Full Transcript for Greatness Expert: How The 1% In History Always Win (The Delusional Method)

00:03:19,532 He won all of them. 70 00:03:19,532 --> 00:03:21,743 He was one of the best sword fighters for the age. 71 00:03:21,743 --> 00:03:23,828 And every day it was just very simple. 72 00:03:23,828 --> 00:03:26,080 They lived very simply, they very simple foods. 73 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:30,126 And they just every day they get up and they focus on the perfection 74 00:03:30,126 --> 00:03:33,630 of that craft, of making the finest sword of 75 00:03:33,630 --> 00:03:36,674 like crafting their bodies. 76 00:03:36,674 --> 00:03:38,927 And so that was like the samurai lifestyle. 77 00:03:38,927 --> 00:03:42,263 And so going back to Alex Honnold, this is Alex Honnold. 78 00:03:42,263 --> 00:03:44,724 For the last decade, he spent his entire life 79 00:03:44,724 --> 00:03:46,976 perfecting a craft, the craft of rock climbing. 80 00:03:46,976 --> 00:03:51,731 And so he lives in the way of the samurai because he's just that every day 81 00:03:51,731 --> 00:03:54,859 he wakes up and he just goes back to perfecting this craft. 82 00:03:54,859 --> 00:03:58,196 And this is the same thing that you see with a lot of the greats in history, 83 00:03:58,196 --> 00:04:01,741 where they have a craft and they just choose to wake up every single day. 84 00:04:01,741 --> 00:04:02,742 They're so obsessed. 85 00:04:02,742 --> 00:04:05,995 They put all their focus and their energy into that craft, 86 00:04:05,995 --> 00:04:09,457 and they choose to pursue it to perfection. 87 00:04:09,540 --> 00:04:13,586 That goes for like Edison and inventing and all the other examples that I listed. 88 00:04:13,628 --> 00:04:13,878 Right. 89 00:04:13,878 --> 00:04:16,881 And so that's the lifestyle that I greatly admire. 90 00:04:16,923 --> 00:04:21,135 That's sort of the lifestyle that I study, why I'm so obsessed with biographies. 91 00:04:21,135 --> 00:04:24,264 And yeah, that's what I'm excited to talk about today. 92 00:04:24,305 --> 00:04:24,514 Yeah. 93 00:04:24,514 --> 00:04:27,892 And so it seems like what you're saying is they have a mission, 94 00:04:27,934 --> 00:04:29,936 they work really hard and they're very dedicated 95 00:04:29,936 --> 00:04:30,728 and they're very driven, 96 00:04:30,728 --> 00:04:34,440 and they're very just focused on that one thing, whatever it is. 97 00:04:34,524 --> 00:04:38,778 And does this all stem, do you think from something 98 00:04:38,778 --> 00:04:41,906 that happened in to them during their childhood? 99 00:04:41,906 --> 00:04:43,700 Is it maybe something that's genetic? 100 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:46,577 Is it something that someone out there listening. Right. 101 00:04:46,577 --> 00:04:48,246 Is it someone that someone out there listening 102 00:04:48,246 --> 00:04:52,208 can just adopt, or is it built within some of these people? 103 00:04:52,333 --> 00:04:52,750 Yeah. 104 00:04:52,750 --> 00:04:56,421 So I've had this conversation so many times, and to me 105 00:04:56,462 --> 00:04:58,631 it always goes back to nature versus nurture. 106 00:04:58,631 --> 00:05:01,926 And it's like, how much of it is nature versus how much of it is nurture? 107 00:05:01,926 --> 00:05:05,763 How much of it does it stem from childhood and how much of it is 108 00:05:05,763 --> 00:05:09,851 will right if there's even like free will, like, can you even choose this path? 109 00:05:09,892 --> 00:05:13,271 But I think, like, no one really knows. 110 00:05:13,313 --> 00:05:16,566 Like these are all philosophical questions that go 111 00:05:16,566 --> 00:05:20,653 all the way back to like, I mean, like Socrates, Aristotle and Plato. 112 00:05:20,695 --> 00:05:21,362 Right? 113 00:05:21,362 --> 00:05:26,242 The thing that I will say, though, is that a lot of the greats industry 114 00:05:26,242 --> 00:05:30,163 tend to think a lot to a point where they get to the point where they don't need to 115 00:05:30,204 --> 00:05:31,122 think so. 116 00:05:32,290 --> 00:05:34,751 Marc Andreessen blew up on X the other day, where he talked about 117 00:05:34,751 --> 00:05:38,296 how a lot of like, the greatest founders are very low in introspection. 118 00:05:38,338 --> 00:05:38,713 Right. 119 00:05:38,713 --> 00:05:42,425 And that's true to a certain point, because 120 00:05:42,842 --> 00:05:46,637 the greats tend to be very introspective until they figure out what it is 121 00:05:46,637 --> 00:05:47,805 that they want to do. 122 00:05:47,805 --> 00:05:49,974 you can think about like Napoleon. It's the best example. 123 00:05:49,974 --> 00:05:53,978 Napoleon was very interested in philosophy and literature, his very intellectual. 124 00:05:54,020 --> 00:05:55,605 He was very, very, very smart. 125 00:05:55,605 --> 00:05:57,732 And he read hundreds and hundreds of books. 126 00:05:57,732 --> 00:05:59,359 He would read libraries of books. Right. 127 00:05:59,359 --> 00:06:02,320 But as soon as he figured out that what he wanted to do 128 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:06,407 was go out into the world and conquer and spread Napoleonic rule and law, 129 00:06:06,532 --> 00:06:10,870 as soon as he figured that out, he was like a shark that smelled blood, 130 00:06:10,912 --> 00:06:12,455 like there was no stopping him. 131 00:06:12,455 --> 00:06:16,292 He would still read, but only for like a practical nature to it. 132 00:06:16,292 --> 00:06:20,296 And so, like in the beginning, he was very introspective. 133 00:06:20,338 --> 00:06:21,881 He had, like, all these dark thoughts. 134 00:06:21,881 --> 00:06:24,300 But as soon as he figured out what he wanted to do, 135 00:06:24,300 --> 00:06:26,803 like the introspection was just like, gone. 136 00:06:26,803 --> 00:06:28,554 It was a shark that smelled blood. 137 00:06:28,554 --> 00:06:31,974 And I think that's the the path that is, it's more 138 00:06:32,016 --> 00:06:34,227 that's what you see in most people in history. 139 00:06:34,227 --> 00:06:38,856 Was there a biography you read that changed

your entire life and why? Yes. 140 00:06:38,856 --> 00:06:41,192 But I think it's going to be different for most people. 141 00:06:41,192 --> 00:06:44,028 for me, it was Walt Disney. Walt Disney changed my life. 142 00:06:44,028 --> 00:06:48,157 Walt was so completely obsessed with the craft of animation. 143 00:06:48,408 --> 00:06:51,202 He would go bankrupt so many times throughout his life, 144 00:06:51,202 --> 00:06:54,455 simply because he spent all of his money on what he was doing. 145 00:06:54,455 --> 00:06:57,542 My favorite thing about Walt is that so he had this. 146 00:06:57,583 --> 00:07:00,545 He had his brother Roy and Walt and Roy. 147 00:07:00,628 --> 00:07:02,922 They were like perfect for each other. 148 00:07:02,922 --> 00:07:04,382 So Walt was like the visionary. 149 00:07:04,382 --> 00:07:06,759 He was the animator, he was the artist. 150 00:07:06,759 --> 00:07:10,471 And then Roy was the guy who would go get the money to fund waltz experiments. 151 00:07:10,471 --> 00:07:11,305 And so 152 00:07:11,305 --> 00:07:14,183 Walt was constantly asking for money, and Roy was constantly arguing with him. 153 00:07:14,183 --> 00:07:16,060 But that's why they were a good team, right. 154 00:07:16,060 --> 00:07:17,728 And the reason Walt changed 155 00:07:17,728 --> 00:07:21,023 my life was because of how dedicated he was to perfection. 156 00:07:21,023 --> 00:07:24,777 And it all culminated into Snow White. 157 00:07:24,777 --> 00:07:27,780 I don't think people realize how big of a thing Snow White was 158 00:07:27,780 --> 00:07:31,826 when they released the first showing of Snow White people in the 159 00:07:31,826 --> 00:07:35,163 theaters, like throughout the movie, they would stand up and start clapping. 160 00:07:35,163 --> 00:07:36,122 They would start screaming. 161 00:07:36,122 --> 00:07:39,417 And this was throughout the entire, like film the entire two hours. 162 00:07:39,459 --> 00:07:40,793 Like people would get up and start 163 00:07:40,793 --> 00:07:43,045 screaming because they were so amazed at what they were seeing. 164 00:07:43,045 --> 00:07:47,216 And that's because what Walt did when he made Snow White was magic. 165 00:07:47,258 --> 00:07:48,217 It had never been. 166 00:07:48,217 --> 00:07:49,760 It had never been done before. 167 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:52,221 It was brand new innovation. 168 00:07:52,221 --> 00:07:53,890 It was magic. 169 00:07:53,890 --> 00:07:56,100 And so I admire Walt so much for that. 170 00:07:56,100 --> 00:07:58,144 Even though it cost, it was way over budget. 171 00:07:58,144 --> 00:07:59,854 It was way over the time limit. 172 00:07:59,854 --> 00:08:03,065 He had to make all sorts of concessions at the end, but 173 00:08:03,065 --> 00:08:07,069 he was just so committed and so dedicated to making magic for people. 174 00:08:07,111 --> 00:08:09,864 And that's that's why Walt changed my life. 175 00:08:09,864 --> 00:08:14,243 And since I read that biography that's sort of incorporated into my own life. 176 00:08:14,285 --> 00:08:17,788 The reason I say it's probably won't happen to other people 177 00:08:17,788 --> 00:08:21,250 is because you have to choose someone that fits you. 178 00:08:21,334 --> 00:08:23,127 When you pick up a biography, 179 00:08:23,127 --> 00:08:26,464 you can't just pick up a biography over some random person. 180 00:08:26,464 --> 00:08:28,591 It has to be someone that like, calls to you. 181 00:08:28,591 --> 00:08:31,928 So, like, I know a bunch of people that are obsessed with Ben Franklin. 182 00:08:31,928 --> 00:08:35,806 I've read a ton on Ben Franklin, but Ben Franklin personally doesn't 183 00:08:35,806 --> 00:08:37,808 speak to me when I read his biographies. 184 00:08:37,808 --> 00:08:39,393 I think this was a great man. 185 00:08:39,393 --> 00:08:41,062 He did so many great things, 186 00:08:41,062 --> 00:08:44,732 but he doesn't quite speak to me in the way that Walt Disney speaks to me. 187 00:08:44,732 --> 00:08:48,528 So when you choose a biography, I think it's good for people to be 188 00:08:48,528 --> 00:08:51,864 very aware that they need to choose someone that calls to them, because it's 189 00:08:51,864 --> 00:08:55,535 the ethos of that person, that person from history that's speaking to you. 190 00:08:55,910 --> 00:08:56,536 That's interesting. 191 00:08:56,536 --> 00:08:59,247 And let's talk about Wall Disney for a second. So 192 00:09:00,206 --> 00:09:01,249 based on what 193 00:09:01,249 --> 00:09:05,795 you've taken from him and the the idea of perfection, or I'm going to spend 194 00:09:05,795 --> 00:09:11,008 every last dollar on making this piece of art or animation perfect. 195 00:09:11,175 --> 00:09:12,510 Is there something you've took from that 196 00:09:12,510 --> 00:09:15,096 and implemented in your in your business or your life? 197 00:09:15,096 --> 00:09:15,346 Yeah. 198 00:09:15,346 --> 00:09:20,142 So I started really going into YouTube full time last year. 199 00:09:20,142 --> 00:09:25,022 And so it's been a it's been a quick rise to where I'm generating revenue 200 00:09:25,022 --> 00:09:29,610 and cash flow, and pretty much everything that comes in is just out the door. 201 00:09:29,610 --> 00:09:31,028 On making the product better. 202 00:09:31,028 --> 00:09:32,947 Like it's still at the level where I can spend 203 00:09:32,947 --> 00:09:36,993 everything that comes in and I'm living as cheaply as possible. 204 00:09:37,034 --> 00:09:38,869 Like like a samurai, right? 205 00:09:38,869 --> 00:09:43,457 It's lots of rice and lots of Costco hot dogs Kids. 206 00:09:43,583 --> 00:09:44,667 Chipotle emails. Right. 207 00:09:44,667 --> 00:09:45,793 that's the way I want to live. 208 00:09:45,793 --> 00:09:50,214 Like, I want to live like, well, Walt as one at one point when he was still, 209 00:09:50,256 --> 00:09:54,844 like, animating, he was living on this one lady's couch and eating beans

every day. 210 00:09:54,885 --> 00:09:57,513 Like, that's just the lifestyle that you have to live 211 00:09:57,513 --> 00:09:58,889 like all of the greats live like that. 212 00:09:58,889 --> 00:10:00,933 They live like a soldier, like a samurai. 213 00:10:00,933 --> 00:10:03,978 And I think it's like a noble way to live, right? 214 00:10:04,020 --> 00:10:06,731 Because you're pursuing a craft to perfection. 215 00:10:06,731 --> 00:10:11,068 Is this like how Elon Musk could live in the most palatial mansion ever? 216 00:10:11,068 --> 00:10:12,278 But he's living in, like, 217 00:10:12,278 --> 00:10:14,822 I don't know if he's still living there, but I heard he's living in Texas and like, 218 00:10:14,822 --> 00:10:18,576 some super tiny house just because he wants to be right next 219 00:10:18,576 --> 00:10:22,705 to where he's working and building his spaceships is is that a similar concept? 220 00:10:22,788 --> 00:10:24,415 Yeah, it's exactly that. 221 00:10:24,415 --> 00:10:28,544 And he lives like very similar to how he did in the beginning. 222 00:10:28,586 --> 00:10:32,131 In the beginning, his first company was zip two and Ads two. 223 00:10:32,173 --> 00:10:33,799 They were literally living at the office. 224 00:10:33,799 --> 00:10:35,176 So it was him and his brother. 225 00:10:35,176 --> 00:10:38,179 They were living in the office because they said, we can either 226 00:10:38,179 --> 00:10:41,641 get an apartment or we can get an office, and they got an office. 227 00:10:41,682 --> 00:10:43,476 And so they just lived at the office. 228 00:10:43,476 --> 00:10:46,812 There are accounts from zip two of his employees 229 00:10:46,812 --> 00:10:49,398 saying every day we would walk in and we would see 230 00:10:49,398 --> 00:10:52,568 Elon Musk there sleeping on the beanbag, and when he wasn't awake, 231 00:10:52,568 --> 00:10:55,112 we would kick him awake and he would get right back to work. 232 00:10:55,112 --> 00:10:59,075 And so this is a samurai lifestyle that we're going to be talking about 233 00:10:59,075 --> 00:11:00,743 for this, like the next two hours. 234 00:11:00,743 --> 00:11:05,331 It's this it's this pure dedication to the perfection of a craft. 235 00:11:05,331 --> 00:11:08,042 For Elon, that was business and coding. 236 00:11:08,042 --> 00:11:12,713 And he always had that mission of making humans an interplanetary species. 237 00:11:12,713 --> 00:11:17,093 And so that's always been his mission that his his craft I would say. 238 00:11:17,134 --> 00:11:18,469 Yeah. But what about the opposite end? 239 00:11:18,469 --> 00:11:22,848 Don't you see Jeff Bezos on mega yachts and Monaco. 240 00:11:22,848 --> 00:11:26,185 And you know, I don't know, I'm guessing he has amazing houses everywhere. 241 00:11:26,185 --> 00:11:28,688 What about that? He's not living in a shack. 242 00:11:28,688 --> 00:11:29,105 Yeah. 243 00:11:29,105 --> 00:11:33,943 So Jeff Bezos is a very interesting case I would say. 244 00:11:33,943 --> 00:11:35,194 You always have to go. 245 00:11:35,194 --> 00:11:37,446 You always have to look back to the beginning. 246 00:11:37,446 --> 00:11:39,365 What were they like in the beginning? 247 00:11:39,365 --> 00:11:43,327 Jeff Bezos in the beginning was purely dedicated to Amazon. 248 00:11:43,327 --> 00:11:47,415 And you can see the same thing in him that you saw in Elon at the beginning. 249 00:11:47,456 --> 00:11:50,459 The difference is that Elon is still living like that. 250 00:11:50,543 --> 00:11:54,380 And Jeff Bezos is looking is spending obviously a lot more. 251 00:11:54,380 --> 00:11:57,675 And you see the differences in their companies, even though 252 00:11:57,717 --> 00:12:00,720 I'm sure both of their companies will do extremely well in the future. 253 00:12:00,761 --> 00:12:04,306 There is a very big difference between Space and Blue Origin. 254 00:12:04,306 --> 00:12:09,645 And, you know, at the end of the day, it's it's always the fault of the founder. 255 00:12:09,645 --> 00:12:11,689 There's a good quote that says that the business 256 00:12:11,689 --> 00:12:12,940 is the extension of the founder, 257 00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:13,649 and that's sort of 258 00:12:13,649 --> 00:12:17,027 what I was referring to earlier, where there's always one person at the top 259 00:12:17,027 --> 00:12:18,946 and you can sort of think of it like a triangle. 260 00:12:18,946 --> 00:12:20,406 That triangle is an organism. 261 00:12:20,406 --> 00:12:23,492 It acts like one single person, and the person at the top 262 00:12:23,534 --> 00:12:26,787 tends to be one of the greats, depending on how far they take the business. 263 00:12:26,787 --> 00:12:31,125 So you can draw both of these triangles, one for Jeff Bezos and one for Elon. 264 00:12:31,125 --> 00:12:33,836 And you can clearly see that one is outperforming the other. 265 00:12:33,836 --> 00:12:35,296 And you see the way they live. 266 00:12:35,296 --> 00:12:37,339 You see the way they talk, you see their actions. 267 00:12:37,339 --> 00:12:40,092 And all of that is something that comes out of the organism. 268 00:12:40,092 --> 00:12:42,636 It's what you notice about that organism, about how it moves. 269 00:12:42,636 --> 00:12:47,808 And so like, like you said, Jeff Bezos is spending lavishly. 270 00:12:47,808 --> 00:12:50,102 In the beginning, it was all about frugality. 271 00:12:50,102 --> 00:12:53,022 So a bit of a difference there right now. 272 00:12:53,022 --> 00:12:54,565 But you can always change. 273 00:12:54,565 --> 00:12:56,692 And how does that work with a family? 274 00:12:56,692 --> 00:13:00,029 Maybe there's a founder out there listening that wants to be so dedicated, 275 00:13:00,070 --> 00:13:02,323 but he's like, look, I got to give my kids time. 276 00:13:02,323 --> 00:13:04,492 I got to give my wife time, I have friends. 277 00:13:04,492 --> 00:13:08,496 Is it just there's levels and the people that have that

you've studied 278 00:13:08,496 --> 00:13:11,916 that are the greats, the greats, the best of the best at what they do? 279 00:13:11,957 --> 00:13:14,126 There's some sacrifices as well. 280 00:13:14,126 --> 00:13:15,711 think it's all about sacrifice. 281 00:13:15,711 --> 00:13:19,673 Like when you look at history, it's very hard to be completely dedicated 282 00:13:19,673 --> 00:13:21,300 to your work and have a family. 283 00:13:21,300 --> 00:13:26,013 It's not impossible, but it's definitely, like, really, really difficult. 284 00:13:26,013 --> 00:13:29,266 I mean, you can see it in Elon, where he's 285 00:13:29,266 --> 00:13:32,102 just fully dedicated to his work and he does spend time with his kids. 286 00:13:32,102 --> 00:13:35,564 But it's it's a sacrifice that he chooses to make, 287 00:13:35,606 --> 00:13:37,650 and I'm sure he's conscious of it. 288 00:13:37,650 --> 00:13:42,112 When you look at actually, I think one of the best 289 00:13:42,112 --> 00:13:45,366 father son relationships actually is Philip and Alexander. 290 00:13:45,449 --> 00:13:49,245 Philip had a rise and Philip took all these farmers, 291 00:13:49,245 --> 00:13:53,624 and he made them into one of the best armies in Greece. 292 00:13:53,624 --> 00:13:57,169 He took Macedonia from a bunch of farmers to the best soldiers in the land, 293 00:13:57,169 --> 00:13:57,670 pretty much. 294 00:13:57,670 --> 00:13:59,129 And then Alexander actually went 295 00:13:59,129 --> 00:14:03,008 and surpassed his father, and he went and he conquered Persia. 296 00:14:03,008 --> 00:14:06,136 I would say that's one situation where, like a lot of the, 297 00:14:06,178 --> 00:14:08,889 like in ancient history, like the fathers would be like 298 00:14:08,889 --> 00:14:11,141 these really good, like military generals and leaders. 299 00:14:11,141 --> 00:14:14,395 And so they would take their sons, their sons out and sort of, 300 00:14:14,436 --> 00:14:18,065 like, breed them to be the future, the future great, the future conquerors. 301 00:14:18,148 --> 00:14:21,861 The same thing was shown in Hannibal, where Hannibal's dad 302 00:14:21,861 --> 00:14:23,654 would always bring him out on campaigns. 303 00:14:23,654 --> 00:14:25,197 They would live the life of a soldier. 304 00:14:25,197 --> 00:14:28,284 And so honestly, I haven't thought about this much, 305 00:14:28,284 --> 00:14:32,079 but it'd be very interesting to see one of the CEOs right now, 306 00:14:32,079 --> 00:14:36,667 someone like Bezos or Elon or Jensen, even to do this path with their son. 307 00:14:36,750 --> 00:14:40,170 The closest might be Baron and Donald Trump, you know, 308 00:14:40,212 --> 00:14:43,173 but I'd be very interested to see that. 309 00:14:43,173 --> 00:14:43,465 Yeah. 310 00:14:43,465 --> 00:14:48,053 So you can still go down your path of being great and live in a certain manner, 311 00:14:48,053 --> 00:14:51,515 but maybe just bring a child along with you for the ride.

