Hasan Minhaj - Comedy, Netflix, Haters, & Money

Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.

Transcript

Note: This transcript was auto-generated from YouTube captions. It may contain errors and lacks speaker identification. A full Gemini audio transcript will replace this.

Kind: captions Language: en netflix was like where do you want to do the special la chicago new york i was like nah son davis california [Applause] [Music] what’s a day for you like uh because you’re you’re completely free now right i’m completely free well you’re never really freaked out you know you build a prison of your own making now yeah so you know two little kids a day starts with morning shift dad duty yes i take the mornings i got a two-year-old and an eight-month-old yeah and so we’re like we’re the same like yeah you were talking about it yesterday i was like i feel ya yeah and we so i do the morning shift that’s just straight dad time then i basically pick between i got three kind of major projects yeah so i got um investing so sometimes we’ll be looking at deals then it’s um could be content but content is really kind of on a specific niche schedule it’s like monday wednesday for an hour we sit down we do the show and that’s kind of it i don’t do too much more than that i write sometimes and like twitter emails or whatever and then i have a business so me and my wife started an e-commerce business oh cool and so that that scaled up so basically in the last year that went from zero like just an idea yeah to now we do like over a million dollars a month of revenue on that business i was looking for something new yeah that i could do as a side hustle something that wasn’t like yeah gonna take up all my time yeah but could still be a valuable business that was uh you know like some part-time basically yeah and so that’s what have you always been like that multiple hustles have you always been that guy i was always that guy they weren’t working before so really i was trying to do that and i was failing at it and like since high school like you were that dude so no so so a lot of people have this story a lot of entrepreneurs have this like oh back in i was my lemonade stand i was selling i was doing newspaper routes and i hired all these kids yeah baseball cars i was due the lights were off in my head until like 21 so like i was like i’m gonna be pre-med i was gonna be i wanted to be a team doctor for an nba team so yeah okay what do i do i wanted to be on the nba team all right genetics not working yeah team doctor that seems like yeah my genetics and like my interest yeah and only when i met a team doctor i was like wow this is boring as [  ] like you’re just like you know these are just joints that are in pain and there’s only so much you could do it’s like not as exciting i need a plan b i was 21 when i figured that out wow and i was like you were still an undergrad yeah i had just taken mcats i was ready to go to med school i was like uh what else i had this random business idea with a couple buddies that sounded kind of silly it was so silly that it was almost like not dangerous you know how that is like yeah sometimes a very serious sounding idea is almost too intimidating to do but this almost seems so goofy it was harmless i’m just gonna go try i’m just gonna do this but yeah obviously i’ll eventually go to med school yeah obviously i was like i’m not gonna you know i just and you’re doing this for a couple months also um you’re at a point in your life college is so unique in the sense that you you’re leaning on this thing where if people ask you hey what are you doing i’m a student yeah exactly i got my cover yeah i got my cover story yeah yours is similar right because yeah totally right yeah freshman in college exactly so how long did you have the like okay so let’s take that when did you decide all right i’m gonna do this for real this will be the job was it right away or did you kind of play with it first and then decide a year later or two so it’s really interesting so for me i was a it’s so funny you were at the show last night and so you could tell especially in the bay there’s just this level of connection i have in this city new york certain cities where i’m like i know you guys yeah we’re all kumon kids and they’re like yeah that’s okay we’re like we’re like type a like uh we’re good we got to do that you know i i know you like i know you i know what your house smells like i know the way your mom talks to you i know you i’ve seen you at family parties right i know you like i really know you and there’s a level of um intimacy there with that material the point of the story is is that i was part of that camp where there was a clear track um relatively speaking in the community i wasn’t the brightest kid every community has like the stanford kid i’m always like i go up to like people in dallas i’m like yeah you grew up in dallas right who’s the stanford which one yeah which one you know who’s nikhil yeah i’m like yeah yeah so assuming you’re not in a kill what was your path right everybody has one somebody’s like run off man bruno went to mit i was like he’s the star who’s the star of your community there’s a kid right yeah yeah you’re not gonna name him it’s fine so every kid he won the spelling bee yeah and you’re like you’re like okay this person is the shining star of the community what what’s my path um and so i was a speech at a debate kid i go to college and the first open mic that i did a friend of mine funny enough um who i knew in college was illegally downloading a ton of stand-up comedy uh i went to college during like the kazaa yeah limewire limewire i think we’re the same age i’m 36 yeah i’m 33 i think yeah so we’re like we’re that same era and um you said 33 i think yeah i haven’t been thinking about my age in a while yeah yeah i think i’m 30. i think i am 33 yeah i mean 33-34 i think i’m 33. yeah of 36. and um so i i went to college during that era he downloads a chris rock special never scared i remember that special he’s in the purple suit and i remember being like oh this is funny speech and debate this is connected to the dots yeah this is forensics but funny right oh i i see the matrix and then i come to find out oh like a lot of the comics that i really loved there were certain comics that really thought critically like that greg giraldo rest in peace one of the all-time greats he was a former attorney right and he became a comic dimitri martin who was really big at the time in the early 2000’s early odds he also was an attorney worked at the white house for a while and then like got into comedy and he had a big run in comedy anyways all these people that i like carlin they were these critical thinkers that kind of were doing speech and debate presenting an argument or a take and it just was a light bulb moment and i had this thing inside of me i’m like oh this is one of the first things in my life where i have an alacrity and speed at which i do this that i never had at kumon or at the sat or at the mcats or at the lsats like i can pick this up really fast and i don’t know if you felt this i think a lot of you know desi kids have this or whatever kids in general your parents will put you in soccer or basketball or swimming and you’re like ah there’s always that kid yeah from just the first drill picks it up fast and so much of adult life is figuring out what’s my thing that i pick up fast like that and that was that was my mom 21 years old uh when we started that we had this business idea yeah and it was like we didn’t even know what the [  ] we were doing right it wasn’t nobody does in the beginning yeah and i remember thinking oh man my parents probably not gonna be cool with this if i because especially this our idea was to create the chipotle for sushi so it wasn’t like even like a business idea like oh bioengineering blah blah blah like you know some new microbial whatever yeah why does it sound like you were high when you said that the way you said chipotle is like such a like i wish i was that would be a better excuse we just uh i just tried sushi for the first time and all before that i was eating subway in chipotle a lot i was like why don’t i just why isn’t sushi served like that the way i’m used to yeah there’s as simple as that yeah so i was like all right i’m gonna did you always have so this this moment this problem-solving thing yo why don’t they do this like this have you always that was the start of it that’s what i’m saying i didn’t always have it yeah i started to realize that when i write i’ve seen interviews with naval and the vols like i was always like why doesn’t that pizza place do this yeah i wasn’t like that and i i say this because i remember i used to watch those guys like naval he’s like a hero to me right he’s like a mentor in many ways yeah and when i hear him and you know you hear these people talk about how they they just had it from day one or you know early age yeah it makes you think if you don’t have that your thing which most people don’t by then it’s like i guess i’m just not that type i guess i’m just not cut out that way i guess they’re different than me yeah and so i’m always very like a friend about it which is like nah there was no signs of anything i didn’t know what the heck i wanted to do i didn’t know what i was good at until i did and that just light bulb comes on when it came on yeah and i remember going to my de i remember we started working on it and like you said i had this alacrity of i was good at pitching it was a pitch contest that we were working on first yeah business plan pitch and were you a great student were you like mediocre and that’s why i called my dad i said you know hey um you know i’m thinking about doing this thing i was kind of expecting the indian parent thing which is like no stay focused med school remember the whole thing you just worked on for four years why i paid for this expensive ass college yeah like do that thing yeah and he was like he was like i think you should run with this like oh you think it’s a good idea because no i think it’s a terrible idea i think food business is awful i think uh restaurants are terrible idea uh i don’t understand what you mean you know but you don’t know anything about sushi so i think it’s a terrible idea in like 10 different ways yeah he’s like but what time did you wake up this morning i was like i don’t know like 8 30. he’s like and what’d you do right away i’ll say i started working on he goes that’s why i know you should do this because the light obviously yeah he was like that’s dope we’ve been trying to get you to like study and like just care about it yeah care and like wake up with your own light bulb on and be able to go do that thing what is your what does your dad do let me ask you he’s uh he kind of had a career where he was in like he was an engineer research like worked at a company worked at a big oil company and then he he realized like it was like 30 something he looked around he saw in his office he’s like my office is the same office i’ve been for 10 years yeah i got all these patents on the wall he said like these are just like certificates they give me to like pat me on the head and keep me you know just to keep me doing my thing sitting here like a scientist like doing my thing he’s like the guy i hand the pat the idea to he gets promoted he gets to go to london and he gets to like yeah he takes my idea makes it sound like it’s his idea yeah he’s like maybe i should do the business guy thing because it’s like those guys just take my ideas and like run with it yeah so then he switched into the business side and so that’s why he kind of you know most parents have this where like the thing they regret they kind of push their kids like no do it you know like so for my dad those two things was like social yeah he’s like i didn’t i didn’t didn’t i didn’t know anything about socializing till it was almost too late so like go to that party he would drop me off at a party you know he would be like you need to go and i’d be like uh i’m scared i was just socially scared i said high schooler right i didn’t know what the heck was going on and did they let you have girlfriends and stuff yeah they were cool about it they were like whatever awesome yeah so they were pushing me to again fill the gaps that they didn’t have yeah and one of your mom was cool my mom was my mom because are you the oldest sibling yeah so the oldest paves the way so my sister had already done it yeah and so my mom was like she had to talk she went through vietnam with them yeah she was she was like all right look your sister didn’t tell us anything and did everything anyways yeah everything we told her not to do she did and then she didn’t tell us which made it worse and we found out later as we do and it’s like bad by the way i know the listeners sometimes get mad at this they’re just like get to talking about bitcoin the reason why this is no the reason why this is important to me is like understanding someone’s drive shaft is so imperative to um why they are where they are yeah you’re looking under the surface yeah like sometimes people are like ah that’s stupid but i’m like no cause all of your i’ll just speak on my like my field which is not big it’s relatively narrow if you take 100 comics and you’re all in the green room you’ll quickly see the ones that are talking [  ] you’ll see the ones that don’t like to write you’ll see the ones that right use sometimes comedy in the comedy club as a crutch to give them a place to go to just socialize the ones that love it the ones that are sociopathic sycophants all of those things but if you start to find out more about them which is why you know sometimes you come up in a comedy scene i came up here in san francisco in the bay you quickly find out oh this person’s running from something right this person do you know what i mean and that informs the next 15 dominoes right of their career in their life when you did that because comedy i think is kind of known for that like yeah comedy’s like this um torturous field where it’s like you know nobody makes it then even if you do make it it’s like continue you have to come up with new material reinvent it every year or every two years yes it’s just this brutal field yeah and then even the the better you are at it’s you’re a truth teller yes right and often these truths are kind of ugly or they’re kind of painful about yourself or about society about whatever yeah so there’s this like darkness that’s with like a lot of great comedians sure uh it lives with them yeah you seem like a well-adjusted you know good looking guy you saw the show last night did did i come off as unhinged or no you came out you came off like you came off like i’ll tell you exactly it came off to me and i don’t mean this ah this might sound no no no no no no be straight compliment yeah you seem to me like somebody who isn’t the naturalist naturally isn’t the funniest guy like some comedians you just see it you’re like dude they could just be doing this at their dinner dinner table yeah and they’re just probably slaying whatever room they’re in they just happen to be in a big auditorium yeah yeah yours i could tell and my sister even said that she goes he works on his craft like you i could see that the stories you were telling the beats the like the punchlines it just felt everything was put together it was thought through the lighting the sound the like position where your body language on the on the stage it seemed like you had worked this set not like this guy’s just funny he had two drinks he gets up here and he starts spitballing yeah which is like you know the vibe that some comedians give yeah totally and so to me that was what i got was like you’re it’s like it’s ironic it’s like this is kind of like the indian kid who like does like hard work and practice and he’s like really good at the thing that he set his mind to yeah that’s the vibe i got is that accurate or is that like mine yeah no projection of [  ] i think i think that is definitely accurate like i i really do care like i love it i love this thing okay do the thing do you agree with my first thing which is amongst a hundred comedians that are like at the same time yeah are you the naturally are you the average above average below average what would you say yeah so what you’re talking about is just like natural um there’s people that look funny talk funny say things in a funny way so their voice sounds funny they look funny you’re already in the top heap think about those guys chris farley yes uh another comic i love felipe esparza felipe esparza just looks funny hannibal burris has a has an amazing voice chappelle has an amazing voice right do you know what i mean yes exactly he just like sounds funny he’s brilliant he also sounds really funny chris rock has a great voice right right he sounds funny yeah i look like a news anchor you know what i mean like i look like i should