C (2:05)

That's unbelievable.

A (2:06)

I think you do.

C (2:08)

I have no idea. You've mentioned that to me before, but I still don't know what I did. I wish I had. There was camera in the room. Yeah. So I could study that and like reenact it.

A (2:16)

I can tell you a little bit. Chris Williamson has the same thing. So you came in a lot of people in Those settings. And you've experienced this, I'm sure, too, Graham, where you get somebody and they're like a super fan, so they come in and they're complimentary and. And it's nice at first, and then it's too much. And they're sort of following you around the event. They've got a trillion questions. They're like, hey, remember that video that you did on XYZ topic? And then it just keeps going. Then there's another type of person who is too cool. They don't want to let you know that they admire what you do. So maybe they've seen a hundred videos, but like, oh, I think I've heard of that. And you, you were like this perfect balance of familiar, friendly, complimentary about the thing, but also not seeking my approval or trying to win me over. And then you beat my ass in poker. And like, we're not. Did not go easy on me or anything like that.

C (3:01)

Funny.

A (3:01)

Which is very rare in an event like that. It's very rare because the other two are so much more common when people see someone that they've recognized from the Internet or something like that.

C (3:10)

That's interesting. So aside from me, then, who would you say is the most charismatic person alive?

A (3:15)

Alive, yeah. Honestly. And I. I have to give it to Donald Trump.

C (3:20)

Really.

A (3:21)

I don't think that he could have won the presidency based on his track record or, you know, there's a lot of other people with a lot of money. The thing that won him the election was the way that he handled the media. Now, granted, I'm not saying that he's going to walk into a room and he's going to make 100 of the people there like him. But if you look at the spending that he did in both the elections that he did win, he came in hundreds of millions of dollars less than the Democratic candidate. And so the ability to get the news cycle on him, make the both elections about the things that he wanted to. So the wall, for instance, was not at all a topic. He. Yeah, he defined culture and has defined culture for about 10 years. So not my style of charisma, but in terms of people whose personalities have just catapulted them to stardom, fame, and power. I mean, I have to give it.

B (4:08)

What makes him so successful at that, though? So good at that?

A (4:12)

Yeah, there's a number of things. I think he came up in a time period where everyone collectively was. What was the phrase that he had at the time? Politically correct. So we had a huge social change where everyone, you're not allowed to say these words. You can't do these sorts of things. Colonialism, bad. Like, there were all of these sorts of cultural shifts happening, and a lot of people weren't on board with it, but they didn't have the courage in their workplace or their friend group to say it. They whispered it across the dinner table. He had the guts to come down an escalator and just yell it into a microphone. So not that thing in particular, but the willingness to say what other people won't state that is present in the room. There's like six core charismatic mindsets that I talk about. That is the sixth one, the willingness to go there first. And that was something that he did, and then he defined the election and the everything.

B (5:08)

Now, here's what I'm curious about. How do some people get away with that and others can't? It's a very interesting question.

C (5:14)

Do you think you get away with.

A (5:15)

It or do you think you.

B (5:16)

No, no, to that degree. Absolutely not. I get away with some, but if you told me I have to do that, I couldn't get away with it.

A (5:24)

Yeah, I think it's about. This is another charismatic mindset. It's. It's internal integrity. So, like, is every piece of your psychology on board with what you're saying? Because one of the thing, if you look at a good comedian versus a bad comedian, it's not that the good comedian immediately makes you laugh, it's that they tell a joke, the audience doesn't react, but they're not checking with the audience, they're doubling down, they're adding tags, and they win the audience over time. So if you listen to Dave Chappelle, it's not just a laugh fact throughout his stories. He's. But he's patient enough to get the audience there. If you gave someone else Dave Chappelle's material and they said it word for word, they'd rush through it, they'd look to the audience desperately hoping that they'd laughed. They'd adjust course and try to change for them because they're not internally behind the story and comfortable and confident enough to say it. So in your case, I imagine that you might say something that you believe, but then see that other people react like. And then pull back on it or say, ah, that's not exactly what I meant. And it's actually that wavering that is the thing that makes people fall off versus Donald Trump. I mean, certainly a lot of people don't like him, but the thing that he does activate that is admirable to a lot of his core fans is the fact that he has such power and conviction to say what he thinks, stick with it, and not adjust even the face of glaring evidence to the opposite.

B (6:46)

Do you think he's born like that? Because some people just have this natural ability where they just come out of the womb and they're just so charismatic and they just got that thing.

A (6:56)

I see. I look back at his old interviews, and I can see the same sort of bravado there. I think that there's a lot of early childhood experiences that define how people respond in social circumstances. And I think. And I don't know the details of his life, but I think probably pretty early on, he learned that the way to get through life was to stick by his own internal sense of things and force reality to conform to him versus other people. And I put myself in this category, learned that the best way to get by is to pay attention to how other people are responding to you and try to massage or, like, make sure that everyone else is feeling good all the time. Donald Trump is not trying to make anybody feel good.

B (7:32)

The one that I thought was incredible. Did you see the video with him and mom Donnie?

A (7:36)

Oh, I saw a little bit of that.

B (7:37)

The White House, where he taps him on the back. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, that was incredible in terms of just the way he stood, the attitude he had. What was your take on that?

A (7:50)

What I notice about Donald Trump is that there's, again, broadly, and I've studied a lot of different people over the course of these years. There's two different types of ways that people handle language. The first type tries to make their language as precise and accurate to reality as possible. These are like, people like me, philosophy majors, and I try to be truthful. And that is a higher order. Then there are people who use language to create change in the world. Donald Trump is that kind of a person. So you see it in a lot of ways, like him declaring that he won the 2020 election and declaring and declaring and declaring. It's not because I don't. I don't think he's oriented towards what the facts on the ground are. I think he's oriented to what works. So similarly, when somebody says something mean about him, the question isn't, oh, my God, has this person offended me? And they've ruined it. It's how is this for our alliance? And so when he's standing next to Mamdani and you see how Trump will in a race, this happened with Hillary or it happened with what's happened with Marco Rubio, who now works with him. All the guys that he destroyed in the Republican primary, he had the worst things to say about Lion Ted. You know, little Marco, like it was, he just shredded these guys. And then as soon as he won the primary, it was, we have to come together as a party. We're all one. And it's because he's not using language to create a truthful representation of his inner world. He's using language to create change in the world around him. So before Zorin wins, he's the worst thing that could ever happen in New York. He's going to destroy the entire town. We're all ruined. Then he's won. Well, now we got to be allies because he's in power. And, you know, we can, you can say whatever you want about me. It doesn't matter, as long as we make the changes that I want to have happen on the ground a reality.

C (9:32)

So to sum all of that up, it sounds like it doesn't matter what you say, it just matters how you say it.

A (9:38)

That. Yeah.

C (9:40)

Is that everything?

A (9:41)

It's not everything. But again, having studied a ton of people, made 300 plus videos, I would say, unfortunately, and I don't love this as a philosophy major, but one of the things that is most effective for influence is conviction. It is the degree to which you believe and can sub communicate with your tone, your body language that you are internally aligned with the things that you are saying. Because so many of us, we live in a sense of uncertainty. We don't know what we're doing with our lives. Like, we all know that internally we have a ton of doubt. And so a lot of people are looking for something that seems stable. And so when a woman, for instance, sees a guy who seems very comfortable talking to other women, she's not judging. Oh, is, does he have all the things that I need? She says, oh, he thinks that he has all the things that make him appropriate or worthy or whatever. And we're judging how people seem to sub communicate that they feel about the things that they say and how they feel about themselves. So that's why conviction is such an important aspect of charisma, of influence.

C (10:41)

So if you're to simply define charisma in one sentence, how would you define it? And then why is it important?

A (10:46)

So I would. There's a couple of ways and it's shifted over the years. For me, I first defined it as influence. Like charisma is anything that is leadership in a group of people. And I exempt from that Beauty, wealth, and competence are the main things that I just don't include. Because we all know that if someone is really beautiful or really wealthy or extremely competent, they can have a personality that's a dud, and people will still be influenced by their product, do what they say to do. But outside of that, you have everything within the realm of personality that makes someone want to follow you. That sort of a thing. I would say as I've gotten older, that is a more external facing view of charisma. It's about how people respond to you. And we all, you know, this is what Riz is for the kids today. The. The internal facing thing is how aligned you are with the deepest part of yourself. And it. I've been on a little spiritual journey these days. We don't have to go super deep into it, but I think as you get older, your sense of identity deepens. And so when you're young, your identity is, I'm my achievements, or I am all of these things. As you get older, it becomes something more profound than that. And charisma is how clearly and fully you are inhabiting what you know yourself to be in essence. And I know that can sound.

C (12:02)

That's really interesting because from, like, I know this, we're getting a little out on tangent right here. But like the spiritual readings I've done, it's not good to align with strict identities. But charisma is something I feel like is objectively good if you can influence people, which is the reality of charisma. But at the same time, the things you identify with are the things that are effectively a weakness.

A (12:23)

Dude, yes. So the things that we identify with over the course of our life, we've gotten pretty deep, pretty quick. So you tell me if we want to go this way. When we're young, we tend to identify as like, I'm smart or I'm cool, or I am these things. And you're right, these forms of identity become cages. They also become super helpful because if I think, oh, I'm the shit, I'm a really cool guy, that helps me have the conviction to go up and apply for the job that I don't belong in, or to talk to the girl that somebody else might disqualify themselves from speaking to. But those become cages because then you have to be cool. And the moment that you're not smart, you start to beat yourself up. So as you get older, it's not just, I am cool, I am smart, I am my achievements, but it's more a sense of identifying with Your soul or your spirit or this ineffable yet persistent aspect of yourself. And that's the part that, I think the great spiritual teachings of, whether you're going with Buddhism or Christianity or anything, if you go to the mystics in any tradition, they do identify this eternal aspect of oneself and the people that identify. And if you want to go, who's the most charismatic people of all time? You have to give it to Buddha, to Jesus, to these people that have completely reshaped the planet, essentially because they were deeply aligned with something inside of themselves. And the way they conducted themselves was so inspirational that they bent the course of history around them.

B (13:46)

What's the difference between that, though, and confidence?

A (13:49)

An early stage of confidence, any confidence. If you look at the word like confide, the etymology of confidence is trust. So when we think about self confidence, it's really self trust. And the question is, how deep is your trust? So all of us are very confident that if we had to, for $100, we could tie our shoe effectively. And that confidence comes from the fact that we've done it a trillion times or, you know, however many times we've had to tie our shoes in our life. But then the question is, how come some people are confident in domains that they've never experienced before? This is the first charismatic mindset, which is, this is not confidence that I know how to do this. It's going to go well. This is confidence that no matter what happens, I'll be ok. I'll figure it out. So it's a more profound confidence. Whereas that first confidence is only in domains where I have experience because I know I can make it go good. There's a deeper confidence that no matter what happens, I will be okay. And that is a sort of a. A deeper charismatic pose that one can take. But even beyond that. So let me step back the. We were comparing confidence to what was to charisma. I think that at root, they become the same, and then it's.

A (15:02)

But at the surface level, one of the things that can shift is that you can be deeply confident but not be received as a charismatic person by others. Like, I can be super confident in my ability to conduct this podcast, but everybody watching it might think that it's going terribly or something like that. So confidence is about an internal sense of alignment. And charisma is how that internal alignment translates both internally and to the people that are experiencing you.

B (15:28)

And if someone wants to be more charismatic in 24 hours, how do they start?

A (15:33)

I would focus on the areas that are going to come up every single day. So unfortunately, what a lot of people do is they decide they want to be charismatic when they land a date with the person that they're most interested in, or they have a job interview coming up for the dream company. It's a little bit late at that point. You can still prep. But if you want to do it today, the thing that is almost certainly going to happen, no matter who you are, is that you are going to meet a stranger or a person that you already recognize, and you're going to say, how are you you doing? They're going to say, how are you back? So when I start with people, I start with first impressions. The first entire week of our course is about this stuff. But basically what I would recommend is when somebody says, how are you doing? Find a way to be better than good. And so the most common response that I would give is, yeah, I'm fine, how are you? Or busy or good. And then the entire conversation just deflates at that point because now we into did you see the Dodgers one? Did you see crazy weather we're having lately? Right. All the. The dreaded small talk conversation we all have. If you can inject more energy at that onset when somebody says how you're doing, you can be phenomenal or, or tell a crazy story that you just had. You're not going to believe what just happened to me out there. The entire arc of the conversation shifts. So that would be the simplest way to do it. You said in 24 hours. That would be where I would start.

C (16:45)

What if you're not doing good?

A (16:47)

Yo, great question, Great question.

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C (18:06)

What if you're not doing good?

A (18:08)

Yo, great question, great question.

A (18:12)

There's a bit of calibration required. So if it's a cashier and they say how you're doing, you're like, let me tell you, not appropriate. But we've hung out a couple times. So if I wasn't doing good and I came in here and it's just the three of us, I think it's very charismatic to lead with some vulnerability in those closer relationships. In fact, that is how loose acquaintances become close friends. A lot of the time is there is some experience of either shared victory or shared vulnerability. And so if I wasn't doing good and I rolled in, you're like, hey, what's up, man? You're like, how you doing? I was like, dude, I just broke up with my girlfriend. I'm kind of having a hard time, which is not the case now. We at least are talking about something real. But if I fake it at that point, I'm like, like, good, you know, smiling through the tears. The crying clown. That also is going to create an issue. So I'm glad you asked that question. Yes. Yeah.

C (19:00)

You can tell not every cell in your body's aligned.

A (19:02)

Correct. Correct. It's that lack of coherence and conviction.

C (19:06)

But if you're trying to build a loose acquaintance, let's say. And she asks you how you're doing.

A (19:10)

Yeah.

C (19:10)

Or he either.

A (19:12)

Yeah. Yeah.

C (19:12)

Do you. Do you lie if you're really not doing well, or do you just always be like, you know what I am. You be honest with yourself.

A (19:20)

So there's. You could imagine there's so many ways to tell the truth, let's say, like, stuff is going on in your life, but it's not that I am bad. It's that there are challenges, there are things that are going crazy. There's things I'm confused about. The way that you bring. It does not have to be consolidated into a Single word, you'd be like, honestly, this has been the craziest week in the last year. That's an interesting way to start a conversation right there. So it's not that you are forced into depression or enthusiasm. It's that if you can find a way to share it with someone in a way that is engaging and we can go into storytelling and all these other sorts of things, that is also better than a flat, fine or good. So I would say preferable.

