two parties that you can vote for. And even when it comes to things like the news media. When in the U.S., like, I'm not aware of any mainstream or sort of traditional news channel that's like even tries to genuinely be down the middle, right? There's like right wing news and there's left wing news. And that's where the money is. And that's where the votes are. And that's where the power and the influence lies.

So kind of breaking this duopoly is difficult to do in people's brains when, you know, And it's what is put upon people. And it's also really what's incentivized. Not just at the sort of high politics level, but even at our level, right, being someone who is a media figure or a content creator, I don't love that term. But for lack of a better term, if you're someone who puts stuff out, it could be podcasts. It could be just tweets and social media posts. It could be videos.

You're a political commentator. it's a lot more lucrative and a lot less painful and also just cognitively a lot easier to just pick one side and just play completely on that side. You literally make more money faster. It's much more clear where you fit in and who can hire you or what podcasts you can go on and so on. Like there's a whole ecosystem for left-wing media and for right-wing media in the U.S. and also in some other countries.

So it's a lot easier to just play completely in one of those fields. Beyond that, it's also a lot easier to take criticism from the other side than from your own side, right? So if you're someone who's naturally more right-leaning, conservative leaning, you know, you can deal with like the left wing and the woke and the progressive criticism all day long, whatever. Right. But when people who are generally aligned with you and who typically agree with you or who are quote unquote on your own on your same side, when they start criticizing you or they start ridiculing you or whatever, like it hurts more. Right. You're getting, you're getting hit from both sides at that point. Right.

It's not just like, okay, I'm here and I'm getting hit from one side. It's like I'm standing in the middle and like I'm just being buffeted back and forth by people on both because I'm trying to have a little bit of nuance or maybe I'm not. 100% this way and 100% opposed to this or vice versa. Naturally, most people just want to avoid that. Also, just when it comes to thinking, it's a lot easier to just think in black and white and to think in binary and to think, you know, my tribe good, your tribe bad, comes from this side good, comes from that side bad, and that's it. You know, my side good, that side evil.

And there are quite literally millions of people. And that is like their thinking framework when it comes to politics, when it comes cultural issues when it comes to social issues. And then beyond all of this, all of this is already a problem. And then you slap social media and algorithms on top of it. And you see what gets rewarded, right? You see what gets response. You see what gets reaction. You see what gets clicks. And once people see that, they want more of it. Because, you know, I know you talk a lot about the status game, right? I listen to your TED talk. And so people are chasing the status or they're chasing the fame or they're chasing followers or they're chasing influence or they're chasing money right like

there's money in all of this as well so it's quite difficult for people like like i think there are there are multiple things going on there there's the sort of intellectual challenge there's the sort of financial or career challenge if you're trying to make some type of career out of it there's the fact of the sort of consequences of playing more down the middle and there's the fact that you know it is kind of a binary, at least in the USA and many other countries. For example, I'm from the UK. And in the UK and most European countries, you typically have like at least three viable political parties. But in some places you have four, you have five. I mean, you might have hundreds that exist. But in the States, you know, there's just kind of this almost like this winner's

duopoly. Winner takes all. There's this tribe and there's this tribe. And they don't overlap as much as they used to. And so it's just like, okay, pick one and let's go. And because of this binary thinking, last point I'll make here is if you don't march in lockstep with one or the other, you get, you get accused of being in the other tribe. Right. So I've been accused of being everything from a far, I've literally been accused multiple times of being like far right, of being a white supremacist. like as a black guy I've been accused of that um of being you know all of this and then I've also been accused of being like oh Zubi's going a bit woke or like Zubi are you are you turning into a left ear or whatever right because I express I express an opinion that is not like a straight down

the line sort of perfect republican talking point and suddenly it's like oh that sounds a little bit woke and it's like all right so myself who has been at the forefront of criticizing that whole ideology for almost a decade all of a sudden I'm woke because I'm just saying something that's not like parroting another point. And, you know, a lot of people don't like thinking. My dad often says that most people don't think. And while that sounds quite disparaging, I think there's quite a bit of truth to it. Yeah.

There's a couple places I want to unpack that. I actually just had this happen to me other day. So I am not a huge fan of Kathy Hochel, the governor of New York, for a bunch of reasons. But she has two policies. that she just came out with in her 2026 agenda that I actually agree with. One is she wants to invest both in the nuclear power plants that we already have in the state, which we have a few. And then she wants to start bringing in potentially some new smaller Gen 4 reactors into the state as well,

which I'm an enormous proponent of nuclear energy as our way of getting through the energy crisis. Particularly in a state like New York, where they will not, for a bunch of reasons that are insane, start and extract any type of natural resources that we have in the state out okay um and she also wants to have kids from uh the first bell to the last bell have their phones in one of those uh bags that you know they can't send and receive messages during the day so that they can focus on school right and i don't know if that's a good idea or bad idea i've read enough to believe that that i think it's a good idea uh but i think it's worth the experiment to find out if it's a good idea and if the only pushback is I can't text my kid in the middle of the day,

it seems like we should at least give it a try and let them try to focus for eight hours on learning and engaging with each other. Well, what's funny is on X, because I normally am a opponent to what she says, you know, I actually post and I was like, hey, I'm actually, these are two initiatives, as much as I'm not a fan, these are two initiatives I think are great for our state. And, and dude, you should have seen the people like, oh, you know, now you're a fan, what next year going to be all?

