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How Diary of a CEO Went From 40 Downloads to 120M - Build or Break

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How Diary of a CEO Went From 40 Downloads to 120M - Build or Break

Stephen Bartlett’s podcasting philosophy centers on depth, authenticity, and emotional connection. He believes that in a world dominated by shallow, algorithmic content, long-form, intimate conversations offer real value. His *Diary of a CEO* thrives on vulnerability, where he shares personal struggles—from mental health to intimate relationships—proving that audiences crave raw, human honesty. A core principle guiding his work is first principles: decisions are driven by fundamental values like truth, progress, and trust, not financial metrics. He emphasizes listening as a powerful skill, where silence and patience allow guests to reveal their true beliefs, often leading to breakthrough insights. Bartlett’s approach to leadership and relationships is grounded in vulnerability, with conflict resolution and emotional growth being essential. He sees innovation not in technology alone, but in human connection—highlighting that the most valuable content is rooted in lived experience, not artificial intelligence. His journey from a young boy scrubbing paint with a knife to a global podcast host reflects a lifelong commitment to deep thinking, personal growth, and challenging assumptions. Ultimately, Bartlett’s success lies not in external validation, but in staying true to his principles, embracing discomfort, and continuously evolving—proving that resilience and adaptability are essential for long-term impact.

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In order for me to do a podcast for 50 years, I'm gonna have to be able to wake up and say amazing that I get to do this interview today. Most people in their life haven't had a single person listen to them for 10 minutes uninterrupted in their entire life. So if you shut them up, they're gonna hand you their ideology. You're not only just a deep thinker, you're an amazing listener. One of the things I noticed about myself was that I could almost put people off by the depth of the conversations that I wanted to have. I think the most innovative, interesting people are broad people. Yeah, I was a bit shell-shocked for the first time. I didn't feel that. I'm like, do it. I was sat there for two minutes like this. Pardon me. This is a game in Mexico that gives you shocks. You have to wonder about our culture. So you have to have principles and I literally do a first principle exercise every single time I have a new idea. How do you make sure you stay grounded? Money or anything like this will just bring out actually who you are. Welcome to Build or Break. My guest today hosts one of the most popular podcasts in the world. Last month, they had over 120 million downloads. We just filmed together on Shark Tank, but he's a regular on Dragon's Den, the British version of the tank. Even though he was expelled from school, he founded a multi-million dollar social media company, wrote a bestselling book, and built an entire business empire rooted in asking questions. He's interviewed some of the most popular podcasters in the world. Today, we're interviewing him. Stephen Bartlett, thank you for being on Build or Break. Thank you for having me. It's an honor. Your episodes are meaty. Yeah, long. We usually say two hours minimum. And if someone won't sort of give us two hours, then I won't accept the interview. And it really doesn't matter. For me, it doesn't matter who they are because I've tried it so many times to try and do shorter in the style that I do it. And it's specifically in the style that I do it. And I've tried it so many times to try and do shorter in the style that I do it. And it's never, never worked. When you started, from the outset, it was deep and thorough, and you had the guts to go for two hours. Because one of the things that we're struggling with is, we aren't even the right to even be there, let alone to be there more than an hour. And I go deep also. So I always wanted to go two hours plus. But I found that I feel the pressure on myself to try to do it shorter. So there's a couple of ways I think about it. So I think the medium is always the message. And so I think I should also I should probably say I think the medium and the message have a relationship. So if the message is, if it's depth, if it's intimacy, if you want to establish a deep emotional connection with the person, if you want to go a level deeper, then I think you have to think about the length as a tool to achieve that. If you think about what CNN do, they are trying to give you information quickly. So okay, and they're, you know, they're constrained by the ad model and stuff. So they do short, we make the message we want to deliver. Yeah. So in a world that's speeding towards shallow and algorithmic, what is the very opposite of that? Where can I find depth and decentralized? When I tried to do business, I always talk about it when people are zigging you on a zag. So that principle made sense to me that that you wanted to do different. But it was also guiding you because you deeply wanted it. It was not just the opportunity. It sounds like that's who you are. So it was there was an intersection of I'm going to do it. It was also guiding you. But it was guiding you because you deeply wanted it. So I spent identical thinking exercise back then. And for me, it was clear that depth would eventually win out. There was only one medium where you could go deep and long. And it was decentralized because of these RSS feeds, which mean when you upload this, it'll go on Apple, Spotify, and a bunch of other players all at the same time with one click. And that was the bet. And then I sat down that day. And the other thing was trying to deliver something to the world that was in high demand and low supply. That was the other principle. The reason it's called the diary of a CEO was because it's a principle. It's a principle that you can use to deliver something to the world that was in high demand and low supply. The other thing was trying to deliver something to the world that was in high demand and low supply. So the diary of a CEO in itself is a juxtaposition. You have someone who is in great, a position of power. And then you get to see the most intimate, vulnerable, personal things about a person in a position of power. I thought that was in high demand and little supply. And so that's what was, so the first episode is me opening my diary and talking about everything from like masturbation to problems with my mom to mental health to I fight this person and they're fucked up and I should have done it like this. Being as vulnerable as I could possibly be. And if he hadn't have said that to me, then I wouldn't have carried on. But we've all got that friend. And so I knew he would tell me that. And do you know the crazy thing is the metrics are like the big numbers. You just said 120 million downloads this month. They're all a lagging indicator. Money is a lagging indicator. So you can't, you can't use that as a metric of is this thing working? You have to use another yardstick. And for me, it was just a couple of people who I knew were being honest with me, telling me there's value in this. I totally get what you're saying. At Kind, I always talk to my team about how obsessing about the numbers and we perform better than anybody. But I really taught my team to focus on the fundamentals because everything else is a lagging indicator. Yes. This is a really important principle that I've just learned in business generally, because in my in my job, I have to take these like, these principle based bets where I can't prove it to my CFO. And I have to do that time and time and time again. I'll actually tell you one about podcasting because it's it might be applicable. Yes. So a couple of years ago, I said to my CFO, I've got some principles here. I said, Listen, I'm only about 10% of the world speak fluent English, we're currently publishing in English. So there's this other 90% of the world, which don't even know we exist, and they can't access our content. But I'm sure they'd love to hear from Michelle Obama. I'm sure they've never heard from Michelle Obama in Spanish, in Hindi. So what if we just take one team of people, and we just set them over in the corner, and their job is to translate every single episode of the Diary of Sion to 20 languages. And we did that for 18 months, and it failed. It failed, it failed, it failed. And you look at Spotify, the founder of Spotify called me and said, it was no, it was Alex, who's number two, who's now the CEO of Spotify, called me and said, Hey, Steve, we're working on this thing at Spotify translations. Let's team up and do it. We teamed up and did it together. They announced it to the world. It failed. We carried on going. We carried on going, we carried on going, we carried on going without Spotify. Spotify actually paused it, I think, but we carried on going as a team. Six months later, my head of experimentation and my head of failure, we have experimentation and a failure team came to me and said, we have liftoff. We finally She said, "Now, when people think listen in Spanish, they listen for longer than when they listen in English. And if I showed you the graph on my phone, which I can show you, it's like this. What made that happen? And I should also say it runs now with no human involvement at all. The team that do the translations, which is making sure the thumbnail is in the other language, the title is in the other language, and then translating a whole three-hour conversation into that other language, 20 different languages. All of it's done by agents. It's all automated. It doesn't have any human involvement at this point. And it's not like it's a translated voice. It's Stephen speaking Spanish. It's Stephen speaking Hindi. It's Michelle Obama speaking Spanish. Michelle Obama speaking Hindi. It was just, we experimented for two years, and it took off. And now this month, of the 120 million-odd people that will view or download the show in long form, I'd say about 30 million of them are listening in another language, but it's compounding quickly. So that's an example of a bear that I couldn't prove with a P&L that was principle-based. Yesterday, when we filmed Shark Tank together, I joked that I want to be an intern in the company that you were potentially going to invest. This, for me, is fascinating. I mean, your world is fascinating. I'm just stunned. I have like a billion different questions. I actually wanted to start with Shark Tank, Dragon's Den, your social media, digital, but let's just stay a minute longer in podcast. Right now, in the context of this podcast, I'm not going to be able to do a podcast. I'm not going to be able to do a podcast. Right now, in the last five minutes or two minutes that you spoke, I have like 3,327,000,000 things where I could take this conversation. I literally don't know how to go there. How do you do it as an interviewer to keep the train running? Yeah, so it took me a long time to figure this question out. When you interview someone, what's the story arc? And I'm going to say a couple of things. The first is it depends on who you're interviewing. Because if I'm interviewing a neuroscientist, the first thing I'm going to try and do is I know that 60% of people leave this interview in the first two minutes. So I need to get, I need a hook. We obviously do trailers, but even put the trailer aside, I'll often ask my guest, I'll say to them, I've probably said this in 20 episodes, for the person that's just clicked to watch this episode now, why should they stay and listen for the next two hours? And I'll get the neuroscientist to say, listen, every single person listening now is walking around with one molecule missing from their body that could make them a superhuman. And if they knew what that molecule was, they could do it. And if they knew what that molecule was, their headaches, their brain frog, their performance, their endurance, their relationships would be radically changed, even their libido. And I've spent the last 20 years figuring out exactly how to do that, depending on who you are and where you live and what demographic you're in. