Your Dream Life Is Waiting. You're Just Avoiding It

Everybody needs to do something in their life that they're not doing but they won't do. What do I need to do? Who do I need to become so that this is my reality? Allow yourself, give yourself permission to dream so big. What are the things that I'm not doing right now that I need to do to develop that dream life? You'd have to be a different person. That's the problem. You can't make 10 times more money being the same person. You have to be 10 times the person you are today to make 10 times as much money. That's why in the game of self-development is so important. That's the game I'm in. The world rewards you for being good at something right? But you can be good at something and not enjoy doing anything burnout. No, we call that sacrifice. It's hard to do things you've never done. It's hard to do things that you don't enjoy for a really long period of time. But I think everything worth having is not going to be easy. It's going to be hard. So today we have a special episode that I've been wanting to record with Chris. I've also been behind a camera with you. I don't think we've gotten a lot of chances that I'm actually just sitting down without you just yelling at me about like a whiteboard thing. I can change that for this one. Maybe emotional damage. You helped me a lot in the past 3 months of me moving to LA. Had a huge impact in my life in the past three or four years as well. And there's been a lot of little micro lessons that I've got to experience with you oneonone that I want to be able to share with the audience because I think would benefit them. Like what was a big thing that you think was holding me back from Okay, I can answer that question. It starts with you being an immigrant to this country and having fairly low definitions of what success looks like. Also probably not being around the kinds of people you need to be around. So you were doing better than most of your friends. um you are probably challenging them, you're pushing them, so you're at the tip of the spear, and that's always a sign that you're in the wrong circles of people. And I think that's one of those things. So, I've talked to you about this many times before. I think you're very good about being grateful for the things you have. It's one of the your best traits to me, just gratitude and being very grounded. And I think that's what makes you charming and interesting. Also, I'm sure Jesse really appreciates you for the same things. And I I never want you to lose that part. But that is like an anchor and we need a compass. And the anchor keeps us grounded, but it doesn't allow us to find direction cuz we're usually content and happy with where we're at. And I think you are still stuck on old models and paradigms of how to make money. Often times you will talk to people. I am in video production. I keep encouraging you not to describe yourself as the things you do, but the outcomes that you achieve for people. That small shift will drastically change how you talk to yourself, but more importantly the frame in which people look at you. So what I do is I help thought leaders build content. I help thought leaders achieve a certain reach or impact or to fulfill their life's work through video. All, of a, sudden, the, conversation, is, very different. Video production is what you do but it's not what you sell. Right? And we've gone through this many times. Soon as you start to figure that part out and realize the least profitable and the hardest part of your business is video production, it's all the other stuff, the intangibles, like I want to make sure you feel comfortable on camera. I want to make sure you are in your zone of genius by highlighting the things that you want to do in your life and I try to make the rest of it transparent or invisible to you so you don't have to feel any of that stuff. I I think that's the thing that you can bring to the table. I help you have a broader reach or something like that. And to look at the content you're making and strategically advise you on what I think you need to do, not just from the content perspective, but how you title and how you do the thumbnails. That's what people really care about. It's the result. And then the how-to becomes less important and and the what becomes insignificant at that point. So why are we doing this? Ultimately, the results we want to achieve, but the how and the what I'm going to do is not so important. So now you're in LA, you've been here for 3 months and you're seeing a whole different world. And this is now pointing to our next problem, which is you're fairly slow to adapt to things you cannot see. The whole point of the word vision is to see what no one can see. That requires faith. It requires imagination. And I've noticed patterns in within you that until you're there and seeing it and seeing someone doing it, then you for whatever reason can't see and you hold yourself back. I'm not sure when we first had this conversation, but I would say it's at least three years ago when we're talking and I say to you, you probably should move to LA. Now, there were reasons why you couldn't real reasons, but maybe they're not as real as you think. There's relationships and things you had to deal with. But funny thing is when your, relationship, disappeared,, all, of a sudden that door opened and you walked through it and you're telling me today it feels like I'm living a dream. I'm I'm on I'm the main character or a side character in a movie. What is going on? I told you and you defended it. I'm like, "Miami sucks, man. It's always hot. It's always humid. You're always sweating in a state of greasiness. And you can only wear tropical clothes cuz it doesn't make any sense." You're like "No, I love it. I love it." And then you're in LA for like a couple days and you're like, "Wait a minute. There's different. There's better." And there's a reason why California, more specifically Southern California, is such a a magnet for people from all over the world of all different kinds of means to be here. Because 350 or 60 days out of the year, it's amazing here. There are going to be a couple days where it's really hot. Other than that it's pretty awesome. And with that comes opportunity to be outside to do things. And it there's a whole ecosystem of people who can do, who want to do, who think of themselves as world breakers and as as doers and makers. And so when you're in that ecosystem, they don't care about money. They care about their dream. So you want to help them achieve their dream. We were on a pod. Somebody rented a beautiful home. I don't know where it is. Burbankish area in the hills somewhere. maybe east east Hollywood and it was a fantastic house. You walk up there like dang somebody was balling here. The ceilings are 25 ft high, gorgeous views wellappointed, real finishes. Like this is an expensive home and something you said to me which was a sign of positive change for you was what do I need to do? Who do I need to become so that this is my reality? Not just to rent this house but to own this house. And that was the first spark that I've seen in you where you allow yourself, give yourself permission to dream so big. I can help you build that dream. I can help you achieve that dream. It's not as hard as you think. But the first part is the want and the clarity of the vision of the future. So when it comes to moving to LA, what took you so long? You're here now. When it comes to fashion that's the easiest one for me to point to. I've mentioned it many times in different pods where I'm like, "Buy this back. Wear those pants." Like no, no. And I think I can relate and empathize with you. I think part of it is the immigrant mindset which is like that's just too much money. I don't need that. That's all hype. I'll find a cheaper alternative. But it's not the same. Doesn't have the same story. It doesn't have the same design. But it's more important the story you tell yourself is I can't afford this. And then I've seen you