about Mondami and I'm like, whoa, like, you know, and I, I don't even, to be honest, to be honest, to be, actually, to be, I'm more of a voyeur. I just read it for the news and stuff, you know, like I'm not trying to grow an audience there. And I was just, I was just taken it back by like, and this is where I want to get to. Um, you mentioned people don't think. I'm, I'm interested. I wonder how intelligent people actually are. The general population. And I don't mean that as a way to knock people. I mean, we know for a fact that everyone doesn't, isn't born with the same IQ. And as I've gotten deeper in my own career and moved out of just simply talking about business and into some more nuanced ideas, I found that there's

some people that I talk to in my life who just simply can't keep up. And I don't mean that as a knock on them. They're wonderful human beings, great people. But just like you try to get into like second or even, you know, God forbid, third level, you know, thinking and it actually came out of some discussions around Trump where someone had a big problem with the decision he made. And I said, look, I don't know exactly why I can only look at what he's done. But if I'm thinking about how he's negotiating through tariffs to leverage tariffs and they're like, he's changing tariffs, how is business ever going to get done? He's constantly, I'm like, he just got Japan to invest 600.

billion dollars in the United States by leveraging a tariff for one week. Like, you can't, like, you can't connect those two dots that a little bit of pressure with a tariff produced 600 billion dollars in investment in the states. Like, you're just tariff, bad hate. Like, and then I started to think like, and this is where I'll wrap my long-winded question up here, is like, maybe this person just simply hasn't been trained or doesn't have the intelligence or their brain just isn't structured in a way in a non-linear way to be able to connect these dots that don't just happen one at a time. How much of the issue is that

people just can't follow along with hyper-nuanced discussions or multilayered discussions? It's a good question. I haven't thought about it or expressed it this way before, but what immediately came to my mind as you were saying that is I think there are at least three main things that are or could be going on there. So let me step through this. Let me think through this out loud. So the first, I think, is what you're saying, which is just intelligence, processing power, right? Some people just simply not being able to wrap their head around certain ideas, especially if they are more abstract, more multi-layered, more hypothetical. Not everyone, can do that, right? I'm sure you've heard that thing of like, if you ask the question,

you know, how would you feel if you didn't have breakfast this morning? Not everyone can process and answer that question because they're like, well, I had breakfast this morning. It's like, yeah, but if you didn't have breakfast this morning, how would you feel? Not, it takes a certain level of processing power to answer something like that, right? Or when something has recursion. So there's just a level of, you could call it IQ, you could call it, you could call it intelligence, processing power, whatever it is, and that's one point. The second one, which is a major one, especially when it comes to anything sociopolitical, is just the influence of emotion. So you have people who are, you know, they could be of average or even of high intelligence,

but they're so emotional that the emotions supersede their rationality and their logic and their thinking. So, for example, there are people where they just hear the word Trump and it triggers them, right? Like, literally, you could probably measure that their body temperature increases and their heart rate increases just by the mention of the word, Trump. Okay. And if someone gets triggered by that, then whatever comes next, their emotions are clouding their judgment. It doesn't even matter. Like, you could probably make up, like, if there's someone who hates Trump, for example, to that degree, you could probably just completely make up something that he claimed he did or said something that's completely crazy. And they won't bother to look it up.

They won't bother to fact check it. They will just 100% be like, oh my gosh, that's crazy. I can't believe he did it. He's blah, blah, blah, right? Because it affirms what they already believe. And it makes them emotionally feel good to kind of go on that rant. The idea that they could agree with something that he did or that he could do something good or whatever, like that causes this cognitive dissonance. And so there's a part of it.

of it, which is just people, I call it emotionally incontinence, right? Some people are just, they don't know how to manage emotions. We see all sorts of variations of this. Some people just, they get angry extremely easily, they get outraged extremely easily. They're very gullible. Whatever the case may be. So I think that's the second part of it. And then the third is the tribal thing once again, right? So once someone has put themselves into a tribe, And they have, then they're running everything through the algorithm of considering the social consequences of what they say, what they don't say, what they agree with, what they don't agree with, and so on. So if someone, for example, is, you know what, like, let's flip it the other way. Let's say someone is known to be a staunch conservative, a staunch Republican, okay?