B (20:00)

What about vocal tonality? How much does that matter?

A (20:04)

Tremendously. But I don't encourage people to focus too much on these things. So there was a time in my charisma career, if you will, where I was very shy and didn't know what to do. And I would go in and be like, okay, today I'm going to work on this gesture. Are you serious?

C (20:19)

What is this?

B (20:19)

To the.

A (20:20)

Well, the one thing that I saw wasn't. That is I. I remember some guy told me a story, had very firm fingers. When he did it, I was like, that was really captivating. So then for the next several days, I was, like, holding my fingers more firmly. I think that level of.

C (20:33)

So would you go out and fully just try to observe the way people spoke?

B (20:37)

Yeah, I was.

A (20:38)

I was a wallflower. That was. I think, why I got into this work was primarily I had experiences where. And I've told this story many times, but it's apocryphal and true. I was visiting my co founder as he was studying abroad, and he had me as his best friend from high school, and he had his college best friend. So I went in. I was like, I'm not gonna like this guy. We're gonna have issues. And he came in, and his demeanor was so immediately friendly and disarming. And I felt included. And he asked me. So immediately I liked him. We were in a group of six guys, and at one point I was like, hey, who's hungry? We should go out to eat. And I didn't know these guys. And I got no response. And about 35 seconds later, he goes, I'm feeling hungry. Who's. Who's ready to eat? And everyone's like, yeah. And I watched for the rest of the day. That happened. It happened twice. It was once with food. And once I told a joke and he just repeated it. And I watched no one care when I said it and everyone get behind it when he said it. So, like, these. These moments were defining for me in terms of recognizing that this is something that I wanted to focus on because I Realized if you looked at a script, there was nothing wrong with my words. It was the tonality, the rapport that I hadn't built with these group of people that I needed to focus on. So I was watching all of this happen.

C (21:50)

So through trial and error, with a litany of, you know, like this or, you know, you're famous, like, yeah. What are the most underrated and overrated tips and tricks for increasing your charisma?

A (22:03)

Underrated is the one that I've already told you is. Is how you initiate conversation and the level of enthusiasm that you bring to it. It underrated is preparation versus in person. We've all been there, frozen, in an interview or in a conversation or anything. The thing that helps the most is priming. And people don't do this or they sometimes do it, but it's unconscious where you listen to the music that you love on the car ride over to the event and you're like fist bumping and you're pounding and you're singing out loud. I used to do this with my co founder. Walking into a club, a lot of guys, because we were young dudes and we wanted to flirt and talk to girls, A lot of guys think it's showtime when you see her and you walk up to her, it's showtime when you're getting ready. It's showtime when you're in the cab. On the way there, it's the doorman. Every single interaction you have there, the level of energy and enthusiasm that you bring to it, sets it up so that everything that happens after that is easy. And it's true in interviews as well. I remember going into the job that I wound up working at, everybody sits in that little lobby with the secretary, and they sit quietly with their little leather pad and their resume there, and they don't talk to anybody. And instead, I talked to the doorman at the building, and then I spoke with the receptionist. I made small talk with the other people that were applying for the job. So by the time that I landed in the interview and he said, tell me about yourself, I wasn't going in cold. There was this. There was a depth of quality to my voice. So it wasn't like, hey, how are you? Like, frozen. That priming is deeply, deeply underrated.

C (23:37)

That's fascinating. And I always apply what you're saying and internalize it and think, how have I tried doing something similar in my own life? And what I always love to do is every time I get into an elevator, everyone's dead quiet. Yeah, we're all, you know, Going somewhere we don't want to talk. Everyone's head's down or they're on their phone. And every time it's my favorite thing to break the silence. Because you fart. Yeah, I just rip one. Yeah, awful. Sorry, guys.

B (24:03)

No, he blames it on the other guy.

C (24:05)

If you break silence in an elevator, first of all, it's very challenging because it's, that's super. Outside of, you know, what we consider to be normal. And it's easy because everyone leaves the elevator and goes to their own place. So, like, there's a clear light at the end of the tunnel. If your joke falls flat or if no one wants to talk, it's fine because we're all separating anyways. Whereas if you're like sitting down in a lobby and you want to strike up conversation with someone and then they don't want to talk, it's like, well, when do I walk away? Yeah, but in an elevator, you're always going somewhere. You're just priming yourself to go out and talk to people.

A (24:34)

I think that insight is so true of modern society broadly. A lot of the fears that we have are because evolution generally. We grew up in tribes of 150 people, and if you got weird with like 15 of them, it was a huge issue. We're just not wired for that experience of, you get this practice chance, everybody's going to disperse and disband, it doesn't matter. And this happens constantly in our lives. We have at elementary school, then we go to a middle school that's different, or we leave states. You get so many chances to play around with this stuff and reinvent yourself and try new stuff. It's kind of a hack that people haven't fully internalized of the modern world is how low stakes most social environments are compared to how they feel internally. And if you can get that, it's a game changer.

B (25:18)

What about posture? They say sit up straight and like, you know, have your shoulders back a little bit.

A (25:26)

The thing that I try and I've, you know, I've done this in the past and I've got poor core strength and all this stuff, but what I, what I try to pay attention to, the only thing that I keep in mind with posture is, is to try to have open body language. Not even so much that the other person likes it, but because there's an intern feedback loop. Like, if I were to sit here like this and speak more quietly for a few minutes, it wouldn't be long before I felt shy and uncomfortable around you guys. But if I open up my body language, I show you my palms, I let you see the insides of my elbows, I lift my chest and my chin a little bit. That sends a feedback loop to me that says, hey, you are safe. There's no arrows being thrown at you. You can expose your vulnerable spots, which makes you much more comfortable. And a brief story about this is. I way long time ago, when I had a job, I had screwed something up pretty badly. It was my fault on a Friday afternoon and on a Monday, I got the phone call of like, the guys started the call with you, really, the bed on Friday.

A (26:26)

And I had the. I was, I was in the. My friend's apartment at the time because I was living with him on the floor. And I remember purposely, I knew this call was coming, so I was sat in a chair and I purposely opened up my body language to just sort of like, like let myself ground and calm down. And through that and saying, you're right, I did do that. I understand that that was not cool for you guys and that it put you guys in a bad position, and I apologize for that. It was a minute or two of him just like dumping, venting a little bit before, it's like, it's all right, man. I'm gonna tell the, I'm gonna tell the higher up boss that, you know, it's all okay and we made it work and so don't sweat it. It's totally not a problem. Versus if I'd been defensive about it in my body language and in my demeanor, he. He definitely would have kept drilling in attacking, and we would have been on opposite sides and it could have gone far, far worse. So that open body language is. It's about the only thing that I pay close attention to in my own body language.

B (27:22)

How important is eye contact?

A (27:24)

Deeply, Very. It's also another one that's like, now that I'm conscious of it, it's like, oh, I have to look.

C (27:29)

It's.

A (27:29)

It's really tough because when you become conscious of it, it distracts from your ability to, to be yourself a lot of the time. So I would practice body language when I went out. It makes a big difference. Like if, if you've ever spoken to someone who's telling you a story and they won't let you go one, it can feel, I'll do it to you for a little bit. It can feel a little bit uncomfortable, but it has that tractor beam level quality. Bill Clinton is one of the best that I've ever, ever seen at this. I did A video was my first ever charisma video that where he is in a town hall, woman asks a question and he just lasers in on her with the squinty eyes. He's smizing at her the whole time and you can tell that he's just, just got her. Because this is the feeling of presence. Nothing communicates that I'm with you like eye contact. It's why in the more hippie circles they'll do eye gazing stuff. Because that simple act of sitting with someone and looking them sustained in the eye is just. It's a powerful experience of presence with another human. If you develop the capacity to do that, not as a gimmick, so, so powerful, incredibly.

B (28:31)

And what do you think ruins charisma?

A (28:33)

I think what, there's many things that ruin charisma. I think paradoxically it's this weird if you try too hard. So one of the things that I'm always battling when I'm explaining to people that yes, this is a skill that you can develop, but if you over obsess about this, you're going to go down. So thinking too much about yourself will make you self conscious. So generally you only want to have one thing that you're working on at any given time. It should be easy. It should be a set it and forget it. Let me use this phrase once at the beginning of conversation. Let me focus a bit on eye contact or cut out filler words for a portion of this conversation. But if you overload yourself with stuff that you're supposed to do, which is really what a lot of shy people are subtly doing when they're at a party or an event, that they keep thinking about what they ought to be doing, that will crush your charisma internally.

B (29:25)

Is that why nice guys finish last?

A (29:28)

Nice guys finish last for a multitude of reasons.

A (29:32)

It's because nice is actually not nice. It's often a people pleasing strategy to get what you want in an indirect way. So the nice guy cliche is really what he wants is a girlfriend or to kiss her or something like that. But he's going to pretend that he's available for a genuine friendship instead. So the reason that that nice guy is finishing last is because he's not behaving in a clear, honest direction way and he's not asserting himself in a way that could possibly be perceived as confident or high conviction. And then he thinks to himself, oh my gosh, I've given her everything and these other guys aren't even nice to her. Why doesn't she like me? And it's because, well, you're, you're deeply insincere in the way that you're engaging with her.

B (30:14)

Yeah, but in terms of insincerity, it seems like that also flips that the bad guy get all the girls being completely insincere about wanting a relationship or anything and that. And that works.

A (30:25)

Yes, yes. So. So.

A (30:28)

The thing that tends to work with the bad guy, if you will, is that he activates the part of herself that doesn't feel good enough. So what's going on in those situations where she's chasing the guy is that she has had wounding with her dad or with men at a young age where she feels like if I can get the person who isn't being kind to me to be kind to me, then I'm going to be enough. And men have this too, right? We like look for the person that is least we'll have all of these people who just, just treat us well, don't need to be coached or trained or anything. But we, we focus on the one person who seems just out of reach because that's what we're familiar with from childhood. And so I actually think that the reason that these quote unquote bad guys, in that case the insincerity of the bad guy, the reason that that is appealing is because it's actually a familiar pattern for a lot unfortunately of men and women based on how they grew up.

B (31:16)

Have you seen hometh?

A (31:18)

Yeah.

B (31:19)

What are your thoughts on that? Cuz he has the entire breakdown of what triggers attraction and what was it? There's like a dark triad, dark triad of personality traits that is highly attractive.

A (31:31)

To the opposite sex. Well, I think that a lot of that.

A (31:36)

Is targeted at young 20s men and women and is. Is true of the experience of being a young twenties guy or girl. I think that there's a whole. And I, I've spoken to him, I think he would acknowledge this. There's an entire field of love that is not accounted for in any of the diagrams or the ones that he, he typically references. But I do think that those types of things are broadly attractive, particularly in our society. And I think this is the other thing is that a lot of those dark triad traits have a light side to them. So I'm not sure what the three are, but there's like psychopathy, narcissism and something else. But if you.

C (32:16)

Machiavellian.

A (32:16)

Machiavellianism there is a conviction, and we've spoken about conviction already, that is often associated with those sorts of traits that comes through. And I think that is the piece that is attractive. But if you're high conviction but not psychopathic, not narcissistic and not high Machiavellian, I think you'll do really, really well. It's just that people, women will tolerate that if it comes in a package of he's got other things that she wants. High provisioning. He talks about, he talks about good looks. You know, there's, there's a, you know, height, the ability to protect and defend muscles, all that kind of stuff adds as well. I think the thing that I would say about that broadly, in my experience is that there was a phase of my life where I was trying to optimize for being liked by women writ large. And I understand it. I don't think that it's a bad phase, but I think that it's incomplete. I think that there is a significant amount of value towards finding what is most authentically you and being that and accepting that you are going to have fewer people from the pool interested in that. But. But way more. Higher. Way more.

B (33:26)

Way higher quality.

A (33:28)

Yeah, way higher. Higher quality connection. Yes. Versus if you make yourself broadly appealing to a lot of people, you actually have a lot of noise in there. And I think Homath would acknowledge this. You wind up attracting people that don't make good relationship partners. Versus if you leave, there's. There's an argument that people have of should you leave with your best foot forward? I often advocate, once you've done the work on yourself, lead with your most average foot forward because you don't want to take her to the restaurant that you're only going to be able to take her to once every two years on the first date, take her to the place where you're going to be able to go whenever you go out, right. Like be the person that you intend to be six months in, two years in. Because that is how you have a more successful relationship. If your only goal is to get her attracted to you for a moment. Yeah, whatever. Lead with your best foot forward. But it creates problems down the line.

B (34:17)

And what do you think is more effective for status? Being liked or respected?

A (34:21)

Respected, for sure. Yeah, I think, I think essentially status is a measure of.

A (34:30)

If associating with someone improves. And this, this is if you really break it down to like evolutionary psychology, if associating with that person improves your survival and reproductive chances. And so respect is. That person has a skill or a quality that I admire or that I. It has.

C (34:47)

Respect is earned, usually.

A (34:49)

Yes. And so, yeah, you look like who's higher status. Well, clearly Donald Trump is not broadly, he's liked by a lot of people, but not by everybody. But there's a lot of respect that is paid to him. Like his his ability to change the world demands that even people like sir and Momdani or even Zelensky had to come and pay him respect, even if he wasn't feeling it, even if he didn't like him.

B (35:11)

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C (35:31)

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B (36:36)

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A (36:54)

The most overrated, charismatic advice, huh?

C (36:58)

I think it's the enthusiasm. I'm sorry, go ahead. I have to disagree with that because I think that enthusiasm is sort of contrived in the same way that I'm a firm believer that if you are unwavering, that's the most thing that you could do. But if I'm like going up to a barista and I'm like, I'm having the best day ever, she's like, like, like this guy's trying too hard to come across in this sort of way. And I can see right through it. And I think that as long as you're just like very much yourself, the enthusiasm is, it can be off putting if it's a dangerous and fragile strategy.

B (37:32)

You know, I think it is, I think it's social calibration and awareness and every person's going to be a little different. Like, someone could really hit that enthusiasm and just like, love it. And you could tell pretty quickly within like a split second if they're into it or not.

A (37:45)

Not. Well, do you consider yourself enthusiastic, Jack?

C (37:49)

Yeah, Jordan. I took Jordan Peterson's personality test, and I think I got like a 96 on enthusiasm.

