My First Million: Top Marathoner, Ken Rideout, On Making Money, Dealing With Addiction, And Mental Toughness

I'm a big believer in mindset

and what you tell yourself is the truth.

Reality doesn't matter.

Like, what other people think about you doesn't matter.

It's the only thing that matters what you think of yourself.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off on a road.

Let's travel never looking back.

All right, we get right into this.

Ken, thanks for coming, man.

I'll let you kind of do the intro,

but I want to tell our audience what I know about you

and why I think it's cool that we have you.

So we take pride in like finding people

a little bit before they explode.

You're getting quite popular.

You're in The Wall Street Journal the other day,

so things are happening for you.

But you're to me like,

you're like the next David Goggins in my mind.

Like, you know, you're kind of a freak athletically,

but you're also more so a freak mentally.

And you talk about a lot of like just being tough.

You got some crazy quotes that we'll talk about later

about how you like running

because it's all about suffering and things like that.

And so you said a lot of really interesting things.

Sean and I are also huge combat sports fans.

So I listened to the pod with Teddy Atlas that you're on.

And I know a bit about your background.

And so I wanted to have you on to talk about that.

Typically we talk about business stuff.

Heberman was a little bit of a,

we had him on and that was a little non-business.

You're a little bit non-business,

but you had like a interesting background

where you worked on Wall Street, worked at Enron, I think.

You did a bunch of interesting stuff.

And so how do you give your introduction?

What do you say you do?

Yeah, well, thank you for that introduction.

When I hear people introduce me sometimes,

I almost don't feel like they're talking about me

because I think part of what makes me unique

is I at times don't have the highest opinion of myself

and always feel like I should be doing more.

But I think that the comparison to David Goggins is,

it's accurate.

I can see why others would think that,

but I don't think that it's a perfect analysis.

And I take it as a compliment.

He's soft, right?

No, I don't think he's soft at all.

I think he's probably maybe more aggressive

and alpha than I am, I would say.

I tried to be, I don't know.

I think that the way I come across,

when I was on rich roll, he described me as being,

his initial impression of me prior to meeting me

was that I was very aggressive and alpha and intimidating.

And I don't see myself that way.

I see why other people would see that.

But I think of myself as that alpha or aggressive exterior

is almost like a defense mechanism

because inside I think I'm very emotional and sensitive

and so much so that my way of protecting that sensitivity

is to be so aggressive externally

that it really takes someone unique and special

to kind of see through it.

At least that's my take from the psychotherapy

I've been involved in.

Well, the reason, the reason we had you on,

typically, so it's usually just Sean and I,

or it's like, we'll have like billionaires and stuff on.

So like these like wonderful people,

but something that like I've been thinking a lot

about lately and I've been talking to Sean about lately,

it's just like toughness and like how it feels like

good to get out there and work hard physically

or to spar or do things like that.

Because even though we're doing cool shit

behind the computer, it's still behind the computer

and it feels good to live.

And you say you're not an alpha,

but I think in the Wall Street Journal article,

you said, I'm the biggest alpha male in the starting line.

I'm ready to die.

Thank you for pointing that out

because there was context to that quote.

My exact quote was, when I'm on the start line,

when it's time to go, 100% I'm alpha.

I will step on your neck to win.

I want to kill you.

I want to destroy everyone.

But the minute that race is over,

I'm everyone's best friend.

If I see someone fall down in front of me,

I will stop and help them.

I'm in triathlon.

I've asked people, yo, man, you all right,

I'll stop and help you.

I say step on your neck and kill you to win,

but not really.

Like this is, this is my mental process

that I have to go through to get to the dark place

that I need to get to, to suffer to the extent

that I need to suffer, to get the most out of myself.

Running, you know, I ran 36 hours ago.

I ran the Tokyo marathon in 229.19.

And the day before that.

Fine.

And the day before that outside magazine wrote an article,

how 51 year old Ken Rideout runs sub 230 marathons.

And I saw the headline and I literally had an anxiety attack.

I'm like, oh my God, the pressure is on.

I mean, I've run sub 230, 304 times, but it ain't easy.

And I know that that last five or six miles,

the suffering and the darkness that's coming with that,

I can't, it's literally the physically the hardest things

that I've ever done is like everything in your body

would be like, if you're driving your car

and every single warning bell is going off,

the radiator's overheating, the oil's low,

you're going to run out of gas.

And you literally are like, I can stop and no one would care.

Or I can push myself and know that I didn't

have another F in ounce to give.

And that's, it sounds cliche, it might sound corny,

but that's my process.

That's where I have to go to get to where I've

gone to to the point where guys like you with this awesome

park is want to talk to me like I'm a regular guy.

I'm a dope.

I don't see myself as special with the exception of being

willing to die to get the most out of myself physically

on these particular days at races.

So you said you just ran a marathon in Tokyo 36 hours ago.

You're here now.

And I didn't know much about you before Sam brought it up.

Sam goes, oh, I really want to have this guy on,

are you down with it?

And I thought, I've heard that name, but I don't know.

Who is that?

And I was like, oh, is that the Teddy Atlas podcast guy?

Oh, wait, what's the story?

And I started looking into it.

To me, there was a few things that really stood out.

So there's the kind of the obvious headline

that here's a guy who's over 50 years old

and is basically flying through these marathons

or running super fast speeds at, I don't know,

the exact records or whatnot.

But you're one of the fastest, if not the fastest, correct?

And you're kind of in your bracket.

Over 50, yep.

Yeah.

So that's kind of remarkable.

And I think that's the key thing I want to get to is like,

that's an extraordinary thing.

And that doesn't just come out of nowhere.

And so you talk about being able to go to that place

at the last five miles.

What happens pre-race?

Where do you, how do you flip that switch?

What is your sort of like mental state of mind

or your psyche?

What do you do mentally to prep yourself for these races?

That's a great question.

And thank you for the opportunity to explain this

because I think that it's important for people to understand

when they look at this just on the surface,

like you just described like, wow, it's extraordinary.

And by the way, when I hear it,

it doesn't even seem like you're talking about me.

So I don't at times have the highest opinion on myself

because of the struggles I've gone through with addiction.

So as I'm telling you this,

I'm super cautious about coming across like a narcissist.

I don't want to come across like that.

I want to be very humble in how I describe this,

but I'm going to be honest with the process prior to the race.

I've spent before a race in this one in particular,

no different than any other.

I spent 10 or 12 weeks like devoting all my physical energy

or at least 90 minutes to two and a half hours a day

of preparing for this for, let's say, 12 weeks.

When I get to Tokyo the week before I always go by myself,

my wife, I have four young children,

even some of the local races they don't come to,

even when I think, oh, I'm going to win

and you can see me win a race.

Like they've come to a few of them

and it's kind of uneventful for them.

They come to expect me to win.

And I in my mind think they're going to be so psyched

when they see me win.

And then they're like, okay, Dad,

can we get out of here now and get a donut?