be doing like the five-day forecast or whatever but i also have like uh i have a genuine love and i have something that i want to say like there’s a message yeah i just want to say something there’s something inside of me that i want to say and um yeah one of the things that i i definitely feel is like when i put together a show like on tour i want to give you a show right like i want it to be a show and um for me putting together mixing stand-up comedy storytelling and theater that to me was my elixir yeah it was my elixir like we were at the show i wanted i was thinking about what do i ask him i was like yeah i got a bunch of questions but the one that i truly wanted to know which i don’t even know if there’s a good answer for this yeah but the question i was like at the end so you went up there for an hour and like by the end it was like you know in tetherball when one person gets the momentum and it’s just swinging and the other the person the other person is like flailing they’re helpless like the ball is just out of reach yeah but the one person knows they’re like i’m about to you haven’t won yet but the momentum is so strong yeah from about halfway through the show to the end of the show that’s i felt like it was tetherball you were dominating and the crowd was just in the palm of your hands it was so good and at the end you know mic drop crowd goes wild what is that feeling like because most human beings are never going to experience that but it seems sitting there i’m like that must feel [  ] amazing even though you’ve done this many times oh it must feel [  ] amazing does that what does that feel like you know what it feels like the end of the set every artist and i think every human being whether it’s intimate relationships personal relationships collaborating in business family dynamics and hopefully your career everybody wants to feel seen and there’s this moment in act two of the show where i basically go man i want to give you guys all of me yeah i want to close the gap between who i am on instagram and who i am on imessage right and when i look in people’s eyes i could tell everybody that’s in like the bay area work from home crowd they’re like [  ] i can’t be me yeah and there’s part of me how are you laid down yeah when i lay down i’m sharing all these secrets with you guys yeah and i’m like there’s this moment of do you see me i want to be seen right like when i’m with bina when i’m with my spouse she’s like hey when we’re disagreeing on something it’s like you don’t see me like you actually don’t see me for who i am right and the most um enriching thing about that last moment when i say good night and i see people and their reaction i feel seen i’m like oh i think y’all you guys get me right and to me laughter in that exchange in that live experience is an expression of love you know what i mean because i can’t make you laugh i can’t like force you to laugh much like love making it’s an intimate act right and that release of laughter is like oh you get me right you feel me it was the journey from the beginning of the show so that’s the end that’s the climax yeah that’s that i feel loved and seen yeah before the show yeah and again we’re sitting there and the openers went on and we said okay he’s about to come on and my sister goes oh man like what would you feel if you were about to go on and i said well you know he’s uh i was just thinking in my head i was like yeah i know he’s done this many times so now he’s figured out a system yeah how to deal with that combination of excitement and nerves gotcha uh what’s the what’s the feeling like for you now and what’s the system you’ve developed to get on stage and have that switch flipped because when you came on within two seconds it’s like this guy’s in a state of mind he’s in a state as we say yeah of like he’s here to perform he he knows what he’s here to do yeah there’s no like tiptoeing into it yeah so i was wondering what do you do the five ten minutes before or an hour before i don’t know what’s your kind of like warm-up routine yeah yeah i think you’re ready the listeners want to know this i’m sure i don’t really i this is your personal curiosity i want to know it and i’ve my trainer has this great phrase he goes who are my customers the people that love what i do because he’s he’s like people always ask oh who your customers is some demographic right some like some like marketing intellectual answer he’s like yeah easiest way in the world is the people who who who your customers are the people who love what you do yeah so just do what you do yeah you will naturally attract the people who love that yeah you’ll repel the people who aren’t interested yeah you will never have to guess what the heck people want because you just do what you want so that’s the approach i take to the pod yeah um no i love it man i love i love talking shop like this for me it’s actually it’s a it’s the three hours before what i try to do before any show i try to make sure that like i exercise in some capacity because and i don’t know if you feel this way and maybe it’s within our community it’s so funny to go back to what you’re talking about where you’re like oh he seems like a guy who works really hard this is funny i was doing mark martin’s podcast and marin said the same thing about me he’s like yeah you seem like really put together and he’s like why aren’t you unraveling like the way other comics are right and i’m like yeah i’m just philosophically not from that camp i’m not from the tortured artist camp i’m more from the place of like i’m creating from a place of passion and love and actually real talk it’s about emptying the tank i just want to put it all out on the court right you know and this court happens to be the stage right um and i want to do my best i want to be like i put everything into picking out this outfit i put everything into picking out these jokes these tags the stage design the lighting design like this is it and i want to know when i go to sleep here at night when i put my head down on the pillow i did everything i could right like living a life without regret and only you can answer that is the best everybody’s talking about chasing happiness to me it’s about chasing satisfaction like that self-satisfaction and you know what it is right you know what it is right and you know when you sold out you know you got a good result but you kind of didn’t do it the right way yeah that sticks with you and some people just like let that stick with them yeah other people say all right even if i won i’m not going to win on those terms again yeah if i lost i can lose on these terms and be good at night yep and and i’m sure there’s listeners to the pod that spend their time retweeting the right things and quote tweeting and dunking on vc people and you know they they say the right things they’ll regurgitate the right opinions but they know when they put their head down at night hey you’re supposed to train you jerked off instead you were supposed to do this you did but only you can answer that right so you can signal all you want for me what that stage represents is like no i’m putting myself in a high level of accountability in front of 3 400 people right i’m putting it all out here right even and if you don’t think i’m good if you think i’m corny if you think i’m whatever hey it is what it is but i stood here right and i did it i did me and on my terms and i did my best so you’re saying so you’re saying three hours before three hours before what i do is i like to do the the uh some form of exercise and i try to get out of my workout workout or you’re just trying to break a sweat what are you what’s the yeah trying to do on tour it’s just about body maintenance so i’ll do running i’ll do some pull-ups some core stuff just stuff to get my body going right and start breaking a sweat and what i love about like right around minute 30 to 45 is i’ll get out of my head and into my body and so much of life right now getting out of your head and it’s funny i i called you randomly i was appreciate i appreciate you picking up the phone the other day we had a long conversation we can get into that later but so much of i think what you do and what you put out in the world and i call it like tech twitter talk it’s all in your head intellectual it’s all just heady anxiety inducing stuff ethereum’s up just solana’s this it’s like it’s all headshit right it’s not a body feeling thing right like grounding yourself two feet on the ground i’m here in this moment what do i do and so much of performance and to be great at it the best chappelle the best performers they’re not in their head they’re in their body they’re really there right somebody screams somebody says something somebody heckles they’re in their body when you watch steph curry play when i watch devin booker play these guys are so in their body right luca is the best at this he’s in his body he’s in the he’s in flow right and so luke is like a kid and kids do this well yeah kids do this pretty naturally i love that the older you get the more you get which is you gotta yeah you gotta fight that right and so that’s a great way to get out of my head get into my body then i’ll probably i eat something um i take a shower and then i put i put on the outfit and for me it’s like being on stage uniform and putting on that it feels like a uniform and like for me it feels i wanted to feel like a show like from the watch to the jacket to the pants i’m like there’s a level of confidence that you have when you move into a room and you’re like hey from from my heels all the way up to my head i’m wearing my armor right like i’m coming correct right and you just you carry yourself with a little bop you’re like no i feel better about myself my [  ] isn’t slouching there’s no stains on my stuff you know what i mean like the moment i saw you today you walked in you’re wearing your tech pants i could tell you washed them a few times but there’s some stains on the back side you know what i’m saying but that feeling of like no man when i’m coming in here i’m gonna be fresher than sean yeah i’m gonna i’m gonna i’m just gonna be fresh yeah that already gives me a feeling of like confidence i know what i’m doing you know and and by the way the opener marcela like marcella was just like dressed to the nines you know it’s it’s a feeling then i get to the show um i finish eating i’ll meditate meditation for 10 to 15 minutes allow me to just again get out of my head and drop into my body and something simple just head space right like i’m not getting too crazy about it um and what i love about headspace specifically is so much of it is just basic breathing establishing a level of intention i’ll meditate then i’ll pray and for me like prayer is really important because it’s got to be about something bigger than just myself and my corporal being i’m like what am i doing this for and just establishing an intention and for me the intention is like love let me give joy to people right and i want the seed of everything that i’m doing to come from that not be like not be petty energy angry energy um i’m gonna prove you wrong energy like i’m in the laughter business like i’m here to make you feel joy right um and that warm feeling so establishing an attention there i get to the i’ll get to the venue about an hour before i have a double shot of espresso um i’ll let my bowels do what they do you always get those jitters like you gotta pee you gotta do what you gotta do and then about like 30 to 45 minutes before i like to be loose just with the with the staff right let them know like hey what’s up how are you door guy security guy openers right you know what i mean another way to get out of your head by the way yeah yeah be with others be there yeah they’re serving others in a way yeah and then um about a half an hour before um i’ll go to my green room i usually write it down i’ll write down it’ll just be on hotel notepad paper hey what are a couple new tags that i’m working on tonight right just move the ball forward a little bit remind myself yo i’m gonna do this for example last night one of the things i talk about in act one of the show is fertility and a new joke that i did was like you know what it’s like being infertile as a man i felt like woody and toy story when his arm got ripped off that was a that was just one line and i was like hey make sure you do the woody toy story line right you know and uh every show i try to add a few of these extra moments and you add that up over the course of like a year two years three years you start to see what works and what doesn’t work and i’ll i’ll have a thousand three thousand different variations of that right and then i get on stage and by the time i get on stage there’s just this feeling of like now it’s just pure play whatever happens happens right and um when i’m on stage what i try to do is i try to remember when when i’m opening in front of my crowd they’re like really hot and one of the things i try to remember is don’t yell don’t scream try to actually bring them to you like set the tempo of the game right don’t get like too excited or too hot like you can whip them up but then like sit down at the stool bring them to you and like make the room feel like it’s coming to you you know what i’m saying do you ever watch a film of yourself basically yeah i watch tape all the time yeah and so i see bad habits it’s kind of brutal huh yeah yeah but it’s cool though actually like those moments where you like is very painful for your ego and but there’s a lot of growth in that the only way to break through and get to like the next part is is that part i’ve done that even in the business world and i’m going to keep bringing it back that’s where a lot of the audience lives yeah the things you’re talking about of how to get ready for the for your performance your day what you do that’s i mean i athletes do this before they get on the field you do the performers do this before they get on the stage yeah i do this before i get on my laptop it sounds lame because i was like dorky but it’s like well i’m trying to be my be the best version of myself yeah i’m trying to set an intention before i go out here i’m trying to get out of my head so i can do my best yeah i do all the same things and i just apply it into this world and it doesn’t matter if it’s a call with a supplier or it’s a podcast episode or whatever before you came here yeah got it i got through my routine yeah to make sure that is your routine similar-ish very similar obviously compressed not because you know a longer day so i’ll i’ll try i practiced it where i can do it in 10 minutes now i can get that state in 10 minutes that’s my goal really has three three components breath work so this first three minutes of breath yeah and so i can use breath to change my physiological state right away it’ll be push-ups and breath work so i’ll just do 15-20 push-ups i’ll do breath next three minutes again how do you get out of your head it’s not about you gratitude and think about others i have this little exercise i do again sounds a little bit cheesy but i’ll say it out loud people won’t try this just try it i just let uh i rotate through almost like in my head so i’ll visualize like let’s say my mom my sister whoever people i love people in my life i just visualize them laughing so i just visualize them laughing which is them in their joyful state yeah there’s no like i don’t to think about why i laugh nothing i just i’ve seen them laugh a thousand times i just see them all laugh in succession in my head yeah now i’m not thinking about me and my problems and my needs and my desires my i’m just thinking about them yeah and i’m just it’s a good energy that i like yeah the last time you do it you do establish an intention i do establish it and then the last bit is i remember why i’m here and so the thing you were saying you were saying i want to bring joy love to the audience want to make them laugh make them have a great time yeah same thing i used to think what am i going to say whether it’s a meeting a presentation a podcast what am i going to say what person going to show up what am i going to say yeah that used to paralyze me just like what am i gonna say i want to get the right words i wanna [  ] up so then as soon as i start talking there’s a little editor in my head being like that sounded dumb oh yeah yeah you walked up and you said that thing is stupid and then i’m in my head while i’m doing the thing and i wanted to just be clear and okay how did i do that so then i started stopping but i just i imagine the end so i already imagine after the i already imagine us saying bye to each other at the end of this yeah and if that happened that means this all went well yeah and i remember okay the people listen to this what are they gonna be thinking they’re gonna be thinking blah blah blah they’re gonna be saying these things yeah dude that that episode was amazing dude