Top Marathoner, Ken Rideout, On Making Money, Dealing With Addiction, And Mental Toughness
back in like the late '90s, trading desk was like a locker room. It was very like alpha-driven. A lot of hazing and shit. But I mean, I was at the time boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I had played hockey. I mean, I was, I worked in a prison for 4 years. So these nerds were hazing me and one day I just cuffed the guy. I just slapped him across the face and almost knocked him out of his seat. And needless to say, they fired me. But I was covering these young guys at Enron and they told the senior traders what had happened. And one of the senior traders who happened to be from Martha's Vineyard outside of Boston called me up, said, hey, I got a job. I didn't even know we had competitors. That's how naive I was. I didn't know there were other brokerage shops. I was there like 2 months and, um, I mean, I barely knew what a bid and offer was, were. And, um, this other competitor offered me a job starting the next Monday.
All right. We get right into this. Ken, uh, thanks for coming, man. I, uh, do you know at all what you're getting into or no?
Yeah. Yeah. I heard, uh, Andrew Huberman on the show. My friend Andrew.
Good. Well, let me, um, I'll let you kind of do the intro, but I want to tell our audience what I know about you and why I think it's cool that we have you. Basically, I was telling Sean, you're, so we take pride in like finding people a little bit before they explode. You're getting quite popular. You were in the Wall Street Journal the other day. So Things are happening for you, but you're to me like, you're like the next David Goggins in my mind. Like, you know, you're kind of a freak athletically, but you're also more so a freak mentally. And you talk about a lot of like just being tough. You got some crazy quotes that we'll talk about later about how, uh, uh, you know, like you like running because it's all about suffering and things like that. And so you said a lot of really interesting things. Sean and I are also huge combat sports fans. So I listened to the pod with Teddy Atlas that you're on. And I know a bit about your background. And so I wanted to have you on to talk about that. Typically we talk about business stuff. Huberman was a little bit of a, we had him on and that was a little non-business. You're a little bit non-business, but you had like an interesting background where you worked on Wall Street, worked on, worked at Enron, I think. You did a bunch of interesting stuff. And so that's kind of why we had you on. What, um, well, how do you give your introduction? What do you, what do you say you do?
Yeah, well, thank you for that introduction. Uh, when I hear people introduce me sometimes, I almost don't feel like they're talking about me because I think part of what makes me unique is I at times have, don't have the highest opinion of myself and always feel like I, there's, I should be doing more. But I think that the comparison to David Goggins is somewhat accurate, although it's accurate. I can see why others would think that, but I don't think that it's a perfect analysis. And I take it as a compliment. No, I don't think he's soft at all. He, I think he's probably maybe more, more aggressive and alpha than I am. I would say I tried to be, I don't know. I think that the way I come across, you know, when I was on Rich Roll, he described me as being his, his initial impression of me prior to meeting me was that I was very aggressive and alpha and intimidating. And I don't see myself that way. I see why other people would see that, but I think of myself as that, that alpha or aggressive exterior is almost like a defense mechanism because inside I think I'm very emotional and sensitive and So much so that my way of protecting that sensitivity is to be so aggressive externally that it really takes someone unique and special to kind of see through it. At least that's my take from the psychotherapy I've been involved in.
But the reason, and the reason we had you on, we typically, so it's usually just Shawn and I, or it's like, we'll have like billionaires and stuff on. So like these, like wonderful people, but Something that like I've been thinking a lot about lately and I've been talking to Sean about lately is just like toughness and like how it feels like good to get out there and work hard physically or to spar, do things like that. Because even though we're doing cool shit behind the computer, it's still behind the computer and it feels good to live. And you say you're not an alpha, but I think in the Wall Street Journal article you said, uh, I'm the biggest male. I'm the biggest alpha male on the starting line.
I'm ready to die to win. Thank you for pointing that out because there was context to that quote. I said my, my exact quote was When I'm on the out, when I'm on the start line, when it's time to go, 100%, I'm alpha. I will step on your neck to win. I want to kill you. I want to destroy everyone. But the minute that race is over, I'm everyone's best friend. If I see someone fall down in front of me, I will stop and help them. I've, I've, in triathlons, I've asked people, yo man, you all right? I'll stop and help you. I'm not, I say step on your neck and kill you to win, but not Really, like, this is, this is my mental process that I have to go through to get to the dark place that I need to get to, to suffer to the extent that I need to suffer to get the most outta myself running. You know, I ran, 36 hours ago I ran the Tokyo Marathon in 2:29:19. And the day before that, the day before that, Outside Magazine wrote an article, how 51-year-old Ken Rideout runs sub-2:30 marathons. And I saw the headline and I literally had an anxiety attack. I'm like, oh my God, the pressure is on. I mean, I've run. Sub 2:30, 3 or 4 times, but it ain't easy. And I know that that last 5 or 6 miles, the suffering and the darkness that's coming with that, I can't— it's, it's literally the physically the hardest things that I've ever done is like you, everything in your body would be like if you're driving your car and every single warning bell is going off, the radiator's overheating, the oil's low, you're gonna run outta gas. And you literally are like, I can stop and no one would care. Or I can push myself and know that I didn't have another effing ounce to give. And that's— it sounds cliché or might sound corny, but that's my process. That's where I have to go to get to where I've gotten to, to the point where guys like you with this awesome podcast want to talk to me. Like, I'm a regular guy. I'm a dope. I don't see myself as special, with the exception of being willing to die to get the most out of myself physically on these particular days at races.
And you, so you said you just ran, you just ran the, the marathon in Tokyo 36 hours ago. You're here now. And I didn't know much about you before Sam brought it up. Sam goes, oh, I really wanna have this guy on. Are you, are you down with it? And I, I thought, I, I've heard that name, but I don't know who is that? And I was like, oh, is that the Teddy Atlas podcast guy? Oh wait, what's his story? And I, as I started looking into it, to me there was a few things that really stood out. So there's the kind of the obvious headline that here's a guy who's over 50 years old and is basically flying through these marathons. They're running super fast speeds. I don't know the exact records or what, whatnot, but you're one of the fastest, if not the fastest, correct? And you're kind of in your bracket.
Over 50.
Yep.
Yeah.
So that's kind of remarkable. And I think that's, you know, that's the key thing I want to get to is like, that's an extraordinary thing and that doesn't just come outta nowhere. And so, you talk about being able to go to that place at the last 5 miles. What happens pre-race? Where do you, where, how do you flip that switch? What is your sort of like a, a mental state of mind or your psyche? What do you do mentally to prep yourself before these races?
