I'm much more excited about what is the thing that is you? And how do you live that every day in a place of action in a place of motion being aligned with your core values working towards your mission, embodying, your values, all those sorts of things. And so the problem is that people don't know what that thing is.
It's hard to find.
David perel welcome to the
podcast. Thanks man,
what's the central question of your
life?
Probably has something to do with.
some blend of inner and outer truth, I think that the answer isn't capital-t truth that you see
etched in stone at universities.
And the answer also isn't my truth that is very common in the culture. I think it's a blend of both of those
So, I think it's interesting that I started that question by saying, what? It's not because then that leads me into what it is. It's probably some mix of what brings me joy and what is my vision and seeing that into reality. But the reason I started that man, sir, the way it did is that answer is very sounds, very self Centric but I'm much more outer driven than that and want to be driven.
By service.
and just
liberating.
Other people by igniting their creative spirit and bring a sense of joy and enthusiasm and the world. So, what's the question?
How do I do that?
Very interested in that.
Yeah, I when I was thinking about how to frame this conversation, I was thinking about, how do we help bring someone to their life's work? Yeah. Because it very much to me feels like you found it and I feel like I found it, but I want to ask you, like, how did you get to that point and more specifically? What was the first moment you realized you were doing your life's work?
Yeah, I'll start with what I do. Now I work with a coach named rostov rosneft Das who I adore him. We chat every other Monday.
And he was a Buddhist monk for four years. While working on Wall Street, he was in a monastery in the Lower East Side. I think that juxtaposition between Buddhism and work.
Gives you a real window into.
The kind of coaching that he does.
And this is what we work on. What do I value?
What is my mission? What do I care about?
and,
It was funny. I was with a friend and I was prepping for one of our interviews or one of our coaching sessions. And I got my entire life down into 33 goals.
My friend said it's too many.
You need one.
And we compromised on, too.
It took about an hour and a half to get from 3 to 2 and he was like, no, you need to and he talked about the Steve Jobs. Focus isn't about saying yes to things with saying yes to fewer things, it's not Warren. Buffett you write down 25 things, your circle Five Focus about saying, no and
The thing is, you're only focused when you are in pain and tortured by the things that you're not doing.
Tormented it's I want to do those things so badly but they're only pretty good or pretty, pretty good, but they're not the thing. And we ended up getting down to serving God and building rite of passage
And serving God was the thing that I needed to have. That was the anchor. So that was actually a huge conversation. I had recently become believer and
What does that actually mean to have as one of my core things but it was my number one and that took about 30 minutes 45 minutes to really get down to. And then the second question like when I talk about pain and torture was, do I build right of passage or a my creator?
and ultimately,
I said I'm going to focus on building, right of passage.
and the question that my my friend asked was
if you went 20 on creativity or if your company went to zero, which one would hurt you more,
And the answer is my company. Why?
I believe in writing on the internet so much. And
I feel called at a spiritual and otherworldly level to get people to share ideas online and whether it's podcasting, whether it's writing, whether it's drawing, whether it's photography. But I really think that the big opportunity here is. If you have ideas the story to tell you have domain expertise and you share that idea with the world.
You unlock levels of magic and Serendipity that haven't been possible in the history of humanity.
And that was a thesis that I had about a decade ago. It's a thesis that I executed on by myself for about five years, I was like okay this is right. And then now it's something that I've seen enough with students and people that I work with and
I really think that there's something deep here and
there's nothing bigger that I that I feel drawn to that's just beyond me. So I'm in service to it.
It's really interesting. How what you described there is.
I chose the broader mission of the company greater than my own creativity, which really speaks to what is really at your core. The service in greater than or at least you want to be known or seen as a CEO or entrepreneur more than you do a writer or Creator.
Yeah. All these questions are much more interesting. If you take the least charitable, take possible, and
I think that there is something in my ego and my sense of worth of being a really good talent. Identifier, that Sykes me up like the way the people talk about Paul Graham as they go through y combinator I'm like I want that or why? We'll just same thing with Peter teal. I think it's just unbelievable to have that sort of track record of identifying Talent. This thing is badass. It's so cool you spot Talent. They're young, they're up-and-coming you throw them some bones.
Them some advice and you give them the support they need. And with these very small amounts of money, you can do superhuman things. I had that happen with Tyler Cowen, an emergent Ventures, spot to go on a date since New York and I hadn't been on a date in like two years. And I was so focused really my career and
this girl is about to show up and I saw her walking shows a block up. It's our first date. And I got an email from Tyler that I'd gotten 20 grand as a, as a grant. And I had no money at the time. I mean, we went to a cocktail bar with a cocktail. She like, $12, I thought I was balling out, and she walks up how you doing? I'm like, great. And I think
There's something my ego that's tied up with that. I just think it's super cool. I was hanging out with the cultural tutor who we funded and Jonathan B. Who is now starting a lecture series on the Canon of Western philosophy and culture and told the cultural tutor story? Yeah. Well, it's funny because what I just want to get to is watching these people when there's a
An army of them succeed that fires me up. It's like I had this idea this belief about how the world works. That people think is crazy and that I can.
Incept people into getting them to write online and watch them. Love this idea that I have I think in very tied to being deeply right about something csis about some way the world works. Like, maybe I just needed one answer to my peter. Teal question. You know, what do you know that other people think is crazy? Maybe I just need one. Answer to achieve something deep and I think that's there's probably even less charitable reads but
There is something there, the cultural tutor store is wild. It was a Thursday morning and this was in June of 2022. And I was sitting down and I saw that he had just gotten to 100,000 followers on Twitter and never in my life, had I seen somebody grow on Twitter so fast with such good content, there's people who grow fast but their content isn't good. Their gaming, the algorithm there's people with great content but they're not growing fast. He was an anomaly and I've
Scrolled. I mean I've probably been Halfway Around the World in terms of how many miles I've scrolled with my right thumb on Twitter and there was something different about this guy and he had just hit 100,000 followers and was going to launch an email newsletter. And I just thought to myself, that is a horrible idea. If you launch the newsletter, you're going to constrain your growth. You want to be public growth and share things as much in public. Is you can, if you want to grow fast,
So I said I need to get in touch with them but it was a statue account by the grace of God. I had a reply, there was a reply to that tweet from guy named Harry dry. Why who I'd had dinner with in London about five months before and said, proud of you brother, with this photo tape with this crappy iPhone, and I reach out to Harry on WhatsApp and I go, I need you to put me in touch with the cultural tutor right now. Do you know him who his he? And I get a text back says, yeah.
That's what a best best chaps from grown up and have been helping them. Write used to working with Donald's, just a few months ago, is now training for the, for the British military. I'm just like, put me in touch with him, so, Harry, I guess reaches out to cultural tutor and says, hey, I have this friend. David, who wants to chat with you? And Harry always used to joke. That whenever we talk, I take his world and I expand it by 1000, like, it's just like what? And he's from the British.
