WH147: Life Lessons: Win More Than You Lose – That's The Game

We are back the whiskey hue bringing you the latest in tech business and startups mixed with whiskey and a ton of sarcasm Q the music Okay, welcome back everybody. This one is a unique different episode I'm going to title this one whiskey hue the life lessons podcast win more than you lose That's the game And I'm doing this because you know a lot of people know that I am an adjunct professor during the spring semester every year Gabelli have teach MBAs and This year for the first time I've taught undergraduate students venture venture capital my day job I'm essentially going there in the evenings and discuss what I did all day Or how I look at deals and approach them now at the tail end of everything I do something at the end of the semester I do something that I wish some professors had done when I was younger the same age as some of these students These students are all sharp They're crushing it in the class and I know they're going to crush it in life and I'm here as a resource But I just wish my whole goal is I want them to get their faster And if I could do that by telling them hey things that I Learned along the way that helped me win and more importantly or just as important things that I lost on right and I could have gotten You know to the promised land a little faster if I had just taken a different path or just thought about things a little differently I want to share those kind of moments all these things with my students and our whiskey hue podcast listeners Anytime I speak anywhere If it's giving a lecture on venture capital investing or just leadership in general of finance whatever it is or my classes at a lecture at a fireside chat Whatever it is I always want people to walk away a learn something useful It's be something that's great that you can implement in your life soon And maybe a few months on the road and see have a good time and laugh Enjoy it because I grew up with not enough laughs around my in my environment when I was younger and I craved it So now I'm in a lot of meetings all the time and I always in my in the podcast or in I'm not saying I'm a comedian But I like to have it light I like to have information I like to provide information the way I wish I had learned it And the way I learned it now when I'm listening to podcasts learn a lot laugh a lot right and if it's at my expense or joking around with somebody that's on the pile of me That's cool whatever as long as we're all having a good time and learning a lot and that you can go out and be more successful In a little bit or a lot of ways right so this isn't a typical episode This is going to be a conversation I wish someone had with me when I was younger let's call it And as you know and I've mentioned I discussed things around technology, media and sports That's the where I invest generally and that's what I kind of weave into every conversation I have But beyond everything I teach everything I've built everything I've lived I see simple truths in I want the listeners to just win at life And quite frankly I want you to win faster smarter and with fewer bruises than I had to take along the way So these are life lessons hard earned sometimes painful but always real They're the shortcuts that I wish someone handed to me sooner or I had learned sooner And choose that help me go from figuring it out to literally living life fully And I'm not here to preach I don't know everything I'm here to pass the torch and you know give you some light on your own path So if you're willing just oblige me for the next few minutes Because even if one of these lessons hits you at the right time at the right moment in your life It could save you months, years and even changes your direction of your life And that's what I'm hoping to do let's just help you win So let's get into it Again, broader than my courses, my podcast, various speaking engagements I want people to win And I keep thinking of myself at all these various ages, you know, 15, 20, 25, 30, 30, 30, 40, we could keep going, right? I do wish I had a clearer vision on how to reach the goals that I wanted to reach and that I eventually reached And what to focus on earlier and more importantly what not to waste time on So first thing is mentors have always been great for me My only wish there is I had found some of these mentors sooner in life So go find your personal board of directors, you should have someone older, different genders just, you know, who are crushing it in life If you're male, get a good mix of female male, if you're female, same thing, get a good mix of male, female Board of directors, your personal board of directors, hopefully not where you work You're going to already have champions there, hopefully, but get some of these folks that are great at marketing, negotiating, finance, deal making, sales, technology Regardless of whatever industry you practice in, whatever industry you are in, get these people in your life Because also you're an awesome technologist, an awesome developer You will need someone from these other disciplines, but AB, you'll also need someone who's a senior to you in the tech space And who can maybe help guide you along your way I have someone like this in each of these verticals and even more verticals that I can just lean on and call them when I need something And I hope that I am that for some of these other people I know I'm that for some people, and I hope I'm that for more people, you know, and moving forward But I have these personal board of directors who just helped me, there's one time I was facing a $500 million deal above that And it was the first time, several years ago, and I tapped this guy's shoulder and it's because he's used to this Another time I was launching a course, a venture capital course, and I had this phenomenal friend, she's done this before She's launched several courses, I said, what should I aim to do? How do I know it's a success? And then what are the steps to get me there? And then she walked me through all of that, and she's great at sales, I'm not so great at sales, and she's great at leadership and all this So I always tapped her shoulder, I actually serve on her board as well for some companies bringing my unique vantage points So just to blind me while I share some of these thoughts, I won't be preachy, trust me I learned just as much from every one of our listeners as you all do for me because a lot of you reach out I appreciate those emails, those texts, those folks who know me when I see you on the street, I love it I've had several times where I've been places in New York or Jersey even and people just say to me, hey, aren't you that guy from that pod? Yeah, depends on which pod, if it's a whiskey, who yes? If it's something else, yes, maybe not, but like, yeah, and then we have a good conversation, it just opens up a nice conversation among us So it would be irresponsible of me not to share this, and I know I have a certain type of listener, so let's say if it's a students, while we know that