That's a great question, and thank you for the opportunity to explain this because I think that it's, important for people to understand when they look at this just on the surface, like you just described, like, wow, it's extraordinary. And, and by the way, when I hear it, It doesn't even seem like you're talking about me. So I, I, and I don't at times have the highest opinion of myself because of the struggles I've gone through with addiction. So as I'm telling you this, I'm super cautious that I, about coming across like a narcissist. I, I don't want to come across like that. I want to be, I want to be very humble in how I describe this, but I'm going to be honest with the process prior to the race. I've spent before a race and this one in particular, no different than any other. I spent 10 or 12 weeks like devoting. All my physical energy, or, or at least 90 minutes to 2.5 hours a day of preparing for this for, let's say, 12 weeks. When I get to Tokyo the week before, I always go by myself. My wife, I have 4 young children. Even some of the local races, they don't come to, even when I think, oh, I'm gonna win and you can see me win a race. Like they've come to a few of them and it's kind of uneventful for them. They come to expect me to win and I, in my mind, think they're gonna be so psyched when they see me win. And then they're like, okay, dad, can we get outta here now and get a donut? So anyway, long-winded way to say I have a very, very specific process that I have to go through in the days leading up. And again, I don't wanna sound like I'm like some elite professional runner, but this is how, this is what I do. This is the process I have to get there. In the case of Tokyo, with a 14, 15-hour time change, I need to get there at least 7 days early to get my body and my circadian rhythm on track with what I'm about to do. Because again, I'm I've spent 12 weeks devoting so much energy to this. I don't wanna mess around when I get there. It's very specific. I don't make plans to go to dinner with people, or very rarely, mainly because I'm a jerk. I know it. I'm very selfish. To me, again, I'm not a pro runner, but to me, this is my version of the Olympics, and I am not there to mess around and have fun. It's a, like, I'm, I'm on a work trip. So I get there and I just need to be alone by myself, think about what I wanna do, try to stay positive. I'm a big believer in mindset and what you tell yourself is the truth. Reality doesn't matter. Like what other people think about you doesn't matter. It's the only thing that matters is what you think of yourself. And that goes into the same, that same thought process goes into preparing for this race. In my mind, I am a professional runner and I'm gonna win the Olympic gold medal on Sunday. So I get there early, I go through my process and on race day, I've said this before in interviews, it's like, I'm not, I'm nothing nice on race day. I don't wanna make friends. I don't want to chit-chat. I don't, I'm a jerk. I know it. So I try to stay completely by myself. I don't put my shit on other people, but I don't want them putting theirs on me either. So I stay by myself. The race goes off. I know what's coming. Some people were like, how were the sights in Tokyo? What were the people like in the race? I said, I couldn't tell you if we ran through the frigging Imperial Palace or not. All I know is the road in front of me. And I get into like a tunnel vision where I can't see any, I mean, I obviously, if I look around, I could, but I don't waste an ounce of energy. I don't even try to look at my watch for, I, I don't wanna move any movement that isn't completely necessary to get from A to B as quickly as possible. I'm trying to run the straightest line. I'm focusing. If people get too close to me, I'll like kind of give them an arm, like, dude, you're getting too close. Like, I don't wanna trip someone at the start of the race in Tokyo. I was on right on the start line and 2 or 3 people right in front of me toppled and it was like they were caught in the whitewash as surfers, just arms and legs flailing, elbows elbows and knees smashing on the ground as people just trampled them at the front of a major marathon. It was crazy. So I don't want them doing that to me. So I'm like, that's what I meant about being a bit alpha at the start, but I don't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to affect anyone, but I don't want to be fucked with either.
How do you know him?
My friend Casey Neistat, who is, do you know who he is? YouTube guy Casey. So I trained Casey last year for New York Marathon. My friend Nev Schulman, who's the host of Catfish on MTV, he connected us. So I trained Jason and, uh, not Jason, uh, Casey and Nev for New York City Marathon. And then I heard Jason mentioning, um, running a marathon on, on All In, and I just mentioned it in passing to Casey. Casey connected me. I saw Jason was in it. We connected via text. I saw Jason was in Tokyo. I sent him a text, and then we ended up going to dinner one night and then a Tokyo food tour the next day. We went to like some super high-end sushi place and then a bakery. J Cal is like, he's dialed. He knows where he wants to go. I know nothing. I was just like, just tell me where we're going and I'll be there. Just text me the address. That's what I mean about the weekend.
You're in the in crowd. You're hanging out with all the cool guys.
Brother, again, when I think about my friends like Andrew Huberman and David Sinclair and Joe Rogan, I think, I can't believe these guys are my friends. I'm, I, I feel like the luckiest person in the world, and I'm so humbled and honored that guys like you want to talk to me. It's just mind-blowing. But it comes back to this point of I don't have anything that anyone listening to this show doesn't have. I promise you, I'm not a good athlete. I played Division III sports. I was just a hustler. And when I found running as a way of getting over an addiction issue with opi— opioids, I just decided I was done being mediocre. And we'll get into the career stuff and I'll tell you how I did apply the same practice to my career in finance.. But at the end of the day, you know, not again, not to sound cliché, but if you're not all in, there's just too many competitors out there that are gonna eat your lunch if you don't bring your A-game every day. But when you do dedicate your 100% effort to one particular goal, it's very hard to beat the guy who wants to die to win. And that's kind of what I applied to running and, and, and it's attracted these other kind of people that recognize that I am like serious about the things that I get involved in.
Well, the thing that you're interesting is the, you, you just have an interesting life. Did I read, did you used to work at Enron?
No. Good question. I, I, I was working in finance. My very first job, if you want me to kind of walk through my career, I don't wanna like jump around. I started in, I moved to New York right after I graduated college. I had a pharmaceutical sales job for a few months, but when I moved to New York, I saw all these younger guys my age working in finance and making a ton of money. And I was like, I was making like $36,000 and my like rent and student loans came more than my take-home pay. I was basically like living on borrowed time in New York, living in a shitty walk-up. And long story short, I was playing pickup ice hockey at Chelsea Piers and a French-Canadian kid who played minor league hockey asked me if I wanted a job as a, like a trading assistant on a, on an inter-dealer brokerage desk, brokering electricity trades between the utilities. And Enron was one of those clients.. And the way it worked was the junior guys at Enron would trade like next day power, which was like, the commission was like literally like $5. But if you didn't do that as a service for these accounts, they weren't gonna trade the like big ticket items with you. So long story short, I was doing that. The guys on the trading desk, you know, back in like the late '90s trading desk was like a locker room. It was very like alpha driven. A lot of hazing and shit. But I mean, I was at the time boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I had played hockey. I mean, I was, I worked in a prison for 4 years. So these nerds were hazing me. And one day I just cuffed the guy. I just slapped him across the face and almost knocked him out of his seat. And needless to say, they fired me. But I was covering these young guys at Enron and they told the senior traders what had happened. And one of the senior traders who happened to be from Martha's Vineyard outside of Boston called me up, said, hey, I got a job. I didn't even know we had competitors. That's how naive I was. I didn't know there were other brokerage shops. I was there like 2 months and, um, I mean, I barely knew what a bid and offer was, were. And, um, this other competitor offered me a job starting the next Monday. I was making $40 grand. They offered me a job at $80 grand. I mean, to me, that was more money than anyone I knew made. So I was like, and, and the other thing is this guy's hazing me. I had a huge black eye from a fight at the New York Athletic Club. Like, I was not like a punk that you could just like, like, I, I didn't strike you, come across as like, Hey, bully me. I'm a big sissy. Like, I was a guy, you know? So when he did it, I was like, you got the wrong guy, dude. And I cracked him. And needless to say, he almost started crying because I was like, when you leave this office, I'm going to beat the crap out of you. And he's like, I'm not, I'm not going to leave. I go, you're going to have to sleep here because when you come outside, you're getting a beating. And they were like, okay, Ken, you got to go before we call the cops. And again, I had no safety net. I couldn't call home and ask for money. There was like I worked in the prison. My stepdad and brother were inmates in the prison. No one was looking to help me in my finance career in New York. To them, I was like an anomaly, you know? I was already like the richest person they knew just by having a job in New York City. So, um, yeah, it was nerve-wracking. And, uh, so that's how my career started. And the guys at Enron were just like good customers of my clients that like literally changed my life.