i love hustling man you have him on again he was so good right so now i don’t have to think about what questions do i ask i’m already remembering what i’m trying to deliver and then it’s i’m not gonna learn a new skill in the next five minutes like the performance is gonna be based on all the hard work i’ve done over a decade about whatever i’m doing yeah so i don’t try to like cram for the exam i just try to put myself in the right state of mind so i just performed the way that the things i already know how to do yes that’s my routine for for you know my how to start my day how do you get over you’re part of this thing again i call it like the business internet world yeah which can be filled with people that are sincere in their intentions it’s filled with grifters it’s filled with sometimes people that are trying to do get rich quick schemes you’re part of this really it’s actually quite similar to hollywood and politics in that way yeah because if you work in show business you’ll quickly see that too yeah you know like [  ] can run from people that are like really about it artist artists nas kendrick lamar all the way to logan paul and jake paul like that are just about like the wwf circus show of it all this world that you run in and people are now talking about money in business in a really interesting way when people come out and they comment about you and your businesses and they quote tweet you and they’re dunking on you and that’s a part of now the social currency this is a social currency that you’re a part of oh the more subscribers i get then i can do me on these commercials and we can sell the pod you’re a business guy right how do you deal with those uh negative critiques does it bother you does it what’s um so the honest answer is yeah every negative comment yes is like 10 times 10 yeah every positive comment you know and so that is the initial reaction but there’s also a difference between response and reaction so the initial if i’m not in the right state of mind that initial reaction i’m going to clap back or they’re so dumb because of this and this i’ll go look at their profile you only got 11 followers and you’re saying this [  ] maybe yeah maybe that’s why you have 11 followers because you think this way you know i’m right you’re wrong blah blah blah yeah and i realized pretty quickly that doesn’t get me anywhere in fact it would waste like almost like half a day or a whole day of mine just checking the mentions for good and bad like this happened if i go viral good you know i go check all them i’m just addicted to refreshing nothing you did an amazing bit about this that was the most for me those most relatable yeah you played it up it was amazing yeah people aren’t gonna know this go see the show you’ll see this part about the the the comments likes yeah social media cocaine cloud back cocaine cloud exactly um but with that comes the the kind of the the negativity and that also is fun it’s this thing in its own way yeah and so what are kind of like where did i land with all that yeah uh okay so you know the good they think i’m like a genius guru i’m not uh you know my wife will remind me of that real quick and you know the other people who think i’m an idiot uh scammer or whatever or people who think i’m an idiot who doesn’t know anything about anything yeah or i’m wrong or whatever yeah or they’ll point out that i’ve stumbled and said this said this the wrong way or whatever yeah um okay where is my focus gonna go like focus on why i’m so great or why i’m so terrible really does nothing for me so i said okay i do need a sounding board so i’ll say so so i get a reaction from people good or bad i’ll be like hmm let me just get curious why are people reacting this in this way i’ll take a minute to observe that yeah then i’ll go internal and i’ll say what’s my what’s my judgment because i guess my rule that i created for myself was that i want my own opinion of myself to be higher than anybody else’s opinion of me you mean positive opinion any anything if i think something sucks that i did yeah i don’t care what anybody else says i think it is so i basically want my opinion of myself to be the trump card and so that works uh for self-respect like yeah i stopped seeking the respect of others because i’m like well if i don’t have the main respect for my respect then what is all this other stuff worth but then how did you get that wisdom because that’s because we are social creatures my trainer so my my trainer’s kind of my bro my train of running for my first trip he’s also like a kind of like a he’s like me he’s like dude it’s all in the mind this is a solar player solo player game yeah and we gotta train this just as much as we train the rest yeah so he he said something at the very beginning he’s like why do you want to work out and i was like oh i just want to get fib i’ve got real fat doing my last company i just want to lose weight okay he wanted like you wanted to know the drive shaft what’s driving you to do this yeah what’s making you think that what’s making you think you’re fat what’s making you why’d you call me today why today why didn’t you call me six months ago what changed yeah and eventually got down to i had this experience i went with my two best friends who are business kind of like mentors bit older than me all the things i do they’ve done a little bit more yeah and we all went on a spartan race together and i thought i’m a little out of shape oh we’re all out of shape it’s no big deal yeah we went on the spartan race and i was way behind and i was just huffing and puffing and i was dying on this thing and they were like trying to help me and every time they helped me i just felt like a [  ] i was like oh man wow like this is embarrassing i’d rather they just ran and finish the race right and left me to like you know die on my own on this map the worst thing you could do is like push for me from behind because i’m like it’s like don’t give me the pep talk no anything but yeah yeah so i told him i said i was pretty embarrassed i had this the situation i said i just want to like have the respect of the people i respect i thought that sounded like a good thing to say yeah and he goes he goes like i respect he goes respect’s one of those things um because you want to give it not seek it he goes so he does two things he goes uh we’re not gonna do this we’re not gonna start this program from a place where you’re trying to get the respect to others he goes whenever you feel you lack it’s time to give so like let’s not worry about who you’re who what respect you’re trying to get from others and who you’re trying to prove to yourself to and all that let’s become a giver of respect to yourself and to others so and so we started flipping the script and this became one of my philosophies which is whatever you feel like you lack in the moment that’s a signal it’s time to give that exact thing and when you give it you realize i got it i have it in abundance it’s kind of like a circular way of thinking about it yeah but that was the the thought process for me at least uh on this on this topic i guess that’s cool yeah that’s really interesting man i don’t know you know i i know i called you about uh one of your tweets that went viral again and it was about how it was specifically about the metaverse and how the digital world will matter more than the physical world and i think the reason why it so deeply philosophically rubbed me the wrong way was because the pseudonymous digital world has commodified cowardice in such a way that the real world and the game checks you and what do i mean by that you know i grew up i was a you know desi kid who’d play at 24 hour fitness right you play ball at 24 fitness first to 12 straight up or win by two but if you lose get the [  ] off the court right i remember there’d be these guys these guys that were nice it’d be 11 11 straight up this dude would step back hit it and as he’s about to hit it he’d go get the [  ] off the court right and you would respect it because he stood there and he’s like i beat you 12 to 11. it’s over this is there’s no argument yeah this is our objective this is objective reality next yeah and you got to sit there and you got to run it back you got to wait another one game or two games or three games and then run it back but for the first time in history there are people that stand on stage that stand on the stage of business or life or comedy or art and they use their actual government name and then pseudonymous trolls who don’t use their government name can launch digital drone strikes right attacking you your character your family that can then potentially impose economic sanctions upon your future yep and they do it pseudonymously yeah philosophically i don’t rock with that say that [  ] with your chest right get on the court with me at 24 hour fitness let’s cook like let’s play each other that’s what it’s that feeling that fundamentally bothers me this is a dishonorable craft right it’s not honorable it’s not a fair fight the way i look how do you think i should unpack that that’s the problem i was like why does this bother me yeah well that’s the first good that that’s the right question yeah which is not why are they doing this why is this election why does this bother me right the curiosity is what will set you free because you got to say do i enjoy yeah focusing on this do i enjoy this like trap this like uncontrollable yeah you’re not gonna stop it yeah we all agree on that you’re not gonna turn them all off right so that’s not gonna happen the world now this is the world and i’m also thinking about my children too because i’m trying to prepare i got a three-year-old and one year old how do i prepare them for this new world order right and in a weird way let’s i’ll keep i’ll keep riffing this out with you let’s figure this out in a weird way there’s times where i’m like yo i wish you punched me in the face actually i would prefer that how many fights have you gotten in your life i’ve gotten into three okay i’ve gotten three i’ve lost all of them yes one time some kid was trying to steal my shoes i didn’t let him and then he just beat the [  ] out of me but i’m proud like yeah i kept my shoes he wanted my jordan 13’s but i kept him um but i but i remember i remember being like i like the the irl nature of this there is some level of virtue even in this fight right that it that it ends and it ends today we’ve resolved this here right which is why you see when people fight it’s gone the beef is usually gone out it’s gone as long as the fight was on fair terms yeah both people are like sort of mutual respect by the end yeah it’s over yeah it’s over and settled um that doesn’t happen yeah this is the first time where we don’t really have that the reason why i’m saying say say it with your government name if someone says sean is corny or hussein is corny anytime any comedian or contemporary says that i go cool put up your hour against my hour oh i’m corny i’ll do 10 you do 10. right let’s see what it is let’s play the 12. right let’s play the 12. like i love the dance of it straight up or win by two well it’s a merit-based thing yeah but but when baldwin is a merit-based thing again you said you can get up on stage yeah even no matter what your name is you can’t make them laugh yeah you can’t just force them to laugh yeah it is marriage you must earn that laugh it’s why my favorite thing right now in pop culture is the verses right i don’t know if you saw dipset versus the locks but you could see jadakiss go up against right dip set and i thought dipset was going to win but jadakiss was so nice he just buried them and it was it was let’s play to 12. right you play your records i’ll play my records and i and there’s something so honorable in that in this new digital world order is so not honorable right because there’s no reconciliation at the end either so i quote tweet you and by the way [  ] posting is now incentivized so actually being a negative nancy and being an absolutist in your position is now commodified and incentivized so that you can’t even recognize yo you won i lost good game and there’s no shake on it well it even gets worse because what you say online what you display online the photo you take online is so easily faked so it’s not even like 20 it’s it’s like if instead of going and playing that 24 hour fitness we each submitted a mixtape yeah and so here’s my mixtape versus mixtape like well how much editing really is going into your lifestyle your opinion your persona yeah your face all of it is filtered yeah it’s edited is curated leaving out the bad [  ] and the more real you are so the way i look at this and by the way i’m not by the way i’m not [  ] on digital skills so if two people are competing against each other in video games i still like that like there’s npa 2k tournaments but it’s are you better at 2k than me right so i think about like the way in which i want to live my life and i want my kids to live honorable lives too hey compete and there’s no there’s no there’s nothing wrong with losing but like be a good competitor be an honorable competitor say good game right but when i’m using my government name and ball drape 79 is risking nothing i’m like this is whack this game is whack and in baldrave even you can’t deny that but i don’t know if the people on the other side recognize that well go ahead i mean i just love your analysis on this so i guess the way i look at it is with the the pendulum has swung so uh before and you know sort of like in the past when everybody was online uh everybody was in real life real name merit based you had still had people’s opinions in their heads they just couldn’t broadcast it um people if somebody if somebody thought you were corny before they were thinking that they weren’t saying it they couldn’t get amplified from each other or they would say it and you’re like okay cool so you think i’m corny it took a buy-in they had to annie up yeah they were gonna let’s square off in the lunchroom so you think i’m corny now i can make fun of your shoes i can make fun of your hat i can make fun of you know what i mean who you’re dating i can make fun of your mother’s the barrier to enter is so low now right fake name fake handle whatever you can just go on there say whatever you want you know what we’re analyzing right now this is kevin durant syndrome kevin durant is one of the greatest basketball players on planet earth and there are people on the internet that get kevin durant and his feelings riled up yeah and then he says he doesn’t care but so this actually but because to me i was like yo if and i talk about it in the show i’m like yo these memes hurt my feelings i’m a person right but i’m like yo if kd is getting in his feelings seven foot two wingspan can cross people over built like build like a velociraptor but can move like a point guard and like yeah then just like shoot and sledgehammer on you like and he’s getting in his feelings about these like layman’s at home we’re in a big fundamental shift in society and culture in a way that it never was like that before yeah so i i think basically the reason you get the rewards you get are because of all these things as well by you going out there under your real name the real face with authenticity telling your real life stories which is what you do right you’re talking about fertility issues you’re talking about stuff like that yeah you’re getting like the score the meter is just running up why because it’s in such scarcity today we don’t get that from most people in most situations so when somebody does it you’re running up the score real quick right you get the benefits of being the counter to all high level of accounting you’re running counter to it you’re putting it on the line so you’re getting all of the benefits and you’re getting the scale of those benefits before without technology right you’d be doing local shows and i saw this guy in north carolina he was amazing the guy you know in texas like who i don’t i’m not a fan of that person i’ve never seen them yeah you do the netflix show you do twitter you do stuff like that you’re reaching everybody everywhere all at once yeah and so you’re getting the benefits of that leverage yeah and so you’re running up the score because that is what society lacks today this this real like honor code yeah of like look i’m gonna go try to earn it under my real name and put myself out there i’ll let you judge me and if i’m good i’m good if i lose i lose yeah and i’m willing to play at those stakes because you’re willing to play you’re getting all this benefit and people who are not willing to play they’re not going to get any of the benefit they’re going to get so they get this proportional like you know small bit of success if they just like kind of [  ] on you yeah they get a little immediate dopamine hit but ultimately they sort of don’t ever really their score never really goes up so