Countryside and I hop on with the cultural tutor and I'm like, what's your stories? I'm lit. 25 years old live with my parents done a lot of money basically work. The overnight shift at my University, I was cleaning out the McFlurry. Machines it, make it easy few months ago, this
guy's working at McDonald's
McDonald's, McDonald's, and he's washing the windows and he's just like I love to write and I say why don't?
I just give you money so that you can just write full-time. How much money do you need? He goes, I need 30,000 pounds a year which is not a lot of money actually said 24,000 pounds a year 2000 a month which about 30,000 dollars. I said we'll give you a little bit more than that. Here's the deal. I'm never gonna ask you to do anything. I just want you to write a Twitter thread every single day,
And build your email list. Call me if you need anything, and it's been 14 months and he said 1.5 million followers. Now, is one of the fastest, growing intellectual, Twitter accounts of the world. If not number one, and that fires me up back to the, where we begin that. If I have 10 of those, 20 of those, that's cooler than running a big essay.
Wow, it's remarkable to me because he was Anonymous, you had no idea but something about his
Sparked you, or sparked your interest? What is it? What was that about that situation? What is it that compels you to say, there's something
there. How long does it take you to listen to a podcast and know that the podcast interviews? Good immediately. I'm not being
the first question. First question. Yeah,
that's how I am with writing. I can read four to six sentences.
And know if someone switched on and know, if they have game. Let's, you know, playing basketball. You just watch? Someone do a through the legs point guard, watching, do one, spin move. Take a little jump shot. You sort of know what it is. Same thing, A golf I can look at a golf swing any golfer. Can you can look at a golf swing and you don't necessarily know that they're like tour level or not but there's a shape of a good golf swing a rhythm, a flow, a Swagger same thing in writing and the anonymous thing had nothing to do with it if anything, it's easier. Mmm
because you don't have
A preconceived biases. Yeah. What did Tyler Cowen?
See in you
I think a lot of times we see things and others, that
we like about ourselves or wish that we had in ourselves and the things that Tyler and I have in common and a lot of it's because
I've tried to emulate Tyler so much but he probably saw the seeds of
Joy a love for travel.
Real Earnest curiosity.
And I have a real stamina about myself. Like Tyler, really looks for that in terms of success and creatives.
You can't take me down, I'll just show up every day.
Yeah, that's one thing. That is Apparent from looking at you on the internet and you just show up so constantly. But on the other hand, you it's been 83 days since we've seen a long-form essay from David bro. Why is
that? I would look into 83 days.
And I bet if you took the last year, probably there's been two or three, I'm just running a company and it's a lot of work and it's really hard and that's to our conversation. That's my priority. It's very hard to find writing time right now and that's not ideal. For me. It's, I'm amazed at how Paul Graham built YC while writing his essays. It blows my mind.
And I just haven't figured out how to be.
A top-notch writer in public. Great long-form essays and how to run a company, they are entirely different ways of living states of Consciousness schedules. Orientations toward the world, one is an orientation towards what works? And another is an orientation towards what's interesting. And sometimes they overlap
but,
They're at odds with each other enough. That of course it's been 83 days. I just can't figure out how to do
it part of this conversation. I really want to get to know you and bridge the gap between the person people read about, or listen to on podcasts and who you actually are. Yeah, I've had the fortune of spending a decent amount of time with you going to church having meals together and I've I'm fortunate to call you a friend. When I started this journey, you were just a Twitter account that I really enjoyed. Yeah. And so that's been a cool Journey for me and also
Being the real you as well as the person you present and seeing how they are very closely aligned compared to a lot of creators, I spend time with but also the subtle ways they're not
I'd say more than settle man. I mean, I'm at any G 3 and I've looked into this a lot. So Ross mouth my coach who I was talking about. He's an intagram Coach and he's writing a book about the anagram right now and this was the quest that we started on when we were trying to figure out who I am.
So what the intagram 3 does is your performer, and that is what it's called. And I'm totally that and basically you get your worth from other people in your life thinking of you highly and the biggest risk with the intagram 3 is that you become totally disconnected to your heart. So what ends up happening with enter G? Is they're so rude?
Dubai. This wall of mirrors and by the perception of other people around them that their entire life becomes a game of public relations. And that's where I was, and where I still am in my nature that I have to fight every single day.
How do you go about fighting that?
Well, the first thing was faith is a huge thing. I always think of audience of one and
Being desperate for God's approval, and not anybody else's. And I think of write the law of conservation of nature energy, can't be created or destroyed fear, and the lust, for Prestige and admiration can't be created or destroyed. So if you have 100 units, how many do you give to people how many to give to God? And I try to just give all of them to God, right? The famous line from
The Book of Job is that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And what I take from that is by fearing God so much. You don't fear a lot of things on earth and what I find to be very profound is there's a line that Christians use a lot that in weakness, there is strength and I was like, what are you talking about? That idea makes no sense and now I totally get it that by being so weak in the face of God.
Max, you're so strong in the face of the Earth. And that's how I'm trying to be trying to conform and change my values. So that it's all about pleasing God, and none, about pleasing humans. But I used to go insane. I basically used to have an inner scorecard of every person in my head.
And there's this interview where David Foster Wallace is being interviewed by Charlie Rose, and they're sitting there. And David Foster Wallace is sweating and it's Lake. Michigan. Just falling down his face and he almost can't even talk. Because he's so aware of the panoptix on of judgment. That is all around him from the scale of Charlie Rose and he's like you, do you realize how many people are watching this and it
I can somehow think through that Collective judgment and just goes wild on camera. I mean here you have somebody who took his life and the intensity with which he felt that I don't relate but a piece of that, I absolutely felt that way and when I didn't have a stir and sense of morals or a higher power that I could
give my life to, I was in a constant state of change. So, anything would happen and I basically have to, like, re-evaluate my moral framework from scratch because I didn't have a stable internal compass and so it drove me crazy.
What was the breaking point?
I became very depressed earlier this year. And as things got worse and things got difficult with rite of passage. And I went through a horrible breakup and different things here and there, it was just this spiral. So then I spiral down and I lose points and then I lose points. So I spiral down and
we all have these anchors in our identity.
And you get a little bit off and then you get re-centered. I was so far off and I, that I had no attachment to the Anchor anymore. And so I went beyond myself to the point where I wasn't holding on to anything, and I felt like I was swimming in the middle of the ocean drowning. And
That's when I became a Believer. What
advice would you give to somebody who's in that situation themselves or know somebody in that situation right now?
Think good friends.
It's probably the most universal thing.
You know.
Noah, builds the ark for a long time and that's in the desert, there's not a lot of rain there and he's hammering away day by day.
And friends are a little bit like that.
Little bit.
Cultivating friendships, being good to friends being good to others.
And friendship is so far beyond utilitarian calculus for me. I'm I very strong opinions about friendship. That maybe want to talk about later and
What? I think I've had a sense for an intuitive level.
Is building type friendships with a small group of ride or die Brothers.
And they showed up for me, I had never forget it, Jeremy giffen.
Calls me.
And says how you doing, man? I said I'm not doing well and he lives in New York. I live in Austin and he said, well, if you need me,
I'll be there in 24 hours. Notice no problem.
