Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Mark Metry: Transform From The Inside Out | Human Behavior | E41

Episode Date: October 9, 2019

We don't need magic to transform ourselves ...we all carry the 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 we need inside of us!  This week Hala chats with Mark Metry, a young entrepreneur who turned his life around from awkward teen to celebrity podcaster and futurist. Tune in to hear how Mark transformed his life from the inside out, learn his tips to take podcasts to the next level and get insight as to why he treats life like a video game. Fivver: Get services like logo creation, whiteboard videos, animation and web development on Fivver: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrcpa Fivver Learn: Gain new skills like graphic design and video editing with Fivver Learn: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrlearn If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

Hey guys, if you're an avid listener of Young and Profiting podcast, I'd like to personally invite you to YAPS Society on Slack. It's a community where listeners network and give us feedback on the show. Vote on episode titles, chat live with guests, and share your projects with the group. We'd love to have you. Go to Bitley slash YAP Society. That's BIT.ly slash YAP Society. You can find the link in our show notes. This episode of YAP is sponsored by Fiver, a marketplace that over 5 million entrepreneurs used to

their business. I've been using Fiverr for years. In fact, I got the Yap logo made on there, and if you've seen my cool audiograms with animated cartoons, I get those images from Fiverr too. They have affordable services like graphic design, web design, digital marketing, whiteboard explainer videos, programming, video editing, audio editing, and much more. They have over 100,000 talented freelancers to choose from, and it's super affordable. Prices just start at $5.00. If you're interested to give Fiverr a shot, hit the link in our show notes. And if you'd rather learn how to do these types of services on your own, check out Fiverr Learn, a new platform that provides on-demand professional courses from leading experts. They start at just $20, but what you could learn is

priceless. Check out the links in our show notes to learn more. You're listening to YAP, young and profiting podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your host, Halitaha, and today we're speaking with Mark Metri. Mark is a first-generation immigrant from Egypt who showed a great entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. He found success early on, making more money than his parents and over six figures in high school from his Minecraft hobby, despite being socially anxious as well as mentally and physically unhealthy as a teen. Today, Mark is extremely successful, running the super-impressive iTunes top 100 podcast, to Humans 2.0, traveling around the world for speaking engagements, and running ViewDream,

a digital marketing growth agency focused on virtual reality and mixed reality. In this episode, we'll cover how Mark transformed his life from awkward teen to podcast celebrity, his tips to take podcasts to the next level, and why he treats his life like a video game. Hey, Mark, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. I'm super excited to be here. I've been watching your stuff for a while, and I like to see people grow and get better guests on. And I've seen you up here in the game. So it's pretty cool to be here. Likewise, honestly, Mark, I am so impressed with you. You are the most accomplished podcaster I've ever had on the show. You are the only podcaster I look up to. Honestly, you're the only podcaster

that I screenshot what you do on LinkedIn and tell my team like, why are you doing that? What do we do? Let's do this. You know, and I really look up to everything that you're doing. And so happy to have you on and can't wait to pick your very smart brain. Thank you. I should probably introduce you to smarter podcasters. Stop it. All right. So let's talk about you. Let's start out with how you grew up. For my understanding, you are very socially anxious kid, very different than what you are today. So tell us about how you grew up, who you were, and then what kind of. kind of a person you are now. Yeah, definitely. So I was born in 1997, son of immigrant parents from Egypt that came here just a couple years before I was born. We really just like live sort of the immigrant hustling lifestyle of like my dad would always be at work and we would just sort of work our way up to different apartment buildings. We moved like 12 different times. And so I remember being

that environment, just having like a happy childhood just like very simplistic with like my mom and my sister. And, you know, I remember being like really sort of crafty. Like I remember because we would always move around. I didn't necessarily settle with like one group of people because I had that thought in my mind of like, this is just going to be gone. But for me, when I look back at my life and I look back at my story at like the circumstances that really shaped who I am, probably be a few things. So, you know, we grew up in Boston, but we ended up moving out of the city. to pretty much like a rural place. We moved to a town, 5,000 people there, very small town.

And, you know, I remember every single person in that town, almost like 99% was white. Everyone was Caucasian, zero diversity. It was maybe like me and like another family that didn't look like everybody else. And so, you know, there were a few things to that. Racism and bullying definitely being one. And then also, you know, my physical environment, people just literally being different. Like visually different and my brain would tell me like, you know, these people are different. You know, you don't belong here.

And on top of that, you know, I had a wide variety of health issues from ADHD to different like our immune disorders like asthma, things with the digestive system, things with my skin and sleep. Just a wide variety of things. Like I remember going to a doctor's office like every month and they'd be like, hey, Mark, you have this thing and here's this pill that you have to take for the rest of your life. And I just thought that was sort of black and white. In turn, having all these health conditions, just I had no energy. And so from basically third grade to all the way until high school, I basically just ended putting in myself in like this bubble of just like, go to school, don't talk to anybody, put your head down, do what you got to do.

And in turn, I was not a good student. I didn't have any friends. And I really just lived this pretty sad life. And the way that I coped with that was by going online, playing video games technology. And so I remember when I was 12 years old, I worked at a pizza store, taking orders from customers, washing the floors, doing the dishes, saved up enough money for that summer, bought a little netbook like a mini laptop, bought a phone. And then once I did that, I was just online all the time, always learning.

