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[English]

hey friends welcome back to Deep dive

the podcast where it's my immense

pleasure to sit down with entrepreneurs

creators authors and other inspiring

people and we find out how they got to

where they are and the strategies and

tools we can learn from them to help

build a life that we love in this video

we're looking back at previous episodes

where I look at the best advice on

scaling a business from some of our

previous guests so without further Ado

here we are one of the observations I

had shortly after my time at PayPal was

that if you first I look back at my time

at PayPal and I realized like 90% of all

of our growth came from like five things

wait how so like I mean early on before

I got there they got on to eBay and eBay

started s started using it and then they

wrote a a bot to start bidding on eBay

items and pretending to be a buyer and

asking if they would accept PayPal and

the sellers were like oh well yeah sure

and so eBay was huge early growth engine

then reaching out to web developers

because that's the people who are

implementing e-commerce and then we

figured out that about the time I got

there they figured out that a lot of

e-commerce sites just get built on a

platform like the early versions of

Shopify type businesses so we reached

out to all the shopping carts and

hosting companies and got pre-integrated

with all of those and there were you

know a few more things International

expansion and a few others but really

not many okay and what's your sense of

how many things the team tried to grow

of which five worked right so that's the

rub right they didn't just do six things

like when I left they had 24,000

employees they were spending five

billion a year on stuff um so they tried

hundreds of things and and launched

dozens of products and wasted money on

campaigns that didn't work and and it

didn't matter because they were printing

money but if you're a little startup and

you've got 12 months a Runway and a

million bucks in the bank you don't have

that luxury so in order to be successful

you've got to figure out if you assume

that 90% of your growth is going to come

from 10% of the stuff you do you've got

to find that 10% as quickly as possible

and that's what we help start up ohuh

90% of your growth so this is like the

8020 principle just like even more

extreme than that yeah

what other examples have you seen of

this 9010 principle in action when it

comes to like growing growing businesses

I mean if you read the great startup

case studies you'll find something like

this in all of them um for Dropbox it

was this kind of viral product Le

referral Loop that Sean ell is helped

them develop um canva they started they

have about

750,000 landing pages out there for

Search terms like award certificate

template and you know birthday card

template all these things social media

post design whatever and so people

Google this stuff they get to canva so

that's part one and then part two is

they have an incredibly optimized

self-serve onboarding experience so you

can just get in the tool with no

Photoshop experience or anything and be

successful right away um so you know

those are a couple examples but again

you know if you study HubSpot or any of

these great startups you'll find things

like this okay so just sort of zooming

out a bit so uh I have only recently

learned that the that like growth is a

department in a business um I guess you

know a few years ago when I started

reading reading business books for the

first time I realized that sales and

marketing were a thing uh and I guess

now that we're thinking about our

business we're thinking okay we kind of

want ahead of growth for each of our

major product lines and that person's

role will be to try and grow the revenue

of that particular product line and I

guess Thinking Out Loud Downstream of

that they're like okay let's say the

goal is to grow our YouTuber Academy

from 3 million a year to 10 million a

year at that point I guess this person

figures out okay what is the menu of 100

possible things we could do and then

they figure out what's the three or four

things that will actually do that is is

that the rough idea um so there's a few

questions in there you know one is how

does growth sit in the organization and

then two is kind of yeah so let's take

the first one where does growth sit in

the organization how is it different to

sales and marketing and what's the thing

it's really tricky with most early stage

startups my advice is unless you've had

a very good reason otherwise you're

found ER is your head of growth because

a startup has one job you know a startup

is a company that grows fast that's

built to grow fast and to do growth

effectively first of all you need to

really understand the business every

aspect from you know the board and the

cash flow all the way through to the

customers every aspect of the product

every aspect of sales and marketing

customer acquisition the one person who

who can do that typically is the founder

you also need to be able to pull any and

all of those levers and again the one

person in organization who can tell an

engineer to do one thing and tell a

marketer to do another thing and tell

the finance person no we're going to

spend money on this is the founder so

it's a weird thing to put in a

department because it's so cross

functional and even in larger orgs that

creates a problem and like when I was at

PayPal and building my team the number

two thing I was always thinking about

was how well is this person going to

play with others can they build

relationships can they get people in

other departments to do things that

their boss didn't tell them to do to the

greater go to the

business okay so in that sense sales and

marketing are a subset of

growth um they're certainly a big piece

of it obviously yeah customer

acquisition but depending on your big

levers and what they are a lot of it

could be driven by product it could be

driven by all sorts of things like let's

take you know the company wise yeah here

in London money remittances company so

anyone who wants to work with a fintech

company they have to go through this

process called kyc know your customer

which means that wise is legally

required to verify some documents source

of funds who you are you're not a

fraudster whatever so for most companies

that's just a giant pain and it's this

thing you've got to do yeah but if you

go to your head of compliance and you

say listen your job isn't you know if

you hire a head of compliance they're

going to want to do a good job and be

100% compliant yeah and if you go to

them and say listen that's not your job

your job is to get as many weekly active

users or as much money going through our

platform as possible while remaining

compliant they're going to think about

their job differently so what wise did

was they smoothed out that process in a