flip on that front too. The gap in which I suggest you do something, it's close closing to the point in which now you're doing things that you're totally uncomfortable with. You might not even have the vision, but you have the guts to say "I'm going to trust this person. I'm just going to do it." And if there's ever a secret I try and tell people is find a couple of people, not a lot. When I say a couple, I mean two or less, one. And just do whatever they tell you to do. If they are where you want to be, if they have that clarity, that insight the business acumen, or the style or taste that you want, just do it. Just follow it. Don't even trust yourself because you're saying quite loudly, I don't know what I'm doing, but when I'm in the presence of someone who does know what they're doing, I'm not going to listen to them because I trust myself more. Makes no freaking sense whatsoever. But that's what people do. That's the action they take. Other than that, probably challenge you a little bit about how you learn, how you process, how you are able to articulate what it is that you learn to internalize this stuff. We're still working on that. Mhm. Something I've always admired and it's just like little micro moments we have is like how have you been able to see certain visions and certain things so clear because you know even earlier today we're sitting down having lunch and I'm like hey I'm trying to work on this post and I'm like oh no wait this is not the message and you're like what is it that you're trying to get and then like in literally five seconds like you drop some gold bars. I was like dude like how are you able to do this? There's two questions there. It seems like one, but let's take them one part at a time in relation to the the question of I need to make my monthly post. I'm stuck. I don't feel like it should be like this. It should be like that. And then I asked you what's the one thing you want to say? And you would say something. I said it's too generic. It's too abstract. I don't get that. And say it again. And then for me it's quite easy because if you work on stories and you're used to art directing and creative directing people which is what I did in my former life quite literally there's a team of six seven people showing me their ideas all the time every single day and I have to tell them that's the winner that's not here's what we need to do let's cut our losses let's refocus on this and let's make that even bigger and better. So that's the practice is just repetition. So for your thing, I'm like, what is it I'm going to get excited about to read, to learn what is your perspective? How have you grown? What has what have you changed? So the question I ask for you is instead of focusing on on some kind of giant struggle or something like that, I just ask you, what's the one thing you've learned? And you would say something. I'm like, that's not sharp enough. I happen to try to be very intentional and practice at articulating things as clearly as possible. So that would be answer number two. Okay. So for you, I can hear it's super easy. It's like that's not interesting. That's interesting. And when we watch movies or if we watch anything, a concert or we go to an event and we look at stuff. You're going to, see, my, brain, work, in, hyper drive, right? I'm like, that's not good. That's good. These are things. And you might even pick up on these things. But what I'm doing is I'm recording in very high fidelity what is and isn't working so I can make a catalog of it in my mind so I can access it later. So most of us go through life and we sleepwalk through life. We're not paying attention to anything. We're not looking at the geometric shapes in the front of your shoe and the faceted edge that is a nice contrast a linear arc linear versus a curve linear thing that's happening with the shoe. Contrast is quite nice and and that's why that shoe's working. you know, some hard geometric shapes. Somebody just cut them opposite there. That's what it should be. It shouldn't follow the curve of the foot. That's cool. So, when it comes to how I how am I able to see things, it's because I try very much to silence all the little naysaying voices in my head and find my one true voice and let that person or that voice do most of the talking. You have conflicting voices. Most people do. What will people think? Is this cool? What do I really think? And will people judge me for that? And what's going to be popular this month? So those all are voices in competition. And so it would be hard for you to have clarity. And so you're listening to all the voices while not listening to any of them. And it comes out really mushy. That's what we're trying to avoid. So how are you able to tap into your voice you to become who you are? I know that you're an immigrant and you came here and you struggled through things. We've shared stories of like similarities of us growing up. So, like what was it for you that helped you find your voice that you were like, "Hey, I know this is right." I'll tell you the first part of it which I can recall, which is much younger than you would think, probably in grade school somewhere, being an introvert, being quite isolated and feeling very much apart. The only person I could talk to is myself. And so, I develop a pretty high level of self-awareness and inner dialogue that's quite clear. thinking things and thinking why do I think that then asking myself is that a helpful thought to have? Is this going to build me up or is it going to tear me down? I don't have an identity yet, but I have that inner dialogue and it's pretty strong. So, I'm kind of aware of what's going on. So, if I act really weird, I know it's because I'm coming from a like a negative emotion state, emotive state like I'm jealous, I'm feeling abandoned, I'm feeling unsure of myself right now. I'm feeling really insecure and so I'm going to say and do weird things because and I'm aware of it. I'm very conscious that I'm doing this and I've chosen to do it or I I allow myself to do it even though I know it's not a good thing right? Or sometimes when your ego gets in the way, you want to say something but you don't because you're like that would be a chump thing to say and over time I start to learn I'm just going to have to say it. That does take a long time to get there, but it's not until I find myself in a skill in terms of graphic design that I start to build an identity coupled with a self-awareness. So many people don't have the self-awareness by whatever reason because they don't like to think about what they think about. And then some other people don't have a skill. They just really don't have the skill. They they faked it through life. They go through the motions. They're in middle management or they're just they fool a lot of people, but they're not really fooling themselves. So, I don't really have a strong core. And I think it's very important for everyone to have a strong core. So your strong core just came from your abilities of being a really good graphic designer. My core comes from seeking out design as a profession, throwing 10,000% of myself into it, soaking up information like a sponge, and being very disciplined by applying exactly what my teachers tell me to do. It's a theme. So all these dense people, they never listen. I don't know why. They just don't listen. I'll give you an example. I'm out there fishing with my son this past two weeks and we're out in the Canadian wilderness for 4 days and I'm telling him how to fish. He just doesn't want to listen. And my boy is very good at following instructions. But for some reason, he's decided he's going to go rogue and do his own thing. I think this is a sign of developing your own personality and your stepping into manhood. So, I respect that. You can just do that. I talk to him. He doesn't listen. and we're catching fish until we catch a really big fish and then the line breaks and his heart's broken because I know he wants to bring in that fish. So much so that if