One of the nicest things that I no one's ever said to me surpassed by five hours later. Yo I booked a flight I'm staying on your couch is that okay? And it was never forget that it was just to feel that sense of love from somebody. And then I had another friend
Brant Beach, Shores, been on the show. Call me up to Columbia said, get the hell up here. You're staying on our couch for, for a weekend, me, and his wife, Erica who I adore. They said we got you, whatever you need. And I went up and stayed with them. And I think that despair can be compounded by loneliness and
when you're alone, you get caught in your head.
And having friends to just talk through things with and just feeling the love from them and you know, there's a real art. When someone's down on one hand, you want to validate what they're saying. I hear you. That's hard. I've been there and at the same time you are doing both at the same time you want to invalidate what they're saying.
Have a sense of perspective. Don't be apathetic, but let's have a sense of perspective. This is just one thing in one day in your life and a five years, we'll be laughing about this. And that's what a good friend. Does they make you feel loved? And they come at both places really validating what you feel and invalidate any invalidating it. And if you can get both of those, give a really good friend, there's an art to doing
that. Well, I mean, that seems very powerful and just getting that call. I want to go back to
The moment you realized like all right, I'm a Believer now, because you grew up with a strong belief in God, without a strong belief, in God. How did then, like, how does that process look of becoming a Believer, like, well, obviously you're really down. You need something to hold onto in that moment, but how does that even happen?
Yeah, I was asked this week. When did you choose to become a Believer? I did not choose to become a Believer. I very reluctantly became a Believer over the last half decade or so. I've been studying.
The origins of Christianity Christianity, influence on the west. And it was a purely intellectual exercise for me. And I very much just wanted to know more than any Christian. And to basically tell them all the reasons that they were wrong, well, having a better understanding of the Bible than they did and I thought that process that project was awesome. It was
Way to win. It was a way to show off how smart I was and when I was living in New York, I found a guy named Tim Keller, who did these series of question? Christianity lectures that I went to few years over and over again? I would do these Bible studies but once again I was just interested in theological and historical questions. This was not a spiritual Quest.
And I want to know what the Bible said because I want to know what the Bible said in the same way that you wanted, what Plato says, which is that is a core part of our lives and the philosophical tradition very much. Underpins how we think how we act, how we are.
Faith was very similar. How do you go to an art museum? If you don't know what the Bible says, you you you can't you're going to miss so much. I mean good luck walking around the Louvre and you don't know what the stories of the Bible. Your missus 60% of the paintings so that was my motivation and then I moved to Austin and I enjoyed going to church because I thought it was like a like an anthropologist was a Margaret Mead you know, trying to figure out. Okay, what are these Christian people? Like it was an intellectual person exactly now in Texas.
Hey, Ed new flavor and I toured a bunch of churches in Austin, probably what to 10 of them
and in the back of your head. Did you have n elements of all? I'm gonna
now, this is going to be me one day. No, no way, no way. God honest, like honest to God. Wow. Honest to God. And
What I valued was good, mix of heart, good mix of mind. So smart people loving people. And that the Bible was open on the pulpit and that the church was grounded in the Bible, That's What mattered to me. And I toured a bunch of churches. And then I found Austin Ridge, which we've been to a few times and I love that place. And what I tell people all the time is that institution runs better than any institution I've interfaced with, in my life. Therefore, there's got to be something here. I got to look into it and
My heart began to change their. I start doing some Bible studies there but
People got frustrated with me because I was trying to think my way through this.
and I wasn't going to budge, there was no way and
Then.
March 19th of this year. I called my sister and I said,
I've gone insane. I was in a very, very dark place and
I had passed the Tipping Point of these thoughts or dark but you're still in a healthy place and into, okay, these are unhealthy and very dangerous thoughts.
and,
I reached the end of myself and I called a friend I said hey we're going to with a dead mouse concert, bring the girls. Let's party it up and I was out till about 1:00 in the morning didn't feel very well.
And it wasn't that I'd had a lot of substances. I just really didn't feel. Well something was off. I came back home wrote till 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning
would read about
love.
And woke up the next morning, right around. 9:15 listened to the sermon that day.
Let's gets poetic listens to the sermon that day.
Then I something was moving in my heart. Something was different.
Then I pulled into church.
And it was I pulled in and I was like, wow, I'm home and the Bible chapter that we're reading the way that our church goes, we open up. I will chapter, we go through the entire thing and it was second Corinthians chapter 7. I actually was, listen to the sermon this morning because I do a daily Bible study and today I'm on 2nd. Corinthians chapter 7
And,
and it just starts raining in this just starts, right? Is that is remarkable. I don't know if the listeners at home, could you get? That is crazy. Yeah, as you say that, the Rings are important
and so I walk in and I walk into the service or the the sanctuary and I kid you not. I felt like God, put a cape around my back. Kate must been 10 pounds was on my back. I went up, I used to never ever ever sing the songs. I hated this.
Songs. And I would just try to get through the songs and go to the sermon and I sang at the top of my lungs, I cried my eyes out. And by the time I walked out I believed in God.
Wow.
what's so interesting and I'm curious to get your take on this, is that
I don't know if it's social media or something else, but it seems like a very meet oriented culture that I was raised in at least and I think social media is part of that because the profile you look at your profile, you post on your profile. It's all you you, whereas you weren't really posting things in nineteen fifty sixty seventy eighty nine and so that nature of it of making yourself the god in the social media landscape.
Really, if you have any bit of reflection, makes you say, like there's more to all this than myself. And yeah, I think that I'm curious how you think social media has played a role in your release to
God.
I haven't really posted it about it much. I think that's the first time I've ever talked about it, but I think these are long-standing Trends. I think the photo images have a lot to do with it. The sense of self changes in an image, think of the story of Narcissus the big turning point is that he looks at his reflection in the water and Christopher, lash, wrote a book called the culture of narcissism and 80s and the 90s that was very prescient, think it's gradual but there
Has been a big decrease in. I think most of the impact in terms of social medias how its influenced faith has been cultural in that.
Culture is created in California. The tech is made in the Bay Area and the culture is made in Los Angeles and the bay and Allah are very ungodly places. Mmm, so then you get these mimetic Cycles. There was a
SportsCenter tweeted that one of the tennis players at the US Open. She'd just won and she woke like off Gathering her
thoughts. Well, we'll put it here. She's sweet praying to God Coke cycle, what?
And it's just this goofy thing that we have in culture where
we've dismissed prayer, we've just described are,
and, and all that. So I think that that's how social media is influenced faith, more than the culture of narcissism. Hmm.
And then what do you make of like why you haven't spoken about it? This is the first time you're speaking about it.
I need to tell my parents first. Told my sister this week and this week. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. How'd that go?
Very well, very well.
But it's a huge change. Yeah, huge change. And
Some fundamental sense, you are born again and that sounded crazy to me and I'm I feel it now so and it's scary. Why?