way and just really spent a lot of time

on optimizing the user Journey just to

make that really painless and help

people get up and running quickly so in

that sense their compliance function

became a component of their growth

engine or another weird example is

Spotify so you know it was it didn't

take a genius to figure out that people

would rather listen to streaming music

than like buy albums and only listen to

one song on it right the problem was the

record labels in the US didn't want that

to happen so they started in Europe and

they went into countries that have more

favorable laws eventually got enough

momentum enough of an audience enough

money and enough lawyers that they could

then move in to the US and in that sense

for a while their growth team were their

lawyers so it could be I mean I'm

choosing extreme examples but my point

is it could be anywhere in the

organization so you need to sort of

figure out from first principles how

does your business grow and then align

whatever organizational pieces are

required to make that happen sick okay

that's super interesting all right I'm

sold so then what does growth levers

mean and why is that the title of the

book it's an American book so they're

levers for levers yeah now it sounds so

much better when you say it anyways

leas so these levers are or levers or

whatever they are this is the work these

are the things the actions that will

have the biggest impact on the growth of

your business that you need to identify

sure okay so how do we do that so how do

you do that yeah there's four steps to

the process the first step why is it

levers levers and process and not levers

and proc anyway there's four steps to

this process um the first thing which I

think we're going to do today is you

sort of map your growth model which is a

mathematical representation of how your

C your business acquires and delights

and engages and retains and monetizes

customers okay and once you've got some

data in there you can sort of

mathematically where are the points of

highest leverage okay step two is you

need to really understand your

customer's Journey which has nothing at

all to do with your product nobody if

you're a startup nobody woke up in the

morning looking for your product y often

nobody even woke up in the morning

looking for your category but clearly

you could help these people If Only They

Knew You existed y so you've got to

figure out what were they trying to do

what do they think they were looking for

where were they looking for it and you

know what questions would they have and

how can you sort of turn up there and

look like that thing okay so we study

the customer Journey y actually have a

really cool example of that oh yeah so

on the way here um I was walking in like

the next Muse over I went and looked at

you know the same house number and I

figured out it wasn't your house but the

doorbell had a sticker on it and it said

24-hour emergency

locksmith and I took a picture of it and

I figured out you know this locksmith

could advertise anywhere in London but

the place I'm going to be when I

suddenly realize need a locksmith is

right here locked out of my flat right

and so I was like okay that's a perfect

example of growth hacking because you

figured out what are you going to be

looking for and where are you going to

be when you suddenly realize you need it

and just turn up there and look like

that thing yeah cuz no one wakes up in

the morning thinking I need a lockmith

they Rock up at their door realizing I

need locksmith and if the guy's number's

there it's like oh I might as well call

that number and if you heard a podcast

and as locksmith sponsored it yesterday

you're not going to remember that yeah

so step two is to map your customer

Journey we use a technique called to be

done interviews step three then is

you're going to have lots of ideas and

so you're going to want to filter down

the ideas first by looking at your

growth model and saying which of these

will have the biggest impact which of

these are focused on our rate limiting

step where we can have the biggest

impact on the business and then you're

still going to have more ideas and most

of them are going to be bad so the next

thing you got to do is experiment

quickly so step three is to design and

run growth experiments as quickly as

possible nice and that's tricky because

a lot of the ideas you're going to have

are hard I'm going to publish a book

that takes a long time right I'm going

to do what this or that whatever takes a

lot of money going to build some product

all those things are hard and you've got

to find a way to test them in like a

week or two oh okay so the way you'll do

that is you'll look at this idea and

you'll say okay all the thing the moving

parts of this what are the risky

assumptions here what are the risky

assumptions so if you're going to

publish a book and suppose maybe you

just really wanted to write a book but

maybe you're hoping the book's going to

be a creative to your business yeah so

in my in my case we sell a productivity

Community course thing and I'll think

great let me publish a book about

productivity which will take me three

and a half years because hopefully

people will read the book and then

they'll sign up to my course okay great

idea right so what are the risky

assumptions here uh that Ali can write a

book reasonably quickly that it won't

distract him from running his business

that people will actually want to buy

the book people will like the book and

that people who like the book will then

sign up and take your course yeah yeah

all these are quite risky assumptions

okay there a lot of risky assumptions in

there can't the only way to test them

all would be to write a book but you

could you isolate one of those

assumptions and find a way to test it

could you find a way to figure out in a

week how hard writing a book is

or whether people would like a

particular book title idea or topic idea

or whether people who bought a book

would then go someone else's book maybe

would go on and buy a course yeah so if

I were thinking out loud with this

example uh I would be thinking who do I

know who has both a book and a course

and in my position I can just email them

and be like hey quick question to what

extent did the book contribute to your

core sales I so I happen to know a

handful of people who do this some of

whom some of them have have said it

basically did nothing because they

already had a YouTube channel and the

other one said it was massive because

they didn't have a YouTube

channel all right those are like the two

categories of like four people that I've

spoken to who for whom this this this

scenario applies okay great so you've

now in a week drisk or you know ruled

out a good a bad idea or drisk an

assumption so for each of your

experiments that you're most excited

about you figure out what's the quickest

