The #1 Personality Trait That Made These Business Moguls +$450M

Egan is great. He has a very aggressive bedside manner. An aggressive bedside manner is like the nicest way possible of calling the guy a dick. Uh, this guy's definitely an asshole. And you know, they're like, oh, you know, it's like he's just very direct, he's very, he's very honest, he's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like, this guy will trample you. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel. What's up, Sam? Are you— I don't know if ready, but I'm going to ratchet up the intensity a little bit here. I'm going to start high intensity on the podcast. I'm going to talk about some high intensity individuals. Would you like to hear about some high intensity individuals?

I wore my high school letterman jacket. If you're not, if you haven't noticed, I'm shocked you haven't made fun of me. So I'm ready for high intensity. If you can't tell, I look like a, like the big man on campus, really.

You look like Al Bundy right now. Like just dreaming about the good old days. So I don't know if you're ready for this.

I want to be, I wish I could have took state. That's the vibe I'm in. And so I'm ready for some intense stuff.

I'm going to tell you about some people that I think you know of. A couple of them I think you know a lot about, but they're all tied together and they are all what I will call all-in individuals.

They're all insane.

They're all kind of insane and they're insane in the same way, which is that they are all the way in on what they're doing. And I was reading their stories and I was kind of inspired. They're all very different stories., but then I realized, no, no, no, it's actually the same story. It's about being all in. Okay, so who are these people? First, I wanna start with a guy named Egan Durban. I think you know who Egan Durban is, but I don't know. Do you know his full story?

I don't know his full story. He kind of is shrouded in mystery a little bit. I know that he's been on top of the game since he was probably 30 or 35, and he kind of controls, it seems like almost LA a little bit.

Did you say 72?

Yeah, 72. So if you take out the Vision Fund, I'm pretty sure this is bigger than like almost all VCs combined. Okay, so who is this guy? And, uh, you know, he's got a crazy track record I want to talk through, but like first I just want to give you a few quotes again about these all-in individuals. And I give you these quotes because even though I don't do anything like this guy, I'm not a fund manager, I'm not a managing director of a private equity fund. I have no desire to be so. I do see some of these descriptions of him and I'm like, it'd be nice to be called that. It'd be nice to, to have that be a true thing somebody could say about me. And sometimes you just gotta hear it. You just gotta hear that level 12 exists for you to even like unlock that part of your brain. Okay, so let me tell you something. So he goes, he goes to school, goes to Georgetown, he goes to Morgan Stanley, and then he is known immediately in the like banking world. They interviewed some people and they go, he came in as an entry-level junior guy, right? Early 20s. And they go, Egan was immediately comfortable at the grown-ups table. And they go, he just carried himself very differently. It's not that he had the experience. It's not even that he was smarter than anybody. But he carried himself like, I belong in that conversation and I'm going to show up that way. And I'm not going to just label myself as a junior here and I'm just here to learn. I'm just happy to be here. Didn't ever have that energy. The next thing that I heard, Egan is great. He has a very aggressive bedside manner. An aggressive bedside manner is like the nicest way possible of calling the guy a dick. This guy's definitely an asshole. And they're like, oh, it's like he's just very direct. He's very He's very honest. He's a straight shooter. And those are all just ways of being like, this guy will trample you. And aggressive bedside manner is the next thing I learned. So 1999, he leaves the banking world to join Silver Lake. And he's like, I think technology, the internet— this is 1999, the dot-com boom is happening. He's like, I think this is the next big thing. I'm going to go here. And so he goes and he does a very smart career move. And if you see this career move, you know this person's a winner, which is They join a thing that's working, but instead of staying at the mothership, they're like, hey, what's the next frontier? And they're like, oh, we need to expand into Europe. And he's like, cool, you got like plans or like a person in charge of that? They're like, uh, not yet. We want to do that next year and we're going to do a search to find somebody. He's like, cool, I'll move there now and I'll do it. And so he moves to Europe and he builds out the whole European business.

For investing in European tech companies.

And by the way, he's only like 35 at this point.

I don't know how old he is exactly. Yeah, he's probably, let's see. Yeah, he's probably 30, 30 or early 30s, uh, is my guess. So 2008, uh, financial crisis happening and the founder of Silver Lake, this guy Glenn Hutchins, one of the founders, and he's like this crazy guy. If you go watch interviews of him, he's like mustached. He comes into the office with like barefoot. He never wears shoes. He's kind of like one of those like, you know, one with nature founder type guys, but he's in private equity, which is usually like suits and, you know, cutthroat type of guys.

By the way, I think the other guy, I think all three of the founders are like hippies. The other one, Roger McAmee, I think his name is. Do you know who he is?

I didn't look him up too much, but yeah, I saw him.

He's a little bit of a hippie. Like he's in like a Grateful Dead cover band. Like if you like more people know him, I think as the, as a musician than founding this multi-billion dollar company.

And they kind of have to be because if you're, if you're in the '90s and you're doing technology, then you're early, right? And you're early because you're a believer in something and you're usually an early adopter. You're not, you usually it's like the MBAs come later, right? The, the, the business school kids come later and once, once the opportunity's already defined.