I think if you reasons first, you're committing to a higher standard for yourself that you didn't hold yourself to. And now you're committing to a moral framework. That people love to bash.
To talk about the public relations thing. This is an anti PR move so that weighs on my Consciousness, that this is not the cool or trendy thing to do.
And there will be a backlash, there will be a backlash. The day that I was going to tell my parents, I was reading acts about Paul being beaten and tortured for his faith and for what he believed,
Scary. And
I'm here for it but certain people have snapped your fingers conversions where one day they act this way. The next day they act that way. And there were certain changes that I made
But it feels very gradual to me. I did have that snap my finger conversion on that day.
but,
It has felt a little bit more like a gradient.
because I've had to tell people, I've had to have the conversations about it, and they've been very hard conversations,
Okay, a couple of things. But first, what advice would you have to somebody listening to this for the first time? Now they're curious about the Bible because they're like, David Pro. He's into the Bible, he's going to church what's going on like that, blows their mind, but they're interested and intrigued in it. And they want to know where to start. What advice would you have for that person?
Oh,
I would just start here. It's just such a cool book. Yeah, it's a went to the Museum of the Bible and Washington DC and you walk into this room and it's been translated into hundreds thousands of languages, this giant oval room and you can just see all the different translations of the Bible. This book has been around for more than 2000 years, people reading, I mean, number one, best seller. If you ever wanted one, you know,
Lindy Lindy, and
it's stood the test of time. If you look at the founding of America, you read the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. What you mean? That's self-evident. It's not self-evident at all. The next sentence says, we are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. Okay? So that's pretty interesting that the most memorable line, the Declaration of Independence for America. It is backed up by the Lord Almighty. Okay? So let's look into that, let's look into that.
Then you read the New Testament and if you read Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he says, if Jesus has not been risen, then our faith is in vain. Meaning that Christians themselves in the Bible are writing that your faith is flimsy and based on nothing. If Jesus has it been risen which to me I said that means this is either the biggest scam in human history. Billions of people believe it or
this is capital-t truth.
Man, that's exciting. Whoo, you know let's bring our hands together. Let's roam together. Let's get into the weeds here. I'm like, that sounds fascinating and then you have this thing, where if you look at the stats and you say in what way is our age, an anomaly, one of the big things is this is an age without a lot of faith. What does that imply for Humanity? What does that mean? Hey you want to be cultured? Well, how are you gonna be culture? How are you going to read great literature? How are you going to study? Great art? How are you going to travel?
Through Europe. If you don't know what the Bible says, for me, that is that was my mission to go. Figure that out to go. Try to solve those questions from an intellectual perspective. That sounds like the greatest puzzle while time.
Yeah, I when it really hit me that this is something that's been referenced so many times, and I've such a awareness of but I've never actually do Vin to the text and read it. Myself to me, that was like the sign of like
Alright, let's get to work here, there's something to be done. There's some things I need to read in order to fully understand the world in which we're talking about. Because so often we will make these assumptions about the Bible or religion or and you could listen to my episode with Brent, be sure to listen to all my assumptions and I still have many of those but I want to explore them further and really test them and read about the thing that we have put on a pedestal in our society, in terms of a text that's been read by the
A lot of people.
Yeah, Brent said, one of the greatest things ever to me, which is what I hope to say to other people is you can think what you want to think it is by faith that I believe. Absolutely. I do not have any firm proof. It is by faith. There's two things. The first is any worldview that you adopt is going to have faith. There was a study that came out.
I'd always been taught that the Earth was 13 billion years old. In the study comes out, turns out, 26 billion years old. So we're off by 13 billion years. And what I take from that is even in the scientific world view. Some would say especially in the scientific world view. There's a lot of faith that peoples.
Idea of Truth is grounded on. We're up by 13 billion years. So ideas like that sort of loosen the screws on my atheism and made me realize hey no matter what position. I adopt it's going to have to be a leap of faith. And with that you can think what you want, but
If you're not going to be a believing Christian, have some good answers for why maybe read a few of the books, know what it actually says. And most people I speak with
I haven't read the Bible, not talk about the whole thing, but read one of the gospels fuel, Paul's letters, some of the Old Testament, just get a general handle on what it actually says.
Christianity is bad PR in the culture for good reason and
never know what the third one is, but
Knowing what the Bible says, Christianity is bad PR in the culture. There's you know a few things. Let's let's clean this part up. We can three. Yeah, I mean just I don't know. I just got caught, it's ugly.
And people have church hurt, you know, they have bad experiences around faith and I get it.
but,
I'm not, I don't worship the church. I don't worship people, who are Christians. I don't worship the Bible. I worship Jesus and I try to follow Jesus. And that's what I care about. And one thing that really helped me was realizing that they're way more Christians in the world, then I realized and way fewer Christians. They're way more in that.
In some sense.
Everyone in West is a Christian in that judeo Christian ideas, underpin Western morality. Look at how the Romans treated babies. Look at how modern westerners treat babies. There's so many examples of this our sense of morality is
Christianity without Christ in a lot of ways. Mmm, so
We're all shaped by these ideas and on the other hand there's way fewer Christians than I ever realized in that 033 4050 percent of America's Christian America is a very Christian Nation, but one of the things that really helped me was to ask how many of those people who are Christians actually lay their life down for the word of God for Jesus, for what they believe. And the answer is very small and so as I thought about,
Am I interested in doing this? Is this something that's attractive to me? I only looked at those people's lives and I said,
Are the fruits of the spirit showing up in their life in a way?
That surpasses my life and the answer was an unequivocal. Yes. So when I thought about more people that got me interested when I thought about fewer people,
That pulled me in and then back to the question about Choice, it wasn't a choice that all I, it was Supernatural, whatever happened.
It's, it's really cool. And it's been remarkable to be taken in by you and in the journey and I appreciate your invitations to go to church and I will continue going because I'm interested as well. And yeah, I think it's a really cool thing to continue to bridge. The gap between the online, David and the real-life David one thing
That really struck me from spending time with you is the lock screen. You have as well as you have a printed out sheet with different. Okay, ours and personal. Okay, ours and commitments and mantras. And I thought that those were cool things that people might not see, but might appreciate or instill in their own life. If gasps they're interesting
hardcore, practical advice here, I believe very strongly in both of these things will go just
Help me out. Here will go mood board mantras season of no. So mood boards, the first thing highly recommend and once again, weird stuff happens. So I have a mood board on the back of my phone. It's also an every mirror in my house. It is on my microwave, it is
on my desk, it is all over the place and I print out a laminate a mood board back on my phone and I probably look at this thing 300 times a day and it is a series of visuals for the kind of life that I want to live everything from a Victorian house because I want the rite of passage headquarters to eventually be a Victorian with stained stained glass windows where people can stay to Tim Keller, who's one of my big intellectual influences who recently died and I want to hold them in my memory every day to
Rosie, because I try to go on hormones. He mowed every morning when I turn off the world, and I just focus on the work to Arnold Schwarzenegger to little Emoji of son, to remind me to get out to the painting of Jesus, baptism by DaVinci. Here's where it gets spooky. I went to Florence and I saw that painting that had been on my mood board all year. I just like the painting. I didn't know where it was.