So anyway, long winded way to say,

I have a very, very specific process

that I have to go through in the days leading up.

And again, I don't want to sound like I'm like

some elite professional runner,

but this is what I do.

This is the process.

I have to get there.

In the case of Tokyo, without 14, 15 hour time change,

I need to get there at least seven days early

to get my body and my circadian rhythm on track

with what I'm about to do.

Because again, I've spent 12 weeks

devoting so much energy to this.

I don't want to mess around when I get there.

It's very specific.

I don't make plans to go to dinner with people

or very rarely, mainly because I'm a jerk.

I know it.

I'm very selfish.

To me, again, I'm not a pro runner,

but to me, this is my version of the Olympics.

And I am not there to mess around and have fun.

It's like I'm on a work trip.

So I get there and I just need to be alone by myself.

Think about what I want to do.

Try to stay positive.

I'm a big believer in mindset

and what you tell yourself is the truth.

Reality doesn't matter.

Like what other people think about you doesn't matter.

It's the only thing that matters what you think of yourself.

And that goes into the same,

that same thought process goes into preparing for this race.

In my mind, I am a professional runner

and I'm going to win the Olympic gold medal on Sunday.

So I get there early, I go through my process

and on race day, I've said this before in interviews.

It's like, I'm not, I'm nothing nice on race day.

I don't want to make friends.

I don't want to chit chat.

I'm a jerk.

I know it.

So I try to stay completely by myself.

I don't put my shit on other people,

but I don't want them putting theirs on me either.

So I stay by myself.

The race goes off.

I know what's coming.

Some people are like, how are the sites in Tokyo?

What were the people like in the race?

I said, I couldn't tell you

if we ran through the frigging Imperial Palace or not.

All I know is the road in front of me.

And I get into like a tunnel vision

where I don't waste an ounce of energy.

I don't even try to look at my watch.

I don't want to move any movement

that isn't completely necessary

to get from A to B as quickly as possible.

I'm trying to run the straightest line.

I'm focusing.

If people get too close to me,

I'll like kind of give them an arm like,

dude, you're getting too close.

Like I don't want to trip someone

at the start of the race in Tokyo.

I was on right on the start line

and two or three people right in front of me toppled.

And it was like they were caught in the whitewash

as surfers, just arms and legs flailing elbows

and knees smashing on the ground

as people just trampled them

at the front of a major marathon.

It was crazy.

So I don't want them doing that to me.

So I'm like, that's what I meant

about being a bit alpha at the start,

but I don't want to hurt anyone.

I don't want to affect anyone.

But I don't want to be effed with either.

And yeah.

Did I see a picture of you and Jason Calcanus over there?

Yeah, I mean, Jake, Jake Cal, yeah.

How do you know him?

My friend Casey Neistat, who is,

do you know who he is?

You too, Casey.

So I trained Casey last year for the New York Marathon.

My friend, Neve Shulman,

who's the host of Catfish on MTV, he connected us.

So I trained Casey and Neve for New York City Marathon.

And then I heard Jason mentioning,

running a marathon on all in.

And I just mentioned it in passing to Casey.

Casey connected me.

I saw Jason was in, we connected via text.

I saw Jason was in Tokyo, I sent him a text.

And then we ended up going to dinner one night

and then a Tokyo food tour the next day.

We went to like some super high end sushi place

and then a bakery.

Jake Cal is like, he's dialed.

He knows where he wants to go.

I know nothing.

I was just like, just tell me where we're going.

And I'll be there.

Just text me the address.

Dude, you're in the end crowd.

You're hanging out with all the cool guys.

Again, when I think about my friends

like Andrew Huberman and David Sinclair and Joe Rogan,

I think I can't believe these guys are my friends.

It's just mind blowing.

But it comes back to this point of,

I don't have anything that anyone listen

into this show doesn't have.

I promise you, I'm not a good athlete.

I played division three sports.

I was just a hustler.

And when I found running as a way

of getting over an addiction issue with opioids,

I just decided I was done being mediocre

and we'll get into the career stuff.

And I'll tell you how I did apply the same practice

to my career in finance.

But at the end of the day, again, not to sound cliche,

but if you're not all in, there's just too many competitors

out there that are going to eat your lunch

if you don't bring your A game every day.

But when you do dedicate your 100% effort

to one particular goal, it's very hard to beat the guy

who wants to die to win.

Well, the thing that you're interesting is,

did you used to work at Enron?

No, good question.

I was working in finance, my very first job.

I moved to New York right after I graduated college.

I had a pharmaceutical sales job for a few months.

But when I moved to New York,

I saw all these younger guys my age working in finance

and making a ton of money.

And I was making like $36,000.

And my rent and student loans came to more

than my take home pay.

I was basically living on borrowed time.

Long story short, I was playing a pickup ice hockey

at Chelsea Piers and a French Canadian kid,

all who played a minor league hockey,

asked me if I wanted a job as a trading assistant

on an inter-dealer brokerage desk,

brokering electricity trades between the utilities.

And Enron was one of those clients.

And the way it worked was,

the junior guys at Enron would trade like next day power,

which was like, the commission was like literally like $5.

But if you didn't do that as a service for these accounts,

they weren't gonna trade the like big ticket items with you.

So long story short, I was doing that.

The guys on the trading desk, you know,

back in like the late 90s,

trading desk was like a locker room.

It was very like alpha driven, a lot of hazing and shit.

But I mean, I was at the time boxing

for the New York athletic club.

I had played hockey.

I mean, I was, I worked in a prison for four years.

So these nerds were hazing me.

And one day I just cuffed the guy.

I just slapped him across the face

and almost knocked him out of his seat.

And needless to say, they fired me.

But I was covering these young guys at Enron

and they told the senior traders what had happened.

And one of the senior traders who happened to be

from Martha's Vineyard outside of Boston called me up,

said, hey, I got a job.

I didn't even know we had competitors.

That's how naive I was.

I didn't know there were other brokerage shops.

I was there like two months.

I mean, I barely knew what a bid and an offer were.

And this other competitor offered me a job

starting the next Monday.

I was making 40 grand.

They offered me a job at 80 grand.

I mean, to me, that was more money

than anyone I knew made.

And the other thing is this guy's hazing me.

I had a huge black eye from a fight

at the New York athletic club.

Like I was not like a punk that you could just like,

I didn't strike you come across as like,

hey, bully me, I'm a big sissy.

Like I was a guy, you know?

So when he did it, I was like,

you got the wrong guy, dude.

And I cracked him.

Needless to say, he almost started crying

because I was like, when you leave this office,

I'm going to beat that crap out of you.

And he's like, I'm not, I'm not going to leave.

I go, you're going to have to sleep here.

Cause when you come outside, you're getting a beating.

And they were like, okay, Ken,

you got to go before we call the cops.

And again, I had no safety net.

I couldn't call home and ask for money.

That was like, I work in the prison.