Which is crazy because Silver Lake now is known as this like buttoned up place.

Of course. As, as, as is Microsoft now and Facebook. Facebook now and all the things that at one time was just like college kids just living in a hacker house type of thing. So 2008, uh, financial crisis happens. That guy Glenn, he's getting real stressed out. He's like, I just need to take a step back. Egan Durbin's like, I'm here. I've been here. I'm ready for this. And so he starts to step forward. He had just done the big, he just does the big, um, Skype deal. So he's kind of riding the wind of that. That's, that's like the big news basically in the, in the industry. They're, they're out to raise a fund and he's like, I'll help you raise that fund. You can use this track record in my name and I'll be one of the, but I need a seat at the top. And so there's a bit of a power struggle. The other founders don't really want to step back. He wants a seat at the table, power struggle. There's sort of the coup and Egan and 4 new guys basically become the new managing directors and the founders basically all end up stepping back.

But a PE firm, there's not like one owner. It are PE firms a little bit like law firms where there isn't ever like an owner, but as you rise, you get an equity stake. And so it almost becomes a partnership, not like a—

That's kind of an asshole move, right?

I mean, kind of an ass— kind of an aggressive move.

I mean, what did his— I wonder what his employees said. Like, hey, uh, that's kind of lame, right? Like, what about us?

Yeah, it was something like that. It was like somewhere between like $10 and $20. And it was also like he structured it intelligently. I think there was like, it was like debt. They had like, you know, like a warrant or something like that. It was like a good structure. I don't know. They didn't release all the details, but the one interesting thing was he got criticized because he had never met Brian Chesky, the CEO. He made the investment sort of sight unseen and injected a bunch of capital into the business when it needed it. And people were like, that was a, is that a rash move? People doubted it, but Airbnb has done fantastic since then. He owns, they own $500 million of Manchester City Soccer Club. Like, they own a lot of different stuff, which is kind of, I don't know, it's interesting to me. Let me tell you one other thing about this guy. So he said something that I found interesting. They talked about the WME deal and he goes, I love Ari Emanuel. He goes, I talk to Ari Emanuel every single day, which is just crazy. Like, I don't even talk to my own business partner every single day, let alone some investment I made. And he goes, um, and people were like, you talk to Ari every day about what? And he's like, they're like, what are you guys talking about? He goes, well, you know, Ari, Ari averages a 90-second phone call. He's like, so we have a 90-second phone call, but we're texting and calling every day. And it's usually 90 seconds. He goes, sometimes it's a specific ask, like, hey, we need this introduction or we need this, this analysis or whatever. Um, he's like, but I don't like to do formal board meetings every quarter, too slow. I like the pace that Ari moves. These 90-second phone calls every day. Which takes me to the next all-in individual, Ari Emanuel. So you know Ari Emanuel, and a lot of people know him because the character in Entourage is based off of him. But there was some things about him that I didn't fully know that was kind of interesting. Did you know he's one of 3 brothers, and all 3 brothers do really interesting stuff?

So there's a book that I read years ago. It's called What's it called? Something America. The Brothers Emanuel, I believe it's called. Brothers Emanuel, A Memoir of an American Family. And I think it's in that book, Ari Emanuel. So Ari Emanuel's probably a billionaire. He's one of probably the shot caller in LA. His brother is Rah Emanuel, who I think was the mayor of Chicago and on Obama's cabinet or something like that, a political power player. And in the book, Ari and Rah, Rahm, I think Ron is his name. They go, yeah, they go, a lot of people know us, but they don't know that our third brother, Zeke, Ezekiel, he's the smartest and the more successful brother. And his brother Ezekiel, I believe I'm going to screw up the titles. He was head of what's the head of like health for the government under Obama.

He basically made the Obama, Obamacare, right? Like he was the architect of the Affordable Care Act.

I think he also has done some major things. I don't remember exactly. So don't quote me on this. Don't turn this into a shorts. But I think he helped pioneer the heart transplant and things like that. Like he invented like things that save lives and he and the two brothers are like, Zeke's the smart one. We're just more like stubborn and bullheaded a little bit.

I think I read an article where he's famous for, he would do something like 200 calls a day. And it starts at 6:00 AM and he's talking to people all day, just making deals.

Somebody told me he was like, they're in his office and he just has a bag of almonds and he's just, whenever he wants his assistant's attention, he was throwing the almonds, bag of almonds at her. He just hit her in the head with an almond and she would turn around. He is like, next call. I need the next call.

What a douche.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm into this.

Okay, so you know this person well, but I don't know if you know the full story. I didn't know the full, full story till I researched this, but Dana White. So I want you to Tell me kind of like a little bit about what you know, and then I want to fill in some gaps of new things I learned when I was looking at this.