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Okay, Stephen, what is it that the audience needs to stay with us for the next two hours? I can help you understand how to think about any problem you have in your life across business, people, entrepreneurship, problem solving, because it's very, very important. And I think that's what I'm going to talk about today. And I'm going to talk very difficult to build something in life when you don't have the resources to compete with other people. So you need something else. And I think that thing is you need to think differently. And this idea of reasoning from first principles and thinking from first principles is absolutely the basis of all of my success. I stole it from the great entrepreneurs that I've interviewed and that I've studied. And it means that you don't have to compete. And it's hard competing. And like, as we said at the start of this conversation, where I started talking about that 1% thing, that was an effort to not compete. I said, everyone's going to do this. So I'm going that way. I said, everyone's going to focus on the big thing. So I'm going to focus on the small things. These are all principles so that you don't have to compete in any game in life that you're interested in winning in. And it's about principles and thinking. I would say it's compete on your own terms in your own turf, create your own rules, create your own turf. But ultimately, you compete with other podcasts and you're kicking their butt. So you're doing something right. When you're coming up with these first principle rules, you're strategically thinking, this is how I'm going to win. Or there's something else also driving you. Because when you're talking about masturbation and about your failures and all that, you're being very vulnerable. There must be something driving you that's not just strategic. Yeah, no. So it goes, you know, if you understand my early context at 12 years old, at 10, 12, 14 years old, one of the things I noticed about myself was that I could almost put people off by the depth of the conversations that I wanted to have. I am an introvert, but I like having one-on-one deep conversations. So doing networking, meeting lots of people is my idea of like hell on earth. I'm with you. So at a very young age, I would take my mother's Nokia phone out of her bag, because she had like credit on her phone. And I would go and text the girl at school. And I was 12. And I'd say to them things like, what do you think the meaning of life is? And they wouldn't text back. And I was like, okay, I think I went in too deep there. And I knew this about myself, that I'm like very interested in the deep things. So when you add that to what I'm saying about the strategy component, you go, it's no surprise that the same kid has this podcast where he sits there for three hours sometimes. And I'm like, I'm going to do this. People about their childhood and meaning and purpose and happiness and all these things. It's like, it's what I've always enjoyed. I've always had a bias towards that. And so there's always a dance. And this is why I said to you, you don't know till you try it. So I had a strategy. And then I ran the experiment. And the feedback was, I enjoyed it. And my best friend enjoyed it. So I'm going to do this more. And it's really critical to say that that enjoying it is the precursor for going long. And we both know that to win in any game, you have to be able to outlast. So when I think about podcasting, the question is, if you just start to ask yourself, what would have to be true for me to take part in this, this game of podcasting for 50 years? It completely changes your decisions. I'll give you one. I'm going to take the name out. Stephen, there's this huge Hollywood celebrity that you don't know anything about and that you're not interested in. They have 150 million followers and they would like to come on your podcast. They're a big fan. They want to come on your podcast and do an interview. They have 150 million followers. It's going to make you massive in Latin America or wherever it might be. Will you interview them? Hmm. Okay. If in order for me to do a podcast for 50 years, one of the most important principles that's going to have to be true is I'm going to have to be able to wake up and look at my calendar and say, amazing that I get to do this interview today. And if I filled it with people like this, who I really don't have any interest in, at some point, I'm going to resent my job. In your ecosystem, can you isolate out of the 250 or 200, how many are working? Are you working on Diary of a CEO, which is an incredible machine, or it's more people work across different things? I could say, I reckon we could run the Diary of a CEO with 30 people. And as a business, I think this year will probably do about 60 million in revenue. That's amazing. And we could probably, and the net margins on that were probably about 50%. That's crazy. But I think we could run it with 30 people. We choose not to, because we honestly, for me, this sounds like a crazy thing to say. I just want the show to be better. First principles, it will create more value. It was the way we ran Kind. We never were like, let's try to achieve this financial goal. It was run through first principles, the best product, the best quality, the best this. And you will create the highest value of that. Amen. And this is, again, going back to day one of the Diary of a CEO. I'm sat in that apartment in London 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. I have no job now, because I've stepped down as the co-CEO of the group. And I call a guy, a freelancer, and I say, I'm going to start a podcast. I'm going to take it seriously. He comes in, he makes a budget for me, says it's going to cost ÂŁ5,000. We'll do it at your kitchen table, ÂŁ5,000. I go, I don't think you understand. I'm going to go all in. So come back to me with a proper list. He comes back the next day. It's almost $50,000. I think it was about ÂŁ40,000. Nine cameras. One of them is a robot. We're going to black out everything. We're going to go for it. I had no, I was making no, there was no sponsors on the show. I've always invested ahead of the revenue. So even now, what I was saying about translations, a million things I could tell you about, where I'm investing ahead of revenue. I'm investing ahead of a P&L. Because the most important thing I care about is if I can find a way to give the audience more value, I'm sure they'll pay me back in the future. I want to pivot from podcast to Shark Tank, but with the same trait that I noticed about you that I was, I found fascinating. I really, I hope to become a friend of yours for life. I really, I really like you. You're a very deep kid. Do you think you were born that way? Or is there something that happened in your childhood that made you so contemplative? Because you as a deep kid, think deep. And when you think deep, you come up with ideas and create. It's such a fundamental strength. And something that I assume people do is be self-reflective and come up with ideas. And when they're showering, you have to, what did you call it? Shower thoughts. You shower thoughts. I do shower thoughts. I'm always trying to solve problems, but not everybody does that. And I think that's one of the biggest strengths that you have. And honestly, that I have is that I'm always thinking, how can you do things better for society, for your business, whatever it is. And honestly, but not everybody does that. Where did that come out in you? How did you become a deep kid? I'm going to say there's two things. So again, it's hard for one to ever really understand themselves because I don't know how much of my DNA is determining how much I, how I am or my trauma or what happened when I was a kid. But there are like two, I'd say there's two exercises that have genuinely accelerated depth in me. The first is at 12, the second is at 12. And the third is at 12. And the fourth is at 12. And the fifth is at 12. And the sixth is at 12. And the I made a commitment to myself that every day at 7 p.m. I was going to write a tweet about whatever happened that day. And I was going to try and extract a lesson from it. And I did that for about six years. That's actually what grew my following. So I grew to about a million followers by basically writing a tweet. I then screenshot the tweet and put it on Instagram. You're the one person in humanity that actually used Twitter the way it was intended. Yeah, probably. Yeah. And the interesting thing is- - And it worked. - It worked because back then, then tweets were 140 characters. Now there's a physicist called Richard Freiman that says, if you want to understand anything in your life, you do what they call the Freiman technique. You go out and you learn something. You then condense it so that you could teach it to a 12 year old. You then share it with the 12 year olds. And if the 12 year old understands what you said, you understand it. You move on. Think about what I was doing from 21. I would go through my day. Me and my girlfriend at the time would have an argument about something. At 7pm, she would literally go, babe, go on then. And what she means is go write your tweet. So I would then go and I'd think about what happened that day. And I remember one day I wrote, if we're dating, I want to be your second priority. I want your first priority to be you, your life and your future. Because if we're happy alone, we'll be happier together. I tweeted it. It went viral. What I was doing then is I was going through my life with my eyes open, looking for truth. I love it. I was then being forced. I was then being forced to condense it in a way that other people would be able to understand. I was then getting feedback from those other people. And adding value because those are nice. And that's why you were paid in followers for the value. But it was the feedback. It was like realizing that when I put that out there, oh my God, people really like paradoxes. Like they like things that are unpopular, unconventional opinions. And if you look at what I wrote, I wrote, if we're dating, I want to be your second priority. That is a highly provocative hook. Yeah. So in my head, I learned, okay, people like highly provocative hooks that challenge them. Why is that? I go down this rabbit hole. I'm like, oh, our brain has got this wallpaper filter. If we experience cliche or things we've heard before, our brain is an energy efficient machine. It doesn't give it attention. Our brain is orientated towards the new and the novel. Interesting. Okay. So when I speak on Shark Tank, or when I speak to my team, or when I speak to investors or on stage, I'm going to try and make sure those, and it kind of goes back to what I was saying about podcasting. I'm going to try and make sure the opener, it hooks you because your brain is fighting to give everything else attention. So I need it to- And you've just gotten enough reps in that you're good at that or you- It's repetitions. My first, oh my gosh, you should see it. It's like, oh, my first post, like everything happens for a reason. It's so cliche and jargony