How to Define Success in 2025 | Dave Asprey

Summary

Podcast Summary: The GaryVee Audio Experience – "How to Define Success in 2025 | Dave Asprey"

Episode Details:

• Title: How to Define Success in 2025 | Dave Asprey
• Host: Gary Vaynerchuk
• Guest: Dave Asprey
• Release Date: December 11, 2024

---

I. Introduction

In this insightful episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, host Gary Vaynerchuk sits down with renowned entrepreneur and biohacker Dave Asprey. Together, they delve into transformative concepts surrounding the definition of success, the evolving role of social media in entrepreneurship, mental well-being, and the profound impact of upbringing and parenting on personal and professional growth.

II. Redefining Success and Focusing on Joy

Dave Asprey opens the conversation by exploring his personal journey of redefining success beyond conventional metrics. He emphasizes the importance of intrinsic motivation and joy in entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [04:02]:
  "I love entrepreneurship because I think it is one of the arenas in the world that allow people to maximize their joy."

Asprey warns against pursuing entrepreneurship simply because it's trendy, highlighting the emotional and psychological toll it can take when not aligned with genuine passion.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [04:15]:
  "It's really lonely and hard and it hurts your self-esteem because unlike school, you can't hide when you fail in entrepreneurship."

III. The Role of Social Media in Modern Entrepreneurship

The discussion shifts to the transformative power of social media in building and scaling businesses. Asprey contrasts early content distribution methods with today's algorithm-driven platforms, underscoring the unprecedented opportunities for organic content creators.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [12:09]:
  "If you do not take social Media Seriously in 2024, it doesn't mean you're going to go out of business. But you are absolutely missing out on opportunity to create your thing that is incredible."

He elaborates on the shift from the social graph to the interest graph, explaining how modern algorithms enable creators to reach niche audiences effortlessly.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [13:27]:
  "The interest graph is make something and let the algorithm, the AI, find the audience of the billions of people it has on the platform. That is remarkable."

IV. Gratitude, Empathy, and Mental Health

Asprey and Vaynerchuk delve into the significance of gratitude and empathy as foundational elements for personal happiness and professional success. Asprey shares his practices of maintaining high energy and relentless optimism through gratitude.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [17:45]:
  "Gratitude. It's perspective. I just don't value this stuff enough. I get validation from the people that actually know me, how they speak about me behind my back."

Vaynerchuk adds to this by discussing his own journey with gratitude and forgiveness, emphasizing the role of neuroscience in rewiring the brain for a more positive mindset.

V. Parenting and Upbringing Influences

A poignant segment of the episode covers how upbringing and parental influence shape one's approach to life and business. Asprey reflects on his Soviet Union roots and the resilience instilled by his grandparents, contrasting it with modern parenting styles.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [06:55]:
  "If in the first 10 years of your life you are not an incredible means. Lower middle class and below. This is the greatest way to be born. Money is not the variable of happiness."

He critiques the current trend of over-pampering children, advocating instead for fostering independence and resilience.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [53:17]:
  "Teaching indifference is devastating. Worst thing you could ever do."

VI. Leadership and Kind Candor

The conversation transitions to leadership qualities, particularly the balance between kindness and candor. Asprey introduces his concept of "Kind Candor," a trait he elaborates on in his upcoming book.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [37:57]:
  "I call it Kind Candor. I'm only at a 5 out of 10 right now. But fuck, three, four years ago, I was a one out of 10."

He discusses the importance of being honest and transparent with team members to foster a healthy and productive work environment.

VII. Toxicity in Organizations

Asprey and Vaynerchuk address the detrimental effects of toxic individuals within organizations. They stress the economic and cultural losses incurred when companies retain employees who undermine team morale despite their performance.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [40:13]:
  "The great economic loss of every company is compromising your values because someone is effective at their job."

Vaynerchuk shares real-world examples of how removing toxic employees can lead to enhanced team performance and overall company health.

VIII. Choosing Passion Over Trends in Entrepreneurship

A critical discussion point revolves around the necessity of pursuing entrepreneurial ventures aligned with personal passion rather than fleeting trends. Asprey argues that genuine interest drives long-term success and fulfillment.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [30:29]:
  "If you make $318,000 a year doing music, you will be 4 billion times happier than making $730,000 a year in real estate."

He encourages listeners to build businesses around what they truly love, leveraging modern tools and platforms to reach dedicated audiences.

IX. Happiness and Work-Life Balance

The episode culminates with a heartfelt dialogue on achieving genuine happiness and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Asprey passionately advocates for prioritizing personal fulfillment over societal expectations and material gains.

• Quote:
  Dave Asprey [19:32]:
  "Happiness is worth fighting for. If your job is killing you, don't come home and use Netflix or food or alcohol as your escape from work."

He emphasizes the importance of aligning one's career with personal values and passions to foster enduring happiness and satisfaction.

X. Conclusion

In closing, Gary Vaynerchuk and Dave Asprey reinforce the episode's central themes: redefining success through personal joy, leveraging social media authentically, cultivating gratitude and empathy, and prioritizing mental well-being. They inspire listeners to pursue meaningful ventures and foster environments that promote genuine happiness and growth.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Redefine Success: Move beyond traditional metrics and focus on personal joy and fulfillment.
• Leverage Social Media: Utilize modern platforms to authentically reach and engage with audiences.
• Cultivate Gratitude and Empathy: These are essential for personal happiness and effective leadership.
• Impact of Upbringing: Early life experiences and parenting significantly shape one’s approach to life and business.
• Leadership with Kind Candor: Balancing kindness with honesty fosters a healthy work environment.
• Eliminate Toxicity: Removing negative influences within organizations enhances overall performance.
• Pursue Passion: Building businesses around personal interests leads to greater satisfaction and success.
• Prioritize Happiness: Aligning career with personal values is crucial for long-term happiness and well-being.

---

Notable Quotes:

1. Defining Entrepreneurship with Joy:
   Dave Asprey [04:02]:
   "I love entrepreneurship because I think it is one of the arenas in the world that allow people to maximize their joy."

2. The Power of Social Media Algorithms:
   Dave Asprey [13:27]:
   "The interest graph is make something and let the algorithm, the AI, find the audience of the billions of people it has on the platform. That is remarkable."