Not always learning. I definitely did a ton of other ridiculous stuff. But, you know, it led to some things. Like I ended up starting a YouTube channel way back like in 2008 on YouTube. had like 35,000 subscribers, had no idea what the potential of it was. I remember I'd tell people in real life and they'd be like, wait, you make videos on the internet. It was just a completely foreign thing. So you used to play Minecraft on YouTube?

Is that what you did? Yeah, so I was really into video games. I love getting better at them. It was kind of like the pre-self development where I could like just enter in this world and just visually see how it would get better. Not unrelated to that. And so definitely recorded myself. playing games. And then eventually that led to me playing Minecraft. Basically what ended up happened was I ended up starting this multiplayer server just so like me and some of my friends

could play on it. And what ended up happening is I just started it for fun, didn't start it meeting to be a business. Next thing you know, like seven, eight months later becomes the world's number one Minecraft server. We have like millions of people on our website, hundreds of thousands joining in. I started making like six figures from age 15, going previously from like living in the projects and living on food stamps to all of a sudden having this. That's crazy. And it completely shifted my view. Not in a good sense though. And like what I mean by that is like a lot of people hear this part of my journey. They're like, oh damn, bro, you must have like figured it out. Yeah. No, I literally just randomly stumbled into this. And in turn what happened was, you know,

my unconscious narrative at that time, because I didn't think of it myself was sort of like the American dream of you go to school, you get good grades, you graduate, you go to college, you get a degree, you work at some corporation, you work your way up to like a six-figure salary, and then you like get married by a house, get a dog, have kids, and then all your problems go away. And so like that was the narrative that I was working on. And then all of a sudden, when I made that money and I now had access to all these things, I quickly realized, I was like, wait, life hasn't changed. Like I still think of myself as a loser. Like literally nothing has changed. if anything, it actually made me more confused because now I'm growing up and I'm making way more money

than my parents than anybody else, mostly for the most part, growing up around me. Just completely shifted, didn't know what to do that I don't really think I had depression my entire life. But that was a slow onset because it really just came from mental confusion. This was like 15, 16, 17, 18. Yeah. So what was the turning point that got you to a place where you were able to start a business and have the confidence to build a YouTube channel.

What was that turning point as a young teenager? Because that takes a lot of guts to go out and do that, because especially if you were getting picked on and things like that. Definitely. So the funny part about it is I sucked at so many different things, right? Like, I sucked at school. I didn't get good grades. I sucked when it came to my social life.

I never played sports. Like, I sucked physically. I really, in my mind, I sucked at everything except for video games. And so that was like my outlet in which I didn't even consider it a part of a world, but just like this other thing that I could get into and go into. And the craziest part about it is like I remember being online and being on YouTube. And then just on top of that, like I have completely lost track of like all the websites and like apps and games that I made like growing up in that time.

But it was so crazy because the internet wasn't really that relevant in our society, even though I am a young guy. and it was slowly just starting to become that. And so, like, I was, like, slowly watching this thing become real. And I'm like, damn, like, I got to get on this. But it was not, like, a clear picture. It was just something I really just stumbled into a sort of an outlet. Yeah.

So how did your parents react when you were 15 years old making more money than they were? Yeah. So, honestly, when I think of my parents and I think of their relationship with technology, like, just imagine going to a new country, not knowing the language, and not even having, like, a cell phone, right? And so I can't even imagine that, let alone to have them say like, oh, yeah, I'm basically pressing buttons and I'm making money. That's basically the equivalent of it.

And I remember my parents at first, they were like mad sketched out because they're like, what are you selling drugs or something? Like what's going on? But I remember they talked about it with some of their friends and they're like, what this kid is doing is pretty crazy. I've never heard this. And just let him sort of do his own thing as long as he's continuing through school, which I totally punted throughout my entire life.

to really focus on this, but it was pretty interesting. But they're proud of me. Yeah, that's incredible. Do you still do Minecraft at all in any capacity? Why did you stop? So the Minecraft server literally shut down last year in 2018. When I graduated high school, went off to college. That's like a whole crazy time where I really just trying to find myself. And I was trying to figure out all these ideas and all these beliefs and like, who am I? What should I do in the world? And it got to that point where I was just literally confused. I couldn't keep up with any kind of responsibilities or duties or roles like in 2015. And the Minecraft server was literally something that I just took for granted. And so that like slowly went away. And I had ended up giving it to somebody who was second in command. I was like,

yo, dude, I'm out. It's yours. It's own it. But then eventually they step down. So yeah. So what makes you so entrepreneurial? I know that right now you have an AR and VR company. What do you think makes you have that spirit? Yeah. So if you've heard of this company called Bulletproof Coffee, putting butter in your coffee. So I interviewed that guy, Dave Asprey. And he basically told me he was at like a mastermind once. And they asked them the same question. Why are you guys all entrepreneurial? Almost all of them got bullied in school. And so I think that's definitely part of it. And honestly, I was just talking to somebody about this before. And just for reference, we're at like a LinkedIn networking event. And what I did and what I figured out is I did this whole entrepreneurship to get

into my own sort of self-discovery program. And it was just the thing that I did, the same way that somebody whose dad was really into baseball told his son to get into baseball. And like, that's his thing. That's how he dealt with life. I dealt with life with entrepreneurship. And honestly, I never even knew what that word was until I was 19 years old and I was being interviewed by the Huffington Post. And the guy who's interviewing me was like, yeah, so you know, you're an entrepreneur. I'm like, wait, what does that even mean? So I was mad awkward. But I don't even consider. myself and an entrepreneur, but that's just sort of like a catch-all phrase for somebody who's trying to get out there in the world to do their own thing. So I definitely think it was from that.

