I Made $106 Million. Then Everything Fell Apart.

0:00I saw this quote that you you tweeted. >> Oh. >> And there's two quotes you tweeted that I was very curious about. The first one, which took caught me off guard, I think I actually text you when I saw this, was this one. Do you want to read this one out? >> Yeah. >> So, this was February 2025. >> At your funeral, friends and family will argue over who gets your belongings. People will talk about the food and the venue. Your life will be summarized in two to three paragraphs. Conversations will shift from your life to their lives. Your friends will drive away thinking about what's next on their to-do list. Some people won't be able to make it because something came up. And most of the people you know today won't even be there. You're going to die.

0:32People move on in weeks, not years. Do what you want. >> Why is that so important to hear? >> I think about death probably multiple times a day. >> [laughter] >> Um and I think that that's actually been positively correlated with subjective well-being. I mean, older people are incredibly aware of the fact that they're going to die, and I think that's what allows them Like I look at So, there's a I'm sure you've seen this, but there's this graph that shows how people rate their subjective well-being over their lives. And it's a smile graph, which I think is ultimately hilarious.

1:06But kids are really happy. And then they just become they get more and more responsibility. And then your peak on happiness is like 45 to like 55, somewhere in there is like is the crunch. You're taking care of kids, you're taking care of parents, you have a career. And to be fair, in some ways it's good because you're at your peak earning, so you're making your your most people are making their most money in this window, and but they also need to do it. But there's they're very stressed, right? They're stretched really thin. And then as they kind of get into 60, 65, 70, and when I think about each of these two extremes on the child side and the elderly side, and elders are often a lot like kids. If we think about what like they they rely on other people, they're mostly just like they play games, they're like in each of these situations they have very little responsibility, and they don't care about what other people think. If you have If you see a toddler go out with like a tutu and cowboy cowboy boots, it's cuz like they don't care what other people think. And when you're at the end of your life, you're like, "I'm going to die, dude."

2:03And one of the things that I've been very obsessed with is is borderline, but probably accurate, is I'm trying to think how am I going to see the world when I'm 80? And how how fast can I can I get to there now? Cuz I care more now about what other people think than I will when I'm 80. And I just want to pull as much of that forward as I can because when I see those 80-year-olds, I'm like, "That guy does not give a fuck." And I'm like, "I really want that." And so I I write a lot about death because it's I like these tweets are notes to self.

2:32They're like they're not It is not a It is not out from a pulpit that I say those. These are um as a self-help to to Alex when I write these things. Cuz it's like I probably when I was writing that in Feb- Oh, yeah, February 25. So, February 25, the first quarter of [snorts] 25 was the hardest quarter that I've had personally in 8 years. >> You tweeted this at the same time. >> Yeah. I haven't felt this miserable in years.

2:57[ __ ] gets hard sometimes. You have tough seasons, bad losses, and what makes it harder is you don't know when it'll end, but know it will end. So, for anyone going through it right now, you do the only thing you can do. Keep fighting. >> I text you when you tweeted that because I had never heard you talk like that publicly before. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was it was a really tough quarter for me. I mean, mind you, I don't have kids, so that variable wasn't there, but every other variable that probably could have gone, quote, wrong was I Actually, ironically, outside of business, business was fine. Uh but it was just everything else.

3:32Um and >> What do you mean by that? >> So, I say we were making plenty of money. Um but I had I think I had nine lawsuits that were open at that at that There was a lot. There was a nine nine open lawsuits. Um and they all like it was like And they're all different. Like uh ex-employee, investment that two or two or two or three were investments that we had made that like one of them got caught and stuff and then it was like are we going to get pulled in it was just all this just stuff. Um just a lot. Um and and then Layla uh had a like I think I had told you she um she had a really horrible she like tore her colon and so that's been it's like it's like an 18-month recovery. And so she was in the thick of like going through the pain of that before about to get the surgery.

4:16And so it was just like everything sucked. And Bill Ackman had this really great interview where there's a snippet that I ended up seeing which was he was he had just lost like a billion dollars. He was getting divorced and there was like one other thing. Yeah, I think there was lawsuits because of the billion dollars whatever and and he said when you're going through that that those rough patches he said he focused on the only thing he could do when he's like you can't you're not going to solve this in a day. Like it you can't finish it and I think that's what that's what so painful about it is you have this open loop that whenever it whenever something reminds you of it it's like you get into this loop again of like rumination and just like oh what if it goes wrong and catastrophizing.

4:53And he's like you just have to take one bite at a time and then every you know month or two months you can look back and be like I made some progress. He's like you just focused on making progress and chipping away at the problem. And I think that was more or less the approach I had which is kind of like the the two feet in front of you like what are the things that I can actually do right now? I will do those. And sometimes and I remember in that season a lot of what I was thinking about was so I wrote so when my mother passed uh this year I wrote an article for myself.