Was what museum it was and I walked into the room and I saw it right before my eyes. Wow. And I was floored, I got chills and there's a weird thing that happens once you set a Clear Vision for your life and you look at it every single day is you actually become that in a deeply subconscious level. So if there's one thing that you can take away, spend an hour tonight and take a series of images that represent the person who you want to be.
Few years, make it the back on your phone, print it out and look at it repeatedly and watch your life change and there's a sense of intentionality and a sense of repetition there that really works. And then we'll merge the next two mantras. And season of no, was sort of. Okay, ours. So what I have is for the company have exactly. My problem is, I love new things, I love. Ooh, that looks interesting. Oh, that looks interesting
Dan. And that's part of your Genius is finding those new things. Hence, finding the cultural tutor her
Hence, being friends with all these people who are on the count, but it can also be a downfall
kills by Focus. And when you run a company, you need to be focused. I need to be focused on. This is the thing and
The mistakes I made in the first half of the Year. We're not confronting conflict fast enough. I think the mistakes that I've made in the last three months and sort of the theme for the second half of the year will be
Not being focused enough on the things that really matter. I always think of a pressure point a massage massage therapist can touch a certain pressure point on your body instant release they don't need to a very hard you feel it deeply and it has a long-lasting impact. That's the same thing. When you find the thing that main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing, I love that Mantra. Shout out to Kevin Kelly and what I've tried to do is have it all on a sheet. It's almost like my NFL Playbook and I have it right there and I look at it every
On my desk. And I have a whole list of mantras where
I want to build a company that thinks a certain way around quality around speed around what we value. And an example. Here is this idea from Frank Lupin called, a it up, any problem? My face has one of three problems, either need to increase the tempo, raise the standards or narrow, the focus every problem. And so I keep that sheet to say, increase the tempo, raise the standards narrow focus, and whenever I get a problem, that's the first place I go and that grounds me in something.
The biggest problem that we face as a team is we don't narrow the focus so I underline it narrow, the focus, now, the focus. Now the focus. I think about that 100 times a day and I can always come back to that and I keep it right there for every meeting and then what I can do, look great CEOs Bezos.
Steve Jobs, make extraordinarily great products, insanely great products, used to say so many great CEOs, our slogan ears. They say the same things over and over and over and over again. How many times has Jeff Bezos said, focus on the customer 10,000, 100,000 whatever it is. It's probably not enough. I bet if he was sitting here right now, I bet he wishes he would say, it said, it more. If you spend time with great CEOs, what are they doing? They tell the same stories over and over and over and over and over.
Get, what are they doing?
What they're doing is they're constantly rehearsing their main message. Like a comedian. I'm going to say this. How did that land? Okay, Matt week it next time, How does it land? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, I've won CEO that. I'm very close to if he's been running companies for 30 years worth multiple billion dollars and about 70 to 80% of the dinner, I could say with the same Fidelity that he says it. Because I've heard the same stories over and over and over again about
Seventeen thousand words of notes from him? That I have all highlighted that. I with the way that we hang out is, and it's freaking awesome that I got to do this. We hang out, I keep an iPad open and I type the entire time and I asked him questions. It's about a 98 percent to 2 percent talking ratio. It's the greatest thing ever. And I just type and type and type and type of type questions. And now I have his entire business world view in
An Evernote document. That now I'm working on basically building out his operating system, his brain and
One of the biggest things I've learned from him is three lines, three words each. So in the 90s, he was running his company. Big companies, write these giant strategy memos and his whole philosophy was I got these really smart people. They smart Engineers from Harvard from Stanford, whatever and they need impressive strategy, memos. Otherwise you're not going to have a good CEO. I gotta be smart and its director of HR said,
Stop writing long strategy, memos.
And he had worked for Pepsi and a few other giant companies and Co said get the hell out of my office. I want to hear from you.
Director of HR, goes out interviews, a bunch of people inside the company and says, what's your top priority for the year, which are top early for the quarter says great. But a month later invites. The CEO in says, hey
I wrote out all the things that the people in your company think is the core priority. Look at them. Are these are priorities kicks over chair. Also, flip over the tables. Like what the hell? This isn't my party at all. These people even reading gets all mad.
and,
Director of HR, calms him down. Says the problem is when you write 25 page strategy, memos people look at one sentence and they say that one sentence. I agree with that one sentence. Now that's my priority. He says, from now, on you get three lines, three words each, that is your entire Focus. It's been 25 years. He says, it's one of the best business decisions he's ever made to switch to three lines. Three words
each. Well, so, a it up is that yours?
What is, what would you define your message? The core message that you're repeating over and over
again.
Ours is published quality ideas, find your people and 2x your potential. Mmm, those are the three things that we are totally orbited around it, right? Of passage published quality ideas. Your stuff has to be good. You got to publish it and ideas is plural because we believe in being prolific. The second one is find your people. That is build an audience. It's like a triple entendre build an audience, find your people of creators who you want to learn from. And the third is find friends, who can help you.
Right, and who stir your soul and then the third is published quality ideas, or the third is to extra potential, double your income or do work. That's twice as meaningful. And that's what we're open it around yet. I'm saying that and it's got to be clearer and clearer and clearer but publish quote ideas find your people to extra potential. That is the story, three lines, three words each, that is the story that I try to get people to buy into. If you can publish quote ideas, then you can find your people and you can to extra potential and that is the atomic.
MC unit of my
work. What did your high school physics? Teacher do
differently?
Mi Chen was amazing.
so,
never told the story before so when we were in high school,
we were kids and we would sometimes crack racist jokes and I'm not proud of it but we would
And we were driving one day.
and I was the team captain of the golf team and
we're driving one day.
And we're going through West Oakland, which is not a good neighborhood.
And my golf coach, and my physics, teacher, and my advisor, same guy miles Chen.
Skirts, the car over.
Gets into a spot. This guy parked a car faster than anybody else. And what he would do is he would drive up to the car in front of him. So fascinated, slam on the brakes so you go and your neck would hit the seat back and he did that and goes David get the hell out of the car.
Sorry. Okay. Get out of car steps outside.
You guys come with me.
Not a good neighborhood.
or walk and everybody else stays in the car, locks the car door, slams, the van door shut,
And we walk into a fried chicken restaurant packed.
And we walk all the way back to the cash register.
I'm the only white guy in the entire bar in Thai restaurant.
We wait out there. He doesn't say a word to me.
Wait, for 10 minutes for fried chicken to be ready.
He loved food, especially Asian food and he gets these two shiet bags. Fried Chicken
I hold one, he holds the other.
We Meander back to the car about 20 feet away. He stops walking
stares me in the eye and says the only thing it said to me the entire time
stop being racist. Oh my God.
Get back in the car and go back to school.
Wow.
What were you thinking?
I don't know, dude, I was 50 year old kid, I wasn't thinking at all. I was goofing off with my buddies and I don't know what I was thinking. I'm really not proud of that story but that's what happened.