And they've been very critical of, I know, the governor, the governor of your state, like you were saying. Okay. and then she proposes something which actually genuinely is a good idea in that person's mind and which they know that if they say out loud, hey, I think this is a good idea or you know what, actually I agree with this policy or whatever, they know they're going to deal with what you already told me that you dealt with, right? And most people generally don't like conflict. So they'd rather just either be quiet or just go. against the thing because they're more concerned about the tribe. Like so much of how people think,

how people behave, how people vote is based on what they think other people are going to think about it. So like we already know this. You see it in every dimension of life. So I think that I'm sure there are other factors, but I think those three are very significant. So I think number one is, yeah, just the intelligence thing as you mentioned. Number two, you've just got the emotionality. And then number three, you have the tribalism and the fear of social consequences. And they don't even, it could be two of them. It could be three of them, depending on the person you're talking to and the topic. And I think that's something that prevents people from just thinking independently and clearly. Taking America's political parties, it feels to me like

you have this do you think do you let me frame this question the right way it seems to me like we have this hyper emotional the left side of our of our country seems just everything is like a is like a exposed nerve right we're just there's just so much hyper emotional logic is very hard and and i think the far far right has that as well 100%, right? But there seems to be this group, which I think is the majority of Americans, right? And probably the majority of the people in the world fall in this,

they probably balance emotion with logic fairly well, right? But they've slowly, it's seemingly been pushed. And I've seen this in my own state. New York tends to be a liberal state. Most people here are Democrats, because if you want to do business in this state, you kind of have to be a Democrat unless you're willing to cut those people out. So I know, I actually know a ton of conservatives who are registered Democrats who simply because if they register as Republicans, they get kicked out of the fun clubs, right?

And it's just the way it is. Can I just jump in? That's so pathetic to me. Yeah, please. I must say that that's so pathetic to me. I know that that's a thing. But when you just say it like that, I'm just like, people need to grow some, people need to grow some balls. But yeah, carry on.

I agree. I agree. And this is where I was going with that question. So I was at a, my home industry that I've kind of grown up in is the insurance industry, which is, by the way, every little boy's dream. When I was six, I was like, you know what I want to be when I grow up an insurance agent? I want to sell insurance for a living and have, you know, I'll be a conservative in New York and sell insurance, so everybody will hate me.

No. So I was at a mastermind, and the topic of politics in content came up at this mastermind. It was about 60 kind of very successful, hard driving insurance organizations of different ilk and all the leaders there. And we're having this discussion. And I said, I have a problem with this idea that I don't talk about politics. I don't ever talk about this idea. I said, I don't think you have to make your brand politics. But to the point that you just made, to me, it's a complete.

cop out. Trust me, I'm amazing at what I do, except I'm going to lie to you about how I feel about politics. Trust me, I'm great at what I do and I would never screw you over, but I'm going to lie to you how I feel about transgenderism or, you know, insert, you know, whatever, you know, mass immigration or whatever topic I vehemently disagree. Right? But I'm going to lie to you or I'm going to whitewash it all because, you know, I, I want to make sure everyone can do business with me. And I said in the group, I said, I find that to be cowardly. I said, I don't think your brand has to be political. I'm not saying go out and take hard stances and be a, be an activist.

But if you are, if you have them maybe, let's, we'll take, you're, you're of Christian faith. Right? You're of Christian faith and you call yourself a Christian and you go to church. church, but then the decisions you make, the things you support, you know, you put the black square during Black Lives Matter, you put the rainbow during whatever, you know, transgender things going on. And like, but you don't actually believe that. Like, you're a coward.

And dude, I got absolutely lit up, right? Now, I don't, I don't care because it's what I believe. And it's the way that I've always been. Was this an in-person meeting? In person. Yeah, there's about 60 of us in a big horseshoe, right? Okay. And what was funny was, and what was funny about it was,

so people are like, you know, all this pushback and you don't understand, and I live here and I live there and blah, blah, blah, and this is what you do, and it's inappropriate to talk about politics and business and, you know, all these different, and there's degrees of nuance and truth to all these arguments. But what was funny to me, and this is where I'll end my long-winded question here, is afterwards I had about a dozen of those people come up to me and go, you're right, but I'm still never going to do it.

And I still haven't, that was a few months ago, I don't know that I've still processed that engagement 100%. You know what I mean? Like the idea that I agree, I agree, but I'm still not going to do it. I'm still going to hold back. I'm still going to whitewash. And then bitch, right?

I'm going to not talk up about. the fact that I'm against mass illegal immigration, but then over beers at the bar, I'm going to bitch about it and spend 30 minutes giving me a diatribe of my feelings on it. And I'm like, you're a coward. You don't get to bitch about it at the bar if you're quiet about it in public, in my opinion. I don't know. This is where I start to struggle with how to have these conversations. Well, welcome to the party, man.