way we can test this y That's step three

and we can come back to any of these

obviously but then step four is a

mindset shift so it turns out that to

grow a startup quickly you pretty much

have to have the exact opposite mindset

that it would take to be successful in

school or successful in a normal job oh

tell me more and as you can imagine

people have trouble with this so what do

you do you a good student in school how

do you succeed in school you learn all

the things really quickly really

thoroughly and you remember them and you

apply them without making any

mistakes suppose you get a job as a

consultant or a banker an engineer

whatever so how do you get promoted in a

company you do all the things they ask

you to do plus a few more things you do

them really really well and you don't

make any mistakes okay so now you come

into a startup and the deck is stacked

against you you can't do all the things

that you know you should do you've never

done this before so you're absolutely

going to make mistakes and you need to

move quickly which means you can't do

all the things and you've got to make

mistakes and the value is those mistakes

because each of those mistakes makes a

little brings a little bit of learning

and gets you actually closer to your

goal in theory provided you learn from

the mistake provided you learn from from

The Experience yeah which I think is

something we've been quite bad at in

that we've often run we've often done

things and then only like two years

later we will remember oh yeah we did

did that thing and we yeah we really

should have written down what the what

we learned from that cuz we've just made

that mistake again actually that was

part of the experiment process is

document your experiments done and

document your learnings but it's even

worse with the mindset piece because

someone who is afraid to make mistakes

and thinks they're going to get you know

a bad grade or a fired or something

isn't going to talk about them and then

you're not going to learn from them yep

and then someone else is going to go

make that mistake again I always admired

Apple because I don't think most people

realize this but apple is playing a much

harder game than any other company in

Tech so salesforce.com pushes out some

software oops there's a bug someone

pulls an all nighter and they push an

update the next morning everything's

fine Apple shipping Hardware once those

iPhones leave the factory and you know

10 million of them or whatever and go

into stores there's no fixing them you

know you'd have to get everyone to

update their iOS so everything has to

work perfectly they're incredibly

complicated devices they do software and

Hardware the software and Hardware have

to work together and the timing has to

be perfect so they their revenue

forecast they'll say okay we're going to

ship on December 10th we have 21 days

before the end of the fiscal year to

make our money we'll make 100 million in

iPhone sales per day if we ship a day

late we miss our earnings number by 100

million right like it has to be perfect

and they do it every time and when Steve

Jobs was alive almost every product they

launched was successful which is the

complete opposite of every other company

yeah and I was always wonder how do they

do that and so I worked with a guy at

PayPal named Alan olivo who used to work

for Steve and I pulled him aside one day

and I said how does Apple do it and he

said Matt it's so simple he said Steve

stands up at the beginning of the year

and he said this year is about version

two of the iPhone this year we're going

to make an MP3 player a thousand songs

in your pocket whatever the thing for

the year was he'd stand up there's one

thing and Steve was not a nice patient

man and you knew if you that one thing

was your job and if you were doing

anything else you were going to get

fired and it was that simple and

everyone who came in in the morning you

know if you're in procurement you're

procuring parts for the new iPhone and

everyone knew exactly what they had to

do because it was so simple and that's a

company that had 30,000 people and $ 37

billion in revenue and that Focus just

becomes so critical and so that's why as

we're going I'm going to keep asking you

to peel things back consolidate and

simplify per so all right so back to the

North Star then I think how you measure

it might be hard but it could either be

something about number of lives changed

or you know number of true fans or

something that reflects the purpose I

guess one thing to think about is

life-changing is kind of a discreet

event but I get the sense that your

customers are kind of always on a

journey yeah good point um that's a very

good point so whatever you end up naming

it I like the idea of having something

on Mission it's the number of people

that you're helping achieve their goals

in some form how you measure it and you

know I don't want to get into all the

weeds of well you know what on Twitter

indicates they're a true fan versus just

but you know you've got over 5 million

followers but every video you put up

doesn't get 5 million views so there's

some subset of those followers and those

email subscribers and whatever other

platforms you're on podcasts who are

true

fans and there's some who aren't and it

would be helpful to come up with some

proxy metrics that you you can hide all

this complexity from the team but yeah

you and IUS have some proxy metrics so

you'll sort of know this is roughly the

ratio of you know for however many views

we get however many subscribers we get

this is how many of those are true fans

and you can sort of DD across

platforms wait you can sort of what

across platform you can sort of use

estimates to dup across platform so

someone who D duplicate okay right yeah

cool because some people are going to

like your podcast and your channel and

some people are going to be only podcast

and only Channel yeah but you'll still

get a directionally accurate number I

feel like I've tried doing this so many

times and I've never landed on like a

number that feels even vaguely uh even

vaguely

legit unless I'm overthinking it

and yeah that's what I'm I'm worried

about if you can come up with rough

proxies I think it'll give you a sense

for it enough to steer the

business I mean there are numbers that

if they move in the extreme it's going

to be obvious and if they don't move in

the extreme you're not making progress

towards your goals so don't worry about

it what are some other companies is

Northstar metrics just so you can give

me a flavor of what are the what's the

sort of thing we should be thinking

about for Northstar metric so I'm

thinking whether the analogy is right or

wrong I'm thinking about your business

like a software company okay because a

software company or you know a

meditation app is going to want to have

weekly active users yep weekly act

active consumers of their content sure