All right. So Dana White, I think he was a boxing instructor, but not like coaching real boxers. Like it was like a jazzercise class in Boston. He was in Boston and he moves into this bad neighborhood and Whitey Bulger, who's a big gangster at the time, he comes to Dana's office or his jazzercise gym or whatever. And he goes, hey man, you're in my hood. You owe me $1,000 a month or something like that. And Dana White doesn't pay him because he's like, oh, I'm a tough guy. I don't need to pay this guy. And then eventually he realizes that Whitey's the real deal and he owes him 10 or 20 grand. And Dana's like, dude, I have nothing. So he moves to Vegas to flee. He went to high school with these two rich brothers, the Fertitta brothers, the Fertitta brothers. They, they come from a wealthy family. So they owned like penny casinos, like where like people, like it was like a low class thing at first where it was like, Their parents owned this casino and it's almost at a gas station, I think, where like people would put in like penny slots. From there, they owned a few other casinos. I think the Station Casino or Golden Nugget. I forget what they're called. And so they get money, it starts working. And so the two sons, Lorenzo and Fertitta, they, or no, Lorenzo and what's the other one?

Frank. They, they become kind of guys in Vegas. They actually start a few companies and they buy a few companies. One of them was Gordon Biersch, which was a cider and beer company. They were one of our first advertisers at The Hustle. And they, so they start making deals. Dana comes to them and goes, hey man, this thing called the UFC, it's kind of a sport. I know you guys, you brothers are somewhat into jiu-jitsu. I went to one of these events. They're pretty amazing. The guy's selling the brand. In reality, what we're going to get is a crappy little octagon and just the name UFC. It's $2 million. Let's buy it. They get convinced to do it. Dana gets 4% of the equity. The other guys get the rest, but they fail for 4 or 5 years. So they're in the hole, like $35 million. They come up with this brilliant idea to have a TV show called The Ultimate Fighter in order to promote the events. The events are kind of popular, but like, it's not really making money. They create this event called the, uh, this TV show called The Ultimate Fighter. They convince Spike TV to air it. At the time, Spike TV was a pretty big deal, but not that big of a deal. And they do this series and they're like, dude, we're going to run out of money. We can't afford this series anymore. Then Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar have their famous fight. And at the time it was a huge deal. I was a kid. I remember watching this fight. I get a phone call from a friend being like, dude, you got to turn this fight on. This is so amazing. At the end of that fight, the winner is supposed to get a $1,000 contract. At the time it was, or $100,000. They called it a six-figure contract back then. That was a big deal to get a six-figure contract. The fight is so good, even though one guy won, but it was so great. They give both of them six-figure contracts. From there, the UFC kind of took off. That was like the turning moment. And so Dana and these two brothers, two brothers are kind of the business, like brains behind it. And they're really low key behind the scenes, but they run this business and eventually it sells for $4 billion to Ari Emanuel's company. And now it's like the hottest thing going. Is that—

And the guys who were behind it, it was, it was Whitey Bulger, who's like the real deal. He's, uh, from the movie Black Mass with, and he's the, the character behind The Departed.

Yeah, exactly. When they first came in, they were like, hey, you owe us $2,500. He's like, I don't owe you that. For what? I don't have it. What do you want me to do? And then a couple of weeks go by, and then they call him and they're like, you owe this money by tomorrow, 1 PM, or else. And he was like, oh, shit. Okay, I got to get out of here. So he left basically that night. A couple of other things. I thought he was friends with the Fertittas. They actually didn't know each other. They only knew of each other in high school, but they weren't friends. And what he said was, basically they knew of each other and they liked Dana because Dana was kind of like, basically he tells the story, he's like, we had this class that we all hated. And he's like, Dana realized that the teacher was really uptight. And so it kind of sucked to be in that class. But because the teacher was uptight, one little thing could distract the teacher and throw them off. So he's like, Dana would go to the restroom and he would kick this door really hard. And he kicked the door really hard, make this huge sound. The teacher would go become irate, like, who the— what is that? Who's doing that? And he would go try to find the person. Dana would run away. But the class would basically, half of the class would go by with no teacher because like teacher would be looking for somebody. So he used to do that like every week. And then one day he did it, but his shoe like flew off and he was like, oh shit, I don't have like, he's like, he just had a jet. So the teacher found the shoe and realized it was Dana and Dana got in trouble. But the Fertittas always like logged that in their mind. They're like, man, he took a bullet for us basically. So years later they're at a wedding and they meet up and they're like, Dude, I haven't talked to you in so long. What do you do? And he learns what the Fertittas do. He learns what he does. One of the things Dana says, he's like, yeah, I teach this boxer size class. I'm doing jiu-jitsu. And I think Lorenzo was like, you know what? I'm doing good in business, but I'm not really doing anything fitness-wise. I want to train jiu-jitsu. And Dana's like, all right, sure. I've heard that a million times. Nobody actually shows up. Lorenzo the next morning is there ready to do jiu-jitsu. That's how they actually got to know each other. That's how the Fertittas started to fall in love with fighting or MMA. So what happens is while he's doing that, he becomes an agent. Same thing as Ari Emanuel becomes an agent first before he becomes a business owner.

