#1. Approaching Mid Life Crisis WTF?!
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Do you know your whiskies? Our first official podcast session here. I was going through depression and anxiety attack. As a young kid, you kind of already know what you want to do. And then, you know, through life, you just kind of, you know, you just get lost. Some of the other groups, I have to go through this bullshit every time. Writing a song every day of my life to never touch the guitar again.

A beer pong is actually significant so don't get... Beer pong is important dude. The other side of me is like this is a fucking sob story. And I'm tired of this fucking sob story.

I always called it Balvini. That's what I always said. But I don't know exactly how to say it. So this is a single malt scotch whiskey. 12 years.

That's right. Double wood. Double wood, matured. That means it's matured in two distinct casks. One is a whiskey oak and the other is sherry oak cask. That's right. There is room for debate on how to pronounce whiskey that starts with the letter. Do they have like a pronunciation or not? There is a forum called Proper Pronunciation.

Okay. Okay. For the whiskey that starts with the letter B. So, we're just going to call it Balvenie, right? For now. Let's just go with that for now until we find out otherwise. I think you just wanted to say the word Vini. Vini. Vini. Well, for him it's Wenny. Balvenie. Oh. Yeah, thanks for getting this bottle, guys. So, I'm getting this from a deactivated member. So, but...

The Grant family, apparently that's one of the whiskey families, favor Balvenie. Balvenie? Even though their distinguished ancestor, William Grant, is reputed to have called it Balvenie. So I think there's a little controversy. Okay. We'll let you make the call. Okay.

I feel like Balvenie sounds a little more like prestigious. Yeah, because Balvenie sounds kind of like teeny, weeny. Like we sound like Americans saying Balvenie. That's right. But Balvenie, that sounds like more like... What if we just continue with it? Balvenie. That sounds good. And you have to lower your voice like that. Yeah.

Like, you have to make it a really velvety sauce. You go to the bartender, like, excuse me, bartender, do you have 12-year Balvenie? Excuse me, what'd you say? Let's do Balvenie. But, yeah, thanks again, guys. We chose this one because we thought it was the easiest to pronounce. There's some really crazy ones there. Well, do you know your whiskeys? I don't know well, but did you meet, you met Eddie. Eddie. Yeah? Eddie? You met Eddie one time at, um...

You met Eddie one time. He's my colleague from Shenzhen.

Oh yeah! Yeah, right? So Eddie is a connoisseur and he calls it Balvenie. Balvenie. Yeah. So that is right. And he's, you know, he's tried all of them. The Doublewood, the 15, the 8, you know, the different varieties. So I think... Last time we were in Taipei, we tried the 18, didn't we? Oh no, they didn't have the 18. They were out of the 18. We wanted to try the 18. So we ended up trying a different brand. I forgot. Yeah. Which one? Anyway. Alright.

All right. Cheers, guys. Cheers. To the first one. Cheers. To our first official podcast session here on the screen. It's not bad. It's pretty good. So I was with a new friend, Bowie, last night. He's from Malaysia. He's lived all over the world. And he likes whiskey. So we went to the Tipsy Fiddler, which is like near where I live. And we tried a couple of different whiskeys. And apparently the way you drink...

is that you, you know, you smell it, of course, and then you take some into your mouth, you swish it around, and then you get it all over your palate. You breathe through your nose just a little, and then you taste it. Isn't that like wine, though? Like real wine kind of stories kind of say that's how you do wine as well, kind of? I would think that it's similar, although I don't know much about wine either. Speaking of how to drink whiskeys, I've always been, and I might convert now,

um but i think it depends on the quality of the whiskey i've always been a single ice cube guy i almost won one ice cube not a whole bunch it's like not on the rocks or anything but one ice cube just to kind of like you know get that flavor in there make it a little cold and then as the ice cube melts i kind of like adding a little water to it towards the end but um

But I totally get why people don't put any ice creams in there at all. And I might start adopting that method because this tastes pretty good right now. And I think with anything that you're just learning about, probably the word of advice is if you like it, you like it, right? I don't think there's any rules. Although when we were talking about it last night, it was interesting. I learned something new.

So I asked Bowie, I said, like, you know, do you drink with ice, not without ice? He's like, neat. He says, he said in the UK, some people add a couple of drops of water. And the reason, I never knew this, I've heard this, but the reason is that it takes it from 45 proof or whatever, or down to 40 proof. So it doesn't sort of burn as much.

And so that's the reason why they add a little bit of wine. You know, I heard that the reason why some people like to drink, or even like connoisseurs drink it with ice, is not necessarily to bring down the harshness of it or anything like that. It's actually to open up the flavor. Because

That's probably true. I've heard that too. So that's actually one of the proper ways of drinking. So you can do it neat or you can do it with water because water actually opens the chemical reaction. That makes more sense. Taking the edge off makes more sense. But I'm not entirely sure that adding water will bring down the proof of it. Well, that's...

the, the alcohol that's still there would still be right. But the water would dilute it essentially. Okay. Yeah. So taking down a little bit of the heart, I think it's probably a couple of things. The other thing now I remember when I asked,

you know, Bowie and he's not an expert, but I think he's tried a lot. And I asked him, you know, how do you know the difference between a good one? Like, you know, what, what are your favorites? Why? And he mentioned like the smoothness aspect. So that for him very much was about smoothness. He was not into the kind of the PD. I actually like some of the PD stuff, but he liked sort of the, I guess it's the Highland. So there's five different regions or six different regions and they each sort of produce their own types of whiskey.

Like what's the difference between like whiskey and scotch? I think scotch is a type of whiskey. It's like bourbon in America, right? They're all whiskies, but it's just I think it's the area and the process of how it's done. You know what, next time between now and next time we do this, I'm gonna do more research.

like what the actual differences are so the next bottle we get Justin's like stump the guy who doesn't really know what he's talking about yeah I literally looked at it I mean one of the things we can do right now is do a quick search we can always cut it out or we can just move on I mean we can always yeah

But I'm being serious. I do want to start getting them because I almost felt stupid asking what's the difference between whiskey and scotch. I've never asked that because I feel like I just sound stupid, which I probably do, but I don't know. What is your basic impression of scotch? Because it's a cool drink. You drink single malts. You can throw the names around a little bit. It's kind of cool, right? But just in terms of your taste buds.

What's your general impression? See, I don't know. I don't know enough to really know. I don't know when I've drank a scotch or a whiskey. Like, I know I'm drinking whiskey, but I don't know if that is like a scotch I'm drinking or just whiskey, you know? I don't know. I really have no idea.

But you like the taste? I like the taste. I want to get more informed about it because it's a cool thing. So it's like wines and beers, but whiskey is something I think I'd be more interested in. Next would be probably beer, and the third would probably be wine. Okay. But you know what I hate, though? I hate when people get really snobby about it. You know what I mean? They get really, really snobby about it. And like we were saying before, you either like it or you don't, right? There's no right or wrong with it, right? Yeah.

Like, you know, I've been a chef and, you know, there's one thing I've learned is like there's no really right or wrong when it comes to cooking. Right. I mean, there's certain like rules of like how to cook certain cuisines. Sure. Right. But when it comes to the satisfaction of eating.

I mean, each to their own, right? I mean, there's no right or wrong. Some people like it saltier. Yeah, so you almost have to kind of tailor it to who you're cooking for. There's no, you know, I can tell them, like, you know, this is something, you know, that's not the right way to prepare this dish. But at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. You know, their enjoyment does, right? Yeah, and there's a curiosity, too. I agree with you. And I think with whiskey, it's like,

You know, we strike the balance between what our immediate sensation and impression is. And also, there are probably things that we can learn, right? Like on how to do it and like some of the practices. To enhance our appreciation. Right. And then once you sort of get into it, because there are things that you don't like at the beginning. Like I was never a coffee drinker. No, I'm just kidding.

to coffee. Right. So then you kind of open your mind to that. But what would be interesting on future segments? Because it sounds like we're all sort of in the same place. Like I know what whiskey tastes like, but I know nothing really. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that we're all in agreement. Right. That's one of the reasons why this idea even came up is we can explore together different types of whiskey and get to understand why we like what we like. Well, yeah, exactly. If we're going to be drinking during this podcast anyway, we're

Might as well kind of learn something and, you know, learn something new about it and kind of appreciate nice whiskey. Yeah. It's a perfect way to do it. Yeah. Well, I'm going to learn more and then, you know, we can talk more in the next segment. I just feel like I'm getting to an age where, you know, I'm not a kid anymore. And, you know, kind of like learning my whiskeys and having like a nice whiskey is like kind of like the more appropriate drink for me right now. You know what I mean? That's right. Instead of doing like Jager bombs. Right. So. Okay. So.

question. Like, why do you think it's more appropriate? I just think it's just, there's more depth in drinking a whiskey. And a whiskey is the type of drink where you can kind of sip on. You can appreciate in a lot more ways. And it's just more of like a conversation starter. Or not even a starter, but just like when you're having, when you're sitting down, when you're like, you know. Because at a club,

you know, you're not gonna like enjoy a nice fine whiskey, you know, when it's like, right? Like that's not the environment, nor are they gonna have nice whiskey there, right? And here a lot of it is probably even fake. So there you're just trying to get fucked up, right? Try to take shots, tequilas, Jager bombs, whatever, right? But I think the places we hang out more now are more suitable to whiskey and you get much better whiskey options there.

And it's a great drink and it's something like I just kind of want to appreciate a little more than I have in my life. You know? Before it was just like, you know, when I was growing up, it was just like Jack Daniels and, you know, you just take shots of it. Well, that was also like the cool drink, right? So it's like, oh, Jack and Coke. Yeah. It's like everyone's drinking Jack and Coke. So yeah, Jack, Jack.