I mean, gosh, if I could tell you how many. If I could tell you how many, especially over the last seven years, if I could tell you how many like DMs and messages and people I've had come up to me in public in different countries and express these type of things. And, you know, like, oh, man, I wish I could do what you're doing or I agree with you. But especially during COVID, good grief. It was probably at the peak then. Yeah, man, it's, look, human beings are going to disappoint you. And I often say, like, disappointment is the gap between. expectations in reality. And the only way to kind of deal with it sometimes and this,

this doesn't, this sounds negative, but it's not, is to just kind of like lower your expectations of other people. If you expect, if you expect all or most people to be courageous or to be entrepreneurial or to be creative or to be super free thinking or whatever, like you're, you're always going to be disappointed because most people just are not these things, at least. least not on a day-to-day basis. I think when push comes to shove, once in a while, you know, you might get someone who surprises you and, you know, they kind of rise up to the occasion. But the average person is average. Most, you know, people are typical in these things. And there are, you know, most human traits exist on something like a bell curve or a normal distribution.

So for every hyper-carriageous person you have, you have a hyper-coward. And most people are somewhere in the middle, and I wouldn't say the middle is particularly brave and courageous, right? There's a reason why we celebrate heroes, why we celebrate courage, why we, because it's rare, right? If it were just, oh, everyone is super courageous, everyone is brave, then it's nothing to, it's nothing to praise or celebrate, right? Why are we like, oh, that person is a genius? Oh, that person is like outstanding because they're, they're an outlier. So I've learned to just not have necessarily sort of high expectations of the sort of general population in these things. Like if I already believe that and then like the years from 2020 to 22 just made it like

even more clear and apparent with all the goofiness of the scam demic and people's behavior during that. And so you just have to act accordingly. If you are one of those people who is that in that kind of minority, which I guess you are, which, you know, I must be, then you just act accordingly. You surround yourself with other people who are close to you who maybe have that in them. And just generally interacting, like I said, you just, you don't have those expectations. And so therefore, when people say those type of things or when they behave that kind of way,

you're not kind of like shocked by it in a way that you need to spend a long time processing it. You're just like, yeah, you know, that's just how people are. I wish it were different. There's many, many things I wish I could change about humanity and change about the world in general. but I think one of the reasons why I'm like a very sort of peaceful and content person is just because I'm very realistic with all that. So I don't get so like, you know, I actually had a conversation with someone yesterday. And he was telling me that he's like, gosh, like he's like, I rarely see you comment on like all of like the conflicts that are going on in the world and like all the, you know, foreign wars and all this type of stuff. And I'm just like, what would me, what can I, what will I add to those conversations?

You see, like, I have a limited time. I have limited attention and limited energy. And I have messages I'm trying to get out to people in ways I'm trying to help people the best way that I can. And yeah, I can spend a ton of time getting, like, outraged on all these things and doing my online activism and putting up the hashtags and this and this. As you know, lots of people get a lot of juice from that. But for me personally, I'm just like, that doesn't move the needle in any way. It's not necessarily good for me or my audience. It might just polarize people even further.

And ultimately, it's not going to help things that are actually on the ground. When there's a time in a place where I can use my voice of my platform to, like, offer some sort of unique insight or encourage people to help in a very specific way, that I'm willing to do that when I can. But, you know, Ryan, everyone just has their, I guess what I mean to say is like everyone just has their way of operating in the world. For some people, that is the rule of, you know what, I just never talk about religion or politics. They don't talk about it with their family, with their friends, at the workplace, whatever. And that's not an entirely wrong strategy, shall we say, right?

there can be times actually where maybe that's the smart thing to do. Because we know that the complete opposite also isn't the correct position to be in, right? You know, we all get annoyed by that person who cannot like keep their politics and their opinions on every single social and cultural issue like out of the workplace or out of the family group chat or out of like the con you're just trying to have a, you know, conversation with friends and they want to talk about, you know, Trump did this and the Democrats, and the GOP that. And it's just like, bro, like, you know, cool, there's a time and place to talk about it,

but can we, you know, discuss something else? So everyone's kind of got a different, is on a different place in that sliding scale. Something I'd say is a bit comparable is like if you are someone who's on social media or you're a podcast or you're some sort of public-facing figure is how much you make public and how much you keep private, right? So there are crazy people who are like YouTubers or streamers or whatever. and like they really overshare, right? They share every single detail of their lives.

Like, I've seen women giving birth on Instagram and I'm like, I did not need to, like, that's oversharing, right? That's too much, right? Nobody needs to see that. Some of us have to see it. No one needs to see it. Yeah, it's a little too much, right? Or sharing everything about their children and constantly sharing photos and videos of not

just them, but their kids. And like, I did this. like every meal that they eat and they're posting it. And I'm like, okay, this is too much. At the same time, if you're so, so, so private that you don't share like any info at all about yourself, then it's going to be hard for people to connect with you. It's going to be hard for people to trust you. It's going to be hard for people to like even know who you are because it's just like, you know, is this even a real human being? Is this like an, you know, is this just a logo? Is it a company? Is it an AI avatar? So you have, there's a balance between

all of these things and people find it in different places. And so ultimately, you know, I think you just, you, you know where that lies for you. And you kind of just do your thing and navigate it the best way that you think you can. And don't get too frustrated if not everyone else does the same. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, you know, what's funny is after that mastermind incident that we talked about,