And I definitely think it was through seeing my parents struggle and grind and for the first part of my life living in uncertainty and just being used to like what kind of action can I do rather than just like sit down and not do anything. Yeah. So you have a podcast, obviously, Humans 2.0. Super popular podcast. You have great guests. What made you start this podcast? Yeah, so when I look at the timeline of my life, I look at the end of 2015, beginning of 2016, it was like my version of Rock Bottom, where I was suicidal. I was over 200 pounds, eventually ended up slowly sorting that out. And by the end of 2016, that's when I had started my business. That's when I had like really sort of got on this track to figure myself out,

understand what real success is outside of a paycheck. Yeah. And for me, starting that business was a conquest in the sense of I didn't really know what I was doing, but it was a way I could put myself in a system that was bigger than me, right? In a system where I could like wake up every morning and say, you know, I'm going to wake up at 6 a.m. to do these kinds of habits and routines because, you know, at 9 a.m. I have these clients and I have these people I got to take care of. Yeah. And so the podcast kind of came from like a similar thought. And I began a toy with the idea of it in like the middle of 2017. And it was really when I had like just been on this journey, And I was in a really, really rough patch.

And the journey is rough, especially for people starting out. But it's very fulfilling. And so I was just at a time where I just didn't really know how to make money off my business. I was having all different kinds of problems with just real life, like my psychology, different kinds of relationships and whatnot. And so I remember one of the greatest ways you can learn anything is to have a direct one-on-one conversation with somebody who really has been doing it. Like they don't just write about it. They don't just read about it on the internet.

They actually do it and they're out there. They're practitioners. And so I was like, what could I create to sort of get those people in my life all the time? And so the podcast was the most straightforward answer to that. And throwback when I started my YouTube channel, some other YouTuber reached out to me like in 2010. He's like, yo, bro, you want to start a podcast? So we started a podcast for an episode and then we never even put it up. But the podcast really just came from me trying to develop my own.

life trying to just grow my own life and knowing that networking direct experiences is really the best way. Yeah, we're very similar in that way. Like for me, I started a podcast because I wanted to interview people that I could directly learn from. And basically I get to learn a new topic every week. So it's definitely such a fulfilling and educational thing to do. So good for your health, I think. Definitely. Another thing is like imagine trying to do that without having a podcast. I know. Unless you're some kind of like really successful CEO or something. thing. When I started the podcast, I was 20 at that time. Imagine getting an email from a 20 year old being like, yo, New York Times best selling author. Can I pick your brain for, nobody would ever do it.

Nobody wants to have a cup of coffee with you. Right. Exactly. But if you have something to offer them and an audience, then they might, you know, come on your show. Yeah, absolutely. You know. One of the most fulfilling things about doing this. So let's talk about your amazing growth mindset. I've heard in the past that you enjoy pain. And this is in relation to growth. My very good friend, Jordan Paris. I listened to that podcast and you said you enjoy pain. So I'd like you to share that with my listening. So I'm not like a sadist or anything like that.

So first off, I'm definitely human in the sense of like I have insecurities. I have fears. I sometimes try to run away from pain and I don't like it and things of that nature. But also growing up the way that I did and being locked almost in like my own mind for like almost a decade, I slowly begin to realize the importance of just enduring something. feeling that pain so that your mind almost is, depending on your perspective, of course, because there's a lot of people who do go through the pain, but they never end up coming out. That end up shifting their perspective and using that pain as sort of a way to build their mind.

And I know today, like there's no way I could possibly be doing what I'm doing, like speaking and podcast and all the stuff without going through a ton of social anxiety and without going through literally every single day my brain telling me, you're a loser, stop talking, you shouldn't talk to these people, versus now being on a stage and talking to people. And my brain still sort of operates in that same way, but because I've seen this happen so often, I'm now able to be like, I literally don't care what anybody thinks about me or what my brain is telling me people thinks about me because there's a big, big difference. And so it's just a massive grower. And, you know, obviously I'm still human. Sometimes I'm trying to run away from

it. But I know, like, in the long term, it's good. And like, I read this quote. It's like, like a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. And it's basically like when you go through hard times, it's going to suck, but you've just got to realize this is just part of reality. This is just part of existence. There's ups and downs and those downs are going to bring you up if you're able to shift your perspective and really use it to grow rather than be like, oh, you know, this thing sucks or that thing or like what I hear a lot of people at my age in like this complain and blame culture. But yeah. Yeah, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy

hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed, sponsor jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidates. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones, according to IndyD data worldwide. I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now. In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to IndyD data worldwide. Plus, there's no subscriptions

or long-term contracts. You literally just pay for your results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.

com slash profiting. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. What's up, Yap, gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touchpoints every single cold customer has with your brand.