3. Happiness Over Financial Metrics:
   Dave Asprey [19:32]:
   "Happiness is worth fighting for. If your job is killing you, don't come home and use Netflix or food or alcohol as your escape from work."

4. Leadership and Kind Candor:
   Dave Asprey [37:57]:
   "I call it Kind Candor. I'm only at a 5 out of 10 right now. But fuck, three, four years ago, I was a one out of 10."

5. Advocating for Passion-Driven Entrepreneurship:
   Dave Asprey [30:29]:
   "If you make $318,000 a year doing music, you will be 4 billion times happier than making $730,000 a year in real estate."

6. Work-Life Balance and Personal Fulfillment:
   Dave Asprey [19:32]:
   "Happiness is worth fighting for. If your job is killing you, don't come home and use Netflix or food or alcohol or video games as your escape from work."

---

This episode serves as a profound exploration of modern success, blending personal anecdotes with actionable insights. Asprey and Vaynerchuk collectively advocate for a paradigm shift where success is measured by joy, authenticity, and meaningful connections rather than mere financial gains or societal approval.

Transcript

[A]

This is the GaryVee audio experience.

[B]

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the GaryVee audio experience. I'm Mike from Team GaryVee, and on today's episode of the podcast, we're sharing an interview that Gary did with Dave Asprey. They talk about a bunch of important topics like the significance of social media, the importance of redefining success, and focusing on joy. I hope you all enjoy.

[A]

Thank you for having me on. And honestly, I love your audience. So the answer to this question is going to be pretty fun. I've been spending a lot. You know, it's funny you said not a scientist. I think of myself that way. I'm not kidding. I was just about to say I've been in the lab. And what that means is I've been in my head. You know, people see me, especially people that don't know me as well here may see me super loud, super New Jersey, maybe a couple curse words. And I'm very empathetic to the first glance, being like, is this guy for real? Is he a blowhard? Other people love it and it clicks. Just how the world works. But what's ironic is when people see me on social media or on stages, I'm talking the whole time, right? Even in this format, I'm gonna speak a lot, even get excited at times and interrupt you. So I apologize in advance to everyone who's listening. But the reality is I spend most of my time actually thinking my favorite thing in the world is the shower is the walk to work is the long flight. And so I've been in the lab a lot in my own head for the last year, especially on the concept of redefining success. I think about root cause. Right. You know, I think about, like, when I think about health and wellness, I think about, like, the food system is very entrepreneur, you know, America's a capital. Listen, I'm an entrepreneur. I love capitalism. But when capitalism, like anything in life, goes too far, it does things like what's going on with our food situation. Right. Things like that. I think about these things.

[B]

You know, it's funny, I wouldn't have pegged you as someone who would call that out on the show. Maybe I'm just being, you know, like, you're such a broad spectrum entrepreneur, but more media. So you're worried about the food supply, too?

[A]

I think about clean eating a lot. Yeah. I think about laws. I think about the fact that grass fed can be worked around, but grass finished can't.

[B]

So when did this come online for you? Because I don't know that 10 years ago this was in your conscious field.

[A]

Like what, what changed for you in general? Like, I would argue that most of the good that's happened in my life is curiosity. And I'm also a kid that was born in the Soviet Union. So for example, my great grandma Anya, when we moved to New Jersey out of Queens, the first day she visited, she in the morning when I woke up, she made me go walk outside barefoot on the grass.

[B]

No kidding. So grandmothers are always biohackers if they were trained by their grandmothers.

[A]

Right, right. Especially from the old country. Right. My grandma spent her first 75 years in the Soviet Union, which is 50 years behind America. So, you know, or fasting. Like, because I grew up in my dad's liquor store, I didn't eat breakfast or lunch my entire life. I still don't predominantly. So there's, you know. So anyway, obviously I'm very aware of your audience and it's funny because the reason I'm bringing these things up is it's how I see entrepreneurship. So I love entrepreneurship because I think it is one of the arenas in the world that allow people to maximize their joy. I love building businesses the way I see my friends who are poets, how I see my friends. You know, I see entrepreneurship today, unlike when you and I played with it in the mid-90s, even that short ago, now it's cool. So now kids are forcing themselves to be entrepreneurs and that scares me. I want people to be entrepreneurs if they are entrepreneurs, but I'm petrified if somebody does it because they think it's the cool thing to do.

[B]

Thanks for saying that.

[A]

Well, because you know this, Dave, like it's really lonely and hard and it hurts your self esteem because unlike school, you can't hide when you fail in entrepreneurship.

[B]

Yeah. Did you hear that interview with the founder of Nvidia?

[A]

I did not.

[B]

Well, they asked him, what would you tell yourself back when you and a friend were in college dorm starting Nvidia, what advice would you have? And his advice was, don't do it. You have no idea how much suffering this is going to cause you.

[A]

Yeah, and I don't.

[B]

The most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, Right?

[A]

Well, it's funny, I don't know him and I've heard many people say that through the years and I don't think they actually mean it. I think it's a soundbite. For example, I think when you're a purebred entrepreneur, this is going to be a left field one. I actually think the adversity is the most delicious side dish.

[B]

Yeah. Because if you're used to fighting.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

It changes though. I've heard your stuff has changed as well. So for me at the beginning it was even before bulletproof, just in tech entrepreneurship. It was like, I'm going to prove something to the world or to myself and probably more to the world. Yeah, I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna push.

[A]

This is very common. I think there's two fuels. I think there, I think there's, there's chip on shoulder.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I certainly had that and I think a lot of people had that. You know, I'm very fortunate. And this is. I don't love using the word luck, but this is as black and white like luck to me as possible. Between my DNA, the mother who was a suffocating force of positivity and optimism.

[B]

Suffocating optimism.

[A]

Suffocating optimism. But practicality, not modern parenting, where you also add delusion, which eliminates merit. Incredibly optimistic and positive in sunshine, but held me accountable. A word that has completely disappeared from modern parenting and circumstance. I believe if I was born in America as a third generation DNA of my family entrepreneur, my life would have looked very different. But I was born in the Soviet Union and came here and grew up with the struggles that gave me outrageous perspective to gratitude. When you are. I believe, Dave, that the greatest gift is when you are born. If in the first 10 years of your life you are not an incredible means. Lower middle class and below. This is the greatest way to be born. That money is not a thing in your family yet, or maybe ever, but you have unlimited happiness. You've been taught, you've been built, you've been affected by. Money is not the variable of happiness.