A (37:56)

The way you just entered the conversation was super high enthusiasm. And I was like, oh, this? He's probably right. It's the copy. Well, and I think so, I think enthusiasm can be misconstrued for endlessly positive. Like, you just came in and disagreed with something that I said, but you did it with a, a ton of energy. Like, I actually think that's enthusiasm and that's engaging and interesting. Now, you weren't kissing my butt and you didn't come in like, I swelled, Charlie, you know, like, so I, I hear what you're saying, and I think that beneath the semantics, we probably agree on this one and that if enthusiasm is understood as the things that animate and activate you, but doesn't have to be endlessly positive, then I full stamp it. And if, and if how you're understanding it is, it's this positivity on, even when it's fake, it's like, yeah, that's not, not, that's not it.

C (38:48)

That's fair. I'm trying to, I want to come up with like a devil's advocate reason to disagree also. Let's just say, conversely, someone asks you, a close friend, how's your day? It's the worst day I've ever had in my entire life. Is that attractive? Is that charismatic to someone that you know well? Or do you have to have that social comprehension to be able to, like, you know, navigate? I, I, I think that's kind of the, the root. And then whatever comes out of that is the, you know, do you choose to be enthusiastic?

A (39:18)

Do you choose to exaggerate? These are, these are interesting questions because I really do think once it's important to learn tonality, body language skills, eye contact. Like, this is where I started and it's important. And broadly, there's things that work better than others in most cases. The longer I live, though, I do see that authenticity is just for so many reasons, the better choice to make. And I'll give you a little, little short story about this. In college, there was a night where the girl that I was seeing and I broke up. And I found out at like midnight I was out on the Cut, the popular college street where everybody was drinking and partying and I wasn't drinking. I just got this message that we were going to break up. We were in like a long distance thing and. Or was it, gosh, did we break up in an alley? It's been a long time. We broke up and I was crestfallen about it. So I'm walking down the street and I was very unhappy, low energy. And I was stunned because multiple women walked up to me and started talking like, hey, what's going on? Are you like. It was weirdly drawing. It happened several times on the walk home. And I was like, should I break up with someone every night? Like, what is going on? But I was not in the mood to talk. It was an authentic, real thing that was happening right there. And it was early and I didn't know what to do with it or make anything of it. But as I've gotten older, and this is not always true, there are people that are going to be completely put off by any sort of authentic expression. That's important to recognize because every guy's gotten the advice, just be yourself, tell her how you're feeling, and then people run away from that him. But I think that there's enough people in the world that if you are able to own your experience and let it move through you in an adult way, which is to say if you're having a bad time, it doesn't mean that you yell at other people, but it does mean that you can wear that a little bit. I think that's. I think that's the most attractive quality, particularly in adults. Kids, teenagers are still sorting out who do I need to pretend to be in order to fit in in my, my middle and high school. But I think as an adult, yeah, it's all about, at what age should.

B (41:16)

You have that figured out. Like, I understand if you're 15 still, still, you know, trying to find your way, but like at 30, like at what age should people really get it together?

A (41:25)

You know, should is an interesting one. But what I'll tell you is there's a lot of adults that are still developmentally children, right? You, you, you see this on the Internet, you see this in your life, you see the way that they handle conflicts.

A (41:38)

So ideally, what would happen is that in your teens, you experiment and you start solidifying this ego identity. In your 20s, you begin to live it out. You define yourself as, I am this type of a guy. I am not the type of guy who is inefficient and I am productive and I get all these things done. And then Carl Jung, who is, I think one of the most brilliant psychologists ever, but certainly of the 21st century, says that at about 35, there is a shift that occurs in people and it's the shift from your ego, which you've spent your entire life building up to that point. This is the part of you that says, I am this type of person. I am not that type of person. I have succeeded in these ways. I like these things and I don't like these other things. All of your self definitions that, that gets, that is who you are in your 20s, but it gets de. Centered around 35. And then what starts to happen is, is your soul comes in and that becomes the center that you live from and you become far more about rather than how can I make money? Or how can I get people to like me or how come they're not laughing at my joke? Becomes authentically, how can I serve other people right? How can I give back to the world? I, I am now capable of taking care of myself. What I want to do is give, share and offer myself to a larger cause. So I think developmentally that's ideal. That's often not how it goes, though. We have parents that, that behave like children and enmesh with their own children and create codependencies and all sorts of issues. And yeah, that's, that's not very common that it breaks that way.

C (43:09)

So now I think we could all confidently agree that you're very charismatic.

A (43:14)

Oh, thank you. So I struggle sometimes with that.

C (43:17)

I imagine you put in clearly a lot of work to become this way. What would you say was the most important change you made?

A (43:25)

So it was early were the big changes. It was.

A (43:30)

I'll go very concrete. It was leaving the town to go to college that I was in. I think it's incredibly hard to transform oneself with the eyes of people who already know you, around you. And you guys, I'm sure, have experienced this. Everyone on the Internet has experienced this. Which is, the people that are the least supportive are often those that have the most to lose if you transform. So if you are in any point of your life trying to make a transformation, you're trying to start a business, you're trying to do something else, certainly there might be a handful of friends or parents or family members that are encouraging, but you probably need to go somewhere where you are unseen by the majority of your hometown in order to successfully pull that transformation off. So that would be probably the biggest thing that I did, was study abroad at a place where nobody knew me, so I could have those elevator experiences where it doesn't count. I can just try a 100 different things over and over again. I. I got to do that for a year and a half in college, and then I came back, and people were like, who is that person person? Like, it was shockingly different.

C (44:26)

Okay, so what are the directly applicable or actionable things, then that you struggled with the most? That, like a lever, you pulled it, and then all of a sudden, you're this charismatic person.

A (44:36)

Okay, so concretely, it would be. It's way harder today. But actually, there's an advantage is do not use your phone for things that other people can help you with. So if you like, I went to this new town studying abroad, and at the time, there were no smartphones. But today, what everyone would do is they would go to E. Yelp, they would go to Airbnb, they would find a way to get all of their needs met without ever having to communicate with another human being. Far better is to walk down the street and say, hey, Perdon, you know.

A (45:06)

Do you know any restaurants around here that are really good? And I did that for months. Where are the good restaurants where I don't know how to get to my class? Do you know a good spot to learn salsa dancing? Like, we're just constantly asking questions, and. And some of those people just said no. I don't know. Some of them showed me cool things, and others wound up being like, what are you doing here? And they became friends. So the willingness to put yourself in situations where you are communicating more with strangers is so important. And what I often tell people is, say one more sentence than you need to. So the elevator is a great example. You need to say zero sentences. Just say one thing. Say anything. In the elevator, you're checking out at a Cashier. Paper or plastic? Cash or credit? Okay, normally that's what you say. Say one more thing. How's your shift going?

C (45:53)

I would love if we could reset the norm in elevators. If elevators could then become a conversation pit. Every time you get in, what's someone going to say? What are we going to talk about today, guys? That would actually be a funny opener. What are we talking about today, everybody?

A (46:07)

So thank you all for coming.

C (46:10)

All right, if you're a listener right now and you get in the elevator today, tomorrow, the next day, who knows when, when? Please start a conversation.

B (46:17)

Subscribe to the Iced Coffee Hour.

C (46:19)

That's a great.

B (46:19)

Did you see that episode of the Iced Coffee Hour?

A (46:21)

That, by the way, would be an incredible opener. Because I think a lot of the time we fall into like, what should I say? And it can be a very logistical. What's practical? But it's, you don't need to be literal or serious at all. Like, I that for anybody out there, ask people if they like Ice Coffee Hour. Tell them that you heard on this podcast that you're supposed to talk to people in elevators. When they say why, tell me. You don't really understand. I don't get it. I don't, I don't get it. I don't know.

A (46:44)

I don't know. I'm drinking athletic greens and doing what I'm told now.

B (46:48)

What about for people who have social anxiety or they just feel like going and talking to strangers? They get that, like, rush of just adrenaline.

A (46:56)

Yeah, that's me. 100% hyper introverted. This was. What about them? Like, what should they do? Or what should they do?

B (47:04)

How do they overcome this? Because it seems like that's an additional barrier that they have to conquer just to get to the first step.

A (47:11)

Yeah. Yes. Yes, it is. For sure. For me, what made it worth it was recognizing the limitation in my life. And it was experiences like the one I described where I'm saying a joke and everyone else is following the other dude. Or like, I've had a crush on this girl for a year and then some other guy asked her on a date and now they're dating. So I, I, I hate to say it, but early in your journey, becoming conscious of the pain that you're putting yourself in by choosing to coddle your own fears and your own anxieties is really important. Like, this is true of any sort of change or you got to recognize what it is costing you. The second thing that I would say is there's hard leaps and then there's easier steps. To take. So I've tried in this conversation to give very easy steps. Like, I could have given way, way harder stuff for people to focus on, like go do stand up comedy or join an improv class and perform in front of a room. Those are incredible ways to develop charisma. You will become really good, really fast. They also are going to terrify you and stretch the people with social anxiety. But quite frankly, if I was asked to give not the easiest prescription, but the most effective, it would be stand up and improv comedy classes would be the things that I would recommend to people. Stuff like that is. What's that?

B (48:29)

Like, I've had so many people recommend.

A (48:31)

Yeah, improv.

A (48:33)

Improv is. Is poorly named. Well, it's honestly named. But it is a skill that is completely portable for everything. So I. It's something that people don't often follow through, but I'll make a pitch for it. It's like the best way to get better at speaking, flirting, interviews, friends. Because what it trains you to do is to be present in the moment, to. Yes. And in interaction. To find a way to make a situation that is completely unreal. Extend further and be fun. That's a tough lift. And then you do it in front of an audience who is sometimes laughing, sometimes not. You're worried about it. Those skills are totally portable to life. So if I could, I would just tell everyone, go do improv comedy.

C (49:19)

I was literally just thinking that.

A (49:20)

Yeah, I was just thinking as a team, bro. It's.

B (49:22)

I would do that.

A (49:22)

Yeah.

B (49:23)

Yeah.

A (49:23)

So powerful. So powerful. And. And they have places all over the world. I just don't say it because people don't do it. Oh, I would do it.

B (49:30)

I would do it.

A (49:30)

Okay. I would do it. It. They're great. All right. What about this?

C (49:33)

Graham?

A (49:33)

Yeah.

C (49:34)

If we need to make a bet, there needs to be stakes on the line. So we'll do an improv class. And if we don't, in the next, what, two weeks?

B (49:44)

Two weeks is tough. I would say in the next. Well, we're gone. We're traveling so much. I would say, realistically, the next three weeks by January 31st.

A (49:52)

How about this? January 31st.

C (49:53)

No, no, pause, pause, pause.

A (49:54)

I've got it. So you. These things are cohort based. They're not always available. Sign up for one in the next two weeks. Weeks. Yeah. Sign up for one now. It might not start till January, but yeah, you. You can do that for sure.

C (50:05)

Okay, well, sign up for improv.

A (50:07)

Sign up for improv. They often start with, like, level zero. You're not going to be in front of an audience until the very end. If you want, it's playing it's games.

A (50:16)

That is very good. Now the only thing is some of these classes for you guys, and I saw the speed with that you jumped in, are catered to people who like want to be even more coddled. So they're going to take it slow. You, you might even want to see if you can jump into like a level one or two class.

C (50:30)

I would be fine in front of an audience.

A (50:32)

Honestly. Yeah, I wouldn't do that. You might wanna, you might want to be like. Level 0 is really about making people comfortable in it and a lot of people don't feel it. But you guys could ask to, to do a level.

B (50:43)

I'm just curious what type of person we're gonna see at an improv class in Vegas. What type of person's gonna be signed? Like is it gonna be like 50 year old guys? Is it going to be like they're there 20 year old? Like I have no idea.

A (50:57)

I saw a lot of 20s and 30s, but I did it in New York and that's where people are looking on developing. Yeah. Their acting chops. I did it in. Where was the other town? I think I did it in Vegas. Was the other town did. I think.

B (51:07)

So what is it like walk us through the process. Like how do they get you to like maybe role play or something?

A (51:13)

Correct. So level zero is you come in for a couple hours and it's all games. You won't even do a scene to start. So like we'll play this game Zip Zap. You don't know what Zip Zap Zop is? No. Okay. So a lot of these games and by the way, these can be ported to interviews or things. They're about creating verbal fluency and freedom in the ex in the thing. Because we're often this how it. So we're going to play very briefly. Cool. It's the easiest improv game. It doesn't even create that much freedom, but it's how you start. Because it's a low lift. The game is Zip zap zone up. If I start, I have to point at one of you and say zip. Then you who received it has to point at someone else, at me or at Graham and say zap. And then whoever gets it has to say Zop. And you do that several times. The idea of the game is to add a little flavor to it. It's pointless. So I'll be like Zip Zap Zop Zip Zap.

C (52:10)

Zap.

A (52:11)

Z.

C (52:11)

You were Zop.

A (52:13)

Did I it up? I said Zop. I said stop.

C (52:14)

You said zap.

A (52:15)

That was a stop.

A (52:18)

So I lost. Zip zaps up.

C (52:20)

So do you leave then? And then it's just.

A (52:23)

You can't.

C (52:24)

Zero. You gotta get out of here, buddy.

A (52:26)

How do you win? No. So the idea of the game is you keep it going quick and you. The entire idea is you just break the part of you that says I'm being weird. Like, there's always this little voice. It's like, that was weird. He said that. In a strange way, you're just trying to keep moving through the experience of awkwardness. That's the game. That's it. And so there's a lot of games that are like this. Yeah. And there. There are people that, you know, practice this before they go to interviews, practice before they go out at night. My friends would do it before we went to a bar. Like, it is really good for just chilling out and not taking yourself so seriously.

B (52:58)

And what's the next level?

A (53:00)

The next level, Let me recall the types of things that they would do. They would do all sorts of short, short scene exercises. So one of them, this is a bit more advanced, is that. And I remember this is a lot of times when we storytell, we try to make it interesting. And so we try to pick our best story. We put pressure on the story, and then we don't tell a good story. So what they would do is they would have one person stand in and everyone in the audience just. Which is just the other people in the class would shout a word at them. You would pick one word out and you would say, so, well, does anybody want to try this?

B (53:33)

I'll try it.

A (53:33)

Okay. Okay.

B (53:34)

So I'm feeling in.

A (53:35)

Think of a random word and on the count of three, we're going to shout it at Graham. Okay. One. And. And then I'll tell you the next step. One, two, three.

B (53:42)

Tree. Spine, spine. And tree.

