044: John LeFevre - @GSElevator: This Episode Might Offend You

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He says, which one of you is the equities guy?
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Which one of you is the bond guy? Which one
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of you is the M & A guy? Let me
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tell you something. You bankers, you come here every year
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with your little tin pot of money thinking you're big shots.
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You don't have an effing clue. And then he just
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turned back around and hung out with his chick. And
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he just shut us down. He nailed us and shut
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us down just like that.
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I mean, it was amazing.
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It was a good learning experience to, you know, you
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might think that you've made it, but there's always another level.
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Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawke,
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believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work
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on learning the art and science behind the makeup of
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other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and
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exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with
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Ryan Hawke.
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Hey guys, it's Ryan, and I'm doing a little bit
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different intro tonight because tonight's featured leader is a little
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bit different from the normal guest I have on the show.
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It's John Lefebvre, also known as AtGSElevator on Twitter. The
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reason it's different is because this episode contains some things
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that some listeners may not like. There is bad language,
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some offensive comments. and just certain things that certain people
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might not want to hear. And so if you are
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offended by any of those types of things, I would
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encourage you to just simply go to the next episode.
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That's completely okay. I understand that it's not for everyone. However,
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there is a good message in John's story because he
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talks about some of the things he learned. We also
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get into the fact that he started a Twitter account
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from nothing and grew it to over 720,000 followers. We
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get into the specifics into how he did that. and
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how that one Twitter account led to a six-figure book deal.
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There's a lot of stories we get into. Like I said,
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some of them are offensive. If you are easily offended
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or offended at all by bad language, by drug use,
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some of the things he speaks about women are not
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things that I agree with, but he's also progressed, and
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he's a better person for it at this point and
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fully realizes that, and you'll hear him talk about that
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at the end if you do listen to the episode.
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So I understand that, and it's okay if you guys
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don't want to hear this one. But I do think
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there are people who will enjoy this one because you
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want to learn from all different types of people. I
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pride myself on being very open-minded, learning from all different
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types of people. And John certainly fits in that category.
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So I hope you guys like it. For the ones
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that do listen to it, feel free to give me feedback.
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Even if you don't like it, you can send me
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an email, shoot me a note on Twitter. I'm happy
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to discuss why I decided to have John on as
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a guest. Without further ado, it's John Lefebvre. All right, John,
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I'm looking at one of your articles here that you
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wrote for Business Insider, and there's so many funny things
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you wrote. There's a lot of one-liners about guys that
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you should avoid. And this one that just came across
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my eye, because I've actually seen this before, and you've
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obviously seen it a number of times, where you said,
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avoid the guy who uses his business card to impress...
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women in bars. Tell me about some stories that you've
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had with guys like that.
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You're talking about the 25 people to avoid on Wall Street, right?
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That's right, yes.
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Yeah, all right.
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No, I think it's just reflective of kind of douche culture, right?
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So we used to see it all the time where
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you'd see a guy in a bar talking to a girl,
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and all of a sudden he would whip out a
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business card. Or another time you'd see a guy go
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up to a girl, even a girl that you might
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have been with, and he's like, hey, tonight these drinks
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are on Goldman Sachs. And so we always had these
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running jokes. Anytime we were in a bar— And we
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saw somebody like that. whether it was name dropping where
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he worked or giving out a business card, doing anything douchey.
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So even if he had like a popped collar or,
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you know, was wearing sunglasses at night. So we had
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this joke where I would pretend to be gay and
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go up and try to hit on this guy as
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he was hitting on the girl. So it was like
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a running joke, you know, of a cock block. And
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so actually this extended rather famously in the book. We
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were in a nightclub in Hong Kong. And we look across,
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and I see Wayne Rooney, the soccer player, talking to
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this girl. And so I went up to him, and
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I just start caressing his back. And he turns around,
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and he, in his kind of peasant sort of accent, says,
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fuck off.
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And all my friends are laughing. I go back to
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my table.
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We left.
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Five minutes later, I go back. He's still talking to
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the same girl. I start caressing his back again.
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Turns around. I say, hey, man, high five. Again, he's,
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fuck off. We're just laughing and laughing.
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So five minutes later, he's still talking to the same girl.
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I go back over and I.
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Lean into his neck and just kind of blow into
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the kind of the nape of his neck while I'm caressing,
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like moving my hand down.
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To the small of his back.
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And that's when this kind of a little melee ensued.
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So since then, I've kind of toned down those antics. But,
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you know, I've always felt this obligation to, you know,
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it's almost a moral obligation to call out, you know,
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what I perceive as social injustices. And that's certainly one
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of them. So is, you know, giving out a business
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card and saying, hey, ladies, I work at Goldman Sachs.
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This is probably the funniest opening to the Learning Leader
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Show I've ever had, John. So I appreciate the stories.
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I'm really excited to dive into really what you're all
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about because you've led an extremely interesting life. And I
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think that the thing that I admire most about you,
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while I don't think you fit in The normal guest
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I have on the show, I think the listeners can
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already tell that right away. I admire people who are
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willing to be extremely brutally honest and to be open
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and transparent and not really be afraid to tell it
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like it is and say things that people might be
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thinking about. but are really afraid to say. And that's,
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I think that's a good quality while you're going to
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be a, you're a polarizing guy already. If people read
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about you, they, you know, there's, you have, you have
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probably a boatload of fans, but you also have some haters.
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Some people are going to talk poorly about you. So
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let's take it back a minute to the way I
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became aware of you. So, It was years ago, and
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I'm on Twitter, and I see somebody retweet at GS Elevator,
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which stands for Goldman Sachs Elevator. And I click into it,
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and I don't remember the exact tweet, but it was
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really funny. And I click in, and I kind of
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look at your profile or see your recent tweets, and
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they all were hilarious. And they were about things that...
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But supposedly we're set in a Goldman Sachs elevator. I
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know your following has grown so much since then and
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upwards of what– I haven't checked your followers, but I
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know it's probably over 700-some thousand people.
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Yeah, I think it's like 720,000.
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Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about– The origins,
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the beginning of how and why you created this Twitter account.
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And for a while, you were anonymous. People did not
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know it was you. And then it became public. But
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talk to us a little bit about that journey of
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creating that brand and how it grew to be this big, huge,
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massive success and led to this big book deal that
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you now have.
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Yeah, sure. So it actually started as a joke.
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I was in a bar in Hong Kong with some
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banker friends of mine, and we were talking about— this was
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the summer, the end of the summer of 2011. There
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was this Twitter account that was very popular for about
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two weeks, and it was in the New York Post
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and the Daily Mail and the New York Times, and
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it supposedly reported the conversations overheard in the Condé Nast
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building in New York, which.
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Is, of course, the headquarters of Vogue magazine. Mm-hmm.
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And we were just laughing, saying to ourselves, wow, if
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people find this kind of stuff funny and entertaining, imagine
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if they overheard the things that we talk about, the
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things that we say, our sense of humor, the racism,
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the sexism, the misogyny, the excess, the outrageousness. If they
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heard that, you know, it would evoke the full gamut
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of emotion. So you would have people that were just
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thoroughly entertained, people who would find it funny. And then
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at the other side, you would have people that were
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shocked and appalled and offended. And so, you know, we
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were just drinking and drinking. And I said, all right, well,
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I'm going to start, you know, Goldman Sachs elevator as
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a joke. And I'm going to post things that I think, again,
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not literally to be about Goldman Sachs or not literally
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things that were overheard in elevators, just jokes. kind of
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reflect the mentality of Wall Street or what has then
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evolved into not just banking culture, but what I characterize as,
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you know, bro, frat, douche banker culture. And so that's that's,
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you know, how it started. I chose the name GS Elevator.
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Because if you think back to the time, it was
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right when Occupy Wall Street was starting. People hated Goldman Sachs.
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You know, you had the CEO of Goldman Sachs going
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on TV saying that he thought that his bankers were
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doing God's work. You had Rolling Stone calling them vampire squids. So,
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you know, it was pure marketing to pick Goldman. But
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More specifically, beyond that, in my experiences in banking, I've
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always felt that Goldman Sachs reflected or had a– was
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kind of an amplified version of Wall Street culture. And
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so this Twitter account was supposed to be an amplified
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version of this culture. elitist mentality that I was, you know, illuminating.
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And that's how it started, just as a joke among
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a few friends. And I did it anonymously because I
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felt that, you know, my identity wasn't relevant to kind
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of the character or the platform. And It took off
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from there. It was viral within two or three days.
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Really?
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That quickly? Was there a specific tweet, a specific moment?
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People try to do these things all the time and
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they fail. I know you've had a bunch of copycats
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that haven't caught on. What was the specific reason behind
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the success?
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Honestly, this sounds a bit pompous, but I think it
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was a very catchy idea and the timing was perfect.
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And Twitter, you couldn't do this on Twitter today because
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Twitter has evolved and kind of plateaued. But at the time,
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you know, people were just generally interested in this stuff.
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And from my experience in banking, Anytime we did a deal,
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you know, on the bond desk, which we can get
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to later, we always had to manage the press about,
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the financial.
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Press, that is.
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No one else really cares about, you know, a lot
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of the deals that we do in banking. But there are,
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you know, Capital Markets magazines and the Wall Street Journal
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and the Financial Times. They report on the deals that
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we do. And we always had to kind of spin
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deals and manage the press. So, I was always kind
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of pretty good at managing the press. So, when I
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started the account... And actually, not too many people really
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know about this because they've never really asked. But when
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I started the account, I probably put out about 10
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or 15 good tweets in the first couple of— in the
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first day. And then I sent an anonymous email to,
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I basically blasted media people, you know, Page Six, Zero Hedge, Gawker,
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the Daily Mail. And I had some contacts that, again,
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I approached, even though I knew them, I approached them anonymously.
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And that really helped. So within two days, I was
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on Gawker. I was in the New York Post. I
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was in the Daily Mail. And then it just, you know,
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that's how you get followers.
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And that's how it just kind of blew up.
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But again, it all came down– as far as I
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can tell, it came down to content. But there are
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a lot of good Twitter accounts, amazing Twitter accounts that
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only have 100 or 500 or 1,000 followers, and they
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put out great content. But they're just– it's almost like
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they're shouting into the void because no one's there to
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see the material. So for me– What was important was
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before I focused on putting out good material, I wanted
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to have at least a decent base of several thousand
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followers and some decent media attention. So I focused on
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that almost immediately, and it worked spectacularly.
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So you were really deliberate in your attempt to grow
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this thing, to basically have a PR strategy with media types.
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At that point, it seems like it would go from
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a joke to saying, hey, I want to really try
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to grow this thing.
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Yeah, but even though it was a joke, and it
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was a joke throughout that, I was very, very deliberate
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about it. So it was, okay, how do I start?
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I need to be very finance-specific. I need to lend
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credibility to this voice. And I was in banking at
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the time. All of my friends are. So I have
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access to good information. So very early on, all of
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my tweets were about specific bankers, specific deals, specific gossip.
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And so it lended credibility to the voice. So when
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I reached out to the media, they looked at it
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and said, wow, this is a genuine insider giving real information.
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So it had a lot of credibility, and that helped
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with the explosive growth. But that can only really take
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you so far. So after I kind of played that
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strategy out, I reached the next phase, which was, OK,
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I probably need to make this.
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A little bit more effective.
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Not necessarily dumb it down, but make it more broadly
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appealing with some more kind of general commentary that isn't
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necessarily about Wall Street. It's just about this kind of elitist,
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douchey frat bro banker mentality. And so, you know, that
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was kind of the next step of the evolution of
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the process. And then again, You kind of play that out.
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And then I was limited by being in character because
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there were a number of things I wanted to say.
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I wanted to comment on current events or issues or
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make political statements. But I was kind of confined within
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the parameters of being within 140 characters within this fictional
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character who is supposedly tweeting kind of things overheard on
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Wall Street. You can only take that so far. So
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that's what got me onto writing guides and lists for
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Business Insider and other places like that. So that was
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kind of the next iteration of my evolution. But again,
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every step of the way, there were copycat accounts and
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people that were trying to emulate me, and they never
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got anywhere. I firmly believe that a lot of this
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does come back to the quality of the material and
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the quality of the content. And then, of course, again,
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I'm sure we'll get to this at a later point
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in the discussion, but it's once I started having success
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with the guides and lists that really the publishers started
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calling and then very quickly led to a book deal.
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Which, yeah, it's incredible. Just the rise. I think there's...
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While not everybody can relate to exactly what you did
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on a day-to-day basis, I think a lot of people
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can relate to the fact or the desire to want
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to grow, whether it's a Twitter account, any social media,
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being able to be a writer. I think a lot
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of people want to be a creator of content, and
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that's what you successfully did. So there was a deliberate strategy.
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I'm curious as to what were your goals. Did you
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specifically think of what you hoped– this would accomplish? I mean,
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like I said, by, by, by basically, you know, sending
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out everything to, to all the media people, what did
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you think could come from this?
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Yeah.