[B]

That is kind of true in the science. But a lot of the studies I found, and this is before they inflated the crap out of the currency in the last three years.

[A]

Right. Fake all the money we printed. Yep.

[B]

Yeah, it said about $74,000.

[A]

Right. I've seen that.

[B]

So I think you're struggling all the time and you only have ramen.

[A]

Oh, by the way, by the way, I know people who have 200,000 but are always in debt are making 200,000 a year. And I mean, it's so funny because I talk to all my many of my employees, I can't say all because they don't all take me up on my open door policy and I don't get to everyone. But it's crazy because I'm so well known as an entrepreneur, but I'm the CEO of this company and I speak to kids all the time that work for me. They will often bring up that their parents were entrepreneurs, if they were, or anti entrepreneur. Right. Like one of the two. Like a union man. Right. Like whatever it might be. And it's really interesting. This is so cliche. I'm sure this will land for everyone. It's interesting to watch them then react to that. Right. They either go all in on it or they go all out on it. And the ones that go all out on it tend to be the ones that lived in families, regardless of how well they were doing. Always stressing about money because, you know, there's also the other part in society that we've lost, which is there's making money, but there's also saving money.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you know, Dave, you and I grew up when people talked about saving money. There are people that I know, and especially in this new world with inflated dollars like you just talked about, who make a million dollars a year and don't have a dollar to their name because they're buying dumb shit.

[B]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a real problem. I kind of cringe when I see, you know, guys with, you know, 25, with a Ferrari and all that. Even if you have the Money when you're 25, you probably don't need to buy.

[A]

I cringe less about the savings and money. I always ask myself, does he need that to patch up an insecurity? Are we using things to make ourselves happier? Which gets me all the way back. I'm sorry, audience, but I'm coming all the way back to the answer to your question. What would I say to 25 or 45 year old, depending on start or transition? Please pick something you actually like.

[B]

It hasn't changed that much because of AI or anything like that.

[A]

No, because I think it's incredibly hard. And if you're gonna build something for yourself, you don't know if you're destined to have a $10 million business or a 300,000 business. But if you love it, if you love Star Trek more than anything in the world and you want to build a business around that passion, you start a podcast. You make content for social media that then leads to Creative Commons product, like T shirts. Or you create like, you know, anything, literally. That's what's so amazing about the world now. You create anything, anything from a beanie to a protein powder. That maybe is a slang term that Spock said in episode four of season three. I don't know. Star Trek very well. But I'll use Star Wars. Greedo was my favorite Star wars character. Tier 7 character in the Star wars ecosystem. But when you know something deeply or you love something deeply. We live in an unprecedented time in the world where the Internet, the blockchain AI you have these. The mobile device we have, we've. You and I, when we started our stuff back in the day, we didn't live in this lucky time where we could have just done organic content and got free distribution. Dave, social media is free distribution. You know how insane that is?

[B]

It's, it's, it's so crazy. You know that, that caffeine T shirt I talked about a long time ago?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

I sold it to 16 countries in Alt drugs caffeine on Usenet, which is basically Reddit from 1990.

[A]

I remember it right.

[B]

And it was the first time someone had done that and you know, it wasn't that much money but I was just trying to pay my rent and tuition so I was happy about it and like it was very scrappy and it's one of those things though. All I had to do was talk about it to my people because I finally found my people. But now you can find new people anywhere.

[A]

Well, even better. Instead of the. In the same way that I was on Prodigy and then the Internet on the E. Robert Parker Mark Squire's bulletin board talking about wine to find my community and then make them aware of wine library, you and I had to spend hours, countless hours of building community to have a community. Today Wine Library TV started on February 21, 2006. YouTube itself was was created launched on December 15, 2005. Within two months, or roughly a little more than two months after YouTube existed, I started a long form wine show about wine on YouTube. I made a 20 minute video, I posted it, 19 people watched it. Maybe today 2006. Gary with his which I was born with my charisma and capability to communicate and my wine knowledge with at that point was more than half my life because I started learning about it at 14. That first video, Dave, might be watched by 800,000 people. The first one.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I mean it could also have gotten 80. But anybody who's listening right now, let me just give you the universal truth. If you do not take social Media Seriously in 2024, it doesn't mean you're going to go out of business. It doesn't mean that you're bad, it doesn't mean that you're like what? But you are absolutely missing out on opportunity to create your thing that Is incredible. And the speed and time, if you produce content on the Internet, of building awareness and opportunity because the algorithm now is letting the creative find its audience. When I started doing social back in the mid-2000s, and you and everybody else, all of us, when we started doing 2000, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, it was more like email marketing. You have to make content and slowly but surely build up following, aka list. And then you would post and 30 or 40%, just like email newsletters of your audience would see it. Today what we have is the interest graph, not the social graph. The social graph was build a following post. The interest graph is make something and let the algorithm, the AI, find the audience of the billions of people it has on the platform. That is remarkable.

[B]

It's crazy remarkable because you don't have to do all the sleuthing. Are you worried though? And this is something that I'm really thinking about. When podcasts first started.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You had an early podcast. I had an early podcast. Right. You could make you have these conversations. And now there's a. There's one guy, every single guest I've had on my show for 10 years, he'll call them the next day and try and schedule the same interview.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Right. And there's a lot of kind of people who will go to a website. In fact, you probably even have some people in your group. Here's how to ethically steal this business model. No, it's not ethical stealing, but they're going there just mirroring a competitor's website right over it. Feels like the amount of new information and signal to noise is going down. And risk getting an echo chamber of a bunch of people saying the same thing but moving their hands differently. And now with AI avatars, is it going to be impossible to find the good stuff versus all the copies of good stuff that are lower quality copies?

[A]

I've never had the audacity to judge what people decide is good.

[B]

Oh, no, hold on. That's bullshit. You sell wine.