But... Drinking Jack. Exactly. Well, for me, it was also Makers, right? So it was like Makers and Jack. Makers Mark, yeah. But now, you ask me to drink Jack or Makers, I'm like, hell no. It tastes like shit. It just tastes like shit. I'm sorry. It tastes like shit. Right now, I'd rather spend more money on a nice whiskey. Yeah. You know, if I go out to a nice bar, you know, I'll buy... Like, I won't hesitate to buy, you know, a slightly more expensive whiskey if I'm going to enjoy it more, you know? What is that... What is the biggest factor there? Like...

you know, as we're changing in our habits and what we experience, like, what is it? Like, are we getting older? Like, I think we're definitely, we're definitely getting older. Are we, are we, are we, you know, are we sort of following the expectations? Okay. I'm a certain age. I should be drinking a certain kind of drink. Like, like why do, why does this seem to happen to people as they move through different parts of their life? Like,

Personally, I think it has to do with the evolution of kind of our own identity, right? I think as we get older and especially not when you go from like 18 to 19, I don't think there's an identity change there. When you go from 21 to 22, I don't think there's really any actual change there in terms of your identity. But when you take into like certain transitional periods, right? So I would think from like...

From like between like 18 to 25, I think there's like a big transitional period there, right? From let's say when you cross into your 30s and you get into like, you know, like your mid 30s, 35, 36. I'm 36 years old now. I think that's another big transitional shift, right? So I think when people talk, you know, there's the quarter life crisis, right? A lot of people refer to quarter life crisis. And I think that's going to happen in your more like your early 20s maybe. And that's also changing, right? Because people are living...

you know, like a little bit longer. Right. And so I think, I think, I think it's a really, I think there's a lot of factors and it's almost going to happen different for everyone and to different degrees. Right. Some people might go through life without ever feeling that they've had, let's say a midlife crisis. Right. Um, but some people will go through, you know, very serious midlife crises. Right. So, um,

The whole question is, how do you know you're going through a midlife crisis? What are the traditional symptoms of a midlife crisis? How does it apply to you?

and at what age you typically go through. So I've actually done some research on this and traditionally, according to Wikipedia and Google, midlife crisis is usually referred to as in ages from 45 to between 45 and 60 years old. So I think around your 50s is when typically a lot of people, middle-aged men, go through their midlife crisis. And it's usually defined as kind of like a crisis in one's own identity and self-confidence. Right.

Right? So a lot of different factors can contribute to that. What would be an example of that? Like... I don't know. Because I think it occurs when people kind of realize, you know, the realities of their own mortality. I think when you boil it all down to, in my personal opinion, I think death is... And the realization of...

you know, the reality of one's impending death is what really kind of starts driving in all these insecurities, all these concerns. And then people start doubting like, oh, I haven't done enough with my life. Or having, you know, I haven't accomplished all my goals. Who am I? Or I need to do, you know, like, so the then and now becomes much more enhanced. And I think what all a midlife crisis is, is all your...

underlying insecurities on overdrive, working overdrive. I think they've always been there. I don't think they're new. I think all of a sudden it's just this realization that you might die soon brings it all out from the dirt and just puts it in the forefront. And then that's when the crisis happens, right? So that's really interesting. And I get the sense that a midlife... Okay, first of all, I feel like

you know, that I've experienced like crises like throughout my life, whatever you want to call them, right? Just there are different types of crises.

And I feel like midlife crises or crisis are viewed sort of like with panic, with fear, with anxiety. But based on a lot of the stuff that we've been reading lately, I almost feel like you need to have a crisis every day so that you can then decide on the essential things that matter and so that you can constantly reflect on that and not wait till you're 45, 50, 55 and get to that point. You know, like I actually want to have a crisis every day.

Right? I mean, this reminds me, it's really, you know, I think if you guys haven't listened to it already, there's a TED talk.

And it's entitled, Midlife Crisis Needs a Rebrand. I think it's something along those lines, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, watch that. Yeah, like I sent you guys. Who did it? Pash Pashkow. I hope I'm not butchering his name. Hold on. Let me. So he did this TED Talk. We need to get like a linguistic expert for the show. Is Jessica around? Like we need to get her on the show. So the guy's name is Pash Pashkow.

And he's actually a brand strategist. Yeah. Right? So he did this TED Talk about midlife crisis needing a refund. That's kind of interesting. Pashkow? Pashkow. P-A-S-H-K-O-W. Oh, I was wrong. Pashkow? Yeah. That's kind of a... It's a cool name.

Justin Justin Yang? No, no. Dude, that's like my name. Howie. Howie. No, but he did this talk, and it kind of goes along with what you were saying is he's talking about that studies show that the vast majority of people that do go through like a midlife crisis come out on the other end much better, more confident, and better, and happier. Yeah.

So he's saying it's a necessary step. You come out at the other end. So it's an opportunity to start a discussion. And the kind of cool analogy that he paints is it's like a company rebranding itself.

So, you know, let's say like Target, right? Target's recently like rebranded itself and, you know, a lot of big companies go through kind of this rebranding, right? So, so it's like you ask yourself the same questions because if you're in a boardroom of a big company and you're going through, like you're having this rebranding meeting, right? The strategy, you're going to ask yourself, okay, well, who are we and what do we stand for?

How are we going to communicate this to our people? So these are kind of like the same questions you would ask yourself personally, I think, when you're going through a midlife crisis. I know I am right now. I'm asking myself, okay, who am I? What do I stand for? What are my real values? What am I going to do to communicate these values personally?

you know, to the people I care about, right? And, you know, how am I going to execute on these, right? So how am I going to evolve myself to position myself really to kind of rebrand my own identity? I 100% agree with that. And if you, if I reflect back to what, like, 2016, right? So like two and a half years ago, three years ago, now it's 2019, but...

Remember when I quit my job? Okay. And I went back to New York for like three months. Yeah. With one goal. Is to write a script, make a film, to get back into what I should be doing. Yeah. And what I want to be doing. Yeah. Right? Because I just didn't want to do what I was doing before.

That's a rebranding. Like I got, I stopped and it took a long time. I was going through depression and anxiety attacks, like doing what I was doing every day until finally I said enough is enough. Right. The next day I woke up, made a decision, left, you know, accepted all the aftermath that the negative aftermath that was going to come through family and all that stuff.

Left and I had a supportive wife that was like go ahead do your thing and I came back and now I'm doing what I'm doing You know, and that's a rebranding and and that's just not career either, right? It's also if you guys can remember my mentality on life itself, right? Changed I remember during that time you were when you were in New York actually shooting that short film you did We were on the phone you had called me because you were asking for my input on the script you had written. Mm-hmm

And the way you were talking...

And just your voice, like the way you sounded was just like, it was kind of like a new Howie. It was like, not a new Howie, but like, it was like you were all of a sudden like a kid again. You know what I mean? Like there was that excitement in your voice. There was that nervousness and excitement in your voice where like you felt like you were like working on something. Like you were really truly excited and nervous to be working on something for like the first time in a long time. And so I remember that conversation.

And it worked out well for you, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's one of the things that I think as a group, I mean, I say this a lot when we hang out. You know, I half joke, you know, sometimes about...

You know, basically behavior and mindset that maybe we used to be like, you know, and I have joke about being like the boring guy that's, you know, the straight laced guy, you know, like, and then, you know, we laugh and I come back and I'm like, I'm just fucking around. But at the same time, there is truth to that because, you know, that's part of my rebranding, which is trying to keep myself alive.

in a direction where I want to be going. And part of that is letting go of how I used to be. The mentality of not caring, you know, not respecting myself and not respecting other people. That mentality of just very, just selfishness is all it is really. And, and, and think more about,

Which is also a form of selfishness, right? Like, what do I really want to do? And how do I really want to be? Right? Which is a selfish way of thinking. Yeah, but I don't think it's selfish, though. You know, I mean, I wouldn't come at... Like, selfish...

I think something selfish is when you're doing something for yourself at the cost of someone else. That's selfish. - Okay. - But I think a personal rebranding is not at the cost of anyone else. In fact, if you rebrand yourself correctly and successfully, it's at the benefit of everyone else around you. You know, people will care about you, right? So I wouldn't call that, you know, I wouldn't look at that as kind of like a selfish thing.

I would say though, in order to, like if we're gonna call, like you know, going through a midlife crisis, like an individual rebranding, right? An identity rebranding for yourself. I think a necessary requisite to actually have that happen

is having had experience a plethora of different things throughout life, right? So if we take the analogy of that past Pascal does in his TED Talk, where it's, you know, these companies do rebranding. What are the companies that you really see doing like major rebrands? They're companies that have been around, that have a legacy, that have a heritage, that have been around for a very long time.

Right. That had already a certain identity all of a sudden because of, you know, maybe the economy or the business isn't doing too well or because of competition or whatever it is. All of a sudden they find themselves having to do this massive rebrand. Right. And that's a crisis. Right. So that's like a midlife crisis for a company.

but their brands, like you don't see a new brand, a startup all of a sudden, like, oh, we have to go through a rebrand. That doesn't really happen, right? So I think that it's the same when it comes to individual, right? I think us, you know, having known you guys for over a decade now, right? And us here, obviously, you know, living in Shanghai, we've experienced a lot of things, right? So we've been a part of, I think, a lot of different social groups. You know, I've

You know, I've been a nerd. I've been a skater. I've been a musician. I've been like, you know, I've been a party guy. I've been a jock, right? Maybe not a nerd. I don't know. But I sometimes identify with the nerds, right? Party guy, maybe. But, you know, we've had our share of, you know, pretty crazy experiences, right? You know, just in Shanghai alone, not to mention even before we met each other, right? So I think all that is necessary now to have the kind of,

And I don't want to use the word wisdom because I don't want to be like, oh, I'm so wise or anything. But I think it's sort of an insight into your one self, right? Having experienced all these things to now be like, to know when or how you need to rebrand yourself, right? Because if you haven't, if you lived in a box your whole life, right? And you haven't really been exposed to a lot of different kind of situations and scenarios and experiences, life experiences in general, right?