and it's repetition. I really love that. And I mean, my version of yours is just self-reflection because what you did, that exercise, it doesn't, you, it takes work. It's not like, let me, You have to work and you have to observe, condense, find a kooky way to share that. It would take sometimes two and a half hours for me to write 140 characters. And the constraint helps. Someone can simplify. They understand the essence. And it made me think in the essence of things. And then the other thing that I said, said there was two, was honestly becoming a podcaster because creativity and innovation, and I guess what you're speaking to, which is like having depth, is a fun thing. It's a function of having lots of reference points. They have lots, I think of creativity as all these little clouds in the sky. And the more clouds you have, the more reference points. Oh my God, you've seen Hamilton. You've seen kind bars. You've seen Shark Tank. You've seen architecture. You've seen Shakespeare. You know about football. You know about management, culture, neuroscience. When you have, when you come to solve a problem, what creativity or innovation or depth, is having lots of these things to go okay on shark tank behind the scenes yesterday they had an earpiece and that meant that they could drive the production and it also meant that the pace of things increased and when the pace increases it's more entertaining and we're all much more sharp with our words and now i'm making a trailer for this thing and da da da and i've got a new idea yeah it's just it's such an enriching creative environment where you learn so much and you just get yeah yeah i i love that i i totally get what you're saying me doing builder break honestly i'm enjoying it so much i'm growing so much yes every conversation i develop beautiful friendships with people that i knew and that i've gotten to discover more and hopefully enrich others i also found a really really cool bridge from this conversation to what i observed yesterday in shark tank from you you're not only just a deep thinker you're a fucking amazing listen i mean i saw a little bit of your work and i saw a little bit of your work and i saw a little bit of your work and i saw you're a fucking amazing listen i mean i saw a little bit of your work and i saw a little bit green in conversation and you let them talk and you're patient and you let the wines bouquet flow and yesterday on shark tank you were such a fascinating observer it was incredible can you talk to us how do you hone in your listening skills so that's something i'm crazy learning for it's very hard for me and for all of us most of us are terrible listen it's such a crazy thing you're right i remember i interviewed julian treasure he's done two ted talks he did one on speaking it did like 40 million views it's the most popular ted talk on speaking ever he did one on listening it did like three or four million views i think that tells you everything about society we think that the way to get ahead is to be a great speaker to impose our message on others but i've also had the great pleasure of listening to interviewing some of the world's most well-known spies i've interviewed about three or four of them and their job is very simple it's to go undercover to go into a far away place and land and to get someone to hand over their most precious pieces of information and secrets and what do spies do they don't speak they fly into insert country and they'll realize that that taxi driver over there is driving the head of state so what they'll do is they'll they'll wait they'll they'll give it a couple of weeks and then they'll bump into him and they'll say oh could you give me a lift to the airport they'll go to the airport and they'll just let him speak and they said to me they said you know i'm speaking to one called mike baker who was a spy i think for 20 years he listened to them for 10 minutes uninterrupted in their entire life so if you shut the fuck up they're gonna hand you their ideology that's the first week just drive me to the airport nothing second week drive me to the coffee shop nothing third week the guy starts offloading nothing doesn't say anything fourth week same thing fifth week same thing sixth week seventh thing seventh week the guy's continuing just to offload and offload and offload eighth week he offloads that his son's sick bingo now i understand his ideology so in in week nine when he gets in that cab he's got this relationship with him he knows his son's sick he says if you turn against your country if you tell me about that head of state that you drive every day and this particular piece of information will get your son will apache helicopter him out of here will take him to the best hospital in the world and will save his life now he wouldn't have known his ideology if he didn't shut up and i think generally people they lead you to where they want to go so it's interesting you as the interviewer are not driving the bus you're letting them drive the bus i believe i'm learning and hopefully all of us can learn how to be better listeners and how to be better leaders i was telling myself that the job of an interviewer which is regularly your job is so much that is what used to be my job always being interviewed i love talking because i love to talk and i don't need to worry about the time and about keeping the i can just go and all my things and then you have to worry about everything but what you're saying to me is and i i was creating the analogy that i love being the ceo but the guy that would really matter was my president john leahy who kept the trains running but you're saying daniel's even more complex you're actually empowering you helping the interviewee go wherever they want to go that sounds so hard i i started interviewing by pulling like i was it's like i tied a piece of rope to you and i was like right we're gonna go this way you ready let's go come on come on and then you'd start to like you'd pull in that and you'd be like oh my god i'm gonna go this way direction a little bit i was like no listen i've got these questions we're going that way come on come on and then the more confident i get i became as an interviewer in myself and trusting myself i start to see it now like i'm actually just pushing you where you want to go so what you'll notice is in between the lines people give you clues they'll say things like this is what a guest will say to me they'll go you know and you know then i did this and i i had that um a couple of things happened with my sister um but you know i got over that and anyway we i went to harvard university and they've given me a clue they've given me a clue and i think in some subconscious way they're inviting me in the door that maybe no one has ever gone in before so my question then would be your sister what was the uncomfortable conversation and then and then the other thing that i do very intentionally is i get away from the mic so you you don't get to see me what i'm doing while they're talking what i do is i get away from the mic and that means i have no intention to talk so you're gonna have to fill the gap and then the other thing i learned super early was that silence is like there's a lot going on in silence i remember having this one conversation with this guy who's this like a psychologist stuff this has happened so many times where i said how you do i went how you doing and he went um brilliant and terribly and i went terribly and there's this 20 second gap so much so that listeners repeatedly had commented saying they thought the podcast had ended like there was a so they people were telling me they pulled out their phones looked at their spotify and were like oh it's oh it's still going this 20 second gap with me and you didn't edit it me and him just staring at each other just staring at each other like this and then he burst into tears because i know that there's a lot going on in the silence and it takes a certain with time i've realized not to fill the silence in silence and and in i'm sorry to be so shallow yeah but people see absence as absence it's actually an incredible presence like in our packaging what you don't put in is more important than what you do put in in our conversations that space you create creates either attention and opportunity or an emotion for people to fill in i i think about you said this yesterday in shark tank you said lori told me that sometimes more is more i actually think sometimes is more yeah i'm a huge believer in that like in our lives with our kids overfilling every single minute sometimes actually it's not the right thing it's like give this space for imagination and for them to fill it uh and that's what they do for me the other thing i notice as well is is body language you imagine it i've sat there with 600 people for three hours there's some things we all do which tell me there's something you want to go into and one of the obvious ones is people's body language will be very very open like this they'll be very open like this and then i'll say um and your grand grandmother she was an interesting figure in your life and then they'll go like that honestly it's so so common they immediately close their body language and the minute they close their body language for me it says there's something here there's a really important thing here which maybe they're not maybe i can't come in the front door but i think the back door is open i can't get in the back door then i'll come in the cat flap you actually jumped into something else i observed about you yesterday when we're recording shark tank and when you record shark tank you get in there 7 a.m in the morning you finish 8 p.m we film like nine or ten uh segments and i was fascinated how you would get the entrepreneurs to open up like you had this skill not just to be like a detective and identify things very very quickly but you had this skill to get them to say things that we were thinking but they were trying to hide talk and you you covered a little bit more about that but you want to just share a little bit more about how do you get i think part of it is just your personality your temperament you're just so british or calm or demeanor i don't know yeah i do think i do think that that's important i i think being i think people match your energy so i was saying to you yesterday that i just interviewed uh jd vance the vice president of the united states and a lot of it i think a lot of interviewers when they interview you they come with a certain antagonistic energy i think people feel it and i think he probably feels it i've interviewed you know michelle obama kamala harris gavin newsom um irrespective of who i'm interviewing my energy needs to be curious i'm not against you i i'm just in the pursuit of truth and listen i'm sure there's good things about you and there's bad things about you there's good and bad things about me too and even if i come if i ask you questions with this energy i don't think you're going to be able to to give me this sort of political spin and stuff is that naturally who you are it is who i am yeah so people how can they just be careful yeah i think just be careful just if you just understand this principle that people will match the energy that you bring to an environment it's very like if i'm if i'm bringing this energy now that i'm talking with to you it would be very uncomfortable for you to then bring a different energy for you to be like this it would be like very uncomfortable for you let alone me so i think one question would be for this conversation that i'm going into what's the energy that i need to bring and obviously in lots of different types of conversations we bring different types of energy you know if someone's being