[A]

Yes. But if you, you know what there is. And if you go watch the thousand episodes of Wine Library tv, I would always say, trust your palate. I would say the reason I'm doing this show is I'm tired of people only buying what Wine Spectator and Parker buy set and give good ratings. And then I would say vehemently, almost every episode, hey, by the way, I just rated this wine 94 points. But I love big League chew. I love beef jerky, I love uni, I love oysters, I love sweetbreads. I love Jolly Ranchers and Lemonheads. Unless you like every single thing I like, you have to. Then this was the thing I said 40,000 times. You have to trust your own palate. So I value craft. I think when the story you just told me, my brain went to, yeah, but he or she may not be as good at interviewing as you are. So they could have the same exact guests, but you might ask different questions. And even if they decided to ask the same questions, I believe in energy. I believe that the intent. I believe in the moment. I believe in all these other variables. So, you know, to me, I listen. I've had a career where people have done slight variations and tweaks and very slight and have built things. But I always say, but what about me? I was affected by Randy the Macho Man Savage wrestling interviews, and I loved Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy. And, like, when I watch my keynotes, like, meaning I don't watch them, like, when I'm on stage and I do keynotes somewhere about a year or two in, I'm like, wait a minute. This feels a lot like Macho man and Eddie Murphy mixed up with a little bit of, like, you know, I think that's how the world has always worked to your point. The size and scale we're playing at now. Yeah, right. The size and scale we're playing at now. And there's a lot and AI is coming, but I don't know. You know, it's funny, maybe this goes back to being suffocated by practical optimism. I'm optimistic. I believe that the cream does rise to the top. I believe that, you know, you don't get to choose how much competition you have. Right. You really don't. And I'm. I like to figure out the merit of it. And I also have enjoyed. And this is also fun being with you because we've been through this journey and have seen each other from afar, up close at times. We have moments. Right, Dave, like you and I both have had moments in our career. Yeah. Sometimes we're hotter and winning more than we are. Like you. You know, you think about all the personalities that have come up in the Internet age that you and I can think of now. Early podcasters, early Twitter personalities. Some come and go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They have a good year.

[B]

Very true.

[A]

Other people have been consistently around. Some people have family events or their own personal. This is why I want people to choose things they love. Many of the personalities that have fallen off have fallen out because of burnout.

[B]

It's so common. Right. You haven't burned out and you run, man. I feel it. Like, I've seen your energy. It's consistently high. It's because you like what you do and because of your optimism. But there's probably something else in there, too.

[A]

Gratitude.

[B]

It's gratitude.

[A]

It's perspective. It's brother, when I tell you, man, God, this is like so fucking even emotional. Like, I just don't know how to value anything other than the health of the people around me. I don't know how to do it. Of course I am proud of my career. Of course I'd like to do well. I'd like everything I do to do well. Of course I'm grateful for the accolades. I'm empathetic to the people that want to tear down my building because they don't know me. And I don't mind when they leave a negative comment like, I'm empathetic. I just. The reason I will never run out of energy is I don't value this stuff enough. I will tell you something. I know we don't know each other that well, but I know that we, like, you know, it's one of those things. We have a good sense of each other even though we haven't had the luxury of that kind of time yet. And I say yeah, because I hope we get those dinners and times.

[B]

Me too.

[A]

I don't value myself based on my professional career, even though it's my passion. I don't get self validation from Gary Vee or the successes or the followers or the money or the headlines. I just don't. I get validation from the people that actually know me, how they speak about me behind my back.

[B]

See, that is something that if I could have internalized that when I was in my early 20s, that would have been life changing for me. And I write all my stuff and I feel like you do, too. Just like, this is what you need to know. And if you look, learn it early on, it profoundly changes what you do. The amount of time you're trying to prove stuff to other people or you're responding to trolls and all that kind of stuff, it sucks the life out of you. And if. If you just say it doesn't matter.

[A]

And then if you say the level above, which is don't feel bad for you, feel bad for them. Could you, Dave, could you? For everybody who's listening, really, if I could accomplish anything in this podcast, it would be to encourage you to go try the thing you've been debating. And I know for all of you, literally, the fundamental reason that you haven't yet started posting on social media to do the thing. Cause that's what you would do. We live in 20, 23, 24. Is because you're genuinely concerned about the judgment. And that judgment, that's totally true. And the judgment can come from your mother, right? Like the judgment can come from your spouse. The judgment can come from your children. These are important people. They can come from your coworkers, your boss, your best friend. And then, unfortunately, it can come from Johnny Pants 47, because you once posted something and he said you were ugly or stupid or you're wrong, Right? Wrong. And so for me, the level even above, like, it doesn't matter, which is absolutely true, is what about having empathy for your mom, who's always been negative and has always put you down? Because I promise you, her mom or dad or both did the same to her. The reason I've been able to continue to go, Dave, because again, this is a fun interview because we don't get to catch up often. And I'm sure you. But we're both watching, always is I'm able to go because I have empathy and compassion for the people that are trying to tear me down, not anger.

[B]

So you're always welcome if you, if you find you need a job at any point to be a facilitator at 40 years of Zen. This is my neuroscience company, where I teach entrepreneurs with neuroscience how to do gratitude and empathy and forgiveness so they can get that state. I spent six months rewiring my brain to do exactly that.

[A]

Good for you.

[B]

But you.

[A]

It came to. It came to pick this up from your mom 100% and the DNA. And it was, look, I was such a poor student. I'm not a reader, I'm not a consumer. I'm like this very interesting consumer. I'm consuming everything, thus almost rendering me consuming nothing. Deeply curious, always gravitated towards humans. Here's a good one. My mom, if she was, you know, she's very behind the scenes. My dad would do a podcast. He likes the limelight. My mom's very behind the scenes. My mom would tell you that the weirdest thing, the most interesting, interesting, intriguing thing about my childhood was starting at about 3 to 6, predominantly in Queens in the early 80s, late 70s. We would go outside to get some fresh air or whatever we were doing, and I would pull her arm. I would gravitate to go sit on a bench with a stranger who's over 80.

[B]

Holy crap.