My stepdad and brother were inmates in the prison.

No one was looking to help me

on my finance career in New York.

To them, I was like an anomaly.

You know, I was already like the richest person they knew

just by having a job in New York city.

So yeah, it was nerve wracking.

So that's how my career started.

And the guys at Enron were just like,

good customers of my clients

that like literally changed my life.

But it worked out all right.

I mean, I think at the end of your career,

I mean, you're killing it.

Yeah. So from the minute that happened within two years,

I was making like, I mean, not again,

not selling a Nars assistant.

I don't have a lot of money.

I don't know a rich guy, but within two years,

I was making like $2 million a year.

Doing things that to me were like,

I didn't even know what we were trading.

I just knew people and I had relationships

and they were just doing trades with me.

I was living in London.

I ran sales and trading, commodity sales and trading

at Canter Fitzgerald out of London in Hong Kong.

And I was flying on the Concorde back and forth

from New York to London on a regular basis.

Every single time the novelty like just never wore off.

Every time it happened, I was like,

I can't believe that this is my life.

Much like I feel today.

I can't believe I've done this.

How are you making that much money?

That's just commissions or what goes into that?

How do you jump from like $80K to $2 million?

What happened?

Yeah. Good question.

So I was brokering electricity trades

and electricity deregulation had just taken place.

So you're putting together trades for like

commodities trade on monthly contracts.

So we were doing that.

And when Enron went bust,

I got basically sent from New York,

from London back to New York,

because the business had dried up.

But I was like one of the biggest producers

of commissions at the time.

Again, like I was so unqualified.

I didn't know anything about the technicalities

of what we were doing.

I just knew how to phone buyers and sellers.

It could have been houses.

It could have been baseball cards.

I just was had a knack for it.

Is that like so networking?

Is it cold calling?

What were you doing to actually be great?

What did it take to be great there?

Yeah. Good question.

I hate the word networking.

I feel like when you're trying to network,

you're already like us behind the curve.

Like if you're trying to make friends,

people ask me frequently.

Now, like, how are you friends with rich role?

And and Andrew Huberman, I'm like, I don't know.

I just I must have something that they like

and they have something I like.

We just find each other,

but I certainly didn't make a conscious effort ever

to be friends with anyone.

It's just a natural process.

So to answer your question,

I just had an ability to connect with people

and I tried to have live a life of honesty and integrity.

And if I say I'm going to do something, I'll do it.

And I like to tell the people that I'm close with

or when I have a close friend, someone's like,

oh, are you friends with that guy?

I am like, oh, I'd help that guy bury a dead body.

I like him so much.

Like that's my guy, you know,

and I think that people that are my friends know

that that's the truth.

If you need me, someone's come into love over to your house.

They want to fight with you.

I'll come and help you.

And I think, like I said,

I think the people who are tight with me,

they know that that's a character trait that I have.

And I think it's what's helped me build the rapport

with the people that I've built rapport with.

But to your question,

so I had this ability to connect with people.

So when Enron went bust, they sent me back to New York.

And again, talking about reinventing yourself,

Enron goes down, I'm making a ton of money.

And these businesses like Caniface, Gerald,

Investment Banks, et cetera, they're ruthless.

So the minute shit went sideways with electricity trading,

they were like, okay, we'll send you back to New York.

And this was, I lived in London during 9-11

and Canner was on the top floor of the World Trade Center.

So when we lost 3,000 people,

they sent me back to New York and said,

hey, can you take over our credit derivatives business,

which happened to be the most lucrative business

in the institution at the time?

Now, if I didn't know anything about electricity,

you can imagine how little I knew about credit derivatives.

I knew less than nothing.

I knew as much as a plumber wouldn't know.

But I knew people and I knew the lingo.

And I just, I picked up the phone and just in hindsight,

I don't even know.

I had, I developed a relationship with a guy

who's still one of my really good friends

called Colin Stewart, who worked at Morgan Stanley,

who happened to be a huge trader of these things.

And the market was so new, credit derivatives,

and we just hit it off.

Again, just became friendly.

We went skiing a couple of times

and he started to just do a ton of business with me.

And at the time when a product is new,

the commissions tend to be big

until people realize how much they're paying

on an annual monthly or annual basis.

But I can remember one time for context.

And again, I'm only sharing these numbers

because of the, for context of the podcast,

I don't want to come across like, hey, look,

how much money I'm making because-

Hey, our podcast is called,

it's called My First Million, you're all right.

All right.

So I'm on a trading desk.

There's a group of credit derivative brokers,

just generic credit derivatives.

I was trading credit derivative like correlation products,

like super sophisticated, high-end bespoke, one-off trades.

So the credit derivative desk has like 12 guys

and that was like the product usual.

Everyone wanted to be in credit derivatives.

It was jam.

And they were credit derivative, basically,

think of it as an option on a bond.

So these guys would jam and we had a super busy day one

that everyone did.

And the kid who ran the CDS credit default swap desk

says to me, dude, we had a huge day,

we made 250,000 in commissions between like 10, 15 guys.

So I said, hold on, let me see.

And I start telling the thing, I go,

oh dude, I was a one-man show.

I said, I did 262,000 in total commissions.

And I think I was keeping like either 50% or 60% of that

in one day.

Amazing.

It was insane.

And so how did you leave that?

How do you let that go or what happens?

Take us, continue the story.

All right, so when I went to London,

I was in charge of like a bunch of grown men.

And I was like 27 years old, but I was very immature.

Like when I went to college,

I've said in previous interviews,

like I wasn't prepared for adulthood.

I just, I grew up around junkies and degenerates.

And like it was a very hectic childhood.

And my brother was in and out.

My brother never went to school past the ninth grade.

He's only 11 months younger than me.

So it was just total chaos where I was.

And I just knew I had to get out of this.

So I applied to college.

Like I literally went to the school I went to

because on the application,

you could like fill in the little dots

with the pencil next to the letters.

And it was like, like path of least resistance

in terms of applications.

And I could work and I had a job offer to work

as a guard in the prison full time in the summer.

And then a few days a week during the school year,

which I did through college,

I started at the prison like when I was

one week out of high school.

So if you can imagine being in a men's maximum security

prison, I mean, I was 18, but I probably looked like I was 15.

But I also knew prison is very segregated, right?

Blacks and whites don't necessarily mingle

with each other freely.

It's not like, it's like a different world.

But I knew most of the white guys

because I grew up in like white Irish Catholic,

almost like not in housing projects my whole life,

but in that, in that sphere.

So when I got there, I knew some of those guys.

So I wasn't as scared as I might be

if I didn't know anyone going in there,

which I know sounds crazy in hindsight.

Now people know me like, you knew people in prison.

I'm like, the difference between guards and inmates

is like the inmates have been caught.

The guards are just as bad.

It's like, that was a big part of my motivation

to get out of college.

It's like looking at what my prospects of life

looked like if I didn't go to college

and working at that prison,

I was like, I'd rather be dead.