He starts representing Tito Ortiz, I think, Tito and Chuck Liddell.

But the UFC is like so small back then, even though these guys are the big stars, they're so small. But in doing that, he's negotiating a contract with the owner of the UFC. He's like, you got to pay Tito more. Look at how much money this guy's bringing in. He's the face of this. You got to step up. And the guy's like, the guy's negotiating, negotiating. He's like, finally, he's just like, look, Dana, there's no money. All right? This whole thing's going to fall over. You're not wrong, but I have nothing to give. And Dana's like, in that moment, basically should have been a disadvantage. Like, shit, my main business is going to go down the drain. The owner can't pay him, can't pay my fighters. This is over. But he turned that disadvantage to an advantage. That's when he approached the Fertittas to be like, hey, let's buy this thing. And the one funny thing is, That owner had mismanaged the business so bad that they didn't even own UFC.com. He had sold it to just get a little bit of cash to User Friendly Computers. And then Dana had to go buy it back from UserFriendlyComputers.com and like get back UFC.com's domain, which I thought was amazing.

And I think when they bought it, Dana was like, what did someone ask Dana? They go, what did you get when you bought it? He goes, well, he had this like octagon, which is basically just like a cage and like mats, which is not very expensive. But it was really just that name. I loved that name UFC so much. We had to have the name.

Exactly. And then he's like, you know, they had put $40 million more into it. He felt so bad. He's losing his friend's money and they were trying to make it work, but it just wasn't working yet. And Lorenzo calls him. He's like, dude, I can't do this anymore. Like, I can't keep bleeding money like this. If you could, like, can you try to sell this thing? And Dana's like, okay, my buddy needs me to sell this. And so he's like, he calls everybody and he calls back Lorenzo the next day. He's like, There's not a lot of appetite for this thing. I think the best we could do is get $6 or $7 million for this. And Lorenzo's like, okay, let me call you tomorrow. Next day he calls him. Who knows what he had that morning for breakfast, but he's like, fuck it, let's keep going. Let's put in another $10 million, one last chance to turn this business around. And then that's what they used to create The Ultimate Fighter, that last $10 million.

So he's in $50 million, they're $50 million in.

They were $50 million in.

Well, it was all funded by the family's casino and previous successes, which I think they were really rich, but I think they were not rich enough that $50 was, I mean, $50 was a significant sum.

Well, have you ever met any of the UFC fighters? I think you and I have been around them because we have a friend that has been around them. They're, they're, they're all insane. Because if you think about what it takes, so what would it take to get in your underwear and fight to the death in front of a million people? You have to be an animal.

You don't have all your screws.

No. And, and so Dana has talked about it. He goes, I don't think you guys understand. Like someone will say something homophobic or racist. And he's like, dude, that's like not even close to as bad as it gets when you're working with these guys. They're, they're insane. And the drama happens every single day. You only hear about a small portion of it.

But it, UFC would not be, it would not exist. It would not be what it is if it wasn't Dana's like force of will. Some other ways that he's just all in. So do you know he's like a banned blackjack player from multiple casinos? And which is funny 'cause it's like you can't really have an edge playing blackjack. The only edge he has is that he's willing to bet absurd amounts of money and then he wants to walk away.

There's, well, there's stories about him, like before it was hugely, hugely successful, where he's like, I made $1 million last night at a casino.

Yeah, exactly. Of course, as anybody who's ever gambled knows, you never tell the stories about losing the $1 million. You only tell the ones where you made the million. But his strategy, one thing he'll do, he goes and he bets $75,000 to $100,000 per hand. And if he just wins the first 2 hands, he'll walk away, which is just like infuriates the casino because they're They need the law of large numbers to catch up. And he's like, if he makes $200 grand, he'll just immediately bounce and like, ha, I got him. But when he starts to get in the hole, that's when they get him. So he's just kind of an impulsive individual. A couple of other things that I thought were kind of interesting. So he's like, growing up, his dad was alcoholic. And here's what he said. He goes, my dad was never around. And if he was around, you didn't want him to be around. He goes, he was not a good guy. He goes, but I wouldn't change anything if I didn't grow up like that. I would not be me, right? The toughness that that built in me would not— I wouldn't have that if I had just had like a nice, safe upbringing. The other thing he says, he's like, I didn't have a car. So he's like, I just biked everywhere I went in Boston. He's like, so I bought a Walkman and I would put on Tony Robbins and I would listen to The Giant Within. He's like, and every day I would just ride around on my bike, kind of like working myself into a frenzy, listening to that thing, just getting anywhere I needed to go. And he's like, it was my kind of escape from like the shittiness of my life. He's like, and then I started buying those tapes for anybody as gifts because it was like so impactful to me, which I thought was interesting.

Dude, isn't that funny though? So Dana, Dana White is a tough guy, right? Like, I think that he's the type of guy who you don't want to mess with physically or in business. Like, he's, he's, he's a, he's a legit tough guy. And even he listens to self-help stuff. I always thought it was funny. I was, I used to be ashamed of like listening to a Tony Robbins or something. I was like, I don't want to talk about it. And then you realize that like even the bad, the badasses like consume a lot of this stuff in order to get pumped.