I went back and I read a few chapters of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green. That's one of guys, if you're listening to this and you have not read or at least what are those services called, Headway or one of those services that breaks the book down. I mean, I don't necessarily always recommend those. But 48 Laws of Power to me was such an eye-opener. I got there through the Prince from McEvelli and then that kind of got me going on these. power structures and then then i read 48 laws of power and you know when you think when you when you think through the world in this idea of of power not just in the i'm more physically

powerful from you but but how do you how do you maintain your own sovereignty by understanding how power works around you right you start to see things differently and and and i did you know, I did, I did change my mind, not change my mind, but I feel like I have a little more grace for people who had that opinion of, I'm going to bitch in the bar for a half hour and make a big stink about my opinions, but not say it in public. Because, you know, I, when I, when I really started to think about it a little bit, I still don't know how I have my head fully wrapped around it, but it was, I could see the argument of if I take any kind of stance or even infer a political or religious opinion, let's say,

in my public business life, I could be putting my salary in jeopardy. I could be putting my business in jeopardy and I have children and a family I have to take care of and on it goes. I think you are, I think you're denying to a certain extent your responsibility to, I don't want to necessarily say.

I think to a certain extent we have a responsibility to be true to who we are in the eyes of God. And I think as long as we have a good relationship with that, that's your perspective. However, right, if good people are quiet, then the only people we hear are the bad, the negative, right? Yes. So to me, taking, having a political or religious or public opinion, it doesn't have to be your wrong, Zubi, and I'm right.

But it can just be, this is the way I feel and why I feel this way and how I operate my day to day. And I do think that to a certain extent we have a, we have a responsibility to not allow bad ideas to spread. And I think that used to be an American value. I don't think it is anymore. And I think cancel culture, I think a lot of people are still shell shocked from cancel culture, even though I don't know that that necessarily exists anymore. But I try to encourage people through this show and through the work that I do to, to, you don't have to be an outspoken political commentator. That's, that's not my, that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say just be, be honest and true to what your value structure is.

And maybe, maybe they, maybe it's that they're not sure what their value structure is. And maybe that's, maybe it's a little bit of insecurity to that opinion, right? Maybe that's what it is. I don't know, but I know I feel a responsibility to be, upfront with who I am and the worst thing that I found that's come from it is people self-select out of my life. Sure. That's the worst thing that's happened to me. Maybe a few negative comments, whatever, but for the most part, that's generally a good thing.

Yeah. So I wouldn't even say it's a negative. It might feel like it in the short term, but I think long term, it's, you know, if people cannot. Yeah, I agree. If people leave your life because they don't genuinely like who you are or they are so intolerant that they can't handle that sort of difference of opinion or perspective, then, you know, you got to let those people go.

Yeah, like I totally hear what you're saying, and I share a lot of that perspective, which is why anyone knows, I mean, I'm not shy about my views and perspectives, and I haven't been for a long time. Had I been, in fact, I wouldn't have the audience that I do, because people like to hear what I have to say on things. Um, you know, something else I was going to say is like, you know, as you were speaking, I was just thinking it's also, you know, attacked as a thing, picking your battles is a thing. And there are also different degrees of it all, right? Like there are different degrees. Some things are

more egregious than others. Okay. So there are always things where it's like, just like in any sort of relationship, right? Like there are certain things you can let slide and it's not worth like, sure, you might feel a certain way. You might not really like that. But is it really worth like going through this whole process of debates and conflict resolution for this thing? No. But there are other things that it's like, okay, no, no, no, no, right? Like we have to deal with this right now, right?

This could be with your spouse. It could be with your children. It could be with a friend. It could be with a work colleague. So on. So I agree on that front. And I'll tell you one thing that I'm where I very strongly agree. is what, what to me definitely shows cowardice is when people counter signal their actual values.

Okay. So, like, if you're a Christian, if you're saying, I'm a Bible believing Christian or whatever, and then June comes and you're putting up rainbow flags on you, right? Like, no, no, no, no. Like, what are you doing, right? It doesn't mean that, oh, you know, your neighbor puts up a rainbow flag and you go and, like, tear it down or, like, or some company puts it and you have to go on some, like, giant rant on YouTube or X or whatever, like about, you know, I just look at, I'm just looking to be like,

yeah, that's stupid. Like, I think that's dumb. It's virtue signaling, whatever. And you, you kind of just get on with your life. You know what I mean? But then there are some things where it's like, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, this is crossing a line. I need to, you know, you want to put freaking 10-year-olds on cross-sex hormones or you

want to, right? Like, no, no, no, like, you got to speak up, right? Like, this is not something that this, there are certain things where it's like, all, you just don't cross certain lines. And I think that's how most people, I would like to think that's kind of how most people filter. Because I see some people where it's like, and it kind of gets tiring because they're just like outraged all the time

and they're picking every fight and every single. And I'm just like, dude, like you don't need to react. You don't need to react to everything. There's a lot of stupid stuff in the world. There's a lot of bad opinions. You could spend all day just like reacting to stupid TikTok videos or Instagram videos or whatever. Yeah, go ahead.