there's a big fish, he's like, "Dad, you take it." I'm like "No, son. This is for you. You have to learn these things in your life." And he goes, "So, what do I need to do?" So, he went through a really fast learning curve because I said, you know, when the line broke and it's there's disappointment. I'm okay with it. I want him to catch the fish. Had we caught it, we would come back to the lodge., Father,, son,, catch, two, of the biggest fish. It would have been momentous for us. And I wanted it for him, but I needed him to catch it. And his first thing was, "Dad, you told me to keep the line up. That's why it broke." So he blamed me. So the blaming part, right? I said, "There's a difference between keeping your rod up and keeping tension on the line, and I've told you some things. You don't listen, so that's okay. I'm not blaming you." He goes, "Okay, what do I need to do?" And I told him. So he in a brief moment of anger and blaming cuz it can't be his fault, he accepted almost right away. And I said, "Okay, here. Let's go through it. Let's rehearse." We talk about it. He goes, "Oh, that's why." I said, "So the problem has been we've caught two small fish so you can be sloppy in your technique. It's created bad habits." He accepted it. We motor in. We're having dinner and people are asking how things go. He goes, "Yeah, I got a big one and you know what? I've had bad habits and dad set me straight." So I knew then he internalized it and we're talking about a 20 minute span between the lesson learned and him now saying to people bad habits have been formed I need to break them I'm going to work on it that's pretty remarkable so for some people it would take two three years for him 10 20 minutes and I mean he's what 20 he's 21 21 like I did not have that self like the level of self-awareness maybe till like five or six years ago that's fine we're all on a different timeline. Yeah. I didn't raise you as a kid. So I know. What can I say? I've been a good kid. They call you the charming razor blade. Charming razor blade. So, like the way that you're describing the edges of my shoes, like you're so good with your words and and precision. And there's a story that you shared with me previously about when you were in school and you had to go to you had to do an assignment that you had to go watch a movie. Yeah. And that's how you really picked up one of these skills because like I've seen a movie with you and then you're like, "Hey, did you notice how this thing happened?" I'm like I'm like "Dude, that's like a whole different level." And I'm like "How did you develop this?" It's so good because like this is why I think you're such a great storyteller, but can you share the story? During one of my academic terms, between studio terms, I took an academic term so that I, can, get, my, requirements, out, of the way so I can graduate with it, my degree. I took a class which I thought was going to be really fun. was called critiquing current movies. It was taught by Jay Chapman and he's a film nut right? And it was mostly with film students in there and I was probably one of two designers in that room and the way it would work is one week we get to pick a film and then another week he picks a film. So the class picks the popcorn movies, the blockbusters and there's some he would he might veto because he's like that's a terrible let's not go see that. And you know it was one of those things. So the idea was you're going to have to go watch the movie and it's a discussion based class. There's no no essays, nothing to write. So you have to be really good. And I'm I'm surrounded by film majors who understand lensing directors and genres and all these things to film theory film history, and I don't know any of this stuff. So you can imagine it's pretty intimidating to be in a room full of film buffs while talking about films. At this point in my life, I'm pretty straight lace. I go watch the movie and then I leave the theater. I buy another ticket, I go back in. So, the first time I watched the movie is just to watch it as an audience member would. The second time was to watch it so I can remember and dissect the film. I did this a couple of times, not many times, and I realized it's not a good use of my money, which I didn't have a lot of. Really not a good use of my time. And so, I'm going to have to force myself to watch twice in one sitting. Watch as the participant and watch as the person who's going to have to talk about this film. So I would bring in a little notepad in the darkness and just keep it next to me. That was more like a safety blank because it's almost impossible to write in the dark like that. You'd have to wait for the light. But if there was anything, I would note it down. So what I wanted to do was the first time I was like my mind was just just jello- at that point because it's using all of my brain to remember what's happening in an hour and a half film. The kinds of things we would talk about is narrative arc, character development. We would talk about lighting, art direction camera movement. there's nothing that was off limits. So, you kind of have to remember it all. And I remember the first couple of times we would critique the movies, the film students would just talk about things. I'm like, "What? How did you get that? What are you watching? Like, this is fascinating to me." And of course, they have language to use that I was unfamiliar with. So, vocabulary that they all knew and shared that I didn't but you're a student, so you learn. And so I got to a point probably halfway through the semester where I could watch the film, be relatively relaxed and be able to have a really good robust discussion debate with people in the theater uh in in my class. And so I credit that class and the structure of that class for helping me to train my eye for understanding films. But do you feel like now the way that you watch movies, does that just take away from you just to be able to like just chill or do you ever just chill? I do just chill. I don't find it fatiguing at all. I find it stimulating. I think when I chill too much, I fall asleep. When I'm driving, I'm pretty chill and it's hard for me to stay awake. If we're not having good conversation, I'm pretty chill and I'm going to nod off. So, I think I rest hard, meaning when I go to sleep, I don't I sleep. When I play games, I play games. And when I'm in active learning mode, I'm as active as possible. And it does require some effort from you. But to all the people who think I don't want to do that that's fine. You do you. But I'll tell you something. It's like a muscle. And I I want my muscle, my brain muscle to be strong. I want the ability to recall things. So, I don't know if Alzheimer's or dementia is in my future. It can be. I'm going to give myself the best shot moving forward by engaging as much of my brain as possible, all the different loes and hemispheres I want to use. Because if you don't use it, I think you lose it. And why wouldn't we want to use it? it. Plus, it comes in really handy because when you're out and about in the real world, you don't want to talk about work all the time, but it's pretty cool to pull like a cool film card on people like, "Oh, that was related to this film and did you know the history behind this and that was their third film and here's what they had to do and here's somebody who knows a lot about something is usually pretty fun to talk to." Especially we can all have a jumping in point and in movies and pop culture pop because it's short for popular popular culture by nature by definition is already part of the conversation part of zeist. So what would you say you know someone like they're not going to school they don't have to go to like a film class like that. What's one exercise that they could start doing to be able to better at recording like these moments and things like that in their lives? It'd be difficult because part of the learning process is discussion and dialogue and learning terminology you're not familiar