[A]

That my great grandmother, that my great grandfather who passed away, unfortunately, pretty quickly after we Got here was my best friend in my youth, my grandfather, yeah, my great grandfather Shia, that there, you know now. And I can, I don't remember 3 to 5, but I remember 6 to 10 when grandparents would visit my friends. And again, I'm an 80s baby, so we were outside all the time. And when a grandparent would come for the holidays or a birthday and they'd come to the park where we were playing basketball or baseball or wiffle ball or football, I would always go out of my way to go talk to them. And now in my, you know, especially, you know, don't Forget, I was 34 years old before even I started any level of a public life. So I know myself because I lived it like I spent my 20s and my early 30s building a business for my father. I owned none of wine library. I never got paid much. I wanted to give back to my parents. I was very unique. I'm a first generation immigrant. I was born in the old country. I was in a cocoon. I wasn't a good student. I didn't go to a university that expanded my world. I like was family business, immigrant life. Cocoon didn't go out like I was closed in this beautiful closed environment that made it unique. Which is why now in my 40s, I'm like, Ah, I loved wisdom. I'll give you one right now. We champion youth.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We want to look younger. We love the kids, have more say. You know, Gen Z, even young millennials had more say with their parents and in the workplace than our generations. We clap for the youth. Seventy years ago we clapped for the elderly.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And I believe we're in the pre dawn of going back. I believe in the next 20 to 30 years after this chapter of our over obsession of youth, we will counter it because that's what we do over 50 and 100 year windows. And I believe that you will start to see signals right now. No, because we're in generational warfare. I've never seen the level of judgment of boomers versus Gen Z and Gen Z versus Millennials. It's really unfortunate. Humans have found another thing to tribalized to be bad at each other. And it breaks my heart. But I do believe you will see more back to social media and branding. I believe you will see more breakout stars who are in their 70s, 80s and 90s who start podcasting. If you're listening right now and you're 70 and older, please start, please start a podcast called the Wisdom Week or what I've learned. And don't be insecure. Everybody who's 80 has something massive to put deposit to the world. Tell us about your life. Tell us about what you learned. Because that's what I've always been drawn to. So I think, to answer your question, where did this come from? I think I came out a 90 year old man.

[B]

Wow. You know, this is also just an enormous drop of knowledge. The reason I started the biological hacking movement is because when I was 26 and my health was failing and I had brain fog and arthritis and just all the bad stuff, I hung out with a room like 60 to 100 people in their 70s, 80s and 90s who taught me longevity before it was supposed to be done. And that led to me becoming an expert in the field. I didn't know how to do it, so I asked the old people, right? And old people know a lot. And the crazy thing is they want to share it because they have a lifetime of wisdom and they got nothing else to do with it but just share it.

[A]

And especially now, because families, unfortunately, are not respecting their elderly, especially in America more than ever. And they're just sitting around with so much to give. Which is why I'm telling all of them that are listening, don't wait for your grandchildren to ask. Start a podcast. Go make tiktoks. Tell us. Because my great. I'll tell you exactly when. In August of. I'll tell you the exact month. In August of 1982, my Babushka Anya, when I woke up, instead of making me breakfast, took me outside in my bare feet and made me walk on the grass for 15 minutes. And now it's cool to do grounding in 20. You know, they know. And when we used to drive on the highway, my grandma Esther and my babushka Anya, they would go crazy when they would see something in the grass on the side of the highway and we would pull over and we would pick it and we would bring it home and they would dry it and make it tea. Now, I've learned all these years later that's that it's a St. John wort or Wort. Yeah, right. It's called Zvida boy in Russian. We would literally be driving to, like, the beach or to the store, and out of nowhere, I mean, we'd be listening to, like, Michael Jackson or Cyndi Lauper on the radio. If we, you know, out of nowhere, my grandma or uncle or my great grandma would be Zweeta Boy, Zvida Boy, which would mean my mom would have to pull over on the highway. We had bags, plastic bags in our Trunk. And we would go outside and I'd have to go out there as a seven year old and pull the Zvita boy and we would fill the bags and like, you know, and then 30, 40 years later, I hear people on social or podcasts or wherever I see it or over dinner talk about like, hey, there's this thing. It's good for depression or things of that nature. And I'm like, wait a minute, I googled and I looked at it. I'm like, motherfucker, that's been a boy. You know, and so there's a mil. I mean, especially people that are from outside the US because the US has always been a modern society. You get some real old world shit from the immigrant grandparents. And you don't even have to do it with your own grandparents. I just mentioned two of my grandparents. I really only grew up with a grandma, a great grandma who had dementia pretty early. The great grandfather who I told you died very early. Other than that, my mom lost her mom at 5. My dad lost his dad at 16. So when you ask me about me, I grew up fearing my parents dying so much. Fear of death, of course, so much that once they didn't, by the time I got to 18, I kind of went into. I won. And now I'm just gonna like live on pure gratitude and. Yes. And it's really wild. Like, I would actually argue that in my essence, I'm the most opposite of what people think an entrepreneur is. I would say that it's weird that I became an entrepreneur. Like if, like I'm so simplistic. Like, I love the idea of living in an incredibly remote town and making my own food and going to sleep at 7. Like, I would have crushed 1643. But there was one other thing. One of my DNA traits is I'm an entrepreneur. And I did want to sell flowers when I was five. And I did want to sell lemonade. And when it snowed and everybody sled and played snowball fights, I did ring doorbells and shovels like driveways. So this weird mix, but all this movement today, I think parallels into entrepreneurship importantly. So I'm going to recall it all the way back. I believe in the same way that the biohacking and food and mental health. If we can reframe on entrepreneurship and tell people don't follow the next trend. It's not about is cannabis hot, or crypto is hot, or real estate is hot, or apparel is hot, or coffee is like, no, no, coffee is always hot. Yeah, there you go, brother. No, no, what do you like, Susan? What do you like, Enrica? What do you like, Jonathan? Johan, Samuel. Like? What are you about? You're into music. Through hell or high water. Your business needs to be about music, because here's why. I promise you to everyone who's listening, if you make $318,000 a year doing music, you will be 4 billion times happier than making $730,000 a year in real estate.

[B]

100,000%. The number of friends from business school went into management consulting and banking, where you make the most money. Almost all of them are terribly miserable. You know, just vulnerable.

[A]

They're vulnerable.

[B]

Substance abuse. They make millions of dollars a year, but it's not worth it because you're selling your life to do that.