It was the worst to this day.

It's the worst experience in my life,

just the thought of having to do that every day for 20 years.

So I'm working there, paying through college.

I go to London.

I'm now in charge of basically on a brokerage desk,

whoever makes the most commissions,

they're the manager,

regardless of having management skills.

So I guess what I was saying in a long-winded way

of saying like I had no experience

or no, I didn't have the maturity to be a manager.

So I really didn't know what I was doing,

but I knew I was good at brokering trades.

And I was suffering massively

like from a frog complex imposter syndrome.

And I had a minor surgery on my ankle

and I was introduced to Percocet.

And the minute I took those Percocets and the opioids,

I was like, oh, I have all the confidence in the world.

No one can stop me.

And thus began like a 10-year odyssey of being high 24 seven,

save for like a week or two here, a month here and there.

Like I'd get sober on my own, just white knuckle it,

like go through the physical withdrawals of, you know,

basically opioids, just like heroin, I was a mess.

Like in hindsight, I tell people now when I speak

to like junkies at like NA meetings

or AA meetings or I speak at prisons,

I say like I was a good drug addict.

I could get away with it.

I had resources.

I was resourceful.

I could find drugs anywhere.

I could get people to give me prescriptions

all over the country.

I just, I'm embarrassed to say I was really good at it.

And I was a functioning addict for a good 10 years.

And I'm sure people that worked with me during that period

just think I was fucking crazy,

not necessarily whacked on drugs, but it is what it is.

It's embarrassing.

Like I'm, I get choked up thinking about it.

Cause I just can't believe I behaved like such a loser,

but I did it.

And once I finally got sober, when we start,

when I started having children with my wife,

I have an adopted daughter who's 12 years old from,

we adopted her from Ethiopia as a newborn.

And right before we adopted her,

I just went through like an outpatient detox,

got clean and have been sober since.

I mean, I haven't been without slip ups

over the last several years.

Like I might, you know, slip up here and there,

but I mean, for the most part,

I've been sober longer than I've ever been in my life.

And it's of all the things I've ever done.

It's the one of the things that I'm most proud of,

the fact that I was able to kind of,

I don't say get over because it's a constant struggle

to stay sober when you've been addicted

to those kinds of drugs.

They're so physically and mentally addictive.

But nevertheless, that's kind of my journey.

Where did the transition go from just being a normal guy

to this kind of, I don't know, personality

or whatever you want to call what you are now?

Yeah, that's what I was going to get to.

So in 2010, when I got sober, I started doing triathlons.

I did the Ironman in Hawaii three times.

What time did you finish in your first triathlon?

Probably 11 hours.

Oh, you broke 12 hours your first time?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's like,

again, that goes back to mentality.

Like, oh my God.

Sean, that's like pretty good.

I mean, 12 hours.

Sounds like a very long time.

Somebody's never done that before.

Breaking 12 hours for your first time,

that's a great accomplishment, right?

Pretty good.

In like three years, I got down to a 936,

basically without even knowing how to swim.

And I went to Hawaii three times.

But again, part of that journey was like learning

about myself and figuring out how to suffer

and learning that quitting is much harder than suffering.

Because the first time I went to Hawaii, to me,

it was like I had made it to the Olympics.

And I was so happy just to be there,

that when I got off the bike, you know,

it's two and a half miles swim in the ocean,

112 mile bike ride in the Hawaii sun in the heat.

And you start a marathon around one o'clock

in the afternoon, which would be crazy,

even to do as a training run.

And the run got hard and I just quit.

I just stopped.

I was like, I'm dying.

This isn't my day.

I've like, I just told myself every story

that I needed to tell myself to justify quitting.

It's been a long year of training.

You made it here.

That's the big thing.

And as I walked back to transition,

literally like crying to myself, like crying, like real tears,

like it just so shameful.

Because I knew I didn't have to quit.

I had a lot more to get even if I walked.

And I went back the next year and finished in like nine hours

and 39 minutes, which was, you know,

I don't know where I finished overall,

but that that was I was very satisfied with that.

So I used the endurance sports to deal with my addiction.

And then through endurance sports,

I discovered my inability to suffer through adversity.

And I also learned the pain of quitting and the emptiness

that I felt when I didn't give 100 percent to something

that I had committed to.

And that really began the journey.

So that was like in 2012 or 13, where I was like, you know what?

I'm done being mediocre at anything in life.

I'm whatever I do, I'm going to do with 100 percent conviction,

including work.

And if you like, I'm happy to come back to like my career

and how it transitioned into what it was into what it is,

because this is all part of the same story.

Well, let's stay with the with the mind shift.

I want to talk about two of them.

So you had said kind of like, we adopted my daughter

and I decided to get sober and made a decision.

But what was the thought?

Because, you know, after 10 years of addiction,

I can't imagine that that was just as simple as saying, OK, OK,

well, now I'm this time I'm going to do it.

So what what was the thought?

And can you take us back to that moment

where you kind of realized, OK, I'm going to do this or was it

many false starts before it finally happened?

How did it happen?

Yeah, no, that's an excellent point.

And there were many false thoughts.

No one who's suffering with addiction wants to continue to wallow

in that because they call those medication

because they're like painkillers, but they're really joy killers.

So what happens is you initially take them, you feel great.

And you can maybe do that for like a week

and every single time you take a dose, you get a euphoric feeling,

maybe the first time for an hour or two.

By the end of the first week, it might be a half an hour.

By the time you're in the throes of addiction,

you're only taking them so you're not sick.

And I mean, it's anyone who knows anything about withdrawals

from opioids knows like I'm talking.

Imagine having the worst flu of your life for seven freaking days

and it can stop whenever you're ready to start taking them again.

Or are you strong enough to get through this week to 10 days?

So then again, just like quitting at anything, you're sick.

Oh, something came up.

Any justification where you're like, I can't afford to show up here

in like the throes of withdrawals.

I like can't go two feet from the toilet

because I might have to use the bathroom.

I'm sweating, then I'm freezing cold.

Everything hurts.

I'm an emotional mess.

I could cry at like a drop of a dime.

And so there had been many.

I had gotten sober for weeks and months at a time.

And then, you know, found excuses to go back to using.

But when we were adopting my children, I was like,

I cannot live like this with children.

I have to be in my right mind.

And yeah, it wasn't as.

So to your point, it's not just like I just flipped the switch.

But I will say, in terms of being hard, finding someone

that's been able to get sober from opioids is like finding someone

like with a story like from The Biggest Loser, where you see

someone who weighs like three, fifty, four hundred pounds.

Then the next time you see them, they're ripped to shreds

and they live in like an athletic lifestyle.

That's I think how rare it is to find someone who was heavily

addicted to opioids and is now living a clean and prosperous,

emotionally prosperous life.

That's how I feel.

It's it's it's so hard.

And only other junkies who've been through this

can recognize the struggle that went into it and the strength

that it took to get out of it.