with. So, if you're stuck with your own terminology, it'd be pretty hard. But there's two things you can do as it relates to your question. Number one is to ask yourself like, what are eight or nine questions I need to be able to answer about this film before I go watch it? What is the narrative arc? What are the three acts? Who's the main character and who's the antagonist? And what is the lesson they both need to learn? Then you can get into more technical stuff. Art direction, which is the set design. Um, camera direction, which is how it's lens and how it moves and why they do certain things to tell you the audience something. You can you can watch it for sound design and how sound and music affects your mood, how it can play to or against the scene, how you're being manipulated emotionally, and why it works or why it doesn't work. You can get into color grading. What was the color palette? What was the primary story? What is the subtext and what are the the the the secondary tertiary characters? Those are some things you can ask yourself then you go watch and you can understand and is there a bigger metaphor for all of this? What were the main titles like or the end credits? What was it telling you? Was there any foreshadowing done? So those are your questions. Then you go in, you watch. You probably have to do like the way I did watch first time just to process and the second time to be able to answer the questions. And then the second thing you can do is you can probably watch film geeks talk about films. These are people like Quentyn Tarantino talking about films and why they love the scene or who their favorite director is and why they think this is in their top 10 list uh in top 10 list best movies ever made. You probably learn a lot from them. Okay. Yeah. What's your favorite thing to watch right now? There's a couple of shows I really like. I like Foundation very much. Great. It's a good one. And the foundation for the people who don't know because I will sell it to you right now. It's a concept conceived by Isaac Azimov who is a Russian American Jew who is a physicist and he he is the father of science fiction. So he is the godfather and he wrote the three laws of robotics. A robot cannot do harm to a human. A robot cannot allow harm to come to human by inaction. And a robot cannot harm itself as long as it obeys the first two rules. And this is the foundation for almost all synthetic humanoid forms. And you can see this in a lot of different movies like iroo Robot. You can see this probably also in Star Trek, the prime direct. You know there's all kinds of like little rules that they write into. And that's from Isaac Azimov. He created a series of of stories called the Foundation Trilogy. So Foundation Foundation Empire, and Fall of Foundation or something like that. It was said that it was not something you can turn into a film unfilmable and somehow Apple Plus did it. Apple Plus did it. I think it's is it David Goyer uh is the executive producer showrunner is David something I forget his last name. So they've they were able to build on concepts, combine characters and explain in a way that doesn't rely on too much inner dialogue exposition and I think it's beautiful. It explores some big concepts about what does it mean to be a person because in it there is cloning technology. So there's an exact replication of somebody. So if we have a soul, does the soul get cloned from person to person? How could that be? And from early on I remember reading this and I my memory could be fuzzy on it, but Isaac Azimov is a super logical scientific kind of person. He wants to explain the world and understand like why we believe in God and those kinds of things. And in his psycho history, he explains how from a certain vantage point human behavior can be predicted. It requires a couple things. It requires at least, three, generations, in, terms, of, a timeline. So your grandfather, your father, and your son. So it has to be that long and it has to have a population, of, at least, a, billion, people in order for it to work or 10 billion. It's a big number. So it's a science applied to human dynamics. So his theory is we can predict society in a general but not individual action. So if you were to kick me right now arbitrarily he could not predict that because that's a singular action but over time big enough data point he could say that's this country is going to go to war with that country because the math says it must. Okay. Yeah. Got deep over there guys. Great show. I definitely recommend you watching it. Um to book in a conversation and we might go a little bit deeper on this. you talked about, well, when we're in the hills that it'd be easy for you to help me put together my dream life for like how to go to the next step. What are the things that I'm not doing right now that I would need to do to develop that dream life? You'd have to be a different person. That's the problem. I I can explain this a little bit easier when we talk about someone else and you'll agree with me. But the fact that they are who they are says they can't do it. That's the problem. If I were them I'd do it. Right. Right. So, oftentimes when I meet somebody they have a gift and they're doing everything in their life to sabotage their gift. So, we have a friend, we'll name this person's name, but let's just say they're really good at SEO. And SEO is a skill that's required that can make a lot of money. Maybe it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but this person won't do that because like, I don't want to do that. So, then they want to do life coaching. and so that they're going to pursue that. But that's a really crowded space with a lot of competition, not a lot of ways to differentiate yourself. Whereas SEO is objective and you can scale, you can build teams around it, you can teach a process, it goes beyond you. But this person won't do that because they're interested in chasing lots of different things. So this person's curse is that they're smart and they can learn lots of things. That's a strength. Their weakness is they're smart and they can do lots of different things. So they won't pick one thing. And so this person has had a history of changing their focus over time. Started pursuing law and then were worked in tech and then switched over to doing photography event photography, wedding photography. Then switched again into SEO and this just keeps switching. Now I think I've revealed who that person is, but whatever. We love you. We love you. We're not saying anything who it is. So you can see that, right? So ask yourself, I could design the life for this person. You probably could design the life for this person. Why this person doesn't do that? What's your explanation for that? Why don't they do what needs to be done so they can be successful? I don't know. I think it could be an idea that we tell ourselves that like we really need to be happy about what is it they're doing or like if it's not challenging to us that we should try to pursue something else. That's a strange thought. The world rewards you for being good at something right? But you can be good at something and not enjoy doing it. Like you can you can get burned out from burnout. No, we call that sacrifice. You sacrifice something some momentary joy for a bigger joy, which is freedom. And if you were to become the world's best known SEO person or even the country's best known SEO person, you'd be invited to speak on stages. You'd probably author books that are bestselling. You'd probably have a roster of clients and friends in in your network that were the envy of everyone because everyone needs this. And you could go to sleep at night knowing that the things that you did would transform people's lives and their businesses and impact thousands if not tens of thousands of people's lives. That's what you get for doing that. Then you would be basically, my favorite expression sleeping very comfortably on a a mattress of cash and you can sit there and dream about what