That's well it was interesting cause I heard you talk about him in a previous podcast about how he was a phenomenal teacher. It's like that's a great example of being a phenomenal. Teacher
that is a great example, being a phenomenal teacher and a great example of you say, less to say
more. Yeah.
Power of Silence.
So much of what you say is nothing to do with what you say.
There's a great line there. That's a tweet, he
was a great teacher. He was a great teacher and a great teacher in this way. Here's another story.
this this Earth me, we were
I mean we just thought we were the top of the world as a whole High School boys do and there was a golf practice one day.
And we're going to do like an indoor golf practice, probably because it's been raining and March Madness was on and we watched me and my best buddy from high school, watch the game downstairs, and we ended up showing up late to golf practice and we were late. He knew the, we're watching the tournament and we walk in and goes, why are you late? As you would always do it always have this funny laugh and we go. We're watching the game goes.
and you thought that you could be late,
And he suspended me and my buddy for two weeks from the team and we missed an important tournament.
and he was angry and you just want to teach us a lesson and he did
And I think that discipline has gone out of favor and society and I think it's underrated in a lot of ways.
How you do it matters and moments like that when you get suspended from your golf team are awful.
and you feel terrible and you hate, the person who's disciplining you
And in the moment you think this person is a horrible human being.
And they don't get it.
When in fact, they're being incredibly loving and you don't get it and he embodied that very well. He wasn't. I make him out to be a much stricter and more Stern person that he was. He was awesome and he would go on. All these Adventures That Guy new Asian food in the Bay area, as well as anyone who's ever lived who's ever lived there and he triple majored at UC Berkeley and physics astrophysics and painting.
And he ended up.
Being high school physics teacher, and co-founding, the school. And he was a great mentor in terms of the things that he would say, when you go to a bakery, a great mentor in terms of the conversations that you'd have on the sixth hole on a Tuesday afternoon, how's school going? And it was really funny because the other teachers didn't get it. He had his own style, is own sensibilities own way about them.
The kids who loved miles, I bet he is friends with more students who he taught 15 years ago than any other teacher at that school. And I think it says a lot about what is the role of mentorship? What is the role of Education? What is a good teacher?
Because it's not about y equals MX plus b. I'll tell you that.
I was going to say those stories that you gave had no bearing in terms of actual practicality of knowledge of physics, nothing like that. It was about how he made you feel. And what you learned from a human sense that you could apply outside the classroom. And I think it's important to think about as your school, rite of passage attempts to reshape education. So how do you make sure that you take those lessons from miles and build?
Into the course.
yeah, I think that
education is a little bit like kitchen where it's, there's a bunch of different good. There's a spoon. There's a knife. There's a fork. There's Tupperware, there's plates and they're all part of the kitchen but different
Tools serve a different purpose. I'm not at all saying that, hey, the knowledge that matters isn't really important. There's a school in Alpha school. They promise that every single student will learn twice as fast as the average.
American kid in a public school and they'll do it in two hours a day. I think that's amazing and every kid will learn the Common Core super well, huge fan of that. I mean, jeez, if you could snap your fingers, know, the Common Core would be amazing. I wish I could know that. I talked to high schoolers there, they know math far. Better than I do. I wish I knew
that, but what's common core? The common
core is basically a government mandated
a government designed program on base level knowledge that you should know from math, to history, to English, all those sorts of things, and it gets a really bad rap and I get why it's very standardized, but
There's a lot of good things about the common core and I wish I knew everything in the Common Core, there's no doubt. I mean, I'm not saying I'm not standing up and saying, hey, you shouldn't be able to graduate from eighth grade unless, you know, the common core. But if I could just have Elon Musk take,
What's that tool that neural link and put it in my brain? So I know it. I'd say yes, totally. So there's the knowledge part and I'm not sure that rite of passage that I can impart that kind of knowledge on somebody. I think it really takes a personal relationship. I think, in rite of passage, what we try to do is we try to inspire, we try to give people other people in their life who they can write with who they can think with, to cultivate and Forge deep friendship.
So I think that these are just different approaches to education and different ways of doing it
makes sense. How do you think about relationships and romantic relationships being on social media? Particularly because I asked because I was thinking about how this is the first generation of people who have our creators and how do they navigate romantic relationships. I just keep it out of Spotlight
the way that I think of
I just don't want that to be public. I really want a
Deep and intense private life and I feel like I have
that but what about finding that
person.
Yeah, it's funny.
I have a counselor who I worked with when I was in my relationship who tried to
Salvage it and love the guy and we put together a plan for how to meet a significant other. So just as I have. Okay, ours and all that. I have a plan for how to think about this and the best.
Way is, you know who loves matchmaking.
Women in happy marriages.
Where the family adores you,
that is so smart.
Wives, put them to work for you. So that is a big way that I think about this and the church plays a big component, but just being honest about this what I want. And what he said is, if you're a man
Who has a strong sense of morals?
And your high integrity person and you consistently do what you say you're going to do and you follow through on your word.
And you're someone with a sense of vision and you're on a mission and you treat others, right?
Of course, people want to set you up.
And that's 100 times better than swiping left and right on Tinder on a Saturday night when your dinner date canceled on you and your just desperately trying to find some date. And I think that one of the ways that I've been thinking about is not think of it as dating but think of it as courtship and just what's implied in that I think is
Smart as a way to think about it and maybe I should watch some Jane Austen movies and think of the white glove Ball. But I think that there's a lot of wisdom in the idea of going to a ball and dancing and how people in Texas go to Stepping. And that's the way to do it Logan or he has this idea where she says things that you enjoy High propensity to meet people, find things that are high on both of those axes.
I just think, personal introductions, which is the way we always used to do it. Someone knows you the introduce you, they set you up and both people have a strong incentive to treat each other very well. You get no ghosting. You don't get bad behavior.
Brilliant. Yeah, that is true. I mean, you have a great quote here where you said people who jump from relationship to relationship in search of variety, have it backward. Deep relationships are singular, while superficial ones are basically the same. So if you want the kind of variety that matters invest in long-term relationships.
Oops, and so why is it so true? But it's not often practiced by people in their 20s, same thing with friends. Yeah.
I mean, I had, I have a few friends either names written down. I mean, they call me right now at leave this podcast at fly to wherever they are in the world. Someone was in.
Middle of Europe needs help. Mozambique Argentina. I'd be on a plane right now. Very small group of friends, and I've told them that you're part of my ride-or-die crew, whatever you need dancers. Yes. It's a small group, very deep friendships, and a travel with them.
And I see them as my closest advisors, mmm, I invited them.
We're brutally honest with each other.
and,
Their series of brothers, that I've surrounded myself with some are older. Some of the same age I want to have a few younger guys, who are similar ways and you know the relationships definitely change with age. I have a few great mentors, who tell me what I need to hear and they're really hard on me. Sometimes had a guy yell at me so intensely in February that he had saliva coming out of his mouth. That guy loves me, that guy loves me and would be with me till the
Day. I die, he would do anything for me and
He was just expressing emotion, he was expressing fire. And in this dull gray pale sterile world that we live in where stoicism is hailed as the crazy Elite virtue of not expressing emotion of being calm of not. It can be interpreted as not putting your heart into things. It's the opposite that I'm more attracted to of intense emotion and devotion and feeling and pouring your heart.