I don't think you're going to have the kind of material, you know, so to speak, or insight, so to speak, to really rebrand yourself properly. You know what I mean? To really make the right decisions about that. I love the discussion. I have a similar perspective, but I think I also have a slightly complementary perspective. So I think, first of all,

Three years has gone by since, I mean, time flies. Like, I remember literally we were in some, you know, in some restaurant and we were talking about, I think you were still working at your sister's company. So that must have been like three years ago. At least three years ago. Right? More. I've been back in Shanghai, what, four years now? Yeah.

So, I mean, first of all, cheers for making that decision. Hold on, hold on. Let me, let me. You guys are babysitting your drinks, man. Yeah, yeah. Well, we weren't, you know, it goes back into our past. We were never heavy drinkers. Shut up. We all know that's not true. Cheers. Cheers. So, I think, first of all, I'm really proud of you, Howie, for what you've done in the last two years and the courage that you've had. I think second piece is that

So as you guys were talking about rebranding, I think it's an interesting concept. And it's a metaphor that is very sort of, it connects to sort of our understanding of like companies, right? It's a very relevant metaphor. I also look at it in a different way. Maybe it's not so much of a rebranding. Maybe it's that you always knew who you were.

You've never forgotten what you really wanted to do. You went to film school. I remember you telling me in high school you had these types of interests. You were into music. You were into all these things. You wanted to be creative. You wanted to share your vision. You wanted to tell stories. And you've always wanted to do that. And your work before in PR and all that stuff and advertising helped you do that. But it wasn't...

Exactly what you really want to do. It didn't allow you to tell you the story that you really wanted And so three years ago you decided that I really want to go back to my core values I want to go back to who I am and so you you were just you're sort of going so rebranding is one way of looking at it But you were really saying going back to your roots. You want to go back to your roots? It's like it's like it's like Apple think different. It's because sometimes we talk about rebranding. It's it's all it's superficial It's on the surface. You know I'm saying mm-hmm, so I think

There's that aspect of it, but it's great, you know, and I think we all need to rebrand or rethink or redefine But hopefully we're staying true to the core you well, I think I think you bring up an interesting point in the fact that maybe it's not just kind of this like this new discovery of who we are, but we all want to kind of known but yeah, because like if you think about it like the kind of things we did when we were younger, right? Are usually the kind of things

not exactly, but like the type of things we revert back to. So if we were like creatives when we were young,

Usually, you know, after you, let's say you go through like a rebranding or a midlife crisis, you usually start thinking about creative things you can start doing again. Obviously, they're not going to be the same exact things, right? They're going to be more realistic and things that are applicable to the real world and things you can, you know, make a living off of. But they'll kind of revert back to something creative in nature, right? Or if you were, you know, if you were like a, you know, like a tech entrepreneur,

kid or something like that. You know what I mean? You kind of revert back to that. You revert back to kind of an initial passion. So I think that's interesting. I don't know, that might be true in that like as a young kid you kind of already know what you want to do and then, you know, through life you just kind of, you know, you just get lost in a way. You don't know the vehicle. Go down a different path and then you kind of try to find that path again. Yeah. Like you have some sense but you don't know the vehicle because you do have to engage the world. Yeah. So like making films, all that stuff, like, you know, you can't do it in isolation.

But let me add in another thing. I mean, just for myself, my return, returning back to my core values. Right. That's also because I was exposed to it. So I had that going for me, whether it's playing music or making films. Right. So I was doing that since I was a teenager. But what about people that don't have access to any of that, who have not experienced, let's say, for example, let's say my real friends.

I don't know, my real passion, I haven't even experienced it. Let's say it was, I don't know, marine biology. I don't know, just random shit, right? Let's say I got exposed to marine biology and next thing you know, I'm like, holy fuck, like that's me, man, right? But I never got exposed to it, so it became a late bloomer and that's a real change, right? But I think it just depends on the person because everyone has different experiences and different exposure. And if we take an internal look, just to kind of expand upon that, right? Yeah.

there's nothing out there that's your passion in the sense that your passion comes from within. There are elements of marine biology or whatever it is that will activate what's inside. But like, there's some people that just love engaging with people. And so eventually they find something. So,

how you define your core values and stuff, hopefully there is an institution or there's something out there that kind of fits you. But sometimes people actually define something completely. I just want to ask you something. So what you're trying to say is, for example, like when I gave it, my example was too specific of marine biology, but if you take it back, it may be a love of animals or maybe it could be like, you know, science in general, you know, you know,

biology is not a science, but biology in general. Yeah. You know, understanding the way any type of body works. Yeah. Let's say, you know. For sure. And just maybe I'm more, I lean more towards animals, you know. Right. For example. So you pull back the layers and you get down. Like communication. Like that's you, man. Like you're all about communication. Yeah. And that is your core. Yeah. That can go to many different, you know.

Yeah, and you talk about peeling layers. So it's like you keep peeling layers, layers, layers, and then you go back to your own core values. You also go back to your own personality type. I've done a lot of reading around personality types and MBTI and introversion, extroversion, all these things. So there's some natural phenomenon. You happen to be a certain type of person. So nature versus nurture. And then you hope to connect to society in a way where those interests of yours happen to be encapsulated in a specific existing industry.

Yeah, but I think you got to get really lucky, right? Like I think most people, right? Obviously, I think most people never really find that, right? Most people are stuck doing jobs that they don't like doing, right? But they have to. They got to make a living. They have mouths to feed. You know, they have rent to pay and stuff like that. I think most people in this world are like that. And I think the lucky few...

who do end up finding something, you know, like that can make a living and they're all passionate about are, you know, exactly the lucky few. There's not a lot of them. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't try, right? That's right. And I think the three of us are...

I wouldn't say we're the lucky few because we're trying to figure things out. But we are part of the population that are saying, like, we're not happy. We're not satisfied with that. Yeah. We did. You know, like we're at least having that conversation. We're living 10,000 miles away from where we grew up. Yeah. Right. We're living 10,000 miles away from like a lot of the things that, you know, the people that we're familiar. Yeah.

And I think how we, yourself, you know, having started a business before, like you've already gone and said, okay, we can kind of figure out a path that connects me to society, connects me to the things I need to do to be able to be on the planet, yet be sort of true to myself. But the other thing, okay, just to switch gears a little bit, right? I think this is fascinating. The other piece is like going back to the concept of small crises. So like, yeah,

When does someone, you know, have a massive crisis and why did that happen? And do you actually need to have a massive crisis to sort of redefine yourself? Are you talking about like a personal like identity crisis? Yeah, or midlife crisis. Like an existential crisis? Yeah, or can we be in a mode where we can be self-aware enough to...

and have had enough experiences where every single day I'm challenging myself, I'm reflecting, and I build that process so that I don't have to change myself 20, 30 years into something. I would prefer to literally have

a mini crisis every single day which I do actually when I wake up in the morning it's a little bit you're the type of guy that would yeah but have that and essentially you're having a crisis right now aren't you I'm having a crisis like break things down

break things down into the micro level, build in the habits, build in the self-reflection so that it's a lifetime continuous journey, a continuous crisis. I agree. But not viewing it as... I don't want to get to a point where one day I'm like, oh, the last 20 years I was going on the wrong path. I agree. I would rather...

you know, go on. How small corrections every day, my daily journey, one massive correction. That's like overwhelming. And like, you know, like, you know, you can't overcome it. Exactly. Yeah. So I think I, you know, for me, it's like probably eight years ago, I had a, a slightly bigger correction. I started a new role, new company, Apple, Google, Samsung. Yeah. You haven't been at Apple for eight years, eight years, eight years now, February. No, not eight years. Come on. Yeah.

Has it been eight years? Jesus. I still remember when, like, we're at, I forgot where we're sitting, but, like, you were telling me about that interview. Wait, are you sure about that? It's been eight years? Yeah. I'm not allowed to talk about my experience, so. Yeah. Anyways, it could be Samsung. It could be. But. I'm not joking. It's just. Come on. Come on, guys. You can't even say where you work? No. You can't even say where you work. I can't. I literally can't. And I'll tell you later off camera.

Like I just went through some training and they very specifically told me that I can't, but anyways, so eight years ago, start a new job, start a new role, started working for a place where I'm more connected with the values and halfway through that journey. I also had some challenges and I changed into a different role in the same organization. Um, I was lucky, you know, and there was a lot of self reflections, a lot of mistakes, but I was in a very safe, supportive environment and you know,

I mean, you guys know I grew up in a maybe a tougher, you know, more tough love environment. So, you know, I really appreciate that supportive environment. And then in that process, I learned how to check myself and not get to the point where, you know, I went over the edge. Yeah. So, like, you know, I think you're you're an interesting person to talk to about this because you you've kind of gone through this. And, you know, like what how was that process? Like, how did you have that conversation with yourself?