kind of life you want to have. And the part of this is no one's saying you have to do it yourself. You have to do it yourself for a little bit and then you can train people to do it for you and then you could be the executive that you're supposed to be which is to run the business to have the vision and you probably develop software and AI tools to do all that stuff for you at some point. Doesn't make any sense. I see. Well, that all sounds great, but I want to focus on me because I want to take advantage of this. Well, think about that. What What do they need to do and why aren't they doing it? So then what do you need to do and why aren't you doing it? It's always hard when it's back on you isn't it? It is. H you can see as clear as night and day. Every single person that's one of our mutual friends group, I can say they need to be do this. Like, yep, why don't they do that? Well, so then do it. But all right, but like I've been doing video for almost 10 years now and like I haven't been hopping from thing to thing. Like no, that's not your thing. That's not my thing. Meaning that's not your problem. It's not literally the same problem. Everybody needs to do something in their life that they're not doing but they won't do. What is it you need to do? And then we'll figure out why you're not doing it and then we'll figure it out. Cuz you can't get where I want you to go if you're the same person. But I don't know where you want me to go. So it's hard for me to say like what is it like? like well, pick something that I told you to do and you haven't done it and we can talk about it. Well, one thing you said for me to change my services to like we talked about that earlier to social media content to helping people get their message out there. Yeah. Why have I done it? I think bandwidth, but I'm also accepting other clients that So, you're addicted to the routine. What's easy? Everybody's so people don't do what they're supposed to do because of fear of change or because they don't think it's fun or it just sounds like a lot of work. So, it's one of those things. So, you're addicted to routine. This sounds like a lot of work and there's some fear about the unknown. There's no assurances it's going to work and it seems like you have to learn a lot of new skills. You can't make 10 times more money being the same person. You have to be 10 times the person you are today to make 10 times as much money. Sure. That's why in the game of self-development is so important. That's the game I'm in. What do you think are the things that most people lack in self-development when it comes to doing like the 10x thing? A, they don't have the desire to do it. Once they figure it out, they talk themselves out of it. They'd rather take an easier path. It's hard to do things you've never done. It's hard to do things that you don't enjoy for a really long period of time. But I think everything worth having is not going to be easy. It's going to be hard. If it weren't hard everyone would do it and it wouldn't be valuable. Difficult things create scarcity. Scarce things are valuable. So, for example, why aren't you doing the public speaking that I'm doing? In fact, why aren't a lot of the other people who are booked to speak on stages who may or may not get paid, why aren't they better than they are? you know the answer to this. Why is that? You mean they don't put in the hours that you do? Keep talking. Don't don't don't um be abstract as you want. Like what are the general things they're not doing? General things working on their presentation delivery their decks, uh refining things. You are constantly pushing that limit. Even when you're like, "Hey, my deck's done." Then you're up to four o'clock in the morning like I just had to redo it. like you're constantly trying to improve it. I always tell people like, "How's it working with Chris?" I'm like "He is 50some years old and he will outwork me." But I always tell people like, "But you're also a person that you're so aligned with who you are and what you're supposed to be doing." I think they're the same level as you are for the amount of like dedication that you put into everything that you do. Okay. So, now explain more specifically what I think I'm doing that other people aren't doing. Number one, a lot of speakers only have one talk topic they talk about and they only have one way of delivering it. Many of it's many of what they talk about is autobiographical. So here's what I've done. Here's my life in history. There's not too many ways you can tell that story, right? And that's the easiest thing to do. And you've seen me sometimes do this and I have a way of doing it. I'd like it to be better, but once I've refined it, there's really no other way for me to tell that story right? But what I try to do is to teach people. So my identity is an educator. their identity might not be. So they they don't want to do that work. They want to have one hit song and just make the best hit song and they can as long as they continue to perform in different stages, they're going to be good. Very few people have multiple hit songs. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elton John they can do this and that's why they're so rare. Arguably Coldplay can do this. Um The Weekend, 21 Pilots. But outside of that, you're like, "Well, you had one or two good songs and that's kind of it." because I'm dedicated to the craft of self-development of teaching. So, I'm a constant learner, constant improver and I want to be able to do that. So, it comes from our desire and our intention. I think they're happy just to do it one time, and they're good with that. Not realizing that people can't really book you for the same thing multiple times to the same audience because they're like "It was a good song, but I want to hear the song forever." And unlike music public talks or public speaking doesn't move your soul that way because you and I can listen to the same song a thousand times. Maybe not in a row, but we can listen to it a lot. So, there's that. And then there's the dedication to the craft of how are your slides? If you're going to have slides, make them good. So, unless they're designers or they want to invest in that, their slides usually are terrible. Some of them have no personality. They're very even tone or monotone and they come on stage and they do their thing. So they can be very academic. They can deliver the message but there's no movement. You're not moving me. Then there are very moving speakers. The people who will get you to cry, to laugh, to sing with them. And then you walk away thinking, what did I learn? What can I apply? Is this theoretical or is this real? So, it's this combination of charisma personality, tone, performance, design intentionality, self-improvement that I strive to work on at all times. It's not that I think my last talk was not good but I reflect on it and say, "What could be better? What can I get rid of? And what what what can I try?" That's a new thing. So, it could be 80% what I've already done and 20% something new. Because at some point, there's nothing left for me to change. then I know that's one hit song. I'm good with that. So, I've been doing the same talk now for a couple of spots each time making a tweak. I think you've been there for every one of those and you can see every tweak I'm making, I'm sure. So, sometimes it works better, sometimes it doesn't. And that's a lot of variables, how it was set up, who's in the room, the physical environment itself, like is it conducive for me having a more intimate conversation? Is all the tech working the way it's supposed to? Those are the things that are always variables in that equation. So, speaking of variables, they were always working. I'm going to go back to myself again because I want to make this a selfish podcast. I want to take advantage of it. Other than me shifting my business like and going into the social media aspect of things, what are things that you like to see me work on and develop within the next like