You haven't actually explained how they're all the same.

They're all just maniac, all-in individuals, right? They're people who basically— Ari is a good example of this. So Ari kind of had already made it. WME was the biggest agency, one of the big, one of the top 2 agencies in Hollywood, right? And he'd already made it. And I talked to somebody who knew him. I'm like, why did he buy the UFC? Like, and to buy the UFC, he raised, like, he tapped his network. He raised every dollar he could, but then he basically had to, like, leverage and mortgage WME. So he kind of put everything he had worked for at risk to buy a very high-risk asset at a very high price.

Uh, you know, which Silver Lake was the, to tie it all in, I think Silver Lake was the funder or one of the bigger funders.

And if you watch a big UFC fight, you're going to see Ari Emanuel, you're going to see his girlfriend to his left, and then to his right, you're going to see Egon. And then a few seats down is going to be Dana. They're always, they always sit in the exact same spots. For all the big fights and you see them. And I remember seeing Egon there and I'm like, who's that guy that's always there? And that's how I learned about him.

And Dana said when he sold the UFC, he's like, it kind of fucked with my head. He's like, I spent 2 days. I just had like a bender in my hotel room because I was like, what do I do? I have $300 million in my bank account. My best friends who have been doing this with me are gone now. I'm doing this on my own and we kind of made it, but I'm used to being the guy who is fighting to make it. What happens when you make it? He's like, it really screwed my head for 2 days. And then I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll just go back to doing exactly what I know how to do and just go back to doing exact— like, just don't change anything. Just keep operating the same way.

And so what do you know about the Fertittas?

The Fertittas, I didn't look up their history too much, but I wanted to know their personality a little bit. A couple of little bullet points I have here. They work out every day together, the brothers, at 7:00 AM. I like that. I just like that as a brotherly thing to do. The second thing, They attend all meetings together, so they're not like delegate, divide and conquer. They're like, no, bro, we're going to all the meetings together. They both sit there, they drink a Diet Dr Pepper, and they attend almost every meeting together as well. And then they like ball out. They got yachts and planes and art, and their cousin Tilman Fertitta also is a baller. And so like, they're just kind of a crazy family that made it in this wild, wild west time of Vegas.

I was going to say, do you know who their cousin is? Their cousin is Tilman. Tilman got famous because he, I think he bought into Landry's. Which is a, I think, is it a steak, steak restaurant in Texas? From there he bought many, many other things including like Bubba Gump Shrimp and like a ton of like those not fast casual, but like Applebee's, like not nice, but like kind of nice if you're broke and you want to go out to eat type of situation. And then eventually he bought out the whole company after taking it public. And I believe now it's one of the most profitable privately held companies where he owns 100% of it. So there's a lot of a lot of privately held companies that are quite huge. His company is 100% owned by him. I think it, I read his biography. I think it does something like $3 million a year in EBITDA and he bought the Houston Rockets as well. So he's like, but he's, he's known as being a real asshole. The other Fertitta guys, all the interviews I've seen with them, they seem shockingly, they're still sharks, but they seem shockingly well mannered and calm. And they seem like really easygoing, if that is such a word that could be described. These types of sharks.

Yeah, they are incredibly respected. I'll leave you one last little quote I liked from Dana. So he said, he goes, you know, about the risk-taking thing. He's like, you know, he's like, you can always go back to your job, but here's what you can't do. You can't go back and get this opportunity again. You can't rewind time. You can't get back your youth to take risks. He's like, I realized that I didn't want to be on my deathbed with a bunch of I shouldas. He goes, not everything I've done has worked,. And what I've learned is that even if it turns out shitty, it's not just that you learn how to win. Sometimes the most important learning is I thought I wanted to do this, but it turns out that's not what I want to do. And I thought that was a really wise thing that most people don't say.

What's he referring to? Walking away from the UFC?

It might have been like, it could have been anything. It could have been like when he wanted, thought he wanted to be a boxer, then he goes in and he realizes, oh, actually, like only through trying this did I learn that that's not actually the thing I want to do. Oh, this is Dana. This is Dana talking. And so I thought that was good because everybody talks about, oh, it's okay if you fail, you'll still learn. But rarely do they explain this, that one of the most important things in general in life is just figuring out what is the thing you actually want to be doing. Most people go their whole life never finding that, and then they're in their 30s or 40s or 50s and they feel like it's too late to even try a new thing. They're so far down one path, they don't want to go back to the bottom of the mountain and try a new path. I thought this is so important to know is like early on when you're not that far up the mountain, use that to your advantage because you can go back to the beginning and choose a new path. And that sometimes going down the path, it's not just about becoming a better hiker, it's about learning this isn't a path I like. And the only way I could have known that was by trying.