aggressive with you you might need to bring a little bit more of a direct energy sometimes but in an interview context it's comfort it's interesting because most sharks do the opposite right like we try to affirm our power and we and i did that at times as well which you're wonderful does a lot of like oh you conquerors whatever and he plays into it i actually love kevin but you you really in that particular case when you got that guy to open up you're soft you're his friend but you got him to say that he screwed up that he did something wrong yeah so i went i went dave listen just just be honest with me just be completely honest with me i'm looking at your numbers and it looks like this might happen and listen i just want you to be honest because if that's the truth then i can deal with that and actually i've got a black belt in in dealing with this because i've done this for the last 15 years so if this is the truth just be honest with me and you know i'd appreciate the honesty because at least then i we can work together and he went you know what yeah he went yeah he went yeah i that's what happened and it's because i i think i gave him a a safe space yeah to open up about that also by the way for entrepreneurs that for anybody in life truth will set you free in my opinion when you're truthful and transparent you're more likely to actually make progress because you understand the problem you can figure out the solution someone said this someone asked me a question two years ago and it's always stayed with me they said you know lots of brands are like virtue signaling what they care about and everybody's trying to communicate what their values are he said how do you know if they're telling the truth and i thought about this i thought you know what and i was on stage i said on stage in germany i think it was i said you have to look at what they're willing to give up in the near term that's against their direct incentives and actually it relates to what i said to that kid yesterday because if he's willing to say in the den or if he's willing to say in the tank do you know what i screwed up and i made this mistake and this is the thing but this is what i believe this is who i am and this is what i'm going to do about it because he was willing to offer me something which was against his direct near-term incentives i'm going to believe everything else and when a brand says we're not going to do this this and this i know they would have made loads of money from doing that i know they would have made loads of money from doing that it makes me believe their values because there's something clear that they were willing to forego and so i think that's what entrepreneurs when they pitch need to show they need to show they build trust by showing imperfection can we have fun for a couple minutes dragons dance versus shark tank yeah you've been on both yeah you've been seven years on dragons then you're very magnetic on dragons and you get deals where it's kind of like this bengali the other four dragons are just watching you do the deal and they're like commenting hey what happened what about me like you're very good um shark tank different show american you you told me that people interrupted i was fascinated that in dragons people don't interrupt no walk us through the difference it's so it's so different i both platforms are so brilliant because they're so representative of the country that they come from um dragons den is the pitches can be up to two and a half hours long i've sat for two and a half hours in a pitch before many times um you don't really interrupt the other dragons there's no there's no one sort of producing or telling us you know how to how to move through the pitch there's no like time frame really we're very polite much more polite than the pitch there's no like time frame really we're very polite much more polite than the pitch there's no different the businesses are very different as well shark tank my gosh within 60 seconds i thought listen clay clay who's the producer described it to me he said this shark tank is like a moving train what i think what he should have added is it's like a moving train that's already full and he goes you just got to try and get on and that's exactly how i felt 60 seconds in the on in dragons den at the start we get told who's starting so it'll be like you know peter you're going to start this pitch so that so we know okay peter's gonna ask the first questions in shark tank the entrepreneur comes out they finish their pitch and it's like every shark is shouting blah blah blah blah all at the same time and i'm sat there like oh my god if i don't start shouting myself i ain't gonna get a word in edgeways so it was a quick adjustment but it was fascinating it moved you held your own you were tired it took me some time honestly i was a bit shell-shocked for the first i didn't feel that i'm like dude you didn't feel it because i was sat there i was sat there for two seconds and i was like excuse excuse me oh you're not gonna let me then i'm gonna do it okay right i've got to just go for it what about what you said that the entrepreneurs are different talk about that more variety of businesses here i saw this year so much more things that are technological and ai and just lots of different types of businesses we have a different economy in the uk to the united states so that's also reflective you know i think that the economy in america is more diverse than the economy in the united states in the uk there's billion dollar companies and everything in in the united states you talked about two hour pitches like i have in my first season i was on shark tank uh season 11 so eight years ago wow i the pitches would sometimes last an hour and a half and they really brought that down like you said but he wants us to keep moving but they're still 30 to 45 minutes long and the audience only gets eight minutes so you're only getting one fourth of what you're supposed to be able to do with you it's an even smaller ratio right like two and a half hours and it still also ends up being at eight ten minute segment yeah it's crazy that's like it's a lot of editing work are you stimulated in those two hours are you like oh my god can this thing end because honestly in shark tank when i'm out and some of the sharks keep talking i'm like dude put this thing let's move on do you feel that on the two hour pitches or no what's interesting is when you go out and shark tank you're like oh my god i can't do this i can't do this i can't do this i'm like tank you can carry on talking yeah you can't carry on talking in the uk you guys are so much more polite is it almost like parliament also that you guys have these rules of debate i guess so i guess that's a pretty accurate comparison but it means that and also in shark tank in the united states you can just kind of make up your own rules like you guys just like got up and you went over and fed the guy and then like you can just you can just mess around and you can you can come back in even though you've said you're out we don't do this in the uk we don't it's very like i think clay sat me down and clay the producer and what he sat me down and they were like there's no rules the key rule is make sure the entrepreneur gets the money that they're asking for if you're going to make an offer but outside of that like be creative so it was yeah it was fun it was a fun fun creative challenge do you mind if we move to uh something called the mexican inquisition sure this is a game in mexico that gives you You have to wonder about our culture, but you hold it like this and I'm going to turn it on. - Yeah. - And then I gradually increase the dials and eventually you feel the thing. - Oh, this is so enjoyable. - Do you want to try this out? - I'm going to try. - I'm going to ask you. - I feel like you have to try things. - I'm going to ask you questions through the Mexican inquisition and you have to answer them while you get. - Electric uses. - Electrocuted. - Okay, this is fantastic. - I have to compete with the director somewhere. - Yeah, this is innovation. This is exactly what I was talking about. - We'll start with zero. Name an unsung hero who helped you get here. - My mom. I think as I've gotten older and older and older, I have understood. I think you understand your parents more as you become older. And when you're young, you kind of misunderstand them. And if my mom hadn't been the original risk taker, if she hadn't shown me what hard work looks like, where she just worked from, like I said, she didn't come home from a shop 'cause she slept on a bag of rice in the back room. Like she showed me work. - Is she still with us? - Yeah. And she showed me work without complaint. - And she just got to see what, she must be so proud. - Yeah, she is, yeah. Especially 'cause of Shark Tank and Dragon's Den, you know, it's her way of connecting to me, so. - All right, well, I'm going to give you a tingle to honor your mom. Do you feel it yet or not yet? You might not feel it. - A little bit. - What is a question I should have asked you? Or it's a question that you've never been asked, but somebody should ask? But it's such a thing to ask you because you're such a, you're always reflecting about everything. It's beautiful to be inside your mind. Probably also exhausting, but. - I mean, so many things come to mind, but I guess like what is the most important thing? I think sometimes we can get caught up in like strategies and tactics, but if you don't know what those strategies and tactics are ultimately aiming at as a North Star, I think a lot of entrepreneurs can get lost along the way 'cause they might think that the game is money or something else. And so I think understanding what someone's both early context is, but also their North Star is, is probably two really critical parts of the story. - Well, that was gonna be my last question, but I'll ask it next. But with a little thing, you feel it now? - Yes, of course. - What drives you? - Lots of things. I say, so I think everybody's is ultimately, they wanna be happy. I think it should be that. I think that should go without saying. And the path to us being happy is also all quite different. For me, it is feeling sufficiently challenged. It is working. I think I have these five things where I think like you can work in any industry, but if you have these five things, you'll be happy. One of them is you need to feel sufficiently challenged. You need to have a sense of forward, and this is why video games get increasingly harder because they keep you in what we call flow state. You need to have a sense of forward motion, which is this idea of the progress principle. When people feel like they have a sense of forward motion, they are more motivated. And actually the thing I told you at the start about focusing on 1% and not big things, means that your team every day get a sense of forward motion. Every small thing, changing the air conditioning, the carbon dioxide monitor, it makes you feel like you've accomplished something. And there's the study that Forbes, no, the Harvard Business Review did, where they got thousands of people to keep a work journal and asked them, what was your favorite day in work? And people pointed out a day where they had a tiny feeling of progress. So as a boss or a leader, you do that by focusing on the small things and then you celebrate them. So Jemima changed the air freshener in the diary of a CEO studio. She put it in Slack, 'cause we're obsessed with the small things and everybody drops fire emojis and goes amazing, blah, blah. We check the music to play when you walk in based on your childhood. So when Danielette walks in, we played the Swedish House Mafia. That's his favorite song. When Israel Adesanya, who walked in the UFC world champion, we played Nipsey Hussle's "Double Up" because that takes him right back to where it all began. And we celebrate these things because of the progress principle. The third one is having a sense of control. The fourth one is a subjectively meaningful goal, which for everyone in this room, all of your team, they will have a different goal. And the last one is the most important because if you don't have this one, all the others don't matter. It's working with a group of people you like. 