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I mean, that was just a game and I wanted
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to be, you know, I wanted to be successful at it.
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I didn't really have any clear goals. I wasn't even
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trying to make money off of it. I mean, I've
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had people offer to pay me You know, sometimes I've
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even had people offer to pay me, say, $ 5, 000 for
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a single tweet. And I've said no, because I thought
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it would be kind of, you know, it was against
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everything that I stood for. So making money wasn't necessarily
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a goal. It was just a hobby that was an
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inside joke with some friends. And we had fun with it.
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But at the same time, I always thought that one
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day I would want to potentially write a book. So,
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you know, I started in investment banking in 2001, right
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when I got out of college. And I jumped into
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a world that I thought it was amazing, it was exciting,
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it was thrilling working on deals that show up in
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the newspaper the next day, being surrounded by so many smart, aggressive,
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ambitious people.
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I loved working in banking, but at the same.
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Time, I was always a little bit cynical in that
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I felt investment bankers tend to take themselves too seriously.
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They consider their work almost like rocket science. And I
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found it to be almost the opposite of that. And
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they define themselves rather pathetically to a large extent. Obviously,
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not everybody, but to a large extent, they define themselves
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as human beings. By the fact that they work on
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Wall Street or they work for Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.
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And I just found that to be a bit sad.
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And so I'd always been cynical. And part of that
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cynicism manifested itself is, you know, we were doing all
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these crazy and outrageous things both in the office.
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And out of the office.
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And so I thought I would write down some story
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notes and just collect them over the years. And so
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I've just been collecting these stories, both my stories and
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the stories of my friends and the stories that we hear,
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for the last 15 years, you know, in New York
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and London and Hong Kong.
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And it's a fairly interesting time.
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You know, going from the dot-com bubble bursting through the
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financial crisis and then traveling all over the world, I thought, wow,
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this is a pretty interesting perspective. I don't necessarily want
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to write a book. I just don't want to forget
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any of this stuff. And then, of course, the Twitter
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account came along, and that evolved. And it became very
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clear that the voice on Twitter resonated with people. And
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so then I decided, well, this could be a fairly
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good platform from which I can share some of these
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amazing stories that I've collected over the years.
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It's incredible. I mean, the stories are, they're crazy. I mean,
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so let's, now we move on. So you are able
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to get a book deal basically from having a great
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Twitter account and also writing some posts for, whether it's
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on your own blog or Business Insider or other platforms.
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Talk to me about the book deal. How did that
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come about? What's the process for that? A lot of
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people want to write a book. A lot of people
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want to get paid prior to writing the book. And
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a lot of people are not able to do that.
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So talk to me about that process.
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Yeah, sure.
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So I got connected with Tucker Max's agent.
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Yeah.
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I just emailed with Tucker today. That's crazy you said that.
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A great guy. And actually, I don't know Tucker at all.
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I've emailed him maybe a couple of times, but I
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would say Tucker is amazingly misunderstood.
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I mean, he's very smart, very intellectually curious.
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I mean, I'm a huge fan of his now. And
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I would say that it I'm not a fan necessarily
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of his three New York Times bestselling books, but I'm
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a fan of his kind of evolution into this thoughtful,
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intellectually curious person. But anyway, that's a different point. His
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agent and I started talking, and we put together a proposal.
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I guess this was over the course of 2013. And
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so I think to anyone that's looking at writing a book,
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you know, the hardest thing I think is finding a
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good agent. And so I was very lucky there. And
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at the time I was, you know, I got in
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00:19:23.079 --> 00:19:24.740
touch with him. I didn't have to reach out to him.
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00:19:24.819 --> 00:19:28.230
He reached out to me. At the time, Twitter was
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so huge in terms of its reach and prominence and
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platform that having the presence that I had made it
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almost a no-brainer for an agent to pick me up
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and say, okay, well, you have this audience. If you
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can put together quality material, it's a pretty easy sell
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to the publishing world.
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And so that's what we did.
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We put together a proposal, which for me was an outline,
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a marketing strategy. And I used two sample chapters and
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we sent it out to, I think, 15 or 20 publishers.
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And I got about eight or nine bids, all of
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00:20:01.380 --> 00:20:04.420
which were in the kind of I don't like to
397
00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:06.319
talk about numbers too much, but they were in the,
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00:20:06.380 --> 00:20:11.950
you know, 99th percentile of nonfiction book advances. So, you know,
399
00:20:12.130 --> 00:20:14.130
a decent kind of six-figure type number.
400
00:20:14.410 --> 00:20:14.529
Okay.
401
00:20:14.549 --> 00:20:16.509
I was going to say, like, I was thinking percentiles
402
00:20:16.549 --> 00:20:19.089
could be anywhere from 10 grand to 10 million, so
403
00:20:19.109 --> 00:20:20.069
I wasn't sure exactly.
404
00:20:20.650 --> 00:20:24.190
Yeah, no, you know, a decent kind of six-figure number.
405
00:20:24.289 --> 00:20:24.470
Okay.
406
00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:30.460
And so I signed with Simon & Schuster in January
407
00:20:30.859 --> 00:20:35.220
of last year, 2014. And again, they knew my identity.
408
00:20:35.259 --> 00:20:38.599
They knew that the Twitter account was not literally about
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elevator conversations in Goldman Sachs. They knew that I had
410
00:20:43.779 --> 00:20:46.349
never worked there, although I was, and I'm sure we'll
411
00:20:46.369 --> 00:20:48.109
get to this when we talk about it, banking. I
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00:20:48.170 --> 00:20:51.039
was offered a job there and tried to take it,
413
00:20:51.049 --> 00:20:54.769
but was unable to for, you know, complicated reasons. But again,
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00:20:54.789 --> 00:20:57.869
the book was never supposed to be about, you know,
415
00:20:57.990 --> 00:21:00.059
it is about Goldman Sachs just as much as it
416
00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:02.099
is about Morgan Stanley or Citi or J.P.
417
00:21:02.140 --> 00:21:02.400
Morgan.
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00:21:02.740 --> 00:21:06.869
It's about my experiences from banking, you know, from a
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00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:10.869
vantage point that has never really been explored. And I
420
00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:13.869
guess You know, before I finish the publishing story, maybe
421
00:21:13.890 --> 00:21:16.930
I can frame that just so that the listeners kind
422
00:21:16.950 --> 00:21:18.869
of have an understanding of what I'm talking about.
423
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Because, you know, everyone's.
424
00:21:20.109 --> 00:21:23.970
Heard about Liar's Poker. Everyone's seen the movie Wall Street.
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00:21:24.509 --> 00:21:31.230
And this notion of bankers behaving badly can be, you know, drugs. hookers, excess,
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00:21:31.539 --> 00:21:33.920
you know, fast cars, all that stuff, can be a
427
00:21:34.019 --> 00:21:38.500
little bit of a cliché. And sometimes even myself, having
428
00:21:38.519 --> 00:21:41.099
been a banker and being a fan of this genre,
429
00:21:41.420 --> 00:21:44.849
sometimes I still roll my eyes when I see, okay,
430
00:21:44.890 --> 00:21:47.650
here's a story about a crazy investment banker. It seems
431
00:21:47.690 --> 00:21:49.910
kind of tedious and boring to me. But what I
432
00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:52.009
was trying to capture, and again, this is what made
433
00:21:52.029 --> 00:21:55.839
it so interesting to the publishing world, was that This
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00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:58.920
is a vantage point that has never really been explored
435
00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:03.819
before in that I worked with, you know, investment bankers
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00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:07.940
and with traders. So, I mean, very, very different cultures within.
437
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The bank there alone.
438
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I worked with buy side clients like hedge funds and
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sell side clients, you know, corporate issuers like General Electric.
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00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:18.319
Or Ford or Rolls Royce.
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And then I worked all over the world and did
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deals because most of the deals I worked on involved
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more than one bank. So I did deals with every
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00:22:26.869 --> 00:22:29.750
single bank on Wall Street. And so I think it
445
00:22:29.829 --> 00:22:33.450
was really the vantage point that the publishers were really
446
00:22:33.930 --> 00:22:36.630
interested in. So I signed with Simon & Schuster, as
447
00:22:36.650 --> 00:22:40.180
I was saying, and the deal received a lot of
448
00:22:40.420 --> 00:22:41.740
publicity at the time.
449
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I think there was a lot of resentment from people.
450
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I don't know. From the finance community, financial.
451
00:22:50.390 --> 00:22:54.009
Journalists, and even from the quote-unquote Twitter elite, I think
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people felt that I kind of waltzed my way into
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this big, high-profile book deal without ever having written anything
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more than some tweets and a few guides and lists.
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But You know, again, that's for other people to kind
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00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:12.170
of criticize and be resentful.
457
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I mean, I felt that always we earned it.
458
00:23:14.789 --> 00:23:18.309
But a week after my book deal was announced and
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it was on the front page of The New York
460
00:23:20.430 --> 00:23:23.819
Times and The Financial Times, Andrew Ross Sorkin of The
461
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:27.359
New York Times released my identity, which, again, didn't bother
462
00:23:27.380 --> 00:23:30.000
me at all. The Twitter account had been anonymous. But
463
00:23:30.220 --> 00:23:32.319
in terms of the book that we wanted to write...
464
00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:35.869
It was impossible and it is impossible to tell any
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00:23:35.890 --> 00:23:39.390
of these stories credibly with, you know, any type of
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00:23:39.430 --> 00:23:42.529
specific details without having my identity come out because it
467
00:23:42.569 --> 00:23:45.609
was such a specific vantage point that we were always
468
00:23:45.690 --> 00:23:48.559
counting on me being outed. It was part of kind
469
00:23:48.579 --> 00:23:51.680
of the process to lend credibility to me. But then,
470
00:23:51.700 --> 00:23:55.839
of course, that got completely twisted by the media. So
471
00:23:55.880 --> 00:24:00.430
they said, OK, GS Elevator is. never worked at Goldman Sachs.
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00:24:01.210 --> 00:24:05.130
And this is effectively a fake, which is, you know,
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00:24:05.190 --> 00:24:06.450
as I saw at the time and I still see
474
00:24:06.470 --> 00:24:09.130
it now, totally, totally absurd because it was never literally
475
00:24:09.170 --> 00:24:10.420
about any of that stuff.
476
00:24:10.839 --> 00:24:11.579
So I was outed.
477
00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:15.279
And then Simon Schuster came out and said, yeah, obviously
478
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we know who.
479
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This person is. That's not what the book is about.
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We will support him.
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And then about a week after that, they decided to
482
00:24:23.109 --> 00:24:25.589
pull the plug on the deal. And I still to
483
00:24:25.609 --> 00:24:28.170
this day, God's honest truth, I have no idea why
484
00:24:28.549 --> 00:24:30.490
they backed out. I don't know if they had pressure from,
485
00:24:30.509 --> 00:24:33.829
you know, higher ups or there was pressure from Goldman Sachs. Because, again,
486
00:24:33.869 --> 00:24:36.859
I know when, you know, I'm kind of taking on
487
00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:39.710
the established and I'm writing a book that. depending on
488
00:24:39.730 --> 00:24:44.400
your interpretation, illuminates the Wall Street culture and describes it
489
00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:48.539
effectively as a culture of pervasive deviance. I know when
490
00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:52.990
other people have tried to do that, the so-called establishment
491
00:24:53.329 --> 00:24:56.009
has taken issue with that and kind of put pressure—
492
00:24:56.910 --> 00:25:00.150
in an attempt to almost kind of suppress that message
493
00:25:00.210 --> 00:25:03.450
getting out or even attacking the credibility of that message.
494
00:25:03.470 --> 00:25:07.000
And so that is when I started to experience people
495
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:12.759
attempting to attack my credibility, kind of misrepresent the premise.
496
00:25:12.819 --> 00:25:16.099
And again, this was all just a silly joke, the
497
00:25:16.140 --> 00:25:18.039
joke that I had started. So I mean, that was
498
00:25:18.059 --> 00:25:20.259
a bit frustrating. But So, you know, I had this
499
00:25:20.299 --> 00:25:22.700
big Simon & Schuster deal. I lost it a week
500
00:25:22.779 --> 00:25:26.200
after I was outed for reasons I don't understand. But
501
00:25:26.269 --> 00:25:29.769
fortunately for me, the next day, you know, I wasn't surprised.
502
00:25:29.789 --> 00:25:30.390
I wasn't angry.
503
00:25:30.430 --> 00:25:33.509
And the next day, a new publisher came calling and
504
00:25:33.549 --> 00:25:36.069
I signed with them. And since then, everything has been,
505
00:25:36.390 --> 00:25:37.609
you know, pretty smooth sailing.
506
00:25:38.539 --> 00:25:40.420
Did you write the book after the deal or did
507
00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:41.720
you have a lot written before the deal?
508
00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:43.420
No, I wrote it all after. Really?
509
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.660
So you got the deal. Do you get paid right
510
00:25:45.700 --> 00:25:47.569
away or do you have to turn it in before
511
00:25:47.589 --> 00:25:48.230
you get all your money?