My biggest takeaway from these stories is loyalty. So I've heard Dana and the Lorenzo brothers talk about their little trio, their, their 3-person team. They're crazy loyal to one another. And I was always envious that I didn't have like a brother that was about my age who I wanted to partner with or work with. And so I've read about the Lorenzo brothers a lot, and I'm very envious of that relationship that they've had. They seem like they've had a healthy relationship with their parents who were business people. And then when they brought in Dana, they are all crazy loyal to one another and they never disrespect one another publicly. Uh, it's all, it seems like a great partnership. And that's been my biggest takeaway from, from these guys is loyalty. Even Dana, I don't like many of the things that he's done. And I'm actually not a Trump supporter, but he was like, Trump was nice to me in 2008 or something like that when nobody else was. He's like, no one would, no one would help us. Trump helped us. I remembered that. Therefore, I'm going to repay him. Now, I don't think Dana is a straight up guy all the time. Like I said, I think he's done a lot of messed up stuff. But his value of loyalty, his, how he looks at loyalty, I appreciate, at least when it comes to those three, those two brothers.

Yeah, you're kind of like that too, where like loyalty is a, um, deep-rooted value. I feel like if someone's loyal to you or disloyal to you, even in a small way, I feel like that goes really deep in your core. Is that right?

I don't forget. So someone will do something, someone like Do you remember that story that, um, I explained about how I asked a reporter if she wanted to freelance for The Hustle and she said, "That's cute," and I, like, have always held a grudge and I want to destroy her? I went and re-read the email. She didn't say, "That's cute." She said, "That's so sweet. I appreciate you so much, but I'm not interested." But for some reason at the time, I read it and I went and re-read it the other day when I was talking to Sarah and I was like, Maybe she actually wasn't being rude, but for the last 10 years, I've been waiting for this woman to make a mistake and I wanted to pounce on it just to get revenge because she dismissed me. I've been wanting to do that so bad, and I'm so thankful that that hasn't happened yet because she actually wasn't rude to me. I reread it, but the point being is if someone's disloyal to me, I want to destroy them. And the people who are loyal to me, yes, I go all in on them because If you don't look, I moved to San Francisco with not knowing anyone. The way that you get ahead is you have to have a group of people who you do everything for and you expect them to do everything in return. And once you find that group of people, it helps you so much, not just in life, but or not just in business, but for everything else, it helps so much.

And we have a friend who is so incredibly loyal that it like sets a standard.

It's almost annoying. You know who it is. It's almost annoying. I don't need to say. Because he'll buy, he buys the best gifts and I feel like I've got to go like— Forget the gifts.

It's not even about the gifts. It's like, I know that if I was in trouble, this guy would drop everything. He would drop everything more than my dad would drop everything to come, to come help. And he would—

He would say, send location.

Send me location. Exactly.

He'd say, send location. I'm there.

This guy, his loyalty, his level of loyalty is like next level. And I don't even know why. It's not like it's ever even been tested in that way. I've never had to send me location, but why do I feel that way? I have no idea. But the fact that I do, you can't convince me otherwise. Uh, cause he has shown it in a bunch of like small ways that, you know, that the big way would always be there.

And man, it's paid off wonderfully for him. He was successful on his own, but he's been, he's definitely gotten ahead. But then there's been times I was with him one time and he wanted to ride a skateboard. I go, Ramon, don't ride the skateboard, dude. You're 40 years old. You're about to hit your head. Do not do this. He does it anyway. He gets a concussion. We got to take him to the hospital. We have to, we take care of his kid while he's in the hospital for 2 or 3 days. And so he's been repaid a little bit in his loyalty, but it's paid off. And I've seen, I'm like, I feel like I owe you so much that I will do anything in return to get you back. And so it's helped him so much. Uh, and so anyway, I respect that about these guys is that how loyal they are.

I was thinking about, here's a little philosophical thought experiment for you. You know, you know the phrase, FU money, like, oh, he's got FU money. And I think a lot of people aspire to have that. But an interesting question is, what are the other FUs? Like, you know, maybe, um, you know, Sam, you could be like, I have FU health, right? Because if you're in absolute pristine health, you have physical fitness, you're extremely athletic, you're mobile, you're whatever, right? You can have FU health. Like, what else could you have? And I think Ramon has He has F.U. loyalty, right? Where like, it is, he is just full, fully abundant in the loyalty that he has for others and that others will have for him. Because me and you and everyone I'm sure that he's friends with, we would all go to bat for him completely. And I just, as a thought experiment, it's like, what are the other versions of F.U. that actually are more valuable than having F.U.

money?

Have you ever thought about something like this?

That's a great question. So what else? What are the other options besides loyalty?

Like my trainer, uh, my personal trainer, he's got like F you happiness where like the guy's happy no matter what's going on, which is kind of the way that F you money works. It's like, dude, he'll do whatever. Cause he's like, he just doesn't give a shit. He just doesn't care. My trainer's like that with, he just doesn't give a shit. There's traffic. Oh, I'm having a party in my car. Oh, this person cut me off. Well, oh, I'm, you know, whatever. He just makes his own version of it of like, he's always in a good mood, no matter what is going on. He's completely. Unconditional, is completely invincible.