'Cause if you're doing it with assholes, it doesn't matter all the other stuff. It's a terrible job. It's a terrible life. - Tico, I think you're second and you're fifth because in terms of who you work with, you have to enjoy life and the journey matters more than actually the destination. But in terms of the life of an entrepreneur and a builder, I think solving problems and the challenge of figuring things out is actually an understated value. - Yeah, 100%. - And that spirit, I'm gonna take you from level one and a half to level two, because I know you like the challenge. - Wow, yeah. It's like all my veins and my arms are like shaking. - When you get to four, you'll feel it. - I feel it now. - Who would you love to invite to a dinner party? Someone that's alive. - Probably Barack Obama, I think. I've sat with Michelle several times now. So I'm gonna say Barack Obama. - I can arrange that. - Oh really, you know, Barack, okay. - Well, I mean, not as well as Michelle. - Yeah. - A historical figure you wish you could have lunch with? - Steve Jobs. - I was gonna say Martin Luther King, but I think Steve Jobs. - Yeah, both are a great answer. What's one thing that broke you and eventually helped build you? Should I go to level three or? - Yes, please. The one that I thought might be quite interesting is just like me and my current fiance in year two of our relationship, we had a problem, like an intimacy problem in the bedroom. And I didn't understand it. We couldn't articulate it. We couldn't communicate. We broke up for a year. And in that year, had some time apart, learned a lot, matured, flew across the world to Bali where she was living, just to like say to her, listen, I apologize for not being more mature. I now kind of understand, I just want to say sorry to you. And a couple of days later, it's like I'm going back to the UK, but I just wanted to say sorry. And we basically fell in love again. And I say that to say that like conflict resolution, I think is the most important skill. It's the most important skill in all relationships. And it's the skill we don't teach people, especially in romantic relationships. There's this quote I read years ago, and I don't even know who it's from. And it said, "You can predict the long-term health of a relationship by whether each cut heals to 99% or 101%, i.e. does your conflict make you stronger?" And in that moment, when we had this conversation, 'cause we had a problem in our relationship, I was emasculated. I'm like, what do you mean this isn't, you know? And then she didn't have the words. I just walked away. - But first of all, that's so beautiful. You made me emotional and that 99 to 101%. But I have to tell you, I do have that mentor. His name is Stephen Bartlein. He said, "When people give you an opening, take it." Are you gonna tell us what this intimate thing was? - No, that's a good fucking point. That was a very, very wise observation. We had a problem in the bedroom, which was around, she's spoken about this publicly, and I've spoken about publicly before, but it was, we had a sex issue, and we, it just wasn't working, and we didn't know why. And you think about that. As a man, you like feel super emasculated. You're like, well, maybe, I was like 20, it must've been like roughly 25 at the time. I'm thinking, well, maybe there's something wrong with me. I don't know what she's thinking, but I'm thinking maybe there's something wrong with me. And I don't know anything about sex and intimacy, and I don't even know how to talk about this. And it's all so sensitive and emotional and personal and emasculating. So the easiest thing to do was just to break up. And then with time, - You get vulnerable. - With time, you know, I realized that I loved her more. I loved her enough just to try and figure it out. - I love that you did that. I love that you're bringing this up, because I think we don't talk enough about A, how you need to resolve conflicts with your family, with your loved ones, not take for granted. And we never talk about all those intimate things and how to all of us, these things happen. In every scenario, even when you have the best of circumstances, sometimes things don't go the way you want. And guess what? That's okay. We'll go through it. But I feel the duty to celebrate you with a little bit more shock. So now you're at three and a half. - Oh my God. Oh, wow. Wow, I can't even, wow. - Yeah, it starts getting- - Yeah, it's like, I can't even. - The thing I think- - Why am I punishing you when this has been one of my most favorite conversations? - Oh, you're so funny. Oh, this is how you treat people. - I think one last question. What's something that you've changed your mind on over the last year? - Hmm. Do you know what's crazy about this question? Is I change my mind almost on a weekly basis because the world is changing so quickly. - Yeah, exactly. - Are your, this question is actually not intended for you because you have so many things, but give us one. - Yeah, so, I mean, my mind went to the future and AI and all these things, because every week I'm having these like Eureka moments about what the future looks like. So I'll give you one here, which is, I've just got more and more and more clear as I've used AI and some of the AI agents that there's two poles that are worth investing in at the moment. And I think poles rise at the same time. And what I mean by that is like when processed food became a big thing, so did like organic whole food become a big thing. Even when you saw like digital music explode, so did IRL concerts and vinyls came back in. - I love that observation. - And you're seeing the same thing. So if you go, if AI explodes now and things become more automated and more agentic, et cetera, what else explodes? And it's the other thing, it's the irreplaceably human. So you'll see like my investment strategy a lot of the time is betting both on technology, that pole, but then also the antithesis of that, which is the humanity. And this means, what is the most irreplaceably human type of content? Community, IRL, things that are irreplaceably human. And in podcasting and in content and media, what is the most irreplaceably human type of content? Because if the kid in Mumbai and Manhattan can both make content now, and they can both get information faster than ever before for free from ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude, where is the human moat? So in our conversation, You're not getting that from ChatGP2. - Yeah. - Because ChatGPT has never been in a human relationship. - Though you might think it has. - You can get it to pretend, but it's never been in one. And you know it hasn't. - Yeah. - And that's lived experience. It's proof of life. So the content that I'm thinking more and more about in this world, again, on this side of the spectrum. - You're gonna start a porn channel. - Well, no, stay away from that, but. - I love that. I love the way you think. I find your brain so interesting. I wish you could have many more hours. I'm gonna ask you one last question here, but then I wanna pause the game and ask you one question related to what you said. But can we go to four? - Go for it. I'll try and deal with it. - Now he's really strong. I don't know if he was serious when I was level one or two. He was, now I'm telling you, it makes you stiff. - Yeah, it's funny 'cause you can't, I can't turn my hands up. - What was your first job? - My mom bought this little corner shop and she called me in one day when I was seven. And she said, there's lots of paint on that step over there. You see all that paint on the walls? Here's a knife. Go around. Just get all the paint off. So I got the knife. I sat down and I scrubbed the paint off the step. That took me a couple of hours. Then I did the walls. I took the paint off the walls with this, like a butter knife. I took the paint off the walls. So that was my first job. That's what my mom was like. - Do you remember how old you were? - I'm seven. - And you still remember it? - Yeah. - All right, I'm gonna stop now. - Wow. - You survived. - I'm sweating. Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate that so much. - And in Mexico they pay for that too. - Really? My hands are sweating. - But I do wanna, before we go to our last segment, I wanna ask you one last question what you said, because I actually really, really, really like how you're always, your brains. I mean, it's impressive. You're always thinking about issues and all sorts of issues. And one of the things that I find that's dangerous is that we don't question assumptions. You're very good at questioning assumptions and not, but the more you succeed, the more you get things right, the more you fall in danger. And the more that you've actually gone through studying something, the more you think you have the answer, but then facts change. Do you have a tool to share with us on what is it that you do to try to be a flexible thinker that's willing to change his mind? - Yeah, it's a really good point 'cause it's so true. And do you know what? It's actually not just successful people. It is most people go through their life assuming that the things they see are the way they are for good reason. And actually what made you an innovator, what made Elon Musk an innovator is going back to what I said about Elon earlier on. He said, when people told him that you couldn't get a battery that is 600 kilowatts per hour or whatever at a certain price. - Yes, why? - He said, why? He said, why? And I call this pushing on paper walls. It's actually a Slack channel in my company. It's called Paper Walls. And it's a way of thinking about the world. If you look at someone like Amanci Ortega, who was the founder of Zara, he was a railroad worker's son who had never been in fashion before in his life. And someone sat him down and explained the fashion industry to him. They said, listen, Amanci, the way the fashion industry works is like this. You get your stuff made in China. So you need 10 months lead time to tell China what you want. And you have to be a savant. You have to predict in January what people are gonna wanna wear in September. And then what you do is you make it in China at these margins, you order lots of stuff. Most of it doesn't sell. You discount it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how it works. And he went, why? None of this makes sense to me. Why? He pushed on a paper wall. And he found out that it was made of paper. And so what he did was the opposite. He said, you know what? We're gonna make our factories in Europe. What we're gonna do is we're gonna train our shop floor staff to look at what people are wearing on the streets and they're gonna write it down and they're gonna report it to the designers that are in Europe. We're gonna make it and have it on shelf within 14 days. And crazy things happen when you do that. It means that you don't need as much stock because you're creating things that are relevant now. You sell through faster. He's now worth, I think it's 160 billion. But this goes through history. When I look to all of these people, you've got David Sadow, who was the inventor of the suitcase. It's one of the stories I love because I