Or was it kind of, um, was it an individual journey you had to went through or was it like, I know you said you had a support system, but were they just, you know, being supportive or did they actually help you or, or was it kind of just like a journey you have to kind of battle, you have to like have on your own? So there were a few factors, right? Um,

I don't think that I was a very self-aware person. I don't think I'm super self-aware now, but it's something that I'm aware about my self-awareness being something I need to work on. And so there were things that just happened in my life. Like I got to a point in my life, like number one, I started looking at the people around me, my family, my friends. I'm like, I'm, you know, I'm not really there. Like I'm not, I think I could be more successful. So there was definitely the comparison piece and that created anxiety and

A second piece was that, you know, I'd go home, I'd have interactions, I'd do things, I'd be at work and I'd go home and reflect and I'd be like, you know what? Like, I would kind of beat myself up about those interactions. I don't think they they didn't feel right. They didn't kind of go in the way I wanted them to go. Right. I might not have had as many friends as I wish I would have had. You know, I met some people within my company and my boss and.

And I met someone who was one of the most popular people I've ever met. And he was my boss and he took a chance on me. He brought me into a role where I actually had to be a people person. So I was lucky. And then I saw how he interacted with the world and I was like, wow, like that's amazing. Like it feels so good. Like it's about giving. It's not about taking. Like I was a very selfish person and I probably still am to some extent. You guys have known me for a while, right? You've seen some of the changes, but yeah.

So there was a lot of self-reflection. I probably hated myself. You know, I mean, for many years, I didn't, you know, like myself as much as I should. And part of it is just sort of like understanding what expectations you should set for yourself. But part of it was that I felt like there was things I should be doing differently. There's a book that came out recently that has gotten a lot of attention.

sort of, you know, attention. It's written by two Japanese guys. It's based and rooted on sort of Western psychology. It's called The Courage to be Disliked. It's not so much about, you know, just because there's a lot of these books like The Subtle Art of Not Giving Enough, right? It's like some of these things we talked about. It's not so much about that. It's about everyone has baggage. So it's called The Courage of Not Being Liked. The Courage to be Disliked. The Courage to be Disliked. Yeah. And it's an incredible book.

And it's just about how to let go of baggage, how not to like take not let the things in your life, the things that didn't go well affect what's going to happen. You're in control. It's written in the form of a dialogue, like like a Socratic dialogue. So there's a philosopher and there's a student and they have a dialogue over five nights. It's it's an incredible book, but it teaches, you know, to let go of things.

So anyways, like, I think there were things that were happening in my life that I wasn't happy with. And I started realizing that I was in control of these things. There was no one to blame. And that I could blame people, but these things wouldn't change. But if I changed myself, I could change everything. So this was like a conversation you had with yourself? Over many years. Over many years. In the way I'm going to say. I mean, you know, like the last eight at least.

No, but when you said at least eight years ago, you kind of went through your own crisis, right? Yeah. How long did that last? I would say probably in the last...

two or three years, I started feeling more comfortable with myself. Okay, so it's so it's like, it took Yeah, it took a while to kind of like, because you don't even know what's happening. Honestly, right? You don't even know what's happening. So and then eight years ago, I started being more meticulous about like the way that I capture my thoughts. And so that's when I started like really taking notes. And I have my systems and like how I capture my feelings and these things. And it's very organic. Like I don't have to sit down and like say, Okay, today, I'm going to write my journal.

These are just like living documents. And so then now I have thousands of notes where I've collected my thoughts, my reflections, you know, my goals. I've captured other people's thoughts, other resources. And then I'm starting to build this sort of knowledge base of how to like, you know, essentially get to the point where I'm never going to have a midlife crisis. So would you say you're significantly happier now than you were back then? I'm much happier.

I think the lows are much less low. Okay, the valleys, the dips and highs. The highs are not as high, but the lows are not as low either, right? It's more level. And then you get into all kinds of things like mindfulness. And so part of this is also, I mentioned that one boss I had, but then I have had friends and colleagues around me. I've been able to surround myself with people that I really admire.

And so then you get exposed to things that you might not do on your own, like running, like mindfulness, you know, like design thinking, right? Something maybe we talk about in another segment. And so that's something I really want to hear. I learned the power of people. I learned more about, you know, if you give of yourself, it changes the whole paradigm. And I think I was raised in an environment because there was so much scrutiny on me that I started looking inwards because the expectations were so high.

It's interesting. It's been a journey. You know, it's funny you said the whole two, three years ago you started feeling more comfortable with yourself. Because now that I'm reflecting back, it is about two, three years ago where you have changed. Like, I actually noticed the change in him. And, of course, there are moments where maybe...

Old school Eric may slip through. You know? Apex? Apex would slip through. But... I haven't seen Apex in a long time. But they're like slight moments. But a moment of scare. But a moment of scare. It's like the Incredible Hulk. You never know. Bruce Banner is never fully, you know... He's always around somewhere. It is a Hulk. But I have to say, in these two, three years, the fact that you said you had not seen the Hulk says a lot already. Right? Yeah.

It is, but it makes it scarier because it's like an earthquake. The longer you don't have an earthquake, the more scared because you're like, well, we're due for one. We're due for one. We're due for one. And then the bigger, the more longer it wait, the bigger you think it's going to be. Right. So, but you're the same situation. Like, like, like we're due for an APIC. The one thing that really takes a lot of the sort of the, I guess the anxiety out is that I'm okay with APIC. I'm okay with the old Eric, right? I'm okay with all these people. Like I don't,

If we don't see this person, it's fine. But I used to not like that person. And so I'm now like, you know what? Sometimes it comes out. Everyone has an APIC.

It's okay. It's okay, right? So I think I hated APIC more than... I think people were entertained by APIC, honestly. No, I don't think anyone was entertained by APIC. I would not use the word entertaining to describe APIC. If we survived APIC, there was a high entertainment value of being able to tell the story of the survival. Of the survival, yeah. But I mean, yeah, you're right. We've all gone there.

I mean, God knows I have, right? You know, God knows I've had my moments of, you know, just crazy debauchery and just uncontrollable things. You know, to a lesser degree, Howie has too. But his is more like stupid shit, you know what I mean? Right. We're more like the whole thing. Yeah, you guys are much more. So I can't believe how vulnerable we've gotten. And it's like, this is really like the pilot. Yeah.

Like, you know, we're going to be... Oh, this is not good. This is going to be like cycling. This is going to be cycling. Honestly, I've been waiting to break the surface a little bit because we're talking about every surface. Right, that's true. We're going to have a couple of drinks and then it's game over, right? Is that door locked? From the outside?

I mean, yeah, we can talk about that another time about like a past debauchery, but that's a whole nother, that could be a whole nother podcast on its own. You know what I mean? There's enough content to fill like years of that. But I think what all this has kind of led to, right? And everything we're kind of talking about in our past discussions we had is, and you know, you're both older than me, right? By a little, you know, some by a little more than a little, I guess. Yeah.

You want to tell people how old you are? It's funny. We'll find that out one day. We'll find out one day. It's funny that you know what you guys are like. You know, I consider you one of my closest friends in Shanghai and I don't even know your exact age. You know that? You know that? Do you know that? Do you know how crazy that is? You know that every group of friends I have and you guys know some of the other groups? Yeah.

I have to go through this bullshit every time with them too as well, right? So anyways. No, but what I was saying is I think what this all leads up to is that for me, I'm kind of, you know, I think I'm a few years behind you guys in terms of me going through this kind of identity crisis. But do you really feel that way? Because I don't even think of age when we're talking. I mean, there's areas where I feel like you developed, you know, sooner because you had...

you know like there were certain environments you know like some of the things that you did because like i think i i don't know like i mean but i feel like you you were able to do some experiences early on in your life yeah but i'm not talking about development right so it's not necessarily like development because in that respect i think there are certain aspects maybe i develop sooner some areas i develop later whatever but i think it's just about having this crisis

It's like this like I mean, I don't know literal age like that's something that what but it's not experiences Well, I'm sure age plays a role but you know, um, I don't know I don't I'm only calling it a midlife crisis because I don't know what else to call it and I think that's what I'm going through or starting to go through. Okay, so why I was I wanted to ask you this question then

Why did you decide to talk about this crisis thing? What is it about it? Are you in one? Where did this come from? Because it's something that is on the forefront of my mind on a daily basis. Really? Since when? And if I didn't have boxing to do every day, right? Because as you know, I take boxing very seriously. And I think that's a whole other subject about like, I think physical exercise, physical exertion is...

a very good tool to have to kind of relieve a lot of things that you're going through, especially during these times and especially at the age we're kind of getting to. So if I didn't have boxing to hang on to, I mean, I just might be going insane right now. - You box every day? - Yeah, pretty much. Six days a week.

- Yeah, so I'm thinking that I have my own trainer, I have a coach, and I'm looking to get into actual fights and do some competition. But that's a whole different thing. But that's the one thing I kind of latch onto right now because it's the one thing I know that I'm interested in doing, but that also has beneficial effects for me. So I'm losing weight, I'm getting healthier, I'm feeling better physically about myself, and that physical

Benefit also translates like emotionally and mentally, right? Because it's all connected, right? For sure. But other than that, I am thinking about myself individually, my own identity, my own situation in life.

Almost every minute of the day except when I'm boxing right so it's something that I think about constantly is something that are these positive thoughts or no then for the most part they're not actually they're all not positive right because I don't feel like I have anything positive to really think about in terms of you know things that I may have accomplished and

where I am in life right now. You know what I mean? So I left the family business, right? Honestly, after Roxanne, after that whole project, I started working. You're still getting over some of the things where you thought you were on the right track, and things happened. Well, even then I never felt I was on it, except for Roxanne.

You know, because that was, that was, that was like something like I really, we really wanted to do. And I, you know, I was really, you know, we were really kind of working hard to accomplish something there. Right. But once that ended. Well, hold on for the benefits of the listeners. Can you just share a little bit about, I don't want to open it all, but like share a little bit about Roxlyn and.