six months of being here with you in LA? I don't think you're taking full advantage of the opportunity access that you have right now. I've never traveled with my mentor. I've never gotten access to my mentor the way that you do. I see my my former coach and mentor an hour, an hour and a half each week. And that's exposure. So that level of access that you have, the constant prover would be sitting there thinking about very specific questions to ask. Like every time I get off stage I ask you, "What is it that you want to know?" Or I'll ask my other protege Uma, what is it you want to know? And nobody's asking me real questions. So I'm, okay,, I'm, good., I'm, not, going to force it on you. I have other things to do. But if you had the wherewithal and the observation to say, you know, last time you did this, you removed that, you changed this, I like this better. Why? Why is that working better? Did you feel that? Or when this person asked you this thing and messed you up, how did you come back with this? Cuz I want to know why or how? Those are the important questions to ask. Or what are you thinking about in between the beats before, during, and after these things? Why do you do X versus Z? Those are very important things to know and you can shortcut your whole process. But to date, these are not questions you're asking. And every time I ask you, you have a question for me. Your answer is like, I was too busy recording. I wasn't paying attention. So that could very well be the case. But then you're really missing on the opportunity. So there's that. Number two is to say like, you know what?, If, I, could, design, my, life over again and not be attached to anything, it's the attachment to the old self that creates resistance to you becoming the person you should be become that you should become. And so if you can just divorce yourself from the old self, like those old relationships in Miami, the familiarity of Miami, then you would have been here much faster. So it's this attachment. I have the same problem. I have attachment to things, to ideas. And I've learned in my life some things that I can stay attached to that won't harm me. And some things will totally ruin me. So, I need to be able to move on. And you can see I move pretty quickly relative to other people. And I just need people to keep pace with me because my team needs to move at that speed. That's what's important to me. So, if you say, "Okay, Chris, if you say,"Everybody wants help with their social content then you can say, "Okay, I've committed myself to that. Now, I'm going to study that and I'm going to use you and my other clients as a lab for me to test ideas." Like, if we change a thumbnail 300 times or we run an ad campaign for thumbnails beforehand, what is it we're learning? And eventually, you do it intuitively. Same thing with titles. And same things with CTAs in a video. Is it 12 minutes that works the best or is it six minutes that works best? To be a student of the game right? I'm pretty sure you're not reading the reports from YouTube. I'm not. I'm sure you're not like on YouTube con like learning every little new thing that's happening or reverse engineering other people's content. So, what happens is we're showing up to do a good job but we're not showing up to be excellent. That's the difference. It's a great point. I think why I'm so hesitant about going down social media looking for clients is that I have worked with other clients that want to do social media and it's hard to go work with other clients after working with you. Okay, it's not a problem. Then you just find clients like me. That's hard, Chris. It's not as hard as you think. Really? I know. So who else do you know is dedicated to the game like you are? There's plenty in our circle. I don't want to name their names on camera, but I will. Okay. the people who have 100% gone all in on their content. We've met some of them right? Basically, you look at every move in shaker who is as serious as I am and some of them are really fun, fun goodnatured human beings. But I believe that's a story you're telling yourself cuz this is the work you don't want to do. I really think that because it's once again I'm like buy this shirt, wear this bag, you're like no, and you'll tell yourself a thousand reasons. And then three years later like I should have done it. I'm like, "Yeah, sure." But to each their own to each their own timeline, you don't have to move as fast as me. I don't have to live with your life. You get to live with your life. And when you're less able-bodied and you're a little bit grayer and a little heavier, right? You ask yourself, why didn't I listen sooner? And we've been down this road many times. So, you think once burned twice shy, like you would figure it out. But people are stuck to their own habits, right? for the same reason why some of our friends never change and you and I can sit back and like why doesn't this person start this kind of business? Why does that person focus on that and get rid of the other stuff? It's attachment. It's the fear of the unknown. I think some for some of us it's just so hard to let go especially for like creatives when we build something and we put so much of ourselves into it to then say like hey I'm gonna go do something else. Like I I mean I definitely say what I do is very big piece of my own personality and who I who I am and who I've developed to be over the past couple years. I think to like try to change that I guess I have to be able to like I guess detach from the version of myself. Yeah. But think about what's already happened in some of the clothes that you uncomfortable wear. The response that you're getting on all levels, the consideration, how people look at you is completely different and it's more aligned with how you want to be perceived. It's not like I'm asking you to crossdress or something. You want to be a person of note, somebody noteworthy. And then you have to do things that people pay attention, right? To be remarkable is to to have people remark about you, right? And if you're unremarkable, well everybody's ignoring you. You're a cellophane. Or I think it's easier for me now that I'm in LA. One because of you. Two, because of my sister. I think if I if I was trying to do this in Florida within my old circle, I don't think I'd be able to get that kind of same level of support. I think like being like moving and I tell people this if you've spoken to me in the past couple weeks like my life has been a dream but like being around the right people like and just you've been being able to open up my mind the perspective to different things. I don't think people don't have that and so it's hard for you to like let go like you know like I said it took me two years to get to LA at least maybe three. Yeah. But now that I'm here, like even when I put on like I was going out the other day and I put on like this shit's boring. I'm like what am I wearing? Just like but you've I was able to expand my mindset by being around the same people. So I being around the right people and I don't think sometimes you know, maybe our friends are stuck because they're not around the right circles all the time. That's one explanation. I'll give you a different explanation. It's not as kind. Tell me that one. The explanation is this. You don't need to be around anybody. You don't need to be around any environment. This is how your parents get you out from Brazil. Imagine if they like, well, we need to see 10 friends that are leaving Brazil. They're like, you know what? It's not safe for leaving because the alternative is much worse. So, when you live in the gray, this is why I don't like grays. Is everything's fine, everything's bad everything's good, everything is everything, and there's no point to move. But if you start to polarize yourself and say, "This is not good. This is suboptimal. I want to be optimal. I'm going to just pick that path, right? So, I I'll give myself as an example and then I'll break it down for you and your