Like I said, I've not always been perfect, but I'm so grateful

and thankful to be where I am versus where I was with regards

to the addiction.

But yeah, it was not.

It I know I'm different.

I know when it comes to mindset.

I know that I have some mental strength that other people don't have.

I say that with humility, but it's the truth.

I I just decided I'd rather die than live like this

and I don't want to die.

You have an interesting perspective

because you grew up with a bunch of people that are now in prison

and you worked in a prison.

Then you worked in in New York on Wall Street.

But now you know a lot of these like, you know, these celebrity

fitness folks.

So you have like a, you know, a bunch of interesting people.

And you also work with Teddy Atlas, which I imagine through that

you've been able to meet Tyson and it looks like you have Dustin Poirier

on the on your behind your shoulder on a picture of him.

So you've met a lot of like traditionally tough people

or at least people who from an outsider's perspective,

from my perspective, are like these tough guys.

Who are some of the toughest people that you've met and you admire

when you think about how would this person behave in this situation

when I'm struggling physically or mentally?

I would think one of the toughest people I know, I don't want to get emotional.

One of the toughest people I know is my wife.

The fact that she was able to like stick with me through all this bullshit

for the for the sake of my children has been incredible.

It's easy to be physically tough, because like I said, I mean, he catching

a beat and is like, OK, I got beat up like, OK, not the end of the world.

We've all been falling down by crash, car accident, whatever.

Like physical pain is just momentary.

Emotional pain lasts forever.

Someone that's able to withstand emotional pain and show toughness

and perseverance through emotional pain is a special person.

Because like I said, with like using addiction as an example,

there's a lot of ways to escape emotional pain, drugs, alcohol.

Ultimately, they're all shortcuts and, you know, like a finger in the dike

of the problem, like the only way through it.

The only way to deal with adversity is to go through it and go through the fire.

You know, like the expression when you're going through hell, keep going.

Well, you're in a hole, stop digging.

So to that extent, in terms of emotional toughness, my wife showed incredible

conviction and perseverance to stick with me when I was just a mediocre,

mediocre, financed clown, addicted to drugs, behaving like an asshole,

worrying about materialistic possessions and worrying about keeping up

with the Jones's versus worry about just living for myself and trying to be

the best person that I could be, which in my heart is like who I really am.

And so to that extent, my wife is tough.

But, you know, in terms of traditional toughness, I'd say any of the fighters

we've had on the podcast, that's Dustin over one shoulder and Regis

Pro Gray, who's 140 pound world champ, those are two incredibly tough guys.

But anyone who has the courage to get into the ring or the octagon

and have a fist fight for money in front of other people, I can you imagine

anything physically tougher than that?

I just how do those guys describe that?

I mean, like this weekend, I don't know how many people bought the John Jones

fight, but I imagine he had millions of eyeballs on him.

He's like, well, I'm going to get in my underwear.

I'm going to basically I'm basically naked and I'm like going to fight to

the death in front of all these people.

That's right.

And like I've read some like Chail Sonnen and Cowboy Seroni.

They're like backstage.

They they're these tough guys and they like at the way ends, they're puffing

their chest and they're flexing their muscles and they're like, I'm going to

have to kill you. Yada, yada, yada.

But then they'll tell stories once they're retired.

They're like, I had to throw up in the backstage ahead of that fight

because I was so afraid.

And at the beginning of every fight, it's just like a race.

You have these feelings of like, what am I doing?

I don't want to do this.

Why do I keep doing this?

What am I like?

This is the worst feeling.

And so they're kind of human, but what do you think or what have some of those

people said right before they're about to get in the arena and just fight to the

death? What's that?

What did they go through?

You just hit the nail on the head.

I've had some fights myself on boxing matches and it's whether you're in the

UFC or fighting in a VFW or a convention hall.

Every single person that I've ever met and spoken to and I've been in the locker

room of fighters before fights many world champions, UFC boxers, Teddy and I

trained the light heavyweight champion of the world.

I was basically Teddy's assistant, Teddy trained him, but we were in the locker

room for a pay-per-view main event fight.

And I can tell you every single person feels the same things that you and I

would feel or that average person would feel.

They're not different.

They're not special.

They're not unique.

The coward and the hero as Teddy Alice would say, they feel the same exact thing.

The only thing that they do differently is how they behave.

Some people let that fear overwhelm them and they cower.

I compare it to like surfing the waves are crashing down and there's that like

break zone where you either have to get out of the water or get through the break.

And the coward either gets washed out the sea or goes back to the shore and the

hero goes through the break and knows that on the other side is calm waters and

is the place where you want to be with other heroes.

So I think to answer your question is they don't feel any different.

Everyone feels the same thing.

They're not immune to the fact that there's millions of people watching.

No one is.

It's just exactly as you would imagine.

The only difference is how they behave.

And you just forget that the one that's reason they train you train as hard as

you do what they do is because at the end of the day, you've got to block out all

the bullshit because all that fear that we've just described is all noise.

And the the the amount of things that again, this is all knowledge I have

gleaned from working with Teddy Atlas, all of the scenarios and potential

nightmares that could happen.

Teddy calls them like the ninjas of your mind, the ninjas that coming over

the wall as you're getting ready to go into the ring or the octagon and all of

the possible scenarios, endless scenarios of things that could go horribly wrong.

You could die, you could get knocked out, you could get your arm broken.

But at the end of the day, what are the odds of any of those things happening?

Because you know, you've trained like a dog, you've been in fires with these

kind of sparring sessions, you've done the running, you've done the training.

And at the end of the day, you have to block out the fact that everyone's watching.

This is now simply a more aggressive sparring session and you're just going

to focus on the task at hand.

And once, at least in my own experience, whether it's a fight or a race, once

the gun goes off or the bell rings and you start jabbing or running, you have

to get your mind into that place of like, hey, I've been here before.

I know what's coming.

I know what to do, even if it's not going right, I know how I'm supposed to behave.

And Teddy would say, you know, the difference, what makes a fighter a fighter

or what makes a fight a fight is when there's something to overcome.

You're not really a fighter if you're just in there beating the brakes out of

shit competition, you become a fighter when there's something to overcome.

When you dealt some cards that you weren't expecting, when you get punched

in the mouth in a shot that you didn't see coming and now you're tested.

That's when you see who's really a fighter, who can come back, who can get

off the canvas. We measure a man much more by how they get off the canvas

versus how many times they knock someone else to the canvas.

So when you have losses and setbacks and you've experienced that feeling of

having quit or not given 100 percent, that's when you find out who you really are.

And that's at least that's what's worked for me.

And again, a lot of reality, the reality of situation isn't nearly as important

as the narrative that you have in your head, because the narrative in your head

is going to control how you behave and control your mindset.

And that's something that's well within your control.

And you can learn how to harness that ability over time and through practice.

And that's why we train the way we do.

So I wanted to ask you about that exact thing, because, you know, not you you run

and you run these crazy marathons and these crazy times.