But it, it worked out all right. I mean, I think at, at the end of your career, I mean, you were killing it.
Yeah. So, so when that happened, I mean, when, from the minute that happened, within 2 years I was making like, I mean, again, not to sound like a narcissist and I don't have a lot of money and I'm not a rich guy, but within 2 years I was making like $2 million a year doing things that to me were like, I didn't even know what we were trading. I just knew people and I had relationships and they were just doing trades with me. I was living in London. I was running, uh, I ran sales and trading, commodity sales and trading at Cantor Fitzgerald out of London and Hong Kong. And I was flying on the Concorde back and forth from New York to London on a regular basis. Every single time, the novelty, like, just never wore off. Every time it happened, I was like, I can't believe that this is my life. Much like I feel today. I can't believe I've done this.
How are you making that much money? That's just commissions or, uh, yeah. So what goes into that? How do you jump from like $80K to $2 million? What happened? Yeah.
Good question. So, um, I was brokering, um, electricity trades and electricity deregulation had just taken place. So you're putting together trades for like commodities trade on monthly contracts. So we were doing that. And when Enron went, went bust, I got basically sent from New York, from London back to New York because the business had dried up. But I was like one of the biggest producers of commissions at the time. Again, like I was so unqualified, I didn't know anything about the technicalities of what we were doing. I just knew how to find buyers and sellers. It could have been houses, it could have been baseball cards. I just was had a knack for it. Is that like networking?
Is it cold calling? What were you, what were you doing to actually be great? What did it take to be great there?
Yeah, good question. I hate the word networking. I feel like when you're trying to network, you're already like us behind the curve. Like if you're trying to make friends, people ask me frequently now, like, how are you friends with Rich Roll and, and Andrew Huberman? I'm like, I don't know. I just, I, I must have something that they like and they have something I like, we just find each other. But I certainly didn't make a conscious effort ever to be friends with anyone. It's just a natural process. So to answer your question, I just had, I just had an ability to connect with people and I tried to have, live a life of honesty and integrity. And if I say I'm gonna do something, I'll do it. And I like to tell the people that I'm close with, or when I have a close friend, someone's like, oh, are you friends with that guy? I'm like, oh, I helped that guy bury a dead body. I like him so much.
Like, that's my guy, you know?
And I think that people People know, people that are my friends know that that's the truth. If you need me, someone's coming to, over to your house, they want to fight with you, I'll come and help you. Like, and I think, like I said, I think the people who are tight with me, they know that that's a character trait that I have. And I think it's what's helped me build the rapport with the people that I've built rapport with. But to your question, so I had this ability to connect with people. So when Enron went bust, they sent me back to New York and again, Talking about reinventing yourself. Enron goes down, I'm making a ton of money. And these businesses like Cantor Fitzgerald, investment banks, et cetera, they're ruthless. So the minute shit went sideways with electricity trading, they were like, okay, we'll send you back to New York. And this was, I lived in London during 9/11 and Cantor was on the top floor of the World Trade Center. So when we lost 3,000 people, they sent me back to New York and said, hey, can you take over our credit derivatives business? Which happened to be the most lucrative business in the institution at the time. Now, if I didn't know anything about electricity, you can imagine how little I knew about credit derivatives. I knew less than nothing. I knew as much as a plumber would know, but I knew people and I knew the lingo and I just, I picked up the phone and just, in hindsight, I don't even know. I had a, I developed a relationship with a guy who's still one of my really good friends called Colin Stewart, who worked at Morgan Stanley, who happened to be a huge trader of these things. And the market was so new. Credit derivatives, and we just hit it off again, just became friendly. We went skiing a couple times and he started to just do a ton of business with me. And at the time, when a product is new, the commissions tend to be big until people realize how much they're paying on an annual, monthly, or annual basis. But I can remember one time for context, and again, I'm only sharing these numbers because of the, for context of the podcast. I don't want to come across like, hey, look at how much money I'm making because Hey, our podcast is called, it's called My First Millionaire.
All right.
All right. So I'm on a trading desk. There's a group of credit derivative brokers, just generic credit derivatives. I was trading credit derivative, like correlation products, like super sophisticated, high-end bespoke one-off trades. So the credit derivative desk has like 12 guys, and that was like the product du jour. Everyone wanted to be in credit derivatives. It was jamming. They were credit derivatives. Basically think of it as an option on a bond. So these guys were jamming and we had a super busy day one day, everyone did. And the kid who ran the, the CDS credit default swap desk says to me, dude, we had a huge day. We made $250,000 in commissions between like 10, 15 guys. So I said, hold on, let me see. And I start tallying up things. I go, oh dude, I, I was a one-man show. I said, I did, uh, $262,000 in total commissions. And I think I was keeping like either 50 or 60% of that. In one day.
Amazing.
Uh, it was insane.
And so how did you, how did you leave that? Why, how do you let that go? Or, you know, what happens? Yeah, take it, take us, continue the story.