they're probably in their 20s, maybe, you know, up to late 20s When I'm speaking somewhere, those folks can range from 25 to 60, I don't know, on our pod, I know we heavily skew younger, and there's a lot of people above my age too Some people deep into their 50s, 60s, I know there's some, but if I look at our metrics, we're usually in that 25 to 40 sweet spot, 45 even for quite a few And the beautiful thing is it's a nice mix of female and male, which I love, which means that we're doing something right here And I want to continue doing that, and I think this is a big, big lesson as well that we can share And it would be irresponsible of me, as someone just kind of a leader in my own field, and even as a professor when I'm playing that role, to not share these lessons When I've won, and just as importantly as when I lost, I think that's more important than anything else I can teach you so you can get along on your way So everyone who listens to this pod, you all mean something to me, and I don't take the role lightly, so I want to share these things properly And I'm always here to break down complex topics in an accessible manner, that's what I'm always trying to do, share high quality, take a ways But frame them in a way that, you know, there's some humor in their sprinkled, that helps you, helps me have a good time as we learn, I hope And we always do that with our guests when they come out, we don't get on here and be stodgy, and we try to have a good time and make the journey enjoyable And you know, one thing for you, don't make learning a burden, make it fun, inspiring, that should just be something that you should always seek out if that's easier for you to learn that way Your goal should always be, and our goal should always be here, let's equip each other with the knowledge that will help us make high impact decisions That shape the world for the better, and that's as simplest terms that we could say, right? And none of the things that I say today are going to change your life, I'm not going to be that egotistical and say that, and say you'll be, you all will be successful without me, without this pod Alright, don't turn the pod off, I still think there's something useful here, you don't need me to become as successful as you're going to be But I'm just hoping, and I'm praying that, you know, this podcast, my courses, or speaking engagements, inspire you in some way to be as great as you already were going to be, but hopefully with me in it, you get there a little faster, more efficiently That's all, you're all rock stars, you know, like that rock star, you know, like that commercial with Billy Idol, Gwen Stefani, Kiss, that lead singer Paul Stanley, right? I share something with everyone that's listening to this pod, so, you know, I should preface this with anyone that's ever heard me speak, I tend to go off in tangents, and I'll try to curtail that as much as possible, since I'm doing this solo, that's kind of weird If I do that a lot, but look, everyone has a story, those of you born and raised here in America, that's my story, right? If you move from Asia, Europe, Africa, the past several years to many years ago, that's the story of many in my family, you know, those initial challenges and struggles are your unique story, and as I've seen firsthand that with hard work and perseverance in this country, and most other countries, you know, I'm going to speak to USA, because I've only lived here But this country provides tremendous resources for upward mobility, so if you want to win here, you just got to work your tail off and you'll get it, right? And this country has flaws, we know that every country has some sort of flaw, but there's so many things right with America as well, and if you only focus on the flaws, that's all you're ever going to see. So focus on what you can make right within the system, and you know, change what you think should be changed, if it's impactful in a good way and positive way for most people, and but you know, this country is built for you to win right now, so go up and do it. My dad came here with a hundred bucks in his pocket and a suitcase, several several several decades ago, and that hundred bucks, that hundred dollars was not from his family because they didn't have a hundred dollars to give him. It was literally from 10 to 15 families in his village, chipping in to give him that, and then he had to repay that once he began to earn money, and he came here and crushed it, you know, we had a nice middle class upbringing. We weren't billionaires with a B, but we had a nice middle class upbringing, and it set us a great foundation to be here in this country to just go on and crush it. My family and a lot of people that have come since, and my dad has been used, he would decades decades ago, so he worked within the system of gathering information, getting educated, rising through the ranks, and we had a nice life because of that, and he enforced that on all of us, right, my brother and I, and I see my cousins and a lot of friends and similar situations, work hard, focus on what's what's important, long term, have fun, but focus on what's important, and you'll get there. And show up and show out, man, that's one of the first points I want to bring up. If you just keep showing up places, and you engage, and you're prepared, and you are unapologetically you, you're already ahead of most people in the room. And then when you're comfortable, kick it up a notch, be the one who brings the energy to the room, bring the right ideas, bring the bold ideas to help shape the conversation, and push it further into stratosphere. Number two, I would say, is invest in your future, always, and relentlessly. What do I mean with that? I don't mean just money, but I do like money. Okay, let's talk there. Invest in public markets, ETFs, whatever you're comfortable with. Trust me, be consistent with it, and your wealth will compound to the point. You can make your own choices dictated by you, and not others, as you become, and get, as you age, and get older in life. Right? So do it early, start early. I want my kids to start when they're in high school. You know, they're not there yet, but like, you know, I wish I had started. Then I started, you know, your mutual funds, and all that stuff when I was a 22, first job. But I really, really got into it mid to late 20s, and it's really changed my life within five years, 10 years, 15 years. You just see it compound. It works, man. It really does. And have your money work for you versus the other way around. You show up for a job, you earn a salary, or an hourly wage, whatever it is, invest that. So while you're sleeping, that money can be earning something for you. Your money should work for you as much as you work for it. The rule of 72, look up, that's an example. You can look up how things compound, depending on the interest rate, and all that. Right? How long it takes your money to double? Those are simple things to just go out there and look. ETFs, public markets, and if you get, you know, as you get