512
00:25:48.869 --> 00:25:53.450
The way it works is generally, publishing to me feels
513
00:25:53.509 --> 00:25:56.269
almost like an oligopoly. I mean, all these guys have
514
00:25:56.349 --> 00:26:00.059
exactly the same royalty agreement. They have the same payment schedule.
515
00:26:00.119 --> 00:26:04.549
I mean, you don't negotiate a publishing deal. And even
516
00:26:04.750 --> 00:26:07.470
the nature of an advance, I think it's misunderstood. I mean,
517
00:26:07.609 --> 00:26:10.150
if a book is going to be a bestseller, the
518
00:26:10.210 --> 00:26:14.789
advance is totally, totally irrelevant. The long-term economics don't change.
519
00:26:14.910 --> 00:26:18.700
It is simply, as described, an advance. But, you know,
520
00:26:18.730 --> 00:26:20.720
obviously it has benefits, right? If they're going to pay
521
00:26:20.779 --> 00:26:24.299
you a six-figure number, it means they are now sharing
522
00:26:24.359 --> 00:26:27.279
the risk with you that your book might not do
523
00:26:27.500 --> 00:26:31.519
as well as everyone expects. And so they share that
524
00:26:31.579 --> 00:26:34.349
risk with you in And the other thing I guess
525
00:26:34.369 --> 00:26:36.890
it helps is if they're paying you a six-figure number,
526
00:26:36.990 --> 00:26:39.650
it's going to incentivize them to work as hard as
527
00:26:39.710 --> 00:26:42.089
possible to make sure that it is a success so
528
00:26:42.109 --> 00:26:43.930
they can lean on their sales reps and lean on
529
00:26:43.950 --> 00:26:46.230
their accounts to make sure you get better store placement.
530
00:26:46.269 --> 00:26:49.059
So an advance is still important for those reasons.
531
00:26:49.460 --> 00:26:52.500
But economically, if you think and know your book is
532
00:26:52.539 --> 00:26:55.220
going to be a success, the long-term economics don't mean
533
00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:55.579
a difference.
534
00:26:55.619 --> 00:26:57.599
So to your question, you get 25% on signing.
535
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:02.789
25% when you deliver your manuscript and you get 25%
536
00:27:02.789 --> 00:27:05.230
when it is released and you get 25% three months
537
00:27:05.250 --> 00:27:06.049
after it comes out.
538
00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:15.180
So it's not really even an advance. It's kind of
539
00:27:15.269 --> 00:27:16.289
along the way with you.
540
00:27:16.750 --> 00:27:18.230
Yeah, well, I mean, it is an advance in the
541
00:27:18.269 --> 00:27:21.430
sense that you'll have, you know, 75% of it by
542
00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:22.369
the time the book comes out.
543
00:27:22.730 --> 00:27:23.970
Yeah.
544
00:27:24.029 --> 00:27:24.589
Which is cool.
545
00:27:24.609 --> 00:27:26.259
There were other, I mean, some publishing, some of the
546
00:27:26.299 --> 00:27:29.240
smaller publishing houses, they try to compete and they'll say, okay.
547
00:27:29.259 --> 00:27:31.140
Well, we'll give you half up front and half on
548
00:27:31.460 --> 00:27:32.039
publication day.
549
00:27:32.059 --> 00:27:34.720
But by and large, it's kind of basically, you know,
550
00:27:34.740 --> 00:27:36.720
split into kind of quarters or even a third.
551
00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:41.069
I remember Tucker Max actually was on a podcast, and
552
00:27:41.109 --> 00:27:43.690
he said Lena Dunham of Girls. I don't know if
553
00:27:43.710 --> 00:27:45.809
you watch the show. I actually don't watch that show,
554
00:27:45.849 --> 00:27:48.529
but I just heard him talking about this. She got
555
00:27:48.569 --> 00:27:52.339
a $ 2 million advance on her book, and Tucker said–
556
00:27:52.789 --> 00:27:56.509
He thinks, so basically there's a million people watch Girls.
557
00:27:57.009 --> 00:28:01.109
That's it. It's not a huge number. It's like nine
558
00:28:01.150 --> 00:28:03.670
million people watch The Bachelor, so it's like nine times
559
00:28:03.730 --> 00:28:06.210
as big. But Lena Dunham got a $ 2 million advance
560
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:11.519
on her book deal. And Tucker said he has absolutely
561
00:28:11.619 --> 00:28:14.640
no idea what in the world those people are thinking
562
00:28:14.799 --> 00:28:20.190
because– There's no possible way that that book's going to
563
00:28:20.289 --> 00:28:22.549
sell enough in order for that publishing company to make
564
00:28:22.589 --> 00:28:23.289
their money back.
565
00:28:24.609 --> 00:28:26.319
I don't necessarily agree with that. I mean, it is–
566
00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:31.690
that's an insane number. And, you know, again, Lena Dunham–
567
00:28:32.099 --> 00:28:36.369
It's kind of the darling of the literary elite, you know,
568
00:28:36.509 --> 00:28:40.269
kind of liberal New York, the New Yorker, New York Magazine,
569
00:28:40.329 --> 00:28:44.099
you know, kind of the feminist community. I think you
570
00:28:44.119 --> 00:28:47.740
could probably justify paying that kind of number. And I
571
00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:51.109
think over time they would probably– have at.
572
00:28:51.069 --> 00:28:53.170
Least made their money back. I don't know if they did.
573
00:28:53.210 --> 00:28:54.190
I mean, from what I.
574
00:28:54.230 --> 00:28:56.829
Read of the book and heard about and saw her
575
00:28:56.890 --> 00:29:00.539
on Howard Stern, it seemed like a pretty terrible book. So,
576
00:29:00.759 --> 00:29:03.559
you know, with a bunch of fake stories about fake
577
00:29:03.619 --> 00:29:06.299
rapes and that type of stuff, I mean, it's pretty terrible. But,
578
00:29:06.759 --> 00:29:09.920
you know, again, I don't have a huge opinion. If anything, actually,
579
00:29:10.079 --> 00:29:13.920
she pretends to be this great kind of, I'll give
580
00:29:13.940 --> 00:29:15.759
you an example. When she was doing her book tour,
581
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:18.809
she was selling tickets to And then the tickets started
582
00:29:18.910 --> 00:29:22.069
selling in the secondary market for like five times the
583
00:29:22.109 --> 00:29:24.599
price of the ticket. So she wanted to go out
584
00:29:24.619 --> 00:29:29.059
and say, look, I want my real fans to help, to.
585
00:29:28.740 --> 00:29:31.799
Get to meet me and interact. And please stop doing that.
586
00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:35.849
Let's create some more dates for her tour so that
587
00:29:36.329 --> 00:29:38.990
the ticket prices weren't so expensive. So she really tries
588
00:29:39.029 --> 00:29:41.980
to be this kind of supposed person of the people
589
00:29:42.039 --> 00:29:44.500
or however you want to describe it. But at the
590
00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:47.529
same time, you know, if she's taking a $ 2 million advance,
591
00:29:47.549 --> 00:29:49.809
that's taking a lot of money from a lot of
592
00:29:49.890 --> 00:29:53.509
other would-be authors who could really, really use the money.
593
00:29:54.230 --> 00:29:54.410
Yeah.
594
00:29:54.430 --> 00:29:56.430
I just thought it was interesting in this, the book
595
00:29:56.470 --> 00:29:58.029
publishing cultures. I don't know a lot about it. I'd
596
00:29:58.049 --> 00:30:00.309
never published a book, you know, something that I'd like
597
00:30:00.329 --> 00:30:03.049
to hopefully do someday based on some of the knowledge
598
00:30:03.109 --> 00:30:07.529
gleaned from speaking with interesting and entertaining educational type people
599
00:30:07.549 --> 00:30:10.789
like you, John. So I think it's just, I liked
600
00:30:10.829 --> 00:30:12.710
learning about that and it's a part of your story.
601
00:30:12.730 --> 00:30:14.640
It's a big part of your story. And I remember
602
00:30:14.660 --> 00:30:18.240
we've been emailing for months now and you were gracious
603
00:30:18.279 --> 00:30:21.190
enough to send me a copy of your book. And
604
00:30:21.230 --> 00:30:22.750
so I read through it, and I was on an
605
00:30:22.769 --> 00:30:25.519
airplane recently and read through it. People sitting next to
606
00:30:25.559 --> 00:30:30.319
me could– it's always weird when you're openly laughing on
607
00:30:30.339 --> 00:30:32.759
an airplane. And I don't know if there's books that
608
00:30:32.779 --> 00:30:36.349
have brought you to that level, but yours did throughout
609
00:30:36.369 --> 00:30:38.869
a three-and-a-half-hour plane ride I was on. So it was
610
00:30:38.970 --> 00:30:41.430
almost embarrassing. as I'm reading through it, I set it
611
00:30:41.470 --> 00:30:42.890
down towards the end of like, these people are gonna
612
00:30:42.910 --> 00:30:45.269
think I'm crazy, but it's a great book. I'd love
613
00:30:45.289 --> 00:30:47.049
to dive in a little bit, maybe to give us
614
00:30:47.789 --> 00:30:51.359
a little teasers of it because I, I was entertained
615
00:30:51.390 --> 00:30:53.099
by it, but I think also when it comes to
616
00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:56.279
the industry you work in, I'm not sure, you know,
617
00:30:56.299 --> 00:30:58.720
people who are in the industry, banking, wall street, all
618
00:30:58.740 --> 00:31:00.680
of that, I think they obviously get it, but people
619
00:31:00.700 --> 00:31:03.990
who are not, we, we kind of get get the
620
00:31:04.069 --> 00:31:06.539
feel for it from watching Wolf of Wall Street or
621
00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:07.319
something like that.
622
00:31:07.400 --> 00:31:08.279
You know what I mean?
623
00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:10.000
Yeah, I know.
624
00:31:10.019 --> 00:31:12.170
And I read that you've talked about that. We've talked
625
00:31:12.190 --> 00:31:15.450
about that a little bit. I like to, and it's
626
00:31:15.490 --> 00:31:17.549
impossible for you to sit there and give the CliffsNotes
627
00:31:17.589 --> 00:31:20.440
version of what you do, but on a basic day
628
00:31:20.599 --> 00:31:24.460
when you were doing it, putting deals together, doing road shows,
629
00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:27.059
everything that you had to do, what is a day
630
00:31:27.099 --> 00:31:31.380
in the life like, John Lefebvre, when you are doing
631
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:33.549
what you did on Wall Street, whether it's in New
632
00:31:33.569 --> 00:31:36.769
York City, London, Hong Kong, or anywhere in between?
633
00:31:37.859 --> 00:31:42.460
Yeah. Well, you know, cultures vary significantly between banks and
634
00:31:42.519 --> 00:31:45.930
even within the banks. So an M & A investment banker,
635
00:31:45.950 --> 00:31:49.569
the life that he leads is probably very different than
636
00:31:49.690 --> 00:31:52.569
the life that I would lead on a trading floor versus,
637
00:31:52.630 --> 00:31:54.579
you know, in the life of a, even a trader
638
00:31:54.900 --> 00:31:57.299
who manages the bank's money. You know, they're all very
639
00:31:57.339 --> 00:32:01.500
different cultures, very different day-to-day activities. So my job was to,
640
00:32:01.619 --> 00:32:04.380
and then again, to your point, how that role is
641
00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:06.180
in New York is very different than how it is
642
00:32:06.200 --> 00:32:07.799
in London. And I would say, I get into this
643
00:32:07.819 --> 00:32:10.549
a lot in the book, exceptionally different to how it.
644
00:32:10.609 --> 00:32:11.789
Is in, in Asia.
645
00:32:12.150 --> 00:32:16.130
But generally my job as a fixed income syndicate manager is,
646
00:32:16.829 --> 00:32:21.730
is to help connect people who need to borrow money.
647
00:32:22.190 --> 00:32:25.970
So they could be a Chinese startup. It could be
648
00:32:25.990 --> 00:32:28.950
a sovereign nation. It could be a blue chip company
649
00:32:29.029 --> 00:32:34.009
like Walmart or IBM or Microsoft. Help a company like
650
00:32:34.049 --> 00:32:35.809
that that needs to borrow $ 100 million.
651
00:32:35.809 --> 00:32:36.630
$ 500 million, or $ 5 billion to.
652
00:32:41.289 --> 00:32:44.730
Help them borrow that money in the capital markets through
653
00:32:44.849 --> 00:32:48.970
the public bond market. So I help advise them on
654
00:32:49.589 --> 00:32:52.720
the right structure, the right pricing, how to market it,
655
00:32:53.430 --> 00:32:56.130
how to basically sell their deal to investors.
656
00:32:56.170 --> 00:32:58.779
So I kind of do that on one hand. And again,
657
00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:00.240
that's why I've always.