A (53:45)

Okay, so pick one of them. Doesn't matter. Tree. Got it. So here's what you do. Tree. Reminds me of something. Reminds me of something. Reminds and say reminds me of something. Until you find a story and then tell us the story.

B (53:58)

Tree. Reminds me of dirt.

A (54:00)

Dirt. And when I think of dirt, I.

B (54:02)

Planted three trees in the front of my house. And I thought it was going to be really easy to plant these three trees. What I didn't realize is that when you dig below, like six inches or so, you had this hard clay. And so I had to take the shovel and just beat away at this clay to try to, like, chip it apart. And then I probably spent half a day. This is a true story, actually. I probably spent half a day chipping away at this clay in front of the house. And then I realized when I got to the clay, I couldn't put the tree in because under the clay was concrete. And they had concreted below this thing. And there's no drainage for the plant anyway. So I ended up planting these trees. I compacted them down, and then they all died because there was no drainage. And so the trees, I guess, like, rotted on the. On the underside. I didn't know that. So we actually had to go and place irrigation, like, these little holes at the bottom, bottom that drained out to the other side of this, like, wall. And now the trees are there and they're alive.

A (55:03)

Very good. That's the type of exercise that you do. Yeah. And then it's not like there's no, like, feedback at the end of it.

B (55:10)

It's not you.

A (55:10)

You could have done this better.

B (55:11)

It's.

A (55:12)

All of the early levels are about developing freedom because. And the truth is, in life, people don't tell enough stories. They. They often operate very literally. Question, answer, interview style. And these story breaks are the things that let your listener sit back, relax. There's about 5% of the populations that needs to talk less. They need to tell fewer stories, they need to ask more questions. That definitely exists. But the type of person who's going to listen to this podcast almost guarantees needs to speak more, needs to bring more of themselves to the interaction. So those are the types of things that they do in improv.

B (55:43)

See, I would be hard pressed to do, like, random stories.

A (55:46)

Yeah.

B (55:47)

Or make something up or riff. Riffing is.

C (55:50)

Is.

B (55:50)

I just don't do that. Well.

A (55:51)

Yeah.

B (55:52)

Unless you've had, like, a drink or two. I just have a. Just that back and forth of just like, making up some scenario.

A (55:58)

Interesting. So you mean making up scenarios where people do, like, build a comical, absurd world with one another.

B (56:06)

Yeah. Like, whose line is It Anyway? Like that. I love that show. I could never be, like, as quick and witty as. And they just come up with these things on the spot.

A (56:15)

Yeah.

B (56:16)

That to me is like a superpower.

A (56:18)

It's so. Okay, so those are. Those are some of the best in the world they got on the show. But wherever you are today, you. You take a couple levels of input improv, you'll be blown away by your ability to do that. It is a skill. It is not an innate thing. Getting to the elite Elite levels. That's, that's a combination of talent and birth and all that kind of stuff. But you can get way, way better at all of that. Improv is a great way to go.

B (56:40)

Do you think though, you said that, you know, with practice you're going to get better, but don't you think with AI people are just going to have less contact with each other and it's.

C (56:51)

Are and it'll just make it easier to be more charismatic?

B (56:54)

Yes, but I think more people just don't have to interact with anybody. Like you're talking about going to the store and like talking to, asking for directions. I'm thinking like, well, now at McDonald's they have that kiosk and you just go up to the kiosk and you press your order and it just, someone's like, just places it on the counter and it's done. Y or Starbucks now they're, they're, they're coming up with those AI things. You don't need to talk to a person.

C (57:16)

Door dash things or you just.

B (57:17)

Door. You just click a few buttons.

A (57:19)

Yeah.

B (57:19)

So where do you think the future is headed in terms of talking to people? Because isn't it now more important just to have like, good texting skills and like just being good over, you know, online?

A (57:31)

Well, if you assume, well, if you assume that the entire relationship is going to be conducted online, then sure, you know what I mean, like that.

B (57:38)

No, but, but the relationship could build entirely over text message. And then it skips all the sort of like informalities in the beginning. Mh.

A (57:48)

My experience with that and I've seen other people, is that then there. There inevitably is an encounter of not just people on a screen, but two nervous systems coming into contact. Oh, that guy can't make eye contact with me. He's really uncomfortable. He's shaking. Now we're kissing and he's trembling or whatever. So I totally agree with you. The arc of technology is that it has allowed us to become more atomized. And I, even when I was in Costa Rica the first time I didn't have a phone. Now I have the option to use Yelp instead of asking a person for a restaurant. Restaurant. So yeah, you're going to be able to exist as an economic unit without ever talking to anyone and that we're already mostly there. The price that you'll pay, I think in terms of life satisfaction is going to be very, very, very high. And then in the inevitable case where you do want to have a relationship, your nervous system, I don't think will Be very prepared for it and you'll struggle eventually, but if people don't experience that, God bless. Yes, I know. I know. I feel that way. Like, after years of door dashing, I finally am, like, moving in and I'm dealing with people, and it's a shock to the system to talk to a stranger again.

B (58:52)

I've gone through periods where I've worked really hard for like a month, give or take, and I just don't go out.

A (58:57)

Yeah.

B (58:57)

The only people I talk to really, like Jack and Macy and podcast guys. That's it. And then when I go out, I feel so rusty.

A (59:04)

Yep.

B (59:05)

It's just like I don't know how to. It's like I forgotten how to talk to people.

A (59:08)

Totally. I felt that way after college. Covid. I was like, do we shake hands? I didn't know how to do it, so yet it's like the gym, which is if you've done it once, you know you can do it, you build the muscle back faster. But if you don't go for six months at a time, like, you're, you're. You're going to lose it for sure.

B (59:25)

And how do you address situations? Let's give some examples here. If someone talks over you constantly.

A (59:32)

So there's a number of ways to address this. If someone talks over you you constantly, there's all fundamental questions, which is like, why are you in situations with people that, that need this level of parenting or correction? So, so there's, there's the, there's the concrete thing to say, which is like, in the moment, everybody likes to know what phrase to say, which is there's, there's people that have better ones on me that I won't, I won't trip their lines. But I think Jefferson Fisher has a good line. There's other. There's other people out there in this world. But, yeah, my thing is it would be more curiosity around how you wind up in a situation where people are constantly talking over you. There's a more structural change that we could make to get you into situations where that's not the case.

C (60:13)

So you're saying you could have already done something wrong.

A (60:16)

You could be trying to fit in with a group of people that don't care for you or are low empathy or. And it's just like the answer to this is not to change this circumstance. Find the right phrase. The answer is to leave this situation and go start a better one. It's kind of like, if my boss treats me like crap, how do I get him to stop? We could you could just get a different job, which be a one way to approach it.

C (60:36)

What if someone's just droning and they're talking and talking, you don't want to talk to them. And then like, what are you supposed to do in that situation?

A (60:44)

Is this a podcast question I've seen.

B (60:47)

Where you just keep talking?

A (60:49)

Yeah.

B (60:50)

And it's just. You finish your sentence and if they talk over you, you just continue on and you just over talk them and get a little louder. And if they get a little louder, you just kind of have to one up. But it might not.

C (61:01)

At a certain point, Graham and I, we had. But we have a few. You know, Graham knows who I'm talking about. Like we were in conversation with this.

A (61:10)

Guy, say his name between.

C (61:12)

Between everything. He would say, but. And then he would go on to the next thing. And so like, you know, you can finish a point and just end on a period or you can say but. And then go on to the next day.

B (61:25)

It was, it was crazy. We started last laughing mid conversation because.

A (61:29)

You would just see.

B (61:30)

He would twist something into something else into something else. We would like talk about this cup and then like 10 minutes later he'd be talking about like riding a camel in Egypt and what like the tour guide was telling him. And then he'd circle back to like a Christmas gift he got. Like. And it was never ending. And it was constant to see, like, okay, where's this guy gonna lead next? But everything was. But. Yeah. So then I did this. But. And then. And at this we just stopped talking.

A (62:01)

Yeah.

B (62:01)

And enjoyed our. What we were doing.

B (62:06)

Because it's just like it was pointless. Pointless to say anything. It's funny. Yeah.

A (62:11)

So I think there's, there's. Do you want to be a saint in these situations or do you want to extricate yourself? If you want to. Which is totally fine to want to extricate yourself. I think the be. Whenever I want to get out of a conversation, I just announce what I'm going to do next. Okay, I'm gonna go to the bathroom, but you know, or okay, I'm gonna go get in my car and I'm gonna drive off it for. It's just a weird. Yeah, I'm gonna go meet my friend. I'm gonna go call my dad. Like I just couldn't do that.

B (62:34)

The dinner had just been served. Okay.

A (62:37)

So you're locked in sort of a situation.

B (62:39)

Locked in waiting for food to come in.

A (62:41)

Okay. So then the other, the other thing, which is not your responsibility, but I have started to try to do is there's all kinds of difficult personalities. You just described one there, trauma dumps. There's the person who won't stop talking. That person, I've begun to learn, develop that habit because they struggle to be present with other people. They. They don't know how to let other people in. They don't know how to communicate with other people. And it's an acutely painful experience for them. So I try to drop into compassion in those moments and curiosity. And I'm not excellent at this, but the type of thing I would try to pay attention to the story and listen for. What is he really trying to tell me here? You know, my. The camel did this. And like, what is he trying to say? Is he trying to get me to understand that he's a cool guy who travels a lot? Is he trying to get me to understand that we should hang out sometime? And I will try to speak directly to the thing that he is deeply trying to communicate but struggling to say so. And that would just be. Yeah, it sounds like you really get to travel a lot of places and have a pretty interesting life. Like, I try to. I try to pull out of them the thing that they are talking around, which is why they're saying so many words, because they're not able to just express the emotion and the need that they have in that conversation, which is to be seen, recognized, understood, appreciated, whatever.

B (64:05)

There's so many times I wish that I could just say, hey, listen, I'm just not enjoying this conversation.

A (64:10)

That's a. You know, I think I'm a leave.

C (64:12)

I see that. I would. I would advise against maybe that there's.

A (64:16)

Something close to that.

B (64:18)

I just don't want to listen to this and I just don't want to talk right now.

A (64:20)

Yeah, can we, you know, in the.

B (64:22)

Most polite way possible. Like, I'm. I'm kind of done with this.

A (64:25)

I. I see as people get older, they. They trend in that direction and they can get really harsh in that direction. I think there's a. I don't know the exact phrase, but I think there's really something powerful there, which is. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just not that interested in this topic. What else is going on in your life or like. Like, like keep happen to connection with that person. I don't know the exact phrase, but I think it's. That's authentic. Right? This. I don't want to do this. Can we do something else? It's an interesting way to approach it.

B (64:53)

I've Been a few times I've just said I've zoned out for like, a last few minutes.

A (64:57)

Great. Great. Yeah, yeah.

C (65:00)

And I think people appreciate it, too.

B (65:02)

Yeah.

C (65:02)

Because then, like, you're kind of breaking through that barrier and they see that.

A (65:06)

You'Re just like, hey, look, I can.

C (65:07)

Trust this person, that they're going to be authentic with me.

A (65:09)

Yeah.

C (65:09)

And say how they truly feel.

A (65:11)

Yeah. Yeah. And worst case, that, you know, they freak out, you don't do it. Okay. That. That relationship is over. You're never going to have to sit there and listen to them again. Best case, this person had a barrier up, you stopped being fake, and you pull them out of their weird spiel that they have and actually connect with them as a person, and then you're engaged. I think. I think a lot of people be like, oh, I'm not interested in other people. I think they are. But they haven't learned how to elicit the interesting parts of other people in conversation, so they let other people go wherever they want and they sit bored on the sideline type of a thing.

B (65:44)

So how do you end a boring conversation?

A (65:46)

Well, you can try to make a boring conversation an interesting one, which is the first thing, which is to get to values, generally speaking. So the. The things that make there's fun values. And I call it news. News is like, yeah, so, you know, we got a new crib for the baby. We're moving in. Her mom's gonna visit next. It's just, you know, end it, please. I don't care. That's where a lot of people live. Values is the things that you actually care about, are struggling with, are creating friction, conflict, tension. I find that stuff interesting. So if somebody were to tell me instead, yeah, you know, her mother's coming to town. I got in a big fight with her the last time she was here. She actually, like, now I'm invested, so I'm trying to share my values in conversation when I'm talking about the topics in my life with other people, and I'm trying to listen for their values and. And pull them out of them and steer the conversation in that direction to make a boring conversation have depth and be interesting.

B (66:42)

But let's just say you don't want to have a conversation at all, but you want to excuse yourself in the best way possible without maybe making the situation uncomfortable.

A (66:54)

Yeah. So I don't know exactly where you are, but for me, it's generally, I say, awesome. I am going to. Awesome. Nice talking to you. I am going to do X, Y, and Z, I'm gonna head out now. I'm gonna give my father a call. I'm gonna go explore the party a little bit. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, whatever. And just. That's it.

B (67:12)

Now, really quick, I just want to say that when Jack and I started the iced coffee hour, we had to figure out everything ourselves. From the best cameras to use, the best editing equipment, how to get guests. It was fun, but every day was also challenging. That's why if you're starting or running your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is. And that would be Shopify.

C (67:31)

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A (68:26)

Yes, you heard that right.

C (68:27)

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A (68:36)

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C (68:36)

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B (68:45)

Thanks again, Shopify, for sponsoring this episode.

C (68:47)

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C (69:58)

Would you say charisma is inherently manipulative?

A (70:01)

No, I would not. Do you think that it is? Is?

C (70:05)

I think it probably depends on how you reflect your charisma. But I do think if you're trying to get yourself to come across a certain way to then have people react to you a certain way, just effectively, you know, changing yourself to get a desired response from someone else, that could be. Unless if, you know, you define charisma as being authentically yourself, unwavering and figuring yourself out and becoming the best version of yourself and just displaying that.

B (70:35)

That.

A (70:35)

Yeah, I totally agree. No, I think, I think the superficial aspects of almost anything that people work on themselves for, like it's manipulative to go to the gym, to sculpt your biceps and your abs, to get a particular reaction from a particular person when it's fully understood that that's why you're doing it, you're not expressing your own natural health. You are carving a body that you have predetermined will get a response from it. Like you're trying. And, and if you don't get the response, you will change your gym routes routine until you do get the response. Like that is. And I don't. And by the way, you can put a negative or positive or neutral valence on all of that, but it's a manipulative behavior. You're trying, you're not. The activity in itself is not having unintended consequences. The consequences are the whole point of what you're doing. And so I totally agree with you that a lot of the superficial ways of engaging with making money, getting in shape, getting people to like you are manipulative. And then as you hopefully progress and develop and get older, they are natural outgrowths of you being yourself. And with whether people like you or not, whether they like your body or not, whether they're into your like, all of that is let go, I think, at further stages of development.