312 00:14:51,557 --> 00:14:55,644 They can learn through osmosis and maybe they'll end up surpassing. 313 00:14:55,769 --> 00:14:57,438 Yeah, exactly. 314 00:14:57,438 --> 00:15:00,357 guys, we've been so passionate about finding the biggest geniuses, 315 00:15:00,357 --> 00:15:02,443 and this is just one of the many episodes. 316 00:15:02,443 --> 00:15:04,445 If you want to make sure you don't miss the next one. 317 00:15:04,445 --> 00:15:05,738 Make sure to subscribe. 318 00:15:05,738 --> 00:15:08,115 All right, let's get back to the episode. take me through. 319 00:15:08,115 --> 00:15:10,159 Maybe the last biography you finished, right? 320 00:15:10,159 --> 00:15:12,536 Was there a part you underlined? 321 00:15:12,536 --> 00:15:14,622 Was there something that stood Yeah. 322 00:15:14,622 --> 00:15:16,790 So the last biography I finished was a biography 323 00:15:16,790 --> 00:15:19,793 on Thomas Edison called The Wizard of Menlo Park. 324 00:15:19,835 --> 00:15:21,086 the thing that stood out to me 325 00:15:21,086 --> 00:15:24,089 most about Thomas Edison was how hard of a worker he was. 326 00:15:24,131 --> 00:15:27,968 He was so, so focused on his work. 327 00:15:27,968 --> 00:15:31,805 He was I mean, he was he was one of the most hardest workers I've ever read about. 328 00:15:31,847 --> 00:15:34,516 And he's like someone who you would consider a genius, right? 329 00:15:34,516 --> 00:15:36,685 So you wouldn't consider him as like, the hardest worker. 330 00:15:36,685 --> 00:15:39,021 You would consider the conquerors like the hardest workers. 331 00:15:39,021 --> 00:15:41,273 But Edison was extremely hard working. 332 00:15:41,273 --> 00:15:43,567 Some of the stories in the book are incredible. 333 00:15:43,567 --> 00:15:47,696 One of the one of his employees one time went into the office. 334 00:15:47,780 --> 00:15:50,741 It was Edison's wedding night, and Edison was asleep on his desk. 335 00:15:50,741 --> 00:15:51,867 It was the night of his wedding. 336 00:15:51,867 --> 00:15:54,662 And so he wakes up and he's like, Edison, what are you. 337 00:15:54,662 --> 00:15:57,081 What are you doing here? And Edison goes, oh, I should get home. 338 00:15:57,081 --> 00:15:58,457 It was I was married today. 339 00:15:58,457 --> 00:16:03,462 And it's like he was working on his wedding night way into the night. 340 00:16:03,462 --> 00:16:05,381 And so that's like a common occurrence. 341 00:16:05,381 --> 00:16:07,716 He would sleep in the laboratory constantly. 342 00:16:07,716 --> 00:16:10,344 It was a common occurrence to do that. 343 00:16:10,344 --> 00:16:13,013 On some of the sprints to the phonograph and the light bulb. 344 00:16:13,013 --> 00:16:15,975 He was pushing all of his employees to sleep in the laboratory as well. 345 00:16:15,975 --> 00:16:20,396 So you would walk into the Edison factory or the Edison laboratory, 346 00:16:20,396 --> 00:16:23,357 and you would see all these employees like sleeping on the floor. 347 00:16:23,357 --> 00:16:26,151 Some of the biographies describe it as you would walk through. 348 00:16:26,151 --> 00:16:29,029 And you you see the corners of the 349 00:16:29,029 --> 00:16:31,323 of the laboratory just lined with employees on the floor. 350 00:16:31,323 --> 00:16:35,411 So it's just weird stories like that one time he got, 351 00:16:35,452 --> 00:16:38,330 like, this tracker device that you could track your hours of how much you work. 352 00:16:38,330 --> 00:16:41,041 And he sort of prided himself on how much he worked. 353 00:16:41,041 --> 00:16:44,837 So one biographer said that he worked 12 hours 354 00:16:44,837 --> 00:16:47,089 a day, every single day for the last decade. 355 00:16:47,089 --> 00:16:50,175 And when he began tracking it, you could actually see how much time 356 00:16:50,175 --> 00:16:51,176 he spent at the office. 357 00:16:51,176 --> 00:16:55,097 And so, like, all of this culminated, like, all this obsession and hardware 358 00:16:55,097 --> 00:16:57,516 culminated into two of the greatest inventions 359 00:16:57,516 --> 00:17:00,185 ever in history, where it's that same Walt Disney effect. 360 00:17:00,185 --> 00:17:01,395 It's creating magic. 361 00:17:01,395 --> 00:17:04,732 Like when he invented the phonograph and you could hear someone's voice 362 00:17:04,732 --> 00:17:06,817 for the first time. It's magic. 363 00:17:06,817 --> 00:17:08,777 You're speaking to someone from the dead. 364 00:17:08,777 --> 00:17:12,614 Like, imagine you've never heard a voice from something that didn't 365 00:17:12,614 --> 00:17:15,492 come from a human, and all of a sudden, you can play this little device. 366 00:17:15,492 --> 00:17:19,288 Like, you can put a little pin on a on a piece of paper, and out comes a voice. 367 00:17:19,288 --> 00:17:23,333 And so you start thinking about it, and you start to realize that you can now 368 00:17:23,333 --> 00:17:28,338 record someone and play 100 years later so you can talk to someone who is dead. 369 00:17:28,338 --> 00:17:30,424 And so that's magic. 370 00:17:30,424 --> 00:17:31,717 And that's what Edison did. 371 00:17:31,717 --> 00:17:33,635 That's what all the greats did. 372 00:17:33,635 --> 00:17:37,890 But it takes it takes that work ethic and that hard work to get there. 373 00:17:37,973 --> 00:17:42,603 Has there been a great this genius that didn't have the hard work 374 00:17:42,603 --> 00:17:46,482 that was just like, look, they were so at the next level mentally 375 00:17:46,482 --> 00:17:49,693 or whatever that may be, that they were able to produce 376 00:17:49,860 --> 00:17:53,113 crazy magic like outcomes without putting the hard work. 377 00:17:53,113 --> 00:17:54,239 Or has it never happened? 378 00:17:54,239 --> 00:17:57,451 if there is, I haven't read about them all. 379 00:17:57,659 --> 00:18:00,662 All of the greats I've read about are very hard workers. 380 00:18:00,704 --> 00:18:03,165 They put

in the hours they have the obsession. 381 00:18:03,165 --> 00:18:06,585 What can happen sometimes is that the great chooses to not let 382 00:18:06,627 --> 00:18:08,337 people know about their hard work. 383 00:18:08,337 --> 00:18:11,173 So I would say there's there's two things you can do. 384 00:18:11,173 --> 00:18:14,176 One is tell everyone how much you took, how hard you can 385 00:18:14,176 --> 00:18:17,262 work, and how much hours you put into the thing. 386 00:18:17,554 --> 00:18:21,767 This is someone like Edison or Elon who pride themselves on how much they work. 387 00:18:21,850 --> 00:18:24,269 The other path you can take is you can. 388 00:18:24,269 --> 00:18:27,815 You can make it feel like magic, a little bit like you got to this place 389 00:18:27,815 --> 00:18:29,525 with almost like, no hard work. 390 00:18:29,525 --> 00:18:31,151 It was like effortless. Right? 391 00:18:31,151 --> 00:18:34,154 This is something that a lot of the greats in history did, because people like 392 00:18:34,196 --> 00:18:38,158 Alexander or Cleopatra of Egypt, they were perceived as gods. 393 00:18:38,158 --> 00:18:41,620 And so everything they did sort of appeared effortless to the public. 394 00:18:41,745 --> 00:18:44,331 However, behind the scenes, they still put in the work. 395 00:18:44,331 --> 00:18:47,543 And so the formula is still the same. 396 00:18:47,543 --> 00:18:51,213 It's just the way you appear to the public is a little bit different. 397 00:18:51,338 --> 00:18:53,632 Who do you think history got completely wrong? 398 00:18:53,632 --> 00:18:55,008 I would say Alexander. 399 00:18:55,008 --> 00:18:58,011 So I talk a lot about Alexander. 400 00:18:58,011 --> 00:18:59,054 I'm obsessed with Alexander. 401 00:18:59,054 --> 00:19:04,977 I've read maybe ten biographies on him, and it's because he's like the first. 402 00:19:04,977 --> 00:19:05,602 Great. 403 00:19:05,602 --> 00:19:07,896 you think about like, the first first great. You think about Achilles. 404 00:19:07,896 --> 00:19:08,355 Right? 405 00:19:08,355 --> 00:19:11,233 But Achilles is not like we don't know if he's real or not. 406 00:19:11,233 --> 00:19:13,819 He's probably based off someone who fought in some war sometimes. 407 00:19:13,819 --> 00:19:16,822 But like Achilles is probably not an actual person. 408 00:19:16,822 --> 00:19:18,323 was like a demigod, right? 409 00:19:18,323 --> 00:19:20,159 But Alexander was a real person. 410 00:19:20,159 --> 00:19:24,163 And so you see a large discrepancy between the mythologized version 411 00:19:24,163 --> 00:19:26,874 of Alexander versus who Alexander really was. 412 00:19:26,874 --> 00:19:30,794 And the mythologized version of Alexander is usually who we talk about. 413 00:19:30,794 --> 00:19:32,796 But there was a real person behind that, 414 00:19:32,796 --> 00:19:36,884 and that real person was crafting the image of the mythologized Alexander. 415 00:19:36,884 --> 00:19:41,054 So there's all these stories about Alexander, like fighting in battle. 416 00:19:41,096 --> 00:19:42,931 There's all these sayings that he said. 417 00:19:42,931 --> 00:19:45,684 There's this story about him visiting an oracle. 418 00:19:45,684 --> 00:19:48,437 A lot of that is just like propaganda, right? 419 00:19:48,437 --> 00:19:50,981 But it was it stemmed from Alexander's mind. 420 00:19:50,981 --> 00:19:54,568 In his mind, he knew in a thousand years people will talk about this. 421 00:19:54,568 --> 00:19:59,072 And so he crafted his image very carefully to get the mythologized version 422 00:19:59,072 --> 00:19:59,823 that we have today. 423 00:19:59,823 --> 00:20:01,116 And I think that's something 424 00:20:01,116 --> 00:20:04,870 that a lot of people today don't see just because we over optimize things. 425 00:20:04,870 --> 00:20:08,957 And so I think it's important for people to pay attention to their story 426 00:20:08,957 --> 00:20:12,794 in the same way that Alexander did, because you have like 427 00:20:12,836 --> 00:20:14,338 the mythologized version of Alexander. 428 00:20:14,338 --> 00:20:18,675 So if you read Freeman's biography on him, you'll get the mythologized version, 429 00:20:18,717 --> 00:20:19,927 like with nothing, 430 00:20:19,927 --> 00:20:23,805 like nothing said about like, maybe this is true, maybe this is not. 431 00:20:23,805 --> 00:20:27,851 But if you read like, maybe like a Barry Strauss or like an Adrian 432 00:20:27,851 --> 00:20:32,189 Goldsworthy biography on Alexander, you'll get the more like, you know, 433 00:20:32,231 --> 00:20:35,692 we have this like, evidence from history, but maybe this happened. 434 00:20:35,692 --> 00:20:37,069 Maybe this didn't happen. We don't know. 435 00:20:37,069 --> 00:20:39,821 And it says that, like every paragraph to the point where it's like 436 00:20:39,821 --> 00:20:41,657 we might not know anything. 437 00:20:41,657 --> 00:20:45,535 Is there someone everyone calls great that you decided was like, 438 00:20:45,577 --> 00:20:48,830 no, this person was just lucky they were just right place, right time. 439 00:20:49,039 --> 00:20:50,791 This is a, this is a hard question for me to answer 440 00:20:50,791 --> 00:20:54,211 because I don't believe in I don't believe in luck in the traditional sense. 441 00:20:54,253 --> 00:20:57,839 Like I think everything Nikola Tesla in his autobiography writes about how 442 00:20:57,965 --> 00:21:01,635 all, all hard work comes out in some way and like it's 443 00:21:01,635 --> 00:21:03,095 just like a law of the universe. 444 00:21:03,095 --> 00:21:06,181 And so you can you can take that as like some hippie nonsense. 445 00:21:06,223 --> 00:21:06,640 Right? 446 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:10,018 But it's it's not there's like Nikola Tesla was very smart 447 00:21:10,018 --> 00:21:12,312 and he was very deliberate about how he said things. 448 00:21:12,312 --> 00:21:16,525 I think there's always an output for every

input. 449 00:21:16,566 --> 00:21:18,986 Maybe it might not. The output might not happen in your lifetime. 450 00:21:18,986 --> 00:21:22,781 For someone like Nietzsche, for example, the output didn't happen in his lifetime. 451 00:21:22,781 --> 00:21:26,243 But we remember Nietzsche as like one of the great authors of history. 452 00:21:26,576 --> 00:21:29,079 is there anyone that we think of as great that just got lucky? 453 00:21:29,079 --> 00:21:31,873 I don't think that that would be the case for anyone. 454 00:21:31,873 --> 00:21:32,708 What about the opposite? 455 00:21:32,708 --> 00:21:38,922 What about someone we wrote off as luck, but was overlooked? 456 00:21:39,256 --> 00:21:42,259 Yeah, I would say someone who's like like lucky, 457 00:21:42,259 --> 00:21:45,137 I guess would be like Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill, 458 00:21:45,137 --> 00:21:47,222 any other, any other time in history 459 00:21:47,222 --> 00:21:50,517 would be very difficult for him to become one of the greats. 460 00:21:50,517 --> 00:21:52,644 But he was born in exactly the right time, 461 00:21:52,644 --> 00:21:55,689 with exactly the right war and exactly the right stuff happening. 462 00:21:55,689 --> 00:21:59,860 But there were so many times in Winston Churchill's life where he should be dead. 463 00:21:59,860 --> 00:22:02,154 In India, he would ride around on this gray pony. 464 00:22:02,154 --> 00:22:04,281 He chose a gray pony because it was colorful. 465 00:22:04,281 --> 00:22:05,240 He would wear all these 466 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,243 colorful things as well so he could be recognized on the battlefield. 467 00:22:08,243 --> 00:22:12,331 And so he would just ride up and down on the battlefield, bullets whirring 468 00:22:12,331 --> 00:22:13,081 past him. 469 00:22:14,291 --> 00:22:17,210 So stuff like this is like, absolutely insane. 470 00:22:17,210 --> 00:22:20,047 At one point, he was actually captured during the Boer War. 471 00:22:20,047 --> 00:22:23,842 He was fighting in South Africa, and so they took him to a prisoner of war camp, 472 00:22:23,842 --> 00:22:27,763 and he actually decided to leave the camp, even though the camp was actually pretty 473 00:22:27,763 --> 00:22:28,555 good conditions. 474 00:22:28,555 --> 00:22:32,351 He left a note on the guy who ran the camp, left the camp, 475 00:22:32,351 --> 00:22:34,353 and people were hunting him. 476 00:22:34,353 --> 00:22:35,729 They wanted to kill him. 477 00:22:35,729 --> 00:22:39,483 He ended up within a 1000 mile radius. 478 00:22:39,483 --> 00:22:42,736 He found the one house that had a European person living in it, 479 00:22:42,736 --> 00:22:46,365 and that one European person gave him refuge. 480 00:22:46,365 --> 00:22:48,575 And so there were people searching for him. 481 00:22:48,575 --> 00:22:51,661 They hit him in this little spot of the house. 482 00:22:51,661 --> 00:22:54,956 I think it was coal mine, actually, something to do with cold.

483 00:22:54,956 --> 00:22:56,124 They hit him anyway. 484 00:22:56,124 --> 00:22:59,795 And so like, you think about, like, what are the chances 485 00:22:59,795 --> 00:23:04,591 that he arrived in this, like this one house in a 1000 mile radius? 486 00:23:04,591 --> 00:23:07,427 Everyone around there is an enemy except for this one person. 487 00:23:07,427 --> 00:23:10,138 And you just happened to knock on the door of the one house. 488 00:23:10,138 --> 00:23:13,266 Like, that's that's luck. But it's not luck. 489 00:23:13,308 --> 00:23:15,102 And Churchill knew this. 490 00:23:15,102 --> 00:23:18,438 Churchill was a big believer in in destiny. 491 00:23:18,438 --> 00:23:21,942 So this is another commonality that you see in a lot of the greats. 492 00:23:21,942 --> 00:23:24,945 They believe in something higher than themselves. 493 00:23:24,945 --> 00:23:27,030 For Churchill, this was destiny. 494 00:23:27,030 --> 00:23:31,284 So he was constantly talking about like destiny, like this is destiny. 495 00:23:31,368 --> 00:23:32,869 Destiny is watching out for me. 496 00:23:32,869 --> 00:23:34,746 And so you see the same things with like, 497 00:23:34,746 --> 00:23:38,834 Napoleon and Washington, where Napoleon actually wanted to marry Destiny. 498 00:23:38,875 --> 00:23:42,045 Washington talked about Providence during the Revolutionary War. 499 00:23:42,045 --> 00:23:43,422 It was up to Providence. 500 00:23:43,422 --> 00:23:46,716 And you see, like similar situations in their in all of their lives, 501 00:23:46,758 --> 00:23:50,262 like Churchill, obviously, this bore a war thing. 502 00:23:50,303 --> 00:23:53,640 George Washington during the French and Indian War, 503 00:23:53,682 --> 00:23:57,978 there were bullets wearing past him during one of the battles against, 504 00:23:57,978 --> 00:24:01,940 I believe it was the French Alexander Hamilton, a very similar story. 505 00:24:01,940 --> 00:24:04,860 During the Battle of Yorktown. He went to retrieve a rifle. 506 00:24:04,860 --> 00:24:07,070 There were cannonballs warring past him. 507 00:24:07,070 --> 00:24:08,405 Napoleon at Toulon. 508 00:24:08,405 --> 00:24:10,282 His horse was shot out under him. 509 00:24:10,282 --> 00:24:13,285 And so all of these people have these like crazy experiences 510 00:24:13,285 --> 00:24:16,288 where they they face death, but they're sure they're like, 511 00:24:16,288 --> 00:24:22,043 absolutely sure that destiny or providence or fate or God is watching out for them. 512 00:24:22,043 --> 00:24:26,465 And so this is sort of the reason why I don't believe in luck, because 513 00:24:26,506 --> 00:24:29,593 how is it possible that they believe so much that they were willing 514 00:24:29,634 --> 00:24:32,596 to walk into death and nothing happens? 515 00:24:32,596 --> 00:24:33,722 They come out unscathed. 516 00:24:33,722 --> 00:24:36,016 It's like they're destined for more. Yeah. 517 00:24:36,016 --> 00:24:36,933 But what about the opposite. 518 00:24:36,933 --> 00:24:40,061 What about someone that's you know they start with what you talked 519 00:24:40,061 --> 00:24:42,981 about the mission, the hard work, the dedication. They're driven. 520 00:24:42,981 --> 00:24:48,570 And then either a they just don't get this outlier outcome to be called a great or 521 00:24:49,779 --> 00:24:50,489 similar situation. 522 00:24:50,489 --> 00:24:51,490 Maybe they're in a war. 523 00:24:51,490 --> 00:24:54,117 They you know, they take the bullets of the head. 524 00:24:54,117 --> 00:24:54,451 Yeah. 525 00:24:54,451 --> 00:24:58,663 So this is something called as like winner's selection bias or something 526 00:24:58,747 --> 00:25:02,918 where like you only It's hard to grasp how much belief someone has 527 00:25:02,918 --> 00:25:04,002 in their mind, right? 528 00:25:04,002 --> 00:25:05,545 Because you can't go inside of their mind. 529 00:25:05,545 --> 00:25:07,047 You can't take their place. 530 00:25:07,047 --> 00:25:11,384 And so, like, you see a lot in the work, but you can't tell it. 531 00:25:11,426 --> 00:25:12,677 You can't tell for sure. 532 00:25:12,677 --> 00:25:14,846 And so for me, it comes down to how much belief you have. 533 00:25:14,846 --> 00:25:19,059 If you're truly 100% committed, you have 100% belief in your mind. 534 00:25:19,059 --> 00:25:21,770 I don't think there's a world in which you don't succeed. 535 00:25:21,770 --> 00:25:23,271 I think it just has to happen. 536 00:25:23,271 --> 00:25:28,527 However, you never know if someone is 100% committed unless you are that person. 537 00:25:28,527 --> 00:25:34,616 And so that to me is a decent explanation against winners bias or selection bias. 538 00:25:34,658 --> 00:25:39,287 However, like I tell everyone to use me as a case study 539 00:25:39,287 --> 00:25:44,292 so I know 100% that I'm going succeed at what I'm destined to succeed at, 540 00:25:44,292 --> 00:25:49,506 and I'm putting all my faith and my work ethic and my focus towards that thing. 541 00:25:49,506 --> 00:25:53,969 And so I tell people, if I fail, then you'll know, 542 00:25:54,010 --> 00:25:56,054 like maybe selection bias is a thing. 543 00:25:56,054 --> 00:25:59,432 Like maybe it is possible that you can believe 100% and not succeed. 544 00:25:59,474 --> 00:26:01,685 However, you also can't get inside my position. 545 00:26:01,685 --> 00:26:04,604 You also don't know if I'm just saying the words right? 546 00:26:04,604 --> 00:26:07,649 So I would say there's valid arguments for both. 547 00:26:07,649 --> 00:26:10,068 It's just it's just up to whether which one you believe. 548 00:26:10,068 --> 00:26:12,320 Yeah, I had Chris Doerr on the podcast recently 549 00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:14,990 and he talked about and I'm not sure if this came from 550 00:26:14,990 --> 00:26:18,618 I think he got it from someone maybe 20 Robbins or someone else, but a triangle 551 00:26:18,618 --> 00:26:22,998 with a b a are