658
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:03.200
Felt this vantage point is so unique, because I sit
659
00:33:03.559 --> 00:33:06.599
right in the middle. working with investment bankers and all
660
00:33:06.619 --> 00:33:09.279
of their clients who need to borrow money. And then
661
00:33:09.339 --> 00:33:11.599
on the other side, I work with the salespeople who
662
00:33:11.660 --> 00:33:15.599
cover the buy side. So these are investors, hedge funds,
663
00:33:15.740 --> 00:33:20.200
pension funds, asset managers, you know, guys who need to
664
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:23.759
invest their money. And I just effectively bring them together.
665
00:33:23.819 --> 00:33:28.349
So my typical day is working with issuers who mandate
666
00:33:29.369 --> 00:33:32.299
our bank to help them raise money. And then I
667
00:33:32.339 --> 00:33:35.279
go out and sell those deals with our sales force
668
00:33:35.359 --> 00:33:38.720
to the investors who have the money. So I basically
669
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:42.319
come in every day to a room that has 500
670
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:45.579
people or in New York, I guess, 1,000.
671
00:33:45.539 --> 00:33:47.319
People in one big room.
672
00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:51.660
Everybody has four or six computer screens, a big dealer
673
00:33:51.700 --> 00:33:53.880
board with 100 phone lines.
674
00:33:54.240 --> 00:33:56.509
It's called a hoot or a squawk box.
675
00:33:57.180 --> 00:33:59.029
You know, on their dealer boards that they can immediately
676
00:33:59.089 --> 00:34:02.190
communicate with Tokyo or Hong Kong or London or New
677
00:34:02.230 --> 00:34:04.029
York or anywhere else in the world. And it's just
678
00:34:04.210 --> 00:34:06.450
one big, almost like a locker room. I mean, you know,
679
00:34:06.509 --> 00:34:09.590
Nerf footballs are getting tossed around. Jokes are getting tossed around.
680
00:34:09.690 --> 00:34:10.690
It's mostly guys in.
681
00:34:10.670 --> 00:34:11.389
That kind of environment.
682
00:34:11.869 --> 00:34:15.119
And I stare at computer screens for, you know, 12
683
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:18.480
or 14 hours a day. And then we check out,
684
00:34:18.699 --> 00:34:21.760
go drinking with our clients and then, you know, pass
685
00:34:21.860 --> 00:34:23.619
out and wake up the next day and start it
686
00:34:23.639 --> 00:34:24.199
all over again.
687
00:34:24.780 --> 00:34:25.530
That's kind of my job.
688
00:34:28.010 --> 00:34:30.650
So I think for a lot of people in a
689
00:34:30.670 --> 00:34:33.570
lot of industries, I don't know, maybe I'm, maybe I'm
690
00:34:33.590 --> 00:34:36.159
just speaking for myself here, but when they see you
691
00:34:36.179 --> 00:34:38.679
start in New York, then you get asked to go
692
00:34:38.719 --> 00:34:40.880
to London and then from London you get asked to
693
00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:45.440
go to Hong Kong. Like that's a, That's kind of
694
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:48.179
crazy in their own right now. There's obviously a subset
695
00:34:48.219 --> 00:34:50.739
of people who are like, that is awesome. I'm all in.
696
00:34:50.780 --> 00:34:53.030
But I don't know if that's the majority of people.
697
00:34:53.110 --> 00:34:56.710
What was that like being transferred or asking to move
698
00:34:56.769 --> 00:34:59.920
for promotions basically all around the world?
699
00:35:00.719 --> 00:35:02.480
It's just something I always wanted to do and I
700
00:35:02.500 --> 00:35:03.920
wanted to do it before I had kids because I
701
00:35:03.980 --> 00:35:07.019
knew eventually I would settle down in the United States
702
00:35:07.179 --> 00:35:10.349
and just have the kind of white picket fence lifestyle.
703
00:35:10.949 --> 00:35:12.889
And so I thought while I was young and free,
704
00:35:12.969 --> 00:35:15.210
it would be great to, you know, go to London
705
00:35:15.250 --> 00:35:17.739
and By the way, when we were in London, every
706
00:35:17.780 --> 00:35:24.179
weekend we were in Paris or Milan or Stockholm or Reykjavik.
707
00:35:23.619 --> 00:35:26.219
Or wherever the hell we wanted to go. It was
708
00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:27.980
a great, fun experience.
709
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:29.739
London is one of the great cities in the world
710
00:35:29.780 --> 00:35:32.840
that I think should be experienced when you're young.
711
00:35:33.320 --> 00:35:34.860
Then they asked me to go to Hong Kong. Asian
712
00:35:34.889 --> 00:35:36.489
bankers work.
713
00:35:39.139 --> 00:35:42.889
Notoriously long hours. I'd never even really been to Asia.
714
00:35:42.929 --> 00:35:45.329
I had no interest to go there. So they asked
715
00:35:45.349 --> 00:35:48.090
me three or four times to go out there and
716
00:35:48.130 --> 00:35:50.969
I always said no. And so I was looking at,
717
00:35:50.989 --> 00:35:53.250
this was after I'd been in London for about three years,
718
00:35:53.630 --> 00:35:55.329
I was looking at either moving back to New York
719
00:35:55.869 --> 00:35:59.320
or going to Asia. And just the opportunity in Asia
720
00:35:59.360 --> 00:36:02.280
to see, you know, the emergence of what was going
721
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:05.880
on in China with, you know, 12% GDP growth and
722
00:36:05.940 --> 00:36:09.840
just the whole region recovering from the Asian financial crisis of,
723
00:36:09.860 --> 00:36:12.690
you know, whenever it was 1998. It was just too
724
00:36:12.730 --> 00:36:15.789
good of an opportunity to pass up. So I agreed
725
00:36:15.889 --> 00:36:18.610
to at least go out there and consider it. And,
726
00:36:18.630 --> 00:36:21.789
you know, it only took me about two hours after
727
00:36:21.849 --> 00:36:25.929
I landed at Hong Kong airport to realize that This
728
00:36:26.090 --> 00:36:29.320
is the greatest place in the world. You know, it's
729
00:36:29.360 --> 00:36:34.400
a tropical island that masquerades as a legitimate city. So,
730
00:36:34.440 --> 00:36:36.570
you know, you fly in, all of a sudden you're
731
00:36:36.610 --> 00:36:40.050
surrounded by these five-star resorts and these, you know, wonderfully
732
00:36:40.090 --> 00:36:43.969
attentive people and just has this kind of vibrant, energetic atmosphere.
733
00:36:44.590 --> 00:36:49.119
transient party lifestyle that, you know, it's just, it's very alluring.
734
00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:52.420
And Hong Kong was the greatest experience ever. You know,
735
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:54.179
the only reason I had to leave was because it was,
736
00:36:54.280 --> 00:36:56.199
you know, taking so many years off.
737
00:36:56.119 --> 00:36:58.539
My life, but that trade-off, you know, I.
738
00:36:58.800 --> 00:37:03.420
Had to reprioritize having a family and kids over the
739
00:37:03.460 --> 00:37:07.289
lifestyle they were living. But yeah, people always thought that
740
00:37:07.329 --> 00:37:10.030
when you're doing investment banking, going to London or going
741
00:37:10.050 --> 00:37:13.349
to Asia is kind of this relegation or this outpost.
742
00:37:13.389 --> 00:37:16.570
But more recently, these are all coveted seats. And it's
743
00:37:16.610 --> 00:37:19.429
a promotion because Asia is the place to be right
744
00:37:19.449 --> 00:37:20.659
now and everyone wants to get out there.
745
00:37:22.219 --> 00:37:23.760
I was laughing in the middle of your story because
746
00:37:23.800 --> 00:37:26.539
I remember I was reading through your book when you
747
00:37:26.579 --> 00:37:29.289
went on that they sent you on like a trip
748
00:37:29.309 --> 00:37:31.429
to test it out, right? To say like, hey, you know,
749
00:37:31.530 --> 00:37:33.929
let's fly over there and make sure you could live
750
00:37:33.969 --> 00:37:36.090
there and meet all the people you're going to be
751
00:37:36.110 --> 00:37:38.829
working with. And I'll let you tell the stories of
752
00:37:39.130 --> 00:37:42.800
how that trip went. But it sounds like the bulk
753
00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:47.099
of that time was not spent kind of understanding and
754
00:37:47.400 --> 00:37:49.980
meeting people. It was spent, I guess, for the lack
755
00:37:50.019 --> 00:37:52.320
of a better word, it was spent partying, right?
756
00:37:53.110 --> 00:37:55.409
Yeah, I mean it was my due diligence trip to
757
00:37:55.429 --> 00:37:59.340
determine whether or not I wanted to relocate my– put
758
00:37:59.389 --> 00:38:03.500
my career on a completely different track, break up with
759
00:38:03.539 --> 00:38:06.420
my girlfriend in London and move to Asia. Like this
760
00:38:06.480 --> 00:38:11.550
is a big life-changing decision. And I spent that entire
761
00:38:11.610 --> 00:38:15.130
trip– I was either in the spa, by the pool
762
00:38:15.409 --> 00:38:17.030
or out at the bars. I mean it was just–
763
00:38:17.070 --> 00:38:17.929
it was too much fun.
764
00:38:19.469 --> 00:38:21.829
That's great. And now I'd love to get into some
765
00:38:21.869 --> 00:38:24.719
of the stories, just to give a little snippet of
766
00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:27.699
your book. So first of all, you titled it Straight
767
00:38:27.719 --> 00:38:31.300
to Hell, which is an interesting title because you read
768
00:38:31.400 --> 00:38:35.480
on how to title books, how to market them, what
769
00:38:35.500 --> 00:38:37.619
to use. You want to make sure people are comfortable
770
00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:40.460
talking about your book at a cocktail party. And I'm
771
00:38:40.500 --> 00:38:43.980
not sure your title makes people super comfortable. So I'm
772
00:38:44.039 --> 00:38:45.760
curious as to why is it titled that way?
773
00:38:47.099 --> 00:38:49.659
It's just, again, this goes back to kind of a
774
00:38:49.980 --> 00:38:54.119
running joke of the behavior and the norms, you know,
775
00:38:54.139 --> 00:38:58.119
almost like the moral norms on a trading floor in
776
00:38:58.139 --> 00:39:01.630
the banking community. So, you know, we had always joked
777
00:39:01.690 --> 00:39:06.010
about how outrageous our experiences were and how generally, again,
778
00:39:06.110 --> 00:39:08.130
despite the Wolf of Wall Street and all this other stuff,
779
00:39:08.429 --> 00:39:13.630
people have no clue how deviant this kind of mentality is. And, again,
780
00:39:13.730 --> 00:39:15.510
it doesn't just attract a deviance.
781
00:39:15.570 --> 00:39:15.989
It kind of just.
782
00:39:16.550 --> 00:39:19.519
It breaks you down and builds you up and makes
783
00:39:19.559 --> 00:39:22.900
you almost even more deviant. And so at one point
784
00:39:22.900 --> 00:39:26.579
towards the end of my kind of Asia tour of duty,
785
00:39:26.579 --> 00:39:29.019
we are traveled across the world to go to a
786
00:39:29.659 --> 00:39:31.820
client's and i don't want to give away the location
787
00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:33.900
because i don't want to be too specific about who
788
00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:36.579
it was but we had a client's wedding and again
789
00:39:36.639 --> 00:39:38.909
when you work in asia the expat community is so
790
00:39:38.969 --> 00:39:42.590
close so as a white guy in asia all of
791
00:39:42.670 --> 00:39:48.179
my friends are either clients colleagues, or competitors. So it's
792
00:39:48.219 --> 00:39:51.829
this really incestuous world. So when one of us gets married,
793
00:39:52.849 --> 00:39:54.969
in this case one of our clients got married, the
794
00:39:55.030 --> 00:39:59.150
wedding was, again, all investment bankers, all hedge fund managers,
795
00:39:59.610 --> 00:40:02.090
and it was just this entire group from Asia that
796
00:40:02.269 --> 00:40:03.030
flew to the.
797
00:40:02.969 --> 00:40:04.139
Other side of the world for this wedding.
798
00:40:04.780 --> 00:40:08.920
And you can take us out of Asia, but you
799
00:40:08.940 --> 00:40:14.280
can't necessarily remove the way that we tend to operate
800
00:40:14.340 --> 00:40:16.920
within society, which is to say, you know, we've always
801
00:40:16.940 --> 00:40:19.960
said rules, and I've said this online before, rules are
802
00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.820
for the, and this is a Douglas Bader quote, the
803
00:40:23.019 --> 00:40:25.659
great World War II fighter pilot. He said, rules are
804
00:40:25.719 --> 00:40:29.429
for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.