I think basically I've just been getting faster and faster every year,

you know, every year since you were 35 years old, which is kind of amazing.

I'm not going to run.

I'm not a runner.

It's not something that's of interest to me, but everybody hits adversity.

And so I think this is probably the most important thing that I want to learn

from you, which is whether you're in a fight or you're in a race and adversity strikes.

What is the self talk that you have developed that gets you through that?

Because you said the difference between like a coward and the hero is the behavior.

But I think the behavior, I would guess, comes from a conversation

that happens in your head deciding which way are we going to go?

Are we going to walk off the field or are we going to continue on?

Right. And so what is that self talk and how do you train that?

Yeah, that's a great point.

And I think that at the end of the day, we all know what the answer is.

I like try to use a professional analogy, like a business analogy.

If you're a research analyst, right, and you're covering a particular stock

and you know that there's like, let's say realistically 15 other guys covering

that stock is like, who's going to go the extra mile to get it done?

Right. We've all just like at the start of race, everyone shows up.

Everyone there is good. Everyone there is fit.

Who's the healthiest? That's a big difference.

Who's done all the little things.

So if you're doing research, have you uncovered every every stone?

Have you turned over every stone?

Like Warren Buffett talks about that he would pour through a company reports.

I don't even think he uses a computer.

He's just old school.

He's just reading, reading company reports, reading balance sheets.

And I think that we all know whether whatever our profession is,

we all know what we could do better.

And I think when you sit with yourself and you ask yourself,

have I done everything?

Think about how much free time, how much time we waste in the day.

And if you need an example, every single time you open your phone

and look at it for anything, Instagram, Twitter, I do it myself.

It pisses me off because it's such a waste of time.

I've like contemplated getting rid of social media every day for like the last two years.

But it's it I would be lying if I didn't say it's been helpful me to me

in terms of getting my message out there and kind of sharing some of the knowledge

I have in terms of what I've been able to do with running.

But I would say that to simplify is like, we all know what needs to be done.

You just have to do the little extra things that you know that other people aren't.

Is someone else leaving early to go have drinks with their friend?

The people who are great, that's their priority.

And again, back to the concept of all in, if you're all in on one thing and you

decide there's one thing that no one's going to beat me at.

No one has to tell you what you need to do.

You know, everyone, you know, spend more time doing the thing that you love doing.

If you do something more than anyone else,

I'm pretty sure you'll become the best in the world that if you want to be

the best piano player, there's going to be people that are just virtuosos.

So let's take out the outliers.

But if you want to be a piano player and there's 20 other people in your class,

I promise you that if you train more than them and practice more than them,

you'll be the best.

And I unfortunately, the only example I have for that for me is running

I've just run more than other people and I've been able to stay healthy,

which is, you know, I get maybe part of it is luck.

I just have the physiology that absorbs the miles.

But I do a lot of other things to maintain my overall health in addition to running.

You keep saying that you're like this.

You're like, I'm a humble guy, you know, and it feels crazy.

Well, you don't say I'm a humble guy.

I think you said I don't want to be a narcissist and talk about this and that.

But you kind of are like this alpha cocky guy in a good way.

That's a compliment because I read this story and you just you're a funny guy.

You're like the character.

You're like the real life version of Mark of a Mark Wahlberg character in a movie

because you say these these these funny wisecracks because I read the story

that's like 10 years old.

Apparently Lance Armstrong was hosting like a man camp or some type of like, you know,

like guy camp.

And I think the story is is that like, you were kind of chirping at him.

You're like, I came this close.

You told the reporter I came this close to beating Lance Armstrong in the first race.

I attacked him like a rabid dog.

I had a gap on him.

And then on the ride, apparently a rock hit Lance or something from someone's tires.

And you said, I hurt Lance Armstrong.

I broke him.

I made him bleed.

And then you actually you got close to beating him or maybe even he did beat him.

And you said, I'm the winner of man camp Lance.

I need you to clean my bike and hose it off for me.

The initial quotes are slightly out of context because it sounds a bit like a

dork like I would never be like, I came this close to beat him.

I just would never talk like that.

And I did beat him in a couple of those clients.

But he probably hadn't ridden a bike in like six months before we did this together.

So like, there's a lot of context that's missing there.

But Lance is a good friend of mine.

A rock did bounce up and hit his finger.

And I said, yep, I made you bleed.

Now clean all the bikes.

We kicked your ass.

And then I probably said to him, make sure no one gets a drop of that blood

and runs a sample on it.

I don't want to find out that you're still doing any kind of performance enhancers.

But it was obviously said in just your chirping at him in a fun way.

But even like, even that you had the confidence to chirp at him a little bit,

I think it's hilarious and awesome.

Well, why wouldn't I?

He's a bike rider.

Have you ever met a bike rider that was going to physically like do anything

to anyone? I think at some point I said to him, like, you used to deal

with like 115 pound European cyclists.

Now you're dealing with real men.

Like this is where peers, there's no like, you know what I mean?

I can't imagine a less intimidating group of guys than professional cyclists.

Sounds like you might have took Lance to band cap, actually.

That's the thing is if someone heard all the conversations out of context,

number one, they wouldn't be fit to be published.

They were like very much like a locker room.

But Lance is my buddy and all of that stuff was just said in jest and teasing

each other that probably wouldn't all be for public consumption.

But, you know, anytime you see quotes where it's like that, like, I came this close

to be Lance, it makes me sound like a fucking dork.

And like, I wouldn't talk like that.

I would have said, I'm going to kick your ass.

And when we get out there tomorrow, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that.

But again, I would say that too.

I tell Dustin Poirier the same thing if we were going to have a sparring session.

I just I don't feel cocky or arrogant whatsoever.

I know that there's some things I'm good at and I know that there's a lot

more things that I'm bad at.

So if I've come across as cocky, I apologize.

It's certainly not the message I want to send.

I think I try to be as humble as I can and know that there's a lot of things

that I'm not good at.

But suffering is one thing that I know how to do.

Are you making most of your income right now from your main?

I think you have like a like a small advisory, right?

Are you making most of your income now from that?

Or are you and are you going to try and go full transition to become like this?

I don't know what the right word is, what we call these guidance,

but whatever that is, a personality, that sounds like

lame or than it actually is.

But you know what I mean?

Yeah, no, this is a great question.

So I've made the most of my income through finance.

And what I've done so in 2015, I left New York and went to California

with a FinTech startup called Electronify.

We were brokering trades between institutions for corporate bonds.

So right now when you trade a corporate bond, you have to call like

Goldman Morgan Stanley and you have to find they you tell them,

I want to sell these bonds, they find a buyer.

Sometimes they'll they'll buy them from you, which was the old traditional

investment bank model, right?

They'd hey, I got 20 and 20 million of these bonds to go.

OK, we'll take them there.

And then they try to sell them at a slight market.