world. Okay? Why I just disagree with this? I go to Art Center. I don't know anything about Art Center except for it's the best school. That's all I know. I don't need to check references. I've never seen a campus. I've taken zero tours. I just tell people I'm going to Art Center. And just by their reaction alone, I know it's a good school. Like, oh, oh, oh, oh you're going to go there, huh? And I wrote in my book, I've never even seen it., Just, wrote, in, my, book,, I'm, going to be at Art Center. And when my teacher reads it, she's like, "Wow, I want to help you get there." And I I wind up becoming her first student to go to art center faster than anybody else in her group has ever done. I did in two semesters. I got there I got there with a scholarship. I'm determined. Then I get, art, center., I'm, like,, I'm, going to be the best student at the best school that I can get into and I just put my mind towards that. And I had to give up stuff for sure. I have to give up stuff. And I have setbacks. And I know I'm not as advanced culturally, visually, as some of the Europeans and some of the Asians that are there. And I'm like, I'm starting way behind. They're on second base. I'm just stepping up to the mound. But, you, know what?, I'm, super, determined. I'm going to do this thing. And then I get a job. I quit that job. I have another job. I quit that job. Oh, here's a crazy deal. Let me start my own business without any So, I'm just constantly doing the things that scare me, that are difficult, and no one's sitting around there telling me this is what I should be doing, right? So, I moved to LA. and decide this is where I'm, going to, be., I'm, going, to, stay, here and constantly putting myself in that place. So when you say it's really hard it's cuz you've told yourself a story that's really hard. If you told yourself it's not hard, it's not easy. It's just a thing. But to me, it's neither of those two things. It's just something to do as a road towards getting what you want or becoming who you're supposed to become. Once you make that determination that I am exactly where I am, that I'm supposed to be, then you have to ask yourself this question, do I want to be here? And then the minute you decide it's not hard or easy, it just is. And it's inevitable. It's not improbable. It's inevitable. So when you say like "Oh, I'll wear this shirt." The minute you made your mind up, cuz I didn't twist your arm, I tried to before. I'm like,, "You, must, get, this.", And you're like "No, it's not right for me." I'm like "Dude, it's dope. You don't listen to me." and as soon as I buy it, I see you sneaking back to the store and then you're going to buy it because a you don't trust me. You don't trust yourself until you can see emphatically it's true. So you live in this space where unless it's physical, real, and tangible, you don't have a vision for the future. That's the problem. So how does one envision a future for themselves when it's impossible to see yourself in the future? That's the problem. And you then therefore tell yourself it's really difficult. It's just so hard and it's hard for people. Well, if you look at my own life, I don't have the things that you said you must have and I did it. And all the things I did, I just woke up one day and said, "I'm going to do that." And I just started doing it. The reason why I have so much confidence in what I do is because I think how could I fail to to the date everything I choose to do works out. Maybe not in that timeline, but it always works out. So, you might have a different story. Your story is like it never works out. And so, therefore, you won't do anything. And then guess what? It never works out. But if you believe it, it will always work out. There's a high probability it will work out. That's all I'm telling you, right? And you can see the pattern happen over and over again. The fact that you can see the pattern, recognize the pattern, and still say, "I'm stuck." That boggles my mind. That's the thing that everybody's stuck with. Despite overwhelming evidence and patterns happening over and over again, they still tell themselves the same story. I cannot undo that in your mind. Right. I mean, I think that the mindset of like you cannot fail. I think that's Do you believe that when I say that? I believe it for you. That's what I mean. Yeah. And I believe it for you. Like it's really hard for you to do stuff. Yeah. See, you manifest that. I manifest it. I think I've always struggled with the envisioning of my future cuz like you know what happened with me in Brazil? So, like it's always so hard for me to think about like what is what would my life be like in two or three years. But then I guess it goes to what you just said about like this is a story I'm telling myself. Yeah. So, you know what I'm saying is never bet against me and what you're saying is never bet on me. It's big difference. Don't bet against me because you'll lose. And I've told you many times I don't play to play. I play to win. And and losing is not part of the dialogue. There is no loss as long as I play. Maybe not as on the timeline. You know, every person that we said we're going to pass on YouTube, we have except for one right? And it's because this one's a little bit trickier because this person is also very good. And we have to be extra extra good for us to catch up and then surpass this person then we'll move on to the next person. And that's just how it works. So, in my mind, we haven't lost. We just haven't given ourselves enough time. Chris, I think that's it for this episode. Is it? You have clarity on what you need to do. I don't feel like you do. I don't have clarity on what I need to do. I know where the targets at now and I now I can start looking at it. But I think for me to sit here and say I have clarity on this, I think I need to start to rewrite some of the stories I tell myself about why is it that I'm not doing the things that I'm not doing already. I need to really get past that. Well, I'll tell you something. I'm not saying what happened to you is not real. It's real. But at this point, it's just a story. It's a memory. All we have is right now. So the decisions you make today will govern the future you have tomorrow. So if you're driven and motivated by what's happened in the past, which is no longer here, it just lives in your mind. You'll be on this path for the foreseeable future. Mhm. I'm telling you from everything. Like I said, don't eat that. You eat it. I'm like, okay. I said, lift that heavy thing. You're like, it's too heavy. I'm like, I'm half your size. I can do it. It's just too heavy. I'm like, okay then it is too heavy. That's too hard. I can't commit to that. So, it's a constant same wave of like rejecting the person you can become. And so, I'm going to I'm going to hypothesize something about why sometimes people are attracted to me. because I see a very self-determined person who can do things and is very certain in the way that I say things and the way I do things and it's mirrored me, right? So, imagine if I didn't take good care of myself. If I look 75 instead of 53, right? Imagine if I was a slob, uh just dirty clothes and just didn't take care of myself and then people are like, "Why am I listening to you? You yourself can't do things. Why am I listening to you?" So, I don't think it's a coincidence that really high performing folks in all facets of life tend to mirror that in their own presence. Not always, clearly. There's some sloppy sloppy people out there that are doing really well, but a lot of people on on a much broader scale. So, there's anomalies. We throw out the edge cases and we look at the people that are really high performing. They have such discipline and they treat their mind like the temple that it is and they they put respect on it so that they're going to fill it with positive empowering thoughts as opposed to critical voices that tear them down. It's not helpful. I see that. Yeah. So the minute you wake up and like you know moving forward I'll