Well, Roxen was just me and how we were business partners in Roxen along with our third business partner, James, who's not here. So we were doing a clothing retail company. What year was this? Oh, God. This was... 2010 to... Well, you guys started earlier. So it was 2010 for you guys. Yeah, 2010 to what? Like 14, 15? Yeah, 14. So those years that I was gone. It was like four or five years, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, we started off as an online clothing retail company. Right. And at that time, it was just me and James. Howie hadn't joined at that time. And we didn't know what the fuck we were doing. Right. So we were young kids and we didn't really have a vision. We were just thinking, oh, let's make some clothes and sell them online in China. Right. Like we were like, you know, we were just like just trying to like just explore and do something. Right. We were just kind of like entrepreneurial at heart. Right. And so we did that.

And then, you know, the team kind of slowly grew.

And one thing led to another, you know, I'm not gonna get into it now, but we ended up getting into kind of like the offline business of brick and mortar retail, right? Started opening brick and mortar stores throughout China, you know? So when we wanted to get into brick and mortar, that was about the same time how we came on board. And I still remember the kind of like the dinner we had. We sat down, we had dinner, we had drinks. And at that time, you know, you were thinking, you were considering a job with Nike or coming on board on Roxon, right? Yeah.

So I made my case. He made his decision, right? Came on board. So then there, all of a sudden, we kind of like completely rebranded Roxon, actually, because it was a completely different type of thing before how we came on board. And, you know, it was going decent for a while. I mean, we weren't like, you know, the biggest brand in the world, but we were having a really good go at it. I think we were making some really good strides. I think we kind of brought the brand to a place that,

Even to this day if I look back on I thought was pretty impressive. Yeah, a lot of stuff we accomplished right? Of course, we did a lot of things I would have done a lot of things different but the things we did do well I was really impressed by and still am right so that went on for a while Anyway, we made decision later on to shut that down right? Yeah, because it was either we keep making another last push for it right and put in another kind of round of funding into it yeah, or

We start clean, we stop, we cut our losses and we start on a new sheet of paper. And that was a really tough decision. That was one of the toughest decisions I had to face in my life, right? Because that not only was stopping four to five years of work we put in and this baby we had in this brand, but it was also letting go

of like 30 plus employees. So, you know, and people like team members, like we got pretty close with them, you know, throughout the years. And, you know, some of them were new, but a lot of them were old employees, you know, loyal. So we kind of went through this whole process. And after that whole thing, you know, I went back and, you know, started working with my family, right? So then the family business. And from day one, though,

The only reason I went back in it was because I was talked back into it by my father. And I felt a sense of responsibility and debt to them. Because growing up, I've been able to live a pretty privileged life because of...

of the business that my father does. - Yeah, and of all the work that he put into it. - All the work that he's put in and that his team has put in and the money that he's made, right? So I felt in debt to them and I had nothing else to do at that time because I was fresh coming off of closing off of Roxland. So I went back in, but from day one, I was never happy. And I was pretty miserable doing the job.

I had my ups and downs with it, so what we did was we kind of sectioned off a piece of the company, pretty much a department of the company for me to run independently, 'cause that's kind of what I wanted to do. And so everything from then on for that part of the business, I ran independently. So I had to get my own customers, work my own factories,

You know build my own team what have you right and I use the resources the financial accounting resources and HR resources of the company as a whole So I did that we got some pretty cool customers, you know We got like diesel and seven from mankind Kenneth Cole, you know these kind of customers these brands in the States and You know there was moments of excitement, but I never I

I always put it this way. It felt like if I was a girl, it felt like I was going through the birthing pains of giving a baby. And once the baby was born, I had to give the baby to somebody else, to a stranger. And the stranger would walk away with the baby.

And then that cycle will happen over and over and over again. So it felt like that every time, right? Being an agent in the middle, you know, working for other brands, saying things that aren't yours. Because having had full autonomy of your own brand in terms of direction, what you want to do, and now being an agent, kind of a middleman, you know, all of a sudden...

It's a whole different kind of dynamic. It's a whole different reward system and incentive. And it just, it was not fulfilling kind of what I wanted to do. And I was just sitting there and sitting in front of a computer all day. It just wasn't good. So, you know, as you guys know, I made another tough decision to kind of leave that. And after having left that, now I find myself...

contemplating like, okay, well, what am I doing? You know what I mean? Like, who am I? Yeah. Who am I? What am I to do? You know, and it's just kind of like an identity crisis, a confidence issue as well. Yeah. So, you know, and these are kind of things that, you know,

that what they say is a midlife crisis. It's a identity crisis, lack of self-confidence. So that's why I use the term midlife crisis because I think maybe that's what I'm going through. And one of the questions I raised to myself was like, well, look, I'm only 36, right? So that's not young, but that's not old by any stretch of the imagination either. So I'm thinking like, well, can you really go through a midlife crisis at 36? Yeah.

And I think the answer is yes. You know what I mean? And I think, I don't know, I haven't done enough research to know if this has always been the case. You know, there have always been people going through midlife crisis early, I guess. I don't know. But I think maybe not. And I think this could be a relatively new kind of phenomenon where people are starting to go through their quote-unquote midlife crisis earlier and earlier.

And I think maybe even social media could have a huge role. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Because now before where everything was like you're kind of living in your own thing, you do what you want. You only see what your friends are telling you or you see in the real world. But now because of social media, right? Instagram, Facebook, WeChat, right? Here in China. Yeah.

you see what everyone else is doing at every second of the day. And people are only posting the very, very best snapshots of their lives, right? So it's a very skewed perception of their lives, right? Everyone's on Instagram, everyone's only posting...

the very, very best moments. And even a lot of these moments are manufactured, right? So, so all of a sudden you're being overwhelmed by all this kind of like exposure to like all these great lives that other people are living, right? And I'm not saying I've never been, you know me, I've never been one to be big on social media. But,

I can't say it hasn't had zero effect on me either, right? So I think this interconnectedness that we've had and how the world's like we're more connected to each other than ever before, I think has a huge role in maybe pushing people to have this midlife crisis earlier in their age. Exactly. Because now you feel more pressure to be successful early rather than...

just to live your life. You see the outliers. I think there's no science behind what I'm about to say but like the typical let's say 45-50 year old person going through let's say a midlife crisis.

What's like a typical trigger, right? And we kind of tapped into it before where, you know, the idea of death, the idea of time running out, you know, what have I achieved, identity crisis, blah, blah, blah. But, and then why do, why the typical reactions are buying a sports car, you know, trying to look young again, like doing young things, right? Well, maybe part of it is you're seeing, like, you know, you're seeing all the youth, all the young people all around.

And that comparison is that much more stronger through social media, through the internet, through access. So I think that's why you can... And if you think about social media, it's such a new phenomenon. Even the internet. What was that, 20 years ago? Really, this is so new that I think we as humans, we have not adapted yet to really... Our minds have not adapted yet to...

to really kind of handle a lot of what's happening. All these advances we're making technologically. I think it's outpacing the mental development of humans. You know what I'm saying? So the kind of real serious effects and results that are going to happen, we don't even know yet. Because it's so new, right? So I think a lot of these things, we're not prepared for it. So I sense... So I sense...

On one side of me, as your friend, there's a lot of empathy and there's, you know, there's this compassion, right? Mm-hmm.

The other side of me is like, this is a fucking sob story. I'm tired of this fucking sob story. And, you know, like, you stop comparing yourself, right? Jordan Peterson says, don't compare yourself to who others are today. You don't know, right? There are eight different dimensions to their lives. Like, you have no idea what's going on, how much they're suffering. And compare yourself to who you were yesterday. Yep. Jordan Peterson's 12 rules of life, right? Exactly. And so...

You know, I mean, it's a bit of a sob story. Social media is ruining my life. It's a complete sob story. It's a complete sob story. And I'm not out here like preaching this, you know. I'm not saying like, oh, you know, feel for me. But it's definitely a sob story. But it's my own personal sob story, right? And I think we've all had our own personal sob stories, right? Or are going through. Do you feel like your personal sob story, how does it compare to, you know, other sob stories?

When you, you know, like David Goggins, for instance, right? Like, where does it sort of... Obviously, in terms of quality of life, obviously, I've had it good. Okay? And to that comparison, we've all had it good. Right? But I'm not comparing that. But everything is relative at the end of the day. Right? So, you know, a person, you know, who is in, you know, like dire straits, right? They go through something...

Obviously, from our perspective and from everyone's perspective, it can be, you know, it's a lot more tragic than anything I can have ever gone through. Right.

But everything is relative in terms of what your kind of like medium level of like tolerance is. Your reference point. Exactly, right? So, you know, like the analogy, this is a terrible analogy, but like analogy of like drugs, right? So like if you're taking drugs, right? Or like an alcohol, for example, right? So if I'm new to alcohol, I drink alcohol, all of a sudden it's going to get me really fucked up.

But if you're, if you're always using it, it's not going to get you as much. So it's, it's, it's degrees, you know, it's all relative in terms of like what you're personally going. How do you reset yourself? And so here, and I can relate. So, you know, I mean, I don't, I can relate because I've, I can kind of, you know, I've experienced certain things and you get into this mode and, you know, like probably tomorrow I'll wake up and I'll be in a,

her you know but one thing what interestingly like last week or this past week I was running and I like to listen to

you know, these kind of mindfulness things and things like that, like Headspace and like Nike and Headspace have this kind of these guided runs. And I just found them enormously helpful. I started listening to them a couple of years ago. It actually was one of the key things that got me running regularly. And it's helped me sort of get into a different mind space with things. And one of the things in that guided run that they were talking about, which I loved, and I wrote it down,

I write down all of these things so I can keep them fresh in my mind. And they said something like this. They said that if you get trapped, it's easy to get trapped in your own thoughts. All right. And when you do that, you become a prisoner of your own mind. Like, I mean, you literally can't get out, you know, like, especially if you're by yourself and you keep you get trapped.