you’re talking about the capital markets it’s the efficiency they will reward they will get durant or whatever yeah or you’re getting rewarded for being authentic and being accountable and you’re getting and with that power comes the trade-off which is would you like this giant prize yeah and here’s the here’s what the hair on the deal yeah here’s the cost of that big reward yeah where you blew up in like i don’t know five years or something like that yeah the last five years you had this like media meteor rise yeah awesome it’s because you had the right answer when society was going one way you were a awesome counterpoint yeah you’re willing to say what you was on your mind willing to say what was right and you used technology to go viral as hell because you had something good it went viral and spread like crazy so you’re going to have to pay this this tax this vig along the way and you got to recognize there are two sides of the same coin and so that’s where it’s like the the the 24-hour fitness scale where it was everybody was being accountable yeah cool but it was only operating at this like small scale it’s not it’s not scaled up yeah you’re getting the benefits of this thing right and with that comes certain trade-offs and that’s i think that’s just like the way i look at it and i think that that’s a good framing society’s going that direction and so you’re already on the right side of history here where you’re willing to play a different game and because of that you’re going to win a very different process and you’re seeing that your career basically is an example of that so just so the listeners know i called you on the phone when that thread went viral and i said hey sean like and i’m so glad you picked up very few people pick up these days like real talk pick up the phone and i go hey man like this actually irks me here and you know i’m such like a i’m an artist man so i operate from a feeling thing and then i start questioning why do i feel this way and i was like i’m an irl guy but when you’re telling me everything is going to be on the metaverse i don’t want to be a pseudonymous drone right i don’t want to i don’t want to throw drone strikes at people that i can’t see i want to talk about what’s real and if you watch the show like i’m talking about what’s real about me and bina my kids right what i went through going at dictators and and governments and it’s real this is real life i talk about lawsuits and this just crazy [  ] but i’m like hey it’s real it’s my experience right i’m being sincere and authentic in that experience and i got the receipts i don’t want to live in a world where i’m a reddit commentator and you’re a reddit commentator and let’s just like argue at infinim that’s a zero value add to society to me right but well i guess i guess what you’re saying is right you’re like well the more you double down on that so see the capital markets will perhaps right now for that accountability right so the comedian who gets up there and just tells dick jokes is not going to have the same emotional resonance as you going up there and talking about fertility issues and then you’re dealing with it and what that was like and the attention that’s loaded in that because anybody i just had two kids anybody who’s been through anything with kids and that whole process yeah the uncertainty like we didn’t even have any issues but my wife was worried that we might have issues they loaded the relationship with totally i’m sure you have friends that went through it let’s get started earlier because it might happen you know like it’s a connection so you put yourself the real you out there yeah you get the reward right comedian who just makes the dick joke i laugh i move on with my life i don’t feel like i’m going to back this guy the way that i felt like by the end of your show i was like i’m about what this dude’s about oh wow right because that’s you that’s what you did you drew a line in the stand you said this is what i’m about yeah you’ve told you built your case yeah and at the end of that how could you not be like right right i’m on the island if you don’t so it was a very different thing it wasn’t just laughing it was like laughing but also this is this person just put their balls on the table and said this is what i’m about yeah and you got to respect that and then you got to react to that you got to pick a side you’re either about that or you’re not and that’s okay you can go either way yeah but he made it very clear and then i’m like that guy’s going to build an army because he’s going to be there’s a lot of people who are going to hear that be like mm-hmm i rock with them i rock with that yeah whereas if you just did a bunch if you just did a bunch of impressions of like what indian auntie sound like i would have laughed yeah and then i would have been like next time you have something i’m not lining up for it i’m not camping out for it right because i don’t i didn’t connect in that way right but you did it so i think you get paid for for doing that so you’re saying just be aware of that be aware of that and and like recognize what you’re just remember what’s already working for you and why why that bothers you is because you’re the opposite of that yeah but there’s also a piece of it that could be you but you’ve intentionally driven the other way so when you see it you’re like i built my brand being the opposite of that so yeah it’s like when apple sees a poorly designed product steve jobs was disgusted when he saw other products that were not thought well thought through he was annoyed with it in a way no other ceo was right because he built himself as we care about the inside of the [  ] design of this inside the case what that looks like these [  ] don’t even care what the outside of it looks like right you know so like it disgusted him in a way that it disgusts you somebody who has no accountability sort of stands for nothing just trying to dunk on people on the outside right so i think that’s that’s that part of it to go to the metaverse side of it i think it’s not as different as you think so let’s say the world does move to where with these online identities and that that digital identity matters a lot yeah you know uh you have a screen name and you know my first screen was mr goobapple you know so like whatever that’s that’s what’s yeah let’s say that let’s say that stuck with me right yeah it’s so funny you know you know my first screening was hassan i’ve always been this way yeah it’s always yes it was taken and then i remember on aim hussain minaj went online you remember the door you see here the sound of the door open of course right and then i blinked in my face yeah and i messaged him and then it’s just immediately the door closed [Laughter] so i think that yeah whatever your screen name is it’ll be the same like this name you have huston minaj that’s what was given to you it’s your it’s for better words it’s your stage name for the world sure and you’re building up you’re building up a reputation yeah it doesn’t matter if that name was mr gubapple or it was husson it doesn’t really matter what the real name it’s wherever you’re whatever you’re going to make accountable you’re going to say hey if you like me if you trust me put my reputation on this name yeah and then if i [  ] up that name has like lost its value yes well the better verse you might be able to pick a second name but it it’s still gonna work the same way yeah where people are still gonna have to put up or shut up under some handle it just doesn’t matter if it matches your social security number it’s kind of like my my take on that but i don’t know it’s it’s a wild world of how that’s going to turn out i think we’re still it’s just we’re still a ways away from that where do you how do you get the points of like the things that you do that you’re doing right now like the fact that you take time to train and think you’re you are preparing your mind as a physical corporal being with two feet on planet earth rather than being just like this guy with like the headset and you’re just like in the matrix you know what i mean and your body body’s literally just being used as heat to [  ] be a part of this yeah ready player one world yeah you know what i mean and i’m just like yeah i’m not gonna say i’m above that like maybe when that’s here maybe i will like yo i remember afraid my kids are gonna like tackle me and they’re just gonna put it on my head and just be like just join us yeah join us dad i’m like i don’t want to do this well it’s like i don’t know if you remember before the phone i remember thinking it was like bat [  ] crazy that people watch movies on this tiny screen why would you do that that’s like i don’t want to do that that’s no fun i want to love going to the theater i love the feel of the newspaper yeah if you had told me hey you’re going to check your phone like 170 times a day yeah i would have been like why would i do i’m not a hamster like i don’t want to live that rat lifestyle just constantly checking for my email yeah why would i need to do that i can just check my email once a day or whatever you know like yeah the things i do normally today would have seemed really abnormal and i could have i would have been kind of disgusted by some of the things yeah and then other things i would have been like there’s no way that you know like how would i be able to do that it’s not plugged in where would the internet come from like how do you now so now you’ve embraced that but then how do you eliminate noise from your life like one of the things i’m genuinely curious about is like trung your friend trunk who’s hilarious online [  ] hilarious right my question is i was like how much just internet garbage is going in that guy’s head every day i want to meet him where is he in like vancouver or something like that he’s in vancouver i should have invited him to the show we are just in vancouver but i’m like how much just fecal matter of garbage is going in your head for him to be like this is the meme right he has to sift through right that’s his job it’s filtering through yeah yeah she is one here’s a good one yeah just hold [  ] um and how does it affect your just your like your body and mind so what i’m asking you and i would love to ask trung is like for you guys how do you eliminate just like this is just sheer garbage and if 80 of your day is just sifting through that which is so much of what internet discourses and again the algorithm is incentivized that just people yelling at each other not solutions oriented thinking and conversation and dialogue how do you then have like a high efficacy rate because i feel like we live in an era now where you’re busy but you’re just you’re doing absolute horseshit yeah this is where i’ve heard this great quote uh from this guy he’s an entrepreneur i don’t remember his name but he told me something he goes he’s talking about like i was like so what are you doing outside of building your startup like i was talking if i’m gonna invest i first get to know like what do you do when you’re not coding this thing yeah and he was like i said oh i got some friends here’s what we do and i go he’s like yeah we’re making music i was like so you’re trying to like make a band he’s like no we just like we make music together because it’s more fun than listening to music i go what and he goes he goes yeah we make videos i’m like you trying to be a youtuber he’s like no it’s just better than sitting there and watching youtube he goes i have this rule which is good friends consume together great fans create together uh he goes so you know you can look at all your relationships and say what percentage of the time are we just consuming we go to a restaurant which is consume [  ] versus cooking something together yeah when we go to the movies we just consume something or binge watch a show versus like try to make something together make some art do a project together build build of gingerbread yeah it doesn’t matter yeah what the thing is yeah he goes like the great relationships in my life i i recognize they’re great because we create and the ones i want to be great i create more than we consume right so similarly whether it’s even with work i try to create i think most people are consuming like 99 of the time i think they’re literally just mouth open ingesting like whatever the hell everybody else is you know the few content creators are creating they’re taking it all in and then they’re hoping that their brain doesn’t get like you know turned into like peanut butter yeah what i do is like i know it’s very addictive to just sit there and scroll to feeds yeah i do it from time to time but yeah i try to say all right i need to be creating 80 of the content i’ll consume 20 percent yeah but of my time that i’m thinking about content that that’s like that’s like doing this i’m not with my family i’m not in the gym not whatever yeah i’m gonna be creating yeah and so i can only consume to the extent it helps me create how do you build community in the startup world is not hard because entrepreneurs like comics probably where we’re all trying to do something really hard build a business from scratch like you know works you know and uh so like you know there’s a misery loves company type of thing where it’s like there’s this there’s a rapport that’s built amongst people like we’ll help each other out we’ll get along with each other because we’re all going through the same [  ] so my community became other people who were startup founders when i was doing that and now that i’m kind of more creating content and you know building an audience and a brand it’s people who are trying to do that and trying to figure out like like we have one friend pomp who yeah he’s amazing at content like he’s great he’s building his brand he’s like the bitcoin guy he’s the bitcoin guy yeah but when i look at it i say wow there’s a lot of things i admire about what he did but i also got to learn that like i would never want to do what he’s doing he does this thing he does a daily business show on youtube now every day he wakes up five in the morning or whatever and he’s creating like a three-hour live show yeah he’s doing his squawk box every day every day and i’m like i get it that would work i would never want to do that i never want to go that path so i’m like yeah trying to triangulate and learn from yeah he did these other three things i thought were [  ] dope that i’m like oh that’s a great idea i should add that to my game yeah it’s just like any athlete it’s like anybody trying to get good at anything you surround yourself with people who are in the game trying to do the same thing as you that’s your peer group and you commiserate and you share strategies with each other and then you have some people who already like have done it they’re kind of your mentors and you go to them you know from time to time and ask them for stuff i’m sure you have the same thing totally i bet yeah i asked the jedi yeah yeah there’s a bunch of jedi and then there’s other padawan that are part of my like contemporary class that yeah all the time yeah and how did you get good like when did you go from suck to non-suck like because everybody starts i believe that suck that’s like the pixar way i don’t know if you’ve heard this before pixar is a philosophy which is all movies start at suck our job is to like remove the suck yeah so there’s non-suck left so i took that approach man the daily show changed my life man seeing the way jon stewart worked and especially that institution both daily show and snl love them hate them they’re part of their comedy institutions snl for 50 years now daily show 25 you know that are these pedigree boot camps for understanding the process about how to think about comedy right and one of the things that i realized is what john taught me and trevor showed me you know john really unlocked the code but it’s like it’s all about your take what is your take and being able to back it up so it’s not even being funny first it’s what is the take what am i trying to say what is the take what am i philosophically artistically trying to say um let’s give an example you had in the show last night you’re like you met this guy who’s a private equity guy you’re like what the [  ] is that yeah he’s like oh yeah we do like lbos you’re like as you get to the bottom of your like so you use other people’s money to buy other people’s companies and you ruin the people’s lives and then by firing them and gutting them making them profitable and then you flip it to somebody else yeah you’re like yeah i’m not cool with that like yeah i think that’s a little bit of a [  ] up way to win is to like yeah this is kind of like vulture just legal stealing yeah yeah yeah yeah that was never your money also it’s it’s it’s stealing well it’s legal oh just just because legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical right you know bill cosby got off