belief action results. 552 00:26:22,998 --> 00:26:24,541 If you want to get the results. 553 00:26:24,541 --> 00:26:26,459 The first step is you have to believe. 554 00:26:26,459 --> 00:26:28,920 If you don't believe, it's not going to happen. 555 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:30,255 So first step is to believe. 556 00:26:30,255 --> 00:26:32,924 Second step is to take the action. 557 00:26:32,924 --> 00:26:36,761 And if you do those, if you truly believe and if you take action 558 00:26:36,761 --> 00:26:38,513 like what you're saying, you're driven, you're dedicated, 559 00:26:38,513 --> 00:26:40,890 you're putting all your time, your effort and energy into something. 560 00:26:40,890 --> 00:26:42,559 You're going to get results. 561 00:26:42,559 --> 00:26:46,229 Now, maybe some are going to be these amazing outlier results, 562 00:26:46,229 --> 00:26:48,356 and you're going to be called a great one day, or you're 563 00:26:48,356 --> 00:26:50,191 but you're going to get some level of results. 564 00:26:50,191 --> 00:26:53,612 But if you don't believe, you won't even go take the action. 565 00:26:53,820 --> 00:26:54,362 Yeah. 566 00:26:54,362 --> 00:26:57,490 I mean, yeah, that's exactly how I would think about it, 567 00:26:57,490 --> 00:26:59,451 although I would add one more layer to it. 568 00:26:59,451 --> 00:27:03,705 So Jensen Huang talks about how if he could wish one thing 569 00:27:03,747 --> 00:27:07,292 upon people, it's small doses of pain and suffering. 570 00:27:07,459 --> 00:27:10,670 And Mike Tyson has a quote that goes with that 571 00:27:10,670 --> 00:27:14,007 where he says everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. 572 00:27:14,215 --> 00:27:16,968 so, like, people talk about like the belief and the action, 573 00:27:16,968 --> 00:27:21,931 but in the action, it's like in the end, it's really all about the belief, 574 00:27:22,015 --> 00:27:25,477 if you have the belief, you'll take the action. 575 00:27:25,518 --> 00:27:27,354 Like it might just be a straight line 576 00:27:27,354 --> 00:27:31,441 if you truly have the belief, like, of course you'll take the action, right? 577 00:27:31,566 --> 00:27:34,653 The way I look at it is like, I think Steve 578 00:27:34,653 --> 00:27:37,739 Jobs is the perfect, the perfect example. 579 00:27:37,739 --> 00:27:41,284 So Steve Jobs had a vision of what he wanted the world to be. 580 00:27:41,284 --> 00:27:44,329 He wanted to invent great products that would change the world. 581 00:27:44,329 --> 00:27:46,706 And so whenever when he was inventing the Macintosh, 582 00:27:46,706 --> 00:27:48,708 he had this vision of what the Macintosh would be. 583 00:27:48,708 --> 00:27:50,293 And so he went to take the action. 584 00:27:50,293 --> 00:27:51,461 And everyone is against 585 00:27:51,461 --> 00:27:55,382 that action, like everyone, even the people closest to around him. 586 00:27:55,382 --> 00:27:59,844 And so he has to be that person that walks into the unknown outside of the borders 587 00:27:59,844 --> 00:28:03,431 of what everyone else knows, while everything reality is pushing against him. 588 00:28:03,431 --> 00:28:04,432 And so he has to 589 00:28:04,432 --> 00:28:08,853 just sit there in the pain and get people towards his vision and sort of drag 590 00:28:08,853 --> 00:28:11,981 everyone with him, drag everyone to create the Macintosh. 591 00:28:11,981 --> 00:28:16,486 And so it's this pain and the suffering that comes 592 00:28:16,486 --> 00:28:20,240 along with the action that's like what you need to endure in order to become 593 00:28:20,323 --> 00:28:24,452 one of the greats, to bring your vision into reality. 594 00:28:24,703 --> 00:28:27,872 Because like reality is in some way always testing you. 595 00:28:27,872 --> 00:28:31,626 It's always it's always an adversarial. 596 00:28:31,626 --> 00:28:35,171 You just have to sit there in the pain, keep going, keep pushing through. 597 00:28:35,171 --> 00:28:38,383 And I think that all stems from the belief, like, 598 00:28:38,425 --> 00:28:39,676 you have to be sure that like, 599 00:28:39,676 --> 00:28:42,387 this is your path, this is your destiny, this is your mission. 600 00:28:42,387 --> 00:28:46,474 And Steve Jobs had So he just sat there in the pain multiple times. 601 00:28:46,474 --> 00:28:49,477 And based on all the people that you've studied from history, 602 00:28:49,477 --> 00:28:52,272 did they all experience some form of pain and suffering? 603 00:28:52,272 --> 00:28:52,772 Yeah. 604 00:28:52,772 --> 00:28:56,651 I mean, there's that quote, excellence is the capacity to take pain. 605 00:28:56,693 --> 00:28:59,738 All of them had crazy work ethics. 606 00:28:59,738 --> 00:29:01,281 They all like even learning. 607 00:29:01,281 --> 00:29:03,700 Learning is a form of pain because when you learn, 608 00:29:03,700 --> 00:29:06,745 you're letting an old idea die and you're letting a new idea 609 00:29:06,786 --> 00:29:09,497 come to fruition and to let that old idea die. 610 00:29:09,497 --> 00:29:10,999 It takes pain, right? 611 00:29:10,999 --> 00:29:14,169 So even the geniuses experience this pain when they're learning. 612 00:29:14,210 --> 00:29:16,171 They're letting these old ideas die. 613 00:29:16,171 --> 00:29:18,840 Stepping into the unknown, going through the pain 614 00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:21,509 and suffering of learning, of bringing this new idea to light. 615 00:29:21,509 --> 00:29:24,721 And like, that's that's real pain. 616 00:29:24,721 --> 00:29:29,100 How much of that pain at times is something 617 00:29:29,100 --> 00:29:31,978 that happened to them at childhood, whether that's how they live, something 618 00:29:31,978 --> 00:29:35,148 traumatic versus just the pain of 619 00:29:35,190 --> 00:29:38,568 going through the process of building whatever you're building. 620 00:29:38,568 --> 00:29:39,027 Yeah. 621 00:29:39,027 --> 00:29:42,280 So I would say, like, what

happens to you in childhood 622 00:29:42,322 --> 00:29:44,574 is sort of what helps you later on in life. 623 00:29:44,574 --> 00:29:46,743 Like a lot of the greats have like very troubled childhoods. 624 00:29:46,743 --> 00:29:47,285 Like that's 625 00:29:47,285 --> 00:29:51,164 something that everyone knows, like they have these very troubled childhoods. 626 00:29:51,164 --> 00:29:55,502 And so, like, as you, as you grow older, this sort of becomes like the baseline. 627 00:29:55,502 --> 00:29:58,171 And it's hard to escape from your childhood. 628 00:29:58,171 --> 00:30:02,050 I think one of the best examples is Elon Musk, just because 629 00:30:02,050 --> 00:30:05,220 he's, there's so many biographies written about him and about his childhood. 630 00:30:05,220 --> 00:30:08,640 And so he had a very rough childhood, so much that he has trouble 631 00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,936 speaking about experiences that he had him and his brother with their dad, 632 00:30:12,936 --> 00:30:15,313 where he would stand in a room and their dad would just, 633 00:30:15,313 --> 00:30:17,524 like, verbally abused them for like an hour. 634 00:30:17,524 --> 00:30:20,777 And he just has like these horrible, horrible experiences. 635 00:30:20,777 --> 00:30:24,447 And so when you grow up in this unstable environment, you sort of 636 00:30:24,489 --> 00:30:28,034 have this like chaotic nature in your head where you seek out that dopamine 637 00:30:28,034 --> 00:30:31,788 because the emotion is like up and down, up and down, so much 638 00:30:31,788 --> 00:30:35,917 so that, that becomes like the baseline and you need that up and down. 639 00:30:35,917 --> 00:30:39,045 When things are stable, you're like unsettled, like something's not right. 640 00:30:39,045 --> 00:30:43,341 And so as you grow older, you can sort of channel this, this energy 641 00:30:43,341 --> 00:30:44,384 into something great. 642 00:30:44,384 --> 00:30:47,387 And so that's that's what you tend to see with a lot of the greats 643 00:30:47,804 --> 00:30:49,180 Nikola Tesla as well. 644 00:30:49,180 --> 00:30:53,601 His father wanted him to become a priest and so they never really got along. 645 00:30:53,685 --> 00:30:56,813 Same thing with James Cameron like almost the exact same story. 646 00:30:56,855 --> 00:30:59,816 His his father wanted him to be an engineer, I believe. 647 00:30:59,816 --> 00:31:02,569 And James Cameron said like, no, I want to be in films. 648 00:31:02,569 --> 00:31:04,445 And so it was the same relationship. 649 00:31:04,445 --> 00:31:07,532 It's like all these very similar relationships where they have this child 650 00:31:07,532 --> 00:31:09,784 that's very hard, and then they're able to channel 651 00:31:09,784 --> 00:31:13,454 that energy, that chaotic nature, into something amazing later on. 652 00:31:13,496 --> 00:31:15,915 Have there been some examples of greats you've studied 653 00:31:15,915 --> 00:31:17,292 that didn't have a troubled childhood? 654 00:31:17,292 --> 00:31:18,877 Maybe they had an amazing upbringing. 655 00:31:18,877 --> 00:31:21,671 Two parents in the household, you know, they were well off. 656 00:31:21,671 --> 00:31:24,841 I don't know, they had, you know, friends and family that loved them. 657 00:31:24,883 --> 00:31:27,135 they all had like some sort of trouble childhoods. 658 00:31:27,135 --> 00:31:30,305 Like there's always something it doesn't always come from the parent. 659 00:31:30,346 --> 00:31:35,226 That's just one case, like one type in which that's the case. 660 00:31:35,226 --> 00:31:38,521 But it can come from, like, the people around you. 661 00:31:38,521 --> 00:31:41,065 It can come from just being, like, very anti-social. 662 00:31:41,065 --> 00:31:43,276 So you're just like in your own little world. 663 00:31:43,276 --> 00:31:44,319 This is the case for like 664 00:31:44,319 --> 00:31:48,573 someone like Einstein or Tesla and Elon were also like very social. 665 00:31:48,573 --> 00:31:50,992 So they just spent so much time into their heads, in their heads, 666 00:31:50,992 --> 00:31:53,786 just like thinking about things, thinking about the world, 667 00:31:53,786 --> 00:31:56,873 letting these old ideas die and these new ideas come to fruition. 668 00:31:56,873 --> 00:31:59,876 And so, yeah, but 669 00:31:59,918 --> 00:32:03,838 it definitely always comes from some sort of relational adversary. 670 00:32:03,838 --> 00:32:06,799 Like at the core of reality is like your relationship to other people. 671 00:32:06,799 --> 00:32:09,469 And so like that, that's like at the end of the day, 672 00:32:09,469 --> 00:32:12,555 like what makes it's like if you do good for the society 673 00:32:12,555 --> 00:32:14,182 or if you do something that affects other people 674 00:32:14,182 --> 00:32:18,186 in a grand way, like that's what that's what makes the grades. 675 00:32:18,186 --> 00:32:19,896 Alex Ramos has this line. 676 00:32:19,896 --> 00:32:23,524 He says it's not that the greats have something you lack. 677 00:32:23,858 --> 00:32:26,402 They lack what everyone else has. 678 00:32:26,402 --> 00:32:28,071 Does that hold up? Yeah. 679 00:32:28,071 --> 00:32:30,782 So the rest of that quote is that they don't have an off button. 680 00:32:30,782 --> 00:32:33,993 Right? The greats don't have an off button. 681 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:35,995 I think this is true for most successful people. 682 00:32:35,995 --> 00:32:39,415 So I think one thing, a lot of things, one thing that like 683 00:32:39,832 --> 00:32:42,710 we have like podcasts for very, very successful people, 684 00:32:42,710 --> 00:32:46,297 but there's a difference between very, very successful people and the greats. 685 00:32:46,464 --> 00:32:47,590 like how Ben Wilson puts it. 686 00:32:47,590 --> 00:32:49,092 So Ben Wilson talks about how, like, 687 00:32:49,092 --> 00:32:50,635 what's the difference between a great person 688 00:32:50,635

--> 00:32:54,097 and a very successful person and a very successful person 689 00:32:54,097 --> 00:32:59,018 maybe always operates at a nine and so like maybe a 9 or 8. 690 00:32:59,018 --> 00:33:00,311 And so that's like very high, right? 691 00:33:00,311 --> 00:33:02,105 They're always operating at an 8 or 9. 692 00:33:02,105 --> 00:33:05,441 And maybe the great person always operates also an 8 or 9. 693 00:33:05,441 --> 00:33:08,736 But there's like small moments in their lives of like two months 694 00:33:08,736 --> 00:33:11,906 to two years, like these sort of sprints of superhuman activity 695 00:33:11,906 --> 00:33:15,827 where every second of the day they're just operating at a ten, where 696 00:33:15,868 --> 00:33:19,831 for two years they just like there's this sprint of innovation and enthusiasm 697 00:33:19,831 --> 00:33:21,332 and dedication towards their work. 698 00:33:21,332 --> 00:33:24,752 So I'll give you a couple example examples Isaac Newton 699 00:33:24,752 --> 00:33:28,047 during his anus miraculous, his two miracle years. 700 00:33:28,047 --> 00:33:31,009 He had all sorts of like discoveries with light. 701 00:33:31,009 --> 00:33:34,637 And so like for of those two years, he would barely leave his house. 702 00:33:34,637 --> 00:33:37,515 He would like read, he would study, he would perform experiments. 703 00:33:37,515 --> 00:33:40,268 And he did that all day, every day for almost two years. 704 00:33:40,268 --> 00:33:42,687 And out of that came like these grand inventions. 705 00:33:42,687 --> 00:33:43,146 It was like 706 00:33:43,146 --> 00:33:47,316 a similar story with Thomas Edison on the sprint towards the phonograph, 707 00:33:47,358 --> 00:33:51,320 like they were sleeping in the fact in the laboratory every night 708 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:52,613 they were doing everything, 709 00:33:52,613 --> 00:33:55,950 like all their focus was on that, on that one thing. 710 00:33:55,992 --> 00:33:56,659 Right. 711 00:33:57,744 --> 00:33:59,078 The same thing with the light bulb. 712 00:33:59,078 --> 00:33:59,454 They were 713 00:33:59,454 --> 00:34:02,957 they tried out 6000 different types of material for the inside of the light bulb 714 00:34:02,999 --> 00:34:05,752 until they reached bamboo for the one that they made commercial. 715 00:34:05,752 --> 00:34:08,004 And so that took like time and effort and focus. 716 00:34:08,004 --> 00:34:11,799 And they were just like they had this insane, superhuman sprint of activity. 717 00:34:11,841 --> 00:34:14,969 Like, same thing with Einstein, with Elon, like all these people. 718 00:34:14,969 --> 00:34:18,389 Steve Jobs to create what they created Napoleon on 719 00:34:18,389 --> 00:34:21,434 campaigns, would sleep for hours a night in births. 720 00:34:21,476 --> 00:34:24,729 And aside from that, he was like operating at level ten. 721 00:34:24,729 --> 00:34:27,899 And so what separates someone super successful from someone 722 00:34:27,899 --> 00:34:31,778 great is those superhuman bursts activity 723 00:34:31,819 --> 00:34:35,782 that the very, very successful people just don't have. 724 00:34:35,990 --> 00:34:37,700 Interesting. Can you teach that? 725 00:34:37,700 --> 00:34:40,244 Or is that just like that was in them? That's genetic. 726 00:34:40,244 --> 00:34:41,120 Those sprints. 727 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:45,833 I think it's good for people to know, like one thing that I don't like 728 00:34:45,875 --> 00:34:47,376 about how people talk, 729 00:34:47,376 --> 00:34:48,419 like, very successful 730 00:34:48,419 --> 00:34:51,506 people is that they're always worried about optimizing everything. 731 00:34:51,547 --> 00:34:55,093 Like they optimize their sleep, they optimize their food. 732 00:34:55,093 --> 00:34:56,761 Everything is so optimized. 733 00:34:56,761 --> 00:35:00,181 But when you look at these sprints in history, it's so chaotic. 734 00:35:00,181 --> 00:35:01,349 It's not optimized. 735 00:35:01,349 --> 00:35:03,851 They get no sleep, they barely eat. 736 00:35:03,851 --> 00:35:06,938 They all they're thinking about it is that craft, that obsession. 737 00:35:06,938 --> 00:35:12,568 And so, like obviously like having good nutrition is good. 738 00:35:12,610 --> 00:35:14,654 Getting good sleep is going to help you perform better. 739 00:35:14,654 --> 00:35:17,698 But in these sprints it has to have a chaotic nature to it. 740 00:35:17,698 --> 00:35:19,951 That's what you see throughout all the sprints in history. 741 00:35:19,951 --> 00:35:24,163 And so I would say that's one thing that most people get wrong about this. 742 00:35:24,288 --> 00:35:26,374 Are you staying up until 5:00 in the morning 743 00:35:26,374 --> 00:35:29,710 editing YouTube videos and just are you sprinting right now? 744 00:35:29,710 --> 00:35:32,672 So right now Are you planning to sprint? 745 00:35:34,298 --> 00:35:35,341 I would. Say. 746 00:35:35,341 --> 00:35:38,678 I've been in a sprint for like maybe, maybe a month now. 747 00:35:38,678 --> 00:35:39,512 it's a lot of, 748 00:35:39,512 --> 00:35:43,558 like there are days when I just like, don't eat just because I forget. 749 00:35:43,558 --> 00:35:45,518 And there are nights when I just don't sleep 750 00:35:45,518 --> 00:35:47,270 because you just, like, work through the night. 751 00:35:47,270 --> 00:35:51,357 But like I would say, it's not like something you plan. 752 00:35:51,357 --> 00:35:53,192 It's more of something that happens to you. 753 00:35:53,192 --> 00:35:55,486 It's like an obsession that like, pulls you. 754 00:35:55,486 --> 00:35:57,613 So, like, right now I'm doing this YouTube thing 755 00:35:57,613 --> 00:36:00,616 and and it's growing and I'm like obsessed with it. 756 00:36:00,658 --> 00:36:02,743 Like, I'm reading 2 to 3 biographies every week. 757 00:36:02,743 --> 00:36:04,996 I'm like, scripting every second I can. 758 00:36:04,996 --> 00:36:07,999 I'm building a team to really