But somehow being aware sets you free. So like, you know, that's why if you go out and you meet your friends, you know, you change your point of view and things change a little bit, right? And so I keep reminding myself that your thoughts can, you can get trapped in your thoughts. Your thoughts will, it's like a jail. And there's a book that was written probably in the 70s or maybe the 70s by a guy named David Burns called Feeling Good. And it was like quite a well-known psychology book. And he said something really interesting. He said all moods,

Right? Are created by your thoughts. So, like, I think there's probably... It's debatable. There's some science in it. But all moods are created by your thoughts. And when you're depressed, your thoughts are dominated by a pervasive negativity. Because you were just telling us, like, your thoughts have a lot of negativity. The negative thoughts which cause these feelings of depression nearly always contain gross, inaccurate distortions. Then you get trapped inside of these things. So, I keep... So...

I keep reminding myself of these things and like you, the exercise releases like endorphins, it does different things and it's a tipping point, it's a domino effect. So that I wake up, I feel like crap, I go out for a run and it gets my day started. But then I can, it pushes things in a way where then I can have the interactions at work and you know, in my life, which create the positive energy, you know? So I guess the, you know, my question is like, what are the things that you're building into your routine other than boxing that are helping you create positive energy?

Because probably everyone has these issues in their own way, right? For sure. So I'm just kind of curious because I feel like you've been more recently even more optimistic and stuff like that. So I'm kind of curious, what are you doing in your life to...

to kind of get to the point where you can tap into your vast talents. Cause you know how I always kind of, when I introduced you to my friends, I'm like, I've never known a guy as talented as Justin in terms of like, I mean, I'm listening to like, what is like, do you even know me? But you know, from being like a world-class chef, you know, to being able to pick up anything and then be obsessed and then go in and be great about it. Right. I mean, he has that uncanny ability.

Well, what you just said really reminds me of another TED Talk by Tim Ferriss. You guys know Tim Ferriss, right? So he has this TED Talk. It's about fear, right? He talks about his routine that he does called fear setting, right? Which is really useful. So what fear setting is... Fear setting. Yeah. But why it reminds me of what you just said is because he quotes a Stoic writer called Seneca, right? Yeah, I've been...

Yeah, Seneca the Younger, right? Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Exactly. So he has this quote from Seneca that says, and this quote is verbatim, I think it's, we suffer more in our imaginations than in reality.

Which is so true in a lot of cases. Obviously not for everyone. A lot of people are suffering in reality, right? That's true. But for a lot of people, like this kind of identity crisis, we're suffering more in our imagination than reality. So that's a really kind of strong quote in terms of like, we're torturing ourselves a lot of times more than necessary. Right?

More than what's actually happening because of our fears, because of our self-projected inadequacies or lack of self-confidence. So we're painting all these scenarios in our head, all these doomsday and worst case scenarios and what ifs in our head that are making us kind of suffer and not take action. So it really is like we're suffering more in our imagination than in reality.

And so what he does, what he does, what he calls fear setting is he has this exercise that he does. He says he does about like once a quarter. Right. Yeah. And he he does this. He has three sheets of paper. It's really easy on the first sheet of paper. He has three columns. Right. And he does like one to 20, one to 20, one to 20. Right. The first one is this.

let me see, I had it on my notes somewhere. The first one is about the problem, it's like, okay, it's define, prevent, and repair. And what that means is if you were to do something, you had to pose yourself a question, right? So whatever it is that's inhibiting you to, whatever it is you want to do in your life, right? For example,

For example, if I want to start a company, right? If I want to start a music record label company, right? In China, for example, right? Not that I would, but if I wanted to, okay? What are all the worst things...

that I'm afraid why I'm not doing it. Right? So quantify your demons. Yeah, like write it down in black and white. And then you find out they're not demons. What are all the worst case scenarios and problems that would arise? To prevent you from achieving that goal? To prevent you from achieving that goal. So it could be something like...

I might lose all my money, right? Or I might not have enough time with my family and spend time with my family and they, you know, or I might be an embarrassment to my friends or whatever. Or I can't sign an artist. Yeah, or I can't sign artists or all these, all these, all these worst, all these problems, right? That are preventing you from doing it. So define it. So boom, boom, boom on one column, define. So you have to have like at least 20, right? Define it. And then he has another column right next to it called prevent.

So you think about what can I do to prevent or minimize each of these things from happening? So for the money thing, I can prevent, I can say, I can write down prevent. I would only allocate a portion of my budget to start this company and the other I'll put it in my savings or whatever, right? Something like that. So you would write down, you know, like solutions to kind of like prevent or minimize those problems from happening. And the third column is repair. And what that is, is what's,

Worst case scenario, it does happen. What do you do to repair these problems? So he puts ideas on how to repair these problems. That's one sheet of paper. On the second page of paper, he writes down what are the benefits of

if of, of the attempt or partial success. So he's really playing down the benefits and really amping up the negatives, right? So he's saying, so what are the benefits of a partial success, right? Just even a partial success. So he writes out like, okay, well maybe, um, I will find new meaning in my life or maybe this will lead me to other things or maybe this will be, uh,

It won't be what I achieve, but it will be a sustainable business that can produce modest income, whatever it is. Silver lining. Yeah. What are all the potential benefits, right? Yeah. That's the second page.

Third page, he lists down what is the cost of inaction? So both emotionally, financially, physically, whatever it is that you're trying to do. What is the cost of inaction? All one through 20? It doesn't have to be one through 20. But what are the cost of inaction, right? So what do you gain to lose emotionally?

by not doing this, right? So he puts this all down. And he says a lot of the major decisions he's ever made in his life, whether it's personal decisions or business decisions,

all the best outcomes have almost came from doing this exercise. Because by doing this exercise, you're really putting down, you're putting under a microscope. What's keeping you from doing it? What are the kind of, maybe even like right in front of your nose, right under your nose, simple solutions to prevent these fears from, these concerns from happening. Repairs you can make. What is the cost of an action, right? So you have a pros and cons all of a sudden, right? So you have, if you put a scale of one to 10,

Right. Ten being the best possible outcome, one being the worst. Right. So if you if you look at the first page, look at all these possible things that can go wrong. You're like, OK, well, at the very worst. Right. Given the things I can prevent it or things I can do, repair it. Getting very worse. This is like a five. Right. The worst things that can happen at the end of the day, realistically. Right. What are the benefits from it happening? Right. Well, it can be like an eight. Right.

These benefits like life-changing things if this goes well, this could be life-changing and permanent right and what's the cost of an action and Oftentimes when you're writing down the cost of an action you'll realize that inaction is no longer an option because the cost of an action is usually outweighs all the other things pros and cons right the cost of an action is usually really Terrifying because the cost of an action can be like well I just end up being

Where I am, you know, 15 years from now, 10 years from now, I'm still at the same spot. And that's terrifying for most people. I know that's terrifying for me, right? Or it can be even worse than that, right? So the cost of an action is usually very great. Where all of a sudden you put on paper, you realize, well, the cost of inaction is no longer an option. So I'm just going to roll that out now. So this is what Tim Ferriss says. He often realizes that inaction is no longer an option. He can no longer consider not to act.

So he looks at the pros and cons, right? And some fears, he calls it fear setting. Some fears, he says, are very well-founded. But you shouldn't assume they're well-founded until you do this exercise and put your fears under a microscope. Because you realize a lot of fears are not that well-founded and grounded. But some are.

But you can't assume that until you've done this exercise and put everything under a microscope and really analyzed. And by analyzing, you understand it kind of gives you like, you know, like very logically in black and white, like what you need to do. And do take action now. And he does a lot of his things. So he calls this whole exercise fear setting. He does this about once a quarter, right? So that's like once every three months. So...

I think that's a great idea. Okay. So it sounds interesting and thanks for sharing with us. And it's something that I want to, like,

Like, I'm going to do some more research on it. And it sounds like... Listen to his TED Talk. Yeah, it sounds like... It's like, I don't know, I mean, kind of a random analogy, like Monsters, Inc., right? Like, you go into the closet and it's like, oh, you know, you look at the monster, right? And by writing things down, you're quantifying. Because, like, when they're just playing in your head, like, there's just so much more scary. It's like closing your eyes and then hearing scary sounds in a haunted house.

Exactly. It's like so much more scary. Your imagination starts taking over. Yeah, your intuition actually goes. But when you have to actually put pen to paper, you can only really write what is reality. Yeah. You know, you're not going to start writing imagination things because you really had to physically write them out now. Because the rational side of your brain is working. Okay. So I'm going to go back and play devil's advocate. I'm like, what the fuck have you done with this? Have you used it?

Because you're very passionate about teaching it. Well, I've only learned about this just like two days ago. So I haven't really put it into action yet. Can you make a commitment though? You know what my problem is though? My problem is not, I don't think it's an action. My problem is, I don't know what to act on. Like I don't even know what to write as the main question for that paper on the top of the first page.

If I had that, I can go through the exercise. And at least I can have the privilege of not acting on something. Right now, my biggest problem and what keeps me up at night is I don't even know what to act on. If I did, I can make a decision. And I'm usually pretty quick about making decisions. Right? Like if I want to act on something, I'll do it. Usually. My biggest thing and what scares me the most is for the first time in my life,

right now really at the age of 36 for the first time in my life i don't know what i want to do i don't know what i need to do i've always known that well i've always thought i know that at least yeah right now for the first time i really i i draw a blank you know there are days where i i sit there and i'm just staring into a blank wall and just thinking like i don't know like i don't

Like, I don't know. There's no noise. You know, usually before my head was always filled with ideas and things and ambitions. Why? Why do you think that though? I don't know. All of a sudden everything just went silent. Everything just went blank. I think it's fear.