All right, so when I went to London, I was in charge of like a bunch of grown men, and, and I was like 27 years old, but I was very immature. Like when I went to college, I've said in previous interviews, like I, I wasn't prepared for adulthood. I, I just, I grew up around junkies and degenerates and like, it, it was a very hectic childhood and my brother was in and out. My brother never went to school past the 9th grade. He's only 11 months younger than me. So it was just total chaos where I was and I just knew I had to get out of this. So I applied to college, like I literally went to the school I went to because on the application you could like fill in the little dots with the pencil next to the letters and it was like like path of least resistance in terms of applications. And I could work at, and I had a job offer to work as a guard in the prison full-time in the summer, and then a few days a week during the school year, which I did through college. I started at the prison like when I was, uh, one week outta high school. So if you can imagine being in a men's maximum security prison, I mean, I was 18, but I probably looked like I was 15. But I also knew prison is very segregated, right? Blacks and whites don't necessarily mingle with each other. Freely. It's not like— it's, it's like a different world. But I knew most of the white guys because I grew up in like white Irish Catholic, almost like not in housing projects my whole life, but in that, in that sphere. So when I got there, I knew some of those guys. So I wasn't as scared as I might be if I didn't know anyone going in there, which I know sounds crazy in hindsight. Now when people know me, I'm like, you knew people in prison? I'm like, the difference between guards and inmates is like the inmates have been caught. The guards are just as bad. It's like, that was, that was a big part of my motivation to get out of college. It's like looking at what my prospects of life looked like if I didn't go to college and working at that prison, I was like, I'd rather be dead. It was the worst, worst. To this day, it's the worst experience of my life, just in the thought of having to do that every day for 20 years. So, um, I'm, I'm working there, paying through college. I'm, I, I go to London. I'm now in charge of basically in, in on a brokerage desk, whoever makes the most commissions, they're the manager, regardless of having management skills. So I guess the, what I was saying in a long-winded way of saying like I had no experience or no, I didn't have the maturity to be a manager, so I really didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I was good at brokering trades and I was suffering massively, like from a, a fraud complex, imposter syndrome. And I had a minor surgery on my ankle and I was introduced to Percocet. And the minute I took those Percocets and the opioids, I was like, oh, I have all the confidence in the world. No one can stop me. And thus began like a 10-year odyssey of being high 24/7, save for like a week or two here, a month here and there. Like I'd get sober on my own, just white knuckle it, like go through the physical withdrawals of, you know, basically opioids, just like heroin. I was, I was a mess. I, like in hindsight, I, I tell people now when I speak to like junkies at like NA meetings or AA meetings, or I speak at, at prisons, I say like, I was a good drug addict. I could get away with it. I had resources. I was resourceful. I could find drugs anywhere. I could get people to gimme prescriptions all over the country. I just, I'm embarrassed to say I was really good at it and I was a functioning addict for a good 10 years. And I'm sure people that worked with me during those, during that period just think I was fucking crazy. Not necessarily whacked on drugs, but it is what it is. It's, it's embarrassing. Like I'm, I, I could, I get choked up thinking about it 'cause I, I just can't believe I behaved like such a loser. And, um, but I did it. And, um, and once I finally, um, got sober, um, when we start, when I, I started having children with my wife, I have an adopted daughter who's 12 years old from, uh, we adopted her from Ethiopia as a newborn. And right before we adopted her, I just went through like an outpatient detox, got clean and And I have been sober since. I mean, I haven't been without slip-ups over the last several years. Like I might, you know, slip up here and there, but I mean, for the most part, I've been sober longer than I've ever been in my life. And it's, you know, it's like of all the things I've ever done, it's the one of the things that I'm most proud of, the fact that I was able to kind of, I don't say get over because it's a constant struggle to stay sober when you've been addicted to those kind of drugs. They're so physically and, Mentally addictive. But nevertheless, it, it's that, that's kind of my journey.
But where'd the transition go from just being a normal guy to this kind of, I don't know, personality or whatever you wanna call what you are now?
Yep. That's what I was gonna get to. So in 2010, when I got sober, I started doing triathlons. I did the Ironman in Hawaii 3 times.
And what was your first time, or what was, what, what time, what time did you finish in your first triathlon?
Probably 11 hours and then my best—
Oh, you broke 12 hours your first time?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's like, that's again, that goes back to mentality. Like, oh my God, 12 hours.
By the way, Sean, that, that, that's like pretty good.
I mean, 12 hours sounds like a very long time.
Somebody's never done that. No, breaking 12 hours for your first time. That's like, that's a, that's a great accomplishment, right?
Pretty good. In like 3 years, I got down to a 9:36 basically without even knowing how to swim. And I went to Hawaii 3 times. But again, part of that journey was like, learning about myself and figuring out how to suffer and learning that quitting is much harder than suffering. Because the first time I went to Hawaii, to me it was like I had, um, made it to the Olympics and I was so happy just to be there that when, that when I got off the bike, you know, it's 2.5-mile swim in the ocean, 112-mile bike ride in the Hawaii sun in the heat, and you start a marathon around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, which would be crazy even, even to do as a training run. And the run got hard and I just quit. I just stopped. I was like, oh, I'm, I'm dying. This isn't my day. I've like, I, I just told myself every story that I needed to tell myself to justify quitting. It's been a long year of training. You made it here. That's the big thing. And as I walked back to transition, literally like crying to myself, like crying, like real tears, like it just, it's so shameful because I knew I didn't have to quit. I had a lot more to get, even if I walked. And I went back the next year and finished in like 9 hours and 39 minutes, which was, you know, I don't know where I finished overall, but that, that was, I was very satisfied with that and that process of, so, so, so I used the endurance sports to deal with my addiction. And then through endurance sports, I discovered my, an ability to suffer through adversity. And I also learned the pain of quitting and the emptiness that I felt when I didn't give 100% to something that I had committed to. And, and that really began the journey. So that was like in 2012 or '13 where I was like, you know what, I'm done being mediocre at anything in life. I'm, whatever I do, I'm gonna do with 100% conviction, including work. And if you like, I'm happy to come back to like my career and how it transitioned into what it was, into what it is, cuz this is all part of the same story.
Well, let's stay with the, with the mind shift. Sure. I wanna talk about two of 'em. So you had said kind of like, uh, We adopted my daughter and I decided to get sober and, you know, uh, made a decision. But what, what was the thought? Uh, because, you know, after 10 years of addiction, I can't imagine that that was just so easy.
And that's, that's, that's the worst addiction. Yeah. Opioid. I mean, they, they're the worst.
And so I can't imagine that that was just so as simple as saying, okay, okay, well now I'm this time I'm gonna do it. So, so what, what was the thought? And do you, can you take us back to Yep. That moment where you kind of realized, okay, I'm gonna do this? Or was it many false starts? Before it finally happened. Yeah. How did it happen?
Yeah, no, that's an excellent point that there were many false starts. No one who's suffering with addiction wants to continue to wallow in that because they call, um, those, uh, medication Percocet like painkillers, but they're really joykillers. So it, what happens is you initially take them, you feel great, and you can maybe do that for like a week. And every single time you take a, a, a dose, you get a, a euphoric feeling, maybe the first time for an hour or two. By the end of the first week, it might be half an hour. By the time you're in the throes of addiction, you're only taking them so you're not sick. And I mean, anyone who knows anything about, um, withdrawals from opioids knows, like, I'm talking, imagine having the worst flu of your life for 7 freaking days and it can stop whenever you're ready to start taking 'em again. Or are you strong enough to get through this week to 10 days? So then again, just like quitting at anything. You're sick. Oh, something came up. Any justification where you're like, I can't afford to show up here in like the throes of withdrawals. I like can't go 2 feet from the toilet cuz I might have to use the bathroom. I'm sweating, then I'm freezing cold. Everything hurts. I'm an emotional mess. I could cry at like a drop of a dime. And, um, so there had been many, I had gotten sober for weeks and months at a time and then, you know, found excuses to go back to using. But when we were adopting my children, I was like, I cannot live like this with children. I have to be in my right mind. I— and yeah, it wasn't as— so to your point, it's not just like I just switched the shit, I switched, flipped the switch. But I will say in terms of being hard, finding someone that's been able to get sober from opioids is like finding someone like with a story like from The Biggest Loser where you see someone who weighs like 350, 400 pounds. Then the next time you see them, they're ripped to shreds and they're living like an athletic lifestyle. That's, I think, how rare it is to find someone who was heavily addicted to opioids and is now living a clean and prosperous, emotionally prosperous life. That's how I feel. It's, it's, it's so hard. And only other junkies who've been through this can recognize the struggle that went into it and the strength that it took to get out of it. Like I said, I've not always been perfect, but I'm so grateful and thankful to be where I am versus where I was with regards to the addiction. But yeah, it was not.