and so that's what I'm thinking about

you know is the right Cadence for your

customer is weekly daily or monthly

probably monthly okay then you're going

to have something like monthly active

listeners or consumers of content we do

have a metric in YouTube hidden deep

within YouTube analytics which is

monthly returning viewers okay that

could be very that's probably a

reasonable proxy for True fans um

yeah because if that number were to grow

10x we would be getting millions of

views in each video okay so what are we

calling that uh sorry you said monthly

monthly returning viewers yeah that's

people who

are yeah I mean I can start quibbling

with that and think well someone might

have gotten a lot of value from the

content 3 years ago but they're not

getting it now in which case they

wouldn't show up in that number probably

a good thing yeah and that they

shouldn't show up in that number because

we're not we're not continuing to

provide value to them MH because if we

were they would be a monthly returning

viewer and

so yeah monthly returning viewers that's

probably we can we can go with that for

now okay yeah do you want to stress test

that is there anything about that that

makes you nervous one thing about it

that makes me nervous is the fact that

stuff that helps grow a YouTube channel

is often different to stuff that keeps

people wanting to watch so for example

returning viewers are way more likely to

want to watch my Vlog where I document

my life and stuff but a new viewer

doesn't give a [ __ ] what my Vlog is

because they don't know who I am a new

viewer is more likely to click on a

video titled something like I don't know

nine passive income ideas okay but a

returning viewer might sigh bit

internally and think Ali sold out that

he's like he's doing another one of

these videos just to get the views so

the the incentives of appealing to the

existing audience versus trying to get

new audiences sort of feel like they're

often often adults I don't know if other

companies have this as well I'm sure

they probably do but but are they

actually at odds like if someone sees

another nine passive income ideas video

are they gonna unfollow you or are they

going to be a true fan and see what your

next video is and watch it if it's what

they like if no in fness if they felt

sufficiently h TR with me that they knew

that every time Ali puts out a video

it's at least worth seeing what he's

talking about rather than writing it off

by just looking at the title then yeah

they would they would probably watch at

least some of it okay or unless they're

in the sort of I don't know 60% of our

audience who uh you

know like there are various members of

my team for example who wouldn't click

on a video just purely because of the

topic um they wouldn't click on the

passive income ideas video because they

care more they're not like they don't

aspire to to be entrepreneurs so only

aspiring entrepreneurs really are going

to click on that video the people who

are like you know what I just want a

chill 9 to5 job where I'm doing work I'm

proud of and I have got work life

balance and I can chill with the boys in

the evening that's a significant chunk

of my audience that would not click on

that particular video even though that

video might get like I know five million

views from other people outside of that

core audience okay yeah so there's a

piece of this model we're going to have

to think about which is how do you get

loyal subscribers how do you get

followers and then there's going to be

this other piece which is how do you

engage them and retain them and then

there's be this other piece which is how

do you monetize them yeah nice I mean I

I think it's that simple right that's

pretty simple get viewers engage and

retain and monetized yeah the the the

other thing that makes me nervous about

some about viewers as a metric as a

Northstar metric is that I worry that

that will get me on the hamster wheel of

feeling the pressure that every video I

make has to then hit a certain view

count which to me is always something

that I've

rebelled against because it sort of

takes some of the joy out of creating

the videos to worry about like well is

what's this going to do to our view

Target kind of

thing so remember these are going to be

returning Vis visitors so the goal is to

deliver a drum beat of content that they

find

valuable rather than you know one

specific hit yeah good point I'm

guessing because you know I see this

with my LinkedIn posts that I just have

bangers that generate the line share of

my Impressions the line share of my

audience and I have other ones that

mostly just my loyal readers engage with

yep and you know no matter how clever I

try to be and make them all bangers y

I'm just not and then when I analyze

other people's content I see they they

all have roughly the same distribution

yeah people who I think are much better

creators than me also have their Duds

and yeah also have their bangers yeah

but okay ultimately the the more videos

you make the more good videos you're

going to make yeah and also as if I if I

think of monthly returning viewers as

like one one question we've been

thinking about to get really inside

baseball here is like should we put our

Vlogs on the main Channel or on our

second Vlog Channel and I've sort of

been wanting to put them on the main

Channel because they get more views and

it's like it's kind of nice and feels

cool to have a big YouTube channel that

has some sit down talk to camera

educational bits but also some more

chilled out bits that are a bit more

lifestyle and stuff and a lot of the

core true fans love the Vlogs because

they think oh my God I love seeing what

Ali's up to but they get like they're

guaranteed to get way fewer views than

uh sit down and talk to the camera and

explain how to make more money video but

I like putting the Vlogs in there as

well so it' be nice for the monthly

returning viewers metric to be honest to

be able to put the Vlogs there I mean so

that is is there a way to do an

experiment and find out if that's a good

idea or not yeah we're doing that for

the next probably few months to put

Vlogs on the main Channel instead of the

second Channel and see what happens okay

yeah so this does get easier the

Northstar is is definitely the hardest

piece of this and once you've done that

most of it C of naturally flows from

this okay I'm I think it's a little

ambitious to think we're going to be

able to tightly Define the North Star is

this metrics from this system you know

average over 90 days or whatever I think

we can agree on the principle that it's

going to be some measurement of who are

people who remember you and know you and

like you and loyally consume your

content presumably because they find it

helpful yeah just a quick message from

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back to it a lot of people who watch my