perfect my YouTube 759 00:36:07,999 --> 00:36:11,085 videos and and my podcast as well. 760 00:36:11,085 --> 00:36:11,669 And so, 761 00:36:11,669 --> 00:36:16,174 like every moment of the day, I'm working on pursuing that craft to perfection. 762 00:36:16,174 --> 00:36:18,509 And there's nothing else I think about. 763 00:36:18,509 --> 00:36:22,013 I don't have any friends like I don't have outside of my work. 764 00:36:22,054 --> 00:36:23,598 Of course I don't have any friends. 765 00:36:23,598 --> 00:36:26,392 I don't think about anything else that's not work. 766 00:36:26,392 --> 00:36:27,894 Like I just think about this. 767 00:36:27,894 --> 00:36:31,230 And so, like, I guess you could call that a sprint. 768 00:36:31,314 --> 00:36:32,982 And is this something that 769 00:36:32,982 --> 00:36:37,195 because you've read these biographies and you understand what it takes to get to 770 00:36:37,236 --> 00:36:41,991 where you want to go, did that help you make these decisions? 771 00:36:41,991 --> 00:36:43,492 Or was what 772 00:36:43,492 --> 00:36:44,869 even if you didn't read any of these, 773 00:36:44,869 --> 00:36:47,288 were you going to be sprinting towards something else right now in life? 774 00:36:47,288 --> 00:36:50,458 So I think I would be sprinting towards something. 775 00:36:50,458 --> 00:36:51,834 So like when you think of, like, 776 00:36:51,834 --> 00:36:54,837 choosing your craft, I always tell people that has to be something that, like, 777 00:36:54,879 --> 00:36:55,880 calls to you. 778 00:36:57,590 --> 00:37:00,092 Like, I think I think physics called Einstein. 779 00:37:00,092 --> 00:37:01,802 I think physics called Newton. 780 00:37:01,802 --> 00:37:04,597 Entrepreneurship called Rockefeller. 781 00:37:04,597 --> 00:37:06,682 Like, I didn't choose biographies. 782 00:37:06,682 --> 00:37:08,226 Biographies chose me in a way. 783 00:37:08,226 --> 00:37:11,145 I know that sounds cheesy, but it's sort of true. 784 00:37:11,145 --> 00:37:14,273 And so, like, it just, like, took over me. 785 00:37:14,315 --> 00:37:16,400 Like, it's not like I can't stop doing this. 786 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:17,610 It's just what I do naturally. 787 00:37:17,610 --> 00:37:20,238 And so I let this obsession take control of my life. 788 00:37:20,238 --> 00:37:22,073 And this is this is what I'm doing. 789 00:37:22,073 --> 00:37:25,243 It's like a shark that smells bled, like there's no introspection behind it. 790 00:37:25,243 --> 00:37:27,995 I wake up, I read, I script, this is. 791 00:37:27,995 --> 00:37:28,829 This is what I do. 792 00:37:28,829 --> 00:37:32,500 Like a shark doesn't think, a shark doesn't think before it hunts. 793 00:37:32,500 --> 00:37:33,501 It just hunts. 794 00:37:33,501 --> 00:37:38,047 Was there a trait that you maybe assumed that all of these greats would share? 795 00:37:38,047 --> 00:37:40,591 But maybe. Turned out to be pretty rare? 796 00:37:40,591 --> 00:37:43,052 I think the Bible is like a grand source of wisdom. 797 00:37:43,052 --> 00:37:46,806 So when you read the Bible and you read the Old Testament, 798 00:37:46,847 --> 00:37:48,599 the Old Testament is pretty. 799 00:37:48,599 --> 00:37:49,642 It goes by the law. 800 00:37:49,642 --> 00:37:52,270 So whatever the law is, that's what you have to do. 801 00:37:52,270 --> 00:37:56,023 If you sin, you have to go through this whole process to be cleansed again. 802 00:37:56,065 --> 00:37:56,315 Right? 803 00:37:56,315 --> 00:38:00,069 And then in the New Testament, Jesus comes and he says, like, 804 00:38:00,111 --> 00:38:02,238 you should follow the spirit, not the law. 805 00:38:02,238 --> 00:38:05,992 Like there's a spirit behind the law that actually culminates into the law. 806 00:38:05,992 --> 00:38:09,578 And so it's this, like back and forth between the spirit and the law. 807 00:38:09,578 --> 00:38:13,040 And I think when you read biographies, it's like a very similar thing 808 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,543 where when you trace the ethos of all these great people 809 00:38:15,543 --> 00:38:18,546 throughout history, you see like this back and forth, like 810 00:38:18,587 --> 00:38:22,341 you see all these similar traits, but it's it's like an ethos, it's a spirit. 811 00:38:22,425 --> 00:38:23,718 And so you can like, 812 00:38:23,718 --> 00:38:27,138 say all of them had these traits, all of them like read about the greats. 813 00:38:27,138 --> 00:38:28,306 All of them were super focused. 814 00:38:28,306 --> 00:38:31,475 But at the end of the day, it's a spirit that guides them. 815 00:38:31,475 --> 00:38:35,062 It's the ethos of the of the people that like, 816 00:38:35,313 --> 00:38:37,940 it's the spirit of the past, of the greats, of the past. 817 00:38:37,940 --> 00:38:40,318 And that's what guides all these, all these greats. 818 00:38:40,318 --> 00:38:43,863 And so that's why I would say, like at the foundation, like the only thing 819 00:38:43,863 --> 00:38:48,534 that's still that stands for greatness is that the great study of the greats. 820 00:38:48,534 --> 00:38:52,580 And that's that's my motto for my YouTube channel, the greats study the greats. 821 00:38:52,580 --> 00:38:53,372 Because 822 00:38:54,332 --> 00:38:57,251 if you when you study the greats, this ethos takes over you. 823 00:38:57,251 --> 00:39:02,340 And so that's an absolute necessity to become one of the greats. 824 00:39:02,465 --> 00:39:05,259 Like you have to have this ethos in you and you see this 825 00:39:05,259 --> 00:39:08,012 like these, like it's so cool because you see these lines 826 00:39:08,012 --> 00:39:09,847 throughout history of like different people. 827 00:39:09,847 --> 00:39:11,265 And this is why I love it so much. 828 00:39:11,265 --> 00:39:15,061 Because, you see, like the direct lineage of like, I don't know, 829 00:39:15,102 --> 00:39:18,189 like an elf who studied an apple and Napoleon studied 830 00:39:18,189

--> 00:39:21,442 Caesar, and Caesar studied Hannibal and Hannibal studied Alexander. 831 00:39:21,484 --> 00:39:23,110 Alexander studied Achilles. 832 00:39:23,110 --> 00:39:24,945 And you can trace that all the way back. 833 00:39:24,945 --> 00:39:27,990 And so you see, like the same thing with like, Steve Jobs. 834 00:39:27,990 --> 00:39:31,952 Steve Jobs studied Edwin Land, Edwin Land, studied da Vinci. 835 00:39:31,952 --> 00:39:36,665 And you see that direct lineage of like the the greatest people who were 836 00:39:36,665 --> 00:39:38,459 at the intersection of art and science. 837 00:39:38,459 --> 00:39:39,210 And so like 838 00:39:39,210 --> 00:39:41,295 that's like my favorite thing because you can see 839 00:39:41,295 --> 00:39:44,173 you can trace all their ideas and thoughts back through history 840 00:39:44,173 --> 00:39:45,716 because it's it's all the same. 841 00:39:45,716 --> 00:39:49,178 And I think that's why the ethos stands, the great study of the greats. 842 00:39:49,178 --> 00:39:52,098 Because in order to become one of the greats, you need that ethos. 843 00:39:52,098 --> 00:39:53,265 You need that spirit. 844 00:39:53,265 --> 00:39:55,684 You can't act by law alone in the same way 845 00:39:55,684 --> 00:39:58,813 that like in the New Testament, you can't act by law alone. 846 00:39:58,854 --> 00:40:01,690 Like those were the Pharisees, the hypocrites. 847 00:40:01,690 --> 00:40:02,733 Interesting. Yeah. 848 00:40:02,733 --> 00:40:05,027 And you don't have to just study one. Great. 849 00:40:05,027 --> 00:40:07,780 You can watch Nick's channel and study all the greats. 850 00:40:07,780 --> 00:40:08,906 Yeah. 851 00:40:08,906 --> 00:40:10,074 still. Recommend biographies. 852 00:40:10,074 --> 00:40:11,742 of course. Yeah, I love biographies. 853 00:40:11,742 --> 00:40:15,204 Does does IQ, you know, maybe 854 00:40:15,204 --> 00:40:18,332 they're their IQ or maybe their grade point average in school. 855 00:40:18,374 --> 00:40:21,544 Is there any correlation there or is it you know, what have you seen. 856 00:40:21,919 --> 00:40:24,213 Definitely determines like what path you choose. 857 00:40:24,213 --> 00:40:26,507 So like obviously it's going to be very hard 858 00:40:26,507 --> 00:40:29,844 to be a great theoretical physicist if you don't have a high IQ. 859 00:40:29,969 --> 00:40:32,721 But would say just like, don't worry about it. 860 00:40:32,721 --> 00:40:33,222 Like. 861 00:40:33,222 --> 00:40:36,183 have there been a lot of grace you study in history that did horrible in school? 862 00:40:36,183 --> 00:40:39,353 Yeah, I mean, a lot of them did did bad in school. 863 00:40:39,353 --> 00:40:40,729 A lot of the 864 00:40:40,729 --> 00:40:42,273 a lot of the times it's the case that like, 865 00:40:42,273 --> 00:40:44,859 they could have been really good at school, but they just had no interest. 866 00:40:44,859 --> 00:40:47,111 But like I would say, people people 867 00:40:47,111 --> 00:40:50,906 place too much of a of an important on these like these metrics. 868 00:40:50,948 --> 00:40:53,826 Like it all goes back to like the shark that smells blood. 869 00:40:53,826 --> 00:40:56,912 Like if you read biographies and you feel inspired, 870 00:40:56,912 --> 00:41:00,291 it doesn't matter if you have an IQ of 100 or of 140. 871 00:41:00,332 --> 00:41:01,834 Like you should just go for it. 872 00:41:01,834 --> 00:41:05,880 Because at the end of the day, everyone is on this bell curve of society, 873 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:07,965 this bell curve of of potential. 874 00:41:07,965 --> 00:41:09,800 But like, you can think of like a bell curve 875 00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,219 and then a bell curve on top of it, and the bell curve 876 00:41:12,219 --> 00:41:14,221 that's on top is the potential of humanity. 877 00:41:14,221 --> 00:41:17,183 And every one of us has a part to play in that bell curve. 878 00:41:17,183 --> 00:41:21,812 So let's say the person with the IQ of 100 and gives up because they have a low 879 00:41:21,812 --> 00:41:25,149 IQ, like you're dragging the the middle point of the bell curve down. 880 00:41:25,149 --> 00:41:29,278 And so like if that person actually does like they strive for greatness 881 00:41:29,278 --> 00:41:31,655 even though they're not destined to be one of the persons 882 00:41:31,655 --> 00:41:35,117 on the the outskirts of the curve, like they're still raising the curve. 883 00:41:35,159 --> 00:41:39,663 They're still like increasing, I guess, like something that benefits humanity. 884 00:41:39,705 --> 00:41:40,706 We talked a little bit about it, 885 00:41:40,706 --> 00:41:44,084 but let's talk a little bit more about the people that are in 886 00:41:44,084 --> 00:41:49,089 and around these greats, and maybe the price they pay for 887 00:41:50,174 --> 00:41:51,091 their involvement. 888 00:41:51,091 --> 00:41:51,383 Right. 889 00:41:51,383 --> 00:41:54,345 Maybe one of them had a very supportive husband 890 00:41:54,345 --> 00:41:58,682 or wife that was, you know, pushing them or guiding them or maybe giving them 891 00:41:58,807 --> 00:42:01,894 something when they were at home at night laying in bed. 892 00:42:01,936 --> 00:42:05,731 That helped them be a great because they were in their ear 893 00:42:05,731 --> 00:42:10,027 with some extra knowledge or encouragement or whatever is how important is that? 894 00:42:10,027 --> 00:42:12,071 Or does, you know? 895 00:42:12,071 --> 00:42:16,283 And what price does some of the the people around the greats end up paying? 896 00:42:16,283 --> 00:42:19,578 I would say like it definitely helps but it's not necessary. 897 00:42:19,662 --> 00:42:20,955 One of my favorite role models 898 00:42:20,955 --> 00:42:23,749 and I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's John de Rockefeller. 899 00:42:23,749 --> 00:42:24,625 John de Rockefeller 900 00:42:24,625 --> 00:42:28,504 actually had like a very

interesting relationship with his wife. 901 00:42:28,587 --> 00:42:31,507 So she was like the perfect partner for him. 902 00:42:31,507 --> 00:42:35,302 She was this devout, like, very religious woman, very similar 903 00:42:35,302 --> 00:42:38,847 to Rockefeller's mother, actually, who was also very devout and religious. 904 00:42:38,847 --> 00:42:40,766 But his wife was the perfect partner for him 905 00:42:40,766 --> 00:42:45,229 because she was completely content to stay at home, take care of the kids 906 00:42:45,229 --> 00:42:49,650 and sort of be like this, this supporter for John de Rockefeller. 907 00:42:49,650 --> 00:42:54,446 And when you look at like, what he did, he took over the entire industry. 908 00:42:54,446 --> 00:42:58,200 But his kids were actually raised in a, in a very, 909 00:42:59,076 --> 00:43:01,579 like they were raised with lots of similar values. 910 00:43:01,579 --> 00:43:03,789 And you can say that's been lost throughout the 911 00:43:03,789 --> 00:43:05,332 the Rockefeller family to this day. 912 00:43:05,332 --> 00:43:11,255 But like at least the John de Rockefeller Jr was able to work really hard. 913 00:43:11,255 --> 00:43:14,925 And he kept a lot of the values that John de Rockefeller instilled in him. 914 00:43:14,925 --> 00:43:16,719 And I think that a lot of that 915 00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,638 like that's the case because of Rockefeller's wife, 916 00:43:19,638 --> 00:43:21,724 because she was this, like, very religious woman. 917 00:43:21,724 --> 00:43:24,602 She was always on his side supporting him, talking about like, 918 00:43:24,602 --> 00:43:27,938 the evil people that were trying to take John de Rockefeller down. 919 00:43:27,938 --> 00:43:32,901 It's very interesting because, you know, there's a lot of controversy around him. 920 00:43:32,901 --> 00:43:35,529 But yeah, she was very supportive Of him. 921 00:43:35,529 --> 00:43:36,363 She had his back. 922 00:43:36,363 --> 00:43:40,075 Is there a is there a a story of the opposite 923 00:43:40,075 --> 00:43:43,787 where, you know, like, let me give you let's go back to Johnny Rockefeller. 924 00:43:44,038 --> 00:43:48,208 If he didn't choose her as his wife, if they didn't 925 00:43:48,208 --> 00:43:50,336 end up being together and he had someone else, 926 00:43:50,336 --> 00:43:54,006 and the other wife was like, no, I need you home at 5:00. 927 00:43:54,006 --> 00:43:55,424 I need you to help with the kids. 928 00:43:55,424 --> 00:43:56,842 I you did, you know, 929 00:43:56,842 --> 00:44:00,679 would he have ended up being John de Rockefeller or would he have been? 930 00:44:00,888 --> 00:44:04,767 Well, I can't I can't go work all night long. 931 00:44:04,808 --> 00:44:06,226 I gotta be home with the family. 932 00:44:06,226 --> 00:44:07,936 I just don't think that would ever be the case. 933 00:44:07,936 --> 00:44:11,440 Like, I think someone like John would always, would always choose his work. 934 00:44:11,482 --> 00:44:12,733 Like, he would always end up with someone 935 00:44:12,733 --> 00:44:15,653 like who he ended up with near the end of his life. 936 00:44:15,653 --> 00:44:17,696 He actually wasn't working all that much. 937 00:44:17,696 --> 00:44:20,741 He was working around four hours a day, mostly on his charities, 938 00:44:20,741 --> 00:44:23,035 and someone else was managing Standard Oil. 939 00:44:23,035 --> 00:44:25,412 Maybe it's possible that like, later on in his life, 940 00:44:25,412 --> 00:44:26,664 he would end up with someone like that. 941 00:44:26,664 --> 00:44:30,751 But in the beginning, when he has to put in the hours, he has to go to work, like, 942 00:44:30,793 --> 00:44:33,712 it's like going to war, like you're always going to choose the war. 943 00:44:33,712 --> 00:44:36,298 Like you just need that. The great people like they need it. 944 00:44:36,298 --> 00:44:39,301 What about the people that look at these greats as. 945 00:44:39,927 --> 00:44:41,845 Yeah, but you didn't spend any time with your kids. 946 00:44:41,845 --> 00:44:43,222 You didn't spend any time with your family. 947 00:44:43,222 --> 00:44:44,973 Think about more than Buffett, right? 948 00:44:44,973 --> 00:44:46,308 Are you from Nebraska? 949 00:44:46,308 --> 00:44:47,101 Yeah. Okay. 950 00:44:47,101 --> 00:44:48,644 So Omaha? No. 951 00:44:48,644 --> 00:44:49,103 Yeah. Yeah. 952 00:44:49,103 --> 00:44:52,064 So I actually have a picture. I've met Warren when I was little. Right. 953 00:44:52,064 --> 00:44:56,610 I mean, look, I've read some of his biographies and I've read about him a lot. 954 00:44:56,652 --> 00:44:59,071 And don't get me wrong, maybe he doesn't have 955 00:44:59,071 --> 00:45:02,074 the worst relationship with his kids, but a lot of the greats 956 00:45:02,157 --> 00:45:06,078 sacrifice time with their family relationships 957 00:45:06,245 --> 00:45:11,542 in in many of the greats, cases get blown up with their own children 958 00:45:11,792 --> 00:45:16,088 because of their dedication and drive towards being great. 959 00:45:16,130 --> 00:45:19,133 What about the people who look at these situations like, 960 00:45:19,174 --> 00:45:22,678 you know, who would want to be that this person is a horrible person? 961 00:45:22,803 --> 00:45:25,931 I'm not here to judge anyone's, like, life decisions. 962 00:45:25,931 --> 00:45:29,935 I'm not here to, like, tell people how they should live. 963 00:45:29,935 --> 00:45:34,356 What I do with my channel is mostly like, this is what the greats did. 964 00:45:34,356 --> 00:45:36,984 If you're looking to become one of the greats, this is what they do. 965 00:45:36,984 --> 00:45:39,611 Like simply the greats. 966 00:45:39,611 --> 00:45:40,487 They sacrifice. 967 00:45:40,487 --> 00:45:46,076 Like, bottom line, they were fully focused, like they were very committed. 968 00:45:46,118 --> 00:45:48,162 Right? And so that takes sacrifice. 969 00:45:48,162

--> 00:45:51,540 If you want to become one of the greats, this is the path that you have to take. 970 00:45:51,582 --> 00:45:54,501 Like it's the ethos like I to for anyone else. 971 00:45:54,501 --> 00:45:56,545 It's just like it's outside of my binoculars. 972 00:45:56,545 --> 00:46:00,299 Like my focus is on the greats, on on becoming one of the greats. 973 00:46:00,382 --> 00:46:01,842 Let's talk about Caesar. 974 00:46:01,842 --> 00:46:05,721 If I'm not mistaken, Caesar's closest friends killed him. 975 00:46:06,305 --> 00:46:06,638 Yeah. 976 00:46:06,638 --> 00:46:09,391 What does that say about the people around you when you start winning? 977 00:46:09,391 --> 00:46:11,393 Yeah, it's extremely important. 978 00:46:11,393 --> 00:46:13,687 Loyalty is a very, very important factor. 979 00:46:13,687 --> 00:46:17,733 think the best way to talk about Caesar is to parallel him with his son in law, 980 00:46:17,775 --> 00:46:20,486 which was Octavian or Augustus. 981 00:46:20,486 --> 00:46:23,071 there's a very interesting difference between Caesar and Augustus. 982 00:46:23,071 --> 00:46:25,574 That's that that's that Caesar told everyone 983 00:46:25,574 --> 00:46:29,411 he was a dictator, like he wanted everyone to know he held the power. 984 00:46:29,411 --> 00:46:33,040 And so this made like the people uneasy. 985 00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,751 This made people turn on him, especially the people closest to him, 986 00:46:35,751 --> 00:46:37,795 because like, obviously, they also want power. 987 00:46:37,795 --> 00:46:39,505 And they saw a way to get it. 988 00:46:39,505 --> 00:46:43,634 Augustus was very smart in the way that he held power. 989 00:46:43,634 --> 00:46:44,593 He called himself 990 00:46:44,593 --> 00:46:47,679 the Prince of Civitas, which means that he was the first citizen. 991 00:46:47,679 --> 00:46:50,307 So he's not some guy who holds all the power. 992 00:46:50,307 --> 00:46:52,184 He's just like the first citizen. 993 00:46:52,184 --> 00:46:57,898 And so, like when you think about how they, like, held the perception 994 00:46:57,898 --> 00:47:01,068 of themselves to the audience, like, this is a big part of leadership. 995 00:47:01,068 --> 00:47:03,862 But Augustus held the perception that he was the first citizen, 996 00:47:03,862 --> 00:47:05,447 even though he held all the power. 997 00:47:05,447 --> 00:47:06,657 Caesar flouted the power. 998 00:47:06,657 --> 00:47:08,492 He wanted everyone to know that he had power. 999 00:47:08,492 --> 00:47:10,619 And so this led to his downfall. 1000 00:47:10,619 --> 00:47:13,789 So it is the people around you, 1001 00:47:13,789 --> 00:47:16,875 but it's more of the perception that you hold with with people. 1002 00:47:16,959 --> 00:47:20,462 Do you see that in your life or see that coming in your life, where 1003 00:47:20,671 --> 00:47:24,716 if you're going to be one of the greats, which I have faith in you, 1004 00:47:25,050 --> 00:47:26,802 you're dedicated. I'm being serious. 1005 00:47:26,802 --> 00:47:31,390 Maybe some people around you are going to get jealous, envious, etc. 1006 00:47:31,390 --> 00:47:33,809 and do the greats even care? 1007 00:47:33,809 --> 00:47:35,727 They're just like, I don't care. You can be envious all you want. 1008 00:47:35,727 --> 00:47:38,313 I'm so focused, I'm blocking out everything. 1009 00:47:38,313 --> 00:47:39,439 Okay? 1010 00:47:39,439 --> 00:47:41,066 Could that end up being a problem? 1011 00:47:41,066 --> 00:47:43,360 So we live in a very interesting time. 1012 00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:47,865 Like the way power works right now is it's similar to how power works back then. 1013 00:47:47,865 --> 00:47:49,199 But we live in different structures. 1014 00:47:49,199 --> 00:47:51,994 And so people people are going to look at the greats differently. 1015 00:47:51,994 --> 00:47:55,789 The way people saw Caesar's differently than the way someone sees 1016 00:47:55,914 --> 00:47:59,710 Donald Trump or anyone Musk like, I think the way 1017 00:47:59,710 --> 00:48:03,839 to become one of the greats now is more in the way of like, inventing. 1018 00:48:03,881 --> 00:48:06,967 Like you can invent a product that helps people. 1019 00:48:06,967 --> 00:48:09,887 And so if you invent a product that helps people, it 1020 00:48:09,887 --> 00:48:12,598 it brings in money as a return, it brings in power as a return. 1021 00:48:12,598 --> 00:48:16,184 But you you use that power to create more products that help more people. 1022 00:48:16,184 --> 00:48:17,728 And so being a great 1023 00:48:17,728 --> 00:48:21,940 like now is seen as like way differently than how being a great was seen back then. 1024 00:48:21,982 --> 00:48:22,274 Right? 1025 00:48:22,274 --> 00:48:25,319 So like the structures that we have in place in society right now 1026 00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,697 actually allow for greatness to help people rather than it for rather 1027 00:48:28,697 --> 00:48:32,826 than for it to be a zero sum game like the economy can grow larger, 1028 00:48:32,868 --> 00:48:36,038 like we can create products that grow the economy, that help people 1029 00:48:36,038 --> 00:48:39,124 rather than like in olden times, it was mostly about conquering, 1030 00:48:39,166 --> 00:48:40,959 like you would go out and you would conquer. 1031 00:48:40,959 --> 00:48:44,046 You would like all these talents and bring wealth to the capital. 1032 00:48:44,046 --> 00:48:46,882 And that's how like the power structures were back then. 1033 00:48:46,882 --> 00:48:50,636 So, like when you look up to like Alexander, like what? 1034 00:48:50,636 --> 00:48:54,056 Alexander Alexander marched through Persia and killed everyone in his path. 1035 00:48:54,056 --> 00:48:58,393 Obviously that's an exaggeration, but that is in a sense what happened. 1036 00:48:58,393 --> 00:49:01,688 Imagine if, like, he put all that energy into creating a product 1037 00:49:01,688 -->