I think you have it. I think you have that.

I aspire to have that.

Well, in my opinion, from my perspective, you have that. I was thinking the other day, I'm like, does Sean never get rattled? Uh, or does he ever get like stressed and unhappy? And there's been stories and I've seen it firsthand where someone has said something to you rude, or you've had something didn't break your way and it was a tough break. And you're hard to get down. I mean, I've been with you when you've lost a bunch. I've seen you make a bunch, but I've seen you lose in a variety of bets that you've taken. You don't get rattled. You tweeted out something the other day. You said your pucker butthole, what was it?

If you ever do that with $1,000, I do that with $1,000.

You know that's your passive tax animation when you're going to send an email? You know the one I'm talking about where it's the monkey's finger about to push the send and it's sweating and it's trembling? Because it's like, you're about to email your whole list. Let's just, are you sure you got all the details right? That's like, that's the pucker number for some people with their email list. And so I think everybody's got to know it.

Your number was high. I, I, I'm like that with 1,000. And so when I think about like, why am I stressed about certain things? I definitely try to think, you know, um, there was, uh, who was it? I think it was JFK. He had a photo of Abe Lincoln on his desk and he goes, I just always try to ask myself, what would Abe do? Sometimes when I get stressed, I think, what would Neville Medhora do? And what would Sean Perry do? Like, how would they handle this? Neville Medhora is another person who has no stress. There was one time when he was trying to, he had never owned a house and he was thinking about buying a house and he had never thought about finances because he's been making a great living for years and years and years. And he never thought about money. He could buy whatever he wants. And he was thinking about what house he wanted and he was just going to pay cash, like, or something like that, where it was like a big investment, his first big investment. And then he was talking to my wife and I, and he goes, I couldn't go to bed last night because I was thinking about buying this house and I can't buy exactly everything I want. And I actually have to like, second-guess some of the things. And then we were just sitting there, we didn't say a word, and he looked at Sarah and he goes, is that stress? And we were like, yeah, dude, that's what stress is. Like, finally you experienced it at the age of 38 years old. And, uh, you go to the doctor, he's like, I have a tingling sensation. What is this thing where I stayed up like for an hour last night just thinking about this? And you and Neville have that same thing where you have a very high tolerance.

It's crazy when you see it because people take pride They're like, man, I don't tolerate no disrespect. And it's like, what are you really saying there?

What you're really saying is like, what do you say? You tolerate it?

I heard a very funny story about you, and if this violates anything, we'll delete it. So I was with Ben last night for— at Ramon's birthday. We did a little birthday thing for Ramon. Ben told me this funny story about how you were thinking about writing a book and you meet with this amazing author and the author asks you something, or maybe he was like, why do you need my help? And you were like, well, I think I could do it. I think I'm talented enough to do it. I just don't have the time right now. And I just would rather you do it. And you said something that I guess this guy thought that you were being rude. And the guy in the middle of the meeting goes, well, stop the conversation. I'm out of here. This is not a good fit. And instead of being insulted, your takeaway was, wow, I really respect that about you. You did a great job of like standing up for yourself.

Uh, where I would have— here's the, here's the story of what happened. Um, we meet with this guy, he's a book development guy. So basically there's, there's somebody in between an editor, a publisher, a writer, and a book development guy is just the guy who's going to help you think through the concept and flesh it out. Right. So I'm like, who's the best in the world at this? Right? And a question I will always ask, who's the best in the world at doing this? I wanna talk to them. So I meet this guy who's the best in the world at doing this. And what he asked me was not, why do you wanna write this? I didn't say I don't have time. What he said was, what do you wanna write about? And I go, that's right. Oh, I go, I think I could write about anything. I was like, I could write a book about storytelling. I could write a book about marketing. I was like, I feel like that's actually the, the problem. And maybe I'll write multiple books. I don't know. But I wanna, I was like, I have so many ideas. I want you to help me think through which of those ideas. And he goes, That's a nightmare. He goes, that's probably the worst answer you could give to somebody like me. He goes, I want somebody who spent 10 years, 20 years of their life only thinking about one thing, and that's the thing that they need to pour into a book. The guy who was like, oh, I could write about anything and everything. Oh God, that's going to be miserable for me to figure out.

And he ended the meeting. He didn't end the meeting.

No, but he goes, I don't want to do that. That's not a fit for me. So he didn't end the meeting, but he was like, I'm going to be honest with you. And I go, I was like, all you did was make me want you more. I was like, that's exactly what I want out of my development guy. Push back. Because the speech I had given about what are the things I could write about and why, it was a good speech. It was an A+ speech. It was only 60 seconds long, but I was like, I made a strong point there. And whenever somebody can say the truth in the face of my persuasion, I have an extreme amount of respect for them. It's not about generic pushback. It's about truth. The guy said the true thing, which was, that's not what you want when you're writing a book. What you want is, my whole life has been building up to this one book in this one moment and this one thing that I can't wait to pour out of me because I've refined it in my head for 10 years. And I was like, that's actually right. And I want to work with you even more now, but I also agree with you and that you're completely right. Thank you. And I thanked him profusely for that. The same thing happened the other day on a tax call.