think it's David Sadow. He was walking through an airport at a time when 99.99999% of suitcases didn't have wheels on them. And he saw this big trolley being pushed through the airport with wheels on it. At the time, he's got his suitcase on his back like everybody else. In fact, at the time, you go to a hotel, a train station, there are entire industries where the central job is to hold your suitcase for you. People breaking their backs to hold your suitcase for you. Entire industries. And by the way, there's always an industry protecting the paper wall. So he said, why don't I just take the wheels off that trolley over there and put them on my suitcase? People said, listen, men will never buy them. Men will feel so emasculated by the proposition of dragging their suitcase. They will never sell. He tried, he tried, he tried. Everybody said no. Eventually he goes to one department store. They say, yes, but we'll market it to women. So they put it on sale to women. And the queue around the block is men. And now 99.9% of the world's suitcases have wheels on them. All it took was one person to say why. And what you find through life is that these things that we've accepted as real walls are actually preference and tradition. And over time, we start to protect preference and tradition. Like I was saying about the difference between "Dragonstone" and "Shark Tank." It's been going for so long that we all have preference and tradition. And we're like, we don't even know why the rules are there. No one's ever pushed on them. - This is awesome. You have time for one last game. - Of course. - This is called Build or Break. - Okay. - And this one is really fast fire. - Okay. - You need to say build or break. Do you like it or you don't like it? Biohacking. - I'm going to say build, but I don't like the extreme version of it. But do I like understanding my biology and improving it? I do. So, you know, I'm an investor in a company called WHOOP. I'm an ambassador of theirs. And I think it's helped my life. Yeah. - Build or break the creator economy. - Build. I'll have to say that, I guess, but no, I think it's the future of the attention economy. And therefore it's the future of a lot of things. - Build or break distribution deals? - Well, I'd say break, but because I don't like the model of them. - Can you elaborate? - Well, these deals that you get are someone offering you a lot of money today to fill your podcast with four or five times the amount of ads. And they're not real. They're not really going to help you grow or deliver more value for your audience. - Build or break three glasses of wine? - I'm going to have to say break. That'll knock me out for a week. - You were not drinking and then you- - I used to drink and I thought that I needed to socialize. And some of my best memories do come from drinking, I have to say, with my friends. But I thought that I needed it to like socialize. And I tried not drinking. I tried to experience what it would be like to go for dates with my partner and not drink. And then I felt better. And I was still social enough for her not to leave me. So I've not really drunk for a couple of years now. So, but we'll see, maybe it'll change. - Build or break, exiting a company you founded? - It depends on the circumstances. I'm going to lean for break. - Me too, it's been hard. Like I sold kind and obviously created a lot of opportunities. I had a lot of opportunities for me to do whatever I want, but it's tricky, it's a very tricky journey. - Yeah, and the reason I said break is because my founder friends that do it, I watched them go through a really, really, really similar journey. And they almost always try and buy it back. - Yeah, I hope one day I can. - Would you want to? - Under the right circumstances, absolutely. - Can I ask you a question? When that day you bought it back, you'd be sat in the office going, "Wait, I've done this before." - For me, kind was much more than just a company. And if my partners take it to where it needs to go, I'll be delighted. If they don't, then I'd like to try to take it where it should go. - I've seen this so many times. I think I've seen this 10 times in my friends. And the thing that happens, this is a very interesting cycle, is they sell their company. They then, they get this a lot of money and then they watch the company and they think, "Oh, I would have done that differently." It's going in the wrong direction. Then eventually they go, "I'm going to buy it back." The ones that then buy it back, buy it back, they feel good. And then like within a couple of months, they almost get buyer's regret. And I think it's because the thing that made them love it and grow it and successful at it is now, it's gone. Because for me, like the thing that made me stay up and sweat and obsessed and blah, blah, blah with my first business, well, I've done it now. - Yeah, and it's almost time to move on. You're engaged. - Build or break, being a millionaire in your 20s. - I guess I'd say build because it's actually, for me, the reason I said that isn't because of the money, it's because the mindset will mean you aim at bigger problems. - I like that answer. How do you make sure that you stay grounded? Because you're very young, you're 33. Like I, in my 20s, I was not achieving financial success or a lot, like how are you going to make sure that all of this quick, crazy success, doesn't. - Well, I think, I think a lot of that comes from like where you come from and I guess your sense of self. And I think the other thing is money or anything like this will just bring out actually who you are. - And also surrounding yourself with people that love you for the right reasons. And that will tell you what you need to hear. - Even that I think is a function of who you are. Because I think if you become rich or famous, whatever, you can very easily go make some new friends. You can go to Vegas and you can make some new friends. You can meet some, you know, you can dump your partner, you can ditch your friends, whatever. So even that is downstream from like, who are you? - Yeah. it all out you know so you just better hope that you were a good human being before i like that answer build or break getting unexpelled from school build tell the story well yeah so when i was um when i was 16 i was in sixth form at my school and mr thompson brought me a expulsion letter said i was expelled because my attendance in class was extremely low i remember in one lesson he told me that my attendance was 30 and again this goes to my adhd i could only do things i was interested in so business and psychology were the two lessons i would like funnily enough i was saying to someone the other day i actually got banned i would say from my business class this particular project because i was doing too much so it just goes to show in one lesson they're expelling me because i'm not coming and i'm never doing any homework i actually went back to school mrs birchnell told me she goes you never did any homework you still owe me homework now but you're you're a nice person um never did any homework and on this one i got banned for the opposite reason which was i was doing too much and it goes to show that i was doing too much and i was doing too much what i'm like um but i got that form from mr thomas i took it to mr sprenkel mr sprenkel ripped it up and said you're my little harry potter uh um it was an expulsion form um you're unexpelled because you make the school a lot of money and i've been back to the school to speak and i remember when i went back to speak to the school he was like just don't tell the harry potter story and i told the harry potter story and then then we did there's this tv show in the uk called would i lie to you and the whole premises of it is in there's six of us on this panel a stranger and we all have to pretend we know them so my story was oh this is mr sprenkel he's the guy that unexpelled me from school and then all the others had to come up with a story and the other team have to guess who's telling the truth they couldn't believe it they they didn't believe it so we won the points that was mr sprenkel they didn't believe it because of his name as well mr sprenkel they call it crazy it's on youtube um but yeah so he unexpelled me because i made the school a lot of money and i made the school a lot of money through lots of little business stuff that i was doing i'd done the vending machine deal when i was 16 which made me a the school some money i was doing the school trips by then in sixth form and i was giving the school some of the money don't you think this adhd thing is a problem it's like so many entrepreneurs that have achieved a lot have adhd and this term adhd makes it sound like it's a disease but the truth is it's a superpower also and in school they drug you to take that out of you and i just think that's in some cases it might be useful to give you some scaffolding but giving people medicines to try to remove that creativity to remove that quirkiness remove that craziness sometimes that craziness is what helps you change the world yeah i think i've just heard so many stories of people taking medication for their adhd and it really exists on a spectrum yeah sometimes you absolutely are helping somebody with their self-confidence and to be able to get through the day but i think it's over prescribed i think the question that they ask is like when they think about giving you the medicine you're not giving them the medicine you're not giving medication is like would you the goals that you have in your life are they being hurt because you don't have the medication you need and i've got one example in my mind of someone who was literally failing everything in their school they got the medication straight a student and then you've got someone like me where i don't i feel like i'm able to achieve the goals in my life without having to take anything so that's why i kind of think of it on a spectrum and do you know what we need we need diversity of brains because you and me probably both know that if everyone in our company was like you'd fail you'd fail i need a cfo build or break sitting in the guest seat break really yeah this is so amazing you're in that's right i just don't do podcasts you probably noticed like i don't well thank you for doing any podcast this year so fun yeah build or break a shark tank spin-off focused on creators i'm not focused on creators but maybe a shark tank spin-off with creators joe wants 10 of that if we if we end up doing really i say i say that because i think like i can't imagine it being that interesting to just look at creators i like that are um like making content but i think you could maybe do something with like creator entrepreneurs i think the most interesting thing would actually be for the panel to be people like mr beast and alex hamosi and these cody sanchez and modern people with a big big big youtube algorithm i think you'd get lots of views and the format also would need to change for youtube steven i learned so much so thank you so much thank you so much for coming thank you for having me it's an honor it was a pleasure to meet you and you guys on shark tank i'm going to say this before i shake your hand you were also welcoming to me in a way that you didn't have to be so it made me both really comfortable but um you know like i said i've never done i don't think i've done a single podcast this year so it was the warmth and stuff that you showed me yesterday that made me want to do it so thank you thank you appreciate it thank you thank you thank you team we want you to become so subscribe to builder break now and leave us a comment or a review we're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch too thank you