stuff aspire to the whole Financial

Freedom thing where they're like oh if

only I had the business that I that made

passive income I'd be able to do

whatever I want dot dot dot dot dot dot

and it's like well when you ask like

well what do you want it's like I don't

know just being able to not do things I

don't want to have to do it's like okay

but then what do you want to do it's

like becomes quite confronting in a way

what was your experience with that well

and it's such a funny thing because I

feel like everybody misses that chapter

the first time they read the book they

just focus on the how do I make a bunch

of passive income and then if they get

it basically everybody realizes that

they're just not very happy in that life

it's fun for like three 6 12 months you

do the traveling you do the you know

taking whatever random classes you want

playing with your hobbies and then you

feel kind of empty inside and you

realize that meaningful work is a core

part of human

fulfillment and what I realized you know

first back then was that just doing

these things to get some passive income

so that I could quit doing them was

really a losing proposition because

doing a bunch of work that you don't

really want to do so that you don't have

to do work that you don't want to do is

kind of this like silly tradeoff if you

have the option to make it and it it

that was the first time when I was like

okay I should try to actually work on

something long term right something that

I could actually keep working on year

after year after year after year after

year and enjoy working on it because

that's where you're actually going to

get this long-term happiness and the

thing that nobody in the passive income

World wants wants to tell you is that

there's really no such thing as passive

income because the minute you let it go

passive it starts dying it starts just

slowly going down and it will trickle

away other people will come in and eat

your lunch your work will get stale your

products will get stale you'll get

beaten out on Amazon or for your courses

or for your SEO or whatever and in two

years you're going to be back where you

started before you built the thing so

you better use those two years to get

somewhere interesting because if you

think that you can just gallivant around

living this funded lifestyle forever

you're actually going to be worse off

than where you started at the end of it

because not only will you be back to

square one without the passive income

you'll have now lost two three four

years of your life so where I think the

the passive income 4our Work Week

lifestyle business stuff is very useful

is a way to bootstrap working on

something bigger so if you know that you

want to be a writer or a painter or a

YouTuber or any of these careers with a

long start time to pay your bills doing

the lifestyle business first to fund you

for two years while you get that going

is actually pretty smart I mean same

thing with a startup right if you can do

the lifestyle business to give you some

Runway to actually work on a startup so

that you don't have to take money right

away and don't have to dilute yourself

that's an incredibly good use case but

trying to fill the void with experiences

and

Novelty does get old really really

quickly and you have to be ready for

that and I don't tell people not to do

it I don't tell them not to chase it

because nobody believes you when you say

that right they're like like yeah you

got tired of it but I won't like I love

traveling I love going to new

restaurants I love doing these things

and it's like yeah you love them because

they're a break from the work that you

don't enjoy doing and because they're

occasional things when that's your whole

life you're going to get bored really

quickly but you have to go experience it

to realize that that's the case but then

once you have that little inkling don't

feel guilty about it accept it say cool

I checked this box and now I have this

Runway to go do this big thing that I

was scared of doing before but I now

have the means to do and go do that

thing nice yeah that's great um finite

and infinite games you talk about this

book I think in one of your YouTube

videos from back in the day I talk about

it everywhere this one my favorite book

about it everywhere yeah I've I've never

read the book but like what what should

I understand or what should listeners

understand about the idea of finite

versus infinite games it so it's a

wonderful book it's very short it's

weird and philosophical uh but also very

tactical in its own way and the core

thesis of the book is that everything

that you do in life is a kind of game

right so this conversation that we're

having for your podcast for your YouTube

is a a game of sorts and there are two

ways to think of games a f night game

has a closed boundary it has a winner

and loser it has clear rules uh and you

there there's a way to like succeed or

fail there's an end to it all these

things right like a football game is

itself a finite game because there will

be a winner or loser at the end of it if

I came into this conversation with a

finite game mentality of I need to like

win this conversation I'd be very

focused on like you know slipping crypto

confiden into everything that I talk

about yeah exactly like buy the book

right like you know if if you buy by the

end of this podcast you're going to get

10 you know whatever right like it would

you'd be milking it for all that it's

worth um but if you take a more infinite

game approach to something like this

your only goal is to basically like have

fun the the the reason you play an

infinite game is to keep the game going

it's to continue to extend the

boundaries and the realm of play and if

you're thinking about it that way where

it's not transactional it's not a winner

or loser you behave very differently