It.
I know I'm different. I know when it comes to mindset, I know that I have some mental strength that other people don't have. I say that with humility. But it's the truth. I just decided I'd rather die than live like this. And I don't want to die. I can't find this client info.
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Grow better. You have an interesting perspective because you grew up with a bunch of people that are now in prison and you worked in a prison, then you worked in, uh, in New York on Wall Street. But, uh, now, you know, a lot of these, like, uh, you know, these celebrity fitness folks. So you have like a, you know, a bunch of interesting people. And you also work with Teddy Atlas, which I imagine through that you've been able to meet Tyson and it looks like you have Dustin Poirier on the, on, on your, behind your shoulder on a picture of him. So you've met a lot of like traditionally tough people, or at least people who from an outsider's perspective, from my perspective, are like these tough guys. Who are some of the toughest people that you've met and you admire when you think about how would this person behave in this situation when I'm struggling physically or mentally?
I would think one of the toughest people I know— I don't want to get emotional. One of the toughest people I know is my wife. The fact that she was able to, like, stick with me through all this bullshit for the— for the sake of my children has been incredible. It's easy to be physically tough because, like I said, I mean, catching a beating is like, okay, I got beat up. Like, okay, not the end of the world. We've all been in falling down, bike crash, car accident, whatever. Like, physical pain is just momentary. Emotional pain lasts forever. Someone that's able to withstand emotional pain and show toughness and perseverance through emotional pain is a special person. Because like I said, with like using addiction as an example, there's a lot of ways to escape emotional pain— drugs, alcohol. Ultimately, they're all shortcuts. And, um, You know, like a finger in the dike of the problem. Like the only way through adver— the only way to deal with adversity is to go through it and go through the fire. You know, like, uh, the expression, when you're going through hell, keep going, or you're in a hole, stop digging. So to that extent, in terms of emotional toughness, my wife showed incredible, um, conviction and perseverance to stick with me when I was just of a mediocre finance clown addicted to drugs, behaving like an asshole, worrying about materialistic possessions and worrying about keeping up with the Joneses versus worry about just living for myself and trying to be the best person that I could be, which in my heart is like who I really am. And, um, so to that extent, my wife is tough. But, you know, in terms of traditional toughness, I'd say any of the fighters we've had on the podcast, that's, um, Dustin over one shoulder and, uh, Regis over this— Regis Prograis, who's, um, 140-pound world champ. Those are two incredibly tough guys, but anyone who has the courage to get into the ring or the octagon and have a fistfight for money in front of other people, I, can you imagine anything physically tougher than that? I just, I have such admiration.
How do those guys, how do those guys describe that? I mean, like this weekend, I don't know how many people bought the Jon Jones fight, but I imagine he had millions of eyeballs on him. He's like, well, I'm gonna get in my underwear. I'm gonna basically, I'm basically naked and I'm like, gonna fight to the death in front of all these people.
That's right.
I, and like I've read some like Chael Sonnen and Cowboy Cerrone, they're like backstage, they, you, they're these tough guys and they like the, at the weigh-ins, they're puffing their chest and they're flexing their muscles and they're like, I'm gonna effing kill you, yada, yada, yada. But then they'll tell stories once they're retired. They're like, I had to throw up in the backstage ahead of that fight cuz I was so afraid. And at the beginning of every fight, it's just like a race. You have these feelings of like, what am I doing? I don't want to do this. Why do I keep doing this? What am I like? This is the worst feeling. And so they're kind of human, but what do you think, or what have some of those people said right before they're about to get in the arena and just fight to the death? What's that? What do they go through?
You just hit the nail on the head. I've had some fights myself, boxing matches, and it's whether you're in the UFC or fighting in a VFW, or a, a con— a convention hall. Every single person that I've ever met and spoken to, and I've been in the locker room of fighters before fights, many world champions, UFC boxers, Teddy and I trained the light heavyweight champion of the world. I was basically Teddy's assistant. Teddy trained him, but we were in the locker room for a pay-per-view main event fight. And I can tell you every single person feels the same things that you and I would feel, or that average person would feel. They're not different. They're not special. They're not unique. The coward and the hero, as Teddy Atlas would say, they feel the same exact thing. The only thing that they do differently is how they behave. Some people let that fear over— overwhelm them and they cower. And the, like, I, I, I, I compare it to like surfing. The waves are crashing down and there's that like break zone where you either have to get out of the water or get through the break. And the coward, Either gets washed out to sea or goes back to the shore, and the hero goes through the break and knows that on the other side is calm waters and is the place where you wanna be with other heroes. So I think to answer your question is they don't feel any different. Everyone feels the same thing. They're not immune to the fact that there's millions of people watching. No one is. It's just exactly as you would imagine. The only difference is how they behave. And you just forget her. That the, what, this reason they train, you train as hard as you do, or they do, is because at the end of the day, you've gotta block out all the bullshit because all of that fear that we, we've just described is all noise. And the, the, the amount of things, and again, this is all knowledge I've gleaned from working with Teddy Atlas, all of the scenarios and potential nightmares that could happen, Teddy calls them like the ninjas of your mind. The ninjas start coming over the wall as you're getting ready to go into the ring or the octagon. And all of All of the possible scenarios, there's endless scenarios of things that could go horribly wrong. You could die, you could get knocked out, you could get your arm broken. But at the end of the day, what are the odds of any of those things happening? Because you know, you've trained like a dog, you've been in fires with these kind of sparring sessions, you, you've done the running, you've done the training, and at the end of the day, you have to block out the fact that everyone's watching. This is now simply a more aggressive sparring session, and you've just gotta focus on the task at hand. And once, at least in my own experience, whether it's a fight or a race, once the gun goes off or the bell rings and you start jabbing or running, you have to get your mind into that place of like, hey, I've been here before. I know what's coming. I know what to do. Even if it's not going right, I know how I'm supposed to behave. And Teddy would say, you know, the difference— what makes a fighter a fighter or what makes a fight a fight is when there's something to overcome. You're not really a fighter if you're just in there beating the brakes out of shit competition. You become a fighter when there's something to overcome, when you're dealt some cards that you weren't expecting, when you get punched in the mouth in a shot that you didn't see coming, and now you're tested. That's when you see who's really a fighter, who can come back, who can get off the canvas. We measure a man much more by how they get off the canvas versus how many times they knock someone else to the canvas. So when you have losses and setbacks and you've experienced that feeling of having quit or not giving 100%, that's when you find out who you really are. And that's, at least that's what's worked for me. And again, a lot of reality, the, the reality of situation isn't nearly as important as the narrative that you have in your head, because the narrative in your head is gonna control how you behave and control your mindset. And that's something that's well within your control. And you can learn how to harness that ability over time and through practice. And that's why we train the way we do.