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Stephen Bartlett prioritizes depth and authenticity in his podcasting, believing long, uninterrupted conversations foster genuine connection and emotional intimacy.
  2. He uses first principles to guide decisions, focusing on core values like transparency, vulnerability, and meaningful progress rather than short-term metrics.
  3. The success of his podcast, *Diary of a CEO*, stems from delivering high-demand, low-supply content—deep personal stories from a powerful person, shared with raw honesty.
  4. He emphasizes listening as a core skill, noting that true understanding comes from patience, silence, and allowing others to speak freely without interruption.
  5. His business strategy is principle-based, investing ahead of revenue and prioritizing value creation over financial gain.
  6. A key insight is that human connection and vulnerability—like emotional conflict resolution—are more valuable than polished performance or surface-level success.
  7. He observes that innovation emerges when people challenge assumptions, embrace discomfort, and remain open to changing their minds.
  8. The future of content lies in irreplaceably human experiences—community, intimacy, and lived emotion—especially as AI automation advances.

Summary:

Stephen Bartlett’s podcasting philosophy centers on depth, authenticity, and emotional connection. He believes that in a world dominated by shallow, algorithmic content, long-form, intimate conversations offer real value. His *Diary of a CEO* thrives on vulnerability, where he shares personal struggles—from mental health to intimate relationships—proving that audiences crave raw, human honesty.