805
00:40:29.849 --> 00:40:32.269
And that was effectively how we lived our life. We
806
00:40:32.289 --> 00:40:34.349
just followed the rules. We thought we were better and
807
00:40:34.409 --> 00:40:36.550
smarter than everybody. So we would just pick and choose
808
00:40:36.590 --> 00:40:38.900
the rules that we choose to follow. So when we
809
00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:41.900
went to this wedding, we acted like we were still
810
00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:44.219
in Hong Kong. So we went to the church, we
811
00:40:44.579 --> 00:40:48.239
converted the chaplain's office into a cocaine room, and we
812
00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:50.550
just used it for kind of a select group of
813
00:40:50.789 --> 00:40:53.909
wedding guests and groomsmen to, to kind of come and go.
814
00:40:53.989 --> 00:40:56.610
And we had these communal piles of cocaine set up
815
00:40:57.150 --> 00:40:59.789
from a drug dealer that I had met the day before.
816
00:40:59.809 --> 00:41:04.420
And, uh, towards the end, yeah, it worked out great.
817
00:41:04.739 --> 00:41:05.840
I think I still have his number.
818
00:41:06.420 --> 00:41:10.960
Um, Towards the end, after the wedding, the bridesmaids needed
819
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:13.260
a place to change before the reception, which was to
820
00:41:13.300 --> 00:41:17.519
be held— again, this is like this— you imagine a blue sky day,
821
00:41:17.619 --> 00:41:21.889
like God is just shining his radiant light down on everybody.
822
00:41:21.929 --> 00:41:24.769
It's the most beautiful old church you've ever seen, and
823
00:41:24.849 --> 00:41:29.150
here we are just— six sweaty bankers in tuxedos, just
824
00:41:29.750 --> 00:41:34.449
sweating around a table in the chaplain's office. And so
825
00:41:34.510 --> 00:41:37.440
we get kicked out by the bridesmaids. And so we
826
00:41:37.460 --> 00:41:39.760
have nowhere else to go. So we relocate our little
827
00:41:40.099 --> 00:41:44.500
kind of party to the kids' playground behind the church.
828
00:41:46.059 --> 00:41:48.280
And here we are just again, five or six guys
829
00:41:48.940 --> 00:41:54.000
sitting on those little miniature color, you know, brightly colored
830
00:41:54.159 --> 00:41:57.079
plastic picnic tables. that are just, you know, we just
831
00:41:57.099 --> 00:42:00.119
look like giants on these things. And we're just huddled around,
832
00:42:00.179 --> 00:42:03.659
just ripping lines of cocaine, you know, behind the church
833
00:42:03.820 --> 00:42:06.170
as the wedding party is kind of relocating to the
834
00:42:06.230 --> 00:42:08.690
front for the reception. And so I just said to
835
00:42:08.730 --> 00:42:11.329
my friend, I said, wow, you know, if I ever
836
00:42:11.409 --> 00:42:13.869
write this book that we joke about, I'm going to
837
00:42:13.909 --> 00:42:16.130
call it straight to hell. And so that was kind
838
00:42:16.150 --> 00:42:18.269
of the title that stuck. Even before I wrote a
839
00:42:18.309 --> 00:42:20.159
single chapter, that was always the title.
840
00:42:20.590 --> 00:42:21.010
Wow.
841
00:42:21.219 --> 00:42:24.039
Incredible, man. That's an incredible story.
842
00:42:24.340 --> 00:42:26.510
And that story didn't even make the book. Wow.
843
00:42:26.829 --> 00:42:29.150
So I know you mentioned there's a ton of stories
844
00:42:29.170 --> 00:42:30.690
that you have that didn't even make it in the book.
845
00:42:30.750 --> 00:42:35.880
But another one, I think this was back in 2002
846
00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.679
when you got your very first, I think this might
847
00:42:38.699 --> 00:42:41.440
have been your first bonus, which was about $ 75, 000. And
848
00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:45.760
you had went to one of your mentors and said,
849
00:42:47.130 --> 00:42:50.250
I'm going to save this and invest it, and I'll
850
00:42:50.269 --> 00:42:52.349
let you take it from here. But what did he
851
00:42:52.409 --> 00:42:54.730
say to you after you told him your plans of
852
00:42:54.809 --> 00:42:56.309
what to do with that $ 75, 000?
853
00:42:55.750 --> 00:43:00.030
Yeah, I think it's interesting because it speaks to how
854
00:43:00.090 --> 00:43:03.219
you get kind of brought into the culture and then
855
00:43:03.360 --> 00:43:08.900
how your just mentality warps over time. So here I am,
856
00:43:08.900 --> 00:43:12.079
22 years old. On top of my salary, I get
857
00:43:12.099 --> 00:43:14.519
given a check for $ 75, 000. What was your salary at
858
00:43:14.559 --> 00:43:14.860
that time?
859
00:43:15.559 --> 00:43:16.900
I don't know. I can't remember.
860
00:43:16.940 --> 00:43:20.280
They probably about my salary was probably about 80, 75, $ 8, 000,
861
00:43:20.079 --> 00:43:20.840
somewhere like that.
862
00:43:20.900 --> 00:43:21.099
Okay.
863
00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:23.679
This is a long time ago. I mean, salaries have
864
00:43:23.699 --> 00:43:23.989
gone up.
865
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:26.070
So again, that doesn't sound like a very impressive number,
866
00:43:26.090 --> 00:43:28.300
but salaries have gone up a lot since then. So,
867
00:43:28.320 --> 00:43:31.570
you know, 22 years old, you get a $ 75, 000 salary,
868
00:43:31.710 --> 00:43:33.690
give or take, I can't remember. And then, you know,
869
00:43:33.710 --> 00:43:36.550
they just cut you a check for $ 75, 000.
870
00:43:35.530 --> 00:43:37.170
And pretty happy.
871
00:43:37.289 --> 00:43:38.849
Oh yeah. And so I told my boss I was
872
00:43:38.889 --> 00:43:41.110
going to invest it because I wanted to buy an
873
00:43:41.130 --> 00:43:44.320
apartment the next year. When I got my next bonus,
874
00:43:44.340 --> 00:43:47.170
which again, hopefully would be much bigger than my first bonus,
875
00:43:47.590 --> 00:43:49.750
because that's generally how banking works. I mean, it's just
876
00:43:49.829 --> 00:43:53.880
that the bonus structure is a fairly steep, steep curve.
877
00:43:54.380 --> 00:43:56.559
And to that point of the curve, my boss looks
878
00:43:56.599 --> 00:43:58.429
at me like I'm an idiot. He says, what the
879
00:43:58.449 --> 00:43:59.070
hell's wrong with you?
880
00:43:59.110 --> 00:43:59.230
What?
881
00:43:59.789 --> 00:44:01.829
It's going to be so easy for you to save
882
00:44:02.309 --> 00:44:05.070
this amount of money in a couple years from now.
883
00:44:06.230 --> 00:44:09.239
Think of the marginal utility of a dollar. You'd be
884
00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:10.079
insane to save it.
885
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:12.559
He's like, I want you to go out, take a vacation,
886
00:44:12.699 --> 00:44:15.219
and just spend your entire bonus in one week.
887
00:44:15.960 --> 00:44:16.719
And so that's what we did.
888
00:44:16.760 --> 00:44:19.619
I convinced two or three of my friends. We went
889
00:44:19.659 --> 00:44:23.420
to Saint-Tropez and spent all that money in five days,
890
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:25.280
which actually was not that difficult to do.
891
00:44:26.289 --> 00:44:28.739
So you're just taking your friends on a vacation?
892
00:44:28.780 --> 00:44:31.519
No, no, no. They brought their $ 75, 000 too.
893
00:44:31.760 --> 00:44:34.730
You spent $ 75, 000 on yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did
894
00:44:34.750 --> 00:44:35.130
you buy?
895
00:44:36.719 --> 00:44:40.480
People don't understand how... again.
896
00:44:38.820 --> 00:44:42.519
You feel like, you know, people don't realize how much
897
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.019
money there is in the world. We went there with
898
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:49.920
the intention, three bankers making $ 75, 000, you know, in their
899
00:44:49.940 --> 00:44:52.699
pocket to spend, and we were, you know, the poorest
900
00:44:52.719 --> 00:44:55.119
guys at every place we went to. You know, we
901
00:44:55.139 --> 00:44:58.130
would have bottles of Moet at our table, and girls
902
00:44:58.170 --> 00:44:59.329
wouldn't even talk to us, you know.
903
00:44:59.670 --> 00:45:01.690
I remember one time, again, I didn't.
904
00:45:01.429 --> 00:45:03.230
Even get this in the book, but we're in Saint-Tropez,
905
00:45:03.869 --> 00:45:08.239
and three guys... we see this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful girl
906
00:45:09.190 --> 00:45:14.269
Facing us and with his back to us is, I guess,
907
00:45:14.329 --> 00:45:16.989
her husband or boyfriend or this older guy that she
908
00:45:17.050 --> 00:45:17.409
is with.
909
00:45:17.429 --> 00:45:19.780
You know, he's probably in his 60s and she's in
910
00:45:19.820 --> 00:45:20.630
her 20s.
911
00:45:21.059 --> 00:45:24.619
And here we are thinking we're three, you know, decently
912
00:45:24.639 --> 00:45:26.420
good-looking guys. We've got some money. We've got, you know,
913
00:45:26.460 --> 00:45:28.760
bottles of champagne. We're sitting at the pool at the
914
00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:32.019
Bibos Hotel in Saint-Tropez. And so we're kind of gesticulating
915
00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:35.400
behind this guy's back, trying to get her attention, basically saying, hey,
916
00:45:35.460 --> 00:45:36.920
you know, ditch that guy.
917
00:45:37.300 --> 00:45:38.360
Come hang out with us.
918
00:45:38.860 --> 00:45:40.829
And she's just kind of being a little bit flirtatious
919
00:45:40.869 --> 00:45:42.829
with us and at least acknowledging us. So he can
920
00:45:43.650 --> 00:45:47.989
generally sense that something is happening behind his back. And
921
00:45:48.030 --> 00:45:50.610
so after a few minutes of this kind of holding
922
00:45:50.670 --> 00:45:52.929
up champagne glasses for her and all this stuff, he
923
00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:56.639
slowly turns around, looks at each of us. And then
924
00:45:56.659 --> 00:45:59.559
he says, I still remember, he says, which one of
925
00:45:59.599 --> 00:46:03.659
you is the equities guy? Which one of you is
926
00:46:03.719 --> 00:46:07.219
the bond guy? Which one of you is the M
927
00:46:07.219 --> 00:46:11.980
& A guy? Let me tell you something. You bankers,
928
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:16.280
you come here every year with your little tin pot
929
00:46:16.380 --> 00:46:21.090
of money thinking you're big shots. You don't have an
930
00:46:21.190 --> 00:46:25.170
effing clue. And then he just turned back around and
931
00:46:25.210 --> 00:46:27.489
hung out with his chick. And he just shut us down.
932
00:46:27.550 --> 00:46:29.429
He nailed us and shut us down.
933
00:46:29.269 --> 00:46:31.050
Just like that. I mean, it was amazing. It was
934
00:46:31.099 --> 00:46:32.599
a good learning.
935
00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:36.130
Experience to, you know, You might think that you've made it,
936
00:46:36.170 --> 00:46:37.889
but there's always another level.
937
00:46:38.179 --> 00:46:39.199
And we learned that that day.
938
00:46:39.239 --> 00:46:41.360
We gradually befriended the guy and got to hang out
939
00:46:41.380 --> 00:46:45.760
with him. He was some billionaire from Cleveland, Ohio, and
940
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:48.860
he left his wife and kids every summer to travel
941
00:46:48.900 --> 00:46:50.199
with his European girlfriend.
942
00:46:50.699 --> 00:46:53.130
It's just kind of eye-opening.
943
00:46:53.849 --> 00:46:56.849
Oh, my gosh. Incredible. There's so many stories I want
944
00:46:56.869 --> 00:46:59.230
to get to, but there's one of them, and we
945
00:46:59.250 --> 00:47:03.000
talked about this before we started recording. So about the...
946
00:47:04.139 --> 00:47:06.579
industry itself, and you have a chapter in your book titled,
947
00:47:06.719 --> 00:47:09.480
I'll call you on your cell. And I'd love for
948
00:47:09.500 --> 00:47:12.840
you to dive in a little bit about that aspect of,
949
00:47:13.429 --> 00:47:16.150
of your work and how, and this is probably not
950
00:47:16.170 --> 00:47:18.869
a shock to people who've, who've read about this, but
951
00:47:18.909 --> 00:47:23.489
there's definitely some illegal type action going on in the
952
00:47:23.570 --> 00:47:26.800
industry with people, you know, not calling on the proper
953
00:47:26.860 --> 00:47:29.059
phone saying, Hey, uh, hang up. I got to call
954
00:47:29.079 --> 00:47:31.019
you on your cell. So could you share, share more
955
00:47:31.039 --> 00:47:31.400
about that?
956
00:47:32.010 --> 00:47:32.429
Yeah, sure.