00:49:05,233 that helped people like the structures that we have now allow for that to happen. 1038 00:49:05,233 --> 00:49:08,445 And so, like becoming great right now, There's going to be less motive 1039 00:49:08,445 --> 00:49:11,531 for someone to kill you unless you're playing 1040 00:49:11,573 --> 00:49:14,910 like the original power game, which some people are still playing. 1041 00:49:14,910 --> 00:49:18,163 But I think the the better way towards greatness is to create products 1042 00:49:18,163 --> 00:49:20,540 that help people. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. Right. 1043 00:49:20,540 --> 00:49:24,378 Elon Musk has created some products that, in my opinion, help people. 1044 00:49:24,419 --> 00:49:27,422 Your car can drive itself potentially less accidents. 1045 00:49:27,422 --> 00:49:30,050 But then there's the other side of that where people hate 1046 00:49:30,050 --> 00:49:34,221 Elon Musk because we have wealth inequality in America 1047 00:49:34,221 --> 00:49:37,224 and in the world where the rich and the wealthy 1048 00:49:37,516 --> 00:49:41,395 continue to have more, the bottom continue to have less. 1049 00:49:41,395 --> 00:49:45,190 So if you're going to become a great financially, you're going to have 1050 00:49:45,190 --> 00:49:46,525 a lot more than everyone else. 1051 00:49:46,525 --> 00:49:50,487 And while he can label that as, hey, I'm trying to help people. 1052 00:49:50,529 --> 00:49:54,324 I'm trying to help humanity become a multi planetary species, 1053 00:49:54,366 --> 00:49:56,576 and Earth isn't going to last forever. 1054 00:49:56,576 --> 00:49:59,579 So that's, you know, this is these grand goals. 1055 00:49:59,746 --> 00:50:03,417 But then there's a bunch of people half or more or certain percentage of people 1056 00:50:03,417 --> 00:50:05,002 that absolutely hate them because they're like, 1057 00:50:05,002 --> 00:50:06,086 he has all this money, 1058 00:50:06,086 --> 00:50:10,716 whether that's I don't have it or he's not distributing it or just like, 1059 00:50:11,008 --> 00:50:14,219 you know, they look down upon some of the greats now. 1060 00:50:14,553 --> 00:50:16,680 everything that's going on right now, like you can trace it 1061 00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,057 back to somewhere in history, which is what I love. 1062 00:50:19,057 --> 00:50:20,767 what I was saying is like the structure is differently. 1063 00:50:20,767 --> 00:50:23,437 So like, you can benefit people, but like, at the same time, 1064 00:50:23,437 --> 00:50:25,522 like history repeats itself over and over again. 1065 00:50:25,522 --> 00:50:28,984 And so what you're entering into right now is something called a k shaped economy, 1066 00:50:28,984 --> 00:50:32,487 where if you're like if you own assets, then you get richer. 1067 00:50:32,487 --> 00:50:34,573 If you don't, then you grow pro-war. 1068 00:50:34,573 --> 00:50:38,160 And so like you see this like throughout history a lot 1069 00:50:38,201 -->

00:50:41,288 and usually in some form of a revolution. 1070 00:50:41,288 --> 00:50:44,374 And so like if society continues in the way it's 1071 00:50:44,374 --> 00:50:47,919 heading towards right now, then that is likely what's going to happen. 1072 00:50:47,919 --> 00:50:51,548 And some the person leading the revolution will actually become one of the greats. 1073 00:50:51,548 --> 00:50:54,259 And so you see this like this diversion of people 1074 00:50:54,259 --> 00:50:56,845 who like like Elon Musk and like don't like Elon Musk. 1075 00:50:56,845 --> 00:51:00,599 this is like the K shaped economy in voices. 1076 00:51:00,682 --> 00:51:04,603 there are times when like you had like policy change, like in the, in the 1900s 1077 00:51:04,603 --> 00:51:05,187 where you actually 1078 00:51:05,187 --> 00:51:08,398 were going into a K shaped economy and it was actually able to reverse. 1079 00:51:08,398 --> 00:51:10,942 And this is actually like around the time when you see people 1080 00:51:10,942 --> 00:51:14,613 like Carnegie and Rockefeller start like giving to charity and start donating 1081 00:51:14,654 --> 00:51:16,406 like it's a structure of a policy change. 1082 00:51:16,406 --> 00:51:16,573 Right? 1083 00:51:16,573 --> 00:51:20,660 It's not just like purely philanthropic like, society can do that right now, 1084 00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:21,453 but like in the way 1085 00:51:21,453 --> 00:51:22,329 things are headed, it's 1086 00:51:22,329 --> 00:51:25,665 very likely that there will be some, some form of revolution. 1087 00:51:25,832 --> 00:51:26,041 Yeah. 1088 00:51:26,041 --> 00:51:27,250 Because you study these 1089 00:51:27,250 --> 00:51:30,629 and you study people that are climbing a mountain and societies that are growing. 1090 00:51:30,629 --> 00:51:33,632 And then a lot of these end. 1091 00:51:34,091 --> 00:51:34,716 Right. 1092 00:51:34,716 --> 00:51:36,384 How do you think it's going to end for the US? 1093 00:51:36,384 --> 00:51:39,179 Do you think there's going to be some type of a civil war. 1094 00:51:39,179 --> 00:51:40,889 There's a potential for civil war. 1095 00:51:40,889 --> 00:51:44,976 There's also the potential for policy change. 1096 00:51:45,977 --> 00:51:48,396 I'm not really sure how it's all going to play out. 1097 00:51:48,396 --> 00:51:51,399 Like, exactly like there's all these different factors 1098 00:51:51,441 --> 00:51:52,901 what have you seen from history? 1099 00:51:52,901 --> 00:51:55,570 Yeah. So no dynasty lasts forever, right? 1100 00:51:55,570 --> 00:51:58,573 Yeah. No, no dynasty for now. For now. 1101 00:51:58,573 --> 00:51:59,574 What does that mean for now? 1102 00:51:59,574 --> 00:52:03,745 You think America will last forever as being the leader of the world? 1103 00:52:03,745 --> 00:52:05,205 think it can depend on one person. 1104 00:52:05,205 --> 00:52:05,831 So like, 1105 00:52:05,831 --> 00:52:07,415 I know this might sound like an exaggeration, 1106 00:52:07,415 --> 00:52:11,086 but I feel like in my work I can impact like millions and millions of people. 1107 00:52:11,086 --> 00:52:14,256 And so like maybe that person that like, leads 1108 00:52:14,256 --> 00:52:17,551 this revolution, maybe it's a nonviolent revolution. 1109 00:52:17,592 --> 00:52:21,012 Like maybe that's the case someday when this happens. 1110 00:52:21,012 --> 00:52:26,518 And so, like the way I see it, like if you take on all the responsibility, 1111 00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:28,145 you can decide how things play out, 1112 00:52:28,145 --> 00:52:30,647 whether it's in like a violent way or in a nonviolent way. 1113 00:52:30,647 --> 00:52:35,318 And if I, if I have any choice in it, which, you know, 1114 00:52:35,402 --> 00:52:38,613 if this happens, like, I'm obviously going to like try to like 1115 00:52:38,655 --> 00:52:39,865 make it nonviolent, 1116 00:52:39,865 --> 00:52:42,993 just think it's up to me, like, I, I don't know how else to explain it. 1117 00:52:42,993 --> 00:52:46,997 Okay, let's talk about the three types you split them into conquerors, 1118 00:52:47,247 --> 00:52:49,749 geniuses and entrepreneurs. 1119 00:52:49,749 --> 00:52:52,627 Which of those would be hell. 1120 00:52:52,627 --> 00:52:54,004 To actually work for? 1121 00:52:54,004 --> 00:52:57,424 So I split up into three, but they're actually all the same. 1122 00:52:57,424 --> 00:53:01,553 I just like to split them up into three because it's like, like the conquerors 1123 00:53:01,553 --> 00:53:05,849 and the entrepreneurs would be the same as well as the the geniuses. 1124 00:53:05,849 --> 00:53:09,144 It's just that, like, it just helps in people's minds that, like, 1125 00:53:09,144 --> 00:53:12,439 the conquerors are like in the past, like the geniuses started around 1126 00:53:12,480 --> 00:53:15,692 like the Renaissance, like the real, the real like modern genius. 1127 00:53:15,734 --> 00:53:19,946 Obviously you have people like Archimedes and like Plato and Aristotle and 1128 00:53:19,946 --> 00:53:23,700 the philosophers, but like, in my opinion, like the geniuses that we can study 1129 00:53:23,742 --> 00:53:27,996 start in like the Renaissance era, maybe slightly before that. 1130 00:53:28,163 --> 00:53:31,208 all would suck to work for, like, they're all going to push you 1131 00:53:31,249 --> 00:53:34,127 like, to insane limits. They're all going to be perfectionists. 1132 00:53:34,127 --> 00:53:37,339 They're all going to be, like, very maniacal about their work. 1133 00:53:37,339 --> 00:53:40,717 But it's the leader that takes upon most of the suffering, like they're 1134 00:53:40,759 --> 00:53:43,970 the ones that actually step outside of the norms and drag everyone with them. 1135 00:53:43,970 --> 00:53:45,972 But at the same time, like, the dragging sucks 1136 00:53:45,972 --> 00:53:49,267 because you still have to step outside of the curve at some point. 1137 00:53:49,267 --> 00:53:52,938 If

you're going to be with this leader, it's a step into the unknown. 1138 00:53:53,063 --> 00:53:56,524 Can you be a great leader and be a great one day, like the people 1139 00:53:56,524 --> 00:54:00,111 you study and still be a decent person and be respectful to your team? 1140 00:54:00,111 --> 00:54:02,280 Or are you pushing the hell out of everyone? 1141 00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:05,951 Steve Jobs actually talked about this, he believes he is like being a good person 1142 00:54:05,951 --> 00:54:09,955 by, like, being mean to them, like to bring out the best in someone. 1143 00:54:09,996 --> 00:54:11,456 It takes that like, 1144 00:54:11,456 --> 00:54:12,457 you have to do this, 1145 00:54:12,457 --> 00:54:15,502 like I'm going to put you in a hole and you have to dig yourself out of that hole. 1146 00:54:15,502 --> 00:54:17,295 And when you dig yourself out of that hole, 1147 00:54:17,295 --> 00:54:19,047 something great is going to happen for the world. 1148 00:54:19,047 --> 00:54:19,631 And so, 1149 00:54:19,631 --> 00:54:20,674 like you think about 1150 00:54:20,674 --> 00:54:23,260 pushing someone in a hole or putting someone in that hole 1151 00:54:23,260 --> 00:54:24,552 that can be perceived as mean. 1152 00:54:24,552 --> 00:54:27,806 But are you a bad person for doing that if it's going to help the world? 1153 00:54:27,806 --> 00:54:31,559 And if that person is like open to doing that, if they're working for you. 1154 00:54:31,601 --> 00:54:33,520 They are on some level open to doing that. 1155 00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,690 And so like obviously it's like if you're 1156 00:54:36,731 --> 00:54:40,068 the leader, you take the responsibility of like whether or not you should do that 1157 00:54:40,068 --> 00:54:44,948 and not no leader is going to get that right every 100% of the time morally. 1158 00:54:44,990 --> 00:54:48,618 But you like doing that, I don't think makes you a bad person. 1159 00:54:48,618 --> 00:54:49,744 I think it's more of like 1160 00:54:49,744 --> 00:54:50,829 the more responsibility 1161 00:54:50,829 --> 00:54:54,040 you take the more the effect is going to play out in society. 1162 00:54:54,416 --> 00:54:57,502 Okay, let's talk to the entrepreneurs 1163 00:54:57,502 --> 00:55:00,505 out there, the business owners, the people that are leading teams. 1164 00:55:00,630 --> 00:55:02,799 You mentioned pinning the enemy against. 1165 00:55:02,799 --> 00:55:04,759 Right. What is there a playbook? 1166 00:55:04,759 --> 00:55:09,180 Is there a five steps process of like, hey, if you if you do these five things, 1167 00:55:10,015 --> 00:55:10,390 you know, 1168 00:55:10,390 --> 00:55:13,393 from what you've learned from the greats, these will lead you to success. 1169 00:55:13,393 --> 00:55:14,436 I would say there's like 1170 00:55:14,436 --> 00:55:17,272 a company thing you can do and then like a personal thing you can do. 1171 00:55:17,272 --> 00:55:20,066 So like the personal formula that I

use. 1172 00:55:20,066 --> 00:55:23,611 And this is to get good at any craft, like just to begin getting good 1173 00:55:23,820 --> 00:55:27,866 to become better than 99% of people choose a craft. 1174 00:55:27,949 --> 00:55:33,496 Read 100 books on that craft, talk to 100 people 1175 00:55:33,496 --> 00:55:36,958 in the field of that craft, and perform 100 experiments in that craft. 1176 00:55:36,958 --> 00:55:39,294 And so, like it's very simple. 1177 00:55:39,294 --> 00:55:42,339 You can get it done in maybe 2 or 3 years. 1178 00:55:43,298 --> 00:55:45,675 99% of people won't do that. 1179 00:55:45,675 --> 00:55:49,554 99% of people won't even read the 100 books. 1180 00:55:49,679 --> 00:55:52,015 But like, that's it. 1181 00:55:52,015 --> 00:55:53,266 It's like so simple. 1182 00:55:53,266 --> 00:55:56,061 Just do that and you will become good at a craft. 1183 00:55:56,061 --> 00:55:58,563 Now, being a leader is something that like 1184 00:55:58,563 --> 00:56:00,732 it's a bit different and you can learn it from history. 1185 00:56:00,732 --> 00:56:04,402 But like the leadership tactics that Alexander used 1186 00:56:04,402 --> 00:56:08,823 are the same tactics that Napoleon used, that are the same tactics that Elon used. 1187 00:56:08,823 --> 00:56:11,242 So it's the same formula, right? 1188 00:56:11,242 --> 00:56:15,872 You need to be you need to have a first off you need central command. 1189 00:56:15,914 --> 00:56:19,459 You need to have one person at the top guiding the mission. 1190 00:56:19,459 --> 00:56:20,418 That's the leader. 1191 00:56:20,418 --> 00:56:22,003 Then you need a core system. 1192 00:56:22,003 --> 00:56:24,798 So when Napoleon did that was that was so great. 1193 00:56:24,798 --> 00:56:28,051 Was he created he split his army into these different cores, 1194 00:56:28,093 --> 00:56:30,220 and these cores could live off the land. 1195 00:56:30,220 --> 00:56:34,349 So like every core had like an infantry, some cavalry, 1196 00:56:34,349 --> 00:56:35,809 and it was like a mini army. 1197 00:56:35,809 --> 00:56:36,726 And so he split his army 1198 00:56:36,726 --> 00:56:39,938 into all of these cores with one leader, and he talked to like, the leaders. 1199 00:56:39,938 --> 00:56:43,983 And so, like what he did with this was to think what this allowed for 1200 00:56:43,983 --> 00:56:47,529 him was for him to maneuver with speed, which is the third thing. 1201 00:56:47,570 --> 00:56:49,906 Like, you need to have speed in everything, 1202 00:56:49,906 --> 00:56:52,617 and this is what the core system allows you to do. 1203 00:56:52,617 --> 00:56:56,746 So like Philip had speed, Alexander had speed, 1204 00:56:56,746 --> 00:57:00,291 Elon has speed, Napoleon speed, they all had speed and agility. 1205 00:57:00,291 --> 00:57:01,626 And then the last thing is that 1206 00:57:01,626 --> 00:57:05,088 you need to have extremely simple and clear and direct communication. 1207 00:57:05,088 --> 00:57:08,341 So this is another thing that Napoleon did very well as well. 1208 00:57:08,383 --> 00:57:12,011 All of his orders were like very detailed, short to the point. 1209 00:57:12,011 --> 00:57:14,556 And it was just like, this is what you need to do. 1210 00:57:14,556 --> 00:57:18,059 This is a time that you need to do it, and this is how you're going to do it. 1211 00:57:18,059 --> 00:57:22,522 And so like all of this culminates into the the perfect structure 1212 00:57:22,522 --> 00:57:23,356 for a corporation. 1213 00:57:23,356 --> 00:57:26,943 And it's the same principles that like people like Caesar and Alexander 1214 00:57:26,943 --> 00:57:27,235 have used. 1215 00:57:27,235 --> 00:57:31,030 And Hannibal, I think Hannibal's actually Hannibal 1216 00:57:31,030 --> 00:57:35,160 had the best strategy for speed, but like Hannibal pretty much blitz through 1217 00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:38,830 Rome in the beginning, and the speed is why he was able to be such a success. 1218 00:57:38,997 --> 00:57:42,876 You've studied every great person in history who scared you 1219 00:57:42,876 --> 00:57:46,171 the most when you understood how they actually thought. 1220 00:57:46,337 --> 00:57:49,299 a little, a little quick, like history lesson 1221 00:57:49,299 --> 00:57:52,635 about like old, like authors, like the authors who documented history. 1222 00:57:52,719 --> 00:57:56,055 So like Thucydides is known as, like the first modern historian 1223 00:57:56,055 --> 00:58:00,101 because Thucydides documented the history of the Peloponnesian War, 1224 00:58:00,101 --> 00:58:01,603 It was a war between Athens and Sparta. 1225 00:58:01,603 --> 00:58:05,732 And so it's documented this entire war in a way that had never been done before, 1226 00:58:05,773 --> 00:58:09,110 Thucydides documented in a way, in like a very rational way. 1227 00:58:09,152 --> 00:58:12,155 And before people thought of it, of wars as like 1228 00:58:12,155 --> 00:58:15,158 they were pawns in, in a chess game played by the gods. 1229 00:58:15,158 --> 00:58:17,994 And so, like they saw things in the way of like a story, 1230 00:58:17,994 --> 00:58:20,705 like the gods wanted this for us. The gods wanted us to do this. 1231 00:58:20,705 --> 00:58:24,000 And Thucydides didn't do this. 1232 00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:27,670 He was exiled very early on in his life. 1233 00:58:27,670 --> 00:58:30,965 And so he saw things in a very rational, rational way. 1234 00:58:30,965 --> 00:58:32,509 And because this he saw like 1235 00:58:32,509 --> 00:58:36,179 he went to the battlefield, he interviewed the soldiers, he saw what war was like. 1236 00:58:36,221 --> 00:58:37,972 He like interviewed the commanders. 1237 00:58:37,972 --> 00:58:39,766 He was very good at like, human nature. 1238 00:58:39,766 --> 00:58:40,475 And so like, 1239 00:58:40,475 --> 00:58:43,728 he was the first guy who, like, really wrote about history in this way. 1240 00:58:43,770 -->