I had a buddy lose his mind over, he's a big entrepreneur, just outspoken individualist, and he's an AOC calling Elon an idiot, right? And I said, bud, I said, bud. Anybody who listens to AOC make an argument that Elon Musk is an idiot, they are losing the universe's, like, that's the universe's idiot test. Like the universe puts these arguments out there and goes, if you believe this, I now know you're a moron. Because, like, that's not worth fighting.

I go, dude, that's not worth fighting. I go, anybody who would honestly believe that Elon Musk is an idiot because AOC made an argument against him. Like, that person, like, you don't want that person in your life anyways. I was like, come on, man. Like, that's not a battle worth fighting. And he's like, she doesn't understand what it takes. I go, yeah, she's also lying.

She's a performative artist. Like, come on, man. Like, there's no rational, you know, human being with an IQ over 50 who could think that this guy's an idiot. You may not agree with him. But to think that he's stupid or an idiot, like, come on, man. Like, what are you doing? And that was like one of those arguments. And I was like, bud, that one's not worth fighting.

It's not worth going down that path. But I do, we do get, we get caught in these traps. And it's very interesting. You know, one that got me and is really, I probably am not going to give up. up is when Mondami came out and said we're throwing off the frigidity of rugged individualism for the warmth of collectivism. Outside of my Christian beliefs, I don't know that there is a belief I'm more strongly push against than the idea of collectivism in a public manner, right?

I mean, obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but there's the argument of like every family is socialist, every, you know, you kind of, there is a collectivism to your, to your, pocket of humans to your family. But as soon as you start expanding to community, to state, to region, to country, et cetera, that goes away. It has to go away. And it's been the defining characteristic of every hard charging, growing civilization in history.

Yet here we are back to we're all the same as long as I get to decide. That's the part that I don't understand with this. It's like we're all for collectivism and socialism. socialism and everyone's equal. Everyone gets the same. But everybody also wants to be the person that decides how much we get, what we get, when we get it. And I'm like, you don't get to do that. You only get to have that belief if you are giving the power to someone else, right? If you don't get to decide. That's, you can have that belief if you don't get to decide. But you can't go, vote for me. I'll make sure everything's equal. To trust me, I'm the one, right? Like, I just, I can't

even wrap my head around that idea. And that one got me, though. That one got me good. And I'm, that's got my hooks in me because I can't let that go. I so strongly disagree with that mentality. Yeah, man. Look, you know, the thing with me as well is,

and I practiced this in my personal or life and I recommend it to other people, is, you know, I'm willing to talk about politics and social issues and cultural issues, like when the time calls. And I've done a lot of it. Gosh, hundreds of hours, if not thousands of them.

But ultimately, if I'm being totally real with you, I'm a general believer that they're the only two forms of voting that are really effective are with your wallet and with your feet. So when I talk to people who, you know, they might be in California, they might be in New York, they might be in London, they might be wherever, and they're constantly angry about the political situation and the way that things are going and the fact that like under this democracy, people keep voting for the wrong person kind of thing. thing. I'm just like, look, you got to vote with your feet or with your wallet. Sure, you can stay there and, you know, complain for other. Look, there are places that it's not going to change. It's not going to change within our lifetime in some places, right? Certainly not within the next couple decades. And, you know, people have this mentality of, you know, stay and fight. And I get that. And I think there can be something honorable about it. But I think fighting, I think it's

worth fighting when you have a chance of winning, like genuinely. And if it's severely affecting you and or your family in a negative way, then I think the smart and also the right thing to do is to move to where things are more in line with you. Right. So I could be sitting in the UK right now and I could be complaining about rising socialism and high taxes and increasing crime in certain parts and mass migration and bad weather and all the things that I may not like about my home country. Or I could go and live somewhere where I actually already agree with the way that things are run, and I like the weather, and I'm surrounded by people who generally think like me and so on, which is what I did, which is why I live in Dubai.

Okay? So instead of complaining about taxes, I'm like, you know what, there's places where I don't have to pay taxes. So instead of complaining every year or every month about how much I'm being taxed, why don't I go live in one? And why don't I go invest there and spend money, money there and, you know, do things there? It doesn't mean I can't travel to other places. It doesn't mean I've, like, abandoned my country or anything like that. But I just think that that's what's genuinely effective.