[A]

You're vulnerable. You're vulnerable. Even the ones, Dave, that don't fully crack, right? The ones that don't do substance abuse, the ones that don't have infidelity, the ones that don't, like, do whatever humans do. Food. Like, you know, many people just eat their way out of their, you know. You know, because they. Because they. Because they have the gene to not use drinking and drugs, but they're using food or something that people don't see. They use weekends and holidays and interests to deal. If you. Here's one. My friends who are listening again, respecting living shit out of this audience, having a good sense of what Dave has built here from afar. I know how thoughtful the people are that are listening to this podcast and what journey they're on. I don't know where they are in their journey, but I get this. I have a sense that you're on this journey for more thoughtfulness and all this stuff, you have to hear what I'm about to say. My friends. If you're a human being that wakes up on Friday and you're ecstatic for the day to end, and you wake up on Monday and you are crushed that the week is starting, you are not in a good place. I'm telling you, you're not. It doesn't mean you don't love your family and what you do on the weekend, that's remarkable. But if you're in a place where you are so not fulfilled at work that you live for the weekend and we're filming this. I don't know when you're gonna put it out, but we're filming it on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and all of us are excited in America and other places that, you know, obviously it's fun to spend time with family. And I know that all the Jokes that Aunt sue and all that, but you know, it's great. And vacation and late August and Christmas, I get it. But I'm. No, I'm talking to the people and I'm hoping you're listening to this randomly on a Friday or Monday. And this hits you in the core, my friend, if you are really unhappy. I'm not naive. I love when people think and consume my content and they think I'm delusional. I'm aware that you're not. I know that you have debt. I know that you have bills to pay. I'm talking that happiness is worth fighting for. Happiness is worth selling your home to get out of debt and rent a house or an apartment even though you're all. All of you are not doing this because of judgment. Happiness is worth fighting for. If your job is killing you, don't come home and use Netflix or food or alcohol or video games or go into your favorite sports team's games as your escape from work. Use those evenings to crush on LinkedIn to get a job offer to get you out of it. You cannot. With the amount that the world works, even though we've got it better, we're better than we've been with work life balance in America. Other parts have it better. By the way. On work life balance, some people are a pig in shit working 70 hours a week. Some people are devastated working 25 hours a week. When it's not right, you must fight to change it. Even if you have to take a step back in front of all your family and friends with your luxuries. Go exchange the BMW to the dealership and drive a Toyota. Don't go to the Four Seasons when you go to Disney. Go to the Holiday Inn like I did when I was a kid, like it's okay. Humble, like, don't buy seven. I'm sorry on this one, David. Don't buy seven dollar coffee. Make your own tea for a little while. Reform your dollars to give you the breathing room to reset your life. Because if you do not like what you do, it encapsulates your entire. It. It suffocates everything. That's entrepreneurship, that's work. That's my relationship with it. And just like with food and mentality, we've made huge advancements in the last 20 years. I don't believe that we've gotten to the 301, 401 conversation. I believe what I'm talking about today, which is not the common talk of entrepreneurship, will become the normalized talk in 25 years that will understand that the joy of the process, not the riches we get from it, is the game of entrepreneurship and work. And that is what we have to fight for.

[B]

It is. Except do you have to fight for it? I feel like the fighting part was really the first 35 years of life. Right. I'm fighting. And some of that came from being bullied, to be perfectly honest.

[A]

Makes sense.

[B]

Right. And at a certain point, I did enough of the gratitude, forgiveness, the neurofeedback, the meditation around the world, all that kind of stuff. And I just realized I'm moving towards something that matters. So I feel like I was fighting for the first half, in the second half, I was moving towards something greater. And there was a quantitative shift in it.

[A]

You are, you and I are saying the same exact thing. What I'm saying is it wasn't a fighting energy. No, no.

[B]

Like we're going to do this because it's what's important. It's what matters for the world.

[A]

No, because the first part was your fighting.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So how do you make the shift from fighting against towards moving into.

[A]

Honestly, I view that as semantics. Okay, Dave. Right. Like, I swear I do. What I'm saying is, if you're 49 and you're sitting and listening to this, which many 49 year olds will given our audiences, I can't let you out of the goodness of my heart and my. I'm a hoper. I love to hope. I will hope. I can't let you just throw up your hands and say, well, it's not in the cards for me to enjoy my professional career. Gary, you don't get it. Like, I'm pretty good. My teenagers are 15 and 14. Just a couple of more years and I'll. I just, I think that's worth fighting for. Challenge yourself. Look, you actually, we've known each other long enough where maybe you noticed somewhere about eight or nine years ago, my physical health got better. I got better. And when I tell you nothing on earth comes less natural to me than eating well and working out, and I mean nothing. And I lived my whole life being a poor student, but being successful, being liked and being successful. And so I thought I was one these people who was crushing what came easy to them and punted, right? Because I wasn't even willing to get Cs. I got Ds and Fs. So I thought in my 20s, oh, I know who I am. And I saw that in my mother. If it comes natural, quadruple down, superhero smart, if it would. And I agree. And I still Believe in that. But what I thought was, doesn't come natural. Punt. I'll give you one in business and in life that I struggled with. Gary Vee on a podcast like this, Canderous at a Hall of Fame level. Gary Vaynerchuk, the human being at work, if he liked you, which usually happened within the first two days of you working for him, could not be canderous because he didn't like delivering bad news, which led to all the sloppiness in my career.

[B]

You know, same here. That's. That's. You can almost say that twice. Yes. You gotta be. You gotta be kind, not nice.

[A]

That's right. There's. I hope I can find my book. I don't see it. Let me know. Anyway, my last book, 12 and a half. I see it there, but I won't make a mess of it. I call it Kind Candor. My half. I talk about 13 traits that I think are really needed to win the game. One man's humble, subjective point of view of business and being a leader. And I called it 12 and a half because I wanted to be vulnerable and say, this one's a big one. It's called kind Candor. I'm only at a 5 out of 10 right now. And by the way, that might be nice, me creating my own homework today, I'm probably a four out of 10. But fuck, three, four years ago, I was a one out of 10. And when I look back at my 25 years, the only people that know me that don't feel remarkable about me were people that I wasn't able to be candid to, and I had to fire. And I surprised them because I didn't warn them. And more importantly, now that I look at it, the reason I used to think it was good that I wasn't deploying kind candor was I didn't want people to be scared. And I hate fear. Dave, when I tell you what I spend a lot of time thinking about is how people weaponize fear on everything and how much it breaks my heart. Well, I thought I was doing this great thing as a boss because people weren't scared. What I realized, the lowest point of my performance career was when I realized, oh, my God, people now really know me in my company. And because they know they might get surprised, fired because they've seen it happen to others, they're actually scared. My lack of candor is creating fear, and it's changed everything for me personally, professionally. And so, anyway, I know I'm bouncing around because I'm excited to be on this show. And I'm hoping somebody gets value out this talk.