00:58:48,066 So you fast forward all, fast forward all the way to like modern Florence. 1241 00:58:48,066 --> 00:58:51,236 And you have like Machiavelli and Machiavelli was very good 1242 00:58:51,277 --> 00:58:54,155 at like the same thing. He just saw things for what they were. 1243 00:58:54,155 --> 00:58:58,034 He saw human nature for what it was the the greed, the corruption, 1244 00:58:58,076 --> 00:59:01,829 like the evil, like he saw it all and he just simply said how it was. 1245 00:59:01,829 --> 00:59:03,998 And we all have like an evil nature to us. 1246 00:59:03,998 --> 00:59:05,959 So we all have this, this part of us. 1247 00:59:05,959 --> 00:59:07,460 And it's just for these greats. 1248 00:59:07,460 --> 00:59:11,381 You just see it a bit more powerfully, simply because they have more 1249 00:59:11,381 --> 00:59:13,049 of an influence of the world. 1250 00:59:13,049 --> 00:59:14,884 So like, remember in the beginning 1251 00:59:14,884 --> 00:59:18,972 that greatness is how much you're able to tune the world to yourself. 1252 00:59:18,972 --> 00:59:20,807 when you say, like, did any of these, like, 1253 00:59:20,807 --> 00:59:23,309 disturb you, it's like to me they're all the same. 1254 00:59:23,309 --> 00:59:25,270 Like it's just certain parts of them. 1255 00:59:25,270 --> 00:59:27,272 The angle of the vector is just different. 1256 00:59:27,272 --> 00:59:28,064 That makes sense. 1257 00:59:28,064 --> 00:59:31,025 And let's talk about hitting rock bottom or crashing. 1258 00:59:31,025 --> 00:59:34,654 Have you seen that as a commonality between the greats where they hit 1259 00:59:34,654 --> 00:59:35,280 rock bottom? 1260 00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:41,077 Or they can go down places, you know, get really, you know, crash to a low 1261 00:59:41,119 --> 00:59:45,123 that others aren't willing to go or that others get to and say, no, you know what? 1262 00:59:45,123 --> 00:59:47,875 I'm out of this. I'm going to go work a regular job. 1263 00:59:47,875 --> 00:59:50,628 Yeah. They just the grades can endure more pain. 1264 00:59:50,628 --> 00:59:52,213 Like, it's as simple as that. 1265 00:59:52,213 --> 00:59:55,300 To do a thousand reps of something, it takes a lot of pain. 1266 00:59:55,300 --> 00:59:59,679 It takes a lot of, like, discipline, mental work and the simple realities 1267 00:59:59,679 --> 01:00:01,848 that you have to go through pain like it goes. 1268 01:00:01,848 --> 01:00:03,975 I think about the Jensen every day. 1269 01:00:03,975 --> 01:00:06,102 If I were to wish one thing upon a person, it's 1270 01:00:06,102 --> 01:00:10,148 ample doses of pain and suffering like I don't. 1271 01:00:10,189 --> 01:00:13,192 I think people severely underestimate how much these people think about like 1272 01:00:13,234 --> 01:00:16,863 pain and suffering like pain and suffering is an incredibly important 1273 01:00:16,863 --> 01:00:21,993 aspect of life, and it's an incredibly useful tool for life. 1274

01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,412 the whole is where the greats are made. 1275 01:00:24,412 --> 01:00:27,582 The reason why I, Walt Disney inspires me so much 1276 01:00:27,582 --> 01:00:30,752 is because when he was 23, 1277 01:00:31,252 --> 01:00:35,173 he was 22, actually, at the time when he was 22, he lost his business. 1278 01:00:35,214 --> 01:00:38,259 His advertiser cut him completely out of the business 1279 01:00:38,259 --> 01:00:42,180 because he said, well, I'm doing the marketing and I have the animator. 1280 01:00:42,305 --> 01:00:45,141 His name was UB Iwerks. What is Walt actually doing here? 1281 01:00:45,141 --> 01:00:47,060 And so he kicks wall out of his own company. 1282 01:00:47,060 --> 01:00:49,354 He takes his his successful cartoon from him. 1283 01:00:49,354 --> 01:00:51,397 It was called The Lucky Rabbit. 1284 01:00:51,397 --> 01:00:52,940 And so Walt has nothing. 1285 01:00:52,940 --> 01:00:54,776 Now he's kicked out of his own company, 1286 01:00:54,776 --> 01:00:57,403 he lost his team and he doesn't know what to do. 1287 01:00:57,403 --> 01:01:00,323 And so he takes his train ride back home and he's at his absolute lowest. 1288 01:01:00,323 --> 01:01:01,658 And this is Walt Disney. 1289 01:01:01,658 --> 01:01:04,911 Walt Disney was like, known for being optimistic, cheerful. 1290 01:01:04,952 --> 01:01:07,121 And he was in this whole of like, 1291 01:01:07,121 --> 01:01:09,457 I have nothing now and I had everything before. 1292 01:01:09,457 --> 01:01:10,333 And so like 1293 01:01:10,333 --> 01:01:13,961 these lows are where the greats are made because on that train ride home is where 1294 01:01:13,961 --> 01:01:17,006 he thought of the idea for Mickey Mouse, which he started doing 1295 01:01:17,048 --> 01:01:18,007 as soon as he got home. 1296 01:01:18,007 --> 01:01:22,470 And so like, that stuff is just so, so inspiring. 1297 01:01:22,470 --> 01:01:25,682 But it's like it comes from the pain and suffering from the turmoil 1298 01:01:25,682 --> 01:01:27,975 of not knowing what's next, from being at the bottom 1299 01:01:27,975 --> 01:01:31,646 from like going through this even though it was involuntary. 1300 01:01:32,730 --> 01:01:33,606 Rockefeller has 1301 01:01:33,606 --> 01:01:37,485 this these great letters, this book I recommend to everyone. 1302 01:01:37,485 --> 01:01:41,698 It's called the 38 letters that John de Rockefeller wrote to his son. 1303 01:01:41,823 --> 01:01:45,451 And in it he talks to his son about hardship, 1304 01:01:45,451 --> 01:01:46,911 says that hardship builds character. 1305 01:01:46,911 --> 01:01:50,456 And so that Rockefeller has this mindset about hardship where he, like, 1306 01:01:50,748 --> 01:01:52,917 reinforces a narrative that like this hardship is good 1307 01:01:52,917 --> 01:01:54,585 because it builds my character. 1308 01:01:54,585 --> 01:01:59,882 And that's the the same type of it's the same thing I apply in my own life. 1309 01:01:59,924 --> 01:02:02,760 Like I put myself in the pain and suffering, and it's good 1310 01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:05,680 because it built my character like this. Hardship is good. 1311 01:02:05,680 --> 01:02:08,433 And so, like Rockefeller also had that hole. 1312 01:02:08,433 --> 01:02:12,437 We can go into that if you want, but like that hole is where the greats are made. 1313 01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,982 was there a great that didn't go through that. No. 1314 01:02:15,982 --> 01:02:17,150 They all went through that. Wow. 1315 01:02:17,150 --> 01:02:18,985 So the pain and suffering, whether that's. 1316 01:02:18,985 --> 01:02:21,070 all human like we all we all grew. True. 1317 01:02:21,070 --> 01:02:22,822 But like deep, deep pain. 1318 01:02:22,822 --> 01:02:24,949 everyone goes through like pain. Right? 1319 01:02:24,949 --> 01:02:26,117 Everyone goes through suffering. 1320 01:02:26,117 --> 01:02:29,495 It's how you utilize it and how much of that you're willing to take on. 1321 01:02:29,537 --> 01:02:32,999 The more responsibility you take on, the more pain there's going to be. 1322 01:02:32,999 --> 01:02:35,001 that's where you have the opportunity to become greats. 1323 01:02:35,001 --> 01:02:35,877 And so if you can just like, 1324 01:02:35,877 --> 01:02:39,756 reframe your mind to think like, this hole is good, this suffering is good, 1325 01:02:39,756 --> 01:02:44,177 and forcefully put yourself there like that's where the grades are made. 1326 01:02:44,177 --> 01:02:45,928 Robert Greene actually talks about the strategy 1327 01:02:45,928 --> 01:02:49,682 called the death ground strategy, which I see applied in a lot of people's lives. 1328 01:02:49,682 --> 01:02:53,186 And it's it's like it's exactly what I was talking about. 1329 01:02:53,227 --> 01:02:57,940 It's putting yourself in that situation where you either get out or something 1330 01:02:57,940 --> 01:02:58,941 catastrophic happens. 1331 01:02:58,941 --> 01:03:00,234 And I tell people, 1332 01:03:00,234 --> 01:03:03,738 if you want to become great, you should put yourself in the situation. 1333 01:03:04,614 --> 01:03:06,449 Movie directors actually operate in this way. 1334 01:03:06,449 --> 01:03:10,828 A lot of the great movie directors, people like Greta Gerwig and James Cameron, 1335 01:03:10,870 --> 01:03:14,582 they both talk about the process of making movies and they say, yeah, 1336 01:03:14,582 --> 01:03:18,377 so what I do is I jump off the plane and I build the parachute on the way down, 1337 01:03:18,377 --> 01:03:20,296 and they say, that's what making a movie is like. 1338 01:03:20,296 --> 01:03:23,758 They put themselves in the hole and then they have to call themselves out. 1339 01:03:23,758 --> 01:03:28,346 Elon Musk lives in a very similar way where whenever there's like stability, 1340 01:03:28,387 --> 01:03:30,306 like everything's going right, he feels off. 1341 01:03:30,306 --> 01:03:33,726 And so he purposely like

creates this problem. 1342 01:03:33,768 --> 01:03:36,395 Like there's this new problem and we need to go and attack it. 1343 01:03:36,395 --> 01:03:39,065 So he creates one of these sprints like purposefully. 1344 01:03:39,065 --> 01:03:42,193 And sometimes he takes out money to do so. 1345 01:03:42,193 --> 01:03:46,572 And that's like putting yourself in a hole so that you have to call yourself out. 1346 01:03:46,572 --> 01:03:49,909 John de Rockefeller was constantly taking on more debt, 1347 01:03:49,909 --> 01:03:51,911 and so he was sort of putting himself in this hole. 1348 01:03:51,911 --> 01:03:53,037 It was a calculated hole, 1349 01:03:53,037 --> 01:03:54,705 but he was clawing himself out of that debt, 1350 01:03:54,705 --> 01:03:57,542 and he would grow his company like that much faster. 1351 01:03:57,542 --> 01:04:02,380 Do you think these greats, there's some gene or genetic element? 1352 01:04:02,463 --> 01:04:05,341 you know, what percentage genes or genetics with the greats 1353 01:04:05,341 --> 01:04:09,053 versus environmental or their experience in life? 1354 01:04:09,053 --> 01:04:12,682 Like I said, I don't I don't know about this like nature versus nurture argument. 1355 01:04:12,723 --> 01:04:15,977 Like I think we've in the same way that like 1356 01:04:16,060 --> 01:04:19,772 give to Caesar what a Caesar's give to the philosophers. 1357 01:04:20,022 --> 01:04:22,650 What is the the loss for questions? 1358 01:04:22,650 --> 01:04:24,652 I simply know that, like 1359 01:04:24,652 --> 01:04:28,489 if everyone were to try to achieve greatness and angle it into a direction 1360 01:04:28,489 --> 01:04:33,286 that aids the human flourishing, you can lift that bell curve up. 1361 01:04:33,286 --> 01:04:36,080 And that's beneficial for all humans. 1362 01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:38,666 If someone's listening right now and they want to be a great one day 1363 01:04:38,666 --> 01:04:42,336 and they start following this playbook that you're outlying here, 1364 01:04:42,336 --> 01:04:44,005 do you think they'll end up being one of the greats 1365 01:04:44,005 --> 01:04:47,091 or they'll just have a higher chance of being one of the greats? 1366 01:04:47,091 --> 01:04:50,219 Well, it depends on a couple things. 1367 01:04:50,219 --> 01:04:54,140 We're on the bell curve you're at, and how many people on the bell 1368 01:04:54,140 --> 01:04:55,850 curve reach their full potential? 1369 01:04:55,850 --> 01:04:57,476 This is very much a philosophy question. 1370 01:04:57,476 --> 01:04:59,896 Where, like, would you rather live in a society 1371 01:04:59,896 --> 01:05:01,522 where you're the best and everyone else sucks? 1372 01:05:01,522 --> 01:05:03,649 Or would you rather live in a society 1373 01:05:03,649 --> 01:05:06,652 where you're the worst but everyone else is great? 1374 01:05:07,194 --> 01:05:10,656 Obviously one leads to a better society, but the other one leads to more power. 1375 01:05:10,740 -->

01:05:15,036 And so like, like I said, like, I have no idea about this question. 1376 01:05:15,036 --> 01:05:17,705 I don't know, I don't know what the right answer is. 1377 01:05:17,705 --> 01:05:19,040 Who are the modern greats today? 1378 01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:21,125 Right? Who's alive right now? 1379 01:05:21,125 --> 01:05:24,211 That's the real thing I want you to name for modern greats, 1380 01:05:24,211 --> 01:05:26,047 if you can, if there are four modern greats. 1381 01:05:26,047 --> 01:05:28,799 I would say it's like, it's not like you're great or you're not great. 1382 01:05:28,799 --> 01:05:33,971 I would say it's like a like a spectrum and you lie somewhere on the spectrum. 1383 01:05:33,971 --> 01:05:38,559 But for modern greats, I would say Elon Musk, of course, 1384 01:05:38,684 --> 01:05:41,687 it's just like the most obvious SpaceX, 1385 01:05:41,687 --> 01:05:44,523 Tesla, zip to PayPal. 1386 01:05:44,523 --> 01:05:45,066 All of it. 1387 01:05:45,066 --> 01:05:46,233 All of it is incredible. 1388 01:05:46,233 --> 01:05:47,610 Every part of it. 1389 01:05:47,610 --> 01:05:50,738 The most fascinating reading. 1390 01:05:50,988 --> 01:05:52,823 Like it's just the best. 1391 01:05:52,823 --> 01:05:56,702 I think everyone should read about Jensen Wong simply 1392 01:05:56,702 --> 01:05:58,663 because of his philosophy of pain and suffering, 1393 01:05:58,663 --> 01:06:01,707 ample doses of pain and suffering, and 1394 01:06:01,707 --> 01:06:04,877 I think he's going to have a large part to play in the future. 1395 01:06:05,086 --> 01:06:07,004 Same with his company. 1396 01:06:07,004 --> 01:06:08,756 But I think his biography is very good. 1397 01:06:08,756 --> 01:06:11,258 There's a very good one called the Nvidia Wave by take him. 1398 01:06:11,258 --> 01:06:15,221 And you very much can see his competitiveness, his ruthlessness, 1399 01:06:15,221 --> 01:06:19,016 but also his like his care for what he's doing and his love for the craft. 1400 01:06:19,100 --> 01:06:23,813 Third, I would say Jeff Bezos also someone I think everyone should study. 1401 01:06:23,813 --> 01:06:26,941 And I think like if you're if you're going to 1402 01:06:26,983 --> 01:06:30,528 imitate anyone in the modern age, like I think it should be Jeff Bezos, 1403 01:06:30,569 --> 01:06:35,157 especially in the beginning, because Jeff Bezos has a lot of wisdom. 1404 01:06:35,366 --> 01:06:40,454 If you read like a lot of his maxims and sayings, like there are a lot more calm, 1405 01:06:40,496 --> 01:06:46,711 more calculated than like the speed and urgency and constant velocity of Elon. 1406 01:06:46,752 --> 01:06:47,211 Right? 1407 01:06:47,211 --> 01:06:51,674 Like it's very similar, but it's a bit more like toned to where like 1408 01:06:51,966 --> 01:06:54,969 someone who's in the middle of the bell curve could understand it. 1409 01:06:54,969 --> 01:06:57,930 And then fourth, I would say. 1410 01:06:57,930 --> 01:07:00,891 I think Donald Trump is one of the greats in the sense that, 1411 01:07:00,891 --> 01:07:04,687 like, he's so good at crafting a narrative and a perception around himself. 1412 01:07:04,687 --> 01:07:08,024 And so it always goes back to the definition of greatness, 1413 01:07:08,024 --> 01:07:11,694 where it's that the force of what you're able to extend on reality. 1414 01:07:11,694 --> 01:07:16,949 And that force is like, like everyone has a subjective worldview, 1415 01:07:16,949 --> 01:07:20,911 and the more you're able to exert your, you're sort of a will onto those people. 1416 01:07:20,953 --> 01:07:22,788 Like, that's what sort of defines greatness 1417 01:07:22,788 --> 01:07:24,915 and the way that Donald Trump has crafted his narrative, 1418 01:07:24,915 --> 01:07:28,794 the way that he's able to reiterate certain things and the persona that he's 1419 01:07:28,794 --> 01:07:32,798 built around him, I think he just sticks around in people's heads for a long time. 1420 01:07:32,798 --> 01:07:35,760 He'll stick around in people's heads for a long time, and 1421 01:07:35,760 --> 01:07:40,347 I think that makes him in qualifications to become or to be one of the grades. 1422 01:07:40,514 --> 01:07:44,435 Are there greats that don't achieve financial success? 1423 01:07:44,435 --> 01:07:47,438 Because all the names you've given me have. 1424 01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:48,731 I'm not mistaken, they're all billionaires. 1425 01:07:48,731 --> 01:07:51,358 They all have very outlier financial success. 1426 01:07:51,358 --> 01:07:55,404 Are there greats today that are not billionaires? 1427 01:07:55,404 --> 01:07:57,740 They don't have crazy financial success? 1428 01:07:57,740 --> 01:08:01,410 Probably, but we won't know until later. 1429 01:08:01,410 --> 01:08:04,413 You'll still tell them the characteristics. 1430 01:08:04,413 --> 01:08:06,707 Like you can tell certain people are obsessed, 1431 01:08:06,707 --> 01:08:07,541 and perhaps their work 1432 01:08:07,541 --> 01:08:11,879 isn't getting recognized right now, and it could be recognized later 1433 01:08:11,879 --> 01:08:15,508 as long as their work excerpts that force in reality, 1434 01:08:15,674 --> 01:08:18,677 but we just we can't know who they are. 1435 01:08:18,719 --> 01:08:22,932 Is it harder or easier for someone to become genuinely great now 1436 01:08:22,932 --> 01:08:23,808 with the internet? 1437 01:08:23,808 --> 01:08:28,312 I would say it's the same, like the bell curve is like the bell curve is. 1438 01:08:28,312 --> 01:08:30,940 The bell. Curve, and that's that's how it is. 1439 01:08:30,940 --> 01:08:33,984 When you look at history, you always have to look at it in the context of history. 1440 01:08:33,984 --> 01:08:36,028 So when you study someone like Alexander, 1441 01:08:36,028 --> 01:08:39,448 you have to look at Alexander in the context of the time of Alexander. 1442 01:08:39,448 --> 01:08:41,450 When you look at Napoleon,