because the only thing that I'm focused

on right now is like having a fun

conversation with you and if the book

comes up great if it doesn't I also

don't care because like we're friends

we've known each other on the internet

for years like we're just having a good

time and like hopefully it's valuable to

people too which means that we're going

to have a lot more conversations over

the course of our life like this this

game that we are playing together of

being you know internet creators book

writers whatever

can continue to expand infinitely as we

continue to support each other over the

course of our hopefully very very long

careers and you can think of so many

things in your life this way right like

even even the the sports analogy right

if you're constantly focused on winning

this tennis

match then your your emotion your

identity and everything is tied to the

outcome of each match but if the game

that you're playing is getting better at

tennis then whether you win or lose the

individual game you're still winning at

the infinite game of getting better and

better or if your infinite game is just

that I love to hit the ball right

there's this wonderful jokovic interview

where he's like my advantage is that I

just love hitting the ball and that's

why he's like one of the best tennis

players in the world and if you can

think about it that way then you're less

attached to shortterm outcomes and you

end up like winning more of these little

finite games along the way because

you're not attached to their individual

outcomes

and so he he ties this into so many

things he ties it into relationships

right like you know the the best way to

uh to to find a partner to have a

successful date is to not be trying to

make it a successful date right is to

like just be yourself and be interested

in them and like have a conversation and

not be you know checking the watch and

wondering if you're going to get to go

home with them and like trying to you

know get something out of it right uh if

you're you know if you're if you're

working on YouTube videos right like

playing the infinite game of trying to

make each video a little bit better is

going to pay off a lot more in the long

run than being obsessed over every

single video hurting hitting like a very

specific metric you know me as a writer

like I hope that this book does good I

want it to do good but I'm in this for

the rest of my life at this point and so

I know that by focusing so much more of

my energy on making the best book

possible instead of on milking as many

sales from it as possible that's going

to set me up for many many great books

in the future and over a long term

that's going to compound to more and

more interesting things so that book is

just so good at showing you all of the

parts of your life where you could be

thinking on this more infinite Horizon

instead of constantly being attached to

winning whatever little thing you're in

in that moment creating a baseline level

of Financial Security such that you

don't have to to to worry about where

your expenses are going to be handled I

do think has like a totally different

like impact on stress and so and

Patrick's gone into a lot deeper

research on this at all kinds of levels

but uh um I do think that um like having

a thoughtful plan whether you do what's

in you know Tim Tim Ferris is book uh

for our work week Tony Robinson is a

book of just like creating just like a

basic financial plan and then creating

the resources that gives you that

fundamental

security um is a is a wise approach and

does change Baseline levels of uh

concern this is like practically I don't

think enough people talk about that

needs to get done as a sort of a first

Baseline step like if you're if you're

at the point where you worried about

paying your bills then obviously getting

more money is going to make you way

happier because now you've removed all

that stress from your life yeah um and

then I also I also have have witnessed

people even after huge exits who will

let a level of Lifestyle creep um go

beyond where where their incredible

means take them and um the fundamental

concerns about do I have enough uh will

sort of persist despite having created

an incredible outcome okay so as you get

more money kind of keeping your

lifestyle costs fairly in check is an

important part of that sounds like it's

an important part of that kind of not

being stressed out by money kind of

piece yeah I mean if you're for example

able to live uh after like like once you

can get to a point where your expenses

are 4% of whatever you have saved that

is a fundamentally like different just

as a general rule uh

um you know as long as you're sort of

thoughtfully

investing um that's a secure you know

and sustainable sort of you know place

to be yeah wealth impacts you to the

level of your insecurity that's really

where it comes from like if you think

about the the reason I I would posit

that the $10,000 per month videos do

better is not only because it seems more

achievable but because $10,000 in

passive income takes care of a massive

amount of people and all of a sudden

getting to 100,000 is nice to have and

maybe there's a thing that they could

think about that they would purchase but

a lot of people thankfully are pretty

well adjusted if getting extra $120,000

a year what I have found is that Wealth

Beyond

10,000 a month 100,000 a month and there

and so so on and so forth it really

impacts or the changes that TS to impact

you are at the level of where that

insecurity is so to give you an example

like I know I have friends who have had

similar exits to us and they are numbers

people meaning that number needs to

constantly be going up yeah objectively

the number does not need to be going up

they're not purchasing anything that

would need the the number to go up