legally right we all know what it is and so like that is what the joke i would start with that’s my take around leverage buyouts and vulture funds right then you start tagging it you can do that bill cosby tag he got off legally it’s not right you know we all know it’s on ethical whatever what he did or whatever the glove didn’t fit o.j yeah all right so you must go ahead okay and then you start tagging and then the funny just starts flowing from there and then you go that’s like this and then you can just what are you doing you’re sitting in a room with like a few people you’re just spitballing riffing bantering just like that yeah and then eventually you got to put pen to paper right and you got to start writing the act one and you start to see when i watch weekend update or when i see an act one on the daily show or any of those death segments i now see the matrix i now see oh i know how to construct a seven and a half minute piece right last week tonight patriot act i know how to do a 27 minute piece on it right i know the beats and the flow of that and what was really cool was it just gave me that that central kind of like philosophy how do i do this and so the first 10 11 12 years of my career i was just trying to be funny and what john in 2014 really helped me unlock was like no no you need to have like um there needs to be an actual process and purpose to what you do now i’m not saying this as a virtue thing no just you just need to be like even if you’re doing dick jokes or even if you’re being silly there needs to be you need to understand the game and how to heighten it comedically right even stupid silly jokes you know are like that and so um that was the unlock for me and then just reps trying to get as good as possible now my my next thing that i’m just working on the most is the jazz part of it like yo just have fun that’s always been one of my weaknesses because i like i told you like i’m a kumon kid you’re structured and so and so we’re so built around fear and so there’s these moments that i try to have on stage i don’t know if you saw is like i’m just kind of unhinged like the first like three or four minutes of the set when i’m just i’m literally just riffing yeah when i was making fun of the kids shorts there was a kid in the front row of the show just short shorts yeah the eyes were just like all up on the chair and then like the seats in the back and you know seeing people come in late and then riffing off of that it’s pure jazz now jazz has structure but there’s also play right and then you can go back to it and like it’s that organized chaos that i’m trying to like start to tap into yeah and you’re doing well now you i don’t know how you were doing before but i’ll say let’s say when was like the when did things start getting real good is about last four or five years yeah i would say probably around like white house correspondents dinner that was my kind of big breakthrough right national recognition moment of like you don’t have to be a fan of the daily show or just a fan of comedy like i penetrated front page of the news feed type fame and clout and credibility type thing yeah and you uh so you start doing well start making money doing this thing which is amazing yeah so hard to do so you did it uh yeah and what do you do so let’s talk about the breakout how you broke through but now that you’re here you’ve arrived you’re doing really well now business side of things yeah how are you running the show so what are you just in like dude i’m just [  ] touring 24 7. i don’t even think about the money just goes on an account i don’t think about it yet are you like investing what are you what are you thinking about yeah and so you know that’s the real interesting thing is now i’m starting to think more about the business side of things not in so much of the i’m a venture capitalist i want a 100x i want a thousand x the way show business works i think like any business really but show business per specifically is extremely predatory and it’s built on this idea that um we provide the labor and they’re kind of banking on you being desperate dumb and not owning your ip and right content creation they kind of are banking on that and they meaning like the big studios the big streamers the powers that be the agencies all those sort of things they’re banking on you not knowing what it is and i think for the first time in history we’re starting to see close groups of collaborators starting to come together and build things themselves right they can still run them through the big pipes in the studio system but they’re also like no no we independently operate we cook everything we write everything completely so like me and prashanth we started a company and we write we produce we executive produce people’s projects but we do the whole thing kit and caboodle right and hypothetically sean would come to me and go hey listen man i’m hosting this 15-minute event at this thing um i want it to [  ] rip i want it to kill i go cool let’s what’s your take what do you want to say blah blah blah come sit down with me in pv let’s break down your act one right and we’ll tag it up and do all that stuff and that’s a cool opportunity for us to collaborate and for us to brown paper bag amongst each other and i love the ethos of that like hey let’s build together right you’re an artist and a creative i’m an artist and a creative i think lawyers are important i think agents are important they’re fine but they’re necessary evils this brown paper bag this honest relationship that we have as artisans together is of you know the paramount importance and the more artists we can learn about just the business side of things i think it’s going to be for the for the better the other the other part of it man is i’m just i’m so much of my life was just trying to make it yeah now i don’t even know what to do with money i’m trying to understand what is money what to do with it right and what’s your mindset now so what if where have you arrived on that to me money represents you know um in capital represents two things money will not solve all your problems but money can take care of certain certain problems so if there’s ten problems four of them say child care my daughter’s braces uh you know being able to uber back and forth to the airport i can take those problems off the table right it will not solve my marriage it will not make me a loving father or an attentive father those are problems i have to solve that won’t make me in shape it won’t help my mind but at least taking those pain points off the table means a lot to me but there’s another data point as an artist that money can help solve two things it gives me the opportunity to say no to things you have [  ] you money like uh you should host this game show nah i’m not gonna do that right it also gives me the opportunity to imprint my world view upon the world on my terms right so this so the show you saw i own it outright right i i’m not just in the comedy business i’m in the trucking business like i i own and operate that 18-wheel truck you’re like mayweather those lights those like the there’s the holodeck that i’m standing on that glows like i own it like you know i don’t know what i’m gonna do with it after the special but there’s a sense of empowerment of yo i want to say this in the world and i have the capital to imprint my world view upon the world right and that there’s a deeply empowering feeling in that the next thing that i’m trying to learn and the reason why i want to be on podcasts and meet people like you is artists we need to learn more about how money works so once you make it and you want to buy a house and provide for your family and you know hopefully have child care in some capacity and how do you not blow it on dumb [  ] to the point where it gets really sad man there’s a lot of artists and entertainers you’ll get hit up and they’ll be like hey so-and-so has cancer we need to do a comedy benefit to pay for their medical bills i’m like this is sad man this guy was on snl this guy was on blah blah blah this guy was on a sitcom and i’m like yeah this has to stop right and um my question to you would be and this is the thing i’m trying to figure out is if you were an artist and you all of a sudden we make our money in lump sums you all of a sudden were given two million dollars a million dollars five hundred thousand you just make these lump sums what would you do with that money yeah that’s the fundamental question that i’m trying to figure out and answer well the first thing is there’s gonna be a bunch of people telling you what to do with your money and you gotta correct them at all costs correct the people that are swooping in with the next great opportunity and trying to get you to buy [  ] you know kentucky fried chicken franchises and [  ] like that like yeah you have to sort of say all right how do i get a trusted person who is an expert at this yeah that is actually good at their job and how do we align our incentives so that they’re not able to just pillage me uh like happens to a bunch of athletes yeah um they’re not just my homeboy you know from from high school or whatever yeah i trust them but they’re not video experts like yes find that intersection of trust and expert can i tell you where where it gets really hard you know i’m fortunately like again i grew up i’m kind of just you know i’m a nerdy kid i was never i don’t roll with an entourage right you know i pulled up in an uber he heard like solo with my backpack so i don’t have all those pitfalls that other uh artists and entertainers have where they’re a couple of jewels yeah jewelry purchases a couple car purchases and a divorce away from just like losing it all yeah you know i’m a pretty like level-headed you know guy that being said you know it’s interesting you you try to do your research and it’s it’s crazy i’m 36 years old i’m starting to read about um financial literacy and stuff like that and i’ll read books i’ll read jail collins book and you know he’s an advocate of vtsax right just vanguard funds yeah but when i go on the internet and i start looking through your mentions and i go through your page or sam’s page and nobody’s trying to [  ] with bts like you old man you’re not on the solano team how do i how do you figure discern truth ontological truth reality and light from just this banter just this just never ending yeah up down nature of noise so here’s what i would do all right so here’s how i would break it down i’d say what do i want so there’s some people who are saying i’m trying to become ditty i’m trying to become kevin hart i’m trying to do whatever i’m trying to have this mega mega empire billion dollar status some people who say look i came from nothing and i got this thing now i’m not i need a certain level of security and safety that’s what makes me happy is knowing i can never go down to zero knowing that i can never [  ] up and lose at all it is it is safety for life for me and for my kids what is that number yeah so you start to play with these numbers you start saying what does life cost and what do i want what are my goals with this what’s my burn right now you first got to take that lay of the landings i don’t need any strategy without an objective so any strategy is meant to get you to some objective and what most people do wrong is they’re just picking strategies without really curating the objectives yeah and why why why is that thing can i stand and defend why i believe that this is what i’m going for that this is my strategy um like how do i get to the point where i know what i want and i i can defend what i want to myself not to you know like i can articulate it yeah actually why i’ve decided that and i said no to these other plausible paths that might be right for others but they’re not for me yeah so you set your goal that way so that’s the first my most important my goal is two things and i’ve identified them because i think about these things for a long time you know being on tour is really good because you just start to planes are great you just have a lot of time shower in the air and one of the things that i thought about it was like it’s two things it’s like to me being a father and a husband means providing financial safety and security for my kids you know i grew up in a family i want to give away i want to talk about this too much but money was always a thing that people in my family argued about and i never wanted that to be a thing here and it’s a tough thing to do if you’re an artist are you kidding me that’s why did you pick that path but it was it’s what’s honest to me to me what what money and business represents is okay if i can earn enough so that god forbid this goes to [  ] but i have enough run right one runway room and this is gonna sound crazy but for 10 years because i do deep work like it took me two and a half three years to write this show right it took me a long time to put it together and i hope the depth of that resonated with you into the audience that’s my dream like yo do you do you feel how what this meant to me and what this i hope i hope you see me i hope you see it i hope you feel it too but in order to do that i have to have runway room yes i have to have two years to be able to hole up and write this movie right this thing i have a couple projects that are now lined up after we shoot this netflix special but they’ve required a ton of time right time you need financial capital to cover your burn yep to cover like i said you know my daughter a baby girl she has glasses now escalating burn yeah yeah and now there’s all these additional things my mom her knees are going she needs knee replacement surgery you know i’m the eldest these are real things and i i put it as like no i need that burn for you know 10 years right but now we live in a world where we’re not even be able to retire yeah so i have to start thinking no i got to be rocky i want to be mel brooks i want to be doing this you know hopefully dick gregory i’m doing this until i die right i love that dick gregory died with dates on the books he was gonna do rooster t feathers in sunnyvale california living legend man and i’m and i’m like what an inspired life right so many people are like well he wasn’t the biggest comedian i’m like bro you lost the plot yeah exactly he’s still playing the game like what a beautiful thing in his 80s right god god give please give me life so i can continue to do that so that’s it’s that burn what’s that number ten maybe ten years five years and i’ve told my accountant this right then the other thing is is what is the financial capital that i need to then continue to imprint my vision upon the world so the show that you saw the burn to run it man is almost 40 grand a week just in labor cost trucking costs getting it to venue to venue it’s a lot right now do that at scale i’m touring for six months eight months nine months a year got to take it over to europe to asia to australia all of those things it’s like i want to be able to count on creative capital yeah only on myself i’m not asking for a network you know so funny like one of the things that artists now complain about is like the studio said this and i’m like hey man we got to shift to now being like no no we have that now in order to do that i got to be able to make money not at a 1x yes 2x 5x i have to start making moves that can potentially 10x it because it can then cover that burn so those are my two missions yep how do i continue to do king’s gestures and take care of my family i’m not trying to be a billionaire it’s just those two things yeah so that that will give you a number or set up a range yeah then you say all right what are the strategies that give me that get me to that you’re not going to know them yourself because you’re like well i spent 10 years getting [  ] amazing at comedy not the money game right the money game is its own game i’m going to respect that the same way when i’m like dude i want to do comedy i know comedy means it’s a game that i i know what it was like to be an absolute beginner in business i got my ass kicked for eight years straight yeah it’s probably gonna feel very similar if i ever wanted to like even just like have the experience of going and doing a five-minute comedy set i’m probably gonna have to get my ass kicked for like a year or two yeah to just be able to go do that yeah so you gotta say all right how do i find somebody that’s gonna do that and i need somebody who uh i need them more than they need me yeah that’d be a great thing to have right because a lot of people who need you they need you for the clout they need you for the money they need you for many things so you need to find somebody who doesn’t really need you they’re happy to help they’re happy to offer they get something of it it has to be a mutual exchange yeah but they’re good already and so that’s why i like hanging out with people who are good already so when i go to them