you have to look at the, 1443 01:08:42,785 --> 01:08:44,954 the context of like the time of Napoleon. 1444 01:08:44,954 --> 01:08:48,666 And so like, it's the same in both ages, but 1445 01:08:48,707 --> 01:08:51,710 like, you have to see them within the context that they live in. 1446 01:08:51,752 --> 01:08:53,671 Who was the world's first billionaire? 1447 01:08:53,671 --> 01:08:57,758 Okay, so it would be John de Rockefeller, in a sense. 1448 01:08:57,758 --> 01:09:02,721 So John de Rockefeller owned 3% of the the US GDP 1449 01:09:02,847 --> 01:09:06,725 at his peak, and he hadn't hit a billion. 1450 01:09:06,767 --> 01:09:11,689 He hadn't hit $1 billion yet, but he owned 3% of the US GDP. 1451 01:09:11,689 --> 01:09:13,107 And I think that's like a good measure. 1452 01:09:13,107 --> 01:09:17,695 So Elon right now I think is around that percentage level. 1453 01:09:17,695 --> 01:09:21,073 You can you can fact check that I might be mistaken, 1454 01:09:21,073 --> 01:09:24,785 but like Rockefeller technically was like the world's first billionaire. 1455 01:09:24,952 --> 01:09:26,370 And how did he become a billionaire? 1456 01:09:26,370 --> 01:09:29,957 So Rockefeller built a company called Standard Oil, and 1457 01:09:30,249 --> 01:09:33,419 it's one of the most successful businesses in all of history. 1458 01:09:33,419 --> 01:09:36,005 Probably the most dominant monopoly in all of history. 1459 01:09:36,005 --> 01:09:36,922 So I'm, like, 1460 01:09:36,922 --> 01:09:41,468 fascinated by John de Rockefeller, but pretty much he started from nothing. 1461 01:09:41,468 --> 01:09:46,098 His dad was a sort of this like guy that would go from town to town 1462 01:09:46,182 --> 01:09:49,101 scamming people, selling like medicine. 1463 01:09:49,101 --> 01:09:50,394 He was like a doctor of some sort. 1464 01:09:50,394 --> 01:09:52,229 But he wasn't around home a lot. 1465 01:09:52,229 --> 01:09:56,817 So Rockefeller had to start working very early, the age of 15, 16. 1466 01:09:56,817 --> 01:09:59,695 And he had he was the one supporting his entire family. 1467 01:09:59,695 --> 01:10:04,658 So what I find so admirable about Rockefeller is 1468 01:10:04,658 --> 01:10:06,076 how much he's able to withstand. 1469 01:10:06,076 --> 01:10:10,289 So when he was first seeking out a job, 1470 01:10:11,081 --> 01:10:13,375 he went around town and he asked everyone, he's like, 1471 01:10:13,375 --> 01:10:16,170 I know a little bit about bookkeeping and I want to be a bookkeeper. 1472 01:10:16,170 --> 01:10:19,924 He went around the entire town and everyone rejected him. 1473 01:10:19,965 --> 01:10:23,260 No one, no one wanted this little kid to work for them, 1474 01:10:23,260 --> 01:10:27,181 even though he did have a decent, a good amount of knowledge in bookkeeping. 1475 01:10:27,264 --> 01:10:32,269 But like, he was just like so dogged in his pursuit and he just didn't stop. 1476 01:10:32,269 --> 01:10:34,355 And for six weeks, every single day, 1477 01:10:34,355 --> 01:10:35,689 he would go out and continue 1478 01:10:35,689 --> 01:10:37,900 on his job search. And when everyone rejected him, 1479 01:10:37,900 --> 01:10:39,902 he just went back to those same businesses. 1480 01:10:39,902 --> 01:10:44,031 And so he was he was hired by this company finally, 1481 01:10:44,031 --> 01:10:46,867 eventually called Hewitt and Tuttle, and he worked as a bookkeeper there. 1482 01:10:46,867 --> 01:10:48,535 And they taught him sort of the trade. 1483 01:10:48,535 --> 01:10:52,081 So after that, he actually started owning a couple different businesses 1484 01:10:52,081 --> 01:10:53,415 before he went into all. 1485 01:10:53,415 --> 01:10:58,963 And then he finally got into all, and he just completely dominated that market. 1486 01:10:58,963 --> 01:11:02,758 The business principles behind that are very fascinating as well. 1487 01:11:02,758 --> 01:11:04,969 So Rockefeller was like very different 1488 01:11:04,969 --> 01:11:07,304 in leadership from like a lot of the greats in history. 1489 01:11:07,304 --> 01:11:10,099 He was more quiet. He was very cunning. 1490 01:11:10,099 --> 01:11:13,185 And he thought of the world as like a chessboard. 1491 01:11:14,144 --> 01:11:17,106 He liked to plan, like very strategically for like a long time. 1492 01:11:17,106 --> 01:11:20,150 But after he would answer, he made a decision. 1493 01:11:20,150 --> 01:11:22,778 He would execute with extreme rapidity. 1494 01:11:22,778 --> 01:11:25,072 well, first of all, he would hire like, really good people. 1495 01:11:25,072 --> 01:11:28,659 He would always be at the front lines in the oil company. 1496 01:11:28,659 --> 01:11:30,286 He was constantly going through the ledgers 1497 01:11:30,286 --> 01:11:33,497 he had his craft was like ledgers he had a gift for, like looking 1498 01:11:33,497 --> 01:11:37,209 through the ledgers, being able to spot like lines that were off. 1499 01:11:37,209 --> 01:11:38,711 And he was like, 1500 01:11:38,711 --> 01:11:41,714 always going through, like all the people that were doing all the ledgers. 1501 01:11:41,714 --> 01:11:44,758 And so like, pretty much you just used all the principles. 1502 01:11:44,758 --> 01:11:46,176 He was a deep, steadier of Napoleon. 1503 01:11:46,176 --> 01:11:50,139 He loved Napoleon, studied him a lot, and he used all the principles to build 1504 01:11:50,139 --> 01:11:53,142 Standard Oil into this big company that eventually, like, 1505 01:11:53,225 --> 01:11:56,937 used monopoly tactics to block out all other competitors in that market. 1506 01:11:56,937 --> 01:11:58,605 And I think at one point 1507 01:11:58,605 --> 01:12:02,109 he owned like 90% of the refining capacity in the United States, 1508 01:12:02,443 --> 01:12:06,155 which is insane, because that was like I mean, it's like owning all of energy, 1509 01:12:07,281 --> 01:12:07,906 you've talked a lot 1510 01:12:07,906 --> 01:12:10,993

about now about having that mentor or studying a past grade, right. 1511 01:12:11,035 --> 01:12:15,664 How often do these grades turned out to be shaped by another? 1512 01:12:15,664 --> 01:12:16,248 Great. 1513 01:12:16,248 --> 01:12:19,501 I don't know, I like the I like looking at lineages a lot. 1514 01:12:19,501 --> 01:12:23,255 I think one of the most famous lineages is Plato, Socrates, 1515 01:12:23,297 --> 01:12:24,548 Aristotle and Alexander. 1516 01:12:24,548 --> 01:12:27,134 So all of them had a direct effect on each other? 1517 01:12:27,134 --> 01:12:28,510 Not in that order. 1518 01:12:28,510 --> 01:12:30,304 I just bundled them together. 1519 01:12:30,304 --> 01:12:33,349 But like, they were all sort of like learners and teachers. 1520 01:12:33,349 --> 01:12:34,099 And there's there's 1521 01:12:34,099 --> 01:12:37,394 a couple different times in history where this was like really the norm. 1522 01:12:37,394 --> 01:12:42,983 So one was ancient, ancient Greece, the other one was 1523 01:12:44,026 --> 01:12:45,819 the Renaissance period, Florence. 1524 01:12:45,819 --> 01:12:49,740 And the third is like, you can really see it in 1525 01:12:49,782 --> 01:12:52,868 physics in the 19th century, but like the industrial revolutions 1526 01:12:52,868 --> 01:12:54,453 where you had like these very big, 1527 01:12:54,453 --> 01:12:57,790 like apprenticeships and other times in history 1528 01:12:57,790 --> 01:13:00,209 when you create the greats, like it always comes from biographies. 1529 01:13:00,209 --> 01:13:03,045 But every every once in a while you get these sort of like mentor 1530 01:13:03,045 --> 01:13:07,883 apprentice relationships where like it's like it's like really in-depth. 1531 01:13:07,925 --> 01:13:10,260 So like Aristotle, like mentored Alexander. 1532 01:13:10,260 --> 01:13:13,555 And so like Alexander was like referencing a lot of his work. 1533 01:13:13,680 --> 01:13:15,974 Aristotle actually gave him a copy of The Iliad. 1534 01:13:15,974 --> 01:13:17,643 And so, like he gave him readings. 1535 01:13:17,643 --> 01:13:19,395 And so that's like very valuable. 1536 01:13:19,395 --> 01:13:23,023 But most of the times it's really just like reading biographies, 1537 01:13:23,065 --> 01:13:24,608 like it's studying the greats of history 1538 01:13:24,608 --> 01:13:27,194 and getting inspired by the stories of history. 1539 01:13:27,194 --> 01:13:28,737 Can you talk a little about Alexander? 1540 01:13:28,737 --> 01:13:30,823 Was he the one that hit you the hardest? 1541 01:13:30,823 --> 01:13:33,575 Like, what was it about him that changed your life? 1542 01:13:33,575 --> 01:13:37,204 Yeah, I just like Alexander because he's like one of the first. 1543 01:13:37,204 --> 01:13:39,415 Like everyone studied. 1544 01:13:39,415 --> 01:13:42,334 There's certain greats that like, people gravitate towards. 1545 01:13:42,334 --> 01:13:45,838 So like, the more great you are, the more people gravitate

towards you. 1546 01:13:45,921 --> 01:13:47,381 Alexander is one of them. 1547 01:13:47,381 --> 01:13:48,549 Napoleon is another. 1548 01:13:48,549 --> 01:13:51,552 I think Elon will go down as one of them. 1549 01:13:51,593 --> 01:13:54,972 yeah, Alexander is like one of the first, which I think is like really cool. 1550 01:13:55,013 --> 01:13:56,390 I mean, what he did is just incredible. 1551 01:13:56,390 --> 01:14:00,727 He marched through Persia, conquered all of it, never lost a battle. 1552 01:14:00,769 --> 01:14:04,314 Undefeated pretty much, except for like little skirmishes here and there. 1553 01:14:04,314 --> 01:14:08,152 The stories around him are so amazing, even though some of them may not be true, 1554 01:14:08,152 --> 01:14:11,405 and there's so many lessons that you can take from them that it's like, 1555 01:14:11,447 --> 01:14:12,489 so inspiring. 1556 01:14:12,489 --> 01:14:13,490 Let's talk about those lessons. 1557 01:14:13,490 --> 01:14:17,161 Is there a lesson or a routine that, based on your studying, 1558 01:14:17,786 --> 01:14:21,457 you know you had to actually change something about yourself or your life? 1559 01:14:21,457 --> 01:14:24,126 Yeah, I mean, I could I could name so many of them. 1560 01:14:24,126 --> 01:14:27,045 There's this really good story, inspiring story about Alexander 1561 01:14:27,045 --> 01:14:29,006 that, like, will inspire people to be more bold. 1562 01:14:29,006 --> 01:14:30,466 And it's the story of Bizet. 1563 01:14:30,466 --> 01:14:34,636 So at one point in ancient Macedonia, they had these horse shows 1564 01:14:34,678 --> 01:14:35,971 and so they're having this horse show. 1565 01:14:35,971 --> 01:14:39,266 Alexander still a child, but Philip has this horse show in town 1566 01:14:39,266 --> 01:14:43,061 and he's trying to get on this horse. 1567 01:14:43,061 --> 01:14:45,314 But this horse is like rowdy. It's untamed. 1568 01:14:45,314 --> 01:14:48,400 Philip couldn't control the horse and he says, take this horse away. 1569 01:14:48,442 --> 01:14:49,485 I can't control it. 1570 01:14:49,485 --> 01:14:53,071 And so this little kid, Alexander, he says, like, 1571 01:14:53,322 --> 01:14:55,324 like you just don't have the strength to control it. 1572 01:14:55,324 --> 01:14:56,783 And so the dad's like, 1573 01:14:56,783 --> 01:15:00,329 who are you to stand up to us elders that like, know what we're talking about? 1574 01:15:00,329 --> 01:15:03,290 And so Alexander, they make a bet. 1575 01:15:03,290 --> 01:15:06,793 And Alexander says, if I can't control the horse, I'll pay the, 1576 01:15:07,127 --> 01:15:08,545 the full price of the horse. 1577 01:15:08,545 --> 01:15:09,922 And so he goes to the horse. 1578 01:15:09,922 --> 01:15:13,258 And what he had noticed before is that the horse was rowdy 1579 01:15:13,258 --> 01:15:16,512 because it kept seeing its own shadow and kept getting frightened. 1580 01:15:16,512 --> 01:15:18,472 So Alexander takes the horse slowly. 1581 01:15:18,472 --> 01:15:22,559 Everyone's watching him at this point, and he takes the horse and he just, like, 1582 01:15:22,601 --> 01:15:25,479 guides it away from its shadow, slowly gets on it 1583 01:15:25,479 --> 01:15:27,022 like takes the reins, starts 1584 01:15:27,022 --> 01:15:29,525 writing it out into the distance, and then takes it back 1585 01:15:29,525 --> 01:15:30,943 slowly, getting used to its shadow. 1586 01:15:30,943 --> 01:15:34,947 And he's able to dominate this horse like no one else was able to dominate. 1587 01:15:34,947 --> 01:15:37,866 And so this part is probably not true. 1588 01:15:37,866 --> 01:15:40,786 But Alexander gets back and is that is so proud of him. 1589 01:15:40,786 --> 01:15:43,789 And he says prophetically, Alexander, 1590 01:15:43,789 --> 01:15:46,875 you must seek out a kingdom that's greater for you. 1591 01:15:46,917 --> 01:15:49,127 This Macedonia is not big enough for you. 1592 01:15:49,127 --> 01:15:54,508 And so this is just like a very inspiring story to me about being more bold, 1593 01:15:54,550 --> 01:15:59,096 being able to tell other people like, I can do this when you can't. 1594 01:15:59,096 --> 01:16:04,059 And just like really taking calculated risks that seem bold 1595 01:16:04,059 --> 01:16:06,311 and that like build your legend because like, 1596 01:16:06,311 --> 01:16:09,856 the story was definitely true in some way, even though that quote at the end 1597 01:16:09,898 --> 01:16:13,235 might not have been true, the boldness is still there. 1598 01:16:13,235 --> 01:16:14,194 And so like 1599 01:16:14,194 --> 01:16:16,613 whenever I think about my life, I think about like, 1600 01:16:16,613 --> 01:16:18,824 how is this going to be written in my biography? 1601 01:16:18,824 --> 01:16:22,911 And that's the way I act, because Alexander thought in a very similar way, 1602 01:16:22,911 --> 01:16:26,081 like, are people going to be talking about this in a thousand years? 1603 01:16:26,206 --> 01:16:30,377 You know, there's a scene in Troy where Hector and Achilles are arguing 1604 01:16:30,377 --> 01:16:33,547 about why they're fighting this war, and Achilles says 1605 01:16:33,547 --> 01:16:36,049 they're going to be talking about this in 2000 years. 1606 01:16:36,049 --> 01:16:38,510 And so, like, I always try to think about it that way. 1607 01:16:38,510 --> 01:16:40,762 Like, like, what are they going to say about this time? 1608 01:16:40,762 --> 01:16:43,056 Are they going to be talking about this in 2000 years? 1609 01:16:43,056 --> 01:16:45,392 How can we make this the most exciting time possible? 1610 01:16:45,392 --> 01:16:47,269 Like, that to me is like makes me excited. 1611 01:16:47,269 --> 01:16:50,439 And so like, I think the story of really, really shows 1612 01:16:50,439 --> 01:16:53,525 that for Alexander and why why I'm attracted to him. 1613 01:16:53,567 --> 01:16:56,028 Like he's so cool. He's just cool. 1614

01:16:56,028 --> 01:16:59,114 Are there certain things that the great swear by that you've tried 1615 01:16:59,114 --> 01:17:02,075 and you're like, look, I can't live my life this way. 1616 01:17:02,409 --> 01:17:04,036 None that I can think of. 1617 01:17:04,036 --> 01:17:05,621 The pain and suffering isn't difficult. 1618 01:17:05,621 --> 01:17:08,540 Of eating Top Ramen and Pop tarts. 1619 01:17:09,791 --> 01:17:10,751 it's difficult. 1620 01:17:10,751 --> 01:17:15,255 It's it's like it's worth it, though, Like something 1621 01:17:15,297 --> 01:17:17,215 that a lot of people lack is purpose. 1622 01:17:17,215 --> 01:17:20,344 And I think in my life I have a lot of purpose. 1623 01:17:20,385 --> 01:17:22,429 Like I feel fully content in what I'm doing. 1624 01:17:22,429 --> 01:17:26,016 And so even though I have a very difficult life, it's not a happy life, 1625 01:17:26,016 --> 01:17:28,185 but it's it's purposeful. It's meaningful. 1626 01:17:28,185 --> 01:17:31,563 I feel destined to do this, and I think my work is going to help a lot 1627 01:17:31,605 --> 01:17:32,773 of people someday. 1628 01:17:32,773 --> 01:17:36,443 It might be a little bit arrogant of me to say that, but 1629 01:17:36,610 --> 01:17:40,030 all the greats were in some way a little bit arrogant. 1630 01:17:40,072 --> 01:17:43,533 You know, the line between arrogance and confidence is very, very thin. 1631 01:17:43,533 --> 01:17:46,244 And, you know, who even knows if there's a line? 1632 01:17:46,244 --> 01:17:47,287 There is a line, obviously. 1633 01:17:47,287 --> 01:17:50,916 But I think the line is defined by results rather than by the intention. 1634 01:17:50,999 --> 01:17:56,672 I mean, in the movie, Troy, Achilles was inspiring his men and 1635 01:17:56,672 --> 01:18:01,176 he tells them, like they're about to storm a beach with enemies and they're alone. 1636 01:18:01,218 --> 01:18:03,970 It's like 50 men they're about to take on, like, hundreds of men. 1637 01:18:03,970 --> 01:18:07,516 And he says, on that beach is immortality. 1638 01:18:07,557 --> 01:18:08,684 Take it. It's yours. 1639 01:18:08,684 --> 01:18:10,894 And I always think about this every day. 1640 01:18:10,894 --> 01:18:13,897 Like, as soon as I get to my office, 1641 01:18:14,439 --> 01:18:17,442 I can achieve immortality in a way, 1642 01:18:17,442 --> 01:18:20,904 not in the traditional sense, but like I have, I have a chance 1643 01:18:20,904 --> 01:18:24,324 to do something that people will talk about for thousands of years. 1644 01:18:24,449 --> 01:18:25,909 Like, is that arrogant? 1645 01:18:25,909 --> 01:18:28,745 I don't know, it's purposeful. It gives me purpose. 1646 01:18:28,745 --> 01:18:30,288 people need purpose, right? 1647 01:18:30,288 --> 01:18:34,167 And for me, like my work, it's it's pain and suffering and it's hard, 1648 01:18:34,209 --> 01:18:37,003 but it gives me purpose And what's your mission? What's your goal? 1649 01:18:37,003 -->

01:18:38,380 What's your ultimate dream? 1650 01:18:38,380 --> 01:18:39,756 I think it would be cool to 1651 01:18:39,756 --> 01:18:43,760 live in a society where humans are an interstellar species. 1652 01:18:44,803 --> 01:18:47,973 So, like, I like I like physics a lot. 1653 01:18:47,973 --> 01:18:51,184 And I think there might be a path for me in physics in the future. 1654 01:18:51,184 --> 01:18:51,768 pretty much. 1655 01:18:51,768 --> 01:18:56,773 Right, like right now after we discovered, like after the after World War two, 1656 01:18:56,815 --> 01:19:00,068 we have unlimited energy, like, we haven't, we haven't iterated 1657 01:19:00,068 --> 01:19:03,113 all that much on nuclear energy, but it's finally happening 70 years later. 1658 01:19:03,113 --> 01:19:05,157 But like, imagine if you're able to solve the 1659 01:19:05,157 --> 01:19:07,659 the unified field theory problem the iron sign was working 1660 01:19:07,659 --> 01:19:09,286 on, where you can unite the three 1661 01:19:09,286 --> 01:19:13,248 forces of the universe with the one force, which is like on one side 1662 01:19:13,248 --> 01:19:15,333 you have gravity, which uses a certain type of math. 1663 01:19:15,333 --> 01:19:20,088 The other side you have the weak force, the strong force and electromagnetism. 1664 01:19:20,088 --> 01:19:24,050 So if you're able to unite those, you pretty much unlock new physics, new ways 1665 01:19:24,050 --> 01:19:27,846 of seeing the world and new ways of travel, new ways of creating energy, 1666 01:19:27,929 --> 01:19:29,639 maybe new ways of warping reality. 1667 01:19:29,639 --> 01:19:30,682 Like who knows? 1668 01:19:30,682 --> 01:19:33,643 And so many people have tried and failed at this. 1669 01:19:33,643 --> 01:19:34,770 And so, like, 1670 01:19:34,770 --> 01:19:36,188 the more I study the greats like, 1671 01:19:36,188 --> 01:19:38,523 the more they do things that people have tried and failed at. 1672 01:19:38,523 --> 01:19:42,944 And, you know, that's I only want to do things 1673 01:19:42,944 --> 01:19:46,740 that people have tried and failed at because like, 1674 01:19:46,782 --> 01:19:48,533 obviously that means it means like it's 1675 01:19:48,533 --> 01:19:51,536 a harder problem, but it means less people are trying to do that. 1676 01:19:51,536 --> 01:19:55,207 Think about how many people are trying to fly for the right brothers. 1677 01:19:55,207 --> 01:19:56,458 Since the time of da Vinci, 1678 01:19:56,458 --> 01:20:00,462 they were iterating, iterating on flight machines for half a millennia. 1679 01:20:00,462 --> 01:20:02,297 And yet it was the Wright brothers that succeeded. 1680 01:20:02,297 --> 01:20:05,634 this unified field theory problem, it's been going on for like 100 years. 1681 01:20:05,675 --> 01:20:09,095 Like it's not it's not half a millennia yet. 1682 01:20:09,095 --> 01:20:11,306 So I think it's still solvable. 1683 01:20:11,306 --> 01:20:13,183 I think more people should be