C (71:46)

How do you know if you have good charisma?

A (71:48)

Well, I think certainly an aspect is how people react to you, but.

C (71:53)

But you can still misinterpret the way that they react to you.

A (71:55)

Of course.

C (71:56)

Are there ways that are just concrete, you know, like, look at a certain number you. Something that will tell you if you. Yelp score charismatic.

A (72:05)

No, no, it's. It's. It's an interpersonal experience, and it does, like, show me where charisma exists in the universe.

B (72:11)

Right?

A (72:12)

Like, let's go mine charisma. It doesn't.

B (72:14)

It's.

A (72:14)

It's an interpersonal, subjectively, but broadly felt experience. But take the most charismatic person, whoever you want to call him. I said Trump at the beginning, but obviously that's not a universally felt thing about him. So it doesn't exist independently of the feelings that people have in interaction with one another. So there is no. There's no device. There's no measure. There is only. I think what matters is, are you satisfied with how your relationships add to your life and how you add to the relationships in your life? And if you step back and you see that you have friends, colleagues that seem to get much more out of that aspect than you, then there's something to work on. And if you look back and you go, no, I'm deeply. I feel really good about my wife or my husband. I feel good about my work relationships, I feel good about the opportunities that sort of fall into my lap, then great. There's, you know, probably not an area you need to focus on.

B (73:06)

How important are first impressions?

A (73:09)

I mean, how important are first impressions? When you think about the amount of people that you're going to come into contact with in your life and then how many of them you will only meet once, and if that goes well, there's an opportunity for second, third, fourth, it is the gate that. It's kind of like saying, how important is your storefront? Or how important is your thumbnail on YouTube? It's the thing that determines if the inner goods ever get exposure, experience. And as you guys know on YouTube, you get a 3% click through or 4% click through. That's a huge difference in the experience that you have of, are you making money or are you losing money? So deeply, deeply important when it comes to. Yeah. Connecting with people. But I think more important is not that you have everybody likes you, but that the right people are connecting with you. So it's. It's bringing yourself consistently into interactions so that the person who would vibe and would connect with you, you knows that. And then you can form a friendship or a partnership or something like that.

B (74:06)

What does that perfect first interaction look like? We're going to an event tonight for Spotify.

A (74:11)

Okay.

B (74:12)

We're going to be meeting some people.

A (74:13)

I'm coming. No.

B (74:14)

Do you want to.

A (74:16)

We'll talk after. I might be able to.

B (74:18)

Okay. What does it look like, though?

A (74:21)

Yeah.

B (74:21)

When you first meet somebody, what's the best way to lead a great impression?

C (74:25)

Yeah.

A (74:25)

So again, I. I will say there's the broad.

A (74:30)

Objective, more universal way of doing it, and then there's, what do you hope to get out of this event? Because for you, maybe all that you want and this could be different. Maybe I'm making this up. Jack just wants to meet a girlfriend, and the only first impression he cares about is, do I get the women that I like to like me back? And for you, it's like you're looking for a business deal or you're looking for a friend. The first impression qualities are going to be different in each of those circumstances. But. So it's important to know what you're wanting out of a. Out of a situation. But broadly, the. If you. If the other person has these three experiences in this order, it's a great first impression. So the first one is fun. If the sense that they get from you is that you are an enjoyable presence, that's the important piece. You come in super handy. Like, I don't know. I disagree. It's like, it's fun. It's fun. High energy is more fun than low energy. You can crack a joke. This is something that I've talked about ad infinitum on all the podcasts I've done. But if somebody says, where are you from? And you make up a silly joke, you're like, I live over there in the broom closet. Yeah. I just. They just let me out for parties, you know, like, that's fun versus, well, I live here and I do this right. So. Okay. You get a chuckle or a laugh. Check. You've done fun. That's all that it Takes trust. Trust can come in a number of ways. This is where a friend says, hey, have you met like instant trust, right? When somebody MCs you or somebody says oh you should meet this guy. That's why a assist when it comes to a first introduction is so valuable. That immediately buys you five or ten minutes when somebody, somebody says you should talk to this person. Other ways to build trust is mostly non verbal. It's eye contact, it's your handshake, it's you. I mean you guys are sort of established. There's trust that is going to be there for you guys because you're at this event. But that is something that other people generally need to. Need to communicate via non verbals. And then the last thing is respect. So respect often comes through. It can be non verbal but eventually everybody says they're trying to locate you in this. The hierarchy is like so what do you do? Or do you live around here? Or this? Cheap and easy ways, not easy, but if you have it is like oh, you live in the expensive neighborhood or you've got the cool job or you know the, the guy who's throwing the party or this, that and the other thing. But it's even if you're not that. Back when I was a consultant and I wasn't too proud of it, it the way that you talk about what you do, your ability to bring values and lead the conversation in interesting ways. The fact that there's somebody over there who gives you a high five where you're like, hey, what's up man? Like all of this contributes to a sense of, of. I mean we're monkeys, right? Like that this person under is in the hierarchy, alliances, all that kind of stuff is felt palpably and it creates a sense of respect.

B (77:07)

This is a interesting one. What do you think about people who wear designer clothing, like expensive Louis Vuitton head to toe, they drive a really nice car, they pull up in the Ferrari. How does that play into all this in terms of making a good first impression?

A (77:23)

Well, it's, it's clearly intended to create desire and respect or that. And there's a subset of the population that it works for. Like a lot of people tell you to buy these cars and the only people who look at them are other dudes.

B (77:36)

Right.

A (77:37)

But it does have that effect some of the time. If you might remember, like probably 10 years ago there was these pranks where these guys would roll up in Lamborghinis or something.

B (77:46)

Yeah, the gold digger pranks.

A (77:47)

Right. The idea is that people see that and they treat you different, differently. So it, it impacts a subset of people in one way. It also alienates a subset of people the other way. Who are you trying to engage with? And I would say, again, if you're getting a car to get people to like you, you're going to attract the wrong kind of people. You're going to attract the kind of people who want to use you for that car. But if you're a real, like, I know that you love cars and you just love them, and you would love them if nobody liked them. You just want it. If it's an expression of that and who you are, go for it 100%. And it's the same thing with the clothes. Like, if you love this clothes and everybody else hating it doesn't mean a thing to you. It just happens to be designer wear it. But if it's. If your love of the clothes is completely contingent on what other people say, then.

B (78:32)

But what about, like, the, the Adam Sandler sort of style where he's just walking around New York with. Just dressed kind of. But, but I'm saying, but. But he has that confidence to be able to pull it off. And with him it's cool. But some other guy does that. It's like, yo, you should really.

A (78:50)

Some.

C (78:50)

Okay, so you're conveying Adam Sandler and some other guy.

A (78:53)

I promise you, I promise you. People told him 20 years or 25 years, hey, man, you can't dress like that. Hey, man, you can't. Like, when he was just the guy on SNL's like, Dude, wear suit. Like, but he just kept doing it and now it's him and it's fine. I mean, I'm not dressed particularly nicely. I wear my black T shirt. But if you had, you know, Alex Oconnor, he would be in a suit right now. They create different impressions. They. They. One is not better than the other. And the question is, which attracts the type of person that you're most interested in and which feels the best for you to do? I don't think that one is better than the other, though.

B (79:29)

So there's no optimal sort of, like, you should dress this way to get, like, the best outcome. It's really just whatever you feel most comfortable in.

A (79:36)

So there is.

A (79:38)

I had a phrase, and I don't live by this anymore. But if you're really trying to optimize eyes, sure, every day is Halloween. And what you'll experience, if you have ever had a Halloween where you had a killer costume makes it really easy to meet people like There was a year where we were in Brazil. This is before they had shipped those Velcro morph suits out to Brazil so nobody had seen them. And me and my other American friends dressed up as the five Power Rangers and we went out for both that Halloween and the following Carnival. And it was the most celebrity experience I have ever had in my entire life. Entire life. Constant people coming up, oh my God, Power Rangers, like taking photos. It was the most fun I have ever had. Now to be clear, Carnival is not an event where you're supposed to dress up like a Power Ranger. But you know, people wear headdresses, so. And we were foreign. I experienced this in New York where I was a single guy. I was trying to talk to girls. Didn't have a ton of other going on. So I wore suspenders and I tried everything. I tried the boa, I tried the top. You know, I wore everything once. And the suspenders reliably would have women come up and just. Yeah, yeah. And just so.

C (80:40)

But you wouldn't do it on a first date, like when I would do.

A (80:43)

It all the time. Yes.

B (80:45)

So does that still work?

A (80:48)

I don't know.

C (80:49)

It's.

A (80:49)

But yes, it's been. It's like everybody would say, and by the way, the reaction that I got from you guys, all the dudes would roll their eyes. And it just works. It just works. I don't know what to tell, but.

C (81:02)

Walk me through this because I am actually gobsmacked that suspenders work. So are you just putting these suspenders on and walking on the street, striking up conversation, someone and then they go and they snap it.

A (81:12)

That's it.

C (81:12)

And are you. Because you can display suspenders in many different ways. The two main ones being, look at me, I'm wearing suspenders. I'm the guy who the. Like that sort of a thing. Or is it like I look good in suspenders?

A (81:24)

So which one is it? It was a combo because my, my co founder would do it too. And he had like. He was bigger and stronger and just kind of looked funny on him. I was like more lean. So it worked for me certainly. But I. We ran this experiment with a number of friends and they had the same experience, which is people, girls in particular.

B (81:40)

Do you wear a belt benders?

A (81:43)

No, I wouldn't. But these were clip ons. And here's what I'll tell you.

B (81:45)

Good.

A (81:45)

Okay. So when you're this. When you're a younger guy, you're out in a public event like a bar or a club, the thing that guys don't realize is that we all, but women especially, are clocking everyone in that room. Everyone in that room. And most guys are wearing their normal guy suit. I have a collared shirt and a solid color thing and whatever. And it's easy. Like, maybe you're strikingly handsome.

C (82:07)

Maybe.

A (82:07)

You know what I mean?

B (82:08)

It's like, look us.

A (82:08)

Like, maybe you're super tall. Maybe you're like known from the Internet, whatever. But you just blend in. And then one dude has full sleeve tattoos or this was the easiest clip on suspenders. That guy is just noticeable. And if she has any reason that she wants to speak with you, which could be she likes your look. Could be she saw you talking to other people, she looked like you were having a good time. It gives her this easy way to initiate conversation.

C (82:33)

So when they ask, why are you wearing the suspenders? What do you say?

A (82:37)

Okay, this would have been a long time ago. So I'm 38 now.

A (82:42)

What would I have said? So these were questions that people always ask. Like, I didn't drink at the time. And people say. What do you say when people say I like them or because they're awesome. You know, like, just like. It's not about the phrase.

B (82:54)

I would have said belts are too expensive.

A (82:55)

Great, great. It's like you can say they were out of.

B (82:58)

They were out of belts.

A (83:00)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they were out of belts at the belts or whatever. Literally anything. The thing that will. The wavering is the doubt that you shouldn't be. Like, the fact that you maybe feel that you need to have justification, identification. Like, if somebody came up to you and like, why are you wearing a black V neck? Like, you would never prepare for that sort of a circumstance. Like, if anyone asked you about your clothes or how you behaved similarly, you just. You don't need to prepare for that. You just. You just. So is.

B (83:25)

So is this just peacocking then? It's about doing anything to stand out.

A (83:29)

Not anything. Not anything. Because I tried. I tried the stuff that they wrote in the game and I tried the boas and I tried the top hats and I tried all that. And they do create different things. This was like fashion forward. I had a T shirt and the cool khakis with my clipons. Like, it's somewhere on my Instagram you could find it. And it. Yeah, it was effective.

C (83:48)

So what about hand lines? For openers? Explain what a canned line is.

A (83:52)

Okay.

B (83:53)

This is all.

A (83:53)

This is all blast from the past for me. So a canned line is. Every guy knows the experience of. You see a woman that you're struck by. You'd like to speak with her, and your mouth goes dry, your hands go frozen and numb, and you don't know what to do. And all of a sudden, the fact that you could talk to somebody else three minutes ago doesn't matter at all. You don't know what to say. A canned line is something that you can say in that situation to get yourself moving, to get yourself out of it so that you can engage in conversation. I found that it was generally helpful to have a handful of these at most, and to make sure that they were lines that would just be true in almost any situation. So the one that I used when I was a younger guy going out single, trying to meet women was, hey, I don't think I could met you yet. I'm Charlie. That one is very, very powerful because it. Without saying it, sub communicates. I'm the type of person that knows a lot of people at this event. Now, I didn't say that, but it's sort of in there. Like, I don't think I've met you yet is. Is baked into that.

A (84:54)

Again. I tested a bunch of them. That was the most versatile and the easiest. Now, it doesn't make her fall in love with you. Like, everyone thinks they have to ask. You've been run through my mind all day, you know, type of a thing. You're just talking and you haven't creeped her out. That's. That's where that line gets you.

B (85:08)

It's interesting for the Cannes lines because.

A (85:10)

I watch the YouTube videos.

B (85:11)

Steven Shapiro.

C (85:12)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

B (85:13)

Steven Shapiro.

A (85:14)

Yeah.

B (85:14)

And he's.

A (85:15)

It's the young generation. I don't know these guys.

B (85:17)

He's just able to deliver these funny lines. And no matter what he says, they're always receptive. And I'm sure, listen, he could also edit out all the bad ones. But in fairness, he could go up and say the lamest pickup list line.

A (85:32)

Yeah.

B (85:32)

And you just see it just lights up her face. But he says it with such confidence and like a very. He's. He's not attached to the outcome and seems just having a good time.

A (85:44)

Yeah. Pickup lines are training wheels. Like, they're. They're for the person that doesn't know yet how to ride the bike. And so they can lean heavy on a pickup line and not fall over. When you see. I don't know this guy, but I imagine when you see someone like that, he's not even leaning on the training wheels. He doesn't need them. He knows to ride a Bike so he can say whatever he wants. You can give him challenges, you can give him hard things to say. He would probably be able to start a conversation just fine with something that you thought would explode the interaction.