Think about that for a second. When people are searching on Google, everybody who interacts with your brand first is seeing your dot com initially. But here's a problem. Too many companies treat their website like a formality instead of the gross tool that it should be. At Yap Media, we are guilty of this. I am really due for an upgrade from my website and I'm planning on doing that with Framer this year because small changes can take days with my other platform and simple updates require tickets and suddenly we're just leaving so much opportunity on the table. And that's why so many teams, including mine, are turning to Framer. It's built for teams who refuse

to let their website slow them down. Your designers and marketers get full ownership. with real-time collaboration, everything you need for SEO and analytics, with integrated A-B testing. I love that. I love testing and making sure that we've got the best-performing assets on the page. You make a change, hit publish, and it's live in seconds. Whether you're launching a new site testing landing pages or migrating your full.com, Framer makes going from idea to live site fast and simple. Learn how you can get more out of your dot com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com

slash profiting for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's Framer.com slash profiting for 30% off framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Hey, young improfiters. As an entrepreneur, I know firsthand that getting a huge expense off your books is the best possible feeling. It gives you peace of mind and it lets you focus on the big picture and invest in other things that move your business forward. Now imagine if you got free business internet for life. You never had to pay for business internet again. How good would that feel? Well, now you don't even have to imagine because Spectrum business is doing exactly that. They get it that if you aren't connected, you can't make transactions, you can't move your business

forward. They support all types of businesses, from restaurants to dry cleaners to content creators like me and everybody in between. They offer things like internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, and mobile services. Now, for my business-owning friends out there, I want you to listen up. If you want reliable internet connection with no contracts and no added fees, Spectrum is now offering free business internet advantage forever when you simply add four or more mobile lines. This isn't just a deal. It's a smart way to cut your monthly overhead and stay connected. Yeah, Ben, you should definitely take advantage of this offer. It's free business internet forever. Visit Spectrum.com slash free for life to learn how you can get business

internet free forever. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Cool. And then I know a way that I think you deal with the pain is by saying that you treat it as if you're in a video game. So tell us about that concept. Yeah, sure. So I'm very glad I don't have like, you know, like reality dissociation or anything like that. But for me, it's just like since video games was really a main outlet for me growing up, it's so relatable to real life in the sense of like you go through a level and you're going and you might make it. But then the boss of that level comes and you just. destroys you. And then you're like, all right, try again. And then you do that, try again, try again, try again, try again, try again. And so that's like a massive analogy or model that I just, you know, really live my life. And like on top of that, when I use that analogy specifically with like younger people, they like begin to get their life in the sense of like you're playing a video game. And if it's like an RPG or something, you make a character and then you try to grow him or her throughout the level and you try to like get a better jacket. You try to get a better sword. You try to like do that. But then. it's like, wait, all this growth is being directed towards a video game. But if you step back and you actually realize that real life is way better than a video game, like, until full immersive

VR comes out, real life is way better than a video game. Like, you can't eat an apple in a video game. And so I found that analogy to be really powerful for people that are not yet there on the growth mindset that are just sort of stuck in video games. And then also relating it just like keep on going and going and going. I love that. You're encouraging people to be self-aware to step outside of themselves and to view themselves as if they were in a video game. And I think that's really good advice because sometimes you're unable to see the situation for what it is when you're actually in it. Yeah, for sure. And people play video games. So it's like you kind of have like that perspective. Yeah. So let's talk about the podcast. We've interviewed a lot of the same guests. So Gretchen Ruvin, Nevin, Nevin,

Stephen Kotler, David Meltzer. Is there anybody who stands out? Who was your favorite interview so far? Yeah. So the first time I got a chance to interview Neveen Jane was in August of last year. And maybe it was July or August. And that was also a time where my podcast was beginning to really grow. And in August, it hit like the top 100. But when I interviewed Neveen, like I just got a completely different vibe. And like we did it virtually. But I literally could not stop smiling throughout the rest of the day. He's so great. And he's so great. He's such a visionary. And on top of that, he also told me about. his healthcare company, Viome, with the whole gut microbiome thing, people should definitely check that out. I did that. Completely changed my life, completely changed my health. And he was just somebody I always kept in contact with that always just sort of pushed me to think better, to do better. And I remember after that interview on that day, it was August 5th, 2018, I was literally like, dude, I'm like, I'm literally going to try to, like, change the world. Like, I'm going to go for, like, like, my moonshot of, like, trying to do that. And, like, he really helped me make a moonshot.

And then when I got to visit him in Seattle, I just got to actually meet him. And I have no words to really talk about it. And the last thing I'll say is that the way that he talks and the information that he gives you that is sort of up in the air. But then he also gives you practical things. I think it's super powerful. And I've honestly had people that have listened to that episode for like the first one we did was 45 minutes. The second one day was like an hour and a little bit that were like, dude, that literally completely changed my outlook. That completely changed my mindset, knowing what the future is going and how that relates to human consciousness,

completely changed my life. And so shout out to Nevin Jane. Nevin Jane is awesome. He's magnetic. He's got such energy. He's such a genuine, humble guy. Like, for being a billionaire, you couldn't be more humble. It was such a pleasure to interview him.

So let's talk about how you are able to make friends in big places and how you are able to make a billionaire who probably doesn't have a lot of time. take the time out to basically be your mentor. Because I see him as your mentor the way that you guys interact. Yeah, we chat all the time. The crazy part is he had me on his podcast. He interviewed me on his show. And I was just like, what's going on. And honestly, here's what I would say.

I used to view my podcast in a very black and white way, meaning like, I'm going to interview this guy or gal and we're going to post the interview. We're going to like market it on LinkedIn. And we're going to get it out there. People are going to listen to people. People are going to be like, oh, my God, so awesome, so impactful. That's great.