[B]

There's great value. You're teaching people the stuff they don't teach you in business school about how to think.

[A]

I think so. Like, I think these things really fucking matter. I think the EQ part of life, I'm just. IQ's getting commoditized. Fuck with AI. I mean like, fuck, the IQ is getting commoditized. It's the EQ.

[B]

It is the EQ. And I've lost at least $100 million from allowing people to be in leadership positions where I should have been a lot, much more quickly. I should have been a lot more direct about things that I didn't like. But I was, you know, and for.

[A]

Everybody listening, for everybody who's listening, who wildly agrees with Eric and has no question, the reason I've been able to build companies has been based on being thoughtful about who you fire and why. Other than like dramatic. Like, I don't. I have a. Even when someone's completely dicking me and their fellow workers, I don't really want to hang them out to dry in town square. But I'm not. But I definitely make it, you know, known to why one is no longer here. Yeah, but I will say this, and I want everyone to hear this, I am predicting that $100 million number is low. Probably the hidden loss of compromising your values because someone is effective at their job is the great economic loss of every company. Especially when someone has a sales. When you have a sales organization and you can see that Johnny is the number one salesman and he's bigger than number two, three, four and five combined. But he's the biggest dick face on earth when nobody realizes that number two to 40 on your 40 person sales team, the second he's gone all elevate up 20 to 50% because they're spending 50% of their energy on the anxiety of having Johnny around.

[B]

It's so true. I had a salesperson recently gave away a million dollars of my, of, of my ad spaces without telling anyone so she could get her little bonuses approved her own deals. All the dirty stuff that sales people are prone to do. And we caught her. And of course in a situation like that, it's, oh no, it's the company's fault. It's not their fault. As soon as we cleared that person out, the other people in the company, they blossomed and flourished and were serving customers better and making clean deals. But you don't know. And if you just look at the top line. So yeah, people aren't cultural fit. You have to let them go and quickly. And I think that's true for friends as well.

[A]

Oh, I'm a big believer in that. And I don't. I think the reason people struggle with the friend part, and I'll go back to the salesperson, the friend part is a challenge for people because the world is too absolute. Yeah, Dave, the reason so many people just heard that and said, ah, I know Johnny is toxic in my relationship. He's an asker. Yes, we were best friends from first to third grade, but like, but fuck, for the last 25 years of adulthood, he's played on that. And all he does is ask and really doesn't provide anything genuinely, you know, whether it's monetarily or emotionally. Takes, gives zero. But I'm loyal, you know, like I da, da, da, da, da. I need you to hear this. You don't have to cut people completely out. And a lot of times this is what's going on with people's parents, siblings. We have not learned because the world is absolute. They hear this and be like, well, I can't cancel fully cancel and never talk to a friend or a family member ever again. Like, that sounds not productive. And you're right. But what about limiting? You know, when the whoever is the most negative for than you are what your surroundings are. If you talk to your mom four times a day and all she does is shit on your sibling, shit on your dad, shit on her boss if she is a negative nelly. And by the way, I grew up in a family of extremes. My mom was the most positive. My dad, and more specifically his mom and my great grandma who I've referenced, were uncomfortably negative. And so I look and I'm talking extremes on both sides. So I got this upbringing where I really saw the world through two very different sets of eyes. And I'm a very big believer that the world is how you see it. If you went into my Instagram feed right now, Dave, you would think the world is filled with sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.

[B]

And that's how you see it.

[A]

It's also what I engage with. If you engage with content of someone helping a kid cross the road, if you consume that, do you know how fast you can make social media more positive? Go to Instagram or whatever platform you like, TikTok, YouTube shorts, Twitter search, happiness, joy, positivity, optimus advancement, upgrade, search these things, go play it, consume it, and then like. And follow things that are actually positive. And then watch how the next morning you wake up. People are always like. People love to not be accountable, just like your salesperson. It's the algorithm's fault. No, it's not. The algorithm is just smart at knowing you. Social media isn't changing you. Social media is exposing you.

[B]

Ooh, so good.

[A]

It's real, brother. It's real. And we've got got to fight. And I like fight, but I'm the same way as you. Like, I can change that. I used to use the word hustle because I believe that work ethic is one of the variables to have a 1% life. The world kind of canceled Hustle, like, that's bad. I'm like, okay, no problem, heart. I now use work ethic just like you jumped on early. And I like it. Maybe you don't want to call it fight. You want to go lean into. Upgrade towards. I'm agnostic.

[B]

It's about willingness and ability to work hard when it's called for, instead of doing it reflexively and stupidly.

[A]

And. Yes. And where I'm going on this little mini rant. You're worth it.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

It's worth it. It's worth it. What people don't realize is that everyone, most people are in some version of an abusive relationship with themselves. Yes, Dave. Insecurity for what? As if not every other person on earth sucks at a lot of things, too. We all suck at tons of shit. Stop putting others on a pedestal to only undermine yourself when, in essence, a parent likely put that insecurity negativity into you. Like, you don't hate yourself as much as you think. You don't think. You stink as much as you think you are borrowing the words of something that happened along the way. And you are capable right now to start the process to not do that anymore.

[B]

Wow. So, all right. Seven, eight years ago, we met at Jason Gaynor's amazing Mastermind event. And you were on stage, and I think you were going through something right then. You said, you know, I would give anything to someone who could just teach me how to meditate, how to be happy. Like, there has to be a way. I don't know if you remember that talk. You and I both give a lot of talks.

[A]

I don't. I don't. And I'm being really serious with you. This is very important. I believe if you. You know, it's funny that your brain recalls that and the video's online. It's not. It's not how I positioned it. What I was saying. What I was saying was it was cool to Me that meditating was exploding.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that I was scared to meditate.

[B]

Okay. There you go.

[A]

Because I'm in such a good place that I'm actually scared that if I start to meditate that I might fuck something up.

[B]

I get it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a much better translation of what my brain records.

[A]

Yeah. I was saying that for a long time a lot in a lot of talks about five, seven, eight years ago. Cause obviously meditation was starting to get its momentum. And by the way, I'm still in that place. And as I've watched the space and as I've watched people get the value of it, because I'm a big believer. I'm kind of in this new state where I'm like, motherfucker, I'm meditating at all times.