So I wanted to ask you about that exact thing because, uh, you know, not— you, you run and you run these crazy marathons in these crazy times. I think you basically have just been getting faster and faster every year, you know, every year since you were 35 years old, which is kind of amazing. I'm not going to run. I'm not a runner. It's not something that's of interest to me, but everybody hits adversity. And so I think this is probably the most important thing that I want to learn from you, which is Uh, when you, whether you're in a fight or you're in a race and adversity strikes, what is the self-talk that you have developed that gets you through that? Because, uh, you said the difference between like a coward and the hero is the behavior, but I think the behavior, I would guess, comes from a conversation that happens in your head, uh, deciding which way are we going to go? Are we going to walk off the field or are we going to continue on? Right. Um, And so what is that self-talk and how do you train that?
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think that at the end of the day, we all know what the answer is. I like try to use a professional analogy, like a business analogy. If you're a research analyst, right? And you're covering a particular stock and you know that there's like, let's say realistically 15 other guys covering that stock is like, who's gonna go the extra the mile to get it done, right? We've all, just like at the start of race, everyone shows up, everyone there is good, everyone there is fit. Who's the healthiest? That's a big difference. Who's done all the little things? So if you're doing research, have you uncovered every, every stone? Have you turned over every stone? Like, um, Warren Buffett talks about that he would pour through, um, company reports. I don't even think he uses a computer. He's just old school. He's just reading Reading company reports, reading balance sheets. And I think that we all know whether it, whatever our profession is, we all know what we could do better. And I think when you sit with yourself and you ask yourself, have I done everything? Think about how much free time, how much time we waste in the day. And, and if you needed an example, every single time you open your phone and look at it for anything, Instagram, Twitter, I do it myself. It pisses me off 'cause it's such a waste of time. I've like contemplated getting rid of social media every day for like the last 2 years, but it's, it, it, it, I would be lying if I didn't say it's been helpful to me in terms of getting my message out there and kind of sharing some of the knowledge I have in terms of what I've been able to do with running. But I, I would say that to simplify is like, we all know what needs to be done. You just have to do the little extra things that you know that other people aren't. Is someone else leaving early to go have drinks with their friend? The people who are great, that's their priority. And again, back to the concept of all in. If you're all in on one thing and you decide this one thing that no one's gonna beat me at, no one has to tell you what you need to do. You know, everyone, you know, spend more time doing the thing that you love doing. If you do something more than anyone else, I'm pretty sure you'll become the best in the world at it. If you wanna be the best piano player, there's gonna be people that are just virtuosos. So let's take out the outliers. But if you wanna be a piano player and, and, and there's 20 other people in your class, I promise you that if you train more than them and practice more than them, you'll be the best. And I, unfortunately, the only example I have for that, for me is running. I've just run more than other people and I've been able to stay healthy, which is, you know, I get, maybe part of it is luck. I just have the physiology that absorbs the miles, but I do a lot of other things to maintain my overall health in addition to running.
You, you keep saying that you're like this, you're like, I'm a humble guy, you know, and it feels crazy. Well, you don't say I'm a humble. I think you said, I don't want to be a narcissist and talk about this and that, but you're, you kind of are like this alpha cocky guy in a good way. That's a compliment. Uh, because I read this story and you, he, you, you just, you're, you're a funny guy. You're like, you're like the chara— you're like the real life version of Mark, of, of a Mark Wahlberg character in a movie because you say these, these, these funny wisecracks because I read this story that's like 10 years old. Apparently Lance Armstrong was hosting like a man camp or some type of like, you know, like tough guy camp. And, uh, I think the story is, is that like you were kind of chirping at him. You're like, uh, I came this close. You told the, the, the reporter, I came this close to beating Lance Armstrong in the first race. I attacked him like a rabid dog. I had a gap on him. And then on the ride, apparently a rock hit Lance or something from one of someone's tires. And you said, I hurt Lance Armstrong. I broke him. I made him bleed. And then you actually you got close to beating him, or maybe even you did beat him, and you said, I'm the winner of MAM camp, Lance. I need you to clean my bike and hose it off for me. Yes.
Yeah. The initial quotes are slightly outta context cuz it sounds a bit like a dork. Like I would never be like, I came this close to beating him. I just would never talk like that. There was more to the quote where I was, and I did beat him in a couple of those climbs, but he probably hadn't ridden a bike in like 6 months before we did this together. So like there's a lot of context that's missing there. But Lance is a good friend of mine. A rock did bounce up and hit his finger and I said, yep, I made you bleed. Now clean all the bikes. We kicked your ass. And, and then I probably said to him, make sure that no one gets a blood sample of that. Make sure no one gets a drop of that blood and runs a sample on it. I don't want to find out that you're still doing any kind of performance enhancers. But it was obviously said in jest.
But, but you're, you're chirping at him in a fun way. But even like, even that you had the confidence to chirp at him a little bit, I think it's hilarious and awesome.
Why wouldn't I? He's a bike rider. Have you ever met a bike rider that was going to physically, like, do anything to anyone? I was like, I think at some point I said to him, like, you're used to dealing with, like, 115-pound European cyclists. Now you're dealing with real men. Like, this is— we're peers. There's no, like, you know what I mean? I can't imagine a less intimidating group of guys than professional cyclists.
Sounds like you better take Lance to band camp, actually, instead of him.
Yeah, yeah.
Class is in session that day.
The thing is, if someone heard all the conversations out of context, number one, they wouldn't be fit to be published. They were like very much like a locker room. But Lance is my buddy and all of that stuff was just said in jest and teasing each other. That probably wouldn't all be for public consumption. But, you know, anytime you see quotes where it's like that, like, I came this close to being Lance, it makes me sound like a fucking dork. And like, I wouldn't talk like that. I would have said, I'm gonna kick your ass. And when we get out there tomorrow, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. But again, I would say that too. I'd tell Dustin Poirier the same thing if we were gonna have a sparring session. I just, that's, but it's all in, I don't, I don't wanna sound, I, I don't at all, I don't feel cocky or arrogant whatsoever. I know that there's some things I'm good at and I know that there's a lot more things that I'm bad at. So if I've come across as cocky, I apologize. It's certainly not the message I wanna send. I, I think. I try to be as humble as I can and know that there's a lot of things that I'm not good at, but suffering is one thing that I know how to do.
Are you making most of your income right now from your main— I think you have like a, like a small advisory, right? Are you making most of your income now from that? Or are you, are you, and are you going to try and go full transition to become like this? I don't know what the right word is, what we call these Goggins, but whatever that is, a personality that sounds like lamer than it actually is, but you know what I mean?
Yeah, no. This is a great question. So I've made the most of my income through finance and what I've done. So, so in 2015, I left New York and went to California with a fintech startup called Electronify. We were brokering trades between institutions for corporate bonds. So right now when you trade a corporate bond, you have to call like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and you have to find, they, they, you tell 'em, I wanna sell these bonds. They find a buyer. Sometimes they'll, they'll buy them from you, which was the old traditional investment bank model, right?