C (86:09)

You said a can line in a podcast I was listening to. It might have been Diar CEO, where someone asked, oh, do you live in this building? You say, no, I'm just casing the place. I actually thought that was h. It's genius.

B (86:20)

Jack's going to steal that.

C (86:21)

That's so good. It literally made me laugh. And I'm still thinking about.

B (86:25)

About it because it's so just, like, clever.

C (86:28)

So I don't know, it makes me think, like, gez, maybe it'd be a good idea. And not even for, like, dating or getting a girl's attention, but just, like, for flirting with the world, as you say. Like, it would be good to have some kind of go to things.

B (86:37)

I'm curious.

C (86:38)

Did you ever have a canned line that you thought was fire, but it was actually really, really bad, and you.

A (86:43)

Just, like, overused it? I, I, None. I'm sure I did, but not one that I use more than twice, because once they sort of really. That's.

B (86:52)

That's your whole task. Best is like, two interactions.

A (86:56)

I mean, you know. Okay, so if I have to answer this question, here's what I'll say. In the book the Game, which was, like, the original thing that I read that was so made that I could learn how to talk to women, they had these canned lines, and very early on I copied some from that book, and the one that they use is like, did you see the fight outside? So I remember.

B (87:14)

Oh, I remember that.

A (87:15)

Yeah. It was like going up to people, like, did you see the fight outside? And then, of course they're interested, interested, but there was no fight outside. Now you're, like, talking about this thing that never happened. You're like, yeah, it was crazy. And so I discovered very quickly that any canned line that was based on something that wasn't reliably true, like, hey, I haven't met you yet. You know, it wasn't worth doing. But that was. So we picked that up pretty quick early on.

B (87:39)

Yeah, I remember the other one from, like, this is the late 2000s. The. Hey, can I get your opinion real quick?

A (87:46)

The opinion opener.

B (87:47)

My sister wants to get a tattoo of her boyfriend, but they've only been dating for three months. She says, he's the one. What do you think of that?

A (87:54)

Yeah, yeah, I remember.

B (87:55)

That was at one.

C (87:56)

Yeah, we.

A (87:57)

I'm sure I did that a handful of times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those, those were just. They're not true, you know, like. And now we're talking about a tattoo that doesn't exist and a boyfriend that doesn't exist. And it's like, so what's going on with your sister?

B (88:08)

It's like, what sister?

A (88:13)

Yeah, so, yeah, threw those out pretty quick.

C (88:16)

So the last time we had you on the podcast, it was what, three years ago? And I think.

A (88:19)

Was it only three years?

B (88:20)

Only that's. It was four.

C (88:23)

It could have been four.

A (88:24)

Fourish.

C (88:25)

But we titled it Meet the Man who Makes like a Million Dollars a Year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz at the time, what was your involvement? What was, what was your involvement with the business?

B (88:36)

That's right.

A (88:38)

It was low. Yeah. Like I wasn't making videos at the time. I'd made the first group of videos and my co founder was, I think at that time making videos. And I was like working on a Dungeons and Dragons thing that wound up costing me a bunch of money and not getting any views.

C (88:50)

Yeah, but you were making really solid money off this business. You'd put in.

B (88:53)

Sure.

C (88:53)

The front end work on, but you kind of sat back and you were just collecting this check. How has your business developed since then?

A (89:00)

Developed? Devolved. Devolved.

C (89:02)

How has your business devolved? Well, you're no longer making a million dollars doing nothing.

A (89:06)

So you can't do nothing forever and make a million dollars. Ran that experiment.

B (89:10)

I forgot we did that title, Making a million dollars doing nothing. I was like, title this.

A (89:15)

So I don't know how much we've had a chance to talk about, but I'll give you the rundown. So at the time, my co founder was making videos and the business was still doing well. He and I had a falling out. It was a personal falling out that then became a business falling out because the basis of the business was the shared friendship. And once that wasn't there, it was like, okay, now that we're business partners, how does this work?

A (89:36)

And so there was a period of time where I said to him, I was like, look, you're, you're going a direction that I don't want to go with this channel. I'd rather you just not make any videos. I understand that that could have a negative impact on income, but like, I think it's for what I hope to do and the brand, I actually think it's. I don't want to keep making videos. There was a year, over a year where nothing happened on the charisma. On Command channel. So it's just a 7 million subscriber channel that just stopped posting and went quiet. What happened with the business, as you can imagine, was like, that's not good. So it was a slow, impressively steady decline from month, month to month. The amazing thing about YouTube, as you guys know, that there's a back catalog and stuff that we'd made five, six years earlier was still feeding our funnel, which was still selling our course, and people were still getting access. We still had all the support services in place, but we weren't driving new leads and we weren't building brand engagement. So eventually we fished that pond out and the business is now down, I don't know, 80% from its top, 75% from its top. And so yet you can't do nothing forever. And then we really did nothing. And I then purchased the business from him last December. And so I'm now the sole owner of this business and came back and made videos and basically found, like, I am operating with a pond that is not stocked. Was like, when I think about when. And like, look at Alex Horosi. When did Alex Horosi make the $100 million? Was it in two days when he sold his third book? I would argue. No, I would argue that was when he collected the $100 million. He made the hundred million dollars over the preceding five years. And so it's the same thing in our business, which is like, when do we make a sale? Well, we've interviewed customers. The vast majority of them have known about us for over a year, if not two. So once you're not making content, you're not getting new fish in that pond, if you will. You fish it out, it's just depleted. So now I've got this really cool channel that I love that it still has my heart. I've got. And we've spoken a lot about charisma, but even in the ways you can hear, it's like, this is not. I'm not wearing the suspenders. I'm not saying the lines. I'm not doing this kind of stuff anymore. I've got to figure out which I'm excited about, what to do with this thing. Because the answer is not more of what I was doing. I played around with that doesn't work for me. And it's like, it's not what the audience wants anymore. I put up a video, video two or three weeks ago that would have made legitimately hundred to $200,000 back in the day, and it did a tenth or a twentieth of the views that it would have gotten back then. And I know the caliber and the quality. It's just like the. The meta has shifted. The attention is changed. It's just a different thing. So. Which is good because also my attention, it was like a dating video. And like I said, I've had a girlfriend for a long time. I'm just not there.

B (92:29)

How much was it to buy that the channel.

A (92:32)

I knew you were ask this question. Yeah.

B (92:33)

I'm curious about like how you were able to.

A (92:35)

So I can finance this. I was thinking about this. I've. Last time we talked, I was on camera. He was. He was right off. He didn't want to talk about his finances. So I'm not going to say the exact number because it's what I spent, he received. Yeah. But I can tell you about the conversations that led up to it was there's, you know, you're looking at how much cash is in the business, you're looking at monthly cash flow. But mostly it's an emotional decision, you know, with some math behind. Behind it of like he worked on this thing for a long time. What is it worth for him to part from it? And he wanted more than the free cash flow that he would have gotten just by sitting on it. And so it was a protracted negotiation. It started. I think I made my first offer like a year before we actually closed it. So the interesting thing about the negotiation is it wound up. I learned a ton about negotiation, but really that it's. Especially with stuff like this. It's like highly important emotional stuff. It's not just a calculator math problem. So we can talk about that if that's. Yeah.

B (93:36)

Why not just like sit down over coffee or drinks and just say, hey, by the end of tonight we're gonna hash this out, I think.

A (93:46)

Well, so we early on we had a number of conversations about the friendship and we had several where it was like, what's going on with us that we were unable to resolve in a way that felt good for me. And then it was like, we're taking. I was like, I need time and space from the friendship. And then it became, oh, wow. As I got time. And this is not to say that he's a bad person or anything like that. I've had people that are malicious actors in the business. Had a guy who stole money. This is not him. Like, we. We had a.

A (94:17)

Different values driving us in different directions in our life, I think.

A (94:23)

But when we. We eventually were able to sit down, but it was like the Emotions and the intensity had to cool for a. Eventually, when we did close it, it was these conversations of, like, very frank, what are you looking for in a deal? What do you want? He then had, by that point, had a kid. And it was like, look, my priority is for him. He was like, I want to get cash to put into investments and the bank so that I can spend time with my family. I was like, well, that's good, because I want to get a project that I can pour myself into and work on. So it was fairly clear that I was going to be the buyer. Though we did go back and forth. I was like, look, I'm willing to sell. But we did have that conversation. It was just not. There was way too much other emotional relationship stuff to have it early. In fact, we probably needed to have it around the time that I was on the last podcast. Like, it needed to be done in 2020 or 2018 or something like that.

B (95:20)

What would you have done differently?

A (95:21)

Looking back, oh, so so much. I would have had a Frank. I think we were best friends first, the business came second. And we, in an attempt to stay close to one another, I think, avoided a lot of conflicts that needed to be had. One of them, though there were many others, was there was a significant period of time where I was like, driving the business and that was why I was doing nothing at that point is because I had carried it up until that point.

A (95:52)

I think other conversations that needed to be had. And then he did make the videos at that point were about real, honest conversations about what we were in the business for. And I don't think one is right or wrong, but I think for me it has been a vehicle for creative expression. And so I have a particular set of things that is meaningful to me. And for him that was. It was important, but it was more like providing a lifestyle for him and his family and those sorts of things. And they just created different. Different things that you want to do with it. And I think having the two of us in 5050 ownership with that level of fundamental, what are we doing here? Like, he would have done something very different than I would have done or am going to do with it, I think.

B (96:38)

What's your advice to Jack and I?

A (96:40)

Are you guys 50 50?

B (96:43)

Pretty much, yeah.

A (96:45)

It sounds. I spoke to Jack, I. About this, have the conflict early. Like it. It is better to yell at each other and say a mean thing four years earlier than to be kind, polite, work it out. Because we were inadvertently, in an attempt to be kind to one another in the Best way that we knew how. Burying problems that then became intractable at one point, and I've spoken to Jack and he said that you guys have had discussions about like what's are. Are we contributing fairly and what's your role versus my role? Like that these things continue to be spok about in ways that are high conflict is actually really, really healthy, I would say. And we sort of prided ourselves on being very low conflict. Like we just got along and agreed and sort of smoothed over anything that wasn't self evidently going to resolve itself in a single conversation.

B (97:38)

Now, what about in contracts for valuation? Because it seems like that's a very arbitrary number where you could say, oh, it's valued at tax, when really it's like, okay, if you, if you have a buyer, they're gonna pay a fifth of that. Sure.

A (97:51)

So this is, this was the big issue was when I made the pitch, it was like, well, I think it's worth this. Where it actually moved, this was. I got to give Joe Hudson credit. He offered me this suggestion is I had wanted to buy the business. I like, I looked at it was like, I, it's for me, my sense, and I think he would agree at this point is that his creative energy was really going to his, his family and my creative energy was going into some sort of business or project. And it just made sense for me to be the buyer and him to be the seller. But what actually moved it was when I said, hey, I'm actually willing to sell this thing. How about, I've been making you offers. You tell me it's not high enough that you make a counter. I say, that's too much. We're not able to work it out. Why don't you buy it from me and make me an offer to purchase it. So when he did that and he looked at it and he really went. And he sat on the other side of the table and he was like, okay, what is this worth? The numbers came way, way more close. So he made me an offer that was legitimate offer. He's like, I would do it at this price. And I said, I'll pay you 20% more than that and we can close. And that was it.

B (98:55)

That's a great way to frame it.

A (98:56)

It was a great way to frame it. It's like the thing that I had to let go of was, hey, maybe I am selling this thing. You know, maybe I'll go start a new channel.

B (99:03)

And.

A (99:03)

And we each had clauses which is like, you get a shout out or I get a shout out like we had a. We, we agreed on the broad structure of the deal of like this is what it's going to look like. And then it was, I'm willing to be on either side of this. And that, that got us to a price that was. We just saw it very, very similarly at that point.

B (99:21)

And how is your relationship today?

A (99:23)

It's much better. We had a period of time where we weren't talking. When I say better, it's like we're, we were best friends for, for 20 years, almost about 20. And where we are now is we are. I have well wishes for him. We're friendly, we're cordial, we are cool. Every now and then we catch up on the phone and have a long conversation. Conversation. He's got a young family. He's got like two little kids that are, you know, any time to talk to him is like, okay, I just got one down for a nap. Like that sort of a thing. It's, it's much better. My, my big regret is that I think we, we were, we were going to wind up here. He was going to end up with a young family not working on this sort of a thing because that was what was important to him. Now I was to going to wind up at this stage of my life without a young family working on this project. I wish that we could have had conversations earlier about not even the business, the friendship because really what was going on that created the business problem is we were codependently.

A (100:26)

Altering who we were in order to try to make the relationship work. So just for instance, like he was living in California and not marrying his girlfriend and not having kids because I wasn't doing those things. And there were ways in which I was, was sort of being more like him in ways that didn't feel comfortable to me to try to maintain this closeness. As soon as we split, it was like he started doing his thing all out. I've been doing my thing all out. And I think unfortunately the, the closeness that we were trying to protect wasn't allowing us to grow into the people that we honestly were.

C (100:58)

So how's the business doing today then?

A (101:01)

What is your definition of how. No, I mean I told you the revenue is off 70 to 80% off it. Its top.

A (101:10)

The, you know, we had an offer that from somebody else to buy that would have enabled me to retire in just about any place in America. Maybe not Los Angeles in the place that I currently am.

A (101:21)

But it is, it feels like really fertile ground, honestly. It feels like I have the opportunity to Come in and do what I did in 2015, which is define something new. When I came in in 2015, there weren't any other charisma coaches. There was no charisma breakdowns. It was a fairly innov innovative thing on YouTube at the time. And now, which is cool. There's all these other charisma coaches and they're on podcasts and they're doing fine and they have phrases to say in these situations. What the business needs now is like it's actually in a competitive industry. And it was. I don't like being in competitive industry. I want to do my own thing. So what it needs, I think is a year or two of R D and development of deeper internal work which is reflective of the stuff that I've been doing for the last decade. And we can chat about if it makes sense. But yeah, it's revenue down hope sky high.

B (102:16)

Why not just do a new channel?

A (102:19)

I love, I love this too much. I love the name. And so this is.

B (102:23)

Couldn't you still do the same name or no.