5:22Yeah. Um I wrote an article for myself about mental toughness and it was because I wanted to of course it's not like be mentally tough when your mother dies that's not the point. It was just like how am I supposed to show up right now? That was kind of like the the thought process I had. And so I basically here I'll move this. So I thought like this which is that thing happens. Right? There's these vectors of what happens as a result.

5:54So, you have how long or how many bad things have to happen before you change your behavior. So, let's imagine this line is how we're acting. How many bad things have to happen in order for us to change how we act? Are we shorter with our spouse? Do we not pay attention at work? Like what How many bad things? If somebody the perfect perfectly mentally tough person would be able to have an unlimited amount of things happen to them, and then their behavior would remain the same.

6:19From from purely from that perspective. The next issue is, okay, well, let's say that you're not a perfectly mentally tough person, and something crosses your tolerance threshold, and then your behavior changes. And so, we have this next measurement. So, we have how long and how much can you handle? We have how deep do you go when you fall? How How badly do you change your behavior? Do you just Are you short with your staff, or do you get into heroin?

6:41No, like how bad How badly do you fall? And then, the next piece is how long does it take for you to recover? Return back to original function. And then, the part that I added to this is, and then when I return back to original function, am I better than I was before? Do I Am I the same as I was before, or am I permanently worse? In what dimension?

7:04Resilience or happiness? I I basically have term one, term two, term three, and then this is I did term this as adaptability, which is how how do you respond after a bad thing happens? Do you get better, the same, or worse? >> Mhm. >> You have tolerance. I'm sorry, I think this is fortitude. Um which is how much bad stuff can you handle before it hits you? You have resilience here, which is how long does it take you to return to baseline?

7:35And then, you have tolerance, which is how how low do you go? And so, through mapping these four vectors of behavior, I was able to look at myself during this harder season. And this was such a mind [ __ ] because think about this. I do a $106 million launch. My mom got to see it, which is really cool. She dies 4 weeks later. I realized the goal that we talked about long-term, right? $100 million, $100 million, $100 million. The goal of the books was to have $100 million up at the end. The Offers Book was an offer so good people felt stupid saying I gave it away for free. I made it 99 cents, gave a course with it. No one had done that.

8:09Um and there was an offer so good. Leads, I did a huge gigantic launch, but I didn't monetize cuz I just wanted to show what having crazy advertising for something would do and I used all the stuff in the book to advertise the book. This book's about monetization. And so, I had an amazing offer and crazy advertising and a money model behind it, which is why I made $100 million in a weekend. So, this is a multi-year project. And so, I I get to have this this moment of like all these things come to fruition and then my mother dies. 3 weeks It was the 19th, right? So, yeah, literally a month later.

8:38And so, >> A freak accident. >> Yeah. And so, I'm I'm just like What am I How am I supposed to Like what am I How do I think through this? And so, I wrote this for myself to think, "Okay, how am I supposed to show up?" And also, one of the things that I found really interesting was that people will judge how much you love someone by how much you choose to suffer. And why does how much I suffer have anything to do with how much I love someone? And I don't think that the person, if you did lose somebody, I'm sorry.

9:06Um I don't think the person that you lost probably wants you to suffer. And so, we have this this idea that we need to suffer to prove our love, which I was like, "Well, that's an assumption I'm coming in with. Do I reject that?" I was like, "Yeah, I think I reject that." And so, bad thing happens that crossed my threshold. How low am I going to go? I was probably not like the most thrilled about life during that period, but I thought, "Well, what can I do? What are my controllables?" Well, I'm still going to write more content.

9:34I'm still I'm still going to help businesses cuz I feel good when I help businesses. Why would I stop doing that? Well, I'm still going to work out cuz I feel good when I work out. Why do I Why would I stop doing that? >> Did you have motivation, though? Were you motivated in the sort of cliché sense of the word? Did you feel like it? >> I would say yes, but not for the reason that people think. I was motivated for two reasons. One, because I don't think she would want me to stop. And number two, because those things made me feel better and I felt bad. And so, I wanted to feel better.

10:02>> Mhm. >> I tried to change as little about my life as possible. And that is what got me through that. And now, some people say, "Oh, you need to take time to mourn." It's like, "Why does the way I mourn have to look the way you mourn? And why do Why is Is there a right or wrong way to mourn?" >> She must have been so proud of you. >> She was. She was. >> We talk a lot about your dad, but we've never really spoken much about your mom. >> No, I don't.

10:29She's a sweet lady. Yeah, she always She always believed. And so, I think this last one, right, adaptability, which is in what world can this make me better?

10:55Like, how can How can this loss make me better? And also, by the way, like this trauma bad thing happens, you're permanently worse. Right? And so, it's like, what would that look like? What would me growing from this look like? And I think part of that was proving that I can continue as my way of honoring her and her memory. And I'm going to continue to try and pursue the the path that she knew I started pursuing when I left home.

11:37When I talked to her when I when I left, you know. Um And so, like, what's changed between then and now? I'm just closer where I was trying to go. And I don't think she'd want me to abandon that path. And so, I just you keep fighting.