957
00:47:32.679 --> 00:47:34.079
I'm glad you brought it up because, you know, I
958
00:47:34.239 --> 00:47:35.900
don't want people to think that the book is just
959
00:47:35.960 --> 00:47:39.449
about deviance and debauchery. I mean, I think I do
960
00:47:39.550 --> 00:47:43.349
raise some really substantive points about.
961
00:47:44.960 --> 00:47:49.000
You know, whether it's sexism in the workplace or, you know,
962
00:47:49.219 --> 00:47:53.489
illegal or potentially, well, certainly unethical practices that go on
963
00:47:53.570 --> 00:47:55.150
in the industry. I mean, there's a lot of, I
964
00:47:55.159 --> 00:47:59.690
would say, revealing things that haven't really been talked about before.
965
00:48:00.030 --> 00:48:02.010
So the culture that you're talking about is kind of
966
00:48:02.030 --> 00:48:05.250
a call you on your cell basically is all of
967
00:48:05.329 --> 00:48:09.500
our phone lines are recorded. All of our emails are recorded.
968
00:48:09.559 --> 00:48:12.940
All of our chat rooms are recorded. So whenever somebody
969
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:15.539
calls you and they say, hey, let me call you
970
00:48:15.599 --> 00:48:19.019
on your cell. you know, or this is on a
971
00:48:19.059 --> 00:48:20.760
chat room or an email, you know, hey, I need
972
00:48:20.780 --> 00:48:22.380
to talk to you on your cell phone. You know
973
00:48:22.440 --> 00:48:25.750
that you're about to hear something outrageous. So it's either
974
00:48:26.030 --> 00:48:28.809
like an X-rated story from the night before that they
975
00:48:28.829 --> 00:48:32.809
don't want to have recorded on any company lines, or
976
00:48:33.090 --> 00:48:37.389
it's about, you know, doing something that is unethical or illegal.
977
00:48:37.429 --> 00:48:38.440
So it's kind of part of.
978
00:48:38.409 --> 00:48:41.440
The culture that we would almost laugh about kind of
979
00:48:41.579 --> 00:48:44.280
circumventing these recorded lines to have all to have these
980
00:48:44.300 --> 00:48:45.980
conversations so a lot of times it was just crazy
981
00:48:46.500 --> 00:48:48.260
antics that we just didn't want recorded but other times
982
00:48:48.340 --> 00:48:52.269
it was legitimately about breaking a law so you know
983
00:48:52.550 --> 00:48:54.269
we would trade a lot of things that we do
984
00:48:54.289 --> 00:48:57.110
just list off some examples you know we would collude
985
00:48:57.150 --> 00:49:01.750
with other banks on fees that we would charge clients. So,
986
00:49:01.780 --> 00:49:04.860
of course, we could never talk about that on recorded lines.
987
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:06.400
A lot of the stuff.
988
00:49:06.300 --> 00:49:09.550
We would do would involve kind of the quid pro
989
00:49:09.610 --> 00:49:13.989
quo or favor trading, specifically between bond syndicate guys, so
990
00:49:14.010 --> 00:49:17.570
people like me who determine where the bonds get sold
991
00:49:17.610 --> 00:49:20.139
to and the people that are receiving the bonds. So,
992
00:49:20.510 --> 00:49:23.170
you know, if there's a big hot deal coming, you know,
993
00:49:23.510 --> 00:49:25.570
a hedge fund manager will call me up and say, hey,
994
00:49:26.130 --> 00:49:27.750
I need you to take care of me on this deal.
995
00:49:28.369 --> 00:49:30.309
What do you need in return? And sometimes what I
996
00:49:30.329 --> 00:49:32.750
need in return could just be I need him to
997
00:49:32.789 --> 00:49:35.409
look at another deal or I need him to take
998
00:49:35.449 --> 00:49:37.909
a meeting for me or, you know, I need him
999
00:49:37.949 --> 00:49:42.050
to share some information about, you know, some non-public information
1000
00:49:42.090 --> 00:49:45.289
about deals that other banks are working on. And even
1001
00:49:45.349 --> 00:49:47.769
sometimes you might just say, hey, how about I take
1002
00:49:47.789 --> 00:49:50.130
you out to dinner tonight and we have a great time.
1003
00:49:50.530 --> 00:49:53.429
And then tomorrow, you know, when we're allocating this deal,
1004
00:49:53.820 --> 00:49:57.280
you'll hook me up. And by and large, people say, OK, sure,
1005
00:49:57.320 --> 00:49:59.340
that's fine. And so these are the kind of conversations
1006
00:49:59.360 --> 00:49:59.699
that you.
1007
00:49:59.659 --> 00:50:01.760
Don't want to have on unrecorded lines.
1008
00:50:01.780 --> 00:50:04.099
So this whole culture of kind of this, you know,
1009
00:50:04.119 --> 00:50:06.659
I'll call you on your cell mentality. And we would
1010
00:50:06.760 --> 00:50:09.519
use it every day, specifically as it related to, you know,
1011
00:50:09.539 --> 00:50:11.360
when we were trying to collude on fees.
1012
00:50:13.230 --> 00:50:16.949
That's crazy. And so it's just the whole industry. I
1013
00:50:16.969 --> 00:50:20.179
think I was fascinated by the book just because of one,
1014
00:50:20.300 --> 00:50:22.300
obviously it was really funny, but two, to learn more
1015
00:50:22.340 --> 00:50:28.260
about the complexities, the some things, some illegals happening, so
1016
00:50:28.300 --> 00:50:28.679
to speak.
1017
00:50:29.309 --> 00:50:29.570
I don't know.
1018
00:50:29.590 --> 00:50:32.360
I was just shocked. So it was, it was certainly entertaining,
1019
00:50:32.400 --> 00:50:34.280
but it also was educational to me, which is what
1020
00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:36.219
I say a lot about this podcast is I like
1021
00:50:36.239 --> 00:50:39.780
to have guests that come on that both can educate
1022
00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:42.639
and entertain. And you've certainly, you've certainly done that, John.
1023
00:50:43.070 --> 00:50:44.989
And I really appreciate it. So I I'd love to
1024
00:50:45.090 --> 00:50:47.530
hear now. So this is, this is the world you
1025
00:50:47.570 --> 00:50:50.050
were living in. And, you know, I know we've emailed
1026
00:50:50.070 --> 00:50:53.769
a lot. So, uh, as far as what, What have
1027
00:50:53.809 --> 00:50:56.409
you transitioned to? What are you doing now? Is writing
1028
00:50:56.429 --> 00:50:59.329
going to be your primary source of income? What is
1029
00:50:59.349 --> 00:51:01.909
your day-to-day life like as of now?
1030
00:51:02.679 --> 00:51:05.699
Yeah, I mean, all the stuff I've written. I mean, obviously,
1031
00:51:05.719 --> 00:51:08.280
I got a well-publicized book advance. But beyond that, I
1032
00:51:08.300 --> 00:51:10.840
haven't accepted any money for any of the stuff I've
1033
00:51:10.880 --> 00:51:14.550
written because, you know, I just wanted to just have flexibility.
1034
00:51:14.590 --> 00:51:15.989
And I did it for the most part just to
1035
00:51:16.110 --> 00:51:19.929
boost my platform. So I don't consider myself a writer professionally.
1036
00:51:20.309 --> 00:51:22.190
In terms of how I transitioned to where I am now,
1037
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:26.460
I got hired to be the head of Fixed Income
1038
00:51:26.480 --> 00:51:30.170
Syndicate at Goldman Sachs. At the end of 2010, and
1039
00:51:31.030 --> 00:51:34.929
I had a contract dispute with a previous employer over
1040
00:51:34.969 --> 00:51:38.360
a non-compete clause that prevented me. It was a kind
1041
00:51:38.389 --> 00:51:41.659
of a long, arduous process that prevented me from taking
1042
00:51:41.699 --> 00:51:44.820
that position, even though I had already signed and accepted
1043
00:51:44.860 --> 00:51:47.880
it and resigned from my previous job. So that was
1044
00:51:47.900 --> 00:51:53.099
kind of a messy, complicated process. traumatic experience in terms of, well, traumatic,
1045
00:51:53.139 --> 00:51:55.030
you know, I lost a bunch of money. I lost
1046
00:51:55.050 --> 00:51:57.130
some good friends who are people that I thought were
1047
00:51:57.170 --> 00:51:59.449
my friends, et cetera. And so at that point, I
1048
00:51:59.469 --> 00:52:02.090
just said, look, you know, life is too short to
1049
00:52:02.570 --> 00:52:05.230
not at least do something that you think is, is
1050
00:52:05.809 --> 00:52:07.909
you know, will make you happy. So of course everybody
1051
00:52:07.929 --> 00:52:10.559
has bad days, but you know, I think I try
1052
00:52:10.599 --> 00:52:13.139
to live my life along the lines of saying, as
1053
00:52:13.219 --> 00:52:15.679
long as I have more good days than bad, then,
1054
00:52:15.699 --> 00:52:18.219
you know, I'm generally doing all right. But it got
1055
00:52:18.239 --> 00:52:19.989
to the point there at the end where I was
1056
00:52:20.010 --> 00:52:23.550
just having way more bad days than good. And, you know,
1057
00:52:23.590 --> 00:52:25.449
kind of layer that in with what I was doing
1058
00:52:25.489 --> 00:52:28.010
in my personal life, which was, you know, going out
1059
00:52:28.050 --> 00:52:31.420
every night, partying pretty hard on weekends.
1060
00:52:31.460 --> 00:52:32.739
You know, there wasn't a lot of substance.
1061
00:52:32.780 --> 00:52:34.699
We would just sit by the swimming pool and get
1062
00:52:34.760 --> 00:52:38.719
drunk and get crazy and, you know, just generally be
1063
00:52:39.219 --> 00:52:42.849
pretty terrible human beings. And so I realized that, I
1064
00:52:43.369 --> 00:52:45.949
don't know, you know, life, there's more to life than that.
1065
00:52:46.010 --> 00:52:48.739
And so I just I got on an airplane and
1066
00:52:48.760 --> 00:52:51.900
flew to Houston, Texas, which is where I spent a
1067
00:52:51.900 --> 00:52:54.369
few years growing up and decided that I wanted to
1068
00:52:54.409 --> 00:52:59.369
spend my life playing golf and drinking beer and having
1069
00:52:59.590 --> 00:53:02.750
a family. And so that's effectively what I decided to do.
1070
00:53:02.969 --> 00:53:05.940
Even before I got the book deal and wrote the book,
1071
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:08.019
I just wanted to just kind of chill out for
1072
00:53:08.039 --> 00:53:10.599
a while. and be kind of more, you know, I'm
1073
00:53:10.619 --> 00:53:14.239
surrounded by old, retired white people next to a golf course,
1074
00:53:14.300 --> 00:53:15.159
and it keeps me out of trouble.
1075
00:53:15.179 --> 00:53:17.619
I've got two kids under the age of two. But,
1076
00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:18.420
you know, again, that's not.
1077
00:53:18.340 --> 00:53:21.590
To say that I don't do nothing, you know, to
1078
00:53:21.789 --> 00:53:25.769
stimulate myself intellectually or financially. You know, I've invested in
1079
00:53:25.789 --> 00:53:28.469
a couple of startups, one in the tech space, one
1080
00:53:28.650 --> 00:53:31.449
in the, actually in the fashion space. Obviously now I've got,
1081
00:53:31.639 --> 00:53:33.320
I've got the book deal. There are a couple of
1082
00:53:33.460 --> 00:53:35.639
projects that have sprung out of the book. You know,
1083
00:53:35.659 --> 00:53:37.679
the book, I think I'm being told that it will
1084
00:53:37.699 --> 00:53:40.840
debut on the New York Times bestsellers list. So that's,
1085
00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:44.269
that's kind of an accomplishment that will I guess, open
1086
00:53:44.590 --> 00:53:47.289
other doors for me to pursue other opportunities. So to
1087
00:53:47.369 --> 00:53:49.530
answer your question, I mean, I generally just try and
1088
00:53:49.550 --> 00:53:51.599
spend most time with my family and hang out, but
1089
00:53:51.619 --> 00:53:53.739
I do have some, some projects that keep me busy,
1090
00:53:53.760 --> 00:53:56.579
but I don't really plan on being a full-time writer
1091
00:53:56.599 --> 00:53:56.980
per se.
1092
00:53:57.340 --> 00:53:59.420
Do you see your book being made into a movie?