there's nothing that they want to buy

that they would demand that particular

number but that number gives them some

sort of like purpose and this is not

healthy it's just it gives them some

sort of purpose and maybe they convince

themselves that's the game that they

want to play and they get enjoyment and

maybe they actually do get enjoyment but

there's something in their psyche

there's something in how they were they

were they were built or developed

depending on the nature vers nurture

debate that has now caused them to

essentially need to chase that and I

think that that's something that as you

get get to these higher levels of wealth

it it's you know it's again it's it's

it's hard to empathize with but it is

something that's interesting to kind of

understand but the one thing a lot of

people should realize if you're getting

to the 10,000 you will look to the

100,000 as you getting close to the

100,000 you will look to the million and

you need to kind of stop yourself and

realize like ask yourself why and most

people will kind of pull back because

what I have found is wealth is not a

replacement for purpose

and often times people look at it as a

replacement for purpose and they'll go

chase something and then they won't

necessarily feel something the reason I

didn't feel something is because again I

wasn't hugged enough as a child but also

the journey you know this whole cliche

of it's the journey not the destination

was really really true so when the wire

hit I didn't feel like I I you know won

the lottery because it was like yeah

like maybe the numbers are bigger than I

thought that they were going to be but I

just did all this work for 10 years and

so there should be some outcome right so

I was like that's the thing so it wasn't

this surprise and to give a little bit

of an anecdote so before I sold the

company and I was debating whether we

should sell the company or not I talked

to 30 other Founders and I asked them

you know and they all sold their

companies for different amounts of money

um asked them would you sell again 15 of

them said yeah absolutely it was the

best decision get the bag Etc the other

15 said they wouldn't and of those 15

eight seven or eight went with the

company post sale meaning like they sold

the company and then they worked at the

company that they bought them um and

they said a lot of things about it was

miserable blah blah blah blah blah the

other seven or eight didn't go with the

company and that group at least

qualitatively was the most miserable

they had all this money and then they

were sitting there and they're like they

had lost their purpose yeah and they

were like well I thought the money was

important and they drisk their lives

bought a house whatever it is but now

like I lost the thing that I was doing

and now I'm just going to try to go

rebuild that but I had already built it

so what am I doing and then

unfortunately of those seven uh three or

four of them became um substance abuse

like drug addicts or alcoholics they're

all good now but it was it was pretty

intense for those three or four and so I

think that wealth isn't a replacement

for purpose is a really really important

thing to keep in mind and unfortunately

it's probably one of those wisdom things

you can't really learn it until you

experience it but you'll listen and be

like oh that bearded guy said this and

so hopefully it saves you a cycle or two

I had to feel it myself as well but I

want to tell a similar story that so I

had a uh a mentor in my life he's now in

his 70s

and he had the wisdom in his early 20s

to say uh I want to have a two-part

life uh he wrote A business plan for his

life at age 23 which was by age 40 he

wanted to uh become an entrepreneur

build a business and have an exit by age

40 and he named the number he wanted to

exit for back when he was

23 and it was he thought felt like it

was reasonable it was uh achievable

let's call it in today's uh dollars

maybe uh High single digit Millions okay

and he's had the wisdom at age 23 to say

I am going to say that's enough for me

and I will always potentially well

adjusted at 23 I never would have

thought this 23 so he he he uh he uh is

actually at Harvard Business School

while he writes this plan uh um he got

in on like an engineering scholarship

and you know gonna say he's had HPS at

23 as

well uh and he writes this plan he goes

ahead and he executes it at age 39 a

year early he sells for and he hits his

number and

um he shifts into the second part of his

career which was purpose-- driven he de

decided intellectually he always wanted

to he loved the law he went to law

school in his early 40s and he became a

lawyer who basically took on cases to

sort of help uh uh you know defend

people who uh and um is one of the most

like sort of purpose-driven and happy

people in his life and now he's running

for

president but why how did he pull it off

because I've thought of like how does he

pull this off right because I'm here

we're in this amazing place right and

like

two rows down there are houses that are

three times as much that I could be

pulled to want more right and so I try

to remember this guy because uh um the

purpose part of his life has guided him

I think the way he's stayed on track to

me is for two reasons uh and you're an

atomics H habits fan so I I think it's

in there so number a littleit number one

he defined the his identity in life

later as having living in you know

consistent with this purpose of having a

second career and helping people number

two

uh he knew that his environment would

matter he moved out of like uh the town

he lived in in St Louis after he had

this exit he moved to Wyoming where the

currency uh of his community was going

to be Health being active and you know

not the rat race of you know the the the

business Community he was in about what