they’re not trying to dig into oh yeah here’s the business here’s what you should do by the way can i get some advisor shares can i get some equity it’s like well you don’t they don’t need that because they they’re already playing the game at a higher level in the money game so they don’t need me for money when it comes to that so i can trust their advice from that sense because yeah or you know they’re not looking for that so then you get a bunch of strategies all right here’s my my safety my safety playbook i want this amount of money that’s in something like vanguard low-cost etfs that’s expected to grow seven percent i could chart that out and say all right that’s what that looks like over 10 years then i need my high risk high reward part of the portfolio that’s that’s the that’s the thing and i’ve read those books like jason calcanis has a book where he’s just like hey take a hundred thousand dollars and turn it into 100 right let me ask you this is that real that part i do not believe is real this is what i don’t very misguided and i don’t know you know my whole thing is you know and you can like it not like my comedy but i’m trying to meet people where they’re at right i love people bro like i never want to lose i call it the cost of milk energy if you ask my dad how much is milk my dad will be like in manhattan at the bodega or at costco over in new jersey if we go over the bridge he’ll tell you the cost of milk i love that like knowing how much gas is right knowing how much it is to like lease or buy a corolla that’s why i drive an odyssey right it’s like man i want to [  ] with people i love people so for me one of the biggest things that i’m trying to do also is like if i can learn perhaps even through my comedy through my gift i can help meet the people where they’re at i’m never going to run with the a16z’s right maybe who knows they may they want me to they may want me to like perform at their birthday party or something you know the kids 12th birthday they’re just like oh they really like haasen come do 10 minutes but i’m talking about like man that i’m speaking to that it’s funny i had this joke that i did on patriot act where i made fun of bitcoin the dudes who like tell me to invest in bitcoin i said i believe in bitcoin i just don’t believe in the people that tell me to get bitcoin because it’s all my homies that told me to take out a subprime mortgage in 2008. i’m like travis it’s a property yeah you want a media you wanted me to take a second mortgage and why are you just like all like diamond hands now you’re diamond hands and me to death or whatever and they’re like you dumb [  ] look it’s at 60k now yeah and the comic in me is like bro keep it a hundred keep it 100 with me use your government look me in the eye tell me honestly right the reality is you have 10k in the bank the cost of living in milpitas is too high and you need that [  ] to [  ] 200x and so you are betting everything on this and that’s why my jokes are getting to you now look me in the eye and use your government name and tell me am i lying so i think that am i being real check me if i’m wrong check me sean uh you’re not wrong you’re not wrong what i would say is but maybe i’m misguided maybe there’s a certain level of skepticism you have that is absolutely needed yeah and you’re tr you have to get to the root of yeah why are you saying this do you know what you’re talking about what is in it for you if i do this you know what you know you don’t want to be blind following the blind yeah what i do one thing that works for me that’s like a hack a cheat code when i was doing that sushi restaurant thing i told you about we were trying to find the perfect location they said in restaurants location is everything so we’re like oh [  ] gotta be location experts we’re scouting we’re doing all this real estate [  ] we’re looking up and we just realized hey chipotle puts like you know billions of dollars in picking the right location why don’t we just go right next to wherever chipotle is and that’s actually the strategy that’s uh that quiznos and a whole bunch of other brands had used noodles and company if you go look next to a chipotle there’ll be a noodles and company there or there will be a subway there they all just they’re like well they do all the research and they’re an attraction so like yeah we just go next to them we can piggyback because they’re putting their skin in the game they’re not just telling us this is a good location yeah they are putting down their roots they’re investing money which means this is probably a good idea yeah so i have a couple buddies who i’m look uh you’ve been successful in this game what are you putting your money into now and and what ratios are you putting them out how much of your money are you putting into these things and how do you think about them i triangulate between four people like that yeah i say okay now i have a base understanding of like where they are putting their skin in the game they’re not telling me to do it because they get something out of it they are themselves investing in this and they’re doing certain amount of diligence that like they are in a space that they understand and so you’re able to get there’s an intelligent way to copy and then follow yeah there’s an intelligent way to follow and then there’s an unintelligent way to follow as well yeah the unintelligent way to follow is i heard some [  ] from some guy who’s got an incentive to sell me this thing yeah and i don’t really understand why he’s telling me to do this and yeah i can’t really ask him i don’t know what percentage of his portfolio is in this you know so i can shield some random cryptocurrency i’m excited about yeah people oh you said that was great yeah i put a half a percent of my net worth into it because i understood it in this way and i thought had this risk reward you put 30 of your net worth into it i never told you to do that yeah i never told you to do anything but you interpreted x as y yeah so there’s an intelligent and an intelligent way to do it but that’s kind of my approach of like how i would do this i would say all right there’s a money game you got to learn i’m going to learn along the way yeah i’m going to speed up my learning curve by partnering with people who already are playing this game at a higher level than me that don’t need any they don’t need the money from me they’re not getting a cut of me yeah but they’re happy to do it because it’s cool to know a comedian yeah you know it’s like a social worker yeah yeah it’s just it’s fun right and so like there’s that’s how i would approach if i was the other thing you said which is important which is the artists have to get leverage so like people were last night when we were leaving the show i was talking to my sister and i said it’s amazing this my dad was like i can’t my dad the whole time i told you i bought the beer he’s like i can’t believe you bought that beer at the show so expensive that beer is a dollar at costco i was like i know i understand that i’m having an experience at the show here i wanted to have a beer and enjoy the show yeah uh that was worth 13 dollars to me i know the beer on the couch which is crazy and so he’s like he’s like i can’t believe so many people pay to come this show how can they afford a show like this and i said well people care about like they’re having fun like this their budget i understand you don’t allocate your budget to that they do he was like he’s like he was like you know this guy must be doing amazing because he’s he did eight shows or whatever in bay area he’s got a netflix i’ll say yeah he’s doing i’m sure he’s doing great i said but also think about i don’t know what your netflix deal is but i know that if i was offered a netflix deal i’d have to do it for zero essentially right like netflix kind of knows that i have to say yes to have a netflix show yeah yeah so my bargaining power is probably very low yeah so even though it’s a big deal and it might do well yeah my negotiating power in that situation my leverage is low right versus this show that you own your leverage is higher right yeah so it’s i say you know just because somebody has certain things you do for distribution and fame totally dude monetization that was the comedy central deal like you’re on the daily show you’re on snl right to be on a cultural institution exactly to get your name built yeah they know like you can they can pay you whatever yeah and so how do you get the leverage back and so that’s where there’s this idea by the way that like for us who said that somebody said this i’m stealing it but why wouldn’t comedians create like oh so everybody’s getting big bit big checks from netflix and others to go do a special now yeah and okay here’s you know i think chappelle whatever something like 30 million bucks 20 million bucks i don’t know what the numbers are it’s on that rank very big upfront payday yeah yeah they know they’re making the money on the back end otherwise they wouldn’t offer that kind of money yeah um but also a key data point you need to know is it’s just like you cannot use ronaldo’s deal lebron’s deal steph curry’s ultra max deal or chapelle’s ultramax deal because the delta between who the capital marcus is playing number one man you gotta see what buddy healed on the sacramento kings is making right no because buddy’s solid but what is he but is he top 10 in the league is he top 15 in the league that’s the real again i talk about the costco milk thing that’s the real working class artist if you can’t be kevin hart if you can’t be jeff bezos if you can’t beat chamath or whatever and you can’t ball out at a bill then what do you what are the moves you make exactly that’s the way i’m trying to operate my life hey assume you won’t be will smith right you won’t be the biggest movie star in the world and the capital markets are going to pay you at a thousand x say they they pay you at 10x what moves do you then do to have a healthy happy artistic career for the rest of your life that’s my mission i want to continue to make art that’s honest for the rest of my life yeah so i think well i’ll answer so but let’s but the idea real quick is the idea is if the artist got together and created the streaming technology now is actually like pretty standardized off the shelf you can you can have a white label version of netflix yes in six months yes um the thing is you need draws and so like if somehow and this is always the coordination problem yeah if you could somehow coordinate the key artist to say hey we can own this [  ] we can actually create our own platform that’s a comedy streaming service yeah that people pay for yeah and we’re gonna share the the dividends sort of like meritocratically meaning if i come to watch your show if i subscribe to the service yeah because of hudson’s show yeah you’re gonna get the bounty of my my joining yeah and then if i also watch you know three other artists yeah they’re gonna get some some cut of the subscription it can be what what crypto and other things are enabling is a basically creator-owned platform yeah somebody’s gonna do this i don’t know if it’s in comedy or if it’s in some other music or some music what’s triller triller’s kind of like that right no it’s the same thing as a company and then they they cut checks they get the artist to come on board and then yeah they pimp out the artist to go get customers yeah and the artist feels like they’re getting a good deal because they’re cash rich but they’re equity poor yeah they’re getting and you know they might kind a deal with jake paul or something because the triller has nothing to lose so they’re like yeah you get two percent yeah you know they’ll cut that to one person yeah what i’m talking about is if chappelle evan hart if you could somehow coordinate the forces that be yeah to say let’s create a platform let’s only put our art on this platform comedy is one of those things where the fans will pay to jump the fence to get the thing yeah and they’re willing to pay to also support their their it’s funny yeah i have the answer to that um so that would be a platform that would be value it could eventually be valued you know easily single digit billions of dollars that would be creator-owned and then as you cycle out and the next community comes up they would just basically join the syndicate yeah they’d be pumping their fan base into it and they would be getting their proportionate share based on how much how much audience they’re bringing to the player so i’m presenting so i love your analysis on this again i don’t know i’m trying to learn but i’ll just share the things that i’ve learned from just being in the circle um you know shout out to my man az az was you know chappelle was doing all these summer camps uh in in ohio and and one of my comedian friends az i think he’s you’ve met with him he was saying he asked dave he goes and and i love z’s like he’s always been a future writer of remy right yeah and he’s but he’s always been a futurist he’s always been 20 years ahead and i tell asia i go hey z you got the al gore problem in 2000. it’s like the internet everyone’s shut up yeah you look like an idiot in 20 years you want to be 20 years ahead you want to be maybe like three three to five years yeah yeah yeah yeah you wanna be that guy with oculus and you’re like bro this sucks that’s always my thing i was like i don’t want to be the oculus dude yeah you know what i mean you don’t watch jungle book on oculus i’m like he’s giving me a headache like cut this [  ] out anyways he goes he goes up to dave he goes dave man you come on bro you’re the goat you’re number one you could just put it up on dave chappelle.com and everybody would pay you five or ten bucks for 15 bucks 20 bucks maybe a radiohead style a hundred dollars nipsy hustle right proud to pay and louie did that yeah dave’s like this he goes like this he goes new fans what about new fans what that netflix billboard gives you is it pumps that tile out in front of you whether you like it or not i don’t know sampar yeah i slid in sam’s damn sam’s i slid in your dms you didn’t hit me back when he’s with his wife and they open up the doom and they see my tile and they see my my raccoon on adderall face sam now has to reckon with that right then sam he’s sitting on the couch he pulls out his phone and then he sees you retweet my thing and he’s like man this indian dude what’s up this guy let me see this guy boom i’ve now picked up sampar i know i’m a convert with you your cousins are gonna talk about me your your sister’s gonna talk about me whatever but i’m talking about new fans you know what i mean in the distribution they do to get new fans on board that’s what this proud to pay movement doesn’t have right so everybody’s told me hey start an online shop i’m like cool i’ll do homecoming king low cal kangas shirts cool what about your three other co-workers the dude in that room i want them to know who i am right so that’s what you know louis put out his last special sincerely louis ck did you see it no why didn’t you see it because it was just a closed network between him and his direct fans people couldn’t get outraged about it they couldn’t write about it which would then get you to it would titillate you and you’d be i’m gonna watch it right which would that get you to watch it and he’d pick you up as a new fan yeah it had yeah exactly that’s 100 it’s closed it’d have to be paired with a pretty aggressive clip strategy right so like one of the ways you grew was not because i watched 160 minutes of the correspondence like speech 45 minute it was long speech right yeah 27 minutes 27 minutes it’s because a couple of those clips get on instagram they get shared they’re tick-tock they go viral yeah and twitter instagram tick tock that’s where you’d have to basically pair it with that that’d be the only way that you could get the exposure is to say there’s great [  ] we’re going to use youtube we’re going to use tick tock we can use whatever and we’re actually going to they’re going to take the best stuff yeah we’re going to dangle it over there we’re going to let that be shareable yeah it still may not work to actually like simulate the new fan like that’s why that’s the interest and the coordination problem which is the biggest people you want they’re getting overpaid by the networks yeah because they’re that’s the strategy of the network lock them in lock them in and then every other artist has to follow uh yeah at a almost below market rate because this is where all the headliners are you want to be where they are that’s what feels like a first class thing as an artist yeah if i’m in the airport people like what do you do you’re a comedian i go yeah yeah and then i go yeah um how do i see you i go go download the zone yeah and yeah and i’m just like netflix i go netflix because netflix has that the dumb factor just like damn i man my kids watch coco melon i