trying to solve it. 1684 01:20:13,183 --> 01:20:16,102 And that's probably where all positioned myself in the future. 1685 01:20:16,102 --> 01:20:17,145 Do you believe 1686 01:20:19,022 --> 01:20:20,315 that you can do it? 1687 01:20:20,315 --> 01:20:20,732 Yeah. 1688 01:20:20,732 --> 01:20:23,652 I think if I do believe you'll see it in my actions. 1689 01:20:23,652 --> 01:20:26,446 You're gonna let me be the first investor. 1690 01:20:26,446 --> 01:20:28,949 I if you want. 1691 01:20:28,949 --> 01:20:33,620 If you want to invest in something that has, like A00 1% chance of working. 1692 01:20:33,662 --> 01:20:36,665 Hey, if you're sleeping in the office all day, it's. 1693 01:20:36,832 --> 01:20:38,667 We're gonna have a good shot at it. 1694 01:20:38,667 --> 01:20:43,213 Okay, let's say there's a young person out there listening, right? 1695 01:20:43,255 --> 01:20:45,882 And they want to be a great right. 1696 01:20:45,882 --> 01:20:49,761 And they've got time and they've got hunger and they got drive. 1697 01:20:49,761 --> 01:20:52,722 Lay out the five steps 1698 01:20:52,722 --> 01:20:55,559 that need to happen for them to be in the history books. 1699 01:20:55,559 --> 01:21:00,647 I would say like there's like one step and that's to read more biographies. 1700 01:21:00,647 --> 01:21:03,316 So I did coaching for a while. 1701 01:21:03,316 --> 01:21:06,069 Well, maybe not a while. Six months. 1702 01:21:06,069 --> 01:21:10,156 I did six months of coaching and I coached CEOs, I coached young 1703 01:21:10,198 --> 01:21:15,078 entrepreneurs, and I just helped them see their life like a biography. 1704 01:21:15,078 --> 01:21:17,080 And what I found was that at the end of the day, 1705 01:21:17,080 --> 01:21:19,249 what I was telling most of these people that were asking me 1706 01:21:19,249 --> 01:21:23,128 how to become one of the greats is just read more biographies. 1707 01:21:23,503 --> 01:21:25,463 That was my advice for everything. 1708 01:21:25,463 --> 01:21:26,715 And so that's my advice for everything. 1709 01:21:26,715 --> 01:21:28,633 Now just read more biographies. 1710 01:21:28,633 --> 01:21:32,429 Because what happens when you read more biographies is, 1711 01:21:32,429 --> 01:21:34,180 you learn the ethos of these people. 1712 01:21:34,180 --> 01:21:37,183 Like it's always the ethos that lives on in you. 1713 01:21:37,225 --> 01:21:39,644 you can take a lot of principles from religion, right? 1714 01:21:39,644 --> 01:21:41,897 People reread the Bible over and over again. 1715 01:21:41,897 --> 01:21:45,275 And so the more you read the Bible, the more you accept it in your life. 1716 01:21:45,275 --> 01:21:47,861 And it's very similar to biographies. 1717 01:21:47,861 --> 01:21:50,864 The more biographies you read, the more you exemplify it in your life. 1718 01:21:50,864 --> 01:21:54,242 Obviously, you can mix the two together, and that's what I like to do. 1719 01:21:54,242 --> 01:21:56,328 I'm

a big Bible reader. 1720 01:21:56,328 --> 01:21:58,914 I like the Bible a lot, and I like biographies a lot. 1721 01:21:58,914 --> 01:22:00,707 And so I put the two together. 1722 01:22:00,707 --> 01:22:03,251 I constantly am reiterating that vision. 1723 01:22:03,251 --> 01:22:06,379 And so like that ethos sort of lives at me, 1724 01:22:06,463 --> 01:22:09,549 both Christ and of the greats of history. 1725 01:22:09,549 --> 01:22:13,887 And so, like that ethos is really like the ultimate thing that you need. 1726 01:22:13,887 --> 01:22:17,015 Like, I don't think everything else just comes as a byproduct. 1727 01:22:17,057 --> 01:22:19,559 Like it all stems from the vision. 1728 01:22:20,685 --> 01:22:23,188 And that vision just needs to be reiterated. 1729 01:22:23,188 --> 01:22:24,773 And what's the first biography? 1730 01:22:24,773 --> 01:22:27,275 Put someone's hands. 1731 01:22:27,275 --> 01:22:29,402 I will give you I'll give you a roadmap. 1732 01:22:29,402 --> 01:22:32,113 Let's do Start with Alexander the Great. 1733 01:22:32,113 --> 01:22:34,783 I read Philip Freeman's biography on him. 1734 01:22:34,783 --> 01:22:37,035 It's short, it's easy read, and it's exciting. 1735 01:22:37,035 --> 01:22:38,203 That's the most important part. 1736 01:22:38,203 --> 01:22:39,371 It's the mythologized version 1737 01:22:39,371 --> 01:22:42,165 of Alexander, but it's still Alexander at the core. 1738 01:22:42,165 --> 01:22:43,500 It's what he exemplified. 1739 01:22:43,500 --> 01:22:45,669 Then read the Bible, I would say. 1740 01:22:45,669 --> 01:22:47,671 it's a good foundation for morality. 1741 01:22:47,671 --> 01:22:50,382 like the gospels in the Bible as a biography of Jesus Christ. 1742 01:22:50,382 --> 01:22:51,091 Right? 1743 01:22:51,091 --> 01:22:56,972 Especially the three synoptic, Matthew, Luke and Mark. 1744 01:22:56,972 --> 01:23:01,267 And so I would say read the Bible because it's, it's a very like it's 1745 01:23:01,267 --> 01:23:04,312 very eye opening in so many different ways in the way of like how history 1746 01:23:04,312 --> 01:23:08,942 has been orchestrated in the way of like how you should look at history, 1747 01:23:08,942 --> 01:23:12,404 how how you read like these texts in history. 1748 01:23:12,570 --> 01:23:16,032 The difference between the law and the spirit is very powerful. 1749 01:23:16,032 --> 01:23:18,618 And there's just like an overall lot of wisdom in there. 1750 01:23:18,618 --> 01:23:20,370 It's very, very important. 1751 01:23:20,370 --> 01:23:22,914 It's a very it's very important to me. 1752 01:23:22,914 --> 01:23:24,749 And I think it's very important to society, 1753 01:23:24,749 --> 01:23:27,002 especially with how Western society has progressed. 1754 01:23:27,002 --> 01:23:31,381 Then I would skip all the way to the 18th century and study Napoleon. 1755 01:23:31,548 --> 01:23:35,301 Because I think Napoleon is someone everyone should study. 1756 01:23:35,343 --> 01:23:40,598 Will and Ariel Durant wrote an 11 volume series on the history of humanity, 1757 01:23:40,598 --> 01:23:44,185 and they say that the greatest man who ever lived was Napoleon, 1758 01:23:44,394 --> 01:23:48,106 because he comes at the time of the human enlightenment, apparently. 1759 01:23:48,148 --> 01:23:50,442 Well, the Age of Enlightenment. 1760 01:23:50,442 --> 01:23:53,987 And he's like, I guess, one of the ultimate expressions 1761 01:23:53,987 --> 01:23:56,364 of like a sort of Übermensch, like the ultimate man. 1762 01:23:56,364 --> 01:23:59,576 After Napoleon I would read a modern day great, which would be Elon Musk. 1763 01:23:59,659 --> 01:24:02,037 And I think everyone should study Elon. 1764 01:24:02,037 --> 01:24:05,915 The Book of Elon by Eric Jorgensen is very good 1765 01:24:05,915 --> 01:24:08,918 and it shows his philosophy very well. 1766 01:24:08,918 --> 01:24:12,756 If you're looking for a biography on him, I would read Ashley Vance's biography, 1767 01:24:12,756 --> 01:24:14,799 which I think is very well, very good as well. 1768 01:24:14,799 --> 01:24:16,968 yeah, I think those four, if you're going to start, 1769 01:24:16,968 --> 01:24:21,556 I think those are like, at least to me, those are like my foundations. 1770 01:24:21,556 --> 01:24:25,560 Like that's that would be my, my sort of expertise. 1771 01:24:25,560 --> 01:24:28,605 And what changes when people start reading these biographies. 1772 01:24:28,813 --> 01:24:31,566 So we talk a lot about like, the frameworks. Right. 1773 01:24:31,566 --> 01:24:35,570 And what frameworks you can apply when you read biographies. 1774 01:24:35,570 --> 01:24:36,905 It just happens naturally. 1775 01:24:36,905 --> 01:24:38,990 Like it just seeps into your mind in the same way that 1776 01:24:38,990 --> 01:24:41,951 like if you keep reading the Bible, like, of course you're going to act more 1777 01:24:41,951 --> 01:24:45,914 with kindness and patience, gentleness, self-control with 1778 01:24:45,914 --> 01:24:47,624 when you read biographies, it's sort of the same thing. 1779 01:24:47,624 --> 01:24:50,293 Like you just read them. You get inspired by these people. 1780 01:24:50,293 --> 01:24:54,506 You want to go out and do the same thing, and it's like it just happens naturally. 1781 01:24:54,631 --> 01:24:55,340 You inspire me. 1782 01:24:55,340 --> 01:24:58,384 You're not the normal 21 year I don't know 1783 01:24:58,384 --> 01:25:01,596 if I'm inspiring anyone yet, but maybe I think so. 1784 01:25:01,846 --> 01:25:05,433 I'm sure you've gotten comments or people that have reached out to you 1785 01:25:05,433 --> 01:25:07,018 from your channel already. 1786 01:25:07,018 --> 01:25:10,855 I'm guessing that have been inspired or maybe have taken some action. 1787 01:25:10,939 --> 01:25:11,648 You know that's true. 1788 01:25:11,648 --> 01:25:15,068 Yeah, it's hard to see sometimes because, like, obviously 1789 01:25:16,027 -->

01:25:17,195 it's it's easy. 1790 01:25:17,195 --> 01:25:20,532 It's something that's easy to say, but, like, it's easy to be inspired, 1791 01:25:20,532 --> 01:25:22,992 but it's hard to take the action like we talked about earlier. 1792 01:25:22,992 --> 01:25:25,203 it's really in the pain and suffering where you can help people 1793 01:25:25,203 --> 01:25:26,246 and become great. 1794 01:25:26,246 --> 01:25:29,082 Who's the most overrated? Great. 1795 01:25:29,082 --> 01:25:30,750 As I was saying earlier, no. 1796 01:25:30,750 --> 01:25:33,586 Hate to anyone who likes Benjamin Franklin. 1797 01:25:33,586 --> 01:25:35,255 Overrated. In my opinion. 1798 01:25:35,255 --> 01:25:36,881 What he did was amazing. 1799 01:25:36,881 --> 01:25:38,550 Like incredible part of history. 1800 01:25:38,550 --> 01:25:40,760 But I just like I didn't connect with him. 1801 01:25:40,760 --> 01:25:41,261 And so I think 1802 01:25:41,261 --> 01:25:43,304 like someone who really loves Ben Franklin 1803 01:25:43,304 --> 01:25:45,056 maybe won't connect with Napoleon as much. 1804 01:25:45,056 --> 01:25:46,891 Maybe they'll say Napoleon was overrated. 1805 01:25:46,891 --> 01:25:51,980 But in my personal opinion, when I when I read about Ben Franklin, 1806 01:25:51,980 --> 01:25:56,025 it didn't quite hit me as much as some of the other ones. 1807 01:25:56,025 --> 01:25:58,862 Which is weird because he's my most popular video right now. 1808 01:25:58,862 --> 01:26:01,614 So he was a voracious reader, if I'm not mistaken. 1809 01:26:01,614 --> 01:26:04,409 Yeah, all the principles still the same. 1810 01:26:04,409 --> 01:26:05,702 Like there's so much you can take from. 1811 01:26:05,702 --> 01:26:07,370 He was a great reader. 1812 01:26:07,370 --> 01:26:10,206 He was very good at, like, practical inventing. 1813 01:26:10,206 --> 01:26:12,876 So he's very practical about his inventions. 1814 01:26:12,876 --> 01:26:14,669 he was a pretty good diplomat. 1815 01:26:14,669 --> 01:26:17,839 I think the thing that strikes me most about him is not like any one 1816 01:26:17,839 --> 01:26:22,218 particular area, not even the lightning, he's just a very good polymath. 1817 01:26:22,218 --> 01:26:23,845 Like he's very good at taking concepts 1818 01:26:23,845 --> 01:26:25,805 from one field and applying it in a different field, 1819 01:26:25,805 --> 01:26:29,475 because when you look at all the fields he was in, he was in business 1820 01:26:29,559 --> 01:26:33,521 like he was an author, he was a diplomat, he was an inventor. 1821 01:26:33,521 --> 01:26:36,482 And so, like, it really is crazy how much he did. 1822 01:26:36,482 --> 01:26:38,484 And it's because he was able to take principles 1823 01:26:38,484 --> 01:26:40,862 from one field and apply them in a different field. 1824 01:26:40,862 --> 01:26:43,489 And I think that's like the best thing you could take from him. 1825 01:26:43,489 --> 01:26:47,243 Not not sort of the the stuff he did

in one field, but more of like this 1826 01:26:47,243 --> 01:26:50,246 polymath that can operate in multiple fields. 1827 01:26:50,246 --> 01:26:53,041 Is there a great that you don't want to emit is a great. 1828 01:26:53,041 --> 01:26:54,083 I don't have trouble 1829 01:26:54,083 --> 01:26:58,171 admitting that someone is a great even though I don't agree with them. 1830 01:26:58,213 --> 01:27:01,799 Like, there's there's a lot of great people that I don't agree with. 1831 01:27:01,799 --> 01:27:06,429 I think they're taking the wrong position on things, whether it's like political 1832 01:27:06,429 --> 01:27:09,682 or like their vision of the future is just different than mine. 1833 01:27:09,682 --> 01:27:10,934 And I think it's 1834 01:27:10,934 --> 01:27:14,938 I think it's good, actually, that we have those arguments that we like all work 1835 01:27:14,938 --> 01:27:19,067 together, and we all argue these like these to define which is best. 1836 01:27:19,067 --> 01:27:21,986 What about the person out there that thinks pursuing greatness is evil? 1837 01:27:21,986 --> 01:27:24,239 What would you say to them? I would just, 1838 01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:27,659 tell them to read a book. 1839 01:27:27,659 --> 01:27:31,246 Like, I don't know, we think, like, greatness is evil. 1840 01:27:31,287 --> 01:27:34,290 Greatness is your personality extrapolated 1841 01:27:34,290 --> 01:27:37,710 in the world, so to say. 1842 01:27:37,710 --> 01:27:39,003 Greatness is evil. 1843 01:27:39,003 --> 01:27:40,088 Greatness is not. 1844 01:27:40,088 --> 01:27:41,798 It's not a good or bad thing. 1845 01:27:41,798 --> 01:27:43,925 Greatness, just your other. 1846 01:27:43,925 --> 01:27:45,843 Like greatness just is. 1847 01:27:45,843 --> 01:27:47,345 You can use greatness in, like a good way. 1848 01:27:47,345 --> 01:27:49,889 You can use greatness in like, a bad way to say greatness is like evil. 1849 01:27:49,889 --> 01:27:51,933 It's like, I don't even know what that means. 1850 01:27:51,933 --> 01:27:54,269 It's like saying this, this table is evil. 1851 01:27:54,269 --> 01:27:56,020 Like, this table is not evil. 1852 01:27:56,020 --> 01:27:57,230 This table just is. 1853 01:27:57,230 --> 01:27:58,147 Greatness just is. 1854 01:27:58,147 --> 01:28:00,608 It's how how far you're able to go on the bell curve 1855 01:28:00,608 --> 01:28:02,360 and have an impact on the masses. 1856 01:28:02,360 --> 01:28:05,321 That's that's just what greatness is. 1857 01:28:05,321 --> 01:28:08,825 What about the people out there saying many of the greats, you name 1858 01:28:08,825 --> 01:28:12,745 the the the top four that you say are some of the current greats, 1859 01:28:12,745 --> 01:28:16,958 which are Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump. 1860 01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:19,377 They all achieved this outlier financial success. 1861 01:28:19,377 --> 01:28:22,672 Maybe the people out there are saying, you know, you're pursuing greatness 1862 01:28:22,672 --> 01:28:25,383 and you're doing this outlier financial success. 1863 01:28:25,383 --> 01:28:27,468 You could be doing other things with that money. 1864 01:28:27,468 --> 01:28:27,927 Yeah. 1865 01:28:27,927 --> 01:28:30,888 I think the argument is more so of what their focus is on what 1866 01:28:30,888 --> 01:28:35,018 their mission is, what their personality is, rather than, like, pursuing greatness. 1867 01:28:35,101 --> 01:28:38,396 I just don't think people have, like, a very good understanding 1868 01:28:38,396 --> 01:28:42,525 of the word greatness, like what it actually means to study the greats. 1869 01:28:42,775 --> 01:28:45,611 you can argue all of them separately on, like, what their mission is, 1870 01:28:45,611 --> 01:28:47,822 what their focus on, what they're spending their resources on. 1871 01:28:47,822 --> 01:28:50,658 And I don't even agree with them on, on all of their, 1872 01:28:50,658 --> 01:28:51,993 their spendings or their resources. 1873 01:28:51,993 --> 01:28:55,997 But, like greatness is sort of just like what happens when you pursue something. 1874 01:28:56,039 --> 01:28:58,458 It's just something that happens. 1875 01:28:58,458 --> 01:28:59,625 Like, it just is. 1876 01:28:59,625 --> 01:29:04,964 if everyone listening had to study just one life, who is it and why? 1877 01:29:05,256 --> 01:29:09,510 Yeah, this might be cliche, but people people should read the Bible. 1878 01:29:09,719 --> 01:29:13,264 all of Western society, all of Western history 1879 01:29:13,306 --> 01:29:16,267 is rooted upon the Bible 1880 01:29:16,267 --> 01:29:20,688 and the foundations that were laid down by the law and by Jesus. 1881 01:29:20,855 --> 01:29:23,858 And so if you're looking at one historical text 1882 01:29:23,900 --> 01:29:28,696 that had the most impact on humanity, like it has to be the Bible, 1883 01:29:30,114 --> 01:29:32,367 whether you're a Christian or not, a Christian, 1884 01:29:32,367 --> 01:29:36,454 whether you're studying history or not, studying history, like the Bible, 1885 01:29:36,454 --> 01:29:38,581 is such a crucial foundation of human history 1886 01:29:38,581 --> 01:29:43,795 and such a change in the direction of where humanity was heading. 1887 01:29:43,795 --> 01:29:47,673 I think it's the most important book in history that everyone should read. 1888 01:29:47,924 --> 01:29:49,467 And what are you reading right now? 1889 01:29:49,467 --> 01:29:51,969 I'm currently reading three books. 1890 01:29:51,969 --> 01:29:55,181 I'm reading Philip and Alexander by Adrian Goldsworthy. 1891 01:29:55,181 --> 01:30:00,019 I'm reading Steve Jobs in Exile by Jeffrey Cain, and I'm reading The Tycoons. 1892 01:30:00,019 --> 01:30:03,064 I'm not sure whose it by, but it's over the the industrialists. 1893 01:30:03,147 --> 01:30:04,607 And what's next after that? 1894 01:30:04,607 --> 01:30:07,944 After that, I have a whole list of books that people have sent me that after, 1895 01:30:08,736 --> 01:30:10,321 and maybe it goes on. 1896 01:30:10,321 --> 01:30:10,822 Okay. 1897 01:30:10,822 --> 01:30:13,825 One hour with any of them dead or alive. 1898 01:30:14,158 --> 01:30:16,327 Who and what do you ask first? 1899 01:30:16,327 --> 01:30:18,913 One hour, one hour. Oh, man. 1900 01:30:18,913 --> 01:30:21,624 It would be so cool to spend an hour with Napoleon. 1901 01:30:21,624 --> 01:30:24,627 And just, like, see if he was really. 1902 01:30:24,961 --> 01:30:27,839 See, I mean, he just had a mind that was so brilliant, like, 1903 01:30:27,839 --> 01:30:30,091 he was so tactically brilliant at everything he did. 1904 01:30:30,091 --> 01:30:33,970 He was such so intellectual, so good at organizing people. 1905 01:30:34,303 --> 01:30:37,140 He was a great speaker, like he had so many qualities 1906 01:30:37,140 --> 01:30:40,226 that made him like absolutely amazing. 1907 01:30:41,686 --> 01:30:42,812 One hour with Napoleon. 1908 01:30:42,812 --> 01:30:46,441 And my business is going to, you know, absolutely skyrocket. 1909 01:30:46,482 --> 01:30:48,693 And what's the one question if you could ask him anything? 1910 01:30:48,693 --> 01:30:50,278 What's the one question you'd ask him? 1911 01:30:50,278 --> 01:30:52,947 my mind right now only thinks in, like, practical utility. 1912 01:30:52,947 --> 01:30:55,950 So I would say like like, how do I get more views? 1913 01:30:57,201 --> 01:30:59,745 Like, how do I how do I make the impact that I want to make? 1914 01:30:59,745 --> 01:31:01,831 Like, how do I do this? What's the roadmap? 1915 01:31:01,831 --> 01:31:03,458 You would you would lay down. 1916 01:31:03,458 --> 01:31:05,501 Nick, thank you so much for coming on to. 1917 01:31:05,501 --> 01:31:08,171 This was amazing. Of course. My pleasure.