That's awesome. But honestly, it wasn't until I had on somebody very, very up there, very out there in the media. Come on my podcast. And I try not to schedule my podcast late at night, but basically he was like emailing me. And he was like, it's going to be late again, like an hour. And he kept on pushing it. And so we ended up doing it that night. And on the podcast, we talked a lot about growing a hustle, also like mental health, things along that nature.

He ended up crying in the middle of that podcast. just talking about a lot of things happened in his life recently. And literally like two months later, he sends me a text and he's like, yo, can we hop on the phone real quick? And so I chatted and he was like, dude, when we recorded that podcast, I was in such a dark spot. And it was a pretty long podcast. It was like an hour, hour, 10 minutes. Yeah. He was like, that was literally the greatest form of therapy for me to sort of let go and talk about and just digest things and really just process things.

and he was like, dude, I literally owe you everything. And then on top of that, he also invited me to this event that he ran, which literally had like other speakers that were like crazy amount of totally influential people. And when that happened, that just like completely reshifted the way that I thought about the podcast, the way that I think about relationships and the way that I think about just people in general. And honestly, Neveen Jane is not the only mentor that I have that is a billionaire. I have other mentors of mine that are billionaires that obviously, It's not like I can pay the money.

Like, it's not like I can give them money and, you know, help them. Or even when it comes to business because they're way better at that. But there are so many intangible things that if you look at a person holistically, that they can benefit from you. And like this other example, not in Avine Jane, he's also a billionaire. He's like in the middle of helping me like totally grow my business, do all this crazy stuff, all for free and all this stuff. And he was like, I literally see the younger version of myself in you.

and I almost like miss that side and that's why I want to be in connection with you. So it's like if you're only looking at it from like the networking or the marketing or whatever perspective you have, but you don't view people as holistic humans. I don't know. Ever since I began to really try to like move and live with this philosophy that I'm telling you now, the podcast, I don't even view it as a show anymore. I just view it as like really an excuse to get me in front of people, but not really necessarily like in a superficial way either.

And so that is massive viewing people. Totally. So is the podcast something that you envision yourself doing forever? I definitely think I'm going to do it forever. But here's the thing. I don't consider myself a podcaster. Even though it's in my LinkedIn bio, like top whatever podcast, I don't really consider myself as a podcast because like literally what podcasts are is you and I are just having a conversation right now. And the other part of that is we're not just having a conversation that me, you and for other people, can see right now. But we're also taking this and we're scaling this. So like depending on how many downloads your podcast guests, you could be scaling that with like 30,000 people.

Yeah. And so that's something that's never been possible for in human history. And I think podcasting is honestly plays a big role in like this massive evolution of human consciousness that we're seeing, right? Because just the way that media in general has been represented has changed so rapidly. Right. People used to know people for being on TV for like 10 minute segments, 15 minute segments. But then now it's like you can have, for example, the Joe Rogan podcast, like a two-hour podcast where you can sit down with somebody. It's not regulated. It's not filtered.

People could say whatever they want. They could talk about long, complex ideas. And you can articulate feelings and beliefs and stories with that. And you know, you look at that and you look at, you know, Joe Rogan's podcast has more viewers than all of mainstream media combined. Like that's massive. So I want to be a part of that. But I don't just want to be known for like this person. that just talks to people. Totally. So my research assistant, Shiv, he found out that you have a

podcast acceleration program. Do you still have that? Yeah, I do. Tell me about that. Sure. So this all sort of started like when my podcast hit the top 100 list, people just began to reach out and be like, yo, bro, how do I do this? How do I not just start a podcast, but for people that already have podcasts, like, how do I take it to the next level? And so that something slowly became something I just ended up helping people with. I mean, it's totally changed. Now I'm like helping Fortune 500 executives start their own podcast for their company and so many different things. And then also helping like small time business owners that don't have like a massive team grow to be like the top 20 in their list. And then all of a sudden creating a massive business on that. And so yeah,

I think, I mean, I just agree with podcasting as I've seen in my own life of not just being a massive accelerator for like growth, mindset, learning, all the things we talked about, but also like business like getting awareness and things like that. And if you do it right, you can really use podcasting, LinkedIn, your business to be literally like a death star of attention of getting people to look at your stuff to do what you want from a business product service standpoint. Yeah. So your podcast was ranked number 98, right, out of all podcasts in the world. Sounds right, right? How do you get to the top charts? Like, what's your secret sauce? Yeah. So this is it. It's all about ratings. It's all about reviews and it's all about the frequency of them. Yeah, so it's not really about like if your show has

a thousand ratings or two thousand ratings. It's about what is the speed in which people review your podcast and that brings you up. On top of that, it's also about your episode. So my podcast hit that I had like a line of big hitters of people on my podcast. And on top of that, I ended up having somebody on my podcast that doesn't really do podcast. That's like a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Who's that? Eric Davis. Him and I did a podcast episode and that ended up being in the top podcast episodes. So that episode got over like 100,000 downloads, something crazy like that. When that happened, that like propelled the entire show up. Wow, that's so interesting. I had no idea that the rate of reviews is what

gets you ranked. That makes a lot of sense because my podcast always spikes whenever I do like a contest for reviews. But you would think downloads would matter. Downloads don't matter at all. I mean, honestly, I have no idea. Like this is just what I've gotten from data. I don't talk to like Tim Cook. or anything. Not that he would probably know either because he's doing way bigger things, but this is just data that I've gotten. But honestly, a point that I say is, I don't even think it's about having a big podcast. I know people who have a thousand listeners on their show or 2,000 listeners, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Yeah. That have like a super dedicated community who make like a six figure living off of their community and what they do and adding value and get like really high paying