And even when we look at our countries, you know, you're from the States, I'm from the UK. Regardless of who is in power, at least culturally, things tend to shift left. words. Okay. So if you are someone who is more conservative, and especially if that is rooted in faith, if that's rooted in Christianity, Christianity doesn't change, right? There's not like, Christianity is just Christianity. Christian teachings and ethics and morality, they stay still. So naturally, as time progresses, if you're a true Bible-believing Christian, like you're going to be seen as more and more extreme as time goes on because the sort of standards and morals of society deviate further and further and further from something that is not moving. So you're not moving to the

right. Things are just sort of drifting off the edge the other way. And so just with that understanding, I'm not here telling people, hey, like, don't vote or like, you know, things can never be fixed that way. Because, you know, once in a while, sure, things can go into good direction, El Salvador. But generally speaking, in the short term, I'm a big fan of, you know, go where you treated best. So sure, that's easier and it's harder for different people. But I think if someone feels that strongly and passionately about it, you know, complaining doesn't solve anything. Complaining doesn't solve anything. Ranting doesn't solve anything.

Yelling on social media doesn't really solve anything. Even a lot of protests don't really solve anything unless they're like very specific and directed. And what you can do. Yeah. But if you do want to send a message, you know, you can, especially as an entrepreneur, especially as a business owner, especially as a, you know, someone with a family man or whatever, I'm like, you know, if the math makes sense for you, and I can't speak to everyone's personal situations and their family dynamics and all of that. Like, that's all for them to work out.

My point is just like, if it is that bad for someone, then I'm just like, why don't you just put yourself in a better place? There are already millions, if not billions of people around the world who actually agree with all the things you're saying and are aligned with your beliefs. And there are places, like in the U.S. is an interesting example because obviously with federalism, you know, you have 50 different states and then even within them, you have all the different counties and city. Like, you can find, even without leaving the country, you can find a place where people are generally, you know, aligned with you and you're not going to sound like a crazy person

for sort of saying the thing. And this is true of everyone. Like if you're someone who's all on board with like, you know, LGBTQ, XYZ, um, you know, you know, LGBTQ, XYZ. Um, you know, you know, You know, weed should be, drugs should be all legal, criminals, you know, thefts under $900 should not be penalized. You know, you can arrest someone 10 times and they should keep letting them out, like soft on crime, defund them. If that's your view, like there's places in the U.S., you can move right now where they're fully aligned with that, right? But if you're like a staunch Bible-bel believing, hardcore conservative, gun-todin patriot type who want, like, there are also places where you can go and you can be surrounded by people who are also. so like that and you're not going to have this sort of constant battle against your neighbors and against the state and against the government and they're not going to be like trying to trans your kids in the

schools or whatever garbage you're trying to get away from. So that's one of my thoughts as well. That's generally one of my beliefs. Unfortunately in the UK, it's a much smaller place and it's a lot more sort of top down and there's no like Texas or Florida or Montana of the United Kingdom. So, you know, if the ship goes down and you're not on board with it, you kind of have to just leave the country. And I know a lot of people who have done that. I know a lot of people from Canada and many other places who have also done the same. A lot of them are coming to Dubai, by the way, which is kind of interesting. So, yeah, that's one of my general philosophies. And it ties into my general just idea and belief of, you know, you can only, the only person you can like totally control, and even we can

totally control ourselves. But the person you control can control to the greatest degree. is yourself. And then beyond that, your immediate circle, you know, you can influence them to some degree. And outside of that, yeah, you can try and you can nudge people. I wouldn't do all the things I did if I thought that my words had no impact on people. But ultimately, you know, trying to change a whole system or change an entire city or state or let alone country, I mean, that's, that's tough. That's tough. And there are people working in the sort of complete opposite direction and they're fired up. And then you just have the fact that politics is just a complete mess anyway. And good people don't even want to generally be involved in it.

I think that last statement is incredibly true. I think for the most part, we're dealing with a lot of C players. I think that you can disagree with Trump and I do on things. But he's an A player. I think it's hard for C players to see an A. I think a big part of the general, I think there are people who honestly just don't understand what he's doing, right or wrong, right? Not a judgment on the actual actions efficacy, but I think people, I think there are a lot of people who simply just can't keep up with what he's trying to do, right? And I think there's a lot of, and I think that goes for a lot of things in politics. There's a lot of C players because A players want to build businesses or, you know, have lives

where they're not constantly attacked. And I think it's only a C player who has no other way of achieving success other than, you know, putting on a party hat and willing to do things that others aren't, right, or take positions they don't honestly believe in in order to achieve a goal. That's the tactics of a C player, in my opinion. I haven't met many A players that are willing to do that. my last question for you, and as we wrap up here, is you just recently became a father. Congratulations.

Thank you. How is that impacted? I don't want to just say you impact your life because I know your life is probably bananas because I got two of them. And, you know, not that you want any unsolicited parenting advice, but the only thing I ever tell, particularly dads, is like the first like six months are cool because it's new. then it sucks until they're about five. And then at five, they become awesome.

You know what I mean? Like six months to five, you're almost like pretending like you like them. You're like, oh, they just puked all over and shat all over and ripped the curtain down. Oh, they're so cute. Oh, yeah, it's my kid. And then in back your mind, you're like, this is miserable. Why did we do this? And then God forbid you have another one, right?