Well, by the way, my point being is I think that's a really healthy way that you approached it.

Let me tell you about a more offensive thing that happened that was also not offensive to me. I have been looking for a tax person and I was like, um, so I created this whole like tax data room and I sent it to a couple of people. I was like, hey, I heard you're good. Take a look at my situation and tell me what you think. And most of them, they're like, hey, took a look at this. I did 3 calls. First call, door number 1 guy goes, um, hey, took a look at everything, looks really good. I have 2 suggestions of maybe if you did this instead, you could save some money. So, okay, thank you for your suggestion. Person number 2 says, hey, this looks, uh, this looks great. You know, congratulations on all your success. Um, you know, I definitely think we can handle this for you. We have other clients that are similar and I feel really confident about it. I said, okay, thank you for that. Uh, Cool. Not quite what I'm looking for, but, but okay. Thank you. Third, third door. I get on the call. This guy goes, all right, I took a look at everything and, um, I'll be honest with you, you have way too much complexity for how much money you make. And I was like, thank you. I feel the same way. But a part of me, my ego was like, uh, uh, did you look at the numbers? They, they, they're going up. That's actually 2022. 2023 is better.

And 2024 is gonna be great. Like my ego wanted to be like, Are you saying I'm a broke little bitch? Because like, that's what I heard. The way you heard that lady, like that writer say, that's cute. And she didn't actually say that. In my head, what I heard was, you're too poor for me. Thank you. Like, yeah, I don't really want to do this. And I felt that for like 15 seconds, but then more than that, you know, I let myself have the feeling for 15 seconds of like my ego, like being deflated, like a, you know, a pin pricking my balloon there.. But I was like, what do I actually want? Let me remember what I actually want. And I hired the third guy, of course. I was like, I totally agree. Can you help me fix this up? And he's like, and then as we were talking, he's like, actually, now that you've told me more, a lot of this does make sense because of the trajectory, but like, you know, I still think we need to simplify. And I still think that like, you know, you really got to ask yourself, do I really want to optimize all this for taxes or would I rather just spend my time making, you know, actually growing the business and making more money? And I'm like, You, sir, are exactly what I've been looking for. And even though that first punch hit me right in the gut and I wanted to get defensive, I have learned that that gets me no, absolutely nowhere. And I just let that feeling go in 15 seconds. And that's actually the tip, by the way. Everybody has the same feelings. It's just that some people hold that for like 10 years. Some people get mad for 3 days. And then the goal is like, can you just have the feeling for 30 seconds and move on?

And like, I don't think that should be the goal, dude. Rage is an amazing motivator. I have achieved a whole lot remembering being dumped by a high school girlfriend.

You've had great accomplishments, but you should probably remember that like you want all those accomplishments because you think they're going to make you feel better. And feeling rage is not the better you seek.

So using rage—

we can deal with that. We can deal with that. Using rage is not really the way, right? Just remember, you never want the thing. You want the feeling you think the thing is going to give you. And using rage to get there is not the way.

Abs aren't built in the kitchen, they're built by an 8th grade girlfriend telling you that you're not good enough. Just remember that.

Abs are built by a crumbled up Valentine card. Yeah, yeah, bro. Can I tell you a funny story? I was in 7th, 6th or 7th grade, and I really liked this girl Rachel. And I was like, uh, I wrote this like poem, Valentine-y thing, like basically like folded it up, I cut it out, I write this thing.. And I show it to her and she, I show it. I don't know what I did, but like I basically gave it to her. I think I was so nervous that I didn't even say anything. I just like handed her a note and I'm standing there and she opens it up and she reads it and she's like, oh my God, Sean, this is so sweet. And I'm like, it worked. And she was like, this is amazing. Um, who's this for? And I was like, and I'm like, And in my head I was like, I could just be courageous and be like, this is for you. I love you. Actually, turns out that I, 7th grade, love you. And instead I was like, it's for Chelsea. I just made up a name. And she's like, who's Chelsea? I was like, she doesn't go here. She's like, who? And I was like, and I was like, she's like, what? And I'm like, yeah, you know that, um, that improv content? She was at that. I met her. She goes to another school.

She's like, Dude, she just made the most elaborate lie.

And for 3 months I kept up this charade that there's some girl that I met that likes me and I like her, and that note I showed you, that was for her. That's, that's where I was. That's where I was. I don't know how I don't have abs by now. That was pretty devastating, dude. Literally just beat down. Somehow that didn't even work for me.

See, you got to use that rage to get those abs. Although she doesn't know.

I hope she listens to this. Rachel, I hope you're listening to this. There was no Chelsea. There was— you were Chelsea. There was no Chelsea. Now she knows.

That's awesome. That's it. That's the episode. That's the pod.

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off.

On the road, let's travel, never looking back.