deeper into the space, and more knowledgeable, and more, more skillful at it, and have a little bit more risk appetite, get into private markets. There's a lot of opportunity there. Right? If you, you know, if you're feeling kind of frisky and more aggressive, get into those various asset classes. We've discussed the past few months on this pod, you know, that you can look into crypto if you want. I mean, that's something you, you see what you, how your comfort level, your risk, risk on risk, averse, whatever it is, feel it, feel it up. The third point I like to make is fail forward, fail fast. You're going to fail, accept it. Own it, just bounce back quicker. I've failed a lot. You know, the winners aren't the ones who never lose. They're the ones who just bounce back quicker. Man, I've collected L's in every stage of my career. You know, you can stack my L's up against LeBron's six L's in the finals. Three, four times he's gotten swept in. I make him look like Michael Jordan, right? He looks flawless. If you compare his L to my longer L list, right? Seriously, all right. That might be the last LeBron joke for today. First and last, who we kid? I'll probably make more. Look, I only punch up, right? I only punch at the, like the billionaires who are crushing it. Life in LeBron is absolutely crushing it. So I'm not going to punch in my peers though. That just mean my whole life. I just wanted to sing and perform. I'm just going to put this out there when I was young. I was eight years old, 10 years, 15, 20 in college. I said, "I'm going to learn this degree from my parents." And I went to work in it. I saved up enough money, moved to New York. That was my whole dream from Robert to Chicago to the New York. That was my entire dream, my whole life. And I'm just going to put it out there. You know, I was probably an immature young guy in my 20s. Let's call it high school 20s. I wanted to make money from singing. I wanted to meet ladies. I'll be honest. It's stupid immature way to live, right? I should just focus on being successful. And then what else I could do with it, right? I got there right at the pinnacle very, very close. And I kept hitting road blocks time after time. And it all was essentially the same exact message in various shapes and forms. Hey, a fool. You sound blackish. You look Latinish. We have no idea what the hell Indian is. And they said it in much harsher terms. Let's just put it that way. Meaning they didn't know how to market me. America at the time wasn't built for people that meaning in media and industry entertainment. They weren't they didn't know how to look at it. And even for me, me looking at the screen at that time, I didn't see people that look like me. And I'm not crying about that. I'm just saying it was a fact, right? They weren't used to my type of brown. The type of brown they were used to was Latin, right? And people from Caribbean and that kind of stuff, various shades of it. And then all the way to black, right? They didn't see people that look like me. I was kind of in the middle between black and brown and white that they were used to. And they just didn't know how to market it. And then my sensibility. So a couple of years later, Jason, a dude from Punjab, exactly from where I'm from, my ancestral ties in India, had a really large following London. Because guess what? They were ingrained into the societal fabrics. They were used to people that look like him, because we look similar, right? I'm a foot taller. I shouldn't say that. Nice dude. I met him a couple times. Great guy. But he's just crushed it. And what was great about him. I was so happy. I remember I was in Times Square. And I was in this Champions Times Square. It was like 42nd, I think. And not Broadway. What was it on the other side? Maybe it was probably, no, seventh street. I think it was Champions Sports Store, right? This is how long it was. And I heard his song down, down, you know, are you down, come on the radio with, you know, with Lil Wayne and you, you know, Birdman, he's on Cash Money Records. He got a record deal with them. And, and then I was like, I was so happy. I was so happy. I remember telling my friend I was really like, damn, this dude crushed it. He did it. I was happy. And this is even a couple of years after I heard that, hey, dude, you can't do it here. We can't figure out how to market you. So my whole thing was, I was a techie. And, you know, and I went, came here to be in the music industry. And I wanted to learn marketing. That's what I said, okay, let me learn this. And let me see what I can do. Okay. Here's L. No, that's so L number one. You've already heard about. I had several hours before that. But L number two was, okay, let me go back and learn my, go into marketing. I learned marketing. I took one finance class at MBA. And I fell in love with it. I absolutely loved it. My whole plan was, I'm going to get the MBA, learn marketing, bring it back to the music industry. And then absolutely be that superstar with, with the tech and marketing and the skill set to kind of compete in this space and how to mark on myself. Well, boom, I fell in love with finance. So life changed, right? Okay, I graduated 2009. And I get a job at a hedge fund. And it was just perfect. I said, okay, well, actually, when I've good to this career pivot, I'm going to work in the finance arena and go then back to the music industry. I'm going to be the one dude who has an MBA with heavy hedge fund experience. And then boom, I'm going to crush it two years in. I was in, boom, great recession. We just couldn't last it outlast it 2000 late 10 to the late 2010. We just went belly up and L number two major L in my career, right? If you, again, if you stack my else, these are life changing else essentially. And I said, oh, shit, what am I going to do? I'm on the mark. I'm on the beach, you know, essentially not beach. I was on some dirty a street in New York probably, right? But I'm sitting here without a job because the hedge fund just went belly up and it was 2010, 2011, something like that. I don't like that camera. But so a year and a half or so after the big portion of the, you know, great financial recession. And I'm sitting here trying to, okay, what do I do? I wanted to take all this stuff back to the music. And my time I could tear it up, right? Like I could really tear it up and sing it at the time. So like, get me out across the night time. The walls won't hold me tonight. That's what I used to do right back the day. But I was polished in because I used to sing all the time. Now I just do it and frequently between beating some of my children in my life. I'm kidding. They're always beating me up. So I'm sitting here at number two. Can't get back into the finance arena, which I really love. I wanted to get that experience, take it back to this music and be a guy who could dictate his own terms. But a lot of people were laid off and a lot of them had, I had two years experience, they had five, 10, 15 years experience. Who would you hire when you're about to