[B]

That's what I'm picking up. Like, I can. I spent many, many years. So there's people, whatever you. Maybe you're born with it, but I want to know. So when you lean into the camera and you do this and you say something that really matters to you, your eyes change and you're actually transmitting energetically. And I can pick that up. And so can everyone else, whether they know they are or they don't know they are picking that up. It's one of the reasons you're powerful media. Is that a skill you learned or have you always done that?

[A]

I've always done that. Okay.

[B]

That's just part of who you are.

[A]

Yeah. I realized that most of the reason I was able to get through school with. Even though that I should have stayed back every grade since fourth grade. If we're going on the merit, you know, if you don't do homework ever, and you get an F on every test and you don't pay attention in class unless it's history because you're genuinely interested in it, you shouldn't pass. But they passed me a Probably for self interest because the school's going for a blue ribbon and need everyone passing or all those things. I've come to learn that. Or what I've now come to believe is my charisma. My teachers loved me. I never. I was an atrocious student. But in the history of school, because of the way I was parented, I never disrespected a teacher. I might have been disrespecting the craft by my behavior. Right. By not paying, by talking to my friend and trying to sell him a baseball card or talk about wrestling or about the jets game while a teacher was, you know, giving a lesson, I can respect that that is a form of disrespect, but with words. Two, I always, I never did it once. And so, you know, I look, I was the president of my fifth grade, right. So clearly, clearly, when I look back at like, I don't even know why I did it. Right. But I did it like. Yeah, I mean, but there's also another thing that comes along with this, which is I really like people. I actually have a very weird relationship with dogs. This is very tongue in cheek. So don't get all upset with me, everyone. But I do have a funny, like, I. Anytime I'm in the world and I see people hunter around a dog and they love the dog. I always said to myself, man, I wish we did that for each other. This unconditional love that we are able to as a society to deploy towards dogs. And I know what people gonna say, well, that's because they unconditionally love you. Yes, but where is our capacity to be the bigger person? Like, why do you need someone else to do something for you? Why not take it on yourself to do it for them? Because, oh, by the way, you're doing it for yourself in that framework.

[B]

Yeah. You gotta do that to yourself. The self love and not maybe not self loathing.

[A]

It was back to an early point. You said 90% of people that I see become successful went down your track with a chip on shoulder.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm in a very small group and if you're part of this and you're listening, please call your parents and kiss their faces. I am in a small group of people where gratitude was my fuel, not insecurity.

[B]

Gary, when are you gonna write a book on parenting?

[A]

I've been writing a book in my head called Perfectly Parented.

[B]

Yeah, there you go. Please write that. It would be an act of service.

[A]

I'm gonna write the book from the perspective of being the one who was parented.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm also like, I'll say it here because I think parents need to hear this. Even though I spend my life, 20% of my communication putting my parents on a pedestal, I could spend an entire another hour with Dave on a podcast telling you all the things my parents did that I don't think was great. It's the flight of a human. It's what we go with. It's just that I wish that everybody would stop spending 100% of their energy pointing to one to seven things their parents did wrong instead of the many things they did right.

[B]

So you got a balanced view. You've got good and Bad. Most people go all good or all bad.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

It's true. So you see reality for the way it is.

[A]

You'll like this. I. I have a new book coming out next year called Day Trading Attention, which I think is going to be a smash because I think it helps everyone. Everybody would like, whether it's a non profit or their personal brand or the company they work for or their startup or their Instagram page or running for mayor in town. Everybody is starting to wake up to the fact that if you're unable to garner attention on social media, you're not gonna be able to pull off the thing you want. Selfless, selfish and everything in between. The COVID is purple. Dave. Because of what you and I just talked about. All of the answers to our unrest is in the purple. Life is about the purple. Happiness is in the purple. The reason everyone is so. Ugh. And they will point to everything but the accountability of their journey to move to the purple. They are either red or blue. Back to fear. The weaponization of fear. Parents, think about how you talk to your children. If you do that. I'm gonna do this all. We are weapon bosses. If we don't hit our numbers, someone's not gonna be here. Fear. And then we're eliminating Barrett. One last thing while I'm on this. 8th place trophies is not a good idea.

[B]

Oh man. I was gonna ask you more about that because. Yeah, that. That is rotting the world.

[A]

Teaching, teaching indifference is devastating.

[B]

Worst thing you could ever do.

[A]

And that's what you're doing. It doesn't matter. Tell that to a kid who's born competitive. Tell them that their seventh grade championship basketball game. Hey Johnny, it's okay. Don't cry. That's silly. This doesn't matter. Fuck you. It matters much more than my report card, which is completely subjective and ridiculous. This is real life. Like we have misplayed a couple of hands in parenting that if we tweak, we can have way more joy back. We are. I'm just going to throw this one out, my friends, because I'm just trying to throw a couple deposits that maybe make someone think about it. If you have a 27 year old child and you were paying for their lifestyle, it's bad. You have. They want, they. And as someone who gets 10, I'm going to say this nice and slow. As someone who gets 10,000 direct messages a day and who when he goes on long flights, reads tons of them, I was taken aback 10 years ago when I realized the resentment a 26 year old nepo baby has to their parents.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

I would read these things and I would make a piece of content that would trigger them DM me, Gary. I'm like that kid you talked about in that video. I have a BMW. I live in West Hollywood. My parents pay for my equinox. I fucking have a bullshit job because I don't. It doesn't matter because my parents pay for everything and they think they're like. And I thank them and they think they're doing the right thing. But deep down you're right. I fucking hate them. And what that means. Just to give everyone the preview. When you pay for your kids and their grownups, you're telling them that you don't believe in them, that they're not.

[B]

Capable if they can't fly, you're never gonna kick them out of the nest.

[A]

And the second they smell that you're really doing it because you actually care what your friends, you, the parents, friends think about the kid and they become an object to your self esteem, then it's tipped.

[B]

Yep. And you've got so much wisdom, Gary. I. I greatly admire the way you communicate and the way you're living your life and the way you've maintained optimism even with all the pain that comes with entrepreneurship. I'm not discouraging anyone, but it is more painful than you think and it's more rewarding than you think. Especially if you care about what you're doing. You've somehow stayed on top of it all.

[A]

It's. You gotta like it. Thank you, brother. You gotta like it.