1093
00:54:00.760 --> 00:54:04.199
Yeah, I would say that I've always thought it made
1094
00:54:04.219 --> 00:54:07.480
a better movie than a book, to be honest. I
1095
00:54:07.500 --> 00:54:09.500
thought it just would give it much more flexibility, much
1096
00:54:09.539 --> 00:54:12.800
more life, and it would allow me to use much
1097
00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:15.400
more of the material that I have kind of behind
1098
00:54:15.460 --> 00:54:19.059
some of this stuff. So I've had, even going back
1099
00:54:19.559 --> 00:54:22.360
a couple years, even before I sold the book rights,
1100
00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:26.300
I've had some pretty in-depth conversations with people in that space,
1101
00:54:26.699 --> 00:54:30.570
and I even turned down a movie deal. Actually, this
1102
00:54:30.590 --> 00:54:33.250
was a TV show deal before I even sold the
1103
00:54:33.269 --> 00:54:36.610
book rights because I wanted to wait. And so, you know,
1104
00:54:36.670 --> 00:54:39.309
these conversations have evolved along with the book. And now
1105
00:54:39.349 --> 00:54:41.690
that the book is out and doing relatively well, you know,
1106
00:54:41.710 --> 00:54:43.570
I'm not allowed to talk about it because I'm bound
1107
00:54:43.610 --> 00:54:44.869
by a confidentiality agreement.
1108
00:54:45.269 --> 00:54:46.289
But I would say that.
1109
00:54:46.130 --> 00:54:51.769
There are some very advanced, very constructive conversations around, you know,
1110
00:54:51.929 --> 00:54:54.650
a possible translation of this book into kind of a
1111
00:54:54.690 --> 00:54:55.329
film or TV show.
1112
00:54:55.909 --> 00:54:57.409
As I was reading it, that's one of the thoughts
1113
00:54:57.489 --> 00:54:59.880
I had going through my mind is that I got
1114
00:54:59.889 --> 00:55:02.800
to believe that this thing will be turned into a movie.
1115
00:55:02.920 --> 00:55:06.019
It just felt like that. And I also would believe
1116
00:55:06.039 --> 00:55:09.179
that there's probably more books in your future if that's
1117
00:55:09.219 --> 00:55:09.989
something you want to do.
1118
00:55:10.010 --> 00:55:13.929
Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, to your point about the movie,
1119
00:55:14.050 --> 00:55:16.190
I agree with you 100%. I think it would be amazing.
1120
00:55:16.489 --> 00:55:17.730
But as I'm sure you know.
1121
00:55:17.590 --> 00:55:18.230
And can expect.
1122
00:55:18.889 --> 00:55:22.550
you know, a lot of the projects that get started,
1123
00:55:23.050 --> 00:55:25.429
they never see the light of day. So even if
1124
00:55:25.489 --> 00:55:29.130
I wasn't bound by confidentiality agreement, I wouldn't even really
1125
00:55:29.150 --> 00:55:32.440
want to talk about it because, you know, you can
1126
00:55:32.480 --> 00:55:36.139
only really count on this happening when it happens, so
1127
00:55:36.159 --> 00:55:36.480
to speak.
1128
00:55:36.519 --> 00:55:38.380
So, I mean, if it happens, that'd be great.
1129
00:55:38.420 --> 00:55:40.539
It'll be a lot of fun and hopefully it'll be
1130
00:55:40.579 --> 00:55:42.980
something that, that will be, you know, a fun experience
1131
00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:46.360
for everybody. But I'm not necessarily counting on it. With
1132
00:55:46.380 --> 00:55:50.059
respect to another book, again, yeah, you know, I've had— I
1133
00:55:49.320 --> 00:55:52.460
have probably 20 stories for each story in the book.
1134
00:55:53.199 --> 00:55:54.340
You know, it's a balance, right?
1135
00:55:54.460 --> 00:55:57.179
You know, there's only so many stories that people want
1136
00:55:57.199 --> 00:56:02.860
to hear about drugs and hookers and excess before they say, OK, right,
1137
00:56:02.920 --> 00:56:06.409
we get it. Bankers are assholes or Wall Street is
1138
00:56:06.429 --> 00:56:09.989
a douchey culture. But hopefully that's why, again, I've tried
1139
00:56:10.010 --> 00:56:13.050
to say, listen, this isn't about those cliches. This is
1140
00:56:13.090 --> 00:56:15.789
about the vantage point. This is about, you know, this
1141
00:56:15.829 --> 00:56:18.070
is about highlighting. You see all these books and all
1142
00:56:18.110 --> 00:56:20.090
these stories. They tend to be about a few rotten
1143
00:56:20.170 --> 00:56:23.769
apples or they tend to be about these tales of
1144
00:56:24.010 --> 00:56:25.789
redemption or epiphany.
1145
00:56:26.309 --> 00:56:27.550
And I'm kind of the opposite. I'm saying, look.
1146
00:56:28.300 --> 00:56:31.320
I'm not passing judgment on this culture or my actions.
1147
00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:34.400
I'm just writing it unapologetically. I'm writing it from a
1148
00:56:34.420 --> 00:56:36.860
vantage point that hasn't been explored. And I'll just let,
1149
00:56:36.880 --> 00:56:39.000
you know, I enjoyed the hell out of my time
1150
00:56:39.039 --> 00:56:42.219
and had a great time doing and even great, great
1151
00:56:42.260 --> 00:56:45.320
time writing about it. And hopefully that enjoyment is, you know,
1152
00:56:45.400 --> 00:56:48.539
kind of, you can, is captured in the book. So
1153
00:56:48.579 --> 00:56:51.840
I'm not passing judgment. I'll just let people draw their
1154
00:56:51.860 --> 00:56:53.739
own conclusions. Yeah.
1155
00:56:53.900 --> 00:56:57.269
Makes, uh, makes a lot of sense. John, I have
1156
00:56:57.289 --> 00:56:58.949
to tell you, man, I know you have things to do,
1157
00:56:59.010 --> 00:57:01.300
so I want to be respectful of your time. So
1158
00:57:01.480 --> 00:57:03.550
I just want to tell you, I really appreciate you,
1159
00:57:03.869 --> 00:57:08.969
your transparency, your honesty. your willingness to share, to kind
1160
00:57:08.989 --> 00:57:11.750
of shine light and pull back the curtain a little
1161
00:57:11.769 --> 00:57:14.880
bit on an industry that people have thoughts on, but
1162
00:57:14.989 --> 00:57:18.780
maybe haven't always heard it from an insider. And you've
1163
00:57:18.820 --> 00:57:22.019
done that. It's been incredibly funny. And I know it
1164
00:57:22.039 --> 00:57:24.119
will continue to be as we move forward. But I
1165
00:57:24.460 --> 00:57:26.239
just wanted to thank you for that. And also thank
1166
00:57:26.260 --> 00:57:30.409
you for being different guest for my show. I found
1167
00:57:30.469 --> 00:57:32.829
that this actually went a little bit different than what
1168
00:57:32.849 --> 00:57:35.010
I expected. Not that I didn't know you were a
1169
00:57:35.070 --> 00:57:39.010
smart guy, but you can tell you're a guy who
1170
00:57:39.210 --> 00:57:43.750
really is curious, thinks about things, has a good understanding
1171
00:57:43.809 --> 00:57:46.599
of life in general. And I think there's a lot
1172
00:57:46.619 --> 00:57:50.199
of learnings here to go along with You know, some
1173
00:57:50.239 --> 00:57:51.530
might worry like, oh, God, this is going to be
1174
00:57:51.570 --> 00:57:54.150
all cocaine and prostitutes and things like that. And I
1175
00:57:54.230 --> 00:57:57.130
even thought that a little bit. But I'm really glad
1176
00:57:57.170 --> 00:57:59.329
we did this because I learned a lot from you.
1177
00:57:59.750 --> 00:58:02.130
I appreciate it. And it's cool to see the progression
1178
00:58:02.170 --> 00:58:06.300
you've made as well. I'd love to continue this conversation
1179
00:58:06.340 --> 00:58:09.559
with you as we both progress because this is certainly
1180
00:58:10.460 --> 00:58:13.780
both educational and entertaining, which is one of my goals
1181
00:58:13.800 --> 00:58:14.619
with this podcast.
1182
00:58:15.349 --> 00:58:17.590
Yeah, no, thanks for having me. I've had an absolute
1183
00:58:17.610 --> 00:58:21.360
blast and would love to keep it going and talk
1184
00:58:21.380 --> 00:58:23.900
to you any time you want to have me back on.
1185
00:58:24.539 --> 00:58:27.159
For sure. Now, where can the people who have not
1186
00:58:27.179 --> 00:58:28.659
heard of you, where can they go to find you?
1187
00:58:29.739 --> 00:58:34.800
Hopefully any fine bookstore near you or Amazon.com. The book
1188
00:58:34.820 --> 00:58:36.360
came out a week and a half ago.
1189
00:58:36.739 --> 00:58:40.590
It's doing quite well. I'm actually... I'll be putting out a.
1190
00:58:40.570 --> 00:58:44.210
Bunch of new stories on Business Insider and a few
1191
00:58:44.289 --> 00:58:47.940
other websites. I can't say which ones yet, but over
1192
00:58:47.960 --> 00:58:50.219
the next week or so, I'm sure people will see
1193
00:58:50.460 --> 00:58:53.159
plenty of me. I'm releasing a few chapters that were
1194
00:58:53.199 --> 00:58:56.260
taken out of the book, some of which are totally outrageous,
1195
00:58:56.719 --> 00:58:58.840
and some of which were taken out by the lawyers
1196
00:58:58.929 --> 00:59:03.710
because they implicated– specific people or specific companies and they
1197
00:59:03.710 --> 00:59:06.570
were worried about getting sued. So a lot of cool
1198
00:59:06.570 --> 00:59:08.760
stuff cool stuff coming out over the next couple of weeks. But,
1199
00:59:08.780 --> 00:59:11.929
you know, GS elevator on Twitter is certainly a great
1200
00:59:11.969 --> 00:59:14.150
place to start. I hate to say it, but I would,
1201
00:59:14.449 --> 00:59:17.849
I would give anybody the money back guarantee on this book.
1202
00:59:17.869 --> 00:59:20.900
If you don't like it, You can email me. Tell
1203
00:59:20.940 --> 00:59:22.679
me what you don't like about it. And if you
1204
00:59:22.699 --> 00:59:25.739
make any sense at all, I'll happily buy it back
1205
00:59:25.780 --> 00:59:27.530
from you because, you know, it was a fun book
1206
00:59:27.570 --> 00:59:27.949
to write.
1207
00:59:27.969 --> 00:59:31.349
It was fun going through these experiences. From what I understand, hopefully.
1208
00:59:32.130 --> 00:59:34.980
Most people who have read it objectively have really enjoyed it,
1209
00:59:35.030 --> 00:59:36.969
so it's been a great experience all around.
1210
00:59:37.360 --> 00:59:42.619
Yeah, it's well-written. It's incredibly funny. The life you've lived
1211
00:59:42.639 --> 00:59:46.119
is— it' s safe to say you've lived harder than 99.9% of
1212
00:59:46.139 --> 00:59:52.159
the people in the world, I would guess. and somehow
1213
00:59:52.219 --> 00:59:55.360
live to tell about it in an intelligent way. So
1214
00:59:55.380 --> 00:59:58.989
I give you credit for that. But like I said,
1215
00:59:59.030 --> 01:00:02.309
it's not just about partying. Learning more about the industry
1216
01:00:03.050 --> 01:00:05.309
and kind of everything that goes along with the lifestyle
1217
01:00:05.869 --> 01:00:07.469
is interesting, and it's different.
1218
01:00:07.489 --> 01:00:11.250
You know what's interesting there is writing the book. I
1219
01:00:11.289 --> 01:00:14.170
don't think I've actually ever said this before. Writing the book,
1220
01:00:14.210 --> 01:00:16.130
and this might surprise you since you've read it, writing
1221
01:00:16.150 --> 01:00:19.630
the book turned me into a little bit of a feminist.
1222
01:00:20.630 --> 01:00:20.869
Really?
1223
01:00:20.889 --> 01:00:20.960
Why?
1224
01:00:20.969 --> 01:00:25.309
Because I was always so, so annoyed with these kind
1225
01:00:25.369 --> 01:00:30.719
of– the people who start talking about how a woman
1226
01:00:30.780 --> 01:00:34.980
makes every– makes 77 cents on the dollar for doing
1227
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:36.739
the same work that a man does.
1228
01:00:36.760 --> 01:00:38.199
You think this is just ridiculous.
1229
01:00:38.239 --> 01:00:43.880
There's just nothing credible about this kind of– feminist gender inequality,
1230
01:00:43.920 --> 01:00:47.059
this wage gap stuff. It's completely bogus. The facts don't
1231
01:00:47.099 --> 01:00:49.739
support it. You know, again, I've said this on Twitter.
1232
01:00:49.760 --> 01:00:53.000
I said, listen, if a woman really made 77 cents
1233
01:00:53.059 --> 01:00:54.639
on a dollar for doing the same work that a
1234
01:00:54.659 --> 01:00:58.849
man does, then a shareholder-conscious CEO would just hire all women.
1235
01:00:59.170 --> 01:01:01.869
And he would be a hero to his shareholders, right?
1236
01:01:02.130 --> 01:01:04.929
It's the same logic like why we send jobs overseas
1237
01:01:05.309 --> 01:01:06.050
doing the same work.
1238
01:01:06.309 --> 01:01:06.949
You outsource it.