They'd, hey, I got 20, 20 million of these bonds to go, okay, we'll take 'em there.
And then they try to sell 'em at a slight markup. Now they're basically just matching buyers and sellers for all intents and purposes. So we created a new, uh, an electronic marketplace that could let these like Fidelity and PIMCO trade directly with each other. So I went out to New York, I went out to LA to cover the West Coast knowing that there was a good chance that this startup wasn't going to work. It didn't. We sold it to a competitor. But I, my, by moving to LA, I basically forced myself into an uncomfortable position because there aren't sales and trading jobs in LA like there are in New York. So I knew I'd have to figure something else out. And you know that expression of like, hey, if you're waiting for everything to be perfect to make a move, it ain't ever gonna happen. You have to make the move and make it perfect. And long story short, I was riding my bike. Everything that good in my life that's happened has been through endurance sports. I was riding my bike with a guy in my neighborhood and we were, um, he ran an asset management firm called the Palisades Group and they had maybe $2 billion in assets under management. Uh, they were running money for all big household managers, like all the household names, like Apollo, for instance. And they had separately managed accounts, so the fees weren't huge like a traditional hedge fund or asset manager. And I said to him, he didn't have any business development. He wasn't actively out there trying to raise more capital, which is what he would need to do to really grow his business. So I said, let me run business development for you. And he said, you know, accurately, you don't have any experience and we're friends. I don't want to put you in a losing position. And I said, okay, I'll work for free for 3 months just to see if it works. And again, every time I've been willing to take a bet on myself, it's worked out. In that, in that brokerage commission role that we discussed earlier, I was paid just straight commission. So when I was making all that money, if I didn't do any trades, I don't make any money. But because I was willing to do that, I got to keep more of the commissions. So anytime I've bet on myself, it's worked, thankfully. So he gave me an opportunity and I came in and in 2 years we grew that from $2 billion to $5 billion. I raised, uh, 2 discretionary funds, which is basically like raising a hedge fund, first-time manager managing discretionary capital. We couldn't even hire banks to help us raise the money. They basically laughed us out of the room. And I said, they said to me, you think, why do you think? And I, they said, why do you think you can raise this fund? Like, it doesn't seem like you'll be able to just based on the track record, experienced asset class. And I said, why do you think you can't? Like, until someone beats me at the New York Marathon, like, I'll convince myself that I can win this whole race. And long story short, we raised the money. We raised a $35 million fund, then $150 million fund. And once I did that and kind of started to believe in myself that I could raise money, my boss at the time, who's like one of my best friends, Jack McDowell, who's like, so hot.
Was he like, just go off and go off and do this on your own?
He said, dude, you're wasting your time. Go do your own thing. And the first mandate that I worked on was with, um, David Sinclair. At Life Biosciences. I helped them raise $50 million. At one point, David and I were raising capital in New York and we had dinner with Wendy Murdoch and Tony Blair and Bennett Miller at Wendy's, like, New York City triplex apartment on Fifth Avenue. It was literally like I was watching someone else's life unfold as I was sitting there having a conversation with Tony Blair over dinner. And so once I had, once I had raised money for a few different independent private placement mandates, I just started doing that full-time and have worked on a bunch of mandates in the health and wellness space. And now I'm back raising a, on a consultant basis, raising a third discretionary fund for the Palisades Group. And so that's kind of one way that I make money. I also have some invest, I've invested in a lot of these deals. I have some advisory roles. I mean, I guess for lack of a better term, some influencer deals with some big brands that have been You know, I just feel so incredibly lucky that brands want to affiliate with me. It's like a dream come true. And then I also have a TV project I'm working on.
What's the next, like, 5 years going to be? How's this transition going to look like? And what do you want it to look like?
Well, in a perfect world, I just filmed a pilot with a big production company for a network that's confidential right now. But if the network likes what we recorded, and I think they will, it's unbelievable. I think a lot of people will like it. It's a non-scripted kind of show, um, with where I'm ho— I'm the ho— main host. And, um, in a perfect world, the network will like the show, pick it up, and I will do that and see where that takes me. But I, I like the idea. Like, I always tell people, like, when you work for someone else, when you're employed, you're, you're kind of a slave. Like, they own you. They— you, you can't just do whatever you want to do. You get to have a couple days off a week. They provide a little bit of safety for you, and in turn you give them like X amount of your time. But the main thing that you miss out on by being an employee is you miss out on the opportunity to pursue interesting opportunities when they are presented. Like this media project I'm working on. If I had a job, there's no way I'd be able to do it. 'Cause they were like, hey, we're gonna record for a week in, you know, outta town. I would never have been able to do this, but because I was willing to bet on myself and, you know, take the risk of having to get my own health insurance, not being sure if like, you know, something happens to me and people don't want to be affiliated with me anymore. I get injured, I can't run. Like, okay, now what do I do? I guess I could always fall back on a finance gig, but I don't want to do that. You know, I wasn't happy doing that. And to that point, I've said this before and I think it's relevant for this podcast, is that I, I've said to people, look, like money doesn't make you happy. And people are always like, oh, bullshit, you have money. And I'm like, no, I've had money and lost money multiple times. When Enron went bust, you know, when you're making a lot of money, you spend a lot of money. And when that ends abruptly, you're very quickly outta money, especially if you have a $10,000, $12,000 mortgage. And now you get paid, getting paid $10,000 a month, which is what happened to me when Enron went bust. Things can change quickly. And the reason I say the example I give you is I was making a ton of money and I became a drug addict. So it didn't make me happier. It caused me different anxiety. So money can alleviate a lot of stress, but it can also add stress that you didn't know, stressors that you didn't even know existed. And yes, it's easier to have money than to not have money. But if your only goal in life is to make money, I would say be careful what you wish for. 'Cause I was making money and I could have con— I could have comfortably continued to do what I was doing, but I'm so much happier now wearing the risk of not knowing where the next deal or paycheck is gonna come from. But I've never been happier in my life. And, and, and this didn't, This transformation didn't happen until my late 40s. And when I finally like had the courage to bet on myself, like all in, in my late 40s, it's been the greatest gift I've ever given myself is to like bet on myself and, and, and, and, and live and die with my own results. So in 5 years, I hope that this media stuff becomes more of a reality and I can continue to kind of share my experiences and, um, You know, knowledge of, you know, knowing how to suffer and deal with adversity. And, uh, I like, I like sharing that message. I've done some speaking recently. That's also contributed to, uh, my financial wellbeing. And that's something that I actually really enjoy, which is crazy, right? Because every time I do speak to people, I go, hey, is anyone here get nervous about speaking in front of an audience? And every single person raises their hand. Then I go, guess what? I do too, but I'm dealing with it. And like I tell my kids, it's okay to be scared. Like when they, my youngest son's playing baseball. Baseball. He's like, Dad, I get so nervous when I get up to bat. He's 7. I said, buddy, everybody does, but sometimes we just have to learn how to do things while we're scared. Once you get comfortable, uh, operating while you're scared, you can't lose. It just has to do with repetitions and experience.