The things I'm a highs and low kind of guy. I look at King David in the Bible and that guy had the highest of highs, and he had some tough lows, and what'd he do? He wrote the Psalms so many of them. He wrote beautiful, poetry, he played the lyre, beautiful music, and I'm very inspired by that. And I was somebody who did pursue stoicism and said, hey, how can I be even Keel? It's not me. I am somebody who has embraced. And told the people around me, I'm gonna have high highs, and I'm going to have low lows.
Those and in the high highs, I want you to, I want you to fly with me. Make sure I don't turn out like Icarus flying too close to the Sun, but when I'm low lows, that's when I need you to come out, stay on my couch. That's when I need you to call me. That's what I need you to be with me. And that's when I need you to love me. Well, and I'll do the same thing for you, and I'm very explicit about what that looks like, not in a way that kills the Beauty and the Majesty of the relationship, but we all know and were there for each other, and it's beautiful thing.
You know, at one point you said like, your heart wasn't in life. And you also said that you were so alone, it felt like, yeah. And it went did this Band of Brothers that come about came out of that. Yeah, make some really
came out of that and I've made, it's been one of my major focuses of this year. It was all implicit, and I've really made it. Implicit this has been through my work with Ross, Nathan. One of the things that I was mentioning earlier about a season of, no, I wrote out.
Out a very small list of things that I do and a very large list of things that I don't do and it's all on a sheet. So it is almost algorithmic. If I get an invitation I cross-referenced with the sheet and the answer is yes or no. And I worked very hard on making sure that the things that are that I am. And I'm not allowed to do have really been thought through, and one of the things that I needed to think about was out of the people in my life who
I
want to be fully devoted to MMM, who were the men that
I'm going to say yes to no matter what and when I did that, I had a very small list and I wrote out certain people in my life that I really want to invest in those relationships and from once you get a sense of clarity Clarity is sharp, its pointy, it can be offensive but once you get a sense of clarity here, like a Conchords nose, you can Pierce through reality, you can make what you want to have happen happen. There's a sharpness about it. And once you make that decision,
Those friendships get so much deeper and for me, it's just small group and I told them all and it's made a world of difference. Only two out of six live in Austin and I see
Every single person at least every six weeks
and are they all friends with each other as well? No, this is just like one-on-one you being the spoke to all of them
sometimes they come together right? Sometimes I'll introduce them but they're mostly in separate spheres
and when that you came up with that list of, yes, I'm doing this. No, I'm doing that. What are on those lists and how can people think through for themselves their own? Yes. And no less.
Okay, very concrete example. I had a very high level person in Austin. Invite me to a cocktail party.
This is a common occurrence for David
Pro. I said, no. And the reason is the reason is, I don't do cocktail parties. I don't do group dinners that are more than six people.
I will skip out on a lot of big group events.
That would be really exciting that I just no longer do and I don't have to think about being enamored by The Glitz and the Glam of the opportunity. I don't have to be another fan of do. I don't go to conferences.
None, I don't go to conferences unless one of my tightest buddies is running that conference, in which case, I go to every single one. I don't go to weddings, unless it's in Austin, or it's one of the people that I really care about, in which case I fall out, right? And it's just, I was getting so distracted that I wasn't present at the things that I was going to. I wasn't doing the work.
That I'm on this planet to be doing. I wasn't being the friend or the family member that I was capable of being and by having a firmer line, which I need. I'm in no way giving a Panacea advice for everybody. This is what works for me with my circumstances, my psychology, and my very particular set of strengths and weaknesses at this point in my life right now.
So with that, as a caveat having these clear edges helped me because I get very excited and I end up making decisions that I end up regretting later on.
Yeah, I think what it sounds like, one of the things that you've had trouble with. As you've grown rapidly is getting seduced by all the options that are in
front of you. You know, the story, the girl, in the red dress and the make in The Matrix.
Yes. But you can walking sees the girl in the red
dress.
And who is it? Who says were you looking at? Did you hear what I said?
And turns around and some with a gun right there. Bang. And I got this for Alex Rosie, but it's so good. So much of life. Is that girl in the red dress, enticing, beautiful, seducing attracts you. And then the gun is right there behind you, but the big lesson that I got from him Rosie is that you constantly need to be relearning? What the girl in the red dress? Looks like who she is because as you get, bigger and bigger, she
Comes more and more seductive and I have fallen into red dress traps over and over again in the last few years and I regret my lack of focus. It is set me back quite a bit. I've burned hundreds of thousands of dollars because of it
and I've had relationships, that have been very deeply hurt because of my wandering eye with opportunities and
I think about that a lot. So yes, I do need very firm boundaries and set of rules. I think of rules all the
time. Well, this points to why you got so excited. When you could give the cultural tutor specific advice of just doubled down on writing, a thread every single day. Go go. Go. Because you're like, I know the mistake that I made and I know the mistake that I wish I didn't make and it was more focus in that part of my life and because that he's gone further faster, totally. So
What other things should people be thinking about a lot of people listening to this right now either have aspirations to grow, massive audiences or they have them right now. So what are some things that they should be thinking about as they grow in terms of red
dresses?
Well, one of the things that I like to ask is how do I craft craft the path? That only I can craft. Mmm.
Be the person I can only be.
But carve the path that only, I can carve be the person that only I can be do the things that only I can do and write the essay that only I can write.
I come back to that all the time and there's a few things there, there's the seeds of Distinction action.
and,
Knowing that it's going to take time for you to get there. It's really easy to have distinction and differentiation. I mean, look at Modern Art, Modern Art is atrocious because it's only going for those sorts of things. I mean, Duchamp puts a urinal in an art museum in 1913 and people are like, wow, this is crazy. That there's a urinal and honestly it's a genius move. Duchamp is a smart guy. If you watch interviews with him, it's a great documentary.
Bye bye. Roger Scruton called, why Beauty matters very foundational to my worldview.
And there are some interviews with the shop and he's brilliant.
In terms of how he thought about that. But then you now have bananas that are plastered and duct tape to the walls. You have people who have who defecate in museums and they call it art. And what has happened, is art has gone from a pursuit of Mastery and quality into shock. And shock comes through. Oh my goodness, I've never seen this before. You'll never believe what happened and so
What I come back to is the distinctiveness is important but it has to be paired with quality and distinction and quality. That's what moves the world that is the stuff that people look at and they say my goodness. And that's the path that I try to be on distinction. Isn't enough quality doesn't have enough of the self-expression, the sense of individuality. And then also things that aren't distinct are often trapped in the myopia of what
Girard called mimesis where you're just imitating. Other people looking around copying, and
Gerard's ideas have been very impactful for me because I know how much of my life I spent in a very imitative path. Go to a in San Francisco, go to a good middle schools, you can get into a good high school, go to a good high school so that you can go to a good college, go to a good college. So you can get a good job, get a good job, some go to good graduate school so that then you can eventually be a partner at a law firm or something as if that's the Pinnacle of life and
There's a lot more to life than than that path.