launch your book again? Boom, I bring on the people more experience. So I couldn't find anything in the finance space. So what I did is I got together with a couple partners. We looked at one deal. Essentially, it was like a syndicate deal. Even an SPV, especially part we raised capital for this one deal on media deal. Well, like I do guys, this works. Why don't we just formulate this? We put structure on it, launch a venture fund. Boom, put our own capital in the first year X X and then the third partner put in like five, six X compared to what we did because he had more capital. He's coming from the hedge fund industry. And it crushed it to the point where we actually brought it and we've been deep in the space ever since. So fund number two, we were going to launch, so we crushed it, right? We did really well with that one. And fund number two was going to be launching March, essentially June 2020, right? So we started talking about it in June and like, I guess you could say fall of 2019. All of a sudden, everything's in place. All the capitals committed. We just have to start calling the capital. Boom. Two institutional folks said we can't do this because COVID hit. We don't know what the climate's going to be moving forward. Okay, number three, big one. Right. That's the kind of stuff I just kept facing over and over again. But we pivoted the cool thing is we saw an opportunity to just put together a bunch of syndicate deals SPV ask type things and I said, we can win this man. There are a lot of deals that we're getting exposure to because everyone is just looking capitals everywhere. We had our own capital minus the two big investor and institutional folks and then we just, you know, we went with that. And then I was involved with a bunch of other folks who I knew just had some money, you know, the investment investor friends, doctors, tech engineers, whatever they were, we said, hey, you want to give some deals together. I'm in five of those groups. I still in those five is 2025. I'm still in those groups now and we look at investments all the time. We make investments A, B, I'm about to launch a sixth syndicate SPV with another group. It's all about focusing on strictly with athletes so it athletes from the NFL NBA are going to be investors in it and all that. So look, these are three major else. I had a game plan in place. It got shellacked. That's the word we used back in my time. And just we, I had to pivot and figure out the next way to get to where I wanted to get. And, you know, that's what we, you know, that's just the T up and that was a long as T up. I apologize, but you know, I just want to give you what I did. I'm going to be very transparent honest. I took L after L after L, but guess what? I will kept winning because I kept getting up. Right. So prioritize your everything and just, you know, one thing I have learned is from a lot of these more successful people, like incredibly, like billionaires with a B. Right. Prioritize. Don't chase every shiny thing. Go deep and not wide. When you, when you listen to a lot of billionaires, when you heard the speak, the ones that I folks that I know, and then folks I don't know, I just listen to one of podcasts or something. They'll say these things. They, if you put me on jeopardy right now, like these billionaires say this, I would fail miserably because I don't know everything about everything, but I do know everything about this one thing. So they go deep, not wide. It's mastery in a specific area over multitasking and they actually crush it there and they earned the wall they want. All right. Now I'm going to get out and get very granular on some kind of tasks that I think you should take into because there's a lot of things that I faced in my life when it was I was going to be performing somewhere, making your presentation. I would get anxiety, right. I wouldn't get anxiety at tax per se. I wouldn't like, oh, I can't sleep. Sometimes I sometimes I probably had that, but like your first major job, first major promotion, you have a major presentation, marriage proposal, whatever it is, you're going to have that you owe it to your future you to go out there and crush it right now because you're good enough right now. So just whenever you feel like some sort of anxiety, pull yourself aside when you're timid to take on a conversation, a new role, if you get anxious, second, and you second guess yourself, that is 100% 1000% normal. But when you're spiraling, ask yourself, will the future me regret not doing this right now? So that I found in my life, I started implementing this about 15, 20 years ago, and it strips the pressure. It shifts your perspective. Because one quote I heard, fear does not stop death. Fear stops life. So go out and live it. So do this one exercise. And I'm going to share this. I'm going to be very transparent. This works for me all the time. Even when I'm sometimes like to like, I'm going to go speak somewhere with a major bank or somewhere, and I'm going to be or a major music or sports executive. If I get any kind of anxiety or anxious, this immediately releases all that tension, I can go out there and actually have a great time. So do this exercise. Imagine yourself, let's say you're facing something today, imagine yourself 10 years from today in the future, and have that person, which is a version of you, look back at this current situation and evaluate. Let's say this to yourself in the future, 10 years ago, do I wish I had done this one thing? And man, I found that that strips away the immediate pressure, anxiety, and helps me realize that you need to do what I need to do now to build that future me. And you should do that same thing. What do you need to do now to build that future you? So then you go out there and just crush it. So if this is beneficial to my future self, get out of that current state of mind and do it for her or him. That's what I'm looking at. That's what I'm looking at, how I approach these things. And I find that this immediately reduces the pressures I put on myself in the moment, and you can and will be fearful in life. It is 100% natural. But just be able to find ways to regain that control of your emotions officially and find your way back to neutral. Again, I'm going to leave you that quote that somebody else said, fear doesn't stop death, it stops life. If you're too fearful to take that next step, you may not live your best life. So just get out there and do it. Point number five, I like to make, always show up as your best self. You won't always get optimal conditions. I'll be honest with you, don't wait for permission, don't wait for perfection. I find myself wasting time doing all of those things above. And guess what? You should always fly your freak flag. Your freak flag. Everyone's got one. Fly it. Fly it high, baby. If you're feeling a bit insecure or timid about doing something in your life or participating in life, just do it. The best way to get better at something is always by just doing it. You know, so sometimes you can't have that optimal