Now they're basically just matching buyers and sellers for all intents and

purposes. So we created a new and electronic marketplace that could let

these like fidelity and PIMCO trade directly with each other.

So I went out to New York, I went out to LA to cover the West Coast,

knowing that there was a good chance that this startup wasn't going to work.

It didn't. We sold it to a competitor.

But I might by moving to LA, I basically forced myself into an uncomfortable

position because there aren't sales and trading jobs in LA like there are in New York.

So I knew I'd have to figure something else out.

And you know, that expression of like, hey, if you're waiting for everything

to be perfect to make a move, it ain't ever going to happen.

You have to make the move and make it perfect.

And long story short, I was riding my bike out.

Everything that good in my life that's happened has been through endurance sports.

I was riding my bike with a guy in my neighborhood.

He ran an asset management firm called the Palisades Group.

And they had maybe two billion in assets under management.

They were running money for all big household managers, like all the household

names like Apollo, for instance, and and they had separately managed accounts.

So the fees weren't huge, like a traditional hedge fund or asset manager.

And I said to him, he didn't have any business development.

He wasn't actively out there trying to raise more capital, which is what he would

need to do to really grow his business.

So I said, let me run business development for you.

And he said, you know, accurately, you don't have any experience and we're friends.

I don't want to put you in a losing position.

And I said, OK, I'll work for free for three months just to see if it works.

And again, every time I've been willing to take a bet on myself, it's worked out in

that in that brokerage commission role that we discussed earlier.

I was paid just straight commission.

So when I was making all that money, if I didn't do any trades, I don't make any money.

But because I was willing to do that, I got to keep more of the commissions.

So anytime I've been on myself, it's worked, thankfully.

So he gave me an opportunity and I came in and in two years, we grew that from

two billion to five billion.

I raised two discretionary funds, which is basically like raising a hedge fund.

First time manager managing discretionary capital.

We couldn't even hire banks to help us raise the money.

They basically laughed us out of the room.

And I said, they said to me, why do you think you can raise this fund?

Like, it doesn't seem like you'll be able to just based on the track record,

experienced asset class.

And I said, why do you think you can't like until someone beats me at the New York

Marathon? Like, I'll convince myself that I can win this whole race.

And long story short, we raised the money.

We raised a thirty five million dollar fund and a hundred and fifty million

dollar fund.

And once I did that and kind of started to believe in myself that I could raise

money, my boss at the time, who's like one of my best friends, Jack McDowell,

who's like, what's he like, just go off and go off and do this on your own or

something like that.

He said, dude, you're wasting your time.

Go do your own thing.

Yeah.

And the first mandate that I worked on was with David Sinclair at Life Biosciences.

I helped them raise 50 million dollars at one point.

David and I were raising capital in New York and we had dinner with Wendy Murdoch

and Tony Blair and Bennett Miller at Wendy's like New York City Triplex

Apartment on Fifth Avenue.

It was literally like I was watching someone else's life unfold as I was

sitting there having a conversation with Tony Blair over dinner.

So once I had once I had raised money for a few different independent

private placement mandates, I just started doing that full time and have

since worked on a bunch of mandates in the health and wellness space.

And now I'm back raising a on a consultant basis, raising a third

discretionary fund for the Palisades Group.

And so that's kind of one way that I make money.

I also have some invest I've invested in a lot of these deals.

I have some advisory roles.

I mean, I guess for lack of a better term, some influencer deals

with some big brands that have been, you know, I just feel so incredibly lucky

that brands want to affiliate with me.

It's like a dream come true.

And then I also have a TV project I'm working on.

What's the next like five years going to be?

How's this transition going to look like and what do you want it to look like?

Well, in a perfect world, I just filmed pilot with a big production

company for a network that's confidential right now.

But if the network likes what we recorded and I think they will, it's unbelievable.

I think a lot of people will like it.

It's a non scripted kind of show.

And in a perfect world, the network will like the show, pick it up.

And I will do that and see where that takes me.

But I like the idea that I always tell people like when you work

for someone else, when you're employed, you're kind of a slave.

Like they own you that you can't just do whatever you want to do.

You get to have a couple of days off a week.

They provide a little bit of safety for you.

And in turn, you give them like X amount of your time.

But the main thing that you miss out on by being an employee

is you miss out on the opportunity to pursue interesting opportunities

when they are presented like this media project I'm working on.

If I had a job, there's no way I'd be able to do it because they were like,

hey, we're going to record for a week and, you know, out of town.

I would never have been able to do this.

But because I was willing to bet on myself and, you know,

take the risk of having to get my own health insurance, not being sure

if, like, you know, something happens to me and people don't want to be

affiliated with me anymore, I get injured, I can't run.

Like, OK, now what do I do?

I guess I could always fall back on a finance gig, but I don't want to do that.

I wasn't happy doing that.

And to that point, I've said this before and I think it's relevant for this podcast

is that I've said to people like money doesn't make you happy.

And people are always like, oh, bullshit, you have money.

And I'm like, no, I've had money and lost money multiple times.

When Enron went bust, you know, when you're making a lot of money,

you spend a lot of money. And when that ends abruptly,

you're very quickly out of money, especially if you have a 10,

$12,000 mortgage and now you get paid getting paid 10 grand a month,

which is what happened to me when Enron went bust.

Things can change quickly.

And the reason I say the example I give you is I was making a ton of money

and I became a drug addict.

So it didn't make me happier.

It caused me different anxiety.

So money can alleviate a lot of stress, but it can also add stress

that you didn't know stressors that you didn't even know existed.

And yes, it's easier to have money than to not have money.

But if your only goal in life is to make money, I would say,

be careful what you wish for because I was making money

and I could have I could have comfortably continued to do what I was doing.

But I'm so much happier now wearing the risk of not knowing

where the next deal or paycheck is going to come from.

But I've never been happier in my life.

And this didn't this transformation didn't happen until my late 40s.

And when I finally like had the courage to bet on myself like all in my late 40s,

it's been the greatest gift I've ever given myself is to like bet on myself

and and and and live and die with my own results.

So in five years, I hope that this media stuff becomes more of a reality

and I can continue to kind of share my experiences and, you know, knowledge

of, you know, knowing how to suffer and deal with adversity.

And I like I like sharing that message.

I've done some speaking recently.

That's also contributed to my financial well being.

And that's something that I actually really enjoy, which is crazy, right?

Because every time I do speak to people, I go, hey, is anyone here

get nervous about speaking in front of an audience and every single person

raises their hand and I go, guess what, I do too.

But I'm dealing with it.

And like I tell my kids, it's OK to be scared.

Like when they my youngest son's playing baseball, he's like,

dad, I get so nervous when I get up to bat, he's seven.

I said, buddy, everybody does.

But sometimes we just have to learn how to do things while we're scared.

Once you get comfortable operating while you're scared, you can't lose.

It just has to do with repetitions and experience.

How are you?

So I'm a former competitive runner now.