I don't know what it is. I think I honestly like I've said this to you before and once again no science behind this but I think it's ever since Roxlyn like that like for you it's a failure right and you invested so much of yourself into it and the closest thing that I could relate from my own story to that to bring me to that conclusion is when I broke up with my band

And when I realized that music is back in New York and I realized that music is no longer an option with the people I was with in my band. Right. And I one day walked into practice and said, I quit. Like, I realized that this is not working. It's over.

And how long were you with those guys? Well, the long story short is I was playing in my original core band since I was like 15 with some of these members, right? Since high school. And I learned music with them and through them, right? And grew with them. And then one of them left, the drummer, Bill. Like he was one of my best friends, right? So he left. And then Keith, the guitarist, who was my best friend in college, left. And I was the factor. You know, they left because of me.

And then I had new members join. So the bass and the keyboard still stayed. And then we had a new drummer, another guitarist. We were rehearsing awesome new songs. Like, it was great. I loved the new songs. But for some reason, I realized that it was not just about music. It was about playing with those people. And that was what I was holding on to. And...

Not like I didn't like these new people, like they're my friends, like I knew them from before, right? And it's not like I didn't have best friends and like the other like the bass player and stuff like that. We grew up together as well. But for some reason, that original core, that was it for me, right? And it didn't matter that we're doing good music again. I just didn't feel right. And I quit. And after I quit, I went from playing guitar every day of my life, writing a song every day of my life,

to never touching the guitar again. Like, like now, to this day, which has been now since I stopped in what, 2005 or four or five around there. It's been like what, 14 years now. I've probably picked up, literally picked up the guitar to play guitar 30 times, 40 times and that whole time. Mm.

You know? And some of those times with you guys, right? But, like... Yeah, I remember when I was, like, when I was trying to get you to, like, you know, because, you know, I was trying to get you to start a band here again because I wanted to play. Yeah. And then you're like, ah, nah. It's like you're not having it, you know what I mean? And literally the weirdest thing is if you ever talk to any of my friends, like the bandmates from back then, and to this day they're still, like...

mind-blowing yeah that i don't play music anymore because that was my identity that was me and so i can really i can use that as a relation to maybe what you're going through because that divorce and i call it a divorce right that divorce divorcing myself from that band right or whatever the remnants of that band was so catastrophic subconsciously that it changed me permanently

You know what I mean? To the point I can't play fucking music anymore. Right? Like, that's it. Like, I try. It's not like I don't love music. I try. I've tried to write music. I've tried to get back into it. I just can't. And so it's weird. So I'm using that as a comparison, maybe as a metaphor, that you invested so much. You almost, like, that was you. Like, you put yourself into this fashion brand. It's a pretty fucking gloomy metaphor. But, I mean, like, come on. Come on.

No, but I get it. I get it. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's the case because I honestly don't know. You know what I mean? It could be. But I think you need to think about that because I only came to that conclusion years later. You know, actually moving here when people were like, why don't you play music? I almost feel like you need a challenge because, like, you know...

I mean, what if you were down on your luck, you had nothing. - My back's against the wall. - Your back's against the wall. We know you would step up. How do you manufacture that? How do you create a circumstance where you have to act? 'Cause right now the price of inaction in the moment, so you go back to that price of inaction thing, it's not catastrophic, right? In 20 years-- - It's not catastrophic enough for me to really propel me. - There are plenty of people in the world

where you know their price of inaction their price of looking at the wall like that you know would be would be like they would be homeless they couldn't eat you know yep and so it's interesting i i love your um because you guys work together and i love that that sort of that insight because there's probably some kind of block mental block there and that you have to kind of get over on the other hand it's like you know how do you move on like you have to move on sometimes you can't

look at the past um you have to move on and that again that's like the courage to be disliked there's like it's the whole book is around how do you let go and move on and how do you not assign sort of like the premise of the book is the premise of the book is the reason that you haven't done anything is not because of your past it's because you're looking for an excuse not to do something

Bottom line. Yeah. I agree. Because that's where a lot of fears come from, right? Because the fear of... I'm just going to use my example again. So maybe, subconsciously, maybe...

Why do I not go back to writing music is because I'm fearful of investing myself into music again, which I related to hang out my best friends and creating something that we all enjoyed. And then forming a new band and having my heart broken again. Right. It's the same thing of relationships and love. Yeah. Right. This concept, I want to, I want to really highlight this because, you know, you, sometimes you read these things and you,

They're so connected with reality. Like sometimes you read books and you're like, ah, it's all just fucking theory. And then sometimes you read like really deep stuff and you're like, this is happening in my life. This is happening with other people. And so, um,

They call they talk about something called ideology. So I'm going to throw out some terms like sorry to be academic about it. But ideology is the study of causation. And then teleology is the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon rather than its cause. And what that means is that ideology is like the reason I am the way I am is because my parents didn't support me. And so, you know, that's ideology.

teleology is that the reason that I'm doing what I'm doing now is because I'm afraid of something and I'm doing it because I'm trying to do something else, which is avoid, you know, this type of thing. You know what I'm saying? So you're, it's almost like we're manufacturing a situation that prevents us from moving forward rather than it being connected to something from before. So anyways, yeah.

I think, is this a good time to kind of wrap the... Yeah, if you want. I mean, it depends. What do you guys have to do after this? No, I'm open. No, I'm open. I actually want to... I actually want to just, like, I want to...

you know, I want to like kind of look or sort of see some of the stuff we talk about and just like reflect. Yeah, of course, we can go over it. Off camera, yeah. No, but I think it's like, it's really interesting. And I like to just kind of like digest and reflect a little bit. You know, what I think a lot of this boils down to in a way, right, because we talked about fear, right, talked about identity and things like that, and talked about like, you know, the realization of one's own impending death, right? Yeah.

I think what it all really boils down to a lot of this like people when we talk about midlife crisis is FOMO, right? Fear of missing out, right? With social media and everything like that because all of a sudden like it's just like deep-rooted like because I think as human beings, as people, we're all kind of wired to feel like FOMO, right? We're all like fear of missing out. We all want to be included in whatever is going on, right? We don't want to miss out on anything, right? I think that's just like natural for all people to feel that way.

And I think that nowadays is more prevalent than ever because of a lot of things like social media, right? Because it's bombarding you with things that you're missing out on. Exactly. It's shoving in your face every second of the day. Everything. Look, look what you're missing out on. Look what you're missing out on. Look what you're missing out on. You deleted your Facebook. Yeah, I'm not on Facebook anymore. I had

I had to get off of that. For many years. Yeah, for many years. But still, like you're on YouTube and you see strangers doing cool shit. Yeah. So it's inescapable if you want to be connected to the world, right? But definitely Facebook is one thing I already got off on for years. But it's that fear of FOMO. It's like everything is shoving in my face, fear of missing it. And all this is like, you know, you might not think about it, but all of it, I think, accumulates. And accumulates in a way where all of a sudden you're like, well, I need to do something.

You know, and you might not consciously connect it to like the feeling of fear of missing out or whatever it is you're seeing.

But it accumulates in the back of your mind and it gets to a boiling point where it just kind of like comes out, right? And the moment that comes out, I think that's the crisis, right? All of a sudden, you're freaking out about like, what have I done with my life? What am I going? Who am I? You know, what am I doing? And it's such an unfair comparison. Who am I going to be in the next year or two? You know what I mean? It's an unfair comparison because essentially it's like you look like, it's like imagine going to a baby and being like, grow up and be Justin Bieber.

You know, like, I mean, it's completely unrealistic. It's taking someone... But the reason why it seems realistic is because you're seeing people our own age or even younger. Yeah. You know, having...

at least on the surface, accomplished all these things, right? But that's one out of a million. But that one out of a million person 100 years ago would have just been somewhere and you would have never known. You would have never even known about them. Exactly. And they would never have any effect on your own personal being. And if you look at the spectrum of people, there's always going to be people better than you, always worse. But now because we can compare ourselves against the top 99th percentile. It's a direct comparison. So I go back to like, I mean...

Go back to your boxing. I go back to like my running. I go back to your film. I go back to this meeting It's like how do you just create circumstances in your life where you're doing the things you want to do? And so I had this issue, you know the last few years where I had the same exact issue But you know like, you know, obviously I worked in the corporate world So I was able to at least get engaged on a daily basis with you know work and I stopped setting goals and

Because when I started setting goals, I would look at, well, who's the most badass at this thing? And then the goal would be completely unreal. So I just stopped setting goals. And I said, you know what? Like, how do I just do one thing? What's the minimum that I'm willing to commit to doing every single day?

So, you know, for me, maybe that was running five minutes or two minutes or three minutes, you know, and I wasn't comparing myself to small incremental improvements on a day to day basis. And I wasn't comparing myself to like David Goggins. I mean, I still do, of course, because, you know, growing up.

in the type of family I grew up in, it was always like this person, you know, it was, it was before social media. I had social media in my head. It was my mom. My mom was social media because she was the most social person in the group. And so she could always find the person that was like compared to you. Yeah. And no matter how long I'll share something. I was like, so no, this reminds me of something. My mom, your mom was your Twitter feed. Yeah. That's hilarious. But I'll share something funny. I,

before I get back to this. So I was accepted to this like special program when I was 16 or 17. And basically it was like, you got to do research with a professor. And so there was like, you know, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 people that were accepted in Texas, right? Where I grew up. And it was like the elite of the elite. You work in a university and I'm like in the lab of like world renowned professors and all this stuff.

And there was 15 people in that particular, like, I think the whole program, there's four different universities, but there's 15 people in my program in that university. At the end of the program, they gave out awards, like, you know, most popular or, you know, like funniest person. I got an award, right? I got an award.