setting to be your optimal self. I'll bring you a personal example. I execute best at night. I'd love to stay up late into the night working when I was in tech, when I was in the music industry and finance, looking at deals. I would love to stay up all night in the dark, looking at the deal, gone the most creative, on the most efficient at that time. But guess what? My wife took a, and I took a chance, I'm sorry, a chance, a stance. A couple of years back saying that we need to, our kids are going to be teenagers and then high school and then in college. And they're not going to talk to us as much until they get older and realize that we're actually okay to talk to again. Same thing we do with our parents. And let's optimize our time for them right now. So we pulled back on a lot of things that we were involved with and we made it all about them. So even though it was optimal for me to stay up at night, we, we pulled in anyway, we have a coming less or whatever and we want to be more involved. Get up and make that breakfast with them, hang out with them in the morning talk. I know I try to squeeze in a little CNBC, but they want a lot, we'll watch more ESPN. I get it, you know, sports stuff, centric stuff. So that's fine. So we, I get up on their schedules now, but then get them ready, get them fed, get out the door on time. So I don't sleep as much as I should right now because I'm trying to match their schedule while maintaining as much of mine as possible. Again, not optimal for me, but it is their time right now. So my wife and I made that choice a few years back, you know, it's a few more years until they're going to be grumpy teenagers and don't want anything to do with us. Let's maximize our time with them right now, right? So we used to outsource all this help. We pull back. We've limited our extra help with an A, and then we'll have her come back and her, him, whoever it's going to be, when we have them, you know, full, more, when the kids are a little older. And, you know, because child raising is a full contact sport, man, in our house and any house. And our monkeys don't know the sacrifices we make and they're not supposed to know that our parents, we didn't know what our parents did for us until we got to that point where we were parents as well. So it's our kids time or we're going to make sure we prioritize them going to both. They're both awesome basketball studs and they have panel recitals tutoring leadership opportunities clubs. We want to make sure we prioritize them. All this means to say is fly your freak flag, do your thing. And in your 20s, when you're not married or don't have kids or whatever order of that age is, maybe it's 30 or some people go out and crush it at work now. Because later on you're going to have more complex layers added into life and you may not have as much time to dedicate to these things. All right. And there's a lot of things we can go there. I'll probably touch on this again later. Six point I would love to make is let people doubt you. People will always be out there questioning your moves. Let them. It's fuel. Talent matters. Yes. But consistency and preparation wins most races. I've seen that. I want to share that with you younger folks. I've had people way more talented than me, not get as far as me. And I've had people way less talented than me get way further. And the major difference was. It came down to them being prepared or me being prepared and showing up every time. You're one person and can't be everywhere. But wherever you are at that moment, be there 110%. So an important lesson that someone always told me is like you can't you can do anything you want in life. You can do anything, but you can't do everything. So focus and crush it. And number seven I will say is criticism. Some of it is constructive from qualified sources. The rest of it shut it out. So many people will have advice and criticisms of for you. And if it's constructive. Know your or destructive know your inner compass and what makes sense for you. If it's destructive and it helps you actually and people are trying to see you progress and help move the needle forward for you or them or the organization work with them. Work on it work on yourself work on it. Right. If it's destructive, you know, never ever take criticism from someone you would not take advice from. There are plenty of Debbie Downers or negative Nancy's in this world. Don't let them or their unqualified criticism live rent free in your head. Okay, let me let me go on as for much of my life. I was around a long line of haters for a big significant portion of my life. I mean, they hate on everyone. These people, you know, there's talk of smack. I do that a lot. I do it all day. Right. But then there are people who just have dirty, dirty hearts, dirty minds, whatever it is, dirty souls that, you know, they put their insecurities out onto the world and out onto you. And you have to deal with their baggage. Right. Okay. I'm blessed as many of us are that 99% of the people around me are not like that. But this 1% is and it's unfortunate, but it's my fault. I should have dictated the terms of that relationship. So and for 20 plus years of my life, I gave that those negative Nancy's that 1% and the Debbie Downers, I gave them and people like them too much power in my life. And bro, it is not worth it. They do not deserve to occupy any space in your head, my head, my heart, your heart. All right. So just know, know your inner compass and choose. If you get planned to get married, choose a partner or whatever it is. I'm just going to this is for you. If it's, if it's not your thing, you skip right passes. But number nine, I'm going to say choose your partner with intention. Find someone who adds clarity to your chaos. I have a lot of chaos in my life. I like it that way. I'm in venture capital. I love that chaos. Right. It's volatile as hell, but I love it. I'm a big sports guy. That's chaotic. It's volatile. A life partner should amplify your peace, not your problems. Just remember that a life partner should amplify your peace, not your problems. Find the right spouse. Am I small? I'm fortunate. My wife and I, we challenge each other. We make each other's lives easier and better. Life is tough as hell for every one of us. But if you can normalize the peaks and values with the right person by your side, it's an absolute amazing journey. I have no idea where it's going to take us for the rest of our lives or youngish. We still have a long time ahead of us, hopefully. Who knows, but so far it's been amazing. And I see what other people struggle. And I'm like, I think I we don't have that. And we don't allow that to keep into our relationship. And I was around a lot of unnecessary drama in my life early that could have been mitigated by logic and reason. Simple. So I appreciated those that had it. My wife has it. And in most cases, I do too. You need a healthy balance of emotion and logic in your life. So just take that into your world and see who's who fits that description. Not too much in