sponsorships on top of that, not because the numbers, but just because of the audience, the person, his connection. It's not the best thing. And honestly, it's like, everybody has a top 100 podcast these days. So it's like, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. So would you encourage somebody who's thinking about starting a podcast to start one? Or do you think that it's too saturated? Yeah. So, I mean, I literally posted this on my LinkedIn Instagram today and I said, this is literally the title of the post, why you should start a podcast, even if you have no idea what you're doing. And basically, what I said is that when I first started, when I was about to start, and I began to talk to other podcasters that I knew before I started the podcast, and they would tell me like, yeah, you can,

but it's super crowded, super saturated, and this is back in 2017. Yeah. So like you've got to do it in this way. You've got to do that. You've got to do that. Basically, I realize this is it's all crap. And what I say is view the podcast as a tool, not necessarily, you know, a means to an end, but really something that you can use just for your own.

personal growth in a learning aspect, I think everybody in the world should start a podcast for that sole reason, even if they like can't talk on a microphone or they're not a people person or they're not like a radio host mentality. So I think everybody should start a podcast from that perspective if they view it as like a lifelong learning tool. But not for somebody who's like, yo, I'm trying to like be the next Joe Rogan. Be the next Joe Rogan. Be the next Joe we're going to like do like a crazy marketing spree with my business. So we're going to launch a podcast for like three months and see what happens. That's not going to work. The end game of podcasting is how long you do it for.

Yeah. And I also think it's the effort that you put into it. If you put out a quality show, like you'll get listeners. There's billions of people in the world. There's going to be people who want to listen to your specific show. I'm always encouraging people to start podcasts because even though there's so many out there, I still think that there's enough room for everyone. Definitely.

And what I would say on top of that is there's 8 billion people in the world. That number is poised to grow exponentially over the next decade. and honestly, all 8 billion people have a different perspective on life based on their own unique experiences based on their past, their present, their mindset, their psychology, their trauma, whatever, whatever. And what I began to discover is when I first started my podcast, I thought that exact same thing. Like, why would anybody listen to me when I was listening to Tim Ferriss and Gary Vee and Joe Rogan and they were giving me so much health for information?

So it's like, what could I possibly give? But what I began to slowly realize is not everybody. going to vibe with Tim Ferriss, Gary V and Joe Rogan, and everybody's individual 8 billion perspective is going to find a different perspective to go with. And not all perspectives out there in the world have been out. And I'm like, I'm so excited to see what happens in terms of podcasting over like the next decade when the bottom two billion people unbanked in the world from like Africa and India and those places gain access to international technology. And they start forming podcast and we get to get to take a look at what is actually going on there on their side of the

world. How are they living? And so, yeah, I totally agree. Podcasting is so cool. Like, it's such a new space. We have no idea where it's going. It's a really fun story back to what you were saying about, you know, not everybody's going to relate to Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. One of our listeners, Daniel, he came to this event. So for everybody listening, we're here at LinkedIn Global in New Jersey. And I was able to give out some free tickets to my listeners. So one of my listeners from Chicago, Daniel, flew all the way out from Chicago to this event. Shout out to Daniel. Shout out to Daniel.

And he came up to me and he was like, Hala, you're the only podcast I listen to. You know, I used to listen to Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan, but like I don't even like their shit anymore. Like, all I want to do is listen to your stuff. And I was like, wow. That's awesome. That's incredible. Good for you. So let's talk about your new company.

Tell us about the AR and VR company Vood Dreams. Tell us about that company. Yeah. So honestly, it's a long story and it took so many different forms. But really how it started was, again, this goes back to like my own personal sort of transformation. A big part of what I realized is why I was depressed, why I was suicidal, why I was anxious is is I didn't have a compelling future to look forward to. I bought into the propaganda of the stock market.

The economy is going to crash. We're going to have a great depression. There's like cops shooting people in the street. There's like mass shooters everywhere. everyone's in debt, like student loan debt. And like there's a lot of problems, of course. And but I just sort of fell into like that doom and gloom and like fell into like that dystopia. People saying like, oh, do technology and social media and all this stuff. And that in turn formed like a really terrible future view. And I even remember like Neveen Jane telling me this

of like if people don't have hope for tomorrow, they start doing things they normally wouldn't do. That's how you start having like suicide bombers and all this kinds of stuff. And so for me, a big part of it was just like looking into the future and since I had sort of seen like the evolution of the internet I was like okay technology is definitely going to play a massive part of this and so I mean honestly like I remember I was at this college party this was at a time where I was learning between like these two different paths I wasn't totally mark matry version 2.0 and I was still sort of like in the screwing around phase yeah and I remember being at this party and I just like remember being like what I had learned I had just started meditating at that time too I

couldn't be in the room. It was sort of like the veil was lifted of like the common BS that I was seeing on everyday basis. And I just began to see people as these mechanical puppets that were doing the same thing, whether it was drinking or smoking or whatever that was. I had like this moment with myself and I was just like, holy crap. I sensed like this moment of silence where I was like, I could either stay here and do the same thing I've always done or I could literally get out of here and do something different. And so literally I ran out of that party, ran back to my apartment building. This was like some kind of epiphany form. I remember crying. I remember going into my dorm room, closing the door and just like pulling out my notebook and just like literally staying up all night and doing research on different exponential technologies and finding which industry I could put myself in that wasn't super developed enough that it was like too late even though I just debunked that. But then also like early enough to be like I can get in here and be a leader. And so for me, that was just discovering virtual reality and augmented reality. And In the sense of this, the big theory is that so every single thing that we do today that we interact with the digital world is going to be replaced by mixed reality.