I'll let you guys guess what the award I got was. Give us some options because we don't know what that is. It could be anything. Just throw some out there. It was about my need to be better than others. Most competitive. Very similar. It was actually embarrassing. Eric, he got the award for it doesn't matter what profession he does when he grows up as long as he's the best.

That was it, right? It was like, Eric doesn't give a fuck about what he does as long as he's the best. Do you think that's true? Would you say that's true about yourself? What it is, is it's my fear. It's my fear of not being good enough. It's not really my need to be great. And so I had to reprogram myself and say, I just want to be a little bit better than I was yesterday. And so...

And you can see this in my journals. So I started setting goals and then I started changing them into habits and focus. And so things that I could never accomplish before, these goals, like I failed at every single goal. Like I don't have the patience to achieve goals. I set a goal and I just forget about it. And what I did was I just started creating habits and say, every single day I'm going to do this. Every single day I'm going to do this. And I set the habit small enough that I could achieve it. Mm-hmm.

So it wasn't like, you know, do like 50,000, you know, steps a day. It was like start here and the minimum that you can commit to every single day. And I started that about three years ago, two, three years ago. And I've seen my whole life change sort of because of that.

So I can't say that I don't have the same fears and same issues in FOMO and stuff, but I can say that I'm getting better at managing that because I focus on myself and comparing myself to who I was yesterday rather than comparing myself to someone out there today. Because you're going to lose that argument every single time. Exactly. So again, going back to the boxing, the running, it's like where are the things...

you know, that can connect you to something that'll help you figure out the vision of what you want to do. And so like that, this is where like some of the design thinking I'm doing, I started connecting to, um,

It's just actually going out there and taking the first step. I've always had that problem. I've always taken a problem and made it so big that I couldn't take the first step. And so by changing the way I look at it and building habits... So even if you look at my journal, like I do it year by year, it used to be goals. And there was X's everywhere because I didn't accomplish a single one of them. And then it became like now they're just habits. And then the habits evolve...

month by month and so by the end of the year I'm like oh shit like I did a fucking lot

And it started like this piece started like about three years ago when I got together with my cousins. I'm really close to my cousins. I have nine cousins on my mom's side, you know, kind of in different places, California, New York. They're all super successful. I mean like crazy, crazy successful. We got together and we realized we all had demons because we all grew up in the same family. And so we all set goals and we reflected like every year we get back together and, you know, we have the whole family thing. And then we said, okay,

You know, what happened this year that you're happiest about? What was the saddest thing? And that year, our grandpa had passed away, you know, at 99 or 100, you know. And then we kind of said, well, these are the things. And so we set goals. And that's when I started setting goals again, because like when I was younger, I just stopped setting goals because I never accomplished a single goal. It's crazy. It's embarrassing. Like most people set goals. I literally never accomplished a single goal in my life.

Because that's just not how I work, right? And then once I figured out the habit thing, I found that I made a lot of progress and I could achieve things that even were beyond the goals that I would have set for that. There's still a long way to go. Like you set goals without even thinking about it. Right. So, but then, you know, today was a wake up call for me because Howie and I had lunch. And then Howie said, like, you're so competitive, like you want to be like,

you know better than people at everything but you know that takes a lot of energy so he said like i think you can hone your energy and your competition just focus on the two things that you really want to do and i was like wow that's really interesting it's like maybe i need to find those two big goals because now i've built the machinery to move forward so i built a machine that can help me get forward a little bit by by having the habit structure right but i now i need a map

I think Justin will appreciate this because one of the things I said was that, you know, I said, you know, Eric, I'm going to be blunt with you. You're very competitive and you always have to be, like if anybody said anything, you have to be better, right? But it's like beer pong. It's like irrelevant shit. It's irrelevant. It's like irrelevant, useless shit. Like put that focus on real shit as opposed to the stupid shit that you're trying to be better with. It's better than everyone else.

Right? Now, beer pong is actually significant. So don't get mad. Beer pong is important, dude. Don't shit all over that, dude. Yeah, don't shit on beer pong. Yeah. I mean, I still have the video. There you go. There you go. There you go. I still have the video. Like, I'm the all-time... That was one of the key... That's like Michael Jordan. I murdered in beer pong just last weekend, I think. Was it you and Bruce on the team? I don't remember. That was a blur. That was a blur. I single-handedly carried the team. Anyway. But that was a point that I think...

But I truly have been blessed. I mean, I'm blessed with you guys. And I'm blessed with the, you know, put yourself in environments where people around you are the people that you want to be. Like, put yourself around people that have some of what you want to be. Yeah. Right? And then you keep getting better. They don't have to be perfect. Like, I mean, I have people around me that have flaws. And I, you know, but it's like the ability for me to learn from these people, from you guys, is

has helped me be better and then I've gotten to a point where I can help others and like that's just my goal in life so I think you like I almost feel I don't want to be preachy but like you have to go back to your core values and say like stop being selfish

But not self, you know, like what you were saying to Howie. You're not selfish. You're a great person. You're so generous. One of the most generous guys. But stop being selfish in the sense of like start thinking about how you can impact bigger things, not just yourself. Like stop wallowing in this little self-pity thing that, you know, I mean, you know. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I think one of the things we can do is start reading some of the same books because then we can start applying because...

I know we keep name dropping, but I can't remember who said this actually, so I won't name drop. But it's not so much how many books you read. It's about how you take the stuff that you've read in the book and apply it to your life. Yeah. Right. And so like I found that. So I just keep reading the same things over and over. But then I start using them as weapons.

So this book I'm reading right now, right, called The Happiness Hypothesis, right? He references this library in this book, right? So imagine a library where it's full of books and there is every single arrangement of letters written.

possible in every book. Like monkeys on typewriters typing up books. Exactly. So in this whole, miles and miles, there's a huge, huge library full of books as far as the eye can see. There are books, every single book is different, but every single book has a certain arrangement of letters. So

You're going to have really profound books in there just by the possible arrangement of letters. But then it's going to be filled by a lot of gibberish, right? Yeah, yeah. And he referenced, he says that's kind of the world, right? Because we're living in a world where we're filled with all this nonsense data. We're impacted by all this nonsense data, like shoved in our face from day to day, right? So how do we kind of filter out and decipher and find and curate information?

the ones that are actually impactful and meaningful and valuable to us amongst all this other gibberish, right? So he references his library. And it's just about kind of finding the books in this huge infinite library

There are the ones that are meaningful to you. It doesn't have to be. It could just be a handful of books. It doesn't have to be a lot of books. But just these handful of books you find can have a profound and lasting impact on your life and could be the only books you will ever need. You know what I'm saying? So he says in this world that we live in where we're just bombarded every day by all this stimulus, all this data.

It's just about like, it's not about how much data you can possibly absorb and keep absorbing. That's not the point, right? In fact, that could actually work to hurt you. It's about filtering and just selecting and curating the field that you can actually stick to and just like kind of really kind of attach yourself to and really go along with, right? And really find depth with. So I'll share something like on a practical level. I think that's such a,

I mean, I can't agree more. And like what you said about these are the old, these may be the only books you need is that about, I've always been, you know, I've always read a lot, right? I mean, I wouldn't say a lot, but I've always enjoyed the process or the idea of reading. And then, you know, sometimes I've had difficulty focusing, but I've always liked reading and about, I would say probably about six years ago, seven years ago, you know, I work with some smart people. And so I asked,

I made sure to ask the same question every time I talked to these people that I respected, that I felt like, hey, they'd figured out a little bit more. And the question was very simple. What books are you reading? Right. What books are you reading? And I remind myself to ask that. And I went from sort of like that simple question to becoming to getting to the point where recently people were like, hey, Eric, you should start a book club.

Because I then became sort of an evangelist for the ones that I really, really, really liked. And I found that as I started reading more, I started connecting. And there's ideas that you can connect from different sources. And then you find the books that you really need. And I got to a point where I started being the recommender. I started being this person, like, kind of connecting people together. People asking you. So I'm always...

Yeah, I'm always... So what I do now is, like, I gift people books. Like, that's my thing now. Yeah, well, we talked about that. Yeah, so I gift... Like, my way of contributing to my friends and showing my care for them is that I gift books. And I got gifted a book recently, and I learned a lot from it. So I completely agree. I want to read that particular book. And I think, you know, books encapsulate... I mean, there have been so many people that have lived on the earth...

Some of them have really figured it out. Right? They've already figured it out. Or at least partially figured it out. Yeah, and the way you find these people is find the smartest person around you, the person you admire the most, and ask them what books they read. And then you start kind of connecting their dots. Did you know asking someone what books they read

is a deceptively intimate question to ask. It doesn't seem like an intimate question, but if you think about it, it's a really intimate question because people will only read books of things that are really personal because reading a book takes time. It takes effort and it takes a lot of your time, right? So you're going to choose the books that really mean a lot to you personally.

Things that you really want to know about or be better at or think you're lacking or something that really personally kind of affects you, you're going to read about. Unless you're just reading kind of like fictional novels, right? But it's like, I mean... It's a really deceptively... If I say I'm reading Kama Sutra, you know, it reveals a lot. It reveals a lot. It reveals a lot. It's like the history of sodomy. Yeah. History of sodomy. Yeah.

So you can ask someone, like, what book are you reading? It's very good. And it's a really good way of, like, getting to really to know them without being, like, so obvious about it. Because people will answer that question no problem. You know what I mean? They won't think, like, oh, that's a really personal question. No one's going to think that way. Right. But it actually is a pretty personal question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's awesome. I love that. I love that. That's a great point.

Cool. Well, awesome. Cheers. How come you're not drinking? Cheers. Why have you? I don't want to turn red on camera.