watch netflix i watch blah blah blah so the thing is amazon disney and netflix right now they’re running it and i’m trying to think to me i’m trying to have a barbell approach to it so if you follow me on instagram i put out content i put out videos tyler my videographer we put out stuff but i’m trying to barbell it and i’m trying to figure out yeah how do we start to monetize those things now the most the most clearest sign of that that i’ve seen which has a low cost of entry has been podcasting comedians podcasting and people like tom segura people like joe rogan people like andrew schultz those guys have been able to call me um call call your daddy you know people in that podcast shepherd people in that space have been able to build up their own independent platforms and have more leverage here’s my issue with it i find it very risky to put up every single thought and idea that i have in real time on the internet i’m be candid with everybody listening i have no hidden thing here i’m just be transparent the reason why i’m honest i love what you do i think what you do is honest and sincere and i think artists need to start to talk to people in your space to be like you understand business we understand art how can we work together how does this all how do these these two worlds now merge right without being part of a a multinational conglomerate and then have business affairs and lawyers and all that stuff muck it up that’s the interesting new world that i’m really excited about and um that’s what i’m trying to figure out yeah i love it yeah uh i don’t know how much time you guys have i got time i want to be respectful the camera’s still rolling are they perfect yeah uh let’s finish up with a couple of things you uh do you listen to the bot i don’t know if you actually listen to this listen to the body yeah amazing yeah um when you listen to it you there’s always the beautiful part when a guest listens to the show because most guests don’t but they if they do the best part is there’s a moment on podcasting when you’re at home and you’re hearing people talk about stuff and you’re screaming either like you don’t get it yeah talk about this instead or no i disagree and like they normally never get the mic they just have to sit there and sort of punch air as we just drone on about whatever the hell we’re talking about yeah yeah what are those things that when you’re listening you’re like i would say this or i want to know about this or i want to talk about this what are those things for you as you know you broke through the wall and you’re here yeah for me i’ll tell you the moment that i loved and by the way this has been my ethos with comedy writing and i learned this at the daily you can only tear something down and this also works with movie writing and script writing if you tear something down you got to pitch an alt don’t just [  ] on the idea pitch an alt right and what’s the alt joke what’s the alt take otherwise sit down like sit on the sideline you’re not in the game so if i’ll tell you what i love actually there’s i don’t have a ton of criticism i’ve actually asked those questions the one that i loved is you guys had this run that you and sam did there was two things that i sincerely loved you guys had this thing up if you had a million dollars what would you do with it today i loved that then there’s another thing that you did that was really cool it was vulnerable and again the reason why it resonated with me is at a level of honesty and transparency in it you guys were candid about your asset portfolio distributions right and sam was like i’m a little bit more conservative conservative and you’re like i’m more risky right and there’s two moments i love it was the thing what i do with a million dollars and there’s a moment that you did where you’re like i want to move through the world in a way what if i was worth 100 million dollars and i want to build my days around that yeah but where did you get that from so there’s two things i love those are just two things i love but i want to actually just tag that with a question where did you get that attitude that like that bde that’s so that’s a that’s a big dick energy i had a thing uh i was talking to the uh when i got when we got acquired we went to twitch yeah and they brought in this guy who became uh like i initially reported straight to the ceo and they brought in this guy who became the the chief product officer yeah and he was like twitch is like this gamer young gen z millennial type of product yes guy comes in gray hair uh doesn’t play video games um you know was like at google in 2003 or some [  ] like that yeah and he’s obviously smart and accomplished in the tech world but seemed like so out of touch with the product yeah so people were like oh why don’t we have this guy like internally like rumblings in the engineering ranks which sort of like this guy doesn’t get it uh like the people already hate upper management in general they always think out of touch making bad bad decisions yeah so there was this like skepticism is this guy gonna get it and he would ask questions in meetings that were like oh like you don’t like you do you know what fortnite is like wait wait how are you how do you have this job if you don’t know like you didn’t know what minecraft would you use discord for exactly yeah but he was just he didn’t he was like i’m asking questions to learn why would i ask obviously if i’m asking the question i don’t know i think it’s important to know yeah you think i should know this so i’m just going to learn it right here like instantly he didn’t care yeah that’s a bunch of questions when i um he asked me he sat down with me he was like let’s do like a one-on-one he’s like all right it’s career career planning or whatever and he’s like so what do you want to do and i basically when you when you sell your company of this deal this vesting structure so it’s like you basically get some cash up front and then it’s like after one year you’re going to get your next big check and after two years you’re gonna get an xbj if you make it to year three you get the last bit i didn’t make it to your three i only got two but wow at somewhere self-imposed or you guys kind of yeah i was just like this is enough i want to go do other [  ] yeah i’m surprised i even got to two like one i knew i would do because one locked in my family security so i was like right i’m gonna suck this up and i don’t care how bad this sucks i’m gonna get that year i’m gonna lock in like family is good yeah i’m gonna get the bag and so i was there and he was like what is the number if you don’t mind me asking what is that number in the bay area i had always said six million i said six million is where your money works for every up till then you’re working for money your money works for you six million why did why did i say why six because i said all right you work backwards so i said all right my burn rate i think at the time i calculated it i was like we’re spending like 20 000 a month okay was my like monthly expenses and i said okay well i don’t know if it’s going to go up or down but i’m sorry i know it’s not going to go down it’s probably only going to go up right because it’s very hard to give things up once you have certain services or certain lifestyle or certain size house whatever you don’t want to plan to downsize i wanted to plan to buffer in some growth i said okay so that gets you to 240 000 a year okay so let’s say 200 how do i make it so that just the interest on the money i own so just the the gains on that money being invested in in the market and i don’t need like a home run just like if i’m making and yeah if i’m making seven percent or let’s call it four or five percent is like four or five percent as a target yeah so you just do the math like i as the rule is i don’t do public math but you take 240 000 you divide it by the five percent or whatever and that gives you some numbers so i forgot what the calculations were but i know the number came out to about six million okay let’s say all right at 6 million six million dollars invested would yield an amount of money that will pay for our lifestyle rather than me going and working a job or doing something that requires income to pay for our lifestyle yeah so i came up with this number and some people were like that’s too low some people like your why is your monthly expenses so high so look i i like to live a certain way i’m going to try to live that way like i’m not telling you you need to spend this much money yeah i’m gonna i’m gonna get chipotle with avocado i like avocado exactly the guac’s extra i said give me two servings that’s why i wanted to be able to not have any weight on that right and so i was like all right well that’s the i’m trying to live that guac life and so so that became a num a target number right and i said all right i want to hit that number and i said okay so you know i was trying to secure that back so winding back to this this question of how did i get this this mindset so i talked to the guy uh he takes me in he says what are your careers so you got the six though i got to the six god i said all right well how do i uh post tax you have to have it you have to have it exactly yeah so i said all right well he goes when you when you think about your career what are you going to do and i knew that the right answers say oh you know i love to yeah i love it here at twitch and i would love to stay here forever and i could see myself being you someday the reality was i couldn’t i didn’t i was having fun because i made it my way but i was like this is not where i want to be forever yeah and i was like i’m gonna be honest with this guy i’m not gonna tell him and it’s a weird conversation you’re basically telling your boss i don’t plan to be here for very long which is in a way saying right don’t invest in me you know like don’t promote me don’t give me opportunities give it to the next guy because he cares it’s kind of like a weird thing but i decided i’m gonna be honest so i told him he goes alright what do you want to do he’s like then we don’t need to talk about this twitch [  ] like tell me what you want to do i said well first i’m doing this so that then i can go do this thing i want to do because i don’t believe all that i go well you don’t believe i want to do this he goes no i don’t believe that strategy of life i don’t believe in this life plan of i’m going to do all the stuff i don’t want to do so that then i could do all these things i do want your mortgaging for a future that may not happen exactly this this is never going to come he’s like i’ve been around the block people who have that plan he’s like very rarely do you ever do the thing you want to do is it’s much better just do the thing you want to do start that now don’t spend five years doing the thing you don’t want to do because it’s a means to an end but then but then what you’re talking about is that if you had approached that you would have never perhaps gotten that six exactly so so he had a different mindset so i said all right well what does that look like and so he goes why don’t you just like figure out what you want to do yeah figure out what it required what what amount of money what skills what you would required and start accumulating those so that’s actually where the six came in i said oh i want to be able to wake up every day and do a certain amount do a certain thing which is basically wake up and just work on whatever i was most interested in right like i told you dude i want to like i want to do comedy sometimes i want to do it i want to do i have these other things i’m like dude why don’t i make a song that like just slaps like why was it a catchy ass song yeah i want to produce i want to produce a record yeah like i don’t know anything about it but like wouldn’t that be fun if i just made a catchy ass song that kind of hit yeah and like it’s not i’m not trying to be the best musician but like why not like why why not write a book why not do all these things like that’d be a fun way to spend a career that’s kind of how i thought about it yeah so i said all right well if i want to be able to do that um i gotta have this you need time yeah i gotta have time that’s deep let me start comedy stand up dj so that was kind of my mindset and so along the way um again i talked to my trainer and he if you want to have a certain thing carry yourself like the guy who has that thing very simple really they fake it till you make it thing not even fake it till you make it you believe you will feel a certain way when you have it right that’s why you want let’s say you want a hundred million dollars you want a billion dollars whatever your number is five million one million you believe you want that because you think you’re gonna feel a certain way when you have it yeah so let’s skip all the middle [  ] and let’s just believe that we have let’s let’s believe that we’re going to have that let’s carry ourselves like that let’s have that feeling now don’t punt the feeling until the end when you’re 60. okay and maybe you’ve achieved your goal so what he’s basically saying is a level of confidence right and confidence and security and not playing scared exactly yeah then the byproduct of that you know the comedy take i had on this by the way this is the way my brain works the extremely wealthy and the homeless actually operate the same way which is what delusion which is what anything i do isn’t going to affect my life anyways what are you going to do the incredibly rich that’s funny and people who are like the same mindset yeah are are just like hey what are you going to do to me what can you take from me right they both actually operate that same way sometimes it’s people that are in that vast middle that fear either direction that are like oh i cannot [  ] this up yes yeah so so that’s the the mindset is basically don’t wait waiting is the enemy so when you’re waiting to feel good until you’ve achieved certain things anytime you hear the word wait run that’s not the right strategy and so it’s like anytime you’re waiting to do the thing you want to do don’t wait that’s kind of became my mindset i just realized got it you mean don’t put it off don’t put it off right don’t wait till x in order to have y that you really want gotcha so if i want this feeling of security of of relaxation of confidence whatever why am i waiting let me tap into that now so that became both uh had two benefits there’s the benefit which is you feel better today already already a win yeah instead of feeling anxious and stressed and worried you’re already feeling good but there’s also a strategy to it which is when you carry yourself like that dude you carry yourself that way you’d be surprised what kind of doors are sort of open for you how people treat you differently they yeah they treat you with the assumption of where you treat yourself why do you dress the way you dress why do you carry yourself the way you carry yourself because people will treat you differently life will give to you what you’re putting but i also feel it too like i like being fitted i like wearing like jordans yeah and it makes the immediate feeling which is already good yeah and then you get the actual like i think this harvard guy called it the the happiness happiness effect he basically said most people wait till they achieve a thing then they’re going to feel happy and then what happens is you achieve that thing and you just move the goal post well this is not enough when i when i really have it then i can do it you know and so this keep moving the goal post and everything he’s like not only is that obviously deferring the thing you want which is bad two he said there’s studies that will show that the person who goes into the situation already feeling happy will perform better on the test yeah we’ll be better in the professional setting we’ll have a higher likelihood of success yeah we’ll have more lucky breaks that was one of the things they tested they basically they gave you a test and like you know the third line of the instructions said like just go to the end just type write the letter five in and you’re done yeah and the people who went in with a stress mindset they were just trying to solve all the problems and they had to do the whole test the people who went in relaxed and confident they were more likely to observe that little line so oh another another break that goes my way oh great you know like so i’m going to skip to the end hand the test in i’m done yeah and so that’s called when i when i started to learn about this sort of like happiness effect this this idea that if you bring the future feeling you’re chasing into the now not only do you feel good now but you actually have better results i was like that’s just the thing i want but it’s also a mindset shift where you’re operating different than sam sam’s like i’m not going to take those crazy opposite but why is he the opposite