just do everything that needs to be done. I'll dedicate myself to certain things and then it'll get done. Okay. Until then, you keep grinding away at it living my dream. So, before we wrap up this episode, what else do you have going on this year? What are you excited about? Excited about a lot of different things. Starting a new coaching community called Content, Lab., I, think, there, are a, lot, of entrepreneurs out there who have woken up, who've said to themselves, thought leadership is the only game I need to be playing right now. Building my personal brand is going to be a force multiplier in all my efforts. It's going to create more opportunity. It's going to be easier,, remove, a, lot, of the, friction., I think I have a program that's going to work really well for them. It's going to mirror a lot of things I've done in the past, but be hyperfocused on content and thought leadership development. So, lots of writing, a lot of feedback and some exercises to help people figure out who they're supposed to be in this life and how they can communicate that to other people. Clearly, something that's different is we're now in studio in a pretty cool space. Have a lot more live events. We have future festas coming up. We will be doing more live training events. Um, Yasmin Yasmin Alec is going to be here and we're going to do a pod with him with a live audience. I think that's, going to, be, really, fun. So, we got to organize 20-ish people to be here. I think it's going to be great. That's just um just a little little drop things to come. We're going to go to Japan do experience traveling and I talked to Blair Ends yesterday and he talked about this thing called a walk shop. We've heard a workshop. A walk shop is going on eight, nine mile hikes a day and having lodging taken care of you from point to point and just walking through the wilderness. I'm looking forward to doing something like that cuz I can see us doing something like that in Patagonia. Patagonia is on the bucket list. That's a beautiful place. I could see it doing Costa Rica and so we have end to end points. So if that excites you, it's going to cost money. And the problem is money is usually a barrier for lots of people because they don't got their business in order. So I'm going to say right now, get your physical health in order, get your relationships in order and get your business in order so that you can do things like this because the few people have gone on these adventures with me. I got to say, I hope I'm not speaking for them and being uh self arandizing here, but I think their lives have changed. There's a an expression the mind once expanded does not return to its original shape. I'm in the mind expansion business is what I want to do for people beyond let's look at a piece of paper and talk to each other but to do something. And the final message because you weren't there Josh had said what is the theme of this trip? The theme for last trip was surrender and he said the theme of this trip was something else. I said, "Well, actually the real theme of this trip is to realize you are capable of more. You are capable of more than what you thought. Stop living with limitations. Live live fully because if you're not busy living, you're busy dying." So people tell themselves stories about what they can and can't do and taking them out in the wilderness doing things. Like for example, one gentleman said, "I I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish this trip, which was to drive the boat to gut the fish and to do it with my bare hands." And they did that to break the gill with their bare hands. It's kind of like a little right of passage we do on the water. So some people avoid that. They do it different ways or they ask other people to do it for them. And then he said, "Next time I'm going out to the halibet grounds where it's really choppy and he's afraid of that." M so I said you could have done that on the first day on the first trip but we'll do it in measure steps so that you can achieve it whenever you want. So he said to me at the end of the trip I'm committed to doing this trip every single year of my life. But it took a friend to push him to go on the first trip. You see what I'm saying? It's like people are so slow to do what they know they need to do and they need so much pushing. And another person said, "I interview other people who went, ask them lots of questions." My god, this is not a meeting with the IRS. This is not a grand jury hearing. This is just an adventure. An adventure says, "Take caution. You throw into the wind and you le you leap before you look. We don't need to make sure there's water." That's the whole point of adventure. Mhm. And for all of you who are playing it too safe, I'm telling you right now when you're ready to die, your core memories will be built around high emotional moments and they're almost always around the misadventures, the time that things could have gotten could have gone really wrong but went right and those are things we remember. I think that goes into something that I've seen a lot with us within travels is like so many people need that permission slip. Yeah. They need that sign off. Mhm. You need that friend to be able to push you sometimes cuz sometimes you might just don't like you don't think you could do it. And I know it's a story that we're telling ourselves but like not everyone's wired the same way that you're wired. No. Thank God have a lot of competition and they wouldn't need me. But you like some of us need that friend. So you'll need that friend. I don't need I don't want to have to need anything. I just need the commitment for myself. And once I committed, I'm good. Okay? Right? Otherwise, we're waiting for people all our lives. We're just waiting for people. Mom, I needed you to prove this career. I wanted to have dad. I wanted you to say it was okay to do this. And mom, I wanted you to say I'm worthy of being loved. and of giving love and accepting and receiving love. My god, why would you do that to yourself? I I'm going to say it right now and I know it's not going to be fun for me to say. I have great disdain for people who need things from other people. Get yourself together. You can do this. Why are you waiting for that permission? By the way, I'm making permissions. I'll hand them out. But I'm just saying you don't need it. Why? I wish every person who's going to see this or listen to this right now go tonight look yourself in the mirror and say why do I want to wait for permission from someone else if I need permission I give myself permission sometimes circumstances create the opportunity for that but you don't want someone like you need to do this you got to go for it cuz no one is got their stuff together so much that they can just focus on you and if they do eventually they resent you for because what happened to me and my needs and my wants? Who's looking after me? Now you're off and you're doing big and amazing things and you forgot about them. So I don't think we need anything. Stop telling yourself you need something. You don't need more money. You don't need to the waters to be calmer. You don't need full instructions. You don't need permission. You don't need money. You don't need time. You make time. You make money. You give yourself permission. And you can do it. Is there something that you've been wanting to do that you have not went out to do it yet? No, I'd be doing it. Even the Porsche. I don't want it that much. When I want it, it'll be done. As simple as that. It's not a function of means. It's a function of priorities. Okay. Yeah. You're good at that. Yeah. Well, Chris, I think that's going to be it. A quick shout out to the 1,200 members we have in YouTube right now supporting the channel from the premiere to Patreon members. We appreciate you guys. You're helping us be able to produce more content like this more regularly. So, thank you. If you want to find out how you can help, links are below. I'll see you guys in the next episode. Done.