A core principle guiding his work is first principles: decisions are driven by fundamental values like truth, progress, and trust, not financial metrics. He emphasizes listening as a powerful skill, where silence and patience allow guests to reveal their true beliefs, often leading to breakthrough insights. Bartlett’s approach to leadership and relationships is grounded in vulnerability, with conflict resolution and emotional growth being essential.

He sees innovation not in technology alone, but in human connection—highlighting that the most valuable content is rooted in lived experience, not artificial intelligence. His journey from a young boy scrubbing paint with a knife to a global podcast host reflects a lifelong commitment to deep thinking, personal growth, and challenging assumptions. Ultimately, Bartlett’s success lies not in external validation, but in staying true to his principles, embracing discomfort, and continuously evolving—proving that resilience and adaptability are essential for long-term impact.

FAQs

Depth and intimacy are achieved by focusing on the listener's emotional connection, using long-form conversations to build trust and allow for genuine vulnerability. The medium—like a two-hour podcast—acts as a tool to deliver a meaningful, immersive message rather than shallow content.

He starts with a strong hook that addresses the audience's immediate need or curiosity, such as a provocative truth about human biology or behavior. This establishes relevance and keeps listeners engaged throughout the full duration of the episode.

First principles means breaking down problems to their most fundamental truths and building solutions from there. This mindset allows him to avoid competition on conventional terms and instead focus on creating unique, valuable content that stands apart.

Money is a lagging indicator—it reflects outcomes, not value. He measures success by genuine feedback from a few trusted listeners who feel they gained value, emphasizing authenticity over financial performance.

He creates a safe, non-judgmental space by listening deeply, allowing silence to breathe, and asking honest, open-ended questions. This enables guests to share vulnerabilities—like personal failures or intimate experiences—without fear of judgment.

Vulnerability is central to authenticity. He openly shares personal struggles, such as his struggles with intimacy and mental health, which builds emotional connection and shows that the podcast is genuine and human-centered.

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