are you doing next uh what have you so

he literally made his environment be

thought ful surrounded with people who

were not going to sort of challenge his

intention of more more more more so God

he's yeah that story uh I think has a

lot of lessons that 20 years before you

know James Clear was putting this out

and how it applies to money he lived

just makes me feel

broken but I think that what's really

interesting about that you and I were

talking about this is like that like you

and I have done an incredible amount of

like introspection over the past couple

years years and and you know if you're

watching this you probably are someone

who does introspection obviously you've

done a lot of introspection and I think

that that that makes me spark a question

in my head that we're not going to

settle unfortunately here which is like

can you get to that level of like peace

or is it something that it's almost

easier to assume you can't get to that

level of Peace therefore how should you

live your life right so I've done what I

mean is I've done a lot of introspection

the past year to get to like what drives

me what motivates me what is the next

thing do I need a next thing all of

those other things but I don't know if I

can ever get to that and it's limiting

belief at least but I don't know if I

can ever get to that level of Peace like

the best thing I've gotten to is I like

increasing like concentric circles of

Freedom meaning like I am able to do

this now I want to um try to solve this

small scale problem in my town and then

I want to be able to solve a larger

scale problem like that type of stuff

motivates me but I still have this like

energy where um it's it's it's it's an

anxiety where there has to be something

more like there isn't a contentment and

it could be an age thing I don't have

kids yet all these other things but yeah

it's a really like I want to meet this

person I Hope You intro me I just want

to like go and drive up or fly up and be

like just tell me tell me how you got

here like that type of a

thing I mean but one of the things that

I don't think he would put it in these

terms but uh he would say like he hacked

his brain back to Identity and said part

of who I am is going to be somebody who

like like thinks this way does you could

always want more and so if he and he's

public about that it was literally

written into a paper that his Professor

saw right and like publicly knew right

so he could um if he was going to go

p in the pursuit of more at least

financially then um he would be

essentially living in contrast to his

identity yeah uh and you know it's

something that I thought about related

to like some of the things we were

talking about for you this weekend is

like if

your clearly defined identity and

purpose is measured totally on impact or

spending your time on teaching or or or

or what have you and it's explicitly not

Financial Beyond a certain point yeah

and then that's public uh um one of the

benefits of creating and saying stuff

publicly is it can be scaffolding to

keep you consistent uh uh yeah uh and in

in ways like before the internet and

social media with the community and

people who he had in his life he put

that out there which created a little I

think like identity scaffold in support

I think the the quick getting to the

point where finances

are not driving decision making as

quickly as humanly possible is the path

now one step or two steps down from that

is where I would consider myself and

five steps down from that is where this

friend you're describing is where I'm at

is like I don't have to do anything but

there are things that I would like to

unlock with what I have or what I could

get Etc and I think that that first

level is where everyone can get either

by getting content with you know their

40,000 or 40,000 pound you know salary

per year or um you know doing some of

this introspection of like what's really

important and you and I have talked a

lot about this the past year of like how

important it is to just think about what

do you want yeah and then work backwards

and that's what it sounds like this this

person has done to a level that you know

very few people even get close to which

is really really thankful all right so

that's it for this week's episode of

Deep dive thank you so much for watching

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Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
growth /ɡroʊθ/ B1	noun - the process of increasing or developing
business /ˈbɪznəs/ A2	noun - a company or organization that makes and sells goods or services
startup /ˈstɑrtˌʌp/ B2	noun - a new company or business, especially one that is small and intends to grow quickly
product /ˈprɒdəkt/ A2	noun - an object or service that is made for sale
customer /ˈkʌstəmər/ A2	noun - a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business
money /ˈmʌni/ A1	noun - a system of coins, bills, or notes used for buying things
time /taɪm/ A1	noun - the thing we measure in minutes, hours, days, etc.
work /wɜrk/ A1	noun - activity involving mental or physical effort done to achieve a purpose verb - to do a job or activity
life /laɪf/ A1	noun - the state of being alive
build /bɪld/ A2	verb - to construct something by putting parts together
grow /ɡroʊ/ A2	verb - to become larger or more numerous
learn /lɜrn/ A1	verb - to gain knowledge or skill by studying
think /θɪŋk/ A1	verb - to have an opinion or belief
find /faɪnd/ A1	verb - to discover something or someone
make /meɪk/ A1	verb - to create or prepare something
good /ɡʊd/ A1	adjective - of high quality or satisfactory
happy /ˈhæpi/ A1	adjective - feeling pleasure or satisfaction
free /fri/ A1	adjective - not costing anything
successful /səkˈsesfəl/ B1	adjective - achieving the desired result
experience /ɪkˈspɪriəns/ A2	noun - knowledge or skill from doing or seeing things verb - to have happened to someone