either direction at the expense of the other. What I mean by that. I know people who only think with emotion and essentially 90% of the words that come out of their mouth is absolute BS. It's garbage. Their actions really, really ever match what they're, you know, what they preach. And but they'll preach on and on because they love to hear themselves speak about doing the right thing. They just, you know, they sometimes don't do it. Most of the time they can't execute on all the words. They don't often do the wrong detrimental thing. You know, I'm giving you to Ron real here because often I've done this kind of similar speech, similar kind of just kind of sharing of thoughts in front of my classes at the last session, the 14th week. And but they said, you know, tell us the harsh stuff. I always focus on the good stuff and the students will always ask, tell us some of the harder things too. So I'm giving that to you all because I know that's that is equally important. How to mitigate some of those harsh realities as well. Getting back to it. So don't be 100% on logic either because when you show up everywhere, like with a mark Zuckerberg face, you know, meaning you're just raw, no action or reaction, just hanging out with size, medium shirts, becoming a billionaire. That's not good. Wait, hold up. Maybe that is good. If you're a billionaire. So maybe, you know, not that bad. Shit, I should have said that. But no, like you want to, don't want to be in a hever robotic existence either. Right. You can crush it by being just a good mix of logic. And emotion. I'm unfortunate that at various times before marriage, ladies from different races, backgrounds with them, you know, with the most amazing personalities that wanted to hang out with me for a short period of time. I could find a strong reason that most of those were not have worked long term as in marriage. Because life becomes more complex, more challenging as you get deeper into it. And your 20s is just you for the most part. Maybe that's just my story, but in most of my friends stories, but in our 20s, it was just us. Our parents and parents are healthy and all that. So you work your tail off then so you can have more flexibility as you get married dating with children at some point, friends and family may need support layers and complexity do creep in over time. I'll do more on the family stuff in a moment. Another portion of this friends should be stress relief, not a source of stress, stress relief, not stress source. Circles should lift you up, not drain you. It's okay to outgrow people. Grow through requires pruning, you know, clean out the weeds. You got to mold grass, whatever it is. So that grass can grow healthier and stronger, right? You got to just take care of it. Respect these people. But if they're in a different place in their life, let it be. And maybe you'll circle back to each other at some point. At a milestone birthday several years ago, I knew I needed to make healthier choices in my life food. Exercise is always big on my list. I always, I've been addicted to it in different forms. Sometimes it's hit training. Sometimes it was, you know, lifting. That was a long time ago. I was really into that. A lot of time. Also, I want to be out there just hitting a ball around, shooting hoops, playing something, exercising, whatever it is, hit training, whatever it is. Food became a major milestone that I wanted to work on. And I'm, you know, we, I do really well, Monday to Thursday, Friday to Saturday, Friday Sunday with the kids and everything. We kind of, you know, tear it up a little bit. Have a good time. But friends ship wise, I made that point at that time to be around uplifting individuals who want to see you succeed as much as you want to see them succeed as much as you want to succeed yourself. I let go or distance myself from certain relationships at that time by chatting with these folks, because chatting with some of these folks was a drain, you know, small town, small conversations. I'm just going to say it that way. I mean, distancing myself from kind of their toxic behavior. They assumed I was holding some sort of grudge for something that happened a long time ago. I'm like, no, bro, I forgave you for all that shit and everything since I'm distancing myself from you now because you suck now. I know that sounds harsh. No, but these people were like literally a drain and they couldn't get, they didn't see it in themselves that they could do this. They had this kind of just automatic switch that turned on. Let me put this other person down. Let me talk this shit about this person. There's no need for all that. Let me talk shit. But I punch up. I punch up at LeBron James. Guess what? LeBron James does not give two shits who a fool posture.com is. He shouldn't. He's a billionaire superstar. Amazing basketball all time. Great. Not the greatest, but all time great. All right. He's a top 10 for sure. Top five. I know some people are going to start crying and turn me off right now, because I said that he need to go though. People who are a drain on my energy, because when you talk, they're always bringing up a whole shit. Some people drain your energy, some people multiply. Know the difference. Guard your time and protect your energy. And don't become who you hate. At points in my life, I remember this 10, 15 years ago, I started mimicking some of the behavior on me. I'm not blaming anyone. That's my fault. I took it on. I'm not saying it, but I thought, oh, that's normal. It was normalized by them. So I normalized it in my life of taking full responsibility of it. I didn't like it. I felt shitty after getting out the phone with somebody for hanging out with somebody people like, hey, we're just, this isn't right. You're going to treat me this way. So I'm going to treat you this way back. Well, guess what? We both lost in that conversation. You're going to treat me this way, because that's all you know how to do. I'm not going to. I'm just going to dissim myself. And guess what? I win, because I'm seeing less of you and getting exposure to less of your toxic behavior and keeping the good stuff more in my life. Right? And I always thought about this. My kids, even students, let's call it. But my personal kids, students, leaders, collaborators, colleagues, my future self, we're all watching who I am right now. So do the right thing. And be a good friend for people. I had people show up for me many, many times when I was younger now. I wish I was a more mature enough earlier in life to acknowledge them for and appreciate them properly. A lot of people showed up for me. And I just didn't even think anything of it. I should have thanked them right there on the spot. I didn't appreciate too much later. And that's on me. So in certain environments, things came easy for me. But I wish I had been more appreciative to their efforts of always showing up for me. And I hope I did, for some people I did not, I'll be the first to admit and I didn't realize I wasn't until it was either brought up or be. I