A (102:25)

Yeah. So this was when I, when I was thinking of. I was so protective. I wanted to buy it and I was like, oh, I could just sell it. I could just do a new channel. I could just take this. There's proceeds, roll it in. I think what I really want to offer to someone when I was 18 and you know, it sounds like you had a similar thing like trying to learn to talk to girls. I didn't have a big brother. There was no one that I was able to go to and ask that question. And I uncovered the game and I was like, oh my God. And then as I grew out of it, like I couldn't stick with the author, Neil Strauss and get. I didn't like, you know, he didn't have the next phase of how to be a dad or anything like that. And so what I really want to offer someone is a place where they can drop in as a 16 year old or 17 year old and stick with the company through the 30s and 40s, through the different life stages. And for that reason I want the back catalog. I like everything that we talked about today. It's just not what interests me as a 38 year old guy. Right. So what I want to talk about is the inner work and self esteem and, and all of those like those more fundamental pieces. And I think it'd be really cool if those were housed under one company so that someone knew it was like almost a vertically integrated self improvement improvement company that you could, wherever you Enter. There's going to be something for you in five years that is different from where you are today.

C (103:36)

But you're still clearly making money with the business. And you did mention when we weren't filming that bitcoin was the best investment you ever made. I'm curious, where are you investing your money today?

A (103:46)

So I'm actually. So this is, this is. Maybe we'll get into it here. Grant my house. No, no, absolutely not.

B (103:53)

Okay.

A (103:54)

I don't know if you. So I am not. I've realized it's taking me to 38 years old. I don't like doing the practical thing. And we discussed this because you're like, dude, you could take that rental money and you could buy a home instead and you could get value out of it. And I have made decisions that are seemingly, from a math perspective, very foolish. One of the things that I think I'm gonna do because it just feels good is I was, I had money that I put into a retirement fund for like, you get a 401k, you get the, the SEP IRA. I want to take it out and take the penalty just because I don't. When I, I want my investments to be a reflection of the things that I'm betting on and the world that I want to exist in. And having a retirement fund there that is like, I can't touch this till I'm 59 and a half years old. That's not a world where I succeed in business. Right. That's a world where I'm like counting on a nest egg. That's more like my parents that were, you know, they had careers and they had fixed incomes and they knew what they were going to be making. So I'm actually pulling a lot of my investments out of the market. I'm going to leave some in the, the S and P and putting it into hiring, firing, like investing in the business again. In my.

B (105:02)

How much money do you need in the business, though?

A (105:05)

Well, it's, it's. This is the other thing. It's not even about the business having money. It's just. I just don't like it in a retirement fund. It just doesn't feel.

B (105:12)

But you're going to need money later anyway.

A (105:15)

It doesn't feel aligned for me. And I know that might sound.

B (105:18)

But there could be investments that align with you.

A (105:20)

You. Sorry. Having an ira, having a fund that I am not allowed to touch to self control. It's discipline. Yes, yes. But I can't spend it on myself. Right? I can't, I can't Spend it on the business. I can't spend it on a home. I can't spend it on anything. It has to go into a public equity.

C (105:40)

Maybe instead you decide what you're going.

A (105:42)

To spend it on first. Sure, sure.

C (105:44)

Before you pull it out.

A (105:45)

Here's what I pull it out.

C (105:46)

Just to throw an individual, individual account and then you're paying a fee to have.

A (105:50)

I think I'm gonna do that.

B (105:52)

No, no, no, let me.

C (105:54)

I'm gonna talk of money that's compounding and so.

B (105:57)

Yeah, I'm gonna talk. Yeah.

A (105:59)

Okay.

B (106:00)

You're gonna have to pay, I think, I believe it's a 10 penalty.

A (106:03)

10.

B (106:03)

And then you're also gonna have to pay tax in the state of California.

A (106:07)

So I'm looking at like 35. Yeah.

B (106:10)

Income. So you're gonna pay my g. Yes. Probably in what, the 30 something percent bracket. You're going to pay another 10 to the state 43 and then you're going to pay another 10 in penalty. 53.

A (106:22)

Yeah.

B (106:22)

Like, okay, so you're losing half of your money. So if you have $200,000 invested, which would, you know, for retirement money you know is going to be, I'm guessing on the higher end you're going to have a hundred thousand left that you would be much better off just keeping it in the account and working harder and making an extra hundred thousand dollars doing anything else other than cashing out.

A (106:40)

Okay, so I'll give you the other. The, the flip. And I don't know if you'd felt this way, but there's been a number of times in my life where, where I've done dumb things that don't make sense. But because I put the bet on myself, something internally in me changes. So like when I quit my job, a lot of people would have advised, hey, have a second thing lined up before you leap. I have found that this habit that I have of burning the boats and just being like, I'm doing. I got an idea, dude. Yeah.

B (107:08)

If I could buy your 401k maybe if I'm able to take that over and give you cash this time.

A (107:14)

And then I love this.

B (107:15)

I don't know if there's a way I could do this, but I'm telling you right now, I would buy it at whatever your pre tax value is.

C (107:22)

Don't do deals with this guy. He's gonna be like, okay, so you're at 200, you're gonna end up with 100. I'll give you 102.

A (107:29)

And you're gonna make it complicated for.

B (107:30)

Two grand compounded value of this over time. Why wouldn't I be able to take that over?

C (107:36)

If you want to sell it, then also sell it to me because whatever he's paying, it's gonna be pennies on the. Do have a better.

B (107:41)

I would give you whatever you'd be left over with after tax.

A (107:44)

I don't even know if such a thing is possible. I'm.

B (107:47)

I would love to be able to buy people's 401ks if they need cash. I'll buy your 401k. Yeah, well, I'll buy your Roth IRA, give it to me and, and maybe we work something out. Because if you're going to cash out anyway.

A (108:00)

Yeah.

B (108:00)

What, do you want the government to get the money or you want Graham to get the money? I. I would do way more with that money when I'm 59 and a half and compounded that like 10x from where it is today, then what's the government going to do? They're going to blow it. They're going to spend it.

C (108:17)

This is, this is where we need.

A (108:18)

To get most conversation.

B (108:19)

Am I, am I incorrect?

C (108:20)

No, I hear incorrect.

A (108:22)

Well, so what's interesting is. So, so, okay, just stepping back. This is always interesting to me. You clearly are passionate about finances. You know what I mean? It's not just intelligence. It's emotional wisdom to you to, like, behave in certain ways. You know, it's like, it's not just, just. Oh, that's. That's a foolish way to approach it. It's like it activates you. There is. I'm. I feel similarly, but in a different direction. Like, I get turned on when I make bold, daring decisions where I bet on myself and it unlocks something inside of me. So, like something where you benefit and I be like, great, yeah, but you.

B (108:57)

Could do the same thing. All you have to do is open a credit card and max it out.

A (109:00)

I don't want to do that. I just don't want a retirement account. That's it. I, I actually don't want a retirement retirement account. Like, that's. That's feels really good for me to say and do because I only did it. I did it unconsciously. I did it because I was told to by some financial person without an understanding of the implications. And I just want.

B (109:16)

It doesn't make it automatically bad, though.

A (109:19)

Not bad. Just not for me. I, I don't. I'm not advising anybody to do this, but I don't want it. Okay.

C (109:25)

But I, I will say, here's me trying to Speak your language.

A (109:29)

Yeah, yeah. Hit me, hit me. I see I've got icon Graham activated. It's your language.

C (109:35)

That's the one of no. For your language, I would say you are confining yourself to a certain identity. A person that needs to have the bur.

A (109:45)

The.

C (109:46)

The boats burned in order to invoke action. And I don't think that's the case. I think that you can relinquish the identity that you want to hold to yourself. I hear that say that you're not that person. You are whoever you want to be whenever you want to be that person. And then prove to yourself that you know that you are not the, the type of person that needs to be held slave to these ideas that you have about yourself.

A (110:09)

No, so there's a. Totally hear you. There's. You know, I was a philosophy major and one of the things that I've always been is like I have to rebel against a thing. Right. But if you're rebelling against a retirement fund, you are still a slave to the retirement fund, just in a different direction. Like the person that has to do it because everyone else is doing it is a slave to public opinion. But the person that can't do the retirement fund because everyone else is doing it is also a slave to public opinion. So I hear you there. I will not lock myself into it just because I have an old identity. It'll be a practically informed real time thing. I'm going to look at all the implications and, and, and dig into it. I'm not going to just be, just be.

C (110:48)

Have some sort of reasonable justification aside from burning the boats.

A (110:51)

Or, or like I want to make this. In this hire that I'm absolutely betting on and I trust it.

B (110:56)

Yeah.

C (110:56)

Because then it'll even feel better and it will motivate you even more than just like, why did I. Yeah, I totally agree.

B (111:02)

If you want to burn boats, two things you could do. One is there's something called a hardship withdrawal on the 401k. If you get down so low that you need that money. I believe there are certain conditions that if you meet them, you could waive that 10% penalty.

A (111:15)

I don't think I'm going to be there, but yeah.

B (111:17)

Okay.

C (111:17)

The other one to put you there.

A (111:19)

Yeah, yeah.

B (111:19)

The other one though, we're getting there. The other one though is if you want to like burn the boats, you make a bet with me and then you say, hey, if I don't do X, Y, Z by this time, I get give you $50,000.

A (111:32)

That's it.

C (111:33)

That's it. That's what you're. That's what you're cooking up? I'll give you money I like. I hope you realize.

A (111:40)

Is it all right if I do that to charity instead of you? Yeah.

C (111:43)

What are you going to do with it? Dude, literally nothing.

B (111:46)

I'm going to put it in my 401k.

C (111:48)

What this. It's insane what this guy does. And, and he does his friends.

B (111:52)

Motivation.

A (111:53)

Look, I'm fine with it. It's motivation. He.

B (111:55)

He doesn't want to see. Jack doesn't want to.

A (111:57)

I want Graham to have it. Jack, can you just let me give Graham 50,000 for no reason.

C (112:02)

Really don't want GR. Like so badly.

A (112:04)

Don't want.

B (112:05)

Jack wants it himself. That's why I.

A (112:07)

Well, if I made. No, no, no. Literally give it away.

C (112:10)

Give it to anybody except Graham and I. Anybody. Anybody.

A (112:13)

Well, so this is such an interesting thing and maybe we don't need to go deep, but it's so obvious to me that how emotional money is and I experienced this in negotiation with my co founder. Like, you have enough money. You don't need my $50,000. Maybe I do. Graham, having 50,000 doesn't mean. To you. You know what I mean? Like at a lit. And to me, I'm fine. I don't need to take my money out. It's. It's all these like deep emotional decisions that I think get dressed up rationally, you know. And that is the part that I find.

A (112:42)

Exciting about money is to use it as an emotional trigger rather than as this thing that I'm just trying to have more of. So. But.

C (112:49)

But there also is such thing as reality. And at a certain point you have a girlfriend, you guys are moving in together, you might want to have kids. I don't know. If you do, you might want, you might not want and you don't know what you'll want at some point in the future.

A (113:01)

I want to argue. Argue this with you. Yeah, so this all presumes and I think it's important. Look, analysis. You see, I'm a pretty heady guy. I can do analysis. I've talked to ChatGPT. I'm aware of the 10 penalty. These are not. This is not news to me. This last eight years has been about letting go of living from this. My ego knows what to do. Oh well, in five years I'm gonna do this. All this like math in the head of I need this. That's living from an analytical, ego infused mind. But there is this other way which you could argue is a more feminine perspective. Perspective, which is what feels good right now. And I know that is anathema because you guys talk to a lot of people who do that and they're impulsive with their credit cards or Caleb Hammer talks to these people and they like, you know, are making horrible decisions based on momentary feelings. I have found that there for me, when I align myself with my own deeper intuition, even if it doesn't make sense, even if I take a hit in the short term, the ripple effects in my life are just so much more positive. And instead of optimizing for what my brain thinks is going to get me the most money, maybe it puts me in and financial hardship. And maybe as a result of it, my girlfriend's business takes off, which by the way, that is not because of me, but like she's shocked me with what she's capable of. And if I'd made her a stay at home mom, she wouldn't have the successful business that she has right now. So the idea that I'm going to math it all out in my head, I don't really subscribe to anymore. I'm like a much more analytically informed but intuitive decision maker these days. And I'm happier as a result.

B (114:28)

There are plenty of other ways that you could get rid of that 401k. I'm just saying.

A (114:32)

I hear you.

B (114:32)

Plenty of other ways. Ways than just giving it to the government.

A (114:35)

I love that. I love that.

B (114:37)

I'm going to make sure you don't just, poof, it's gone. I'd rather you pay taxes when you're 59 and a half in a lower bracket without the penalty.

A (114:46)

Maybe it'll help them deal with the next fire, you know, if I give them a little bit more.

B (114:50)

Listen, what's funny about taxes that people don't realize is that you could always pay more. So if that.

A (114:57)

So if you feel bad about it next year, I'll just. Yeah, I got you.

B (114:59)

You know, believe it or not, they have a fund that you could send money to pay down the national debt.

A (115:03)

Really?

B (115:04)

Really? Yes.

A (115:05)

I don't want to, but I get it.

B (115:06)

You could, you could literally do that and you get a deduction for it. So if you want to help pay down the national debt, do everyone a favor. You could just send your money into this black hole of spending and it just gone. Yeah, you could fund the next second.

B (115:24)

I don't know about that.

A (115:26)

And then I'm just gonna go around and be like, hey, that one was on me.

B (115:28)

Everybody for all of you. All of you yesterday, 301pM And 15 second. That was me.

A (115:36)

That was your point. Honestly, I might do that if I can buy a second. I'm gonna look into it.

B (115:41)

That would make a great YouTube video. I paid down the national debt for one bro.

A (115:45)

To have everyone in America indebted to you for one second. Almost worth it if you want the math.

B (115:50)

Here. Here is the math on how much we spend every single second as a country. We spend $7 trillion a year to run the United States. The deficit, meaning we spend more than what we take in the deficit. It's 2 trillion. But if we take the $7 trillion that we spend every single year overall, divide that by the number of seconds in the year, that comes to roughly $222,000 spent every single second. Second a second to run the United States.

A (116:21)

I was thinking about it, but I take it back. Maybe I'll buy a tenth of a second.

B (116:24)

Yeah. So if you want to run the United States, you send them $222,000 and you're your second. Could be owned by you.

A (116:33)

Yeah.

B (116:33)

You could fund the government for a second.

A (116:35)

You know, there's people that like, sell stars and that kind of stuff. Or like those. I, I wonder if this could be like a.

B (116:41)

A name. Name the second.

A (116:43)

Yeah. Just paid.

B (116:44)

Yeah.