Your quote here is risk-averse. Parents and Educators push children down conventional paths, parents and roll their kids in the same schools and the same extracurriculars to help them get into the same college that they can work. For the same corporations in 2007, more than half of Harvard graduates went to work in Investment Banking or management consulting. It's like we're living in an imitative imitative enmity. It's a tongue twister.
We're living in this world sells she, she sells seashells by the seashore.
We're living in this world. That's copy each other all the time. Yeah. And the distinctiveness piece is really important. How can people be more
distinctive? I mean, that is work and you need, great people around you, and being tapped into the tenor of your heart and knowing what those frequency sound. Like it is a lot.
Of work. It's something I work on every single day, I mean, I sit down and, like, right now, I've spent three months on this, what is my first core value and it's the pursuit of Excellence. So, first, it took me a month and a half of writing and coaching to realize that Excellence wasn't. My value is the pursuit of Excellence. So that's it. The second order effects of that are huge. Okay then what is the pursuit of excellence mean write it all out?
Then how do I biblically justify the pursuit of Excellence? Go through find all the verses in the stories that justify that idea and now my homework for these two weeks is what do I need to do every single day? What do I do? Every single day that is aligned and in pursuit of Excellence with that first core value. So that's three hours work, right? Outer three months work. You write it all out and I'm doing that for my top five core values so I'm going to do it again and again, and again, and again.
Again, I'll have the five and then I have that Clarity of. What am I going for? And the thing is, if you think of the American conception of success, you think of someone who's retired sitting on a beach in Mexico, sipping a piña colada, like they're in a Corona commercial, the Corona commercial or something and what is implicit in that stasis doing nothing. I've made it
It's for the lack of vision. Belly's, getting a little fatter. First, you have a bowling ball, then you got some bigger there. You're just getting more and more overweight and maybe your golfing to sort of stay in shape. And I just take issue with that. Telos of what human, what a human life can be. I'm much more excited about what is the thing that is you? And how do you live that every day in a place of action in a place of motion being aligned with your core values?
Values working towards your mission, embodying, your values, all those sorts of things. And so the problem is that people don't know what that thing is. It's hard to find, but then if you find what those things are and you define them for yourself, then you can just constantly live in your value. Striving towards a clear set of highest ideals that you've defined for yourself. And then
Constantly working to in service of God, in service of other people in service of your highest ideals, and service of omission of another future working towards that and trying to bring it on a planet Earth. Every day
I've sent this quote of yours to, at least three or four, my friends, and I have some friends whose careers have absolutely taken off and the common theme among them is that they've surrendered to their nature, their done trying to be somebody. They're not
And I think what you just said is encapsulated in that tweet. So well and someone asked you, what do you look for to find out? If somebody is fully surrendered, and you said, lack of procrastination and general energy, you can see the Vitality or lack thereof in their eyes and it takes two or three seconds.
And so I'd love to it's so
sexy when people are on a mission. Yeah, it's just awesome. Yeah, you can feel it. They're onto something there on a different wavelength. And the thing is some people are doing it very selfishly, which I find to be repulsive and some people are doing it in service of something higher and they're they're feeling called for something there's elevated devotional and it's so beautiful.
Yeah, it's special man and you're clearly someone who's on that path.
An honor sitting across from you. So many times, you can check out our previous episodes link below. But I like to end these podcasts with challenges. Yeah. And I ask the guests for a challenge to leave the audience with something to hopefully live a better life. Does a challenge come to mind?
yeah, I got a few
know what the Bible says?
From an intellectual perspective. It's so interesting. And there's so much learn. Now what the Quran says, know the basics of Hebrew literature know that Realm of the world.
One of the most perplexing things.
right now is how many intellectuals smart people entrepreneurs are proud to not know the basic axioms of different religious faiths
And I think that's foolish.
I'll stop there.
You had a couple but that seems like an important one. Yeah, I also before I let you go, I have to say you have to check out how I write, how I write is a phenomenal podcast. I'm a huge fan. I can't believe I'm listening to this and I'm so in awe of the questions. I'm learning so much as an interviewer. And I'm so appreciative that you've put this out as service to the world because I think this podcast is going to be listened to way more.
Times a hundred years from now than it is today and I really believe it's a seminal work. So thank you so much for creating it and I'm so grateful that it's out there. So everyone should check that out. It's linked below.
And, you know, we just end with the story of that podcast. Sure. So I just launched this podcast called how I write. And I was thinking about the pressure point thing. What is the thing that I can do that if I do very well, everything else will sort of take care of itself and I
I started working on how I write in September of 2021 were the first conversations that I had about it, sitting talking to, in a meeting in my RAV4 that I just bought. And it was my, I just bought the car had a meeting then, and it went from September 2021 with a whole series of events from people resigning to internal battles of what does the quality bar? Look like to try to figure out? What is this? Show going to be about
To building an entire Production Studio in Austin so that we could host people and do all the episodes on video. It took me 23 months from the first phase of planning to launch and
no wonder why it's so good. Thank you.
And I think that it was just one of those moments when I realized and this is a something that I'm a question. I'm very interested in right now. Like, how do I do fewer?
Things. So that the things that I do can be as good as I can possibly make them and to go back to values that to me is where when you define your values, and you clarify that the pursuit of Excellence is one of your values that is then how very practically it manifests in my life, with this show. And I'm not saying the show is perfect. I'm not even saying it's Excellence but what I can tell you is that there is a wholehearted pursuit of excellence and
And that is where the very abstract work of defining values shows that very practically in my life.
Well, I will say it's excellent and I think there are many other people who would agree with that. And I recommend Kevin Kelly episode is so good, which just came out recently, but the cultural tutor one and Tyler K episode. I was like blown away. Thanks Ben. So, keep doing the great work and keep being you because you're real special person and I'm really grateful to have known you and
To see you online but also see you in
person. I really appreciated what you said to me the other day at brunch when you just had, there's the real you and there's the in public you and I, it was something I'd soap and working on, and I want to just be as much the real me, as I can, and it's taken a lot. There's a lot of fear and anxiety that was rooted in me.
A, for many years of conditioning and life and things. That who knows what happened? And it was I think a Real Testament to your perceptiveness that you picked up on the bullseye of what I've been working on for so many months. And I just love having people in my life who say the thing that needs to be sad without any judgment or condemnation but say it from a place of love and I think that was great example that. So just want to tell you that.
Thank you, I appreciate that. And who could you be if you surrender to your true nature?
ER yeah, is the question. I'll leave everyone off with at David underscore / L on Twitter right of passage.com or Rite of Passage dot school, we just bought rite of passage.com. But it is rite of passage that school that was a
whole negotiation but that's the way it is.
Thank you so much for spending time here today. Thanks man.