realize, wow, these people do come through for me. I need to be there for them. And it's the most meaningful thing you can be if you should be there for your friends. So I eventually learned to be there for these folks and do things quietly. People respect that. You don't need to do something nice when they tell the world about it. Just be there for them. And own your choices. I got to take full control of all the crappy stuff that I did before my life. One thing I've learned is if you're not changing it, you're choosing it. So if there's a behavior you don't like and you keep doing it, you're choosing to do it. So fix what you can help. Well, the relationships take control and take the consequences. You know, take control or take the consequences. That's it. Big city energy, big city dreams. Man, get uncomfortable. I would say this. This is my vision. I'm enamored by New York City. I always have been. So I wanted to move there from Rockford and Chicago. I was always a dreamer mind. And then we eventually moved to Jersey. But New York City adjacent, I get there a couple of times a week for work and get uncomfortable in life. Go where the conversations are bigger. Big cities teach you to scale. Ambition, perspective, hustling. Right. I've I've found in my life that people who live in bigger cities, the conversations are just bigger stronger. They're more expansive. They're more outward looking and seeing that there are more opportunities and multiple ways to a myriad of different paths and different results. Right. I'm around people from small cities and big cities and then the biggest baddest city of all in New York City. And this is my humble opinion. Right. Not everyone aligns with my thoughts, because but I always love New York City and just big city lifestyle. Just more pillion. It drives me. I'm a big. I flow on energy. And it gives me that energy, man. I love it. And Chicago's a big city. Houston's big city. You know, LA stand frame. You know, all these cities are big. There's a lot more, obviously, but just get out there and do it. If you're in a small town or young, you might be losing out on opportunity. That's all I'm saying. Live life to your fullest. Number 13 is what I want to say work hard, but party hard, dude. I'm saying it. You'll never be younger than you are right now. Today is a day that will literally never come again. So just make it great. Do things now that you won't be able to do later in life. Look, man, I played all kinds of sports when I was growing up. I tore my ligaments and my ankle had to have reconstructive surgery, herniated discs and my back from soccer basketball tennis, everything. Just doing things in properly. I should have been had better mechanics, but it was on me. Got to take responsibility for that. I wouldn't change a thing because I miss playing balls of the wall like that. I used to dive for the basketball on cement. I didn't give it damn. I just wanted to win. You know, I'd come home banged up, beat up bruised, but I can't afford now to tear an ACL or twist an ankle because then my family suffers. My kids need to be taken to practice. That's not the life doesn't shut down. Then it becomes more burdensome on someone else. I still exercise and play sports. I just played definitely the one I did 15, 20 years ago. Be the first to get out there. If you tear an ACL, whatever, get out there. You did it, right? Because you had the time to do that now when you're younger. As you get older, you got to pay more attention, you recover. It takes a little longer to recover. But today never comes again. So work hard. Make a promise to yourself to crush it and work for the next 5, 10 years. If you're especially from your 20s, crush it for the next 5, 10 years, you'll set up a really, really good life in your 30s, 40s and beyond. Because then you'll have other commitments. Success in your 20s is to be useful. Take the worst 20% of your boss's job and crush it. And by the time you're in your 30s, you'll have junior folks begging to take the worst 20% of your job and you kind of keep going, right? And then eventually you get into very senior positions and you're delegating and your executive roles, right? So you get to kind of crush it in a senior capacity. Earlier in my career, it may be, you know, it's going to be difficult to balance life. It'll probably be way off. But my take on that is do it anyway. Just go because you're going to, you're going to cherish the fruits of it and embrace the fruits of it later in life. You know, just 10, 15 years from now, whatever it is, you know, so just go at it. As you get older, life does get better. In my opinion, I can do a lot more now as far as, you know, financially or just vacations and all that than I could when I was in my 20s. But you'll have more things pulling at your schedule. So my wife and I busted our tails earlier in life and now we get to sit back a bit more and be a bit more selective. And honestly, one thing, party hard. There are certain types of things. I won't put myself in my wife and I don't go to certain types of events. I'm not going to go to Coachella without my wife, unless she's with me, you know, and, you know, party, party your ass lock, because these are great memories with your friends, your family, whoever you're party with. I want some of the listen to this and say, you start partying in New York City or Houston or Chicago, wherever you live, London, and three days later, wake up in Vegas or a pizza or like Sicily, and you have no idea how the hell you got there. That's partying. Guess what, you deserve it. Those memories will last a lifetime. Be safe. All right. Don't do some weird shit. But like, be safe. Those memories last a lifetime. I recently ran into I was in DC for a conference. There's a high school buddy might haven't seen him in 10, 15 years. I don't think we met up for lunch and it was awesome. We just were reliving all these things that we did together with our other friends. Like a long time ago and just walking down those lanes like it was yesterday. I've done this with all the time of college friends. I do this all the time with people in previous roles. It's just been awesome. These memories are going to last you a lifetime. So go out and make them. Right. I don't want to do half that shit. I was doing it in my 20s. I don't want to do that now. But I'm glad I did it then. Because it's cool. Learn to speak up. Take control over the opportunities in front of you. Silence is not always golden. Advocate for yourself early and often. Your ideas matter. Your voice matters. So use it. Just get it out there. Your network isn't just who you know. It's also who knows you. So always remember to provide value to those folks as well. Stay consistent. Make sure your name is gets brought up in rooms when you're not there in a good way. Right. They'll like if they want to say, you know, there's going to be like I talked about those negative Nancy's Debbie downers. They talk about people as soon as they leave the room. That's there. That's their M.O. whatever. But in