A (116:44)

Yeah. And you could get a. You put your name on it.

B (116:47)

This is even crazier per minute. The government's spending $13.34 million a minute. So just in the time it's taken to say this, we've spent $13 million.

A (117:00)

Crazy. Where does it go?

A (117:03)

I don't know. I kind of know. I could look at the chart. But anyways, I, I hear you guys on the retirement thing. I hear you on the.

C (117:10)

Ms.

A (117:11)

The, the poor decision making in the government and the dislike for just forking over all the money. I'm, I'm not opposed.

C (117:17)

It makes me wonder like, if.

A (117:18)

What was it?

C (117:19)

$13 million a minute. If, if every minute they were just like, okay, $13 million goes to. Towards building, you know, actual affordable housing in some location. $13 million goes to repaving all of the streets in this city. 13 million. Like, if you were to just like.

B (117:32)

Isolate it, like, it would be fun as like a slot machine where someone's like, ching. And it's like, oh, we're going to fix this road. Cha. Ching.

C (117:39)

Oh, this person gets allocated way better than whatever got.

B (117:42)

I want it to be random. And you know what would be cool is just every minute just a random person. In the United States that has a Social Security number bridge somewhere. No, just gets a million bucks in there.

A (117:54)

Why not? I think if they gamified it, they could get a lot more engagement, that's for sure.

B (117:57)

Yeah, but just like every day you just check your bank account and be like, was I the lucky one who got that million dollars? And it's just, it's a cha ching.

A (118:05)

But there's so much money out there.

B (118:07)

Why, why not? Why can't they have fun with it? If you really think if they just did that every day cost $365 million, it's not that much, honestly, in the grand scheme of things.

A (118:16)

That's thinking like a social media marketer because. Yeah, that's like, what's Mr. Beast going to do compared to that? Like, you make a video about it.

C (118:23)

Oh, you're going to, you're going to.

A (118:23)

Like whatever you're going to. Whatever you're going to.

B (118:25)

Yeah.

A (118:26)

The funny thing is when you look.

B (118:28)

At that budget, like $365 million a year for the government budget is, is a rounding error. The Pentagon loses more money than that, probably on like a weekly basis. And if you're talking about giving 365 people a million dollars, one new person a day just wakes up and it's in their account. That would be awesome because they, they balance the budgets in, in hundreds of billions. And so to take not even like a hundredth of that and just give it back to the people at random.

A (118:59)

Well, what's interesting that, I mean, there's a lot of issues obviously with the federal government, but one of the things that you're making me realize is with a budget that large, to have such poor brand association association is really pathetic. Like, imagine if you had all that money to spend, you had to sell a movie or get somebody your YouTube channel. Like, you'd figure out a way to have positive brand association. But I guess because they're also taking all the money. But like, man, to be spending a.

B (119:26)

Lot of money, a lot of it is Social Security, Medicare, healthcare. I think that works out to be about $2 trillion of that. It's just like one segment. And then there's the military and then there's interest on the national debt. And then just in those categories, you're at $4 trillion a year.

A (119:44)

Yeah.

B (119:44)

And then $3 trillion has to get allocated elsewhere.

A (119:49)

So yeah, this is for conversation, for recruitment. Very, very.

B (119:54)

It's expensive. It shouldn't, shouldn't have to be. You know, I think the private sector would do better.

A (119:59)

I Just have everyone. I believe you believe that.

C (120:04)

We've been going over two hours. But don't get Graham on the private.

B (120:07)

Sector, you know, but I think the.

A (120:09)

Government'S got some problems.

B (120:11)

You know, when I was in.

C (120:13)

Graham. Yeah, no, we, I think, I think most people here agree with you if you don't leave a comment. Guys, we are so curious to know what you think about this subject. We have one last thing for you, Charlie. Okay, so we've curated what we call a tier list. And you're going to go through it and rank everything from the perspective of charisma.

A (120:33)

Oh, I. I've seen. Seen you do these. Yeah.

C (120:35)

Okay, so it's S tier all the way down to F tier. Okay.

B (120:38)

You can just.

C (120:39)

And I'll.

A (120:39)

And I'll announce it to you guys while you just kind of hold.

C (120:41)

Yeah, do it.

A (120:41)

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. This is cool. I want to get this. Tiermaker.com.

C (120:47)

Yeah, it's free.

A (120:48)

Okay, I'm gonna do it.

A (120:51)

So I'm gonna. I. Just to be clear, none of this is an endorsement of the person or saying that I believe they did or didn't commit the crimes that they're accused of. This is how effective this person is at influence writ large. Okay. Donald Trump, two time president.

A (121:10)

No governmental experience beforehand. He's got to go S tier. Like I said, just undeniable. I don't think we'll ever see anyone talk themselves into the White House the way that he did Andrew Tate. Okay, another easy one. Wildly, wildly charismatic. I mean, I could break him down a number of ways, but in terms of high conviction, like. Got it. He can talk, he knows what he's doing. That's an S tier. Who is this next one?

C (121:40)

Let me see.

C (121:43)

Nick Fuentes.

A (121:44)

I know of him. I don't know a lot about Nick Fuentes. I mean, you're giving me. And now I'm on here.

C (121:52)

It's not only people, it's also, like things.

B (121:54)

Yeah.

A (121:54)

Okay, so I don't know a lot about Nick F Fontes. I know that he's got a huge audience that he's built without the backing of like corporate media and that sort of stuff. Can you give me some context?

C (122:07)

No, I would just say if you don't know, just don't. Just skip it.

B (122:09)

Skip.

A (122:10)

I'm going to skip Elon Musk. I'm going off charisma here. I think Elon Musk is a great example of someone with insane amounts of power, insane amounts of horsepower, capital vision, if. If vision counts as charisma. He definitely. And where I'm going to give a caveat here like his AB to get people to follow and work for him is very impressive. But I also, from what I understand, he doesn't retain and keep people like he.

B (122:34)

He.

A (122:35)

They're interested in the vision and then he burns through them and tosses them. So from a charisma perspective, he's got some of the worst. I'm going to put him in D tier. Gavin Newsome don't know a ton about the guy. These are tough ones.

A (122:51)

Should I rank him or just like, I would guess B or C. Beebs Biebs know a little bit about.

A (122:57)

Young Bieber had a level charisma. Like the guy who got picked up by Usher was just like such a radiant young kid. Mid Bieber, the guy who is now on the Jimmy Fallon show was some of the worst charisma I ever. I'd ever seen. Like he, he had the thing that it sounds like you have which is so many people came up to him and oh my God, that he just became so low energy. Didn't want to engage, engage with anybody. And now I've actually seen him. He's got that low energy. But he is, he's way more authentic and from the stuff that I've seen, he started streaming lately. So I am going to put him with a generous B, but it's probably more like a C or C plus me that S now.

A (123:42)

Next I give myself a stronger B than Bieber.

C (123:48)

So then you'd put it to the left of him.

A (123:50)

Okay, I'm gonna put it to the left of Biebs being attractive. So I wouldn't count this as charisma. I would count this as a separate category because we see all these people that are hyper attractive and you know, they're duds and that sort of thing. But if I had to like, compare the power of being attractive to like, where would that, like, how. How does that fit? I think that being attractive is, is. Let me see if I.

A (124:18)

I'm gonna, I'm gonna put it in B, but it might even go up to A. It's, it's. It's very important. People respond very differently. But I've also seen people that are super attractive just completely ruin it. So it depends on like relative to average, relative to as. As bad as it can get. Like, these are the sorts of questions that I would be curious about. Crying in front of people.

A (124:41)

Look, I'm all for expression of emotion. The way this is phrased.

A (124:47)

Cried on my diary of a CEO podcast I cry all the time. This is just phrased in such a way that it's not.

C (124:56)

That's how Graham phrased to me in the drive over here.

A (124:58)

Crying in front of people. No, but if it was like being vulnerable, okay, I'm going to give it an A or an S. But, you know, just crying in front of people with no description, I'm going to put.

B (125:06)

That as a T.

A (125:09)

Eye contact when shaking hands. This is. This is a C. It's like, important, but is not going to, you know, break the bank. Fame, in terms of influence, it's S tier. There are a few things that get people to respond differently than fame. We've all felt it. Like, you see that person and if they're hyper famous, just. They get basically a pass. I don't love it. I didn't make the rules. I don't advert. I think there's a lot of issues with fame, but that is what it is. Handshake, firmness.

A (125:43)

I think when done wrong, it goes bad. And I think it can go really. I'm going to give it like, if you have a bad handshake, we're talking like C minus, D plus level. If you have a good handshake, you're just a C. So I'm going to put it in C. Humor. That's A or S tier. I would say that's like very, very, very high. Um, and I want to compare it to fame. I mean, I've seen funnier people be more liked than famous people. But I'm. I'm. Fame is incredibly powerful money.

A (126:17)

If people don't know, I mean, in terms of getting responses from people in the world, like, how am I. How am I to understand this? Like, you're like, walking.

B (126:23)

Be flashy, flashy, you know, throwing money around and bottle service, that sort of thing.

A (126:29)

Okay, I want to.

B (126:30)

Or just have a lot of money.

A (126:32)

I mean, again, it's like, do I have a million? Do I have 10 million? Do I have a billion? I'm going to put it in lower more than just because it's not as visible a lot of the time. And so. And again, how much money? All these questions matter, but I'm gonna put it in B tier.

C (126:44)

It.

A (126:44)

It really matters. Like, if you have. If you're a billionaire. I. My brother worked at the club in Las Vegas. Like, there are ways to spend money that get people to do insane and reactions. And you can, you can shape the world with money. But just the word money, like, some of it, I'm putting in B tier. Mystique way overrated. F tier.

A (127:07)

Mystique is not worth it. All this, like, there's this idea that you're going to, like, go to a. A bar and stand on the wall and look really cool, and everybody's going to be like, what? What's going on? Nothing's going on. Nobody cares. Name dropping.

A (127:20)

Done lightly, actually. Oh, done two, three, four times, you start to hurt yourself. So given that it's called name dropping, I'm going to put that in D tier because you're hurting yourself. Never apologizing. Okay, so this is a complicated one. Donald Trump never apologizes. Andrew Tate never apologizes. As much as I hate to say this and don't acknowledge it, there is a way to be that is incredibly effective in terms of getting people to follow you that is never apologizing. But it has a ton of downsides, and I don't know them personally, but I think what goes on internally with Andrew Tate and Donald Trump is not. Not desirable. So.

A (128:02)

I'm gonna really put it low. I know that I just said that it's effective, but I don't want people to do this. And.

A (128:08)

And also, there's so many ways to do it poorly. Like, there's a lot of, like, for most people, ways to do it poorly. There's more ways to do it poorly. So I'm gonna put it in F tier. Like, to do the Andrew Tate, Donald Trump make it work for you is more likely you're just going to ruin your marriage and ruin your friendships by never apologizing. So that goes F2 here. Posture. So this is like, am I saying good posture or bad posture?

C (128:30)

Just how important is it?

A (128:31)

Yeah, how important is posture?

B (128:32)

If someone has great posture, they would be in as, you know, whatever tier.

A (128:37)

I'm going to give, I feel like B, no, C. It's just not the most important thing. See, vocal volume. This is more important. I'm going to put Peter. That's like high B, low A. And then we've got two guys that I don't really know, French and Newsom at the bottom. There you go.

B (128:57)

Cool.

A (128:57)

Thank you, guys. I hope I got these right.

B (128:59)

Thank you. Really appreciate you coming on. And thank you, by the way, for showing up to the index.

A (129:04)

Yeah, that was so fun. Thank you, man. I was inspired, really? Have you shared about that on the pod briefly?

B (129:09)

What's funny is that quite a few of the people not that you met came from a mention I did on the podcast with Alex Ramosi. The very end. We only talk about it at the end. Of the podcast. But I talked about it, this group with him, and we've ended up getting a few people who inquired from that episode.

A (129:27)

Wow.

B (129:28)

But, yeah, it's, it's just, it's a small group of really like high level entrepreneurs, investors, business owners. We're at like 20 people. I don't think we're going to grow it much beyond this point, but every meetup we try to bring on like some new guest.

A (129:43)

Yeah.

B (129:44)

And so the last one we had Chris, Clark, Camilo, we had Jeremy, who we're going to be posting soon. So, you know, stay tuned on that. You came for our first one.

A (129:53)

Yeah.

B (129:53)

Which is really cool.

A (129:54)

Yeah. Thank you for the invite. I mean, I. What, what inspired me about it was it was so cool for you to have this group of people together and to see that you were an attraction, but you weren't the main attraction. It was like they getting to connect with themselves and one another was the main attraction. And I see so many people who are in the space who. It's like, you gotta be the guru and you gotta be on stage for eight hours and do all the thing. And it was so cool to watch these people get a ton of value by connecting with one another. And that made me want to do the same thing.

B (130:20)

Well, they're mostly more successful than I am. Yeah. And so, like, I'm looking at them as like, what would you guys do? I mean, there are people in the group that, you know, manage hundreds of people or have sold companies and like, here I am just like making YouTube videos.

A (130:34)

Yeah.

B (130:35)

And so it's cool to be able to talk to them and get their opinion outside of YouTube without any. So, like, there's no alternative motive. It's just, you know, you get their advice and they have nothing at stake. And so they'll just give you and, you know, whatever the truth is, you got to be.

A (130:51)

This is something that I talk about with charisma, is you. You set yourself up as the hub instead of a spoke on a wheel. So you got to be the person that brings everyone together. Which means you don't have to be the most impressive person in the room. You're the person who gathers everybody. Yeah. So I was like, oh, gosh, I know this. I have to do this more.

B (131:07)

Well, we're doing a meetup tonight if you, if you can go.

A (131:10)

Yeah, we'll chat. We'll see if I can make it cool.

B (131:11)

Oh, by the way, if you're interested, we do have an applic in the description. There is a wait list at this point, but just submit your info and we'll be in touch. And that's it.

A (131:19)

All right, thank you, boys.

C (131:20)

Charlie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Really means a lot. Super, super excited for this dinner, this Spotify meetup. I'm excited to practice these new skills. So hopefully there's an elevator there.

A (131:33)

Thank you, guys. Not your trouble.

B (131:35)

All right, till next time. And then how much is your 401k so I could buy it?

A (131:51)

And Doug, here we have the Limu.

C (131:53)

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A (132:02)

Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural allies, Doug. Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera.

C (132:10)

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A (132:15)

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B (132:16)

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C (132:18)

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