How are you— so I'm a former competitive runner. Now I'm, I'm, I just, I'm pretty into fitness, but all types of well-rounded fitness stuff and I get hurt. You seem like you do not get hurt. Is that, and part of that I think is like just biology. I think some people are just built where they can absorb miles, like you said, but what are you doing to stay healthy?
I try to sleep 8 hours a day. I eat a very healthy diet. I do a lot of strength training that I think a lot of runners don't do. And I do a lot of, recently I hadn't done a lot of stretching and stuff in the past, but lately I've been doing a lot more stretching and I feel like it's especially in the last like 6 to 12 months, tons of preventative care, electrical muscular. I've got every like device under the sun, electrical muscular stimulation, Theragun, et cetera, et cetera. It's been, I spend a lot of time trying to keep myself healthy, but it gets, getting harder over the years.
Do you think that, you know, running 70 and 80 miles a week, do you think that that's going to be that's gonna make you live a longer or healthier life? Or are you just happy to, did you just like how it makes you feel? Because when I, you know, think about like some of these, I, I did a half Ironman, nothing like you did, and I didn't even do it fast, but I remember doing all these miles and I'm like, man, I don't know if this is gonna, if this is gonna make me live to be 120. It might not like, or maybe just like lifting weights and going for walks might be a little bit better. But how do you think about that?
I agree with you 100%, 100%. I always tell Anyone who's interested, I don't know that this is the answer for me, but you're talking to someone who is living the life of a drug addict. To me, okay, if it makes my life a little bit shorter, but it's adding the quality of life that I'm experiencing right now, that's a bet I'm willing to make. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I wish I had an answer for you. I don't know what's gonna add to my overall longevity in terms of my mental and physical wellbeing. But I know that right now this is the best way for me to live my life. Look at what it's given me has been, it's been immeasurable. But I think that there are a lot of things that contribute to longevity. I mean, obviously there's the famous longevity study outta Harvard that suggests that the most important element to living a healthy, fruitful life is relationships. And to that extent, the one thing that this lifestyle and my kind of newfound station in life has provided me is the quality of relationships. When I worked in finance, this doesn't apply to everyone in finance, but a lot of the people I worked with were real assholes and I didn't like them. And it was keeping up with the Joneses. And I, if I never had to sit on a trading desk for the rest of my life, I'd be perfectly fine with that. Again, not everyone. I met some people there that I genuinely love, but there's some also some people there that if I saw them, I wouldn't mind giving them a smack in the mouth. There's been some real idiots I've worked and I could go on forever. But my life now, when I— if there's someone in my life that I don't appreciate or don't respect, I can just cut them out and move on to the next thing. I don't need— the thing that I have that some billionaires don't have is enough. I have enough. I have everything I need. And I'd love to have more money, and I'd love to put in a pool and renovate my house I splurge on a lot of bullshit, but at the end of the day, I have the one thing that I need and that's enough. And I have my family. And, um, so, you know, finding what you're finding, something in life that you're passionate about and that you genuinely enjoy, enjoy is the key. And to me, and people say all the time, find something you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life. There isn't a single week that goes by that I don't say to my wife, can you believe I don't have an effing job? Am I the luckiest person we know? And she always laughs and goes, you're definitely the luckiest person I know. But it's interesting that the harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.
You're an interesting guy and we appreciate you coming on. You're, uh, I've been following you now, I think since 2020, whenever you joined Teddy Atlas. Uh, cause I, I, I listened to that a ton and I know Sean has too. And so we appreciate you coming on. You're, uh, you're different. You're built different. You're a different guy and we appreciate that. We like those types of people.
Well, I want to say again, thank you so much. I really hope that I didn't come across as too alpha or cocky. I just tried to be more than anything. I tried to just be honest, man. It's like the world and the internet is so big. If you embellish or bullshit about something, there'll be someone coming out of the bushes like, that didn't happen and this didn't happen. Because I know a lot of my stuff sounds sensational and crazy, but I'm like, I think if anything, at times I'm downplaying some of the stuff because I know it's how crazy it sounds. But, um, yeah, anyway, I do feel very humbled and honored to be here.
This is a place where cockiness and alphaness is actually appreciated. So, so even if you did, that would be, uh, you know, right at home here.
We just like when people are the way they are and not trying to make it.
It's at home because we don't, by the way, we don't get a lot of cockiness or alpha, Sean. That's why we like it.
Yeah, we enjoy it. It's a good change of pace. You know, we're a business podcast for the most part, entrepreneurship and, uh,, you know, we're, we're a bunch of people with carpal tunnel syndrome. You know, it's, it's not a bunch of alpha males coming on the pod, uh, typically. Uh, so, so, you know, I think there was some good stuff here for, for mental strength, toughness, adversity, you know, basically, uh, what I think is the most important thing, which is the little managing the little voice in your head. And, um, that little voice in your head that, you know, that's who you, you go through life with. And I think that, um, You're a great example of what happens when you really like, you know, work on that. And so, so thanks for coming on, Ken.
I really appreciate it. I would say this before I leave, like that voice in your head is not little. That voice in your head is all, all powerful. The most powerful, right? It's the voice in my head is the one that tells me to get high when I know I shouldn't. The voice in the head, the little voice tells me to go run when it's pissing rain or freezing cold and snowing. So that voice in your head shouldn't be little. It should be big. And it should be like screaming from a megaphone that you are the best and you can do anything you want to do. And to your point, if you have a bunch of carpal tunnel guys here that like might consider themselves nerds and like intellects, good. Because the one thing that you can control is your physical actions. Anyone can do what I've done. I promise you, I'm not special. I wish I had the intellect as some of these carpal tunnel guys, because That's the one thing I don't have. And that's where I'm trying to overcompensate by being so physical that maybe my intellectual shortcomings can be overcome through physical intimidation and alphaness. But anyway, I say that in jest, but honestly, everything that I have is available to anyone. I'm just literally, the only thing I'm doing different than most people is physically is trying harder.
Well, Sam, I don't know about you, but in 10 minutes I'm going to do my workout and I think it's going to be a good one today. I think I got a little extra juice for my workout today.
Not think, you know. No, it is.
But you gotta follow, you gotta follow him on Instagram. There's videos of him shadowboxing and, uh, right before he is about to go running or right after he got, uh, got running and got done running.
And he, uh, I always feel foolish posting that shit. I really do.
And then I'm like, no, I like it. I watch it because I like running a lot, but I don't want a runner's body. And you're, you're, you're cool because you don't have a runner's body.
That's the, my mission in life is to not look like a runner.
You're well-rounded. You're, you're well-rounded. It doesn't matter if you're 53 or you're 23, you look, you look, you look good. You know, I always, I joke, I'm like, the point of working out for me is, uh, to be able to, uh, kill or outrun everyone in a room. You know, you want to be able to kill it, eat them, or outrun them. And we'll add a third thing, which is you also want to look good naked. And so in your, in your, in your, in your checklist, it's check, check, check.
All right, all right. You're not gonna look good for yourself, think about your spouse. So that's kind of my closing salvo.
All right, you're the man. Thank you very much. We appreciate this.
I appreciate you guys. Thank you for having me.