professional settings or even in good settings and family settings for friendship settings. Make sure they speak good things about you when you're not in the room. That's when you know that you've made a positive impact on them. And give without keeping score. Help others when it's not convenient. You know, these things all come back around. That's, you know, that's reputation. That's karma. It's all built up from that. And don't negotiate with yourself. If you said you're going to go to the gym certain times a week. If you said you're going to go hit this role certain times a week. You're going to make this many sales this quarter. Don't negotiate against yourself. You said you're going to do it. Do it. Start discipline starts when negotiation ends. That's the term that I've heard. And I kind of I used to have that on my laptop just sitting there as a sign discipline begins where negotiation ends. Master the art of the second draft. Your ideas, your motives, your goals will shift. So you have something in place. And it changed over time. That's cool. Maybe the directions higher. Maybe it's slightly evolved because you had to because of circumstances that are happening in your environment at the time. Okay. I've all for that time period. But go get it. Don't let if you had to evolve from draft number one. Don't make it that draft number two never gets completed. Draft number two should get completed until you can go back and do that for number one or make draft number three. Whatever it is. Get out there and just execute. Elevate. Don't escalate. When things get tense. Be the one who de escalates. That's easier said than done. I've been on the both ends as I've escalated. I've de escalated. I've elevated. I've delved. Whatever it is. Stay calm. Stay sharp. You'll win more arguments by rising above them. And I'm saying this like it's some easy-ass thing to do. It is not. I've been around some people like I said that 1% of my life just wanted to bring unjoyful times to everyone around them. Like every time we hung out, they would have something to complain about. We just had a great time. Focus on that. You don't have to focus on the weird stuff all the time and make everyone's life miserable. That's just what it is. I've been speaking for a while now. I want to end here. Make every breath that you take count. I remember one time I used to see on Twitter for a long time. That's where I go all the time. Your mom and your dad are the ones set of people who want you to beat them at everything eventually. They're the ones that are in your corner to help you and want you to win and beat them. You know it's true, altruistic. For the most part, they just want you to win. Your loved ones only want that one thing for you to live life fully. Every day is a gift. There used to be this picture that I would see on Twitter. It was going viral for a moment. Essentially, it was a picture of an iPhone showing that either your mom or your dad calling you and the message just below it. If you still get this call, you are the luckiest person alive. I don't get those calls anymore. My parents, I lost both of them. Unfortunately, it's still in my 40s and it sucked. My dad was out of the blue. My mom was a bit more expected. Her health wasn't that great. They were literally 20 months apart. It broke me for a bit. But I remember I had to be strong for my kids. My wife was amazing. I have to give her a shout out. She was there for the most, the four most, what do you say? The four major points of my life. My two children being born, my two boys being born, obviously. And then my parents passing, she was just a rock through all of that. And I hope I was for her with our kids and I was helpful even while I was managing and going through the emotions of my parents. It was tough. I miss them. I know that my parents are at peace and I've had time to go through it and live every emotion and it creeps up with me. I was never a guy that ran to crying for anything and I'm not knocking it. Never. That was never a thing for me. I felt like, hey, if I'm feeling sad, I would just get pissed and just start breaking shit or whatever. So that's not healthy either. But I was never a guy that ran to tears. But since both of them passed, that is something that has crept into my life when certain things hit. I remember watching Top Gun in the movie theaters the last one, the second one. And Val Kilmer's funeral scene. I'm sitting next to my two sons and my wife and I just lost it because it reminded me of my dad's funeral. Because my mom was still here at the time and she was like six months before that and I just lost it. Sitting in the movie theater, just lost it and just random things. You'll see on some of your favorite shows and some guy talks about losing his parents, his mom or his dad. And I'll just lose it randomly. Never used to do that. I'm not running from it. I'll embrace it because, hey, apparently I need to do that at some times. But, hey, feel free to do what you got to do to get you through the moment. I know dudes that were crying twenty years ago. That's cool. I never judge them for it. I just wasn't something I ran to. And I still run to it for most things. But for when I see those kind of funeral scenes or something that reminds me of my parents like that, it will hit me. And it's going to hit all of us. So just be ready for that. My parents at the end of their lives, they passed away from very different illnesses reasons. And all they wanted to do at the end of their life was breathe. So I'll say this to you. What I said at my mom's funeral last year, make every breath in every action count. You deserve that. You're loved ones deserve that. And most importantly, live a life that is rich with everything you desire. So, I'm going to end here now to my wonderful podcast listeners, students, colleagues, whoever's listened to this. The truth is life isn't waiting for any of us. The clock is already ticking. So don't I'm not trying to scare you, but to remind you that you are powerful right now. You have dreams that deserve a fighting chance. You have talents. The world should see them. You're not going to have it all figured out today. Just keep moving forward. You have love to give adventures to chase people who are waiting to see it all. Man, go live it. Mess up. Break shit. Break, break your dream. Shatter them. Right. But get back up. Laugh louder. Love harder. And leave no good thing on said man. Say, say the things you're built for greatness. Just go out and get it. I'll say one thing that I learned from somebody. Carry the lessons. Carry the memories. Carry the people who loved you and the veer. And into every risk you take and every life you touch. You just have to believe it enough to chase it, man. So take those breaths. Make those moments. And thank you for allowing me to share a bit of my journey with you today. And for trusting me with your time. Until next time, breathe deep. Work hard. Party hard. Love hard. It's your story that you're writing right now. Go win it. Go win it. That's it.