And it's like this. Instead of you holding your phone and, you know, looking at notes or somebody else looking at the time or somebody even trying to do a podcast interview, the future is it's not going to be us looking down at these different colored LED lights that show us different colors that emit somebody's picture on social media. The future of that is our reality. are going to be mixed. It's going to be merged in the sense of in the future, we could do a podcast interview with both of us at home wearing like VR headsets and I could see you right then and there. And you begin to play out the implications of that. I mean, it's going to completely change the world. And there are already people using it today. I know Boston where I'm from like a lot of hospitals there are using them. For autistic kids, a lot of people are saying that VR is a more

effective pain killer than morphine because you put yourself in this virtual world depending on the game you disassociate yourself from your physical body and for people that are in a lot of chronic pain it could be really useful and it literally just has like i could go on and on about uses but i was basically like i need to get started in this industry right away the business took on like so many different things i had no idea what it was doing but eventually but got to that point where we were like what could we do today that is sustainable that is going to help our industry grow without trying to invest a ton of money in like R&D to try to like create a virtual reality headset or something like that which the biggest tech companies in the world are already doing with their

billions of dollars and so we were like what could we do to sort of help this industry and I've been marketing for the past decades so we're like how can we help companies specifically in AR and VR and VR, talk about something that doesn't really exist in the real world. It's not really reality. So, Happy New Year, Yap gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about fresh starts.

And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now. 2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control over your career. And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify, including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop.

People buy their tickets on Shopify. And then my mastermind subscription is also on Shopify. I built my site quickly in just a couple of days, payments were set up super easily. And none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so intuitive. And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over $500,000 in revenue in our first year. and I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in-person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power.

You can build your dream story using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up as fast with built-in AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos. Plus, marketing is built in so you can create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash profiting. Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Yeah, fam, hear your first. This new year with Shopify by your side.

Young and Profiters. I know there's so many people tuning in right now that end their workday wondering why certain tasks take forever, why they're procrastinating certain things, why they don't feel confident in their work, why they feel drained and frustrated and unfulfilled. But here's the thing you need to know. It's not a character flaw that you're feeling this way. It's actually your natural wiring. And here's the thing. When it comes to burnout, it's really about the type of work that you're doing.

Some work gives you energy and some work simply drains you. So it's key to understand your six types of working genius. The working genius assessment or the six types of working genius framework was created by Patrick Lensioni, and he is a business influencer and author. And the Working Genius Framework helps you identify what you're actually built for and the work that you're not. Now, let me tell you a story. Before I uncovered my working genius, which is galvanizing and invention, so I like to rally

people and I like to invent new things, I used to be really shameful and had a lot of guilt around the fact that I didn't like enablement, which is one of my working frustrations. So I actually don't like to support people one-on-one. I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like handholding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill that enablement role, which I do have K on my team.

So working genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel, and it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing. I'm obsessed with this model. So if you guys want to take the Working Genius assessment and get 20% off, you can use code profiting.

Go to workinggenius.com. Again, that's working genius.com. Stop guessing. Start working in your genius. That's what we do in our future plans are actually like develop legitimate VR and AR apps for the specific use case of expanding consciousness and also mental health. And an example of that is like, have you ever heard of this phenomenon called the astronaut overview effect? No. Okay.

So this is cool because I actually. interviewed the guy who coined this term. And basically the first time when astronauts went up to space and after that, they looked down at the earth and they sort of saw where they came. And they didn't see any borders. They didn't see like any people hating each other. And they just sort of like saw like this collective homeland. And all of a sudden when the human mind looks at something, it's home when it's not really

supposed to look at like the earth, like the brain is never supposed to leave the orbit. like this is something totally artificial and technology. What happens is it completely reshifts your perspective of what's possible, similar to somebody having a traumatic experience in one way. And so the idea of it is like, what if we can make an application that could put people in these kinds of environments and have life-changing experiences without even having them? And so that's the future plan,

super far away because just the industry is not there yet. And I mean, I could talk on and on about it. but it's an area that is going to be massive in our world, is basically like social media, email, all this stuff. This is going to be the real estate of us living in a future mixed reality world where there's not going to be a difference between digital or real life and it's just going to be like, what do I want to do? Who do I want to talk to?

No longer bound by the limits of geography, time, money. That's going to be life. And there's massive implications to that on positive and negative sides. And it's just going to be a crazy time. and I'm happy to be a part of it. Mark, in my opinion, you are not just a podcaster, you are a futurist. You are a total futurist. Like your brain works in a different way.