I'm I just I'm pretty into fitness, but all types of well rounded fitness stuff.

And I get hurt.

You seem like you do not get hurt.

Is that and part of that I think is like just biology.

I think some people just built where they can absorb miles, like you said.

But what are you doing to stay healthy?

I try to sleep eight hours a day.

I eat a very healthy diet.

I do a lot of strength training that I think a lot of runners don't do.

And I do a lot of recently.

I hadn't done a lot of stretching and stuff in the past, but lately

I've been doing a lot more stretching and I feel like it's especially

in the last like six to 12 months, tons of preventative care, electrical,

muscular, I've got every like met device under the sun, electrical,

muscular stimulation, theragon, et cetera, et cetera.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep myself healthy,

but it's getting harder over the years.

Do you think that, you know, running 70 and 80 miles a week,

do you think that's going to make you live a longer or healthier life?

Or are you just happy to just like how it makes you feel?

Because when I think about like some of these, I did a half iron man,

nothing like you did, and I didn't even do it fast.

But I remember doing all these miles and I'm like, man, I don't know

if this is going to if this is going to make me live to be 120.

It might not like or maybe just like lifting weights and going for walks

might be a little bit better.

But how do you think about that?

I agree with you 100 100 percent.

I always tell anyone who's interested.

I don't know that this is the answer for me, but you're talking to someone

who was living the life of a drug addict to me.

OK, if it makes my life a little bit shorter, but it's adding the quality

of life that I'm experiencing right now, that's a bet I'm willing to make.

Um, yeah, I don't know like I wish I had an answer for you.

I don't know what's going to add to my overall longevity

in terms of my mental and physical well-being.

But I know that right now this is the best way for me to live my life.

Look at what it's given me has been it's been immeasurable.

But I think that there are a lot of things that contribute to longevity.

I mean, obviously, there's the famous longevity study out of Harvard

that suggests that the most important element to live in a healthy,

fruitful life is relationships.

And to that extent, the one thing that this lifestyle

and my kind of newfound station in life has provided me

is the quality of relationships.

When I worked in finance, this doesn't apply to everyone in finance,

but a lot of the people I worked with were real assholes

and I didn't like them and it was keeping up with the Joneses.

And I if I never had to sit on a trading desk for the rest of my life,

I'd be perfectly fine with that.

Again, not everyone I met some people there that I genuinely love.

But there's some also some people there that if I saw them,

I wouldn't mind giving them a smack in the mouth.

There's been some real idiots I've worked with.

But my life now, when I if there's someone in my life

that I don't appreciate or don't respect,

I can just cut them out and move on to the next thing.

I don't need the thing that I have that some billionaires don't have is enough.

I have enough.

I have everything I need and I'd love to have more money

and I'd love to put in a pool and renovate my house

and splurge on a lot of bullshit.

But at the end of the day, I have the one thing that I need and that's enough.

And I have my family and so, you know, finding what you're finding something

in life that you're passionate about and that you genuinely enjoy.

And joy is the key and to me and people say all the time,

find something you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life.

There isn't a single week that goes by that I don't say to my wife,

can you believe I don't have an effing job?

Am I the luckiest person we know?

And she always laughs and goes, you're definitely the luckiest person I know.

But it's interesting that the harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.

Well, dude, you're an interesting guy and we appreciate you coming on.

I've been following you now, I think since 2020,

whenever you joined Teddy Atlas, because I listened to that a ton.

And I've shown those too.

And so we appreciate you coming on.

You're different, you're built different.

You're a different guy and we appreciate that.

We like those types of people.

Well, I want to say again, thank you so much.

I really hope that I didn't come across as too alpha or cocky.

I just tried to be more than anything.

I tried to just be honest, man, is like the the world and the Internet is so big.

If you if you embellish or bullshit about something,

there'll be someone coming out of the bushes like that didn't happen.

And this didn't happen because I know a lot of my stuff sounds sensational and crazy.

But I'm like, I think if anything, at times I'm downplaying some of the stuff

because I know it's how crazy it sounds.

But yeah, anyway, I do feel very humbled and honored to be here.

This is a place where cockiness and alphaness is actually appreciated.

So even if you did, that would be right at home here.

We just like when people are the way they are and not trying to manage.

By the way, we don't get a lot of cockiness or alpha shod.

That's why we like it.

Yeah, we enjoy it.

It's a good change.

We're a business podcast for the most part, entrepreneurship,

and we're a bunch of people with carpal tunnel syndrome.

It's not a bunch of alpha males coming on the pod typically.

So I think there was some good stuff here for mental health.

Some good stuff here for mental strength, toughness, adversity.

But basically what I think is the most important thing,

which is managing the little voice in your head,

that little voice in your head, that's who you go through life with.

And I think that you're a great example of what happens when you really work on that.

And so thanks for coming on, Ken.

I really appreciate it.

I would say this before I leave, that voice in your head is not little.

That voice in your head is the most powerful, right?

It's the voice in my head is the one that tells me to get high

when I know I shouldn't.

The voice in the head, the little voice tells me to go run

when it's pissing rain or freezing cold and snowing.

So that voice in your head shouldn't be little.

It should be big.

And it should be like screaming from a megaphone

that you're the best and you can do anything you want to do.

And to your point, if you have a bunch of carpal tunnel guys here

that might consider themselves nerds and like intellects,

good because the one thing that you can control

is your physical actions.

Anyone can do what I've done.

I promise you, I'm not special.

I wish I had the intellect as some of these carpal tunnel guys

because that's the one thing I don't have.

And that's where I'm trying to overcompensate

by being so physical that maybe my intellectual shortcomings

can be overcome through physical intimidation and this.

But anyway, I say that in jest.

But honestly, everything that I have is available to anyone.

I'm just literally the only thing I'm doing different

than most people is physically is trying harder.

Well, Sam, I don't know about you, but in 10 minutes,

I'm going to do my workout and I think it's going to be a good one today.

I think I got a little extra juice from my workout today.

No, I think you know what is.

But you got to follow me on Instagram.

There's videos of him shadow boxing.

And right before he's about to go running

or right after he got running and he.

I always feel foolish posting that shit I really do.

And then I like it.

I like it.

I watch it because I like running a lot,

but I don't want to runner's body and you're you're you're cool

because you don't have a runner's body.

You my mission in life is to not look like a runner.

You're well rounded.

You're well rounded.

It didn't matter if you're 53 or you're 23.

You look you look you look good.

You know, I always I joke.

I'm like the point of working out for me is to be able to kill

or outrun everyone in a room.

You know, you want to be able to kill it, eat them or outrun them.

And what a third thing, which is you also want to look good naked.

And so if you're and you're in your checklists, check, check, check.

All right, all right, all right.

If you're not going to look good for yourself, think about your spouse.

So you're right.

That's kind of my closing salvo.

You're the man.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate this.

Thanks for coming on.

I appreciate you guys.

Thank you for having me.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.