yeah so what i’m what i’m saying is sam may look objectively or it’s his subjective experience at your financial situation and be like you can’t afford that you can’t afford to start this like one million dollar fund and just with randos off the internet and just start betting things yeah why are you doing that you could lose it it served him well like i think the other many ways to win what i’m trying to get you guys to beef i’m trying to get you i’m joking i’m choosing i’m actually curious play style like there’s this great conor mcgregor quote where he goes look you’re gonna feel some kind of way anyways right like any moment you’re feeling some kind of way so he’s just like he’s like why not feel unstoppable why not feel i not feel super confident yeah yeah it’s the same sort of thing which is that there’s many ways to win but you do get to choose and sam’s way to win and many successful entrepreneurs the same way which is chip on my shoulder my dad never loved me you know uh i people doubted me and that drives me and that’s why i’m successful and they’ll tell you this proudly and i hear it i’m just like man you sound like you’ve been suffering for a long ass time you know you didn’t have to do all that right yeah yeah i’m i’m glad it worked for you but also like the toll was high on that highway right you paid an expensive vig which was every day you were focusing on like yeah the grind grind set mindset and you’re you’re focusing on proving people wrong and how all right how it you know the doubters and how you had to like kill yourself to make this work well i know people who did it the other way so let’s agree that let’s agree that both can happen yeah let’s let’s also do a quick delineation though when you said you’re moving like you’re worth 100 mil you’re not i don’t make size bets like obviously there’s examples of gravity no but there’s a way to move to be like hey because i’m serious because there’s people that may be listening that that are just like let me get that let me get that rolex daytona right let me feel that way right if it’s 100 mil then that it’s probably a rolls-royce phantom it’s probably a you know what i mean a maserati a ducati whatever that thing may be you’re not making those things are you uh yes and no so in the things that matter like i hired a personal chef okay that’s something that really the only like the true wealthy typically do okay i was like no i this matters to me i want this is the number one want i have i think it helps me and my family be healthy we don’t have to stress out about making food all the time for our daughter who’s real picky and she keeps throwing away we gotta remake dinner right i said this will improve the quality of my life i don’t care if we can afford it i’m gonna get it and i’m gonna then i’m gonna afford it right because i’m not like i know i believe in my ability to go get that money yeah so i will not limit myself in the things that i really care about yeah yeah it’s a true belief it’s something that you really want for you and your family truly wanted it yeah you’re not gonna wait again i was waiting i said oh i identified all the spots in my life i was waiting i said i got rid of waiting that’s the thing i really want and i’m waiting for it no more i’m going to do it now got it but do i go and just spend outside of like what means what i care about what i have like no i i don’t and i don’t because i also don’t want to be owned by those things yeah every time you buy something you know it now owns you as much as you own it yeah because that bill owns you in a way it owns a piece of your time because you got to pay for it i’m very selective about do i want this enough or i’m willing to let it own me a little bit and so then i don’t need a lot of those things and i also have this this is you’re good at these questions man the last thing i do is i want to be able to have as much fun whether i’m in a mansion having a feast with celebrities is if i’m stuck in an elevator by myself which means i don’t want to have to i don’t want to have to have some nice [  ] in order to feel good i don’t want to have to have the circumstances be going my way for me to feel good yeah and so that’s self satisfaction that’s you training i want to train my brain yeah but that’s you doing what you’re training your brain you’re meditating you’re boxing whatever that thing is so you feel a self sense of self that’s zero dollars it’s not 100 that’s not a hundred million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars exactly because the ultimate goal the ultimate way to carry myself isn’t that i had 100 million it’s i just remind myself of that if i ever start to feel like because when i heard that what i what resonated with me as an artist is play big play are you playing scared cook you’re on the court cook let it fly launch like be loose do the impressions do characters that’s what my thing is like that’s my goal like i want to be loose i want to have fun i want to be really get on the floor use a basketball analogy i know you love basketball yeah and researching for this i saw your celebrity game got a nice left hand yeah yeah yeah you go with that yeah you’re not lefty right no i’m not done right but you were very nice with it yeah um the analogy is this steph curry’s not afraid to shoot his shot yeah anywhere on the court once he passes half court he’s willing to let it fly that doesn’t mean every time he steps across half court he just lets it fly because he knows like old the ultimate goal is to win yes but he’s not afraid to shoot his shot he’s not thinking about missing he’s thinking about making his confidence in that mate yeah so i would say a very similar thing on the business side which is i don’t just spend like a drunken sailor yeah or invest in the most wild [  ] possible all the time i’m not trying to take every risk possible yeah i’m not trying to shoot every quarter every shot at half court but i am confident if i pull but you’re not afraid to let it if i pull it or if i’m feeling it yeah or if i believe i can make the shot i’m going to pull yeah even if i miss the last three even if this is not what other people like this feels right this feels right yeah i put in the time and i have the confidence itself and i’m not gonna second-guess it yeah so that’s where i’ll make cool some take some risks cool that feel right to me in the moment but the overall objective is to win it’s not to take max maximum risk possible yeah it’s also not to minimize risk it’s to win and you got to define what that win is for yourself right my definition of the win for myself is i want to have the lifestyle where i’m at the manager with my best friends we’re at the table we’re feasting we’re toasting that’s what i want yeah but i want to be able to have as much fun if i’m alone stuck in an elevator that is my ultimate win where my mind has created that situation where you can have all those things yeah but i’m i am impervious to the environment great i will have just so that’s my ultimate win yeah i’ll take enough risks along the way to get to that you know as i go that’s great last question this is from this is from me to you people can be pissed by the way they’re like dude you had us you just talked about your own [  ] philosophy no you know what people are going to be playing no i’m going to say this right now for the listeners and the watchers people going to be like he interrupted sean too much and why is he talking like this about bitcoin like sean you know you’re not the star no no no i’m i’m coming from curio i humble myself before all you my first million people so listen i love this again this is what i love most about irl experiences about being on stage doing material in front of people hearing the applause break knowing that that joke is right because i’ve corroborated it with the people sometimes comics when a joke doesn’t work they’ll be like [  ] you i know better and sometimes that works but there’s a lot of times where it’s like no no hear them listen to them see them you want to be seen but you got to see them for you as an outsider you know we don’t know each other well this is our first time actually meeting when you watch the show and you see me what would be your advice for somebody like me that’s at this point in my career i’m at an inflection point in my career i represent a certain period of time me my contemporaries me john mulaney ali wong we’re entering that new era that bill burrs and the chappelles are those are the elder statesmen of the art form what is your what was your advice to someone like me looking at it from the outside because you have such a great business mind yeah i think what’s what’s worked for you is going to keep working that’s why i said before i think you have zagged when everybody zigged i said everybody was going in one direction which was which is low accountability low risk yeah um doing things under you know worried about cancel cancel culture and things like that i think you have built a niche where you’re not afraid to call out the saudi prince you’re not afraid to call out the president but you’re calling out not from a place of getting a reaction you’re calling out when you see a truth you’re putting your finger on it and saying i don’t care if this hurts i don’t care if this is a nerve i’m gonna have my take on this i’m gonna stand by my take regardless of what’s happening and that’s when all those are the things that have hit for you you talked about that in the show yeah so i think it’s not that you have to keep doing that the same exact thing you have to keep in the mindset that got you to do that in the first place you got to self-assess what got me to observe those things what made me curious where i observed those things where i asked the question that got me to that truth right what gave me the guts to do this i felt like i had nothing to lose trying to make a name for myself now i got a name for myself now every tweet i’m kind of worried how are people going to react well now now you’re not playing the game the way you did at that time yeah so i would say first and foremost don’t lose what got you to the dance second is the stuff you talked about which is you’re betting on yourself which is your own production you’re owning your ip you’re owning your own as much of that pipeline as you can from a business perspective because it’s what gets you leverage it gets you capture the value you’re creating you create a bunch of value you got to capture it you got to look at the supply chain and say who’s capturing all this value who why is ticketmaster taking this much of my feed why is you know who when i go put this special online what do i really make out of this versus what do they make how do i get their numbers and how do i understand how to capture value on the distribution side and not just this side yeah i’ll try to think about those types of things and it seems like you’re building like for example my mom saw you on the morning show i watched the morning show too yeah oh [  ] he’s getting into these mainstream areas building the name building the face there and then you’re gonna almost like that’s how you go get the new fans and you take them back you build this funnel yeah at the bottom of the funnel the people who are going to know your life story they’re going to know what you stand for all these things they know me just like any product in silicon valley you create a funnel top of funnel is new fans new eyeballs how are you going to go get them in this strategy middle of the funnel how are you going to get them to get their first taste of you their first real experience get them to their first show um get them to watch you know the first 20 minutes of something that’s your best work yeah how do i get that and how do i get them bottom of the funnel which is how do we get create maximum value like oh a bunch of artists doing nfts what does that look like for comedy right you know let me play with these ideas i’m not going to do all of them yeah but i’m going to have brainstorming sessions with guys like shawn and say yeah what would i do with nft what could can with nfts and i would start to think about because that’s bottom of the funnel more like totalization yeah i would think about that funnel i would say all right i am a product and i’m going to build my brand around that product you know and it’s a long you know it’s a long series of optimizations totally but that’s how i would think about it yeah that’s how i would view my my craft which is like uh you know it’s easy to just get into the art world which is like you know i’m trying to i’m trying to build myself and you know tell jokes make people laugh yes but like ultimately your product and your experience from the mo like when i showed up at the show yesterday there was an hour long line yeah we got to skip it likely because you hooked it up yeah with with the nice like vip stuff everybody their experience end to end isn’t just when you step on the stage it’s like from before the show totally aligned yeah the rest and i would say playlist when you sit down yeah we talked about the the interface where you go buy the tickets how much friction is there i will go look at that whole funnel and i would say all right i’m trying to grease this funnel i’m trying to get them to these magic moments with me the first magic moment when i first made you laugh on like clip on instagram second magic moment your friend takes you to a show you have a great time yeah third magic moment is the follow-up of that you know fourth is when you buy the merch and actually the merch stands for something totally you know whatever yeah that’s cool i’ve always um i appreciate that because the i cannot see itself sometimes we’re so in our especially as artists it’s what it requires to do deep meaningful work but we remove ourselves from like what you said the line four blocks down the street from the masonic theater how much you had to pay for parking then what the show experience is like all that stuff yeah right yeah but i think you’re doing great man thanks man i don’t think you need advice for me to be honest with you i think you’re doing great no man hey this is my this is my two cents for the space y’all are working in i think um just continuing to try to be a source of light amongst just all this heat that’s out there it’s really important man there’s just a lot of garbage and trying to actually represent ontological truth in reality for what it is right because you’re playing with people’s money people are listening to my first million for that thing i just want to like let you know don’t forget it’s that but it’s that titillating feature yes it’s like when you hear that title you’re like but i want to it’s but it’s just like i want to make a mistake i came to laugh yeah i came to laugh you making fun of our indian parents and the goofy things that they do yeah but why did i that’s what that’s what i came for that’s not what i what i loved what i loved was the stuff you’re saying at the end the stories about your daughter the stories about the the the jerk parent at the at the yeah library or whatever those were where i was like oh man i attached same thing we have my first million and the hook is ideas i’ll help you make money and get you get you to your first million and what do you do with that when you get there i know that the people who are really gonna love this because that’s going to fade like you get that hit yeah you get the hit you get the hit what are you going to be here a year from now you should have already got that million but you know by a couple years in or whatever the people are going to stay because damn these are just great conversations i want to hang with these guys yeah that’s the only thing we do is we create a fun conversation where people wish they were i hope that like there’s a third seat in the studio my goal is that somebody listening to this was like damn i feel like i was in that third right that was listen to a real ass conversation between two people not you talking to your book and me talking my book but like right real conversation by two people you were curious and so i answered questions i asked you a bunch of questions of stuff i was curious about yeah they feel like they got to be a part of a conversation that was a little bit more entertaining than whatever’s going on in their world that day like maybe their their real life conversations that they weren’t as interesting sure my hope is that this one is that they feel like they’re in that third seat that’s like a win for me with this and so cool hope people enjoyed this i know this is appreciate you coming out thanks for having me man thanks for doing it in person because i remember you reached out you’re like let’s do a via zoom and i was like nah we’re doing this yeah sorry to sam yeah we’re pulling out for him yeah sam check your dms bro i’m in your dms doc okay cool thank you