So let's close this out with the title of your podcast is called Humans 2.0. Staying on this similar theme of the future, tell us about how you think humanity is going to evolve over time. So this is what I think is going to happen. You know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I don't know the exact order of it, but it's like, you know, you've got to have, you know, some kind of shelter. you've got to have food, you've got to be completing your basic necessities, and then you've got to have some kind of sense of security, and then that's when you can start to think about

self-esteem and your role in the world. And so what I think is going to start to happen is already what we've seen in the Western part of the world is like, if you are born in America or some other developed country, you are basically starting off with those two, three things already done. You don't have to think about those, right? You don't have to hunt. You can just buy something off Uber Eats. And what I think the future is, is I think as we begin to get everybody in that state, we are going to see like massive exponential change. And, you know, if you look at, for example, like the educational system and the way that it teaches people, it is still running off of this model of getting basic people's needs met with like teaching you how to get a job

and how to function in society so you can make money to get the, you know, to get the job. things. When these things become defaulted by society, I think we are going to see really like people who are being helped in a way than none other before. And if we can complete these two layers, then we can start to actually focus on the important stuff of like self-actualization and how do you think about yourself in the world and your potential. And when that happens and we begin to come out with better tools to help people's mental health, we're going to get in a state of exponential technology where it's not just like, you know, literally yesterday I was reading, they just invented this device that enables people that have Alzheimer's to get their brainwaves

back, which is literally crazy because there's over a million people that have that in America, and that's like the saddest thing I could possibly imagine. And so I think what's going to happen is as super talented people are now becoming freed of basic necessities and also of like mental health issues through technology and just through communication and through media and through us, you know, growing and talking to each other and moving the stigma, I think it's going to get us to a point where we're going to have like groundbreaking inventions like every month and then it's going to be every week and then it's going to be every day and then it's going to be every hour and then it's going to get to that point where humanity is going to be on basically a runaway train that I don't think

anybody can predict of us really focusing in on the important things that we're going to have to completely think about. And I think it's going to completely change our existence. I think we're not really going to be like humans anymore. I think we're going to completely have to update as a species. Everybody today walks around with a mini robot. And it's like, hey Siri, text my mom this or hey Siri, do this. And it's just like we could never do that before. And to play out what's going to happen like the next 20 years, I have no idea. But if we take a look at what the biggest tech companies in the world are doing and also like different kinds of cultural societal trends, I think you can sort of, you know, take a picture, but honestly, I don't know, but I think it'll definitely have to do with like

focusing on the important things, focusing on mental health, because I think that is like the root of everything of all the problems that we see in the world. Because if, you know, everything that's done is usually done by a decision from somebody, you know, and it's like the person who's made that decision has a brain. And mental health is something that really hasn't been, you know, talked about that often compared to like physical health and like the grand stage of humanity of just like a hundred years ago human life was not respected to the degree it was now and you start to talk about different statistics like 800,000 people a year commit suicide. You just got to think like imagine how many of those 800,000 people had like some kind of crazy

idea, had some kind of crazy talent that could have changed the lives of millions of people. And it's just like thinking in that way gets really inspired. So mental health is something I know that you're super passionate about. you're writing a book about it right now. Is that correct? I'm not writing a book specifically about it. I'm writing a book. It's about not the podcast, but like all the people who have interviewed on the podcast. I don't see them anymore now, but like a long time going on as a kid I saw them. Like those adventure novel books where you go to a chapter book and you be like, yo, if you want to kill Johnny, go to page 56. And if you want to not kill him, go to 59 or something. I want to do one of those, but with mindset and how I could create like a guide of really the best people on this planet. for their individual expertise and their individual topics. And basically give somebody a guidebook and be like, yo, everyone's different. You know,

not everyone's advice is going to apply to you. But if you take this, it'll provide you the best possible path that is uniquely to you alongside like top class information from the world's greatest people. Wow. So that's what I'm working on. That sounds awesome. When is that going to come out?

I mean, honestly, I told myself I would start to look for a publisher and start to like really, really write it when I was 250 episodes in. But I'm now at that spot where like I don't really want to because I just want to keep interviewing people and keep growing the expertise and knowledge because there's so many other people that I want to reach out to. So it's not like a project that I have that's like going to come out at the end of this year. No, this is like a very long term project that I'm like really, really, really, really work on. Super cool idea though. I love that idea. Okay. So before we go, I want my listeners to understand how young you are. How old are you? 22. So everybody out there, there's no excuse. Listen to how open. been minded he is, how he's got such a great growth mindset. There's really no excuse to be anything

less. Yeah, definitely. And honestly, like, I was telling somebody else this outside and I was like, dude, literally a 10 year old DM me on Instagram today and sent me a video of him like taking a picture with like Tony Robbins and David Goggin and he's an author of his own book. So it's just like you can go as young as you want to, you can go as old as you want to. At the end of the day, like your mind is going to try to justify whatever excuse, whether that. that's age or health or whatever to try to keep you in the same position. And if you're aware of that, then you already have the upper advantage. So I love this conversation. Really happy to have you on the show. Tell everybody where they can go to find out more about you and everything that you do.

Yeah. So, you know, you can go to my website, Mark Metri, M-A-R-K-M-E-T-R-Y.com. You can get links to the podcast. Check out Humans 2.0 anywhere listen to podcast. Definitely connect with me on social media. I'm super active. We'll definitely respond to you. Definitely send a message saying that you came from the Young and Profitable podcast from Hela. And yeah, LinkedIn, Instagram, DMs all work. Great. It was such a pleasure to have you on. You're awesome. You're a great host. Thanks.

Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at young and profiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on YAP Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com for the registration. link. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha. Big thanks to the app team for another successful episode. This week, I'd like to give

a special shout out to Tim for all the hard work he's been putting into our upcoming five-week semi-private podcast course, where we'll cover everything you need to know to successfully launch and run a podcast program. Message me at Hala at young and profiting.com if you're interested to learn more. We can't wait to get this rolling. This is Hala, signing off. Thank you.