But then I'd like to have at least five. Yeah, good, good. I love that. I would have had more. Unfortunately, I'm divorced. I would have more if I'd stayed with my wife, or my ex-wife. But I promise you at five, they turn amazing. That's when they get awesome. But you got to know. But just how is that, has it changed the way you process? Like, when I do this show, right, how I'm able to stand behind the things that I say and why I try to always work through whether it's going to be good or bad for my brand or whatever. What I honestly believe is because I know someday my kids may listen to this show.

And I'm doing this for them. I have conversations with people like you so I can learn from you. I can take in your ideas, how you process things, and take pieces of that and teach it to my kids. Like I'll have interviews and there are parts of things you've said today that and then when they get home from school, be like, I was talking to this guy, Zubita, he's awesome, he's from Dubai.

I was telling him on the way to school, right? I'm like, you know, he's got this awesome, you know, I see you very much as like a polymath or a renaissance, you know, you take on all these different topics, your music. I mean, we haven't even gotten into half, three quarters of the shit that you do.

But I do it so that I can put in front of them ideas, you know, they'll be, they're their own people, but I do it so that if they ever go back and listen to everything, read everything, which would be insane. But if they did that that I've created, I want to be able to stand in front of them and be proud of what I did.

And you now know who I am, your dad, right? You were a kid through a lot of it. You don't really know your parents until that you get older. Sometimes you never learn who your parents are. But if you, if I want them to know who I am, how has having a child impacted the way you create, the way you think or has it not at all? That's a good question.

You know, I think like mentally I was shifting towards dad mode before I became a father. And a lot of the decisions that I've made over the last few years were knowing that I want to have a family and be a husband and a father and so on. So, but obviously things change when you're holding that child in your arms and, you know, looking, looking at them in the face. So what I would say is, I think being a father has made me care more about fewer things. I was already disciplined. I was already focused. I'm not one of those people who's like, oh, I was a mess and then I became a dad and I put my life together.

No, my life was already very much put together. But it's expanded my capacity for love for sure. And it makes me make decisions differently because I think less selfishly. So when I'm making decisions, I'm thinking about the family unit. And I'm thinking about my wife and my son and our future children that we're going to have, Lord willing, when I make decisions. So short term and especially long term, I'm kind of just thinking towards that. I'm not just thinking of like, oh, okay, is this good for me?

Or is this, you know, in line with, you know, what I feel like doing right now? It's like, okay, I got to go beyond that. So I'd say those are the main things. And maybe one of the things that helped me kind of shift towards it before is, you know, I've been an uncle for 19 years and I have 10 nieces and nephews between the ages of two and 19. So in terms of the different ages and stages, I've got four older siblings. Yeah, I've seen. I've seen all my older siblings go through all of this, right?

And I've seen my different nieces and nephews at the different stages and, you know, been quite privy to all of that. So sure, it's not the same as having your own children. Of course not. But it's not starting from a complete, it's not starting from a complete zero either. So yeah, that's probably how best I'd describe it. But it's awesome. And, you know, my son's already past the six month stage and things are still awesome.

So hopefully it won't be sucking from six months. six months still five years hopefully hopefully i'm also just jokin to a certain extent too there's just you know there's like this and it really it really starts when they start moving you know when they get when they get mobile because you're like trying to do stuff and where you used to be able like keep them contained in a little box or like a play pen or like push your couches together or whatever you do like they can get out of that and now like you have to be you're not only like trying to have a job and have a relationship with your spouse and now you have a mobile human who has an undeveloped brain that just wants to touch everything.

And like at a certain point you're like, ah! But it's also the most amazing thing ever. And, you know, I hate that so many people, my sister's in this frame where they're in their 30s and they're still like, you know, I'm not ready. And I'm like, you're never going to be ready. You're just, just you, you, there's no, this isn't like preparing for a test. Like, this is, it's more like, it's more like sex. You've no idea what it's like until you do it for the first time, right? And you suck at it at the beginning.

And then hopefully you get better with more practice. Like, that's basically what having a kid is. And I just find it to be the most amazing thing. And it, I'm glad that it's been such a wonderful experience for you. I'm sure just, you know, there's limited time we spent together here today and, and, you know, being someone who's followed along with your journey for a while. I hope you have five, man. I really do. The world needs more people with five kids.

And I just appreciate the hell out of you. I appreciate your perspective. Could talk to you for hours. But I know you've been very generous with your time. It's late where you are or starting to get late into your evening. And I just appreciate you, man. Not that people have a hard time following you, but if there's, one place they can go to go deeper into your world if they're not connected what would be that

place would it be x or somewhere else yeah any social media at zubi music zubi music and if you want to check out my writing and um i've got a substack which is real talk with zubi dot com so at zubi music and real talk with zubi dot com yeah substack is is a pretty pretty interesting little community that's where my writing is too and I found that to be very interesting I appreciate you man thank you so much I wish you nothing but the best

congratulations on your son and just keep doing what you're doing thank you Ryan I appreciate it man God bless