1239
01:01:06.989 --> 01:01:10.179
If Mexicans or Indians or Filipinos can do this or
1240
01:01:10.219 --> 01:01:13.199
Chinese can do the same work, then, you know, a
1241
01:01:13.239 --> 01:01:15.699
CEO will say, OK, let's outsource those jobs. It's the
1242
01:01:15.719 --> 01:01:17.980
same thing, and that guy would be a hero. Obviously,
1243
01:01:18.019 --> 01:01:19.400
it's not true. And then, of course, you look at
1244
01:01:19.420 --> 01:01:22.679
the facts. Women in their 20s make more than men
1245
01:01:22.719 --> 01:01:25.070
in their 20s. That has something to do with the
1246
01:01:25.130 --> 01:01:27.869
fact that they're better educated. Women in their 30s make
1247
01:01:27.909 --> 01:01:31.349
more than men in their 30s. Without kids, if you
1248
01:01:31.369 --> 01:01:34.670
do kind of an apples-to-apples comparison, the reality is people—
1249
01:01:35.250 --> 01:01:38.070
You know, women choose and they have a better understanding
1250
01:01:38.110 --> 01:01:40.550
of work-life balance and they choose to spend more time
1251
01:01:40.570 --> 01:01:44.829
with their families and kind of prioritize things that are
1252
01:01:44.989 --> 01:01:47.030
rightfully so more important than job.
1253
01:01:47.070 --> 01:01:47.610
And that is.
1254
01:01:47.610 --> 01:01:51.269
Why they, you know, in aggregate get paid less. So
1255
01:01:51.329 --> 01:01:53.190
this whole wage gap thing is a myth. And then
1256
01:01:53.250 --> 01:01:56.230
I started writing the book and I started thinking about
1257
01:01:56.349 --> 01:02:00.179
how we treated women in the workplace. And I really,
1258
01:02:00.219 --> 01:02:01.579
I was like, wow, I really reflected on it.
1259
01:02:01.579 --> 01:02:02.219
I mean, I'll give you an example.
1260
01:02:02.500 --> 01:02:05.539
My first boss referred to the hiring of women as
1261
01:02:05.579 --> 01:02:09.820
the office beautification project. And I still remember this isn't,
1262
01:02:09.860 --> 01:02:11.340
I didn't even get to this in books. I forgot
1263
01:02:11.360 --> 01:02:13.949
about it, but he came running in one day with
1264
01:02:13.969 --> 01:02:16.610
a resume and he held it up. It was some
1265
01:02:16.650 --> 01:02:18.590
woman he was about to meet. And he said, Hey,
1266
01:02:18.630 --> 01:02:22.489
it says glamor magazines, collegiate woman of the year. And
1267
01:02:22.530 --> 01:02:24.690
he runs off to the interview and a typical interview
1268
01:02:24.769 --> 01:02:26.329
is like 45 minutes an hour.
1269
01:02:26.769 --> 01:02:27.449
He comes back.
1270
01:02:28.320 --> 01:02:31.199
And 15 minutes later, he just shakes his head. He goes, man,
1271
01:02:31.780 --> 01:02:35.179
I guess looks were not among Glamour's criteria for that award.
1272
01:02:35.889 --> 01:02:36.349
And that was it.
1273
01:02:36.630 --> 01:02:38.489
No job for her. And everyone just kind of laughed.
1274
01:02:38.530 --> 01:02:40.289
And I was a new analyst at the time. You
1275
01:02:40.309 --> 01:02:42.110
have to laugh along with it. And that's how you
1276
01:02:42.130 --> 01:02:44.039
get wrapped up into this culture. And I talk about
1277
01:02:44.059 --> 01:02:45.119
it more and more in the book.
1278
01:02:45.159 --> 01:02:45.400
It's like.
1279
01:02:46.320 --> 01:02:49.860
I got a lot of job deal experience because I
1280
01:02:49.900 --> 01:02:50.960
was good at binge drinking.
1281
01:02:51.000 --> 01:02:52.780
I was good at hanging out with clients. I was
1282
01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:53.400
good at golf.
1283
01:02:53.820 --> 01:02:56.119
So two or three years in a line, I had
1284
01:02:56.260 --> 01:02:59.139
more deal experience than most of my female colleagues because
1285
01:02:59.159 --> 01:03:02.320
of the connectivity that comes from this locker room culture
1286
01:03:02.809 --> 01:03:05.409
that the bank could then point at my resume and
1287
01:03:05.449 --> 01:03:08.389
her resume and say, see? he's more qualified. That's why
1288
01:03:08.429 --> 01:03:10.210
he got paid more. That's why he got promoted quicker.
1289
01:03:10.650 --> 01:03:12.829
It's a true meritocracy. And then you start to really
1290
01:03:12.849 --> 01:03:15.469
think about it. So this notion of meritocracy in the
1291
01:03:15.510 --> 01:03:20.539
workplace is kind of a sham. And then I think about, okay, well,
1292
01:03:20.659 --> 01:03:23.530
am I complicit in this or did I just experience it?
1293
01:03:23.860 --> 01:03:25.420
And then this is what I talk about in the book,
1294
01:03:25.500 --> 01:03:28.590
where if you recall, I had this analyst who worked
1295
01:03:28.630 --> 01:03:31.989
for me and he was kind of weak and wimpy
1296
01:03:32.070 --> 01:03:35.130
around the trading floor. And He didn't have a lot
1297
01:03:35.170 --> 01:03:38.389
of confidence or EQ. And so the trader came over
1298
01:03:38.409 --> 01:03:40.800
and said, look, we've got to toughen this kid up.
1299
01:03:41.280 --> 01:03:43.500
So we brought the kid over, my analyst, and we said,
1300
01:03:43.519 --> 01:03:45.239
here's what we want you to do. We want you
1301
01:03:45.300 --> 01:03:47.920
to go and take a quiz of the trading floor,
1302
01:03:48.019 --> 01:03:51.949
just the guys, and have each person rank the five
1303
01:03:52.309 --> 01:03:56.349
sales girls on the credit sales team. Rank them by
1304
01:03:56.389 --> 01:04:00.010
their most– I don't know, the most suitable for having
1305
01:04:00.170 --> 01:04:03.010
sex with, right? Most attractable, the person that you'd most
1306
01:04:03.070 --> 01:04:05.800
like to most want to sleep with. And so we
1307
01:04:05.820 --> 01:04:07.320
made the kid take a survey and then he came
1308
01:04:07.360 --> 01:04:09.900
back and said, all right, make a PowerPoint presentation and
1309
01:04:09.920 --> 01:04:11.480
then present it to us with your results.
1310
01:04:12.400 --> 01:04:14.280
And these are kind of the attitudes that just get.
1311
01:04:15.460 --> 01:04:20.219
You know, embraced and celebrated on a trading floor or
1312
01:04:20.280 --> 01:04:22.619
in any company that has kind of this locker room mentality.
1313
01:04:23.059 --> 01:04:25.880
And it does create disparate opportunities between men and women.
1314
01:04:26.179 --> 01:04:28.539
So in writing the book, I was like, wow, I
1315
01:04:28.579 --> 01:04:31.929
kind of get it now. I'm sort of a fact-based feminist. So,
1316
01:04:31.989 --> 01:04:33.309
you know, there is a lot more to this book
1317
01:04:33.349 --> 01:04:36.869
than just drugs and blacking out and, you know, crashing
1318
01:04:36.909 --> 01:04:37.389
sports cars.
1319
01:04:39.570 --> 01:04:44.789
Yeah, crashing a new Maserati. That's tough, especially driving it wild.
1320
01:04:45.559 --> 01:04:50.099
under the influence, but, uh, allegedly, I'm sorry, allegedly. So
1321
01:04:50.119 --> 01:04:53.099
there's so many, there's so many stories. It's insane, man.
1322
01:04:53.199 --> 01:04:54.800
It's crazy. And it's like I said, I think a
1323
01:04:54.820 --> 01:04:56.280
lot of people try to write these types of things.
1324
01:04:56.340 --> 01:04:58.079
It's hard. It's really hard to do though, and do
1325
01:04:58.139 --> 01:05:01.010
it well. And obviously you do. And I'd urge people
1326
01:05:01.119 --> 01:05:03.690
to check it out because it's, uh, it's, it's certainly
1327
01:05:03.730 --> 01:05:08.090
entertaining and it's educational, like I already said before. So, John,
1328
01:05:08.610 --> 01:05:10.829
I'll let you run, man. I look forward to us
1329
01:05:10.909 --> 01:05:15.840
continuing this dialogue conversation. I'm excited to see as you
1330
01:05:16.159 --> 01:05:19.619
continue to progress in your life and now as you've
1331
01:05:19.780 --> 01:05:23.260
settled a little bit with wife and kids, which is
1332
01:05:23.280 --> 01:05:26.170
a great thing. It's awesome. Obviously, being a dad is
1333
01:05:26.829 --> 01:05:28.989
And being a husband is the greatest thing in the world.
1334
01:05:29.050 --> 01:05:31.119
So I'm excited to hear more about that as you
1335
01:05:31.139 --> 01:05:34.420
made this transition. And we definitely got to do this again.
1336
01:05:34.900 --> 01:05:38.219
Yeah, absolutely. I know I said I wasn't a writer,
1337
01:05:38.239 --> 01:05:40.579
but I'm going to keep kind of messing around. I'll
1338
01:05:40.619 --> 01:05:41.320
give you an example.
1339
01:05:42.179 --> 01:05:45.039
I'm thinking about turning, I wrote a piece for Business
1340
01:05:45.059 --> 01:05:48.219
Insider called How to Be a Man that had, you know,
1341
01:05:48.219 --> 01:05:51.360
3 million hits or something crazy like that. And I've
1342
01:05:51.380 --> 01:05:53.760
got a sequel coming out next week called, you know,
1343
01:05:53.760 --> 01:05:55.949
100 Rules to Live By. There was a publisher that
1344
01:05:55.989 --> 01:05:58.090
actually wanted me to turn that into kind of a
1345
01:05:58.250 --> 01:06:01.670
cynics guide to life and weave in some of the
1346
01:06:01.710 --> 01:06:03.530
other stuff I've written where you, you know, you have
1347
01:06:03.710 --> 01:06:07.619
short stories and illustrations that kind of explain the genesis
1348
01:06:07.679 --> 01:06:10.679
behind these rules and these guidance. So to your point
1349
01:06:10.719 --> 01:06:13.909
where you started by saying, you know, here's, it's good
1350
01:06:13.949 --> 01:06:16.369
and refreshing to have somebody who's said some of the
1351
01:06:16.389 --> 01:06:20.510
things that we might think and just never say, you know,
1352
01:06:20.550 --> 01:06:22.429
you always see these kinds of guides and lists and
1353
01:06:22.449 --> 01:06:25.690
they're so politically correct about how to be a good person,
1354
01:06:25.750 --> 01:06:28.070
how to succeed in life, how to succeed in business.
1355
01:06:28.550 --> 01:06:30.429
And it's just, it's just almost, you know, makes me
1356
01:06:30.469 --> 01:06:33.070
want to throw up. So we, we worked, we're toying
1357
01:06:33.090 --> 01:06:37.360
with the idea of just Just writing a totally outrageous
1358
01:06:37.440 --> 01:06:43.360
version of that in book form that blends. genuinely good advice, satire,
1359
01:06:43.559 --> 01:06:46.179
and humor, and then incorporates a bunch of stories that
1360
01:06:46.420 --> 01:06:49.199
kind of were basically too short for me to tell
1361
01:06:49.280 --> 01:06:50.760
or too redundant for me to tell in the book.
1362
01:06:50.800 --> 01:06:52.489
So there's a lot of cool, fun stuff coming up.
1363
01:06:52.510 --> 01:06:54.989
So, you know, it'd be great to stay in touch
1364
01:06:55.010 --> 01:06:57.429
and also hear about how you evolved, given that you've.
1365
01:06:57.269 --> 01:06:59.630
Said that at some point you want to write a book.
1366
01:06:59.670 --> 01:07:03.530
So I'd love to kind of hear about your, you know,
1367
01:07:03.550 --> 01:07:04.489
going through that process as well.
1368
01:07:04.809 --> 01:07:08.269
Absolutely, man. I appreciate it. All right, John, let you go, man.
1369
01:07:08.289 --> 01:07:09.010
I really appreciate it.
1370
01:07:09.010 --> 01:07:10.670
Thanks, man. Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate it.
1371
01:07:13.409 --> 01:07:15.880
This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but
1372
01:07:15.900 --> 01:07:18.079
we have plenty more to keep you locked in until
1373
01:07:18.139 --> 01:07:22.639
next time. Head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and
1374
01:07:22.659 --> 01:07:27.250
to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone
1375
01:07:27.309 --> 01:07:29.949
else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan
1376
01:07:29.969 --> 01:07:33.289
directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at RyanHawk12.
1377
01:07:33.829 --> 01:07:35.889
Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The
1378
01:07:35.929 --> 01:07:36.780
Learning Leader Show.